Bid Corporation Limited (BID) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Bid Corp Results presentation. I'm Stephen Koseff, the Chairman of Bid Corp, and I will give a brief introduction before handing over to Bernard Berson and Dave Cleasby. We are very pleased to announce a very solid set of results in rand and in neutral currency. Credit for these results need to go to strong performances from European, Australian, New Zealand and South African businesses. As we are aware, this is not an easy environment. And with many countries in which we operate experiencing headwinds, our strong entrepreneurial culture and decentralized management structure has held us in very good stead, enabling the group to navigate less than optimal conditions. Support of our strong balance sheet is again proved vital giving our businesses the ability to take advantage of opportunities that arise. Before I hand over to Bernard and Dave to take you through the details, I'd like to thank executives around the world for the effort and ability to execute their strategies, continue to grow and develop Bid Corp franchise in the jurisdictions in which they operate. I would also like to thank Dave and Bernard for their positive approach and supporting the management teams around the world. Also, a special thanks go to Ashley and her team for ensuring our governance is of a high standard. Last but not least, I'd like to thank our non-execs for the continued support and commitment. It's great that we still have Brian Joffe on our founder, Brian Joffe, on our Board. And the special thanks goes to you, Brian, for your continued dedication, always questioning and challenging to keep us on our toes. Special thanks to all our committee members, in particular, Chairman of our Audit Committee, Helen Wiseman, Audit Committee is a very tough job, and the dedication of Helen enables that job to be executed well. Also, what is becoming a tough job as Chairman of what we now call environment, social and ethics committee. And special thanks to -- of chairing [indiscernible] mean until Summit. Also special thanks to our Senior Independent Director, Nigel Payne, also Chairman of the Audit Committee and Chairman of our Acquisition Committee, Paul Baloyi, as well as other nonexecutives who also play their role, Keneilwe Moloko and Cliff Rosenberg all of your support as Board members is important in creating the right environment for Bid Corp's continued growth and success. I'll now hand you over to Bernard and Dave to take you through the results. Thank you.

Thanks, Stephen, for that introduction, and thank you to Stephen for your continued guidance, support and dedication to the Bid Corp business, we really do appreciate it. And I just want to echo the thanks to all our non-execs and people who are there cheering us on and helping us on this journey. Also a big shout out to our management team around the world as well as the 28,000 strong Bidfood family around the world, who really are the ones that make this happen. And we're very proud of all their efforts. Some of that isn't necessarily reflected in numbers at all times, but we certainly have got a great team of people out there led by a great team of executives around the world. I think in order to put these results into perspective, we have to step back a year to looking at where we were a year ago, where we achieved a phenomenal half year results a year ago, which was an all-time high at a very, very high water level it was they were really remarkable results. And we did say at the time that we set the bar very high, and it was going to be challenging moving forward. Well, I'm exceptionally pleased to say that a year later, after navigating some quite challenging times in various jurisdictions of the world, our team have once again delivered. And I think when you step back a little bit and you look at these results in the context of reality and the context of the environment in which we operate, you'll truly appreciate what a phenomenal job our teams around the world at that and how really amazing these results are as an absolute achievement. So full credit to the team out there. We're really proud of what's been achieved. And we think these results that we are pleased to present today are a fantastic set of results in a world that is beset with many, many challenges coming at us from very many different directions. The numbers are the numbers. Revenue is up 24% in rands, 11% in constant currency, 11% growth in top line, we think, is a very, very commendable result. Of course, there's inflation and inflation is coming off at a relatively rapid rate. And we think that in that 11% constant currency revenue growth, there's approximately 5% to 6% volume growth and 5% to 6% volume growth is a wonderful achievement in the environment in which we operate. Now we'll go through some of the detail of the environments in which we operate. Our trading profit is up 21% in rand and 9% in constant currency, a 9% increase in constant currency in this environment is a 1 bit full achievement. So well done to the management teams around there. Obviously, our HEPS has been slightly impacted and isn't at the same 9% and the primary reason for that is that you'll note there's a 2% increase in our effective tax rate, which obviously doesn't go to trading. It's one of those issues that's not really controllable by us. It's a two-pronged issue. First, you've got the U.K. corporate tax going up by, I think, it was 6 percentage points. And you've also got a change in mix between higher-paying tax jurisdictions like Australia and New Zealand in terms of contribution compared to some of the lower tax regimes. So overall, we're exceptionally pleased with these results, and I'll take you through some of the detail to add a little bit more color to them. But we certainly take a lot of pride in what our teams have delivered. And we look forward with continued optimism and enthusiasm. Now we don't operate in a vacuum. We operate in the real world, and the real world is the real world and things change and circumstances change and make get better or may get worse. And that's just reality. And there's no doubt that our structure and our decentralized approach and our simple way of operating have enabled us to navigate these challenges, and we will continue to do so. The economies in which we operate generally are relatively anemic flat to negative. That's just the reality. There's a lot of consumer stress out there. There's cost of living crisis in most jurisdictions we operate in. There's mortgage stress in various countries. You've got disruptions for various different reasons. It's just not all beer and skittles out there. It's really, really tough. And to come off such a high base last year, and to put another 20%, 21% trading profit increase on top of that 9% in constant currency is phenomenal. I suppose what's critically important is our outlook for the rest of this financial year. And we remain very confident of continuing to deliver real growth. Now we don't give guidance. We have never given guidance in the past. As I've said before, we're not fortune tellers. All we know is what we know. We know where we are now at the end of February. We know how January and February have performed. And we've got a little bit of a look forward where we sit at this point in time, conditions are testing a little bit. We're writing that admirably and well, and we are confident that all things being equal, we'll continue to deliver real growth for the rest of the year. And our management teams are absolutely committed to achieving that outcome. The other thing I think that's worth mentioning is we don't manage this business for the short-term. We're not managing it from quarter-to-quarter or 6 months to 6 months. The decisions we make are decisions that impact the business in the next 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. And sometimes, that involves investments. And most times, those investments involve some type of sacrifice -- some type of short-term sacrifice in order to get a medium or long-term gain and we've continued to invest very aggressively in our long-term growth. And there's no doubt that, that's what's enabled us to deliver 11% real revenue growth, which is maybe 6% volume growth and will enable us to continue to grow in the future. And there is no doubt that economies will improve that consumer demand will improve at some stage, that cost of living crisis will ease and that general conditions will hopefully ease up a little bit, and we'll be in a great position to take even more advantage of those opportunities that are presented. So these numbers, I don't want to over emphasize the point, but I'm going to are truly, in our mind, very, very strong under the circumstances under the -- in the reality of the world in which we operate, and we remain totally confident and optimistic of continuing the trend as we go forward. Bearing in mind, we are coming off an exceptionally hard days. So it's not like we had an awful year last year and you always look good in comparison. Here, we're coming off something that was truly amazing last year, and these results are even more amazing. So I think the easiest thing to do is probably take you through each of the jurisdictions in a little bit of detail just to give you my view on it without getting into too many numbers. And then I'll hand over to David afterwards to take you through the more financial aspects. So starting off with Australia and New Zealand, once again, another very, very, very strong performance from both businesses. And that's growth on growth on growth. Both those businesses are mature, continue to deliver very strong profit growth by trading at very healthy margins or executing on strategy exceptionally well in terms of manufacturing, like manufacturing, value-add, house brand, customer mix, geographic spread, and all the other important factors of our strategic plan. So they really are executing well. Both of them exited large QSR customers a year ago. I think they were around about October '22 that we exited them. So they were in for 4 months of the comparative period, which has had a slight dampening effect on the percentage increase of sales in those jurisdictions, but both of them have achieved positive sales growth and continue to operate on a positive trajectory and are both investing for future growth. And as we've seen, you invest now, maybe it cost you a little bit, but it certainly does give you the benefit moving forward. I think the other thing that's worth mentioning, I'll talk about it a little bit more in the U.K. as well, is bottom the issue of investing for growth is it does cost you a little bit of money. And we could go down the exercise that many other people do of normalizing results and taking out one-off costs and taking out things that aren't going to be repeated or are significant or however you want to discuss it. We don't do that. Our numbers are our numbers. We take the good, the bad, the ugly, it all goes into the numbers. And if you look at Australia, for example, they invested in a second large facility in Perth, WA, which opened more or less in July, August of 2023, so present for the full 6 months. Now the original facility was highly, highly profitable, but operating at full capacity. So we had to open a second one. The minute you open it, obviously, you're going to go backwards. You've now got 2 facilities. You've now got 2 sets of management, you've got duplicate running costs, you've got start-up cost, start-up inefficiencies. And in the Australian context, that cost about $3 million to $4 million worth of one-off costs that aren't going to repeat that maybe some of them will be repeated in the next 6 months while we get to peak efficiency and start filling the volume. But certainly, in the short-term, you're going to go slightly backward to give you that long-term growth. But we're not making excuses for it. We're not trying to eliminate it out and then present smoke and merits. That's part of what we do. We invest for future growth and sometimes that comes at a bit of a price. So Australia and New Zealand, great performance, both of them, both being exceptionally well, executing on our strategic initiatives. The U.K., on the face of it, looks disappointing, but let's just unpack that a little bit. The constant currency turnover growth is 21%. Now those of you who know the U.K. economy or know the U.K. environment will know it's a tough gig out there. And the U.K. is technically in recession. I think in the last 3 quarters, there's been 2 negative quarters, one flat quarter. Before that, there was one quarter of growth before that, there was a quarter of negative growth. So that really hasn't been a strongly performing economy. Across the living crisis is [indiscernible] very, very hard. And the U.K. is not the easiest place to do business. So notwithstanding that, we've grown our revenue by 21%. Now that puts us in great stead moving forward. Now obviously, some of that business isn't at optimal margin and it's volume related. And that volume talks to the next story, which is investing for growth. And during the 6 months under review, we opened 2 new facilities, 2 additional facilities, not replacement facilities to facilitate this future growth, one in Glasgow in Scotland and the other one in Bedford, which is about 60 miles north of London. And both of those opened in the 6 months and both of those obviously incurred opening costs and continue to incur opening costs and increased fixed cost and infrastructural costs and people costs and training costs and double operations and slowly moving volume from other places into it and trying to get the volume to get the new facilities up to an optimal level or an acceptable level. At the same time, backfilling the facilities that has come out of. So once again, this isn't a short-term game. It's not a quarterly game. And without going into too much detail or trying to create too much smoke screen, there's approximately ZAR 7 million to ZAR 8 million worth of additional costs incurred in the opening of these 2 facilities that's included in our operating numbers. And if you back that out of the numbers, you can make your own assessment that we're actually doing pretty okay in the U.K. in a tough market. And the future looks a whole lot better other than and I do warn, we still have growth plans. We're not finished. It's a big market with big potential, and it's going to require continued investment. But these investments aren't 6 monthly. We're not a private equity kind of outfit that makes minimal investment, squeezes the lemon as much as possible and then flips it off to somebody else to make it their problem. We're in this for the long haul with well-invested infrastructure poised for future growth. So we are very satisfied with where the U.K. is, and this is an opportunity for growth in the future. And obviously, our gross margins have come off a tad and some of that's to do with cost of living and sharing the pain with customers, some has to do with the structure of the business and the larger proportion of national business. That's all temporary. That all works its way through the system as inflation normalizes as the environment normalizes. So our team in the U.K. are absolutely positive committed, I think they're outperforming the market. Certainly, it's a 21% revenue growth, stripped out inflation. I don't know what you want to call inflation in the U.K. food inflation, maybe it's 8% in the 6 months, somewhere around that. You're still talking 10%, 12%, 14% volume growth, phenomenal achievement and does bode well for the future. So despite the fact that the numbers might look negative, our team have performed exceptionally well, highly motivated, and the business across its various segments is performing well particularly when you normalize these outlying costs, which might be repeatable for the next while, while you invest. The fresh business is performing at all-time record levels. They've done exceptionally well to regroup and reinvigorate and reformulate that business. The cater food independent businesses are doing very well in a tough market. The core Bidfood business is where we're feeling the most amount of pain because that's where we're putting the investment in. So we're happy with in the United Kingdom despite the fact that some of you are going to ask me very technical questions about growth rates and margins and other things in the U.K. Europe being another standout performer during the 6 months. And it's come from almost every jurisdiction. So I don't want to single any out over them. So I can tell you that we are very, very pleased with the performance out of the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltics, Poland and Germany remains a slight challenge for us. We are seeing Europe may be showing some signs of slowing a little bit. Maybe Eastern Europe is feeling some of the impact now of 2 years of the Ukraine war. Some of that impact, which was positive, I don't want to say it's a benefit, which the impact was okay for us is mobilizing that. But we are doing exceptionally well in almost every jurisdiction that we operate in Netherlands. We're growing market share. We're fixing the customer base. We're enhancing our manufacturing capability, our own brand capability. Spain is now well on the way to being a proud member of the European -- of its European peers, making margins that are totally acceptable and now rolling back on top line growth there making -- we'll make some acquisitions over a period of time and bulk that business up. The Spain market is a large market. Italy continues to do very, very well growing top line, growing bottom line. We are investing in infrastructure there. We're opening a large depot in Rome in the next few months. And that once again might have a one-off impact for a few months as you absorb the cost of this new infrastructure. So the European businesses have done phenomenally well. Once again, 11% constant currency revenue growth, take out the weighted inflation and you're probably talking 5%, 6%, 7% volume growth, real volume growth. And I don't think the economy in Europe generally is terribly great across most geographies in Europe. There's definitely pessimism and caution. Emerging markets is a mixed basket it always is. Our South African business performed phenomenally once again, off a very high all-time record base, notwithstanding the extreme difficulties faced in the South African environment, electricity load sharing, poor consumer demand, an economy that's going nowhere. Our South African team managed to deliver a 20% growth in profitability and just performed phenomenally well. Now just to put it in context, our South African businesses will deliver a trading profit of over ZAR 1 billion in this financial year. It's -- that includes the Chipkins business. But the 3 businesses will be over ZAR 1 billion, which in the South African context, makes our South African operations a sizable operation, maxima sizable business, stand-alone in the South African context. South America is a tough economy. There's no doubt that this recessionary overtime, but we continue to make good progress. Chile is moving along the path very nicely. Brazil, we saw nice profit growth on very muted turnover growth. And we still see a great future for South America. Maybe it's taking us a bit longer than some of you would like, but that's just reality. We march to the speed that we think is appropriate, and we'll be responsible in how we spend money on acquisitions. In the Middle East, year on -- a purely comparative basis, the Middle East has struggled a little bit, but we always knew that would happen. Because firstly, we're coming off a very high base. And secondly, we had some stock issues to work through in terms of we have some overstock because of supply chain inefficiencies and some of our principles moving too much inventory our way that had to be disposed of in the market. But they performed commendably well, and we're very confident that we cycle and make good on the shortfall in the second 6 months. So notwithstanding that there is some geopolitical stuff going on in the region. Our businesses in the Middle East continue to perform very, very nicely. Turkey remains a work in progress, but all for a few years. That's an investment thesis at this point in time. We are investing -- it's not significant in group terms, but in Turkish terms, it's significant. We're investing in infrastructure to grow that business. We're in many very important regions. We're seeing exceptionally good growth on the top line. We're making great strides in establishing our presence but we are still in that investment phase, it will be for another year or 2. Moving over to Asia. We all know that China is going through not a great time. And there's probably 0 growth in the Chinese market. The latest published statistics on inflation showed that food had deflated, not cooling inflation food had deflated by about 6% in China to the year end of December. And there's no doubt we saw that in our business as well. It's been tough. They never got the bounce from COVID that the rest of the world got and in fact, it was probably a negative. And if you look at Hong Kong, they just don't have international tourism. It just hasn't come back. And the Hong Kong of today is very different to the Hong Kong a few years ago. Notwithstanding that, we're very satisfied where our business is. Our guys on the ground and they've said it. They feel that would hit the bottom and that actually happened a month or 2 ago, and that is on the way up, and they're seeing consumers coming back again, the customers are busier and things are looking better. Singapore, Malaysia. Malaysia is a wonderful story. We're starting to get some exceptionally good traction in that business, good growth, nicely profitable and we're in the investment phase in our now need to grow infrastructure to make that a sizable business. Malaysia is a big economy and will be a good market for us. Singapore performed well in the 6 months. We are going through some management change there. Justine who was running our BidOne business in New Zealand has relocated to Singapore to take over as CEO of Singapore, we're going through a little bit of change, which is always a little bit disruptive, but we are totally confident that the longer-term positioning of our Singapore business will be great. It is divided into 3 different businesses that haven't worked together in the past. We're now getting them to work a whole lot closer together, adding a whole lot of synergy and benefits. So I think that's the geographies. Hopefully, I haven't let anybody out or upset anybody with what I've said. If I have, I apologize. We only made one acquisition during the 6 months, that was in Australia in a regional New South Wales town city called Dubbo which is about 4 or 5 hours out of Sydney, where we were servicing it, but at a great cost from far away, and that's part of our geographic expansion on an opportunistic basis to inform a few locations that we're not in. There are some acquisitions on the boil at the moment. A few of them might be complete before the end of this financial year, some of them might spill over to next year. None of them are absolutely significant, but they're going to shift the needle. But all of them are important. And I think you need to just step back once again, look at our acquisition strategy. And there's no doubt that the few acquisitions we made, we make a year. And sometimes it's 10, sometimes it's 20, sometimes it might be 5 or 6 all add to the combined growth of [ what we do ]. They all add something of a strategic importance to what we do. And that's something we'll continue doing. We won't overpay. We all look for the right ones. Sometimes you make an acquisition that has to go backward before it goes forward. But we always know the purpose of what they've made for, and we'll continue to invest. Once again, the outlook for the second half, just very quickly, inflation is falling. Food inflation is lagging general inflation, but is falling. There are supply chain disruptions, primarily because of the shipping issues through the Red Sea. But largely, they're not totally disruptive. They're just adding a little bit of time and a little bit of cost to the business, but it really won't have any major impact. It was [indiscernible] the first -- how many weeks were in, 6 weeks, 6 or 7 weeks of this calendar year, January, February. Trading has been in line with where we would have expected trading to be -- there's no -- there's no red light flashing telling us that there's a major change in circumstances up there. So once again, I just want to summarize and say we think these results are very, very strong, very commendable. We're exceptionally proud of our management teams around the world, all of them. They're all part of a team that cooperate very well together. They learn from each other. It really is working exceptionally well, and we're exceptionally proud of those results and we remain very confident, optimistic and positive about the future. The fundamentals of our industry are good. The eat -- the eating out of home market is still growing, albeit at a much slower rate as we cycle through the economic difficulties, but it's still fundamentally growing. We still have runway ahead of us. We still have opportunities for organic growth or changes, slight changes in tack in many of our businesses to implement the things that have worked well in other businesses to continue the journey. So I'm going to hand over to David to tell you how wonderful -- wonderfully they've done on the financial side and the cash management and all those other good things. So over to you, David.

Thanks, Bernard, and good morning to you all. Nice to speak to you all again. Firstly, just to -- from my perspective, to add congratulations to our management teams around the world who have delivered these numbers. And certainly, from my perspective, all the finance teams and in particular, the corporate office -- offices that we have in the Isle of Man that's in the U.K. and in South Africa. Just to remind you that these numbers are obviously are prepared in terms of IFRS and the accounting policies and the like are all consistent as what we've used previously. We provide a huge amount of information to the market. I would encourage everyone to read it. It's obviously a challenge to find the right balance that reading -- providing too little and obviously giving you our board reports. So I think we've found that balance. We obviously will take comments and suggestions, but there is a large amount of information, and I would encourage you to please look at it. Just on those highlights. As we -- just to recap, great operational performance, particularly strong in Europe and Australasia, revenue up 24% and constant currency revenue up nearly 11%. Gross margins have held up well, in fact, have improved slightly in a complex trading environment. As Bernard has indicated, moderating food inflation, and you still got cost pushing through, particularly labor costs. Cash flow is still strong, ZAR 6.8 billion in terms of WC in cash generated by operations prior to working capital absorption and even though there has been absorption just seasonal we back into what we would call normality. We've drove in the first half and generate them to the second. But I think if you look at the metrics relative to the size of the business, working capital days as we measure them by only 10 days and 2 days better than they were for the comparative period. So we'd be happy with that. It is getting tougher out there, as you've heard. There's more financial distress in the customer base and to obviously watching carefully, but the reality is we are well conservatively provided for the market as we see it. Capital investments have been relatively large, but that's really just creating that capacity for future growth. So we're happy with that. And the capacity is driven bottom up. So it depends on the market growth. It depends on the requirements of each business. And we're not sacrificing not investing in one territory because of constraints. Everyone has an ability and if it makes sense, we believe it's the right thing to do. Set us up a little bit, but not certainly out of kilter with our expectation. And I think if you look at all the metrics, net debt to EBITDA and the like, they're absolutely still very conservative and well within our group covenants, HEPS up 19%, basically at ZAR 11.524 per share, something that we're very proud of. And the last thing really is a generous interim dividend of ZAR 5.25 up nearly 20%, and I'm sure the market will be happy with that. In terms of the P&L, just going through very briefly. I think most businesses did better than the previous year. The only one that was down relatively was Greater China and Bernard has spoken about that. I've spoken about the gross margins. It just swings around about. We've seen some improvement in Europe. Some of the markets in the emerging markets, particularly [ Anglos ] and the Middle East are tracking a little bit below where they were a year ago. Operating expenses have been well managed. That's operating leverage as we saw previously coming out of COVID has dissipated. But in reality, our gross margin was up 11.1% in constant currency, and our costs were slightly ahead of that 11.7%. So still being relatively well managed. Cost of doing business is up a little bit. But I think if you compare that to the pre-COVID period, which was normalized, I guess, we're still doing better than that at 18.5% compared to 18.8%. The biggest driver of cost is labor. And although the rates of increase are coming down, there is still a cost push coming through, and you see that in many, many markets around the world. Trading margins are basically flat at 5.2%. So largely, the increase in gross margins have offset the slightly increase in costs. Interest costs are up in constant currency, which is probably the right measure to talk about it and it was up 25%. Some of that is [indiscernible] the absolute investments in working capital. The investments into infrastructure and the like and basically paying slightly higher dividends. So we're not concerned, it is an area that I think we can improve on. We haven't done a perfect job and it's something certainly for us to effect and work on going forward. Bernard spoke about the tax rate. It is for the reasons that he gave -- the mix, there are 2 areas where there were slightly one-offs, which I think contributed to probably half the increase in percentage terms. So those -- the impact of those will dissipate as we get into the second half of the year, and we don't anticipate those to reoccur. In terms of the cash flows with highlighting a few things here and really some of the working capital, it is an aggregation of all the businesses. And we aggregate and look at it individually in each of the businesses. But what we get at the end is an aggregation. As I said, there is absorption as normalized for this time of the year. But if you take the metrics in comparison to the size of the group, the growth, the activity levels, we absolutely are very happy with it. As I said, the cycle is at 10 days as we measure it compared to 12. And the working capital percentage invested compared to the revenue as a percentage is at 4%. So well within our sort of normalized bands and in fact, on the lower end. And we'll see how that plays out in the period going forward. Receivables are spoken about on a day's basis are absolutely similar to a year ago. And I've spoken a little bit about the market and us being conservatively provided. Inventory days are better than we were a year ago. And that's despite some negative impact. There have been a few changes in some of the laws, which have impacted us particularly in Europe, where we are compelled to pay suppliers a little earlier, particularly the smaller suppliers that cost us about EUR 11 million, which is a substantial amount of rand as well as the business is shifting slowly to do more importing where we're not really getting the same credit terms as we were when we were buying from intermediaries in countries. So in the context of that, I think the payables days have been well managed and are basically the same as what they were a year ago. So a big tick in that space. Investments, as Bernard has spoken about for the long-term, there's a cost in the short-term, but we're not investing in the short-term. But I think all money invested is going to see that we will see the benefits going into the years ahead. There's obviously a big focus on ESG and the ESG component of all these facilities, and that's top of mind from each business's perspective where they are investing so we're making sure that where we can, we are doing what we can to manage our carbon footprints. Net debt is a little bit higher, but certainly no reason to be concerned about and realistic for where we are at the point of the trading cycle in the year. On the balance sheet, we've maintained a strong financial position. I'll work to [indiscernible] too long how we've got ample liquidity for organic and acquisitive growth. There's no change in our risk management philosophy as we manage the group. And certainly, all our solvency ratios are well in line. In terms of going forward, just a few things to highlight. As Bernard indicated, the sales have held up well into the third quarter of the second half of the year. Our working capital generation should be generation as we go into the second half. That's the cycle, and we're anticipating that. And hopefully, with that, we'll see some benefit on the interest line, the fact that we're in a high interest rate environment, I don't think is going to change in the -- certainly not 6 months, maybe not in the next year. So it's really -- we will see some benefit, and that's going to come out of better working capital management. There's still future CapEx that's been planned to go on. New Zealand and the U.K. has been indicated Europe and some in the emerging markets. So that's going to be an investment, we will continue to make. And I think something for us that philosophically, we need to be careful of is to make sure that the businesses so can operate in a very entrepreneurial decentralized environment. Considering the amount of regulation, legislation that is being burdened on companies broadly around the world, necessary, but we need to maintain that balance. The tax rate, we're forecasting somewhere between 25% and 26%. It has ticked up. Some of that, obviously, is increased in legislated rates, particularly in the U.K. Some of this is mix. And as I said, some of the one-offs won't be repeated into the second half. Currency volatility remains an issue and we report in rands, and now we can predict where we're going to be there other than I guess we will be weaker. International investors, we have seen a risk of out of emerging markets. Our international investor base is down to 42%. So there has been a bit of a swing -- it's been over some period of time, but that's nothing we can do about. And as I said, the Q3 started solidly, and we're still anticipating real growth into the second half and for the year as a whole. So nothing really further from my perspective, and I'll turn back to Bernard for questions.

Thanks, David. It's great. I'm going to go through the questions that we have got. If any of you do want to submit questions, go through the Q&A facility on the screen, and we'll get the questions, and I'll do my best to answer them as transparently as we can. So I'll just go through them in the order that I got them. Please, can you talk to the level of constant currency growth in second half '24 to date given it is slowing. All we can tell you is where we are now, and we're satisfied that the first 6, 7 weeks have continued the trend of where they were. Our spreadsheets aren't as clever as your spreadsheets and they don't predict the future. It will be what it will be. Obviously, it gets more relevant as we get into the Northern Hemisphere summer as we get into May and June, which are important, more important build. The Easter period kicks it off and then May and June are more important. So we've got no clue how that's going to pan out. And I'm not being negative. I'm just being pragmatic where that plays a part in that consumer sentiment plays a part in that. As we said at the moment that we had to extrapolate where we are, we're very comfortable with the guidance we've given you and where the business is tracking. How are you thinking about gross and operating margins for the second half, given slowing underlying growth, but also hopefully showing inflationary pressures, food inflation shows. I think that's the same question phrased a different way. We've seen gross margins hold up. We are seeing some cost headwinds that we're facing but overall, in the mix you, put it through the washing machine, and we're very satisfied where we are and we're managing it all as best we can. On an underlying basis, we are seeing real growth in the business. There is still real volume growth coming through the business. The next question. Morning, are there any cost-cutting initiatives to improve operating margin going forward? Yes. Let me answer this one, maybe you'll think, I'm a bit aggressive, but you don't capture weight the greatness. And we've got real volumes growing at 5%, 6%, 7%, whatever it might be. We're investing for the future. We don't believe that the way forward in this business is to cut costs, what we believe is driving for more efficiencies. And that's a constant program that all our businesses are embarking on. And obviously, the low-hanging fruit has been taken. If you look at our operating margins across most jurisdictions, they're at world-class levels. Now could that be improved by 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 bps? Yes, maybe. And that's something that we're looking at all the time. But no, we're not about going in and cutting costs to inflate a bottom line in the short-term. We're investing for growth. We're getting real growth. We're getting growth in top line, and we're getting growth in bottom line. And we're making sure that we've got a sustainable business here for the medium to long-term. So we'll continue to look for efficiencies, but we absolutely don't believe that there's pockets of untapped potential of fact that needs to be taken out. We operate a relatively lean structure. You can see that in our central costs compare us to some of our peers and it looks like ours is on the stake, it's so small in comparison. But that's the way we run our business, and that's part of our decentralized structure. Good morning. Risk Insights has recently assessed Bid Corp's ESG performance for 2023. And the score is commendable. Thank you for that. However, could you elaborate on Bid Corp's plans to enhance its reporting on emission scope 3? So I'm glad you asked a question, a good question, and I think we need to talk a little bit about the E part of ESG, and we're on the journey. We're absolutely on the journey. We understand that we have a responsibility. However, it's not all our responsibility. And there are other stakeholders in this who need to step up to the plate as well. And just staying on Scope 1 and 2. I'm talking particularly to governments in the -- particularly in the emerging markets segment, where the electricity produced is exceptionally dirty and exceptionally carbon footprint heavy. In many of our developed markets, we've chosen Green Power. We're available, almost Green Power and supplemented that with solar, wind, et cetera, where we can install that. But we can't do that all and governments have a responsibility to assist in that journey. Having said that, it's an important part of what we do. We continue to invest, and we understand the importance of being committed to reducing our footprint on the world and being a positive effector of change. As regards Scope 3, it's a very complicated issue because it's not within our control to do the reporting. There's upstream and downstream Scope 3 emissions, our suppliers, our customers and we're being taken on that journey in certain jurisdictions by legislation. In the U.K. and Europe are leading that. And we have obligations to start reporting that. It's an exceptionally difficult and subjective process that we're going through. And there's no doubt that as countries go through this, they'll refine the processes and people will get better. So we will start reporting on Scope 3 where we can. If we had to tell you we can report now we'd be [ lying ] and we'd be guessing. So the numbers would be relatively meaningless all that we do know is that Scope 3 emissions are like 95% of our total emissions. So Scope 1 and Scope 2 are relatively small. We've achieved our targets that we set a few years ago and now we're going to set some more ambitious targets whilst we're being realistic that we are operating a storage and distribution business that depends on refrigeration and logistics to move things around. So I do want to reiterate that the environment is important to us, but we can only control what we can control. We can only report on what is reportable and we'll do our best to do our best. We don't want to make commitments that are not backed by science or reality. I've shared before we can commit to net 0 by 2050 because of only my problem. But that's irresponsible and it's incorrect. It's disingenuous and [ dishonor ]. So we're just not going down that path. We'll do our best to do our best. Is the GBP 8 million cost from [ mature ] in the U.K. depot as you mentioned, an annual number or for the 6 months, I need for the 6 months. Now that's going to be the higher amount because the 2 depots opened in, I don't know, when it was September, October. And obviously, the most impact is upfront where you've got the maximum disruption and maximum due cost maximum setup costs, et cetera. That doesn't mean they're not going to be there in the second 6 months, they'll be there at a lower rate. And [ don't ask me ] what the number is because I don't know. But it will be less than GBP 8 million, it will be between GBP 8 million and 0. But there are fixed costs that you have there some inefficiency and we'll grow into that environment and into that infrastructure. With your comments about conditions getting tougher? Are you suggesting that the pace of real growth will slow down in the second half, hopefully not. Could you give more context to the U.K. margin in the H2 and medium-term trajectory mention the structural difference in that business that we understand. But historically, it's been a 5% with the same structure in place. And we see 5% as being a medium-term objective. We believe the business can get back there within a period of time, and I want to commit to the period of time because I know you're living your spreadsheet and hold me to it. But we do believe that 5% is an achievable number, and we can't get the -- let's just understand that the H2 is not the medium-term. H2 is absolutely the short-term. 6 months is short-term, a year is short-term. But we do have great optimism about the U.K. business. And fundamentally, it's not different to its counterparts in Europe or Australasia or even in the emerging markets where we've got some great performance. You talk about the high investments in the U.K., given the weak economy there, where and why are you seeing such strong growth opportunities. I left this set because we've got a great management team there who are executing well and doing well. I think our service levels are very, very good. We understand what our consumers want, our customers. We're working with our customers through this cost of living crisis, they're going through some pain. There's no doubt, it's not easy. And obviously, we're sharing some of that. But I think we are just executing well on the street. We're offering -- we've got a great offering. Our team are delivering. They've got a good product offering, house brand, some manufactured product. They're delivering on what they say they will. We're getting closer to our customers. We're investing in this infrastructure to improve service, and we're winning business. It's certainly not the market growing at those type of levels. It's our business winning that. And it's not winning business at any cost. Absolutely not. Obviously, you don't win all business at juicy margin and some of this is relatively skinny. But what we are winning, we're happy with what we're winning and the way we're pricing it. And you also talked to the overall rate of investment in the group moderating. Can you put some context and CapEx numbers to that, please? I think we're still guiding at 2% to 3% of turnover. David, correct me if I'm wrong.

Maybe be 1.5% to 2%.

There you go. The finance dude who's got the keys to the sake we've spoken, 1.5% to 2%. Bearing in mind, our revenue base has grown significantly. So we're going to do over ZAR 200 billion which is ZAR 4 billion a year of CapEx. It's a lot of money. If we don't spend ZAR 4 billion to ZAR 3 billion or it might be ZAR 5 billion, but it's not going to be ZAR 10 billion or ZAR 20 billion. Heard your comment regarding the SA business is generating more than ZAR 1 billion of EBIT. That would imply that Asia, LatAm, Middle East is loss-making given that the EMS division total of EBIT of [indiscernible] is this correct? Please elaborate. No, that's not correct, fortunately. The ZAR 1 billion is for the full year, that includes the Chipkins Puratos joint venture, which isn't included up, but it's included down [indiscernible] associates. So the ZAR 1 billion was purely an illustrative of what the total South African business will do in the full 6 months. The emerging markets -- every business in the emerging markets is profitable with the exception of Turkey, I believe which is a slight negative. It was a very, very marginal negative for the 6 months. So absolutely not fortunately. Let me just see if there's any more, well there's [indiscernible] more. I thought I was going to get an early [ muffin ] and go get a cup of coffee, but no such luck. Questions, questions, questions. Why is Germany such a tough market? It seems that other food service operators also struggle there. I don't know that it's a tough market. I don't think we've executed particularly great. The -- our entry business probably wasn't the correct one. It was too small and too bespoking what it did. And you do have some very large players there who have very high levels of sales and relatively low levels of profitability. Having said that, you've also got a significant number of smaller family-owned businesses who do a reasonable amount of sales and make a very acceptable level of profitability. So I don't think the German market is better, worse than any others. Obviously, it's a little bit different. It has potential. And it's up to us to see whether we can or won't succeed there. Yes, that's up to us. And we might not succeed. Let's be pragmatic. We're not going to succeed in everything we do. But we'll absolutely give it our best shot and see what we can do. Now things sound simple, why don't you just go buy another business. If I knew, it was that simple. You have to find the right business with the right management with shareholders who are exiting for the right reason with the correct structures in place. So that is something we're looking at. And if the right one comes along, the right one will come along in the meantime, we carry on down the past. Please talk to the acquisition opportunities you highlighted are these material. Well, we can't give any detail because that's confidential discussions that are going on. There are a couple in South Africa, we're talking to. There's some in the U.K., there's some in various parts of Europe then interesting [ where else ]. I think there are a few going on in South America. There's a couple in the Middle East and Turkey that we're looking at. So there are a lot of irons in the fire of which there may be 5 or 6 that are on a high probability of execution within the next 6 months or so. There's some on the lower stage. And then the opportunities come when they come. And sometimes they come in to you pretty quick and you need to be adaptable. Are these material, every acquisition for us is material, but it might not be material for the numbers. They're all done for a reason. That will add to the scale, scope and reach of our business and for the geography that they are relevant to. But will any of them shift the needle on our numbers and make a difference to our borrowings. Nothing of any significance, no. They're not huge in the overall context of a company that's got a market cap of ZAR 150 million. While you're growing U.K. capacity so aggressively, it seems to be growing faster than the other regions. What opportunities are you seeing. Look, I think a lot of that is quite honestly a lack of investment in prior years. So for quite a number of years, we've been investing in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, somewhere like Poland, the Czech Republic. And for many years, the U.K. was relatively starved of this investment. And now we're catching up. The reason it was starved for -- it's for various different set of reasons. Their infrastructure is quite aged. A lot of it goes back to the 70s, 80s and 90s and needs modernization and upgrade. It's being preferred as long as it can possibly be and the time has come to invest in additional infrastructure. And where we're seeing the opportunity, we're growing our revenue there in U.K. real growth 21% which is volume growth of 10%, 11%, 12%, 15%. So clearly, the opportunity is there. The U.K. is a lovely place. You've got 65 million or 70 million people. You've got 70 million tourists. There's a lot of eating out. It's a good market. We'll carry on investing. No problem. Given the start-up costs in the U.K. impacting the margin in [indiscernible] easing in H2 and into next year and how do you see this region with margin progressing. Look, we're not going to give you any short-term absolute. We are expecting a relatively better second 6 months, relatively comparative to the previous year on a 6-month to 6-month comparative H2B H2 comparatively better than H1B H1. And like I said, our trajectory is to get to 5%, once we've gotten to 5% we'll push it to 6%, if at all possible. That's the way it works. How long that takes is how long that takes. You have a solid balance sheet, but the dividend payout ratio is fairly low versus global food service peers, any plans to increase the dividend payout. David?

No.

David said no. We're happy where we are 2.2x covered. Obviously, as CapEx becomes less maybe as we generate more cash flow revisit. Nothing is cast in stone. We believe we've got the correct balance at the moment. We still see the potential for something large coming our way at some point in time. It doesn't mean we're looking at anything, we're not. But it's nice to have the firepower, the ammunition to do that. And also, I think a lot of companies are now seeing that debt isn't for free. So it's great to have that to 2x, 3x, 4x EBITDA, but it comes at a price.

And I think it goes to returns. I mean the group's returns suboptimal that certainly not we think they're best of breed. And so...

We're happy with the dividend. So there's another question about the U.K. margin, which is the same question, how do we see it progressing like we say, 5% is the next target we've set our management team. And once we approach 5%, we'll see what the next one is. And that will take over on that take. It's well, this is reality. It's real world circumstances change from week-to-week competition -- our competitors' behavior changes their desire for market share or whatever changes, and we need to adapt accordingly. So we're on the right trajectory. We're certainly not panicked about the U.K. We see that as an opportunity for the future and remain very positive. We speak of a number of opportunity in M&A Portugal, Germany, SA, Brazil, et cetera, can you give an indication of maximum check for these, if they all come through. They're not all going to come through at the same period of time. And I can't actually give a number. But just at a guess, if we spent AUD 100 million of pounds or euros in a year is probably a number that we think is maybe correct. But who knows, maybe something larger will come along or maybe some of these won't come to fruition. But we're certainly not talking about EUR 1 billion or dollars. Apparently this point. Trading margins in Australasia remain high. Is there any reason you think that could moderate from current levels? Oh, we certainly hope not. Those trading margins are made up of a lot of components. It's certainly not made up of the price to the customer. There's a market price for what you can sell the product for. We're competitive, we're relevant, and we compete properly in all those markets. We certainly not -- we're certainly not a dominant -- an absolute dominant player in any of those markets. We operate in efficient in their markets. So it comes out of efficiency of how they run their businesses, which should continue and it also comes out of the strategic initiatives in terms of where they are in the flywheel that we explained a few years ago, in terms of customer stratification, getting the correct customer of getting the direct product mix of getting the correct house brand mix, of getting the correct value add manufactured mix and they're executing on that particularly well, and we'll continue to. We've definitely seen where that trajectory is heading and we're comfortable that the margins, all things being equal as sustainable. Please can you remind us when you will be acquiring the ZAR 5.3 billion of noncontrollable [ reportable ] liabilities. That primarily relates to Italy. The contractual date is 26 -- June of 26, but that is not -- yes, it's not a drop debt date either that. So that's the earliest. And that might be pushed out from them, so the earliest is June 26, which is only for 50% of it anyway. But it's absolutely not a drop debt date, and there's no guarantee that, that will be exercised at that point in time. We've got more here.

I think there are a few you missed.

Yes, a very interesting one. Thank you for [indiscernible]. What is management succession plans like Bid Corp. Bernard, how much longer are you likely to stay as CEO, given you have done a great job so far. Well, I don't know if it's a compliment or not or if it's a back hand of compliments, I'll take that as compliment. We've got succession plans in place across all our businesses trust me I don't hold the keys, I don't opened the facilities. We've got great management teams around the world. We are a decentralized business with a fantastic culture across all our businesses and a very much aligned management team who, by and large, run their businesses. They bring us the acquisition opportunities. They bring us the value-add opportunities. They bring us the technological opportunities. It's not us who drive it from the top. We do very little at the top. So in every single one of our businesses, we've got a very strong management team. That's not just the CEO dependent, there's a structure in all these businesses. At the top, obviously, you got David and I, were both very young and just still learning the ropes and hopefully, we'll be here for a few more years. There's no timing on it. They're on discussions we're having with the Board because we're happy with what we're doing. We still get enjoyment out of it. We can still see a whole lot of opportunity and growth in the business, and we still wake up [ enthused ] and excited about what the business has to offer. So I don't know if I've waffled around that question. There's no absolute person who's going to take over from David or myself more a date, but it is a discussion that has had with the Board at regular levels and abated and there are alternatives there. We believe the culture of our business is probably our most important IP and our people are our most important asset, and it's really critical to us that in the medium to longer-term, we sustain that. Let me just see what else is going on. We've got another whole bunch here.

No, I think you've [indiscernible] missed.

Most of the questions go around the U.K. and how long it's going to take to get to 5%. So I think we've got all of those covered off. How much of a seasonal impact is there in the latest margins, first half versus second half. I think they're relatively similar, David, aren't they? I think the June has a little bit of a...

There's a bit of a pickup in June.

But you're offset by not a great January, February on a seasonal basis in the Northern Hemisphere winter. So I don't think there's too much of a differential between the 2 but David can pick that up. Okay. I think we've covered off all the questions. I apologize if I missed any. I've overshot the mark by 5 minutes. Thank you, everybody. I know that some of you are disappointed because you thought that the numbers would be over 20%. But let's be pragmatic and realistic and understand the environment in which we operate and a 9% real operating margin growth in constant currency is a great, great result. Obviously, the rand will do whatever the rand is going to do going forward. The tax rate, hopefully settles back in at a more reasonable rate. There might be a little in that or they might not be out of our control once again. We're very, very satisfied with the businesses. We think our teams have done a phenomenal job. We're very happy with our positioning where we are, what the future looks like. And most importantly, we're exceptionally proud of our teams around the world, our management teams. They really are a fantastic bunch of ladies and gentlemen who do a phenomenal job for all of you as shareholders, and we can't thank them enough for what they do and may they continue doing lots more of it for many, many more years. So thank you, everybody. We'll give you an update in May, I believe it is. And hopefully, we can tell you more of the same. So once again, thank you for your attendance, and talk to you all soon.