Bid Corporation Limited ($BID)

Okay. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Bidcorp trading update. Hopefully, we'll be relatively quick today. We did release a SENS announcement a little bit earlier, which gave you a good summary. And I will give you a broad level overview of where we're at. David will give you some further color on a few issues. And then we'll have Q&A in the normal fashion. If you've got any questions, please submit them. We'll read them out and answer them at the end as best we can. So maybe I'll start off with a quote from Mark Twain, who said, "the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." and I think a lot of you expected the world to fall in a heat at the end of February when the war broke out and for things to turn pretty awful pretty quickly. I'm pleased to say that never happened. And from where we sit, the business is in a good position. Certainly, there is an impact of some elevated fuel prices. We can talk about that in a little bit more detail. But pleasingly, consumer demand has held up very, very well. And I'll go so far as to say that when we look at our May numbers, our May revenue growth was higher than our year-to-date average had been to that point. So we're seeing some very positive trends coming through in the business. And obviously, there's different parts of that across the world and there's different stories in many different geographies. But the overall message that I do want to give you is one of positive optimism that it's looking fine out there. The trajectory is continuing. We spoke in February, towards the end of February, obviously, before the war broke out. Obviously, the war has had a devastating impact on the Middle East, which fortunately is in recovery mode now and it is improving. But overall, the business is in good shape. There's very little difference from what we told you in February. And we're relatively confident of finishing the year with the trajectory continuing the way it is. And obviously, there's nothing major that we need to bring your attention to. There's just a few nuances and observations that I'd like to share. I guess the other Mark Twain comment that does come to mind is that there are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. And I know you all love the spreadsheets and statistics of 0.27% of this and 0.001% of that. Yes, reality is pretty different to that. And overall, take it from us. The business is in a reasonably good position. The positive look forward, the look forward is reasonably positive. Our teams are looking forward to continued growth out of the business. And so from where we sit at the moment, we really are exceptionally comfortable with the position of the business. To talk about the elevated fuel prices first. A lot of you did panic and thought we were going to run out of diesel. And maybe we thought that as well for a week or two. Fortunately, the physical shortage has never materialized, and there is an availability, obviously, it comes at a higher price. In terms of the cost impact of that, to a large degree, we've won the impact of it and we've done that very deliberately. Many of our competitors, many of our suppliers have tried to knee-jerk a reaction, have tried to make even profiteer out of the pricing, putting surcharges, got quite a lot of backlash. We took a very calculated and deliberate decision that said that the price of diesel is down to moderate. And if it doesn't moderate, we can make a different decision. Then most markets, we've taken the view to generally absorb the additional diesel costs. There obviously are some contractual arrangements with certain types of customers. And generally, we're talking about the larger QSR customers, the contractual lower-margin customers, where we do have the ability to pass on fuel increases and decreases. And obviously, we'll follow those contracts supporting it. But for the general part of our market, we've actually used this as a marketing tool to let our customers know that we're all part of the same ecosystem. That is not all about short-termism that we have for the long haul, we have to help them, we have to support them, and it's a partnership. And I must say that, to a large degree, that's been very beneficial to us. In many, many markets we see, we are picking up customers. We have generated some goodwill. There has been a positive out of not unilaterally and very suddenly passing on increases, which in reality, had to be wound back that relatively quickly because although the price spiked up very quickly, that started coming down relatively quickly as well. It's still elevated, but it did come down. So it was quite a difficult situation for those people to manage where they put in surcharges and then had to take them off. So we believe we've done the right thing. It has impacted our overall results to a degree. There's no doubt that it's cost us a few million pounds and euros, dollars, rands, whatever else. But we'll see the benefit of that in future years and future growth in goodwill that we have earned down from our customer base. So overall, I don't think it's going to have a material impact on our results and our group results for the current year. It will have an impact, absolutely, but it's not a hugely material impact, and David might be able to elaborate a little bit more, although I'm not sure we'll ever know what the exact amount is because some of it sits on the supply side, some of it sits on the sales side and it's actually quite difficult to establish exactly what it is. The last few months have basically seen the trends of the first 6 months that we spoke about in February, continued the winter in Europe, in the U.K. and Europe was particularly cold this year. So trading was a little bit depressed in January and February, not unexpectedly so. Easter was a little bit earlier this year than last year, which gave us a very reasonable March, and we paid back some of that in April where we didn't have the benefit of Easter. So the timing plays a little bit. But on average, if you smoothed out, trading up until the end of April was exactly where we thought it would be and tracking according to trend and the numbers that we presented. Like I said, May, we've seen a slight uptick in revenue across many, many geographies. We've had record weeks. Last week was a record week in a few countries. And it's not really inflationary. I know that you'll ask the question, what's inflation? And food price inflation really hasn't started increasing as of yet. Somehow the system is absorbing the increases and we're not really seeing any elevated elements of food inflation in the business. So the sales growth that we're getting is generally good volume growth, and we're very, very pleased with that. If we break it down on a region-by-region basis, let's start off with emerging markets. South Africa continues to perform exceptionally strongly across all 3 businesses in South Africa with strong -- a plus 10% growth, making a fantastic job, continue to do a fantastic job. South America, we've continued to grow very, very strongly in all 3 markets. We had maybe a tough year or 2 before. But there's no doubt that all 3 of those markets are poised for growth and are delivering and are growing very, very nicely. The Middle East, like I said, has had a very tough time with Dubai and Saudi obviously were both directly impacted. And that did impact trading in March and April. And to a large degree, May numbers are back to where they should be, hotel occupancies are relatively low and I think air traffic through the region is a little bit depressed. But our view, which is probably shared by a lot of people. It was that humans have a very short memory and will bounce back relatively quickly when it does bounce back. That's not disastrous. The business has taken some relatively prudent moves in trimming some of the cost base where they could. And going back to COVID years, the mantra has been exactly the same. We trim the fat, not the muscle. Because we know it will bounce back. We've looked after our people. They're going through a tough time, too, and we need them for -- to bounce back, which absolutely will happen. Turkey remains a work in progress, small business. Potentially have some good upside. Moving over to Asia. Singapore continues their recovery. Malaysia is performing very well. We've got that acquisition in there from the beginning of the year. They're performing well there, about to move into the new distribution center later this year, which gives us triple amount of capacity that we had before and we'll continue that and start in Germany. Greater China remains a challenge. The business is tough. We are profitable. We're not hugely profitable, but it is tough, and China is much tougher than Hong Kong. And I've explained the reasons for it before. I've explained the anti-Western sentiment and I've explained how suppliers, our traditional partner suppliers, once the trips are done and then sales became more difficult to get, move from an exclusive model to an open server model, which obviously has some impact. So Greater China probably causes us a few -- is causing us a little bit of concern in terms of its growth prospects, but the contribution is relatively minor to the overall group. So emerging markets overall has grown, like I say, South Africa, South America doing fantastic. If we move over to -- let's go to the U.K. It's a tough environment there. Those of you who read the news out of the U.K., there's very little cheer about this little -- very little good news. The macroeconomic situation isn't great. The consumer is doing it tough, and our business is doing relatively well under the circumstances. So we've continued the growth. We've got a plan in place to raise our margins there, our trading margins by a few percentage points. And we're absolutely on track to achieve that. So far, we've achieved exactly what we set out to. And that business appears to be gaining market share. We are streamlining the business. The major investment phase is basically complete. They also won 2 replacement depots that need to go in, but the expansion is complete. And so now we're actually delivering up on the plan and the U.K. team have done an excellent job doing that and are looking relatively positive for the year ahead. Obviously, hoping that there's not some major trend snap from a government point of view, from an economic point of view, from a tax point of view, from a consumer point of view. But as is at the moment, we're getting reasonable growth. The business is in good shape. The cost base has been trimmed. Margins are looking fine, and we're growing the trading profit and the trading profit margin out of that business and getting better returns out of the business. Australasia overall is marginally flat, and that's made up of 2 components. We've got, first of all, Australia is tracking basically flat year-on-year. They are getting some sales growth, but that is offset by cost increases primarily in wages and a large amount of that is actually uncontrollable. It's government -- that's government introduced impost and charges on that. I'm on about that, but there is a lot of shifting of responsibility around the world from government to private enterprise, where we've captured impost on cost, social costs, et cetera, put on business to soften the blow for government. So Australia is got the issue at the moment that interest rates are rising. I think we've had 3 interest rate rises over the last 6 months. The consumer is under a little bit of pressure. They introduced -- they -- in the most recent budget, they plan to introduce [ sweeping ] changes to tax, all of which means you'll pay more tax to capital gains tax to negative gearing, et cetera. So consumer sentiment is generally pretty average. But our business is holding up exceptionally well. It's a highly profitable business and is getting some sales growth. We'd like to see that sales growth at a few percentage higher than where it is, and the teams are working exceptionally hard now focusing on getting that growth. New Zealand had a pretty average full month to start the year, and then we saw things turn in about October, and that has continued. And the business is really kicking some good goals now and is back on its growth path and is delivering overall growth, and will deliver growth for the year, notwithstanding the relatively slow start. That growth probably has slowed down a little bit over the last month or 2 as fuel prices have gone up as consumers are a little bit wary, but we've still seen some very good price out of the new Zealand business, and they got their mojo and the business is doing excellent. The last segment is Europe, which continues to be a standout performer. Western Europe is very different to Eastern Europe, which is different to Central Europe, that's obvious So Eastern Europe continues to grow strong there. We've got our Czech and Slovakian business, Poland and the Baltics. And I think their growth -- their economic growth is just a little bit better than Western Europe. Governments are a little bit less meddling and I think those countries are growing stronger. In Central Europe, our Italian business is performing exceptionally well. We put the investment in 2 years ago. We expanded capacity. We went through a little bit of indigestion. And now we're seeing the benefit of that. We're growing that business exceptionally strongly. Sales are growing at double digit, profitability is growing significantly and it's exciting times in Italy. I guess we will have to go again in a year or 2 and put some more capacity in, but that's a great problem to have. We will never get the timing on that exactly right, but it's absolutely something that we will have to do again. Just to bear in mind, 10 years ago, that business was doing over EUR 200 million of revenue. We're now approaching I think it's EUR 1.1 billion of revenue. So there's been a huge amount of growth in a relatively short period of time with an even greater increase in profitability. So each of this has performed very strongly. In Western Europe, our Dutch and Belgian businesses are stable, growth is very difficult to come by again in those markets. There's just very little good economic news. We did exceptionally well when we did well, and we're holding on to those gains. So any increases out of those markets will be hard fought, and we're up for the fight. We are fighting. But the growth isn't going to be at the rate that it was for the last few years for a period of time. I think we'll go through a flatter period in those markets until growth accelerates again. In terms of the Iberian market, we are very new there. There's a lot of work still to do. Sometimes it's one step forward, 2 steps backward when you're building the infrastructure. We are building out our capacity in Portugal and in Spain. So those businesses aren't delivering huge growth at the moment. Portugal is because we made an acquisition just over a year ago, that's going exceptionally well. Spain, we're growing into the new infrastructure that we put in, particularly in Barcelona. But we are enthused about both those markets. They are big markets, Spain is probably as big as Italy, and we're seeing what we can do in Italy. So therefore, we'll be able to do the same to the same in Spain over a period of time. And Portugal is a very nice market. It's got a reasonable size, and it's probably not as attractive to many other players as maybe the Spanish or Italian market is. So it might be easier to get a more significant market position in Portugal. So we're very enthused about that. In terms of acquisition, it has been relatively slow. We've spoken about that before, that expectations of vendors and our expectations didn't quite meet and we're starting to see that change a little bit. So we are looking at some acquisitions, some of them are at a very advanced stage. We're about to finalize one in New Zealand, which completes at the beginning of July. That's not -- some of it's in New Zealand, but most of it is regionally based in the Pacific Islands, the neighbors of New Zealand. We're looking at something in South America. We're looking at something in Eastern Europe. We're looking at something in the U.K. And there are a few others that are at a more less advanced stage than that, but we are seeing the opportunities open up again. So who knows where that will get to. I think what's important to mention is we're not asleep and we are alert to these opportunities. In terms of the other factors in the business, we continue to diversify into vertical integration into manufacturing opportunities in many, many countries, we're doing lots of different things, learning from each other and adding value. There's a small cost to that on the way. But there's no doubt it gives us benefit and scale and leverage, and we'll continue to do that. In Australia, we're rolling out a few different manufactured opportunities, which takes about a year to come to fruition, and New Zealand continues down that path. In the U.K., we're doing that and in a few other markets. So there's a lot of investments, not small investment, but really isn't going to shift the needle too much into this vertical integration and like manufacturing and conversion of product, which is really profitable. Overall, the business is in good shape. We're highly cash generative at the moment. David will talk about that. We are over the hump of the CapEx spend. And because acquisitions have been relatively low, we've generated very strong cash flow. And as we shared with you, we have done some share buybacks. David will talk about that. We bought back just under 1% so far. We don't want to interfere with the effective and efficient movement of the market. But we do -- we are of the view that in the absence of any other acquisition opportunities at current share prices, it's a great investment and a great alternative use for our cash. So all we have to do now is finish the year in the same vein as we've done 10 months. May is out the way. We still got June to go, which is pretty important. Hopefully, the weather holds up in the U.K. and Europe. Hopefully, the war doesn't restart and we get some type of settlement and we see fuel prices trim back downwards to where they were. But we're relatively confident of finishing somewhere close to what we said and where we're tracking. And I look forward to next year, it's for continued growth. We're very comfortable with what our teams are putting together where they see the growth with the strategic initiatives that we're putting in place. And so we'll continue to go down that path. And yes, we're -- like I say, we're very pleased with what our teams have delivered so far. My thanks to the teams out there, they've done an awesome job once again, very adaptable. When circumstances change, what they do, the teams are very experienced as to what to do. Generally, they make the right call. Generally, we're consistent in our approach. And I think that's borne fruit once again. We're in a strong position. We've got an exceptionally strong balance sheet, a very experienced management team, significant market positions in most geographies we operate in. And we're very content and happy with the underlying performance of the business. We think it's exceptionally strong under the circumstances. And when economic growth picks up, there's no doubt our growth rate will accelerate exponentially. So I think if we can deliver this type of growth in a pretty average market, we're very excited about what will happen when things turn and markets free up a little bit more. I'm going to hand over to David just to give you a quick financial overview. I'll just have a quick look through the Q&As, and then come back to you. So thank you.

Thanks, Bernard, and good morning to everyone. And we're going to give you some sort of flavor, obviously, of the performance to date. But just to add a little bit of color to maybe a bit of the balance sheet and cash flow. EBITDA, which we haven't given you there, is tracking, it's about 20 basis points higher, and we measure EBITDA on the old basis, excluding IFRS 16. So that's tracking to the end of April at about 6%, a little bit better than where we were last year. In terms of acquisitions, as Bernard said, it's been slow. We haven't done any -- one very small one in Poland. The cost to date is around about ZAR 1.1 billion, which isn't different from the half year. The impact of that on the numbers is around 1% on revenue as well as trading profit. So that hasn't really changed too much. Tax rate is tracking within guidance, and we've given you guidance of 26% to 27%. So that's all in line. In terms of working capital, we measure it, as you'll be aware, on 2 metrics. Firstly, days, our days are about 3 days better than we were tracking last year. So we're either doing a great job this year or we did a poor job last year, but it has significantly improved. In terms of our working capital to revenue, that's also down about 5.3% of revenue, annualized revenue last year, down to about 4.2% this year. So generally, the business has done a great job in terms of managing the working capital. On the free cash flow, we've generated to date about ZAR 1.4 billion in terms of inflow and compare that to about a ZAR 3.8 billion outflow of last year. CapEx, Bernard spoke about. Yes, we're tracking a little bit above our medium-term guidance of 1.5% to 2%, but we absolutely are convinced or confident that, that will track down within the range as we've indicated before. In terms of the funding, as said, we haven't got any maturities. The first maturity we've got is in March of '27, which is just under a year out. That's a USPP maturity. You remember well, we do have a pretty even tenure of the debt over 1 to 5 years out, and around about 1/5 of that is through payable in March of '27. We've also rolled over -- renewed our RCF for 3 years with options for an extra 2 years to extend that, and that's all been done at tighter margins. So I think really to add from the funding side of it, Bernard spoke about the share buybacks. We've obviously taken advantage of the weaker share price and the excess cash generation, free cash flow that we've generated, and we bought back since March about ZAR 1.34 billion that's ongoing, which is just under 1% of the shares in issue. And that's obviously on top of the dividend that we paid, which is a higher payout ratio in March of ZAR 2.1 billion. So other than that, I think, certainly from my perspective, the balance sheet and the business is in very good shape. We would like to have it. And yes, back to you, Bernard. Nothing further to add.

Thanks, David. The first couple of questions are yours. Please, could you give us the average exchange rate being used for the 10 months for 4 divisions? Our preferred measure is constant currency. Obviously, we have to report in rands, but we manage the business in local currencies. And whatever the rands come to is what the rands come to. We have no control over that. But David will answer that question.

To the end of April, it's ZAR 20.31 to the sterling, ZAR 19.85 to euro, Aussie is ZAR 11.41, and New Zealand, ZAR 9.94. So I think the euro is probably still weaker on average against comparative last year to the rand. But I think the U.K., Aussie and New Zealand is stronger versus those currencies.

Okay. What average share price were the share buybacks's conducted? And are you continuing the program into year-end? David?

So average price is around ZAR 409. We did get a dividend on some of those early repurchases as well. And yes, we will continue to buyback into the year-end. Whether we take it through the year-end or not, that's still to be determined.

How successful have you been in adding ancillary products like alcohol, cleaning products, et cetera, to your food offering? Cleaning also, provide an update on the own brand offering. Thanks, that's a very good question, and I could talk for hours about that. Overall, we've been very successful. We're not successful every time, but eventually, you do become successful because the more products you can sell to a customer, the bigger opportunity you have to optimize the margin in the basket. These things are -- they're not easy. There's currently alcohol supplies, there's currently cleaning product supplies, there's currently small goods or processed meat supplies or meat supplies or fish supplies. So it's not like they're saying, "Oh, thank God, you guys have finally got into it." it takes time to break into these markets. But they've become important components of the range. And when you walk through our warehouses, you'll see that the range keeps growing. And suddenly, there's alcohol and suddenly, there's 200 different SKUs of alcohol in the range. And if you take alcohol, for example, we actually don't want to be a huge distributor of alcohol. We don't want to drive big trucks delivering kegs of beer and huge slabs of alcohol at no margin. We sell those as a service offering, where it's another product that the customer buys at the correct margin. And that goes to all the ancillary ranges. So it's a very important part of what we do. In terms of own brand, that's constant work in progress. It's a constant KPI for all our businesses to keep growing own brand. And own brand obviously has a couple of components to it. Some of it is just own brand. Some of it is manufactured by own brand, where we get a double bite of the cherry, we get a manufacturing margin, and we also get a distribution margin. So our own brand continues to be important, continues to grow marginally because we do need to balance that with the fact that customers do have choice and we do have suppliers out there who have excellent products and have big resources and we need to walk both sides of the fence on that one, and we do that relatively well. Please talk to the vertical integration manufacturing opportunities. To what extent does this enhance growth in margins? It's relatively small to start, but it accelerates as time goes on. And these manufacturing opportunities aren't big R&D, product development, complicated product. We really are talking about [ me-too-type ] product, relatively simple product, a product that makes the customers' life easier, sources, top things, marinated things, smoked things, portion control things, et cetera. And they start off very small and macro as time goes on. And like I say, you get 2 bites of the cherry because you develop the brand of that. So you're getting the manufacturing margin, you get the distribution margin, you get the benefit of house brand incremental margin, plus what manufacturer margin is. So we're very comfortable with that journey. We only embarked on this maybe 7, 8 years ago. And we said we wanted to become a food business, not just a distribution business. And I think our teams around the world have captured that very nicely and are progressing very well in that. There's no doubt that impacts the numbers. There's no doubt that some of that is in the reason that when you look at our trading margins, they are at a higher level than our peer group. So we'll continue down that path. Potential for opportunistic M&A in the Middle East region. I think it's a little bit too soon for that. It's been very traumatic there and businesses have adapted in different types of ways. We haven't seen anything that's in a state of desperation. Most operators will see it out. So I don't think you're going to get anything that people desperate to jump out and give their businesses away. So I don't believe there is a missing opportunistic there. And like I say, we're very confident. Our teams are very confident that it will bounce back relatively quickly, and it will just be an aberration in history. Sorry, I'm just trying to get the next one. Good results. I would like to ask when will acquisition peak or stop assuming free cash flow will improve? Organic acquisition is part of what we do. It's part of our DNA. And I think that's a very important part of what we do. So that's one shop. And we are looking at many -- we do look at many, lots don't get done, many do get done, and this thing goes in peaks and troughs. The opportunities happen when they happen. We've got the balance sheet firepower to make them happen. But more importantly, you need the management team to integrate them and get them -- get the benefits of these acquisitions. That's in terms of in-market bolt-on acquisitions. In terms of larger acquisitions, like I said, that only happened when that happened. There's maybe one that we're looking at, at the moment. That's at a very, very, very, early stage. There's probably more chance of it not happening than happening. But we carry on looking and 1 day we'll uncover each in. At what point will Bidcorp consider an exit from China. Does China produce positive cash flow. The cash flows are basically neutral after we funded the business. We should see some improvements. We have seen some operational improvements. We renegotiated some leases. We simplified business structures. We've made things more streamlined and efficient. So we will generate cash. We are generating some profits. And are we -- is it a long-term commitment to that market, probably not. If the right opportunity to exit had to arise, we'd certainly consider it far more eagerly than we would in the other markets. It's been tough going. And I think it's -- we're not the only ones. We're not the only non-Chinese business who is faced with this problem. It's just not a great environment for companies like us to operate in. Could you comment on the base effect for the upcoming summer months, if I remember correctly, weather was very good last year. I actually don't think the weather was really good last year in Europe. I think July and August were pretty ordinary and September improved. So if anyone's got a long-range weather forecast, please let us know, and we'll build our numbers accordingly. Last week, the weather was good, and we had some record weeks. So that's all just a silent press for some good weather. How are you dealing with the rising fish process hike? And if you could give us any color on how you buy your fish, where the supplier is based, if you could. I actually can't answer that. I wasn't aware that there were any great increases in pricing that might be a South African centric issue. Around the world, we're not seeing any great material changes in pricing. Generally, we don't fix our pricing for a long period of time. Fish comes from all over the world. Salmon, for example, which is the largest species that we sell comes primarily out of Norway and the top of Europe and out of Chile. Some of the white fish comes out of Alaska. So it actually depends. A lot of the [ shrimp ] and the seafood is found in Asia. So we're not really seeing any huge impact on that. Any views on the upcoming tourism season in Europe. With fewer flights since the [indiscernible], could this impact European performance? We were actually in Europe last week. And actually, I think it's busier than it was before. maybe people are bypassing the Middle East. But airports were full, flights were full, tourist places were full, not that we spent a lot of time in tourist places. We are very busy working. But I actually think that if the weather holds up, I think they're going to have a whopper of the season in Europe. So I'm actually very optimistic about that. Europe was supported by resilient margins. How resilient is this margin versus group trading margins? I think margins in Europe have improved marginally, margins have improved marginally. It's got a little bit better. So the Europe is doing good. You indicate the margin gains in the U.K., can you indicate how this was achieved? Through a lot of blood, sweat and tears and hard work and a little bit of luck. It's been a long-term plan. I mean, we've been making changes to the business. We've been focusing on what we do. We're growing the correct segment of the business. We're seeing strong growth in the free trade and independent sector. We're also seeing very good growth in the national sector, but in those segments that we want to participate in. We've put the infrastructure in place, and we've grown into that relatively quickly and relatively we're over the cost element to that. We also did pick up the Whitbread contract in September last year, and that's been beneficial for the U.K. business, but that's not the only reason as to why they've done well. That's just one component that helped us fill some of that capacity. See, I'll get on to that point. What is the long-term potential for Argentina as the current government performance become more entrenched? That's an excellent question. I wish I knew the answer. At the moment, Argentina looks fantastic. He's made some major reforms there's, some real structural changes. The economy is going through some pain. And our business is doing well. So we're actually seeing growth in a very difficult market and things are going the right way. Will he get reelected in a year or 2's time? I've got no clue. If he does get reelected, I think the country stands a really, really good chance of being a powerhouse again. If he doesn't get elected and you get a reversal back to the left, I think they're in for a really rocky run. So I really actually caught on to that one. Please talk to CEO and CFO succession time line process. Tomorrow? Today? When do you want us to go? I mean I don't know about you, guys, just tell us when. I don't know if I would be insulted or flattered by that question. David? I don't know if it's my gray hair that's giving it away. Look at you, you don't have 1 gray hair. That's obviously being a CFO is much easier than being a CEO. It is something we look at. It's absolutely something that we're considering. That's not a structure issue. And the one thing that we are adamant about is we have a very significant bench of people in the business. We're a very well human resource business with people have been around a long time, people who've grown in the business, people who understand our culture, who understand how it all fits together, and that's critical because we certainly are not the [ cleverest ] bunch of people around, but I think we're smart enough to understand that we do have a culture. The business does have a culture, and that works. So any change will be carefully thought out and will in all likelihood come from within. And we do have a very talented, highly capable bunch of people in the group because David and I spend a lot of time, as I maybe should have told you last week, visiting tourist hotspots and airports in Europe to see how business is doing. So that's absolutely on our agenda, and it's coming up in the next few years. Have you seen any impact on customer trends due to new generation weight-loss drugs yet like healthier options? It's very difficult to tell. It's I'm not sure how much of the population is actually on Ozempic or Mounjaro or Wegovy or whatever, maybe 5%, maybe 10% of the population. I really don't know. People don't know if it's having an impact. People don't know if it's having an impact on the choices. Are they just eating less or what's on the plate? Are they prepared to pay a full price for a lesser plate of food, which might be good for operators? Nobody really knows. But suffice to say, we still sell a lot of hot chips and chicken nuggets and deep fried things and bacon and eggs and all of that stuff. So that may have an impact, that absolutely might have an impact. But I'm not sure it's going to be a significant impact. I'm not sure it's going to be an impact, but we won't just weather and adapt it as it transpires. Now, noting for the last one. To start, wide spread concerns about pressure on the South African consumer, you continue to report exceptionally strong results. What are the key factors underpinning this performance and how sustainable do you believe they are? I assume that's a question on South Africa, particularly in our South African business. And I guess, in reality, I don't want to make a political statement. You've got 2 different realities. You've got a government reality and you've got a private sector reality. And a lot of government savings are picked up by our competent private sector. And our teams are -- you've got a population there. You've got a population in an economy that spends money, that eats, that somehow goes out to restaurants, that somehow has hotel accommodation and conferences and tourism and all of these other things. So although government might did nothing to help it, private enterprise certainly supports it and make sure it happens. So we don't get too concerned about government and government policy, trying to trade with government, et cetera. We understand where the real economy is. And we focus on that and operate within that. Now the environment is not easy, absolutely not, but it is what it is. And like I said, we've got a very experienced, talented management team. The South African business has been doing what it's been doing for many years and has been successful for many years and will continue to be so. So I don't think we're doing anything hugely revolutionary. We're focusing on the basics. We're managing those businesses exceptionally tightly where we're adapting to customer requirements. We're adapting to society, to the conditions we operate in. So they've done a great job. And hopefully, they'll continue to do a great job. I've said that year after year after year for many years now. But to get 15% growth out of South Africa, like you said, it's phenomenal, and it's not a one-off. That's absolutely been year after year after year. And the look forward is no different. So I think the opportunities are there, which actually we look at our South African business as a role model for what can be done in many other businesses. So don't complain about the economy being [ preppy. ] Don't complain about government's incompetence and inability to provide electricity or water or all other things. Yes, our South African business manages that and still manages to grow admirably and make phenomenal returns. They're not coming off a low base. They're coming off a very high base. So they have done a great job. And hopefully, they continue to do that. I think that's all the questions we have. The one other point I do want to mention. Let me just see. No, there are no more questions. It's just this issue around technology. We're not a technology company. We're not a hyperscaler. We're not going to convert our warehouses into data centers. Although it's not a bad idea because they're already refrigerated and cool and whatever. So we could just put server racks in the racking and actually might make more money. David, maybe you want to consider that. We're not a tech business. However, we are harnessing tech and the benefits of AI and the benefits of other technology within our business. We're a very data-rich business. We do a lot of transactions with a lot of customers and any incremental improvement in technology and efficiency has a reasonably large impact on profitability. Now we're not going to double our profitability. But if you look at the number of telesales agents we have, for example, that's probably 10% of what we had 20 years ago in absolute numbers. But that's moved to a different way of dealing with customers now. The future of sales reps look very different going forward. We don't know what it looks like, but it will look different, and we're adapting to this all the time. And we're exploring new technologies around what we do, but it's not all in that branch. That's not we're going to change everything. We changed very few things at a time and see what type of benefit we get. We might do in one market, roll that out to other markets. So these technology issues are exceptionally important to us. We've opened this tech office in Amsterdam to further explore what opportunities are available. We've thrown lovely words out there like agentic commerce, which is real, that's real. Where is it going to go to? I don't know. Are we going to place orders for customers and doing that? I'm not sure, but we might, and we'll be ready for it if it does work or it is what the customer wants. And there's a combination of things that happen. So technology remains exceptionally important to us. We are spending not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but we're spending sufficient money to ensure we're on the right edge of technology. We're not spending money for money's sake, and we do understand that technology will play a role in not only maintaining margins, but helping us to enhance them slightly, but without getting totally confused and thinking we're a tech company. At the end of the day, we supply products, we supply real tangible products to real tangible customers. There are many companies who are trying to interpose themselves in the middle. But at the end of the day, they're not offering anything other than a data exchange between a customer who has a very real need for tangible stuff and us who has the real tangible stuff. And the challenge for us is to remain relevant and reliable and necessary for the customer to deal with directly. So I think that's all. Let me just check if anything more has gone through. We are done. Thanks, everybody. Apologies that we are a week or 2 late, but there were some reasons for that. The news is, as I say, I think it's a good news story. It's a positive story. And we remain excited about the future. Hopefully, diesel prices come down, that will have a direct impact. Hopefully, we have some good weather in the Northern Hemisphere, that will certainly have a good impact. And yes, we're just excited as to where the business is. So the balance sheet looks good. We're in a strong position. And thank you all, and thanks for your attendance. Okay, thank you. Good evening.

Thanks, Bernard.