Frontier Digital Ventures Limited (FDV) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Frontier Digital Ventures Half Year Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Shaun Di Gregorio, Founder and CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to another FDV call. This is our half year results that were released to the market this morning. As many of you who might follow us would know, we released our quarterly also back in July, so most of the financial data are in the market today. We hope to use this as an opportunity to talk a little bit more about our operational update, our strategy update and what's happening moreover in the markets. It's also worth noting that we actually were listed on the ASX on August 26, I think, in 2016. So this serves as our fourth anniversary of being a listed company. It's been quite a journey, and we'd like to thank those who are on the call who may have been shareholders throughout that period, who've been very supportive of FDV over that 4 years, and we look forward to the next 4 years as well. So getting into the document, I'm going to walk through these first couple of sections. There are 4 sections: One deals with our bit of an operational update, another references our strategy. In section 3, there are the results that, as I've mentioned, most of which are in the market already. Section 4, we've provided an appendix with a bit more information about each of the operating companies that are in our portfolio. At the moment, given the state of the world, we're very much of the view that more information is better than less. So we've tried to give our readers as much information as possible as we can plausibly put into one of these documents. And hopefully, that gives people a good sense into where we're at. As the host mentioned, there's certainly time for Q&A toward the end of the presentation. So in terms of our operational update, which is section 1, some highlights. I'm going to walk through the slides, so I'm going to move on to Slide #4, which is -- just looks at our profitability. So when we look at the half year, one goal that we've had certainly through our existence was, on the one hand, to really send a clear message to the market about what we're doing and how we're doing it and be very consistent in delivering on that commitment. And I think in the half year to June, we maintained our trajectory and our progress toward profitability. So I mean this was really achieved back in March when we looked at very clear signs that COVID was approaching, and you've got 1 of 2 choices: you can act swiftly or you can bury your head in the sand. We are very cognizant of what had happened in Hong Kong with SARS, what really happened in Wuhan through December and January into February. So we work really closely with our partners at addressing the cost base. We knew that with lockdowns that typically revenue starts to ebb away, but we were really effective in being able to work with our partners at a local level and identify that there was going to be a bit of a choppy few months. And the best thing you can do is to look at your cost base and really just prepare yourself for a probably few months and the uncertainty that brought -- that came with that. One important thing that we've noted over the last number of months in the first half was if you get in and you recognize the environment around you and you make quick decisions and you make them fast and you apply them quickly to your business, you then really allow yourself to focus on what you can achieve versus what you can't achieve in lockdowns and things like COVID. So for us, we're making really fast decisions early. That enable our operators, our businesses to really focus on how they can extend their brand positioning through COVID, how they can improve their market leadership and more particularly, how they can innovate their product set. So over the last couple of months, we've seen an extraordinary amount of innovation occur, particularly in digital businesses. That more so, when you look at our portfolio, there's been an awful lot of innovation that's occurred in terms of bringing consumers through the journey and helping them transact houses and cars and other items on online platforms. So that's been a real feature over the last number of months. And also the market leadership of businesses through COVID, if you're a market leader in this period, you're going to come out of this period an even stronger market leader. So we've seen a real flight to safety. But the sum of that is we were able to continue to deliver on the signaling that we've provided to the market around our trajectory toward profitability. And we think that, that was a real feature of our management over the last number of months. So you can read the EBITDA numbers yourself. Pleasingly, what we've seen, and I'm just going to go over the page now on to Slide 5 is some real clear signs of the recovery now. So we always had a view that we would get through that now and we'd see economic activity return, lockdowns being released, and if you've done the hard work through March, April and May, you position yourself really well about now to make the most of the recovery. And we've seen some pretty stunning returns to commercial activity in our markets. And that's being evidenced by revenue in the back half of June and certainly July starting to bounce back really strongly. And that's been right across the portfolio. So our view is always, do the tough work in March and April, reduce your cost base, which should endure post-COVID, and that was evidenced in the EBITDA performance of the portfolio. And then as economic activity returns, as the lockdowns are released, you can position yourself really, really well to accelerate your revenue. And we saw that in July. So our plan that we've set out a number of months ago is proving to be pretty, pretty astute in what we thought would occur. And we're starting to see the revenue recovery, which has been certainly terrific in July. In terms of right across the board, Pakistan is a really important market for us, and we've seen some significant improvement in June and July in that market as well over and into the lockdown a bit later in that particular region, but they've certainly come out of it with a real bounce over the last 6 weeks. And all of the indicators we look toward support those businesses really improving in the second half. As I mentioned, a big feature of the last number of months, we've taken the opportunity to look at your cost base and look at things like your marketing and the employment costs and really determining whether they were fully optimized. And you had to be declared able to do that. We were able to do that with all of our partners. And consequently, we actually had Q2 in our business at a "sum of the parts" level, there's a bit -- with an improved EBITDA performance from Q1. So we think we've really used the COVID period studiously by focusing on analyzing our costs, by really spending some time on innovating around our product set so that people prefer a more digital experience, they're really well set from an IT and innovation perspective. And obviously, that allows us to sort of bounce out of this period with really strong revenue rebounding and maintaining profitability, which we think has been a real -- a bonus, if you like, of the last little while. I'd also point to the fact that I think the last number of months has been somewhat fortuitous in validating our strategy around our business model, and our business model has probably 2 key features to it. One is that it's obviously digitizing the process by which people buy houses and cars. I think what's been clear is that there's been an acceleration in a preference for digital platforms around purchases and expect that to continue. We always had a view that people would prefer digital platforms to buy houses and cars. But we think that, that's been accelerated by COVID, and innovation that happens now in the market around digitizing purchases is really important. And secondly, just our structure of investing in these businesses with local partners, where we were able to act really quickly. And we think that, that's been a feature of our model as well. So for all of the doom and gloom in COVID, we actually saw it as an opportunity. We saw it as an opportunity to reflect on our cost base. We saw it as an opportunity to innovate. We saw it as an opportunity to really consolidate market leadership. And to go over to Slide 6, you'll see that this is just the sum of the traffic to our sites right across our network. And you can see that in March and April, consumers in a lockdown stopped searching for houses and cars. What we've seen in June and it's accelerated in July is that there's actually more people in the month of July using our network of sites than there was before COVID. It's actually the highest traffic numbers we've had. So we've not only seen a rebound in consumers coming to our network of sites to look at buying houses and cars and other goods, we've actually seen an increased number in the month of July, and that's continued in August. There are more people than ever now wanting to access digital platforms to look at buying houses and cars. And when we went into COVID, if you go back to February, the first thing to disappear when the restrictions came in was consumers going to the website, which meant you had fewer leads, which meant you had less commercial activity. That's rebounded really strongly. And it's not just in a few markets. If you go over the page on to Slide 7, I think all but a couple of the businesses now have more traffic than they had pre-COVID. So this has been a really interesting evolution in the model where we've always prophesied that not only are these businesses online classified business, but they've morphed into marketplaces, and they're now becoming full transaction centers. So it wasn't that long ago the consumers would go to one of our sites and just look at an ad and click and go. Then, of course, the marketplace has opened up, where consumers could do so much more. And then, of course, we've seen this push towards consumers wanting to do the whole transaction via these digital platforms. And interestingly post-COVID, that's accelerated. So innovation and consumer preference that we thought would probably take a couple of years had been accelerated into a couple of months. So as we come out of this, so I think digital-based businesses are really well positioned. I think digital businesses promoting the transaction of houses and cars have actually had the future come toward them at quite a rapid rate, thanks to the change in people's preferences. If you go over to Slide 8, just to give you a sense of how the regions are recovering. Obviously, different countries have had different lockdowns and different strategies and -- but most of which are now reducing restrictions, and that's when economic activity returns. So just to have a bit of a flavor of them, I'm not going to go through this in detail, but what we have seen is all of the markets now have returned to commercial activity. The best predicator, the best indicator of that is the data on the previous slide, which is about consumers. And as we see consumers return, we're seeing more traffic than ever coming to these websites, which means that the post-COVID world is going to suit this kind of business really nicely. So it's all about now accelerating into that opportunity in the back half of this year and obviously into next year. Just moving on to the next slide, which is #9. If you wanted to kind of think about what's the silver lining out of this? How do you make the most of this situation? And maybe aside from people in Victoria, I think most of the rest of the markets we're in, certainly, are now accelerating out of the restrictions. We've really been able to achieve a few things in the last number of months with -- I think our reputation globally has been enhanced by the performance of our portfolio, by the strategies we took back in March and April to reduce costs and really focus on consolidating market leadership, really focus on the innovation that you can achieve through that period and being able to accelerate out of the period with a really solid balance sheet, with a really solid EBITDA perspective. Most businesses over the last 6 months have had revenue reductions, that have seen their EBITDA numbers blow out. We've managed to mitigate that. And I think that, that's been a real feature of our model, which is being able to have strategic oversight into our operating companies and then the local management teams being able to execute really quickly. We have seen this flight to safety around brands, particularly in emerging markets. In emerging markets, these markets -- these online classified brands have always been a trusted intermediatory, and that's been accelerated through this period as well. So we've got ourselves in a position where we're coming out of this in a real position of strength. I think there -- in a post-COVID world, I think there are 2 types of companies: all the companies that have used the period to their advantage and made the most of it and are now emerging out of COVID in a real position of strength, where they've got good access to capital, they can improve their market positions, they've got strong balance sheets. And I think we're very much in that category. I think there's a group of companies that come out of COVID with a really brittle business, whether that's a poor balance sheet or really heavy EBITDA losses or poor market positions. It's where you don't want to be. And I can assure you that we've been very focused on making sure that we're in the former category of companies that can now really look optimistically at the next 6 to 18 months and how they can grow their businesses, consolidate their market positions. And I think we've got ourselves in a really strong position to do that. I think our model has been validated. It's proven to be extremely resilient. And that's given us a really strong foundation for what we consider to be a really exciting and opportunistic 6 to 18 months ahead of us. So when we look forward, and I can tell you, if you spoke to people back in March and April, it was a pretty different world. But when they look forward now, they're probably more optimistic than they've been in a long time. Ironically, they're probably more active, and I've just gone over to Slide 10. I get to read my own quote, which is kind of weird, but we're more optimistic about the opportunities that are out in the market. We've managed to do a deal with OLX over the last number of months, which has really enhanced our reputation with companies of that size and that [ vehicle ] around the world. And we look forward to the next 6 to 18 months. We think that the lessons out of the last number of months have been really valuable. And if you've used the period well, you can just go back to that underlying EBIT, which is just the long-term focus on shareholder value that we've always promoted in our business, and we'll continue to do so. And that's always been at the center of everything we do. And we think that we've got ourselves in a really strong position to continue to deliver on that commitment to our shareholders, which is always about creating long-term value in all the decisions that we make. Just moving on to Slide 11. Just quickly to recap some of the activity that's been going on in our business in the first half. There's been monetization events in Vietnam, where we exited Propzy. We've had a number of increased shareholdings in our portfolio. So we continue to look at opportunities to buy more of the companies in our portfolio that are performing well. And that's something that is -- are constant. We will continue to look at our portfolio and try to improve our positions in the companies that we think have really good long-term value. We've expanded into a couple more markets by the deal we did with OLX in Central America. So we now basically cover from the border of Mexico down to the border of Colombia. So that part of the world is now under the Encuentra24 banner. And we've also managed to strengthen our balance sheet over the last 6 months, albeit modestly. It's certainly strengthening our balance sheet with a new suite of investors in North America is really important to us. We think that, that investor market can be really important to helping us grow over the next number of years, and we've spent time in cultivating some really wonderful relationships in North America that we think will underpin a lot of our growth in the future and deliver, as we've been able to do, a really strong balance sheet for us. So it's been an extremely busy 6 months as everyone would appreciate. We've been more active in the last 6 months, I think, than we've ever been. And we just have some really exciting stuff on the horizon. Just quickly, and I'm conscious of time is we'll just dig through the strategy section just to remind people of how we operate. On Slide 13, you can see that our business model has been really consistent. Our ability to work with our local partners in helping them plan and run their businesses. And of course, as those businesses in our portfolio grow and mature and become more robust, we'll attempt to buy more of them, and then you end up with businesses that are pretty well self-sufficient and market leaders. And that's where we've pushed a lot of our portfolio over the last sort of 12 to 18 months. So we think that the model we pioneered back in 2014, which was a bit unique at the time, has really delivered for us over the last 6 months, particularly in this very flexible model. We were able to adapt really quickly with the model we have. And we think that, that's delivered a real competitive advantage. And that's certainly been really relevant, certainly over the last 6 months, and we think it positions us well. If you flick over to 14, it just gives you a bit of a sense of some of the things we focus on, on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, which will go back to building growth businesses, delivering scale. That scale, obviously then allows you to generate revenue and improve your EBITDA performance. And out of that, we want to deliver long-term shareholder value. And we think that there's an awful lot of upside, not just in the markets we're in. We think that there's obviously upside in the markets we're in and markets that are adjacent to the markets we're in. But we're also seeing a heck of a lot of opportunity come out of this. There's a lot of operators and businesses out there that are a bit stressed at the moment. And if you can get yourself into a position such as ours, where you've got strong balance sheet, got a good solid EBITDA base, you've got market leaders, you've got good support, we think that there's certainly opportunities for growth. And we'll do that already prepared with a really good balance sheet. Over in 15, there's probably just a little bit of information if people are catching up to our story or a bit new to the story. We have 3 fundamental regions that we focus on. I don't expect us to be moving out of those regions anytime soon. So there are 3 regions that we continue to look at. And you'll see that there are the types of businesses that we invested in and where they are, it's been pretty consistent over the length of our story. If you go over then on to Page 16, just a bit of background, again, perhaps for those that might be newer to the story than some others, this gives you a bit of a background about who I am and what we've done in the past. And another slide further on, just a bit of a corporate view about our register and details of our Board. So beyond that is actually detail of the results. I'd certainly encourage everyone to go and have a look. We've provided an awful lot of detail. In the appendix, you can see we've broken out each business and looked at its revenue and EBITDA performance over the last number of years. We've also given you on a business-by-business basis just a look at their traffic trends. And the traffic that you're seeing when you go into those slides, that's all direct and organic traffic. So that is free traffic to your website. None of that is paid traffic. We've gone back to the free traffic that you get, the direct traffic, the organic traffic that's through search. And if you look into each of those businesses, you'll see a very consistent trend whereby traffic slowed in February into March into April. You then saw the revenue impact in April, May and June, and then you've seen a very consistent recovery, firstly, by traffic in July and into August. And then we've obviously seen that present itself as revenue in July. So pretty consistent pattern across markets we're in. Traffic dies, revenue falls away, you cut your costs, you prepare to accelerate out of COVID. And we're now accelerating out of COVID with more consumers than ever returning to our website. And obviously, July revenues were significantly up on the average of the preceding 3 months. So that's FDV over the last little while. I will now hand back to the operator, who will, I think, now open the call to questions from anyone that's wanting to get any clarity or detail on anything we've covered this morning. Obviously, our full year results, our audited results are also released to the market this morning. So people can comb through those if they want to dive into specifics around the financials or any other notice, but obviously, happy to take questions now on anything we've covered this morning.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Anthony Porto from Morgans Financial.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Yes. Excellent. Just quickly, so you mentioned OLX and the working relationship with your now partner, which I mean -- so meaning then E24. Just your -- obviously, you're on a focus to break even or to get these businesses showing leverage. Just are they on a similar path just -- or are they more prepared, I guess, to reinvest back in the businesses and play the real long game, given the difference in portfolio -- representation of portfolio? For you guys, obviously it's meaning E24, a majority of your portfolio versus not much for OLX. So that was the first question. And then, I guess the other, balance sheet's looking pretty good, close to $21 million pro forma cash. Should we be thinking of new geographies, verticals within the geography? Or should we be thinking of potentially buying more stakes in what you already own?

Yes. So just to answer the question on OLX. I can give you my opinion on OLX. I can't obviously quote their strategy. It's for them to answer. But certainly, they're in it for the long haul. They -- if you look at the landscape of large classified, global classifieds, conglomerates is the closest thing you could describe them, but they are absolutely in it for the long haul. So certainly prepared to invest. I think there is a page there that they're also a commercial concern and they're listed. And they want businesses, of course, ultimately to be profitable, but they have -- they do understand that there's a balance. And I think in anything that, Anthony, there's balance there where you absolutely want to invest for the long haul. But you do have to run businesses for profit. And I think that, that's something that will be increasingly important to them, just from their perspective over the journey. But they've invested in a lot of -- a number of emerging markets now, and they understand how they work. But they, like us, like our operators, want businesses to make money, and that's where you can really crystallize value for shareholders. So I think it's early days also in our relationship with OLX. And to be honest, they're there. They kind of -- just want to say that the management team get on and run the business. To answer your second question, we do have a good balance sheet, which is great. And we're very -- if you look back at our history, we really -- we spend money like it's our own if that makes sense. We're very careful on that front. The natural thing to do when running these businesses is to consolidate the markets you're in, number one. Number two, you might then look at adjacencies. And what I mean adjacencies that can either be different types of businesses in the markets you're in, that's less common, or maybe that the geography right beside you that makes sense to move into. I mean Infocasas who are in LatAm. So they're based out of Uruguay. Over the years, they went into Paraguay and in Bolivia and more recently, they've moved into Peru, but they've done it on a real light touch. And if you look at their traffic performance, they're now growing faster than anyone else in that market. So there's ways and means of going into new markets. Certainly, if there is a compelling opportunity that came our way and it was in a market where we're already in, where we thought it could consolidate our position or it was in an adjacent geography that's easy to do. You're probably not going to see us go into a random geography with a new business outside of the regions that we've mentioned and outside of the types of businesses that we know really well. So we're keeping -- you like to keep your options open, but you just got to -- you've got to do the smart thing, and that's consolidating where you are or moving progressively into geographies that are very close to you. That's generally the easiest path.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Adam Hunter from Bell Potter Securities.

Another good result there. I get that the -- as the audience levels drop, so do revenues, which is what we saw in a few of these previous months. With the audience levels back up above where they were pre-COVID, does that make it easier for you now to monetize in some of your countries? And can we -- are you expecting an increase in these growth rates now as a result? That they've actually gone back above the pre-COVID levels.

Yes. It's a really interesting question because, number one, this is unchartered territory largely, isn't it? We can reflect on what happened in SARS in Hong Kong and Wuhan. There's probably not a bucket load of compelling evidence to tell you what will happen. But what we can say is that innovation around buying houses and cars on the Internet was probably something that is spoken about. It's happening. And a lot of the innovation was probably some things we expected to see over the next couple of years. What we've seen in the last 3 to 4 months is that innovation rapidly until today, and it's been accelerated. So we've seen the preparedness of consumers to go 95% of the process of buying a car online, which pre-COVID might have been closer to 50%, half of the process. So we're seeing that accelerate, number one. Number two, we've seen if you're a market leader and you've got a really strong brand, you're probably going to come out of this as an even more dominant market leader and an even stronger brand because of this flight to safety around consumer choice. So those 2 dynamics are really fascinating. And then you add to that this rapid recovery in people going to the Internet, going to digital platforms, houses and cars. And then you add to that, revenue in July bounced back up following the lockdowns being released. Probably the sixty-four-dollar question is what's the trajectory of that over the next 6 to 18 months? And if you add all of that up, you kind of go, well, yes, I think that this model accelerates. It's very difficult to know because it's uncharted, but all of the evidence would suggest that more consumers have more rapidly gone down the digital path. Their platforms were down that path anyway. That's been accelerated from an innovation and product offering perspective. And all of the early signs as what the potential out of this are really positive. I'd be reserved in suggesting that it will -- you can monetize even more than you thought before. I think you can, but it's something that we'll have a much clearer view of toward the end of this year. But we've been really encouraged and almost like pleasantly surprised at the pace at which consumers have returned to use these platforms to look at houses and cars. We thought it would take a bit longer. It's happened faster. And so we'll see what the rest of the year looks like. I just think one thing it does, Adam, is it further color -- it further confirms that buying houses and cars online was something that we've spoken about some people did, some portals offered. The reality is that, that's just been accelerated and brought forward. So we think that there'll be opportunity out of that. And the other thing to keep in mind is that a lot of businesses got really stressed through this period. So you sort of come out the other end as we are now with less competition but with -- there's less -- there's going to be less players in each of these markets. It's not going to be an environment where you can launch a business, burn a bit of money and someone will throw you a check to keep it going. That's just going away. The strong businesses survive, and the strong will thrive. So there's been a real reduction in activity by those that were perhaps #3 or #4 in the market. So fascinating set of circumstances, and one that we think just by a bit of good luck and a bit of good management sort of plays to what we've been doing anyway. And we hope we can make the most of it.

Yes. Right. Have you seen any exposure in online shopping as well, like we have in Australia with 10 play live stream [indiscernible] and all that. Has that gone through the roof also?

Yes. So I mean, I can't comment more generally on e-commerce, but certainly, it's increased. I mean that's just the fact of -- that's just a function of factors in that -- where people have turned to online more than they had before. And as I said, the indicator for us has just been the volume of people going back to the websites really quickly. And keep in mind, when we went through March and April, one of the things we trimmed was marketing because, one, it was kind of pointless if people weren't looking at your site; but two, it's a -- marketing, when you're spending marketing dollars online, it's a bit like a drug. Websites get on the drug, and they're very -- they can't get off it, and they keep spending. And finally when you've had an opportunity like this to strip back a lot of that page marketing, just go back to the organic and the direct traffic coming to your site. And sometimes, Adam, if you actually reduce the marketing spend that it allows more organic results to come up on search engines and more direct traffic to go to your site anyway. So we just found that it's been a really interesting period to see through. A lot of the assumptions that were in -- how you get people to your website, which is you've really got to spend on marketing, but it just seems terrific, increasing in direct and organic traffic back to -- and higher than pre-COVID levels. I mean if you'd ask me will I be sitting here in August saying that we've more people looking at the sites now than there was pre-COVID, I probably wouldn't have believed you. So it's been a real dynamic shift really quickly in these markets.

Yes. It actually leads on to my next question. I'll be quick, so I can let someone else have a go. But the cost reductions you touched on quite a few times, is that all related to -- and also the organic growth in visits to your site, is that contributing to a big part of your cost reductions, the fact that you're not spending marketing dollars and SEO money and all that sort of stuff? Or is it a reduction in staffing levels or...

It's a bit of everything. I mean it's probably a reduction in marketing. And it's a bit of a reduction in looking at your staff costs in each of these businesses. And on emerging markets, a lot of companies will solve problems with people, and you sort of add people to do things. And what it enabled us to do on a country-by-country basis is look and say, well, are all of the people you've got in the business fully deployed, number one? And they all really -- are all -- are you getting a return on what you're spending? And inevitably, the answer was no, right? But when things are going along nicely, no one really compelled to ask those tough questions. It's only when the opportunity presented itself where you could ask those tough questions because contextually, they made sense to ask. Where a review of it, you know what, they're probably not fully deployed with all the SEO duties and they're probably not all busy. And guess what? I think we can do more with probably less. And it was an opportunity to test that thesis. And in most cases, they proved true. And in marketing, the same. We kind of said, well, when you look at your marketing spend and you pare it back to what you're getting and you measure it against leads and inception times and transactions, is it really optimized? And inevitably, the answer is probably no. So we were able to go through those exercises and really become more efficient. Now some of those costs were inevitably returned, but never to the extent that they were before. The delta from your revenue to your OpEx should always be greater now because you've actually had a chance to really look into it. So it's a mixture of a bit of employment, bit of marketing, bit of other. But moreover, it was about are you as efficient as you could possibly be and if you're seeing an opportunity to become more efficient.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from [ Roger Coleman ], a private investor.

Shaun, a couple of quick questions around -- in respect of the presentation. For each of the companies, could you give us an idea in the future of cash balances, and the desired cash balances to expense ratio to conservatism? And that way, we can follow the buildup in cash and then the spillover into your parent company expenses, so we can calculate when dilution's an issue for the overall company.

Yes, the best if -- I can't obviously answer that in detail on this call but what it is, is that...

You just said -- well, a slight look at the future.

Yes. So if you look at Slide 20, you'll see just the EBITDA performance, which is not a bad proxy for cash, right, so if you want to think about businesses being profitable and the trend in your cash balance and then the ratio of your revenue, for example, to that cash balance. So say, for example, Infocasas, they might want to have a cash balance of USD 500, which is 3 months -- 2 months' revenue, whatever the number might be. So they might say, we want a cash balance of 3 months' revenue as a cushion and then anything above that would either be invested in some way in growing that business, perhaps in a new geography or in product set or remitted back by way of dividends to shareholders. The largest one is difficult to say. Yes?

Just moving on the next question, could we have average currencies for the half year and quarterly reporting because some businesses, like -- the Pakistan businesses had to overcome a 60% depreciation in local -- in U.S. dollar terms. So we have got a reporting that is somewhat misleading to the real activity that's going in on underneath. So I wonder if we just have the currency exchange rates you're using on a half year or a quarterly basis please.

Yes, we can look at putting a table into that effect, so you can get a look-through into the local currency. And it's fair to say that the business has probably performed better over the last 6 months in local currencies than they did when they go through the exchange...

Yes. It's obviously in Pakistan.

[indiscernible]

Yes. Just moving on to the next -- just one last question. In terms of post-COVID or pre-COVID, you've obviously got a worldwide-dispersed operation, very small head office. I've seen small companies like [ Enero ] having a 3-year CEO, while -- worn ragged by doing calls, overseas trips and the activities here. How are you going to manage yourself personally, the strategies of trying to run something across 3 continents with your small overhead?

Well, I think our models have always been about cultivating self-sufficiency. When -- we spoke a lot about -- if you go back to our investor relations in the last half of last year, thematically, we spoke a lot about businesses and their self-sufficiency, and that was measured by the capital needs, i.e., can they get to breakeven? And do they have the cash they need to grow? And number two is about the development of their local management team. So we never had a view that we would live in departure lounges forever and trying to go in and parachute -- literally parachute in almost and have certainly got -- the only way is to help them develop their own capacity to manage the business efficiently, and they get there with a bit of scale. They get there when their revenues tick over a certain number. They get there when they're market leaders. And if you look at our businesses, they've all now developed their local management teams to the extent where they're far more self-sufficient than they've ever been logically, right? So the work that we do with our portfolio now is more pointed at their strategy rather than execution on the ground. We've spent the last 3, 4 years talking to them about operational aspects and helping them and being there. We're really more focused on how do they deliver scale in their markets. Have they got their strategy right to do so? Have they got their product set? So there's not a -- coincidently enough, we've been able to manage our portfolio quite efficiently over the last 4 to 5 months based on the fact that we've had access to things like Zoom and others. So we're not terribly worried about that. I mean Nirvana for us is that we own more and more of these businesses, maybe 100%, and they're really able to operate under their own steam, both on a capital needs basis and on a management basis. And that's our aspiration, and that's what we're driving towards. So we're hopefully going to travel, certainly in the last few months, not much of at all. But less is more in that context.

Right. I've got one last question relating to one, the less competition coming out of this COVID. Does that mean there's less opportunity because these ones that survive feel very expensive now, and the ones that have sort of faded away and now they're gone?

I would say the ones that have faded away were probably not the ones you're going to buy anyway, so that's sort of still -- that would have been a function of time anyway, but I think it just goes to the idea that COVID has accelerated so many aspects of what we do to today that might have taken a year or 2, whether that's product innovation, whether that's market leadership improving, whether that's competitors falling away. I just think it's brought forward a record rate of instances, aspects of -- and what we expected to happen over the next couple of years.

Right. Right. And just on the share price chart, that's not your fault.

Oh, thank you, I think.

That does conclude our question-and-answer session at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Di Gregorio for closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone, for dialing in. I hope that this was useful. And again, our fourth anniversary, so thanks to those that have been on many of these calls over the last 4 years. We hope to have you on these calls for the next 4 years and for years after that. Just a recap. I think we've worked really hard over the last 4 to 5 months in getting ourselves into a really good position by way of our business model, our balance sheet and our rise in performance of our portfolio. So we're really excited about the next 6 to 18 months and what's possible. And we look forward to coming back to the market as regularly as we have and continue to update people on what's happening with our business. So thanks again to everyone, and we'll talk to you soon.

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.