Ibstock plc (IBST) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So, good morning and welcome to the 2024 Half Year Results Presentation for Ibstock Plc. Look, as well as being a very difficult operating environment, it's also been a very exciting 6 months as our investments came through and future starts to become a reality. So let's start with a short video. [Presentation]

Great. So, turning to the agenda, after my initial overview, Chris will walk us through the financials and cover divisional performance, after which I'll provide a market update and talk about the actions we've taken to both navigate the current market conditions and ensure that we're ready to capitalize on the anticipated recovery. Having covered the outlook, Chris and I would be happy to answer your questions. So, turning first to that overview then. We've delivered a solid first half performance with adjusted EBITDA in line with our expectations and this has been delivered through an active management of cost combined with strong commercial execution. Our performance was delivered through the commitment and resolve of everyone at Ibstock and I'd like to pay tribute to all of our people for the way they've continued to execute very well in extremely tough market conditions. In addition to the necessary actions taken to respond to these conditions, we've also made progress with the investment projects that will underpin our future growth as the market recovers. The investment in our Aldridge factory is now complete, with the upgraded factory now delivering high quality, reliable and more efficient output. Our pathfinder factory at Atlas is in the advanced stages of commissioning, bringing our lowest carbon bricks and the first certified carbon neutral range to the UK marketplace. Alongside the continued investment in our core business, we remain committed to the development of our diversified position in UK construction markets through Ibstock futures and I'm pleased to say that the first phase of our brick slip investments, up in Nostell, is now on stream. We retain a robust balance sheet and anticipate that the business will deliver as the current organic investment cycle begins to roll-off. Our balance sheet continues to provide a source of resilience and the potential for investment and incremental shareholder returns over the years ahead. And although we remain cautious about the timing of recovery, the group is well positioned to respond to an increase in activity as conditions improve. With that, let me hand over to Chris to take us through the financials.

Thanks, Joe. And good morning. Turning to cover the financial summary, revenues of GBP 178 million represented a reduction of 20% on the prior-year period, reflecting both lower market demand and a disciplined approach to pricing. Adjusted EBITDA of GBP 38 million was 40% below the comparative period due to lower volumes as well as the impact of additional fixed cost carried during the period at inactive sites to preserve productive capacity for the market recovery. The prior period saw a GBP 10 million benefit from the absorption of fixed costs into finished goods inventories. The performance for the 2024 period presented here is before exceptional costs of GBP 3 million arising from the decommissioning activities and other costs associated with closed sites following our restructuring program undertaken at the end of the 2023 year. I reiterate the guidance provided in March that we expect to recognize total exceptional costs of GBP 5 million in this regard in the 2024 year as a whole. Adjusted earnings per share were 3.5p, down from 9p in the comparative period, reflecting lower pre-tax profits and an increase in the effective tax rate, following the increase in the headline UK rate. Our net debt increased as anticipated due to the seasonal increase in working capital and our continued investment in organic growth. On a reported basis, leverage closed at 2.0 times. The board has declared an interim dividend of 1.5p , set with reference to our capital allocation policy, which targets fully a cover of approximately 2 times underlying earnings through the cycle. Moving to revenue. We set out on this slide, group revenues compared to the comparative figures in 2023. Clay revenues reduced by 26% to GBP 119 million, principally due to lower sales volumes in the core business. In the current period, futures delivered revenues of GBP 4 million compared to around GBP 6 million in the prior-year period. Concrete revenues reduced by 4% to GBP 59 million, being a reduction of 12% on a like-for-like basis. Rail and infrastructure volumes were down by over 30% on the prior period as network rail transitioned to the next spend cycle, Control Period 7, with effect from the 1st April this year. New build residential product categories including flooring, walling stone, cast stone and roofing were down in line with the wider market. Our landscaping products performed more strongly, with volumes increasing slightly period on period as the Q1 selling season, driven by weather patterns, was more positive than the historic average. Turning now to cover divisional financial performance starting with Clay. The Clay division took a disciplined approach to pricing and saw volumes reduce by an amount greater than the domestic market. Average selling prices held up well, with a modest reduction compared to half 1 2023, offset by an equivalent reduction in unit variable costs. Fixed costs were well managed with a reduction in cost compared to the comparative, in excess of the run rate reduction targeted following our enterprise restructuring program undertaken in the 2023 year. We continue to make further progress in building our futures business, although activity levels reduced, reflecting the trend observed more broadly across construction markets. The futures business reported net cost of GBP 3 million compared to GBP 2 million in the comparative period, including continued investment in research and development into green energy solutions, calcined clay and other diversified growth opportunities. The core Clay business, excluding futures, delivered adjusted EBITDA margins above 30%, a resilient performance against a tough market backdrop. Turning to cover Concrete. As I said earlier, revenues in Concrete were relatively more resilient, benefiting from the broad exposure to UK construction markets. EBITDA reduced from GBP 11 million to around GBP 8 million, reflecting lower like-for-like sales volumes, the impact of product mix as rail and infrastructure reduced proportionately more than residential activity levels and a benefit of GBP 2 million in the prior-year period as fixed costs were absorbed into inventory. Our newly acquired Coltman business performed strongly with revenue of GBP 5 million, although EBITDA margins of around 5% in this business were impacted by certain one-off integration costs which are not expected to occur next year. The integration of Coltman into Ibstock group is progressing well and has added a high quality asset to the group's concrete footprint. Moving to cover cash flow. During the current period, the working capital increase of GBP 19 million principally reflected the typical seasonal build in the level of trade receivables. Inventories reduced modestly during the 6-month period as we tightly managed operational activity aligned to sales volumes across the factory network. Cash interest increased modestly on higher average net debt levels, although our GBP 100 million private placement continues to afford good protection against the current higher interest rate environment. Capital expenditure of GBP 24 million reduced from GBP 33 million in the comparative period as major project expenditure reduced as anticipated and sustaining capital continued to be tightly managed. Overall, adjusted free cash flow was an outflow of GBP 15 million for the first half compared to an outflow of GBP 22 million in the prior period. This figure excludes exceptional cash outflows of GBP 8 million in relation to the group's 2023 restructuring program. Moving to the balance sheet. Net debt increased by around GBP 37 million in the period to GBP 138 million, reflecting the continued investment in organic growth projects ahead of market recovery, along with the seasonal increase in working capital. As a reminder, the group has GBP 225 million of committed borrowing, comprising a GBP 100 million private placement and a GBP 125 million revolving credit facility. These borrowings contain leverage covenants of no greater than 3 times tested semi-annually. Based on the covenant definition, leverage at the 30th of June 2024 totaled 1.7 times. At the end of June 2024, the group had GBP 80 million of undrawn committed facilities. We expect cash flows in the second half of the year to be positive, with leverage on a reported basis, reducing by year-end from 2.0 times, closer to the top of the target range of 0.5 to 1.5 times. And given the inherently cash generative nature of our business, we would expect leverage to revert within our target range of 0.5 to 1.5 times thereafter. Before I hand back to Joe, I set out on this slide the moving parts of guidance for the 2024 year. On energy, we have good levels of cover for the balance of this year and our cover for 2025 is well over 40% of projected requirements. I would expect underlying depreciation to be around GBP 32 million this year, marginally below the guidance given at the start of the year, reflecting the timing of commissioning of major growth investments and good management of operating lease commitments. Guidance on interest, tax and cash flow remains in line with the positions I set out in March. Although, we now expect full-year 2024 market volumes to be down slightly year-on-year, this implies a modest step-up in our volumes sequentially from the first half. With that, let me pass back to Joe.

Thanks, Chris. So, firstly, let me offer a perspective of the recent change of government and the impact this could have on our key markets. So the issue of newbuild housing not keeping pace with household formations has been present for decades, but the problem has become much more acute over the last few years. I will set-out on the current data on the upcoming slides, but the level of activity in the housing sector during the first half of this year has reached a trough not seen since the global financial crisis. We welcome the steps being presented to deliver meaningful supply side reform to housing and in particular the focus on local targets, planning and affordable housing. Whilst I'm realistic about the impact this will have on build rates in the short-term, I expect this to form a more positive backdrop over the medium term. So let's turn to that current market. As I said a moment ago, the level of housing starts in H1 2024 totaled just 50,000. And although there were some technical factors which inflated the comparative, this represented a reduction of almost 50% from the prior year and this level of activity is similar to the COVID year and the global financial crisis. Housing completions were relatively more resilient, but reduced meaningfully period-on-period. Industry data published recently by the CPA projects a 9% fall for 2024, all private and public housing completions, followed by a recovery in 2025, back to around 2023 levels. Although the supply side reform being proposed by the new Labour government is positive, we believe this will take some time to feed through into sustainably higher construction activity, with planning backlogs needing to be worked through and developer supply chains needing to be remobilized. While the supply side outlook is improving, we also welcome other positive signs. Inflation has reduced significantly, more competitive mortgage products are starting to enter the market and we've now had a first cut in the base rate since March 2020. Within our sector, we also know an improving trend on lead indicators. Overall, while the pace of recovery is uncertain, the direction is clear. So turning to focus on the UK brick market. Overall brick market dispatches reduced by around 10% in the first half of 2024 versus the equivalent period last year, with imports within this number reducing by around 15%. Having rebuilt from historically low levels in 2023, industry inventories over the last 6 months have reduced modestly as production has been balanced to market demand. We said back in March that we expected the market in 2024 to be flat on 2023, with improvement in activity levels as the year progressed. And with demand in H1 having been around 10% below the prior year period, we now anticipate a modest reduction in full year 2024 overall brick market volumes versus 2023. But we know that, when the market comes back, it will come back relatively fast and the steps taken last year to rebuild inventory levels leave us well placed to serve customers and respond to increased activity as conditions improve. So against this subdued market backdrop, the business has been balancing the need to protect in-year performance with a focus on our strategic priorities to ensure that we're in the strongest possible position as markets return. Our unique factory footprint, clay reserves and product range has enabled us to rationalize production at older sites and flex output this year through a program of organic investment. Over the last few years, we've added high quality, lower cost, efficient and more sustainable capacity to our network, which will be in place and ready to support the market recovery. Chris talked earlier about our cost focus. And by empowering our divisional leadership teams to make responsible decisions to ensure the effective stewardship of our business, the cost base has been managed extremely well. Having rebuilt inventories to normalized levels during the 2023 year, we're well placed to support customers as market demand recovers and we continue to optimize our inventory position carefully to balance working capital with our customer needs. As market leaders holding our discipline on price and deliberately not pursuing volumes in the face of a more competitive backdrop in some parts of the market has helped us protect margins and underpin our performance. We continue to believe this approach will allow the group to achieve targeted levels of market volumes as conditions normalize. We've taken steps to upgrade and align our go-to-market activities with a unified brand and single core commercial team. And we've taken steps to strengthen both the core business and Ibstock futures as we continue to make progress in all areas of our operational strategy. Overall, through the actions we've taken, we've created a stronger, leaner and more customer centric business, ready to capitalize on opportunity as conditions improve. So, although Chris covered divisional performance earlier, I'd like to offer some further perspective on the performance we've delivered in this tough market. The structural changes we've made in our business over the last number of years have built a good level of resilience. The rationalization and investment I have just mentioned, combined with the approach to maintaining a premium value proposition, has supported our margins and cash flows to be able to reinvest and supply the market. And whilst our reported performance represents a level of profit a long way below where we were in 2022, it's helpful to view the current levels of performance against a historical context of similar trough levels of market activity. If we compare the other 2 low points in the cycle over the last 2 decades, the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID year of 2020, where industry volumes were about GBP 1.6 billion, we can see the levels of EBITDA were far below what we've achieved in the last 12 months. And I think this speaks to the way in which the quality of the business has evolved and how the Ibstock team have executed. As well as focus on execution to navigate through that near-term backdrop, we also continued to make some really good progress with the investments that will underpin our future growth. Our investment in new, low cost, efficient and more sustainable brick manufacturing capacity at our Atlas factory is now nearing completion with the factory in the advanced stages of commissioning. Atlas will produce the UK's first externally verified carbon neutral brick and, when operating at full capacity, will increase annual network capacity by around 100 million bricks to support the group's long-term growth objectives. The timing could not have been better. Work to upgrade the dryers and packaging equipment at the adjacent Aldridge factory was completed during the second half of 2023. And we've recently completed a significant upgrade to our Parkhouse factory in Stokes. Both investments are already delivering double digit energy savings and improved output above the investment cases. Once at full capacity, our upgraded clay factory network will be capable of operating at roughly double the levels of the output produced over the last 12 months. There's been continued progress in our diversified growth strategy as well. The commissioning of our new automated brick slips cutting line at Nostell is now almost complete and customer deliveries will commence shortly. The new line provides a significant domestic supply of brick slips to the UK market for the first time and will deliver up to 17 million slips per annum when operating at full capacity. Phase 2 of the slips investment, which is the construction of the automated brick slips systems factory, which will be capable of producing over 30 million slips is developing well. The factory remains on track to commission by the end of the 2025 year. We also made good progress with our initiatives to create value through decarbonization-led growth. Discussion with potential partners on the commercialization of our own clay reserves for the manufacture of calcine clay continued to progress. Our waste to energy trials concluded successfully and we are actively pursuing further development with meaningful hydrogen projects. Overall, I'm pleased with the progress we continue to make in this area of the strategic agenda. So, in summary, we now have in place a strong platform for growth as markets recover. We've made good progress in all areas of operational strategy and continues to inform how we drive focus and continuous improvement in our business. We've invested significant capital over the last few years and with this organic investment cycle now completing, we have a high quality, lower cost fleet, backed up by an unrivaled supply of clay reserves and assets. We have deep longstanding customer partnerships with an innovation and go-to-market capability through our One Ibstock brand that continues to bring solutions to an evolving market. We continue to demonstrate leadership for sustainability in our sector, with even greater focus and rigor in planning action across our enterprise. We're passionate about establishing culture as a point of real difference in Ibstock, with a commitment on developing all of our people that is central to the growth of our business. So if we pull all these elements together, we retain a strong conviction in the potential of our business set-out in the medium term targets. And whilst the current market conditions are weighing on financial performance, a return to market volume similar to 2022 will drive significant earnings growth with positive operational leverage, given the costs that we continue to carry in our business. And this will be balanced, enhanced further, with growth from our major capital investments in Atlas, Aldridge and brick slip systems. Simultaneously, having managed the balance sheet effectively through this period of market weakness during a period of significant organic investment, the strong cash generation profile of the business will provide additional scope for investment opportunities to accelerate performance as conditions improve. Okay, turning finally to the outlook. We're encouraged by signs of improvement in lead indicators, although we remain cautious about the extent to which this will translate into demand improvements in the second half. We expect adjusted EBITDA for the second half to be broadly in line with a comparative period in 2023. And we remain focused on taking action to respond to prevailing market conditions, balancing our stock levels with further investments in cost and capacity to match market demand. We're very supportive of the new government's focus on accelerating the delivery of new housing and infrastructure, which is expected to form a more positive backdrop for the sector in the years ahead. Our prospects remain strong, underpinned by a robust balance sheet, well invested business, and we're ready to respond as market conditions improve. And with that, Chris and I will be happy to take your questions.

As normal, for the record, I'd be grateful if you could state your name and institution when asking your question. And for those of you in the room, there's some nice microphones on your seats. You'll have to hold the button as you're asking the question.

Aynsley Lammin from Investec. Just 2 from me. Wondered if you could provide a bit more color around the revenue fall in Clay, just in terms of, obviously, volumes down much more than the market and the pricing side, just a bit more insight into kind of what was happening there. And then, for your full year guidance, the kind of flat EBITDA, you're saying the market volumes, you expect to be modestly lower now. What does that imply for your own volumes year-on-year for the full year? And are you worried a bit more about pricing still in the second half?

Chris, you can take the split between revenue and price mix and full year guidance.

Yes. So I think in terms of the revenue fall in Clay that you're talking about, Aynsley, roughly that reduction in core Clay, which was 26% half 1 on half 1, around 2/3 of that was volume and around 1/3 was average price. I think in terms of the experience on price, clearly, we took a very deliberate and disciplined approach to commercial execution in the market and, therefore, saw absolute levels of price being pretty solid during the course of the first half. Really, that sort of progression from an average price perspective was more a function of mix and the sort of relative skew in some of the channels that we saw relative to the comparative period. I think as you talk about sort of full-year guidance, what we've said is, now, look, coming into the year, we expected the FY '24 year, from an overall market perspective to be broadly flat with '23. Now, I think given the experience that we've had of the first 6 or 7 months, the first half was about minus 10%. I think the view now is that we expect the full year market to be modestly down against where it was in '23. So, if you assume that means somewhere in the region of mid-single-digit for the full year, that gives you a view that our contention is that, overall, the second half, from a market perspective is expected to be flat. And when you look at half 2 on half 2 we expect our volumes to reflect that as well. So that's the sort of view. I think as you look at a sequential progression, clearly, that means that we would expect to move forward modestly. And we said in the presentation, that would give us about an extra 5% or so on volume in the second half relative to the first half. And I would think about sort of price and mix being fairly consistent carried forward from half 1 to half 2. So if you were looking to sort of model the top line, our top line in the second half, I would expect that to be kind of circa 5% relative to where we were in the first half. Joe, you may want to say something on commercial.

Yes. I think, look, we'll continue to maintain that disciplined approach to pricing, especially as everyone is anticipating that the market is recovering. The conversations that we're having with our largest customers are much more focused on supply now, longer term supply and alignment around can we supply you and getting aligned with everyone as they prepare their build programs. So that's more of the focus now. At the back.

Rob Chantry, Berenberg. Thanks for the presentation. 3 questions from me. I guess, firstly, in Concrete, I guess a relatively good performance. You called out weak rail and infrastructure markets, down 30% year-on-year. Could you just remind us what proportion that is of the division and what is the expectation of a recovery in scale and timing into '25, given the kind of regulatory reviews. Secondly, on facades, I think when we spoke at the full year '23 results, you kind of talked about that as an interesting EBITDA play, want to grow it, wanted to grow the business to potentially GBP 100 million in time. Could you just kind of give an update on, I guess, where you are and how you see that and how your views are changing on that? And then thirdly, I guess much to Aynsley's question there just on volume recovery, Labour government has come out, going to take time for the kind of planning changes to feed through, some of the house builds are a bit more optimistic, but it's not looking and there's not a kind of immediate expectation of a demand recovery. So can you just kind of give us some ballpark, I guess, expectations and anecdotal evidence around timing of a volume recovery and what you're hearing from some of the big customers around their build programs heading into '25? Thank you.

So Chris, if you take the first one, I'll take the second.

Yes, sure. So, rail and infrastructure, we've actually put a sort of a product split of revenues in the presentation. You can see the sort of contribution of rail and infrastructure. Revenues in the first half within the Concrete division in respect of rail and infrastructure were around GBP 6 million, so a little bit over 10%. That has come down from between GBP 9 million and GBP 10 million in the comparative period. So that gives you a sense of the scale. The products that we supply into the rail category include cable troughing, platform copers and a number of other sort of concrete products that go into the new construction within the rail segment. Network rail operates with 5-year control periods. And the last control period, Control Period 6, came to a conclusion at the end of March in 2024. When you find that you step from one to the other, there tends to be a little bit of a pause for breath. We talked about this back in March, and then we see things ramping up again. So, actually, the position that we've got in rail is a very good one. We've moved the products forward, made them lighter to work with, reduced carbon from those products, and actually, they hold very strong market positions in that segment. This is really about the sort of reversion back to normal spend levels as Control Period 7 really starts to kick in. So that's the way I would think about rail and infrastructure.

Good. And, Rob, we are excited about facades. We see this as a real opportunity for more innovation and modern methods of construction, especially that mid-high rise section of the market. That part of the market has been equally as affected with economic factors and that's probably been compounded by regulatory issues like Building Safety Act, second staircase, that sort of stuff. Of course, in terms of our own business growth, we have a -- our slips is one of the mainstays of that growth, which is just starting to come online, so that will build significant revenue going forward. We've got other parts of that business, glass fiber reinforced concrete panels, where some of those businesses, some of that part of the business and contracts are sort of 18 months old and we're making sure that we're getting the right value for them. So in some cases, we've had to step away from some of those jobs to make sure we get the right value from it. But I'm excited about facades going forward. It's a really important part, but it's still a relatively nascent part of our business. In terms of volume recovery, look, I think all of the things that have been mentioned from the government are very positive. That's what a lot of those supply side reforms are, what people like the HPF have been asking for, planning, local plans, targets, resourcing and planning departments. There's also a demand side to this as well, though, and we've started to see some stability. People have been waiting for what the direction of travel is going to be with interest rate cuts and mortgage deals. I think you are going to start to see more people entering in now. We're seeing stability there and we're seeing a direction where you're getting -- Nationwide came out with 3.99% a few weeks ago. So I think people will start to move in. But as I said in my speech, it is going to take a bit of time for some of these things to unwind on the supply side. House builders have got to buy more land, get more sales out, re-mobilize their supply chains and planning is still going to have to take some time to unwind. Central cut for next year, probably, CPA was talking about roughly a 10% improvement and I think we'd agree with that. Could be faster and you might see some stocking up in different parts of the channel as people get ready. So it's still early days and there's a lot to come, but direction is really positive.

Maybe just to build on that. As Joe said in his sort of prepared remarks, we now expect next year to look more like a sort of plus 10%. When we sat here in March, we talked about plus 5%. But it's important to actually focus on the absolute numbers. If you look at sort of all housing completions for next year, when we sat here in March, we were talking about an expectation, CPA had about 175,000, that's moved forward to about 180,000. So you can see the absolute level of expectations for '25, nudging forward a little bit, which speaks to, I think, a slightly different sort of posture to what a 12 to 18 month market outlook looks like.

Good.

Ben Varrow from RBC. I'll take 3, please. Just thinking about growth CapEx now heading into '25, given that the bulk of the investments are done, is there a period of lower CapEx or are you looking at any new projects there? Second is on your customer inventory levels. Are you seeing -- any color on that would be helpful, whether there's a restocking cycle to come in there. And then the third is, as Atlas ramps up, how do you see your position to displace imports and how long do you think that will take?

I'll take the first one. So in terms of growth CapEx, our guidance for the year for total CapEx doesn't change. So we talked about an expectation of GBP 50 million all-in, including the sustaining envelope for this year. We did about GBP 24 million in the first half. So, clearly, we're on that sort of run rate. In terms of guidance for next year, really, the only substantive piece of CapEx that we'll have extending into '25 will be finishing off the automated slip systems factory and that's likely to be about GBP 10 million to GBP 15 million. If you add a sort of sensible view of the sustaining load of perhaps GBP 20 million, it gets you to somewhere in the region of GBP 30 million to GBP 35 million. So you can see the step down in capital between '24 and '25, and that will constitute the conclusion of the organic growth program. So there is nothing that is announced. It's in the pipeline. I would expect capital to be well-managed and the sustaining envelope to sort of trend down from GBP 20 million thereafter, given the fact that the network is well invested and clearly we'll be looking to generate a return from those assets as they start to become much more fully utilized into the recovery.

Yes. And in terms of customer inventory, look, I think there's been a sort of a flip from when the market was under-supplied. We've now got much more inventory on manufacturing sites and less in the channels. That's both job sites and at builders merchants yards. Builders merchants in particular have been managing their cash very carefully and, obviously, house builders have been waiting and not building and sitting on their cash without doing much. So we would expect that to increase, I think, steadily over time. How fast that goes will depend on that demand side and when the momentum that's happening. But it's pretty balanced at the moment. And people know they can call off the inventory. There's not a long lead time, so they're pretty confident they can get the stock. In terms of Atlas, Atlas will ramp up, of course, but as I said earlier on, we can double our capacity. And I think the market knows that. Imports have always been a part of the market, but the proportion of those imports will be aligned to what the market's doing. I think there's probably about GBP 2.2 billion manufacturing installed capacity in the UK now. If we're going to be building 300,000 houses, we'll still need some imports, but I think they'll be ramping up proportionally. Most of our customers talk to us and they say we want local products, guaranteed supply, no messing about with ForEx rates and uncertainty around supply. And they've also got very focused sustainability targets, so they want to cut down on those Scope 3 emissions as well. Gregor?

Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Maybe just coming back to the sorts of charts around the recovered EBITDA, I can't remember exactly which line it was, and the sort of return to 2.5 billion bricks. So can you just give us a sense with the new fleet, with the new cost effectiveness or cost position, rather, where would you be, where would your earnings for EBITDA be if, let's say, we go back to the volumes of 2 years ago, so 2.5 billion. That's question 1. Then perhaps related to that, I think you previously quantified how much your capacity is actually mothballed or so temporarily mothballed. Can you just give us an update where we are now in terms of your total capacity, how much is mothballed, how much will have to come back, I guess, and therefore sort of the fixed cost that will come back with that. And then the third question is, so you've been wearing sort of mid-single-digit losses in futures, some R&D and things like that. So the question is, is there a point when that concludes sort of those R&D costs? I guess you finished your research. And what's the ambition for that division as things stand today? How quickly can you go breakeven or what could be the earnings power, I guess, maybe 2, 3 years out?

Do you want to take the first 2 and I'll take the last 1.

Yes, sure. So in terms of the recovery, Gregor, I think the slide that we presented towards the end of Joe's section talks about the fact that, ultimately, we expect the brick market this year to be about GBP 1.6 billion. On a 2022 calendar year, it was GBP 2.5 billion. So you're looking at a level of demand reduction at a market level in excess of 35%, and that's reflected in the numbers that you can see. We have a conviction that as the market comes back to that sort of level, the group will be capable of reverting back to the level of profitability that we delivered in 2022, which was GBP 140 million of EBITDA. But we will also have 2 significant pieces of organic capital that will be capable of serving the market over and above that. The first one is the Atlas and Aldridge investment, which will deliver incrementally GBP 18 million on top of that. And the second one will be the investments that we're making in brick slip capacity. And that we expect to deliver incrementally of around GBP 12 million. So you can see, ultimately, if you ladder up those respective contributions, you're getting back to a level of profitability that's in line with the statements that we've made over the last 12 to 18 months around our conviction in the ability of the business to move forwards to that sort of level of profitability. When you look at the supply side, so Joe talked about a belief that we can roughly double the levels of output in our factories. If we just sort of step through the equation there, we're really anchoring that back to a sort of 2022 utilization rate, which had within that network perhaps 5% to 10% of available capacity. You can see that relative to that sort of base year, the market has been down by more than 35%. We've actually nudged inventories down in the first half of this year, meaning we're running a little bit behind market and you can see the market share that we've had as well. So clearly, we've got that to come back in to the fleet. And then, in net terms, the last piece of that step is the fact that Atlas and Aldridge will give us about an incremental 5% relative to the equivalent capacity that we retired back in the end of 2023. So that sits on top of it. So that's the sort of the 3 legs that give us that conviction. And you can see, therefore, that we're running at a little bit -- just in excess of 50% of the network that would have existed back in 2022. In terms of the level of fixed cost that will need to come back in, I think really the way to focus on that is to say, look, ultimately, we have an ambition through the cycle to make sure that core Clay business is generating EBITDA margins of at least 35%. And given the price point of some of that new capital that's coming in, we believe it should be possible to nudge up above that sort of 35%. So you can do the math, really. If you take that sort of last 12 months of top line in core Clay, roughly double that number and apply a 35% margin to it, you can see what the Clay business should be capable of doing over the medium-term as markets come back. And so that's the way I would think about the relationship between revenue and cost over the medium term.

Yes. And then futures, look, we've invested not just in the sort of the starting up of that business, but also the R&D associated with it. But I would hope that, next year, that will get to a breakeven point for sure. I think it's been well worthwhile investing in R&D, especially in some of these energy related decarbonization-led growth initiatives. We would expect -- and we've said this publicly to get with the slips investment, the other components and facade systems and then potentially some of the revenue from calcined clay and things like that, GBP 100 million of revenue in 3 to 4 years' time. So, that's pretty chunky. There might be some puts and takes, especially with things like calcined clay, because we haven't finalized the investment strategy exactly yet, but we're pretty excited about the initiatives in this space, both for facades and decarbonization-led growth.

It's Charlie Campbell at Stifel here. Just 2 questions, and they're both really around price. What should we be thinking about the right industry level of inventory is for prices to start to go back up again? Is that the right way of looking at life? And if so, if you could give us some help on that, that'd be really helpful. And then secondly, house building industry consolidation, clearly, 2 mergers might get the go ahead tomorrow. Both of those mergers are promising some quite big synergies. So, just in the context of a consolidating house building industry, how should we be thinking about pricing as well?

I'll take both of those, Chris, and you can add anything if you want. So I don't necessarily think -- again, we've been disciplined with price and inventory levels have been a little bit higher than they have in the last sort of 5 years. So I think price isn't necessarily directly correlated to inventory. I think we have a real principled approach to look at input costs and inflation and talking to our customers around maintaining our margins to be able to reinvest in the business. So that's our approach to pricing. I think there are certain actors in the market that may have taken some opportunities, but inventory levels are fairly healthy now, 3 months. So, I think there is some correlation at the margins when people are a bit more competitive. But our focus is really that discipline and that principled approach to moving the business forward, maintaining margins and talking to our customers about inflation-led price increases. So that's what I'd say there. I think house builders consolidation will continue. It's interesting because there has been some consolidation and 1 of our biggest customers now has been Vistry, has consolidated significantly. And, actually, we've got a much better longer term strategic partnership with them customers because we now cross-sell a whole host of different categories of our offering into Vistry and we have more of a strategic plan. So we're working with some of our other customers on similar sort of things. So yes, I think that -- we look to more longer term strategic partnerships to be able to supply them because they're getting bigger and they need us and we need them. Okay. One more here and then we'll go to the...

Harry Dow from Redburn Atlantic. Just a couple of questions. I think in the statement, you talk about savings sort of running in excess of the GBP 20 million, is that more of a phasing sort of comment around just in the first half, it sort of came through quicker or is it potentially more than GBP 20 million we should be thinking about for the full year? In terms of the sort of fixed cost side as well, how is going into 2025, ex sort of any impact from volumes as capacity sort of comes online and commissions a bit more, should we expect some more fixed costs may be coming-in in 2025 from Atlas and others? And that's it.

Happy to take them. So, yes, I think -- yes, look, when we came into the year, we said, look, we've undertaken a fundamental review of the business, we have restructured the business. We took a decision to close 2 brick factories and our expectation was that we'd run at a level of activity that would constitute a sort of a run rate reduction of GBP 20 million. You can see from a volume perspective, the out-turn has been a little bit below where our expectations would have been, we talked about that. And actually, therefore, in the way that Joe talked about it, the challenge to the business was to say, look, how can we manage fixed costs directly in proportion to that level of reduced activity. And so, we were able to do a number of things elsewhere across the fleet. A good example is flexing down, for example, the number of shifts that you're operating in certain factories. Obviously, you look at things like repairs and maintenance spend within the fixed cost envelope and you're looking to make sensible economies in that sort of regard. We also, in instances where you've got open head count, taken decisions not to recruit into those sorts of positions and there is always a degree of choice that you have around some of those discretionary indirect costs. So all of those sorts of things constituted further savings over and above that annualized run rate. Where did we get to? We didn't get to 2 times that number, but we made very significant further progress and you can see that really reflected in the bottom line margin of the core Clay business, which remained above 30%. So I think that's the way I would sort of characterize it. I think it's really, really important to point out that those actions were taken in a way that didn't harm the ability of the business to come back up because it was absolutely central to the execution through the first 6 months that we retained productive capacity and were able to come back into the recovering market as it comes back. So I think that's really, really important. We've got good levels of inventory. So, the question around 2025 and how should we think about that, look, actually, we've got decent levels of inventory to serve customers if we get that sort of recovery coming through a little bit more quickly, and that will be an important part of the operating plan going forward. But when I sat here in March, I said, look, because we're carrying some level of fixed cost in the business over and above that which we absolutely have to, to execute the year, we'll find a relatively attractive drop-through on that first sort of portion of volume that comes back in, which is likely to be kind of 45% or so as we think about it moving forward. So that's the sort of equation that I think about coming back. We will need to add some of that cost back in, where, example, we have open head count or we need to ramp shift structures back up again. Some of that will need to come back in. But I think the point is that, given the operational leverage, it'll be pretty efficient as volumes start to flow back into the business next year.

Great. I think there are questions on the line. No questions on the line. Any question from the web? No. And you've all been very nice to be here today instead of being on holidays. So, look, thanks very much, everyone. It's been really challenging. Everyone knows that. But we've done -- I think the way we've managed this was to really give credit to the team managing the cost, managing to maintain our levels of value proposition and pricing into the market and all the investments we make, we're in really good position for when this market recovers. And it is going to recover. It's going to be a very exciting market soon. So thanks very much and we're happy to have a little chat afterwards.