Inchcape plc (INCH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us for our 2021 full year results. As usual, I'm joined by our CFO, Gijsbert de Zoeten, and our Head of Investor Relations, Raghav Gupta. We'll begin with a short presentation followed by your questions. Today's presentation will be available on the group website and a recording of this call will also be uploaded later today. We've set out the agenda on Slide 3. I'll begin by running through the year's highlights and headline financials before handing over to Gijsbert, who will cover the financial performance in more detail. At our Capital Markets Day in November, we provided a detailed overview of our Accelerate strategy. And therefore, the aim of my presentation today is to summarize the progress we have made during 2021 on our 2 growth pillars. The formal presentation will end with our usual looking ahead section and a reminder of the highly attractive investment proposition that is Inchcape. We'll then open the lines for your questions. So let's get started. On Slide 4, we have summarized the highlights of 2021. 2021 was a very good year for Inchcape. In spite of numerous challenges that impacted our markets around the world, we delivered a strong set of results. On behalf of the Board, I'd like to express our thanks to the 15,000 colleagues across the globe for all their efforts and ongoing dedication. The excellent work by our teams resulted in strong execution and we delivered positive growth across all regions. While supply constraints weighed on volumes, particularly in the second half, this was compensated by higher gross margins. During the year, we formally launched our Accelerate strategy. We focused on 2 huge growth opportunities. Growth of distribution remains at our core, and we are putting greater emphasis on capturing more of a vehicle's life cycle value. All of our teams have developed robust plans as to how they will help us drive greater share of both growth pillars. The future is exciting. While there are plenty of organic opportunities to grow our business, we are the leader in a highly fragmented global market. Over the past 12 months, we've continued to shift our portfolio towards Distribution. We have secured 5 new Distribution agreements, adding a number of new OEMs and markets and also further reduced our retail-only exposure. When I joined the business in the middle of 2020, I was excited about how Inchcape could make better use of technology. Since then, we have strengthened our capabilities and made focused investments, resulting in significant progress with both our digital and data agendas. We have continued to transform our digital footprint with the rollout of our omnichannel platform now live across 27 OEM markets. This was 18 when we presented to you at the Capital Market Day and 1 at the beginning of 2021. We've also scaled our analytics capability based on our digital delivery centers, which is making better use of data to drive smarter and more informed business decisions. Vehicle Lifecycle Services is our second growth pillar. There is significant profit opportunity beyond the first phase of a vehicle's life, and we identified this as a huge growth opportunity for the group. In Q4, we launched the first of our VLS businesses, bravoauto, our multi-brand digital-first used car platform. While still early days, the signs are encouraging. And finally, we formalized our ESG strategy, which we call Responsible Business. This is fundamental to the way we act and operate as a business across the globe and played a key role as we set out our strategy. It's been a busy year but a good year for Inchcape. This is also reflected in our financial performance. Slide 5 shows the 2021 headline KPIs. As you can see, the group's performance was strong across all metrics. Revenue was GBP 7.6 billion, which on an organic basis, represents an increase of 21%. Our operating margin came in at 4.3% compared to 2.4% in 2020 and 4% in 2019. The group's PBT for the period was GBP 296 million. This is a really pleasing result and highlights the swift recovery of both top line and profits back to 2019 levels, supported by strong operational execution and our actions to significantly reduce overhead costs. Free cash flow generation was GBP 289 million, which represents another year of excellent cash conversion of 88%. The group's EPS was 56.2p and based on our 40% payout ratio, this translates into a full year dividend of 22.5p. Let me now hand over to Gijsbert, who will run through the financial performance in more detail.

Thank you, Duncan, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with the headline income statement figures on Slide 7. Full year revenue of GBP 7.6 billion was split broadly evenly between the halves. The GBP 3.7 billion of second half revenue was 8% above the prior year on an organic basis. The slightly lower revenue compared to the first half reflects the loss contribution of disposed retail businesses and the impact of supply shortages. A combination of the improved top line performance, higher gross margins and overhead savings supported a significantly better operating margin of 4.3%, which is 30 basis points ahead of 2019. The improvement in operating profit flowed through to group PBT of GBP 296 million. On a comparable basis, adjusting for the impact of currency, which reflects the strengthening of the pound and the changes to our business portfolio, our profits are back to 2019 levels, a great result and a testament to the strong execution across our markets. On Slide 8, we provide a revenue bridge for the year from 2019. Group revenue in 2019 was GBP 9.4 billion. The revenue contribution from new Distribution businesses was GBP 300 million, while we have disposed GBP 1.4 billion of revenue from retail businesses. The strengthening of the British pound results in a currency headwind of GBP 500 million, so the GBP 7.6 billion of revenue generated in 2021 is therefore 3% below the underlying level of comparable 2019. This highlights the strength of the top line recovery that we've seen in the business, supported by our geographical diversification. Now moving to Slide 9. This slide shows the organic revenue trend for the group and for the distribution and retail businesses by comparing performance in the first half and the subsequent quarters versus 2019. Following 5 consecutive quarters of organic growth improvement compared to '19, performance in Q4 was held back by supply shortages as we had expected. While the impact from lower supply was more pronounced in the Retail division, the Distribution division was also affected. And while vehicle sales were weaker, both divisions experienced a relatively resilient aftersales performance. Let's now look at the segmental performance in more detail, starting with Distribution revenue trends by region on Slide 10. Here, we show a map which highlights our global distribution presence. Starting on the right with Asia, all markets delivered positive growth. Despite the year-on-year improvement, the Singapore vehicle license cycle and general softness in Hong Kong weighed on the performance of the region. Outside of those 2 markets, the rest of Asia shows an encouraging trend. In Australasia, the top line performance was supported by the launch of the new Subaru Outback, helping the brand gain market share. However, revenue in the second half was weighed down by supply shortages and strict COVID-related restrictions. Europe saw an uptick in demand across all markets with the region's revenue back above 2019 levels. We gained share in a number of markets, supported by some new model launches. The Americas and Africa saw the strongest year-on-year increase, and revenue in the region is also now higher than in 2019. In Americas, robust demand supported the bounce-back, while performance in Africa has continued to be solid. On Slide 11, we show the revenue and operating profit performance by region from 2019 to 2021. Distribution segment revenue came in at GBP 4.7 billion, up 22% on an organic basis. Operating profit was GBP 246 million with margins improving to 5.3%, up 160 basis points versus 2020. In Asia, margins improved year-on-year. However, relative to 2019, profitability remains low, given where we are in the volume cycle. We expect a gradual improvement of profitability from the second half of 2022. In Australasia, profit started to rebound in 2021, although this was held back by pandemic-related restrictions and supply shortages in the second half. Notwithstanding any further disruptions, we expect margins will continue to improve in 2022. In Europe, the rebound of profits towards '19 levels was a function of the strong top line and overhead savings. In the Americas and Africa, the operating margin of 7.3% was 80 basis points above the equivalent period in 2019, with a meaningful benefit from our cost restructuring efforts driving profits above '19 levels. While some markets are below 2019 levels, the group geographic diversification has continued to support its performance. We've also continued to add new businesses over the past 12 months, adding a total of GBP 200 million of revenue to the Distribution segment. Now moving to Retail on Slide 12. Retail revenue amounted to GBP 3 billion, and this includes some contribution from retail businesses that we have now disposed in Russia and the U.K. The step-down in absolute revenue since 2019 reflects significant pruning of our retail exposure. On an underlying basis, the business is broadly at '19 levels. The strong rebound of revenues masked the impact of prolonged lockdown in the U.K. in Q1 and the vehicle supply shortages. In terms of profitability, we saw an improvement in vehicle gross margins with robust pricing in light of supply/demand imbalance and also the positive impact from our cost restructuring efforts. The part of our Russian business we saw towards the end of the first half contributed around GBP 10 million to the '21 retail profits. This resulted in the delivery of a strong operating margin at 2.8%. As indicated at our Capital Markets Day, as and when the supply situation normalizes, we expect margins will trend towards circa 1.5%. Turning now to Slide 13 with a more detailed review of the income statement. We generated operating profit of GBP 328 million, a material increase compared to 2020. Our net interest expense fell to GBP 32 million as we carried less inventory and we benefited from lower interest rates. Exceptional charges amounted to GBP 101 million. The majority of the charge relates to the GBP 72 million loss on the disposal of our retail operations in Russia, where we realized GBP 110 million of accumulated foreign exchange losses upon disposal. We also booked GBP 13 million of restructuring costs as we concluded our cost restructuring program and an expense in relation to the amortization of software assets following the change in accounting standard. The underlying tax rate for the year was 24.2%, broadly in line with the underlying tax rate we expect in the medium term. Our EPS on a pre-exceptional basis was 56.2p. Now moving on to Slide 14 and cash. Cash generation was strong once again, reflective of the highly cash-generative nature of our business model and the continuing focus on cash flow management. As per the previous slide, the group generated operating profit of GBP 328 million and a combination of a net working capital inflow of GBP 44 million and a lower-than-expected net CapEx of GBP 40 million contributed to the strong free cash flow generation. Total free cash flow amounted to GBP 289 million, representing a cash conversion of 88%. Going forward, this business remains asset-light and while net CapEx was lower than normal in 2021, we expect it will continue to be less than 1% of sales. In terms of working capital, while the supply situation remains uncertain, we expect the inventory situation will normalize in time. This could be towards the end of this year or during 2023. Depending on the magnitude of working capital outflow, this could temporarily weigh on our free cash flow conversion range of 60% to 70%. During the year, we made dividend payments amounting to GBP 52 million, and this includes the 2020 dividend and the interim 2021 dividend. The disposal of a part of our retail business in Russia generated GBP 70 million of cash, which was partially absorbed by the consideration paid for the commercial vehicle business in Guam and Mercedes-Benz Guatemala. In light of the strong financial position at the interims, we launched GBP 100 million share buyback, which is now complete. As at the end of December, we had completed GBP 81 million of this. Excluding leases, we ended the period with net cash of GBP 379 million compared to GBP 266 million net cash at the end of 2020. This brings me to capital allocation on Slide 15. Inchcape is a very cash-generative business and has a track record of disciplined capital allocation over many years. You can expect the same level of rigor and prudence to continue. Our first priority is to invest in the business. Given our relatively asset-light model focused on the higher-growth Distribution segment and increasing focusing on digital, this tends not to be a large call on capital. The second priority is dividend. We've declared a full year dividend of 22.5p based on our policy of a 40% payout ratio of EPS. The final dividend of 16.1p will be paid in June. The third pillar is value-accretive M&A, which remains a key feature of our policy and Duncan will talk more about this shortly. Finally, after each of the previous 3 priorities have been considered, we consider the appropriateness of share buybacks. And we have, today, announced a new GBP 100 million share buyback to be completed over the next 12 months. Underpinning all of this is our view that the maximum leverage ratio that we would consider appropriate for the group is 1x EBITDA on a pre-IFRS 16 basis. Our operating margin in the second half was 4.6%. Now to sum up, benefit of higher gross margins owing to the business is extremely attractive financial characteristics, reflected in both high returns and cash generation. It also has very exciting growth prospects. In 2021, the group ROCE was 30%. Highly attractive returns is one of the many attributes of the Distribution business model. The Distribution segment accounts for a greater proportion of the group's capital and highlights our disciplined approach to capital allocation. Our free cash flow conversion in 2021 was 88%, another very strong year. Longer term, we remain comfortable with the free cash flow conversion range of between 60% and 70%, which is also highly attractive. Net cash was GBP 379 million at year-end, which gives us significant headroom for further acquisitions. And with that, let me hand back to Duncan.

Thank you, Gijsbert. Let's now move to an update on our strategic progress. I'm on Slide 18. As a reminder, this is our Accelerate strategic framework. It has 2 huge and exciting growth opportunities in Distribution Excellence and Vehicle Lifecycle Services. Both of these are supported by 3 key enablers: culture and capabilities, this is about people, relationships and innovation; digital, data and analytics, this is the key to our differentiation and growth; efficient scale operations, and this is all about leveraging our scale. If we can get these elements firing in the right way we have planned, all on a bedrock of responsible business, then I am confident that this strategy will deliver more customers, more markets, more OEMs and fundamentally, more value for shareholders. Let's move to Slide 19. Here, we show the size of the opportunity in 2 key growth drivers, and it's fair to say that the opportunity is enormous. On the left-hand side, you can see the total number of vehicles that are sold every year across the world. There are about 90 million. Of these, there are about 17 million vehicles sold in markets that are best suited to Inchcape, so a 17 million addressable market for Distribution Excellence, of which today, we have around a 1% share. That makes us the global leader. It also demonstrates that there is an enormous amount of headroom for growth. On the right-hand side, we break down the vehicle life cycle value. The initial user phase where Inchcape is very present accounts for 25% of the total profit pool for each vehicle's life. 75% of the profit turns up from year 4 onwards, and this is the segment that is currently underserved by Inchcape. This is the focus of the Vehicle Lifecycle Services growth driver. So 2 enormous opportunities that we are looking to take a greater share of. Let's now dive into Distribution Excellence on Slide 20. We have built a distribution platform that our OEMs can plug into to drive performance. The blue areas on the outside of the circle show all of the responsibilities we have as a distributor and part of the value we bring to our OEMs. The differentiated aspects of our distribution platform are shown in the nucleus of the diagram. It is differentiated because of our investments in digital customer experience, our data analytics capabilities, our global connected platform, which delivers efficiencies and, of course, brilliant people, brilliant entrepreneurs that drive results in each of our markets. So how does all of this give us an edge over our competition? We have 3 key competitive advantages. We are the global leading distributor with presence in over 40 markets across 6 continents. This scale gives us a unique insight and data set into the automotive distribution market. We have very long-term relationships with the OEM brands, and our focus on continually building our expertise and knowledge increases our attractiveness and relevance for OEMs. Our plug-and-play distribution platform is industry-leading with unique digital and data analytics capabilities. And this is seen as a key differentiator by OEMs and has been an important factor in recent contract wins. We started 2021 with the omnichannel or Digital Experience Platform, DXP, live with 1 OEM, Subaru in 1 market, Australia. We have since accelerated the rollout and it is now live in 27 OEM markets, covering 11 OEMs. As a reminder, the Digital Experience Platform is a fully functional digital showroom, which enables a seamless all-in-one digital buying journey from trading to financing quotes to the vehicle purchase. We have proven ability to quickly add OEMs into markets with a platform that provides a leading customer experience. In keeping with our ambition to drive efficiencies and leverage our scale, we have utilized our technological capabilities across multiple OEMs and markets. The combination of the speed of our rollout and the platform's capability is something we discuss regularly with our OEM partners. On to Slide 22 and the use of data analytics. Data is a unique asset, and during 2021, we have built significant internal capability, which is leveraging our data in driving smarter, faster and better business decisions. We have built out our analytics capability on our DAP or Data Analytics Platform, basing it out at our 2 digital delivery centers in Colombia and the Philippines, which is making better use of data to drive smarter and more informed business decisions. We are using machine learning to dynamically optimize the action we take based on what the customer is doing. This is all about driving an improvement in the experience for customers but also in the economics and efficiencies of these critical aspects of our operation. Fundamentally, we want to leverage our unique global data set for better customer and vehicle life cycle management. Moving to Slide 23. So bringing these elements together, it is clear that there is a huge opportunity for Inchcape to grow its distribution footprint. We have developed a highly differentiated plug-and-play distribution platform, which leverages our core competencies and capabilities and is driving tangible results of all important customer metrics. We are especially interested in the 3 metrics that we have shown here. Marketable customers increased 30%. We have seen sales conversion more than double in markets where we have deployed DXP. And importantly, our customer experience score has risen 21%. We are confident that with this level of performance, we can accelerate our growth and extend our leadership in global automotive distribution, and therefore, capture more of that 17 million addressable market, both organically and inorganically. On to Slide 24. M&A is a key pillar of our growth story, and the number of deals we have done has accelerated over the past 5 years. Over that period, we have added a total of 20 new distribution deals, GBP 1.3 billion of revenue, 9 new OEM brands and 13 new markets. This includes the activity we've seen over the past 12 months, which is summarized on Slide 25. In line with our focus on markets with high growth potential, we continue to further expand our distribution footprint, agreeing deals that will add aggregate annualized revenue of GBP 200 million. Some of these deals leverage our existing geographic footprint such as in Guam, where we have added several commercial vehicle partners, including Freightliner and Kohler. And in Chile, we have a long-standing presence with BMW and added Subaru in 2016. We agreed to start to distribute vehicles for Geely. We, in fact, signed a global strategic partnership with the leading Chinese brand, which start initially in Chile. In addition to leveraging our existing geographic footprint, we have entered into new markets, namely Barbados and neighboring Caribbean islands where we will shortly begin to distribute vehicles for Suzuki, Mercedes, Subaru and Chrysler, which is a new brand partner for us. We also expanded our footprint in Asia, entering Indonesia with JLR, an existing brand partner. And finally, Guatemala, where we distribute vehicles for Mercedes-Benz. One of the key factors that enabled us to secure some of these new brand partners is our digital and data analytics capabilities, which continues to be a differentiator and source of competitive advantage. I am pleased to say that we have a healthy M&A pipeline with several opportunities being actively pursued. Turning now to Slide 26 and our second growth driver, Vehicle Lifecycle Services. Inchcape has historically been predominantly focused on the initial user phase of a vehicle's life. In the subsequent phases, the profit opportunity is 3x as large as when the vehicle is brand new. We are making progress with the opportunities identified to capture more of a vehicle's life cycle value, where we believe there is significant untapped potential and is currently underserved by Inchcape. During 2021, we created our new multi-brand digital-first used car platform, bravoauto, which we initially launched in the U.K. and will begin to scale to other regions during 2022. There are a number of other initiatives which we mentioned at our Capital Markets Day, but it's too early to say any more about these at this stage. Let me reiterate, this is a huge opportunity with highly attractive and accretive economics. We will look to capture this in a methodical and prudent manner in keeping with the asset-light nature of the group's business model. Let's now move to Responsible Business on Slide 27. In 2021, we launched our ESG strategy or as we call it, Responsible Business. This was built by our teams right across the world in each of our markets. The strategy is focused around 4 pillars: planet, people, places and practices, each of which has a global work stream with participation from the regions. In terms of other milestones, during the year, we set a target to reduce CO2 for Scope 1 and 2 by 46% by 2030. The 2021 annual report, which will be published next month, will be aligned with TCFD guidelines. And during 2022, we will publish our plans for Scope 3 emissions. It is fair to say that we work responsibly with an aim to impact the world for the better to the benefit of all our stakeholders. So to sum up, 2021 has been a very good year for the group. The newly launched strategy was received with excitement by our teams across the globe. We have accelerated our portfolio shift towards distribution, with the addition of some fantastic new OEM partners in attractive markets. Our investments in digital and data are delivering results and being noticed by OEMs. And we've launched the first of our Vehicle Lifecycle Services businesses with bravoauto, and we'll make further progress in 2022. This business has a really exciting future ahead. Let's move on to the outlook slide on Page 29. The group's strong performance in 2021 was supported by robust consumer demand and high vehicle gross margins, particularly in retail, largely due to vehicle supply shortages. Looking ahead, our 2022 performance to date has seen a continuation of the trends experienced last year although there is ongoing uncertainty relating to vehicle supply and the impact of the pandemic. We expect the group to continue to make good progress with its strategic priorities in 2022. The strength of our business model and financial position means Inchcape is well placed to continue to grow profits and generate cash. And we are confident in the medium-term outlook set out at the Capital Markets Day in November, which we show on the following slide, along with our investment case. Inchcape is the leading global automotive distributor, combining our exposure to high-growth markets and diversified revenue streams. With our history of market outperformance, we expect to deliver strong organic growth. By leveraging our scale, operational improvements and a focus on higher-margin activities, we can drive margin expansion. The highly fragmented nature of distribution and our strong financial position also provide significant consolidation opportunities. In addition to the attractive growth prospects, the business is asset-light with excellent financial characteristics, high returns and cash conversion. Combined with a disciplined approach to capital allocation, we believe these should enable the group to maintain its long track record of delivering significant value through organic growth, consolidation and attractive shareholder returns. Thank you. Gijsbert and I will now happily take your questions.

Duncan, Gijsbert, thank you very much indeed. And as you say, we now turn to the Q&A. [Operator Instructions]

And the first question comes from Andrew Nussey.

A couple of questions from me, please. First of all, if we could just drill into Hong Kong and Singapore at the moment and what you're seeing there. I think specifically in terms of Hong Kong, opening up of borders and what that might mean for demand. And in terms of Singapore, any observations in terms of forthcoming permit cycle and whether that might deviate from what you might be expecting? And secondly, more strategically, in terms of the Geely relationship, how is that progressing and sort of specifically, the opportunities to take that into new territories, please?

Very good. Thank you, Andrew. So look, I'll take both of those. Thanks for the question. So let me cover Hong Kong first. I mean, clearly, what we're seeing in Hong Kong at the moment is they have a pretty much a zero-COVID policy. It's reducing mobility and we are seeing some impact from that in terms of walk-ins and aftersales. But rest assured, we are continuing to drive our Hong Kong business. They have DXP up and running, our Digital Experience Platform or omnichannel. We are doing a number of our analytics trials in Hong Kong also. They were the leader for our lead scoring algorithm, which is now deployed in over half of our markets. So we continue to work with our Hong Kong team. And I would tell you they are absolutely up for it. We are looking forward to the border opening, but frankly, no sign yet, but that will absolutely stimulate demand for this cross-border traffic and these luxury people carriers that are part of our portfolio. So we're looking forward to COVID leaving Hong Kong and it opening up. I would remind you that Hong Kong, for us, is pretty much at the low point of our performance over many years. So when it comes back, it will be a tailwind for the group. In terms of Singapore, the way you should think about it is that the second half of 2021 in terms of availability of COE certificates, that will be the pattern during 2021, so think 2x the second half of '21 is what we'll see, sorry, in 2022. And I stick by what I've said previously that over the next few years, we'll see low single-digit growth in terms of COE availability. With supply issues and others, don't expect that to necessarily be in a straight line. In terms of Geely, so just to remind everybody, we signed a global strategic partnership with Geely in the middle of last year. Geely is a very successful Chinese OEM, sells about 1.2 million vehicles per annum, the bulk of which are in China and everyone, I think, will know the relationship with Lotus, with LEBC but also with Volvo. The first market we started with them was in Chile. We launched then in January of this year. We were able to get them to market speedily because of our investment in DXP and DAP and, frankly, with some absolute rock stars that worked for us in Chile. So it launched in January. We're really pleased with performance so far. In fact, Gijsbert and I were there in the early part of December to see the launch preparations. We landed stock in Chile. It's gone down very well with our consumers and January, frankly, is ahead of expectations. Now in terms of other markets, I think I said in the middle of last year when we first said we had a relationship with Geely, so both of us would love to see how our relationship was working and our business performance was for both companies and also consumer experience with the launch of that -- of those vehicles. We have decided that we'd like to expand our relationship certainly on the Inchcape side as a result. And we are talking to Geely about expanding our business in -- further in Latin America. We're having discussions in Africa and Asia Pacific and 1 or 2 in Europe. So let's see how it progresses. I'm not in a position where I'm going to announce -- and I think what I would say we are both pleased with how the first few months have gone in Chile, and we have the confidence to talk further about where we might expand.

And the next question comes from Georgios Pilakoutas.

A follow-up on Asia. Second half margins were a little bit weaker there. If you could just talk a little bit around what the drivers are there. Historically, aftersales has helped insulate margins so is it just that volumes are particularly suppressed? Is there anything else going on there? And then Australia, could we just get an update on the transactional tailwind? And I guess kind of where we think margins recover to you there. Americas, the margin is very strong, in fact. And so just interested to hear why you think that was so much ahead of where it was. You mentioned cost cutting earlier in the presentation. So maybe add a little bit of color there. And then finally, you announced Caribbean acquisition in December, which -- I mean, very much looking forward to the Investor Day. But I was just hoping you could talk a little bit more about the story behind that deal, how it came about, conversations with OEMs, conversations with the sellers there, how multiples played out? Just kind of any kind of context, I guess, when we're looking forward for further acquisitions.

Very good. So look, as I took the first 2 questions from Andrew, I'm going to point the question on margins in Asia, Australasia and Americas to Gijsbert. And then I'll cover a little bit about our Caribbean acquisition.

Look, our Asia margins are fundamentally healthy and it's fair that the second half was a bit lower. I think Singapore in all of this is a big driver. And we had a better mix in vehicles in the first half in Singapore, with a lot of commercial vehicles and less commercial vehicles in the second half. But I wouldn't read any trend in that. So there's not more a big drop or change in margins generally. It's really, as Duncan said, the certificate cycle and the volume there that drives results. Margin in other parts of Asia were very, very good. We don't talk a lot about our smaller markets like Guam, Saipan, Brunei, but they really also helped results with healthy margins. I think Australia had a very good first half, both in volumes and in margin. But unfortunately, they were struck sort of twice really very stringent COVID and supply by Subaru was depressed. So we look at that holistically, as you know, and we are managing our transactional ForEx exposure in a different way than in the past. We have adapted pricing, adapted model mix. We have restructured costs in our business. We've changed the management. So fundamentally, we are on the way back to 2019 margins, and that is how to think about an improvement of those margins in 2022.

Sorry, can I have a follow-up on Australia?

Americas, as you say, very, very good margins. It is indeed a combination of cost restructuring, and we just -- they had a relatively bigger proportion of our COVID restructuring that we did in the middle of 2020 and completed by the beginning of 2021. But equally, the margin management in those markets is very good. And I think we were perhaps even more, and I should be careful in my wording, more, I was going to say, aggressive with our pricing in view of vehicle shortages than anywhere else. But this is just the -- our capability in emerging markets to -- in relation to margin management. But think about it as a very solid rebound in '21.

Very good. Thank you, Gijsbert. So on to the Caribbean, so we are pleased to announce that deal in December. The Simpson and ITC are distributors of principally, Suzuki and Mercedes, there are other brands, including Chrysler and Subaru. We -- the story, I think, Georgios is exactly the same. We have a target addressable market of 17 million vehicles despite the fact that we are the leading global automotive distribution company. We have just over 1% of that market. Post COVID, I think these independent companies are being asked more questions by their OEM partners as to how they're going to deliver a digital buying experience for consumers. That's where I think our investments in DXP, our omnichannel and Digital Analytics Platform are important to drive that. We are targeting acquisitions in each of our distribution regions, so Asia Pacific, in Europe and Africas and America. Sometimes, we're being approached. In this case, we approached this company and the owners to test their appetite to buy -- for us to buy. And frankly, I think when they could see the investments we were making, when we went through where we saw the future of automotive and mobility, it made the deal make a lot of sense. Now as Gijsbert often says, it takes three to tango and, in this case, of course, it took at least Suzuki and Mercedes and the target company and Inchcape to tango, and we tangoed during the latter half of 2021. So I'm really pleased we've landed the deal. They will move on to DXP and DAP as we serve those islands and suits our characteristics, low motorization rates. We believe we'll see motorization growth over time so we'll get good organic growth and frankly, a really, really good business that we're pleased to welcome into the Inchcape family. In terms of multiples, I think multiples in general are coming back to become much more reasonable. Gijsbert and I are committing not to overpay for acquisitions, and we were pleased to land this deal in that context. Gijsbert, I'm not sure if you want to add anything to that?

Yes.

I hope that answers the questions, George.

Thank you very much, Georgios. The next question comes from James Zaremba.

I had a question on how or kind of the Vehicle Lifecycle Services and maybe kind of Distribution Excellence tie up in a few years' time. I suppose I was sort of thinking, if it goes well, your profits could be 15% to 30% higher versus what you've done and certainly probably versus what an independent you might be buying is doing. So I mean, does that enable Gijsbert to kind of loosen his checkbook? And does that free up the amount of deals you can do? Or kind of, is that the right way to think about it or is it not quite that simple?

So James, let me make sure I understand the question. So you're saying the more units we drive through our Distribution Excellence and therefore, increasing cash flow, the more we might be able to continue to drive consolidation in the industry? Or are you thinking we pipelined Vehicle Lifecycle Services businesses?

I think it's more -- if Vehicle Lifecycle Services adds, let's say, GBP 50 million as a base but maybe more, then you're going to be more profitable because of it than in the past. This is something new which other people are doing. Therefore, now when you go to them, you can think, well, actually, if I buy this business, I can increase the profit by X percent. Therefore, actually, I can pay slightly more than I did in the past, and if you're paying slightly more, maybe a few more people are willing to sell.

Okay, good. I understand the question, James. I'll let Gijsbert make some comments in a moment. So look, we're buying based upon what we see value in the business from a Distribution Excellence perspective. We're not -- I do not see us raising what we would raise the multiple we pay for these businesses based upon businesses that they may work with or develop into the future. So we want to be very, very disciplined in that regard. If I make the general point, which is clearly, we have a strategy to grow our Distribution business, and it's closely coupled with the Vehicle Lifecycle Services. So when we buy a Distribution business, we'll have access to used stock in a country, and that used stock will help us seed our Vehicle Lifecycle Services, if you take bravoauto, for instance. But you shouldn't expect us to be wild in the way I think is behind your question about, would we be prepared to pay more for businesses based upon future revenue streams with VLS. Gijsbert, you want to?

Well, to add just to say that, I mean, every deal is different, obviously. So if you look at the Caribbean deal, there's not much of synergies there, right? I mean, we clearly hope to get an impact from our DXP platform. But if you think cost synergies, we're not present there so that's not a big factor. I can very well imagine that if you look at all our acquisitions, and indeed, we are, that, for instance, synergies more broadly can be very helpful, right? And in a way, the way I interpret your question is VLS synergies with Distribution Excellence also basis to pay more. The answer from Duncan, I would say that there are deals where synergies could be important and where our sort of plug-and-play setup more broadly with the digital distribution centers. And also, we have now in the middle of setting up global business services in finance. They all help for us to be better placed for M&A. And in terms of financial discipline, we stick to the main parameters that we work with.

I was just wondering whether it could be an accelerator because you've clearly got a very strong balance sheet, still a lack of firepower. It's more, I guess, a lack of willing sellers.

Yes, James, I don't think there's a lack of willing sellers. My discovery from being in the company versus my technology career prior to Inchcape is that it's just a bit more complicated in Inchcape because of the "it takes three to tango" mantra that we have. It's not just we agree a deal with the target and deal done. There's more work to do around our OEM partners to get them comfortable with the deal. They're very comfortable with Inchcape but comfortable with the deal. And that tends to mean that these things move slightly slower than you might see in other industries. But I stand by what I said during the presentation today. We have a good pipeline. There's 1,150 or so independent distribution companies in that 17 million vehicles that we speak about. So I don't think we have a shortage of opportunity. We want to do the right deals and that'd be good for the long term growth and health of Inchcape. And if I look at our pipeline, our pipeline is pretty good across the 3 regions, but we're going to be methodical step-by-step and land the right deals. And that deal we've done in the Caribbean or, for that matter, the deal we did in Guam in the second half for commercial vehicles are really good deals for Inchcape.

The next question comes from Akshat Kacker.

Akshat from JPMorgan. Three from my side, please. The first one on Americas and Africa. If you could remind us the key things that were driving the good profitability in the second half and how should we expect things to evolve going into 2022? The second one is on bravoauto. Can you just talk about the initial customer reaction and response in the U.K. market? And what are the key markets that you're launching in, in 2022, please? And the last one on cost inflation. Just on how are you planning to manage different elements like energy, labor inflation and higher freight, especially looking at vehicle margins where with the long lead times that we have on orders, I think, in some cases, 6 to 9 months, could there be a lag in passing these costs on to the consumer?

Welcome to the call. So Gijsbert, you okay to do 1 and 3 and I'll do 2? Do you want to kick off?

Yes. So on margins, so in Africa is, for us, largely Ethiopia and that is very much an aftersales business, which also explains the resilience of the business. And aftersales, as you know, has considerably higher margin than new vehicle sales, so that is inherently a more profitable business for us and we saw that equally in '21. Americas is indeed a combination of cost savings. It is the passing on of careful pricing management, as I referred -- as I referenced earlier. Very dynamic pricing being on top of that. And there's not much more to it. I mean, clearly, we come from a difficult place. If you think about Americas, we tend to forget this, but in Q4 2019, that region was severely impacted by political unrest in multiple countries. Then COVID on top. And I think the coming out of COVID, and let's say, when you look at '19 in comparison, explains why you now see a rebound and why we are significantly ahead of 2019. I think it's fundamentally a very strong business. We have a very strong business in Chile. We have a good business in Peru, a good business in Colombia. And we are now adding the Daimler business to it, have been adding the Daimler business to it across multiple continents. We have good business in Costa Rica and Panama. In many of those markets, we have leading positions and are gaining market share. So it's fundamentally a very healthy business. It's, for perspective, we had GBP 200 million in Latin America only a few years ago. We've got more than GBP 1 billion now so it is a very important market and it's done very well. I hope that's helpful, Akshat for you to understand by inflation. So in terms of inflation, let me first say it's a really important subject for us as well. Many of you know I have a background in FMCG. And clearly, the input costs in FMCG have risen with unprecedented levels, 2x, 3x, what-have-you. I'm not here to talk about them. But I think the sort of cost inflation overall that we see in our vehicle prices is much lower. I would say, at the moment, that can, of course, still change, but it's more like mid-single digit overall inflation, and that is taking into account the energy that you mentioned, the freight cost that you mentioned that at all sorts of spreads out. And we are an emerging market business fundamentally who know very well to manage pricing. And we have pricing power and can pass on those prices to our consumers, as indeed, we have been doing as referenced, for instance, in a LatAm situation that we just spoke about. So it is clearly an issue that we manage. In terms of lead times, generally speaking, we pass on price increases to our consumers. And so our contracts allow for that and that is what we do. So you shouldn't be worried about 6 to 9 months and then suddenly the car turning up with a much higher input cost. That's not the way the model works. We are able to pass that on to consumers. So that's why I believe -- we're watching it, right? Absolutely, clearly, but we're in a slightly different place than some other industries.

Thanks, Gijsbert. And actually, just one bit of as an anecdote for you to what we saw when we were in Chile in December, that our business there, we are reviewing the market just for price increases literally every 2 weeks. So please understand this company is used to managing inflation, and we are also used to managing price increases into the marketplace. So we are on top of this in our businesses around the world. In terms of your comments around bravoauto. So if I take a step back, we're excited about the profit streams that we see in the second, third, fourth life cycles of the vehicle. We have committed to increased used car volumes by 80,000 over the -- towards the end of our 5-year plan as set out at our Capital Markets Day. I absolutely stand by that, so completely into execution mode for us now, and we're going step by step. What have we seen in the launch in the U.K.? We've seen the business model proven out. So we said at the Capital Markets Day, nearly every consumer starts their journey online. We can see that as we're testing in our operations around the world, that is the case and it's the case in the U.K. And then the bulk of the people then, 69% of those end up coming into Inchcape's used omnichannel, bravoauto by an aggregator. And that is we are absolutely seeing that consistently across the world. So we think the business model proves out. Having good relationships with aggregators is important, and you won't see us spend a lot of money by any means building out the bravoauto brand. The way we're going to build that brand out is working with aggregators and delivering great consumer experience, which I think is leading practice in this area. So I'm pleased with the pilots. We'll roll out what you'll see us do this year is we will roll out more businesses in the U.K. We'll roll out businesses across our European operations, and we'll move into our APAC group during 2022. But step-by-step, we'd want to create a headwind to earnings. We want to prove out the business model. I mean, we know it absolutely works in a country, then we will expand. Don't forget also in our used car business, we have relationships with our OEM partners, where we also want to build out used volumes. We spoke this time last year about what we were doing in Greece. We're pleased with how that's played out. And that type of model also in conjunction with our OEM partners, we'll see more in Europe. And in fact, we opened 1 operation in Singapore in September of last year, and we're pleased with the performance of that also. But step by step, absolutely committed to the 80,000. Good reactions from consumers, business model being proven out.

And the final question has been submitted by Michael Allen. We note ongoing supply cuts to forecast for Toyota and Subaru. Where do you think we are in the downgrade cycle of this and which geographic areas are likely to get priority?

So look, thanks for the questions. Look, what I would say is we have 2 great partners in Toyota and Subaru. Right across the world, we've been working with -- we're now in our sixth decade of our relationship with Toyota, and we are really proud to have them as a brand partner. I won't comment on specifically about those 2, but what I would say is that all OEMs continue to have issues in terms of semiconductor supply. But it's not just semiconductor supply, there's also things like issues with COVID in their supply chains also, which are hampering production. In general, I stick by my comments that I've made previously and last time at the Capital Markets Day, that we will see slightly more volume coming into our markets during 2022 and that will be skewed more second half than first half. And whatever normal looks like in this new world, I don't think we'll approach normality in terms of vehicle supply well into 2023. And demand absolutely remains strong in each of our markets around the world, and we have -- we frankly have a really good order book. So we will continue, therefore, to execute as we had done in the -- in 2021 and what we have been doing, frankly, in the first part of 2022. We'll continue to deploy DXP and DAP so we give great consumer experience, which is really important in a time of low vehicle supply. We will continue to manage margins successfully as we did in the second half. And then we have our S&OP process in place. And you might say, "Duncan, why would you still be running sales and operation planning in a time of such short supply?" Well, we know at some point, supply will come back and we want to make sure we're absolutely on top of that. So I would say to sum up, all OEMs are having issues. The second half will be better than the first half. We expect a slight increase over 2021 and normality will not come back well into 2023. So I hope that answers the question for you, Mike.

Duncan, thank you very much indeed. That was, in fact, the final question so perhaps I could just hand back to you for a final word before we close.

Very good. Thank you very much, Bob, and thank you very much to everybody who's been on the call today. And for those of you who've asked questions and those of you who haven't, we're really pleased for you to be with us. And hopefully, over the next few weeks and months, we'll get to meet each other face-to-face. As ever, if you have any further questions, please grab Raghav. Thanks, and have a great day.