IVE Group Limited (IGL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the IVE Group FY '23 financial results webinar. My name is [ Paul Sanger ], and I'm your host for today. On the call today, we have Executive Chairman, Geoff Selig; CEO, Matt Aitken; and CFO, Darren Dunkley. The format today is a 20- to 30-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. [Operator Instructions]. Without further ado, I'd like to hand over to Executive Chairman, Geoff Selig, to start the presentation. Geoff, are you there?

Yes, yes, I'm, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for making the time to join us this morning. As you said in the introduction, I'm joined this morning by our CEO, Matt Aitken and CFO, Darren Dunkley. We'll be dividing up the presentation for the course of the morning. Just a couple of introductory remarks. It is our second year, post COVID a little bit FY '22 was still to some extent COVID impacted. FY '23 for us was a significant year for the business on a range of fronts, particularly the acquisition out of administration of the selected assets of our only major competitor in the largest segment in which we operate, which is web offset printing. It's also important to note that we have delivered a result, albeit slightly adjusted for some interest movements a result in line with our guidance of $41 million NPAT. Matt and Darren will walk through this in detail just shortly. And that result is notwithstanding throughout FY '23, a number of the headwinds that the businesses had to experience, which we'll also refer to through the course of the presentation. So to that extent, from our perspective, a very solid full year result. One, we're very pleased with and one that positions us well along with our balance sheet, which we'll touch on later for the period ahead. Also, in the context of the last 2 years, we've now delivered 2 years of consecutive growth post the unprecedented volatility of COVID. If you look at revenue, last year we were up 15.6% over F '21. This year, we are up 27.5% on that again. EBITDA, we're up 13.3% over F '21 last year, and we're up another 23.1% this year. And similarly, for NPAT, 66.1%, up last year and another 19.8% up this year. EPS, 71.1% up on last year and then further 14.5% up in FY '23 and then finishing up with the dividend, we were 18% up last year over FY '21 and a further 9.1% up on the dividend over FY '22. So the metrics for FY '23 or FY '22 are strong and certainly in the context of 2 consecutive years post COVID as shown a very solid bounce back of the business and more over the last 2 years. We'll talk more shortly around margin, cash flow and net debt. At this point, I'll hand over to our CEO, Matt, to take us from Page 5.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Geoff. So if we just -- I'll take Page 5, the P&L on Page 5 as read, and I will make some points to discussions when they get on to Page 6. But I just want to point out that you'll see a smattering of FIFA Women's World Cup images throughout today's presentation. We've had a very busy few months producing a lot of signage for FIFA for the Women's World Cup, and we also were the licensee for merchandise for the FIFA Women's World Cup. And so we had a busy time, and you'll see the fruits of some of that work as you go through today's presentation. So just turning over to Page 6. As Geoff mentioned, revenue has increased $208 million to $967.4 million, up 27.5% over PCP. In organic growth, revenue growth for the year was $161 million, of which around $136 million of that was from the Ovato acquisition and organic revenue growth was just over 6% or in dollar terms, almost $47 million of new revenue. This reflects strong new business momentum ongoing cross-selling and continued high levels of client retention in the business. And revenue growth whilst broad-based was particularly strong across both our brand activations and 3PL logistics businesses. In terms of margin, we want to take the opportunity to provide some more color on material gross margin given the revenue movements and change in our work mix over recent years. Material gross profit margin was 45.1%, down from 46.6% PCP. Although MGM decreased relevant to PCP, it's important to note, excluding Ovato, the group's MGM EBITDA and NPAT margins will remain stable. The group's consolidated MGM reflects differing MGMs across the various business divisions and has continued to change as the business has evolved and broadened this offering over the past decade. The primary driver of the reduction in MGM over PCP was the onboarding of the Ovato revenue at a lower MGM. And I would also note that the Ovato MGM was very low due to the lack of price increases passed on to its customer base prior to entering administration. Whilst Ovato revenue, like IVE's existing web offset print revenue, generates a lower MGM than the Group's other divisions, the Ovato revenue did contribute incremental EBITDA and NPAT and is expected to generate an uplift in the Group's EBITDA and NPAT margins once operating synergies are fully captured post completion of integration. Timing differences associated with the passing on of increased input costs to clients also contributed to the reduced MGM, however, we are now starting to see the easing or some signs of easing of input costs and the rise that we've seen in recent years. As you turn to Page 7 of our presentation, we've provided some of this information in the past, however, we thought it was timely to provide an update on the strength and diversity of the IVE customer base. With almost 3,000 customers, the average tenure of our top 20 clients is greater than 10 years, reflecting strong, stable, long-term client relationships. And from a share of wallet perspective, IVE provided more than one product or service to 76% of all clients illustrating the strength of our cross-selling ability once a customer has onboarded into our business. But perhaps the other way to look at that chart, which is on the bottom left of the presentation is to also consider the significant opportunities that remain to cross-sell even more products and services to our existing clients, and this remains a key area of focus. As we turn to Page 8, EBITDA increased 23.1% to $119 million from $96.6 million PCP. Excluding the $11 million that we estimate from the Ovato contribution, underlying EBITDA growth was 11.8%. EBIT increased 30.4% to $71.2 million, and the underlying EBIT growth was 19.4%, when we exclude Ovato. Net finance costs were $13.3 million compared to $7.1 million PCP, reflecting the higher net debt and the significantly higher interest rates we have been exposed to. NPAT increased 19.8% to $39.7 million from $33.1 million PCP. Excluding the $4 million that we estimate for Ovato, underlying NPAT growth was almost 8%, and EPS was $0.264 representing a 14.5% uplift from $0.231 PCP. Darren will cover more detail in relation to the nonoperating items, balance sheet, cash and cash flow in the next section of the presentation. And as such, I'll now hand over to him.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everybody. So continuing on Page 8, nonoperating items. As previously foreshadowed, FY '23 has been a year of heavy lifting, primarily due to the acquisition and integration of Ovato, as well as the replatform and go-live of Lasoo increasing our nonoperating items. Our total nonoperating items of $33.5 million pretax excluded from the underlying earnings are as follows: $22.2 million relating to the Ovato acquisition and integration, comprising of $16 million of integration costs, $2.7 million of acquisition costs, $6.2 million of asset impairment and loss on disposal. This was partly set by $2.7 million refund on purchase consideration for administrators of Ovato, $11.3 million, excluding Ovato comprising of $4.1 million of integration costs pertaining to the completion of our Victorian site consolidation and relocation of New South Wales distribution to Erskine Park, $0.3 million of acquisition costs, $1.4 million of Software-as-a-Service, still in development and implementation phase, $5.7 million of costs relating to Lasoo's consumer go-to-market campaign and team build-out and $0.2 million of profit on sale of fixed assets. As per our outlook statement, which we will touch on shortly, restructuring and acquisition costs will be significantly lower in FY '24 to that of FY '23. If you just turn now to Page 9, balance sheet. Our balance sheet remains strong with the increase in net debt primarily reflecting ongoing growth in Ovato acquisition, including the funding of significant additional inventory and integration costs. Net debt increased to $124.2 million at 30 June '23, up from $76.8 million at 30 June '22, primarily reflecting the Ovato transaction, including the funding of additional working capital and associated integration costs. In October 22, the group undertook a well-supported institutional share placement and retail share purchase plan, issuing a combined total of 8.587 million shares at $2.25 each, which raised $18.6 million net of related transaction costs. Proceeds from the share issue and a $30 million drawdown of the group's loan facility were primarily used to finance the Ovato acquisition and working capital increase as well as the Lasoo transformation costs. On the 31st of May, 2023, IVE finalized expanded banking facilities, including a $30 million increase in existing working capital facility and the establishment of a $40 million acquisition facility. Net debt to equity was 64.2% at 30 June '23, up from 41.1% PCP. Net debt at 1.4x pre-AASB 16 EBITDA or 1.1x post-AASB 16 EBITDA remains below target of 1.5x. It should be noted that the increase in our banking facilities will enable us with the bandwidth to support future growth, which Geoff will touch on in the outlook section of the presentation. Turning to Page 10, capital expenditure. Our operational asset base remains in excellent condition. Following a period of meaningful investment with FY '23 capital expenditure flat on FY '22, excluding Ovato and Lasoo. Capital expenditure, excluding Ovato, was $14.9 million for the year, consistent with guidance provided at H1 FY '23 result. Major capital expenditure undertaken during the year included outlays associated with the completion of the Victorian Braeside consolidation, fit-out of the new Erskine Park, New South Wales logistics site, the digital print fleet upgrade in New South Wales and the completion of the Lasoo e-commerce platform rebuild. FY '24 capital expenditure is expected to be $14 million, excluding Ovato, which is expected to be $4.5 million. Cash flow and dividends on Page 11. Operating cash conversion of 65.7% to EBITDA compared to 94.9% PCP. Operating cash conversion was impacted by a significant increase in working capital, reflecting higher activity levels, a targeted increase in inventory associated with the Ovato transaction. Improved supply chain stability should facilitate a gradual reduction in working capital, primarily paper during second half calendar 2024. It should be noted FY '24 operating cash conversion will improve due to no large increases in working capital requirements expected in the period, reflecting the strong uplift in underlying earnings per share, the Board declared a fully franked final dividend of $0.085 per share, up 6.3% from $0.08 per share in PCP, resulting in a full year dividend of $0.18 per share up 9.1% from $0.165 per share, representing a payout ratio of 69%. The group's dividend policy remains unchanged, targeting a full year payout ratio of 65% to 75% of underlying NPAT. Underlying return on funds employed -- improved to 24.7%, up from 21.3% in PCP, while underlying return on equity improved to 21.1%, up from 18.5% in PCP. I will now hand you back to Matt to walk you through the business update section of the presentation.

Thanks, Darren. So just wanting to touch on a couple of business updates before we get into the strategic initiatives. So as you know, we acquired selected assets of Ovato in September 2022, September last year, and the integration of Ovato revenue into our manufacturing footprint is generating meaningful synergies from leveraging our operating assets and cost base, notwithstanding significant remaining costs Ovato's Warwick Farm site as we progressively wind down and exit that operation. The acquisition is now expected to deliver slightly reduced financial metrics including revenue of around $145 million, EBITDA of around $25 million and NPAT of around $13 million and we'll touch more on the revenue and the outlook and guidance section of today's presentation. As such, we've also made the decision to expedite the final stage of the integration. And I just want to provide on Page 14, an update for you on where the integration is at. So all major customers and retained staff have successfully transitioned across the IVE. The expanded business continues to perform well, meeting all customer expectations with all core business functions integrated under one leadership structure. During the year, equipment from Ovato sites in Brisbane and Melbourne has been either relocated or sold. And in May, we closed both IVE and Ovato's Western Australian printing operations. A significant number of production assets from Ovato's largest site at Warwick Farm in Sydney continue to be progressively integrated into IVE's sites. And the integration of Ovato assets into IVE's production facilities is now expected to be completed by March 2024, 3 months ahead of the previously advised timetable. Notwithstanding the revised integration timetable will result in reduced operational risk and accelerate the synergy emergence. The incremental financial impact in FY '24 will still be modest with the full integration synergies unable to be realized until the end of FY '24 when significant Warwick Farm site costs are exited, primarily the rent and final production efficiencies are captured. And you can see at the bottom of Page 14, the key remaining integration milestones. I'd also like to acknowledge a significant work done by the management team in the business or in that part of the business over the last 12 months to manage what has been a large and long integration program and to get it to this point. As we move to Page 15 and provide an update on Lasoo. Again, following the successful launch of Lasoo in October last year, the platform continues to show strong consecutive month-on-month growth across all relevant metrics. We measure a wide range of financial metrics, including unique monthly users, conversion rates, average basket size, growth transaction values and commission rates and all of those are tracking in accordance with or above our expectations. Activity levels remained strong with more than 126 fully integrated retailers on the platform compared with only 28 live prior launch, and we have a healthy pipeline of retailers to join over the coming months. A number of significant retailers unique to Lasoo who joined the platform during the second half of FY '23, and they include Lincraft, Barbeques Galore and Direct Chemist Outlet, and consistent with guidance, Lasoo contributed an after-tax loss of $4 million for 8 months of trading-only, primarily reflecting costs associated with the consumer go-to-market campaign and team buildout costs. The group is encouraged by the progress and growth of Lasoo since its launch in late 2022 and we intend to provide a more fulsome update later in FY '24. Pages 16 and 17 of the presentation deck provides some further insights into the number of retailers on the platform, the diversity of revenue and the brands that are available to purchase across 120,000 SKUs that we host today on the Lasoo side. As we move forward to the strategic initiatives. In this section, I'm just -- I'm going to walk through 3 key initiatives that are on our radar at the moment. However, it is important to note the company has a wide range of initiatives that we are exploring as we look out over the next 24 months, but I specifically want to touch on 3 today. First one is the expansion of our creative content offering, we see a significant opportunity to expand and grow market share in this space relative to the presence that we have today and the revenues that we have in the space today. So we currently employ 80 creative staff across Sydney and Melbourne, many of those staff embedded on client sites, working across a wide range of sectors. The team excels in producing marketing collateral that we distribute and activate in market with an expanded focus in recent years on the requirements of data-driven communications, where we help our clients transform data into insights and drive personalized marketing campaigns across multiple touch points and also brand activations, which involves retail insights strategy, ideation and structural industrial design. But as the media landscape fragments, we see an opportunity to enhance the group's unique idea and execution positioning great a comprehensive omnichannel marketing offer. And so over the next 24 months, we'll be looking to expand the breadth and depth of the group's creative services and content production and marketing technology offer. We'll look to introduce new valued services to existing clients to presume relationships. We'll be entering new markets by bundling new and existing capabilities, and we will progress our holistic offering of data-driven content-rich omnichannel marketing services. And the chart on Page 20 illustrates our vision for how this strategy brings together an expanded content creation offering, leveraging data and insights to understand customer behavior, we will translate these insights into action by developing creative strategies and rich and engaging content that we will then execute and deliver the right message to the right person and the right channel at the right time. And again, we'll have more to say on this strategy as we go through the upcoming reporting period. Turning to Page 21 of the deck, our apparels and uniform strategy. So over the last 5 years, our premiums merchandise business has grown strongly, and we already through that have a strong garment sourcing component to that offer -- in that part of our business. However, through this, we've identified apparel and corporate uniforms as a natural and growing product adjacency. And that market in Australia is sized at $1.2 billion and grows at more than 5% year-on-year and is underpinned by general wear and tear as well as attrition, which is typically higher in uniform roles. And although we are a relatively new player of the segment, the group's unique service proposition includes the fact that we have 3,000 customers who all or many have a material recurring uniform spend, we have deep brand knowledge and access to brand collateral for our customers. We have the ability to leverage our scale to disrupt existing pricing structures in this sector. We have in-house creative design resources with significant warehousing and distribution capabilities, and we have capital and resources to build our team and all the potential to acquire an existing apparel business, and we have strong ESG sourcing credentials and innovative ideas around sustainability with respect to the life cycle of uniforms. We have a range of uniform clients already that we've onboarded through FY '23, including customers like Certis and Surf Lifesaving New South Wales, Transport New South Wales and we do a lot of apparel work for a range of existing customers in the business to like Woolworths. We have a very healthy pipeline of corporate uniform opportunities that we are actively working on right now and/or even in live trials with customers right now. And so we see this as a real opportunity to grow significantly in corporate uniform space as we look through FY '24 and into FY '25. Turning to the packaging slide. So during 2022, we completed the in-depth analysis of the Australian packaging industry. And the key success indicators include an identified pathway for us to establish a packaging business that has the potential to generate $150 million of revenue for us over the next 3 to 5 years. The higher margin, shorter run folding carton segment and the primary food packaging based focused flexible segment were the ones that were identified in the areas of most interest with a combined market size of $2 billion in Australia. But the $700 million folding cartons market makes up a large percentage of the preferred packaging format for large food and beverage customers and is growing and provide sustainable returns and sound growth prospects for the mid-tier players in the sector. Moreover, cartonboard's sustainability credentials are sound and the segment offers strong potential synergies. And with current folding carton revenues of $10 million per annum in our business today, this segment further complements our existing printing and logistics capability as well as offering cross-selling opportunities into the broader IVE client base. So due to similarities to many existing businesses and its aligned ESG credentials, the fiber-based folding carton segment is IVE's initial and primary area of focus, and we anticipate advancing the strategy in FY '24 via beachhead acquisition. Just moving on to sustainability and ESG to Page 24 of the presentation. Group has always had a very strong environmental credentials and sustainability initiatives and have always been top of mind for so many years. So over the last 12 months, we have worked with a specialist advisory firm to design and implement the strategy and framework that will guide our ESG strategy in the years ahead. The project involved 4 key stages, and they were developing the evidence base to inform our strategy, identifying the most material issues relevant to our business and how we will strategically address these issues, developing our goals and initiatives that will support our strategy and deliver the final sustainability, strategy and external facing communications. It's important to the Board and the management team that the plan we develop is real, that it serves all of our key stakeholders and that we can execute on that plan. Page 25 specifically addresses the 3 key pillars of the plan. So designing innovative customer solutions to push the boundaries of sustainable product development in our sector and empower customers with the knowledge to make informed choices, and this will be in the areas of developing environmental impact ratings for the products we produce, implementing take-back schemes for all the textile products and ensuring the sustainable life cycle outcome for those products. Pillar #2, valuing our people and communities to continue creating a safe and inclusive working environment and supporting those communities who support us. So that includes committing a level of addressable spend to social enterprises, increasing the number of certified mental health first aid staff that we employ in our business, employing more graduates and candidates from the indigenous community in the disability sector and creating a diversity and equity and inclusion action plan for the business. And the third one is maintaining responsible operations and supply chains to mitigate our impact on the climate and lead projects that deliver more regenerative and ethical supply chains. And in this part, we have measured our carbon footprint through Scope 1, 2 and 3. So we are very unique in the sense that we have gone to Scope 3 and one of our commitments in this space is to transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2030. And as you would know from our half year update, at that point, we had signed heaps of agreement with a large infrastructure firm for a renewables project in Western New South Wales. That was with Iberdrola. We have now signed that contract. So from 1 January 2024, all of IVE's electricity is committed to this renewables project on a 7-year contract, and that will assist us in charting our pathway to 100% renewable energy by 2030. And we expect to deliver year-on-year reductions in our Scope 3 emissions. Underpinning all of that is our approach to our ongoing commitment to transparency and authenticity through disclosure and governance in this space. So at this stage, I'm going to hand back to Geoff, and he's going to take you through the outlook statement and provide some closing comments. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Darren. Just finishing up on Page 27, which is the outlook and guidance page. Following the 2 consecutive years of growth on all key financial metrics, EBITDA, NPAT and EPS, we feel that the group is well placed to deliver once again a healthy return to shareholders over the year ahead. And notwithstanding the prevailing economic uncertainty, the core fundamentals of the IVE business that have served us so well in the past. We feel will once again underpin our financial performance and further strengthen our market position over the year ahead. To that extent, we are providing today some guidance ranges for FY '24 underlying earnings, EBITDA of $122 million to $127 million, EBIT of $74 million to $79 million and NPAT of $40 million to $43 million. It's important to note that as last year with the significant items that are excluded from guidance and underlying earnings and therefore, excluded for the purposes of dividend and payout ratios are 2 things: number one, Lasoo, which this year FY '20 is expected to deliver an after-tax loss of $3.9 million. That is, in fact, a 20% improvement normalized for the 12 months over the 8 months loss in FY '23 and then restructure and integration costs, including $5.5 million of the final phase of integration are expected to be in total $8 million. So they're the 2 significant items excluded from underlying earnings and guidance. Just moving to the middle column, some commentary on revenue and margin. Revenues are expected to increase in FY '24 with growth forecast across all parts of the business, except for our web offset printing divisions, which essentially is catalogs and publications and household distribution, where we are expecting a decline over the next 12 months of 3% to 5% as a result of a number of factors. Those factors more specifically are our decision to cease production in Western Australia. A number of our customers' business is failing or going out of business, I should say. There has been a closure of some publications or a consolidation of some publications. And then the final point is that the impact of the commercial repricing of Ovato, and our customers as a result of meaningful increases in paper prices. Just to make a point there on your last point, material gross margin. The material gross margin on the Ovato revenues were significantly lower than the mid-tier gross margin on existing IVE web offset revenues. So the increase across the Ovato client base in percentage terms is more than it was in the IVE client base as a result of those paper price increases, but certainly has impacted some client decisions in relation to spending. Outside of revenue, it's important to point out that we expect material gross margin once again to remain stable through FY '24. Net finance costs expected to be around $16 million to $17 million with prospects for some moderation in FY '25 as working capital levels normalize on the lines of what Darren touched on earlier and capital expenditure also touched on earlier, consistent at around $14 million, excluding the final phase CapEx for the Ovato integration, which is expected to be $4.5 million. Just to finish off with some strategic initiatives. Our balance sheet remains strong. As Darren said, we still are under our 1.5x pre-AASB EBITDA and net debt target at 1.4%. We have the acquisition facility now in place and the increase in the working capital facility. We absolutely intend to maintain the strong balance sheet, but we certainly have the capacity to fund a range of strategic initiatives over the period ahead. So our main priorities over the next 12 months, 18 months is to complete the final phase of the Ovato integration that Matt's talked at length to execute on an appropriate packaging acquisition consistent with the group's previously advised strategy, continue to invest in and drive further growth across electro across the Lasoo platform, put a lot of work into our content creation offering, once again that Matt has been through in detail. And as always, continue to drive the ongoing efficiency and performance across the business more broadly. So in summary from our perspective, we're very pleased with the performance of the business over the last 12 months and in fact, as I started over the last 2 years, meaningful uplift year-on-year. If I could in conclusion, convey my thanks to our Board and in particular, to Paul Selig, his very meaningful ongoing contribution to the business and acknowledge and thank our talented and [ diverse ] leadership team, led by Matt Aitken; Darren Dunkley, our CFO; and divisional CEOs, Cliff Brigstocke, Darryl Meyer, Glen Draper, Sean Smith, Michael Bettridge; and our CMO, Rob Draper; and of course, our 2,000 very committed staff that we have working for us. So at this point, we'll end the formal part of the presentation. And once again, thank you all for taking the time to dial in this morning.

[Operator Instructions] But first we'll take some question from analysts who are covering IVE. First question is from Chris Savage of Bell Potter.

Just firstly, a general question, just around end market demand for print. So we've obviously seen some consumer weakness with the rising interest rate environment. So how have your customers responded in terms of spend on marketing and the like?

Yes, Chris, it's Matt here. Look, outside of the areas Geoff lagged in the outlook and guidance just in terms of the catalog and magazine space, we've not seen the customers change at all at this stage, particularly when I think about the instore presence and what we're looking to execute through our brand activations business and what we're seeing customers want to achieve through the data-driven communications business in terms of those meaningful customer conversations. But what's clear to us is obviously online sales for our retailers are coming off and/or declining as we've seen through the reporting season. And -- but we're seeing those retailers and the brands that are inside those retail channels really putting the foot down on a very consistent marketing program. So I've not seen any change at all in that space.

Okay. And you flagged an acquisition in the packaging space in the next 12, 18 months, is the size or consideration you're thinking about like you could fund that with your existing balance sheet and facilities? Or do you think you'd need to sort of do an equity raise to fund that?

No. 2 points. I think our goal remains, as we talked about in the deck to be a leading player in the folded carton packaging space within the next few years. The beachhead acquisition, if we can call it that or as we refer to it as we have the capacity to fund that from the existing balance sheet. So no there any additional capital.

Okay. And just last question, like I understand, electricity, your electricity costs are locked in until the new agreement kicks in, in '24. But what about gas prices? What are you seeing there? And what are your assumptions around the FY '24 guidance?

We've assumed for gas, Chris, that it remains stable, what we've been paying through this year. So we'll obviously go into discussions in the next few months with the gas providers for the next calendar year. But at the moment, we've got contracted gas prices for H1, and we'll look to deal with 2024 over the coming weeks. But at the moment, the basis of our assumptions is consistent with what we're going to pay.

Next up we have a question coming through from Stuart Turner at Blue Ocean Equities.

Just given the complexity of going from statutory to underlying earnings, and I'm not trying to get a very detailed analysis of this, perhaps comment on where you see current analyst numbers in relation to your FY '24 underlying earnings guidance. The reason I asked that question, it's a bit unusual is that I just don't trust what's in the systems that I look at. And I must have missed the memo on why the stock is off nearly 10% when I actually thought the outlook is sort of very positive?

So your specific question, Stuart, is...

Yes. So we've got 3 metrics -- 3 new metrics, the maiden guidance for EBITDA, let's just say, EBITDA and NPAT. If we just -- like what's the internal view having collected and probably done the most thorough work on extracting the underlying earnings consensus from the different analysts, such as myself and how that relates to the maiden guidance ranges for FY '24.

Yes. Look, I think the -- if there is a gap, put aside, there were some gaps in the various analyst revenue numbers for FY '23, that rolled into FY '24, the most significant gap would probably be in the allocation for finance costs and interest would expect. Of course, most of the other line items and margin assumptions are probably relatively consistent. So Darren can add to it. But I think if there were to be a difference with what's been out there previously. It would be an under assumption of the finance costs for the year, which is one of the reasons we specifically gave the $16 million to $17 million number today.

Yes, that's right. Stuart, so if you look at EBITDA and EBIT, it's broadly in line, I believe, with consensus interest expense would be higher, and that's because we haven't got a quick ratchet down of our working capital levels in FY '24. However, we don't see our working capital levels increasing in FY '23, and there should be some form of moderate reduction by the end of FY '24. So that would be the main reason, I believe, is the interest expense.

Okay. And secondly, just I'm very interested in Lasoo and the whole evolution of the walled garden and the customer acquisition strategy that you've got there, which is very responsive to what's going on out there in consumer land. I wonder if you could just sort of expand on that and how you see it evolving over time.

Look, we've been -- it's Geoff here, again, Stuart. I think with the last commentary, we tried over the last 12 months to provide as much information as we can on Lasoo without providing too much information on Lasoo. Suffice to say, I think we've got information that went through earlier. We are off to a good start. The numbers are not huge in terms of gross transaction values and the like, but we're encouraged by the early -- the early metrics and the performance of the Lasoo business, the spread of the retailers, the growth in the retailers, the quality of the average spend per transaction. So we're across every single metric. We just feel it's a little too premature to come out of the blocks and provide too much information at this stage, but we certainly feel in the latter part of FY '24, which we put in that in the deck. As we've got another half year of trading under built up to December of this year, which includes Black Friday and the pre-Christmas levels. Plus we've got a couple of other larger retailers about to be onboard or go-live very shortly that we're just going to be in a much more informed position to provide you with everybody with a more comprehensive update on Lasoo which will include some financial modeling a little bit further out or further out to talk about breakeven points and other core areas of interest that you and many other people are interested in -- anything else you want to go add, Matt?

No, I think that pretty much sums it up. So yes, I mean, the metrics that we measure, Stuart are against other marketplaces as well. So we've got a very good handle on sort of, how our marketplace is performing against maybe certain metrics that people like [indiscernible] would have reported before [indiscernible] bought them late last year, and we're very comfortable with the sort of metrics we're throwing out with the numbers are just on a smaller scale at the moment relative to where some of those marketplaces are at.

Next up we have Cissy Xu from UBS.

I've just got a question around the 3% to 5% decline in web offset and distribution. Can you help us unpack how much of that is a pricing impact versus a volume impact?

Well, they're related because essentially with the decision to increase pricing and excepting there were higher increases in pricing in the Ovato customer base than in the IGL customer base on the back of some of those price increases, and we've got to understand we've had significant increases in these input costs over the last 24 months, not just modest increases, significant increases. So on the back of some of those decision -- the decision on the back of some of those increases, there's been a conscious decision by some clients to cut back on their volumes so that they are still spending within reason in their budget. But ultimately, they're getting less -- they're getting more price at the end of the day. So probably, in terms of that lease, it may be 50% related to pricing increases the last bullet point and the other 50% related to the first 3, if that makes sense.

And the customers who are pulling back on maybe catalogs and publications, are you seeing some substitution or switching behavior into other channels like a heavier presence in retail display?

No, not really Cissy. I think -- and we're not really sort of necessarily seeing them switch off over to a digital medium instead of the printed medium, it's more than changing pagination or changing quantities to fit within the budgets that they've got based on the increased prices we've given them. But having said that, we may have a retailer that's pulled back a little bit on the catalog program to the -- sorry, I think I gave to Chris earlier, we're not seeing it happen in the retail channel. So the retailers are still remaining very strong, and there are retail point of presence spending.

Last shout out to any of the analysts. Any other further questions for the team? Looks like they've -- all the questions have been answered. So Geoff, maybe I'll hand back to you. There's a few questions come through from the audience, maybe you'd like to answer and address.

Yes. The question here from Jason Penrose. Congrats on another strong result, considering the IVE to execution issue and other nonprint growth initiatives. Do you see IVE's revenue mix evolving over the next 2 years in terms of the split between print and nonprint businesses, nonprint business. I think the response to that -- thanks for the question, Jason. We've been on the journey for a long time in terms of diversification of the business. So it's sort of a question we ask ourself every year to some extent. I don't... We did various forms of print in our business today. So if you talk about do we see the split between print and nonprint changing, our move into fiber-based packaging on folded carton packaging is actually print. It is just printed cartons. So it's just a different --it's a different form of print. So I think if you look at the strategic initiatives over the next 12, 24 months, put aside Lasoo the growth in packaging and the growth in content creation, if I can call that, we wouldn't expect to see a material difference in the split between as you might put print and nonprint because we would expect to have quite a reasonable chunk of fiber-based folded carton packaging revenue in there. Anything else you wanted to add to that matter?

Yes. I think its…

Yes. And the other question is from Mr. Usman with regards to the decline in web offset printing and household distribution segment. Do you expect this to continue beyond the year ahead? And how will this frame this business segment drive in the future? Look, I think Matt can probably answer that question, but we've pointed to the year ahead, and there is some prevailing uncertainty around and we've also had significant increases in the last 12 months in input costs, which, as we've just talked about from Cissy's question, this had an impact on revenues. To Matt's point earlier, we are seeing notwithstanding, we're still holding higher stock levels at those higher prices. We are seeing it easing off of input costs over the last 6 months, which ultimately will reflect well in terms of sell price to customer. So it may, in fact, have in FY '25, we may be having a slightly different discussion to the discussion we're having right now. And we've also got some clients specifically like Easy Buy that have gone into administration and have disappeared that was spending $4, $5 million per year, which have got actually nothing to do with any sector type issue. It's more a company-specific issue. So I think the commentary we provided is more around FY '24 in the context the macro settings and also on the back of material increases, not necessarily a commentary past FY '24. The question in lieu of increasing financing costs outlined in your presentation, was there any serious consideration given to reducing debt levels via a reduction in the payout ratio? Look, I think our response to that would be our net debt level for the business remains below 1.5x pre-AASB 16 EBITDA, which is below the target that we articulated 3 years ago to the market in terms of the net debt that we were comfortable with. So to that extent, I think the Board felt comfortable at a 69% payout ratio, which is midway between the 65% to 75% of our payout ratio policy was an appropriate payout or dividend for the final -- to the final dividend for the year. So in saying that we continue to be vigilant around all things balance sheet and net debt. But it's got to be context, I think, by the period we've just been through in terms of its only 12 months ago, we were chartering ships to bring paper and increasing stock levels and all sorts of things because of the prevailing cover or 8 months ago, post COVID environment. So these things do take some time to unwind. But certainly, we've had a step-up in the scale of the business as a result of the Ovato acquisition and some strong underlying growth there, I think, of about $47 million of organic revenue as well. So I think we're comfortable with where our net debt level is sitting at. But certainly, it's always a core area of focus for the board and for the team.

We just got a late question from Jonathon Higgins at Shaw Partners.

[indiscernible] Congratulations on the results on what's been a pretty volatile period economically, I appreciate the guidance as well. Just a couple for me around just more focus on competition. I mean, now earnings to auto assets for about 12 months. Do we still move those assets around plus you have a very like wide level of product and services by multiple customers. Talk about how are you approaching in the next 12 months or things started to slow and secondly, we'll just on that point of the question. Once you've owned those Ovato assets, [indiscernible] assets you build back in the second half of '24, would you keep that competitively in FY '25 as well?

Your question cut out a lot on the way through. It's Matt. We couldn't sort of get the gist of the entire question, John. I don't know if you want to try it again, but it seems to be a reception issue.

Can you guys hear me now?

Yes, that's better.

I'll just repeat the question. It's just in regards to just the competitive position, you've got a lot of different products and services. You're now on the Ovato assets for just going on 12 months and you'll own them all in your facilities or completely have been consolidated in the second half of '24. Can you speak about how you're approaching the competitive position in that segment and some of your other segments this year? And how that may change in FY '25? Is there in all your facilities [ firstly ].

I think in relation to the Ovato assets coming into our sites on and that completion later in FY '24. I mean our goal is to run most of the footprint operations in Australia, we have the most efficient operations there today to ensure that the product we put into market catalogs magazine in that specific instance remain very meaningful marketing mix channels for our customers to use and engage with and that we can provide them at a, I guess, a commercial proposition level that competes well with all other channels that are also available to customers, both printed and nonprinted. So we've obviously done a lot of work around addressing price in the last 12 months and particularly addressing price with the Ovato customer base, which needed some significant addressing when we brought that customer base on board in September last year, and it's taken a sort of best part of 6 to 8 months to get all of those price increases through that Ovato customer base. But I'd also like to think that as we do see cost inputs ease and I look out into the back half of FY '24. So at the moment, we've seen good relief in freight. But when we look at for the back half of FY '24, assuming the currency doesn't play too many tricks with us or foreign exchange, sorry, that we see some easing in the paper prices, and that may see customers continue to invest even deeper into the channel. And I would add that whilst we've noted here some customers changing the mix, we are also seeing brands coming back into the channel at the moment. So there's a hardware business in Australia, who exited catalogs probably 12 months ago. They are back in that mix as a big-box retailer who has gone back to the letterbox for the first time in 4 years and seen significant improvements in their campaign by putting those catalogs in letterbox. And there's a large whitegoods appliance retailer, an electronics retailer, who again, who's been out of the channel for some time, but it's looking like they're going to be back in the channel. So I think all of that feeds into this broader macroeconomic climate that we're in at the moment and the power that the catalog delivers for retailers when it's executed in a meaningful way.

I think the other point, Jonathon, it's Geoff here outside of that segment, in terms of your question on the competitive landscape, structurally, many parts of our broader comm sector of consolidated over the last 15 years, as you know. So we hold very strong, #1 in most cases, #1 market positioning in each of the segments we operate in. So the competitive landscape is far and there's much fewer competitors than what they were 10 years ago. And you combine that with our bundled offer as we call it, and you talked about metric that Matt just went through before, with 75% of all of our customers dealing with multiple parts of our business, then I think our competitive advantage in terms of our value proposition and the mix we take to market. And just the quality of what we did puts us from a competitive perspective, in a very strong position to further strengthen our position. If in fact, things tighten up a little bit further over the next 12 months.

I appreciate the context, guys. Last one for me, and it's a multifaceted just to get a few things on you. Just on the balance sheet, I think I appreciate the guidance for FY '24. But I think you concur with you around the net finance costs into next year. Can you talk us through a little bit around your expectations on working capital particularly down what sort of allocated working capital would you be sort of accounting, how we should expect that to move and secondly, on the sort of the current debt cost of the group, can you give us an idea of what the rate is at the moment on that. Apologies if I missed it in the presentation.

Yes. There's 2 parts to the working capital. First of all, obviously, us absorbing the Ovato business into our business. That's going to increase our working capital from a debt and credit -- net debt incurrence perspective, but also from an inventory perspective. And as we communicated earlier, we targeted an increase in our inventory levels. We're going to hold those higher levels of inventory that I think for a large part of FY '24, but we do still see our working capital modestly reduced at the end of FY '24 compared to FY '23. I don't expect our working capital to increase on the levels that we are now. So our cash conversion should improve quite significantly given that we've had quite a large increase in working capital in FY '23. I think it will decrease at the back in FY '24 and continue to do so again modestly in FY '25. So I don't know if that would answer your question on working capital. But given that we've had a large increase in revenues because of Ovato, there is a working capital that needs to go with that. So it's a permanent uplift. So on that we don't disclose our margins on our interest expense, but we have negotiated competitive rates. It's based on BBSY plus and negotiated margin, Jono.

Well it looks like that all questions have been asked. So it's the end of the Q&A session. A big thank you to everyone for making the time to listen to the call today. If you do have any further questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to the team, and I'm sure they'll be happy to help and answer those questions. And just a reminder, the copies of this webinar will be available on the IVE Group and the [indiscernible] websites over the next few days. So a big thank you to everyone and all presenters today, and have a great afternoon.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.