KAL Group Limited (KAL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to KAL's F '24 Financial Results Presentation. This is a prerecorded webcast presented by Sean and Graeme. We will be available at the end for face-to-face questions, which we will do our best to handle or get back to you personally on any outstanding matter. You may start sending in questions as soon as you are ready. The agenda is on the screen, and the presentation will cover key points on interest for shareholders on our performance over the last year, some strategic feedback as well as outlook where applicable. The Board has, this year, approved the F30 business strategy. We have reviewed our business model, our values and identified the key anchors, which give us our competitive edge and the right to win. In the essence of time, I can't go through it at all, but I'll highlight the following. Firstly, it is our intent to grow from farm to fork. Secondly, we believe we are a unique growth-focused retailer in retail segments we focus on. Thirdly, our values remain relevant. Lastly, our competitive edge comes from our diverse and accessible footprint, our scale efficiency, our entrepreneurial spirit and our digital initiatives. Our F30 targets are to deliver a ZAR 1.5 billion PBT while endeavoring to reduce our dividend cover and offering shareholders good returns while keeping debt to equity an acceptable level. Shareholdings in our group structure have not changed since our previous reporting period. We have, however, indicated clarity on our business segments and branding on the slide. For example, in the middle, we report on Agrimark and Agrimark Grain segments, which are consolidated in the Agrimark Operations Ltd structure, and we use the Agrimark brand as the customer-facing brand for those operational business units. While on The Fuel Company side, the business structure consolidates under TFC Operations (Pty), run by PEG Management Services, but the customer-facing brand is the relevant oil co and/or quick-service restaurant branding, which we use as operator of the lessees of service station sites and franchisees of the QSR offerings. The TFCB ownership status remains above 50% on a direct Black ownership basis and well above the current requirement of 25% as required by the liquid petroleum fuel authority. Lastly, it is important for all investors running valuation models to keep in mind the KAL Group shareholding of 58.2%, or 61.4% when including ETI, in TFC when modeling attributable earnings to shareholders of the holding company. The left-hand graph is a geographical heat map of all 269 KAL Group business units, and the annual business unit movement per segment per year on the right-hand graph. During the year, we actually did not plan much footprint expansion activity as the last 2 years have been focused on pinning down the PEG acquisition of 40 sites as you can see in the 2022 period and paying down that debt, which is going very well. We have, however, added a packaging unit, fuel DC and retail fuel sites in Namibia during the year while closing a small Agrimark in KZN and the Agrimark Pet shop in Green Point. The group now operates 151 retail fuel licenses in RSA and Namibia, of which TFC operates 84 in South Africa. There have been 4 TFC sites earmarked for disinvestment. Whilst the Agrimark footprint has largely been focused on water-intensive areas of South Africa, the TFC footprint has focused on clusters in specific provinces and with the addition of big, high-value highway sites. Overall, our footprint is biased towards mainly peri-urban, rural and highway locations, with mostly lifestyle-orientated customers. The year has been one of 2 halves, having shown positive signs in half 1, only to be disappointed in the second half. What we could manage, we did quite well. And looking at the positives, limited capital expenditure for the year, our interest-bearing debt reduced by ZAR 206 million. Our net interest earned increased by ZAR 16.8 million, debt-to-equity best in 10 years. Stock levels have reduced quite significantly. Debtors book is reduced, and not within terms percentage has improved. This all has led to us being able to maintain our dividend payout. DC value throughput has grown by 9.8%, and the cost to serve in the DC is 2.9% lower. Group OpEx was only 4.5%. Yes, we saved load shedding costs of ZAR 36 million, and September and October fuel volume recovery was sound at ZAR 5 per liter, lower than a year ago. As Graeme's financial review will show, the challenges were unfortunately big this year. To list a few being: revenue down 3%, while GP was up 1.9%. In particular, first half was down 0.2%, the second half being down 6.2%. Deflation in the second half on fuel alone was a negative 15% by September. Limited footprint expansions were done. Credit sales were down due to low farm expenditure in core Western Cape areas. Abnormal retail fuel volume reductions due to road closures, site upgrades and rebuilds cost us 13 million liters in the year. Load shedding fuel demand was lower, costing us 4.6 million liters, and there was less mining activity on the N2, N3 and N7 highways. Pressure on general consumer was also evident due to high interest rates. On top of that, unfavorable weather events impacted agri channels. In the second half, April to September fuel price decreases cost us a net ZAR 18.3 million. What is very positive for us looking forward is that quite a few of the challenging issues are dissipating like interest rates. Fuel prices are much lower, which should stimulate traveling. The impact of road closures is diminishing. Fuel price change effects are lower, and recovery is evident in fuel volumes as well as cement sales in the last 2 months. So let's just look at what that looks like from a trend point of view. As stated, one can see from the trends on the graphs that we have seen a very positive swing of late. We have selected a few trends to indicate this to you, starting top left with the agri input categories, these being fertilizer, chemistry, feeds, horticulture, health being animal health and mechanization, mostly inputs farmers do have to buy. Now these have slowly showed recovery as farming spending normalizes. Yes, there are inflation and deflation effects in this, but the trend is positive. We moved in the full year at minus 4% to minus 5.4% first half, minus 3% in quarter 3, minus 2.2% in quarter 4, flat in September and a positive 14% in October. Then moving to agri infrastructure on its own, just to show we didn't sit around and do nothing with the downturn. We introduced a professional services team, which is driving these growth numbers on agri infrastructure, which is mainly netting and poles. This represents good market share growth in this category. Then if we move bottom left, cement volumes, while still volatile, are certainly on the up, reaching a positive 12% in October. Most encouraging is the big retail fuel volumes, which have made a significant recovery from the lows in quarter 3 and 4 as stated due to lower impact from road closures, 2 site rebuilds ending and traveling picking up as the fuel price is significantly lower than a year ago. Add to this inflation hitting a low, business confidence growing and lower interest rates, we are very positive looking forward. I'll now hand over to Graeme to take us through some of the key indicators and financial trends.

Thanks, Sean. Reflecting on the key indicators for the year, it can be seen the group endured a challenging period. Revenue was under pressure during the year and especially during H2 and ended 3% down, with comparable revenue 3.5% lower year-on-year. Although general retail revenue grew in the Agrimark segment, agri input-related revenue was down. Fuel volume and price decreases, partly offset by more robust convenience and quick-service restaurant performance, led to lower revenue in The Fuel Company. Overall, group transaction numbers decreased by 2.1%. However, basket size increased marginally by 0.1%. EBITDA decreased by 4.4% despite strong cash generation. Whilst earnings were down 6% year-on-year, recurring headline earnings per share ended 9.4% lower due to a large headline earnings adjustment in the prior year. Fuel liter volume decreases, we experienced across the entire South African fuel industry, with group liters down 6.4% in TFC and 5.5% in Agrimark. Although ROIC, calculated excluding the impact of IFRS 16, reduced from 14.3% last year to 12.6% this year, it remained comfortably above the weighted average cost of capital in the business. Despite the subdued trading performance, the Board has approved a total dividend of ZAR 1.80 per share for the year, in line with the prior year on the back of strong cash generation and significantly lower debt levels. Our gearing improvement is a standout performance for the year. The group's debt-to-equity ratio improved to 51.3% from 61.9% last year, the lowest level in over 10 years. Net interest-bearing debt to EBITDA improved to 1.8x from 2x last year, with interest cover of 4.1x, an improvement from 4x last year. Gearing levels are expected to further decrease in the coming year as the repayment of the PEG acquisition debt continues. Here, we highlight some key investor-related information. The KAL share price closed on 30 September at ZAR 50.50, increasing by 46.4% year-on-year, and with a healthy 16% of issued shares trading during the year. The share also closed above the net asset value of ZAR 45.28 with a low price-to-book ratio. Important to note is that NAV is at historic cost. The total dividend for the year of ZAR 1.80 remains unchanged from last year. We apply a consistent 3x cover, taking into account the priority of PEG acquisition debt repayment. Shareholding is well diversified, with 93% of all issued shares being publicly held. Nonpublic shareholders includes directors holdings of 1.8% of issued shares. From the graph, you can see that almost 40% of our shares are held by parties with more than 1 million shares and that the top 30 fund manager shareholdings account for 47.5% of total shareholding. From a governance perspective, important to note, in line with good practice, we've rotated external auditors from PwC to Deloitte. Given the F '24 financial results, it's almost certain that we will come short of our F '25 targets. Looking forward, though, the F30 strategic plan has been approved by the Board and includes significant growth across our key Agrimark and TFC segments with clearly defined outcomes, as indicated by Sean on an earlier slide. Moving on to the income statement. Revenue ended 3% down year-on-year. But encouragingly, despite this decline, gross profit increased by 1.9% with overall high gross margins achieved. This increase in gross profit was largely due to the increased contribution of high-margin convenience retail revenue, assortment optimization in the general retail categories as well as a larger contribution from the higher-margin irrigation manufacturing business. Increased central distribution center throughput as well as implementation of several strategic supply chain imperatives continue to support retail trading margins. Given the pressures on revenue, prudent cost management and increased cost efficiency remained a key focus area and resulted in expenditure increasing by only 4.5% during the year with no group management incentives being provided. EBITDA decreased by 4.4% to ZAR 859.3 million, down from ZAR 898.6 million in the prior corresponding period. Recurring headline earnings decreased by 8.8%. It's recurring headline earnings per share of ZAR 5.6158 being 9.4% lower than last year. Lower recurring headline earnings resulted in return on equity reducing to 13.9%. And as mentioned earlier, the total dividend of ZAR 1.80 per share for the year remained unchanged from last year. The 3 graphs illustrate the strong performance of the business across the 5-year period, albeit that F '24 performance was constrained. Total assets remained relatively constant as we intentionally limited capital expenditure during the period, choosing to focus on bedding down the PEG acquisition, reducing the related acquisition debt and optimizing the existing wider trading footprint. F '25 will see an increase in acquisitive capital spend. The group continued to manage working capital effectively. Whilst credit sales decreased by 2.9%, trade debtor balances reduced by 4.7% year-on-year, with not within terms as a percentage of debt is improving. Our investment in centralized procurement and distribution and ongoing stock management initiatives has generally been positive, with inventory reducing by 11.6%. Creditors days were marginally down on last year. Net interest-bearing debt reduced by ZAR 206 million, with ZAR 251.9 million in term debt being settled over the past 12 months. Net asset value per share continues to decrease, albeit that assets are historic values. So in summary, it's clear we have significantly strengthened our balance sheet over the past 2 years and have repaid debt in line with our commitments to do so. This puts us in a very strong position to take advantage of the expected improvement in trading conditions going forward, with footprint expansion plans expected to further enhance this upward trend. This slide reflects the recurring headline earnings waterfall from F '23 to F '24. GP growth of 1.9% outperformed turnover performance. Expenses increased by 4.5%, an excellent result given average inflation across the period of 5.1%, with numerous expenses increasing above CPI such as insurance costs, municipal costs and electricity costs. Total interest received decreased by 9.6% compared to last year on the back of lower average debtor balances due to lower credit sales. Interest paid, excluding interest on lease liabilities in terms of IFRS 16, decreased by 17.4% due to the year-on-year reduction in average interest-bearing debt, assisted by scheduled term debt repayments. Interest paid will continue to decrease as the PEG acquisition-related debt is serviced in line with expectations. Interest paid in terms of IFRS 16 increased by ZAR 19.9 million due largely to the conversion of a fuel site lease from variable to fixed terms. In total, recurring headline earnings reduced by 8.8%. However, on a 2-year period, recurring headline earnings has grown by 4.7%. We include this slide to illustrate the items impacting earnings to calculate headline earnings and recurring headline earnings. There are minimal adjustments between earnings, headline earnings and recurring headline earnings in the current year. Prior year adjustments related to profit on disposal of various low-return generating or nonessential assets as well as goodwill written off relating to the 4 TFC sites held for sale at that stage and costs associated with new business development as well as certain legal costs. Our recurring headline earnings has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 9.6% over the last 10 years. As we've previously communicated, we have prioritized return on invested capital and EVA as key performance indicators to measure our efficiency of allocating capital within the business. We've previously spoken about the ROIC trend over the past 10 years, highlighting the ROIC and EVA focus and the improvement in ROIC and the significant reduction in debt levels. This, together with a prudent approach to capital expenditure, the disposal of TFC properties and the acquisition of PEG in 2022, led to the spike in EVA in 2023. Current year performance has translated into a lower ROIC. And despite the actual WACC for the year decreasing year-on-year, the average WACC for the year used for purposes of EVA calculation increased, resulting in a lower level of EVA. The robustness of the business has shown that despite the headwinds encountered in the financial year, we were still able to produce returns in excess of WACC, adding value to our shareholders. Looking forward, we will remain focused on driving ROIC and are expecting an improved F '25 trading performance. We have a number of high-return opportunities in progress that will enhance earnings and ROIC in the coming months, and we will disinvest from identified underperforming sites that do not meet our stringent return criteria. And lastly, as a reminder, you will read in the remuneration report for our AGM in February next year that 40% of executive reward, in terms of the long-term share incentive scheme, is linked to EVA as a performance hurdle, with management incentivized to outperform specific ROIC targets. I'll hand back to Sean for the segmental reviews.

As previously stated, our group has diversified significantly over the last 10 years, and the group is powering growth from farm to fork, a unique growth-focused lifestyle retailer, providing best-in-value solutions and doing around 6 million transactions per month. In the bottom right-hand slide, we indicate the 4 main income channels we operate within. Starting top right of the insert with the traditional agri input retail channel serviced by Agrimark supported by the Agrimark financial services debtors book. Then bottom right, the general retail channel that our Agrimark branches serve, and moving to the left, the convenience retail on the one hand and the fuel retail on the other, both farm and retail fuel. These 4 trading channels are interconnected with each other, with a common theme being retail and convenience. After all, to farm is also very much a lifestyle. The Agrimark business segment, although traditionally focused on agri input requirements of farmers, farmers' postharvest packaging requirements and farmers' spend on farm expansions as well as general farm maintenance spend. This has changed quite dramatically over time, with Agrimark now boasting an A store format including 20,000 active SKUs, while B store formats carry approximately 8,000 SKUs, and other formats are tailored for the range applicable. Our retail in-store offerings have expanded to include garden, pet, pool, DIY, outdoor, liquor and other general retail assortments. We have invested smartly in centralized supply chain capabilities like inventory management, warehousing, distribution, assortment planning and optimization, price and margin management. This now all being done centrally and digitally. Our distribution center plays a critical role in enabling the Agrimark to focus on a customer-first experience. And due to this investment, we are now able to offer a vastly improved product range to Agrimark's diverse range of retail customers. Overall revenue for the Agrimark segment was down 5%. Within this, agri inputs reduced by 1%, with inflation for these categories at 2% as at September, mainly driven by the big category fertilizer, which has more been about price than volume and certainly masks the market share gains in the Eastern Cape and Elgin areas with our virtual sales drive. New Holland agency sales were down 12%, mainly driven by higher sales of smaller units to the fruit sector and lower sales of larger units to the grain sector. Retail grew by 4.4%, with inflation at 4.2% for this category as at September, driven by arms and ammo, tools and pool and garden growth, while building material and outdoor was negative for the year. Fuel volumes in the Agrimark and fuel DC space were 10% lower, this off lower mining activity in the Kathu area area and, more importantly, lower load shedding demand accounting for nearly a 5 million loss in liter sales. Margins were flat, although mostly driven by the 6 fuel price decreases in the second half, which, if counted back, we would have printed gains in margin. Overall, the segment was down 10% on PBT, even although OpEx was constrained, being mainly top line driven. So let's focus on our outlook. Agri input market share gains have been made in the Kouga area of 12% growth and Elgin at 32% growth on the prior year. Fuel market share have also been gained in Eastern Cape area. Farm spend normalization in the Western Cape will be expected as interest rates lower and farm expenditure can normalize. Positive fruit outlook overall is the current expectation, and this is based on an improved port readiness for the table grape export season. Our wheat harvest is average to maybe slightly lower than average. This has been affected by July excessive rainfall, which impacted plant nutrition cycles. Cement, we've seen an uptick in the last few months, and one new Agrimark has been added in quarter 1. Note, the fuel price is already on average ZAR 4.75 per liter lower than the prior year. This will affect our revenue value line but not profitability in the new year. We will report on fuel volumes on a regular basis. In terms of The Fuel Company business segment, a few key points we should highlight. The Fuel Company business segment is the largest independent operator of retail fuel and convenience centers. There are currently 89 sites in the network, many of which are prime sites, and we currently operate nearly 350 retail convenience touch points at these sites, very much a retail business and more of a retail business than a fuel business. The SA fuel and convenience market is still highly fragmented, with our sizable network still only representing approximately 3.8% of total retail fuel volumes in South Africa. We are also a leading role player in the famous brand stable, reinforcing our diversified retail customer base. We also believe that the traditional fuel station sector will continue transforming into a service-driven convenience network. In our case, nearly 60% of trading profits are realized from convenience retail activities and only just 40% from fuel and lubricants. It is our view that investors undervalue our retail convenience offerings. In terms of this business segment, the strategy has remained to repay debt, and it is on track. We've restarted a service station acquisition drive that we are leveraging convenience by expanding the current offerings as well as adding new offerings. There have been no sites added in the financial year. Volumes hit a low of between 7% and 9% midyear, back to flat end of the year, but 13 million liters were lost due to severe road closures, site upgrades and site rebuilds. Fuel volumes impacted by lower mining transport on the N2, N3 and N7 as well. Retail growth was moderate off lower volumes. Profit before tax grew at a lower rate despite load shedding savings and was impacted mainly by fuel price reductions in the second half. The average site tenure for this business segment is 17 years, and fuel price gains were ZAR 9 million during the year versus ZAR 21 million in the prior year in this segment. The outlook for The Fuel Company is really exciting. We have numerous upgrades and expansions in process, all due for completion in half 1. We have 5 confirmed high-quality service stations in our acquisition pipeline. The integration of the operational teams in TFC is delivering efficiencies, and we expect lower impact from road closures as experienced towards September and October, and we believe that will continue. The uptick of fuel volumes from September, October period is directly linked to the prices finally decreasing to between ZAR 4 and ZAR 5 per liter compared to a year ago. We can also confirm a healthy pipeline of service stations, which, if negotiations are successful, could be added to the network in the first half of F '26. Please note the fuel price effect that will be seen in terms of revenue value for the year. The Agrimark Grain segment is reported on due to its relative importance in the Western Cape wheat production area and comprises of over 350,000 tons of wheat and canola storage facilities in the Swartland area just north of Cape Town. Although Agrimark Grain is a relatively small contribution to group PBT of around 10%, it is a division which is strategically aligned to our Agrimark operations in the Swartland area of the Western Cape. The strategy for this division is to operate as the leading role player in the Swartland area while expanding facilities and services on demand. This is achieved by ensuring farmers get optimal grain handling, storage and seed processing services. The '23, '24 wheat yield was an average harvest, with the result in PBT in line with the prior year, given the lower upgrading opportunities that were offered and lower prices impacted return from surplus sales. July high rainfall this year impacted farmers' ability to complete plant nutrition cycles, and the harvest is certainly a lower grade this year as a result thereof. The '24, '25 wheat harvest is therefore expected to be slightly lower than average, as indicated by the red arrow on the graph on the right-hand side, and canola is expected to only achieve 70% of the prior year tonnages. We, therefore, expect F '25 to be more challenging for the Agrimark Grain segment and earnings will depend on import product services we can offer when harvests are normally low. In terms of the manufacturing segment, which focuses on farmers in mainly the fruit, vegetable and sugarcane sectors. The division consists of Agriplas and TEGO, the target market for both is the fruit and veg farming sector, and the strategy remains to increase market share, optimal use of facilities and ensure we support sustainable practices on farm. Although Agriplas performed better than the prior year, TEGO was still under pressure during the year.

Thanks, Sean. Looking at the cash flow performance for the year. Despite subdued trading, the group continued to generate strong cash flows from operations through increased cash profits and stringent working capital management. The cash component of turnover has stabilized at around 61%. Net cash interest received increased by ZAR 16.8 million for the period. Interest paid will continue to decrease as the PEG acquisition-related debt is serviced. Working capital was again very well managed, with net working capital reducing by ZAR 48.6 million. Both stock turn and debtors days improved year-on-year. As mentioned earlier, we intentionally slowed on capital expenditure in the year to bed down the PEG acquisition and repay debt. Group net interest-bearing debt decreased by ZAR 206 million, with existing term debt reducing in line with requirements. Our consistent 3x cover remains in terms of the dividend policy, taking into account debt repayments, largely PEG related from attributable earnings. So overall, group cash flow and cash generation remains strong. With regard to capital expenditure, during the year, we spent ZAR 154 million on CapEx, down from the ZAR 173.1 million spent last year. The spend was largely expansion and replacement related and mostly incurred in the Agrimark and TFC segments. Replacement CapEx continued and includes, by example, contractual refreshes in TFC QSRs. Our energy management programs are ongoing. To date, we have installed PV solutions at 8 Agrimark sites, 6 TFC sites and at our Agriplas manufacturing facility, with just over 1.7 megawatts of installed capacity. Further installations are planned for F '25. Acquisition of minorities relates to specific PEG site, with the outgoing site operators shareholding was acquired. Agrimark Grain added 30,000 tons of additional storage capacity in the Swartland area, and our group ERP modernization continued as reflected in the corporate spend. Capital spend remains subject to stringent feasibility modeling and allocated based on our strategic initiatives and in line with our ROIC focus. Credit remains a growth enabler. And despite a subdued trading performance, the debtors book has performed exceptionally well throughout the period and remains very healthy. If we pause on some key debtors information and statistics. Our strategy to grow the debtors book remains key to our business model. We provide credit to facilitate purchases from our various trade and retail offerings. As highlighted in prior presentations, we provide production credits and not consumer credit. Our stringent and well-entrenched credit vetting process considers a wide range of variables, including financial and nonfinancial factors as well as the nature and value of securities provided. The resulting credit rating is considered when determining the approved facility value and the interest rate to be charged. Across the book, we make in the region of 250 basis points net interest received on all accounts. Our debtors book reduced by 4.7% during the period on the back of lower credit sales and turns 4.2x, marginally better than the 4.1x last year. The book consists of just over 16,200 accounts, with about 20% of these accounts being seasonal accounts. Seasonal accounts have payment terms ranging from 3 to 12 months, depending on the cash flow cycle of the underlying product being produced. Monthly accounts are strictly 30-day accounts. The contribution of debtors by product type at year-end was fairly similar to last year, with a slight decrease in fruit, table grapes and citrus and remains weighted towards grain and fruit in September. Our bad debt write-offs continue to be very low, reflective of our strong vetting and control processes and the quality of the underlying accounts, with only 0.4% of the debt is booked being written off during the current year. The 5- to 10-year average bad debt write-offs remain very low. Our year-end expected credit loss provision equals 2.3% of the book, slightly up on last year, largely due to the lower year-end book and equates to almost 7 years' worth of bad debt write-offs based on the 10-year average. Moving on, this graph shows the monthly 5-year trend of not within terms debtors as a percentage of total debtors and highlights the following: the year-on-year trends are similar due to the various seasonal account payment cycles. Year-on-year variances occur when payments are delayed due to specific events such as seasonal timing. Over the past 5 years, we experienced unpredictable and challenging agricultural and economic conditions that significantly impacted producers' cash flow. Notwithstanding this, our book has remained healthy, and our default rates have stayed low. In the current year, H1 saw increased not within terms debt, specifically in the table grape and citrus environments. During H2, not within terms normalized, ending the year 0.3% lower as a percentage of the book. Included in the year-end not within terms are citrus accounts from F '23. The collection period for these specific accounts is quite long due to the nature of securities held and, in some cases, the ability to settle with proceeds from new and different harvests. These amounts are not considered to be a default risk. Agri conditions looking forward are encouraging and bode well for continued facility repayments. Our book remains healthy and resilient, with continuing low default rates and good securities in place. We are comfortable with the book and consider it suitably provided for, given the track record we have with our long-standing customers. This graph reflects the debtors' balances by month by underlying product group from October '23 to September '24. As you can see, we provide input credit to a wide range of producers. The various product groups have different harvest time lines and, as such, different cash flow cycles, which collectively is positive for the group cash flow cycle and also reduces the risk of any single cash flow constrained event in the group. Important to note, the only significant product group exposed to dry land farming is wheat in the Western Cape region. Also, the large table grape exposure during December to March is driven by harvest-dependent packaging material. Products such as vegetables have a quicker turnaround time from input to harvesting, resulting in more constant debtor balances. So ultimately, a good spread over the various product ranges, which reduces risk. We are pursuing numerous growth opportunities, both through doing more business with existing customers as well as growing market share with new customers. Our agri strategic focus revolves around water-intensive farming areas, and this graph shows the credit sales by month by river system from October '23 to September '24. The area with higher sales are the Berg and Hex River systems, which aligns to the wheat and table grape information on the previous slide. The wide geographic distribution of the debtors book is evident and ensures the impact of regional weather and other challenges is lessened in addition to also smoothing the cash flow from debtors due to different harvest times. We operate with decentralized credit teams in all the regions. We engage face-to-face with customers, supported by a centralized credit vetting office. During H2, numerous areas were impacted by unfavorable weather events, with extensive flooding in certain core regions. This significantly hampered farming activities, which, in turn, negatively affected spend. Seasonal timings towards the back end of the year further reduced agri-related sales. Sales during the second half of the year were below sales for the same period in both F '22 and F '23. As mentioned on the previous slide, good growth opportunities do exist. This slide sets out how long our customers have been with the group as well as the risk profile of these customers. More than half our debtors by credit facility value have been with the group for more than 10 years, and 78.1% have been with us for 5 years and more. Only 5.1% of debtors have been customers for less than 2 years. It's clear that a very large percentage of our debtors have supported the KAL Group for a long time, which, in turn, speaks to the low default rates we are able to achieve. We know our credit customers well. We're familiar with the individual operations, and we have very close relationships with them. With regard to the risk profile of the book, 60.3% of the book is considered to be low and very low risk, with less than 1% being seen as very high risk. So in summary, the book is well managed, stringently vetted, diversified from a product and geographic perspective, has an exceptionally low default ratio and is suitably secured. I'm certain that these specific slides on debtors provide good insight into why we are comfortable with the quantum and risk profile of the book and why we will continue to leverage credit sales or credit to drive sales. Sean will close out from here.

So in summary, F '24 was a year of 2 halves, positive signs in the first half, declining in the second half. The 6 fuel price decreases in a row, not helping at all on the results but boding well for increased travel going forward. Group debt levels have hit the lowest in 10 years, and good cash generation has led to a healthy balance sheet. Revenue has disappointed, resulting in lower earnings versus the prior year, the first decline in 13 years. Convenience retail was under pressure due to the lower traveling trends. General retail was stable and picked up to the end. Fuel volumes and agri inputs, although negative for the year, were improving at the end. Above mainly was due to less mining activities on highway sites, increased road closures and upgrades affecting our service station sites, high interest rates dampening farm spend and general economic pressures on consumers. From an outlook point of view, we certainly are more positive looking forward. Agrimark market share growth efforts are paying off. The pipeline for QSR upgrades, QSR expansions and new service stations is very healthy and a year ahead of target. Drag effects like severe road closures or disruptions and fuel price changes should dissipate. The lower fuel price will stimulate traveling. Lower interest rates will also improve overall economic conditions. We thank you for your time, and we will move forthwith to any questions that have been sent in.

Thank you, everyone, for attending the webcast. We do have a few questions. Graeme, the first one posted to you particularly is, at what net debt to EBITDA level does the company start to consider share buybacks? And is there a specific NAV per share or other valuation metrics that the Board would consider when discussing share buybacks? So while you prep yourself on that, another question is basically, how much of the M&A in the F30 plan is -- how much of the growth obviously in the F30 plan is M&A based? And how much is organic growth based? And does the business expect to generate sufficient cash to fund this plan? Does the plan consider any share repurchases? Or is the focus on reducing dividend cover? So I'll take that one first. So in terms of the F30 growth plan, there's a -- yes, we have the ZAR 1.5 billion PBT for the group, but that is broken down into very specific targets for The Fuel Company on the one hand and, on the other hand, the Agrimark division, those being the 2 major focus in terms of growth. Whereas on the TFC side, 80% of the growth is acquisition and merger based, on the Agrimark side, only about 20% to 30% would be M&A based and more based on organic growth and virtual sales growth and, as little as possible, brick-and-mortar growth. So on the one hand, searching for high-quality highway sites for TFC and on the Agrimark side, looking at growing market share as the main driver of growth. Now we've done the progression through to F30 in terms of our cash flow. We have more than sufficient cash flows, would not on the current basis require any funding requirements in that period. All that could happen is that we decide to accelerate in a particular year in terms of acquisitions and might require short-term additional funding for that, which, as we've shown in the past, we would be able to manage given that the plan is to actually operate at just below that 50% and closer to the 40% debt-to-equity level going forward. We haven't built in any specific share repurchasing in the cash flow plan going forward for the next 6 years. But we have definitely planned in a reduction in the dividend cover to test whether we would be sufficiently placed to be able to reduce that cover. Share purchases, as Graeme will pick up now, would be on a particularly specific nature and a decision by the Board given those circumstances. So Graeme, maybe just answer the share buyback one.

Yes. Thanks, Sean. I think on the share buybacks, the question is around at what debt-to-EBITDA level would we consider share buybacks. I think the first point to note is we would look at share price versus net asset value per share. So we closed 30 September at ZAR 50.50, and our net asset value was ZAR 45.28. So straight away, that's not the place we want to be for a share buyback. If we look at our debt-to-EBITDA history, last 3 years, we've come up from 2.8x down to 1.8x as we've repaid our debt. So that's been a strategy, and we've been highly successful at that. Now we always look at share buybacks as an investment opportunity just as we would any other growth opportunities. So we would evaluate the capital allocation for a share buyback on the same basis as we would evaluate the capital allocation for any other acquisition and compare the returns on that basis. So we continue with the big debt repayment priority. We paid back ZAR 250-odd million worth of interest-bearing term debt in the year, and next year is a similar number. So from our perspective, share buybacks, although it's on the radar all the time, it's not a high priority. We believe the other growth opportunities far outweigh the potential upside of any share buybacks. So it's really about chasing that F30 growth strategy in our view.

So Graeme, probably coupled to that, there's a very good question, which probably answers it as well, is what is the CapEx that will increase in the new year? And what do you expect the F -- sorry, let me start again, mentioned CapEx will be increased from the limited spend this year. So what would you expect for F '25? And what would be the stable maintenance CapEx in a particular year be?

Okay. So if we look at CapEx over the last 2 years, we dipped from ZAR 173 million last year to ZAR 154 million this year, and that was an intentional mindset on our side to just hold back on that CapEx a little bit while we paid down the PEG acquisition and continue to repay the debt. So I think we've been very successful in that. Next year, CapEx acceleration, as mentioned, we're probably looking in the region of about ZAR 300 million worth of CapEx. It's dependent on timing of certain acquisitions. So we have a number of high-quality TFC site acquisitions in the pipeline, but some of these obviously take a little bit of time for retail licenses to be granted and et cetera, and payment only happens when the retail license and all other CPs are met. So we've earmarked around about ZAR 300 million worth of CapEx for next year. We're comfortable that the business will generate enough cash to cover that. Even with that CapEx, we expect our debt-to-equity ratios to be better than the current year. And then going forward, our replacement CapEx range is kind of between that ZAR 50 million to ZAR 70 million mark, depending on exactly where it's spent. So we'll continue to spend CapEx going forward. F30 strategy requires spend to grow. So to Sean's point, there's organic growth, and there's acquisitive growth. Yes, I hope that answers your question.

Good. Thanks, Graeme. So there's another question around retail sales in The Fuel Company, which only increased 2.7%, which is below inflation. And can we give a bit more flavor on that? So one must remember that at those big retail sites, our estimation is at least a 13 million sales -- fuel liter loss due to excessive road closures, disturbances and rebuilds for the year. Now the average spend -- retail spend per liter is right around ZAR 5.70. So that would equate to around 4% lost retail sales for the year. If one added that back, then we have actually -- our retail division has actually beaten inflation there. There is an interesting trend appearing in the retail company being that fuel seems to have recovered earlier than retail sales in that space. So if one looks at the fuel recovery on the slide that we included for yourselves, you could see that September was flat. And in October, it actually picked up in terms of retail. So -- sorry, September was the lowest negative for the year, and October was flat. Retail was still flat for October. So we expect an increase from November as the lower price stimulate traveling in the country. The November month-to-date number in there are both positive, which is good news. Another question is how we should view the ZAR 1 billion target which we had for F '25 actually, given the F '24 result. So no doubt that we would miss the F '25 ZAR 1 billion PBT number. The results have just been under too much pressure over the last few years. Now looking forward to F '25, I obviously can't give you a precise number, but we have certainly budgeted for a normalized growth pattern for F '25, probably the best I could say. I think to add to that, just more flavor on the F30 plan is obviously, we have used the F '24 number as a basis for the F30 plan. And having broken that down per segment, per site, per number of acquisitions we need to do, we are pretty comfortable that the F30 plan is doable from not only an acquisitive point of view, organic growth point of view but also from a fund or cash generation point of view to fund that acquisitive strategy. This is another question around La Niña and El Niño. So obviously, it's running today in Paarl. It would be clear, therefore, that La Niña hasn't quite developed itself for the field crop production in the Free State and old Eastern Transvaal areas. Now please just recall that we have a very low exposure to the field crop sector in agriculture of South Africa seeing that our Agrimarks are mainly focused on water-intensive areas around river systems, et cetera. Having said that, obviously, our wheat harvest has not performed as we expected. And in particular, the July excessive rainfall precluded the guys from actually getting into the fields to spray nutritions as well as pesticides. And we believe that is the main reason for a slightly lower average wheat harvest in the Swartland area. We can confirm that, that looks the same in the Waterberg area, but that in the Southern Cape area of the SSK operations actually looks much better, so it's been quite an interesting year, always challenging in agriculture. I think another question is around, are the cement volumes indicative of growth? Well, look, I mean, 12% growth in cement volumes in a particular month given that the whole year has been so volatile, I think we are a bit early on calling a sustained trend there. But certainly, I would say that if November also performs on the positive side that we then would have had 3 months in a row, which are positive. And at this stage, month-to-date, that certainly does look like the case. Right, Graeme, there don't seem to be any other questions. So thank you once again for joining in on the webcast. We will see most of you, hopefully, at the AGM in February. And obviously, we have some one-on-ones with a lot of institutional investors over the next few days, which we're looking forward to, and we will chat further there. Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot.