KAP Limited (KAP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for taking the time to listen to us this morning. So these are our results for the 6 months ended 31 December 2021. Sorry we are a minute late. And just to let you know that holding video that was playing before we started something that we did for our staff leading up to December, and it really coincided with the initiation of our new brand, which I'm sure you've all noticed. So that is available on our website. If you found it interesting, you'd like to listen to the whole clip. So just in terms of the presentation today, again, we have a facility for questions. So top left of your screen, there's a questions tab. And please feel free to ask your questions during the presentation so that we can collate them and it just makes it more efficient at the end. So before we go into it, I'd just like to introduce Patrick Quarmby. Pat was appointed as our Chairman at our AGM in November, and he's going to introduce the results for today.

Good morning, ladies gentlemen, and thank you, Gary. As you know, I've just been recently appointed as a Chairman of -- Chairperson of KAP. And I thought it was appropriate that I should just introduce myself really before Gary -- before introducing Gary and Frans. My CV is on the KAP website. I've been on the Board of KAP for a number of years, serving in the capacity as Audit Committee Chair, investment community Chair and on the Nominations Committee. So over the last -- well, how many years, 12 years or so, I've built up a very good understanding of KAP and its people. I'm very fortunate in the sense in the timing of this appointment because it's a very exciting time for me to take over his chair. We've recently appointed a number of new board members, which is bringing a lot of new insights and fresh perspectives to our deliberations as a Board. And as we're emerging from the COVID restrictions, the Board is starting to reconnect again, which is great. The energy of a meeting is always so much more productive for me in person as opposed to virtual, and I think that will be good for the business. We're also dealing with a number of exciting initiatives at present. Gary and his team have done a huge amount of work over the last year in refining the strategy of KAP. And this is translating into some very interesting work streams, which will undoubtedly bring value to the group. So I'm really looking forward to my new role on the Board. And obviously taking over when the company is trading well and has a stronger momentum is always a lot easier. But let me leave that to Gary and Frans to present. But first of all, Gary and Frans, I'd really like to congratulate you and your team over a great half year to 31 December 2021. And I'll hand over to you now.

Thanks, Pat. So just in terms of our agenda. Pat has obviously done the introduction. I'll go through the divisional operational review. Frans will then go through the financial analysis. I'll then go through the strategy and the outlook. And then as normal, we'll take questions at the end. And we've appointed Christina Steyn in the role of Investor Relations Executive, so she will handle the questions at the end. So just going through our presentation for today, I mean, we always start with the operating environment. And every time we sit in front of you, we seem to say it's been a challenging year, and this 6 months has been no different. And if we just look at the general economic and political environment, it remains really unstable with a lot of uncertainty. And that I suppose, played out in civil unrest in South Africa during July, which everyone is aware of, as well as significant civil unrest in Eswatini, where we have fairly large logistics operations. And that was kind of underlined by relatively kind of subdued consumer activity. We've continued with COVID restrictions in various forms across the world, and that had a number of impacts globally as well as in our business. Global supply chains remain disrupted. And an outcome of that has been significant commodity volatility and inflationary pressures. Now once again, KAP's diversified model really proved resilient through this process. And you'll see as we go through the results, we've had both winners and losers out of this environment. But I think our decentralized management structure has continued to support rapid decision-making so that we can adjust quickly as circumstances change, and this was evident throughout the period. So if we start with PG Bison, revenue up 17% to ZAR 2.4 billion, operating profit up 63% to close to ZAR 500 million, with an operating margin of 20%. So we're really pleased with that result. I think it's a strong result. And it's really supported by global demand and supply chain disruptions, which really supported local manufacturer. And we saw the strong demand across all major categories of our products, and that drove the revenue growth and really supported price increases which were sufficient to offset cost inflation. And that cost inflation has been coming for several years. We often talk about our strategy around value add. In this period, we actually reduced our value-add percentage slightly. And we also curtailed exports, and that was really to support local domestic downstream manufacturers. We saw production volumes increase by 7%. That obviously gave us significant scale benefits, which, again, supported margin and gave us the ability to invest in strategic inventory in anticipation of a major shutdown coming at our Piet Retief plant. In the results, we reduced our plantation valuation by ZAR 66 million, and that was primarily due to a migration from a sawlog regime towards a pulp regime to facilitate increased internal use of our own fiber. So as I mentioned, our eMkhondo or Piet Retief particleboard line, we effectively completed the construction of that plant during the period. We went through a dry commissioning phase, and that will remain within the budget of ZAR 560 million. And that is the reason why we've built strategic inventory, is to facilitate supplies to our customer base through that period of that shutdown. Also during the period, we initiated our new MDF line, also at eMkhondo. It is at a cost of ZAR 1.875 billion, and it will be a 780 cube a day MDF plant, which we see being commissioned in roughly July 2024. Moving on then to Restonic, which is our mattress and sleep operation. Their revenue down 9% to ZAR 917 million. Operating profit down 48% to ZAR 95 million, with an operating margin of 10%, which is, for us, quite a disappointing result. And I suppose, 3 primary issues leading to that. Firstly, the civil unrest in July resulted in significant damage to our customers' retail stores and distribution centers which obviously affected our ability to sell into those customers. That was combined with kind of a more subdued consumer environment compared to what we experienced coming out of COVID in the previous period or the comparable period, which collectively resulted in mattress volumes being down 12%, combined with raw material volumes in film and textiles being down by 13% and 12%, respectively. The second factor -- was the third factor, actually, which we saw was significant cost inflation. So generally on commodity-driven raw materials. So our foam, raw materials, TDI and polyol. Our steel that we used to make the springs. We saw significant cost inflation coming through the system, which we weren't always effective in passing through to our customers. So those are the main factors that weighed negatively. We, however, through the period, really used the lower volumes to optimize our manufacturing capability. We invested in stock during the period to take us through the promotional peaks. And that also supported a far better customer service during those promotional peak periods. We have restructured our foam operations in line with a far more refined product range. And then also within the division, where we've spoken previously about doing industrial products separately from our sleep-related products, that divisional restructure is really starting to gain momentum now, and we're starting to manage and report those 2 subdivisions separately within Restonic. Moving on then on to Feltex. Also a very disappointing result for us, and 2 main factors leading to that. So revenue down 14% to ZAR 826 million. Operating profit effectively at a breakeven, with operating margin effectively at close to 0. And the 2 main issues there were, firstly, the global semiconductor chip shortage. That's a global issue affecting global manufacturers and automotive retailers. And obviously impacted also by the supply chain disruptions in terms of getting those to the various territories where they're required. So the impact of -- on us was revenue negatively affected by 14%, and that was as a result of reduced build volumes, together with reduced sales volumes of between 14% to 37% of the LCV vehicles that we target. And that's predominantly your Hilux, your Ford Ranger, your Fortuner, those type of vehicles. Aligned with that, we actually experienced a lot of volatility in the component call-off from our OEMs. So while we found it actually quite disruptive, it was extremely disruptive for the OEMs that actually install the semiconductor chips in their vehicles. So understandable the disruption that they encountered, but the kind of upstream impact on our business was severe in terms of significant volatility of when exactly those call offs happened, which obviously impacted our ability to manage our cost base effectively. So the impact of that was ZAR 59 million on our operating profit, which is obviously significant for us. The second major issue was in relation to a new model startup with a single component within that model start-up, where we experienced technology challenges with our OEM -- sorry, with our technology partners. And that resulted in significant unplanned overtime, lower production yields and increased rejects, which required us to airfreight product in to ensure that we didn't let our customers down in terms of their production. So the impact of that was about ZAR 38 million. I'm pleased to say that throughout the period, we showed consistent improvement in that component manufacturer, and we started to approach a sense of normality towards the end of the period. Moving then to Safripol. So in Safripol, as we've explained previously, we are impacted by global factors within this business. And within this period, we saw increased global consumption of polymers across all levels and in all territories. And another major impact aligned with that was continued global supply chain disruptions, which effectively created a trade disconnect between the East and the West, where we saw the West in super profit territory and the East in kind of marginal profitability territory. With that, we've seen continued regional supply and demand imbalances in the petrochemical sector. We've also seen continued expansion in the U.S. and commissioning of plants and ramping up of capacity on new plants in the U.S. And then obviously, underlying all of this is an oil price environment where we've seen the oil price kind of come back to just, I'll say, normalized levels of between $70 and $80 a barrel. Within our business, the specific margin drivers of Safripol are the index pricing of PET, high-density polyethylene and polypropylene, which are our 3 polymers, and these are largely driven by global supply and demand. The indexed pricing of our raw materials being ethylene, propylene, PTA, MEG and PIA. Obviously, the rand-dollar exchange rate, those index prices are generally dollar indexed. We obviously report in rands. Global duty structures across those 3 polymers. Commodity and currency changes during the procurement to sales cycle. And you can imagine, in some instances, our raw materials are imported. We have a shipping period, we have a stocking period, we have a manufacturing period and then a sale period. And within that procurement to sales cycle, we do have price movements within that period. Our Safripol pulp product range and regional sales mix has an impact on our margins. And then our internal strategy to consistently beat the index, and moderate cyclicality will impact on our margin position. So if we look at the table -- sorry, go there -- at the table on the top right, we see our margin progression there. So the shaded column, 1H '22 versus 1H '21, so that is the current half compared to the prior year comparative half, PET margins up 28% and HDPE margins up 25% and polypropylene margins up 51%. If we then do a direct comparison from the second half of last year coming into the first half of this year, we see the trend of those -- the margin growth leveling off, with PET at 5%, HDPE at 5% and polypropylene at 27%, which is indicative of the growth starting to level off and normalize. Looking then at Safripol's results. Really, we're very happy with the results of this division, with revenue up 28% to ZAR 4.8 billion, operating profit up 247% to ZAR 600 million and operating margin at a healthy 12.7%. So we experienced strong demand across all product categories, and that really exceeded our available production capacity. And again, that was really supported by strong demand for local conversion of polymers. We continue to make progress in terms of migrating towards higher-specification, higher-margin polypropylene and HDPE, which are generally used in more durable applications or kind of less single-use applications. We -- that process together with our regional sales mix continue to support margins on all 3 polymers. Also, supportive of margins as we finally concluded our negotiations on our ethylene pricing model. This has been a lengthy process of around 2 years. And that's put us in a position where the pricing formula uses far more relevant indices and incorporates a margin color that can moderate a degree of the cyclicality that we experience in the polymer sector. We were affected on the HD business, with raw material constraints. It was a limited period, so temporary in our lives, but did have an impact on the production capacity or production volumes, which you can see in the table at the bottom, production volumes on HD going from 81% in the prior comparative to 72% in the current period. Our PET operations, we're very pleased and relieved to say that we have got that business to a position where we can tick the box in terms of the CapEx feasibilities. So by the end of this period, we had that plant running at rated capacity of 650 cubes a day, with a yield in excess of 98%, and achieving our Section 12I efficiency requirements. So really pleased that we've got that plant up to where it should be and that we kind of have got back to normality in terms of that PET expansion. We did make a strategic decision during the period to invest in inventory. Obviously, with the global disruptions and supply chains -- in the previous year, we did experience some interruptions through raw material disruptions. We made the decision to invest in increased raw material stockholding to prevent us from happening, especially during peak periods so that we didn't interrupt supply into the market and, obviously, compromise our customer base. All of these factors were sufficient to offset a stronger rand throughout the period and obviously support stronger margins and stronger profitability. So just in terms of the polymer breakdown. I'm not going to go through it kind of line by line, but we've given you the sales -- sorry, the revenue value, the sales volume, the production volume and the average exchange rates of the polymers throughout the period. Moving on then to Unitrans. So this is Unitrans Group. Revenue up 8% to ZAR 4.8 billion, operating profit down 6% to ZAR 345 million. And I think if we look at that as a group in the context of the environment that we experienced, I think it's not a bad result. Just in terms of the revenue split, for each one of the subdivisions within Unitrans. So on a revenue split, SA being 58%; Africa, 23%; and Passenger, 19%. On operating profit, the SA business, 47%; Africa, 26%; and Passenger 27%. And then on net assets, SA, 57%; Africa, 30%; and Passenger 13%. If we then break that down further and we look per division within Unitrans, the SA business, revenue up 7% to ZAR 2.8 billion, operating profit up 11% to ZAR 162 million with an operating margin of 5.8%. And we're really pleased with that. It's a nice consistent performance by that division. So the division continued to show improvements kind of period-on-period with revenue growth and margin expansion, albeit marginal. And that was really under challenging conditions. So they were directly impacted by the civil unrest. And I think that team did an exceptional job in navigating around that to actually produce the results which they did. The food and consumer operations performed well. Specialized freight and warehousing was stable. And while the general freight and warehousing was down on prior, largely due to subdued activity in the cement sector, sugar, alcohol and the line haul volumes. We continue to drive our technology-driven Control Tower. This is something that we use throughout the organization to really drive improved efficiencies, improved driver safety, fleet utilization, reducing incidents and really improving the information that we use to manage our business more effectively. During the period, we had a net gain of ZAR 168 million in the annualized revenue of contracts secured, which we're really pleased with. And then unfortunately, we received notice of termination on a large contract within that division. It is material to that division. Fortunately, through the contract, we are afforded some protection, which includes the transfer of staff and assets and an early termination penalty. So that's something that we're really considering our options as management. We do have different options that we can pursue, and that's something that we'll really flesh out in the next couple of months to decide exactly how we're going to take that forward. Just in terms of the revenue split by sector, so just to give you an idea of the scale of the different subdivisions. Specialized freight and warehousing at 38% of revenue; food and consumer, 32%; and then general freight and warehousing at 30%. Looking then at Unitrans Africa, revenue up 7% to ZAR 1.1 billion, operating profit down 27% to ZAR 88 million, with an operating margin of 7.8%. And I think if we look at all the work that we're doing in this division, it's really a disappointing result for us. And predominantly driven by external factors. So on the agricultural side, the division was largely impacted by customer issues, so lower cane yields, mill stoppages and then industrial action. And just to give you some context, within Eswatini, that was an 8-week strike at our customers' sites. On the positive side, we've continued to make really meaningful progress in terms of how we take this agricultural part of our business forward. And we're really expanding the technology-driven precision farming operations, which really complements our traditional load and haul operations. And that's really very exciting for us if we look at where that part of our business is moving towards. On the road haulage activities, we found it tough, especially in cross-border work, with Botswana remaining in a state of emergency for the whole first quarter. Obviously, that, combined with the civil unrest in both South Africa and Eswatini, weighed quite heavily on this division. The mining operations performed well. We renewed our contracts in Madagascar and then we had a successful start-up of a mining operation in Botswana, both of which we see further growth potential and both of which I think are quite exciting in our lives. We spoke to you some time ago about our entry into rail, and we made the point very strongly that this was something that we were going to start very small. We knew we were going to make mistakes, and we wanted those mistakes to be small mistakes, so learn more lessons and then grow once you've learned the lessons. So we're now learning those lessons. We've done a number of very successful runs. So we've proven that the concept works. However, we've been significantly impacted by container shortages globally, which obviously impacts our ability to run. So fortunately, it's not material in our lives, but it is something that we're going to reassess based on global factors, whether we take it forward, and if so in what form. We obviously don't want to continue with something that's going to bleed for a number of years. So that's something where we're really reassessing our position. In this division, we had a net gain of ZAR 99 million in annualized revenue of new contracts secured. If we look at the split by region and by activity, you can see there I've referred a number of times to Botswana and Eswatini. And you can see just by scale of those 2, individually, they're roughly 40% of the revenue of this division. So Botswana, big in our lives; Mozambique, big in our lives; and then obviously going down, Eswatini, Malawi, Tanzania at smaller percentages. And then on the right, the revenue split by activity, with road haulage, predominantly fuel-related, also being now complemented with additional road haulage at 50%, agriculture at 44% and then mining at 5%. And as I mentioned, rail not material in our lives with revenue only at 1%. Then finishing off with Passenger. Revenue up 12% to ZAR 911 million. Operating profit, slightly down 6% at ZAR 95 million, with an operating margin of 10.4%. So I think in the current environment, not a bad result. And really, overall, the performance, commute and personnel, that's the biggest part of this business, I suppose a satisfactory performance. We went through a management restructure, which really just focused management in certain specific areas. And that's really provided a far better focus on operational disciplines and efficiencies within that business. An outcome of that is a focus on either fixing or terminating marginal or loss-making contracts. And you'll see in the outlook, that's really a focus of this division going into the second half. The Gautrain operations continued to be supported by our concession partner during a low Passenger environment. So that performance again was satisfactory. Mozambique, stable performance. Just to make you aware, one of our large contracts there is in a retender process. We're pretty confident of renewal, but just to make you aware. And then very, very pleased to say we disposed of our Greyhound and Citiliner assets. So in terms of that intercity business, it's now out of our lives and it really provides management with an opportunity to focus on the profitable elements of their business. So we recovered ZAR 84 million for those assets. And then lastly, we appointed a new CEO for this division. So Nico Boshoff, who many of you would have met over time is retiring. We appointed a new CEO with effect from 1 December, and we've got a responsible transition process going on there in terms of exactly how we hand over. So overall, a mixed bag in our results. Safripol and PG really performing really well. I think Unitrans relatively stable. And then Feltex and Restonic really disappointing results under quite trying circumstances. And I think that's largely the basis of our story is really the strength in our diversity as a group. And I think when we get to the outlook, it's really a case of how we continue to build on that momentum and how we bring up the underperforming divisions to really get a more balanced performance from the group. So that's the operational review. And with that, I hand over to Frans for the financial analysis.

Thank you, Gary. Thanks for taking us through the operational overview. And thanks to everyone that took the time to come and listen to us this morning. So if you go through the financial highlights, with the backdrop of all the ups and downs in terms of the operational review, consolidated revenue increased 13% to ZAR 13.5 billion. EBITDA increased 26% to ZAR 2.5 billion. Operating profit increased 41% to ZAR 1.6 billion. The net effect of that is operating margin increasing 230 basis points to 11.4%. Headline earnings, up 62% to ZAR 0.372 per share. And then both our serviceability ratios increasing on the prior period, EBITDA interest cover at 8.3x and net debt-to-EBITDA at 2x compared to last year, 2.5x. If you look at the revenue and the operating profit in terms of the waterfall, it's basically illustrating the strength of our diversity in the group, where you have some divisions that's performing better than other divisions in a specific period. And if you look at the revenue analysis, all divisions are up in terms of revenue. Basically 2 divisions that's been down for this period, Feltex and Restonic. But on the operating profit side, if you look at the operating profit and the margin performance, which we will show you on the next slide, is due to a strong growth in both PG Bison and Safripol, where PG Bison is up ZAR 190 million for this period, and Safripol up ZAR 434 million. The rest of the divisions, either down or flat. If you look at the operating margin, increased by 230 basis points to 11.4%. If you look at PG Bison, stable performance, increased from the prior half year. Safripol, you can see the cyclicality there, where we go up and down, and 12.7% at the moment and healthy, like Gary mentioned. And one thing I would like to say on this slide is that you must take into account that this is 6 months margins and not full year. So there is a seasonality that is also -- that you need to take into account compared to full year margins. You will also note that we've increased the period that we show you in terms of our disclosures. We used to show you a 3-year comparative. We now show you 5 years to get a better view of the longer-term trend in these divisions. If you look at the consolidated income statement, our diversified business model definitely proved resilient through this period, where EBITDA was up 26% to ZAR 2.2 billion. Our depreciation was flat for the period or slightly up only 2%. And when we get to the CapEx, I will -- or to the capital expenditure, I will also make a note there. But we have a lot of capital projects at the moment that's still in capital work in progress, and we will only start to see the depreciation come through the income statement once those projects are commissioned and commercially in production. The effect of the flat depreciation means that operating profit increased 37% to ZAR 1.6 billion. Our finance costs was down by 3%, resulting in headline earnings up 57% to ZAR 931 million. Weighted average number of shares decreased 3%, and that was due to share buybacks, which I will allude to later in the presentation, resulting in headline earnings per share for the period, up 62% to ZAR 0.372 per share. If you look at the balance sheet, the balance sheet remains strong, notwithstanding the increase in net working capital. Gary mentioned in various of the divisions that we've invested in inventory specifically. So notwithstanding that, the balance sheet remains strong. And with that, you will notice that the net debt also increased ZAR 1.3 billion, but I've got a slide later on explaining exactly what makes up the increase in the net interest-bearing debt. To highlight is the net asset value per share increased 12% to ZAR 4.33 per share. So if you look at certain movements in terms of the balance sheet, Firstly, we have a capital expenditure here. So we continue to invest in the latest technology assets. Throughout our business, there are various capital expansion projects on at the moment, which will come into production in the next 2 or 3 years. So if you look at the slide on the left there, for the period, we've expanded -- there was capital expenditure of ZAR 952 million. Replacement is the bottom block there that I show you, so that's 5 88 compared to depreciation of 6 23. So over time, we try to keep or maintain the replacement capital in line with depreciation, which I think you can see is evident in that slide over time from F '19 to F '22. There was ZAR 364 million in terms of expansion capital for the 6 months. So to break that a little bit further down, we've started to include some additional disclosures. So on the slide there, we have the eMkhondo projects for PG Bison. The particle board expansion that they're busy at the moment, there was a spend of ZAR 145 million in the 6 months. The balance of that, the ZAR 560 million that Gary mentioned in terms of the total budget, will be spent in the second 6 months of this financial year. Then also, we -- the recently announced MDF project for PG Bison that is anticipated to be commissioned in July '24. We started with that project, and we spent ZAR 71 million in the 6 months. At the bottom, it's just a breakdown of our assets. And just to illustrate the diverse nature of the assets, but in simple terms, 73% of our assets is made up between plant and machinery, vehicles and buses and land and buildings. If you look at the movement in the plantation valuation from 30 June to December, basically, the increase in growth is offset by a decrease in harvesting and a ZAR 41 million decrease due to inflation differentiation. So in total, that's ZAR 66 million. During the period, we experienced some fires around Northeastern Cape plantations in August 2021. Just over 3,000 hectares was affected. The value of this affected plantations is ZAR 164 million. And we've done our estimates, and we are confident that we will fully recover less value through either the salvage operations, or the insurance that we have in place. We continue with the conversion of Solox to pulpwood, and that's to bring it in line for our internal use, where we have a particleboard plant in Ugie. If you look at the net working capital, and this is from December last year, the same period, to December this year, where you see inventory increased ZAR 845 million and that's due to strategic investment in inventory during this period to mitigate global supply chain disruptions. And then receivables, that increased ZAR 782 million, and that's offset by an increase in payables. All 3 of these elements, inventory receivables and payables were impacted by significant price increases or significant price inflation, so that also impacted the level of working capital. The 3 -- just over ZAR 3 billion is approaching a more normalized level, especially compared to the prior year, where the prior December, we just came out of hard lockdown, low trading activity in that prior period. As management, we continue to focus on optimizing our working capital. If you look at the cash flow statement, you start with EBITDA. So that excludes depreciation already, up 26%. You noticed the investment in working capital of ZAR 1 billion. That resulted in cash generated from operations, ZAR 1.3 billion, down from last period, ZAR 1.7 billion by 24%. The effect of that is the cash conversion ratio at 58%. Our target is to be greater than 90%, but the cash flow conversion for this 6 months was impacted by partly seasonality in the working capital and also the investment in inventory. So it's a continued focus from management to normalize working capital, and specifically at reporting dates. If you then look at what we've -- where did we invest the money, we've invested ZAR 1.3 billion for the 6 months. Included in replacement CapEx is the Intercity assets that we've disposed of ZAR 84 million. So that was definitely good for management to execute that. You will also notice that the acquisition of subsidiaries and businesses of ZAR 387 million. And on the next slide, I will give a little bit more info on what that is. And for the period, we paid a dividend -- or we paid dividends of ZAR 391 million, and we also repurchased shares of ZAR 310 million. So late in December, we concluded the acquisition of DriveRisk, a very exciting acquisition for us. And Gary will, in the outlook, explain a little bit more about the business, what it is and why we've acquired this. So that means that the transaction was effective 1 December, and we bought 90% of both DriveRisk Holdings and SingRisk Services. The remaining 10% of the shares is with management or is held or retained by management. So the total -- the consideration that we paid net of cash at acquisition was ZAR 379 million, so that you'll see on the cash flow statement. And as permitted by IFRS 3 business combinations, we've accounted for this provision in our balance sheet, we will finalize the purchase price allocations before year-end. And we've given you the table there, making up the purchase price. I think what we need to take away from this is that we've accounted for intangible assets of ZAR 355 million net of deferred tax. Like I said, that is provisionally at this moment. Some financial information or info on the acquisition, the immediate 12 months prior to the effective date, the turnover was ZAR 375 million and the EBITDA, ZAR 55 million. The historic EBITDA, especially the 12 months before the effective date has been impacted by global semiconductor shortages. And the forward-looking order book is providing a 5x EV/EBITDA acquisition multiple that we bought the business on. Share buybacks during the 6 months, we bought back 65 million shares for the value of ZAR 310 million. This represents 2.6% of the issued shares, and we've used an opportunity during this period to enhance shareholder value through this repurchase. In terms of the net debt movement from year-end June to December, increased by ZAR 1.4 billion. We've settled just over ZAR 400 million in terms of debt. We raised ZAR 1.4 billion. And then the rest of the movements are on the slide there. But there's basically 4 things that we need to take into account or factors. We've invested just over ZAR 1 billion in working capital. We paid dividends of ZAR 391 million in this period. We bought back shares of ZAR 310 million. As well as we acquired DriveRisk for ZAR 404 million, and we assumed net debt in the DriveRisk acquisition of ZAR 56 million. If you look at the significant debt funding activities during the period, I'm not going to grow through all of them. But we've listed bonds with 3-year tenors. We've listed bonds with 5-year tenors. We've tapped on some existing bonds. All of those added up to ZAR 1.4 billion. And then we've settled the KAP007 for ZAR 420 million. Just to highlight is that Global Credit Rating confirmed credit rating in November 2021 as an A+ with a stable outlook. If you look at the serviceability. So I've explained the increase in net debt to ZAR 7.9 billion. That translates to a gearing of 74%. But notwithstanding that our net debt-to-EBITDA improved from last year December at 2.5x. At year-end, it was 1.9x. And now at December, it's 2x. In terms of EBITDA interest cover, last year, 4.7, this year, 8.3. So this is part of our target. Our internal target is to consistently manage our debt levels on a 2 or less than 2x. Obviously, this excludes any significant corporate activity that might take place. Just for interesting sake, we've continued the funding structure. Most of the funding is done through listed notes. And also with the settlement of the ZAR 420 million bond, most of our debt is now at floating rates or floating interest rates with 95%. If you look at our debt maturity profile, our intention is to refinance the debt as and when they come up to be refinanced. And we've included the actual numbers there for you on the slide. We normally just had the graph to make it a lot easier. And we have sufficient capacity and liquidity to refinance this debt. In terms of the numbers at the bottom there, just bear in mind that those do include the vehicle and asset finance, so it's not only bank term loan, bank debt and bonds. Yes. So with that, I would like to thank both our funds, debt capital markets as well as our banking partners. If it wasn't for your support, we would not be able to run the business and continue to grow it. And we're very excited about the plans that we've got. And yes, with that, I would like to thank everyone for listening in. And I hand over now to Gary to take us through the outlook. Thank you.

Thank you, Frans. Just in terms of the outlook, I felt it appropriate to start with DriveRisk. As Frans said, this is something that we're very excited about. And I think if you just start off with looking at the right-hand side of the screen with our purpose is to save lives. I think that's a really powerful reason to get up in the morning. And that's really what this business is all about. So for us as KAP, really, this was an opportunity for us to invest in an asset-light, technology-enabled business with a really strong social impact. And we've had experience of the product over several years. So we, as customers, are really true believers in what this product can actually do. So DriveRisk is essentially focused on reducing risk. It uses technology to improve driver behavior. So what we do essentially is source best-of-breed global technology that we integrate into a single intelligent user interface and that is able to predict and prevent accidents and incidents. And this -- the outcome of this is obviously improved risk management and safety, better asset management, asset protection and cost reduction. And then, obviously, operational efficiency through having increased uptime due to less accidents. So the focus is on real-time video recording, analysis, direct actions and then reporting in relation to both driver behavior as well as specific events. The business has a 24/7 call center which interacts directly with drivers and clients, specifically to prevent incidents and accidents from happening. We've got a broad sector exposure. So obviously, logistics is part of it, but it cuts across the security, cash and transit industry, big exposure in the mining space, in on-site mine equipment, in the agricultural space -- again, on-site agricultural equipment, the forestry sector, courier sector, waste sector. And currently, there's over 50,000 active devices in operation fitted to windscreens of moving equipment and obviously monitoring and triggering events. The primary operations are in South Africa and Australasia, but there are further operations in 22 other countries. And we see this really as an opportunity to grow further into new sectors. So I've already explained the various sectors, and there are several other sectors with further growth opportunity as well as further territories of where we can continue to grow. Just in very simple terms, if you look on the top left of the screen, there's 3 devices there. These are the main 3 devices that are used. On the left is a Lytx drive cam, the one with the blue tabs on it. So that is effectively a high resolution video recorder. The next device is a DriveAlert device, which uses facial recognition to detect fatigue distracted driving, et cetera. And then the last device there is something called Mobileye, and that is directed towards -- it's something called Advanced Driver Assistance System, or ADAS, and that is something that some of you would come to know in your existing cars with kind of lane departure warnings, forward collision warnings and pedestrian collision warnings, really warning a driver in event of an incident. So those are the devices which are positioned in a vehicle and act as 2 things, triggers of certain events and recording of those events. Those are then uploaded into the Lytx cloud, which manages all the data. They are analyzed and then sent through to the drivers call center where they acted upon in real time. DriveRisk then consolidates that information for feedback, 2 drivers and 2 clients with a specific objective of improving driver behavior. So this is about making the drivers better drivers and reducing the level of risk. The rate at which we're building the technology of how we do this is evolving very quickly. So we have -- or DriveRisk have written a process whereby this is in real time on a mobile device now. So at the end of a trip, a driver can literally be rated on the trip, get a direct download of any incidents that have been recorded and immediately start to improve and amend their behavior. So very, very exciting for us. The business has been around for a number of years. It was started by a gentleman, Louis Swat, in around about 2000, 2002, with that DriveReport, and it's evolved since that into these global partnerships with really leading-edge technology and then using local expertise to create a platform that aggregates all of this information into really intelligent, usable information. So that's DriveRisk. We're very excited about it. I think it's -- as I said, going to give us good growth prospects across different sectors and across different territories. If we then look at outlook of existing operations. So firstly, for just the second half, PG Bison, the momentum of the first half has continued with strong demand for our products. We'll continue to focus on our product range, demand creation activities. All plants will be running at full capacity. We do have some normal scheduled shutdowns taking place together with the 30-day maintenance shutdown at Piet Retief, where we will also be commissioning the new line that we've installed there. And that line will add about 14% to the total capacity of the division from April onwards. If we look beyond F '22, this business has really evolved from a very focused manufacturer into a business being very conscious of its market, its product, consumer demand, and enabling its customer base to be able to service that consumer demand. We continue to focus on technology. The MDF plant, the last bullet that you see there, is the latest tech available in the world, and it's got brand-new technology on that plant, which will be the second in the world to actually apply that technology. So kind of very excited about both short-term and long-term outlook for PG. If we then look at Restonic, the year -- kind of the second half has started off relatively slower. So we're expecting a relatively subdued sleep environment for second half. Really the job of the team is to recover the impacts of the cost inflation, and that's done through a combination of procurement, sales pricing, product design. We continue to expand on our raw materials, manufacture with backward integration, our efficiency investments to make our processes more efficient. And we continue to invest in our brand development and our marketing. And that's something that we're not going to stop. So although market conditions are not the most buoyant, this is a time where we're actually going to spend more on marketing and sales as opposed to cutting back on those costs. If we look beyond F '22, really, we're going to focus on the sleep sector around consumer activity, the market, our specific products, development of those products to be leading edge and the brand at our core. And as I said, we're going to continue to invest in our brand. We'll also continue to invest in our logistics capability. So that did help us in this period to improve factory optimization as well as to improve customer support, and that we will continue to do. Technology and backward integration are core to who we are, we'll continue to invest to retain our position of the lowest cost of product to market. If we then look at Feltex. So we've seen an improvement in both consistency and volume of vehicle build. It is slow, but it's certainly improving. So we see that situation continuing to improve throughout H2 for this financial year. We are subject, however, to the global semiconductor shortage. That does, however, seem to be dissipating. In terms of the new model introduction, that single component which caused us so many difficulties in the first half, as I said, that's largely been resolved, and we see that going to full normalization through the second half. Beyond that, we like the automotive sector, and we'll continue to invest in the sector and seek opportunities for growth beyond the second half. And this is in the form of new products and potential bolt-on acquisitions in that space. So we do have another new model coming in, in September '22. We're well prepared for it, and we're certainly not going to make the same mistakes as we did on the recent one. With that, APDP, which is the automotive production development program, is in place and operating. And over the long term, that really encourages increased localization of assembly and component manufacturer which is really supportive of our views of the industry, together with our alignment of our product range with where new electric vehicles are moving. Looking then to Safripol. So we see the momentum seen in the first half continuing into the second half. The global supply chain disruptions and the regional supply chain and balance -- or supply-demand imbalances, we don't see being resolved in the short term, and that will continue to support local manufacturer. The global indices remain at healthy levels, which supports margin. And we see strong demand across all polymers in all categories remaining in place. We'll continue to drive our own internal process towards higher specification, higher margin, more durable non-single-use applications. Beyond F '22, I've put in inverted commas in normalization of global supply chain disruptions and regional supply and demand imbalances. And the reason for that is we're not quite sure what normalization is going to be. So we don't see, as I said, this situation being resolved in the short term. And I think there are some permanent adjustments which have taken place with increased consumption in the East and less trade actually taking place going forward. But I think that remains to be seen in terms of how the cards will actually fall and exactly what the new normal will be. We will continue to focus on beating the index on an ongoing basis as well as on moderating the cyclicality to the extent that we are able to. We'll continue to evolve in our product range, as I noted. And then we have significant R&D taking place in terms of new markets, new applications as well as enabling recycling. We see recycling as a critical element of our sustainability going forward. It's something that we participate actively in, and we actually see that as part of our future in terms of how we take this business forward into the long term. If we look at Unitrans South Africa, so we expect more of the same in the second half. We see the macro remaining more or less where it is. A pipeline of new opportunities is satisfactory. We see the competition remaining robust. So this is a tough space to operate in, and we don't see that dissipating anytime soon. Control Tower will be key to our future going forward. It has a big impact on our ability to run the business efficiently, and that will remain a focus area for us. If we look beyond F '22, this is a business where our returns are not what they should be. It's not what we expect from the business. And there's a lot of work going into this business in terms of sector, market and customer focus in order to drive optimal capital allocation and improved returns. And with that, what complementary services we can do around our core of supply chain to really improve the returns and margin profile of this business. Control Tower, technology and business intelligence will be key to our business going forward, and it's an area that we continue to focus on. As I mentioned earlier, in terms of that major contract termination that we had, we will assess our options in terms of how we take that forward and in terms of how we utilize those assets going forward. Just in closing on that, you'll note on the top right-hand side, -- and as you go through these next 3 slides, the purpose of this business is really to free up our clients to focus on growing their businesses. And that alludes towards a more holistic, service-related business around the core of supply chain where there's a lot of operational services that we already do around the core of supply chain, and we see that as a growth opportunity to grow our business, firstly, but also to improve our returns and margins of that business over time. If we then move on to Africa. So we see an improved performance coming out of Botswana. We're seeing fewer cross-border disruptions, and we have put a new management team in place in that country, and we already see benefits coming out of that process. So with that, commodity road haulage, we see being improved in the second half. And we see our continued expansion into the precision farming, and again, complementary operational services that we already do within that business. And again, I point to the right where the purpose of this business is exactly the same, and you'll see it on the next slide as well, as one Unitrans having a consistent value proposition to our customers. As noted, by the end of June, we will have made a decision on our rail, and we'll advise you in terms of exactly how we're going to take that forward. Beyond '22, there are 3 primary areas of focus that are material to us. Firstly, the agriculture, technology-driven, integrated farm services, mining, material handling, on-site logistics and complementary services and then, obviously, corridor road haulage, which will complement our existing fuel distribution activities. In this business, again, a big focus on their technology platform of how we aggregate information and distill it into meaningful business intelligence that both ourselves and our customers can use to improve the quality of their businesses. And then lastly, on Passenger, the exit from intercity and tourism has really provided significantly increased focus in this business. It was a major distraction to this business, and it's really given us fresh energy focusing on productive stuff with more capacity on fewer focus areas. As I mentioned, Nico Boshoff, the exiting CEO, we've agreed an 18-month transition period to ensure that there's a responsible transfer of knowledge and skills and that's progressing really well. We're really focused on fixing or terminating marginal and loss-making contracts, and we expect car train to remain stable, and we expect continued growth in Mozambique. You'll recall we had both an intercity as well as a tourism business, both were closed. We've disposed of the intercity assets, and the tourism assets remain on our books, and we hope to dispose of those during the second half, and they have a carrying value of ZAR 47 million. Beyond 2022, our focus remains on contract commuter and personnel activities. There are certain bolt-on opportunities that we're looking to bolster that current operation with. And then we see continued expansion into Mozambique. That country is growing at an amazing rate in the areas where we see opportunity. And that's something that we would seek to capitalize on. So in summary, we are optimistic about the second half. We've got good momentum going into the second half, and we're expecting a good second half of this year. Beyond that, we hope to go into F '23, again, with good momentum. We've got very clear strategic direction, we've got great expansion plans, and we've got good momentum going into the period. So overall, very pleased with the results. I think the teams have done a great job, often under very difficult circumstances. Yes, we have made some mistakes. We could have done some things better than we did. We know what those things are, and we have very clear plans in place in terms of how we're going to fix them. And then looking beyond that, again, very optimistic in terms of KAP and where we see the world. So in conclusion, I'd just like to thank, firstly, our customers and our suppliers, both of which we can't do without and both of which we highly value. And then to our banks and debt capital markets, again, critical partners for us through the funding of our business and our growth plans. And again, we really appreciate your support. And then to our shareholders, we've got a relatively concentrated grouping of shareholders at the top who have given us great support and have been relatively stable over an extended period, and we really appreciate that support. And then lastly, just to our staff, it's been a really challenging environment with several personal challenges, which each one of you have risen above to come to work every day and continued to build KAP into a great company. And for that, we really appreciate your hard work and your commitment. And really, congratulations on these results that you've produced. So that's it from our side in terms of the presentation. So we are open to questions, which we will endeavor to answer as best as we can. And I hand over to Christina to hopefully give us some nice questions, Christina.

Thank you, Gary, and good morning to everyone. So our first question or the first 2 questions is from Rahgib Davids from M&G Investments. In the SA Logistics business, what is the estimated size of the major contract loss for 2023 either by revenue or operating profit?

The estimated size is around ZAR 800 million revenue.

Second question. For Safripol, during the 6-month period, was the cap and collar mechanism utilized? Or was the margin between input and output pricing positive?

The cap and collar protection was utilized.

Thank you. The following question comes from [indiscernible] from All Weather Capital. There's quite a few, so I'll split them. Firstly, well done on a good set of results. Is the margin achieved in Safripol sustainable going forward, given that the collar was negotiated with your key supplier?

I think globally, the nature of the polymer sector is that it is cyclical, firstly. And that has been exacerbated by a disconnect between the East and the West, as I mentioned. So I think globally, Western polymer margins are at -- I don't know whether at a peak is the right word, but they are elevated. And as a result, our margins are also elevated. So the current operating margin is not sustainable through the cycle. How long it will last? It remains to be seen. But I think through the cycle, that's not a normal margin for us. .

Thank you. On your working capital, given the comment of this being a normalized levels or at more normalized levels, how do you view the working capital requirements for the next 12 to 18 months?

So I think there's 3 elements. There is a seasonality to our working capital. So generally, our working capital in December is higher than June just because it comes out of a peak trading period. Secondly, we did have a strategic investment in inventory from prior year December. And that was specifically for 2 main reasons. One is to manage supply chain disruptions on the Polymers business, where we invested in additional raw materials. And secondly, on PG Bison, where we were going into a shutdown period for an extended period, and we wanted to have sufficient stock to be able to supply the market through that period. And then lastly is to get a monthly normalized working capital over time without these kind of dips in our specific reporting periods, which I think just provides a far more meaningful set of financial statements to investors and analyzers of the financials. So I think for a December period, we are close to normalized levels. We see June being generally slightly lower than this.

Okay. Thank you, Gary. And then the last question from [indiscernible], I think you've touched on it in the results, but maybe just for completeness, I'll ask it. How has Feltex and Restonic traded the past 2 months versus 2 years ago? Has the weakness continued into the second half? Or has there been an improvement in these divisions?

Well, generally, January is a difficult month. So in both businesses, they had difficult Januaries, which is not unusual. February in Feltex is looking a lot better. We're not where we want to be yet, and that's largely through volumes still coming through on vehicle build as well as retail volumes, and that comes down to an availability issue at our customer level. On Restonic, we are finding market conditions weaker. But it's probably more in line with a historic February. Prior year February, it was obviously a strong period coming out of COVID or out of lockdown, so probably more in line with a normalized February in historic periods.

Okay. Thank you, Gary. Then a question from CCGIM from Lawrence. Will DriveRisk be used to supplement the Control Tower function in Unitrans? If so, how much of a boost in operating margins in Unitrans South Africa and Africa you're forecasting this acquisition will add?

Yes. So I think it's actually a good question, and I'm glad it was asked. And I want to stress the point that Unitrans is actually a customer of DriveRisk. So DriveRisk is an independent business. It has a broad customer range. And it's a business that we want to run independently, and that we want to actually build out into an independent division that will stand on its own. I think that will give you some idea or of the scale that we believe is possible from this business. The fact that Unitrans use them, I think, is incidental to the acquisition. We've made that acquisition on its own merits, in an area where we believe there is fantastic growth prospects and really an area that we can build a strong position within a -- I wouldn't say global position, but certainly within certain territories, really build out an ownership position around safety and risk management. So it's not part of Unitrans. There will be no crossover between the 2. One is a customer of the other, which is not uncommon in other areas of our business. So we do have supplier customer-relationships across various divisions. They are managed on a very clear arm's length basis. And obviously, each business is driven to perform on its own merits, and our management are actually incentivized on that basis. So I think just to be clear, we see drive risk as an independent business with potential scale to stand on its own.

Thanks, Gary. Just another question from Lawrence. How are plans to use raw materials from the bedding division to enter adjacent markets, i.e., agriculture, health care products, et cetera, and the restructure of that division going?

So it is going. It's going a little bit slower than we would have liked. We have separated management. We separated the statutory structures. Physically, they are operating more or less separately. So it has taken a little bit longer than we would have liked, but it remains a clear part of our strategy. We see opportunity to use our existing skills and expertise to build into a new space, and that we will continue to do.

Thank you. And then a question from Wesley Gardner from Risk Asset Management. Regarding PG Bison, what type of value-added product ratio are you currently seeing? And where do you see this ratio landing by FY '22 relative to first half '22?

So I think our value-added ratio was in the slide, it's around 66%. It remains core to our strategy. I didn't mention it, I don't think, but in our outlook slide, you would have seen there that we have got increased investment taking place in a gloss line and another melamine-faced board line, which comes in, in September of this year. So very clearly part of our strategy going forward. It was really a conscious decision to reduce that ratio in the current period to support local manufacturers. We are the major supplier into that sector, and we do carry our responsibility to support certain sectors, which we will do. Over time, longer term, still a clear part of our strategy to value add and to build that percentage from 66% up. I think what needs to be taken into account is that, that percentage will naturally reduce bearing in mind that we're bringing on extra production capacity. So you're dividing by a bigger base each time. So over time, that percentage will fluctuate, but in absolute terms, we seek to grow the absolute volume of value-added material that we do.

Okay. And then another question from Rahgib Davids from M&G Investments. Can you please reexplain the negative free cash flow and increase in net debt? Are you planning on using operating cash flow to fund expansion CapEx going forward?

I'll let Frans answer that question.

Yes. Thank you, Gary. So what we've seen in these 6 months is the significant investment in working capital, specifically inventory, and that was ZAR 1 billion. So that is part of the increase in the net debt, which was basically the opposite side of that. If you look at the through to year-end, we do see that our net working capital will decrease a little bit. So the ZAR 1 billion investment will pull back towards year-end, and we see the good EBITDA to continue in the second half. So I think on a full year basis, the picture will look different.

Thank you, Frans. So Gary, we have no further questions. If you'd like to make some closing remarks, please. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Christina. I think I've said enough, so I don't have any closing remarks other than to thank you for your time. It was quite a long, what, 1:20 hours. So thank so you very much for your time. Thank you for listening to our story, and we hope to see you again soon. Thank you.