Lewis Group Limited (LEW.JO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon to all our stakeholders and interested parties. A warm welcome to all of you at the Lewis Group -- or to the Lewis Group's interim results presentation for the period ended 30 September 2025. I'm joined today by our Group CFO, Jacques Bestbier; as well as Graeme Lillie from Tier 1 Investor Relations. On our agenda for this afternoon, we'll kick off with a review of our results for half 1. That will be followed by a deep dive into our debtors book. We'll then move on to our financial results, after which I will deal with our targets, and I'll give you a comprehensive update on how we've performed, and we'll compare all of our achievements against the commitments that we've made 6 months ago. At the end of the presentation, we'll gladly deal with any related questions, please send those through during the course of the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, the Lewis Group delivered a solid and balanced set of results against the backdrop of a very challenging trading environment. Revenue increased by 11.3%. Merchandise sales increased by 6.7%. Other revenue continued to benefit from strong credit sales in prior years and increased by an encouraging 16.7%. The gross profit margin settled at the midpoint of management's target range at 41% and operating profit increased by an encouraging 21.4%. The operating profit margin expanded by 250 basis points to 20.7%. Debtors book increased by 14% and the satisfactory paid performance for this period settled at a record high, and that is a record high measured at the interim results stage of 82.7%. Earnings per share, up 13.8% and headline earnings per share still benefiting from buybacks in prior years increased by a solid 16.8%. Shareholders will once again be rewarded with a nice increase in our interim dividend of 12.3%, a total payout at the interim stage of ZAR 3.37. In summary, some of the long-term investments that were made during half 1 includes a solid increase in credit sales that resulted in a 14% increase in the debtors book. Once again, the sound quality of the debtors book was protected and maintained during this period. And with this comes tremendous resale opportunities that I will touch on a little bit later in the presentation. We've also seen margin expansion, a solid increase in profits and we've also started the process of executing on our strategy to ramp up our store expansion. So merchandise sales for our traditional brands increased by 6.4%. Our Specialty segment grew sales by 9.1%. Credit sales increased by a solid 8% and a more muted increase in cash sales of 3.7%. This is quite a muted increase, especially if one considers that this is a 3.7% increase on quite a weak base of last year, during which cash sales declined by 6.7%. And I think this also clearly illustrates, ladies and gentlemen, that there is not a lot of cash available in the economy as we speak. Credit sales settled at 70.3% of total sales, up from last year's 69.4%. With regards to our sales mix as we measure it by merchandise category, a strong performance coming out of the furniture and appliance categories, more or less in line with last year and still accounting for 85% of total sales. We are happy to share with you that we've already achieved our store opening target for the year. As a matter of fact, we've opened on a net basis, 14 new stores. And this is also a record number of stores opened by the group in any 6-month trading period. The additional stores, we added an additional 15. We took the opportunity to close 3 loss-making UFO stores. And we then embarked on a strategy to actually build scale for the small business that we acquired last year. It trades under the Real Beds brand and 28 stores were actually opened during this period, obviously, significantly increasing the reach of this brand. The group continues to make significant inroads through client engagements via social media. In the area of Facebook, the group now enjoys over 4.2 million Facebook followers. We've added 900,000 followers in the past 12 months and 500,000 of these were, in fact, added during the last 6 months. This strategy fosters high levels of brand awareness, and it continues to drive good growth in terms of new and repeat business. Ladies and gentlemen, we are very proud of our dividend payment history in this group. We listed this group 21 years ago. And since listing, we never suspended a dividend payment. It's also worthwhile noting that our dividend payout ratio was consistently maintained at 55% and above. And over the past 5 financial years, our average dividend yield settled at a very encouraging 10.5%. We can then move on to our debtor analysis. The quality of the debtors book remains very good with collections from installments that increased by 14.1%, ahead of the growth in the debtors book of 14%. Our collection rate for the period settled at a solid 78.3%. And although this is below last year's 79.5%, it is important to note that our 78.3% is actually in line with what we achieved in half 2 of last year. So a very consistent collection performance over the last 12 months. Our debtor cost percentage, once again, a solid performance, settled at an increase of 12.9%, well below the increase of 14% in the book. And finally, debtor cost as a percentage of the gross book settled down on last year's 6.9% and at 6.8%. The very good quality of the debtors book and now over 616,000 satisfactory paying customers gives the group a solid foundation for future growth. If we look at the satisfactory paying performance, up from 81.6% a year ago to 82.7%. And as I've mentioned earlier, this is actually a record high performance at the interim reporting stage. Also important to spend some time on the nonperforming accounts. If we look at these accounts that are classified as nonperforming, a nice reduction from 5.9% last year to only 5% of customers that actually remain as being classified as nonperforming. Also important to highlight that these customers are covered by an impairment provision of almost 91%. Our total provision reduced from 37.1% to 36.9%, and this clearly illustrates the improved composition of the debtors book. So on a look-through basis, ladies and gentlemen, a much bigger debtors book of far greater quality. Over the last 4 years, we've increased the size of the debtors book by ZAR 2.7 billion and the satisfactory paying percentage improved from 75.2% to 82.7%. Like I said, the much bigger book of far greater quality, and this positions the group well for future growth. And then move on to our financial results. So on the income statement, we've touched on our solid revenue growth of 11.3%, supported -- strongly supported by an increase in other revenue of 16.7%. Our operating costs expanded by 10% during this period. And our insurance service expenses increased by 16.4%. To give this some color, Important to note that our insurance revenue for the period also increased by 16.4%. So nothing that's out of step there. Operating profit, strong, strong performance with an increase of 21.4% and a healthy operating margin of 20.7%. We move on to our segments. Very strong performance by our traditional brands. You will note that 93.5% of the group's revenue was actually generated by our traditional trading brands with a nice expansion in operating margin from 21.1% to 23.9%. Specialty segment, we ended this period with an operating loss of ZAR 18 million, which is in line with last year's loss. And just to mention, ladies and gentlemen, that unfortunately, UFO did not perform well during this period. Our online visibility because of the fact that we changed marketing agencies during this period, online visibility actually suffered as a result. We got out of the starting blocks in a really slow manner. Poor trading performance by UFO for the first 5 months, leaving us in a position where like-for-like sales were down just short of 9% for the period. But happy to share with you that we saw a good recovery in terms of like-for-like sales growth in UFO for September, and that performance was backed up with a good October performance, and we are also satisfied with the way in which we started the November trading period. The rest of specialty is now being dominated by real beds. We spoke about the fact that we've now increased our footprint to 44 stores. We are building this brand. Big investments are being made in marketing and establishing this brand in provinces where we did not have a presence in the past. And important to note that we believe that we will get to our operating margin goal for the Specialty segment. Just to once again share that goal, it's to get this segment to an operating profit margin of at least 10%. Runway. We believe it will take us another 2.5 to 3 years to actually get to that position. But very happy to continue to make these investments to grow these brands and to actually get us into a position where a meaningful contribution will be realized in the medium term. The balance sheet remains very healthy. It's a strong balance sheet. Our net asset value per share during this period increased by 6.6%, well prepared for Black Friday and festive trade with stock levels that are very close to last year's levels. We launched new ranges during the previous quarter. And I can also share with you, ladies and gentlemen, that our levels of obsolescence in our business is basically at all-time low levels. So good, healthy and new ranges that will be hitting the market during Black Friday and Christmas. Also worthwhile mentioning that our borrowings increased by just over ZAR 200 million for the period. Just to make the point that borrowing levels are well within management's and the Board's risk appetite levels. Let's unpack that a little bit further. So this slide speaks to the result of our capital management strategy over the last 4.5 years. I would like to start off by pointing out that the group enjoys an excellent interest cover ratio of 8.1x. During the 4.5-year period, we've invested over ZAR 3 billion in the growth of our debtors book. We see this as a solid investment in a quality, high-yielding debtors book. On top of this, I just need to pause to once again talk about share buybacks. We once again highlight the fact that we have bought back 48% of shares in issue. And we also indicated to the market that we'll give you a heads up in terms of our buyback plans every 6 months. As things stand at this point in time, ladies and gentlemen, it is not our intention to continue with buybacks over the next 6 months, and we will once again give you an update in 6 months' time. At this point in time, we think that it's appropriate to utilize the opportunity to continue to invest in the growth of the debtors book. There's still a big appetite for credit out there, and we want to utilize this as another opportunity to continue market share gains. Key ratios, they all continue to move in the right direction. Earnings per share and headline earnings, we've spoken about. We see this as a solid performance. Return on equity, an improvement from 12% last year at this checkpoint, 12.6%. You will recall that the 12% last year turned into a 15.4% ROE at year-end. We made the point at that point in time that we see this year as a year of cementing the return gains that we have made. And management can once again give you the assurance that we remain focused on achieving our medium-term ROE target. And just to mention that our medium ROE target has been set at 17.5%. All of the other return metrics are moving in the right direction. And we've spoken about the nice increase in the dividend. On to targets. Gross profit margin, right in the middle of our target range at 41%. As things stand today, we believe that we will be in a position to at least maintain the 41% during half 2. Our expenses increased in line with revenue growth at 11.3%, slightly outside of our year-end target range of 7% to 11%, and this is mostly as a result of the rapid expansion that we have spoken about. Satisfactory paid customers, we've exceeded the upper end of our target range, closed the period at 82.7%, and we believe that this momentum can be maintained during the second half of the year. Debtor cost as a percentage of the gross book, now at 6.8. You will recall that our targets are year-end targets. That target range speaks to a range of 13% to 16%. Last year, we reported a percentage of 6.9%, and we ended the year at 15%. As things stand at this point in time, we believe that we are well positioned to actually match last year's performance. Operating margin, solid performance of 20.7%. The target range remains in play. And then on to borrowings. Borrowings now at 29%. At the interim stage, once again, our target or our ceiling is a year-end goal to actually get back to 25%. And as things stand at this point in time, management remains confident that we will get in at 25% or slightly below when we get to the year-end checkpoint. Finally, on collections, just to mention that we are satisfied with our start to the new financial year -- or not the new financial year, to half 2, I should say, with a solid collection performance for the month of October. On to the outlook. Discretionary spending is expected to remain constrained, ladies and gentlemen. We do not believe that the furniture market will expand in the short to medium term. We will fall back on our resilient business model. We will continue to drive hard to actually get credit and customers into our front door. Credit sales side of things, we believe that we are on the front foot to continue with market share gains. I've already spoken about the fact that we enjoy the following of over 4 million people on Facebook. And on top of this, we also have 60,000 more customers, 60,000 more than a year ago that now falls into that satisfactory paying bucket, giving us the opportunity to market and to resell to no fewer than 616,000 customers. As always, the top priority for the Lewis Group will be to maintain the top quality of the debtors book. And I can give you the assurance that there's a lot of energy in the system to make sure that, that actually materializes during the next 6 months. I mentioned the fact that we already achieved our store opening target for the year. We believe that there's still very good opportunities to continue with our expansion plan. It's a well-known fact that a good retail space at affordable rates become more readily available during tougher economic times. That is where we find ourselves in the cycle. And for that reason, we will be opening between 15 and 20 stores during half 2. I must also pause to just once again remind everybody that when we look at last year and the base that we are up against for half 2, yes, we had a very strong half 2 last year. As a matter of fact, 63% of the year's profits was, in fact, generated during half 2. And management believe that we've prepared well to actually compete against this base, and we will be very disappointed if we come through half 2 and if we do not show a growth on what we achieved during the second half. How did we prepare for this. Very appealing marketing campaigns and local promotions that will take place across South Africa and the BLNE countries in all of our stores. These strong campaigns are obviously supported and backed up by new merchandise ranges and very good stock availability. Big competitive advantage of the Lewis Group is our ability to actually go and deliver same day. And especially at this time of year, ladies and gentlemen, it becomes really important for consumers to know that if they commit to that transaction, they will actually have the merchandise in their homes before the sunset. If you combine all of these factors with an experienced and motivated operational team, I believe that success will follow. With that, I would like to thank you for your attendance today, and we will now be happy to deal with your questions. Thank you.

Thanks, Johan. The first question is from Joe Streit from OIG. He says congrats with the solid results. Could you break down the elements that are driving the increase in gearing.

Yes, Joe. So thank you very much for the compliment. It's much appreciated. I think a good place to start is to basically go back to what we packed out on page -- on Slide 17, where we spoke about our capital management and how we've allocated capital during this period. You will see -- you will note that the biggest investment that we have made during this 4.5-year period was, in fact, in the area of growing our debtors book by ZAR 3.1 billion. And as pointed out, our borrowings increased by only ZAR 1.9 billion during this period. You'll also see that we paid dividends to the extent of just over ZAR 1.3 billion. And we also utilized just over ZAR 800 million on share buybacks during the period. I would once again like to make the point that we believe that this is the best possible investment that we can make, the investment in the debtors book that is. And I think the performance of the debtors book and the fact that this is a very high-yielding investment actually supports us to -- support our strategy in a big way.

Thanks, Johan. The next question is from Charles Boles from Titanium Capital. He says congratulations on the results. Who has supposed the Shoprite-Pepkor transaction. How will this deal impact the Lewis Group if it proceeds.

Charles, yes, and thank you for the question. And I think I must give you a comprehensive answer on this question, just to make sure that everybody is, in fact, on the same page because a couple of things have been -- have been mentioned in the media. And we've also spoken to the media a little bit earlier, and this is certainly one of the topics that you will be reading about a little bit more in the papers later on today and tomorrow as well. So yes, let me give you the comprehensive answer. So the Lewis Group actually took part in the proceedings right from the word go. So as soon as the Competition Commission actually approached us, we started by answering all of their questions in a very detailed and comprehensive manner. The Competition Commission still decided that they are going to make a recommendation to the Competition Tribunal to actually approve the merger. And at that point in time, after we've taken part in this process, we decided that we are actually going to exercise our right to bring an application to intervene. The tribunal after considering all of the points that we've raised, then actually gave a favorable ruling and actually granted intervention rights to Lewis. The merger parties then immediately appealed this, matter was then heard by the appeals court of the Competition Commission, and they decided to actually go against Lewis. And they also decided not to actually limit our intervention rights, but to completely take it away. Because of the fact that we believe that this matter is of real importance, not only to Lewis, but also to the bigger industry out there, and I can unpack that a little bit later, we then decided to actually approach the constitutional court and to apply for leave to appeal. That is exactly what we did. And subsequently, the Constitutional Court have now directed Lewis and the merger parties to actually draft heads and to actually speak to the merits that basically surrounds Lewis' intention to partake in this process. Charles, so at this point in time, we remain hopeful that we'll get a favorable response from the Constitutional Court. This is really important for us because we believe if the merger goes through, Pepkor will basically on a national basis, enjoy more than 50% of the market share. And this will not be good for the industry. One can basically start off by discussing the possible impact that it will have on consumers. But I think more importantly, also on other smaller independent players in the market. And it most definitely will not be good for the supply base in South Africa. We are already dealing with a very depleted, very small supply base in South Africa. And if you basically end up with only 2 order books going into these factories and one then being a materially bigger one, you can just imagine how detrimental that can be to the sustainability of factories. And then obviously, we don't believe that it will be good for us. To further unpack the potential impact that it will have on Lewis will be premature at this point in time. Let's wait to hear what the Con Court finally decides. And then let's say if Pepkor is, in fact, successful, one will also have to keep a close eye on what strategies will work in the business. And at that point in time, management will be in a position to give you a far more informed, Charles.

Thanks, Johan. At this stage, there's no further questions on the webcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, then just to say thank you very much for your attendance today. And if there's any follow-up questions or anybody that would like a meeting that hasn't booked one as yet, please feel free to make contact with Graeme, and I'm sure that we will find some time to have a meeting with you. So once again, thank you, and thank you for the loyal support of all our stakeholders. Have a good day.