Marshalls plc (MSLH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Marshalls Full Year Results Presentation for 2023. It's good to see some familiar faces in the room. And for those of you I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, I'm Matt Pullen, Marshall's Chief Executive. I'm joined this morning for the presentation by Justin Lockwood, our Chief Financial Officer. And we also have in the room this morning our Chair, Vanda Murray; and our Chief Operating Officer, Simon Bourne. So what's in store this morning? Well, I'll share a little brief overview of my background, why I joined Marshalls and some very first impressions before Justin lead us through a review of 2023 and our financial results. And then I'll come back to talk about the opportunity for Marshalls before opening for a Q&A for people in the room and those of us joining online. [Operator Instructions] So a little bit of background on myself. I joined Marshalls as Chief Executive Designate in the early part of January before formally taking the reins on March 1. In that time, I've had the advantage of working alongside Martyn Coffey, which has allowed me a very thorough period of handover, and I'd like to thank Martyn for his time and for sharing his vast knowledge of the business. I joined from Genuit Group and have over 15 years' experience of leading complex business-to-business and business-to-consumer organizations like [indiscernible] and British Gypsum part of the Saint-Gobain Group. And my early career foundation is actually in blue-chip FMCG organizations, including Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Premier Foods and Bernard Matthews. And over that time, I've built a track record of creating strategic foresight, people leadership and transformational growth. Now I've known Marshalls from the outside for many years, and it clearly has a strong reputation with leading brands and products, including the [indiscernible] Marshalls and now Marley and Viridian Solar and an enviable track record of profitable growth over 10 years. Equally, I've admired the commitment to decarbonization and the progress towards net zero, with Marshalls clearly leading the way in addressing the ever present challenges of climate change. And what excites me most is that I can see the opportunity for growth and to create value working closely with the talented team here at Marshalls. So since joining the business, I've met with over 50 leaders across the business. I've listened to their prospectus about the challenges and the opportunities and a way to unlock these. I've visited all of our larger sites and spent time with Simon Bourne on some of the 50 colleague roadshows that he's been leading across the business in the early part of the year. And that's allowed me to meet with many of the team and listen to what's important to them and what they're thinking. I've also met with many of our customers and unfortunate to know many of them from the many years I've spent in construction. And I'm looking forward to spending time with many of you over the coming weeks and months to understand your perspective on this business. So let me share a few first impressions after just 2 months, recognizing I've still got a lot to learn. It's very evident that Marshalls has an enviable track record of growth with its portfolio of brands and leading market positions, whether it's Marshalls landscape, civils and drainage, concrete bricks, and the portfolio has been strengthened and become more resilient through the recent acquisitions of Marley Roofing and the Viridian Solar business. And I have to say that, that is an impressive business where I see significant opportunity for growth in the future. And all of these brands and solutions are supporting our drive towards developing more sustainable solutions to the challenges facing the built environment. Now when it comes to the organization, people and culture, I've left in no doubt that we have a core of very talented, experienced and knowledgeable leaders who are supported by colleagues who are passionate and care about creating success. There's a clear strength in operational excellence. Our sites are well led and there's evidence of lean manufacturing principles. I'd go as far as saying that some of our sites like Eaglescliffe up in the Northeast are world class, and there's a real commitment to continuous improvement and learning. And importantly, we're committed to meeting the needs of our customers, providing solutions to solve real-world problems and genuinely help deliver on our vision of creating better places. And after 2 months, I'm now even more convinced about the opportunity to create further value. The work the team have done over the last 18 months, although challenging, is helping to create a more flexible and agile business with stronger operational leverage that provides increased resilience and greater opportunity for improved returns in cyclical markets. It's a great opportunity -- a great platform for the opportunity ahead. We are well placed to address the medium of long-term trends related to climate mitigation and adaptation with our strong propositions and solutions, whether that's in landscape with permeable and lower carbon offerings with concrete bricks in housebuilding, our water management and drainage solutions, or integrated solar roofing and energy management systems. And I'll return to talk more about these opportunities later. So before I hand over to Justin, my overall perspective is, yes, our near-term markets remain challenging. The weak market conditions we saw in the second half of last year have continued into the early part of this year. Although I do expect to see improved conditions through the second half of 2024. The strong and timely management actions taken in 2023 demonstrate a well-managed and agile business. And there's no doubt that having a more diversified portfolio of products and solutions has improved the group's resilience in cyclical markets. And what really excites me most is the opportunity to evolve this business, making the most of the structural drivers and medium- to long-term market trends to drive growth and more value. So my belief is that we are well positioned to drive outperformance in the medium term. Justin?

Well thank you, Matt. Good morning, everybody. So I'm going to take you through a summary of the numbers for 2023 and the key events that took place. And then I'm going to talk through some of the challenges that we faced during the year and how we've responded to those challenges. I'll then move through a cancer of our results for the year before touching on our funding and liquidity position, and then I'll close with some comments on capital allocation. So I'll talk through the financial headlines on the next slide, but it's pretty clear from our results today that they've been significantly impacted by the weak end markets that we've been operating in. It's also very clear from our results that the acquisition of Marley has further diversified the business and provided incremental resilience. And that's due to the reduction in the proportionate exposure that we have to the more discretionary end of private housing RMI activity. In April of 2023, we sold our interest in our former Belgium subsidiary, and that enables us to focus solely on the U.K. construction market. And in response to some of the challenges during the year, we took a series of self-help actions to ensure that capacity is aligned with market demand and that we reduced the cost base. We've also focused pretty heavily on cash as well through a series of priority working capital actions, particularly in regard to inventories and through a program of site sales. And as a result, the balance sheet has strengthened during the year with a reduction in net debt, and I'll talk through the details of that a little later. Now against this backdrop of a challenging trading environment, we've continued to focus on some of our key strategic priorities. The GBP 25 million dual block plant in St Ives is now operational. It's enhanced our capabilities and is facilitating new product development for our Landscape Products business. We're ahead of our SBTi-approved carbon reduction targets for the Marshalls businesses. And we've recently submitted the targets for our [indiscernible] large group to SBTi for validation, and we hope to have some news later in 2024 on those. And finally, in January of 2024, we announced that we were outsourcing the Marshalls Logistics function to Wincanton. We expect that to be concluded in the first half of this year, and we also expect it to deliver improved service to our customers as well as efficiencies. So taking all this thought together in what's been a pretty challenging year. We believe that we've taken the right actions, and we really are well placed for when markets recover. So this slide sets out the financial headlines for the year. I'll start with revenue, which was down year-on-year by 7% but that includes an additional 4 months of trading from Marley. And the like-for-like numbers are down 13%. That's fed through into a 30% reduction in operating profit to GBP 70.7 million. PBT was GBP 53.3 million, and that represents a 41% reduction year-on-year. It's a bit higher than the operating profit reduction due to higher financing costs. Earnings per share was 16.7%, and that was down by 47%. And that reflects it's slightly higher than PBT because we've got a slightly higher tax rate, and there's an increase in the weighted average number of shares in issue. The final proposed dividend of 5.7p per share. When added to the 2.6p that we paid at the interim stage results in a full year payment of 8.3p. And that represents half of our earnings, and it's just the application of our capital allocation policy. And finally, net debt has reduced to just under GBP 173 million and that reflects the actions that we've taken that I mentioned on the last slide around managing cash. So if you think about the challenges from 2023, it's a very challenging year for the organization. And that was driven through a very difficult market backdrop that got progressively worse as we've traded through the year. And that was really largely driven by inflation expectations being higher and stickier than originally expected. That resulted in house builders, slowing their activity progressively as they work through their order books, and activity levels in that sector reduced by around 17% for the year. The squeeze on disposable incomes resulted in a reduction in consumer confidence, and that adversely impacted demand for RMI products and particularly at the discretionary end of that particular market where our Landscape Products business operates. So taken together, these 2 market sectors resulted in a significant reduction in demand for our products. In addition to that, in a tougher pricing environment, it's not been possible to fully recover our input cost inflation through higher prices, and therefore, margins were squeezed a little in the second half of the year. So against that market backdrop, we've taken a series of actions that have been designed to -- and align capacity to reduce cost and manage cash. So I'll pick the first of those. So we've taken action to reduce our capacity. That's partially driven by a permanent closure of a factory in Scotland at Carluke, but also mothballing capacity across a number of our facilities in our building and roofing products businesses. We've also reduced the number of shifts we operate in. We've taken all those actions there with one eye on being able to quickly reestablish capacity when markets recover with very little investment. We've taken a good look at our organizational structures during the period, and we sought to simplify our commercial and support functions, and that's resulted in an annualized cost saving of GBP 11 million. About 40% of that was delivered in 2023 and the balance of it will flow into the P&L account in the current financial year. And we're really focused heavily on managing cash and deleveraging the balance sheet. Now that's included some very proactive working capital management and particularly with regard to inventories, which reduced by about GBP 16 million in the second half of the year. Now that's been painful for the profit and loss account but it does mean that inventory is now balanced with market demand as we head into 2024. We reduced our original CapEx plans by between GBP 4 million or GBP 5 million. We completed a program of surplus site sales, which generated just under GBP 7 million. And taken together, all these actions and the cash generation of the business resulted in a reduction in net debt on a pre-IFRS 16 basis of GBP 17.8 million. So all these actions that we've taken me in the group is now leaner than previously and we are really well positioned to benefit when markets do recover, volumes come back and we benefit from operational leverage. So I'll now talk through the detail of our financial performance for the year. Starting with group revenue. So the chart on this slide sets out a year-on-year revenue walk between 2022 and 2023. And overall, revenue contracted by 7%. But as I mentioned earlier, that included the additional 4 months of trading from Marley. On a like-for-like basis, revenue contracted by a higher rate of 13%. And we saw each of our reported segments declining in revenue, and that's due to that weakness in New Build Housing and private housing RMI. We saw the weakest performance from our Landscape Products business due to its exposure to both those 2 key markets and the discretionary nature of certain elements of its product range. The rate of contraction was slower in building products and roofing products with the latter benefiting from revenue growth from Viridian Solar that partially offset weaker traditional roofing volumes. So now moving on to operating profit. The operating profit numbers that we use throughout this presentation are stated after adding back adjusting items, and we do that in order to show the underlying performance of the group. And it sees adjusted results that the Board uses to monitor performance and when considering dividend payments. Adjusting items, which principally comprised restructuring costs and the amortization of intangible assets arising on our acquisitions are set out on Slide 39 of the deck, and I'll be happy to take any questions on those later. So this chart on the slide sets out the component parts of the 30% reduction in operating profit to GBP 70.7 million. And that comprises a reduction in profitability in both Landscape Products and Building Products resulting from the lower volumes and the impact that had on both gross profitability and the efficiency of our factories. And that was partially offset by additional contribution of GBP 10.5 million for Marley Roofing products from the extra 4 months of trading. Profitability in the second half was weaker than the first half, and that was due to a slowdown in the New Build Housing market that I've touched on, the tougher pricing environment and the decisions that we took to slow our factories down in order to manage working capital levels. Group operating margins contracted by 3.6 percentage points to 10.5%, and that reflects a weaker performance in both Landscape Products and Building Products, partially offset by the structurally higher margins in Marley. So now turning to each of our reporting segments, starting with Marshalls' Landscape Products. So this segment has operated in a tough market environment during the year due to its exposure to New Build Housing and the more discretionary end of private housing RMI. And against this backdrop, revenues contracted by 16% year-on-year. Within that though, there was actually a contraction of around about 25% of our domestically focused products, whereas our commercially focused products contracted at a much slower rate, and that reflects the relative strength of the commercial and infrastructure end markets, which partially offset the very weak market that is New Build Housing. Segment operating profits reduced by GBP 24 million to GBP 21.3 million, and that reflects a combination of lower volumes on gross profitability and on factory efficiency, together with a squeeze on margins from that tougher pricing environment. And the actions that we took in this reporting segment to reduce cost and capacity, delivered annualized savings of about GBP 7.6 million. So moving on now to Marshalls' Building Products, which principally surprised its products into New Build Housing and commercial infrastructure end markets. It doesn't have a great deal of exposure to private housing RMI. And as I mentioned earlier, we saw a weakening of activity in New Build Housing as we went through the year. We saw a notable reduction in -- or a slowdown in revenues within our bricks and our mortars business units in the second half. Revenue for a year as a whole was down by 12%, but there was a weaker second half performance. Operating profit reduced by GBP 14.6 million to GBP 12.2 million. And similar to Marshalls' Landscape Products, that was due to the impact of lower volumes on gross profits and decisions we took, particularly in the second half of the year to reduce inventories. The actions taken to mothball capacity and reduce our output resulted in annualized cost savings of GBP 3.5 million. So turning now to Marley Roofing products. Now Marley has been impacted along with the other business units by the slowdown in New Build Housing activity, and that has resulted in lower revenues from our traditional roofing products. But that's been partially offset by continued revenue growth from Viridian Solar due to the trend towards energy-efficient solutions and the start of the expected benefit from changes to building regulations. And so taken together, this reported segment's revenues contracted by 9% year-on-year. Operating profit contracted by 12% to GBP 44.9 million. And that, again, is reflective of a very weaker profitability from the digital roofing business due to lower volumes, but offset by growing -- partially offset, sorry, by growing profitability from Viridian Solar. The margin performance in this business remains very robust at 20%, and we have no change in our outlook there in terms of the margins that we think this business will generate in the medium term. And we took some action during the second half of the year to multiple some capacity. And we did that in order to manage working capital levels in this business. Okay. So this slide sets out the profit and loss account from operating profit through to EPS. And you can see that profit before tax at GBP 53.3 million reduced by 41%. And that's a greater rate of contraction than operating profit, and that's due to the higher financing costs that we incurred during the year. And that they were higher because we've got an extra 4 months of the Marley acquisition debt structure, and we saw a progressive increase in base rates during the year. The effective tax rate increased by a couple of percentage points year-on-year, and that was driven by an increase in the headline rate of corporation tax in the U.K. And EPS contracted by 47%, and that's due to the weaker operating performance, high financing costs, higher effective tax rate and a slight increase in the weighted average number of shares in issue. So now moving on to cash flow. And we did a really strong cash flow performance during the year, converting 106% of EBITDA into operating cash flow. And that was driven by the work that we did to reduce inventories in the second half of the year. Finance costs increased due to the factors or finance cash flows, increase due to the factors that I mentioned on the last slide, so the extra 4 months of the debt structure and higher base rates, but that was partially offset by lower tax payments from lower profitability on that line. Net CapEx was GBP 13.9 million. Within that, there was gross CapEx of GBP 20.8 million. The largest element of that was spent on the dual block plants in St Ives. And that was partially offset by GBP 6.9 million of cash receipts from site sales. Acquisition disposal cash flows were GBP 4.4 million. And that comprises a contingent consideration payment in respect to Viridian Solar and a GBP 1.4 million impact from the disposal of our former subsidiary in Belgium. So taking all that lot together, reported net debt reduced by GBP 19 million. And on a pre-IFRS 16 basis, that was GBP 17.8 million. So turning now to funding the liquidity. So the group has a single syndicated bank facility that now totals GBP 340 million following the prepayment of GBP 30 million of the original term loan in January of this year. It comprises GBP 180 million term loan and a GBP 160 million revolving credit facility. And 95% of the facility matures in April 2027. So it's good, solid, secure medium-term funding and thanks to the banks in the room for providing that. Net debt on a reported basis was GBP 218 million and GBP 173 million on a pre-IFRS 16 basis. And the cash-generative nature of the business has enabled us to reduce that net debt, as I've already touched on. We've got comfortable headroom against our covenants, with interest cover at 5.2x against a minimum of 3x and net debt to EBITDA at 1.9x, and that compares to a maximum of 3x. Our revolving credit facility was undrawn at the year-end and therefore, we got headroom of GBP 160 million against our facilities, which gives us plenty of access to liquidity to support the plans that we intend to execute this year. So this slide sets out a range of measures focused on working capital management, returns and balance sheet strength. And you can see that data days and inventory turns are broadly in line with last year, and credit days are a little lower. Return on capital employed has reduced by 4.9 percentage points to 8.4%, and that just reflects the weaker operational performance of the business. We do expect return on capital employed to recover to around 15%. When markets recover, we benefit from operational leverage and all the actions that we've taken to make the business more efficient in the last 12 months. Net debt to EBITDA, I mentioned on the last slide is 1.9x. But the cash-generative nature of the business model will ensure that we see progressive deleveraging as we move forward, and that will help to further strengthen the balance sheet in 2024. So finally, moving on to capital allocation. There were no changes to the capital allocation policy this year. We've continued to focus on reducing net debt and on maintaining a dividend cover of 2x adjusted earnings. And the full year dividend proposal of 5.7p per share is fully in line with that policy. And with that, I'll hand back to Matt.

Thanks, Justin. So let's talk about the future and turn to the opportunity for Marshalls. There is, as I said at the start, a clear opportunity to evolve this business and create more value. So over the coming months, I'll be working with the team to evolve the strategy, focusing on the medium- to long-term market trends and opportunities that I see and we'll come back later in this year to talk in more detail about that. And these relate to the climate management and adaptation and the structural drivers that will fuel the demand for our products and solutions. Now in my experience, understanding and responding to market trends and what our customers are calling for is of paramount importance, finding ways where our brands and solutions can solve real-world problems to drive growth. We need a laser-sharp focus on the parts of the market where we add real value through great insight, strong propositions and innovation, and we need all of that to resonate with our customers. And doing this, will realize improved returns and greater value. So let's highlight a few of these opportunities that after 2 months, I think, are really important for our business. So Marshalls will benefit from the ongoing and increasing structural investment in U.K. construction, particularly in new house build and RMI. I probably don't need to talk in too much detail about the very material structural deficit in New Build Housing illustrated in the chart on the left. According to a recent Financial Times article, England alone needs 0.5 million new homes a year to cope with a growing population. The reality is we're building way below this and we're missing successive government targets of just 300,000 new homes a year. And in fact, in 2023, we built around 200,000 new homes. There is no doubt that the volume of new house building will increase over the coming years, and that's a huge benefit to the Marshalls Group businesses with its portfolio of Landscape Products, concrete bricks, water and drainage solutions and roofing and integrated solar. And the opportunity for us is further driven for the need for RMI. In the chart on the right, you can see that 60% of the U.K. housing stock was built pre 1975, and that's likely to require reroofing and improved energy efficiency in the coming years. Beyond the structural drivers, what really excites me the organic opportunities for growth that the business has in integrated solar and energy management and water management solutions. These are all about tackling the challenge of climate mitigation and adaptation. Regulation changes to improve the energy efficiency of new homes will undoubtedly drive significant growth opportunities. Integrated solar will play a significant part of this is already being used by U.K. housebuilders as part of their solution to improve energy efficiency. And we've already experienced this in Scotland, where integrated solar is already being used in over 2/3 of new housebuilds and Marley and Viridian as the leaders in integrated solar are well positioned to address this growing and profitable opportunity. New product development will also be important in driving this growth and Viridian Solar has a fantastic track record of innovation with over 90% of last year's revenue coming from products launched within the last 5 years, including the most powerful roof integrated photovoltaic panels and roofing kits, which were launched during 2023. And by year-end, we're accounting for 30% of all panel sales. Our new solar inverters and EV chargers have been launched and will add to the home energy systems and continue to be used by new house builders. And the picture on the chart is of our new ArcBox solar connector, a product that I'm just learning about, but a patented snap fit product to prevent roof fires in domestic pitch roof, but also with the new mounting systems compatible with solar panel arrays in commercial flat roofs too. Last year, this product grew by 450% alone, and there's significant growth opportunity not just in the U.K. but into Europe and globally with our patent covering over 90% of global solar panel markets. And client mitigation and adaptation is also increasing the demand for water management solutions. The U.K. water utility company have proposed GBP 96 billion worth of investment over the 5-year period to 2030 to modernize U.K. infrastructure to maintain the quality of our drinking water, the security of supply and significantly reduce the amount of sewage running into our rivers and seas. And in the shorter term, there's an additional GBP 1.6 billion that's being made to accelerate investment in water quality and storm overflow discharges by the end of next year. And Marshalls is incredibly well placed with our drainage management and flood mitigation solutions coupled with our ability to design wet cast tanks and attenuation systems that you can see in the chart to help water companies tackle those challenges head on. Now it would be remiss of me not to talk about the innovation in our landscape business where we are successfully bringing lower carbon innovation to market. I'm not sure this investment needs a huge introduction, particularly if you've watched Peel Hunt's podcast with Clyde and our very own Simon Bourne waxing lyrical about the GBP 25 million investment in our state-of-the-art dual block plant at St Ives. Now I spent time at this site and I can't help but be impressed by the dual plant technology. It not only helps improve efficiencies, it delivers real tangible product differentiation. Products with a natural granite appearance that have a lower carbon footprint than imported natural products. Products that are suitable for both residential and commercial markets with further innovation to come, it just reinforces the strength that we have in our landscape offering. And importantly, the group has managed itself well through the downturn, which Justin has talked about, protecting the medium-term capacity for end markets recover. With 2023 volumes, 25% to 30% below 2019. So we've necessarily reduced our network capacity through mothballing units. However, these can quickly be recommissioned in better markets. And we've also continued to invest in our manufacturing network so that it's more efficient and more agile, and it's still capable of meeting 30% higher demand than we have today, but with a little further overhead or investment. It means that as market conditions improve and volumes recover, our network supports improved drop-through in margins with significant positive impact on our margins and profitability. So how does that market recovery and all those organic opportunities add up and show through into our numbers? Well, I know Justin has shared a similar chart previously to demonstrate how the recovery in sales and volumes impacts our profitability. And we have the updated picture in this chart. And this is a really important slide to me. Just 10% growth in volumes from 2023 improves margins by 200 basis points and improves our profitability by 50%. And at 20% growth with the further improvement in drop-through, operating margins improved by an additional 300 basis points and our absolute profitability doubles with return on capital employed, heading back towards that 15%. And if we return to more normalized markets that we last saw in 2019 with a 30% increase in volume, you can imagine that, that's even better for the P&L account. So in my view, we have the right ingredients in place, and I'm confident in our ability to drive significant shareholder returns and deliver on our strategic goals and medium-term targets. Sustainable and profitable growth outperforming the market in the medium term as the structural under investment in U.K. housing and RMI is addressed, and we commercialize our strong ESG credentials. The higher volumes and organic growth we will see over the coming years as markets recover, coupled with efficiency gains, will drive margin recovery and expansion to around 15%. And our continued strong cash conversion of over 85% in the near term will bring leverage down. And finally, a disciplined and prioritized approach to capital allocation will see return on capital employed rebuild to around 15%. So in summary, we all know the markets are tough, and we're not assuming any market growth in 2024 as a whole. We do expect to see moderate improvements through the second half of the year. The strong and timely management actions in 2023 have made us a more agile business, and there's no doubt that a more diversified portfolio has strengthened the business in cyclical markets. And what really excites me most is the opportunity to evolve this business, making the most of those structural drivers and the medium- to long-term market trends that we can see. And with all this in mind, we genuinely believe we are well positioned for relative outperformance in the medium term. So thank you for listening. I'll open the floor up to questions starting in the room before we go to people online. So if we can, we'll start at the front and move backwards. And if I can ask you -- if I could ask you to keep it to maybe one question at a time, that would be really appreciated because I know it's going to be 2 or 3, but let's go for 1.

It is going to be 3. Chris Millington at Deutsche Numis. So Firstly, just wanted to explore the pricing environment for you and kind of how you see OpEx costs evolving this year?

Yes. So I guess if you go back 12 months, we've got quite a significant input cost inflation throwing into the business, largely driven by energy prices, but also from a labor perspective. And we delivered price increases of roughly about 5% last year across the network. In the current year, sales price increases are not really happening in the marketplace. So actually a recovery in any price increase at all is very difficult, which reflects the, I guess, a weak level of market demand that exists in the marketplace. Broadly speaking, though, input cost inflation has really slowed down to almost 0. There are some pockets of it but it's not particularly significant. So overall, as we look forward into 2024 and core to our assumptions, is that there's a little bit of a squeeze on margins coming through from pricing, that's the impacts on the numbers. And that's factored into our expectations.

That's very helpful. Next one is just around the levers for net debt reduction outside of profitability, what else can happen there?

Okay. Well, the key thing will be ultimately is net debt -- sorry, EBITDA generation. But there are other opportunities that exist to take a look at the portfolio of sites that we have. And whilst we're very comfortable with the capacity that we have at the moment, it's now aligned with market demand. There are always opportunities to do things slightly differently. And if there are opportunities to release capital through site consolidation, we'll continue to investigate that and invest where appropriate. I should also say, Chris, actually, we delivered GBP 6.9 million of cash from site sales in 2023. I'd expect that to be somewhere between GBP 4 million and GBP 6 million in the current year. So there are a number of sites, one of which is the site that we closed in Scotland that we'll sell in the next couple of months. And then there are other sites, which is a continuation of the program that we executed last year where we're selling sites that we don't really generate commercial value from. So it's really a tidying up exercise.

And then final one for me is on logistics and the move to third-party logistics. Just wondering what you see as the cost savings there? Are you confident that service levels can be maintained by Wincanton at the same level you've been doing them in the past? So just a little bit more detail around that move.

Simon, do you want to answer that?

Yes, I can take that, Chris. So yes, in terms of service, absolutely. They are obviously a logistics provider. Sorry. Thanks, Chris. So yes, in terms of service from a Wincanton perspective, then absolutely, that will be maintained. We've got very, very tight KPIs and obviously a service level agreement and basically, that's what Wincanton do. They're the professionals. In terms of the leverage from the savings, then yes, clearly, they're more efficient the way they run their network. In terms of backhaul will clearly give us some value up in respect to that. So we see the kind of Wincanton partnership as key to the success moving forward.

And the -- it will deliver as efficiencies when it's fully operational and they're built into our overall expectations that we've talked about. I think the other thing just to draw out on Wincanton as well is if we look a little bit further into the future, there is going to be a transition away from diesel to other technologies. Whatever that actually is and the specialist is going to be a much better place to be operating hydrogen or electric trucks than we would be.

And when do you see it fully integrated, i.e., the full move?

Well, so it's progressive in the second quarter of the year, but by the end of the second quarter, all those employees will have been tepid over to Wincanton and the service will be fully operational.

I think you also see those efficiencies come through as market volumes recover. That's when you start to see the real benefits of it. I think it's absolutely the right decision to do it. My experience in the last 2 businesses I was in was moving to 3PL. They're the experts. That's what they invest in doing. So I think it's absolutely the right thing to do. The key thing is to make sure that we're delivering fantastic customer service all the way through this change, which is a real focus.

Aynsley Lammin. I've just got 2 from Investec. In terms of the main markets where you've seen the decline in volume. Has that broadly been in line with the market? Have you lost a bit of share in any of your areas? And on the way up, would you expect to gain share, lose share, just interested kind of color you've got around that? And then second question, just on CapEx.

Can you -- can we do one at a time? Because I'll forget the first one by the time I try and answer the second. Yes. So I think from a -- if we look over the last 12 months, I think broadly speaking, taking each business by business, in our commercial side of our landscaping business, we've held market share. If anything, we may have increased a touch. We will have lost some market share from a domestic part of the landscaping business, and that's principally relating to Indian Sandstone, where we've -- we're not playing in a market where the returns just aren't available for us. So the margins in that become increasingly cut through. Across our roofing business broadly in line. We've lost a little bit of share in integrated solar, which we expect to do as that market matures, but we're still very comfortable with that profile. In sales and drainage broadly in line from a market share perspective and breaks, we've picked up about 1 percentage point. So depending on whether you include or exclude imports from the market, we're around about either somewhere between 6% and 7% or 7 and 8% of the market, and that's about 1 percentage point higher than last year.

And then just on the cash or net debt position at the end of the year, if you kind of end up with the flat profits, you just said GBP 4 million or so disposals. When you look at working capital and CapEx, would you expect quite a significant reduction in net debt at the end of the year based on your profit guidance?

So I'd expect net debt to be increasing by something similar to 2023. So if you worked on somewhere around about GBP 20 million.

Increasing or decreasing?

Reduction in net debt. Yes. Sorry.

I'll say increase.

No. Definitely, definitely a reduction.

[indiscernible] I think let's go with 3, I will do one at a time. You talked about Indian Sandstone. Obviously, there was quite a lot of moving parts in the natural stones on the domestic sales the last couple of years, particularly around freight costs and obviously, so that moved and the impact from that. What's happening around ceramic and obviously get the Indian Sandstone, but -- and I'm going to tie in a little bit to the dual block plant having been there and seen it. Do you think the opportunity for you to gain share in that upper end of the domestic market is starting to improve again, given what's happened to the various moving parts?

So I think it comes from a number of different sources. I think from a ceramic perspective, we broadened our product range of ceramics. So we found another source of importing and that's enabling us a different price point in the market, but to do that and deliver decent returns. So that's a lower-priced product than our core part of that product range. The dual block plant gives us a lot of opportunities to have a differentiated product and we certainly see that as a significant opportunity within that particular part of the market as well. So we'd expect to see growth in our ceramic business over time, growth in our concrete business over time. And from an Indian Sandstone perspective, really it depends on the margins that are available for us in that sector. And as I said, that's become a race to the bottom, particularly on the commodity side in the last year or so.

So slightly following up on that. The -- I mean, you used to give the order book levels sort of somewhat discredited. I think sort of last year, obviously sort of they held up very well. But what's happening on that front? I mean, are you still seeing very high order books amongst the installers, but -- or they dropped off a little bit in terms of sort of what's happening?

Can you take that and I'll give perspective on the [ Indian Sandstone ]?

Yes. So yes, right. We haven't included in the presentation because I think it appears to have just become completely detached with what we've seen actually on the ground. The order book levels, I think, are around about 18 weeks at the end of February. So it's an increase year-on-year. But what does that tell you when you're -- we can see that our -- the dispatch of our products are down.

Yes. I mean I think given the volatility and uncertainty of the market, I mean, it's been difficult to be to rely on the robustness of that data. And I think you've just got to triangulate different points of data to get a feeling for that. So I think that's why we're not just going to rely on one single point of data. I think we've got to do a bit of triangulation.

Understood. And general -- more general inquiry levels out of, I suppose, particularly sort of commercial and sort of local authority sort of areas. How have those been holding up over the last 3 to 6 months?

That part of the market is in decent shape.

Yes. I think commercial markets have proved to be pretty resilient, to be honest. And I think it's difficulty looking for green shoots. I think one of the things you can see water management and infrastructure and civil is strong. There's a good order book there. I think what you're not seeing yet is kind of any green shoots from new housebuilding. And that still remains a challenge, and there's still a lack of consumer confidence when it comes to spending discretionary money on RMI and improvement. So I think we hope to see that coming through in the second part of the year as the interest is inflation falls and interest rates come down and consumer confidence comes back up. But generally, in places like commercial infrastructure have been pretty resilient.

And remember, when we talk about commercial infrastructure for our numbers, it includes public sector RMI activity. So -- and that's where Marley is really strong. And that business is in really good shape as well.

Adrian Kearsey, Panmure Gordon. You talked about in the presentation the opportunity in water and you talked about the GBP 96 billion beyond '24 submissions would indicate. Could you quantify in pounds sales? What sales are we getting from the water utilities at the moment. So then we can perhaps understand where that's likely to go to?

Yes. I mean I haven't got the detail of that, and I'm not sure we can convert it.

I'm not sure I've got that level of detail to hand either Adrian. But it's -- so the -- if you look at the sewerage and drainage business, revenues are around about GBP 70 million. That's -- its principal exposure be to New Build Housing. So it's going to be less than half of that, which will flow into the water industry.

I don't know -- sort of similar -- sort of trying to quantify. Would you be able to quantify what solar, both in terms of Marley and Viridian contributed in '23?

Yes. About GBP 30 million of revenue. Yes. And as Matt said, I mean, so the penetration in Scotland, where the particular building regulations have been in place is around somewhere between about 75% and 80% of newbuild has got solar on it. We're at the start of the journey of [indiscernible] regulations in England and Wales. And therefore, we expect to see that business grow very substantially in coming years. Profitability was good as well. So as I mentioned in the presentation, we saw growing profitability in that business. So really pleased with it.

Rob Chantry, Berenberg. Just 3 questions from me. I'll do one at a time. Firstly, could you just add some more detail, I guess, on the expected shape of the year in terms of volume, given the kind of new build data points coming out at the start of '24 and how you see that evolving over the year?

Yes. So we expect volumes to be a touch down year-on-year. overall from traditional products. But actually, we expect to see improving volumes from Viridian Solar because of the impact of the Parcel building regulations. So it's overall inherent in our numbers. You've got volumes being broadly flat to slightly negative. And from a first half, second half perspective, the comparative -- if you look at the comparatives from last year, you have progressive weakness as you went through the year, and particularly New Build Housing slowed as the house builders work through their order books. So it became a lot weaker in the second half of the year. This year, we'd expect the first half to be a continuation of that with some improvement in the second half of the year.

Okay. Secondly, just on the proportion of revenue currently specified solution sale versus, I guess, non-specified. I think in the past, you talked about 35%, 40% specified. Just interested in your kind of thoughts on where that could get to in the medium term given your initial look at the business and that the markets that are better at the moment than other areas?

Yes. Probably a bit early for me to give an absolute view on where it can go. But I think given my background, I'm very aware of how important specification is and winning specification. So the more you focus on that through your sales teams in the markets where you're specifying and the closer you get to those specifiers, whether they're architects or the main contractors or the house builder is going to become increasingly important. My background shows that you can start to get winning percentage points of specification progressively and if you can drive 10% more into your specified business, the value created through the business is significant. At this stage, it's a bit early to say, but I think that's one of the things as we evolve the strategy that will be very, very central to it. It's that specified business. And being really choiceful about what business you want to win. And I think that's really important when you're #1, it's too easy to be all things to all people. The key for it is to be really specific about what you're trying to win and win that specified business. So I know it's a generic answer, but a bit early to be specific about what we can gain in each end market.

Great. Appreciate that. And then finally for me, just on capacity. Could you just add some numbers around the total capacity now versus where it was at the start of '23? And I guess any more expectations over the course of the year. I think previously, you said 75%, 80% manned, kind of portion unmanned, et cetera. But kind of what are those dynamics as how much is structurally taken out versus how much is a temporary at the moment?

So structurally taken out is the factory in Scotland. That's the only thing that's gone. At the same time, remember that we have commissioned a new block plant. So the capacity that was removed in Scotland was a block paving plant. And we already have a block paving plant at our factory in Carluke, that's able to supply the Scottish market. And we've got incremental capacity coming from the dual block plant. So overall, we've got -- and there's different capacities in different parts of the business. So it's difficult to be particularly precise in a short answer. But overall, there's around about 30% more or capacity to generate about 30% more volume than the business is.

Do you want to add some more color to that, Simon, at all?

Yes. Thanks, Matt. Yes, that's 30% headroom as it currently stands at that, we must remember that's on current shift patterns. So indeed, beyond that, we've got much, much more. And as Justin says, we've kind of closed the facility in Carluke permanently and absorbed that into Falkirk that market there will be well served. We've got plenty of headroom up in Scotland. So we're well covered.

And this -- and I guess, probably the other thing just to reemphasize is that in order to recommission this capacity, this is -- I'll make this sound a lot of easy than Simon would just expect. But this isn't where you've got in the main sort of kilns that need to be rebuilt or things like that. This is clicking a switch on a machine that makes the most concrete. The most challenging part of it is getting the labor, the semi-skill labor in place to do that. And we have been thoughtful about where we've taken capacity out and where we've mothballed it. And we've tried to do that where sites have got proximity to other sites that are still operating. So for example, we've probably talked before about the proximity of Sandy, which we've mothballed and St Ives, and we've take a peak from Sandy into St Ives and we'll move them back again in due course. Another example is we have a concrete great manufacturing facility in Maltby in South Yorkshire. And we've got another facility in Lincolnshire. And again, we've moved labor from one to the other and we'll reverse that as and when we need to in order to open up more capacity. So there's not a lot of capital expenditure associated with this. And really, it's about getting the labor in place and we thought about how we would do that.

I think that flicking the switch. [ Camera ] is going to come back to haunt you at some point over the next few months.

Probably.

Samuel Cullen from Pell Hunt. Just one from me. You've obviously talked about your attitude to working capital and taking it out last year and probably this as well. What do you think the rest of the industry is doing? And what do you think on the inventory levels across the marketplace?

I mean, if you wanted a perspective on inventory levels, I think -- what you didn't see at the end of last year was the kind of traditional chasing of volume targets in a very tight market. And I think that was an indication of a lot of people on the ground managing their inventories very tightly. I think from our point of view, we've done the same. I think you've got to build a little bit of inventory against your big sellers in the anticipation of demand is going to improve through the second year. So I think we'll do that. You never want to get caught short. But I think managing inventories tightly is an overriding challenge for the construction industry. We're not particularly just-in-time industry. And so I think we've just got to manage those things carefully as we manage through the year, but not miss out on the opportunities as markets recover. I don't think we're going to see a bounce back like we did post-COVID. So I think then we've got those challenges, but you've got to make sure you're in a good balance and a little bit extra where you need it on the ground, and I think that would apply probably to most of the industry, to be honest. Do you want to add to that?

I think the only thing to add is that we wouldn't be looking to -- there's pockets of inventory that we'll look to reduce. But overall, I wouldn't be expecting a further significant reduction in inventory levels, that's certainly not built into our cash flow expectations and net debt forecast.

I don't know whether we've got any questions from those people joining online. No? No. Well, that's great. If there aren't any more questions, thank you for your time this morning. Thank you for those joining us in the room and those joining online, and I look forward to meeting you, some of you during the rest of this week and over the coming weeks. Thank you very much.

Thank you.