Metair Investments Limited (MTA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody. If we can start, my name is Paul O'Flaherty. I'm the CEO of Metair Investments Limited. And I'm joined today by Anesh Jogia, the CFO of Metair. So welcome to all of you as we present our interim results. And the context of our results is quite a moment, I believe, in the history of Metair as we move out of one of our largest subsidiaries in Turkey, restructure the company, reinvest in South Africa in one of our largest subsidiaries, Hesto. And whilst we do this, together with the Board, we're looking at refocusing and diversifying our operations. It's really important for Metair in this stage of its journey to reset and grow. So they are the financial highlights, which Anesh will take you through the detail. But just a couple of points worth noting. And if you look at our EBITDA and our EBIT. So on a reported basis, we've seen a decrease in both primarily as a result of hyperinflation accounting in Turkey. And the reasons for that hyperinflation accounting are nonoperational, and those have had an adverse effect on both our EBITDA and our EBIT. Again, if we look at our headline earnings per share showing a small loss this year, and we'll talk about the commitments we made at the end of the year when we gave our year-end presentation. Again, we've seen a significant interest again from our Turkish operations that have negatively affected our earnings. If we look at our group net debt sitting at ZAR 3.4 billion, and ZAR 4.8 billion if we include Hesto, we've heard a lot of commentary and a lot of insights from investors about unpacking our debt and I think Anesh will do a good job today in really portraying exactly where we sit from a Metair perspective. But let's look at commitments. All of you who were at the last presentation will remember this slide, where we made certain commitments that we would attempt to over the next 6 months. So it was about stabilizing our leadership, particularly with all of the occurrences of last year. It was paying attention and really addressing our debt levels. It was achieving our planned Hesto profitability, unlocking and derisking Mutlu and addressing the Competition Commission issue. But while we addressed all of those, and I spoke about the flywheel and all of the interdependencies amongst it, we can't just sit still. And at this point in time, we have to look at a new strategy. We have to talk about reset and growth, and we're well on the way of addressing that with the Board. But let's just go to the progress against those priorities. So the leadership has been stabilized and has been stabilized for the last 7 to 8 months. The head office is fully capacitated. We spoke about at the year-end about Metair having more strategic control over its subsidiaries because of the restructuring that was required in Metair. And so we are fully capacitated. We also spoke about making sure the MDs in their subsidiaries are accountable for what they have promised to do. So those KPIs are very clear, and the understanding between Metair executives and the MDs is very, very clear. And it's very focused as to who needs to do what. On the second point, we've announced on the 17th of September, the sale of Mutlu and that removes offshore debt of around ZAR 1.3 billion. It also removes the complexity of hyperinflation accounting. And without going into the intricacies of that, it's very difficult to read a set of financial statements for Metair when you have hyperinflation of a significant subsidiary affecting income statement, balance sheet in every single line item. Once we have done that, we will implement our debt restructuring plan, which Anesh will touch on. We're pleased to say that the Hesto turnaround is well on track. And we achieved an EBIT margin of 3.9% for half 1 2024, and you'll reflect in the previous 6 months, the comparative 6 months, that was ZAR 711 million loss. There's a way to go. There's commitments that we have to make with Ford and Toyota about improving our margins, but well on track and pleased with that turnaround. From a Mutlu point of view, the conditions precedent we believe will be fulfilled in November, and I'll unpack what those conditions are. The circular should be published and printed on Monday, the 30th of September, it should go out to all shareholders. And it's worth noting that Metair has tried twice in the past to sell Mutlu and we were absolutely determined to get this done. And it's positive and we go to the shareholders vote on the 29th of October. The Competition Commission issue is a little bit out of our control, but we have replied to the Statement of Objection, we've replied to that in April of this year. We had oral hearings at the EU Commission, which was attended both by Rombat senior management and by ourselves to lay the case. But we await the EU's decisions and that can take some time. We're not expecting any formal decisions until next year, perhaps in the first quarter. So as I say, it's a little bit out of our control, but we've put our best foot forward, and we've responded to all the allegations in that Statement of Objections. And lastly, our reset and growth strategy, which I'll touch on a little bit. We've been having a number of iterations with the Board and we're hoping to sign that off with the Board, together with the MDs of the businesses in November of this year. So just a high-level overview of our financial performance before Anesh goes into the detail. We've suffered with the OEM volumes. And despite that, our OEM automotive component businesses have done really well. They're built to run a certain capacity. They have overheads and costs that support that capacity. And when you get lots of volatility and downward volatility in the customer volumes, it's very difficult to manage, but they've done really, really well through efficiencies and cost cutting. And as we said and Hesto's turnaround has assisted. In the energy vertical, we've had strong performances from First Battery and Rombat, but the effects of Mutlu are obvious. And the hyperinflation accounting effectively negates any of the strong EBIT that comes out of First Battery and of Rombat, and as I said, EBIT and EBITDA is adversely affected even at the group level through hyperinflation accounting. We said two things and two promises that we said at the full year results, and that was in our outlook section. And we said, excluding the effects of hyperinflation, which you can never predict, our 6-month targets included an operating profit margin, including Hesto, targeting closer to 5% to 6%. We actually achieved 6.8%. And including Hesto, we achieved 6%, so we did what we said we would do, excluding the effects of hyperinflation. We also highlighted to the market that our interest levels, again, primarily because of Turkey, would match what we suffered in the half 2 of 2023. And so our reported net finance charges for the first 6 months was ZAR 446 million versus half 2 '23 of ZAR 461 million. So we did alert this to the market. And hence, another reason around the Mutlu issue and why we need to derisk ourselves from Mutlu. So as I said, we've put out a detailed announcement to the market. The circular will be posted on Monday. So we're selling 100% of Turkey operations. It's a 100% sale of the operations. The purchaser is an American registered company by the name of Quexco, well experienced in the lead market, well experienced in the battery market. And we believe that they will -- they're a battery operator. And they will do well, we believe, with Mutlu in different hands with a different viewpoint about what they need to do. The disposal consideration and we need to be clear on this, as we've said in the market, it's an enterprise value of $110 million. So an enterprise value gets adjusted for debt at the closing and any adjustments against working capital against the target. And that enterprise value was based on a sustainable EBITDA in Mutlu of just over $24 million at a 4.5 multiple. And that's the deal that we've reached. The use of proceeds is quite simple. The use of proceeds will be used to repatriate the money to South Africa and be the first step, the first step in our total debt restructuring package, which Anesh will talk about. On the conditions precedent, there's three conditions precedent. The first is shareholder consent on the 29th of October, greater than 50% of the shareholders. The second is the Turkish Competition Commission Board approval, which we do not believe is onerous, and we have already started that process. And the third is Mutlu's funding itself. So Mutlu has debt of around $70 million to $80 million, and the buyer is looking at repackaging that debt with different scenarios and different guarantees and a different balance sheet that they can assist Mutlu with to get favorable lending terms. The other material terms in the sale and purchase agreement is standard indemnities that we've provided to the purchaser around pre-closing tax liabilities. They've asked us to make sure that we indemnify them for any Competition Commission issues for Rombat that will fall over to Mutlu and there aren't any. There is absolutely no link between Mutlu and Rombat, so we were happy to indemnify that. And the other is around some occupancy permit facilities that Mutlu needs to be putting in place. So overall, conditions precedent. The rationale, I think you've seen it in our results. The hyperinflation accounting is really difficult. The inflation rate in Turkey has risen by 75% in the last 6 months. The interest rates in local borrowings is at 50%. This is a very difficult operation to manage from South Africa. More than 50% of the purchases of Mutlu are in hard currency dollars. But from a sales perspective, less than 20% of its sales are in hard currency. So trying to manage the net EBITDA and the debt in Turkey is extremely difficult and the results -- our results today speak for themselves. This position, we don't believe will change in the medium term. And in fact, since I've been on board, we can see how that operation degrades from an accounting perspective, not from an operational perspective. It's a very sound operation, but it's about making money. And so the disposal removes this risk from our balance sheet, from our income statement and simplifies looking at Metair and the sale of Mutlu has a negligible effect on our other energy storage businesses. There's no big trading that goes on between Rombat, First Battery and Mutlu. There isn't anything of that sort. So it can be easily separated from the group. Our group balance sheet is materially strengthened, and the sale of Mutlu is accretive to our earnings as Anesh will show you, and it's a significant derisk to shareholders. Have we -- if we continue with Mutlu, if we continue with hyperinflation, if we continue with inflation rates and interest rates, the borrowings of Mutlu will continue, and the EBITDA of Mutlu will continue to weaken. And it's extremely important for Metair at this stage in its journey to dispose of Mutlu. So there's the indicative timeline. We signed the sales and purchase agreement on the 16th of September. We made an announcement to the market on the 17th. The circular will be distributed on the 30th of September. And then there's the general meeting of the shareholders on the 29th of October. We expect all the regulatory approvals in quarter 4, which would include those conditions precedent that I noted. And then the finalization and closing in quarter 4 and we're hoping that, that is in the first part of November and maybe stretching to the last part of November of '24. And then we can move on in the Metair journey and the Metair strategy. Thank you. I'll hand over to Anesh.

Thanks, Paul. I think with that backdrop, you would appreciate the numbers that I will try explain the results, very tough results for the 6 months. Compared to the previous 6 months, yes, we had quite a difficult ramp-up, as you said, at our major operation Hesto. But on that backdrop, revenue flattish, 4% up, negated by good export volumes out of Rombat and some mitigation in terms of diversification in the business. Our other major customer in the OEM vertical has supported top line and supported profitability to a certain extent in our aftermarket business. But in saying that, that drives where we stand in terms of a profitability point of view. And unfortunately, given the backdrop of the severe hyperinflation impact we had from Mutlu, you're dealing with an operation with CPI of 70%. So that means you really got to index your costs 70% going back in time. It's quite complicated and you're dealing with interest rates that average around 50% to 55% in the cycle. So margins were adversely impacted by -- to 1.7% versus around 4% in the prior period. And that largely has borne down to some cost creep in Mutlu. Wages have gone up quite significantly when we settle down on the wage negotiations. The rates -- increase in rates in that country, given the industry that it is, average between 150% to 180%, as is wages. So it's quite difficult to operate in that environment. We also had some uptick in distribution costs. Things became expensive to move around and obviously, we had a bit of a dip in the OEM market. We try to mitigate it as best as we could and recovered costs as best as we could. That drove operating profit down 59% to ZAR 134 million. Biggest aspect for us, and as we mentioned previously, is the large interest bill that we have, ZAR 446 million, as Paul alluded to earlier on, and that comes from the backdrop of investments that we made for customers and previous projects, especially the major port project and projects coming up. A very difficult Turkish working capital cycle. If you remember, Mutlu, in the Northern Hemisphere, around June time, it's the lowest season or seasonality. It's a very seasonal business. We make a lot of profit mostly in the second half, depending on where hyperinflation lands up, but it's very expensive to maintain your working capital and at the same time, try and maintain margins without losing customers in your local aftermarket. And aftermarket volumes were softer in June compared to what we have seen previously in the business. That drove the cost of working capital and obviously the rates itself, as I said, averaging around 50%, contributed to a 59% increase in interest costs for the group overall. Interestingly, Mutlu accounts for about 70% of the interest bill. Hesto, one of the good recovery stories, but we got some way to go, recovered from ZAR 711 million loss to a profit of ZAR 112 million. This is operating profit. But because of the severe accumulated losses, we don't book any of that until we can make it up into the future. And where we stand with the equity accounting is that Hesto doesn't feature on the income statement, but it does feature in our automotive segment report, which I will unpack later. Taxes, also a difficult area for us at this point in time, an effective rate of about 40%, 45%. And it's made up of a number of factors. Because we got such a low profitability, the nondeductible expenses that we have at a group level, especially the interest, preference share interest becomes a bigger impact on your tax rate. And we've also had some increases in CIT rates in Romania and Turkey. So for Romania, when we bought the business, its effective rate was 16%; where it's sitting at, at the moment is 160%. And that's because the government has introduced a special tax for manufacturing companies where your tax bill is limited to 1% of your turnover or maximum 1% of your turnover. So that's caused a big uptick in taxes for us. And in Turkey, while we got to pay interest bill of nearly ZAR 300 million in Turkey itself, you're only allowed to do that 90% of that interest bill in your tax return. So that's some -- with the disposal of Mutlu, we could see a reduction in this effective rate going forward. ROIC, return on invested capital, improved to 11.9%, and that improvement comes back on the back of improvement at Hesto and as well as FB, First Battery. ROIC, on a normalized basis, that's if we take away the noises of hyperinflation primarily, we get to 13.9%, about 1.7% Metair's average calculated weighted average cost of capital. What this all means is from an earnings perspective, a loss per share of ZAR 0.03. If we take away the noises of hyperinflation and normalize the results of Mutlu, it's a result of about ZAR 0.37 per share on a normal basis, still behind from previous period, but I'll unpack what the impact of the Mutlu sale does for Metair especially on a carved-out pro forma basis going forward. From a balance sheet -- reported balance sheet point of view, NAV improved to ZAR 29, that's mainly the impact of indexing your assets out of Mutlu. We did spend a bit on capital, but it wasn't the biggest impact on our fixed assets. The biggest impact is hyperinflation restatements at a CPI of 70%. Group debt or net debt, so this is net debt represented after cash, but doesn't represent Mutlu debt, was ZAR 3.3 billion, and that worked out on an LTM or a trailing 12 months leverage of 3.5x. The debt profile and debt maturity, largely short term in nature. The preference share, ZAR 840 million will be refinanced partly paid because it's linked to the Mutlu sale. A large part of Mutlu's debt, that's the ZAR 941 million, will be removed from Mutlu's balance sheet. It's largely due to the financing facilities in Turkey. Obtaining financing facilities in Turkey is tough. You don't get long-term financing, normally averages 3 to 6 months, and it's a mixture between USD and TL borrowings. We did renegotiate the payment of our RCF2 facility, and that was moved over to 2025. The debt structure. I think this is a very important slide just to kind of put into place what we're trying to do in terms of the debt package and what we really have from a transparency point of view, given the guarantees that Metair has put, especially in Hesto. So group debt overall, and that's the kind of red blocked area, is ZAR 3.375 billion. And that comprises mainly of South African debt, ZAR 1,852 million, and that's mainly the debt I've mentioned here at the bottom. And it comprises of some debt from Rombat and Mutlu. Mutlu has been the biggest impact in the net debt uplift that we've had in the group. And that comes through various aspects. One was the loss of Russian exports. The loss of Russian exports has a big impact on Mutlu. Yes, we've recovered a bit on the export market but the Russian exports was priced in dollars and it was upfront dollar revenue, which was mainly cash in advance. So that has had a big impact on Mutlu's working capital cycle. Together with that, as I mentioned, facility is really hard to get. As part of Mutlu's working capital facilities, we used to make use of what they call in Turkey kind of like a carved-out factoring facilities that was underpinned by our debtors book. That facility and the nature of that facility changed since Feb, March this year. And it represents more debt like rather than working cap. And that amounted to -- in the region of $20 million as at the end of June, and has contributed to the increase in Mutlu's debt, 94% up from the previous period, December period. On top of this, we've got Hesto's debt which, in total, on the book, compromises of two areas. It's ZAR 2 billion in total, and that compromises of the shareholder loans that were put into the business guaranteed by Metair as well as extended trade credit finance. This trade rate finance needs to be refinanced as part of the bigger debt package. So this was contributed by Yazaki in order to assist Hesto with its liquidity. But we -- in part of the future debt package that we need to do, we need to rebalance this because Metair owns 75% of Hesto but has not contributed its portion of 75% cash into the business. It's been -- cash has been contributed by Yazaki, although Metair has guaranteed this. So this means technically when we refinance the group and using part of the proceeds to delever, we will need to decapitalize the Hesto business, so that Metair invest 75% and our minority partner, 25%. So from a [ C2 basis ], including guarantees crystallized, Metair's debt at balance sheet date is ZAR 5.5 billion. approximates what we do for covenants. Around covenants, it's about ZAR 5.4 billion. But because of the support of our funders, little strong support from them, and our understanding of the business, we are still in compliance with our covenants at a leverage ratio of about 2.95x. So what does the Mutlu sale does on the debt bridge or debt levels? We derecognized ZAR 1.3 billion of Mutlu debt, and we've put in an estimate of estimated proceeds, less transaction costs, less the debt and debt-like items that need to come out of Mutlu, we get nearly ZAR 500 million cash that we will take out or equity out of the Mutlu sale which then delevers Metair to a debt level of about 3.7 billion times (sic) [ ZAR 3.7 billion ] but importantly, includes the debt of Hesto, ZAR 2,146 million, including the guaranteed trade creditors. From that perspective, the leverage at this level on a trailing LTM is around 2.6x for the group. Subsequent to year-end, as part of the debt package and the support of our key funder, Metair did raise facilities or a bridging facility of $38 million, which was advanced to Yazaki to rebalance the shareholder loans in Hesto. The debt is guaranteed by Metair, but it is only in one instance. So the $38 million really has no impact on total debt at December because your shareholder loan balance itself hasn't changed. As I mentioned before, nearly 30% of our group debt rises internationally, predominantly Mutlu and a bit of Rombat, but 73% of our interest bill arises from the international operations. From a cash flow perspective, just to summarize where we sit at this point in time. We've got net cash on the balance sheet of about ZAR 600 million. We did improve cash generation from operations, ZAR 417 million, but that unfortunately was diminished by an interest bill of ZAR 443 million that we had to pay out. We did raise financing predominantly at Mutlu with the majority of it to finance its activities. However, we had to pay down on investing activities as well as invest in working capital and taxes. So by and large, cash improved marginally from ZAR 567 million to ZAR 626 million for the year. From an operational viewpoint, and if I just summarize, we did mention OEMs overall market volumes were down 7%, so this is market intel, is Metair's market intelligence, down 7%. The largest contributor of that is our key customer which was down 29%. As we mentioned, had an engine issue that needs to be rectified and will be rectified in Q4 in terms of European standards. But that, by and large, has caused a dip for us in terms of OEM volumes. And you could see, looking at previous history, we are quite significantly behind where we were before for this year. So our OEM businesses did really well to keep operations going and profitability at least at a decent level, mitigated by some of our increases in other major customers like Ford and so on. VW, down 17%, but Metair's business is not concentrated more in the German businesses, so didn't have much of an impact for us. From the battery side, overall battery volumes up 10%. That's largely due to a good uptick in export market, European exports for Rombat, which was up 46%. There was also an uptick in Mutlu's exports, but not to the levels where we want to be. It was up to 28%. The balance overall in our OEM business is still not where it needs to be. We still exposed quite a bit to OEM product. And that also contributed to a little loss of volume in First Battery because it does supply major OEMs in the country volumes, battery volumes. From an operational IFRS reported point of view, operating profit in the energy business was impacted severely by hyperinflation, ZAR 6 million profit compared to ZAR 121 million in the previous period. OEM business -- I mean, sorry, aftermarket business -- I mean, sorry, automotive business, really ZAR 308 million from ZAR 448 million loss in the previous period. And that really was the contribution from Hesto, a good recovery from Hesto from a difficult project ramp-up that we mentioned in the previous period. Overall, group operating profit, ZAR 134 million and reported EBITDA at ZAR 385 million. If I normalize the perspective, especially from an energy point of view, Mutlu produced a profit of ZAR 185 million, up 16% from the previous period. And that was largely impacted, although, yes, it did improve quite significantly from aftermarket especially, with the difficulties we had towards the end of last year. It was impacted severely by currency devaluations and as well as sales mix. And that improvement in operating profit was largely from our battery businesses, First Battery up 83% and a return to profitability at Rombat as well at ZAR 20 million. Overall, on a normalized basis, if you exclude the noises of hyperinflation, the group's operating profit was ZAR 537 million at margin of about 6.8% and free cash flow utilized of ZAR 271 million, largely because of the working capital requirements in energy storage as well as a bit of CapEx that we invested especially at Rombat, we had an outflow of ZAR 460 million from an operational free cash flow point of view. Energy storage did much better. We had good cash generation in that business of ZAR 545 million. Sorry, automotive, yes. Net working capital, the shift in days, if I just go to shift in days from 77 to 84 largely comes because of the financing at Mutlu and the shift from factoring to quasi debt. And that has reduced payable days to around 59 days. The target for Metair always is below 70 days and why we are at 77, besides taking -- I mean, 84 and the 7 days, which was largely due to payables, our automotive businesses had to keep safety stock to try and combat port disruptions as well as volume variability from our major customers. From a CapEx point of view, we did promise that we will control our capital expenditure and we did control it at ZAR 261 million, which is around the ballpark of our depreciation bill for this period of about ZAR 242 million. The major spend in the period was a solar park for Rombat in Europe. Rombat being in Europe has to be more advanced in terms of its green manufacturing and it has put up a solar park as well as investments in AGM heavy-duty batteries for trucks. Given the backdrop of the operational and financial results, I think it's important that we, and as Paul alluded to, give a perspective of what Mutlu does and the sale of Mutlu does to Metair from a circular extract point of view as well as a going forward point of view, especially if we have to overlay the results of Hesto. From a circular point of view, we've put together the extracts from what you would see in the circular coming out and one aspect you would see is a large loss on sale. And that loss on sale really is driven by foreign currency that we need to realize through the income statement. When Metair acquired Mutlu, it was acquired at a rate of ZAR 5.25 to TRY 1. The Turkish Lira to the Rand at this point in time, TRY 1 is ZAR 0.52, TL equivalent. So that's a big foreign currency translation loss that we have to realize through the P&L. But in terms of headline earnings, this deal is accretive, accretive because of interest. We derecognized quite a bit of interest to the P&L by deconsolidating Mutlu. We gained a bit of interest by paying down debt, we do have a bit of leakage in terms of transaction costs but by and large, the ZAR 0.06 loss that we've reported -- sorry, ZAR 0.03 loss that we reported is a ZAR 0.62 profit once we account for the sale of Mutlu at June. From a balance sheet perspective, remember the June result is the impact from 1st of Jan, but the balance sheet is an impact at 30th of June, after we account for the cash in the business and the debt in the business at that point in time, Metair's debt, ZAR 3.376 billion, as we mentioned before, derecognize, delevers Metair to a net debt of ZAR 1,474 million. On a trailing LTM EBITDA for the rest of the group, this is an EBITDA -- net debt-to-EBITDA level of about 1.5x. So to put it into perspective, so I've mentioned Mutlu and the cover of Mutlu, but another aspect of the group, because we got Hesto and Hesto has been Metair's largest investment, what we try to do is put a picture together. If you overlay Hesto and Mutlu into the group or Mutlu disposal into group, what would the group look like as at the end of June 2024? So on the left-hand side, and just remember, this is just a management objection, unaudited. On the left-hand side, as reported, we've reported ZAR 0.03 sales loss per share, but the group excluding Mutlu, on a normal basis results in the ZAR 0.77 headline earnings per share. So this is a bit different from what you have to do from a circular perspective because we cut out the noises of the actual disposal. So we've treated it as a quasi asset held for sale for this point in time. The interest bill reduces from ZAR 446 million to ZAR 120 million. Net debt reduces from 3.5, as I've mentioned, to about 1.6, that's net debt to EBITDA. Now if we exclude Mutlu, I mean if we overlay Hesto into this projection, if we had consolidated Hesto last year in the previous period, but excluding Mutlu, Metair would have produced headline earnings loss of ZAR 1.80. If we take this projection forward into June 2024, excluding Mutlu, but including Hesto and the good profitability out of Hesto, Metair's headline earnings per share projected would have been ZAR 0.79 for the June period at a margin of 5.5%. The interest bill does uptick a bit because Mutlu -- I mean, sorry, Hesto does have a bit of debt and Metair's interest bill would be ZAR 224 million versus the current ZAR 446 million. The most important point is the debt and this is the projection of where Metair's debt will evolve once we do the package, which means capitalizing Hesto and raising debt for Hesto at a Metair level. We were at the equivalent of 6.7x in the previous period. Paying down debt from the sale of proceeds from Mutlu as well as the derecognition of debt out of Mutlu and the overlay of Hesto would ultimately result in the ZAR 3.7 billion that I've mentioned before, at a net debt-to-EBITDA of 2.6x. So for us, as management, we believe the deal to do Mutlu was the best thing that we could do. And to give visibility, we put the projection of Hesto because Hesto lies -- no annual features, no annual income statement, it's a small line in the income statement. It only features in automotive in the segment report, but a full view of Metair and where Metair would have been at June, had we consolidated Mutlu, had we disposed of -- sorry, consolidated Hesto, disposed of Mutlu at the first of Jan, would have been an earnings -- headline earnings per share of ZAR 0.79. Thank you.

Thanks, Anesh. So 6 months into our restructure and turnaround, what are we going to focus on now. Mutlu, should the deal go ahead, 29th of October will be a discontinued operation. So it will not be part of our continuing earnings. And so the visibility of Metair with our type inflation, without the complexity of the interest rates is far clearer and a lot more simplistic and there's no overhang from Turkey. The remaining debt of ZAR 3.7 billion post the sale of Mutlu can now be worked on together with our funders of how do we restructure that debt. How do we extend the terms? How do we look at the interest rates going forward around that debt? And a big part of that is Hesto. So Hesto's continuing profitability, continued performance and generation of cash flows is fundamental to the future of the group. But strategy as well, we can't just sit and think about -- we've got problems that we have to solve. We have to rethink our strategy. We have to reset. So what will we be post Mutlu? What will we be once we reinvest into Hesto and balance the shareholder loans? Well, the core of Metair is automotive component manufacturer. That's our core, and it will remain our core. However, our strategic focus is going to move into Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, into mobility and the energy sector. So we won't lose who we are, but we have to look for diversification. We have to look to balance other annuity income streams to balance when we have customer volatility. So we need to look into the aftermarket, which we're well positioned to do. We need to look into industrial business in Africa, and that's part of the strategy that we will be approving with the Board and rolling out into the future. And obviously, we have our supplier challenges. And we mentioned this last time, you'll note, glad to -- as an ex-Eskomite, glad to say that's not on our priority list now. But Transnet, the ports, we see no relief from ports. We see no relief in terms of getting the goods into South Africa through the ports into our factories, no relief. So it remains high concern, air freights and goods in trying to plan 9 months in advance remains a major challenge for most of our subsidiaries. ArcelorMittal has given us some relief. So the extension of any shutdown in Newcastle. Again, very glad to hear it having been at ArcelorMittal, so the extension of the long steel operations into next year is good. And we will continue to look at other avenues for our steel, should we need that, but for now, that's positive news. And Sasol gas, you would have read recently the joint venture between Sasol and Eskom. As the particular gas fields in Mozambique dry out, where is the next amount of gas that we need desperately in the furnaces in our operations? So these are the daily operations -- operational issues that concern us. In terms of the full year outlook, and if you read naamsa and vehicle sales and where we -- we do not see OEM production volumes greater than 600,000 vehicles this year, which is low compared to 650,000 vehicles of last year. So the well-documented struggles I mentioned in our report with Toyota -- in our report with Toyota and what they're intending to do. Although the turnaround and restoration back to production is expected towards the end of this year, we're expecting vehicle sales to be less than 600,000 vehicle production. That means the units really have to look at cost efficiency, continued stringent cost measures, efficiencies in the factories and continue to run them the way they've been running. Some of these factories, as I said, are built for a capacity and now you've got half. You have to be very astute as to how you manage that. Mutlu will be disclosed as a continued operation when we get our year-end results. And therefore, the effect of it on continuing operations will be absolutely negated and you can see the core of Metair's results going forward. I spoke about efficiency, cost control, making sure we live within our capacities and making sure we live within the volumes that we're getting. And then continue with Hesto. It's shown a pleasing turnaround, and we're happy to announce, and Alex is here today, the appointment of Alex Holmes as the Managing Director of Hesto with effect from 1 September. Wolf will move into the role he was appointed originally, which is one of our Chief Operating Officers, but he will continue with the oversight of Hesto. He's done a fantastic job in going there March of last year to help the company turn it around, and it's certainly a strong turnaround from Wolf and the team. So we welcome Alex, and we know he will take Hesto forward because Metair's future investment and our biggest single investment, ZAR 1.6 billion, is in Hesto. We need Hesto to generate the cash flows and the profitability that it is absolutely capable of and it will be our single biggest subsidiary. So thank you for that. Anesh, now we'll take any questions.

It's Rowan Goeller from Chronux Research. Paul, just a quick question. Post GNU and we've got a new minister in the Department of Trade and Industry. Where do you see support for the auto industry going? Because South Africa has supported it very strongly in recent years. But do you think that will continue? Do you think it will accelerate? Or can you comment on anything that's happened post the GNU happening?

Look, I think we rely heavily on our industry bodies, NAACAM and then naamsa for the OEMs. We're very positive. I mean South Africa has an automotive master plan. You know the growth expectations there. We've got new entrants like Stellantis and some of the Chinese manufacturers. So we're cautiously optimistic over the medium term, but we're struggling with the volumes in front of us today. So we -- automotive is important for South Africa. It's such a fundamental part of the manufacturing industry of South Africa, the jobs, the creation of those jobs, just like the steel industry. So absolutely, as a company, we're fully behind whatever we can add to assist in this industry.

We have one question from the webcast in the meantime. It's from John Murray of Investec. He's asked what is the expected time frame before Hesto can be again included into the consolidated numbers.

Now that is a real accounting issue. And where is our auditor? So international accounting standard 10 and the ramification. So no, without being flippant about it, today, it's accounted as an associate. It's a joint venture because of joint control. Obviously, as we restructure and as we invest and replace the guarantees, we become a significant investor in that. We are engaging with Yazaki shareholder. We're engaging with our auditors and it's purely an auditing, an accounting question. It's not a commercial question and how we look at it differently from an accounting perspective. So we're busy with it. So we would hope from next year that we'd be able to account for Hesto as a subsidiary, but we have to go through all the motions.

We do have another question or two from James Twyman of Prescient Securities. The first question. Could you talk around the sustainability of the sharp improvement in FNB profitability? And then the second one, and the causes of the increases in Mutlu's net debt since year-end to ZAR 1.3 billion from ZAR 666 million other than the working cap change of around ZAR 340 million?

So I'll get Anesh to answer the debt, and then I'll talk to first question.

Yes, sorry. So as I explained, the nature of funding in Mutlu changed significantly since previous periods. The big aspect is use of factoring facilities. Factoring facilities was as normal as we understand them in South Africa, underwritten, no recourse, and it was kind of that kind of agreement in the Turkish environment previously, but the nature of debt financing facility changed. The Turkish environment and the banking environment is difficult. So although Mutlu has facilities of up to ZAR 800 million, on a given particular day or daily, it needs to bid for these facilities. It depends on what the banking and banks can absorb in their environment, what the solvency ratios are, so whatever facilities are available on that day, Mutlu has to take up and under that extreme interest rates as well. So it's a funding mechanism that we had to replace to support the working capital. The cost of lead with the U.S. dollar to TL at 33 TL to $1, lead has become very expensive and you've got to watch out how you pass these prices or pass the price increase into the aftermarket. You are limited in terms of the OEM. Yes, you can recover your lead cost, but in terms of overheads, you can't. You're also limited in terms of the price you can pass on to aftermarket without losing the market share. Mutlu still the leading distribution -- distributor in the aftermarket. But to fund working capital and to recover it, especially with the distribution setup it has with aftermarket, that cash recovery is quite slower, and that's contributed to the increase in debt other than the factoring it's working capital financed as well, as you mentioned, and that's contributed largely to the debt pile at Mutlu at this point in time.

On First Battery, I mean, First Battery has been a star for us in energy storage. Why? Significant turnaround in production efficiency and how they manage the business. Looking at markets outside of OEMs, so looking at the aftermarket, looking at the industrial businesses, so lots of focus from that management, lots of belief in that management. So we're pretty confident the sustainability of that business and the profit that they provide to the group will continue.

We have two further questions on the webcast. [indiscernible] from Engineering News. With Toyota gearing up for the new Hilux, what will the CapEx obligation on Metair be at Hesto?

Yes. So the -- I probably get Wolf to answer that. It depends. So remember, for tooling, those are normally paid by the customer over a period. So that would be part of it. What Hesto needs to look at is, as you know, we run the three factories. We need to look at space constraints. We would need to look at how we would fit the new line in when the old line tapers off. So all those are under negotiation with Toyota. The timing is under negotiation with Toyota. So there's no number we can put forward at this stage.

The last question from the webcast for now is from [ Nick Krige ] of Signal Asset Management. Are you concerned about the rapid rise in market share by the Chinese and Indian car brands? How does this impact on your plans for the future?

Sure. So I think that's a question for the OEMs of South Africa, right? The OEMs and certainly the ones who we are the major suppliers for, which would be Toyota and Ford, where do their vehicles go if there's significant imports of Chinese vehicles in Europe and the other places they export to. So Chinese carmakers are intending to invest in South Africa, and we would try and follow that path. But that's a question for the automotive industry of South Africa, quite frankly. And how do we protect that? How do we get better at what we do? How are we more efficient? How do those OEMs who are just subsidiary companies of overseas OEMs, how do they see the market going forward? So it's something we continually engage with the executives of the OEMs locally, and it's something we need to watch out for, for sure. It's a big threat, no doubt about it.

Are there any questions from the floor? We have one last question from Nick Krige from Signal Asset Management. What return on equity are you targeting for the reconfigured business? And when do you plan to reach these targets?

Yes. So return on equity, yes, although we stated it's not the key fundamental tracker for us. So we look at ROIC because Metair's capital structure is based between equity and debt, debt being a large factor of that. And from a ROIC point of view, our minimum target requirement is 15.7% for the overall business. It's around 20% to 22%, given which subsidiaries it is, in the energy business -- sorry, automotive business and in the energy business, it's around 18%.

There's no further questions on the webcast. I see Rowan has a question.

So yes, just one last question. You answered on first battery, but Rombat also had a good volume performance. Can you maybe just comment on the sustainability of that, please?

Sustainability of Rombat, yes. So last year, it was an unusual item for Rombat, the exports. It's a specific customer. It's actually Peugeot and Renault that we supply to in Europe. And a large part of that was due to changes in their systems and their warehousing as well as the softer demand cycle within that OES business that we supply to. So that's more -- what you see now is more of a sustainable export volume. But it all depends. It depends on technologies, it depends on the environment, the Ukraine and Russian war does have an impact to a certain extent, but where we are sustainable volumes on Rombat and that's where it will be for the medium term, yes.

There are no further questions.

Great. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for your attendance.