Metair Investments Limited (MTA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Good morning, everybody. Nice to see those of you in Johannesburg and those on the webcast. A special welcome to the Board members as well. I suppose -- how do we summarize a very interesting year. And I think the message is about controlling what you can control. So I'll do the update. I'll hand over to Anesh and then look a little bit into our outlook. So what did we face externally, the factors that we had to deal with outside of our control. The local OEM production, the OEMs struggled in the last year because of the threats in the markets that they export to and in the local South African market. So you can see the production volumes other than VW were suppressed when compared to the prior year. We had our port infrastructure challenges, as did the OEMs. Obviously, we import a lot of components and materials. But pleased to say that, that's improved significantly. So the ports really seem to be getting their act together. And so that's something we hope for going forward. Internally, and we call out TSAM specifically because we're a big supplier, and we're very dependent on TSAM. So their engine certification issues resulted in, for us, a 28% reduction in volumes compared to the prior year, which obviously is significant for us. The one we had to deal with was Mutlu. Trying to operate a company from South Africa in a hyperinflationary environment, in a high interest rate environment is extremely, extremely difficult. So we had to derisk this company from Mutlu. I think we've all read the current ongoings in Turkey. It's a very volatile environment, and this was absolutely critical for us. And then we also incurred about ZAR 41 million of restructuring costs. We had to look internally, as I said, control what we can control. And in 3 of our units, we had to close down plants, and we had to restructure lines, and that cost us ZAR 41 million in the current year. So what have we done? So when we reflect, we've reshaped the portfolio. And although to many, the results out of Mutlu is disappointing, the fact is we're out, and we're not exposed to that high interest rate and high debt environment. And that's a good thing. AutoZone. AutoZone is a key strategic investment from Metair as we rebalance our portfolio, and we'll talk about it. So we move away from the verticals we had, and we've a new vertical we call the aftermarkets, and AutoZone is a key step to that. And then finalizing those noncore operations that we announced the closure of, and there will be more restructurings in Metair. We have to fit to our cloth. We have to fit to our volumes. Volumes is got to be the only thing that's uncertain for us. Everything else we need to bring under our control. In terms of our capital structure, we announced on the SENS previously that we've managed to deal with our debt structure. We've managed to at least get a structure that we can work ourselves into. And we'll talk a little bit about that. And if you look into the integrated report from Pages 43 to 46, there's a lot of detail on this debt restructure. From an operational point of view, really happy with the continued turnaround of Hesto. That's a really, really important milestone for Metair. So from a ZAR 608 million EBIT loss last year to a ZAR 257 million profit, sorry, ZAR 257 million profit in the '24 year at a 4.7% margin. And there's a way to go. So all of those issues with the Ford project, all of the issues with the other projects, those are in our control and we expect Hesto to improve even more going forward. And despite the lower OEM revenues and particularly the OEMs we supply to, we still generated a net profit of ZAR 282 million from our continuing operations as opposed to ZAR 55 million in the prior year. So we're happy with what we achieved. I think the key message here when I spoke about the flywheel of last year and the things we had to deal with to actually get back control is this is a different Metair, and we feel more confident of where we are. So not only strengthening the management team, but the culture of accountability, transparency, increased efficiency and common values. That's really, really important. Many of the MDs are in the room today. They know the way that we operate together. They know that we do this in a transparent and absolute open manner, but we demand performance. And as much as they demand it from us as executive, we demand it from them. Derisked against volatility and OEM exposure. I think with Mutlu we sold, I've spoken about it, but AutoZone, that acquisition, so we do have current aftermarket sales, which we'll talk about. But AutoZone sets us up in a completely new league to derisk ourselves from purely OEM exposure. So that's a good strategy for us. Our new structure, improved oversight. So we've moved away. So even though the financials report on the old verticals of automotive component manufacturing and energy storage, we've now moved from automotive component manufacturing to aftermarket sales and services. It's a significant component for us, and it deconcentrates us from our manufacturing for OEM, which is still very important to us, but we need this deconcentrates. Happy to announce as well that, and particularly the shareholders and the analysts that we've managed to solve the Hesto accounting issue. And from 1 April, we'll be accounting for Hesto as a subsidiary as opposed to an associate. So our financial statements can become more readable and more comparable as opposed to doing what we have to do in terms of pro formas. A new strategy. So, what is our strategy? Our strategy is focused on Africa. It's focused on mobility, and it's focused on automotive OEM manufacturing, but it's also very much focused on the aftermarket. And obviously, we've rebalanced our debt. We've managed to get the runway and the breathing room to grow into our debt packages, and at least focus on the things that we need to focus on going forward. Let's talk and hopefully, the last time talk about Mutlu. It was disposed of in December. The hyperinflation and high interest actually was unmanageable. That's the reality. It was unmanageable. It made a post hyperinflation net loss of ZAR 486 million that is included in our results. And last year was a ZAR 74 million profit. So that's all shown as a discontinued operation. When we came down to the final straws of the final closing, those equity proceeds that we were expecting were significantly affected by raising creditors in the Mutlu balance sheet. Mutlu ran out of an ability to raise additional debt. And the way it was managing itself was deferring its creditors. We, as Metair had no ability to solve that. We could not introduce equity into Mutlu, and we had no ability to get more debt, whereas the new shareholder did. And so from that perspective is why you saw those equity proceeds worsening as they did. The loss on sale, the overall loss on sale, and that's cash loss, but it's also unwinding of previous foreign currency translation reserves, the loss, and it's shown in the discontinued operations is approximately ZAR 4 billion from Mutlu. But it is done, and it is finished. And we don't talk about how do we manage this going forward. And lastly, removing that debt burden was very, very important and we'll go through the steps of what we've done there. Most of our debt, if you look at the balance sheet, our debt was current. Our debt was due on Monday. The big chunk of our debt was due on Monday and the rest of it, the majority of it in July. And we've managed to defer that, most of it for 5 years, and there's a chunk of ZAR 2 billion that we've managed to defer for 2.5 years. So that's a very good achievement. It gives us the breathing space to really focus on our EBITDA and our free cash flows. AutoZone, and I welcome Dion here. Dion is the CEO of AutoZone. So this was a unique opportunity for us. To be honest, we didn't plan it. We took an opportunity, okay? While we were trying to deal with all our uncontrollables, we always knew we had to deconcentrate ourselves. And so we acquired AutoZone on the 13th of December for ZAR 278 million. We took it out of business rescue. Its net asset value was ZAR 473 million. The revenue for AutoZone for '24 was about ZAR 1.8 billion, but that's in a depressed environment. They were really struggling to manage themselves through business rescue and all of the complexities of what they had, an overgeared structure, et cetera. And so we're really looking to AutoZone to help us really boost ourselves in the aftermarkets. So their path to recovery is we put funding into AutoZone. This is a cash business, right? We had to put money into AutoZone to get the inventory levels up and to continue to trade. And so far, if we reflect on the first 2 months of the year, they're well on track with their turnaround plan. So we're happy with that acquisition. And it is part of our greater strategy. It is part of our greater strategy. And you can see later on at the moment for the year under -- that we're reporting on, our aftermarket, if we add up all of our aftermarket business was about 26% of our revenue. With adding AutoZone and with continuing in the aftermarkets in the other units that we have, we can definitely increase that and change our risk profile. And you can see on the left-hand side, the opportunity there. There's 13 million vehicles in the car park in South Africa, but we're also seeing an opportunity for AutoZone as we're seeing with our battery business, for aftermarket opportunities outside of South Africa, in Sub-Saharan Africa. So we already have an associate company in Kenya, who services that market and the countries around it. And we're looking at a strategy now of how do we look at that market and how do we make and distribute parts for that African market. AutoZone has about 213 retail branches, and it also has large warehouses. So excited about this acquisition. Let's talk about the debt. And again, trying to unpack Metair's financial statements of what debt is in, what debt is out has been complex, right? Hesto in, Hesto out. But on a gross basis, adding everything in and commitments to our partner, Yazaki, on 1 January 2024, our debt profile was -- our gross debt was ZAR 5.2 billion. That's what we had to solve for. In June, it had grown to ZAR 5.8 billion, primarily because of Mutlu as Mutlu's debt started growing and the operating conditions started getting worse. And by year-end, by dealing with Mutlu, by paying what we -- a portion of what we needed to pay to Yazaki, the partner in Hesto and by containing the debt that we had, our debt was at ZAR 4.5 billion on a gross basis. And that's what we had to restructure because the majority of that amount was due in this year. And we've managed to do that on the right, as you can see there, is we've now restructured that debt into 2 core profiles. The one is Hesto specific and the one is the rest of South Africa, and I'll talk a little bit about that. And we've managed to push that debt out to ensure that Metair and the operations focus on our EBITDA and our free cash flows to make sure that when that debt becomes due, we are able to pay that debt. So a little bit further. And I think the graph on the right is telling. If you look at our gross debt as at 31 December 2024, and Anesh will talk about net debt, but this is gross debt. You can see our profile of what was due as at 31 December, all shown in our balance sheet as current liabilities, what was June '25 and what was June '26. And underneath that, you can see how we've reshaped that debt. We've completely reprofiled that debt going forward, both in terms of what Hesto. Hesto is regarded as one cash-generating unit and the rest of the South African operations are regarded as the other cash-generating unit. And those profiles match the new profiles of what we've managed to do with full support of our funders who we're extremely grateful for. In terms of the repayment profile, it now gives us the opportunity to match the EBITDAs and free cash flows and really think about how we repay that debt and how we maximize our operations going forward. And we're confident that whatever the covenants and the requirements are within those term sheets, particularly as regards EBITDA requirements, free cash flow requirements that we can meet that going forward. So we're confident on that. So just a little bit further. So 2 ring-fenced packages. And there is a little bit of Rombat debt, but Rombat is stand-alone and it manages itself. So the Hesto debt, once we finished and drawn down the full package, at the moment, Hesto debt is ZAR 475 million. We're going to raise that debt to ZAR 1.4 billion. And the reason for it is we still owe our partner the difference, okay? So we need to refund them the remaining $35 million that we owe them that we committed to pay them. Remember, our partner helped us in the Ford project. They funded Hesto to the tune of $84 billion, okay? And it's our obligation to pay them. And so that we've brought that down and the remaining amount is $35 billion. And you can see some of the debt covenants underneath it. So that's the one portion of the debt. The good thing here is that it's in 2 packages, both around ZAR 700 million. And the one is on an amortizing loan of 5 years and the one is a bullet loan after 5 years. We pay it in bullet after 5 years. And for the amortizing loan, the first year, we don't pay the capital. okay? So it's a good debt profile from a Hesto. And Hesto, as we've seen, can perform. Hesto is a big business, a ZAR 6 billion revenue business, and the margins are improving as we speak. With the rest of it, it's the South African obligor. We've managed to restructure that debt to ZAR 3.3 billion in 3 component parts. The first is ZAR 1.7 billion, consisting of a term loan that's payable amortized over 5 years and a term loan with a bullet at the end of 5 years, okay? And then the last part is a ZAR 1.6 billion mezz. And we've managed to push that profile out to 30 June 2027, where the ZAR 1.6 billion mezz is due. Now when we look at our debt and you look at our EBITDA and you look at our debt to EBITDA, you would question how is Metair? And the opportunity here is to grow into our debt. And if we hit our targets that we put in front of ourselves for the next year and the next 2 years, we believe that's achievable. And we are comfortable as management of achieving the EBITDAs and the free cash flows and achieving those covenants that are put in front of us. I think it's a good time to reflect, so who is Metair? What are we? After all of this, where do we see ourselves? So auto component manufacturing directly for the OEMs. We have 6 dedicated businesses, and we will continue with those businesses. We continue to drive manufacturing efficiency and excellence in those businesses and there's been significant restructuring by all the MDs overseen by the 2 Chief Operating Officers. And then we have 6 businesses that are dedicated to the aftermarket. They are dedicated to the aftermarket, and we'll talk about that. And then you can see on the right -- the left-hand side from my perspective, the aftermarket revenue for 2024 was 26% of our revenues, okay? But that's going to change. That profile will change. And the automotive component manufacturing will come down as we grow the aftermarket. And that excludes anything to do with AutoZone. That's why I say it will change. So what are our 6 OEM manufacturers? Hesto with the harnesses, Smiths with the air conditioning and related products. And in Hesto, obviously, we have a 25% partner, which is Yuzaki and then Smiths, we have a 25% partner, which is DENSO; Lumotech, which is our lighting business; Automould, which is our plastic component parts business; our Springs business, Supreme and Unitrade, okay, which primarily provides the copper for the harnesses in Hesto, but it is also looking at other revenue streams. So they are dedicated manufacturing facilities that support the OEMs of South Africa, purely dedicated to that and will continue to be dedicated to that. So those have been a fundamental core of Metair for many, many years. What does our aftermarket look like? So ATE, we've transformed. We do not manufacture brakes anymore. We buy and we sell brakes through ATE, and that's with effect from this year. So it's purely a buying and selling operation. It does not manufacture anymore. AutoZone that we've just acquired, it's a buy and sell of aftermarket parts. First National is a manufacturing company, but 80% of First battery sales is in the aftermarket and 20% is direct to OEMs. So it's an aftermarket operation, but we do our own manufacturing. Dynamics is a small warehousing and distribution center we have in the U.K., and it buys and it sells batteries in a very big U.K. market. So you could ask yourselves, what is Metair doing in the U.K., which is a good question. So that's one of the operations we'll look at. It's very small in terms of what we look at, but it's something we need to look at going forward. But it's under the control and the management of First Battery to see what they can possibly do with that. And then the next one we have is obviously ABM, and that is associated batteries, where we hold a 25% interest. And effectively, they manufacture batteries. and not for the OEM, purely for the aftermarket in their regions, but they also import and sell solar solutions in their markets. So it's a very, very good business. And the last one there is Rombat. And Rombat is a manufacturing company. And again, about 80% of Rombat's batteries are in the aftermarket in the area in which it operates. So very clear on our strategy, very clear where our revenue streams are and where our deep concentration risk lies. Let's talk about the South African volumes and there they are in what we supply. Now when we look at Metair, we don't supply to all the OEMs, and this is an important point, right? We are primarily a supplier to Toyota and Ford. Yes, we do some Isuzu. Yes, we do Volkswagen primarily with our lighting. But our heavy industries, mainly for Toyota and particularly the Hilux and the CSUV and for Ford, for the Ranger and also for the VW Amarok. That's what Metair is, and that's what it has traditionally been. So Toyota had its problems, and you can see on those volumes. That significantly affected us, right? Because our operations had to learn, flex because you've got these significant operating plants with lots of fixed overhead, but you have to fit to your cloth. And that's what we talk about winning back control. You have to change your production lines. You have to fit your footprint and make sure you can flex with the customers. Where do we see this going forward? Toyotas have resolved their engine issues. However, from our perspective, our prediction is that Toyota will not get back to the 2023 levels or if they do, it will just be on the 2023 levels of last year, okay? So we've been conservative. Toyota probably have different plans. We, when we budget and when we look at our EBITDA, we look at our free cash flow, we budget for lower volumes so that we can flex upwards. Ford. Ford is the Ranger, and they have just switched over to the PHEV. They started to produce the PHEV. And so their volumes are good and Amarok volumes are good. So where we sit today, January, February coming through March, the volumes we've predicted and Toyota has got pickup definitely, are good. Our big challenge for Metair and challenge for the industry is next year as it is in OEMs because the Hilux comes to end of life and the new Hilux comes in. So it's a totally new model that we have to gear up with our customer. Also, the Corolla Cross is also being revamped. So the 2 main products that we supply for Toyota are being revamped, and we need to be flexible and agile for that. But we know this. We've had our experiences with Fords. We've had our experiences at Metair about what we've got to do, and we're confident that we have the project management skills to manage that. And here's the last point is around capital allocation. And you can see how disappointing our return on investment capital is. Last year, 7.1% ROIC, operating way under our weighted average cost of capital. So when we allocate capital, we have to make sure this capital gives us a return that we can move this ROIC profile back to our weighted average cost of capital over time. We've invested what we've invested. But now all our new investments, we have to capitalize and get the ROIC back to a maintainable ROIC that's above our weighted average cost of capital. And so for next year, when we look at our capital commitments, and we've scrubbed this and we separate it between Hesto at the bottom and the rest of our operations. Maintenance, health and safety, we have to maintain our plant. I mean, that's a given. Health and safety, health and safety issue is primary issue. But if you look at that expansion and efficiency, ZAR 407 million we're committing for 2025, okay, at this point. Most of that, ZAR 180 million of that is for the new Hilux, okay? Some of it is for Ford. And in Unitrade's case, there's a new machine. When we work with our customers on the Hilux in particular, this profile may change. But we've got to work closely with our customers as to how we fund this going forward. So there's a lot of attention to project capital management. We've gone through all the lessons learned, right? We've written a book on the lessons we've learned in not doing projects very well. And there's a lot of attention to projects from design right through to execution and the continual monitoring of how we achieve against projects, big, big focus of Metair and all the MDs know this and everybody is geared up to this. We have learned from the past, and we will not make the mistakes going forward. And we owe it to our stakeholders and our shareholders that if we're going to invest that type of money, we need to get the return on investment. We need to get the return on investment. Thank you. I'll hand over to Anesh.

So if I just give a financial review on the 2024, I mean, it is historic, and we have released a few preemptive results before time. But I'll just give a short summary on where we are and the pertinent points to 2024. I think Paul covered well in terms of setting the backdrop and where we came from 2024. A very difficult year, I think, to deal with our major customer, TSAM or one of our major customers, volumes down 28% but I think we did pretty well to limit the revenue drop to ZAR 11.8 billion. So that's just 2% down. A large part of that was mitigated by some good volumes out of our battery businesses, exports in particular, Rombat came online and pushed some batteries into Europe, up 19%. From an EBITDA perspective, decreased 8% to ZAR 844 million, impacted a bit by the restructuring costs of ZAR 41 million. But also this number that we present on an EBITDA basis is before capital items. So the results for Metair for 2024 was very noisy. So to explain this, I'll try and keep it as simple and straightforward as possible, but there's a lot of data here, and I'm sure we'll get some questions along the line. But I'll just keep it as simple as possible. EBITDA from our normal group operations, ZAR 844 million from ZAR 916 million in the previous year. EBIT is presented on a continuing basis. So what we've done, as Paul explained, we have kind of lumped Mutlu onto one line on the P&L, and we've presented Metair as is on our income statement. EBIT increased, and this is reported EBIT by 28% to ZAR 603 million. But after you account for all the noises that we had in the income statement, particularly the gain that we booked on purchasing AutoZone and some goodwill impairments out of Rombat and the lithium line, the EBIT operationally was ZAR 504 million, a 20% decline from the previous year. On a HEPS basis, headline earnings per share declined only 9% to ZAR 0.89 per share from ZAR 0.98 per share. And remember, we've got ZAR 41 million of costs taken into account for restructuring some of our operations in that number. From a free cash flow perspective, ZAR 776 million versus ZAR 306 million from the previous year. A large part of this free cash flow was working capital unwind. Our existing businesses, especially in the SA automotive space, did quite well in managing their cash and working capital towards the last quarter of the year, accelerating receipts from customers, getting better trade terms from payables but also the change in profile from Mutlu and unwinding a lot of the stock out of Mutlu once we sold it. Group net debt, this is just excluding Mutlu -- I mean, sorry, Hesto and obviously, Mutlu being sold is ZAR 2.7 billion. But once we bring on Hesto onto our balance sheet on a pro rata basis, so this is our share of Hesto's debt, the real debt is ZAR 4 billion versus ZAR 4.6 billion from the previous year. Net debt to EBITDA, and this is Metair increased to 3.2x. A large part of that was the lower EBITDA that we earned in the year, largely in auto and the Toyota impact. So that increased from 2.6x in the previous year. On a covenant testing basis, this ratio is 3.4x. From a ROIC, we spoke about it, lower profitability, still a high generally asset base that we have that we still need to earn our revenues out of dropped to 7.1%. We did quite well on lost time injury frequency. It improved to 0.1 from 0.2 in the previous year, and we're happy that we've maintained our BEE level at the level of 1. Some highlights from the income statement. I think I've covered a lot of the ratios here. But from a turnover perspective, despite being 2% down, we generated ZAR 504 million in operating profit and profit before tax of ZAR 413 million. I'm happy to say the tax rate improved a bit to just short of 32% compared to the higher rates that we had in the previous year of 70% plus. Margins from a group basis before capital items reduced to 4.3% by 1 percentage point from 5.3% in the previous year. A large part of that was due to the lower profitability in automotive. Our net interest costs reduced slightly to ZAR 222 million from about ZAR 256 million in the previous financial year. Our share of results of associates did improve from a ZAR 10 million loss to ZAR 32 million profit this year. But just remember, we don't have Hesto, although Hesto is an associate for now in 2024 in that number because of the accumulated losses that we incurred in Hesto in the previous year. Had we booked profits out of Hesto, our share would have been ZAR 68 million from that business. This slide I've put together just to reconcile what we've reported as profit to headline earnings because there's a lot of items in capital items that we've excluded for this year in the P&L. A large part of it, if you look at the top left corner, was the gain on purchasing AutoZone, ZAR 195 million. So what we paid and what we received mainly in working capital was higher and impairment of lithium-ion line and goodwill at Rombat for about ZAR 52 million and ZAR 28 million. So net profit to ordinary shareholders, ZAR 272 million, translating into headline earnings of ZAR 172 million at HEPS of ZAR 0.89 per share. From a balance sheet perspective, and this is what we're concentrating on to strengthen net debt's balance sheet to defer the debt. As you can see, current liabilities at ZAR 6.2 billion. We have to report as we have in terms of our banking requirements at balance sheet date. And obviously, subsequent to balance sheet date, this profile would change quite drastically, as Paul explained in the new funding profile. Our group gross debt is ZAR 3.5 billion and majority, as I said, was classified as short term. Net asset value per share, unfortunately, did decline from ZAR 27.9 in the previous period to ZAR 13.88. It's about a 50% decline largely impacted by the loss that we incurred on Mutlu of about ZAR 4 billion that had a detrimental impact, obviously, to the equity base. Noncurrent assets and a large part of this balance sheet profile that makes it a bit difficult to compare is, obviously, we've sold Mutlu, a big part of our balance sheet. We've acquired AutoZone, which affected the working cap that we had at balance sheet at the end of the year. And obviously, the new bridge funding that we raised in the year to replenish our pref share as well as to unwind some of the shareholder loans that we had to do at Hesto and our minority shareholder on that basis. Working cap, a large decline, ZAR 1.3 billion. But when you exclude the noises of M&A, it declined by ZAR 0.5 billion in terms of continuing operations. Net cash improved from ZAR 576 million to ZAR 808 million. So that was a plus for us. And from a net debt-to-equity perspective, quite leveraged at the moment at 97%, obviously, because of the loss that we've incurred out of Mutlu. From a debt profile, this is just the profile at December. Net debt reduced from ZAR 4.5 billion to ZAR 4 billion. That includes Hesto in this number at a pro rata basis. And as I mentioned, we did breach our covenants at December, but this was remedied post year-end due to the new debt funding that was raised with the support of our funders. The bridge funding that we raised in the year was ZAR 1.8 billion. A large part of that, ZAR 685 million, we used to rebalance loans in Hesto, shareholder loans, ZAR 290 million effectively used to acquire AutoZone, and we repaid ZAR 840 million of the pref share that became automatically payable in December once we sold Mutlu. Subsequent to year-end, we drew down another ZAR 185 million from this facility. So the total facility is ZAR 2 billion. And a part of this was used or basically the proceeds was used to repay a portion of the Yuzaki trade credit facility that we've guaranteed. From a segmental perspective, it is a bit busy, but let me just highlight a few of the key operational points. The historic energy vertical, which will be rebranded in terms of aftermarket parts, continuing operating profit, excluding Mutlu, ZAR 272 million, and that's once we add back ZAR 32 million of restructuring costs in that number, translating into an operating profit percentage of just short of 6%, a good improvement from 5% in the previous year. And that was supported by good volumes in the export segment, 19% up. Total volumes from energy storage up 3.9 million to 4.3 million. A large part of that was a good result out of FB, First Battery, generating a record ZAR 225 million EBIT for the year at margins of about 10.6% from 8% in the previous period. Rombat improved from last year, generating a operational profit before impairments of ZAR 45 million, but the margin is still very low at 1.8% and that's largely due to the environment that they're operating. They are exposed to OEMs a bit more. It is tough in Europe in terms of inflation that they're trying to grapple with as well as some residual lithium-ion write-offs that we had in terms of inventory and then some of the cost to support that resulted in an EBIT of ZAR 45 million. Overall, EBIT in this sector, as I said, 28% up to ZAR 272 million, ZAR 240 million if you exclude the restructuring costs. From an automotive perspective, largely, you can see a good improvement from a ZAR 41 million loss in the previous period to ZAR 623 million. And a large part of that was the recovery of Hesto which improved from an EBIT loss of ZAR 608 million in 2023. A large part of that was the headwinds that we faced in the Ford launch to an improvement of a margin of 4.7%. That's ZAR 257 million operating profit that supported automotive components in this year. Yes, we were impacted 5% down in overall volumes, but Metair doesn't necessarily follow the market volumes. We follow 2 or 3 major customers and the 28% volume drop from our major customer, our prospect did impact the automotive results for this period. Overall, if you exclude Hesto, the auto business did quite well, ZAR 365 million EBIT at 5% margin. But you can see the impact of that customer. If you look at last year, a more normalized revenue profile, we generated out of the remaining businesses, ZAR 553 million at a 7.1% margin. From a working capital and fixed capital expenditure perspective, we did spend a total of ZAR 598 million. That includes Hesto. On CapEx projects that we approved previously, a large part of it is new facelifts and models from our major customers as well as maintenance. We've got to continuously maintain our operations to make sure we fit for purpose and past quality requirements, stringent quality requirements. So we keep on investing. 41% was spent on essential maintenance and 57% on efficiency. From a working capital perspective, a large drop, as I explained, but there's a lot of noises. Comparatively, we had Mutlu in the base this year, but not at balance sheet date when we reported, but the real reduction in working capital was 0.5%, I mean, ZAR 4.5 billion. Besides the change in profile from previous year, sorry, there's a type of profit should be profile due to the sale of Mutlu, as I've mentioned, accelerated cash recoveries from customers and better trade terms from our suppliers resulted in a days reduction from 77, quite high in the previous year to around 60 days in this year. So I think that's a big plus for us from a working capital and cash conservation requirement. Cash flow bridge, we improved overall from ZAR 567 million to ZAR 808 million, and this includes setoff of overdrafts as well. The key ticket items here is that we did generate out of operations ZAR 1.5 billion. However, we did pay out interest in total of ZAR 1.1 billion. And a large part of that interest obviously was Mutlu, right, and we've unwound out of Mutlu. So that interest charge and what we pay out should be reduced quite considerably going into the future. Investing activities largely compromises, as I said before, the investment we did in Hesto, acquisition of AutoZone and about ZAR 0.4 billion rounded for CapEx in this year. And financing activities largely was the bridge loans that we have acquired that we drew down primarily for Hesto and the pref shares. This last slide, I think, and this is where we probably will do the last pro forma. When we come here again, we probably will have Hesto consolidated into the results. But from just a big picture perspective, and this is not formal IFRS accounting. We still need to go through the hoops in terms of how we would formally account for Hesto. But if we layer Hesto into this result that we reported what is ZAR 5.5 billion turnover, we get to an operational turnover of ZAR 17.2 billion. That's before some funny IFRS consolidations and what we have to do. So ZAR 7.3 billion. EBITDA improves quite considerably, and this is off a low base from Toyota, ZAR 1.3 billion and margins relatively consistent at 5%. From a balance sheet perspective, if we have to overlay Hesto into this balance sheet, our asset base increases significantly to ZAR 12 billion. Our debt would move up to about ZAR 4.4 billion. That's net debt, and that's debt at a 100% basis because you've got to consolidate it at 100%. The equity will reduce to about ZAR 2.2 billion, and that's largely because of the losses that Hesto has. We've tucked it in equity, and that reduces to about ZAR 2.2 billion. But by and large, net asset value will drop slightly to about ZAR 12 per share and net debt to EBITDA at 3.3x. Thanks.

Thanks, Anesh. Okay. So if we look forward, we spoke about controllables, okay? Control what we can control and be flexible for what you can't control. That's the motto. So our cost reductions and increased efficiencies, we need to finalize the 3 closures. Those are well on track by the end of the month and some of them closing off in April, and we won't be talking about those operations further. We talk a lot -- at the end of the day, we're a manufacturing company, right? Even if we're supplying to the aftermarkets in a lot of our businesses. So we talk a lot about OEE, talk a lot about SSNs, PPMs, which are great with respect to my colleagues. But this is about free cash flow and EBITDA. Free cash flow and EBITDA, that's what we drive. So when we invest capital, we want return. No wasted money at Metair. Everything we do has to be measured with these metrics. So we will continue to focus on resizing the operations. We'll continue on the good work that has been undertaken to do that. AutoZone, it's critical. we bed this down. We have to bed this down. We have to get them back to the levels that AutoZone were at 2 to 3 years ago. And we have to get there quickly because the competitor is not waiting for us. We have to get there. We're waiting for the feedback from the European ComCom on the Rombat battery issue. Obviously, there's been a lot of interaction with the EU, particularly from Rombat, and there's expected to be a final announcement on that before the European summer. And we will await that, and then we will respond once we get that. On our budgets and where we look forward, we don't expect for our automotive components major volume increases in the next 2 years. Yes, Toyota has fixed it, so they get back to '23 levels. But from those '23 levels, we don't expect for the customers we supply to major increases. That's how we've budgeted. That's how we've budgeted going forward, okay? After that is a separate story. So AutoZone and the subsidiaries that supply in the aftermarket has got to be the kicker here. That's what we've got to do. Yes, very, very efficient in the OEM manufacturing and make sure we flex with our customer, make sure we're ready for our customer, but the growth and the change in mix for the aftermarket is important. And then that Sub-Saharan strategy. And I know in the battery business with First Battery and ABM, they've already done a really good footprint of what it looks like. We just need to add AutoZone to the mix, and we're actively looking at this and actively driving this going forward. So that's us going forward, that's how we repositioned ourselves. Automotive components about manufacturing excellence, new vehicle parts as these vehicles change, how do we change our technology, new partners and new customers. Stellantis and the others that want to enter the country, particularly in the CKD, are who we want as our customers going forward as well as our traditional customers. And then the aftermarket, there's a lot of synergy and a lot of collectiveness needed here, making sure we reposition everybody properly, make sure we're really focused on this particular vertical, and the potential for other offerings in the aftermarket remains key to us. So lots of work that we need to do there. And then the last slide, which I won't go into, you can read it, is we've redefined what is our value proposition as Metair. Why are we a good investment? Why are we a good corporate? And we've redefined through our lessons of where we position ourselves in the future. So thank you for that. We'll take any questions.

May I suggest that we have questions in the room first, and then we'll go to the webcast.

It's Rowan Goeller from Chronux Research. Just a question on Toyota. Are they back up and running? And what sort of volumes do you expect to see in the first half of this coming year? Do you think they'll be back at the normal production rate?

Obviously, January is always a slow startup. Certainly, February back on track, and we don't expect -- certainly, the volumes we've budgeted, we expect to achieve by June. So we're not seeing problems with Toyota at all.

Okay. And second question, if I may, on AutoZone. They've been through a period of being in business rescue. Just in terms of getting back up to speed with stock customers coming through the door market share, how is it looking at the moment?

Yes. So we obviously put in the ZAR 75 million to increase the stock levels. And the trick because they went through business rescue, all their creditors were compromised. The trick now is to bring those creditors back on payment terms. So that's an additional cash kicker, and Dion and the team are busy negotiating with that. So stock levels are improving all the time and certainly, as I said, the first 2 months. And we had a 6-month sort of bedding down getting back to normal. They're certainly on track where they need to be at this stage.

Thank you, Paul. I don't know whether I'm allowed to ask a question.

Sure, Brent. Not about Mutlu.

No, I won't mention the word Mutlu. But I have 2 more questions about longer-term strategy. The first one is the uncertainty surrounding the policy environment. So as we all know, the South African automotive master plan is still sort of hanging in the air. How do you -- did you take account of the possible structure of the development plan? Will it be conducive to Metair's future or not? So my first question is about policy uncertainty. The second one is about Toyota still being your key customer. And how do you see the loss of the AGOA benefits affecting Toyota? And secondly, how confident are you that Toyota will retain market share despite the Chinese onslaught?.

Two great questions, Brent. Maybe you're not allowed to ask the question. So when we look at the master plan, right, as you well know, South Africa's intent was by 2035, 1.4 million vehicles, right? And by 2020, I think it will be about 750,000 vehicles, and so we've never hit the master plan. So when we look at it strategically, we look at it in 2 component parts. The first is we came out of survival mode to make sure we put this company on the right footing. And when we look at our cash flows and EBITDA over the next 2 years as opposed to the longer-term strategy, we have kept our volumes quite depressed. We're kind of looking at the '23 year as perhaps a year we need to look at with Toyota not at those volumes. And so we've restructured our organization to fit within that cloth and that means everybody is working around that from a volume perspective. When we look at those longer term, and where this is all going and the APDP, the AGOA, et cetera, there's a lot of uncertainty. And I'm in agreement with that. So all we can do is be part of the industry bodies, be part of the negotiations with the government. This sector is such a significant part of the manufacturing industry in South Africa and such a significant part of the GDP and such a significant employer, not just us and our 13,000 people in South Africa, but the entire OEM manufacturing industry. So this is about South Africa Inc. And so we are a proud supporter and part of it, and we just have to work with our OEM partners, and we have to work with the government to make sure there's a longer-term future for us. But today, it's about that 2 to 3 years and doing what we need to do, Brent, but we don't lose sight of that longer-term play. Hopefully, that's as direct as I can be.

And I believe you and your team have shown tremendous courage because you went through an exceedingly difficult period and in many cases, the factors affecting you were uncontrollable, and I take my hat off to you. What does this Chinese flood of vehicles mean? Is this long term? Is it going to be short term? And what does it mean for our industry, for the world actually?

Yes. So -- and that's where Brent was getting at. So there is the traditional, and this answers a bit of the AGOA, the traditional markets for our OEMs, and I'm talking Toyota, Ford is the European type market, right? And that has been flooded by Chinese and particularly electric vehicles. So that's a concern because we are primarily ICE and maybe PHEV in South Africa. So what does that mean in the traditional markets? And secondly, in South Africa, which is 1/3 of the production of vehicles is South Africa consumption is all this flood of new vehicles, how does that position the local OEMs. So these are what we're grappling with. But to the point I was trying to make, we can control what we can control. We have to work with our customers, we have to make sure we're attuned, we make sure we fit to our cloth. And that's why our aftermarkets are our diversification strategy, and we have to fast track that.

Is the government prepared to put in duties to protect the local industry?

Well, I think the APDP gives significant duty rebates for the production, the people who produce here. And there is duties on imported vehicles. And so those balances are there. And right now, government is relooking at the master plan, rethinking through the APDP, et cetera, to find the solutions for that. So all we can do is just be part of that discussion.

Just going to the webcast. First question, very similar to Rowan's questions. So I don't know David Murray from Swan is just asking if there's any other details you can add to the AutoZone acquisition came out of business rescue. Is there an additional magic that you see ahead?

There's magic we see ahead. Sure. I'm just really thankful I don't have a big debt to pay on Monday. So yes, we're working closely with Dion and his team. They have made commitments. He needs to work closely with Russell and others, and we need to really maximize what we can do out of AutoZone.

Great. And from Andrew [indiscernible] is what is your plan with Rombat? It looks like a distraction, hardly makes any money and is outside your African expansion.

Yes. I think that's a great question. I think we need to discuss as a Board, what is our future for Rombat. Right now, there's not a lot of complexity in managing it. It's kind of stand-alone. It makes its money. It's kind of secured for itself. It doesn't give us any returns per se in terms of cash dividends, et cetera. So I think we need to look at it as a future, but it's not operating in an environment like Turkey, right? So it's stable. It's good technology, good customers, seems to have a good reach there. So in terms of time management, if you compare the time Anesh and I had to spend with Turkey last year versus Romania, there's no comparison. But the Board will look at it, and we will decide.

Great. James Twyman, although Toyota volumes were very weak, the 2023 high number looks like an outlier. They've never been close to that number before. So is that really a realistic number in 2025 or 2026? What is the market impact of the debt restructuring on the interest line, please? And the third question, how do you expect AutoZone to perform in 2025, breakeven?

Yes. So the '23 volumes is not what we're using for Toyota, okay? So we are using closer to the 2022 with some upside. That's what we use for Toyota. That's what we're budgeting for going forward. But when we look at Ford, we would keep it similar to that 2024, the way we look at it, right? And we're seeing nothing from Toyota that says they can't at least achieve the 2022 numbers and higher, okay? But definitely, 2023 was an outlier. We agree. And sorry, the second question?

What is the impact of the debt restructuring on the interest line?

Obviously, the calculations if you look at Page 43 to 46 of the integrated report, you can see the margins above JIBAR that attracts the debt. And again, if you look at it on a gross basis, if you take our gross debt at ZAR 4.5 billion and you times it by, what, 8%, 10%, ZAR 450 million.

Yes. And the last question from James is, how do you expect AutoZone to perform in 2025 breakeven? Will you report it separately?

AutoZone is a key component of the aftermarket segment. And so that's where you would see the effect of AutoZone. In terms of the commitments we have from AutoZone is there was a 6-month stability period and then a 6-month recovery period. So it's certainly commitments beyond breakeven out of AutoZone for 2025.

Next question is from Andrew Moses from MIBFA. I think it's very similar to [indiscernible] question. What would the potential exclusion of SA from AGOA mean for your customers' volumes?

Yes. When we look at that and we look at who we supply and who we don't supply. So AGOA does have an effect, particularly on the Mercedes and the BMW in terms of vehicles. I think when I looked at NAAMSA's figures and they only had the 23,000, there was 25,000 vehicles from South Africa into the U.S. So the major manufacturers that we supply to are not really affected per se by AGOA. But that's not the right answer. It's a South African issue, and we need to sort it out because it's significant for South Africa. Never mind what it means for the OEM specific. So I'm not saying it globally, it doesn't affect us. It does affect us because we live in South Africa.

Thank you. Paul Whitburn from Rozendal. Historically, when there are model changes as you have with Toyota, there is a decline in profitability and increased CapEx. How does the current balance sheet potentially handle this?

Yes. So I gave, obviously, the highlights and the potential CSUV change. I gave some indication of currently where we are with the capital. And if there's more capital requirements, those are the discussions we have with our customer. But let me give the Ford PHEV as an example, right? So Ford without extra volumes are changing the ranges. So 1/3 is now PHEV and 2/3 on the original. And that changeover, yes, there's been a few hiccups over the few months, but it's maintained. And certainly, March and through April, Ford will maintain. So the customer has responded. Hilux from what we understand from Toyota, that's going to be starting to come in from January, February of next year. But it's not a switch overnight. You still continue and then you have to make sure that it's replacement volumes and you have to make sure you work with the customer accordingly. Agreed in initial phases, there's margin issues. But again, what we can control is our flexibility and our ability to respond to our customers. That's what we must control.

Thank you, Paul. And then from Ryan Seaborne,36ONE, what is the breakdown of AutoZone sales to retail versus fleet corporate? And is there a margin differentiation?

Yes, I can't -- obviously, AutoZone are building the fleet component part of their business. That's where they want to focus as opposed to just the retail. That's what they're busy with. In terms of margins, I can't disclose that at this stage. But the fleet is obviously something where AutoZone definitely want to play and do play currently, yes.

Great. Yurcisin from Prime Research has a similar AutoZone question. So you, I hope that Paul has answered that for you as well. The second question from Yurcisin are there any harmonizing benefits between AutoZone and Metair's other aftermarket parts?

Yes, yes. I think I spoke about that. So absolutely. So certainly with batteries, certainly with our brakes. Certainly, the people are not aware there's a joint venture with DENSO that is managed by Smiths. And DENSO is one of the biggest aftermarket product producers in the world, okay? And so how do we capitalize on that relationship with Denso to introduce products into AutoZone that we can sell. When we start to look at a sub-Saharan strategy, then it's new partners, new parts, new markets. So we see a lot of synergies. We just got to bed down, start figuring out what our strategy is.

Aheesh Singh from MP9 Asset Management. "Thank you for the insightful and transparent presentation. Apologies for the long question. Given Metair's currently modest footprint in Kenya and the fragmented policy-dependent nature of sub-Saharan automotive markets, what specific metrics or leading indicators are you using to prioritize market entry or expansion?" His first question.

Okay. That's a great question. So let's start with batteries, okay? So what my 2 battery colleagues over there have done is they've gone and looked at the markets that they sell in and that they are present. They've gone and looked at the ABM footprint. They've gone and calculated for each of those countries what the opportunity is for batteries and where we fit as a consolidated unit. So for example and don't quote me on the numbers, but if Malawi is 1 million batteries or 100,000 batteries per annum, and we're only servicing 20,000 out of First Battery and ABM, what is the opportunity and how do we attack it. And we will do that first with batteries and then we will start with AutoZone and figure it out. Now the car park is different to South Africa. So we've got to acknowledge that, right? So once we figure that out, we will work out how do we capitalize on that.

Thank you. Second question from Aheesh is, how are you restructuring your go-to-market model, greenfield versus JV versus asset-light partnerships to mitigate first-mover risk while positioning Metair for scale in high potential hubs?

Yes, we're happy to have deferred our debt. Let's start there. And that debt requires committed free cash flows and committed EBITDA. When we look at potential new growth areas, we need to look at JVs. We need to look at alliances. We need to look at different ways of how we can expand and particularly when we look at sub-Saharan Africa. So it's not a green fields strategy at all. It would be a JV partnership alliance type strategy.

Thank you. Last 2 questions, one from Matthew Robert. How has the cash balance changed since year-end in Q1? Has this changed significantly with the debt restructure?

No. No, not at all. Not at all. We've maintained our cash. It's part of the free cash flow models that we've worked with the funders on. And so no, our cash is maintained and our units are working really, really hard on the free cash flow, which is what maintains that balance.

The implementation of it is in Q2.

And the last question is from [indiscernible] Finch Engineering News. Do you have a target for the aftermarket vertical in terms of percentage of revenue?

I think we're at 26%. We need so it's not a tomorrow, we're going to have 50%. But I think if we talk about deconcentration risk, I think over time, we need to get to those sort of metrics, but we've broken it down into the years we need to get there. So the percentage is getting up to those 50% marks, but it's not 25% that will happen.

That was the last question. Thank you very much, Anesh.

Okay. So I just want to thank Anesh. As you know, he's resigning. I want to thank him for all his years of service at Metair and wish him well going forward. Thank you.