Seeka Limited (SEK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everybody. Let me start by introducing Nick Reynolds, our Group Financial Controller. It's my privilege also to introduce Nicola Neilson, our Chief Financial Officer. I am Michael Franks. Welcome to this Analyst Briefing Pack for Seeka's audited financial results to 31st of December 2024. Material this year is a little bit easier to work with, which we're happy about and satisfied with our results. On the agenda to talk to you today is to talk a bit about our strategy and how we've delivered a little bit of an overview of our numbers, our financial results in more detail, talking a bit about our capital management and balance sheet. I'll run you through each of the segments and at the end, outlook and questions. If you have any questions, I would ask that you ask them at the end. So that will allow those people, who choose to sleep through the presentation to sleep in peace, and then they can wake up at the end and ask any questions that they might have. Starting out, welcome. Thank you for taking the time to come on, and thank you for the interest that you've got in our company. So in terms of delivering on the strategy, a quick overview. We aspire to deliver operational and financial excellence to our growers and to our shareholders. It's about being disciplined. It's about being well planned. It's about executing on the plan, adapting it and delivering quality fruit to the market and each of the consumers, who wants to buy the fruit that we've handled. And again, this year, I think we've done a good job and pretty satisfied with where we've got to. We have pleasingly lifted our financial performance to our shareholders. I'll talk about that in some length, as we get there, but a record profit, record profit per share, record profit in total volumes. And so, we're reasonably satisfied. We've put the company back in a place, where we've enabled the Board to restart the dividends. We've tightly managed our CapEx. We've lowered our risk profile in doing so. So we've actually concentrated, where the money is being spent, and I'll comment about that again in a minute. We've lowered our bank debt now to around $137 million. So we're happy about that, $35 million of the debt. We've optimized our post-harvest capacity. We've used automation well. We haven't come up to absolute capacity at 43 million trays. Capacity is somewhere around 50 million depending upon the shipping. And so, we've still got some headroom and some potential to do better than we have. We've built our revenue streams. I'll talk a bit about that in a moment. And at the end of the day, our mission is to select excellence. We've progressed with our aspiration to deliver an excellent service to all to deliver excellent projects to the market and lift the value of our returns to our stakeholders. And so, little bit more about the detail now. In terms of the overview, well, we've had our crop yields and volumes rebound in 2024. 43 million trays of Class 1 fruit packed in New Zealand is up 44% compared to 29.7 million last year. We've had volume growth has benefited our core business. Australian Q3 volumes up 166% on a new crop protection program that we've got running over there. So we're pleased about that. All parts of the company have contributed to a better result and actually have performed pretty well given the circumstance. EBITDA at $76 million is a record. We have tightly controlled costs. We restructured in 2023, as you might expect us to. We have the capacity in place. We've done some innovative things like putting in place the captive for our insurance mechanisms and protection. So we're pretty happy about that. And so, look, that's a good number for us. And it's not at its optimum. It's a good number given the crop that we work with. We had excellent operational performance. Our fruit loss in New Zealand around 1.15% is low. That's for both categories is low. We've had excellent offshore performance as measured by Zespri. We delivered our growers compelling and competitive orchard gate returns. And so, hopefully, they are satisfied with what we've done. It hasn't been easy for all those growers. In some cases, still got second year water stress issues in some regions and perhaps some wind damage in parts of our growing regions, but pretty good overall returns to all. The year saw us complete automation upgrades at Oakside and Gisborne. We're happy with those are running well. We have a balance of highly automated machines with some manual graders. And if you have a challenging crop, it actually helps us to run across a manual grader and not have the automation tied up with it. We're packing more with less labor. So less labor per unit of fruit that we produce. And of course, that makes us more efficient. Our forward focus is to continue to focus on our profitability to further reduce the debt. We'd like that leverage ratio under 2 at the moment, around 2.16 as measured by the banks. We want to deliver and maintain our excellence in operational performance. And look, we're focused on our risk-adjusted return on capital. We understand that our sector has been through a risky period, where our returns have been hit by climate or COVID or pandemic. And so, therefore, the number that we need to achieve for our shareholders might be higher than normal given the environment we've been in. And so, we're focused on achieving a risk-adjusted return on capital employed this year, 10%. So we're satisfied with that number, but we're wondering how we get it higher. Looking forward into the current year, current harvest, around 150,000 trays through harvest so far, harvesting the red, and on the final stages harvesting the Kiwiberry in New Zealand. Looks like we're in a normal year. We should be able to do last year's numbers plus more, but it's very early stages, and we'll see how we go, and we'll report at the end. Australian harvest is underway. We're not the kiwifruit yet. We're actually in the nashis and the pears. We've completed the plums. Those programs are traveling well. We've got the infrastructure systems and personnel underway for the current year's season. And so, we're pretty much focused on what's happening at the moment. We've got 5 sheds up in New Zealand, handling the red only, and we'll work our way through about 1/4 of the way through the red on its way. In terms of the financials, thankfully, this material is easier to work with what I've had to work with the last couple of years, what I've had to report to you. $411.4 million in revenue is up 37%. So we're happy about that. $76.1 million in EBITDA, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization is up 193% on last year's $26 million. So that's good. $29.7 million profit before tax is well in the guidance range between $27.5 million and $31.5 million compares to a loss last year of $21 million. So it's a $50 million turnaround. I can show you what this business can do when we get the volume to work with that it needs. Of course, when we blow through a breakeven point, well, we are in a place, where we're actually generating cash returns for our shareholders. The $8.8 million profit after tax has been impacted by an adjustment to deferred tax [ is been well ] reported, that's $12.5 million. So the $8.8 million compares to a loss last year of $14.5 million after tax, but you could add back the $12.5 million if you felt like it was truly that is a one-off noncash adjustment. So -- and as I reported, 10% return on capital employed. Our net tangible asset backing per share at $5.66 compares to a current share price this morning of $3.51. I'll leave you to work it out. In terms of our trends in financial reporting, where you can see the numbers there, revenue nicely going up 2023 an aberration, reflecting the difficult growing conditions the year before. So the volumes were down, but now nicely moved up. You can just draw a line through it. EBITDA at $76 million just shows you what the company can do when we've got the volume. And net profit before tax and after tax, you can see the turnaround there in numbers understanding that the $8.8 million reported after tax is before the $12.5 million deferred tax adjustment, which I referred to. But before tax, you can see those numbers going up quite nicely. And we ended the year with $550 million in total assets, stable with what we've had for the last 2 years. In terms of the segments and in terms of orcharding EBITDA, I'll report in more detail in a minute, $6.2 million, so a nice build happening there. We're concentrating on getting our long-term leases and our orchard developments in production. When we do our planning and when we did our planning a few years ago, that number is a little bit behind where we thought it would be. So we're now focusing on getting that number, where we want it to be. We have around 60 hectares of Hayward orchards in development in New Zealand. It's nice from a post-harvest perspective because it comes at a time when we're actually not under capacity with the gold. And it's actually good from an orcharding perspective. So we're looking forward and focused on getting those orchards in development or in the next phase of EBITDA growth in that part of our business. In terms of our post-harvest EBITDA, this is where we're handling the fruit, it has been scheduled, picked, packed, cool stored and dispatched 84.5 million trays. This is the benefit of -- sorry, $84.5 million. This is a benefit of 43 million trays. And so, it just shows you how that part of our business can generate cash, but of course, it's where all the investment is. It's where our pack houses are, it's where the cool stores are, it's where the lease facilities are. It's where all the investment is. And so, it needs to be doing numbers like that in order for us to earn our return on the capital that we've invested. In terms of SeekaFresh EBITDA, $2.6 million. We're happy with that. It's been quite a difficult trading period in that wholesaling business, avocado prices have been down. And so, we made up for it with other parts. It's actually quite a credible performance that they've done. Of course, over into Australia, EBITDA of $3.2 million, we're happy with the rebound given where it's been. And of course, in that part of our business, just like in New Zealand, we've got orchards in development, waiting to come into production and making good progress. And so, there is some confidence in the business that, that will build as well over the next 2 or 3 years. In terms of capital management, a $10.3 million decrease in capital employed really reflects the deferred tax adjustment. No increase in property, plant and equipment. We have maintained our capital expenditure within depreciation. We have invested to mitigate material damage risk. That means we've taken some of our business as usual capital and focused at areas that we have been conscious of and worried about in the business. So that's focused on switchboards and plant rooms, which actually have no financial payback. But what they do, do is it lowers our risk profile. So when we go to the London Lloyd's market and pitch our insurance, we've actually got a better risk profile to present. And actually, we've mitigated the risk profile of the business full stop. So $2 million a year has been focused on upgrading that fundamental plant and equipment of the business, particularly noting that we've got a lot of EPS paneling around cool stores, which are flammable. And so, we have a risk management strategy in the company to make sure we're mitigating all risk. The $3.5 million increase in biological assets that's growing the crop to be harvested in 2025. And we've got a $3.4 million increase in investments in associates, primarily, where we have partnered with iwi to develop those long-term lease orchards, which I just spoke about a moment ago. $508 million capital employed compares to $518.3 million last year. In terms of our balance sheet, in terms of net bank debt, $137.3 million in net bank debt at the end of December 2024. We paid off $35.1 million of cash over the year. It's a 20% decrease. It shows you what we can do. We had $66 million cash flow from operations in the business. So it's good. We have returned all of our covenants back within -- well within their long-term covenant ranges. We have a banking syndicate in place, which includes Westpac New Zealand, Westpac Corporation, ASB, BNZ and Rabobank. I'd like to thank them formally for the support that they gave us through the period that we needed their support because of the issues that we had last year and the year before. They have been fantastic to work with and you were to be applauded, and we appreciate it. $3.3 million of assets held for sale, primarily in Orchard and Northland, it is sold, settled, and we have the money in the bank as at last Friday. So that is done. In terms of the EBITDA multiples for the business, [ 1.76 ] is the EBITDA multiple as calculated. If you take out the IFRS 16 leases, take out away those adjustments is [ 2.24 ]. As it is calculated by the banks, it is [ 2.15 ]. So we have moved that key leverage ratio in from a long way out, and we are focused now on returning it even lower and our planning is to do that. In terms of EPS, earnings per share and our dividends, strict earnings per share is $0.21. If you were to be gracious and give us the credit of the deferred tax adjustment, which is really just removing the tax deductibility of buildings over the remaining useful life, $12.5 million, then if you were gracious and gave us that because that's really outside our control, it's not cash, the true EPS is $0.51, which is remarkable. It's a record. It's way it's a record easily compares to a share price of $3.51. $0.15 in dividends either declared or paid. $0.10 were paid on 20th January this year. Another $0.05 is to be paid on the 15th of April to all shareholders on the [ record date of 20th ] of March be fully imputed. The dividend reinvestment plan will apply to that dividend. The Board has carefully considered the dividends. They understand and we have recognized that we need to get our debt down, but also, we wanted to signal to the -- to our shareholders and the investor public, we understand that there is a need to pay dividends, as we should be because we're a commercial company that should be doing that. And so, they have balanced out both of those 2 things, how much to pay down, how much to distribute to shareholders. And so, it is a signal from the company that's our intention. We've actually had a pretty strong year and so put the company in a position, where we could pay dividends, both from a $0.21 EPS and from a $0.51 EPS perspective. And so, I think both of those things are important things to say to you. $5.66 asset backing per share. In terms of operating segment performance, orchard business that's led by Barry Penellum, doing a fantastic job really here in New Zealand, growing kiwifruit, avocados and Kiwiberry, a full gamut of services, managed lease long-term leases, picking on orchard services, buying management. If you name it, we do it somewhere. $102.7 million in revenue, up 19%, really on the improvement of the crop volumes from leased orchards. We grew 8.6 million SunGold trays compared to 6.3 million last year. That's up 37%. Yields increased from 13,000 -- sorry to 13,464 trays per hectare from 9,295. I would never have believed the average would have been below 10,000. So a nice bounce back to a good normal yield. Hayward and other trays, 8.7 million, up from 5.1 million the year before. The yield is 11,224 compares to 6,730. It's a remarkable improvement and looks like it's there again. So we're happy with that. EBITDA of $6.2 million is up $1 million on the year before, understanding that in our leasing operations, we share profit with growers and take lower risk. We are securing the fruit in doing so. We've got $7.1 million invested in long-term leased land developments, 15 hectares in kiwifruit, 13 hectares in avocados with long leases in place. We've co-invested with landowners and funding agencies, primarily Kanoa, what was previously the Provincial Growth Fund. We got 65 hectares in development, mainly kiwifruit. And they've got long-term supply commitments in place out to 2050. So -- and look, the volumes for this current year, as we can see them understanding they're still in the orchard and not in a pack house yet, looks like it's good and on track to where we need it to be. So we're positive about the current year. The team has done a great job. In terms of Paul harvest -- sorry, in terms of post-harvest operations, Paul is in the room, so he's confused me. But Paul Crone is the General Manager that leads that area. $246.6 million in revenue, up 35%. Hayward volumes are up 58% across the whole book. SunGold volumes up 37%. $84.5 million in EBITDA is up 93%, which really reflects what can happen when you've got good volumes. In addition to that, we are using our pack houses increasingly outside of the season to handle other crops. We pack citrus in Gisborne and in Northland. We pack avocados in Northland and in Kerikeri for ourselves and on contract for others. We pack persimmon over in Gisborne as well. So all of that work that we're doing is complementary to what we do, do and makes us a bit more money by running our infrastructure outside of the normal season. Capacity is there for the current year. We've got the network in place to handle more kiwifruit using less labor. We got good automation happening. We've got the risk management program running around our switchboard and plant room renewal project, which we're making great progress with, and we did present in London about a month ago. We've got continuing automation upgrades at Oakside and Gisborne. Actually, that's old news. We did that last year. Our next wave of automation will be heading into a new plant that we're going to put in place in Kerikeri using green moon technology, which will be invested from within a normal capital spend. So we're carefully controlling our capital to make sure that we can continue to earn good returns on capital. In terms of our SeekaFresh operations, it's led by Kate Bryant. It's really where we're handling all the fruit that we may not supply to Zespri, New Zealand. Class II kiwifruit, avocados, Kiwiberry, imported programs, bananas, pineapple and papaya. And we also handle the kiwi crush and from that part of our business as well. $30.9 million in revenue is up 49%, really reflecting an increase in demand for imported produce and increase in kiwifruit and avocado sales, although the avocado pricing was down, which means we had a lower commission. $2.6 million in EBITDA is in line with the previous year, but we had those lower commissions, which I talked about the avocado sales from weaker pricing, but we had much better earnings from our imported program. The business is running well. It's growing. It's good demand. It's only a small part of what we do, but it's an important part of what we do because we're actually connecting up to the market, connecting into the local consumers. We're connecting to our Australian consumers. We're selling fruit around the world. And actually, it's proceeding really, really well in what has been a very difficult economic and climate here in New Zealand. So maintaining earnings is actually quite a good result. In terms of our Australian business, it's led by Jon van Popering. $19.2 million in revenues, up 85%. Kiwifruit volumes are up 166% last year and looked good again this year. So we're happy about that. We've got a new kiwifruit crop protection program running over there with some new sprays. We use those sprays in most of our orchards and had a fantastic response to it. Primarily, we're spraying for PSA. And where we didn't use those sprays, we didn't have a fantastic response. So we're emboldened by it, and we think that we're on the right track. $3.2 million in EBITDA compares to $700,000 the year before. So we're certainly happier with that result, but also focus on the fact it needs to be higher, and we understand how we're going to get there. We have great pricing. It's a good market to be in if you're growing good quality fruit. Retailers are happy to take it as long as they can sell it for a margin. That's what the business is all about. But actually, it's quite a healthy market in Australia. We got $17.2 million invested in new orchard developments. 64 hectares in kiwifruit, first crop to be expected next year. So we're happy about that. We've got some new variety pears, new nashi. New nashi will be released around the 9th of June, I think, with new branding, new red nashi coming to the market. Jujube developments continue. And look, we're underway with the harvest over there well underway. Nashi and pear harvest underway with great volumes. Kiwifruit crop protection programs are certainly helping us not only with the crop that's in production, but the crop that's coming into production. And so, we're happy with both those things there. In Australia, I should disclose that we lease some orchards over there and the people that own those orchards in Australia are selling them or have sold them to a new party. The lease just stays in place. We have continuing tenure. But should that happen and should that all work out the way it works out, there will be some money that flows back to Seeka for some leasehold improvements that we've done on those properties that will be cashed out in the process going through. So maybe a couple of million Australian dollars. We'll see how that flows out. In terms of the outlook, indicative kiwifruit volumes for both New Zealand and Australia looks consistent or better than last year. Some of those regions last year that were having some residual effect from water stress, Northland, Coromandel and Gisborne, this year looks like they're on their pathway to recovery. And so, that gives us some confidence that perhaps the numbers might be at least what they were last year or maybe even better. We'll report that when we know it, not when we're guessing. We do go out to the market quite aggressively before Christmas to sign our growers up. 85% of our growers signed up before Christmas. We've got good grower sign-ups now. So we don't think we have any significant risk of grower departures. The Australian crop looks excellent, and that the kiwifruit crop looks like it's taking another step forward. Pear volumes are harvesting well. We've got some ups and some downs, but generally, overall, we're happy. Operationally, we are underway. We've got 5 sheds up and packing today, packing the red. We've got good labor supply right across all catchments. We got the infrastructure set for 50 million trays or there or thereabouts, maybe a bit more depending on how we go. We'll be thinking about what we're going to do after that, if anything. We've got a high health and safety focus in the business now, as we head into the season, good focus in that part, what we're doing. We got a new machine ordered for Kerikeri. It's an increasing crop volume up there in addition to the new irrigation scheme being put in place by Murray McCully at Whenuakite North that breaks in another 1,300 hectares of land available for horticulture or it's only really kiwifruit. And so, and we're a primary player in that part of the world. So having automation in place to handle that crop when it comes is sensible. That's in addition to the crop we already know is coming because we've got existing [ grass ] with new areas coming into production. Highly automated machine will help us handle more for less. And so, we're delighted by what it looks like and the metrics about it. We've gone to China to buy that machine. Significantly financially more efficient than buying those machines out of Europe. And so, we will see how we go, and it may well be a game changer for the industry when it works. So if you need any more information outside of the meeting, I'm going to be happy to answer any questions in a minute. Our contact details are there on the package. Should feel free to contact either Nicola or myself at any time that you may want to within reason Okay. Happy to have any questions. I won't go through the appendix. It's largely there for the analysts.

There's no questions...

I'll give you a minute more, maybe too quick. I might have been talking too quickly for people.

We've got a question. So from Peter [indiscernible]. From memory, you had staff accommodation listed for sale. Has there been any progress with this?

Thanks, Peter. We did list and it has been listed, Turanga Whetu Star Base in Sharp Road is a facility. It's a 140-bed facility there in Sharp Road. It has addition to what it has a cool store and like an equipment operation set up for our orcharding business. We listed it for sale. We did get some offers, but those offers all required a cap rate of better than 9%, which is much higher than our cost of debt and also required long-term leases put in place with CPI adjustments. Commercially, we couldn't bring ourselves to accept those offers. We don't have to sell that facility. We built it with the intention of selling it and leasing it back. But now, we're in an environment of decreasing interest rates. The cost of holding it is less. We will sell it if we get an offer that we believe is commercially viable. We're not pressured to sell it. We're not weak sellers. We just don't need to give it away and put the news around our neck going forward. We will wait and see how it works out. It remains for sale if it sells itself.

Next question. Can you expand on contract packing? What revenues are you looking at? And what future revenues do you see?

So contract packing is exactly that. Effectively, a third-party operator who's got a relationship with growers and a program to the market is asking us to be the middleman, middle person to be more acceptable. So effectively, the fruit gets delivered to the shed. We grade it to the specification, handle it and dispatch it to the market with the connecting point. We do that for T&G in Northland. We do that for First Fresh in Gisborne. We also do that for a number of avocado marketers, including Freshmax and fruit -- fresh solutions, fruit solutions, I think. It is a fee-for-service business that we do. I prefer not to talk about how much we make out of it. But we make sufficient out of it to make it worthwhile doing it. And it has to be at a price that actually works for our partner. They've got to be able to pay us the money and make money for themselves and return good money back to the growers. So at the moment, it's sensible because we've got the infrastructure there sitting. We've got people there, who are available, and we are able to make a return on the investment we've got employed. And then largely, we've already got the investment there because we bought it when we bought those businesses, or it is completely consistent with what we do with kiwifruit. So there's no extra investment required.

With the new dividend payout policy of 50% to 75% of NPAT, if the current season is similar to the last, is there potential for increases on the dividends from the current $0.15?

Look, each time the Board considers a dividend, they will decide whether or not we should pay a dividend or not. And I -- and we -- management respects that actually. But given the 50% to 75% of NPAT in a normal business without significant investment required. If the company is placed in safe harbor, and we're paying our bills, as they fall due and the outlook looks good, I think you could fully expect that the Board and the company will operate within the policy.

Total hectares under management dropped slightly from 2023 to 2024 based on volume and yield. Have hectares under management stabilized in '24, '25 growing season?

The answer is yes. And necessarily, as some orchards in some areas, which were water stressed when they were looking at those orchards have actually withdrawn those orchards now out of -- actually out of growing. And so, it's a difficult decision for a grower to make, but they've made those decisions. And like if the orchard is not viable, it's not viable. And so, effectively, it's not a performance issue. It's actually an orchard and geography issue. And so, in those environments, it hasn't been sensible to continue.

Another question from Peter [indiscernible]. Do we have any indication of pricing for the current crop? Is it similar to last year?

So when you say pricing, I just got to think about the pricing that Zespri is going to pay us or the pricing that we charge. And so, I'll answer both aspects of that. We think there is nothing that's been said by Zespri that tells us as they expect any weakness in pricing. In fact, what they've been saying is that there is more demand than crop. They've been selling license on the back of that sentiment. And so, therefore, we would expect a reasonably good year again, as we head into it. With pricing, also understanding that the New Zealand dollar isn't as strong as it was. So while it might cost you more to buy things in New Zealand like petrol, that's important, we should get better returns for the fruit that we sell overseas. In terms of our own pricing, it's been very competitive in terms of the post-harvest market. Even though we seem to be at full capacity or thereabouts as an industry, there are the discounters still around that sort of set the market pricing. We operate in that market, but there's nothing in the market that's giving us any cause for concern. In fact, we've signed up nearly at the price we're happy with, which is reasonably stable pricing for last year.

A question from Peter Truman. What is Seeka's target debt level either in dollars or EBITDA multiple?

So the Board would like us to be in the range of 1.5x to 2.5x as a leverage ratio, and with the intention that we bring it down below 2x, perhaps towards the 1.5x. That will take us some time to get there. You just can't magically click your fingers and do it in a day. But that's the intention. And of course, that's in the absence of anything else that we may want to do. So we're quietly bringing the company back that way and back and down by careful debt management by careful earnings focus, by making sure we're not overinvesting in capital and plant and equipment and we're just focusing on that core number.

Is there any particular focus for improving the risk-adjusted return on capital?

Well, really, and the focus on the risk-adjusted return on capital is interesting. But other than a few years ago, we got some work done to tell us what we thought it should be, where it should be. And so -- and we've been focusing on it a few years, understand that we had a few headwinds with the pandemic, labor and the climate. But 10% is, we think, competitive. We think that's a reasonable target to be achieving. We achieved it last year. We'll see how we go this year, but something around that and perhaps even increasing it is where our focus is. We'd like it to be in double digits.

Is the company planning any further share issues for growers, noting non-grower shareholders have faced ongoing dilution in recent years and net tangible assets per share has dropped year-over-year.

Well, I'll make 2 or 3 comments about it, if I might. Firstly, net tangible asset backing per share at $5.66 compared to $3.51 market price is not a factor that the market is actually focused on. That's the first thing I'd say to you. The second thing I would say is that while there is a dilutionary effect of issuing shares to growers, they have to pay for those shares at the end. They're not getting them for free. And to get those shares at the end, they have to be loyal, give us all of their crop, not some of it, and they have to pack with us for 3 years. So actually, while a shareholder with us, who is not a grower might not like the idea, they actually are getting the benefit of a committed crop, all of it, not some of it. Only a small number of growers actually took the offer up, I think like 30%. And so, it's not a big issue, as you think it is. And management is much more focused on EPS, on earnings, on dividends and on debt to get the share price to where it needs to be. And that is what we're absolutely focused on.

Do you anticipate any labor supply issues into the future? How important are students and backpackers for seasonal operations?

We hire around 4,500 seasonal workers. Around 1,300 will be [ RSCs ]. They will peak out at any one time about 950. So in this season, when we bring the full numbers up, about 950 is the maximum we have them at any point in time. We have a core of New Zealand workers that work for us, but we do rely on backpackers and working holiday visa people to come in to pick up the ancillary work. A lot of those seasonals and a lot of the people, who are coming in from overseas and the [ RSCs ] are working what I would call unpalatable shifts. They're working night shifts. They're working weekends and probably they're [ working out ] the orchards. And so, we are reliant on having a transitionary workforce. There's no doubt about it. We are, though, focused on reducing that reliance because actually, it's very expensive, particularly the RSCs. It's very expensive. The regime is very expensive to have an overseas work from the Pacific Islands and Malaysia and working for us, very expensive.

No further questions. Thank you.

Right. So from here, the next time that we will talk to our shareholders, I think, is on the 16th of April, when we have our Annual Shareholder Meeting. And so, we would welcome you all to attend that if you wish in person or online. If you can be here in person, that would be fantastic. We'd love to see you, and we'll take any questions that you've got at that time then. But thank you very much for your interest. Thanks very much for coming online. Hopefully, it's informative. Feel free to ring Nicola or myself directly if you wish to at the end of this call. Thank you. Bye-bye.