Shoprite Holdings Ltd (SHP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Great welcome to all of you, and thank you very much for joining us, giving us the opportunity to present our 2025 full year financial results. I will give you a bit of an overview very quickly about the group numbers. And then Anton will unpack for us in detail the financials. And then I'll end off again with a little bit of an operational overview of what you can expect us to be busy with in the medium term. 2025 for me, is really a standout financial performance year, absolutely outstanding. And I'm in great debt to team Shoprite for once again delivering an excellent set of results. The group sales have grown by 8.9% to ZAR 252 billion, first time that we've crossed the ZAR 250 billion. The gross margin has improved by 40 bps to 24.3%. And here, I have to mention that, that was achieved still staying the most affordable supermarket chain in South Africa. And a few years ago, I did mention that if one does not invest in the appropriate tools to do price optimization, personalization, you will find it very hard and very complicated in time to come, to achieve and maintain gross margin. And I'm very happy to see that our investment is giving us a return and hence, the increase in the gross profit margin. The trading profit up 16.6% to ZAR 15 billion, and I think to have double-digit trading profit growth is a remarkable result. And in this case, 16.6%, I think, testimony to an excellent year of execution and business that has run at full cylinders all the time. The supermarket RSA trading margin increased to 6.5% for a food retailer to run a trading margin in excess of 6%, just shows to a lot of efficiencies in the business in order to achieve that, something which we're very proud of. As a shareholder, me and also all the other shareholders around are hopefully, as pleased as me with a 26.7% return on equity and a diluted headline earnings per share growth of 15.8% for the financial year. This summarizes the performance of the group. There are different sections of business that obviously does better, and we have different brands, as you know, and we've done that so that we can hedge ourselves in different times of economic climates. It's another year where you almost feel like it can't be, but it's now 6 years continuously that the Shoprite Group has grown market share. And this year, again, have added another ZAR 8 billion of market share through the RSA supermarkets business. This on top of a very persistent low food inflation of 2.3%. You will remember the guidance I gave last time, we were thinking around 5%. I will talk about it later also, but a month ago, we had as many as 13,300 items in 1 month where the price was lower this year than last year. I always tell this because people think prices never come down. They always say prices just go up, but prices do come down, and there is an example of it. Obviously, in low inflation, we are so much more dependent on volume growth. And so is our manufacturers and producers that volume is almost the only driver left to keep cost under control. And I'm very happy to say that we have managed to still grow volume this year, around about 4.8%. We have completed the rollout of the point-of-sale system across the South African business. There was, of course, a bit of fiscal challenges in the non-RSA businesses. So we will be done by end of February. The group opened 281 stores. We're talking about roughly about 5 stores a week to do a merger and acquisition in South Africa is not the simplest of things to get done. It's now over a year that we are waiting for approval to conclude the sale of our furniture business to Pepkor. With that in mind and also the enormous amount of data that we have indicating to us consumer trends, we have also decided to do greenfield businesses where it makes sense for us where it complements actually our overall supermarket businesses. Yes, we are opening a lot of stores, but it's intentional. It's not coincidental. There are lots of opportunities out there. We have designed an omnichannel business that picks from store. So for us to have a footprint, a wide footprint, just enhances what our business model has been designed to do to support that. We've also invested in our supply chain. You know that over the last 2 years that we've opened 2 distribution centers, extended one. And I mean, even me, I was totally surprised that in year 1 of Riverfields in Johannesburg that their efficiency actually surpassed that of our older DC in Centurion. And that's why I think Shoprite sits with probably one of the best supply chains in the world, inclusive of its cold chain. We will continue to focus on our adjacencies and our supermarkets, the core of all that we do is still centered around our core supermarkets, but we now have this opportunity with all these adjacency businesses. And if you just think the opportunity that, that still brings in terms of putting all of that online for customer convenience, and I'm talking pharma care, Pet, Outdoor, there is so much still for us to build on this platform because the regional Sixty60 as it started is not just a piece of software where we pay dollar license fees. It's a platform designed internally to serve the entire business, not only a subsection of the business. So the potential of adding to it is incredible. We've seen that by adding general merchandise already. We've got 35 pet stores on there. We've seen how customers really have taken on to that as a form of convenience. So it is for me so clear the big opportunity that we still have to get to. And that is what we will be focusing on in the medium term. But the big thing for Shoprite, for me, for us that are here on the inside, we believe we have a purpose. Our purpose is to uplift lives every day. And it shows in the actions that we take. We don't just talk about it. It's how we live. I don't know of any other South African business that created 8,700 direct employment jobs. So we're so proud about this number that we have never retrenched any people. We build the business, we grow the business so that we can give more people opportunities. I am very proud to say that our employee trust have been able to disburse over ZAR 1 billion to our people since we started. I do not think there are many businesses that can say that they've done that. And I'm not talking about bonuses and salaries. It's like a dividend to a shareholder, and we're very proud of it, on training the unemployed youth because where are they going to get some experience. If you look at any job application, the second line is, say, 3 years relevant experience. Now where are they supposed to get it if there are no jobs out there. So it's for this reason that we specifically give the youth of South Africa, the training and the experience that they need to get employment. We, by far, the #1 supporter of African farmers and it's logical because of our size, and we have very specific planting programs with them, I rate South African farmers probably as one of the best farmers in the world because they farm in conditions that is actually not conducive for what they produce. But not only do we look after our commercial farmers. We have, in the past year, procured over ZAR 1.4 billion from our SME producers, which we've helped to start up and start farming and producing. Another thing of note is 91% of our private label products are locally produced. So we try and do our part to assist South African economy to grow and very proud moment to say that the SMEs that we have embraced has had a fantastic year. The revenue grew over 120%. We do a lot of social things. We've got 280-odd community farms. We support them. 7.2% of our electricity is renewable. We have almost 73,000 tonnes of plastic and cardboard that we recycled this year. So there are lots of things that we carry on doing to support our communities. So those are all the things that we think of because we understand the living conditions of our consumer. And we try and stay as close as possible to them as we possibly can. Affordability, fighting hunger, I told you earlier, we have a purpose. And for us, that is our affordability obsession. Since 2016, we've been selling a loaf of bread for ZAR 5. And by now, we have over ZAR 35 meal solutions. We sold almost ZAR 10 million of those meal solutions to people. Obviously, we subsidize this, but this is the heart of Shoprite. And so not only do we give best prices, we go do the extra to make sure that we find a way to make it more affordable and really improving people's lives. Couple of years ago, I mentioned to you that we're going to embark on a multiyear investment to create a platform to deliver consistent growth. Shoprite is not a flash in the pan. It's not a 1-year event. We don't give you 3-year strategies and plans, and then never deliver on it, we rather do things and then tell you about it. And like I always tell the team business that does well, can do better. But here is just a quick illustration of the last 5 years. I think if you look at those total numbers irrespective of who you are, they are meaningful. We added almost ZAR 100 billion in revenue. Of that ZAR 33 billion was actually market share gains. And in that, I must complement the team. It means they outran the competitors. As part of the multiyear platform investment, it was a very deliberate investment to also introduce alternative revenue streams which have now become meaningful and comes at high margin. For our shareholders, a lot of companies have not been able to write through COVID and all these years have been able to continue to pay dividends and Shoprite has paid over ZAR 2.2 billion in dividends, additional over the last 5 years. We've added almost 700 stores to our network. And then, I mean, how happy can a retailer be, if I can stand here and say we had additional 200 million of customer visits over the last 5 years. It means customers have voted, not us, they have voted, and they've got choices. So just before I hand you over to Anton, I just wanted to share this milestone that on the 25th of July, we have delivered our 100th million order on Sixty60 and we are very proud about what this business has achieved over the last 5 years, which we will unpack later. So for now, I'm going to hand you over to our very fine, I think, finest CFO in the country, Anton de Bruyn.

Thank you, Pieter, for that introduction. Our 2025 financial performance reflects the successful execution of our multiyear investment strategy. We have consistently communicated our approach to capital allocation. And before presenting the detailed financial figures, I would like to explain certain factors that have influenced our current year results in alignment with our overarching strategy. Here, I'm referencing to the acquisition of the remaining 50% in the shareholding of Pingo Delivery operations. Just a refresher, Pingo Delivery is our last mile logistics provider, that's servicing our Sixty60 business. I will also talk about the discontinued operations to give more color. We did communicate the sale of the furniture business to Pepkor. Important to note that excluded the Angola and Mozambique operations. During the second half, we closed our furniture business in Mozambique, and we've identified a buyer for our operations in Angola. We've also taken a decision to exit Ghana and the Malawi operations. Maybe just a refresher in terms of the accounting for restatements. From an income statement point of view, we had to restate the 2024 financial results to take into account the changes that we saw -- seen in terms of the discontinued operations during the first half and the second half. From a balance sheet point of view, we showed in the current year, the assets held for sale and liabilities for sale in the current year with no restatement of the prior year. And then from a cash flow point of view, it deals with the total operation, including the continued operations as well as the discontinued operations. If we then go into the detail around the acquisition and the impact it had on our financial results, already during the first half, we showed the alternative revenue delivery income as well as the subscription income as part of our sales where we previously had to show that as part of our alternative revenue. And then from an operating expenses point of view, the total delivery cost relating to the Sixty60 operations was historically shown as part of expenses, but now we show that as part of cost of sales. The third factor that we have to take into account is previously because we only had 50% share in the business, we show that also as part of alternative revenue, but it formed part of our share in profits from associates going forward, because we own 100%, we consolidate on a line-by-line basis. I will reference during the presentation because it did distort our total income ratio as well as our expense ratios and margins during the year. If we then go into the detail around the discontinued operations from the furniture business, first half relating to the sale of assets to Pepkor. But then in the second half, we also had to account for the impact of the Mozambique and Angola discontinued operations. What does that mean from an income statement point of view, the furniture business had a very profitable 2025 financial year where we saw an increase of ZAR 217 million to ZAR 328 million, and you will see that coming through our discontinued operations line in the income statement. From a balance sheet point of view, as we said in the first half, we expect to realize a ZAR 2.4 billion as proceeds from this transaction. The timing of the transaction and when we aim to conclude on especially the South African part of the business is up to The Competition Commission to give us that final approval. With the focus on reallocating capital to our core South African operations, the decision was also taken to exit our Ghana and Malawi operations, as part of our discontinued operations line in the income statement. We reflected a loss of ZAR 101 million in the current year. Assets and liabilities held for sale as per the detail. We do expect to conclude on these 2 transactions within the first half of the 2026 financial year. The forementioned transactions have resulted in the restatement of the prior year diluted headline earnings per share from continued operations. Initially, we reported DHEPS of ZAR 12.45, after the first restatement in December relating to the furniture transaction, we then reported a DHEPS number of ZAR 12.08 and then post our sale of businesses within our Ghana and Malawi as well as Angola and Mozambique, we now posted a restated DHEPS of ZAR 11.80. The current year DHEPS is ZAR 13.67, and if you look at the growth there is around 15.8%, but to make it more comparable, if we had to include the proceeds from the furniture transaction, the DHEPS number from continued operations would be close to ZAR 14 per share. Now if you compare that to the ZAR 12.45, we would have seen an increase of around 12.3% for the year, if you compare like-on-like. Now that we have a clear understanding of what's influencing our results, let's delve into the detail. Our sales increased by 8.9% to ZAR 252.7 billion, Total income was ZAR 65.7 billion. And very pleasing, our total income margin is at the 26% level. Total expenses increased by 7.4% to ZAR 50.7 billion with an expense ratio or expense margin of 20.1%. And in trading profit, very strong performance of an increase of 16.6% to ZAR 15 billion and we saw an increase of around 40 basis points in terms of the trading margin. EBITDA, reflecting our strong cash flows within the business, increased by 18.8% to ZAR 23.8 billion. And then the DHEPS that I referenced to in the previous slide, we saw that increase of 15.8% with a return on equity now at 26.7%. Adjusted return on invested capital, very strong 19.4% against a WACC rate of 13.5%. Maybe just a reminder on what we classify as adjusted ROIC and there is a retail calculation in the supplementary documents as part of this presentation. We've included the old IAS 17 leases and we've excluded the impact of IFRS 16 on trading profit to get to the adjusted return on invested capital. Final dividend increased by 11.5% to ZAR 4.96 and then a full year dividend of 9.7% to ZAR 7.81. If we unpack sales in more detail, saw growth of 8.9% to ZAR 252.7 billion. Important to note, with regards to the Pingo transaction and what we talked about previously is that as part of the current year result, we've included 9 months of subscription income as well as delivery income as part of the Supermarkets RSA segment, where we saw an increase of 9.5% to ZAR 214 billion. On a like-for-like basis, the increase was 4.8%, and internal food inflation was around 2.3%. If we go into the various banners, Shoprite and Usave increased sales by 5.9% to ZAR 116 billion. And in Checkers and Checkers Hyper very strong performance where we saw a growth of 13.8% to ZAR 95.7 billion. Adjacent business has also very good performance during the year with growth of 39.1% to around ZAR 1.1 billion, giving rise to that 9.5% in sales growth. Supermarkets non-RSA had growth of 6.4% to ZAR 20.5 billion. On a constant currency basis, we had a sales increase of around 14.2% on a like-for-like basis of 3.9%. Internal food inflation within the various regions was 9.6%, and we opened 14 stores during the financial year. Total other operating segments increased sales by 5.2% to ZAR 18.6 billion with franchise business driving the growth there with a growth of 6.7%. Franchise now trades from 615 stores and we plan to open another 79 stores during the next financial year. Looking at our store expansion program. During the financial year, we added 5.9% in space growth. We opened a net 255 stores. and we plan to open a net 223 stores in the new financial year. If we look at the banners and where we saw most of the growth within the Shoprite and Usave banners with the LiquorShop, we saw 120 stores opening. And within Checkers, as we saw 64 stores opening. Really looking at the Liquor business. We added 80 stores during the current financial year. And if we look at the growth for next year, Usave showing some nice growth where we're going to plan to open another 49 stores. And if I really look at the Liquor business again, already 71 new committed stores. Our adjacent businesses, we saw some nice growth with the opening of 71 stores with the Pet shops opening 58 stores driving a lot of that growth. If we then turn to our total income margin and our achievements there. During the year, we saw a 9.4% growth to ZAR 65.7 billion, with a 10 basis points improvement from 25.9% to 26%. Gross margin was the main driver, where we saw an increase of 10.6% against a sales growth of 8.9% to that ZAR 61.4 billion. And we also saw an increase of 40 basis points in the margin, taking us to that 24.3%. The gross margin improvement was across the business. It was not just only in RSA Supermarkets, when I present the trading profit, you will also see that within the non-RSA segment, we saw some positive moves as well as in the other segments of the business. The expansion within the supply chain also supported our margin expansion during the financial year. From the graph, it is evident in terms of our performance during the first half versus the second half in gross margin. And we can see that the second half is -- performance is better than the first half, and that is purely as a result of the highly promotional activity from October, November, leading us into the festive season. I think what is also very pleasing is to see the trend line in terms of, if we purely go and look at the gross margin profitability in 2022 compared to the 2025 financial year. We've seen a consistent 12.3% compounded annual growth over these past few years. And then if I look at the gross margin percentage year-on-year, we're around at 24.3% ratio. So very consistent from that point of view. Interest revenue decreased by 30.4% to ZAR 218 million. Included in the base is the interest received from our resilient partnership for the 3 properties we had in Nigeria. You will recall that at the end of June of last year, we acquired the shares in those legal entities. And we did not receive the same interest revenue in the current year. We will, however, in the next slide, see that we did receive the lease income from those 3 sites which basically made up for the reduction in the interest revenue. Our share of profits from our various investments that consists of the Retail Logistics Fund as well as Pingo and in the base we now have our 50% share relating to Pingo as well as the Retail Logistics Fund, where we currently own and house currently our distribution centers that we operate from. In the current year, the majority of the ZAR 250 million relates to the Retail Logistics Fund, and we've included 3 months relating to the Pingo transaction. As mentioned in the initial comments, we now consolidate Pingo on a line-for-line basis, which meant that we didn't have to account again for it as part of the sharing profits. If we then go to our various alternative revenue streams, where we saw a 13.9% from the core that we will report on going forward. That was mainly driven by commissions received of 7.5% to around ZAR 1.3 billion, and that's where our money markets in our various stores, marketing and media revenue. That's mainly our Rainmaker business, another strong performance where we saw growth from 36.8% to ZAR 647 million for the year. And then the lease income that I've just spoken about where we saw a 31% increase to ZAR 596 million. We still have more than 100 properties within our property portfolio that we fully own. Franchise fees received increased by 4.9% to ZAR 192 million on the back of that 6.7% sales growth. And then Sundry revenue increased by 3.3% to ZAR 942 million, mainly on the back of the Rex platform, our data insights tool, where we've seen very good growth together with dividends received on our unlisted investments. Why I've split out the delivery recoveries and subscription incomes to the core is to give you the impact of what we've disclosed as part of the Pingo transaction. So in the base, is included our delivery recoveries and subscription income. And as mentioned before, we've included the delivery income and subscription income for 3 months during the current year. The majority of that is now shown as part of our sales number. If we then turn to expenses, we saw an increase of 7.4% to ZAR 50.7 billion. We saw a reduction in our expense margin from 20.3% to 20.1%. But again, one has to take into account the impact of the reclassification in terms of the acknowledging of the Pingo transaction. In the base here, we've included ZAR 1.46 billion of delivery costs, and in the current year, the majority of those costs forms part of cost of sales. Depreciation and amortization increased by 17% to ZAR 8 billion on the back of the 255 new store opening, as well as the 488 lease renewals during the financial year. Additional to that was the 2 distribution centers both in Riverfields as well as Wells Estate that we added during the current year. Employee benefits increased by 10.8% to ZAR 20.2 billion, better than the prior year growth of 13%, but that growth was still fueled as a result of our store opening program. We are very proud that we've, again, this year, been able to invest more than ZAR 1 billion in training for our staff. Other operating expenses saw a growth of 1.6% to ZAR 22.4 billion. Some of the major items included in there is electricity and water, where we saw an increase of 9.3%. That is against a NERSA increase in South Africa of 12.7%, which is pleasing for us is that we saw electricity and water as a percentage of sales reducing to 2.1%, still 10 basis points above our historical rate of around 2% of sales. Diesel costs during the financial year, however, reduced from ZAR 810 million to ZAR 335 million, of which the majority of that was actually a cost that we incurred in Zambia where we've had certain droughts that led to additional load shedding within that region. Advertising costs increased by 6.4% to ZAR 4.1 billion. And then if we look at our repairs and maintenance costs, we had a pleasing reduction in cost by 7.8% on the back of 2 reasons. It's the refurbishment that we've consistently been doing as well as the decrease in load shedding that we've seen during the last financial year. Security costs increased 11.9%, but it's still within that 1% to sales ratio that we've had historically. It's pleasing to report that we saw a decrease in our insurance cost during the 2025 financial year, and I expect to see similar trends within the 2026 financial year. We're very proud to report the growth in terms of our trading profit in our various segments, where we saw a 16.6% increase to ZAR 14.9 billion. We also very pleasingly saw an improvement in our trading margin from 5.5% to 5.9%. The majority of that growth was within our Supermarkets RSA segment where we saw a growth of 15.5% to ZAR 13.9 billion, supported by a 30 basis points improvement in trading margin and mainly driven by that improvement in our gross margin that we've seen there as well. Supermarkets Non-RSA improvement by 43.4% to ZAR 644 million, an improvement in our trading margin of 80 basis points within that segment. Other operating segments, increased by 32.3% to ZAR 652 million. For reference, again, to the graph, we spoke about the consistency and predictability within our business when we spoke about the gross margin, the same trends are visible within our trading profit where we compare H1 to H2. And for the last 2 years, you can see as well, very consistent in terms of our report between the 2 halves. We then turn to finance cost, increase of 30.9% to ZAR 4.8 billion. We have consistently, over the last 3 years, seen an increase of 16% and then 12% and in the current year, 20.7%. That was mainly driven by the increase in our lease liabilities, where we saw a 12.5%, 13.8% and 16.2%. If we unpack and try to understand the growth within that is our strong store opening program, as well as our lease renewals in each of those various years. For the last 2 financial years, we also added our extension within Canelands and in the current year, the additional Riverfields and Wells Estate distribution center. Important to note is the comment I made there, the difference between what we account for IFRS 16 lease costs. And here, I referred to the depreciation and finance costs relating to the leases was ZAR 1.4 billion more than the cash flows related to these leases, which meant that we had a 14% negative impact in our profit before tax. From a borrowings point of view, we also saw an increase in our finance cost there, but that purely related to the financing of our working capital increases during the financial year relating to our inventory build within those 2 distribution centers. If we then align our capital allocation model to the cash generated within the business, our core cash generated within the business, net of tax was ZAR 22.5 billion. We then look at how we've spent the cash between the various capitals. First was our debt and financing, mainly result relating to the IFRS 16 leases of ZAR 8.1 billion. Our growth and maintaining CapEx of ZAR 8 billion. And then our shareholder returns, where we've paid dividends of ZAR 4 billion during the year and acquired treasury shares of ZAR 1.4 billion. Working capital, we saw a net movement of ZAR 2.3 billion mainly driven by our investment in inventory as a result of our expansion in our supply chain. From a strategic investment point of view, we paid ZAR 472 million for the additional 50% share in Pingo but we also realized and we received proceeds from our sale of government bonds within our Angolan operations, which led to a net inflow of ZAR 600 million. That gave rise to a net outflow of ZAR 700 million for the year with cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year at ZAR 9.3 billion. I do expect to see an improved cash flow performance during the 2026 financial year relating to the sale of the various businesses as well as the proceeds from the furniture transaction that is expected to happen in the 2026 financial year. Growth and maintaining CapEx increased from ZAR 7.7 billion to ZAR 8 billion, but we did see an improvement in CapEx as a percentage of sales from 3.3% to 3.2%. If I break it down between growth and maintaining CapEx, 79% of our CapEx is to grow our business and expand our business, and that was mainly underscored by the new store and upgrades, where we spent ZAR 4.8 billion. Information technology, another ZAR 1.3 billion and that was mainly driven by our rollout of our point-of-sale system that occurred during the year and additional investments behind our Sixty60 platform business, additional personalization developments as well as the investment in our Rex insights platform. From a maintaining CapEx point of view, we spent ZAR 1.4 billion of refurbs within our store portfolio. Inventory increased by 4.9% to ZAR 29.7 billion. I would like to highlight the impact of discontinued operations on these numbers. In the current year, we show ZAR 1.7 billion as assets held for sale. But within the 2024 number, the ZAR 2.1 billion is part of our inventory number. If we therefore had to include the current year ZAR 1.7 billion as part of the ZAR 29.7 billion, we would have seen a moderated growth in inventory of 10.9%. The majority of the increase in our inventory levels relates to our Supermarkets RSA segment, where we saw an increase of ZAR 2.7 billion. That represents an increase of inventory to sales from 11.8% to 12.1%. Pleasingly is if we look at our inventory to sales ratio within our stores is still at that 8% level, which is testimony to the current stock levels as well as it is sellable stock and that we do not sit with debt stock within our store portfolios. Supermarkets Non-RSA, we also saw a slight increase relating to the total continued operations. We saw that increase of 11.3% to 11.8%. If we then look forward towards 2026 and what we can expect from an internal food price inflation point of view, July, we saw a reduction from 3% in the prior year to 1.8% in the current year. Our store opening program is still very healthy with 223 new supermarkets planned for the financial year and 79 franchise stores. We get asked a lot by people how they should think about our total income margin and expense margin. We are aiming to maintain our income margin at 26%. And we are aiming to improve our expense margin to a 20% range. That will give us a 6% trading margin. Some of the cost drivers that we will see increasing during the year is our staff costs to basically support that growth within our new stores and operations. And in depreciation, I do expect to see another year of double-digit growth, especially in the first half compared to the second half as a result of bringing on stream of the 2 distribution centers during the first half. Our effective tax rate, we aim to keep between 27% and 28%. And then from a non-RSA point of view, we aim to conclude on the transactions within Ghana and Malawi as well as the furniture transaction in Angola. In terms of inventory, will remain in line with the 2025 financial year. And then if we turn to our capital allocation model, just a reminder in terms of what our dividend cover is, we currently have a 1.75x DHEPS from continued operations, and I do not foresee any change within that. And then borrowings, I mentioned earlier, that I do not foresee an increase in that as a result of the proceeds that we will receive from the furniture transaction. Our current borrowings to equity ratio is 23%. From a CapEx point of view, we estimate to spend ZAR 7.9 billion with the majority again to grow the business on the back of that healthy store opening program, but we are targeting a below 3% CapEx to sales ratio. Pieter, that then concludes the financial section of the presentation, and we're looking forward to hear from you around the strategy within the company. Thank you very much.

I will be taking you over now to a little bit of a operational overview. And on this, in particular, I just want to remind everybody that, remember, it's a package deal. Shoprite comes as a package as 1 listed entity, but that is also why we can stand here and why we can deliver on this. So just before I now go and unpack more of the Shoprite business and give you more color, just a reminder, quickly, the salient points as we started in the beginning, revenue growth of 8.9%. Gross profit growth of 10.6%, trading profit growth of 16.6%. The ZAR 252 billion in revenue, yes, it's a number. I don't think I can count that far, but the essence for me is the fact that the Shoprite Group had to add ZAR 20 billion of additional revenue in the past year to achieve a 8.9 percentage sales growth. I know a lot of you like to strip out percentages and compare pieces or selective parts of the business with other peers and -- but that is not how Shoprite is put together. Shoprite is the sum of the parts, and that gives us many levers to pull and end with this picture that we have today and a trading margin of 5.9% for the group. I did say earlier that the South African supermarkets has got a 6.5% trading margin. But in the end, we have to look at this collectively. And what this has given us and what we've built over the years is the multiple levers that we can pull in different economic conditions to continue to grow and keep on being a business of growth, like most things and definitely in business, it's a balancing act. And in this case, if we look at this slide that we've separated here the consumer, on the one hand, and our shareholders on the other hand. If I just focus on the consumer side. And I always say, we're in the people business. That's what we do. Our people, the customers, our people, our own people and then our people, our investors. If there's one thing that pleases a retailer the most is if you can grow your customer base. If more people elect to visit your stores, and we have been very blessed that in this year, we've grown our customer visits by 4.6% overall, 1.2 billion customer visits. The volumes I mentioned earlier, one of the very few retailers in South Africa that's been able to grow volume 4.8%. So if one put those 2 together, you're growing customers, you're growing volume, you are the cheapest and you managed to increase your gross profit margin, then there are a lot of momentum in the business overall. And in -- the end result of that is that we've gained market share to the value of ZAR 8 billion in the last year alone. And I repeat that we've been gaining market share consecutively for now for over 6 years. If we look on the shareholder side, what does it mean for them and 15.8% diluted headline earnings per share, I think in today's terms, that is a very healthy number, very proud of that, that we could achieve that and give our shareholders that kind of return. The increase in the return on invested capital, very happy that we could achieve that last year around 16%, now up to 19.4% very pleased. As I mentioned earlier, we're opening a lot of stores, and you can think are they giving the necessary returns. If you look at the return on invested capital, surely, then we have to tick that number that it does give us the necessary returns. And I want to remind you that we do not think online physical Shoprite is a truly omnichannel. For us, it's a one distribution model. And that's how we also look at how we do our investments. And then pleasingly, that we could pay a dividend again as ZAR 7.81 for the, hopefully, with that and the return on equity of 27% for our shareholders will be a pleasing result for them. I have now already mentioned the RSA supermarket growth in relation to the total group growth of 8.9%, the African supermarkets have grown 9.5% with a like-for-like growth of 4.8% at a very, very low inflation of 2.3%. Retailers generally depend a little bit on inflation for their growth. In this case, as I mentioned earlier, we've been lucky enough to grow our volume to make up for a very low inflation. The thing that I really want to point out here is probably the graph for 5 years now, Shoprite Group have outgrown the market. And this year, by the largest margin, 2.8x, which is very commendable, and I can only once again thank team Shoprite for that. If we look at the inflation, 6-year low -- and then why this is important, and we have to show you this is, again, people looking at percentages say, oh, you had double-digit sales growth a year or what ago, but inflation was 13%. Of course, when you will grow 20s or plus. And then we dipped as low as 1.9% at some point in time, and for the year, 2.3%. So obviously, the percentages of sales growth or revenue growth will be affected by that. I did mention that our promotional sales have increased and the volumes of promotional, I said around 10% is actually 6.9%. The highlight for me for this lower inflation sits probably in the improved gross margin. And it's now the second time in this presentation that I'm mentioning that if you did not invest in the tools to assist you in terms of pricing and margin management, you will be at a disadvantage, and I'm very happy and pleased to say that we have made those investments early enough so that they're now starting to give us good results. We like to show this slide, particularly for our international investors to remind you that we are a multi-brand portfolio, even if we only look at the supermarket part of the business, I'm not talking about the old revenue and the adjacent businesses even. Just talking about supermarkets here. And this is very unique to South Africa because that is what we found the most efficient way to serve every part of the community the best. So each of these brands have a very precision-driven focus on who their customers are and what their deliverables are. The beauty of it is now that we've created the platform business is that all of these businesses still can be expanded on to the omni platform to give us future growth as we and as people demand more convenience and want to save time and money in terms of travel in particular. Staying with South African supermarkets, Shoprite, the mother brand, always been the livelihood of average consumer in South Africa, price-sensitive consumer now surpassed ZAR 100 billion in the revenue added ZAR 6.5 billion. And I need to acknowledge that Shoprite definitely have been affected disproportionately with the short supply of chicken. We all know what happened earlier this year when there was a short supply of frozen chicken in the market and Shoprite over indexes on market share in that category, therefore, were affected more than anybody else. Shoprite also extended its business to cash & carry. It's new for us. We're learning fast. Here is a good example of when you can quote percentages. So the Cash & Carry business grows over 24%, very good. Usave on the other hand, now, we all know exactly what it stands for. It is the go-to place when your budget is tight, there's no frauds. There's no temptation to spend money unnecessarily. And very pleased to say that our private labels especially the Ubrand in Usave are being accepted by the consumers with the quality that it offers. There is no inferior product in that business. Moving on to Checkers. It seems these days like everybody loves Checkers, everybody loves the brand. It does give good value. And if I can just mention one, for example, which I'm very pleased with, and I'd like to mention their name is Discovery Vitality our partnership with them, fantastic. We brought in Jamie Oliver, too because he's funny, and we do have this beautiful brand called Simple Truth, it's always less sugar, no artificial colorants, et cetera. So a very good story. Checkers remains the fastest-growing premium grocer for the fifth year in a row now. Very happy that we are still gaining customers. Now who would have thought that a food retail brand could be voted South Africa's strongest brand, and Checkers was voted that. And although we're not in for winning awards, it is quite an achievement for a food retailer to be elected the strongest brand, which we are, of course, very proud of. I get many questions about these adjacent businesses that we have opened, the Outdoor, Pet, the Pharma care, UNIQ store doing fantastic. These adjacencies are really getting traction. They fill a niche, and I go back to data again. It's the data they drive these decisions that tells us what and where we should invest. And they are really starting to gain traction. We are really looking forward to expand on this business. We already have over 200 stores, and we will continue to expand them as we expand our supermarkets. A lot of places now in the strip malls, you will find that we almost are the entire tenant base of a strip mall because of the need state that each of these businesses actually fulfill. If we move over to the rest of the segments, the Supermarkets Non-RSA and the other operating segments, including furniture. If we look at Supermarkets Non-RSA. You know we've exited a lot of regions. Africa still has a challenge in terms of affordability and also exchange rates. So overall, in summary, a very pleasing result for us at Shoprite to have been able to increase the profitability of that segment by 43% and grow customers. The other operating segments that well, especially the pharma care, that's why I mentioned earlier, opening stand-alone Medirite Plus pharmacies, because again, I have to refer you back to the data is that the data tells us people more and more tend to buy basic health care and personal care items from a specialized store. And we are ready to take that opportunity. We have opened a new Transpharm facility. I'm very impressed with what that team has done in about 3 weeks from opening that facility, the autopicker in that system in the DC, we're running already at 120% of its design capacity. I laugh a little bit about it, because I said that's typical Shoprite style. It's built to do 100, but then we do 120. So very proud about that business, looking forward to good growth. Franchise also had a very good year, and there's a lot of -- again market share. And secondly, a lot of touch points where we currently are working closer together. They're buying more frequently from our distribution centers. And it also allows us to utilize and optimize our supply chain to service this over 3,000 store network. Furniture, unfortunate. I mean it's a year later. We're still waiting. It's such a small transaction. Theoretically, if you think of our market capitalization, and we're still waiting on the authorities for approval for that. Just to remind you again, so although it's held for sale, it means that at the moment, we're not getting any benefit because it doesn't count into continued operations. But I can assure you, we're not neglecting the business. We're still running the business and keeping it up in good shape. And by the time that we finally will get the approval, we will hand over a decent business. Okay. Now a little bit of update of what's the strategy we said to you. This slide barring 2 points hasn't changed since 2017 and I think I showed you the first time. So I'm not going to -- you're familiar with this. Only thing is, those are the 3 pillars that drive the things that we do. If you don't fit in one of these, then you don't get done. I told you many times when I first started speaking about precision retail, people didn't understand what I was saying. And these days, this is what we talk about. You know that we have over 53 million customers purchases data. I want to be clear on it that we have got 5,000 data points on these people, and we're very happy with our extra savings program. So I'm not going to stand still on that. I mentioned right in the beginning, we are still working on alternate -- creating alternate revenue. We would love it if your money gets into our environment and never have to leave it. It saves you money because you don't have transaction fees and you don't have transfer fees and bank fees and all those things. And all like you save, by doing everything within our real estate, if I may call it like that, saves you money and in the end, improves your life. So we still have that Rainmaker does well, the Rex platform that we monetize, the third parties and to our suppliers also. And then financial services. I'm not going to stand still on financial services at this time. It's a subject almost on its own. The thing that I just want to mention about them is that the electronic or technical platform has been rebuilt, replatform, and it is absolutely state-of-the-art, it will accelerate what we've been able to do in this -- in the financial services space. So Sixty60 is the one largest digital platform in South Africa. Everybody was wondering what does it do? How big is it? So there it is. It's ZAR 18.9 billion and it's growing and it's been growing every year for the last 5 years since we built it. The ticket you see there on the right-hand side is what I said earlier on the 25th of July, we surpassed the 100 million delivery and the speed that you see there is basically as deliveries happen. That's the pace that this business works at. You know our model, we pick from store. There's been a lot of speculation whether Sixty60 can make money or not make money. I can promise you it does make money. it's got a very good return on investment because we have the model of pick from store. We're in 694 stores, nationwide, nice thing to say also over 15,000 people actually got a job, new employment that was created by this business unit since its inception. The enhancements on this program and the improvements that's being made on it, they do like 900 software releases a year just to make it, tweak it a little bit better. And you can understand what it creates is the difference between the Sixty60 platform and the rest of the market if you're running at that pace. Here's is a graphical illustration of where we started, COVID. But as you can see, this is not abating. The growth is still there. Although the percentage growth is slowing down, that's quite logical because of your base getting better. But if you look on the right-hand side at the green piece of that graph that the value continues to grow, although the percentage slows down because the base has gotten so much bigger. I think Sixty60 is probably the most loved brand. And no retailer can ask for anything more better than brand love. Who would have thought somebody would have a wedding with a Sixty60 theme and make a dress for your metric farewell and -- it's just been fun. It's been good. We -- but I mean, we have to work at it. And it comes with risk. The business is big, 265 million kilometers, 94% of the deliveries are on time, 1 million products picked per day, almost 97% of products that you order, you're going to get. The important point here is the bigger the business gets, actually the better it gets. And it doesn't come by itself. Obviously, it needs investment. It needs constant improvement and a very great result for us to show to you that over the last 3 years, all of the measurements have improved. And this year, we achieved our highest on-shelf availability ever, which is 98.2%. Now you cannot run an online digital business like this if your on-shelf availability is not at that high level. And that you don't -- if you don't have the full visibility of stock through your supply chain, then it is not possible to consistently deliver at this level, this is the Sixty60 flywheel. The most important thing probably that I can say is it is a platform. It's not an app. It's not a web. It's a platform with scalability. And that's probably the most important. I'm not going to go through every item here. But the most important thing that I can leave you with is that what was created here is not a little app, and you've got somebody to write it, and then you pay dollar license fees, no. This is a platform for the entire business. And that's why we now have the ability to add things like general merchandise and the Pet and the pharma care and all of that. The one thing we're not a third-party market. That is not what we do. We believe that we are the everyday store, not the everything store. And that is what we try to do as best as we humanly possibly can do. So just to carry on the point that I'm actually driving home, it's a platform business with its flywheel effects is we can expand, we can enlarge the range, we can add more product. But for me, probably the standout is new customers joining the service growth by 26%, which is absolutely fantastic. And as long as we get those customers, you can understand that the incrementality of that sale is a very profitable customer. Carrying on, on that, the improvements that we can still make and have to make is the -- what we have is this high frequency of data that allows us to just make so much better data-led decisions. It's not what I feel like or think like, it is absolute data that tells us exactly how the customers behave and when, at what time, what the weather does, how people behave. And then we can adapt to that, which makes us smarter in terms of giving them the personalized experience. That's different to personalized offer where I give you something that I know you need or you want. But that experience is what we can improve on the pricing that we can adjust and the online marketing that we can do, reducing the delivery times. I know, I mean, on average, our delivery time is 31 minutes. Yes, yes, somebody can come and say, oh, no, we're going to deliver it now in 15 minutes. I don't know what difference that makes. If I can get my goods in 1 hour, and now with the general merchandise, I can specify a specific hour slot on a specific day when I know I'm home to receive my parcel. Is this something that has changed the whole way that omnichannel and online works. And in the end, the dream is that we improve the customer satisfaction and that they will continue to use the service and more and more of it. And I'm coming back to -- in the end, we get that share of wallet where people feel it's not necessary to take my money out of this environment because I am getting most of what I need daily every day. I said the everyday store, I'm getting here and I'm getting it conveniently and from anywhere, so once again, repeating the thing I'm saying about the platform and then how we can leverage off this platform. So all of a sudden, there's ability that there can be a multiple delivery that a dog food can be delivered with [ Shoprite ]. And so we reduced the cost of the delivery, the time of the delivery. And so the scalability of it just increases. So I hope I'm getting across just to say that we're still at the infancy of where we can take this business. The natural effect, and I suppose you will say is logical, but it is true that people that -- the longer that people are on the system, the more valuable they are and the more they spend and the more they use it because it becomes easier and you've done it once, and then you save your order and next time, you just reorder and you add 1 item and so it is true that the omnichannel customers that we have are 3.8x more valuable than a person that would frequent only in-store. So people complement the 2, and therefore, we believe the model has still got a lot of legs in terms of growth. This is for me, probably explaining things the best for a nontechnical person, just to understand what is happening here. 10 years ago, we laid the foundation of the core retail system and capabilities, supply chain, real-time view of stock line item profitability, and I can carry on. You will remember those days in 2017 around. Then the next level came. So we expanded on the supply chain level because how are we going to support all of this, stock has to be moved around. It has to be moved in 1 hour. You need systems for it. You need to be real time, and then we've got the portfolio of the brands. We've added the adjacencies. I've spoken about them. Now if we go through all of that, it's what I just said earlier is our everyday store what we want to do every day is to make your life easier every day. The things that you need every day, the time that we can save you the money that we can save you on the transactions if your money don't leave our environment, and there's no transaction fees. Those are the things that this thing illustrates is how this was built. And this is not something that you just go buy off the shelf. This has to be built with the right intent in mind with the end goal. Then right at the top, of course, is the customer awards, the fact that we still gave back to consumers ZAR 16.5 billion in instant savings at till point. I don't think many retailers can say that. And that is what we pride ourselves. This is what we've built. And on top of all of this now, the digital platform is bringing it all together to make us a really truly omnichannel retailer. So after I've now said so much about this platform, and you can clearly hear, I hope I could give you the message that the growth potential of what was built here and the ability to include our entire business portfolio, and make it a true omnichannel in the Checkers space, it's very clear the personalization that still has to be matured. We're talking about pharma, there's so much opportunity still for us to add in terms of product assortment. You are aware that we have started also to introduce the Sixty60 service in the Shoprite market. There is a total different opportunity endeavors, we are testing at the moment that assist people greatly in terms of their small businesses also. Then the Hypers, I mean, for many years, the Hypers have -- it's a big store. And if you're looking for convenience, you're not just sure and all of a sudden, people actually realize what a fantastic assortment of product in general merchandise, the Checkers Hyper stores has to offer at fantastic prices. That has open up that avenue as well. And then there is this value-added services on the financial services side that is absolutely in its infancy. If we put all of this together, I hope that I can leave you with a thought that there is so much growth and opportunity still in this Shoprite company with what we have today. It doesn't mean we're not going to stop or it doesn't mean that we're going to stop innovating. We will continue to innovate. This is where we conclude the formal presentation. There will be a short video, then Anton and I will take your questions to clarify anything that you want us to expand on. I really thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure. Hopefully, it wasn't too long. It is a big business. And thank you very much for your support. And I just want to end lastly to say that I'm extremely proud about the people of Shoprite that has delivered this outstanding set of results. Thank you very much. [Presentation]

So Anton and I are back. Usually, I just -- while we get settled and everybody look at their final questions. After the video, also, I think there was more detail in that. Is just a few things that I know I'm going to be asked our outlook on inflation. There was a specific question I already saw about the -- where we see the inflation and the discrepancy between our low inflation and CPI. So it looks like 3% is what we're talking about. If I have to put it in a crystal ball. We have gone as low as 1.8%. We're currently even lower. Some of the very large manufacturers that we saw recently are talking about planning a 1% volume growth for the year because of the low inflation in amongst where we are. So inflation is low. The difference between CPI, and our internal inflation, which is much lower, it's because CPI is a fixed list or that gets measured year-on-year, fixed list of items, whereas ours are weighted, which means very simply put, we take what people buy today, what's in their basket. And we look at those items, what they were priced or what their price was a year ago and then so we weight in that inflation. That's why it's a much lower number than the CPI. The sales growth just in general, there was a -- we showed you that in H2 was slightly lower sales growth in H1. I have to mention here that especially in the Shoprite and Usave environment, we were impacted more in this proportionately to our competitors around the effects of the shortages in chicken, frozen chicken. We over-index in that market with market share over 70%. So one can imagine that there was 2, 3 months -- 2 to 3 months where we had some supply issues on that. It did affect the Shoprite and Usave brand much more than any other retailer. The sales effect, if you look at percentages and I've tried in the presentation to mention a few times how one easily can read things differently or I would say incorrectly by just looking at percentages is that the very, call it, super low inflation currently experienced in Shoprite than a Usave, which is completely different to Checkers. And that's why the percentages growth numbers are completely different is that, that affects Shoprite's numbers much more than Checkers and many of the peers also which have a different inflation number. And also the fact that different retailers calculate the internal inflation slightly differently. We are very clear on how we do it, we've never changed it. That's the way we do it consistently. So the numbers are very comparable. We're going to continue to grow. You mentioned it, Anton, we are planning 309 new stores. There are a lot of opportunities out there. We -- especially in the Checkers environment, it is still true that there are a lot of areas in South Africa where we underrepresented. And we are going after those opportunities. We are in a very lucky or fortunate position that landlords and property developers currently, I don't want to say favor, but they certainly are very positive about having a Checkers brand as an anchor tenant. We also now these days have many instances where we have one real estate development, where we've got Shoprite and Checkers as a deal anchored in 1 center. So that's where all of the momentum is coming from. Yes. So we're going to continue to deliver on our plans. We know what we have to do, try and surprise and delight our customers every day as best as we can. And of course, sustain our profitable market share gains. I know -- I mean it's not possible to gain market share forever. But at the moment, as you also saw, I mean, this year showed that we actually accelerated on that level. So that also brings opportunity by itself. So I think Anton, that's sort of a quick summary, if you want to go to the questions.

You'll be happy to hear. There's not too many questions. I think the first one, Pieter, is, you've touched on the sales, but how do you think about the competitive landscape? And maybe talk a little bit about what you see within the promotional activity as well taking place within the various food retailers?

Yes. food retail in South Africa is as competitive as it's ever been. It's globally, I think South African food retailers probably of the most fiercely competed business in retail, and that hasn't changed. And if one be honest, with yourself, you have to say, if you've been losing market share, you will tend to get more aggressive. And then that brings some new dynamics. We also understand that the consumer is under severe pressure. So that's why we see this constant ticking up every year, the contribution of promotional items to the overall sales and the basket, the number of items in the basket that are on promotion.

Thank you, Pieter. So with that in mind -- of the Cash & Carry that we then -- I mean, you've mentioned that in your presentation as well. What do you then see has opportunity for Cash & Carry within that environment?

So 2 very different questions, really. The one is about the urbanization. Now I definitely are not going to be professing that I know in what the future will hold. I can go on what WWF told us about -- and I think the year, they said around 2050, I know that sounds a long way -- away -- a long time away, that something like 90% of South Africans will be urbanized or living around the big cities. And so in that, I think there's also an advantage for the Shoprite Group with the Usave model and that OK Foods model. I think those are, in particular, the 2 formats that we'll be able to survive a mass migration or urbanization in South Africa. And it is supported by supply chain that has been built and where they have been included in this entire supply chain of Shoprite. And to explain it very simply, what that means is, it allows our supply chain to have the minimum of what we call debt kilometers because we can do multiple deliveries on a single route for multiple brands and multiple formats. So that's the one. In terms of the Cash & Carry, we inherited it basically with Massmart transaction. We didn't know much about the business, we're still learning. Talking about percentages, if we could bank their percentages growth, we'll be able to pay a couple of bills for sure. It's doing exceptionally well. But of course, it serves a completely different market. So it opens up a different set of the market that we have not participated before or in. What's interesting is like 70% of the revenue or sales in Cash & Carry is online. So digital also paid with our money market account, which is then transaction cost free. So a completely different model. We do deliveries, which means small businesses, where owners currently have to actually close this business to go buy some stock, lose the trade at that time or leave his business in, maybe, in unsecured state, they don't have to leave their business anymore. They can get their stock delivered and pay electronically without incurring any extra costs, don't have to carry that amount of cash around. So that's where the Cash & Carry is. I'm very happy with how the business have improved over the last 2 years.

Okay. I'll give you a break. I'll deal with 1 or 2 financial questions. So there was just around the profitability and the trading profit and can we maintain these margins from the graph that I've shown is we see that consistent trading profit within first half and second half. The first half trading profit is lower than the second half. If you also look historically, and we're aiming to again approve -- achieve that 5.9% to 6% trading margin for the whole group. So I think that's the one question. And then secondly, there was just a question around capital and what are we going to do with the proceeds from the furniture transaction. I think we're clear on where and how we do our capital allocation in terms of how we reward our shareholders through dividends. I mentioned that we do not foresee any changes within our dividend policy. There's still a lot of opportunities within the business, the store opening program. And that's why if we look at that ZAR 7.9 billion investment back into the business. And we're looking at a lot of refurbs. Obviously, that's very important for us, how we maintain our Checkers stores as well as our Shoprite stores. And then also how we invest back into our franchise business. So there's still a lot of opportunities from that point of view, and if there's other opportunities coming our way. We do have a share buyback program approval from the Board. We've communicated that in the past, it's about ZAR 1 billion per year. And if the opportunity is right, we will again also look at doing a share buyback. So I think that's from a capital allocation point of view.

I can add that one point maybe, Anton, on the OK Franchise business. If one just think what service, corporate Shoprite can give to them if we change their tax stake. Just one example, managing of the loyalty card, and we can combine that with the current extra savings card and one can just imagine the cost savings that we can bring by combining that an extra volume and extra data, more customer information, et cetera. So that's just about one example.

Yes. More through the supply chain as well. Pieter, I think let's go a little bit to strategy. You've actually unpacked it very well when we think about what Sixty60 can deliver for us in the future. But I mean, the question has come up again, and I think you're going to get it a lot today. is just what do you see as a potential within the next, let's say, I mean 5 years is too far out, let's work 2 and 3 years?

I think if we -- if you can recall, the second -- I think it was the second last slide where we just put up the Checkers, the Shoprite, the VAS and then, of course, general merchandise, which is for me a fantastic opportunity untapped at the moment. The growth on the online sales currently and the demand on the online for general merchandise is incredible. And the ability for us to expand on a assortment, which we never carried. And now we can carry in limited quantities. I say for a lot of people, who would have imagined that Checkers will be the largest Dyson hair dryer seller in the country. It is -- yes. It was unthinkable a while ago. So if we add all of that and you just think about our big pharma is, of course, we've got our own dreams, but for example, just imagine you leave the doctor's rooms and before you get home or by the time you get home your medicine is already there. That's just to give you an example. So if you just start using your imagination, you will get 100 answers yourself very quickly what we can still do with the platform.

I think, Dino, just to your question around cash flow, what do we define as free cash flow? So it's our EBITDA, where we start off and then from our total operations, then we take into account tax, we take into account our changes in working capital, also our maintenance CapEx. And that's where we got to the ZAR 10.1 billion. I think important to note is that there is a difference or last year, we had the same in terms of how the cutoff work with our trade payables. But that doesn't impact the calculation of our return on invested capital. And I think the big move for us in terms of our return on invested capital came from our reduction as well in how we think about our effective tax rate. So I think hopefully, Dino, that answers your question around that. Then there was just a question around the growth in DHEPS. I think it's important to note that we've also shared it through the results presentation is the impact of the discontinued operations. I think there was a nice slide in unpacking the various changes that we saw within the discontinued operations and the impact it had on our DHEPS number, especially looking at the 2024 results. So I will refer you to that slide. Pieter...

And the point that you made that -- and I'm going to repeat that point is that currently, there's no accounting into DHEPS for the supposed benefit of that sale because we know the profit being made currently in furniture goes into discontinued operations, and/or held for sale. And we haven't received the cash yet, so we're also not earning any interest even if we just did that. I think it's just important that in the modeling that you do that one takes it into account 100% .

That's really all the questions. I don't know if you have maybe a closing comment around the health of the business and what we saw.

Yes, if you push me for that, the one thing I can just say the results that you see today is not a story of one piece of business that's performing well or outperforming. This is -- I can really assure you that all of our business units currently have got great momentum, it's not one piece that's outperforming. It is genuinely a combination of an entire business as we are that has fantastic momentum, if I can leave you with that on a positive note that it's not quickly something that's going to break and then our wheels fall off, the momentum is across the business. And there are some exciting things to come.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thanks to everybody. Thanks for joining us. We really try to emphasize on the points that really makes the difference and differentiates us from our competitors. And what we've tried to put together over the last 9 or 10 years. I hope somehow we landed some of the messages. You're welcome to contact as you all know, Natasha. If there's something else that you would like clarification on, please do not hesitate to contact us. But thanks a lot for your time, and good day to you all. Thank you.