SIG plc (SHI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the SIG Half Year Results. I will now hand over to Gavin Slark. Gavin, over to you.

Hi. Good morning, everybody. Nice to see so many of you here in person. I know it's a busy time, a very, very busy day. And also, welcome to anybody who's watching online. For those of you who don't know, I'm Gavin Slark, I'm the CEO, joined today by Ian Ashton, who is our CFO. We're going to follow now, what I think you'll recognize as a well-trodden path, for this morning a very brief overview from myself, the detail on the financial results from Ian, a little bit of business overview from myself after Ian has finished, and that should leave us time at the end for some reasonable Q&A. So in terms of the overview for the first half of this year, you don't need me to tell you how challenging the markets have been in which we operate. But we are reporting this morning revenue of GBP 1.3 billion with an operating profit of GBP 11.7 million. Primarily, our larger markets have been the weakest when you look at U.K., France and Germany. But we do believe in many of those markets using data that's available to us that we have delivered a robust sales performance relative to the markets in which we operate. We have seen Poland and Ireland showing some growth. They are a little bit further through the cycle for us. And although you might think that Ireland and Poland are relatively small businesses in terms of the SIG Group, which they are, but they still account for almost 20% of our profit in the first half of this year. We have maintained a very disciplined approach in terms of costs and in terms of cash management during the first half of this year. And Ian will talk a little bit more later about the GBP 24 million of cost savings in the first half of this year compared to the first half of last year, which is a very significant impact on the overall performance of the group. And again, Ian will talk more later about our robust liquidity of over GBP 190 million. In terms of actions for operational improvement, we are still investing in the future of the business, and we're still making improvements in what we do. We have commenced more e-commerce development in Germany and in France. We're also taking a lot of actions in terms of margin and in terms of product mix. A lot of that related to private label, a lot of it related to what we're doing in trade counter areas, particularly in the U.K. roofing business and also making sure that we are positioned well for when the markets do turn. Construction and construction products are very cyclical markets. We're very conscious that the markets will turn, and a lot of the actions that we're taking is about making sure that we're in the best possible position for when those markets do turn and constantly looking at measures regarding productivity, regarding margins and regarding costs to make sure that we are absolutely in the box seats going forward. In terms of the detail of the numbers, I'll pass you across now to Ian.

Thanks, Gavin. Good morning, everybody. I hope you're all well. So I'll start with key financial metrics. In H1, we made good progress in what were difficult markets, as noted by Gavin. Group sales were down 7% over the prior year on a like-for-like basis, a resilient result given the further softening in market demand we did see over the period. Gross margin was down by 90 basis points on H1 '23, primarily from pricing pressures in the current market. Those lower sales and gross margin were partially mitigated by a very robust management of operating costs, and this led to an underlying operating profit of GBP 12 million. After finance costs, that resulted in underlying loss before tax of GBP 7 million. And I'll look in more detail in a moment, the key elements within all of those numbers. Below underlying profit, other items were GBP 5 million for the period, comprising mostly restructuring charges of GBP 3 million along with the normal amortization of acquisition intangibles, which was GBP 1 million. And I'll expand on the restructuring in a few minutes. Free cash outflow of GBP 22 million predominantly reflects the usual seasonality of the business with working capital rising from a year-end low to a midyear peak. Net debt did not move much over the last 12 months, very marginally up, as you can see, a positive metric in what has been a tough market backdrop over that time. Leverage has, as expected, risen due to the lower profit. And of course, I'll cover cash and the balance sheet as well in more detail in a few minutes. On the next slide. So revenue, this slide shows the key movements within the group revenue number on the left. And on the right, the trends on volume and price over recent quarters. The GBP 50 million lower volume represents a 3% to 4% year-over-year decline, reflecting the softer markets we've mentioned. Price deflation impact of GBP 46 million reflects a 3% decline from a combination of some modest remaining purchase price deflation and sales pricing pressures. Looking at the recent quarterly trends in volume and price on the right. In short, the rate of volume decline, the green line on here, that we saw last year, has moderated from Q4 '23 due to the comparators, but was still negative year-over-year in H1 '24. We expect that rate of year-over-year volume decline to moderate further in H2, i.e., to very low single digits to flat due to the lapping of increasingly weak comparators. Similarly, on pricing, the dark blue line on here, we were seeing the remaining positive tailwinds from input price inflation in Q3 and into Q4 last year, and pricing has since crossed over into a headwind. This is partly net deflation on input costs in our product mix, with some deflation on commodities, notably steel, slightly outweighing modest and now much more normal levels of price increases in certain of our more core products. And then in addition, in H1, we've, of course, seen some selling price pressure in the current market. Overall, we expect that pricing line to continue to shift upwards in the second half to very low single-digit declines in H2. The gray bars reflect the absolute level of average daily sales over the quarters, i.e., stripping out the effects of shifting comparators. You can see that in Q2, we were up near the levels of the second half of last year. And broadly speaking, we expect those absolute daily sales numbers to continue into H2. So revenue by business. All of our markets with the exception of Poland and Ireland, as Gavin mentioned, were down year-on-year due to the prolonged softness in demand we've mentioned. We do believe, as Gavin said, we're continuing to take share in the vast majority of our markets. One point to note on this table is that we don't adjust our like-for-like numbers for branch closures or openings. U.K. Interiors numbers do include the impact of a small number of closures of underperforming or strategically poorly located branches, which drove about 3% of the total decline in that business in the period. The impact in H1 was mainly from 2 that closed around the turn of the year, with a couple of more recent closures, not really affecting H1, but they will affect H2 slightly. The net 11% decline in that business reflects the difficult backdrop in the U.K. and in those interiors end-market segments in particular. We remain confident the team are making robust decisions in trading off volume and price in the more commoditized elements of the product offering. You can see that U.K. demand across all 3 businesses remained weak, but U.K. roofing in particular, has strong momentum at the moment, and it's performing very well against the market. In France, both businesses are trading well, again, in a difficult market. And again, we have a lot of confidence in our teams there and that they're making the right decisions and trade-offs. Same goes for Germany, which had a 3% decline, is in our view, clearly outperforming the German market by some margin. Poland and Ireland are back to growth. Still early, but these 2 markets are further ahead in the cycle than the others. And our businesses are seeing the benefit. So the profit bridge. This shows the year-over-year drivers of H1 operating profit. The first 2 red bars just show the gross profit impact of those sales movements that I just talked about. And combined, they're obviously the primary driver. The other factor is the -- are the movements on gross margin percentage and movements within operating costs. So a 90 bps dip in gross margin to 24.7% drove the GBP 13 million impact shown here. This does reflect the continuing pricing pressure across most markets, which is inevitable in this demand environment. And we do remain satisfied with how the businesses are handling that and the trade-offs involved and making sure that we emerge from this low point in the cycle well placed to grow gross margin in the future. Moving across. The GBP 7 million inflation within our operating cost was back towards more normal levels based on historical averages after the more extreme increases we saw in '22 and '23. Employee costs are around half of the total OpEx and rose around 3% to 4%, which accounts for 80% of that GBP 7 million. And finally, as Gavin mentioned, we've made an underlying saving of GBP 24 million on OpEx versus the prior year, a material number, and I'll touch on that in greater detail on the next slide. So overall, we delivered GBP 12 million of -- in H1. And overall, I'd just say on this slide, you can see clearly the drop-through impact, that lower revenue has in our business model with a branch network-oriented cost base that's primarily people, branch estate costs and fleet. And of course, that leverage works that way, too, and will do so when volumes recover, but benefiting a more efficient and effective business than we had a couple of years ago. So on efficiency and productivity, some more detail on those OpEx actions I mentioned. So restructuring on the left-hand side, we talked at the '23 full-year results of delivering GBP 10 million of permanent annualized savings through actions taken to that point. That's all well on track and delivering the benefits as expected. And we've since initiated additional initiatives. In H1, we identified a further GBP 5 million of annualized savings through headcount reductions and branch restructuring, which will bring the cumulative annualized benefit to GBP 15 million, as shown on the left-hand side. The P&L benefit from this was roughly GBP 6 million in H1 over prior year with another GBP 6 million to come in H2, with very round numbers, GBP 2 million having already benefited H2 '23 and the small remaining balance to benefit in '25. The cost to deliver that GBP 15 million is around GBP 12 million to GBP 13 million, with GBP 6 million of cash spent to date, of which about half was in H1 '24, the other half at the back end of last year. The balance yet to be incurred, most will be spent in H2 of this year and a small amount left into 2025. Around GBP 1 million of the total cost is noncash. And Gavin will give a bit more color on -- more of the specifics behind this in a few minutes. Looking to the right-hand side of this slide. That restructuring, i.e., the savings requiring one-off spend to deliver them, has been just 1 element of our cost-saving initiatives. As I've mentioned already, and as you can see on the right-hand side here, before inflation of around GBP 7 million, we took GBP 24 million out of our reported operating costs compared to H1 last year. And there's 4 elements within that. Firstly, the restructuring just mentioned, roughly GBP 6 million year-over-year. Secondly, reduced headcount. We're managing the natural churn we always have in the business, i.e., delaying or canceling the replacement of leavers. Thirdly, other OpEx initiatives, notably more disciplined management of our delivery fleet, primarily in the U.K. and Germany. And finally, and probably the least impactful on OpEx, the lower volumes that we've seen. So to cash. In the appendix, we've included the usual slide showing the details of the cash flow and net debt. This slide here focuses on the key drivers of free cash flow starting at EBITDA. In short, we reported a GBP 22 million outflow in free cash or GBP 3 million in operating cash before interest and tax. The first and largest item on here, lease payments in our fleet and estate, was largely stable. It will grow slightly over time with the business, as we've said before, not least with inflation, but it's a relatively stable number. CapEx of GBP 8 million was in line with normal trends of recent years. In working capital, the usual H1, H2 seasonality drove that GBP 8 million cash outflow, but that seasonality impact was mitigated by solid management of the key working capital levers. In fact, as you can see, working capital has dropped steadily as a percentage of sales over the last couple of years. GBP 4 million of cash exceptions in the period relates primarily to the restructuring actions that I just mentioned. And then after operating cash, we have interest and tax. Of that GBP 19 million shown there, GBP 18 million was interest, roughly 40% of which relates to our bond and the rest to leases. Cash tax was negligible in the Half and will be more H2 weighted. And I'll cover the forward view of those numbers in the technical guidance. Just turning to the balance sheet. A reminder of our financing position and debt profile. In short, we have good liquidity and funding at good rates with maturity dates in 2026. Looking at the left-hand side, liquidity is healthy at GBP 191 million. The RCF of GBP 90 million was undrawn at the period end, as you can see, and remains undrawn today. Gross cash was around GBP 100 million. In the middle of the slide, net debt finished the half at a fairly similar level to H1 '23. Our reported leverage increased in H1 due to the lower EBITDA, as we'd expect, to 4.3x. On the right, just to recap the terms of our current financing arrangements. In short, we have 5.25% fixed rate debt via our bond until late '26, and the RCF terms are shown here. Of course, we are and will be working through the options for optimal refinancing over the next 6 to 12 months, and we'll advise on that once we have something concrete to report. Finally, technical guidance, on product costs, we've seen slight deflation aggregate of H1, as I mentioned. And if anything, we'd expect that impact to decrease in H2. OpEx inflation will as always remain a factor, but we expect this to remain at the more normal levels we saw in H1 compared to those elevated levels we saw over the last couple of years. We're now guiding to a slightly lower number for '24, as we manage the more discretionary aspects of this. I should add that the lower end of that updated range is to be similar to our run rate of recent years. Interest is unchanged at around GBP 40 million for the year. On tax, as reported previously, we have assets in the U.K. and Benelux, which we don't expect to pay corporation tax there for some time. We do have tax liabilities in our other operating companies. Given this mix and the fact we don't yet recognize the U.K. tax assets from an accounting perspective, our underlying effective tax rate, as I think you know, is distorted and not very meaningful. It's more helpful, I think, to guide to a P&L number, which I expect to be in mid- to high single-digit millions of pounds for this year. Our cash tax for 2024 will be lower than I guided in March, now in the GBP 11 million to GBP 13 million range shown here, and all -- about GBP 1 million of that will be paid in H2 just due to the way the phasing works this year, notably in Germany. And as I've mentioned before, the German payments this year include an element of catch-up of the last couple of years in line with local regulations. That concludes my update. In summary, while the tough markets continue, the business is managing through these headwinds well. We're taking the actions that will help both the short and longer term and really keep me focused on just improving and strengthening the business. And with that, I'll hand it back to Gavin.

Thanks, Ian. Appreciate that. Just very briefly, actually, just on that photograph we've got there. You can see one of our colleagues in France, working with a product called Irondel. Irondel is actually one of our private labels that we have within the trade counter area in France. I'll just touch a little bit more on private label in just a moment. It's a really important part of our story going forward and certainly in terms of managing margins. This slide, many of you will recognize, it's a bit of an old favorite, but really, it's just to show that geographic breakdown of the operating profit across the group. You'll see even in the first half of this year, 40% of the profit being driven from France, almost 30% from the U.K., just under 15% in Germany, but you'll see there that important contribution from Ireland and from Poland, where the markets are definitely improving. Again, just a reminder, in France, we trade under 2 brands, Lariviere being our roofing business and LiTT being the Interiors business, whereas in the U.K., we actually trade as SIG Interiors, SIG Roofing. And then we have a number of brands within the Specialist Markets division, a couple of which I'll touch on within the next few slides. In terms of the overall revenue performance, I think it's just helpful to look here, hopefully trying to give you just an at-a-glance view of where the revenue sits across the group. And you'll see that from a revenue perspective, the U.K. Interiors business is still the largest business that we have within the group. One of the things I think that's really interesting about the different dimensions that we have, even within the U.K. So if you look at U.K. Interiors at GBP 250 million of revenue, that is from 30 locations across the U.K., whereas if you look at U.K. Roofing at GBP 180 million of revenue, that's from over 100 locations. So very, very different business dynamics. 55% of the Interiors business is nonresidential, whereas in the Roofing business, 85% of what we do there is into the residential market, and about 40% of that is into new build. So even within the U.K., you'll see there's quite different dynamics that affect different parts of the overall group. If you look at the U.K. Roofing business, which is one of the better performers this year, what's also quite interesting there is by value, about 1/3 of the revenue in that business is collected by the customers at a branch level, which obviously gives us the ability to work much harder in terms of trade counter areas, how we can merchandise those trade counters, how we can impact the margin with higher margin pickup lines. And actually, the work that we've done on the trade counters in that business over the past 18 months really starting to pay off because those collections from the trade counters in U.K. Roofing are actually 10% higher in the first half this year than they were in the first half last year. And again, you'll see from that slide just very briefly there, just the fact that Poland and Ireland both into positive territory compared to the first half of 2023. If you look at the operating margins and profit, again, I think it's quite interesting. If you look at the 2 businesses at the top of the chart there, being France Roofing and U.K. Roofing, both of those in hot competition as to who would be the biggest profit earner in the group within the first half of the year, but both at GBP 4.9 million. But interesting that our 2 largest profit-makers are both of our roofing businesses in those core larger markets. I think what's also interesting there is we've left there the target margins that we laid out at the Capital Markets event last year. So you can see the direction of travel that we're hoping to take over the medium term and still very much holding on to those targets and the overall 5% operating margin target that we have for the group. To be clear, to get to that 5% margin target, we will need volume recovery in the market. But as Ian mentioned earlier, the operational gearing within the group is actually very strong. So as we start to see volume coming back, we should see a disproportionate benefit to the operating profit line once those volumes start to recover. At the Capital Markets event, we did launch our GEMS strategy, so Grow, Execute, Modernize and Specialize. And really just trying to give you some ideas here of some of the work that we have been doing and some of the progress that we have been making in some of these areas. I think if you look at Grow, when we talked about Grow at the Capital Markets event, what we actually spoke about was growth in excess of the market rates. And particularly in Germany and in the U.K. Roofing market, we've made really good progress there relative to the market. In terms of the execution and managing the cost base and looking at restructuring, as Ian mentioned earlier on, some quite significant OpEx savings compared to the first half of 2023. The overall headcount is around 250 lower than it was during the first half of last year. That is impacted by some branch closures, some of that sadly through redundancy programs and some of that is through the nonrefilling and nonbackfilling of vacancies through natural churn. In terms of modernization, I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later on, but really focusing on the use of technology and our omnichannel development as we go through the business. And then in specialization, one of the things that we're really keen to grow and to develop is that U.K. Specialist Markets business, which you'll notice from the previous slide is also one of the higher-margin businesses that we see going forward. But also in the first half of this year, significant progress in our solar offerings in both the French and the U.K. Roofing business and where we see roofing contractors really getting involved now in the installation of solar. In terms of longer-term sort of opportunities for us, the housing shortage across Europe really impacting every one of our major markets. And we continue to look at the decarbonization of the built environment, the fact that we do have an aging housing stock in the U.K. and in different European territories, and also, what is being driven by legislation in terms of building safety and building performance in terms of decarbonization. And very broadly, if you look at those 2 circles on the right-hand side, what you'll see there is our business is broadly split 50% residential, 50% nonresidential, and again, a broad split of 50-50 between new build and RMI. And we see that spread of business and those long-term drivers within our market as being core strengths of SIG going forward. If you look at what we termed under growth, and the way that our businesses are performing ahead of the market, just a few examples there of some of the work that we have been doing to make sure that we are developing and putting ourselves in the right position going forward, again, particularly Germany and U.K. Roofing. I appreciate some of those pictures and panels on the right hand side are quite difficult to read, just looking at the screen there. But one of the examples that we have got there is an app-based solar calculator for our roofing contractor customers which really starts to make it very easy for them to work out how many panels and what kind of installation they would need on certain buildings. And we do use interactive Google Maps on that system as well. So it's a really dynamic and really good system for our customers to use. Also, you'll see there where it says coming soon to Bamber Bridge. We have a new branch in Bamber Bridge, which actually opened just this week. So still investing in the future, still making sure that the infrastructure in the business is right going forward. And I am very confident now that we've really seen a cultural shift away from just volume at any cost, but really carefully managing that tradeoff between volume and between price and making sure that we're not just chasing volume at any price, but really trying to manage where we are in terms of volume, where we are in terms of margin and putting us in a better position going forward. In terms of the execution of the plan, one of the things that we have seen there is obviously the cost savings as we've gone through. And what we have done is we've tried to make sure that we've taken the cost out with the least possible impact in terms of face-to-face with our customers. So we have reduced the central corporate team. We have really focused on the central overheads in the individual businesses and try to look at the nonreplacement of leavers before really getting into significant redundancy programs. You'll notice from the right-hand side there that we have got branch closures that we have seen in the first half of this year. We anticipate closing 2 or 3 more during the second half of this year, bringing us to around about 10 branch closures in total. And those branch closures do impact in the U.K., in France and in Germany. But these are branches where we've gone through with the geographic management teams and looking at branches that have either been significantly and perennially underperforming or strategically don't quite fit, and we can overlay them with other nearby branches. But we are constantly looking at opportunities for cost efficiency and for productivity. And it's not a case of looking at the results for the first half of this year and believing that we've reached the end point, every time you assess where you've got to, you go again and you look for consistent improvement in the execution of the plan. In terms of modernization, those of you who followed SIG for the past few years will remember that we've spoken quite openly about our omnichannel process within the Polish business, where we've seen significant improvements in the Polish business on the back of that. That omnichannel system within the Polish business generally gives us a higher share of wallet of the customers -- who the customers are using it. And also gives us a higher penetration of private label products, so a very, very well-proven system. During the first half of this year, supported by the team that launched the process in Poland, we've now successfully piloted that system in Germany. And during the second half of this year, we'll see that full rollout of the German system. In conjunction, at the same time as that, we've been working on getting the pilot ready for the French omnichannel process. As we fully launch Germany during the second half, we'll be doing the pilot during the second half in France and having that ready for its full launch in Q1 of 2025. Now moving on from Poland to Germany to France, as you can imagine, that process gets more and more efficient every time we move on to a new business. So a significant point of modernization and a significant point of investing for our future business going forward. In terms of specialization, we do see the long-term opportunity here, driven by some regulatory factors, and irrespective of which country you're in, almost every government that we see now talking across our European markets is talking about that long-term undersupply of housing stock, which irrespective of how different governments address it, has to be positive for the construction market, and therefore, by default, positive for businesses like ourselves that operate within the construction markets -- the construction product sector. One of the things that you'll see on the right-hand side there, opposite the U.K. piece there is the 60 products that we've got under development. And just to be clear, these are within our businesses that primarily operate in manufacturing and fabrication of specialist product, which in the medium term, we see as a much better long-term margin opportunity. So if you look at the specialist products, and I appreciate some of these businesses I'm going to name now I'm sure you probably won't have heard of, but it will give you something to Google later on. But if you look at fire-stopping solutions, we have a couple of businesses that really specialize in fire-stopping solutions. So we have a business called Mayplas, which is in the north. We have a business called AIM, which is based down by Gatwick, and they are developing specialist fire-stopping products specifically to be used in the new build market. Similarly, we have an acoustics business, which is called CMS Danskin. And in CMS, we're developing to work alongside new building rate regulations, but specifically for new build acoustic products there as well. So even though that new build market has been a little bit softer in the U.K., we're constantly working on that new product development to make sure that when that market does pick up, we've got those higher margin opportunities going forward. In terms of the French business, I'm sure everyone appreciates that the French political situation is somewhat complex as we stand here today. The positive for us is that all of the parties involved in France, again, recognize the undersupply of housing as being a really important factor for them going forward. We have put a new dedicated solar warehouse very near our office in Angers to make sure that we can support the solar business in France, which, again, is really important for us. And we're also working with some suppliers of some quite innovative products. So for instance, one of the things that we're working on in France at the moment is an insulation product that is actually made from recycled plastic bottles. So really trying to push those sustainability credentials with our customer base and making sure that we're right at the cutting edge of that product development as they continue to move forward. But overall, in terms of specialization, we do see that specialization in a number of our businesses as being a core strength going forward. So in terms of looking at the results and the summary and the outlook, I think in terms of the first half of 2024, as we mentioned earlier, a very sustained market weakness. Certainly not the market position we would have anticipated if you would have asked us 12 months ago. But in our larger markets of the U.K., France and Germany, very difficult operating environment. And that margin certainly being impacted by a volume decline in the market, but partially being offset by the cost actions that we're taking and really disciplined management in terms of cost and in terms of cash. In terms of the full year for 2024, we're not changing our guidance at all. Underlying operating profit when we guided the market a few weeks ago to between GBP 20 million and GBP 30 million of underlying operating profit, we're not changing that guidance. That is very much where we see the business going. And certainly, in the short to medium term, we anticipate our focus being very much on managing margins and managing costs across the business to make sure that we're coping as well as we possibly can with that softer market demand. In the medium to longer term, still very much we see that 5% margin target as being really important for us. And as Ian mentioned earlier on, that operational gearing that we've seen had a detrimental impact in the business over the past few months. We see that as a positive going forward. Operational gearing always works both ways, and we should see disproportionate benefit from that as the markets start to recover. And also, of course, we see, as we go forward, that significant opportunity for generating shareholder value, but also for creating a great environment for our colleagues to work in because everything that we can do that we talk about today, it's the 7,000 colleagues across the group that deliver that on a daily basis. That concludes our presentation. It does leave us plenty of time for Q&A.

We're going to start with Q&A within the room. If you have a question, what I'd like you to do is to raise your hand, we'll bring a handheld microphone to you, which obviously we need for the webcast. Once you've got the microphone, if you can give us your name and the organization that you represent, then ask your question. And then, we shall move on to any questions that we may have online at the end of the session. But I think as he's been really keen and trying to get his hand up 3 times already, we'll go with Aynsley down on the front row to start with.

Aynsley Lammin from Investec. I think I've got 3 questions. Just firstly, coming back to the operational leverage comment you made, obviously, a very significant leverage there as volumes recover. But as you've taken out costs, I just want to understand that most of -- if you saw volumes come back, there's enough capacity in the business for at least 12 months, 18 months or actually most of gross margin just pull through. Is that the right way to be looking at it? You're going to have to kind of increase any cost at the branch level. And then secondly, just on bad debts, any kind of change in trends there, given we're seeing weaker trade in? And thirdly, just on the balance sheet and the RCF, I think I just wanted to confirm, really, as you saw -- if you assume volumes come back over the next 6 to 12 months, you're very comfortable to fund working capital and you would be comfortably trading within those covenants and beyond.

So if I pick up the sort of cost points, I'll let Ian pick up on the bad debts and the RCF, so one of the things that we're very conscious of within the business, Aynsley, is we have a high level of what we would term fixed cost, fixed cost being property leases and vehicle leases, very difficult to move. So I think in terms of physical capacity, in terms of buildings and in terms of vehicles, we have got the physical capacity to take significantly more volume than we're taking right now. At some point, you then have to reintroduce headcount in terms of people to either drive the trucks or move the product. But I think as we see the market recover, we can recover volumes, and we can recover the market and drive significantly without having to put that people cost back in at anything like the rate that we've taken it out.

Yes. Okay, bad debts. I mean the short answer is no, we haven't seen any big increase in bad debts despite the state of the markets. And I think we obviously manage that extremely diligently, and I think effectively. So we're not at all complacent about it, but certainly to date, we've seen no sort of big spike in bad debts and not sort of foreseeing any. In terms of RCF, working capital, et cetera, yes, we're comfortable over the foreseeable future, we have GBP 190 million of liquidity. That RCF is obviously still undrawn today. We have plenty of cash and liquidity, so -- and we do have obviously spikes in working capital in intra-month, but we have ample to deal with that.

Okay. If we just go to Charlie behind Aynsley just to make logistics easier, then we'll cross over after Charlie.

Charlie Campbell at Stifel. So I've got sort of -- just a couple, actually. Just wondering in the big picture, just how important sort of the recladding work that we're seeing in the housebuilding industry is to you? Because it seems there's a lot more where that came from and maybe the rate of that is picking up. So just be interested to hear on that. And then secondly, you highlighted U.K. Roofing as a business that has done well, and yet clearly, market there is pretty challenging, as we all understand. So I just wonder if you could give us some ideas on where the outperformance in U.K. Roofing comes from? And then, sorry, there is a third one. Just on inventory, clearly, there's some deflation going on, which maybe is not totally apparent in the inventory number. Is that just because the things where you've seen most deflation, the turn is quickest, and therefore, it's actually quite a small part of the inventory. Is that what I'm missing there?

Okay. I'll let Ian pick up the inventory point at the end. Sorry, we're just caught a little bit when you said Charlie Campbell, Stifel, it still takes a bit of getting used to, Charlie. In terms of the recladding work, it's relatively small for us, Charlie. It's a business that the group used to be involved in more than what it is now. But if you look at our Interiors business, that's predominantly interiors. And in the U.K., our Roofing business is predominantly roofing. So it's a relatively small part and certainly not something that we would build as a major part of our business plan over the coming years. It's quite a specialized market that we don't really operate in, in a significant way now. In terms of the U.K. Roofing market, and why are we doing so well there, I think one of the things that we have there is a real competitive advantage of being a genuine roofing specialist. And I think if you look at the inventory that we carry and the products that we offer, whether they're clay, whether it's concrete, whether it's slate and absolutely on pitch flat on solar, I mean, we are a genuine specialist in terms of roofing. I also think that Chris, who's the Managing Director of that business, over the past 18 months really has driven very hard the work around the trade counter areas. So when I said by value, around about 30% of our business was collected in the Roofing business. Actually, by transaction number, more than 80% of the business is collected. So that trade counter area making sure we've got better merchandise trade counter's private label product driving the performance there. The guys have done a really, really good job there, which is an opportunity that we probably don't have within the U.K. Interiors business because the profile there is quite different.

I think on inventory -- I mean, obviously, when volumes and pricing are still going down, it's a bit of a countercyclical benefit there from a cash perspective. It's not -- you're not missing anything. There's no great difference in terms of inventory turns on those products that are seeing deflation versus those that aren't. It's not -- there's no great difference. And so it's not a huge driver of that, frankly. We are just seeing that slight benefit from lower volumes generally.

Ami Galla from Citi. A few questions from me. The first one was on France. Given the market weakness there, can you give us some color as to what is the competitor positioning, how difficult that is in terms of underlying trading competitively? And any color on what's happening to gross margin in that market? The second one was on the sort of short-term trading so far. Would you call out any one-off factors in terms of bad weather or elections having an influence on the trading so far which could potentially be a small tailwind in the second half? And the last one, more into 2025, given some of the late -- sort of later build stage nature of your product categories, and we are probably still in the early innings of the recovery cycle potentially in some of the markets, how much do you think market will help you in terms of volume next year? Or do we still face a slightly more tougher backdrop next year even though the broader market would be in a recovery phase?

Okay. Good questions. If I work backwards, so just in terms of is the market going to help us in 2025, I think one of the things to recognize about our principal business is in terms of Interiors and in terms of Roofing is we are relatively late cycle, particularly in terms of residential build. So whereas I think the market will start to recover during 2025, I'm just conscious that we are a little bit late cycle there and may not see the same early benefit as, say, a brick manufacturer or a concrete manufacturer. I think it's a slightly different profile. In terms of the short term and how things like elections and weather impacted our business, it's always great when you talk to the guys in the business because if it's raining, it's too wet; if it's sunny, it's too warm; if it's icy, it's too cold. So I'm sure for some of our customer base there is a really narrow window of about 3 degrees of dry weather that is perfect building. But I don't think it's been significant. And I think if anything, following the election, there's probably a little bit more positive sentiment around as opposed to anything concrete. Do you want to pick up on France? Or do you want me to carry on?

I mean I think the question is in terms of competition in France. I mean, it's sort of similar to the other markets in that obviously, it's intense in both LiTT and Lariviere, the sort of interiors and the roofing. We have one big competitor there in terms of Saint-Gobain. So that's sort of particularly big player, which is -- we don't have elsewhere. But I think we're very happy that both of those businesses, they're very well-run businesses. They compete very well. I do think the margin pressures, particularly in Interiors are -- have been more intense. And that, as we both alluded to, those trade-offs they're making on a daily basis, much as in the U.K. Interiors business, they're having to make every day those volumes versus pricing decisions. It's pretty intense in the French Interiors business, but we have a very good management team there, and I think they're doing a very effective job in managing that.

I also think as we look at France from the outside, you look at the sort of political situation, I think it's going to be a really difficult country politically for some time to come, our own management team within France have a slightly more positive view on that French market in terms of they believe the market still has to continue to function. So the truth is probably in between there somewhere. I did let -- yes, if we work our way back, if we...

Christen Hjorth from DB Numis. 2 for me. Firstly, just on the refinancing and the secured senior notes. You're probably a bit closer to that market than I am. So I was just wondering, if you look at it today, to what extent could you refinance on the same terms, same quantum, et cetera? And then the second one just on Benelux, for potentially 5 years of EBIT losses, what, if anything, would prompt a more strategic review of that business?

Okay. I'll pick up Benelux, and I'll let Ian talk about the refi. There's operational plans in place in terms of Benelux. We've got a new management team there. So the managing director has been in for less than 12 months. The finance director has only been in for 6 months. And they've got operational plans, Christen, that I think we'll see a significant improvement in that business performance as we go into 2025. I appreciate it's relatively small. But obviously, the financial impact of its losses are disproportionate in terms of where it is from a sales perspective. So very, very confident as we go into '25, we will see a significantly improved performance from that Benelux business on the back of the new management team being in place.

And on the bond, so where that's trading, it's about an 8% yield. I mean, it moves around a bit, let's call it, 8% to 9% typically. So obviously, higher than the 5.25% we're paying. You can read into that what you will. There's no -- it's not guarantee of any means that we would sort of replace it like-for-like. But hypothetically, if we did, then frankly, we would expect to be paying a bit more than 5.25% certainly.

I saw a hand up just at the very back there, and then, we'll cross back over on to this side once we've done there.

Ben Varrow from RBC. I'll do 3, please. I mean, just the first one, you mentioned a few times relative outperformance across a few markets. Can you give a bit more detail on that, kind of how you're assessing that? Is that market share gains? Second is on volumes. Could you give a bit of context where they stand versus, say, 2019? And assuming if they do get back to that level, where do you think the margin would sit at currently? And last, on divestments, is that -- is it still very much a case of getting those couple of businesses up to where you think they should be before assessing any potential divestments?

Okay. I'll let Ian pick up on the sort of volumes going back to 2019. In terms of the outperformance, the one thing I would say is there isn't a single data point that gives us all of our markets and across all of our businesses. So we do take a number of different data points internally and then look at our own specific sort of product specializations. So certainly, if you look at U.K. Roofing, certainly, if you look at the German market, we are very confident with the data points that we have that we're outperforming those markets. But it is very difficult to put all of those data points on a slide because we have to take that data and then we have to look at it compared to our own businesses. But certainly, I think in terms of U.K. Roofing, again, a quite chunky outperformance compared to the market. Your point on divestments, look, I think portfolio management is an important part of any company, but I think we've been quite open now for a while and said our single most important aim in the medium term is to improve the performance of the businesses that we have. So when you look at the 2 businesses as an example that we showed that made a loss in the first half of this year, I think we've just answered the point in terms of Benelux. Similarly, with U.K. Interiors, there is absolutely a plan where we believe we can see a significant uptick in the performance of that business going into 2025. There's a lot of elements to that plan. But I think divestments right now, I mean, it wouldn't be a great time to sell anything if you wanted to sell something. But our focus is absolutely on improving the performance of the businesses that we have. And even if you look at, say, something like U.K. Interiors, where if you go back to the Capital Markets event, we talked about the medium-term margin target there only being 3% as opposed to the group being 5%. But if you look at a bit of volume recovery in U.K. Interiors, you look at the market coming back, if that business was making 3% on GBP 500 million to GBP 600 million of revenue, well, suddenly, it's contributing GBP 15 million to GBP 20 million of profit and significantly changes the group outlook. So our focus is absolutely on improving what we've got right now.

Okay. And on the question on volume, I think if you'd asked about a year ago, we said that volumes were broadly similar at that point to where they were in 2019. So now kind of slightly down on where they were at that point. And the margin would be better, clearly. And I think you can sort of do the math on sort of what margin improvement we get on additional volumes. And I guess the other point, just thinking of 2019, when you think about where the business was, I mean that was -- it was pre-COVID, but it was for SIG, particularly the U.K. business and Germany, we're really kind of suffering there and from some strategic missteps. So I think if you look at those 2 businesses, and others, frankly, across the group, they're in much, much better shape now. So when those volumes do come up back to 2019 and beyond, I think we're in very good shape to actually take advantage of that.

Brilliant. If we can just cross back over and work our way down towards the front again.

[ Hassan Mahmood ] from [ Fidera ]. Thanks for that, Gavin and Ian. So 2 questions mainly. Just on the cost savings point. So you've put that -- you've saved GBP 24 million net operating cost savings for the first half. But if you take away inflation, FX, basically GBP 19 million. Is that GBP 19 million cost savings? Is that reflected in the current free cash flow? First question. And if it isn't, then what do we expect free cash flow burn to be for the end of the year? Is it going to be GBP 40 million for the full year? And then secondly, just on some of the speculation around another equity raise process, if you wouldn't mind commenting on that and whether that is still a possibility.

Okay. So in terms of the costs, is it -- are they in the cash flow? I mean, yes, most of those savings that we've made in the first half are in the cash flow already. There's more savings of the GBP 15 million sort of restructuring benefits. And some of the other -- some of the other initiatives we've got will benefit H2 further. So to your question about full-year cash, and we're not sort of guiding on a specific number, but just to sort of help you with that, the working capital was an outflow in H1, which it pretty much always is, and then that reverses in the second half, so that will be a positive. And cash tax, as I mentioned, that's sort of disproportionately weighted towards H2 this year as it happens. So -- but I think the short answer is you can't just take the H1 cash burn and assume that, that -- double that for the full year because there are sort of other factors in play. Yes. And in terms of -- I mean, in terms of the recent media story, that was obviously speculation. As we mentioned in the statement, obviously, the Board is -- as you would expect, we're sort of considering the options for optimal refinancing as far ahead of the maturities as is appropriate. And once we've got anything to say on that, then we will do so.

Thank you. Sam, did you have your hand up? You did? And then, we'll cross back over. I'm conscious you did have your hand up earlier.

Yes. Sorry, Sam Cullen from Peel Hunt. Just got 1 really. Just on the 2 smaller specialist businesses you mentioned. How big are those markets? And what sort of investment you need to make, if any, to grow those businesses over the medium term?

Overall, our Specialist Markets business in the U.K. is around about GBP 230 million, GBP 240 million of revenue for us. So we don't have what I would call a significant market share in those markets. So I think we've got significant room for growth. In terms of investment needed to sort of -- with to bring that growth to fruition, there are a couple of specialist roles that we haven't had. I think we need to think more as a manufacturer and make sure that we can get our own products specified, make sure that we're getting into the architecture, that we're getting into the plans early. Physical investment is relatively low. We're pretty well invested in terms of those manufacturing and fabrication businesses, but we do need to think a little bit more as a proper manufacturer than that specification sales route. And those are things that we're working on now. But that's why we're pretty confident, Sam, around those medium-term margins in that business because we don't need to spend significant money on them. And also, even in terms of the manufacturing and fabrication plants themselves, in the context of what we have across the group, even if we have to put extra machines in, they are relatively low cost compared to putting a brand-new branch or a brand-new factory on the ground. So pretty comfortable there with both the growth potential and that we don't need to spend a huge amount of money on them. Just conscious, we've got one more over here.

Toby Thorrington, Equity Development. I did have 3, but if you're not giving year-end net debt guidance, I'll skip that one. So should we be expecting gross margin to improve in the second half and materially absent volume increases into FY '25, would you say? And otherwise, nonfinancial, can you update us on the omnichannel strategy, timing, test rollout, et cetera, for the U.K., please?

Okay. So in terms of omni-channel, I'll let Ian pick up on margins in a minute. We'll just work backwards. So one thing to bear in mind is we do have some online capability and sales capability in the U.K. It's not as if we don't have anything. But I think what we are seeing from the processes that we've seen in Poland, what we've seen in early testing in Germany, it's a different level of system compared to what we have. So I think the way that, that timeframe would go as we go through the pilot in France in the first half of 2025, that's when we'll start working on the infrastructure, particularly for U.K. Roofing, which I think is the business that will probably benefit from at the most. And then hopefully, as we get to the second half of 2025, and we start the rollout in France, that's when we'll start the pilot in terms of the U.K. But we do have an online capability in the U.K. now. That's just -- the system we've developed in Poland that we're rolling out in France and Germany is just significantly better.

Sorry, can you give us some indication of relative benefits from continental European to some person in U.K.?

Yes. I mean, genuinely, I'm not going to put specific numbers on it, but we are seeing genuinely a greater share of wallet in terms of the customers who are there. We're seeing a better level of gross margin on the omnichannel system. One of the things that generally happens with anyone who's trading online, if you've got -- if, Ian, the builder is standing at my trade counter, he will inevitably try and haggle over the price because that's just part of the DNA of most of our construction customers. If you're buying online, it's very difficult to haggle on price because the price is there. So we are genuinely seeing a greater share of wallet. We generally see a better margin, and it also gives us the ability to really promote higher-margin private label products as opposed to some of the other products there. So it's a really important part of that margin story over the next 3 to 5 years, but we need to make sure that we are doing it in bite-size chunks in that we can manage it properly, hence, that rollout of Poland to Germany to France to the U.K.

Okay. Gross margin, so I think H2 this year, I wouldn't expect a huge amount of movement, no great improvement in the margin, but we certainly expect it to be sort of relatively stable. I think beyond that, clearly, improving the gross margin is an important part of getting to 5% and beyond over time. And some of the things that we've been talking about today, like in the Specialist Markets, some of those more niche products, so product mix is a driver. And I think the discipline around pricing the business, which is a lot better now, I think, in a more sort of normal demand environment will also benefit us disproportionately. So we certainly see gross margin improvement over the sort of medium term, but maybe not in the second half.

We've got one more right down the front here.

Rosalind Dalton, ICG. I just wanted to get an insight as to whether or not you think you've kind of hit the trough in terms of performance. And what you're kind of currently seeing in the marketplace at the moment, already trending into August, and how you expect it? I appreciate you're not going to give specific numbers, but an idea as to whether or not we're kind of there is helpful.

Okay. In terms of calling the bottom of the market, it's always difficult. But -- I mean, I -- sadly I'm old enough to remember going all the way back sort of post the global financial crisis. And actually, the trough lasted longer then than I think people thought it was going to. We kind of bumped along the bottom for quite a while. So what I would say with where we are now is we're not seeing significant sort of volume degradation on where we were now. So I would like to think that we are at or near or bumping around the bottom. The one thing I would say from experience is the bottom is never really a flat line. You will always get something that sort of falls off and then it picks up. I think anything, as I said earlier, that sort of you can see from government stimulus that helps the construction market, has got to be a positive. But I think we should also be realistic and realize that anything the government say or do isn't going to have an impact in September or October. Those are much more sort of medium-term benefits for us. But I think we have a very high degree of confidence. But if you look at the markets in which we operate, the positions that we have in those markets, as we see those markets start to recover and volume come back, that we absolutely will see disproportionate impact in terms of profit. So very difficult to sit here and say I'm absolutely calling the bottom, but I think we are there or thereabouts. I think that was -- we've got one more in the room, sorry, and we just need to check if we've got any online questions before we wind up. But we're good.

It's Harry Sugiarto from ICG. You mentioned earlier about, I guess, not a great time to be divesting businesses, but we see clearly a very difficult marketplace. How do you and the Board think about strategic initiatives on the other side? And I guess there's a lot going on internally, but how do you think about external opportunities? And then how does that play into balance sheet structure and the optimal refinancing that's mentioned in the results?

Yes. I mean we've not done M&A for 18 months, more now, more like a couple of years. I don't think it's on the immediate horizon. I think it's fair to say. But clearly, because of all the reasons we've talked about, there's a lot to focus on within the business. But clearly, medium, long-term, there are opportunities there. And when the time is right, and we're well placed to do it, then we'd certainly look to do the right M&A, but it's not on the near-term horizon.

Yes. The focus is very much improving what we've got as opposed to either divesting or looking at bringing anything else into the group. I think we've got lots of opportunity with the businesses that we have within the group. I'm just asking the question, have we had any questions that's come in via the phone line or online?

Yes, Gavin. We have one question come through online. And that question is, what is the strategy to turn around the U.K. Interiors business?

Okay. Good question. I think there's a few things there. And I'm sure, as you would expect, some of it is commercially sensitive. I think one of the things that I would say is the -- of all the businesses that we have, the fixed cost base within that U.K. Interiors business is one of the more challenged that we have. And we're working really hard looking at the fixed cost base there. We're also looking at how we operate in terms of the branches within the U.K., the products that we're offering, what have we got in terms of opportunity for mix. Because the significant product group within that U.K. Interiors business being plasterboard and being insulation, fundamentally, they are higher volume but lower-margin products, and we really need to improve the mix in those businesses as well. So I think it's a combination of have we got the best possible cost base that we can work with and what can we do with the products that we have, what other products can we bring in to impact the mix, to impact the margin, to make sure that we're in a good position when volumes increase that we're not just increasing the lower-margin products, but also getting a better quality of mix as we go forward. Okay. That was the last question we had online. So almost exactly to the moment, the 1 hour that we planned. So thank you, everyone, who's attended in the room. Great to see you. Thank you for those who followed online, and we look forward to speaking to you all soon, and have a great summer. Thank you.

Thank you.