Super Retail Group Limited (SUL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the FY '25 Half Year Results Presentation for Super Retail Group. Today's presentation will be made by the Group's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr. Anthony Heraghty; and it's Chief Financial Officer, Mr. David Burns. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This call is for investors only. Media wishing to obtain access to management should contact Kate Carini, GM, Corporate Affairs, whose contact details appear on today's ASX announcement. I would now like to hand over to Mr. Anthony Heraghty to begin today's presentation.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, and welcome, everyone, to Super Retail Group's half year results presentation. I'll begin by speaking to some of our financial and operating highlights for the period before discussing the performance of each of the brands. And our Chief Financial Officer, David Burns, who's joining me here this morning. Good morning, David.

Good morning, Anthony.

Will provide you with more detail on the half year results financials. I'll then provide the trading update for the second half. And of course, as always, there's an opportunity for all of you to ask questions at the end of the call. So the group faced a more challenging retail environment in the first half of year '25. Consumers being more careful with their spending, most notably for us in New Zealand. There's been inflated competitive and promotional intensity across the various pockets of our business and ongoing stubborn inflationary pressure on our key lines of cost of doing business. In short, we faced a more cautious consumer, a more aggressive competitive set and rising essential operating costs. Against this backdrop, we were able to continue to grow our revenue from last year's record base with contributions from both like-for-like and network sales and featured continued strength in online growth. Our team worked well, our supply chain team especially worked well with the brand team to deliver our best ever execution of the peak trade period, covering now the cyber period, Christmas all the way through to Boxing Day, with an enhanced store replenishment, much better in-stock positions, resulting in an accelerated Q2 growth, specifically for rebel and BCF, which has further enabled the group to realize a very solid start to the second half. From a customer perspective, we grew total active club members. Net Promoter Scores improved and club members as a percentage of sales for each of our 4 brands also increased. In part a reflection of our ongoing strong team member engagement scores, which exceeded and continue to exceed global benchmark, an engaged team, more customers, happy customers, it's a simple formula. Importantly, though, we continue to invest through this cycle. We added 19 new stores in this half. We're progressing our Victorian DC. We've completed our investments in loyalty and trade digital capabilities, and we continue to invest in our core technology platform. Retail is an industry in transformation, and we continue to play the long game. Go to Slide 4, we just look at some financial highlights. First half sales increased by 4% to $2.1 billion. Gross margin decreased by 70 basis points to 45.6% due to the previously guided investment in Rebel Loyalty, and elevated stock loss activity in the half. Statutory PBT of $184 million was impacted by the ongoing inflation in cost of doing business, which so well managed, increased as a percentage of sales. Statutory NPAT was $143 million. Normalized NPAT amounted to $131 million. The Board has determined to pay a fully franked interim dividend of $0.32 per share. Group continues to be in a strong financial position. No withdrawn bank debt, positive cash balance. And whilst we remain cautious in the outlook, we made a positive start to trading within the first 7 weeks of the second half. If we go over to Slide 5. I'll make obviously more comments for each of the brands, but I'll just take a note a couple of things here. The group has continued steady to deliver steady growth on growth, maintaining that step change in revenue momentum realized during the COVID period. Group sales of 4% was underpinned by new store openings and a 1.8% increase in like-for-like growth. Growth in the period was primarily driven by BCF and Rebel, with Supercheap Auto and Macpac maintaining prior year levels on a like-for-like basis. Over to Page 6, shows traditional historical trends for gross margin, cost of doing business and profit before tax. A 70 basis point decline in gross margin to 45.6% was, to a certain extent, anticipated given the previously guided strategic investment of gross margin rate into the Rebel loyalty program for incremental revenue. However, the elevated stock loss associated -- also associated with Rebel has added to the margin decline in the period. Overall, the group maintained its promotional discipline during the half despite increased competitive activity with gross margin remaining above pre-COVID levels. Cost of doing business as a percentage of sales increased by 30 basis points. We consider this a pretty credible result in the circumstances given the elevated inflationary pressure on wages and rent, in particular, combined with the subdued top line. Nevertheless, we continue to focus on improving our cost efficiencies to align our cost with revenue and manage the impact of inflation on our margins. The bottom line, the group delivered a PBT margin of 8.8%. In terms of the customer, well, we grew our customer membership base by 8%, now reaching 12 million active club members. Recall an active club member is someone in our system who's purchased in the last 12 months. Sales from these club members also increased by 3% and now represent 79% of total sales with improvement across all 4 brands. In particular, I'd like to highlight the strong improvement of Rebel, up 4 percentage points to 80%, part of which is obviously attributable to the success of the Rebel Active loyalty program. Across the group, our NPS scores have improved from 69 to 71. And again, we realized improvement across each of the 4 brands. In summary, we continue to grow active club membership. Those members represent a growing percentage of group sales. The shopping experience with us is increasingly positive. These are shoppers who know and love our brands. They visit us frequently, who we can communicate through directly with our loyalty and other customer programs. This means unlike many of our peers, we are not relying on the casual shopper or transaction that just happened to walk past the door. Stores over on Slide 8, we're delivering a strong pipeline of new store openings on track to exceed our initial target of 25 new stores in FY '25, having already opened 19 in the first half with a target of a further 9 in the second half of this financial year. In addition to these 19 stores, we've converted a further 2 BCF stores to the superstore format in this half or in the first half, bringing our BCF superstore fleet now to 5 and continue with the ongoing refurbishment of the Supercheap Auto and Rebel fleets. The digital first half online sales grew by 10% to $286 million, now represents 14% of total sales. The group's continued strong online performance in the first half provides further validation of our omni-channel business strategy and capabilities. Whether the customer chooses to go to a physical outlet, shop online, our goal is to capture that demand across both our store network and our digital channels. Importantly, Click & Collect, which represents our most profitable channel, accounted for almost half of online sales, meaning that 92% of all sales are completed in the store. As a bricks and clicks retailer, Super Retail Group continues to utilize both our store network and our distribution centers to fulfill our online orders. Our new automated distribution center, which is due for completion in financial year '26 will further enhance its capacity and capability to meet the growing customer expectations and demand for fast and reliable service. All right. So Slide 11, 12 are relatively self-explanatory. So let's get into the brands and start with Supercheap Auto. So for Benjamin Ward and Supercheap team, we accept that this is a result that's challenging and it did fall short of our expectations. The combination of soft underlying markets, most notably in New Zealand, and a step-up in competitive intensity required the team to carefully balance yield and volume drivers. Now there's an overarching goal for all our businesses of optimizing gross margin dollars while preserving a brand's competitive position, and that's exactly what the Supercheap guys are trying to do. From a customer perspective, 0.5 million more active club members joined the program. They're happier, Net Promoter Score up and a noticeable lift in club member sales as a percentage of total sales. A summary of the financial performance of Supercheap Auto is set out on Slide 14, make the following callouts. Total sales grew by 1.7% to $774 million, driven by network expansion. Like-for-like sales were flat with modest declines in transaction volumes offset by higher average transaction value. Like-for-like growth in Australia was offset by a 3.5% decline in New Zealand. Gross margin was in line with the prior year. Segment PBT declined to $98 million due to inflationary pressures on wage rent and network expansion activity. PBT margin declined to 12.6% due to higher CDB as a percentage of sales. Okay. On to Rebel. So the first half of Rebel was a tale of 2 quarters. It's a pun there, but with relatively slower Q1 as the business lapped the highest successful Women's World Cup in the prior period, followed by acceleration in growth in Q2 with a successful cyber campaign and record sales results over the key Christmas trading period. Gary Williams and the team executed really well in this peak trading season with strong performance in footwear, driven by improved ranging and an investment in inventory to improve product availability in store. Rebel completed its first full year of the Rebel Active loyalty program in October, helping to drive growth in membership, which reached 4 million active club member milestone during the period and a record Net Promoter Score across every channel. Summary of the financial performance is set out. Total sales grew by 4.4% to $706 million with growth accelerating in the second quarter. Like-for-like sales grew by 2.6% with growth in both number of transactions and average transaction value. Gross margin declined by 150 basis points, due primarily to the full period impact of establishing the loyalty program and elevated stock loss activity. PBT margin declined by 110 basis points, reflecting the lower gross margin, partially offset by favorable movement in cost of doing business as a percentage of sales as operating costs were very well managed in the half. Segment PBT declined to $60 million. Slide 17, just gives you just further snapshot of the performance of the Rebel Active loyalty program. And the overarching message here is that it's performing in line with our expectations. Since its inception, almost $80 million of loyalty points have been issued to customers with approximately just under half, $35 million issued within the first half of FY '25. We've previously indicated that the annual impact of the program would have a 140 basis point negative impact on gross margin, and I can confirm that's been the case. Slide 17 revisits some of the key performance metrics of the Rebel Active loyalty program and how it's resonated with Rebel customers. And since the launch in October of 2023, we've seen that strong new member sign-ups, which has lifted the active club membership with now to that $4 million number -- 4 million member number. Club baskets, which redeem credits have the highest net average transaction value, even taking into account the decrementing of the credit value. And a club basket with a redemption credit is the fastest growing of all Rebel baskets. Members who redeem loyalty points are spending more than 12x the amount of their loyalty credit. And the net effect is that we are seeing that average annual spend per member growth growing. And you can see that on the chart on the left that we've seen that steadily grow since the program started in 2023. As a reminder, the core goal of this program is to just incentivize that one more item in the basket and/or one more visit, and we look to be achieving this goal. BCF. So Paul Bradshaw and the BCF team has delivered a record first half sales result driven by strong performance in key outdoor categories of camping, fishing and 4-wheel drive. And consumers responded well to BCF's focus on ranging and merchandising initiatives with strategic brands contributing disproportionately to the growth. With support of the supply chain team, BCF's investment in logistics and inventory availability was a clear enabler of the accelerated growth over the period into January, these key seasonal trading periods for BCF. Two new superstore conversions were completed in the half, bringing the superstore fleet to 5, and they continue to deliver a substantial uplift to sales momentum. A summary of the financial performance of BCF set 19 -- is set out on Slide 19, but call out the following. Sales grew by 6.9% to $518 million. Like-for-like sales increased by 3.9%, driven by growth in transaction volumes. Gross margin decreased by 40 basis points, primarily due to the additional investment in logistics associated with inventory availability. Segment PBT margin increased by 10 basis points to 8.6% as the investment in gross margin was more than offset by a reduction in cost of doing business as a percentage of sales. Segment PBT increased by 8.7% to $45 million. Good result. All right. So for Cathy Seaholme and the Macpac team had a mixed first half. Highlights include record Boxing Day sales, continued strong expansion of the network with opening of 7 stores this half, including our 100th Macpac store and strong ongoing share gains -- market share gains in Australia. However, weak organic growth, noting a decline in New Zealand has deleveraged this business. Our investment in stores has near-term cost consequences with these assets coming on at a full cost run rate before the seasonally important Q4 trading period. As always, the summary is on Slide 21, but total sales grew by 1.7% to $107 million. Like-for-like sales were flat with 2% growth in Australia, offset by a decline of 4% in New Zealand, consistent with a broader consumer weakness being observed in that market. Gross margin declined by 20 basis points due to investment in logistics and negative mix. PBT margin declined to 1.6%, reflecting the lower gross margin and the higher cost of doing business. Segment PBT was $1.7 million in the half. Now, let's hand over to David Burns to talk in more detail to the financials.

Thank you, Anthony. Group unallocated includes our corporate costs and costs that are not allocated to the brand. It also holds development costs, which are early phase projects costs that the brands have not yet benefited from those projects. I can confirm that, the Rebel loyalty costs are fully included in the Rebel segment. Other project activity includes project costs associated with new Victoria in DC and Truganina and technology projects. Net interest expense increased in the period by $2.6 million compared to last year. And as outlined on Page 22, our group unallocated cost base increased by $3.1 million compared to last year. Moving to Slide 23, the Group's balance sheet. Total inventory increased by $69 million, driven by the opening of 19 new stores, some increases in the size of stores and particularly at the BCF superstores. Period-on-period, we have increased inventory per store in Rebel and BCF by 6% and 10% per store, respectively. We identified an opportunity to increase in-store stock availability for peak trade to improve customer experience and sales, which are reflected in the sales trends for peak and the start of H2. Net inventory investment increased by $48 million due to the additional inventory investment and earlier inventory build for our peak trade. Our net cash position at balance date was $168 million. Moving to Slide 24, group cash flow. Operating cash flow was solid at $389 million, which represents a strong cash flow generation of 94% for the period on an EBITDA cash conversion measure. Last year, we called out that the operating cash flow was favorable -- favorably impacted by 1 less payment cycle in the '24 period, impacting the comparative cash flow by $98 million. Capital expenditure of $51 million represents an increase on last year, driven by an increase in CapEx in stores of $3 million and non-store CapEx, mostly driven by the new Victorian Distribution Center. Net cash flow for the period was an outflow of $50 million, noting the special dividend was included in this period of $113 million. Moving to returns and capital ratios. All metrics remain robust, reflecting a strong balance sheet and the quality of our earnings. I would note the average U.S. dollar rate for the first half period and the calendar period was $0.66 and closing currency was $0.62. Slide 26, dividend and capital management. The Board determined to pay a fully franked dividend of $0.32 per share, consistent with the prior corresponding period. Our dividend payout policy is to pay ordinary dividends equating to 55% to 65% of underlying net profit after tax annually fully franked. The Group continues to target a long-term net debt-to-EBITDA position on a pre-AASB 16 measure of between 0 and 0.5x. Future capital management activity will be made having regard to the outlook at the time and the primary objective of ensuring the group maintains a strong balance sheet. I'll now hand it back to Anthony to take you through the group strategy and trading update.

Yes. Thanks, David. So Slide 28 provides an overview of the key pillars of our corporate strategy, which we first announced in 2019. So focus remains on growing those core 4 brands, leveraging closet to customer, connecting our omni retail supply chain, simplifying the business and excelling in omni retail. Now Slide 29 provides further detail on progress to date, but given my limited time, I won't talk to detail on the slide other than to say that we're at the end of the current cycle and are pleased with our progress towards achieving objectives and remain focused on sticking the landing before we move forward with a new strategic agenda, which we look forward to sharing with you later this calendar year. Slide 30 just gives you a bit of a report on progress of our new Victoria in Distribution Center, with a phased opening, which will begin this financial year with that facility being fully operational in FY '26. We are taking a cautious approach, as we've previously disclosed, to migrating these operations to the new DC with a measured and phased plan, which includes duplication costs previously announced of around $10 million in the current financial year. Slide 31 highlights the evolution of various projects and programs within our capital expenditure envelope over the past 3 years. Investing in new stores and refurbishment is a constant element, and will continue to underpin the capital envelope in the medium term. CapEx loyalty peaked in FY '24 and is now largely complete for the rollout of the Rebel Active loyalty program. FY '25 represents the peak period of investment in supply chain with a new DC in Victoria coming online shortly with spend expected to moderate in FY '26. Investments in systems and technology has commenced in the current period and that's anticipated to grow within the capital envelope in the coming years. On Sustainability, Slide 33, making solid progress on our agenda, which is focused on supporting our people and managing the impact of our operations and our products on the environment. We'll provide more detail on our progress at our full year results and in our sustainability report, which we'll publish later in the year. However, in the meantime, we're pleased that our efforts are once again recognized by a top quintile results in the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment with our score up 50 -- of 57, up 5 points from the prior year, and we continue to achieve a AA ESG rating from MSCI. Our 16,000 team members remain highly engaged in the business. Our most recent engagement score of 81 is both an improvement on the prior year and above the global achievers benchmark for team members. Right. On to the trading update. So I'm pleased to report a solid start to the second half, reflecting ongoing benefits of execution post peak trade, pockets of improvement in New Zealand. There is some timing benefits from Boxing Day falling closer to the period end, particularly in that online channel. But Group gross margins for the 7-week period are tracking ahead of the prior year. The outlook for gross margins will be influenced by the ongoing competitive activity in the market and movements within FX rates. Whilst the Group remains confident in its ability to recover adverse FX movements with price increases over time, the magnitude and timing of recent exchange movements may create a lag in this recovery in the shorter term. We are managing this volatility very carefully. Conditions in the auto category are consistent with those experienced in the first half. The team remains focused on achieving the right balance between promotional discipline and volume growth, while managing operating costs in this lower growth environment. Rebel and BCF continued to deliver strong sales momentum with a further acceleration in the like-for-like growth over the first 7 weeks, supported by the strategic investment in inventory availability during the second quarter. Similarly, Macpac has seen an improvement to an improved start to the second half of '25 as it prepares for its peak winter trade season in Q4. The Group is targeting CapEx of $165 million in FY '25 to fund its store development program, new distribution center enhancements to loyalty programs, cyber, omni and digital capability. As previously flagged, the Group expects to incur duplicated operating expenses associated with the transition from the existing distribution centers to the Group's new Victorian Distribution Center. These duplicated expenses are now expected to result in an increase to group and unallocated costs in FY '25 of $10 million. Total group and allocated costs in FY '25, including this $10 million, are expected to be $42 million compared to $36 million in the prior corresponding period. Whilst inflation appears to be gradually easing, the group expects continued upward pressure on its cost base in FY '25. The group plans to open 28 new stores in FY '25, slightly ahead of our original target of '25. I'd now like to hand back to the operator for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Shaun Cousins from UBS.

Maybe just a question regarding the competitive dynamics in Auto or Supercheap Auto. Can you -- you called out weaker underlying demand in New Zealand. Has there been also weak underlying demand in Australia as well? And is that on the back of consumers facing cost of living pressures and hence needing a promotion to sales? And maybe if you could also just within that call out the competitors that seem to be leading, it appears based on the sales growth that Repco is reporting in terms of genuine parts that they're enjoying stronger sales growth. Are they the ones driving the promotional intensity in this market, please?

Yes. Shaun, I always appreciate your 6-part questions. So look, let's take them one at a time. So in terms of demand, yes, obviously calling out New Zealand, but Australia, specifically, Victoria was also soft. And so whilst we traditionally see Supercheap Auto specifically being able to take both sides of the cycle, we did note an overall softness. At the same time, we did see that increase in competitive activity, and that really started to kick off in Q1, both in terms of depth and breadth. And in terms of the 3 nearest competitors, or if you take Supercheap plus 2, I think as we got into Q2, everyone was fully participating. We took the decision to step back from some of that promotional activity at the end of Q2 because we were concerned about the effectiveness of that promotional activity. And of course, we're trying to do is just make sure that this activity is appropriately targeted, optimizing gross margin dollars and maintaining share in sort of what's now become probably a more heightened competitive environment than we would normally see in this category.

Great. And conscious that this is somewhat review mirror and recognize it's difficult to sort of get this balance right. But do you believe that you got the balance right in the half between driving promotions in what is a more promoted period relative to sort of market share and like-for-like and maybe did you grow market share? I'm just curious, how you think about what you would do maybe again or more of how you'd apply -- whether you apply the same balance between promotions and sales growth that you deployed in the first half. Is that something that we should be expecting that you'd want to do in the second half? Or would you be a bit more promotional?

Yes. Look, executing a discount like this is an imperfect science. We'd observed that when we look at our share numbers, they broadly are holding. So we're not sort of -- we don't think we're shedding share here. So we're moderating and building our promotional strategy with that one eye on share. I think where we -- you will never bat 1,000 where we would be looking to improve is the effectiveness of the promotions that we've deployed as opposed to investing more promotional dollars into the system. That, I think, is the homework for the team. So I don't think we're getting into blind gross margin optimization, nor are we going to get into blind volume optimization. It's just striking the balance. And as you know, we've got very good pricing and promotional analytics, and we're looking -- just looking in this market for the right way to assemble that promotional calendar to sort of optimize for all those goals. So I think we -- when a market gets hot, you can't -- you run the risk of becoming irrational. We do not want to fall into that position.

Your next question comes from Michael Simotas from Jefferies.

Can I follow on from Shaun's question, please? It looks like Supercheap Auto discounted less than it did in the prior year as well, particularly around the Boxing Day sales being less deep discounts than they were. And notwithstanding that, you've ended the period with quite a light inventory position. So just trying to understand how much your thinking around promotions have changed? And what can you do if your competitor continues to discount, noting that they are talking about continued double-digit operating earnings growth, so something is working for them.

Yes. So Michael, in terms of the fact pattern of promotional intensity year-on-year, whilst optically that Boxing Day sale was shallower than the prior corresponding period, that's not the case in terms of promotional sales as a percentage of sale year-on-year, sorry, for the half year-on-year. So no -- so there hasn't been a decision to throttle back from promo in the period. But what we were looking to do, as I just said to Shaun earlier, was looking to optimize our promotional period, not exit the field completely, which hasn't happened.

Okay. And that makes sense. And the inventory levels, is that sort of where you were planning to finish? And do you think you had enough stock available to satisfy demand?

Yes. No, availability looked okay. So all our availability measures, it's actually -- it's solid. So there's no executional issue in terms of Supercheap availability. It's actually very sound.

Yes. We've called out that operationally, our supply chain was working as best it's been for a number of years. And so actually, that inventory was -- there was more inventory in store than there's been for some time. And so our availability is very good, so more efficient.

Okay. And if I can just squeeze in one related one. That sort of addresses the gross margin part of the equation. Do you think you had the right amount of store hours in Supercheap Auto through the period?

Yes, it's a good question. It's something that we monitor closely. So we've got traffic counters in all stores. We're able to sort of look at sales per hour and also sales on a per square meter basis, and we can also start to see some behavior of different club members. Believe me, we're a retailer. If we thought there was a net contribution margin upside to having extended hours, we'd be there.

Your next question comes from Adrian Lemme from Citi.

Are you able to give some commentary on that inventory build in the other businesses that you saw? And to what extent is this inventory very seasonal that you might need to clear? Have we gotten past the point that you can sell it? Or has that been run down in the second half to date, please?

Yes. So Adrian, probably just to give you a bit more color on how we thought about inventory in the period. Obviously, we've seen quite a pull forward of demand courtesy of the cyber period, where it's sort of -- that's not late-breaking news. But it does mean in order to set the business up for that seasonal -- double seasonal uplift. So for Rebel and BCF probably most specifically, you're going to get a cyber hit and then you're going to get another big hit in Boxing Day. That's obviously been the case. In order to set the stores up effectively create a sustainable in-stock position, you just got to bring that inventory in earlier. So a lot of the inventory is actually about having more inventory or pulling it forward and then being able to refill key lines after cyber in the case of Rebel and then actually being able to refill after cyber and then into January summer for BCF. So in terms of a residual risk, it's more of a phased approach as opposed to just buying more. It's actually more availability over time. So the risk of overages, which could be for clearance is actually fairly negligible. We've had very strong sell-through continued in January. And if anything, for BCF as it prepares for its Easter, well prepared. So we're not -- we don't sort of have an out of stock we're trying to arrest. So that's good. And then, of course, for Rebel, well prepared for the all-important footy boot season, which is well underway. So no red alerts on inventory from our perspective. We sort of declare victory there in terms of that being a very premeditated sound decision, executed well and got the result.

Great. So that -- yes, so that sounds like you've got the right inventory in the right places. Could I ask a follow-up question on just Nike? I think Nike had been soft for you guys in the AGM update. I think there was a weak season there. Any views on how the product mix is going in Rebel and any issues there, please?

Yes. So I'd probably just sort of say, it wasn't that long ago, we're talking about the rebuild of the Rebel footwear range. We are delighted with the capital D in terms of the footwear performance in Rebel, not just some of the new brands coming in, but brands like ASIC have performed unbelievably well for us. So that's been excellent. And certainly, Rebel have caught the running wave, which looks to be very strong at the moment. Here your question on Nike. So Nike are rebuilding a lot of their key platforms, especially the Pegasus. They released the Pegas Premium range, which is a foreshadow of a more complete rebuild of the Nike footwear range, which I had the pleasure of getting an understanding of in Portland during last -- late last year. That's -- we've had an early drop of that Pegas premium, and it shot the lights out for the Nike guys that are listening to this, it's gone really well. So we're pretty optimistic of what's coming through the pipes for Nike. They've done a lot of work, and we hope to be the beneficiary of their innovation, but they're looking like they're coming back online quite strongly.

The next question comes from Peter Marks from Barrenjoey.

Anthony and David, my question is just on the gross margin front. So I just wanted to chat about Rebel. It looks like the impact of mix and stock loss there was about 80 basis points year-on-year in the half. So just wondering if you can give us a bit more color there. Anything that you can do to address that into the second half?

Yes. No, there's certainly been an improved result in terms of fitness tech that we've had a launch of quite a strong launch from Garmin and that's sort of had a negative mix effect on gross margins for Rebel. So that's been one of the key contributors to the mix issue. Stock loss has certainly become more elevated in the -- through the course of the half. And we're putting a whole series of actions around stock loss, which we are expecting to show an improvement. And that's sort of a -- it's an area of focus for the Rebel team. Some of it's about range. Some of it's about management of what's occurring in the back of house on the floor at checkout. So there's a whole series of actions that the team are going to be undertaking. Combined, overall, we expect those individually to contribute to a net recovery in that. But on a year-on-year basis, it is going to be something which we will see an impact the second half modestly, and we'll see how that -- see how those actions play through. But yes, stock loss is something which is going to take probably more time, but it won't be -- we're expecting it not to be as sharp as it has been in H1.

That's very helpful. And just the improvement in gross margins across the group in the first 7 weeks, can you give us a bit of an understanding of what's driven that? Is it you sort of optimizing the auto promotions a bit more? And I know you've called out FX in the second half, but are there any like positives to come through on the cost of goods side or the shipping side that can partially offset the FX impacts? Or are you really just relying on price in terms of offsetting the FX headwinds you've got?

There's a whole series of things that the team are focused on in terms of improving gross margins. We just call out that the trading stub that we've got there in the first 6 weeks is favorable. It's not negative. And so that growth that we're seeing in sales is not at the expense of gross margins, which is pleasing. I think that's reflecting the better in-stock position in -- particularly in Rebel and BCF is where you've got a stronger in-stock position, you're selling fresh inventory rather than having to focus on as much promotion. So when you've got new high-quality range in, you can sell -- get better sell-through. And so that's certainly an opportunity. Macpac as well had a -- yes, there was certainly some stronger sales we've seen with the amount of people flying up to the Northern Hemisphere for the ski season, which is always -- which is pleasing. And Supercheap, yes, certainly, it's been -- had a better GP result. But it's -- we wouldn't say that that's a marked change for the half per se, but it was just really important to note that we've not gone and chase sales at the expense of gross margin.

Your next question comes from Josephine Forde from Bank of America.

Maybe just following on from that on Rebel, you've called out good growth in footwear, which is high margin, but your margins have been impacted from lower-margin items. And then also just curious what the breakup of that impact is of mix versus loss versus loyalty and how you're going to address that loss issue?

Yes. Certainly, we've called out the loyalty impact in the half was 70 basis points. So that's sort of close to half of that 150. And then we would say that, the stock loss figure is -- of that balance is just slightly larger than mix. So as we said, well, certainly, firstly, the loyalty figure will not be a variance in H2, because we obviously launched Rebel Active at the end of October last year. And so you've got a Q1 or first 4 months comp that didn't have loyalty in it. So we don't expect that to be a factor in H2. That mix shift is certainly been favorable. But as we do see that stronger in-stock position in footwear and the like play through this half, we should see that support margins. But -- and then the loss issue is -- will be in the half, but we're targeting those initiatives to mitigate that. That's our intention, and we'll hopefully report that to you in June, but that's certainly our focus.

Okay. And then maybe just on the cost line, what were you doing differently in Rebel and BCF that you sort of weren't able to achieve in auto? Just interested.

Sales. So we've gone and seen, obviously, the benefit that you get from growing like-for-like sales. And so this is a business that's certainly in those 2 businesses got reasonable comps with Rebel at over 2% and BCF slightly stronger. The other call out I would make is that, both Supercheap and Macpac opened a number of stores in the period. So the store openings were quite strong. There were 7 new stores in Supercheap and there was a number of new stores also in -- sorry, 7 as well in Macpac. So that can be slightly disruptive in the period. You're bringing on those new stores and new costs, and they don't really contribute until they get up and running. And particularly Macpac, those stores, we won't see strong contributions from them until they get into their peak winter period. Normally, a Macpac store has to go through a winter before actually customers understand that it's there and the like. So we've sort of brought that -- those openings through in the first half, but we expect to see the benefits in the second half.

Your next question is from the line of Lisa Deng from Goldman Sachs.

Perhaps a follow-up on the cost line. I'm just looking at the group P&L, and it looks like the selling and distribution and occupancy costs for the period for the group went up by 8% each and sales is 4%. I suppose, we're carrying some of the new stores that have opened. So more specifically, what would we think about the run rate into the second half? Are we annualizing anything that's kind of in the back half of last year? And then also for SCA specifically, how much -- how long does it take for a new store to ramp up normally?

Yes. Certainly, you've engaged that new store cost. We've opened 19 new stores at a group level in the half. So you've got those both the costs of opening those stores, which requires some additional labor, but also the rents that are playing through there. The ramp-up in the Supercheap is much faster. It tends to hit the ground running within sort of the first -- you get a second year benefit of Supercheap. It's much faster than a Macpac, mainly because you've got a much stronger brand awareness and the like. And Macpac's normally over 3 years for ramp-up in terms of answering that question. In H2, certainly, we'll get an improvement because those stores will be contributing. We won't have those disruption that you see through certainly some of the stores we had some periods where they were not open. So you'll certainly see the full benefits of them being opened in the half.

But just from an expense line perspective, because we're opening more stores this year than last year through the year, then the second half run rate, irrespective of sales, right, is going to be higher, like an acceleration on the 8%. Is that how I should be thinking about it?

Well, I just have a look at the -- so we've given guidance of 26 stores. We opened 19 in the first half. So that one of the challenges with the opening of stores is the store setup costs. So we're going to have a pool of store setup costs associated with that 19 in the first half, just by the sheer mathematics of that number being near enough to half in the second, that setup costs will be lower. So probably the way -- the other way, we sort of think about it is just on a like-for-like sales or like-for-like gross margin like-for-like cost base, if we've got underlying like-for-like sort of below that 2.5%, 3%, it's difficult for this business to fractionalize costs. So your total growth needs to accommodate your store opening costs. But at the core of the margin pressure is just simply loss of leverage within the core business when you're operating at that lower underlying like-for-like number. That's why that 5% like-for-like number for the first 7 weeks is a pleasing development.

Got it. A follow-up is on the currency impact. So I think in the trading update, Page 35 of the slide, we talked a bit about over time, we can overcome some of the currency impact with pricing increases. But in the near-term, there would be a lag of the recovery. Can we talk a little bit more about that and how we should think about currency impacts, particularly to margins in the near-term?

I think, it's just -- it's a little bit unusual. And obviously, we've got a volatile FX environment to have that kind of quite sharp currency movement. And we -- given that circumstance, over the short -- over the medium term, so coming into first half '26, as is tradition, we're comfortable that through net pricing changes, so promo pricing, shelf pricing, we can normalize for that. But just given the quantum of the decline of the AUD, we're just appropriately calling out some risk associated with getting there quickly. So the greater the level of volatility, arguably, the more time it would take to get back to scratch. And again, dollars moved around in the last -- it moved around a lot. So it's volatile. We need to carefully watch it. But in terms of being able to pass on that underlying COGS impact because that's what it is, into price, we can do it, just recognizing that this is probably a little bit more volatile on that line than it has otherwise been.

Okay. We should be largely hedged for second half where there's some risk into first half depending on price pass-through. Is that how I understand it?

Yes. Our hedging policy, which is outlined, is that we hedge up between 50% and 75%. So it's a proportion of it is hedged, that's correct. So we do hedge. But yes, we've gone from sort of 68% since the end of around October to 62%. So it's just a more sudden movement. And so we've just got to recognize that, that will play through, and we'll adjust and take price rises through the business, but we've got to do that at the appropriate pace.

Your next question comes from Benjamin Gilbert from Jarden.

A question for me is just around competition and across 2 of the brands. If we look at auto, Bunnings is obviously, I think they're playing a bigger push in a couple of months into auto in their stores again. You've got Sports Direct that's probably looking like a pretty high probability of coming in by Frasers and Accent. Two parts to it is, one, do you need to think about sharpening up your pricing to some of the questions that have sort of led in, particularly given you've got guys like GPC comping up 6 in the market at the moment? And then secondly, how -- and what should be locking exclusives in terms of around brands and products, given obviously, they are 2 pretty big players that are probably going to have another swing in it. And admittedly, Bunnings have had a few guys before and you sell some more. But just on your thoughts on those 2.

Yes. No, no. And of course, we're across both of them. I think, let's take the Bunnings enter. I mean, we obviously we treat that with the appropriate level of respect and deserve. They are a good player. We know they are entry into pets and cleaning, and we see the extension of that thinking into automotive. We think about that a couple of ways. As we've sort of said before, a trip into a Supercheap Auto is 7 minutes in duration and it's a $60 purchase. It's a mission shop. So what we are focused on is, firstly, ensuring that we understand the shopper mission and the shopper mission is a mission shop, not a strolling shop, and there is a distinction between the 2. And so ensure that, our offer ranging service, et cetera, is consistent with that. The other thing is there are key categories in which there are for the higher involvement, so let's stay outside of the sort of the entry-level car wash, et cetera, et cetera, that require some credentialing. So there are a number of key brands in the likes of car care, as an example, that we have got secured ranging, and that gives us a degree of protection. The other thing that's critical to Supercheap is fitment. So for $5, you can not only buy the wipers, you get them fitted. So it will be like every kind of new competitor that comes in, and I'll get to Sports Direct in a second, it's never going to be a single bullet. It's going to be an array of things. And this is not the first rodeo for Supercheap Auto in terms of a more general hardware or grocery retailer trying to make an entry into the category. So we'll work through that. Pricing, I'm not -- putting aside the shenanigans of the last half, I'm actually not that concerned about being price competitive. It is a relatively competitive part of the market. We monitor it closely. We've been here before. We'll just run the fire hose of that again. Sports Direct is a different thing. I think -- if we look at the sports market, you've clearly got Rebel being the named brand for branded sporting goods from better the best. You'd almost say good to better the best. I would sort of say in terms of entry, Kmart caters for that market unbelievably well, and we are very cautious around appropriately segmenting our offer to not dive head on into that value shopper. I think, the question that we pose ourselves in terms of whenever we think about any new entrant into the sporting market is, can you go above? You're probably in rarefied air in terms of above price positioning or offer for Rebel. So then you're sort of studying into specific specialists, like a running specialist for the example. Can you go below? Well, yes, but you've got to thread a needle to the bottom of Rebel and the top of Kmart. And that is very competitive space there. So we will watch that closely. We've dealt clearly with Decathlon coming into the market, trying to thread the needle between Rebel and Kmart. If that's the strategy, then we clearly know how to deal with that. A more head-to-head battle with Rebel would require the execution of equipment. And let me tell you, having a supply chain that can handle basketball hoops and all that kind of stuff is a completely different ball game to footwear and apparel.

Sorry, one follow-up question. Can you -- I appreciate you're obviously a very important partner for Nike, Adidas, et cetera. But can you sort of say why -- can you -- are you close to becoming a strategic global partner? I know, Sports Direct or Frasers is in that sort of small group of 5 or 6.

Yes, we're in it.

You are in it. Okay. Apologies.

No, no. Yes. No, no, you hurt my feelings. No, we are a global partner for -- absolutely. Australia is a critical market for them. If you want to sell a football boot in Australia, you have to use Rebel.

Yes. So you're in that top tier group as they classify for Nike.

Yes. So, we -- when we go along, we see the Sports Direct guys, we see Ed Stack from DICK'S. It's all high-fives. We're in that group.

Perfect. Well, maybe not as many high moving forward, but yes, that sounds good. That's very helpful.

It's true. Fair point.

Your next question is from Craig Woolford from MST Marquee.

Just wanted to ask, obviously, cost inflation remains a challenge. You said, it's easing off a little bit. But is there scope for more aggressive cost savings across the business in the second half? Obviously, you've got some structural changes with DCs, but what about in-store type cost savings that you might look at?

Yes. Look, we obviously, rent wages are your key cost, wages being your variable. We've got some good sophistication around wages. And if we look at our ability to offset the rate increase, so we've obviously seen strong wage rate inflation. We've been able to -- we actually have been able to generate strong efficiencies in spite of that. I think clearly, we've got the enterprise agreement in place. So we're not sort of going to be dealing with as radical increases in rate change. But there's now certainly continues to be improvement in terms of our ability to deploy the right team member at the right rate at the right time. So that's ongoing opportunity there. We continue to stretch our legs with 80% -- around the 80% coverage of club members, that does change marketing mix, and we've been aggressive in experimenting where we change our investment and potentially start to reduce reliance on above-the-line activity. So that's an ongoing opportunity. But I think -- Craig, I take the point -- take the opportunity to make the point, if we wanted to optimize cost aggressively, we could reduce the strategic investment in the business. So usually in the cycle, that's one of the opportunities you take to simply nurse the PBT line through the period. We haven't done that. In fact, we've arguably in this half, we've had most accelerated investment in the business, especially within the new store space. So I think when we look at CODB, you do need to have a look at that investment, that OpEx investment line in stores and tech that sort of does create some cost inflation. That is for a future benefit.

Yes, totally understand. And I mean, on that, obviously, Rebel loyalty has been a big part of it, and you have the slide that gives quite a few details as to what's working well there. What about some other measures? Like is there a way to measure market share? How do we think about sales growth for the active loyalty card holders versus the nonactive -- it kind of feels like overall sales growth is not spectacular despite some good metrics on the loyalty card holders.

Yes. So share growth is there. So we can see that. That's good. Of course, trying to launch this program where we've sort of got some softness in consumer is not, frankly, totally helpful. But when we -- look, as you would expect, Craig, we carved this out and isolate it. So we see good share growth. What is the most critical measure? And if you look at that slide with the pink boxes is that average annual customer value growth. And what's that basically showing is that we are seeing a strong uptake in those members' visitation, and we are seeing a more moderate increase in that average transaction value. And if we compare that cohort, which is growing versus the rest of the basket, they are accretive in terms of net ATV. So it's the unit -- so the way I sort of build it out, unit economics are good, so 12x excellent. In terms of its impact on behavior, yes, seeing that both in terms of visitation and ATV. Percentage of those customers that are redeeming is also growing. So there is a force within the Rebel customer base that looks to be accretive and growing. Add that up to share growth within the plan, we go tick. And then you've got to then say, okay, what's the difference between that flowing through to underlying stronger like-for-likes. It's got to be the overall market. I think we just do one more, if that's okay, operator for time. I understand there's a couple of other things going on today.

Your next question is from Bryan Raymond from JPMorgan.

Just on -- I'll follow-on from Craig's question around Rebel and the loyalty program. Just a bit confused. The redemption rate of 46%, given you got 80% of your sales from club members, 100% of club members are earning points, 46% redeeming. As a Rebel customer, I know you redeem at checkout, they offer you money at checkout if you have it available. So it seems like there should be a pretty high redemption rate in that respect. I'm just interested in how you think about that incrementality because in terms of behavior, like people activating sort of special offers or personalized offers rather than just people that would have shopped at Rebel anyway, getting an underlying discount because of -- simply because of the earn rate they've achieved in previous shops. I'd just be keen to understand that incrementality piece. And the 12x feels like a big number. Just trying to understand that a bit better.

Yes. So 12x is we've got a $5 credit. I'll get my buy is going to be 12x that number. And the amount of credits that you -- because -- the design of this is slightly different, right? So it's quite generous. 5% is generous, but the period you've got to redeem it is slightly less generous, which actually drives you to activate the credit, and that's why you sort of get the 12x. And you rightfully point out, well, hang on a minute, I'm at the counter anyway, who was going to buy me, how can it be incremental? And of course, we turn our minds to that question as well. The evidence that suggests that it has a degree or it has incrementality in it is the increase of that cohort's visitation. So if that cohort is visiting, so customers that are redeeming credits are visiting at a higher rate than a non-club member, which they are, say, okay, well, that's a sign of incremental. If the average transaction value or the basket size is accretive to a non-redemption basket or to a non-club member basket, which it is, that's a lead indicator of incrementality. So where -- that was what we've always watched as the bottom right-hand corner is the combination of those 2 things, ATV and visitation, which is the average annual customer value, that's the magic number. If that goes up, that suggests that the program is driving incremental value.

Right. But you don't actually know they're coming back because of loyalty and the incrementality from that, they're just coming back anyway because to go if you want sporting goods.

Yes. Well, they're coming back more than someone who hasn't participated in loyalty. So we've got to control to be able to measure the differential.

Right. Okay. So yes, okay. I think we're on the same page there. Yes.

Yes. So can you map it exactly? No, if you could, I'd be retired. But the -- but when you've got Group 1 versus Group 2 and Group 1 is visiting more and spending more and the difference between the 2 groups is redemption of loyalty, I think you can draw a reasonable conclusion you're on the right track.

Right. Right. Okay. Just -- I know, you guys are still on time. So I'll move to my second one quickly, if that's okay. Just on gross margins at the group level, I'm just a bit -- maybe it's on for David, a technical one, but I noticed the gross margin at the group level was actually restated last year. So it was last year, you talked to 46.5%, now it's 46.3%. So on the old disclosure, it would have been a 90 basis point move down versus 70 basis points now. Is that something to do with loyalty as well in terms of the accounting for that? The rest of the history before first half '24 is unchanged. So just to understand that delta.

Yes. No, look, we've gone and identified an opportunity to include our freight recovery online as revenue instead of a cost offset. We got new orders in that brought that to our attention and we've actioned that. So there's been just a slight movement there as a consequence of that and also just the -- we've got the components of what's in the supply chain in terms of it's -- the depreciation and amortization associated with supply chain, which should fully be in gross margin. So we've just reflected what a composition change, but it's not -- and we've gone and ensured that the comparatives are consistent.

Right. But the history before 1H '24, that hasn't been changed in the chart you have earlier in the presentation deck, should that change as well?

In the presentation deck, we haven't, but we have on the actual interim report. Thank you, and thank you all. I look forward to seeing some or most of you, if not all of you in the coming days, and wish you well for the rest of the reporting season. Have a very good morning.

Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.