The SPAR Group Ltd (SPP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to SPAR's interim results presentation for the 6 months ended March 31, 2024. My name is Angelo Swartz, and I'm the Group CEO of the SPAR Group Limited. I'll be providing a brief overview this morning and an update on operations over the past 6 months. Before handing over to my colleagues, Megan Pydigadu, the Group COO, on update on SPAR Poland and the SAP implementation. Thereafter, Mark Godfrey, the Group CFO, will present the financial results, followed by a strategic update and outlook from me. We will finish off today's webcast by answering any questions you might have. Before I provide an overview of the business, I just want to share one of our new advertising campaigns with you, the more for sure show, which is the setting of my presentation today. We are repositioning the SPAR brand to be family and budget-focused while remaining relevant and relatable. Here is the advertisement. [Presentation]

By way of an overview, here is a snapshot of the group for the continuing operations as at March 2024. We operate in 10 countries, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Eswatini, Lesotho, Ireland, England and Switzerland. We also have a joint venture arrangement with Sri Lanka, where we have 27 stores across various formats. We're in the process of selling up interest in Poland. The continuing group delivered over ZAR 77 billion in turnover with ZAR 1.6 billion in operating profit. Cash generated from operations in the fist half totaled ZAR 1.4 billion. The continuing group had 4,383 stores as at March 31, 2024. This slide provides a useful overview of the various banners we operate across our regions, which many of you will be familiar with. In terms of the group's presence by region, most are dominated by the SPAR brand. In South Africa, our retailers operate as mainline supermarkets and liquor stores and they compete head-on with the big box retailers and bolters merchants. In Ireland however, BWG Foods is recognized with significant share in the convenience food retail space, which includes the SPAR, Londis, MACE and XL banners. And we have significant share in the cash and carry segment through our company-owned Value Centre banner. Lastly, we also have a growing food service business, BWG food service. Our Swiss business is very convenience-focused. With the majority of our stores being small neighborhood stores under the SPAR and Maxi banners. And we also have a significant cash and carry business, TopCC. Our various formats in Poland, Sri Lanka and in the U.K. all operate under SPAR banner. Though we have recently opened 3 independently owned SaveMor stores in Sri Lanka. Our business is diverse across the various territories we operate in. But at our core, we view ourselves as a wholesaler, focused on enabling independent retailers to maximize their businesses as our purpose boldly states, we aspire to inspiring people to do and be more. SPAR is an incredible brand. Last year, we celebrated 60 years of the SPAR brand being in Southern Africa, an incredible milestone for us. Over the last 60 years, we've built incredible relationships with our retailers who have biased extension become the heart of the communities in which we operate. We believe that our unique model of trade, where our retailers are able to customize their offer to cater to the communities they serve has brought us incredibly close to the hearts of our consumers. Given our passion for our customers and the communities in which we operate, we're incredibly proud when in April 2024, Brand Finance released its annual report on the most valuable and stronger South African brands. Of the top 10 most valuable brands in South Africa, SPAR ranked in seventh place, holding its position from the prior year and was the most valuable grocery retail brand on the list. And we're also very pleased to report that our liquor brand, TOPS at SPAR, was voted South Africa's favorite liquor store for the 10th year running in the Beeld Choice Awards. In Sri Lanka, leading Business Magazine LMD recently announced Sri Lanka's most loved brands, of which the SPAR brand ranked in third position, an impressive feat for such a young business. BWG Group has recently won a number of awards in Ireland. I'll highlight the Operational Excellence in Warehousing award. And we won the overall Logistics Transport Excellence Award, very well done to our head. It is gratifying that the excellent efforts have been recognized. This slide sets out how the SPAR model operates. It is different to corporate retail. The strength of SPAR's business is dependent on the strength of its independent retailers who are at the heart of the communities they serve, supporting local suppliers and community initiatives. We're in the process of reviewing our target operating model, which I'll speak about a little later in the presentation. However, fundamentally, the essence of what drives this business will remain the same. We are ever looking at unlocking growth potential in SA through adjacent categories, which I'm particularly excited about. Moving on to the operational update and starting with SPAR Southern Africa. The turnover growth tables on the right provide a comparison between what we reported at wholesale versus what our retailers are reporting. Retail sales are a better representation for industry comparison than wholesale. A resilient retail performance is indicative of the strength and relevance of the SPAR brand. The wholesale performance indicates a slight loss of retailer loyalty caused by the SAP system issue and some other issues. However, liquor has made a strong recovery. Across all our formats, we opened net 25 stores and completed 115 upgrades, which speaks to our retailers' willingness and commitment to invest in the brand. Our private label business reported wholesale turnover growth of 7.6%, going ahead of the poor grocery business. Our on-demand shopping platform is now available in 420 sites and growing strongly, with volumes increasing more than 450% year-on-year. One of the unique benefits of our model is the ability to scale quickly because the retail balance sheet is distributed across our retailers. Customer feedback of SPAR2U continues to be positive, and we're very pleased with the progress we are making in this area. Whilst we haven't typically shared retail KPIs in the past, it is worth noting that for the last 6 months year-on-year footfall in our supermarkets has increased by 2.5% on a combined basis. And the average basket spend has increased by 5.5%. We're particularly proud of the 10% growth in footfall in our TOPS at SPAR liquor stores. This is testament to the unique place our TOPS brand holds in the marketplace as a favorite, responsible fun friend. Whilst more muted the growth in footfall in our supermarkets is proof that our customers continue to see SPAR as a destination to shop with. Our Build it business remains the #1 retailer for building materials in South Africa. From a retail point of view, we are outperforming our largest listed competitor with retail sales growth of 1.2% for the period and organic growth of 2.6%, indicating the closure of loss-making stores. The marketplace has been tough. However, customers keep coming back for the consistent quality of our product at the right price. At the end of the half, we had 397 Build it stores, having lost net 3 stores for the period. 14 stores were upgraded as well. Retailers who have refurbished their stores with the new Build it branding, continue to see a positive uptick in sales. Our pharmacy business continues to perform strongly. The strength of this business lies within its structure. Once again, it has delivered double-digit turnover growth, and operating expenses have been well managed. Retailer loyalty continues to improve, and we are focused on quality pharmacy stores above all else. Our courier pharmacy Scriptwise, reported turnover growth of 20%, and the training academy continues to nurture and support pharmacy staff in South Africa, helping to maintain high standards of expertise in the industry, which we are very proud about. Our academy is the largest trainer of pharmacy support personnel in Southern Africa. S Buys Academy is the only accredited training provider with the South African Pharmacy Council for the basic and post-basic pharmacy assistant occupational certificate courses in South Africa. Coming to our European operations, BWG Group continues to deliver solid performance despite the various challenges. Across Ireland and England, cost of living pressures along with an increased focus on price and value by the supermarket chains and discounters has had an impact on shopper behavior, as our own brand penetration continues to increase. The wholesale business has been booted by acquisitions in the prior year. However, there are no acquisitions in this during this period, as our whole business is focused on cash creation. We have a very strong presence in Irish Convenience food retail space with the EUROSPAR, SPAR, MACE, XL and Londis brands. All banners continue to perform well. EUROSPAR is, however, impacted by intense competition in the supermarket space. The hospitality industry is experiencing a slowdown impacted by the cost of living crisis, but it has also been impacted by the withdrawal of temporary VAT relief which was granted to this industry to promote economic recovery following the pandemic. In England, with consumers under pressure, the discounters are gaining share. Volumes are under pressure in this region. However, the team has implemented cost-cutting initiatives to counteract the impact thereof. The Swiss market continues to experience volume declines with consumers shopping cross-border for better value, driven by a strengthening of the Swiss franc. The TopCC Cash & Carry business has been impacted by contraction in the customary sector, coupled with consumers eating out less. Despite the disappointing turnover performance, this team has done an amazing job of managing costs through various cost-saving initiatives and has grown operating profit significantly by 9.9% in local currency for the period. In Sri Lanka, we have a joint venture arrangement with an experienced local company, Ceylon Biscuits Limited, a leading local biscuit and food manufacturer and exporter. The macroeconomic environment in Sri Lanka has been challenging. However, we continue to see great potential in this market. There have been some encouraging signs in terms of consumer and business sentiment. Sri Lanka is a population of over 22 million people. Formal trade represents less than 20% of the market currently, but is rapidly changing. The 2 largest food retailers have just under 700 stores combined. That shows the huge potential for harmonization of the market. SPAR has 27 stores across various formats at the end of March '25. Of these, 25 are corporate retail stores. We are actively pursuing informal independents who are interested in the SPAR brand. And I'm pleased to report that the first independent SaveMor was launched in March 2024, with another 2 launched in early May. With the predominantly informal food retailer environment, we believe Sri Lanka offers great potential and is perfectly suited to the SPAR model. I will now hand you over to Megan Pydigadu, the group's Chief Operating Officer, for an update on SPAR Poland and SAP.

Thank you, Ang, and good morning, everyone. As you know, we are in the process of exiting the Polish market and announced our intention to exit at the end of last year. I want to go back and give some context to the investment in Poland and why we made the decision to disinvest. From a holding structure perspective, the business is set up in a simple manner with new Polish investments as the holdco for the group. The retail and wholesale business is separated from the production plant and the office building we own. Initially, 80% of the business was acquired for EUR 1 with funding arranged into the business of EUR 60 million, split between EUR 40 million term loan and EUR 20 million in working capital facilities. At the time, these were all guaranteed by the SPAR Group, through a parent company guarantee. The remaining 20% stake was acquired for EUR 4 million. From an exit perspective, we are focused on the cleanest exit, which is the sale of shares at the new Polish investment level. This will allow a future owner to continue the SPAR brand in Poland. We also have options to sell some of the assets such as the building and production plant separately. And we'll do so if we can realize more value for shareholders. A quick recap of the business in Poland. We have 3 lease distribution centers across the country. 194 independent retail stores and a small food production facility, Kuchnia Polki. We also have 44 corporate head leases, which are between corporate and partner stores. This does create obligations on the business. Due to the lack of scale in terms of store numbers, the business has never achieved the scale required for the infrastructure to breakeven and has been incurring operating losses ever since acquisition. For some additional context of SPAR Poland's performance since FY 2019, you can see the operating losses increasing from PLN 8 million to over PLN 100 million every year since 2020 and then PLN 166 million in the prior year, which includes close to PLN 100 million of impairments. For the half year, the performance shows improvements as a result of the strengthening of this zloty against the euro and a ForEx gain of PLN 26.8 million. This is a result of the majority of our leases being in euros and the lease liabilities being revalued at period end. We currently have in the region of just over EUR 100 million or close to ZAR 2.3 billion of debt in the business, of which close to EUR 100 million of debt has been guaranteed by the SPAR Group with Nedbank, Citibank and EBRD. And finally, you can see over and above the initial investment we put in, plus the debt we have guaranteed. We have had to fund further cash in the form of equity to support the losses the business has incurred. From a euro perspective, this has been EUR 77 million. And in rand terms, ZAR 1.5 billion. Currently, we have reached an in-principle agreement with the purchaser for the whole business and have signed a binding offer letter, which covers the salient terms. We are still to finalize the share purchase agreements and get approval from the anti-monopoly authorities, which will take another 3 to 4 months. Moving on to the SAP system update. The SAP ERP and warehouse management system went live last year, February in one of our largest distribution centers in KZN. You will recall, we encountered significant issues in our last financial year, which had dire consequences to our results. There has been a significant focus to stabilize the system and ensure we service our KZN retailers and get fulfillment rates right as well as ensure we get loyalty back. This has been a work in progress, and you will see our results continue to be impacted by the SAP rollout effect in KZN. We are still experiencing suboptimal business performance in our KZN region, and this has impacted GP margin by 2% for the KZN region. The root cause of this is how our buyers manage pricing and the ability to sell at the right margins. The other impact has been inefficiencies of the SAP warehouse system, which has led us to carrying stock incurring increased labor costs and increased logistics costs. In respect to the gross margin issue, further enhancements are being implemented to improve the ability of our buyers to price at the correct margin. This will be productionized in September 2024, and we should see the benefits thereof flowing in Q1 FY 2025. Given the inefficiencies of the SAP warehouse management system, we have made this decision to pursue an alternative. We have decided to go with CSnx from Worldwide Chain Stores, which is the next generation of AS400, which we are currently using across the rest of our distribution centers. This is most suited for our business, and will be far quicker in terms of change management and user adoption. This system will also be more cost effective than if we had to roll out the SAP EWM system to the rest of our distribution centers. For illustration purposes, we have shown our current system landscape across the distribution centers in South Africa, which are incredibly disparate and don't currently allow for harmonization of systems and data across the South African group. Taking into account lessons learned and with the aim to keep any additional risks an absolute minimum, we are planning to roll out an additional distribution center in the 2025 financial year, which in all likelihood will be our Build it business, which is our smallest distribution center. We are also focused on master data and a project is underway to leverage data outside of having to wait for the ERP to be rolled out. We have put some graphs together to show the impact on the KZN business. This graph represents turnover for the KZN region over the past couple of years. It highlights the cyclical nature of the business, which peaks in December, but also shows the impact of the SAP go live and how we have slowly recovered with turnover for December 2023 being in line with December 2022. We are still seeing the impact of dropped loyalty for this region, and we have aggressive plans in Q3 and Q4 to win back loyalty, specifically in KZN. This graph shows the prolonged implementation issues and how they have continued to weigh negatively on our working capital cycle and specifically our stock holdings. Stock levels have yet to return to historical norms, costing the business around ZAR 200 million in higher levels of stock. The development release in September should assist with releasing stock. Just to be clear, our core ERP system will remain SAP S/4HANA. It is only the warehouse management system, which will be changed. For context, to date, the warehouse management system is roughly 10% of the build. Before handing over to Mark for the financial review of the period, we would like to share a SPAR2U advert from the more for sure show campaign. We have been investing in marketing, our on-demand shopping app SPAR2U more actively to build it into SPAR's overall offering for consumers. Thank you. Here is the advert. [Presentation]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today. A special welcome to our shareholders, our fund managers, our bankers and all of the SPAR colleagues that have joined us on this call. This morning on SENS, we released our interim results for the financial year March 2024, and I have the opportunity today to unpack those with you in a little bit more detail. The one thing I will just point out before I start is that the presentation today focuses specifically on continuing operations. And in fact, that is a big part of the result presentation that we did issue today in that we have treated our Polish business as a discontinued operation. So to really align the presentation and to make the numbers more meaningful we focused on the continuing business. The salient features for the half year, our turnover grew by some 7.9% to ZAR 77.2 billion. Interesting enough, those of you that have kept detailed records of our performance over the years, will have noted the 7.9% is quite interesting is that it is exactly the same percentage increase that we reported at March '23, but the makeup of that turnover and the components differ tremendously. Gross profit, 11.9% against the prior period of 11.9%. At face value, it appears to be flat. In fact, our business is about decimal points. The current year, 11.87% a year ago, 11.93%, a 0.05% or 5 basis points decline in margin, and we'll unpack it. There were unfortunately some consequences. Operating profit was largely flat at 0.2% or rather 0.2% increase and at the margin level, just on 2%, a year ago, 2.2%. And I appreciate that, that is a significant part of our performance, and we'll talk to that. The biggest part driving that is that expenses grew by some 9.6%, and we'll give detail on that in slides to follow. Profit after tax of ZAR 870 million declined by 10.2%. And again, financing cost was a number that impacted that. We'll talk to the financing costs. Earnings per share, down 6.8%. And headline earnings, roughly the same number at minus 7.6%. You might be a little surprised that you don't see a significant decline. We did issue a trading update some days ago, talking about a large decline in earnings, and that was because we reported at that point in time on the total business. If you include the Polish discontinued operation, then you do move into a largely significant decline in earnings per share. But if we move on to what might be regarded as a segment, profit and loss statement, it's not intended to be a detailed profit and loss. It's really just to give you a sense of the 3 geographies. And you will see that in this slide, we've actually given you the discontinued Polish performance in the slide column darkest gray second from the right. But let's talk from left-hand side. So Southern Africa, some revenue growth, reported ZAR 49.3 billion worth of revenue. Gross profit declined. Historically, South Africa has been 10%. We're down roughly 40 basis points. And we'll unpack that specifically with regard to the KZN SAP implication on that. Operating expenses in South Africa were well managed, but that still allowed us to report only some ZAR 930 million worth of profit and a significant decline on expectation. The market belief of 2.2% moving back towards 3% is what we've guided, and we were disappointed that the number is under 2% for the period. But again, we will talk to that. Our Irish business, ZAR 19.8 billion worth of turnover, margin improved slightly to 15%, some strong cost control and the Irish operating performance at 2.5% for the period. Swiss just under ZAR 8 billion, and again, some strong gross profit -- margin enhancement in that business, roughly 60 basis points. Expenses again, tightly managed, and that business is now reporting operating profit of some ZAR 1.7 billion. Just by way of guidance, we've previously spoken to the South African business targeting to get back to 2.6% to 2.9% operating margin, disappointing in the period. And as I've previously alluded to, the KZN performance is a significant impact on that. The Irish at 2.4%, very much in line with our previous guidance. We've always believed the Irish business at a range of some 2.5% to 2.7%. And to Leo and the team, a sterling performance considering the challenges that you experienced in your markets. And the Swiss business at 1.7% has historically been guided to be in the range of circa 1.5%. So it's a stronger number on the performance from the Swiss. The discontinued operation, our Polish performance generated some [Technical Difficulty] worth of revenue. And at an operating profit level, that number appears to be significant at [Technical Difficulty] ZAR 720 million loss. But I will unpack that because included in that is a fairly significant, in fact, almost [Technical Difficulty] that number impairment that was reported in the period. So let's move into the discontinued operation, and let's deal with Poland right up front as I've indicated, we've also issued a cautionary today that we've made significant progress with the disposal of this business. The Polish revenue grew in zloty terms by 13.7%. Unfortunately, in local currency declined by 3.7%. But I think that's understandable that the uncertainty that, that business is facing as we have been negotiating the sale. Margins for the period have been relatively strong, but I think the most significant factor to note is that continuing on normal operations, the Polish business actually broke even for the period at an operational level. Now that was as a consequence of that [Technical Difficulty] business is a discontinued operation from December. So as a consequence of that there were some adjustment made through depreciation but still positive that we were able to roughly breakeven for the period. And then the impairment recognized in this period of some ZAR 720 million was as a consequence of us identifying the fact that the negotiations to sell that business had required us to actually recognize write-downs on the assets of the business to align with negotiations that were taking place. Financing costs in Poland, unfortunately, like in all our geographies were high and the business reported a net loss, including impairments of some ZAR 813 million for this half year. Just to give you a sense of -- and these numbers are embedded in the group cash flow. So really, for those of you that wish to extract Poland from our cash flows as reported, we're just guiding that the cash outflows in Poland were some ZAR 230 million, largely as a result of working capital changes and finance cost. The business, as I've already indicated, at almost a breakeven point from an operating profit level. And the net cash items or noncash items were negligible. From an investment point of view, as you can appreciate, we've pulled back on any form of major expansion or investment. And really, the most significant item there related to leases, the lease receipts and there is a corresponding lease payment in the box below that just to offset that major expense. From an outflow point of view, the Polish business did repay part of its borrowings, and that was also a reduction in operating funding in the period, not so much significant repayment in term debt, but more just a repayment of short-term funding. And then just below that, again, just to give you some sense, for those of you that wish to perform some detailed review of the group cash flow, you can see that the reported bank overdraft at the end of the period included the Polish overdraft of some ZAR 714 million. Down in the fine print, I do just want to reference that the cash flows relating to Poland do not include the intergroup financing or funding that was provided from South Africa to support this business over the 6-month period. And then just to give you a sense of the disposal group or effectively the assets that we are holding to sell, and these are net of the impairments taken in the period. You will see that property, plant and equipment, there are some right-of-use assets and goodwill, a small value on goodwill, some inventory, the receivables and likewise, the payables and the disposal group for the period has effectively been valued at ZAR 1.4 billion, and it's those guidances that we've referenced in the negotiations that are currently taking place. So if we refer back to the continuing operations, and we talk to the South African business, in particular, the core SPAR grocery business growing by some 4% in the period. Yes, it is a subdued number. It has been impacted by the KZN SAP disruptions that continue to hamper performance. We're not going to today attempt to present a notional investment on what that number might have looked like or to try and project what or how strong that number could have been in a normalized environment. The reality is this is the business that we are trading in and to try and to notionalize any form of guidance would probably be more misleading than useful. So the South African business up 4%. TOPS a strong performance. In fact, an exceptional performance at 12.8%, and again, a very interesting training performance a year ago at the same presentation, TOPS was actually negative by some 2% so bouncing back strongly in this period. There was definitely a boost as we finished the period over the Easter weekend, definitely an increase in liquor trade over that last week before the closure of the period. So the SPAR and TOPS combined business, which is probably more of a guidance to the market trends, up some 5.2%. And a year ago, that number was at roughly 6%. Build it, roughly flat. I suppose it would be negative to our Build it colleagues to say they declined top line, roughly flat at 0.4% growth for the period. And I think we need to understand, Build it in the context of a very, very flat building merchants market at the moment, a lot of competition taking place out there from the independents, a lack of infrastructure and structural development. But at retail, the retailers are still growing slightly positively. And the challenge for us is to continue driving that business going forward. So the South African business growing by some 4.6%, including the Encore business, the private label business that also had some solid top line growth in this period. Our Pharmaceutical business, another an exceptional performance, growing by some 15%. That's off the back of last year's record performance. So to Jeremy and the team, some really strong numbers coming out there. The wholesale business was strong as was the Scriptwise business, which is the specialized medications. So a really strong contribution from pharmacy in the growth. Southern Africa, 4.8%, subdued number against inflation, yes, suggesting that volumes are declining, and that is the challenge for our business going forward. We need to get onto the front foot as far as volume growth is concerned, and that will definitely also improve operating efficiencies. Our Irish colleagues in ZAR terms growing by some 16% to just over ZAR 19.8 billion. In euro terms, an exceptional performance at 5.7%. Yes, inflation has been a contributor, but there's been very strong growth in the BWG Foods business over 7% for the period. They've very successfully consolidated and integrated their recent acquisitions, which has driven that. And very definitely, their food service business continues to take market share and an exceptional contribution to the overall performance. The U.K. subsidiary business, unfortunately, has been challenging in the U.K., in particular, some very, very pressured price inflation, volume decline, and as a result of that, the Appleby Westward business reported a negative top line performance in this period. There was a time that we used to talk about Build it being referenced to the weather. If the weather was good, Build it, generally performed well. Well, I've got to introduce a new trust into that story because now in the Irish business, more specifically in the U.K., the weather is starting to play a very significant role in their overall performance. So to Leo and the team, we hope for some good seasonal weather over your holiday periods as you go into summer and let's -- you'll finish strongly. I'm sure. The Swiss business in ZAR terms growing by 8.7%. Unfortunately, they continued to decline in local currency, down by minus 4.6%. And very definitely, the Swiss market continues to be impacted by volume decline. The consumer under extreme pressure, experiencing substantial increases in living costs, particularly energy, health care, rental and as a consequence, definitely looking for value and that cross-border shopping concept or reality is very much impacting general Swiss trade, but we're also experiencing in our business in the gastronomic sector as like the hoteliers and the restaurateurs struggled with increasing pressures and business failures. So in ZAR terms Switzerland growing by 8.7%. And as a consequence of some very strong international growth, the overall performance at plus 7.9% recorded for the period. Just to give you some indicative inflation because of the various geographies we trade in, in the South African business, these are numbers extracted from the official sources. So food and liquor definitely declining this period to the prior, in fact, almost down by 2/3 at 5%. Alcohol declining slightly slower, but also at about 4.5%. I think more relative to the South African business is what we've measured internally on the right-hand side. So our grocery inflation for this period measured at just over 7% a year ago by comparison at 10%. And I think it's just important to note, as I'm sure most of you are experiencing that, inflation is definitely slowing. For the month of March as a comparison, we measured inflation in the Southern African business at just over 5%, liquor at 4.6%, very much in line with the national statistics, but again, showing nearly a 200 basis points decline from the comparative period a year ago. And Build it also experiencing a slowdown in their inflationary pressures. In Ireland, the comparative numbers are real. It was a real price shock in 2023 to see the increases, in particular, food as a result of massive increases in energy and in labor costs. Food is down. I wouldn't say back to levels that the Irish are accustomed to, but very significantly down over the comparative period. And as a consequence, you are seeing a slowdown in price increases. However, that doesn't necessarily or immediately translate to increases in volumes because even in Ireland, the consumer remains constrained, rental pressures are high, living costs are high and interest rates continue to be very, very sticky. And likewise, even the Swiss have seen a decline in their inflation. And in fact, Swiss food inflation is almost back to I think the bigger challenge for the Swiss, as I've already alluded to, is the issue that the consumer is under such incredible living cost pressures. So let's move into the gross profit area. And let's start with, I guess, the big ticket item, and that's the performance of the Southern African business. But you can see nearly a 40 basis points decline in gross profit in previous years, that number was over 10%, and that was as a consequence of the acquisition and integration of the private label business, Encore. We guided that we expected Southern African gross margin to be over 10%. We were achieving that level. The decline in the current period of 40 basis points, unfortunately, is largely attributable to the ongoing pressures that we're experiencing at KZN by way of indication, and that's obviously not an exact number, but as measured against the prior period, they believe that they've lost an estimated ZAR 128 million worth of margin. In this instance, if I were to do a notional adjustment for you, you would arrive at a Southern African gross profit adjusted of circa or approximately 9.9%. So very much in line with what we would have expected. And I think the difference is also indicative of the more promotional pricing or the more extensive promotional pricing that's been forced into the market because of aggressive competitive behavior. In Ireland, we've seen a 10 basis points increase in their gross margin. And that is largely a mix change as the consumer's buying patterns have changed in this period. Consumers looking for more discount, looking for more value. And likewise, we've seen a decline -- an ongoing decline, in fact, in the tobacco business in Ireland. Those mixes all roll up into a slightly improved margin because of the categories affected. But that said, it's also a relevant note that the food service business continues to outperform as does in this period, the integration of the acquisitions that the Irish have made in recent years. And the Swiss delivering a very strong improvement in gross profit, some 60 basis points, and that was really as a result of some strong margin management, both in the wholesale and in the TopCC business. So as a consequence of all those moving parts and as is sometimes to my amazement, the fact that we will actually get to within decimal points of the reported figure in the prior period of 11.9%. If we move on to net operating expenses and as I alluded to in my opening remarks, we were unable to keep the increase in operating expenses in line with the top line performance. The South African business made a strong effort at achieving that. They allowed or they experienced an increase in operating expenses of some 4.8%. And on the top right hand, block of the slide, we've given some guidance on some of the areas. Delivery costs actually decreased by 1.1%, and that was as a consequence of volume but also as a consequence of more efficient management of distribution. By comparison, in the previous period, delivery cost has actually increased by some 27%. So off a very, very inflated or rather elevated base, we are seeing some contraction of that marketing and advertising costs decreased by 5%r, but also of a very, very higher base experienced in the prior year. And in this instance, our employee costs were up some 12%. It's not a number that is concerning us at this stage because it does still represent a number of the strategic and tactical employments that we have made in the business, as we move it forward and address a number of the modernization issues that we are wishing to roll out in Southern Africa. IT costs up 12.8% off a very high base. But a lot of that IT cost, unfortunately, relates to the work that is being done to support the KZN business and to remedy the issues that have been identified there. And I think it would be fair to say that the balance of the costs have been exceptionally well managed at under 6%, in fact, under 5.6% to achieve that 4.8% reported number. S Buys largely as a result of the volumes, the top line volumes growing by some 17.3%. So the Southern African business managed to hold their cost increases to just over 5% in this period. The Swiss in ZAR terms saw an increase in expenditure of some 16.3% to ZAR 2.8 billion. But in euro terms, that number increased by just on 6%. The big driver of that is increased labor costs, particularly in Ireland, but in the United Kingdom as well, labor costs up by some 9.4% as really being underpinned at the moment by the increased national living wage, which has been implemented by both governments, which is impacting not just as at a wholesale, but at a retail level as well. But in typical Irish fashion, when there have been some cost pressures, the Irish have reacted very, very swiftly and have implemented mitigations and cost-saving initiatives. And once again, to Leo and the team, our recognition of the way that you've managed the business in these very, very challenging times. And I think it's a great complement to you all that you were able to mitigate a lot of these uncontrolled expenses. In ZAR terms, the Swiss business grew by 11%. Costs now just over ZAR 2 billion. But in Swiss terms or in local currency, that actually decreased by 2.6%. So a solid performance by the team in Switzerland. The strong focus on cost reduction, particularly in people came through in this period. But again, their energy costs reduced by 4.9%, and I will tell the South Africans on the call that Switzerland is also a country with solar panels, and that's how they've managed to actually achieve that increase. And then their fuel costs declined by some 12.1%. Unfortunately, that was largely driven by volume, as the volumes have declined, but there has been some very, very strong and very efficient management of distribution in Switzerland in this period as well. So total group costs increasing by some 9.6%. We need to focus on the finance costs, in particular because these have increased dramatically in the period. I think it would be fair to say we're all experiencing the prolonged higher interest rates across all of the regions, not just in South Africa, in South Africa, PAM moved to its current level more than a year ago. So we have experienced higher interest both in South Africa, but both internationally, we've experienced moves in all of the currency rates. The finance income has been largely flat during the period, has been very well managed, but it's in the area of finance cost that we've seen the biggest increase. And again, as I've alluded to, driven by the higher rates and to some extent, in certain of the geographies the increased working capital pressures. We've seen finance costs growing by some 28% and net finance costs growing by some 56% in this period. Below the table, we've just given you the breakdown by geography. So you can get a sense of where that expenditure has been incurred. The ZAR 428.7 million being the continuing group net finance cost for the period. And interestingly enough, despite the fact that interest rates in South Africa are at extremely high levels, the largest increase was actually experienced by the Irish, who saw finance costs grow by some 43% in this period. And I guess, down in the bottom right-hand corner, you can see that 110 basis point increase in the average interest rate on borrowings in the Irish business. Just to share with you some of the currency impacts and I think we might have got this slightly the wrong way around in that the most recent period, in fact, is on the left of the screen not the right. But what has been interesting is that despite a rather volatile movement of the rand over the last 12 months. In the last 6 months, we've actually seen it tracking relatively flat. There have been some peaks and drops, but the start point at the 1st of October versus where we finished up at the 31st of March, roughly in line. By comparison in previous years, we've seen an exceptionally volatile first half. And I've mentioned previously, it's almost been as if the currency gods have not smiled on us because at March, everything normally worsened and then improved by September. But in this period, it's been relatively flat. At the bottom, we've given you just a sense of the rates used in the measurements included in these results. Interestingly, for Ireland, the average rate is actually increased by some 9.8%. And in Switzerland, a far greater figure at just under 14%. We provided you just as a graphic, the H1 versus H2 comparatives, South African turnover growing by 4.8% as already mentioned, in Irish terms, 16% in ZAR and the Swiss growing by 8.7%. And adjacent to that, the operating profits, we've spoken to the decline in Southern Africa by 9%, a number that we are very committed to reversing. And I know that Max Oliver and the South African team are very focused on improving the South African operating margin towards the levels of 2.6% and 2.9% over the next 18 months to 2 years as we've guided the Irish growing profits, almost in line with top line performance, 15.5%. And in fact, the Swiss posting a stellar operating profit leverage against an 8.7% top line performance. We've also adjusted to make sure that there's complete transparency, giving you the same comparatives in local currency terms. And as expected, you can see very much a similar trend. Switzerland declining turnover by just under 5%, but in fact, showing an increase in operating profit as a result of both gross profit and OpEx focus by just under 10%. I'm not going to labor you through our entire balance sheet. We provided here in a segmental form, just so that you can get a sense of where the assets of the business are positioned. Property and plant across all of the geographies very well managed, very well valued. The Swiss clearly demonstrates the higher cost of investment in that geography. I think what will also be interesting is that if you look to the right of used assets and the lease receivables, perhaps an unusual combination in our Irish and Swiss business, demonstrating the fact that a lot of their properties are not owned, as they are in South Africa. So a fairly significant right-of-use asset recognition. And then in South Africa, a lot of the leases that we, in fact, enter into for retail property in turn being sublet so hence, the lease receivable roughly offsetting and countering the lease liability. Goodwill at some ZAR 8.5 billion across the group and a significant part of that in the Irish business that was reviewed for impairment at interim, and we are very comfortable that, that number remains fairly valued as a consequence of their acquisitions and the various brands that the Irish business own. And then under the long-term liabilities, that number specifically talks to debt. But in fact, what you also need to recognize is that in the Polish column, the long-term debt is actually now being treated as current so the term debt on this slide perhaps doesn't necessarily tie back to the debt slide previously. And perhaps you might just be questioning why Poland does appear because up until now, we've been talking continuing operations. The Polish business has been included in this balance sheet slides fundamentally because that represents the debt of Poland, which the group has guaranteed and that debt will actually be brought back and managed by the business post the disposal. So effectively, the Polish debt of some ZAR 2.1 billion remains group debt and therefore, has been included in the slide. And then as I have alluded to, the group debt presented just by the various parts. I think the point I would just want to call out at this stage is that at March, we have historically always seen an increase in debt. The European businesses, in particular, increased their short-term borrowings to stock up for what is their big and bumper trading period, which is the summer months. So if we were to compare H1 of '24 to H1 of '23, I think the impressive thing for me that we have been able to manage a more than ZAR 1.7 billion reduction in our debt, and that's against the backdrop of exchange rates that are higher. The increase in the South African overdraft since September of this year has been continued or has continued to be impacted by some of the working capital pressures experienced at our KZN distribution center. It has been impacted by the ongoing financial support that we've been providing to Poland to support that business. We've guided previously that we would support Poland to the extent of some EUR 20.6 million, and we remain in line with that number to date. And then as I've already alluded to, the higher working capital expenditure -- or higher working capital requirements of our European business. We've also then provided you in both local currency and by geographies, the breakdown of that total borrowings number of ZAR 7.7 billion, and you can see very clearly that the Irish had a very, very strong performance in this period. They made a concerted effort to improve their cash, both from a working capital management, particularly in the area of stock and managed a significant reduction. In fact, as Leo pointed out to us, their current borrowings position is almost at record lows. So once again, Leo, to you and the team a call out to the incredible job that you've done and delivered to the group in assisting us and supporting us in our debt management at this time. The reductions have also complied with the normal amortizations both in Switzerland and in Ireland, and we continue to manage those as the business moves forward. We have provided for you and perhaps also just to underpin our reporting on covenant measures. We have provided a leverage ratio by geography. The group box bolded in black outline is how we would have reported or how we have reported our covenant measures at the end of March to those bankers or lenders that have required covenants to be reported. At 3.07, that number is slightly up on what we reported at September, which was some 3.02, but against the management of exchange rates and the profitability performance, we were very comfortable to achieve that. We'd actually negotiated with our bankers a relaxation in covenants. They were supportive of that, and we're very thankful for their support. So against the 3.5 leverage covenant, we have headroom, and it has been well managed against that we are not in breach of any covenants. But to the right of that, we've also just provided you an indication of what the leverage ratios are in the various geographies. Southern Africa, just over 2x, the Irish exceptionally well managed at 1.8x and Switzerland because of a significant amount of debt at some 5x cover. The reason that Poland has been included, as I alluded to on the previous slide, is that the Polish debt will remain part of group debt from a covenant and a measure perspective. So that ZAR 2 billion flows into the calculation and forms part of the ZAR 11 billion worth of group debt used in the measure. Perhaps a rather busy slide. You've all got and have seen the cash flows. I think I would just like to highlight a couple of features. I've touched on the fact that across the group, there was a strong drive to improve inventories in this period. We managed an improvement of just on ZAR 400 million. The questionable move in receivables and payables was largely impacted by the couple of periods, the 31st of March happened to fall very, very inconveniently in the middle of the Easter weekend. So we had public holidays largely on either side that did impact the timing of both receipts and payments, but I can assure you that both receivables and payables remain extensive focuses for the group. We generated some ZAR 1.2 billion of cash from operations. And if you actually do strip out the discontinued operation and look at continuing operations, that number actually was a lot better at ZAR 1.4 billion. Net interest has increased as I've already covered to some ZAR 500 million and taxation in the period, actually a decline on where we were a year ago simply because of the profitability of the business. Capital expenditure has decreased substantially. A year ago, there was some ZAR 270 million worth of SAP expenditure incurred in that ZAR 1.1 billion in this period because of the announcement that we are clearly reviewing the SAP project. There's a lot of work being done on improving KZN. The rollout of further DCs has and will be covered in today's presentation by both Megan and Angelo, but the expenditure on SAP in this period was a much reduced ZAR 70 million. There's been very small acquisition of business. In fact, it only relates to a small group of retail stores, both in Ireland and in South Africa that were bought, not a material number. And then we've grouped together, and I've already alluded to the lease receipts and payments, the receivable amount or the collection amount, particularly in South Africa, because of the sublease arrangements that we have on a lot of the head leases for retail premises that we've entered into. As a consequence of this and I guess not to ignore the last row, which is net borrowings. And in fact, there's been a decrease, as I've already touched on, of some ZAR 670 million. So this all rolls up into a net cash movement for the period of a net outflow of ZAR 1.4 million. Yes, that is still an outflow. Yes, that is improved against a year ago. And yes, that will be improved going forward as the profitability of the group enhances. Just visually, we provided you, and really, this is just a graphic representation of the previous slide, the ZAR 2.8 billion worth of operating profit adjusted for the net working capital outflow of ZAR 1.5 billion. The big ticket items being recognized was -- or are the net movement in debt, some ZAR 670 million. The reduction in net lease payments of ZAR 620 million and the capital expenditure of ZAR 640 million in the period. As a consequence, we closed the period with group overdraft facilities at a ZAR 2.9 billion, ZAR level. And then let's just move towards wrapping this up, talking to capital expenditure. These are the numbers extracted from the cash flows from expansion of operations, a decline on a year ago, ZAR 420 million. There's a lot of focus at the moment on CapEx across the greater group. We need to ensure that we continue to maintain our operations. So some ZAR 200 million spend there. In fact, the gross spend of some ZAR 260 million. There were some disposals. And then I've alluded to the 3 small retail store acquisitions that were made in the period. Just the regional allocation of that CapEx spend, just so that you get a sense, in South Africa, ZAR 240 million. The Irish have had quite a large spend of CapEx that was specifically in the area of retail store equipment. And again, as I don't need to point out the exchange rate does make that number very elevated and in Switzerland, likewise store equipment. I think the -- what hasn't been included, perhaps and what might be of interest is just some indicative CapEx guidance. Our forecast for FY '24 at the beginning of the year was that our CapEx spend would be roughly ZAR 2.2 billion. As we've already alluded to, the spend to date has only been some ZAR 670 million. There is very little chance that we are going to spend ZAR 1.6 billion worth of CapEx in the remaining 6 months. So I can guide you that our CapEx spend is going to be substantially lower than the budgeted and previously announced ZAR 2.2 billion. I would suggest that number could be in the region or would be in the region of some ZAR 700 million to ZAR 800 million below the previously guided number. And then ladies and gentlemen, as I move to wrap-up the finance presentation today, just to recap on the salient features. Turnover of some ZAR 77.2 billion, growing at 7.9%. At face value, the margins appear to be stable or rather at least holding at 11.9%. But in fact, our business is 1 about the second decimal. And the reality is there is a 0.5% decline in that second decimal, and that's the number that we need to drive back to. What hasn't been inserted as a row on this slide is the increase in operational expenditure of 9.6%, a number that continues to receive a great deal of focus and a number that we, as a business, need to ensure we are managing very closely. And a consequence of all of that operating margin of just on 2%, as I've indicated, is a game of 2 decimals, 2.04 and a number that very rapidly needs to move back towards the 2.5 level. That is what we are definitely targeting as an achievable return. Profit after tax declined 10%. And again, the impact of financing cost flowing into that number. Europe is seeing a reduction in rates or margins. So that will definitely improve the financing expenditure as we move forward. But it is a number that is very focused on a number that we are talking to bankers on, in particular, as we deal with the disposal of Poland will become very relevant in the South African business as we refinance the Polish debt into South Africa. The earnings, both at a headline and it's a diluted level declining. And again, I can assure you a number that we, as a business, are not satisfied with and a number that will very definitely be focused to move back into positive territory. I know an area that I didn't touch on in my introductory remarks, and that is the fact that the Board did not declare a dividend in this period. It remains their commitment to return capital to shareholders by way of dividend. And we will resume dividends as soon as we believe it's appropriate once we have refinanced and once we've achieved the profitability performances, particularly in the Southern African business, that we believe achievable. So before I hand back to Angelo, I'd just like to make a quick closing. Thank you, if I may, particularly to the finance teams across not just the Southern African business, but also our international colleagues in Ireland, in Switzerland and in Poland, who once again delivered an exceptional performance by returning numbers to us in record time that we've been able to manage and report on time. I would also like to just particularly recognize the central office team. It's a very, very small team. We've had some very interesting last-minute adjustments, particularly as the Polish disposal has progressed. And in that regard, if I may, just to call out to Abhishek, to Kiara and really the whole team that has supported us over the last couple of weeks. And once again, thank you to you all and look forward to talking to you again in 6 months. Thank you very much.

In November, I spoke of the priorities we have at group level. These priorities are driving our strategy in the short-to-medium term. Megan has already provided an operational update regarding the disposal of Poland and the SAP implementation. I will now provide an update on how we're addressing the profitability of the South African business. The balance sheet restructuring and the review of the remaining European portfolio in terms of some positive momentum for the Southern Africa business. It's worth highlighting that we have a lot of new talent in the business. We have new executives in various departments, including finance, marketing, IT and retail operations and various new appointments to come. Megan and I are new to the group executive function, and we are challenging the way things are done. This means assessing the business and reviewing the target operating model with a view towards more centralized decision-making. There are certain areas in a business where we believe we can be more efficient as a business. And the team has already started consultations with our IT department. In terms of the key driver is to improve profitability, whilst turnover is below expectations. Max and his team have a new [ SA ] strategy in place, Boston growth through driving hyperpersonalization, improving our format architecture so that they resonate more with the community they serve. And finally, prioritizing private label participation. Gross margin has always been a focus for the business. However, system issues in KwaZulu-Natal have presented a major problem for the business, which will be rectified ahead of the next financial year. We're making progress in terms of operating expense savings. Lastly, we are reviewing options to offload the majority of our loss-making booklet stores. The losses for the associated stores totaled ZAR 100 million in FY '23. At the end of last year, there was an adjustment for our equity investment in Poland. Adjusting for this extraordinary one-off item to get a normalized view of SA profitability in Q4 '23. This graph demonstrates that excluding this KZN region. The business is moving in the right direction in terms of operating profit margin improvement in the current financial year. Please note, the only adjustment made to the quarterly numbers reflects a bullish impairment in Q4 of FY '23 and includes all other nonrecurring costs and guided at the end of last year. Our balance sheet restructure is dependent on the outcome of the exit process from [ Poland ]. We've been reviewing debt restructuring of the options and are clear about where we need to get to as a business. Improved capital allocation discipline is essential, and this requires reviewing our investments in line with chosen redone metrics, improved working capital management and preservation of cash to reduce net debt have been key areas of focus for us. As I promised at the AGM, I committed to sharing the ROIC metric for each of our regions. This will be a key measure for us going forward in terms of how we measure capital allocation and make investment decisions. In Southern Africa, we have a few levers we can pull to improve liquidity. We're in the process of selling our properties in Pinetown, which includes the Knowles and the SPAR Central office and IT billings. These buildings have a combined valuation of over ZAR 250 million. Other options available to us include the disposal of the property on the waste land leasing of SPAR's feet, sale and leaseback on mortgaging of distribution centers and the securitization of our debtors book, all of which are currently being explored. SPAR Switzerland is undergoing a strategic review. We are reassessing the structural setup of the business to see whether there are other ways to get better returns from this business. As you can see in the chart, the business performed strongly during the pandemic years with the closure of Swiss borders. However, it has lost market share since the border has reopened and is being impacted by consumers seeking value at large supermarkets and abroad due to cost of living increases. The business has delivered an improved operating in the past 6 months of 1.7% growing operating profit by 9.9% in local currency. We're also reviewing our operations in Ireland and Southwest England. This group has a proven to act, but then continues to gain share in Ireland. Turnover continues to grow positively, boosted by acquisitions. Over the past 8 years, the team has consistently grown operating profit and delivered consistently higher operating margins. Here, we have a breakdown of the performance split between Ireland and Southwest England. The Irish operating margin has been normalized by the impact of impairments arising on its meat business and SAP last year. Our business in the U.K. is the only region, where the majority of the business is retail facing. This business is dealing with increased costs, by the inflation on profitability and is also under strategic review. Lastly, turning to the outlook. Sorting out the key priorities remains our primary focus in the short-to-medium term. We are on track to exit Poland by the end of the financial year. We have completed our debt restructure review and in the process of implementing the optimal capital structure recommendations. We are busy with the strategic review of our European business, and we'll continue to make decisions about our business based on capital allocation review principles. In terms of the SAP rollout, we are aiming to have completed 1 more distribution center in South Africa by the end of September '25. Our target to get back to 3% operating margin for our South African business is the end of financial year '26. At this stage, we are also planning to have reached our target leverage ratio of 1.5x net debt to EBITDA, enabling SPAR to pursue the type of growth it needs for future success. The significant changes made at group executive and Board levels continue to drive a new strategic era in terms of how things are done at SPAR. While the financial results have yet to reflect the more decisive and focused management initiatives, improved speed of decision-making is evident in terms of what has been achieved in the first half. There's a new wave of energy across the business, focused on shifting the culture towards executing its speed with greater accountability. We believe this shift will enable the business to compete more effectively by offering enhanced support to SPAR's independent retailers so that our retailers can focus on what they do best, winning the hearts and minds of the consumers within the community they serve. Thank you. Before we move on to questions, we'll show you 1 last ahead. This is the 1 we're particularly proud of and has elicited lots of comment from consumers. I hope you enjoy it. [Presentation]

Good morning, all.

[Operator Instructions]. Over to questions. We've got a few on Poland. Congratulations on concluding the deal in Poland. Are you able to disclose any further details around price paid and the extent of the Polish debt that the purchases will assume. Second question on Poland. I'm trying to ensure that I understand the discontinued operation. Have you removed the total interest expense in Poland from the continued operation numbers, i.e., were you not able to dispose of Poland with a debt and if some of the debt were assumed by Ireland, the continuing operations earnings could be lower? And lastly, one more question on please, can you explain the Poland ZAR 720 million impairment and how it relates to potential proceeds on sale of the business?

I'll take that one. So from a Poland perspective, obviously, we have released the cautionary this morning. just giving a bit of an update. It was important for us to let the market know where we are on Poland and to get clarity as to when we exit Poland. And we obviously are in a sensitive stage and don't want to disclose more than we've currently disclosed. Bearing that in mind, from an IFRS 5 perspective, obviously, we have to take into account what our expected disposal proceeds or costs would be and that has been catered for in our IFRS 5 disclosures in the results. From an interest perspective, so the interest costs that sits in the Polish numbers, it will be in the one line item for a loss from discontinued operations. So it doesn't sit in the continuing operations interest charge.

Please can you provide an indication on trade post period end considering the softening over the last couple of weeks or first half of...

Yes. Given the timing of [ Easter trades ] in the month of April was softer than we expected than we had hoped. They has been softer too although the last week or 2 seems to have recovered and slightly above where we were going into hacker, but overall, they'll probably be soft in SA, strong upgrade in the U.K. and Ireland and the Swiss stayed also similarly slightly stronger than in the first half year.

Great. Just want to stay on with SA, with retail sales better than wholesale in SA, where did the retailers go and shop? Will they come back? And why will they come back?

Yes. I think naturally, one can imply retail and if one someone also think that those numbers are impacted by a number of factors not simply retailers shopping outside of our system. And given the general economic environment, retailers have reduced working capital and in particularly introduced their stock levels, which would impact how much they buy from us. Some of it is impacted by KZN. We are retailers, needed to develop an infrastructure to buy outside of our system. And now that we are back to normal, we've got a fight to get our payback within the KZN area. And then some retailers are also buying outside of the system in the balance of the country. We are looking at engaging in a number of incentive programs, while the retailers in the next couple of months to get them to buy back to come back into the system in it's own.

Great. And sticking to SA, if retail loyalty in KZN was at normalized levels, how much would that have added to SA's top line?

Approximately 1%, yes, on all SA business.

Please, can you tell us how much you're budgeting for the rollout of your new system, which Megan spoke about?

Sure. So happy to take that. So we have done an evaluation, and I'm assuming , talking about our warehouse management system. So the system that we're planning on rolling out is actually going to be less than if we were to roll out the SAP warehouse management system. And so that does mean that we will be within the budget that we originally set for our SAP rollout. So it won't result in additional costs.

In terms of inflation, can you provide some color on the post-half trading and inflation guidance in the second half? And considering official food inflation of 5% versus SPAR's grocery up 7%, how has that impacted the group's relative price positioning in the market or more of a mix issue?

I'll take a portion now, I think you've mistaken...

Okay. You take your portion. I'll take the balance...

The official food inflation at 5% is at a point in time. Our 7% reflects inflation over the period of 6 months. Inflation is definitely tapering off towards the end of the period and probably similar to raise SPA is now what we officially would utilized it at 5%. In terms of how we got there, I think Mark can give us with more detail.

Angelo. So subsequent to the period, we actually have seen a fairly rapid decline in inflation. In fact, to the months of May inflation has been measured in the business of 4.2%. So from that point in time at 7%. We've continued to see a decline in my presentation, referenced 5% in the month of March, and we're now down to 4.2%.

I think just to finish off on that question, in terms of the tax perception. Managing our cost perception in the broader market is a high focus area and will be for us for some time or probably in the next few years. It is an area which we've struggled with from time to time or generally. Having said that, I think all our market survey showed that we have quoted on competitively priced and probably better price than we have been in the last few years over the last period. So I don't think that internal inflation number -- it's impacted the consumer impact, I think the consumer has spent.

Questions in terms of covenants, how long are the relaxed covenants in place? And how long are the group covenants being amended for? And when does it drop back to 2.75?

So the relax covenants were replaced for the period ended March. They dropped back in September, and we continue to remain in discussions with our bankers. Ironically, the covenants at the end of September are largely insofar as Poland's exit is concerned, only relevant to the Irish bankers. And then obviously, whatever covenants we put in place, when we refinanced the Polish debt back into South Africa. So at this point in time, the covenants are expected to reduce from the Irish perspective back to 2.75 in September.

Are you still confident you can achieve a 2.5% EBIT margin in SPAR SA?

We are very confident. I think my slides would have shown what the business looks like, where we exclude KZN which reaches that 2.5% level at the moment. But the overhang of the KZN number is going to cloud our numbers for some time. I would -- the fixes we're putting in place will go in the last month of this financial year, so we will put the fixes in place at the end of August, beginning of September. I'd expect an overhang on our performance for the rest of this year and then starting to improve from there, although not -- it won't happen overnight. Our plan remains to target getting back to 3% by the end of FY '26.

In terms of Sri Lanka, how is that fitting into your strategy? And what is the bigger plan about the Sri Lankan exposure?

Our Sri Lankan business is a joint venture. The exposure there is limited. Having said that, from a growth of business point of view, Sri Lanka has a significant population. Nearly 22 million people in that country, a very nascent formal retail sector there. At the moment, Sri Lanka's formal retail accounts for about 20% deployed in the country. Informal trade accounts for 80% that's rapidly formalizing. We've got 2 big competitors in the country, we together have 700 stores. At the moment, we've got the 25 stores across all formats, technically 12 SPAR stores and 12 or 13 liquor stores. And then we've just opened -- as I said, earlier, we just opened our first independent retailers, opened 3 in the last 2 months. Our view is that we will scale that up to somewhere around 15 by the end of this year, and we're hoping to open as many as 20 to 30 next year and a lot of it rapidly. We're really excited about that market. And the macros are starting to look really good in Sri Lanka, big recovery from the instability, a couple of years ago. And some really good government policy in the country about local graph, and it's a business we really excited about our partners there CBL are an exceptionally professional output, big business in the Sri Lankan context. And yes, we're really -- about the growth prospects over the years.

How big an impact would an optimally operated ERP system on SA GP margins? And where are you expecting meaningful efficacies to kick in?

I think we expect that we get to margins preset early in the calendar year 2025. And then we would expect probably in the long term margins to improve by at least 0.5% in effective ERP system. But it's hard to take the view of it in isolation. We're also doing a completely view of our target operating model. And how we plan our margin going forward is going to depend on the outcome of that review of our target operating model. Something that's very important to us is to make sure that our retailers make as much money as possible and how will we balance the pie once the new target operating model, TOM is in place is going to be quite important for us in terms of sustainability of our model.

And with regards to the Swiss business, what would be a normalized net working capital day? Can you achieve a lower figure to this?

Mark, since you love a wine, you can answer that question.

The significance of that comment is that the Swiss have a significant investment in alcohol in a distribution center. It is a large focus for that business. They have made some strong performance improvements in this period. I think the target of getting that down to some 16 days. They're on their way to that, but we do believe that there is a continued improvement in the Swiss working capital that can be achieved in the medium term.

Is the lower CapEx guidance for current year or a short-term cash saving measure? And what is CapEx guidance for full year '25?

I think we open our advertising cash, keeping cash in the business. That being said, we also don't want to underinvest in our business. But the guidance going forward in terms of CapEx is that we will continue with our existing capital allocation policies and the forward guidance here is that we believe we're going to stick down I think and focus on the core things that we need to improve or at least maintain. And beyond that, we will be very circumspect in terms of how we are going to get there.

How many loss-making stores does the group plan to close and which make up the associated loss of over ZAR 500 million in full year '23.

Do you want to take that question?

Happy to. So there are around about 50 corporate stores that we currently own. We are looking at getting out of some of those corporate stores probably about half, but the focus is on ensuring that from a corporate store perspective, we only have corporate stores that do make money. Historically, what has happened is that we've taken on corporate stores as a result of bond perfection. And until there's a strong focus also in terms of going forward, how we manage retailers, the retailers we take on and that we don't result in having bond perfected stores.

If I can amplify, it is our view going forward that strategically our best way forward is to focus our business on independent retail. We got independent retailers in many ways [indiscernible] -- strategically, we need to protect that as well as we can and also stick to on that thing and bigger out one-off pickup remain obsessive about to focus on our core business being [indiscernible].

Just a few questions on SAP. When are the continuing SAP concerns, buyers lack of pricing visibility and warehouse management system expected to be fixed. It seems like turnover is back to pre-SAP levels, what needs to happen to get back to the 2.6% margin level. And sorry, lastly, on SAP, which DC does the team have their starts on for this and next April or late in September 2025.

Okay. I'll start and then you can maybe continue. So from an SAP perspective, what we have found in our KZN business is that there were probably 2 issues that affected us, the 1 being around [Technical Difficulty] and stock levels as well as costs related to labor and picking and a lot of that had to do with split loads. I mean, and how they were being delivered to our retailers. That is largely resolved and working, but the issue still remains in terms of pricing, which comes through in our GP margin. And it's really our buyers having access to the information when they're pricing for retailers and to get the right pricing and make the right decisions. We do have a development in progress with SAP, which we should have go into production and live probably mid-August. So hopefully, in September, we start to see the benefits of that coming through. But I think largely, we'll only start seeing that in Q1 of 2025 year. Then just in terms of where we roll out next, we've looked at the group, and we think that our Build it business is probably the best business to roll out next. It's contained and separate from the DCs, also looking at our warehouse for and Build it and the nature of Build it's business. We do about 90% or more than 90% drop shipment for Built it. So it makes sense to do Built it next in terms of our imports warehouse get that up and running. And depending on how that goes, we can then move to our next DC. So hopefully, in the space of next year, I'm going to push the team and say we definitely want 1, but we are hoping for 2.

Okay. Just on DCs, are the DCs not key strategic assets. Why would SPAR contemplate a sale and leaseback of these assets?

To be fact, the business is not clearly considering sale and leaseback of DCs. We demonstrated that to show the resilience of our balance sheet at [indiscernible] and if we need it to where we could turn to access additional capital. But at the moment, the idea of sale and leaseback of our DCs is not on the table for discussion.

Given picking pace worse, were you able to benefit in anyway? And are there any opportunities you can take advantage of going forward?

That's a difficult question to answer because the market is quite dynamic at the moment. And when you look at our competitors reporting, it's a bit of a mishmash, particularly as up a bit that has moved into categories that they weren't traditionally in. So to imply what their growth is like excluding those, it's a new categories, is a difficult exercise. Having said that, I think when we look at the year-to-date to the end of April, we've seen a slight gain in market share. I think we take that to imply that we've gained some market share from PMP, but I wouldn't like to speculate on that too much.

There's a number of incoming questions regarding Poland. So I'll send a package them in a few. And was the Polish debt taken on SA balance sheet or taken over by the purchaser, given Poland is a discontinued operation? In the finance cost line, what is the split between finance costs from leases versus financing costs from overdraft and debt? Will the portion of finance costs from borrowings in Poland be included back in the continuing ops finance cost post disposal?

You want to cover Poland aspect, and then I'll cover debt.

Yes. So from a Polish perspective, I'm going to reiterate that we've disclosed as much as we possibly can at this point in time around the Polish disposal. That being said, we have accounted for what we need to from an IFRS perspective. So we brought our assets and liabilities down to what we expect to realize or what we expect it to cost us. So that has been factored into our balance sheet disclosure. And I'm going to hand over to Mark.

Well, I think that from the continuing operation by deduction, we have accounted for the Polish debt in the continuing operation. And I think that the person asking the question can draw a conclusion that the group will be absorbing or taking on the bulk of the Polish debt post the acquisition.

Yes. So the Polish, I mean, for clarity so the total impairment in Poland, which includes the interest cost was taken into account in a group in terms of the disclosure we made last week and in terms of our [indiscernible] number.

Could you talk to bad debt trends and how the retailers relative to a year ago?

I'll take that and I think Mark can then do with it from an ECL level. We've had a number of difficult years in terms of bad debt. Having said that, for the first half of this year -- for the first time in many years, we've returned to normal levels of debt provisions. All our retailer cards are subjected to solvency testing in the DCs and then to by our auditors. And for the first 6 months, we probably had a normal level of additional or not additional, but normal level of provisioning. And in terms of the overall picture, I think I'll hand over to Mark.

Thanks Angelo. Again, just to repeat, Angelo's opening remark. Over the last 2 years, the group has taken, particularly in South Africa, a substantial bad debt and ECL provision. We've asked 18 months ago, how much of that would unwind. We haven't unwound much of it. But what I can just emphasize is in this set of results, the bad debt expense, including the ECL provision is some 48% down on what it was in the comparative period. The differential is approximately ZAR 100 million. From an ECL provision point of view, because we provide so specifically in the South African business, the ECL provision as determined for South Africa is relatively low. And hence, again, just to emphasize the size of the bad debt provisioning that's been taken in the past'. In the European businesses, both in Ireland and Switzerland. There were small bad debt adjustments or ECL provision movements in this set of results, nothing significant. I think I'd like to particularly emphasize that both of those businesses have got very closely or very tightly managed credit. And then in the Polish business, included in the discontinued loss was a write-off as part of the valuation of the assets of that business.

Thank you. Further questions, aim to spend, you aim to spend ZAR 1.5 billion this year. Where do you think capital expenditure lands in full year '25 and '26? When you say Switzerland and Ireland are under review, does this include a complete exit from Europe?

So that gives me indication of a complete data from Europe. I think given the [indiscernible] of orders taken and certainly, from an Executive Director point of view, we need to make sure that we maximize the return on capital allocated. And that's really the point of the review. That doesn't imply -- necessarily will by itself and exit from the market. It also talks to taking decisive action in each of those markets to drive opening [ TOM ]. I think that can be demonstrated in the Swiss business, where we are seeing a substantial increase in operating profit, and we're going to continue to dive that. Having said that, if we -- if our view is that we can't increase return to significantly above our weighted average cost of capital exits on and off the card side.

How does bolstering incentives for retailers impact margins over the short term?

So the way we operating the package these incentives is to make sure that they drive the top line so that any additional margin given away is taken care of inefficiency and productivity, and we aren't planning on impacting our trading margin -- our net margin level.

Given margins in SAX, KZN is about 2.6%, does KZN index higher than this on a normalized basis. If not, how does 1 get to 3% in full year '27.

Okay. So KZN does not index higher than that. In fact, KZN traditionally is 1 of our lower indexed distribution centers. In terms of getting from 2.6% to 3%, there are a number of steps we can take. One of them includes management of bad debt. There are also a number of ones nonrecurring costs in the 2.6 year to date, it's like a ZAR 100 million off the top of my head. So once you've done that back and you get it towards 2.7, then the review of our target operating model, we're expecting to find more efficiency in the business to get back to the 3%.

Any update on the Genacopolis group court case?

The court case hasn't moved at all. So there's been no movement in that speak out to that time.

Have you seen any retailers leaving to competitors?

For the year to date, for the first 6 months, we haven't seen any moves. That said, we -- towards the end of last month, we saw the first -- we'll offer from a competitor, and I say that I don't intend to say that there are going to be any move, so no real movement.

And please, can you provide a bit of color on debt restructuring and what does it entail? And what options are being considered as part of the debt restructuring? Will SPAR only look at a refi following the European strategic review?

You take the debt. I'll talk the last part.

I'll take the debt. So perhaps restructure at this stage is somewhat of a misnomer, let's talk refinance. And fundamentally, that comprise 2 pieces of work. The first 1 is to refinance the Polish debt to the extent that the group is responsible for that, and that's piece of work that commenced with our lenders some 4 months ago. We were comfortable that the -- if we were forced to that the South African business has capacity to take on that debt, what the debt will look like is still in discussion so far as what instruments are used or how we actually use the South African balance sheet to accommodate that. The second piece of debt, which perhaps is a refinanced by definition is that the South African business has to date, accumulated a disproportionate amount of short-term funding, and we believe that we need to term out a portion of that. The number that we have in mind is some ZAR 2.5 billion. So it doesn't change the total debt of the business. It simply restructures it into a medium-term instrument or arrangement. And again, that is part of the same piece of work that we're in discussions with our lenders to achieve either of those pieces of work have really any bearing on the strategic review of both international or local operations. Both of those need to commence very urgently. The most pressing 1 is obviously the Polish disposal. But at the same time, we look to deal with the restructuring of the short-term South African overdraft as part of their parcel.

I think just to highlight something that Mark said at the beginning, is the South African business traditionally has held no long term debt. And as we stand at the moment, we have a small mortgage bond on appropriately only for about ZAR 150 million of about ZAR 150 million. And other than that, all our [indiscernible] short-term via overdraft. And I think at this stage, in the life cycle of our business, we've reviewed debt together with our bankers. And well, we take a view on what an appropriate structure of that bad debt should look like. And as we finalize that, there are a number of instruments we could consider. And we're just trying to find the balance between liquidity and pricing on those facilities.

Why are the corporate-owned stores in South Africa generating such significant operating losses? Where are the bulk of the corporate stores located?

Generally, the SPAR Group is -- and we remain of the view that we are a wholesaler, and we don't want to run corporate stores. Those the corporate stores we have acquired have generally been other than 1 or 2. And the bulk of them have been defensive in nature, either to defend against competitors or having to take over the stores by virtue of having a long-term lease and a lease commitment in our stores. The stores are spread, but they're fairly well disbursed because the nature of the acquisitions were never strategic, which means the stores are all over the place, which is also non [indiscernible] reiterate our focus on being wholesale, and we really think the best outcomes we get at retail is by having independent retailers running, the stores and being at the heart of the community. And that can be seen in the stack environments by us, albeit slight growth in market share.

On the SA margin guidance for 2026, is that 3% EBIT margin for the full year 2026 or only for the last quarter or month of the 2026 financial year-end?

Our view is it probably looks like the last 6 months of the 2026 year that we get to that on a consistent basis. So we will ratchet up towards that.

Can you just provide some guidance for CapEx over the medium term?

I think our CapEx policy will remain largely similar to what we've done historically. Having said that, there are going to be small CapEx investments or relatively small in the bigger picture in terms of developing some strategic initiatives in SAP, which will probably add somewhere around ZAR 100 million of our CapEx in the short-to-medium term. Other than that, our capital allocation policy will remain the same and our replacement CapEx policy remains the same.

Great. Back to Ireland, given the inherent nature of the Irish business with growth speed by acquisitions, how should 1 think about the absence of acquisitions thus far in full year '24 and its impact on future top-line growth for the region?

Do you want anything to add?

Might be for you to start.

Okay. So whilst we're prioritizing cash, it doesn't mean that we're going to turn out every acquisition opportunity that is available. In Ireland, and we remain focused on that on achieving the right acquisitions at the right rate of return, but putting out an emphasis on making sure that we get -- having done in our capital and view on keeping the business cash flush or as cash flush as possible and reducing debt -- long-term debt in that business. We have a number of initiatives in planning at the moment to make our Irish business more efficient with many of acquisitions we've made. We can consolidate into single over centers across the country. That is a focus area for us. So to start seeing outsize benefit from the acquisitions we've made. And I think that will offset any losses we make -- or not losses implied reduction in growth because of the reduction in the number of acquisitions. Having said that, there's no firm commitments from our business for commitment. There's no firm instruction from the business that we will not consider any acquisitions. If the right opportunities present themselves at the right rate of return, we have the headroom to consider them.

Great. Thank you. Just a few more on Portland and I'll package them together. Is there a break fee in the Poland sale agreement? Will Poland did stay within the group's post sale? Will this be refinanced in SA or in foreign operations? And Megan, if you can clarify the point on IFRS 5 is the current accounting of the discontinued operation, including Polish debt in the group NAV or under discontinued operations?

So in terms of Poland, just from a deal perspective, there aren't any freight fees, but we are in an exclusivity. Then just in terms of taking on the debt, I think it's implied in terms of IFRS 5 as to -- we've done there to get to the right value that we think we're going to realize out of Poland. And then I'm going to let Mark answer the IFRS, very technical question.

The NAV question is based on the group balance sheet. And obviously, the group balance sheet is not prepared on a discontinued basis. And so for us, the Polish business is still accounted for as a disposal group. And therefore, the equity of the South African or the group balance sheet is and has included Poland. So NAV includes Poland. And I think the remaining portion of the question, I think Megan has answered to, unfortunately, at this stage, we are not in a position to get into too much detail about the extent of the debt and where the debt in fact, will be accounted for housed. We will definitely be providing you with a full update towards the end of the year and definitely in the November presentation.

You referenced negative gross profit margin impact caused by buyers having less visibility of pricing and subsidies. Can you please provide some further clarity as to what this means?

The nature of how we dilute our retailers is quite complex. Across our group, the view has always been that we sold the same list price to all our individual retailers with the exception of bulk discounts that can be negotiated between retailers and our buyers. And that solution we referred to as subsidy, those subsidy amounts becoming increasingly difficult to manage for buyers because of the complexity of our arrangements in terms of the discounts, non-cost discounts, rebates from suppliers, et cetera. And because the buyers that would have that visibility, they are making pricing decisions and incomplete information within KZN and finally, a difficult to manage final gross profit out of that facility. I have to emphasize this is specifically an issue within KZN and specifically on non-investment cross product, which KZN accounts for about 40% of the volume after that distribution center. The fix that we're going to put in place towards the end of August, beginning of September, we'll provide that visibility, but it will take some time to unwind to get back to normal.

We're coming to the end of our questions. Just let's stick to KZN for now. And what percentage of our volumes and sales go through the KZN in DC. For the new warehouse system to be implemented in KZN and pricing screens, what will the cost be for the rollout? When do you expect the rollout -- when do you expect to roll out the new warehouse system? And how do you expect the rollout to impact operations? Sorry, and lastly, on the second half path for KZN and lower GP margin. How long would this persist into the second half? And how much easier or better is this versus the first half in KZN?

So for the second half of this year, we don't expect a dramatic improvement in KZN. While we're working on to try and improve it. But I don't want to make a commitment on that. And I think just from a guidance perspective, I don't expect that to improve dramatically since the fixes that we're putting in place go in at the end of August. So they will be today -- and basically it will be 1 month of the buyers having the benefit of pricing correctly. Having said that, the rollout of the new warehouse system will not impact KZN in the short term. But the new warehouse system combined with the SAP ERP that we remain committed to, will go into the Build it warehouse either towards the end of Q1 calendar year '25 or the beginning of Q2. And that will be quite separate from the KZN rollout. We'll be able to assess the success of that. And we really want to highlight how much that derisks the rollout. At the moment, our warehouse in the Built it business, only accounts for 10% of overall sales into the Built it business, the balance happening through central billing or drop shipping, which derisks the roll out quite substantially. And once that is settled, we will then take a view on rolling out of the ratio of the business, again, very much focused on managing risk.

And lastly, please, can you provide an indication on trade post period end considering the softening over the last couple of weeks?

I think I answered that question...

Yes, you did, sorry. My apologies. And over to you, Ang, to conclude. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you all for joining us. And at this presentation, I already told that we've provided strategy for the market, particularly in terms of the Poland transaction, we're seeing recovery in the South African business, albeit not as well as we had planned. South African business operating at 1.9% substantially up, and we were in the second half of last year. So a lots of green shoots, although that's going to continue at this level for some time. We think we recover really well into the next financial year and quite confident about that. I really want to take some time to thank, R&D, who stepped in [indiscernible] when our Investor Relations consultant is not available. So Sam, thank you to you and the broader R&D team, who stepped in and helped kindly. And then just thank you to Kerry Becker, our Investor Relations consultant. She is in Ireland at the moment. Kerry, thank you take you for all your input and your commitment ran to the end for those of you who don't know, Kerry leaves us for new opportunity at the end of June. And we are totally grateful for the 5.5 years, spent with us. She's done an exceptional job in the Investor Relations space. And thank you to Kerry. We've got some really exciting things happening in our business, some succession rally taking place. And just a shout out to John Moane. John Moane is our commercial director in BWG Foods with Leo Crawford having indicated his desire to retire at the end of the year. John has been appointed as the CEO of the BWG business. John, comes with the lots and lots of experience, we're very confident with John at the arm of that business. And then to Leo Crawford has been an absolute [ solar ]. Thank you for agreeing to accept to remain on as a BWG Board member. So we gained from your wisdom Leo. And what you've done in that business has been unbelievable. Thank you so much, and we'll do a proper farewell at our year-end results announcement. Our Swiss team, Rob and the team, who've really picked up the bat and as we put pressure on that business and shown some really great operating performance this year. Thank you to you and the team for being committed and taking on the challenge that we put in front of you. Our Sri Lankan team have really done a fantastic job, really professional outlet and a relatively small business with the 1 that's growing really rapidly. Megan's come along and Meg's really done an amazing job in terms of finalizing the Polish acquisition and really clarifying our mind in terms of where we're going with the [indiscernible] lots of -- so Meg from me to you, well done. We've had an exceptionally busy 6 months, I think the market will realize it largely positive in terms of how we've dealt with operational issues and making some really difficult decisions for the long term of this business. And for that, I want to thank the guidance of our Board. And in particular, our Chairman, Mike Bosman, who challenges us every day in terms of putting some really, it's a big area audacious goals out there. We are very grateful to the broader board and for their guidance. And then lastly, a significant announcement, and I look to the man next to me. Mark Godfrey has been with the group for 28 years and will be with the group for 29 years on the 31st of December this year, has indicated his desire to retire. And Mark has really given outstanding service half -- a little bit more than half of the time being the CFO of this group, done an absolutely amazing job. When Mark retires, we'll be losing what I think is 1 of the great finest minds in the corporate sector in South Africa. And we are very grateful for everything you've done in this business. Mark has been kind enough to agree to take on some special projects and give off his time post retirement and to stay in the group and assist us as we go through the change in finding a CFO and also that is buying some of the elements in our business that really need some focus. Mark from myself, the Board to you, thank you for everything you've done for us -- absolute forward -- sometimes. But someone to be admired and someone I certainly admire currently.

Thank you very much.

Yes, just from all of us at SPAR, thank you for spending your time with us. We really appreciate it, and we look forward to seeing some of you in the next coming days. Thank you very much.