Tiger Brands Limited (TBS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to our F '23 financial results. I must say, I haven't worn this suit since my retirement, but it's still fit. I must say a few welcomes. Our Chair, Geraldine is here and a number of our board members are here today. Thank you very much for showing interest to attend this presentation. I hope the story will be the same as the Board yesterday. To -- there's some internal staff in the room. Welcome to you, and then to our guests, the analysts and the shareholders that are here. A warm welcome to you. I hope you enjoy the proceedings today. Let me hand over to Nikki to just take you through the agenda and then we can start. Thank you.

Thank you, Tjaart. Welcome to Tiger Brands. Good morning, everybody, and we also welcome those that have joined us on the webcast. A slight change in the sequence of events this morning. Deepa Sita, outgoing CFO, will kick off the presentation with an overview of our financial performance. We'll then move over to the operational reviews, which will be presented by the Chief Growth Officers. The market is familiar with the Chief Growth Officers. Yokesh Maharaj will kick off with the Grains performance; Thushen Govender, who is the incoming CFO and currently Chief Growth Officer for Consumer Brands, will cover off his section, and then Polycarp Igathe will cover the Rest of Africa. We'll then close with some closing remarks from Tjaart and then open it up to Q&A. Before I call on to Deepa, as is customary, I draw your attention to the forward-looking statement. With that, I'll hand over to Deepa. Thank you.

Thank you, Nikki. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Tjaart, this is certainly a full house. I'm not too sure if it's your welcome or my farewell. But maybe if there's a few tears, I know it will be for my farewell. So good morning, everybody. It gives me great pleasure to be able to do the results presentation today for our FY '23 financial year. Yes, it is going to be my farewell. So certainly a bittersweet moment for me this morning. Kicking straight off into our financial results and just a snapshot of the year that's passed. We've certainly seen a mixed operational performance between the domestic and the export business. And I guess the results for the financial year ended 30th of September 2023 is reflective of the challenging environment in which we've been operating in over the past year, and I guess, continuing to operate into the FY '24 period. The environment has certainly been marked by high food inflation over the past year. We've seen cost-conscious consumers that have been trading out of premium products into more affordable products in the last year. And then also, obviously, we've been impacted by the rand depreciation and something that affects all of us quite closely in terms of the unreliable electricity supply. So all of those environmental factors certainly impacting the results overall. In terms of our salient features for the year under review, we've seen total revenue increase by 10%, amounting to ZAR 37.4 billion. Despite cost containment initiatives and supply chain efficiencies that we have spoken about in the past, delivering ahead of what we have previously guided to the market, the ongoing challenges that we've experienced as a result of the higher cost -- input cost inflation coming through, and our inability to fully recover those through price increases, has resulted in our overall gross margin declining to 27.7%, declined from the 30.3% that we reported in the prior year. The group operating income declined by 9% to an amount of ZAR 3.1 billion for the year. And I guess a good story in terms of the income from associates continue to deliver ahead of expectation. We saw an increase year-on-year of 46% in this particular space to an amount of ZAR 697 million. That was largely driven by really strong trading performance coming through from the Carozzi business as well as the benefit in terms of the National Foods earnings being impacted positively by an amount of ZAR 120 million, and that was largely driven by the change in functional reporting currency as a result of their change of listings from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to the Victoria Stock Exchange. The group's effective tax rate before the fair value losses, nonoperational items and the income from associates declined slightly to 29% from the 29.4% that we saw in the prior year. EPS decreased by 2% to an amount of ZAR 17.25, down compared to the ZAR 17.62 we reported in the prior year. HEPS, on the other hand, increased marginally by 2% to ZAR 17.35 compared to the ZAR 17.02 in the prior year. The variation that we see come through in EPS compared to the HEPS is largely driven by the nonrecurrence of certain capital profit items that were reported in EPS in FY '22, which were excluded from HEPS in the prior year. On the dividend side, we're pleased to advise that the Board approved yesterday a final dividend of ZAR 6.71 per share, and that's up 3% on the prior year. And that brings our total dividend declared for the year to an amount of ZAR 9.91 per share. Moving on to just some reflection of the year that passed in terms of highlights and headwinds. We have seen revenue growth, as I've mentioned previously, and that was largely driven by cost-led increases in all of the segments. However, we have noted that the inflation did slow down in the second half of the financial year. The Home Care business showed solid growth in H2 in terms of their performance, and that was largely driven by increased demand coming through. We saw successful price volume recovery in rice following the H1 report. And also, the export business, as I indicated previously, has seen a marked improvement in all of the segments and the metrics for that particular category. Again, solid contribution come through from associates, as I've already spoken to, and you've heard me speak previously around the revenue management initiatives, and we're really pleased to advise that, that program continues to gain traction and momentum and continues to deliver significant improvement to the bottom line. Cost-saving initiatives have delivered ahead of target levels, and that's despite the high input cost pressures that we've seen come through. With that being said, though, we have been met with significant headwinds, and the most significant of the lot has certainly been in our bakeries and groceries business, which my colleagues will talk to in a few minutes' time. We continue to see under recoveries in our factories as a result of supply chain challenges that we've been experiencing. Pricing constraints remain in terms of the competitive market that we're experiencing where volumes and gross margin pressures continue to see the impact. We've continued to see the volatile inbound supply chain, particularly in terms of our imported products, and I'm sure most of you have been tracking in terms of what's going on currently in the dynamics at the ports, et cetera. So that continues to impact our business, and does impact us from a working capital point of view, having to ensure that we have sufficient raw material in place in areas taking in stock in advance. Moving on to the revenue and price inflation slide in particular. Again, we've seen a mix bag come through. Total revenue for the business has increased by 10%, and that was largely driven by price inflation of 11%, favorable foreign exchange gains of 1%, but that was marginally offset by volume declines of 2%. We saw volume growth come through in our export business, but that was offset by declines noted in the domestic business. The domestic decline primarily attributable to the milling and baking businesses, grocery businesses as well as Baby and the LAF business due to timing of shipments, which we're hoping to recover. The volume decline was, however, partially offset by good volume growth that we noted in our Rice category, the Beverages category, Home & Personal Care, Tiger Brands' food services solution, which was previously known as our Out of Home business, as well as a good performance coming through in Chococam. Just in terms of our H1 and H2 performances, you'll note that the H2 performance certainly reflective of the progressing challenging environment that I spoke to earlier and really becoming quite difficult to operate in given all of the global inflationary pressures that we're experiencing. Profitability in H2, however, did improve in all of our segments with the exception of the Beverages business as well as the Out of Home business. However, important to note, particularly in our Beverages business, that is a seasonal business, and it is a business that does perform well in H1 given the summer dynamics. But again, pleased to note that the H2 performance year-on-year has improved in FY '23. Looking at the more detailed income statement for the year. Again, like I said, a mixed bag performance, and I'll unpack a few of these line items, particularly where we're seeing variations coming through year-on-year. As I previously noted, the group operating income declined by 9% to ZAR 3.1 billion, and that was largely impacted by the higher conversion costs that continue to play out. We saw an impact come through on adverse product mix. Also, I guess what's important to call out is you'll recall last year, we spoke about insurance proceeds coming through at ZAR 190 million, and that was largely driven by the [indiscernible] unrest, et cetera, but we see the insurance proceeds this year amounting to only ZAR 137 million. So you see that variation come through. Also included in the FY '23 financial year is retrenchment costs amounting to ZAR 95 million, and that is related to a number of retrenchments in progress with our categories as well as corporate -- the corporate office retrenchments undergoing at the moment. In terms of comparison to last year, last year actually saw a reversal of an overprovision in retrenchment provisions. So we saw an ZAR 8 million income accounted for in the prior year. The total cost of load shedding continues to be problematic as we've spoken about in our H1 results. The total cost that we saw come through for the year amounted to ZAR 126 million impact, and that was comparative to the ZAR 30 million that we reported in the prior year. When we look at the incremental energy cost as a result of this load shedding, that amounts to ZAR 72 million over and above what the normal energy cost would have been for the year. Like I said, I guess, at a personal note, really proud about the fact that we -- the cost containment initiatives continue to gain momentum year-on-year. We were able to deliver and make a positive contribution amounting to ZAR 525 million, and that was ZAR 65 million higher compared to what we've previously guided in terms of our target for the year being ZAR 460 million. Net financing cost for the year amounted to ZAR 238 million, significantly up on the prior year's amount of ZAR 75 million, increase largely driven out of the increased interest rates, the impact on the opening cash balances following the share buyback that we completed in August 2022, as well as an impact in terms of higher average working capital requirements coming through in the financial year, albeit some improvement noted in H2 in the space. The overall profit after tax amounted to ZAR 2.7 billion for the year compared to the ZAR 2.9 billion that we saw in the prior year. Just in terms of our segmental reporting, I'm just going to do a very high level position on the segmentals. And my colleagues, the CGOs will cover the more detailed synopsis in a few minutes' time. What we've seen come through in the Grains business is 10% revenue growth, and that was largely driven by cost-led price increases across all the segments as well as the volume growth that we noted in the Rice and Bakeries business for the year. The category reflected average price inflation of 13% offset by overall volume declines of 3% for the year. Operating income recorded a decline in the second half relative to the same period last year, and those were largely driven from segments -- from all the segments, except maize, Sorghum-based and our Jungle business and as a result of conversion cost compounded by the adverse product mix that we saw come through. Our consumer business recorded an increase in revenue of 8% for the year, and that was driven by a solid performance come through in Snacks & Treats, Beverages as well as our Out of Home business. The operating income, however, declined by 18% to an amount of ZAR 1.2 billion, and that was driven by groceries, while S&T as well as the Baby also negatively impacted those results. I guess it's important to call out, particularly in the consumer business, that this business is being significantly impacted by higher agri cost coming through as well as the dynamic shift in terms of consumers shifting to lower premium or less premium products into more affordable products. And I'm sure Thushen will talk more extensively about that. In terms of our Home & Personal Care business, HPC grew by 17% to ZAR 2.2 billion for the year. Operating income increased by 50% to an amount of ZAR 461 million, and that was driven by recovery in both the Home Care as well as the Personal Care segments. As I've previously noted in the highlights section of the presentation, the Home Care business saw a really strong second half come through compared to prior year, and that was largely driven by increased demand as well as really a strong focus in, in-store execution in the space. On the export and international side, really pleasing performance. We saw revenue increase for international by 14% to an amount of ZAR 4.9 billion. That was largely driven by price inflation of 12% and favorable foreign exchange translation gains of 7%, which is quite high, offset by a volume decline of 5%. The total operating income increased by 71% to ZAR 601 million for this particular segment, and the improved profitability across all segments have come through, particularly in exports in the Deciduous Fruit business as well as an improvement in the quality of the debtors book over the past year. Moving away from the P&L into the cash flow statement. Cash operating profit declined by 4% to ZAR 4.1 billion. We did see an impact come through in terms of working capital, with working capital outflows declining by 12% relative to the prior year, and that's largely being driven by the creditor side of things as well as debtors, while inventory continues to be impacted, particularly in raw materials, as a result of the supply chain constraints that we've been experiencing. However, with that being said, working capital continues to remain a focus for us in terms of continuous improvement on all 3 of those metrics. This resulted in cash generated from operations increasing marginally to ZAR 2.7 billion and a closing cash balance of ZAR 776 million. The group ended the period in a net debt position of ZAR 923 million compared to the prior year of ZAR 143 million, and that's after accounting for the long and short-term borrowings that we have in place. I guess another positive story for the year is the improvement in terms of the management of CapEx spend. The capital expenditure for the period amounted to ZAR 1.2 billion, which was up on ZAR 1 billion that we reported in the prior year. CapEx spend focused on 4 main categories, which we've spoken about in the past in terms of automation, brand focus capacity expansion as well as efficiency optimization. I won't go through each of the items, but you can see on the slide, significant investments in most of the categories, I guess, notable in the Groceries, we've spoken about the peanut butter expansion project, which is -- and that plant relocation, which will complete -- will be completed shortly. HPC around the replacement of the aerosol line and then we've had some investment in the likes of bakeries and some of the other categories as well. We did also see significant investment come through in our Chococam business, real focus there in terms of both expansion as well as general efficiency opportunities in that particular site. On the IT space, as we've spoken about in the past, real focus on automation and digitization in the organization, with a high amount of focus in terms of the procurement space as well as just general efficiencies and management of swell allowances and the automation thereof. And I guess, yes, my conclusion slide, like I said, bittersweet moment for me. It certainly has been a really great 3 years on a personal level from a development point of view, from an opportunity point of view, and certainly, I'm really grateful to management and to the Board of Tiger Brands for the opportunity to be able to have made a difference in a number of areas. I guess, as I reflect back on the past 3 years, key deliverables and key highlights for me at a personal level has certainly been the cost-saving initiatives that we have been targeting over the past 3 years. To be able to deliver over ZAR 1 billion worth of cost benefits to the organization is certainly something -- as a team effort has certainly been something I'm super proud of. We've also seen a significant investment in automation in Tiger Brands over the past 3 years, with a real focus on growth and optimization and efficiencies. Like I said, procurement, which I took on just over 1.5 years ago, really focusing in terms of allowing us to get the competitive advantage in the market, really focusing on automation and controls and governance in the space and really setting up the foundation for really positive impact going forward. The revenue management project I've spoken about, that continues to gain good traction and momentum with the project and program implemented in all of our categories to date. We've also successfully concluded all the trading terms, and we've seen an improvement in terms of treasury management, which is now working cross-functionally across the organization. And then, obviously, the share buyback program that was completed in the prior year. However, with that being said, still lots to do going forward, great opportunities, and I really look forward to handing over to both Tjaart and to Thushen in his new role, in terms of real opportunities to continue to make a difference to the bottom line. Like I said, there's opportunities that remain in terms of improved working capital management, CapEx investment to gain even further momentum compared to what we've achieved in the past. Cost-saving initiative targets for the year has been marked at ZAR 690 million. And you can see a continued step change on the ZAR 500 million odd mark that we've reported in the past. And then obviously, the traction that we're making in the venture capital fund, I think, continued opportunities there under the leadership of Barati and the team. But also just to acknowledge the fact that we have made another acquisition in the space a couple of weeks ago being Rush Nutrition in addition to the Herbivore project that we closed out previous years. And then just also just focus on repositioning the brands and improving our route to market. So on that note, I'm going to just, once again, thank the Board and management and to the market as well for the opportunity. It's really been a pleasure for me to be able to serve as the CFO of the organization. And I wish Thushen all the best in his new role and Tjaart all the best in the new role. On that note, I'm going to hand over to Yokesh.

Thank you, Deepa, and good morning, everyone. I'll click on to the first slide. I think the subject or the heading of this slide really reflects the Grains business over the years. So high volumes, increased market shares in most of the subcategories, but really impacted by adverse channel product mix and higher conversion costs. As Deepa mentioned, we grew revenue to the tune of 13%, but these were offset by volume declines of 3%. Revenue growth -- sorry, volume growth was mainly driven by our Bread and Rice categories, while the decline was in the Maize category. The Maize category in totality is in decline at the moment, and we're seeing down trading in this category, which further puts pressure on our Millbake category, which I'll touch on in a minute. As you can see, negative leverage on operating income, and this was mainly driven by higher conversion costs and the impact of load shedding, which was significant, particularly in our Millbake business. And as I said, the adverse channel mix, when you look at the modern trade, general trade mix for Bread business. So if I go -- if I touch on values for a second, pleasing performance across flour, cereals, rice and dry pasta with marginal declines in maize and bread. And overall, the Grains category coming in more or less flat from a value share perspective despite us taking over 13% in price over the year. So if I touch on milling and baking, and just for clarity, this subsegment includes wheat milling, bread, maize and our Sorghum businesses. And we've had challenges across each of these categories throughout the year. So you'll see revenue up 8% to ZAR 11.5 billion, with deleveraging in terms of operating profit and operating margin down 231 basis points to 5.2%. So whilst we showed overall recovery and growth in our volumes in the bread business, unfortunately, we had adverse channel mix. Growth came in the modern trade, and we had volume declines in the general trade, which impacted our volumes. The fight for market share in the general trade is becoming tougher, I suppose. According to SAGIS, bread volumes in the medium to short term are declining, led by brown bread. And as you know, brown bread is a strategic driver of revenue and margin in the general trade. We also impacted in our Millbake business by low shedding, as you can see from the slide, to the tune of ZAR 69 million, up ZAR 51 million from last year. This is also compounded by intimated water shortages, which necessitates for us to deliver water to particularly our outlying bakeries, and this further has an impact on the overall cost of production and hence, conversion costs. The maize category was impacted by category declines over the period, the full year, placing pressure on category and, of course, our own volumes. There was volatile price increases, particularly in our quarter 1, so October to December last year, which led to a significant variation in the volume value offering that we put out into the market. And quite aggressive pricing over the last 9 months, driven by private label and DOB. And what we're seeing as a result of this is a down trading by consumers into the private label or confined labels or DOBs in the maize segment in particular. So what gives rise to growth in the maize category is a down trade or products on combination of products put together with flour, rice and oil. Further impact over the last year was the agricultural supply of Sorghum in Southern Africa. What we did see is a shortage across -- not in South Africa, but our neighboring countries as well, which then forced us to import Sorghum into the country from United States. Underlying Sorghum prices at this stage up 42% year-on-year, and this results in a change in consumer consumption patterns. So as the price gap between Sorghum beer and clear beer narrows, you find consumers switching out of Sorghum beer into clear beer. And this category will remain under pressure until the next season comes in. And we have a new crop in South Africa during this El Niño season, which we believe will correct prices to FY -- close to FY '22 levels. So the focus for FY '24 for us will remain on driving volumes in the general trade. I believe we have now a set of bakery managers that have been in the seat for a period of time with a good understanding of the geographical regions. And we're also implementing route optimization and technology into our trucks to further enhance this. Also key in the milling and baking segment will be the management of sorghum input costs as we look to manage on-shelf pricing, not just for King Korn or sorghum beverage but also for Morvite, which is our cereal offering in trade. If I then move on to other greens, this includes rice, pasta and Jungle, revenue up 14% to ZAR 5.5 billion, with operating margins at 4.3%. So at this juncture, I just want to point out that the biggest impact we had in operating margins in this segment was in H1 when we spoke to you about the anomaly between the volume value that was driven in the rice category. I'm pleased to report that well-executing -- executed price strategy during the second half of the year led to margin recovery in the rice segment of just over 200 basis points at a slight expense of volume, but this was deliberate. Because we needed to get the price up from the lower ZAR 130, if you compare 10 kg bag, close to ZAR 200 where we are today. This is, in fact, driven by the increase in Thai pricing, parboiled rice pricing from Thailand. Two things occurred during the year that triggered a significant increase of 49% year-on-year in the increase of parboiled rice. Firstly, the Indian government put a ban on the exports of broken and white rice, which led to a little spike. But the major spike came through in -- at the end of August when they announced -- Indian government announced a 20% increase in parboiled rice. So although we didn't -- we don't import parboiled rice from India, it had an overall impact on the international category. So rice prices are, in fact, up 49% year-on-year, input costs. This is going to lead to a significant increase on price -- on shelf pricing, and therefore, this category needs to be managed quite carefully into the next fiscal from a volume/value relationship. We had a pleasing performance in our Jungle loads business, driven by good market share gains, particularly in the hot cereals category, optimizing our distribution costs and improved efficiencies. We also launched a number of innovations in this category over the last year. For the first time in the history of this country, oats ready to drink, on-the-go beverage, which is dairy-free, and also the flakes that we recently introduced into the market. The rice and pasta volumes were -- profitability, excuse me, were impacted by adverse product mix. From a rice perspective, though, it was deliberate, as I pointed out, because we wanted to set the pricing of the 2 kg and 10 kg on shelf to establish a new customer price point, and that's why we drove these 2 KVIs in particular. We did have some optimal performance in our pasta plant. But over the last 2 years, we've invested significant CapEx into this plant, and I believe it is in a much better position for the FY '24 fiscal. Key to the other grains category in FY '24 will remain the focus on the volume/value relationship in rice, given the higher input costs. Thank you very much. I'll call on to Thushen.

Good morning, everyone. I'll start off with this slide, just a general overview of the Consumer division. Looking down at the bottom section of the slide, you'll see that our value shares held up in the main. And where you did see some slight regression is areas where we've pushed price high into the market relative to our competition given our cost inflation. And as a consequence, we've seen some volume regression, which impacted us, in particular in groceries. What's quite evident on this slide is the performance that's come out of the Groceries division as well as Snacks & Treats. Deepa referred to some of the supply chain challenges as well as the cost inflation across our raw materials and packaging. And she also referred to the agricultural conditions that we face, which is obviously impacting businesses that rely on agricultural inputs, be it small white beans, tomatoes, peanuts, cocoa or sugar, and the list continues, actually, if you consider the makeup of our portfolio. And given the volatility in climate as well as the impact of load shedding on irrigation, it's impacting the supply of agri inputs as well as the pricing. The Baby category held up better than anticipated, and I'll take you through to the market conditions there, and you'll appreciate what I'm saying. And then it was a stellar set of results from both Beverages and the Home & Personal Care business. This was a combination of a well-executed operating plan as well as much needed tailwinds. Moving on to Slide 2. This slide actually depicts the market, which -- and I'm sure you'll appreciate the tough trading conditions it creates, in particular, for premium offerings in the market. This is both the 12-month and the 3-month moving average taken from the market and the categories in which we participate. You've seen a slight improvement in Home Care as the aerosol pesticide category corrected itself from the poor pest season in the prior year. In this climate, given that premium products are always going to be at risk, there are a few things that we need to focus on. And I will cover it in more detail when I get to the category slides. But at a high level, it's about business simplification, reducing SKUs, reducing nonperforming categories and then cost management. We've made some good inroads with regards to conversion cost management. And then I've been speaking to you about value engineering across packaging and recipes. And there, again, we've made some good inroads where we've looked at across our KVIs, looked at our recipes and went through consumer testing, and in many of our products, they're on-shelf stability, meaning that they will go into the market in some time in the new year at a much better price point because we need to be a lot more competitive on shelf. And also, there will be a bit that drops down to the margin. In H1, I spoke to you about supply chain challenges, the erratic supply of small white beans, the erratic supply of vinegar as well as the high cost inflation across packaging and raws. In H2, we've seen an improved performance. We've seen top line improve, naked margins, gross margins as well as EBIT improve. This was despite some of the challenges we faced by -- where we had to manage down our working capital and our stock levels, given the lower demand in market. And as a consequence, there were under recoveries at the facility. And everyone is familiar with the avian influenza, and that impacted the supply of eggs to our mayonnaise facility. And there, again, we had under recoveries because we had to shut down the facility, and we had to go on allocation into the trade given the limited supply of stock. So it's pleasing to see that there has been some improvement in H2 despite these challenges. This gives you a perspective on the H2 performance improving from H1, and all of you will remember that H1 is generally the stronger period when it comes to the Groceries results. If I consider where we've made good traction in this business, it's around cost reduction at the facilities. In the quarter 4, we went through a time and motion study across all of our facilities, and we've identified headcount reduction opportunities. So going into the new year, we'll see the benefit of that come through. I spoke to you about cost engineering across recipes and packaging, whether it's lightweighting packaging or looking at more innovative ways to get our products on shelf more cost effectively, we're also seeing good traction there. And I think the other point to call out here is, when it comes to SKU rationalization, we're becoming a lot more brutal with regards to the tail. We've rationalized some of our seasonal canned food range where it will reduce our manufacturing footprint, reduce our headcount and also reduce the drag on working capital. And this range was targeted in particular given the lower margins we were achieving from it. So looking ahead, you'll see that strong theme that I mentioned right upfront around business simplification and driving costs down. The Snacks & Treats business delivered an excellent performance from a market share perspective, both values and volumes up, and better than our competitors out there considering the category dynamics. However, profit was impacted, yet again, here by supply chain challenges and raw material inflation. We had some issues with peanut supply in the second half, and quite a few of our products depend on roasted peanuts. And as a consequence, we've had underrecoveries as well as poor sales from these high-margin products. The other challenge we faced was the increasing price of sugar as well as cocoa. Looking ahead, the cocoa harvest for the new year is expected to be at an all-time low in decades, mainly driven by, again, climatic conditions as well as the Indonesians who pull out cocoa trees and are planting palm trees now given that, that's a more stable crop. So the business challenge around cost management continues, and we've made some good traction across areas like packaging, lightweighting, recipe formulations where we've brought in a global partner, and we've started relooking at our chocolate recipes, in particular, to maximize margins. And here, again, we're very mindful of not impacting the product and test intrinsics. So we're not going to rush that process. We've also rationalized SKUs in this particular business. And in the quarter 4, completed a time and motion study and reduced our headcount. You'll see that benefit coming through in our conversion costs in the new year. Moving on to Beverages, really an excellent set of results across all subcategories of beverages. And in this business, you're beginning to see some of that continuous improvement initiatives that we started about 18 months ago around recipes, around optimization of logistics and facilities. And it's nice to see it coming through in the margin. From a business simplification perspective, we've take -- we had a look across all of our SKUs here as well. And we've outsourced a few SKUs from a sales, marketing and distribution perspective. These SKUs were either a drag on our margin, or a distraction to management. So by outsourcing the sales, marketing and distribution, we still benefit from the contribution of these products, but we allow management to focus on the core. I showed you the Baby category dynamics. And the reality is, households and shoppers cannot afford buying specific product solutions for Baby. They buy in general food and well-being solutions to meet the whole family's needs. And you're also seeing quite a bit of down trading into private label in this category. So what we're doing about it? We're about to launch a value proposition under the ACE Baby range that will be in market by quarter 2, which will help us to compete effectively, we believe, with the private label offerings out there. We've also rationalized our purity range quite significantly. There were seasonal SKUs, there were a drag on working capital and also a drag on margin. And recipe engineering is also something we're busy considering this business to make sure that we can put a product on shelf that's a lot more cost competitive. It was a stellar set of results from our Home & Personal Care business. The recovery of the aerosol pesticide business was largely driven by the turnaround of the pest season. You will recall in the year before, the past season really didn't come through because of the high level of rainfall. And in this year, we've had a great year as a consequence of the weather patterns being quite conducive to pests and mosquitoes. From a personal care perspective, we've also seen great traction. Historically, this business was dependent on Ingram's camphor cream, which is typically purchased during the winter period. With our innovation around the Ingram's range, we've managed to deseasonalize this to an extent, introduced functional creams that talks to skin nutrition, skin moisturization and it's helping us deliver consistent sales throughout the year. In fact, one of these innovation SKUs that I called out was our fastest selling product in the past year. Looking ahead in this particular business, now that we've seen some relief in cost inflation, we're going to have to focus this business on simplification of SKUs and innovation and focusing on driving the core hard as well as working closely with Poly's team because we've seen some great opportunities in the rest of the continent. The LAF business has really been an excellent result considering the cost push that we saw in this business across cans, load shedding. During the harvest period, we didn't have water supply at the facilities. We had to assist the local municipality with a generator. This impacted our yields as well. We've had significant cost push on cans. And then obviously, the cost of running the generator at the facility impacted the conversion cost. But what helped us was the weaker currency as well as global pricing holding. In the previous year, Greece had a poor crop and global pricing spiked. We expected this to reverse in the current year, but it actually didn't and the pricing held quite nicely. There's been quite a bit of market consolidation as well with fruit [indiscernible] across the globe. And we believe that this is one of the reasons why we've seen global pricing and demand hold quite nicely. With these results, it gives us a little bit of breathing space to find the right buyer for this business and meet the needs of all of our stakeholders, shareholders, including our employees. But at this stage, I cannot confirm that we have a deal. There's a few due diligences in progress. Thank you. I'll hand over to Polycarp.

Thank you very much, Thushen, and good morning, everybody. I'm here to report that in the last year, what we have seen in the rest of Africa is a solid return on effort on our efforts to partner with, especially with our key distributors, people who understand the markets, who have built field representation in those markets and who have also made sure our proximity of our offering to the trade continues. So the results that you see up there is a 24% growth in revenue. And underpinning it is a real good volume story. We have 3 wellsprings of volumes in our business, the Davita business where we produce Jolly Jus and Benny, and we've had a 6% growth in volume there. Then the Tiger Brands exports where we consolidated exports from factories -- out of the factories of Thushen and the factories of Yokesh, and we took them to the continent. And we've seen 16% growth in volume there. And lastly, Chococam, where we've seen 8% growth in volume. And that volume really reflects the opportunity on the continent that is a useful demography that's fast urbanizing and that's who we pass it off, and that's what we are doing in our categories. So the second thing is to actually speak to the rejuvenation of our key distributor model. We've partnered with people who are nimble and agile in core countries on the continent. We are now exporting into 29 markets across the continent, but majority of our business comes where we have the biggest right to win, which is South Africa, in Zimbabwe, in Zambia, in Mozambique. We've also gained a lot of traction in Nigeria, and we've gained a lot of traction out of the East African side, in Kenya and in Southern Sudan. And in the South African region, we've added a new engine of growth with Angola, and that really speaks to the results that you see. It's also worth mentioning that we run a factory, Davita factory, which is 100% exports here in South Africa that has really performed very well from a margin perspective. We are producing at a better cost. The rand per case has come down. And our distribution cost has also come down in terms of rand per case. So we've become efficient and that creates the [ jaw ] of growth that you see in our results. So the supply chain efficiency we are achieving a tempo, a refill of exporting our goods into the continent out of South Africa, which drives the belief on the vision, which has been said by our chair, where we talk about our business being headquartered in South Africa but operating and selling globally. Going forward, looking forward, we continue to partner with our key distributors on 3 core issues, demand creation, demand fulfillment and market execution. By demand creation, we focus on 5 brands. We really are a home and personal care business because we sell a lot of Ingrams and Doom. We are also have condiments and ingredients business because we sell Benny and Crosse & Blackwell as brands. And lastly, we are a snacks and treats business because what you see are selling in Cameroon is primarily chocolates, candies, chocolate spread and other chocolate beverage drinks. But Cameroon, 25% of the business in Cameroon comes from the Central African countries, what you call CEMAC. And looking forward, we want to grow beyond SADC. So really grow the strength around the equatorial region looking at the East and West. So that's the story of the rest of Africa. We are now poised for further growth, and we strongly feel that we are now sitting on a sustainable -- we are on a sustainable platform to further grow from where we are. Thank you very much for listening to me. Thank you.

Thank you, Polycarp. In conclusion, I've got a couple of slides and a few things to talk about, and then we can take questions. So if you look at the external challenges we have, and I'm pretty sure if you look at what we've written down on that Slide, every presentation you go to, you see exactly the same stuff. So I'm assuming you've seen it, and I'm not going to repeat it. But it's not -- the external environment is not kind to us. We've got lots of issues. If you look at the ports, diesel cost, generators, but it's our job to deal with it. What is our response? So there's a few things that I'll come back to later on, but we have to look at our operating model to be leaner and meaner. We have to look at our portfolio. Thushen referred to it. We are just too complex in many of our businesses, and we need to look at our business and make them much more agile and make them much more efficient from a product offering point of view. The restoring cost leadership. The business has been busy with that for a couple of years, and it's something we must continue to drive to bring our costs not in line with competitors, but better than competitors. And our brands, we've got the best brands in the business. And we must rejuvenate them. We must make sure they stay the best brands in the business, and we must make them work for us. And then our general trade business and Yokesh referred to that. We've got challenges in the general trade in 2 areas with our grocery basket is how does product get into the general trade because that's big, and we don't have well defined channels to do that. But even more important, that's our bakeries going into the general trade. So I'll talk about that a bit later. So there's more detail on this. If you look at our operating model, we have to design an operating model that focuses on the customer and focuses on the businesses that goes through to the customer, get decision-making as close to the operations as we can and get corporate functions to be supportive of the operations which serve the customer. We get -- must get to better decision-making, quicker decision-making and just get the business to operate in a much more efficient way. If you look at complexity, a few guys refer to it. We have just got too many SKUs in the business. It's too complex. It creates stockholding problems. It creates return problems. It creates complexity through the plants. It creates all sorts of problems. And it is something that we have to address and will address going forward. With that, we must not lose our capability to innovate. So we must still look at what can we do to excite the consumer from an offering point of view that they haven't seen before yet. So we must get the balance right, and we must not lose our capability to innovate. And by the way, to get the SKU run sorted out is innovation. So that's a role to play around innovation to get the structure and get the portfolio right. And on top of that -- then to get our innovation working going forward. Strong brands. We've got the best brands in the business. You can look at all the categories where we play. We've got the -- you can say in some of the brands, we play against multinet and that's true. But for most of our food brands, we are -- we have got the best brands in the business. So if we get these other things resolved, we've got the springboard of our brands that can really take us forward into the future. Our supply chain, the business has been busy with that for a while to look at that, and we will continue that focus to get the supply chain to work well. And if we get things like the ports, Eskom, water, it's on its way. And we have to learn how to work with these things because they're not going to go away. They're going to be with us for a while. And we must develop supply chains that can cope and deal with those challenges that has thrown our way from a utility point of view. And then the financial strength. We've got -- we do have a strong balance sheet. We are cash generative. The business is in good shape from a financial point of view. So we've got the balance sheet to go and do these things that I've just spoken about. So before I conclude on a conclusion slide with a few additional comments on our financial performance, I just want to make the point that the way we're going to address or approach these things that we're going to do and target through a culture process or through a culture that -- and they are say the logical things. So if we drive change in the business, we do it through process of showing mutual respect to each other. Get people to work. We want people to be highly motivated, focus on what they need to do. And you cannot do that if you don't do these things properly. We want people to focus that way on the customer, not this way on what the boss might say. I think we've got all the tools in the business. I've been through all the tools that's in Tiger. We've got them. We've got the voice of Tiger where we ask people all the time what's going on. We can use that. We've got a defined culture, which is perfectly defined. We can use that. So I think we can hit the road running. But it's very important in the sale process that we will drive these values very, very, very hard. So I've got a concluding Slide, which I want to start off by saying if you look at the results, it's just been presented to you, they're not great. And some of it is as a result of the environment out there. But I think all of you have done the comparisons with our competitors. Our competitors have done better than us. So our results are sub great also because of issues we've got in the business. And I think you must just realize that we're going to turn the ship, but not tomorrow. We've started this morning already. But it will not be done by tomorrow. And it will take time. So I don't see a lot of movement in the first 6 months or in the first half of this coming year. But I would see some -- I would think we would see some numbers coming out in the second half of the year. So I just want to caution the market that we're going to fix this. It's -- and they -- it's explained why I think we can fix this with without effort relatively easy. We've got the brands. We've got the brands nobody else has. These brands are still the best brands in the business in all those categories. And recapturing again the deliberate action plans, I'm not going to read through it, I spoke through it. If we do that with high levels of focus, and get it done, get it implemented, we will get the business back to being the benchmark for competitors to use to see how they can do better. That's my short story. We've got lots of work to do, so we can't talk too much. Nikki will take us and help us with driving us through questions and guiding questions to the right person to answer.

Thank you, Tjaart. If you just give us a minute, we're just getting the chairs and management can join us in the front of the auditorium. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. We'll start with questions in the room. Please raise your hand, and we can kick off.

Its [indiscernible] from [indiscernible] Capital. Just the first one on procurement. I just want to understand who is currently ultimately responsible for procurement? Because obviously, there's the drive to make the critical decision closer to the operations. So I just want to understand who does that sit with? And how he or she is measured?

Tjaart?

The procurement reports to the CFO, and we'll keep it like that. That's a good place for procurement to sit. The things that we must probably focus on is if there's specific stuff, that doesn't happen at the group level, that stuff we can take to the operations. But grain procurement sits in the operation, which is great. So if there's more opportunities like that, but that process has started now, we will go through that process, but there's an absolute role for procurement at the center. And then very specific, it's mostly agricultural-based procurement that you will do in the businesses.

And then just on capital allocation decision process. I just want to understand how is that going to change? I mean, obviously, there's been some blunders in the past, whether it be geographical expansion or maybe some other things. Just to understand how is that going to change? And once again, how does that specific decisions get made? Is it within the divisions? Is it in the sub-division, does it go all the way to board depending on the level of the money being spent? How would that change under your leadership?

How it's currently made and now it should be made. I don't think that's a big difference. I think the big issue is it's not maybe a big difference is if we do capital allocation decisions, do we look at returns, do we look at the balance sheet, do we look at RONAs and do we look at the right categories. And I think we're doing that. It's something that we will just keep on focusing and maybe fine-tuning but to say don't add capital allocation to this long tail of SKUs, do it to the big stuff. So I don't think our capital allocation is where the problem lies.

Okay. And then just last question, I think you sort of answered, but just on the income from associates, I mean it does have very good performance. I just want to understand, is that sustainable because it sounded like things have turned to corner and things are going revolving.

Yes, sure.

Yes. Thanks for that question. We continue to see a good performance come through from Carozzi. You'll see year-on-year, that business continues from just genuine trading. The current year has benefited from a National Foods point of view, it has benefited by ZAR 120 million as a result of this functional currency translation. So I think that's something that it's going to be dependent on what happens with the exchange rate. And that's something which we're going to have to watch quite closely. But from an operating point of view, National Foods had a tough H1. We did see improvement come through in the H2 performance, but the results are bolstered by the ZAR 120 million functional currency exchange.

Shaun Chauke from Nedbank for a couple of questions. So the first one being, maybe, Tjaart, if you can talk us through your initial assessment within the business in terms of the culture side, and obviously, there's been lost talent within the business. I speak about a little bit of that and how you plan to address the morale, et cetera, within the business? So that's the first question. The second question, I think you touched on it briefly. We would agree, 2 years, it's not a long time in terms of [ tanning ] sort of the big ship, meaning we should probably be thinking about it more as a bullet train versus a big ship. And I know you said we're not going to expect much within the first 6 months, but what are the low-hanging fruits within this business? And in your view, where do you see a lot of the risk in terms of execution? So that's the second question. And then the last one would be around obviously, your background in terms of premium, a bigger part of it being grains. There's probably a school of thought in terms of -- it's a very -- the grains business is very fundamentally different from the Groceries business. But in my view, I think it's probably more that the groceries has to do a lot of SKUs and so on. Maybe if you could explain to us the fundamental differences between those businesses? And what's complex and what's sort of easy to simplify?

You've asked so many questions. My biggest challenge is to remember them all and then provide the answers. So I'll try and start with the first one. So when I walked into the building, I did meet a lot of very friendly people. It's -- there's a lot of very friendly people in the business. I don't buy the notion that we've lost our talent. I think there's very talented people in the business. I've seen some presentations that people that have been on [ GIP scores ] done. And the energy and the talent there is phenomenal. So I don't buy the fact that we've got no talent and inexperienced and junior people. There's great people in the business. We just need to channel all that energy in the right direction and get them motivated and understand where we're going. And lead from the front. So that's what we need to do. And that's what we will do. So I'm not -- that's not a big concern to me. I think the culture is something you do very quickly and easy through your own behavior. So that's where it starts. And what I've seen that doesn't scare me. There's good people in the business. I think I've forgotten your second question, but I'll keep on answering and then you tell me what I've missed. Yes. Now you spoke about the 2-year contract. I don't think the market should get fixated about these 2 years. It's just -- it's not -- and I know that the hidden question and that was I employed for 2 years to come and rip the place apart and sell everything? The answer is no. The brief is to come and turn the ship around, get the business into performing mode, and we've given you a 26-month contract for that, of which 1 month and 3 days has gone. So I don't -- I really think I've had this question a lot from people. The 2-year contract. Don't read stuff into it. It doesn't mean anything. If the score is equal after 2 years, we'll go into overtime or extratime, what they call it indirectly, extratime. So that's the -- talking about the big ship, it is for sure a big ship. There's no doubt that I can't get the results that the shareholders and the stakeholders and the Board want in 2 years, but certainly, the track we can get the traction, and we can get the directional results in place by then. So that -- I'm very comfortable with that brief. I certainly don't think I've got a job here that I can't do in 2 years. And it's not me. It's 9,000 other people, and it's my job to get them motivated and then they will do it, then I can go and retire again. So I'm not -- that's not a big deal and don't worry too much about the 2 years. Well, next World Cup I'll be retiring again. The -- you asked about that I know grains and I don't necessarily know about groceries. When I worked at Tiger from 2002, I worked at Tiger from 2001 to 2007. And the only business that has never reported to me was Snacks & Treats. All the other business have reported to me at some stage during that period. So I actually know the culinary business quite well. I know LAF quite well that reported to me that time. I traveled with [ Nationals ] around the world a few times. So if you want to accuse me of lack of knowledge of something, it's only Snacks & Treats, but I eat the stuff a lot, so I know about it. So the portfolio is -- and you're right what you said, it's not very difficult to work out that if you've got 50 SKUs and 2 SKUs by 80% of the profit, maybe you've got a -- not a problem, you've got some work to do. And we've identified that. And before my time, even the guys have started to work on that, started identifying that. So maybe we will be just be a bit bolder in executing, but that has been identified. Have I answered all the questions?

The risk in terms of execution?

Yes. Yes. Obviously, if you get through this process where you have to execute a bit of a change, your risk is, people's eyes is off the ball because now they look at what's going to happen to me and not look at the job. So that is something to manage well, and it's talked a lot about. You don't stop doing what you're doing until you're told to do something else. So keep that focus on. You do your job until you're told, this is not your job anymore, that's your job now. And -- but we've got experienced people. We've got people that they've been through a lot of change in Tiger over the last few years, and they kind of used to it. So there are certainly risks. The other risk is flight and normally the people that leave first are the most talented because they can get a job the easiest, that is a risk. In my experience, if people -- if they see what's happening and they like it, they want to stay. So it is something -- I'm not underestimating the risk, we must keep an eye on that and watch things out the whole time. But if we can change the old approach where people really look at this flag and say, this is what we like, we agree with this. Then people want to stay, and they want to make a difference. We've got enough of those people here.

It's Sa'ad from Citi. Just a quick question on inflation and your outlook. I know you did mention there's a lot of input cost pressures specific to South Africa and specific to the business. Can you -- but your inflation did slow. I think it was like mid-single digits in the second half. So can you maybe just give us an outlook maybe across the different divisions and how you're thinking about inflation? I know some of the retailers have said it's still going to be probably like higher -- high single digits. But maybe from your guys' perspective, how you're thinking about it for next year?

You want to answer that?

Well, I think let me take it at a group level, and then I'll hand over to the CEO to talk about a category perspective. So we did see a slowdown of the inflation in H2. However, with that being said, we're not necessarily seeing a significant decline come through from a cost point of view. We spoke, both Thushen and I spoke, about agri increases. We're seeing it on packaging as well. And I guess where we also are feeling the impact when you start seeing the impact coming through on load shedding, not only on us but also on our vendors. You're seeing more and more import options coming into play, but that's coming with its own set of supply chain constraints as well and complexities with getting things through port. So from a procurement point of view, I haven't necessarily seen a slowdown in terms of those double-digit cost inflations. But if I had to put a crystal ball, I would suspect we're going to start -- we're going to continue to see high single digits come through in the foreseeable future before we see any real significant decline come through. But maybe let me hand over to my colleagues to talk about a category perspective.

So I'll speak to you about the commodities and what we're seeing at the moment is that significant inflation on rice driven by government policy. We're seeing significant inflation on sorghum being driven by the weather and sorghum is non-GMO, so in winter seasons, farmers switch out of it. And in the last 2 or 3 weeks, we've seen a significant -- well, we've seen a jump in the maize price against all the fundamentals because we've got a surplus of crop. So it is quite volatile at the moment. Coupled with that, then you've got input costs that are going up as you look to supply water to your plant, you're supplying electricity to your plants. And as you bring these commodities in, you're having working capital implications. So we got to start planning for the port delays, which means the rice that I'm bringing in from Thailand, for example, has to be higher quantities which has an implication on storage costs, on working capital, et cetera, et cetera. So -- and given where inflation is currently at 5.9%, I think for those plants that we don't have a 2-year wage agreement, you're going to see mid-single-digit wages. So I don't think there's going to be a spike in the short term.

So I'll pick up on that and just chat about the consumer division.

I think it's quite clear that inflation is going to continue. But where you do see a slowdown, it's also important to appreciate you're still coming off a very high base versus where we were 3 years ago. To give you a perspective, one of my beverage dilutable products has increased 68% over the 3-year period. And with your constrained consumer, where you're still sitting at a very high cost base, even if your inflation is mid-single digits or high double digits, they're still feeling the affordability impact given that they are cash constrained. So it really boils down to the 2 or 3 things that I've mentioned and charted and my colleagues have referred to. It's how we're managing down our current cost base to become a lot more competitive on shelf. So if I'm in glass, does the consumer want to pay up for glass? Or will they be happy to get your product in PET. Already, that's a significant saving of 35% on some of my SKUs if I remove the metal closure in the glass. So there's opportunities to look at that. We spoke about recipe engineering as well consistently, and we've made good traction. I've been through consumer taste profile assessments on some of my KPIs. We've got good results, we are in the midst of shelf stability testing, and that opportunity will come through in the second half. And I think the other critical point that Deepa mentioned right upfront is the revenue management strategy. Absolutely critical to manage that index between yourself and your competitor. So you still remain relevant and then drive your price-pack architecture strategy. So if my 700 mL All Gold tomato source at ZAR 39.99 is too expensive, how can I promote my 500 mL PET All Gold and make that an affordable proposition versus my competition. And I think it's managing that revenue line as well as the cost base effectively to remain competitive in this environment.

You'll see food inflation because of raw material costs for 2 big reasons in South Africa. The one is low Chile. A lot of our food is produced under irrigation and the irrigation pulls too much power, put a generator. If Eskom goes down, they go down. And you can see it in vegetables where the actual production of vegetables in South Africa is down. I don't know how many percent. The second reason is climatic changes. We seem to be entering the first year of El Nino cycle where it's dryer, and that's why the most price is running like that. It's a sentiment on the El Nino cycle. And we will have -- and we've got a lot of the competencies to do that. But we must operate in that environment. We can't put the list down for why things not working out. These are the realities we have to deal with and how do we deal with it. And that's the challenge.

Just one more question on the general trade. You mentioned groceries and bakeries. Can you maybe just give us some color on the groceries and where -- or which categories in groceries you feel that you're under indexed in a way there's opportunity to grow? And yes, maybe some more color there.

I'll answer that. So we started a program recently, a very good program where we try and get -- develop another way to get into the general trade rather than just go through the independent wholesale trade. So we've got people in the trade, they've got some technology, they visit stores and then they go through a channel of ordering which delivers there. That's the one project that got the aim to get our products to the general trade in a more efficient way than just selling to independent wholesaler and hope for the best after that. The second leg of that is the bakeries. The bakeries deliver bread every morning to as many customers in general trade as possible. And that's where the big challenge lies, because that's not so easy to do that. You must get there first. You do need to use a bit of technology for routing and stuff like that. The driver -- it's not a driver, it is actually, a salesman that just drives. So he needs a bit of a different skill set. So that's where the big opportunity lies for us as well. And our volume has gone backwards. The market might have shrunk a little bit, but we need to regain market share in that area. And I'm sure the competitors are listening but we need to...

I'm Nick Wilson from News 24. Just back to the inflation figures that were mentioned. So basically, I was wondering if you could perhaps kind of give us an idea of what the inflation was right now for products like the rice, the sort of the main staples that the prudent South Africans obviously use. And then what -- I know it's difficult to predict, but ballpark figures for next year because you mentioned double digit, high single digit. I was hoping to maybe get an idea. I mean there's obviously -- and which products are probably going to be the worst hit next year?

Very difficult to predict. Like Tjaart said, maize, for example, has been driven on sentiment as opposed to pure fundamentals. I can tell you what's happened. So the one category that has had a significant phasing impact has been rice on the commodity side. So pure -- landed tie prices up 49% year-on-year, certainly for us. And I don't think it will be indifferent for the market competitors. I think key to that, though, is understanding the pack formats that you make available to the consumer. So if the 10 kg gets out of reach, do you do a bit more activity on the 5 kg or the 500 grams, 1 kg. So on a kilo-over-kilo basis, yes, prices will go up, but it's a question of how you make it attractive to the consumer. You could bundle it as well. So a lot of the retailers and wholesalers have a bundle at times when social grants are paid or month end. And this is a way you can start making products more affordable. We're quite fortunate in that we have an array of products that goes into the bundle. We have maize. We have wheat, we have rice and some on the consumer side as well. So we can put a basket together to help balance the volume value equation. I think that's the one I can answer most definitively.

[Technical Difficulty] [indiscernible] as it results to some of the inflation that we saw in the underlying raw materials that can give you some cut. Any other questions in the room?

Thanks for the presentation. Rhonda here from All Weather Capital. First of all, congratulations to Thushen on your appointment and well done to Tiger Brands on finding someone as soon as possible because that's what we were looking out for. So what my question is around is maybe provide some color around his appointment, what went behind that decision?

On Thushen's appointment? He's the only guy I could find. Now it's -- it's obviously -- I arrived 30 days ago on the first of November. And I knew about Deepa having resigned, because she's immigrating to Australia. And always, whenever you look to replace someone, first priority is internal, that's always first priority is internal. Because your own people knows how the business works, they -- you don't have to wait for someone to resign. These days, placement packages seems to get stupid. So internal is always -- internal is also a sign of that you've got some succession planning or some pipeline, whether it's formal, informal or where the people just work because it's a great place. So you've always got great people that you could put into a next position. That's always the first port of call. Thushen is a CA. He's got a financial background. He worked in corporate finance. He worked in Investor Relations and he runs off the business at the moment. So he knows what's going on. His financial acumen is fine. He knows the company strategy, he knows what we're trying to do. So there is no 2 months to wait for him to find out what's going on. And that just makes perfect sense.

So just on that question, a follow-up. Now that Thushen is moving out of consumer brands, I'm not assuming into a CFO position, who's going to take over the other half of the business. Are you going to do it?

He said he used to do nothing. No, no, I'm going to give you a top answer because we have started the operating model process this morning. And I think we must just respect that because it impacts on people, it's got implications of affected people and stuff like that, and let's respect that process going forward. So it's delta, don't worry.

Okay. Anybody else in the room? We'll move to the online questions. There are 2 overarching themes that are emerging. The first is naturally your thoughts on the general trade in bread, which we will get you in a minute, but maybe we can just get you the more specific questions. With SKUs being rationalized, does this not leave extra overhead costs in the business? If so, how do you address this?

Look, again, it's a similar answer to which I've just given you is that in designing the operating model of the future, we will make the operating model be fit for purpose and fit to serve the business that we will have after we've done all these things. So we will deal with it. We won't have -- and we won't talk about that we've got allocated costs that we can't do with anything we'll sort all those things out, even if we just stopped talking about. But it's in the operating model design, we will get to an operating model that's fit for purpose, and that will actually deal with all these issues of getting the portfolio sorted out. That's the plan.

But more specifically around the SKU rationalization is that you start with your long tail. And actually, once you start cutting that, it improves your efficiency in your factories because the complexity is reduced. So it won't -- the tail won't have any meaningful contribution to overhead costs. And then there's a question around the dividends. And the question is, should there be a rethink of the dividend policy given cash available from operations after CapEx is insufficient to cover dividends and has warranted borrowing some funds to pay dividends, which is interesting because Tiger Brands still has a very strong balance sheet despite that. So discussion?

So thanks, Nikki. So yes, the current year's dividend has been declared based on our existing dividend policy. I can't confirm coming out of yesterday's board meeting, there was quite a bit of discussion around capital allocation policy around dividend -- the dividend policy, et cetera. So it is certainly something that's under review under the new leadership team, together with the Board and engagement. Something will be considered with the investment committee and further progress will be provided -- and further updates will be provided to the market. But I think the point that Nikki makes is quite an important one in terms of the fact that the balance sheet still remains healthy. And it has been something that the market has actually been asking us for historically in terms of, it's okay to geared, get the right leverage on your balance sheet, et cetera. So as we sit right now, it still remains a healthy balance sheet.

Okay. Then as I said, there were questions related to our performance in the general trade as it relates to bakeries. I will summarize what Tjaart said, naturally, that will be a focus area because the milling and baking is a big business for Tiger Brands. We will focus on improving our distribution and penetration in the general trade. And I'm sure Tjaart will have some ideas around that. But to his point, that competitors have probably dialed in, I will hand over to Tjaart if he wants to make some closing remarks.

Yes. I think from a competitor point of view, we should probably say we're not going to go into the general trade. I'll be closing up or answering questions. I'll be done. Okay.

If you don't mind, Tjaart. Previously, you were the competitor weren't you? Just to add. So it's interesting, but I hear this let's talk about operating models, and I know you don't want to divulge too much information, but are you using any consultants, any management consultants again to actually help you guide you on this turnaround strategy?

I love that question. I'm not a consultant type of guy. If you want consultants, fire me and put them in to run the place. I don't use consultants.

And then the last question is on your CapEx spend, right? Firstly, on your cash flow, do you expect this continuous investments in further working capital investment? Or you think it's going to stabilize at these levels because that's a big drag on your cash flow? And secondly, on your CapEx spend because you said you've been underspending on CapEx or not reaching your CapEx targets every year. Do you still think you're going to target ZAR 1.5 billion, I think, per annum?

Yes. Well, there's a few things. I think you can start with this thing with the capital allocation debate on how much clearance do you want on your balance sheet, how much dividend do you pay? Do you buy back shares? And what CapEx do you put back into the business, what money do you keep for acquisitions. I think that all debate around capital allocation is very alive. I think if you talk about, it's been mentioned by Deepa that our working capital needs will always need a lot of attention because we are a capital-intensive company. Sorry, I'm not being rude, but I must still learn that my cell phone is on silent, but as you can see, I am wearing hearing aid, so it rings in my ears. So if it rings, I can't hear a thing. So capital allocation will be a big debate, a big issue for us to go forward and working capital will always be a big issue in this business because of the nature of our raw materials. Debtors and creditors shouldn't be a problem. We've got in Africa some trading terms, that's a bit longer, but South Africa is 30 days. Some multi-customers, yes, but we sort them out. Stock raw material, in particular, is the problem because of the nature of our raw material, I mean you have to -- with the port in Durbin, you have to go a bit longer and draw rice. Otherwise, you're going to be out of stock. If the maize price goes up 20%, you're working capital goes up 20%, you can't buy less maize. So those challenges will always be in a business like this. The issue is how well do we manage it.

I think maybe if I may just contribute to that. It's also a function of the product mix as well, particularly at the end of FY '23, as Yokesh mentioned, we had to accelerate procurement of some of our grains categories, rice, et cetera, and those do come with shorter payment terms. So that has certainly impacted the FY '23 closing balances. But again, it's going to depend on what's happening in the market at a point in time. And the key is going to make sure that we don't end up having factory standing or not being able to meet the consumers' demands because we haven't planned appropriately from a raw material and a production point of view. But there will always be opportunity to constantly look at working capital.

So that becomes part of your ROE calculation, your RONA calculation, and all those things make sense, then you can justify it. But I know we don't like working capital. We don't like it either. Shall we close?

That brings us to the end of the presentation. We thank those that are on the webcast and those that are in the room, there are some refreshments around outside and management will be around for a few more minutes. Thank you.