Woolworths Holdings Limited (WHL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to our 2023 interim results presentation. We'll start off this morning with an overview of our group's performance, and then I want to go straight into an update on some of our strategic initiatives and more specifically, how we are delivering against our investment thesis which you'd recall, we shared with you this time last year. And then I'll hand over to Reeza Isaacs, our Group Financial Director, who will be taking you through the detail of our financial results for the half. And then I'll come back and share some thoughts regarding our outlook and open up for questions. So starting with an overview of our period. The group's turned in a strong set of results for the half. It is worth noting that this past period is not entirely comparable to that of last year, given the government-enforced COVID lockdowns in Australia, which resulted in many of our stores being closed to trade. And then here in South Africa, we have the pronounced and ongoing impact that loadshedding is having on our business. But notwithstanding this, I'm very pleased with the results we've achieved attributable to the focus, the passion, the dedication of our teams in executing our strategies. To share a few highlights with you. Group sales of almost ZAR 50 billion were up 16% on last year in constant currency terms. In the last 6 weeks of the half, which is more directly comparable to the prior period, group sales were up by almost 9%, driven by strong execution over Black Friday and the festive season. We've grown EBIT by 48%, our earnings per share by 75% and our interim dividend by almost 100%, but Reeza will unpack this for you in more detail shortly. From a divisional perspective, our Fashion, Beauty and Home turnaround strategy continues to progress positively, gaining traction with double-digit sales growth, notwithstanding our deliberate initiatives to reduce space and rationalize SKUs. EBIT margin is up 1.5 percentage points on last year as we drive more full-price sales and reduce markdown. The food business improved its run rate throughout the period. And this, notwithstanding the impact of loadshedding, which I'll come back to. Growth accelerated to almost 9% in the last 6 weeks with the business taking over ZAR 1 billion worth of sales in the Christmas week alone. Our businesses in Australia maintained their positive momentum throughout the period despite inflation and interest rates at record highs. The Country Road Group grew sales by over 25% and delivered an EBIT margin more than 5 percentage points up on last year. And David Jones grew sales by more than 30%, achieving its highest margin since our acquisition of the business in 2015. From this, you'll note a strong performance from each of our operating divisions, resulting overall in the highest interim earnings per share we've achieved in the history of the group. In December, you'd recall we announced the sale of our David Jones business, an important milestone for us, which will prove transformational for the group, and I'll share why a bit later. What I'd like to do first though is take a moment to talk through the various impacts loadshedding is having on the South African businesses, be it how we trade, how we operate, how our customers shop, how it affects our suppliers and more importantly, what are we doing about it? Our country is facing a devastating energy crisis, which continues to have a major impact on our economy, as well as business and consumer confidence. Within our own business, loadshedding is having a substantial impact on costs and profitability, particularly in the case of foods. Over the half, we experienced 157 days and almost 4,000 hours of loadshedding. That's had a direct impact on levels of food waste and increased diesel costs across our stores, the distribution centers and the broader supply chain. All in, we estimate these costs to be in the region of ZAR 20 million to ZAR 30 million per month. As unfortunate as these incremental costs are they are, they're necessary for us to remain fully operational during trading hours and importantly, to maintain our quality standards, an area where we simply won't compromise. And frankly, we don't expect our customers to either. At the start of the half, we saw a softer top line performance as shoppers cut back on fresh product. But as loadshedding persisted, customers have increasingly valued the fact that our stores remained open and operational and that they could trust the quality of our Woolies product. Simply put, a head of lettuce or a punnet of berries from Woolies lasts longer than that of our peers, especially during times of power outages. This is a direct result of our obsession with quality, which is enabled by our superior cold chain built over decades and run under the strictest conditions. And this is precisely the competitive advantage, which is so difficult to authentically replicate at scale. And that's because quality is indivisible. Many people can claim quality, but only in part. True authentic quality, however, is indivisible. And it starts right at the source. It's in every single detail. It's the soil our lettuces are grown in through our Farming of the Future program. It's the fact that our chickens are fed on a vegetarian-only diet. They don't eat their friends. They're trim, agile, have no routine antibiotics and undergo streams of temperature checks throughout our cold chain. It's the sum of multiple single steps from how we grow to how we select, how we pack, the relationships we foster, the ends we go to with our logistics and cold chain. It's this ecosystem of interconnected detail that makes the Woolies difference. [Presentation]

Let us move on. We took the decision as far back as 1998 to equip every food market with diesel generators as backup power. Today, we have just over 400 generators in all of our stores nationwide, which means that virtually 100% of our stores trade uninterrupted through extended power outages. In the case of our DCs, more than 50% of our energy requirement is now sourced from renewables. So as you can see, our past investments in our cold chain and in our energy supply capabilities have proven incredibly beneficial. We're also benefiting from having a largely integrated supply chain, which allows us to develop a holistic end-to-end response plan to address both the upstream and downstream impacts of loadshedding. And this includes how we support our suppliers through this process, particularly our smaller suppliers, not only in the light of our good business journey but to ensure we protect the quality, the integrity and the resilience of our supply chain, something which is instrumental to our competitive advantage. So yes, loadshedding is having a devastating impact on economic growth, employment, lives and livelihoods across our country. Unfortunately, this is largely outside of our control. What is within our control is how we respond to this to ensure that we emerge from yet another challenging situation even stronger than before. This time last year, we shared with you probably for the first time what we believe sets us apart. How we look to leverage the things that differentiate us, our uniquely positioned businesses to create meaningful, sustainable value for all stakeholders, including, of course, our shareholders, what I think many of you would term an investment thesis. What we'd like to do now is provide you with an update as to how we're tracking against this investment case and how we're holding ourselves accountable to our commitments. Our investment thesis is predicated on 5 key drivers of value. Firstly, the highest return on capital food business in South Africa; secondly, the turnaround and the repositioning of our Fashion, Beauty and Home businesses; next, value creation opportunities in Australia, both in David Jones and CRG; fourthly, a robust balance sheet and sound capital allocation principles and last but not least, our industry-leading good business journey. What I'd like to do now is briefly take you through each of these key components, how we're delivering against them and how we intend to create further value from here. Starting with our Food business. What sets our Food business apart, what I think we've gotten really right, something of a holy grail is achieving that sweet spot, which balances on the one hand, giving our customers the best overall offering in the market, whether it be quality, experience, innovation, convenience and sustainability at the right price and on the other hand, our shareholders the highest return on capital in the sector. So how do we deliver and grow this overall equation? Well, I shared with you in our last presentation that we've identified and are going after several drivers of top line growth. One of the biggest commercial opportunities that we're driving is improved product availability. That doesn't simply mean putting more products on to shelves. It's about a more elevated and sophisticated approach to category management and using our customer data and advanced analytics to drive hyper-localization. And whilst availability in long life is consistently close to 100%, availability across a number of our fresh categories is not yet where it should be. Since 2020, we've improved availability in fresh by more than 3 percentage points, but there is scope to improve this further. And that's exactly what Zyda and the team are focused on. We've invested in advanced category management capability and are implementing an integrated and a dynamic availability scorecard to measure and to manage end-to-end availability. At the same time, we continue to invest in price and are increasingly being acknowledged through independent research as being on par and in fact, sometimes better priced on comparable products versus our peers. And in fact, you'll see that reflected in our internal selling inflation, which is well below headline food inflation. However, increasingly, we are focusing on the distinction between price versus value, with our emphasis being on the latter. I've spoken about this before. Most simply put, value in my book can be defined as the equation between what you gain versus what you give up. Our Food business was built on the gains, on the clear and well-articulated differences that our customers sought us out for: quality, freshness, innovation, sustainability and convenience. This is what has made us Woolies food and what has consistently driven our success, our brand love and customer loyalty. Increasingly, and most certainly exacerbated by macro factors such as loadshedding, customers are placing more and more value on these gains, particularly our quality and freshness, and the extent to which these can be trusted. So whilst we continue to invest in price to ensure fair value, we are equally investing in our customer gains to ensure that we not only keep redefining the highest standards, but keep raising the bar on meaningful differences. We've also been expanding our marketplace presence, but in a very targeted way. We're opening up new stores, enlarging existing ones, rolling out our new WCellar and NowNow formats, trialing other new concepts and by ramping up our on-demand Dash business, which is now available out of 74 stores. And by the end of the year, we'll be servicing at least 80% of our customer base. Another key achievement in the first half was integrating our on-demand offering into our main Woolies app. This has reduced cost, it's improved efficiencies, and it's enabling a better, more integrated omnichannel experience for our customers. A priority for us is doubling down on our presence in key urban areas. The first step towards this is our new dark store, which opened just over a week ago and which will service both our traditional home deliveries and on-demand orders in the Cape Town CBD. This will benefit our customers with better product availability, increased delivery slots and extended trading hours. So we're very excited about the opportunities to grow the top line, but we've never been a business that's gone after market share for market share's sake. Our focus is always on profitable growth. And in fact, more importantly, maintaining our industry-leading return on capital employed. Simply put, for every rand passing through our tills, we generate multiples of the economic profit of our peers. Now this is a vital component of our investment thesis. And so we're resolutely focused on maintaining the optimal balance between satisfying our customers wants and needs, providing the best proposition in the market and providing our shareholders with the highest return in the sector. That's what we are staying true to, that's our DNA, that's what delivers real value to our group, and that's what makes money for our shareholders. Turning now to FBH. As I've repeatedly said, restoring the underlying financial health of our fashion business represents the single biggest opportunity to reset value for our group. And this is precisely what Mani was tasked with when he joined the business in 2020. Since then, we've completely refreshed the FBH strategy in order to establish a solid foundation from which we could then drive sustainable and profitable growth. Internally, we've called out 3 key metrics to track our fashion turnaround and hold ourselves accountable. The proportion of product that goes out the door at full price, markdown as a percentage of sales and then our productivity on a per square meter basis. As you may recall, our strategy of Edit to Amplify is one of prioritizing quality over quantity. We are focused on what we call our must-win categories, leveraging our customer data insights to really understand our customer in a far more granular way and to improve the relevance and appeal of our fashion offering. Our teams are more confident. We are driving more newness. Our product is more relevant, and that's translating into better full price sales. Now more than 80% of our sales are on full price, which is 7 percentage points higher than where we were in 2020. And in fact, in our womenswear business, we've grown full price sales by more than 40% in the past quarter alone, with weekly sell-throughs of more than 30%. [Presentation]

We've also made significant progress in rationalizing our unproductive space, decreasing our square meters by more than 10% over the past 3 years. As we shared with you at our full year presentation, now that we're getting our product increasingly right, which means our stores are performing much better, our space rationalization will start to slow. We're also introducing new formats such as W Edit, which provides our customers with a curated offering the best of the Woolies offering in a smaller, far more productive footprint with these stores trading well ahead of expectations. So by really focusing on improving the productivity of our space, we've increased our trading densities by more than 30% over the past 3 years. Notwithstanding the positive progress we're making, one of the areas where we feel we can further optimize is that of markdown. We've reduced our markdown as a percentage of sales by more than 8 percentage points from the highs of 2020, but there is more we can do and are doing, including leveraging advanced analytics to reduce both the breadth and the depth of markdown to further improve profitability. Another key focus area for us is product availability. This has been a perennial problem of ours to be candid. And so we're driving far more granular understanding and analysis of availability across the business, particularly in respect of size curves. We've begun the rollout of RFID and are redesigning our stock allocation and replenishment processes to more dynamically match demand. We're not yet where we want to be, but I think we're certainly well on our way to resetting the foundations of our business, which is critical to sustaining our improving momentum. With our fashion business firmly on the right trajectory, we're now able to shift more of our attention to our other businesses in this division. We have a really strong beauty business and a home proposition with a lot of potential, presenting exciting opportunities to grow these divisions and make our entire FBH business even bigger. We haven't spoken much about our beauty business yet, but it's really a star performer, having grown by almost 30% over the past 6 months. And this isn't an anomaly. In fact, we've almost doubled our beauty business over the past 5 years, and we think we can at least double it again in the next 3, really affirming our position as the beauty shopping destination in the market. We also see a lot of potential in home, not just in driving the cross-shop between home and food in particular, but in growing our online channel, and this is the next business we'll focus on in terms of our refreshed strategy. Moving on to Australia. As we've said, the sale of David Jones is a major milestone in the repositioning of the group for growth while simultaneously improving our return on capital for our shareholders. I would like to take a moment here to really acknowledge Scott and his team for what we've been able to accomplish in turning the David Jones business around. David Jones has seen a significant improvement in its underlying operational and financial health with the business more profitable now than it has been for years. In fact, its H1 profit margin is the highest it's been since WHL acquired it. The business is in a really good position now to embark on its next phase of growth. The sale of David Jones will be transformational for our group, not only because of the removal of about ZAR 22 billion in liabilities from our balance sheet, but also in enabling the reallocation of capital and management attention to more value-accretive initiatives in our Woolworths and CRG businesses, both of which are core to the group's ambitions. Our Country Road Group has exciting runway for growth by fully leveraging its competitive advantages, its strong brands, leading omnichannel capabilities, scale in sourcing and distribution and its highly talented leadership team. You'll recall a lot of work has been done to optimize the CRG store portfolio. And given its relatively short leases, we've made significant inroads in exiting unproductive space, which has driven more than 30% uplift in trading densities over the past 3 years. At the same time, we're investing in refurbishing existing stores to ensure our brands provide our customers with a unique, differentiated and compelling in-store experience. We're also expanding into new channels, and that's attracting new customers into the brands. We've opened up opportunities in the wholesale channel for Country Road and Witchery, extending our product reach into more regional towns in Australia. And albeit early days, we really are encouraged by the uptake and sell-through rates we're seeing. We continue to invest in our market-leading omnichannel offering. In addition to launching a new dedicated brand app, we've also begun building a common platform of capabilities across the brands, unlocking synergies and efficiencies for COG as a whole. Our Country Road Group brands also play a very important role in our apparel offering here in South Africa. We've reshaped the structural economics of this business, building local organizational capability to better leverage and integrate the unique position of our COG brands, both within stand-alone and Woolies stores. For the half, sales were up 25% on last year, a demanding base, having grown over 30% the year before that, which really talks to how these brands are responding to the customer opportunity within the market. So there are many prospects for CRG, some of which we are only just starting to explore. And I'm really excited about its potential to play an even bigger role in the group's future under Raju's leadership. So we've covered the first 3 drivers. Moving on to our balance sheet and capital allocation. As I've shared with you before, we are an incredibly cash-generative group, growing our free cash flow per share by almost 30% over the past year. Needless to say, it's critical that as cash grows, we remain absolutely disciplined ensuring the effective allocation of capital across the group. We've ended the half with a very healthy balance sheet, with net debt of only ZAR 700 million and have returned ZAR 1.6 billion of capital from David Jones to South Africa. We've got more firepower than we've had for some time to invest in our own businesses, and we'll do that to the tune of around ZAR 8 billion over the next 3 years. And of course, we're returning cash to our shareholders. We've normalized our dividend payout ratio to 70% of earnings, which sees our interim divi up by almost 100%. We also repurchased a further ZAR 1.5 billion of our own shares in the current period, bringing our total buyback to over 4% of shares. This is not only very value accretive to our shareholders, but clearly demonstrates the confidence we have in the future of our own business. Turning now to the sustainability aspects of our investment case. Our vision is to be one of the world's most responsible retailers, and that's reflected in our good business journey or what we call GBJ. Whilst a big vision and ambition, this slide depicts a high-level overview of the key elements of our GBJ strategy, which is underpinned by 3 pillars and specific focus areas within each of those. Sustainability is deeply embedded throughout our entire business with each company in the WHL Group accountable to deliver against scorecards with clear, measurable KPIs. We believe that setting ambitious sustainability goals really challenges our own businesses to do more, and it also inspires others to collaborate and contribute towards the sustainability agenda as well. So what you'll see here are not all of our goals but are the key headline goals, which is how we hold ourselves accountable and track our progress against our GPJ strategy. Many of our competitors have become a lot more vocal about their own sustainability initiatives. We've always been strong advocators of the benefit of collaboration in this space. As one company, we can only do so much, but collectively, we can do so much more. But I do want to take a minute to share with you where we believe some of our biggest benefits of our good business journey, in fact, lie. Firstly, we were pioneers in this area, having the longest-standing sustainability program amongst our peers. As far back as 2007, we've been investing time, capital and expertise to not only set but to deliver against our ambitious GBJ goals. As a largely private label business with a base of loyal suppliers and an integrated supply chain, we continuously work with our partners to assist them with their own sustainability strategies. This also provides us with end-to-end visibility of the supply chain, ensuring that the highest ethical sourcing standards are maintained from farm to fork and from our factory floors to our stores. Our deep commitment to our GBJ not only reflects in how we operate. but it is also embedded in how we make capital decisions and reward our management. A really good example of this is how we've linked ESG criteria to our funding, the first retailer in South Africa to do so. And our long-term incentives for executive management now also include very specific sustainability targets. And lastly, we really do make a tangible and meaningful difference to our communities, be it through our social contributions, our MySchool MyVillage MyPlanet loyalty program or our food and clothing donations. Over the past year alone, we've contributed almost ZAR 90 million through our MySchool program and supported our local communities to the tune of over ZAR 1 billion, including the donation of around 15,000 tonnes of surplus food to charities in support of our food security initiatives. But making a difference actually starts within how we compensate and reward our own employees. As part of our Inclusive Justice Initiative, we continue to progress our just wage initiative, securing what we call a Woolies wage, which is now 65% more than SA minimum wage and almost 30% above the retail sector average. So to recap, we are making clear progress in executing our strategies and shoring up our investment case. And this is all translating into improving financial outcomes for the group. Before I hand over to Reeza to take you through our results in some detail, I'd like to take a minute to acknowledge that these results come down to the collective effort of all of our people. I'd like to thank each and every one of our team members across all of our markets for their passion and commitment to our organization and a further thanks, in fact, to everyone in our extended ecosystem, from our suppliers to all of our business partners and very importantly to our customers for your continued support. And with that, I'll now hand over to Reeza.

Thank you, Roy. Good morning, everyone, in South Africa, and good afternoon to our colleagues in Australia. I'm pleased to be sharing further detail on what has been a very good half year for us. The most significant development this half was the announcement of the sale of David Jones, which we anticipate to complete by the end of March, about 4 weeks away, but more on that a bit later. Looking at the highlights, and I will run through this fairly quickly as Roy has touched on most of the numbers already. Group turnover is ZAR 50 billion for the half, up 16% in constant currency; a strong performance but noncomparable with, of course, the lockdowns in Australia last year. Country Road and David Jones putting a strong top line and bottom line performance this period. And in South Africa, despite rising interest rates, inflation and Stage 5 and 6 loadshedding, FBH traded consistently well and food sales improved as the half progressed. Adjusted EBIT was ZAR 4.8 billion, 48% up on last year. Adjusted profit before tax was up 70% to ZAR 3.8 billion. And on a normalized basis, if one were to adjust for the lockdowns last year, EBIT was up 25%, an outstanding performance. We were in a small net borrowing position at the end of the half. This is after a further ZAR 1.5 billion in share buybacks. SA debt is well within covenant levels and David Jones and Country Road are both in healthy net cash positions. Net debt-to-EBITDA is at 1.5x, down from 2x last year. And this, of course, includes lease liabilities. And the ratio will improve even further after the sale of David Jones. AdHEPS comes in at $2.85 per share, up 75% on last year. We have declared an interim dividend in respect of Woolworths and Country Road at a 70% payout ratio and the dividend of $1.585 per share is almost double that of last year. Return on capital employed was 19.5% for the 6 months, up 630 basis points and well above our cost of capital. And in free cash flow per share, which is a very important measure for us, is up 29% to $2.69 per share with a very healthy cash conversion ratio. Moving on to sales. Here, we show the sales over the 6 months for each of the businesses. The light blue bars depict heavy loadshedding periods in South Africa, and the gray shaded area is the performance against last year's lockdown weeks in Australia, a positive picture for all our businesses across the group. FBH was up 11.2% for the half, 12% in the last 6 weeks, and this is in the context of loadshedding and lease space. Good performance from womenswear with menswear and beauty also performing well. Food was up 7.6% for the half, 8.6% in the last 6 weeks, and also in the context of a mostly fresh business disproportionately obviously impacted by loadshedding. David Jones and Country Road was up 32% and 26%, respectively, for the half noncomp, but especially pleasing was the performance in the last 6 weeks, where trade was up against the pent-up demand driven base of the prior year. Our group income statement in rands, what I would call a model income statement. Sales up 18.5%; GP, up 22%; and EBIT up 48%, strong leverage through the various lines to aPBT, which was up 70% for the half. And then in terms of the segmental contribution, food was flat due to loadshedding and our panel businesses were up substantially, and we'll unpack this a little bit later. The effective tax rate at 25.7% was lower due to the lower SA corporate tax rate and also the utilization of prior period assessed losses in David Jones. And then adjustments of ZAR 50 million this year, David Jones sale transaction costs to date, the mark-to-market of open FECs at period end and the impact of tax losses in David Jones. Adjusted HEPS, as I mentioned before, is up 76%, which shows the positive impact of the share buybacks, not yet fully realized as it is based on the weighted average number of shares rather than the shares in issue at the end of the period. Moving on to segmental detail starting with FBH. Really pleasing to share our FBH strategy yielding further gains. Sales, up 11%; GP, up 48%; and good cost control with EBIT, up 26%. I covered sales earlier. Trading densities were also up 12% higher than the sales growth and margin gains of 170 basis points, showing the improvements in the assortment, resulting in higher full-price sales and lower markdowns. Expenses were up 10%, driven by loadshedding and investment in strategic initiatives and then EBIT margin at 13.1% for the half, well on the way to the 4% that we guided to. And return on capital employed was up 560 basis points to 23%, really great progress and a great performance by Marnie and the team in a tough macro and trading environment. And then on to Food, I covered sales earlier. We had a tough start to the half, especially in July when the loadshedding impact was quite severe. The half got progressively better with a strong festive season performance and this is despite, as I said before, Level 5 and 6 power outages. Price movement was 6.8%, well below food inflation of around 12%, and gross margin was impacted by loadshedding, the growth in online and further price investment. However, we have seen further supply chain efficiencies, which partially offset some of these downside impacts. Expenses were up 8.5% on higher diesel cost, space growth and as we invest in online and other growth initiatives. EBIT growth was flat and margin came in at 6.7% for the half, which, if adjusted for costs and waste associated with loadshedding, not lost sales or other ancillary costs, EBIT growth is 5% and EBIT margin comes in at 7%. Context is very important. The business has a lot to contend with, least of all, loadshedding trading and the pressure on the consumer, but it has delivered a strong top line and again, an exceptional return on capital employed, which Zyda and the team is absolutely focused on. Just some further points on loadshedding, and Roy has touched on this. We have invested in backup power since 1998, and 99% of our stores have generators. This puts us in a better position than most. Nevertheless, being a mostly fresh food business, its effect on our business is pervasive and all down the value chain, including, of course, our suppliers. Waste is higher and diesel costs to run generators in our DCs are up significantly. Store costs are up due to the diesel required to run generators and to keep lighting and refrigerators going. There are also other costs like repairs and maintenance, which are substantially higher given the greater frequency of generator breakdowns. Now just a summary of the financial impacts. Incremental costs this half of ZAR 70 million in foods and ZAR 20 million for FBH. The total cost of diesel was ZAR 100 million for the half, with a level of spend, of course, in the base. Going forward, costs under Level 6 is about ZAR 20 million to ZAR 30 million a month across food and FBH. And note that these numbers are not adjusted for lost sales or extra repairs and maintenance costs. Our financial services business continues its post-COVID journey, really strong book growth, which was up 17% year-on-year, driven by festive season spend and new accounts. And there continues to be a strong demand for our credit card. Book growth and repo rate increases had a positive impact on interest and noninterest income, up 16% and 18%, respectively. The impairment charge was 5.5%. New accounts and growth comes with an up-front impairment charge as a result of IFRS 9, now on an expected versus an incurred loss model previously, but this is still best-in-class compared to other books. ROE was 12.6% lower due to the combination of the high impairments and additional capital required as a result of the growth in the book but there is a seasonal impact. Year to December, ROE is 16% which is 290% basis points up on last year. So in summary, very good growth in the book, but that does come at the expense of profitability in the short term. Impairments are at pre-COVID levels, which is still market-leading. Over to Country Road, becoming a more meaningful contributor to group earnings and a consistently strong performer. And the group is a great hedge against a weakening rand. We covered sales previously space was down 5.5%, and online sales have returned to pre-COVID levels. The Country Road brand in particular had a good half and another strong performance from SA with the product, again resonating with the Woolies premium customer. Margin was up a significant 400 basis points to 63.5% and essentially back at pre-COVID levels. Expenses were up 22%, which is expected given the store closures last year. EBIT margin was 15% for the period, well ahead of our medium-term target and nearly double that of last year in dollars. On a normalized basis, which is adjusting for lockdowns last year, profit growth was 25%. So a fantastic job by Raju and the team. And then moving on to David Jones. A great deal of effort went into the turnaround, hiring the best team, repositioning this assortment, the customer and loyalty proposition, rightsizing the store and cost base and also food. All the while continuing to invest very judiciously in specific initiatives such as online and store refurbs like Bourke Street. Under Scott and the leadership team's direction, the business is in far better shape. It is cash generative and no longer a drag on the group. In fact, to date, we have returned capital to WHL and expect to extract further cash pre and post-sale completion. So a significant turnaround and an exceptional result for the period, $99 million in pre-IFRS 16 EBITDA for the half. I've covered sales, but also to mention that space was reduced by a further 3.6%. Online was 17% of total sales versus 28% last year as we saw footfall return to flagships and CBDs. Margin was up 140 basis points due to lower clearance levels versus last year after the store closes in quarter 1 and of course, better stock management. Costs were up 15%, which is expected given the store closures in FY '22. And overall EBIT was $106 million, up more than 3x. On a normalized basis, up close to 80% and on last year. EBIT margin came in at 8.3% for the half, well ahead of previous years. Thank you to Scott and the team having delivered an exceptional final festive season as part of the group. Then moving on to CapEx. CapEx will be below our guidance for the year but about ZAR 1 billion over last year, excluding David Jones. Investments in areas like stores and formats, DC capability and capacity, loyalty, technology, data and digital and online are obviously key for us. And then from a capital allocation point of view, we are in an investment phase as we position FBH, food and Country Road for growth, and we have earmarked ZAR 8 billion over the next 3 years to fund this organic growth. Our group balance sheet, just a few call-outs. Lease liabilities and right-of-use assets is down due to space reduction and lease modifications. Inventory is up due to high inflation and the early receipt of winter stock in FBH and Country Road, and we expect this to normalize by year-end. Receivables is up due to the timing of payments and includes a payment in respect of shares repurchased but not canceled at the end of December. And other highlights include net equity is up almost 10% to ZAR 12 billion, and this is post the share repurchases and dividends. Net borrowings are marginally up on last year. SA gearing is well within bank covenant levels with healthy net cash positions in David Jones and Country Road. Our balance sheet also reflects our sustainability focus with over 80% of our South African debt linked to ESG criteria. The cash generation waterfall for the 6 months, cash from trading was ZAR 7.3 billion. There was utilization of working capital of ZAR 750 million in the main due to timing. And there is maintenance and expansion CapEx of ZAR 1.2 billion for the 6 months. The group dividend was paid in September, and we have share buybacks of ZAR 1.5 billion also during the half. Total gearing at period end was up by ZAR 1 billion, but all businesses delivered healthy cash flows and a cash conversion ratio of over 90%. And then just a few words on the sale of David Jones. Of course, one of the most significant developments for the group in the past few years. David Jones, despite emerging from COVID a stronger and better positioned business, is not a strategic fit for WHL. So where are we with the disposal? We announced the sale on the 19th of December with no material CPs, and we expect to complete by the 27th of March, which is a few weeks away. Net proceeds will be higher than carrying values and our expected impairments. And in the interim, we will retain the Bourke Street property, which will be leased to David Jones at a market-related rental. The separation from Country Road and WHL will be managed together with the buyer, and this is expected to take 12 to 16 months. David Jones earnings are cyclical even from month-to-month on a very high, mostly fixed cost base of about $800 million a year, about ZAR 10 billion. And a high proportion of that relates to rentals. The leases have much higher lease expiries compared to that of the rest of the group and were about ZAR 17 billion at the end of December. And then the CapEx requirements in respect to the store fleet and also areas like IT, supply chain. We have reduced our CapEx consumption with regard to David Jones over the past few years to around $20 million to $30 million per annum. However, the depreciation charge in that business is closer to $80 million per annum. There are other financial impacts. Our group margin will be higher. Our earnings will be more stable, and our long-term gearing will be lower. ROCE will be higher, and we will be a much clearer position and financially agile group. The balance sheet, excluding David Jones is in the back of the deck, and I encourage you to have a look. And then just to deal with returns to shareholders, a very important aspect of capital allocation. We are and will be in a strong liquidity and financial position. We will invest in organic growth opportunities for our 3 remaining businesses, which are very well positioned from a market and customer perspective and have great self-help opportunities. With the current energy crisis in SA, we are also looking at ways in which we can make our business even more resilient. And then from a dividend perspective, there is greater earnings stability and certainty now, and our policy is clear, a 70% payout ratio is essentially where we were pre-COVID. And in share buybacks, since June last year, we have bought back 4.3% of our shares in issue, at an average price of ZAR 58.67. About ZAR 2.5 billion was spent on share buybacks since June last year. and share buybacks will continue to be a consideration ahead of special dividends. Then to end up on recent trading, just an extension of the slides we presented earlier with the post-period end 8-week trade figures. FBH was up 11% post-December with strong full price sales growth. Essentially, like-for-like with the timing of summer clearance, the same as last year, although in size, a much smaller sale. Food was up 8.5% for the first 8 weeks, very encouraging, and this is through loadshedding. And for H2, we are expecting price movement of 12% in FBH and 7% to 8% in food. So both trending up. And then both Australian businesses are trading area of expectations. David Jones up 14% and Country Road up 7% on last year. So just in closing, again, some notable achievements this half, a strong operational and financial performance from the group. And I again want to emphasize context here. The backdrop is extremely challenging locally and globally. Ongoing loadshedding in South Africa, a weaker rand, high interest rates and high inflation. And a reminder, that we grew profits by 44% in the second half of last year, and we are up against a tough base. However, we are reassured by the strength of our balance sheet, and the sale of David Jones will give us great agility and scope to invest in our existing businesses, which have great teams and prospects for growth. We are also pleased that we have been able to show our approach to capital allocation in action through share repurchases and reverting to a normalized dividend for the group. And on that note, let me hand you back to Roy.

Thank you, Reeza. So yes, the trading environment is going to be more challenging across both geographies in the second half. Reeza has covered a number of the headwinds we're up against from a macro contextual perspective. And in the case of South Africa, more specifically, we are facing a debilitating power crisis, which is unlikely to abate anytime soon. This impact on revenue and costs is not inconsequential. Notwithstanding this, we are confident in our ability to still grow second half earnings. And looking beyond '23 remain very confident in our self-driven opportunities and the traction we are seeing in the execution of our strategies. Yes, we, like all businesses face diverse and complex challenges from time to time. And as we are doing right now, with loadshedding, for example. But for us, what is important is that while many of these events and challenges are outside of our control, how we choose to respond is not. We've demonstrated that success will come if we, as an organization, focus on controlling what is within our control, formulating clear strategies and executing against them, and you can expect us to keep doing exactly that. We are building a bigger, better and far stronger business. With a simplified group post the sale of David Jones and a very healthy balance sheet, we are able to invest more time, attention and financial resources into our core Woolworths and CRG businesses, which will step change the value creation profile of WHL. Whilst we've already begun to reset the financial credentials of the group, I firmly believe our best years are still to come.

Thank you again for joining us. We're going to go straight into the Q&A section of this morning's results presentation. Our first question, Roy, I see you've grown your WFS book by 17% over the period. How much of your FBH sales performance was driven by increased credit?

Well, the growth in our debtors book came primarily from our credit card business, not our in-store card. And in fact, our credit sales in FBH only grew by around 4%, over the half. So our top line was driven primarily by cash sales.

Thanks, Roy. How confident are you in your ability to maintain the current momentum in your FBH business? And how far along would you say you are in the turnaround?

Great question. I think we're very confident. I mean, we've done a lot to reset the foundations of this business over the past 2 years. We're focused on the customer. We basically redefined the role of the Woolworths brand in the apparel ecosystem in South Africa. We've intensified our focus on a number of specific things. We've got this Edit to Amplify strategy, so we're doing more with less. We've focused our offerings, quality over quantity. And we're seeing the results of that. We're selling more on full price. Markdowns have come down. And I'd say we're probably maybe only halfway through the turnaround here. We've got significant scope to improve in some of the basics still. Our availability is not where I think it needs to be, particularly in terms of size curves. Our stock turns -- we can accelerate stock turns, for example. Our beauty business has doubled in size over the last 5 years, and we are going to double that again in the next 3 years. So a lot going on in that space. And of course, in terms of home, we have significant scope to grow this business as well. So I guess, in short, I am confident in our ability to maintain the momentum. And I think we've clearly shifted the direction of this business. But I'd say we're only about halfway in terms of where we want to be.

Another question on FBH. Could you comment on how FBH is performing from a market share perspective?

Well, actually, I mean, we're maintaining our market share. And this is notwithstanding the fact that we're doing all of these initiatives. We've also come out of a lot of space, significant space reduction over the last couple of years. And we've also rationalized the range. But as I've communicated before, I mean, market share is not our primary focus. Our focus is the financial, the underlying financial health of this business. So our priority is share of profits, not share of sales. But as it turns out, we are holding on to our market share. And in fact, we're growing it in some areas, which talks to what we're doing to get the product increasingly right.

Thanks, Roy. A question on food GP margins, so Reeza, this one, one probably for you. If you were to disaggregate the various impacts on the GP margin decline in food, how much would be intentional? So price investment versus nonintentional: waste, increased diesel costs, et cetera?

Right. Thanks, Jeanine. The way to think about this is that essentially, the 0.3% decline or dilution in the margin is entirely attributable to loadshedding, about 0.1%, 0.15% attributable to waste and the balance attributable to increased diesel cost in the supply chain. The price investment really has been offset by the supply chain efficiencies actually that we continue to extract from the value chain. So hopefully, that answers that question. Jeanine?

Thank you. You referenced ZAR 100 million of group costs remaining in the business post the sale of DJs. What it's the nature of these costs? How quickly can you reasonably expect to eliminate them? And how you're going to allocate them or account for them? Roy?

So I mean, we really wanted to be very transparent in calling this out. You've come to expect this level of transparency from us, and so we are showing it separately. We're not going to be allocating that cost across the BUs. So it won't be impacting our existing margin targets for those businesses. But we've ring-fenced this cost, and we'll deal with it over the next 12 to 24 months. And we've done this so that we can hold ourselves more accountable and give you the opportunity of holding us accountable, too, in terms of eliminating this cost over the short to medium term.

We have a few questions on the sale price of David Jones. Please can you provide the sale price of David Jones? Another one I have never seen a sale announced without an indication of a selling price. Why have you not disclosed anything?

Yes. I mean I really don't think it's that unusual, particularly given the fact that we're still trading the business. The net proceeds that we will realize, which includes a fair amount of cash that we'll be extracting, will only be finalized on legal completion, which is at the end of next month. So when we close out accounts and wrap up the transaction, clearly, we will be sharing all the relevant information with the market at that point.

Thanks, Roy, Question, Reeza, probably for you. Inventory is up 13.7% at the end of December. Could you talk to the inventory position in FBH more specifically?

Sure. FBH inventory is actually up about 20%. So there's really 2 components to that. The one is inflation, which was closer to 12% for the period. In unit growth, we're actually not up that significantly. But we did receive stock earlier than anticipated. We received some stock in anticipation of delays, obviously, as a result of COVID, but we received some stock in December that was actually earmarked for -- that was expected in January. But there's nothing unusual there. There's no markdown risk, and we expect inventory to normalize basically by year-end.

Thank you, Reeza. You are on track to once again beat your margin guidance for FBH a couple of years before you guided. Any update to those?

No, we're very pleased clearly with the performance of our respective businesses. We typically review our margin guidance at full year, which you can expect us to do again. But I think for now, we're very comfortable with where we're at, particularly in the context of the current climate.

Thank you. Can you provide inflation guidance on food and clothing in the second half? And what was the book growth in the first 8 weeks of the period? I'm happy to take the first part. So second half guidance on inflation with respect to FBH is around 12%, and 7% to 8% in the case of food. Reeza, book growth in the first 8 weeks of the period?

Book growth was positive, but first 8 weeks of the period, actually, we focus on collections. So post the festive season, it's really about the collection performance of the team, which clearly, Savi and the team is focused on. So you won't see a 17% growth in the first 8 weeks.

Thanks, Reeza. Another question probably for you. Can you expand on the ZAR 8 billion investment over 3 years? This seems at a similar rate expected this year? What are the main projects here?

Yes. I did call it out in the presentation that is on the CapEx slide. The focus really will be on the organic opportunities within South Africa within FBH, within foods. And that is really focused around firstly, FBH, the [ VCT ] project, the growth opportunities within Foods. And then from a technology perspective, the investments into digital into data into online, that obviously continues. And then from a Country Road perspective, it's inland sort of store expansion, and then also DC investment, expansion of the DC given the growth in that business. So it's really focused around the growth opportunities within Country Road and in South Africa.

Thanks, Reeza. Our next question, if load-shedding persists at the current levels for much longer, doesn't this pose an existential threat to a continuation of the high-quality Woolies food experience? In other words, when the cold chain come under threat eventually.

That's a great question. I mean, obviously, for us, the cold chain and sustaining the cold chain is sacrosanct to our proposition. We've been investing in ensuring that going back to 1998 when we sort of put the first generators into our stores. So we've had a long and planned sort of history around ensuring that cold chain, in fact, remains intact. In fact, even with the launch of our Woolies Dash, we were a little slower out of the starting blocks to be very candid, but it was because we were trying to ensure we had an appropriate solution to ensure that our product remains intact through the balance of that part of the supply chain. But for us, I mean, the cold chain being sacrosanct is pivotal. In fact, today, if we have an interrupted cold chain for more than 8 consecutive minutes, we then sort of remove that product from the shelf and we declare it not for sale. And then we take that and we accelerate that through our distribution network to get it into our food banks and our charities that we work closely with. But we're absolutely committed to retaining that. And we'd rather not sell product that isn't meeting the quality requirements that we've laid out for ourselves than sell product that is subpar. So we don't expect us to, and you shouldn't expect us to have a move of that particular commitment around quality.

Thanks, Roy. We have a couple of questions with regards to cash that we'll be receiving from the David Jones sale. What is the focus for the cash received from the DJ sale? How should we think about the proceeds from the DJ sale? And how those would be applied, share buybacks, special dividends, reducing debt in SA or investing into driving growth in CRG and the SA business?

Right. No, great question, and thank you for that. I mean I think you all know that we've intensified our focus on capital allocation across the group. We now have a very well-defined set of principles and an approach with very clear ambitions that we've shared with you, and you can expect us to remain consistent with that. I mean part of this is returning capital to shareholders. We've announced the revised dividend policy, 70% payout in respect of both interim and final dividends. We bought back more than 4% of our shares, and that remains a mechanism on the table for us. So obviously, depending on market conditions at the time. And we've said before that we're not that keen on special dividends. We've outlined and Reeza sort of talked to this a little bit, our plan for the $8 billion of CapEx over the next 3 years, and we'll continue to invest behind the organic sort of growth opportunities. But with the context that we currently have and a little bit of uncertainty around that, it's fantastic that we're in the position that we're in relative to our balance sheet. And we'll give ourselves a little bit of time just to continue to evaluate our options in this regard.

Thanks, Roy. We've just gone over the hours so I think a final question before we wrap up. Any M&A activity on the horizon?

I mean, yes, that's a question we get quite frequently. And you can imagine, particularly with the strength and the capacity we have from a balance sheet perspective. But again, I mean, I'll say perhaps what I've said before. We're not inherently sort of acquisitive, and we're not compelled to do any acquisitions to underpin our growth strategies at all. Having said that, we get a lot of options that come across our desk, and we look at all of them. We evaluate all of them. And if the right thing comes at the right time, and we can actually get it at the right price and it meets all of our strategic financial and operational criteria, we'll certainly consider it. But it's not something that we're sort of feeling obligated to run out and do or compelled to sort of go off and buy something just because we have the capacity to do that.

Thank you, Roy. I think that brings our interim 2023 results presentation to a close. We look forward to engaging with many of you over the coming days. Thank you again for joining us.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for your interest. Thank you.