Ansell Limited

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the ANSEL Limited FY24 full year results. All participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Neil Salmon, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning to you in Australia. Good morning to people around the world, or good old times a day to people joining from around the world and listening in to our presentation of our fiscal year 24 results. And I thank you for your time and your interest in Ansell. I will begin as usual with our summary of our safety and sustainability highlights. You could move to page five. So overall, this page summarizes a lot of progress And it's also a reminder that the goals we set out under these headlines are challenging. They require a lot of success to get right, and our progress will not always be in a straight line. And so I'm going to begin with a couple examples of this. Firstly, for the first time in many years, we saw a tick up in our recordable injury rate, now measured using the TRIFR metric. Two reasons for that. Firstly, these figures now include the consolidation of what was formerly Care Plus, now Ansell Cerenban. And even though the Ansell teams have done a fantastic job reducing the injury rate at that site to around one-fifth what it was a couple of years ago, it's still higher than the Ansell average. And so consolidating Cerenban increases the overall Ansell average. If I take out that effect, then injuries in the last year were around the same as they were two years before that, but we couldn't sustain what was a record prior year. So a step back on our safety metric and the vital imperative that we get back on the improvement track there. The second challenge to highlight on this page is that reduce water withdrawals goal in the middle section. And we remain committed to reducing our withdrawal of water from freshwater sources by 35%. But to do so requires us solving for a number of constraints. The recycling water back into the production process requires us to meet product quality standards, and we also have to be mindful of the effluent treatment, whether onsite or using municipal sources. So we haven't managed to solve for all of those in full yet, and so we are now giving ourselves a couple of years in addition in order to hit that water withdrawal target and extending the target to FY27. The rest of this page, though, summarizes significant progress. Another year of reduced emissions across the network and gaining confidence from our success in scope one and scope two emission reduction, we have now committed to the science-based targets initiative, a full net zero goal, including scope three, that in the last few weeks. We maintain zero-waste landfill at the facilities that have already met that standard. And we continue to influence more broadly across our industry that standards and regulations also evolve to allow companies, not only Ansell, but our peer companies to meet sustainability goals. And the most recent example of this is persuading the European Union to reduce the requirement that paper instructions for use are included with every pack of blood sold and allowing us to move to a QR code. which actually is a better means of delivering instructions for use anyway. So with that change being implemented over the next year or so, a huge quantity of paper waste will be eliminated by Ansell and by our peers as well. Finally, great to see recognition by two of the most respected The first time we have achieved a gold medal with Ecovaris, which puts us in the top 5% of all companies rated by Ecovaris. And then Morningstar Sustainalytics also ranked us as a top-rated company. If you narrow down to the more precise sector in which we're grouped within these groups, then we're in the top 2 or 3% of our peer companies rated. But we don't do this. It's good recognition. We don't do it for the sustainability rating. We do it because many of these initiatives also have financial benefits, and increasingly they're important to our customers and the choices they make behind the suppliers that they want at PPE. And so these goals are also vital and make good commercial sense as well. Turning now to performance overview. And I'm continuing our practice of the last few results to set out on the left here the goals that we communicated to you in our most recent results communication, in this case the February half year, and then my assessment of our progress against those. And I'm pleased to say again another summary of very good progress, delivering pretty much every goal we set out for the half year and overall delivering above the midpoint of the guidance range we set out originally one year ago. Industrial performance continues. This is a business that's been performing very solidly over a long period of time, with perhaps that performance obscured by a more variable performance in our healthcare business. I'm particularly pleased by the EBIT and EBIT margin performance for industrial, and Zubair will go into that in a little bit more detail later. At the beginning of the year, we said for healthcare that we expected some destocking. We expected it predominantly in the first half, and then we expected that to moderate into the second half. And that is indeed how it played out. So two aspects of good news to that. The first is that we had a much clearer view of forward trends in our industry one year ago. And that talks to our improved ability in planning and forecasting. I'll say a few more words on that later. But more importantly, I do believe we're now substantially at the end of this de-stocking wave that has held back the healthcare business over the last two plus years. And that means the demand on Ansell is now normalizing back to the ongoing end-user demand that's been in the market throughout this time. So exam-simple use reporting good volume growth throughout the year. Very encouragingly, our life science business products sold into clean room environments achieved double digit growth in the second half. And we also saw reduced destocking effects in surgical. Frustratingly, this one has a slight cedilla mark against it. We had the orders to also achieve growth in surgical in the second half. But a sizable chunk of those orders were deferred through congestion and destruction that we'd seen arising as a result of the Red Sea container shipping impacts. That business is not lost. It's deferred into FY25. And overall, the demand picture and order picture for surgical also very positive in the second half. So overall, healthcare EBIT margins also improved, still below where we expect them to be for this business, but I'm satisfied with that second half improvement versus the first half. Our major programs are on track. The APIC program, we upgraded our targets, as you will remember, in February, and we continue to track in line with those upgraded targets. The savings coming through as expected and the costs in line with expectations. Also a very good year in how we funded APIC. We set a goal to fund it through inventory, strong cashflow results, but I know Zubair wants to go into that with you later. And so I'll leave those highlights to him. And all of that together, as I mentioned, resulting in an EPS delivery on a comparable basis to how we set out the EPS guidance at the beginning of the year of 105.5. So that means it excludes the cost of APIT, and it also excludes more recently both the share dilution and the interest benefit of the equity raise in advance of the KCPP acquisition, which closed on the 1st of July. Below that, a few more details on APIP, but I'll cover that later, and some more details on the acquisition, which also I will cover later. So digging in a little further to organic growth performance on the next page, and here's that solid growth in industrial that I talked to, overall growth in the year of 3.3%. Even with... fairly neutral demand conditions for mechanical, even a little soft in some mature markets. We're recording organic growth close to that 3% level and the growth rates improved through the half. And that's coming about through success of new products, which I'll talk a little bit further about in a moment. A good half a year for chemical. Now, part of that was we indicated earlier that we'd reached an agreement with our exclusive partner in the, I'm now saying in the household gloves sector. We didn't specifically call it household gloves six months ago, but we said we were exiting a lower commodity piece of the chemical business. In the last 12 months that we've had that business, through the exit agreement we reached with that customer, it was operating at a higher than the normal margin as a result of this pricing benefit of $5 million. So there was a little boost in chemical, also benefited chemicals. margins from that factor but even extracting that i'm pleased at the demand trends i see in chemical and it's coming across the portfolio we see it on our highest performance styles both body protection and hand protection and indeed we're launching a number of very important products at the high end within chemical but we're also seeing improving demand in the more medium and general purpose product categories as well which is also encouraging So here are the full year stats for the healthcare segment. But as I commented earlier, a significant difference first half, second half, which I'll cover in a moment. Overall volume growth in exam. Revenue lower because of that pricing carry forward that we talked about a year ago. Surgical, a much improved second half, but we weren't able to fulfill all orders because of the Red Sea shipping disruptions. And then life science, significantly stocking in the first half, as we predicted, and then significant growth in the second half. And, of course, that sets us up very well for the acquisition of the KPU business. And so here's the sequential growth slide that I indicated earlier. And we don't usually show this, but I wanted to demonstrate the difference, particularly in healthcare in seasonal trends. So we usually see about 51% of revenue in the second half. So mechanical, fairly typical seasonal weighting, chemicals slightly stronger to the second half, and not particularly because of that exit approach that I talked about. So that's more general demand trends improving. But here you can see significantly improved second half for exam single use, especially for life science, as the stocking moderates. Surgical, only a moderate improvement in the second half. And again, that is because of the Red Sea disruption to that business. But now, and this is the last time I will show the trend through the pandemic period, because we're drawing a line behind that phase of Ansell's history on this call. But I think important to note that industrial throughout this five year period has achieved that consistent three-ish percent growth and through what has been quite a turbulent period of economic uncertainty. So I'm encouraged by that. But I also have higher growth ambition for this business. And I hope that we will demonstrate that going forward into F25 and beyond. And then in healthcare, and these are similar trends to ones we've commented on before, although the exam single-use business revenue is similar now to the F19 period, the quality of the business has improved significantly. Margins are higher. We've shifted the mix more to differentiated styles, also to styles in-house produced versus outsourced. We're now at 50-50 mix, which is about right for the business. And then our highest performing business unit here is the life science businesses. And remember, surgical and life science together in the F24 period still has six months to do stocking using this revenue number. And even with that, achieve good growth over this time period. So I believe this is a picture of a business that, looking over this time period, has performed fairly consistently and steadily, and that's a good base to go forward into S25, as I'll cover at the end of this presentation. So moving on to the strategies we use to drive organic growth investment. And these three key areas have long been a feature of our discussions externally and our focus internally. Emerging markets again outperformed the overall Ansell average, but a more mixed picture within emerging markets over the last 12 or 18 months. Another year of strong growth in Latin America. Brazil, particularly the highlight in the last 12 months, and Mexico continuing to be a very solid performer for us. Encouraging within India to see double-digit growth continuing for our surgical portfolio. China started the year soft. Sales were lower in the first half, but improved significantly in the second half across all our business units. And that's also encouraging on the demand picture for China as we go into F25. We continue to invest. Our number one priority for investment is in our capability behind differentiated products, and that includes the manufacturing capacity for those. So you're fully aware of our India surgical construction, which continues on track. It is already active in packaging and sterilization operations, but the major ramp up will be when we commence dipping operations, which we're targeting for fiscal year 26. And then on the right are some of the highlights of new product innovation. The top two both within the mechanical portfolio 11571 is an ultra lightweight high cut performance glove and it's showing some of the strongest first year growth metrics that we've seen in many, many years at Ansell. So real hit with our customers. It's extremely comfortable to wear as well as providing that very high cut protection. And it's part of a family that we've launched under that ultra lightweight high cut value proposition to customers. And then what I expect to be our most successful ever new product is the R840 to the right here. This was combined Hyplex liner technology, the grip, the durability that we're famous for with Ringer's impact technology, but in a lighter form that opens up new markets where in the past you couldn't have worn traditional impact protection because they're too bulky and they prevent you doing your work. We think we've cracked that code with a lightweight impact protection product, which is creating new market opportunities for us. And I expect significant growth on that product into F25. Below here, a couple of products in other categories. So as I mentioned in chemical, we're innovating both at the very top end and at the general purpose end of our portfolio. And this is an example of a suit that's been designed to the very, very demanding specifications of biosafety labs worldwide. Very niche market, but very, very important to hit both the performance gain and the comfort criteria. We now believe we have a product that the biosafety labs themselves are delighted to have, and we're rolling that out currently. And then we continue to innovate in the cleanroom space, and there's this one example of our latest innovation there. So these three aspects I expect to continue to be the major sources of organic growth going forward. So turning now to the APIC program, and I'll be quite quick through these next couple of slides because there's not a lot different to what you have seen in previous presentations. This new organization structure when in place was complete by around October of last year, so early in our fiscal year. And I continue to see the benefits of this new structure come through. The performance of teams is improving. The decision-making is quicker, and we are more agile and more customer-centric in how we go to the market. Still opportunities to further improve that, and we're realizing the cost-saving benefit of the change, too. We hit all our manufacturing goals during the year, and these are the headcount reductions that we committed to and that we have delivered. If you look at our total headcount number, it's actually increased year on year, but that is because we are now consolidating the Ansell Care Plus facility for the first time. It wasn't in the prior year number. And we are investing in other sites, not the sites that have seen reductions, but in other sites where we are ramping up in support of those new products that I mentioned on the previous page. So we are both achieving our productivity goals and also continuing to invest for growth where we see outside growth potential. And then the IT work continues on track, but as you know, most of the cost and benefit for that initiative is in out years. Turning to costs of the programme, and these, again, as expected in the year, if I look at F25, you'll see there's some spend still to go, but the majority of the programme was complete, with the exception of the IT initiative, which has a couple of years still to run. So overall pleased with APIP status. It's on track and I see no signs of it being distracted by our other big initiative, which is the KCPP acquisition. So let me now turn to that and say a few words on that. Firstly, this is a recap of the messages we communicated to you back in April when we announced the acquisition. I won't cover every point because you've heard these before. It is encouraging to me that, as I said to you, we were doubling down in our most attractive and highest growth vertical. And the results that I've shared with you in the life science sector confirms that over the last six months. And the KC PPE business, or now called KVU within Antle, saw similar trends themselves over the last six months. So the business is tracking to the momentum we hoped for and expected and built into our business case, which of course is encouraging. I think what I would say, though, that now that the barriers of being competitors are removed, now that the teams are on the same team, the complementarity of the two portfolios is very much in evidence as our teams get together. As competitors over the years, each of us has wanted what the other one had and in some cases struggled to replicate it. And now you put the best of both together, which is very much our mantra. in this integration process, and the teams are working extremely well together and seeing all sorts of opportunities to take this new extended portfolio and service offerings to market. And also, as I talk to our leading customers in this space, they are also enthusiastic and excited at the potential that our two businesses together offer to them in value creation, whether our channel partners or our key end users as well. Overall, the metrics here not changed from our acquisition thesis, but my confidence in them has certainly improved as we've gone through the steps of acquisition and integration so far. So a few words out on this next page. So, a reminder that in this initial phase, the business is still reliant on Kimberley Clark for many of its business processes. The business had not been carved out of Kimberley Clark systems prior to divestment. So, we're in this transition services period in which much of the order to cash customer fulfillment processes are still being conducted through Kimberley Clark systems, people and processes. It was a lot of work to get that all set up for day one. I'm delighted to be able to report to you that since 1st of July, when those transition services went live, the business has continued on its track without missing a beat. And that's a lot of credit goes to the Ansell team, the Kimberly Clark team, and also the KVU team, who are now Ansell employees, but were working diligently on guaranteeing the success before that July 1 cutover. So, as I mentioned in this middle section, productive initial discussions with customers, lots of opportunities being talked about. The head of the KBU, Rob Hughes, now reports to me and is a member of my executive leadership team, is stewarding that business very well and also bringing his insights to Ansell as to what the full opportunity is of putting these two businesses together. The overall cultural fit seems very strong and I know that's one of the hardest things to quantify and to assess and the hardest things for you to see as to whether it's working or not. For the most part, we've known each other for years through moving in similar industry circles, competing against each other, yes, but also having great respect for the capabilities of the other. And so it's really good to see the teams coming together, working so well in this initial phase. And that also gives me confidence that the cultural fit will be a net positive to our progress from here. Overall, in terms of financial metrics, trading performance through the last six months prior to our ownership was in line with my expectations, off to a good start, again in line with my expectations so far in fiscal year 25. But a reminder that this is a higher risk phase for the business as we are reliant on those transition services. And as I mentioned back in April when we announced the transaction, we're also relying on the Casey Professional Salesforce during this transition period to continue supporting the safety portfolio, not the scientific portfolio, but the more general industrial safety portfolio. And as you know, we factored in risks of this period into our projections for the business. We hope to mitigate those risks and not to see them eventuate, but I think it remains prudent for us to consider and continue with the risk adjustments in the projections we make to you, and I'll comment on that further when we get to guidance. So that's my opening summary of results today, and now I'd like to hand over to Zubair for some more detail on the financials. Zubair.

Thanks Neil and hello everyone. Since Neil's already covered some high level aspects of our financial performance for the year. As always, I'll just add a few more details. Overall, clearly we're satisfied with the adjusted EPS landing at just under 106 cents and that excludes the effects from the equity raise we undertook to fund what we're now calling the KBU acquisition and therefore that EPS number that I'm using or quoting it directly now compares to that original fiscal 24 guidance range we gave of 94 to 110 cents. Now, after a couple of tumultuous post-pandemic reporting periods, I'm pleased we can now report EPS towards the upper end of those expectations we set coming into the year. And as you've just heard, sales were down just under 3% on a constant currency basis. And with that growth in the industrial segment offsetting the lower healthcare sales, And there we had foreign exchange providing a tailwind to sales of just over $12 million. Same time, G paid improved by 100 basis points versus fiscal 23 and very strong industrial margins, more than offsetting those lower earnings from the health care segment. Now, it's well documented by now that our healthcare segment was inversely or adversely, I should say, impacted from that customer destocking. And that in turn drove us to slow our production levels down so we could reduce our own inventory. And I'll say a bit more about that when we get to the segment earnings in the next couple of slides. Moving to the SG&A line, that was up just over 4% on a constant currency basis. And that was driven, again, we signaled this in other calls, the need to normalize incentive provisions from those abnormally low levels that we concluded in fiscal 23. But outside of that incentive movement, I think we've diligently controlled employee costs. And that's even with the high inflation backdrop. and overall employee costs down year-on-year, reflecting a very well-executed productivity program. Now, despite the foreign exchange providing a tailwind to sales, there was an $8 million or so headwind to EBIT for the year, and underlying currency movements were favorable to earnings by about $11 million. And the hedge book did the job it's designed to do by muting that gain. And overall, we registered a loss of $11 million closing out hedge book positions in fiscal 24. And that compared to a hedge book gain of $9 million in fiscal 23. And of course, the difference being the driver of the total year-on-year foreign exchange loss. Excluding $66 million of significant items, largely related to that APIC program, as Neil just outlined, and the acquisition transaction costs. When you wrap all that up, we ended up with a decline of earnings of just over 1.3% in constant currency terms. Bridging to net profit, interest was modestly higher because of higher global interest rates and increased leasehold expense. And our effective tax rate was higher as we didn't benefit from utilization of tax losses in our Australian entity from those hedge book gains we had last year. Now, in summary, I would say that's a satisfying financial performance on this slide in fiscal 24. And I think it's a solid platform going into fiscal 25. Turning to slide 16 now, looking at the performance of our industrial segment. Here we achieved constant currency sales growth of just over 3%, and that's growth in both mechanical and chemical products. Sales growth was, I'd say, largely a function of price and favorable mix, and the reported sales included just over $9 million of favorable effects. I think it's also important to note here in this segment, we did benefit much better than anticipated pricing on chemical household gloves, and that was to the tune of about $5 million as we exited those products as part of APIP. Now, clearly, that pricing dropped straight through to the bottom line, and it's not going to repeat in fiscal 25. But that said, industrial earnings closed at a record $129 million, and the margin percentage in that segment also at an all-time high of 16.5%. And that's driven by the sales growth, there's net cost favorability, there's improved plant performance, and those APIP savings all contributing very well to that performance outcome. There was a small or modest foreign exchange headwind of just under $4 million from those hedge book losses. And again, those muted the underlying currency tailwinds. In terms of the healthcare segment, slide 17, I've spoken about this in length in prior calls. Neil's just been through the nuances of the healthcare sales performance. And so I'll just reiterate that there are good signs of diminished destocking across both surgical and life sciences. And we also knew this year we had that residual sales headwind from that exam single-use price reductions we implemented in fiscal 23. Net, this translated to a constant currency decline or sales decline of 8%. And foreign exchange was a small help here, adding just under $3 million to that reported sales number. Clearly, earnings were lower due to those reduced sales. And because of our conscious decision to slow production in the first half, This meant our fixed manufacturing costs were absorbed over lower manufacturing volumes, and that led to a higher cost of goods sold. But we did see normalized volumes reverting in the second half, as Neil just said, and EBIT margins improving to 12.4% on improved sales, higher production, and growing APIP savings. And like the industrial segment, healthcare, had a foreign exchange headwind to earnings due to those hedge fund losses. So in summary, while it was a challenging year for this healthcare business, we saw improved momentum moving into the second half, and we're more confident than we've been in a long time that this will carry forward across fiscal 25. Moving to the input cost slide 18, Here, raw material costs, they were largely benign in fiscal 24, and that was with lower nitrile costs offsetting higher costs of natural rubble latex. However, we did see increases in nitrile and NRL in H2, and I'd expect those costs to be higher year over year as we move across fiscal 25. Our conversion costs as well continue to be subject to higher inflationary pressures, and that's most notably against payroll and energy costs. But our teams, we are charging them to address employee cost inflation with offsets, clearly through productivity or automation initiatives. And wrapping up on this slide, outsourced finished goods costs, they remain, again, stable and a lower percentage of our COGS mix than in years past. Turning to the CAPEX summary, again here I'd highlight the significant spend was on that continued construction of the Greenfield surgical plant we're building there in India. And I'd expect the bulk of that construction for that site to be completed in fiscal 25. And from there, I think we'd see CAPEX, it's got a trend downwards more towards the maintenance levels we've seen in the past. And that's because our global manufacturing network should have the capacity now to meet customer demand across our medium term plans. Slide 20, Neil's just talked about this KCPP acquisition or the KV acquisition, KVU acquisition as we're calling it. So I'll just pick out a few highlights here. In terms of the financing specifics, completion took place on July the 1st, just after our year end. Consideration was $640 million. We previously communicated that. There was a small final purchase price adjustment based on working capital at completion, and that will be made in the coming months. Funding was $1. via both equity and debt. And there was a successful institutional placement and share purchase plan, and that contributed all in just over $300 million. And the balance we funded via U.S. private placement, debt funding, and we secured that in late June. Monumental efforts by our internal teams, which I'm very thankful for, And we're very pleased and grateful with the excellent level of shareholder support and lender support we had for this acquisition. And I'm pleased we've been able to lock in long-term financing at very competitive rates. And that was prior to completion and having to draw down, therefore, on an acquisition bridge facility. Now, when we announced the deal, we did flag the effects. So for the equity raise would be about one to two cents diluted to earnings per share. And indeed, that was the case with actual dilution at 1.6 cents. And I've adjusted that from our EPS number of just under 106 cents, which we reported earlier. And lastly, transaction costs in fiscal 24, they were also in line with our guidance at $14 million. And when Neil comes on to guidance, you'll see we have another $10 million or so expected to be booked in fiscal 25. Now, I couldn't wait to get to this slide. It's the cash flow slide. I was bullish coming into the year. And for me, this is one of the best aspects or pleasing aspects of the results. given all the focus and effort our internal teams put into this. And my undying belief that cash is always king in a business. So very pleasing to see this slide. We delivered operating cash flow at just under $168 million. And that's the result, by the way, only surpassed once in the last decade on a full year basis. And that was in the pandemic boosted year of fiscal 20. So an achievement we're very proud of. Cash conversion on an adjusted basis was a healthy 131%. And that was clearly supported by significant working capital release. And we did promise that coming into the fiscal year and included just under $17 million reduction in inventory. And as Neil mentioned, that more than funded the $44 million we incurred in the APIP cash costs. And again, that was very much by design as we conceived that program. And one important point of clarification on this slide, our reported net debt at year end, It included those funds required to settle the KBU acquisition on July 1, and that's why we've included this pro forma net debt movement to account for that timing issue. And then turning on to the balance sheet, again, I'm pleased as always on this balance sheet, it remains in a very healthy condition even after the acquisition. And also that's not because of any, and I want to be clear on this, corporate parsimony or anything that we've implemented here. It's rather, and Neil said this, it's rather our usual careful stewardship of the business. And as Neil said, where we can find sensible investments, we'll absolutely fund those, as you saw with the KBU deal. But adjusting for that acquisition, our pro forma net debt was at 1.8 turns of EBITDA at year end and significantly lower than the 2.3 turns we had at the half year end. And we're able to reduce leverage even quicker than my original expectation because of exceptional second half cash generation. And that's coupled with also proceeds we raised from that share purchase plan as part of the equity raise. And you'll recall those proceeds were not included in any pro forma debt calculations as we announced the acquisition. And as I mentioned on the previous slide, working capital reduced by over $100 million, and that was versus June 2023. The $68 million inventory reduction was due to those planned production slowdowns, and that was further helped by increased shipments in the second half. We also had a large increase in trade payables, which were, I mentioned this last year, they were abnormally low at the end of fiscal 23 when our plants were positioned for lower first half production. And they, of course, reduced their purchases accordingly. Roche, that was marginally lower than fiscal 23 on reduced earnings and it's partially offset by the significant reduction we had in capital employed from that working capital release I just discussed. I think that brings me to the closing part of my update and therefore a few words regarding our ongoing liquidity profile. In March, we refinanced $100 million of senior notes. And in June, obviously, we put in this long-term financing to fund the KBU acquisition. So all in all, that leaves us in a very solid and strong financing position. And I'd say we have a very good spread of long-dated maturities now, and about 62% of our interest is at fixed rates. And that funding security and the headroom it gives us, combined with a very strong cash flow generation, means we still have the ample flexibilities to pursue value accretive investments, both internally and externally. And as they arise, we'll exhaust all those avenues. And if that doesn't occur, we'll always consider other capital allocation options as we progress through the year. And so with that, I'll thank all my colleagues around the Antelope Globe for their absolute monumental efforts in fiscal 24. And once again, a very warm welcome to my new KBU colleagues. And with that, I'll hand back to Neil to discuss the priorities he set for us in fiscal 25.

Thank you, Zabair. That was a A lot of material covered and a lot of great outcomes, I believe, in the overall cash performance, especially in balance sheet position of Ansell today. So I thought it would be worth just stepping back for a moment before I get to our guidance expectations for fiscal 25 to take stock a little bit on what is different about our market, our industry and Ansell today versus when we began this pandemic period. And of course, now looking back with hindsight, the period of super normal demand was actually relatively short. And the period of destocking was something quite like twice as long as the period in which we benefited from high levels of demand. And that destocking period has been painful for us. And yet we have stayed focused on the long-term strategies. We've not been diverted by chasing after what turned out to be temporary opportunities. We stayed true to our strategic priorities and our sense of what sets up Ansell for long-term success. And that I would like to illustrate a little bit further in this page. So starting with changes in markets, what's changed and what hasn't changed? So certainly that initial period of pandemic demand, drew in additional capacity and suppliers, but focused on commodity products. And yes, the players who are focused in that area are still challenged in terms of margins. And you see that very evidently in the results of those companies in that sector who are public. The second thing we saw was that customer inventory buildup, but then the length of stocking that's now largely behind us. But we also see a push to the question of should critical PPE products be made in mature markets again in order to secure reliability of supply? Our assessment then and still now is that the economics of that are very uncertain, and we remain not convinced that that will be long-term successful. So what have we done? Well, as I mentioned, we've stayed focused on long-term growth markets. We did not chase after temporary higher margin opportunities within more commodity products, and we continued to develop our business in its differentiation and its market relevance. For the exam single-use business, that's why I say that business is higher quality today than some years ago. But it's not just exam single-use, of course. Across our portfolio, we continue to invest, sometimes in large bytes, sometimes in small bytes, in building our capability and capacity to bring differentiated products to the market. Considering the manufacturing and sourcing dimension here, certainly customer buying preferences have changed. Not all customers, but some. Supply chain resilience is a more critical factor. Ethical sourcing is higher in decision-making criteria than before. And we are all aware that inflation continues across all non-raw material input costs. So how has Ansell tackled that? Well, firstly, we've overhauled our supply chain. particularly focused on exam single use, where through the acquisition of Care Plus, we've brought in-house a number of key styles and moved to that 50-50 mix of insourced versus outsourced production. You will remember across the rest of our business already, we were 80-plus percent insourced, so it was only exam single use that was the outlier before as majority outsourced and now balanced insourced-outsourced, and that I expect to continue. And then the second thing we've done is developed our supplier management framework. We go into full detail on that in our set of sustainability reports that will be out before the end of the month. But it's really given us much greater traction and visibility into our supply chain. Not only our finished goods suppliers, but also our raw material suppliers, our packaging suppliers, our service providers on site. So the supply management framework is giving us that visibility, but also increasing our influence to ensure our standards are adopted across the full end-to-end of our supply network. And then as Hibair mentioned, we continue to focus on offsetting those inflationary factors through productivity. And yes, APIP is a big step change this year, but we expect automation, ongoing optimization of manufacturing location, and yes, when needed, some price increase as well to be able to fully offset what we see coming in inflation over the next period of time. If I look at how the competitive dynamics have changed our industry, So yes, certainly there are the lower margin players, the private label manufacturers, as in every year, their capability increases. But what we also see is that key and very influential safety customers, when we can bring a solution to them for an injury, unmet injury need, they're willing to go for a high performance and high price product where it's clearly addressing an important issue in the manufacturing setting or in the healthcare setting. And so our ability to sell value, value in protection, but also in performance, in worker satisfaction, in productivity, is in evidence once again. And customers will spend two or three times more per piece for a piece of protective equipment if it can deliver those benefits that I highlighted. And so it's so important, therefore, that we have stayed focused on R&D, stayed focused on bringing to market products only made by Ansel that you cannot get from anyone else. And as I said earlier, I'm very encouraged with some of the momentum we're now seeing as a result of that R&D investments and success in understanding what the market wants and is willing to pay for. And finally, our sustainability differentiation that I began the presentation with is beginning to be more relevant to that customer buying decision. And there are now several cases across the world where it's been the key factor in allowing us to win business, particularly in the healthcare segment. And then finally, getting to grips with our industry. So it will always be difficult to forecast a business that is sold through distribution because of the limited visibility that you get all the way through to end user demand. And while some distributors have worked with us to improve that visibility, it's never going to be perfect. So we have to offset that through other methods. We have to use our own techniques to get visibility to end-use consumption, not only rely on distributor reports. And so, in accordance with that, we've overhauled our processes, new people in place. And what's most impressive to me in that cash flow performance that Zubair summarized is not only did we improve working capital, did we reduce inventory, but at the same time, we improved customer service. And that's the kind of dual benefit strategy that we have frankly struggled to deliver in the past. and it's a real testament to the capabilities in that team that we're able to do that. We're certainly not done in customer service. There are certainly significant improvements still to be had before I would consider us world-class in this space, but substantial progress on where we were, and that's of benefit in cash flow performance and also benefit in organic performance. And that only comes through collaborative channel partnership across inventory management, forecasting, and generally trying to predict what's ahead in our industry. So those are the insights then that I used to talk a bit further about expectations in F25. Firstly, a summary of our priorities. No great surprise here or anything significantly new, but that top box really summarises it. So second half was back to growth for Ansell. Now we need back to growth for a full year and across both our industrial and healthcare portfolio. We're on track to achieve that. We're starting the year with a momentum I would expect that gives me confidence that goal is within our reach. Secondly, we need to sustain all that hard work under the APIP heading, ensure that productivity benefit is preserved and built upon for the future. And then thirdly, and now the most important goal, is to realize value from the KPU acquisition. Under each of those headings, a few more specifics. Organic growth for us needs to be driven back from the end user. It's the end user who's really willing to differentiate in outcomes when they see an improved safety performance, as I illustrated earlier. And those successes in making our case at the end user level is what's driving new product success across our portfolio. But we can't do it without strong channel partnerships, so those are also critical. And then we continue to invest behind emerging markets, which I believe has many, many years still to go of higher than average growth rates for us. Productivity is the strategies that you would expect, seeing through the APIC program, seeing through our ongoing digital investments and ERP upgrades, and then building out the KDU integration strategy. So against that objective, The next period of time is about taking our initial assumptions that we put in our business case that we communicated to you and now fleshing those out into very specific business plans that we're able to do collaboratively with our new KPU colleagues. Today, I see no reason why we can't deliver that 10 million net cost synergy number. Of course, we are looking for ways to perform better than that, but it's still early. Those plans are not yet fully baked. And so I would hope around the half year to be able to come back to you with more specifics on how we expect to drive synergy from the KBU and Ansell combination. And then finally, we want our reputation to be good stewards of capital. As Zubair said, I'm very pleased at the equity and debt response to fundraising in support of this acquisition. And we know that is far from guaranteed. And we want to continue investing wisely for long-term differentiation, for value creation to all stakeholders, and especially, of course, to shareholders. And that's made possible by the strong cash flow and balance sheet flexibility that Zubair highlighted. So finally, to our EPS expectations for the next 12 months. So overall, a range of $1.07 to $1.27. We're continuing with a wider range than perhaps we had some years in the past, and I'll explain the reasons for that in a moment. But before getting to that, a few comments about the assumptions we've relied on in drawing up this guidance range. So overall, if I look at demand trends across the different countries and different markets in which we participate, I would say generally in mature markets, in industrial segments, demand is pretty neutral. PMIs would indicate declining demand, as in most major countries they remain sub-50 for the manufacturing sector. And yet we're showing that we can still achieve growth in those same markets, partly as a result of our new product success, but also generally we see the performance of the safety category holding up better than the overall level of industrial activity. So we're assuming broadly neutral industrial market conditions over the next 12 months and slightly favourable healthcare demand markets as that sector is back to more normal operating conditions now and, of course, with the stocking largely behind us. KPU performance, as I highlighted, performed just where I hoped in the six months prior to our ownership, has continued on that track in the first six weeks or so of Ansell's ownership. And so we assume that it continues on that track. And yet we have also included, as I mentioned before, an assumption of some risk in transition as we move from this transition service to being fully adopted by Ansell people, processes and systems. And then while we're in this transition service period, we also incur the cost of those transition services. So today the business is carrying a higher cost base than pre-acquisition. And of course, those costs will also fall away into F26 when we exit this transition service phase. But overall, even with those higher transition service costs, I do expect EBIT improvement, driven by sales growth, productivity benefits, and the KBU is accretive to overall ANSL margins, even with carrying that higher transition cost. Quite a few details in the middle column under our EPS assumptions. I won't go through each one. I will highlight what Zubair mentioned, which is we are seeing a small tick up in raw material inflation and also higher freight costs as carriers adapt to the Red Sea disruption. As you know, we generally only take pricing action where we see those trends established. And that usually means, and we've discussed this a few times before, that in that first step of raw material increase, there is a moderate margin impact to Ansell, but then we are able to get prices through and we offset that. So that may well happen first half, second half in our overall year ahead, but it's fully considered in the guidance range that I have articulated here. And then we expect to be on track to deliver APIP savings. We need to normalize for that pricing benefit that Zubair called out in chemical. And I hope that FX starts to move favorably for Ansell going forward, although the effect of that will continue to be muted by our hedge book position. And then CapEx, as Habea mentioned, starting to moderate and to moderate further in F26. As based on my base case growth assumption, I see that we have sufficient capacity across our network to support our growth for a couple of years. Of course, if growth far exceeds that, then that's a great problem to have. And we'll be ready with our plans to build capacity should that be needed. But that would definitely be in an upside scenario versus our base case assumptions. So overall, why the wide range? Well, I would say today that I'm more confident in the Ansell trajectory, that we've got our arms around the business, that some of the uncertainty that we talked to you about and also couldn't forecast precisely is behind us. But at the same time, there are two key reasons why I think it's only prudent to maintain a wide range. The first is we're only six weeks into the ownership of the KBU business. And as I've highlighted, this is the key phase that we need to get right as we come off transition services. So that's one reason why a wider range is, I think, advisable. And the second is, and you know this better than me, There continues to be significant geopolitical uncertainty around the world. And so, in my view, it is only prudent to start the year with a wide range. Considering those factors, we will look to update you as we go through the year, as we get more certainty in our earnings trajectory and also more confidence in the next stages of the KBU acquisition integration. So that concludes our prepared remarks and our slides. I would now like to welcome Zubair back and go to Q&A. So operator, please, if you could open up the Q&A session.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We ask today that you please limit yourself to two questions per person, after which you may then rejoin the queue. Your first question comes from David Lowe with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Thanks very much for taking my question. Hi. Good morning. Good result. Very nice to see. We haven't had good results for a few years with Ansel, so that's very pleasing. Just if we could start off with the questions. the synergies from the Kimberly-Clark acquisition, just trying to understand exactly how you expect that to play out in the first year. I mean, I recognise there was commentary and guidance given that there would be the impact of the transition, but just if you could sort of clarify that a little as to what we should be – what you're expecting and what perhaps the range of outcomes there is, please.

Sure. And thank you for the plaudits that you opened with, David. It's also nice to hear that from you. So, yes, happy to the last 12 months. So yes, important to understand this. So Synergy delivery won't begin until F26. And the main reason for that is until we have achieved the next milestone in navigating the transition services, the KVU business is operating standalone within Ansell. And our focus very much is on ensuring no disruption to our customers. because these are customers to whom the supply of safety equipment is absolutely critical to their manufacturing process. Any disruption can be hugely disruptive and expensive for those customers. So we're moving cautiously through this phase, and our focus is taking the business and transporting it over from Kimberley Clark systems processes to Ansell systems and processes, and that will take probably the better part of this fiscal year. We had 12 months agreed with Kimberley Clark. If we can get there a little bit sooner, we will try, but we will not take any risk in doing that. We want to make sure that at the point we cut over, we continue with no customer disruption as we achieved already on July 1. So, but we did indicate that some of the negative synergy that's included in that net 10 million would potentially come through this 12 months and especially there's that risk that the safety business is today now supported by Kimberley Clarke professional sales team that hasn't come with the acquisition. From what I see at this point, they continue to support the business and we see no loss of momentum. So that's great news at this point, but clearly it is in a higher risk than you would like phase where the sales team is supporting the business that didn't come with the business. So that's a negative synergy we've allowed for. It's included in our model, it's included in our guidance here, also the expectations we set in April. And then if some of it does come through, then we need the cost synergy to come through, which is largely an economy of scale benefit as we go into F26 to offset that. And that's what gets us to the net cost synergy number, the 10 million that is articulated and that we stand behind in our acquisition guidance. So I hope that unpacks that a little bit better. David, Zubair, would you add anything to help explain or did I cover the key points?

No, I think that was covered well, Neil. Thank you.

I guess I would like to know how much of a range you're allowing for, but my second question, was it really on the Red Sea freight issues? Just if you could give us a little bit more detail as to why that's such an issue for the surgical range and how much of your global surgical gloves business is affected by that, please.

Yes. So we're not giving an exact number of quantum. The surgical business generally has higher weighted shipments to the second half. And also it operates on a direct, a large part of the business, particularly in EMEA, operates on a direct ship model, meaning the revenue recognition happens at the time that the product leaves the factory gate or leaves the nearest port to the factory. So for the rest of the business, we can buffer delayed shipments through our in-country warehouse. But for the surgical business, we can't because if it doesn't get on the boat, then it isn't a sale. And so that's why it's a more immediate impact to our surgical business. We did see somewhat increased back orders across the business in the second half, but for that reason, most acute and surgical. So what's happening? So because the Red Sea is no longer available to container ships worldwide, as you know, they're all traveling around the southern tip of South Africa. That means products are spending longer in the water. So first of all, that ties up inventory. Second of all, because ships are longer at sea, there's less vessel availability. And then I think everyone has moved to a risk-off approach across the world in terms of trying to bring product in before the holiday season, before any number of other factors. So that means everyone has also put increased demands on container shipping. All of that has resulted in port congestion, and so it's just been a real battle to get space on ships. Container availability a little bit, but that's actually less of an issue. So it's more ports are congested, boats are waiting to come through ports, or they're skipping ports, and then also the cost has increased. Now, good news is I think our team is doing a great job of managing this. As we began this year, we don't see it becoming a more acute problem. If anything, we're starting to work away the delay effect. My assumption is that this issue continues throughout the year. Of course, it would be great news if there was a resolution and shipping could pass through the Red Sea again, but I'm not relying on that in the guidance that I've indicated to you. So from here, we expect to... recover back on those delays. At this point in time, I don't believe that it's led to any business losses. But, of course, our sales team is staying very close to that, and we're trying to improve the reliability at which delayed shipments do get to our customers. So, important question, and hopefully I gave you at least some directional colour on that. Yeah, that was helpful. Thanks, Neil.

Your next question comes from Vanessa Thompson with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Neil and Xavier. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to ask about the insourcing plans you might have for Kimberly Clark. I understand they're fully outsourced, and I think you said that you are circa 80% insourced for the majority of your products. Thank you.

Yes. Well, thank you for the question, Vanessa. Good to hear your voice. So this is part of that... now development of the overall go forward plan for the business that is one of the top issues that the teams are working through. We have made a fairly, in the synergy number that we communicated to you, we've made a fairly modest assumption of insourcing, or should I say more accurately, of cost-benefit from insourcing. As you know, generally, in the exam single-use space, where we insource, it's not to obtain a huge cost advantage because we can also, if there are general styles that are available to others, then we can buy them very competitively as well. But it has other benefits in terms of supply chain resilience. And then, of course, any new products that we launch benefiting from Kimberly Clark technology or Ansell technology, we would want to launch only at an Ansell facility so that they are only available from us. I think there's probably more opportunity in the clothing range. Where we are today investing in building up already our ability to make particularly the general purpose body protection styles We historically have made those products in China. We're now building capability in Sri Lanka and which is highly competitive, and so we're still looking to understand that better. Kimberly-Clark has a good network of the material substrates and also the converters, but we see opportunity in improving on that cost picture as we bring the Kimberly-Clark and the Ansell body protection portfolios together. But this is all for later communication, Vanessa, so at this point all I can say is what we're working on, as we've not yet set specific goals in that area.

Thank you. I just had another question then on organic growth expectations. You've long talked to the 3% to 5% organic growth expectation. With the Kimberly-Clark acquisition and the emphasis on life sciences, which is more like a 7% to 8% organic growth rate, can we think about the high end of the 3% to 5% or could we expect something beyond that? Thank you.

Yes, I'm not at the point of changing our long-term organic growth guidance yet, but yes, you're right that it's not all of the 270 million that we acquire that is in the higher growth segment, that's around two-thirds of it. But yes, that is accreted to market growth rates and so moves us up within that three to five percent range. The other key drivers that ultimately could allow us to improve on our growth expectations is that new product performance and gaining greater traction there. But I want to see more evidence of that coming through and sustaining in the market before I commit to those goals. So today I'm still happy in the three to five range. And yes, the Kimberly-Clark acquisition moves us up in that range. Is it the limit of my ambition for this business? No, it's not. But I want to get a little bit further down the track here before we revisit that gross target.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Dan Haren with MSP Marquis. Please go ahead.

Oh, good morning. Thanks very much. Look, I understand your comments that the de-stocking is now behind you, but we've seen very mixed commentary from distributors in the market about the pricing environment for medical goods. So could you just talk about your experience for healthcare pricing as sales settle into the new cadence?

Yes. So a reminder that what you're probably referring to in medical gloves is really a sector we don't participate in. We did have some back, if you remember that, then to now.

The commentaries have been about surgical as well. Okay. We've seen this commentary about surgical as well.

Okay. So yes, in medical exam products, pricing remains depressed. and the producers are seeking to move up exam pricing as we speak and in response to those raw material trends that I highlighted and we'll see the stickiness of that in the markets. Surgical, I don't see major changes in pricing, so generally stable across our markets. We find that we are able to continue to communicate the value case for the Ancel synthetic portfolio, and we're increasing our ability to really demonstrate across a hospital system, and we have some great case studies in the UK. similar successes in France, we're taking a similar approach to the US as well, how by simplifying, so certainly healthcare systems are under pressure from a cost point of view, that's very evident. And yet we can demonstrate that by moving to the ANSELS portfolio, by simplifying the range, by removing latex from all operating room environments, that there's overall a value case from adopting the ANSELS portfolio. And then together then also increasingly sustainability and especially social compliance. as a critical decision factor behind healthcare purchasing decisions. So we feel that those offsets and surgical has never been a sort of very price sensitive product category in the way that exam medical always has been and I don't see that changing at this point. So it's good that you raise it Dan and I hope that gives you clarity on how I see things in surgical.

Right, so I guess across the healthcare segment, ASP will not be a further headwind into the 25, is what you're saying? Correct, yes, yeah. Great. And just another question for Zubair, and apologies, you might have explained this on the call, I'm having trouble reconciling slide 11, which talks about the pre-tax P&L costs, and then just reconciling it to 27, where you talk about one-off costs for 45 million in 25. Could you just help us understand... across everything?

Yeah, so the slide 11 is the APIP program. So the fiscal 24 number, obviously, you can see the 53, just under $54 million. We have some residual costs to go on that APIP program that we announced before we did the KBU acquisition. And that's that $20 million in fiscal 25. And then on top of that number is integration costs that we anticipate for the KBU acquisition. As Neil said, it's a while before we get synergies there. And as we incur those integration costs, that's going to be classed as a significant item. And then we also have some residual, I think we called it out, $10 million of transaction costs as we were doing the KBU deal. That's also in that $45 million. So effectively, we add significant items in fiscal 24 of $53.5 million, and we're going to have the same significant items in fiscal 25, but with this addition of the KBU-specific items. Hopefully that clears that up, Dan.

Right, so it's the 45 plus the 10 from the ERP, the right adjustment to make for 25.

Well, it's the 20 plus the KBU, I would say, 25. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Grace Ojanu with EMP. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. So just want to start with guidance. So what exactly are you assuming for Kimberley Clark versus the base business in FY25 guidance range? Thanks.

So we're not giving an exact Kimberley Clark number. As we indicated at the time of the acquisition, we expect EBIT in the first 12 months to be moderately lower than the prior period, prior to our ownership. And it's not any underlying business performance trend, which, as I said earlier, is very positive. But it's because we've allowed for two things. We've allowed for the increasing costs in the transition period, and we've allowed for some risk of some revenue loss in the transition of sales from the KC professional team to the Ansell sales team. The transition costs will certainly happen, that's in the business now and it will continue for the length of time that we are under those transition services and a good assumption, the assumption behind this guidance is that that's a 12 month time period. So if we are able to shorten that time period that would be a benefit versus our guidance assumption. That sales risk has not eventuated yet. As I said, starting off the year, I see continued good support by the Casey professional team to maintain that business. But this is also early. And so I do expect that the risk of a loss of focus or customer confusion will moderately increase over the next few months. Of course, we have many strategies in place to mitigate that. And certainly the objective I'm setting for our teams is I don't want to see any of that revenue leakage, but it's still a number that I've assumed in the guidance range that I've set out here. So hopefully that gives you, Greta, at least a directional answer to your question, even if I haven't given you a precise answer.

Yeah, so you are assuming a positive EPS contribution. I'm assuming I forget to EPS line. So I guess I'm just trying to work out, like if we annualise the very strong second half performance that you delivered, we get above the top end of the guidance range, and that's excluding any Kimberley Clark contribution. So I'm just trying to reconcile about what's kind of happening from a base business perspective and whether kind of some of the headwinds you are talking about with raw materials might actually lead to, you know, some headwinds at that EPS level in FY25 for the base business.

So I'll hand over to Zubair to elucidate a little more on EPS assumptions. But on KC PPE, when you take account of all of those, it's a very modest, it's almost immaterial at the EPS line in the next 12 months, which I still believe you'll see very strong EPS accretion in future years because of the assumptions that I've already articulated. But in this transition year, those effects will mean very limited EPS accretion. a very limited EPS addition coming from the KPU business. And that's exactly as expected, no change to the assumptions that we were making as we communicated in April, even slightly ahead then, but immaterial in the scale of things that you're talking about. So, Mr. Baird, do you want to develop a few other points or factors that will influence our EPS outcomes over the next 12 months?

Yeah, indeed. I would say you can't. Also, it's logical to take the second half and then just annualize it, but then you miss some nuances like we mentioned. There's some pricing nuance there that we took on the APIC program linked to those household gloves. So you would have to normalize for elements like that. The APIP savings don't just annualize because, again, we're largely through that program, but they don't just annualize how you would look at that Gretel in earnings. And then the final point I would say is. As we overperform, which you would expect in this business with the momentum that's going, we do end up having to rebuild some incentive provisions, again, that mute the overall effect. And all of that is what, if you wash all of that up, it's within our guidance range. that Neil's just communicated.

And just to add one more, so second half profit delivery is always higher than first half. Right. And so that's another factor that you should not ever take second half and double it without also considering that seasonal factor too.

Yes, I understand that. The second half was definitely a better run rate relative to the soft first half performance. Yes. Just one final question, just around the raw material headwind, are you able to quantify what you expect that would be in FY25?

It's a low millions figure, I mean a single-digit millions figure. But there's still some uncertainty to it and factoring into that also some impact of increased freight rates. So generally our contract rates are holding, but in order to address the shipping congestion, we are placing more freight at spot rates and spot rates are elevated in the industry. It's the right thing to do to keep customers' supplies. and to meet that additional demand I talked about, and it comes at a temporarily higher cost. So, as I said to you before, we will seek to take a longer-term view of all of those over the next 12 to 18 months, and then we're certainly keeping customers informed of these trends, and as ever, I believe we retain the ability to take – it's not going to be a major price increase needed to offset that, and I think the market will bear – a moderate price increase, assuming that we decide that those trends are going to continue into the second half and beyond. But we won't see any pricing benefit in the first half from those factors.

Great. That's all I had. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Laura Francesca Rose-Sackliff with UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning, full name. Thanks very much. Just a couple of questions on some comments you made towards the end of your presentation. I think when you were talking about slide 25, you referenced some changes in customer buy-in preferences. Could you just go into those in a bit more detail?

Yes. So, I mean, these are not sort of wholesale about-face changes. They're a continuation of themes that we've that have been in place for some time. But I think some of the commentary when it goes to is this space commoditising, is there less differentiation between Ansell and other players, and so I highlight it to demonstrate that no, that's not the case. They remain very, very important, unmet. safety challenges that are very expensive and also deleterious to the healthcare outcomes of workers in both an industrial and healthcare setting. So, for example, if you're working in a logistics setting, you're regularly suffered to back of hand crush or impact injuries. And in the past, you couldn't wear an impact glove because it kept you safe and you couldn't do your job. So by being able to combine lightweight impact with a super durable long-lasting liner, we've now agreed with the world's leading logistics providers that this product, which is much more expensive than the general purpose product they were previously wearing, is worth it. Because, one, it's a super hard-wearing durable product, so that helps with affordability, but also it achieves an injury outcome. Still today, many workers around the world are exposed to trace elements of chemical that are permeating through the protective equipment that they're wearing. And so this is a space that Antle really owns. And we invested significantly behind analyzing those workplace environments, studying the performance of chemicals, because it's not visibly apparent. You can't tell if trace amounts are permeating through a barrier layer. You can only measure it in lab conditions. And we're now launching to the market a series of much broader performance hand protection and body protection products. And the customers, particularly those who are aware, most acutely aware of this issue, are just waiting for us. These are very difficult products to manufacture. They're very high performance, so it's taken us some time to get them right. And now as we launch them, we've got customers waiting for these. And generally, it's replacing three or four layers of gloves that customers have had to use in the past. And now they can get it in one multi-layer but single product solution from Ansell. And then in the healthcare setting, it's about that value-based procurement approach that I described, where we can help customers simplify the range of products they're using. Ansell configurations generally take less space. They use less packaging material. So that achieves space utilization benefits in the OR, which are always key benefits. And then if a workplace is able to completely eliminate latex and the allergy risk that comes from latex, that also improves worker retention, worker productivity, and other savings flow. So, and this is all under, these savings are identified. under our Guardian set of safety audit solutions. And we continue to invest behind that capability. I haven't perhaps talked about it as much with you over the last couple of years because we've had some other things to talk about, but behind the scenes we've continued to build out that capability. And Kimberley Clarke brings two additional very important service capabilities. One is they have a very well developed training method for how you adopt and use PPE, so how you achieve great compliance, particularly in highly regulated environments like cleanroom manufacturing. And then they have the world's only well-established recycling program, PPE recycling program. And that, again, it just adds another problem that we have a solution to beyond give me a competitive glove. And that's what creates that end user differentiation. So in my view, there's plenty of space for us to continue to differentiate to earn good margins because we're solving customer problems that no one else has solutions to. Thank you for giving me that question. As you can hear, I'm quite passionate about us developing that at Anselm.

All right, thank you. And then just a second one, please. You talked a little bit earlier about your inability, I suppose, to delay any impact of deferred orders in surgical. What about other segments? If it hasn't happened, should we be expecting the same to happen in your other segments later in the year?

As things stand now, no. So, as I said, we've really... sought to increase our shipping capacity. We've developed alternative routes. We're using air freight more extensively and that was the cost factor that was in the second half and that will continue fully reflected in our guidance. Also opening up overland routes and then shipping from different port to port combinations versus the ones we would typically use. And then finally paying spot where needed to also. All those strategies together means, yes, the cumulative effect was building of delays in shipment was building through particularly the last three months of the last fiscal year. As we begin this year, we're starting to work away that backorder situation. I think it will take us some months before we work it away fully, but no, as things stand today, I don't expect that to become a more acute risk or sales issue over the next year. but clearly it's an uncertain situation and things could still change externally and that will affect our ability to deliver on that.

Thanks very much. Your next question comes from Andrew Payne with CLSA. Please go ahead.

Yeah, morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just in the release, you mentioned macroeconomic weakness as a consideration for FY25. Be good if you just work through what you're seeing there as the key headwinds and particularly which segments you anticipate these to weigh.

Yes, certainly. So, and I will admit that with the market volatility of the last We thought, okay, well, let's check in again to make sure that the stock market isn't seeing something that we haven't seen in terms of demand profile. And all those checks came back to say, yes, industrial demand conditions are not very exciting. They're pretty neutral or somewhat negative in demand. Across most of the European Union, you see PMIs sub 50. In the US, depending on which survey you review, PMIs have been sub 50 for a long time, for well over a year. But importantly, we're not seeing those trends change. So the pattern that was established at least through the second half of last year. I expect to continue. The best view I have is that it will continue over the next six months. No indication that there's been a softening of that trend line, but also little indication yet that growth rates in our markets are starting to pick up again. Those comments are very much industrial mature markets comments. In emerging markets, I'm encouraged, as I said earlier, that China, after a soft recession, first half to our fiscal year improved into the second half, and our team is doing some good work to get that very important market for us back on a growth footing. And generally across the world of emerging markets, I don't see, also I don't see any new areas of concern or risk. And then healthcare also is a pretty steady end use demand situation. So the The healthcare sector, leaving aside the destocking effects that are on us but not to do with consumption of our products in the market, the healthcare sector has struggled from lack of workers and generally falling behind on procedures. I think that's much more stable now as well. In many markets we see systems have been better able to serve fully and to operate at the level of procedures required to keep up with that. So, and again, I expect that to continue. So healthcare moderately favorable to demand. Industrial, considering all of those factors, largely neutral to demand. And yet our ability to grow is then dependent on our ability to execute on those strategies that I've articulated and which we think support the organic growth rates that I've indicated are achievable through FY25.

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks. And then just one on the Chinese potential interest for tariffs in the US for Chinese gloves. I know it's still a while away, but be good to get your thoughts here.

Yes, that's very specifically at this point on medical gloves, both medical exam and medical surgical. So medical exam is a large source of exports to the US, and Chinese producers have taken a significant share from Malaysian producers. And so as that tariff comes into place, as you say, it's some way away, We may see a shift back of share to Malaysian producers or the Chinese producers themselves have strategies to move their production outside of China so that they would, by the time the tariffs come in, they themselves will have alternative routes to market. So my best guess is in fact there isn't too much. impact on medical exam supply into the US, even if there may be some shift in the countries it's produced from. And to say again, that's a market that we have a tiny participation in, so it's going to have a very, very limited effect on us. We don't source any surgical gloves from China. All our surgical gloves are made in-house in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and soon India. There's a little bit of sourcing from China by some of our competitors, but I think that if that becomes an issue, that there are alternative sources as well. So overall, as long as the tariffs remain as announced and focus on medical gloves from China, I don't think they're going to have a material impact on Ansel and probably also less impact overall on market dynamics than you might anticipate. Yeah.

Okay, that's great. Thanks.

Your next question comes from Saul Hadassin with Baron Joey Capital. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Neil and Zubair, just a quick one from me. Zubair, just on inventory, noticed a nice reduction in that inventory balance at the end of FY24. Excluding the impact of KCPP, can you talk to where you think that inventory could get to for the organic answer business into FY25?

Yeah, thanks for the question, Sol. So just some historical context here. Clearly, in fiscal 19, we were turning imagery around about 2.7 turns. And that slowed, of course, considerably through the pandemic years, fiscal 20, 23. Turns improved, as you see, in fiscal 24. But we also had in the pre-COVID times, when you compare back to that, where we were turning that at that faster turn of 2.7, we had repeated issues achieving target customer service levels. And as Neil said, we're not quite there at world-class levels yet, but we've managed to reduce inventory as well as achieve those target customer service levels. Now, we've done that not just by chance. We've dedicated significant resources over the past couple of years. In fact, Neil charged me with leading part of this function, which I have done, and I'm delighted to see the results. The team's done a phenomenal job. Now, we still continue to try and match production demand, optimize inventory, and improve customer service levels. So that was a long way of not committing to a further inventory reduction, but just keep it stable at these levels, preserve the customer service gains, And then we will make a further judgment call as we mature again through this year if we can commit to another couple of points of turn in that inventory. But there's no compelling reason now to free up that cash and risk customer service levels, quite frankly. And that's how we're operating. So hopefully all that gives you a bit of color as you're modeling your own cash flows.

Yep, thanks. That's all I had.

Your next question comes from David Bailey with Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Morning, Neil and Devay. Just on 25 guidance, again, it's a big range. You're tracking towards the top end. You mentioned that KCV acquisition is probably immaterial from an EPS perspective. So at the high and low ends, just to be clear, Is there much delta in KC or is the majority of the delta from that 107 to 127 really top line related?

Yes, there is. It's both. The range linked to KC is less than the range for the overall landfill, but proportional. It's very hard at this point, given I think I was pretty clear on where we are, what still needs to happen, and we're only six weeks into ownership of the business. So the range does reflect that, of course, given where I am, where we are, there's some uncertainty about our ability to pass through those next milestones with no disruption at all. I'm confident that even if there is an F25 short-term milestone, that it will not in any way risk our overall value delivery from the business case, because we factored that in from the beginning. So, but yes, I mean it could be to the upside, as I highlighted, if we get through those steps without seeing those risks eventually that I've been talking about, or we could see somewhat higher. of those risks and then also the timing of transition services during the full year or being able to come off them earlier is another factor that creates range around the guidance. But yes, you're right, the majority of the guidance range is in consideration of the rest of the ANZSO business and so those factors have been taken account of, yes.

And then in the top line, organic growth for the business, XKC, or, you know, including KSD, top end and low end? We're not giving that exact number, so sorry not to be more helpful to you on that. Fair enough. I'll leave it there. Thanks. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Matthew Shevier with Citi. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I just want on corporate costs, what should we expect in F25, roughly?

Yeah, the corporate costs, because we've now got stability, Matthew, in a lot of the business, you're going to see that fairly consistent with our F24 number. Just as a reminder, there's some residual costs where we pay for insurance. There's some incentives, et cetera, in there. So with outside conditions fairly benign in that regard, we're not massively investing in the corporate cost line.

Thank you. And then on the capex, is 60 to 70 now a sort of sustainable level of capex, you believe, going forward?

Yeah, as I said in my prepared remarks, I think we'll trend. We get through the India construction phase, give Neil a little bit more for his internal investment aspirations. We can't hold him too tight on there. And then we should be in and around the 60 million mark, maybe a little bit lower than that, but certainly much lower than the consensus has at the moment, which I think is in the 90 million range. So if you're doing your models, I would be in the 50 to 60 million range beyond the India construction phase, which happens to be close to our depreciation level. So we'll maintain plant and machinery adequately in that range.

Got it. And then just finally on your EBIT guidance, I mean, excluding the impact of the cost savings program and KC, are you expecting the business to grow organically?

Yes, we are. And as Neil said, there's a range of outcomes per business unit. But for sure, we are feeling with this destocking phase largely behind us. And I'm using the word largely intentionally there. because we can't be certain, we will be back in organic mode. And again, that's subject to the macroeconomic backdrop, which we all read about, and the stock market vicissitudes that has us scrutinising data. We expect organic growth. Great. Thank you. Thanks very much.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr Salmon for closing remarks.

Well, thank you everyone for your time, for your interest in Ansell. And thank you to the Ansell team. It's great to hear you recognize the progress that we've made over the last 12 months. It hasn't been a benign or easy operating environment. And so the improved momentum in the business, the greater confidence that I hope you hear both from myself and from Zubair is all a testament to the hard work of Ansell colleagues and now also our KBU colleagues for creating a great platform. which I believe means Ansell will move forward from here and begin a new era of growth for the company. I'm excited to report on that to you over the coming few months and years and look forward to continued discussions with you in this forum. Thank you for your time, and that brings an end to this presentation.

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