Elders Limited

Thank you very much and welcome to all for the Elders full year results presentation for the FY24 year. Thank you for joining Paul and myself for this session today. As you will be aware from our two ASX announcements this morning and our trading hold, we will approach today's briefing in two distinct parts. Firstly, Paul and I will provide a review of the FY24 results We will then present our acquisition opportunity and the strategic alignment and benefits of this for our shareholders, communities, and people. And then finally, we'll have an extended period for questions on both areas at the end. So we will move through relatively quickly to ensure that there is time for questions. So starting off with our annual results, from an elders viewpoint, this is the first full year of our fourth eight-point plan. And a very difficult and particularly problematic first quarter of the first year. The Elders' philosophy since the first eight-point plan in 2014 has been to control what we can control and not to dwell on what we can't control. To have a capital and cost structure to allow us to make good returns in bad years and to make great returns in good years. The FY24 full-year result is an example of acceptable returns in a difficult market and cost conditions particularly in Q1, as we discussed at the hearty results presentation. We use our multiple diversifications by product, service, geography, crop segment, commercial model, and channel to market, and our financial discipline to deliver consistent and high returns for our stakeholders through the cycles. In summary, we aim to control what we can control. Over the first six months of our fourth April plan, we experienced an exceptionally difficult first quarter. steady second quarter with improving market conditions across Eastern Australia through the third and fourth quarters. Our view in November last year was that the average conditions in FY23 were declining in the first quarter of FY24 across rural products and agency services and would return to average outlook for the remainder of FY24 and into FY25. In this context, the performance of Elders with its clear and consistent strategy multiple diversifications, high financial discipline and hard working and committed team and the enduring customer rank we have of being the most trusted brand in Australian agriculture has delivered a result which is relatively resilient. Results are strong in safety, sustainability and cash flow with the full year outcome approaching the midpoint of EBIT guidance range that was provided earlier in the year. Our eight point plan commitment is to provide 5% to 10% growth in EBIT and earnings per share at a minimum of 15% return on capital in a sustainable manner through a safe and inclusive workplace. And we always refer to through the cycles. The outlook remains consistent with our 5% to 8% growth through the cycles through to the end of the eight point plan in FY26, albeit with a difficult year one of this three year strategy.

Moving now to the Delta Agribus acquisition.

At a high level, this acquisition is fully aligned with the Elders acquisition rationale that delivered Titan Ag, Air, and many other Bolton acquisitions to Elders. With its pre-synergies, EPS accretion, and that's always been a critical point, enhancement of our technical and ag tech expertise and offerings, strengthening of our geographical diversification, particularly in New South Wales and Northwest Victoria, but also South Australia and Western Australia, building on our crop protection and animal health regulatory package portfolio to drive our backward integration strategy, providing an additional platform for retail segmentation, allowing greater customer centricity. And that's an important point as we will leave the Delta network as it is intact to run as a standalone and providing further coverage for our real estate and financial service offerings across the enhanced platform. Our approach for today is that I'll provide an overview of the results, Paul will go to the detail of their financial performance and I'll then provide an update on our outlook and growth and transformation initiatives as we deliver our fourth eight point plan over the next two years. We will then present the details of the Delta Agribusiness Acquisition and Equity Raising and finally have an extended question and answer session. And I think given that we're doing two things at once, it's worth noting that we're also going live with our SISMO project today in Murray Bridge in South Australia. So that project, as we'll see through the presentation, is on track and moving along quite nicely. So with that overview, we'll now commence with the FY24 annual results presentation. And if we look to the agenda, I'll just make a note one slide back on the agenda, if I may. And that is in order to accommodate the extended Delta acquisition slides. We've moved a bunch of slides into the appendix and we pride ourselves on the transparency and insights we provide in the results presentations. So I just note that in there we have our business model, the sensitivity slide, capital framework slide, our KPI trends, the geographical diversification slide, the product performance slide, the cost driver slide, and also the return on capital input slide. So we're happy to take questions from the appendix either now or in our one-to-ones as we go through the week. So moving to the executive overview and to the key investment drivers in the next slide. And I think that we've, elders over the 8.0 plan period have been very focused on EPS growth through the cycles. We've used our diversification, multiple diversification to allow us to offset seasonal and commodity impacts. There has been significant room for growth, and we've shown that with some over 80 Bolton acquisitions and also our major acquisitions with Titan Air and now Delta, and there's room to move. I think the transformation initiatives of the business are quite important in context. And the context was that in the first April plan, we made a conscious decision to get ourselves up on our feet, strong balance sheet, and stable business before we tackle the big transformational issues like systems and other streamlining of the business. Significant pipeline opportunities, we'll talk about later. We've still got 12 active bolt-ons in our business development pipeline, and I'm sure there are others as we go through this process, and a robust balance sheet. Paul will talk to the FYQ1 implications of FY24 Q1 implications on our ROC and leverage and our pathway back to our targets in the slide. But clearly a very, very high focus for the business and the commencement of Q1 FY25 would indicate that we're returning to an appropriate run rate for the business. Going to the next slide. And it's really just to emphasise the resilience of the business through seasonal volatility. I think many on the call are aware of the very strong EBIT, EPS growth and ROC performance in the first three eight point plans, as noted in this slide. Fourth eight point plan, the first year, tough as we've talked about, but with confidence that we can still nail those metrics by the end of the eight point plan period. If we go to the next slide on people and customer highlights, again, good progress with our lost time injuries down to two from three last year. And favorably, we normally, we have no manual handling injuries, lost time injuries this year, and that was filling half of all the injuries prior to various investments and behavior changes that we put in place. Still got some work to do. We've still got two of our people being injured in a year with lost time injuries. So we've got more work to do to get to zero. On the recordable injuries, a good trend on the next slide, when we get to it, we'll show the trend there on the recordable injury frequency. But going back to the previous slide, the net promoter score is still positive. I jumped to women in senior positions. at 21% that is, again, we've got a long way to go, but it is a long way from 4% in the first eight point plan. And employee engagement still above high performing standards for Australian businesses. When we looked at the safety, health and wellbeing slide, the next slide, you can see the picture around our last time injuries. Remembering in the first eight point plan, we started with 34 last time injuries. for a workforce that's almost half the size of the current workforce. So there's been great progress there, and the trend line on recordable frequency is pretty clear. On sustainability performance, the next slide. Again, the flight path or trend line around our climate targets remains positive. lots of authentic and practical initiatives being taken place within the sustainability area and we we've the initiatives that we focus on are really the the practical one rather than the practical ones rather than trying to read wash your virtue signal we're really a business that It likes to focus on authentic initiatives, and you'll see that with the centralised waste control, ethical sourcing platform, big bank recovery, the solar and LED lighting upgrades, et cetera. So there's been good progress, and our sustainability report has got a number of very, very positive acknowledgements. Okay, moving to the financial outcome in the next overview, which is the next slide. And the results at 128, so slightly below the midpoint, as we've said. A head-on return on capital and leverage to which Paul will speak with the Q1 result. But we came home strongly across the second half, as we indicated at the half-year results presentations. And the cash conversion strong and the dividends per share maintained at 18 cents. So with that, I'll hand over to Paul.