The Bidvest Group Limited

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the BidVest Interim Results Presentation, FY26. All attendees will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions when prompted. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by keying in star and then zero. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now hand you over to Corporate Affairs Executive, Ilza Roo. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you Judith. Good morning and good afternoon everyone. Good morning, good afternoon everyone. My name is Il Zeru, the Corporate Affairs Executive and I have the pleasure of welcoming you to this call today. Thank you for your interest in BitBest. These results reflect resilience and our focus on operational excellence and cash generation. As discussed earlier, Sumi Medita, Group CEO, will make some high-level remarks before Mark Spain, our Group CFO, delves deeper into these interim numbers. Sumi will then follow with a detailed review of each division's performance and close with a reflection of progress against our priorities and the outlook. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the session. Without further delay, I hand over to Pumi. Thank you. Thank you very much, Elza. And good morning or good afternoon, depending which part of the world you're joining us from. Thank you for joining us this morning. We are very pleased to present a resilient set of results for the first half year. Reflecting on progress made since the unbundling of BitCorp in 2016, it's really pleasing to note the portfolio realignment and the extent to which we have rebuilt our international footprint. Our 150,000 employees are located in 14 countries across approximately 750 branch locations. Our client base remains extremely diversified with about a million customers across the group. We serve multiple industries and all geographies with limited concentration risk. 27% of our revenue is generated offshore, And of the 25% of our profits that are earned offshore, 55% are from our global hygiene operations. We're proud of the above progress and remain focused on generating sustainable profit growth and returns. In the period under review, we increased revenue by 4% and profitability by 7%. Free cash generation is a highlight of the results. We optimized our debt profile, and Mark will elaborate on this in his presentation. We closed out the remaining acquisitions in the pipeline, with the large one being Aquatico, a water testing business in South Africa. Our M&A pipeline is now materially depleted, with very small transactions to be finalized in the second half. Adcock has been successfully delisted, with synergies being explored. We're nearing closeout timelines for finalization of our Terminal Operator Agreement. And lastly, as communicated in the recent SENS announcement, The business bank transaction with Axis Bank PLC has terminated due to Axis Bank being unable to secure the required approval within the long-stop date. Our sales process has already been restarted, and we're confident that we'll be able to accelerate the timeline. Moving to the operational overview, group revenue of $67 billion is up 4%, with services international, services South Africa, and automotive delivering strong revenue growth. The gross margin increased 43 basis points to 28.1% due to an improved sales mix, lower disbursements in our clearing and forwarding operations, and improved factory recovery. Operating expenses were well managed, increasing 3.4% and only 1.2% excluding acquisitions. Trading profits increased by 7% to 6.7 billion, with all divisions making a positive contribution. Our trading margin expanded from 9.8% to 10.1%, reflecting margin improvement in five of the six divisions. As indicated earlier, the highlight of the result is our cash generated by operations, which is up 36%, and free cash, which is 2 billion rand higher than prior. Our balance sheet remains strong, and our gearing levels remain unchanged from the junior end at 2.2 times negative to EBITDA. ROFI at 37.6% compared to 37.9% in the prior year, and ROIC at 13.4% compared to 14.4%. We recognize that returns have tapered due to capital deployed over multiple financial years whilst we were rebuilding our international footprint. We are comfortable with the size and scale of the offshore operations and are now focusing on improving group returns. We have a clear plan, and we'll detail this later in the presentation. Our overall result is HEPs at 5.1% and normalized HEPs at 5.3%. In line with our dividend policy of two to two and a half times cover, the group declared an interim dividend of 495 cents per share at 5.3% on the prior year. And then just giving an update on our hygiene story, we remain focused on building an international hygiene services business with our hygiene footprints now spanning across 11 countries where we occupy a number one position in eight of those countries. Structural drivers such as urbanization and growing health and wellness awareness remain intact and will continue to support future growth. As indicated earlier, 55% of profits in services international are from our hygiene operations, and this compares to 50% in the prior year. Hygiene profit growth in the first half has been strong, up 20%, whilst profit margins have accelerated from the industry norm of around 15% to 18.2%. We remain confident in our ability to take a leading position in the hygiene lifted space in the near future. And now I'd like to hand over to Mark for the financial overview.

Thank you for me. Good morning, good afternoon everyone. Just some quick introductory comments before we dive into the detail. The first half saw resilience and strategically disciplined performance, revenue growth, improved growth and operating margins and good cash generation. And all this despite mixed macroeconomic conditions and some sector specific challenges. That said, it's very pleasing though to see some South African tailwinds start to come It has come off the FATF grey list, and S&P have upgraded our sovereign rating. The interest rate cuts are starting to have a meaningful impact, especially in the automotive and property sectors. The energy and logistics sectors are being supported with meaningful government spend on infrastructure, which is evident in both. We are seeing land strength against a broad basket of hard currencies, and while this may be earnings negative in the short term, the stable land is good for the country in the longer run. And finally, it's encouraging to see that the SA budget was a bit more expansionary than in previous years, which will hopefully support medium-term growth. In terms of our divisions, they've all shown growth in the half, especially services SA and commercial products perform very well. Our hygiene services, both locally and offshore, continue to show robust growth. Freight was able to turn around a soft top line result with good margin and expense control. And similarly, Branded Products delivered strong margin management, cost control and improved inventory management. The automotive division benefited from improved new vehicle volumes, although margins are under pressure following the large influx of lower priced Chinese vehicles. And Adcock had a very strong result of what was a seasonally low base. Generally, while the consumer remains under pressure, we're starting to see pockets of improvement. Our cost control was excellent as evidenced by the improvements in both our gross and net margins. The cash performance was very pleasing with good operating cash generation and a significantly reduced seasonal absorption of working capital. Our cash conversion and free cash flow generation was also very solid. Strategically it's been a very good period and as promised much work has been done on the funding structures. We successfully completed our second Eurobond issuance for a $500 million seven-year bond. You'll recall the first one was five years. The bond price had a spread of just 40 bits above the SA sovereign curve at the time, which was a very pleasing outcome. These funds were used to part redeem the existing Eurobond and also pay down a portion of the offshore RCF. We also issued a new £130 million five-year term facility, which was entered into at very favourable rates, which was used to further repay the RCA. Domestically in South Africa, we successfully issued three five- and seven-year bonds, the value of £2.3 billion. These were issued at record-low spreads, and that funding was used to purchase Aquatico and to repay a maturing bond. We also utilize surplus funding to repay two preference shares of $2.1 billion, which was our most expensive debt in the mix. We have good debt capacity both internationally and locally, and our net debt to Iberta has increased slightly as a result of M&A this half, but it still has come to be within our covenant. From an acquisition perspective, we closed three acquisitions in the quarter, so we're working down our pipeline, with Acratico, an environmental monitoring and testing business being the largest of these. This now forms part of our testing, inspection and compliance TIC offering within Services SA. As Pramila mentioned already, the disposal of Business Bank continues. Despite the expiration of the sale of the sale of Greenfield Access Bank, a new process has commenced. In terms of bid-based rights, we have signed an SBA, which has been concluded and we await regulatory approval for that. Both these two entities continue to be disclosed as discontinued operations. And then finally, Adcock Ingram, the scheme of arrangement was approved by shareholders in October 25 and has been finalized. Adcock has now been delisted with just two shareholders and bid-based remains the majority shareholder with substantially the same shareholder. This is a backdrop, let's look at now the more detailed results. From a revenue perspective, revenue up 3.7% to 66.7 billion was supported by good acquisitive growth. We've seen good growth in the revenue terms across the mix and specifically in services SA and international which was supported by acquisitions. Only two divisions, branded products and freight, saw top line contraction and both responded well with very positive operating leverage to ensure profit growth. Low GDP growth that is prevalent in most of our jurisdictions is leading to competitive and price-sensitive demand. To some extent, this is also exacerbated by slower customer decision-making. These have all put pressure on revenue levels. It will unpack the divisional results in a bit more detail later in the presentation. In terms of gross income, our gross profit is up 5.3% with a 43 BPS improvement in the margin to 28.1%. That's very pleasing. Overall margins and margin mix are actively managed across the businesses. And the improved operating leverage and positive business mix was somewhat offset by structural shifts in the auto sector and certain contract rescoping. Expense performance is very pleasing. Operating expenses up 3.4% in total with organic expense increases of 1.2%. In certain of the services businesses, we are seeing wage inflation in excess of CPR, which is impacting margins. And a number of businesses through the half have completed restructuring and rationalization processes, which should further improve the operating leverage into the second half. Our expense ratio was very similar to last year at 18.1%. Overall, this is an excellent broad-based expense outcome. Trading profit is up 6.9% to $6.7 billion, very pleased with that, and with an almost equal contribution from organic and acquisitive growth. Services, SA and Services International produced excellent results. Commercial products and branded products produced good results. As trading pressures, particularly on margins persist, freight overcame a soft revenue line as disbursement level fell with good margin mix and excellent expense control. Automotive was stable, supported by a good insurance result and higher new car volumes, but retail margins are being materially impacted by the influx of cheaper Chinese vehicles. And Adcock had a very pleasing result, up 20% albeit of a slightly lower prior year base. Our effective tax rate at 26.7% is unchanged from last year. And finally, our acquisition costs are pleasingly down 5.7% due to lower M&A activity in the half. The bulk of these costs that we did incur relates to the ADCOF delisting and the Aquatico acquisition. We expect these costs to lower significantly in the second half. Moving then to our cash generation, cash flow for the first half was very good. Underlying cash generation for operations before working capital up 7.2% to 8.7 billion. We traditionally absorbed working capital in the first half. No different this time around. We absorbed 2.6 billion in working capital. What was very pleasing, though, is this number was a billion rand lower than the outflow of 3.6 billion last year. In the mix, organic trade payables decreased, which is seasonally consistent, and there's been a very focused or continued focus on reducing inventories, and it's pleasing to see this coming through, particularly in commercial products and automotive. Our cash conversion is at 70% nicely up from 45% last year and our free cash flow at 3.8 billion is well up on the 2 billion from last year. The bulk of the cash generated has been applied to working capital, debt repayment and normal capex with very limited M&A through the period. In terms of the cash generation graph which we've presented here, you can see the seasonal cash outflow which is consistent. which is consistent with the group's normal working capital cycle. I think what's really pleasing though, you can see how this is getting progressively over the last four years. Moving then to our capital structure, and as I said earlier, this has probably been one of the busiest six months that we've ever had from a treasury perspective, both from an international issuance perspective and domestically. On the offshore front, we issued the new $500 million seven-year bond. That's extended from the initial five-year bond that we issued in 2022. This bond was issued at 6.2%, with the spread just 40 bps above the SA sovereign curve at the time, which was very pleasing. And we subsequently won an award for this issuance. The funding was used to settle a tender offer on the 2026 Eurobond for $292 million, with a balance of $186 million due in September this year, and that will be settled from the off-year. We also raised offshore a £130 million term facility at 5.6%, which was used to further pay down the RCF. On the domestic front, we issued €2.3 billion in bonds over three, five, and seven years, ten years, and these were all issued, all three categories were issued at the lowest spreads we've achieved to date. From a capacity perspective, we have €412 million available offshore via the RCF and a further €12 billion available domestically. We have also reflected on this graph, on the graph on the bottom left, the maturity profile which has been nicely extended with both the pound term facility that we've taken up and the 2033 Euro bond. So there's a very conscious decision about managing the maturities over time. If we then move to our overall debt funding and just how we're looking at optimizing it, We have redeemed our most expensive debt in the mix, which was the $2.1 billion in preference years that was redeemed using existing facilities, and our weighted average cost of debt has stabilized now at 6.4%. We do, however, continue to retain an overweight position in variable rate debt, 63% variable, which is aligned to expectations of further rate cuts. Our finance costs excluding IFRS 16 and the hedge accounting adjustments is up or up 6.8% which have been impacted slightly by the higher net debt levels. A net net to EBITDA, as we said earlier, at 2.2 times remains comfortably within our cabinet of three times, although we are targeting a lower level in the near term of below two with an internal sweet spot of about one and a half times. We will use the bank proceeds to further reduce costs, and this will also then lower this ratio. We've included a net debt graph here, and what you can see from this is the accelerated M&A over the last three years, particularly from 23 to 25, has grown the base. What you can see is this has stabilized now in this half following the suspension of M&A while we are reducing gearing levels, and we expect this to reduce further in the second half with a stronger working capital release. Similarly, the growth in our debt cost is also flattened. Our EBITDA interest cover is at 6.4 times, comfortably in excess of the covenant of 3.5. We continue to add new and cheaper funding sources into the mix. Moving now to our returns. As Pumi said earlier, we're very cognizant of return levels and managing these over time in alignment with our M&A and CapEx investments. As we add investments into the base, these are brought on board with a very clear plan to deliver value over the medium term and we actively track this. Our base specifically over the last three years has expanded materially with the majority of the M&A in services businesses. These investments typically have low funds employed and high goodwill and intangible. This is evidenced by the graph alongside where you can see the invested capital growing disproportionately over the last three years. This will start to normalize with the slowdown in M&A, and more specifically, as we increase our cash generation and start to pay down debt, we will see that number come down further. We have seen some softer macro conditions in the last two years, which have also softened returns. The expectation is that we should see a stronger second half both from the slowdown in the M&A and the increase in or the greater release of working capital in the second half which should aid this ratio. In terms of levers to further build returns, the focus of the group is driving organic growth which has been flattish in the recent past and we do see growth accelerating in the second half. Traditionally, the second half also produces improved free cash flow generation off the back of the written capital release. We've also added more high-gen and FM businesses into the mix, which structurally are more cash-generative. So with the suspension of M&A in the short to medium term, this will allow more free cash flow to be allocated against debt levels. Finally, just moving to the discontinued operations, I think we've largely covered this, but obviously the disposal process for BitLift Bank continues. We're working very hard on getting a transaction over the line as soon as possible. From an operating perspective, the bank did experience some top line pressure in the half with interest rates declining and slower capital deployment, but the deposit continues to remain very stable and all the regulatory ratios are healthy. In terms of business life, as I mentioned, the SPA and SPA have been signed. We're waiting for regulatory approvals on that transaction. Both of these entities have been disclosed as discontinued operations in terms of IFRS 5. Also in terms of IFRS, the depreciation and amortization in relation to these two disposed entities continues to be suspended and we have adjusted for that in the normalized headline earnings calculation. Just some final concluding thoughts. It's encouraging to see some tailwinds in South Africa, even when other parts of the world have been adversely impacted by the geopolitics. While the trading environments and border macros remain challenging, we've positioned the group both operationally and strategically for good growth. We will continue to focus on utilizing free cash flow to further deleverage the group. Margin and cost management, as well as cash generation, continue to remain core to our And our international expansion specifically into hygiene services is gaining proper momentum and making us a force to be reckoned with. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mark. Nice ending. So let's move to the operational overview, starting with services international. The team delivered a pleasing result, anchored by a strong performance from our global hygiene operations. Revenue at $22.5 billion is up 5%. and trading profits at $2.2 billion is up 8.3%. Revenue growth was driven by new business wins, contract pool growth, and contributions from the Citrin and eGroup acquisitions. Our island and South Africa facilities management operations were negatively impacted by contract restructures and lower ad hoc revenue. The growth margin expansion in the division is attributable to a change in mix, as the hygiene operations gross profit contribution increased year on year. Cost control was excellent, with expenses increasing only 1.7%, excluding acquisitions. The gross margin expansion and disciplined expense management resulted in not only profit growth, but also an excellent trading margin expansion from 9.3% to 9.8% in the period. Cash generation was excellent. And Roffi had 159%. remains a solid return. Turning to the operations, 75% of profits in the division are generated offshore. Our hygiene operations outperformed, delivering exceptional profit growth. In constant currency, the Singapore, South Africa, and UK hygiene businesses delivered strong profit growth, whilst our newly acquired North America operations delivered ahead of business plan. Our facilities management operations contracted slightly, primarily due to the revenue pressure referred to earlier and the knock-on margin impact. The South African cleaning business was exceptional, though, delivering a standout double-digit profit result. I'd like to congratulate the Services International team for a commendable performance. Moving to freight, the team delivered a good performance with 12 commodities with totality normalizing and volumes improving. Revenue at $4.5 billion was driven by annual rate increases, increased storage capacity, and higher grain volume. This growth was countered by lower clearing and forwarding volume in South Africa and Namibia, resulting in a 4.2% decline in revenue. Margin expansion as a result of reduced disbursement, coupled with an excellent 0.8% decline in expenses, resulted in a trading profit of $1.2 billion, at 7% and a trading margin improvement from 23.1 to 26.7%. Due to changes in working capital and growth capex deployed in our bulk liquid terminal, profit declined to 40% from 46% in the prior year. Looking at the operational results, our bulk grain volumes increased 7% due to higher maize, rice, and wheat volumes, resulting in an exceptional profit increase in this bulk rain term. Our bulk liquid operations delivered a good performance, driven by annual rate escalation, higher tank rental, and the 8% volume increase that was supported by improved capacity from the new fuel tanks in Richardson Bay commissioned in May 2025. The 2% volume decline in our bulk mineral terminal was counted by annual rate increases and a strong increase in chrome volume, resulting in good profit growth. Our multi-purpose terminal delivered a phenomenal result as the volumes of chrome or export handles doubled in volume. As indicated earlier, we experienced volume declines in our clearing and forwarding operations in South Africa and Namibia. The volume and margin pressure in these operations is due to lower volumes from key large clients, rate reductions in an effort to retain contracts, and reduced oil and gas activity in Namibia. Our Mozambique operations, whilst having delivered an improved result, remain constrained by lower volumes and margin pressure. And then lastly in France, we expect to complete the multi-purpose and import warehouses in Namibia in the latter part of the fourth quarter. I must congratulate the freight team for a solid result. Moving to services South Africa, the team delivered an excellent result with most businesses delivering profit growth. Revenue at 6.9 billion is up 7% with the hospitality and our newly formed testing, inspection, and compliance clusters recording the strongest growth. Our newly acquired water testing business, Aquatico, made its maiden contribution to the division. The growth margin deteriorated somewhat due to pricing pressures, change in revenue mix, and pressures on cost recovery. Operating expenses increased only 1%. and organically only 0.5% reflecting excellent cost control. Trading profits at 793 million is up 10% and the trading margin expanded from 11.2 to 11.5%. ROFI at 92.3% is down on prior year due to increased funds employed in the security cluster and the inclusion of Aquaticor. On the operational side, The hospitality and catering cluster delivered phenomenal growth, driven by an extraordinary performance from the lounges, as passenger volume reached record levels. The security cluster was slightly down, and due to pricing pressures and the loss of high margin work, sorry, the security cluster was slightly down due to pricing pressure and the loss of high margin work. Outside of this contraction, Growth and solid performances were reported by the cargo, warehouse management, tracking and payment technology businesses. Our travel cluster experienced contraction in corporate travel volumes, whilst inbound travel volumes remained strong with a robust forward order book. The allied cluster was down in prior due to operational and margin challenges in the laundry and amenities businesses. Notwithstanding weather patterns that negatively impacted volumes good recurring revenue in the water business, and contractual sales in indoor and outdoor plants was reported. And lastly, in services essay, our testing, inspection, and compliance cluster, which now comprises WeChat and Aquatico, delivered a phenomenal profit result driven by solid revenue growth and record samples processed. And I must congratulate this team again for an excellent set of results. Moving to branded products, the team delivered a solid result with three of the four clusters up on prior year. Revenue at $6.9 billion was down 1.6% due to reduced and delayed spend from large government clients. Increased competition from lower-priced imports and orders in the prior year that did not repeat in the period also impacted revenue. The gross margin improved impressively by 50 basic points, to 29.8%, driven by a stronger product mix, production efficiencies, and good management of various costs. Similarly, operating expenses were exceptionally well managed, declining 1.8%. This excellent margin and expense management translated into a trading profit increase of 5.4% to $748 million, and a trading margin expansion from 10.1% to 10.9%. roughly reduced to 37.3% due to increased investments in working capital. Looking at the operational performance, the office products cluster delivered a good result, driven by superb growth in the furniture sector as this business continues to differentiate its products offering. Notwithstanding sales pressure, the office automation business grew profits off a high base. The data prints and packaging cluster delivered a good result, driven by resilient demand, improved sales mix, factory efficiencies, and outstanding expense control. The consumer products cluster contracted year-on-year as sales increases in appliances were offset by materially lower sales in our TV and satellite accessories business. The knock-on margin impacts due to mix and higher rebates reduced profitability in the consumer cluster. And lastly, the office and leisure cluster delivered a strong profit growth driven by a good performance from our luggage business and a contribution from the outdoor cookware and accessories business. Margin and expense management was excellent in this cluster. I'd like to congratulate the team for a robust set of results. Moving to commercial products, the division reported an admirable results reflecting a good turnaround in performance. Revenue at $8.6 billion is up 2.5%, reflecting a small uptick in some markets and thankfully stabilization in renewable sales. The gross margin increased slightly to 28.9% and operating expenses increased below inflation by 2.7%. Strong operating leverage translated a 2.5% revenue growth into a 9.7% increase in trading profit to 594 million. The trading margin also improved to 7% compared to 6.5% in the prior year. While Swafi declined to 17.7%, there is a notable improvement in returns from the 16% reported at June year end. A significant reduction in inventory resulted in excellent cash generation. Operationally, pedestrian revenue growth in the electrical cluster was offset by excellent margin and expense control. Four new vortex stores were opened in the period, and renewable sales have stabilized above prior year's volumes. Our plumbing and related products business continued to outperform as volumes and trade sales increased, and three new stores were opened. Pressure was however felt across the packaging, high franchise warehousing and DIY and tools businesses due to declines in revenue and margin compression as industrial and manufacturing activity remains muted. Lastly, the work where industrial catering and leisure businesses delivered excellent results as volumes remained robust in certain markets and margins expanded and costs were also well controlled. I must congratulate this team for a very strong set of results. Alaska Vision Automotive delivered profit growth amidst an extremely price competitive and evolving retail market. Revenue at $14.8 billion is up 7%, supported by a 15% increase in new vehicle sales volume. This excess supply of new vehicles did, however, contribute to considerable discounting, and the substitution effect of the oversupply resulted in reduced demand for used vehicles. Fleet sales were materially up on fire, and our second-hand motor retail business produced excellent top-line growth. The growth margin declined by 1%, which in value is quite a big number, and this was due to a 0.6% decline in new vehicle margins and a 0.8% decline in used vehicle margins. Lower margin fleet sales also impacted the gross margin. Expenses remained tightly controlled at an increase of only 0.8%, and trading profit was constrained by the margin compression referred to earlier, resulting in a profit increase of 1.8% to $515 million. The division's ROFI at 23% is down from last year's 26.8% due to higher working capital, as we balance between own stock and consigned stock. Operationally, in the franchise model retail cluster, the increase in new vehicle volumes was offset by the decline in used vehicle volumes, and as reported earlier, the margin declines in both categories negatively impacted profit growth. However, on the upside, expense management in the cluster was outstanding, neutralizing the negative margin impact And in the period, we continue to diversify our representation, onboarding eight new vehicle brands. Our non-franchise motor retail cluster is gaining momentum. Our goal is to have all our branches nationally at full capacity by the end of the financial year. We've reached a point where units bought match units sold in a month, and this is critical because it talks to asset terms. The plan for your contribution from this business will move the dial for the division. And lastly, in the automotive allied cluster, our vehicle inspection and bodybuilding business are holding their own in a competitive landscape, whilst the insurance businesses outperformed, delivering record results. I must congratulate the team for delivering a robust set of results in a very, very difficult operating environment. And then moving to Adcock, Adcock delivered an outstanding improvement from last year's half-year performance with all business units contributing to growth. Revenue at $4.8 billion is up 3%, and trading profits at $620 million is up 20%. Revenue was driven by a 3.6% price realization and 2.8% organic volume growth. The 2% increase in growth margin due to an improved sales mix and excellent factory recoveries coupled with a 4% expense increase resulted in a 20% trading profit growth. Prescription delivered a standout performance with all segments except generics reaching their growth targets. The OTC and hospital division delivered excellent results due to exceptional growth in OTC's top 10 products and solid growth in the reno and medicine delivery portfolio. Consumer reported marginal growth due to lower demand for key large brands. Fantastic results from the AdCost team. Moving to the outlook, I'd like to give some update in relation to progress made on the immediate priorities that we had outlined in the previous reporting period. On cash generation, we're making strong progress with a cash conversion improvement from 45% to 70%. And as Mark indicated earlier, free cash up to R2 billion due to improved inventory management. This is an excellent cash performance, and we expect an even better cash position at year end. Our deleveraging plan was dependent on receipts of the proceeds from the sale of the Big Bank, the Big Life, and FinGlobal. These proceeds would have reduced our net debt to EBITDA by 0.2 times. We've therefore not yet delivered on this priority but aim to have the disposal process for bank and life finalized with cash in hand before the end of this calendar year. Securing the longevity of our freight operations is a key priority, and as indicated earlier, we are nearing close-out dates for contract finalization. Negotiations have progressed materially, and our confidence in successfully finalizing these contracts is demonstrated in the approval of two growth CAPEX valued at 550 million, which of course are subject to signed terminal operator agreement. And lastly, extracting value from the recently concluded acquisition remains paramount. The UK hygiene integration is complete and the combined business is delivering ahead of expectation. A lot of time has been spent understanding the North American market and required strategy adjustments have been made to align to local nuances. We will be expanding our North America footprint with the opening of our first branch in New York in the fourth quarter of the current financial year. Procurement synergies are yet to be realized in the North America operations as we are currently cycling through existing stocks. Our automotive diversification strategy is gaining momentum with cross-selling and collaboration across the various clusters taking shape and contributing to profitability. And the last update is our testing inspection and compliance cluster is a strong new growth platform and the two businesses in that cluster are formulating tactical joint go-to-market strategies. On our last slide in the outlook, we have our eyes set on three priorities. Firstly, accelerating organic growth. Secondly, improving cash generation. And lastly, as Mark elaborated in his presentation, improving returns. Starting with organic growth in South Africa, we're seeing green sheets in the hospitality sector, inbound tourism, and the testing, inspection, and compliance sector, where we have now more than doubled our scale and service offering. We are seeing an increase in large power-related projects as ESCOM's focus on service delivery gains momentum. and the export stock mineral sector remains robust, obviously driven by commodity prices. Various synergies across clusters and across divisions will be explored, and these will contribute to incremental growth. Below 1.5% SEP increase in pharmaceuticals will taper growth momentum in that operation. Offshore, we expect a continued strong performance from all hygiene businesses as contract pool growth continues and synergies and sourcing optimization matures. Whilst new contracts will be mobilized in the second half in our facility management businesses, we do expect full-year growth to be moderated somewhat due to the late start of new contracts and margin pressure explained earlier. Acquisitions concluded locally and offshore will also annualize. On cash generation, both Mark and I have already said a lot, the first half cash results is good, and as is customary, we expect an even stronger cash performance by year end. The investment in acquisitions over the past years has, as expected, placed pressure on returns. Scaling our facilities and hygiene operations outside of South Africa through acquisitions was a clear strategy, and we've delivered on that. We will now take time to rebuild our return profile as returns have tapered due to cumulative and capital adjustment. Lastly, our focus on delivering a good performance goes hand in hand with our focus on contributing to building sustainable communities. We're making good progress with our new 2050 sustainability framework, ensuring that our focus on people, purpose, and performance is well integrated. This framework has been aligned with senior and executive management incentive KPIs to ensure that our financial and sustainability aspirations are fully reflected in remuneration. A comprehensive sustainability update will be provided at year end. As I close, I'd like to remind us all that in BizVest, we have a platform of businesses with scale, businesses with strong brand equity and a track record of service delivery and customer centricity across 14 countries in over 750 branch locations with 150,000 employees serving more than a million clients. We will continue to look after our people because they are what makes Good West work. They are our most important asset. On behalf of myself, Mark, and Jill, I'd like to thank our management teams across South Africa Swaziland, Namibia, Mozambique, Mauritius, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Northern Ireland, Spain, Australia, Singapore, Canada, and the U.S. I'd like to thank them for their contribution for this half-year's performance, their hard work, commitment to excellence, resilience, and agility in this ever-changing world. To our shareholders, thank you for your support. We're halfway through this race and aim to finish strong. Thank you very much. Thank you Tommy and thank you Mark for those prepared comments. I am going to check on the lines. If you have, if you want to pose any questions, Judith is going to explain to you how to do so and I have some questions here on the Fort Cam site. Judith?

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, for the benefit of the parties who have joined via the telephone lines, if you'd like to ask a question, please key in star and then 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation turn will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may key in star and then 2 to exit the question queue. For the benefit of the parties who have joined via the webcast, you're welcome to pose your written questions in the question box provided on your screen. At this stage, we have no questions from the telephone lines. I will now hand over for questions from the webcast.

Thanks, Judith. So give me just a quick break. Mark, the first question for you is the question is, can you please speak of any upcoming debt refinancing requirements or plans?

Sure, no problem at all. So there's no maturities that are coming up in the near term. If you look at the maturity graph included in the pack, you will see there's an FY26 amount reflected there. That is just normal 366-day general banking facilities that just roll on a continuous basis. So there are no significant maturities. The two that we are planning for, FY28, we have the RCF term, the €750 million facility maturing. We'll start working towards that in the latter part of this year, early next year, but there's nothing else significantly worried about.

Thank you very much for that, Mark. To me, I'm going to combine two questions that we have here. The first is, do you plan to, in future, lift the global hygiene business? And then I suppose second, sort of linked to that, The comment is that ROFI is a high proportion of KPIs and ROFI is high in the hygiene businesses. Is this the reason why we are in hygiene services internationally? So really the end of the question is, in the absence of high ROFI, would we have been in hygiene services? All right. So on the first one in terms of lifting, I mean, we're not there. We're in the process of creating scale globally. We are chasing the number one listed and want to take that number one position. We want to extract as much synergy as we can and really build a big platform from a hygiene perspective. So, I mean, I can tell you in our boardroom we're not having a conversation about a listing of the hygiene businesses whether in the short term or medium term or long term, that conversation is not taking place at the moment. And then in relation to why we're in hygiene, I mean, returns are important, so it is one factor, but it is not the only thing that drives us. When we announced our strategy around hygiene, we said that we were looking for markets that globally are fragmented, where we had confidence that we would be able to consolidate that market over time. We were looking for a business model that we knew well, A business model where in South Africa we were a significant player and our market share was large, relative, and we were competing with internationals so we would be comfortable that we could compete with them in their home territory and win. And hygiene is one of those markets that we really, really understand well. Thirdly, we were looking for structural growth. So you also want to invest in capital in a space where structurally you know that there are other – aspects that are supporting growth into the long term. And hygiene is one of those areas. The awareness around hygiene and wellness, it keeps on maturing every single year. And obviously, it was elevated after COVID, right? Everybody now knew the increased importance of washing your hands, et cetera. And so structurally, hygiene is supported by a number of factors. And then there are financial KPIs. Returns is one of them. High margins is one of them. High cash generation is one of them. So there's a couple of financial metrics that also support this. So it's a couple of factors and all of those together are really the reason why we're in this hygiene space globally. Before I let you go on the hygiene side, there's two more questions that came in. Let's finish that on the hygiene side. The question is, you know, this growth up 20% and the margin, as you pointed out, is higher than industry average. Do you think – why is the margin high and do you think it's sustainable is the first question around that. And then could you just – the question is, how much of the trading profit is hygiene? If you could just, again, clarify that. Okay. So – Yes, so we've done better than market, which I think is excellent. If you followed a lot of what we said, when we initially acquired PHS, our margin was slightly below market. And as we've made the additional acquisitions of hygiene businesses in Singapore, in Australia, and of course now in North America, we've obviously now started integrating PHS but we're also working collectively from a sourcing perspective. So there's a lot of initiatives that we're putting in place, either sourcing or technology or AI, which is a sense of technology that we put in our dispensers. We're sharing all that IP, and it's all those initiatives that are really driving that margin. I would probably say, though, that the biggest impact on margin in this financial year is the integration in the U.K., So the integration in the U.K. between PHS and the Citroen North America operations was a big driver, and PHS is our largest hygiene business. So when that business starts picking up in terms of margin, it will pull the entire operations with it. And you'll recall when we used to talk about one of the reasons why we wanted to do Citroen is because the integration in the U.K. was almost gross to net. We would close all the branches. We would put all the Citroen infrastructure onto the PHS branch infrastructure, IT technology, et cetera, and really just continue running those businesses. So the big, big margin driver has been what we've been able to do in the U.K. And then secondly, the Citroen operations in North America are also, on a net basis, higher margin than market. And so those two things are contributing to that. That's just a confirmation of the hygiene. 55% of services international. Thank you very much for that, Kimi. Mark, maybe on the automotive side, if you want to answer that question. The investor notes that a material contract lost in the recently acquired DEQA and the question was did we identify that element during the . And then, and secondly, it's, Ines is asking about a little bit more clarity on the used cars. But for me, you did make those statements in your comments that the GP margins were 0.8% lower on used cars. The volumes were lower. You saw an uptick in new car size. So those were the comments you made about used cars. So Mark, maybe just to take a look.

So, in the DECRA transaction, specifically in the DD process, we identified that there was a material contract within DECRA that sits with one of our competitors in the used vehicle space. There was a very open discussion with the seller in terms of the likelihood of that contract remaining with DECRA post the transaction. Between us, we landed that there was a, there was a reasonability that the contract would stay in place for a period of time. We priced the purchase consideration accordingly. As it subsequently turned out, in fact, we had that contract a little bit longer than what we anticipated, but it obviously had subsequently gone. But yes, it was appropriately priced in the due process.

Thank you very much for that. Then maybe again sort of combining two same-day type of questions here. This is asking for an update on the services operations in Australia and Far East. So Singapore is the only site that we have some operations. And the reversal of work from home trends globally. Yeah. So our services operations in Australia is made up of quite a large cleaning business. You'll recall that we acquired BIC initially and then shortly after that acquired Consolidated, and that doubled our footprint within the cleaning space. And then we acquired a small hygiene business called Pure Hygiene, so we've got a hygiene offering. And then we've also acquired eGroup, which is a security business. So we have an FM business with three service lines, cleaning, security, and hygiene, and all of that, call it integrated into one business, and that's what we're doing in Australia. From an Asia perspective, that would be rental hygiene services. So we're number one in Singapore. That's our only Asia footprint through rental hygiene services. And then we added Clean Bio, which is a very, very small business that's just recently been integrated into ROJ. Thank you very much for that, Sumi. Then maybe a question. What is the view around the bank disposal cost now that the offer from Exit Bank on it? Yeah, I mean, we're still going to run a process. I'm like so loathe to give a view in case people who are in the process will hear this. I'm trying to find the right word. So the price that we had on the table is a price from two years ago and was a 20% premium to NAV. And obviously based on the performance of the bank at that point in time, which was better than where we are now, there has been a drag on performance over the past two years. And unfortunately, the length that the sale process is taking is also part of the reason that's putting pressure on performance. So I guess it's fair to say that we're probably unlikely to land where we landed with Access Bank. I think that was a rich number. But we certainly are going to push to get the best price that we can and just optimize it as best as we can. We've got a plan to repay debt, right? We know what that number needs to be. So clearly we're back-solving to a number. and we're going to negotiate hard to get there because we are also solving for something else on the other side. Thank you. And just one question there is you mentioned in passing the organic acquisitive split on trading profit and what would that sort of be on a regular basis?

So gross revenue up 3.7%, organic was 2.1% and acquisitive 1.6%.

That was a very specific answer. Thank you very much for that, Mark. Judith, any questions on the telephone lines?

Thank you. At this stage, no questions on the telephone lines.

We have worked through all the questions on the webcast. We have pressed refresh and there's nothing else that came through, so I suppose that leads us to say thank you very much for your time this afternoon, this morning. We appreciate it. And you know where to find us for any further questions that you might have. Thanks to me, Mark and Joel. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Cheers.

Bye.

Thank you all. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's event. Thank you for joining us.