Mr Price Grp Ltd S/Adr

Good morning everybody, I'm Mark Bled, the CEO of Mr Price Group and welcome to the results for the year ended 30th of March 2026. I'm joined today by Pranil Nankumar, the CFO and please everybody, as questions do come to mind, I think send them through so that we can start agitating and preparing for questions later. So although we're dwelling on obviously the 2026 financials for Mr Price Group, just to give you a heads up that we will also be talking to certain high level aspects of the NKD performance to the year ended 31st of December 2025 and we can also then tell you what to expect in terms of financial statements released. This is the agenda for this morning. I'll be giving a brief overview on exactly where we're at, some items on performance and also what's impacted our performance over the years. Pranee will then do a deep dive into the financial results and then I'll come back and talk about the outlook and some strategic matters. So into the overview, and I think it's really worthwhile at this point, just sort of pausing and reflecting on everything that's come before. And when I say everything, I'm talking about probably the last five years or so, five to six years. And this is really from the start of our previous strategy reset. That happened and we started implementation in 2020. And there's the background of all the things that we've done over those years. Acquired three acquisitions locally, We had two organic launches, we've opened new store concepts and obviously expanded merch categories. During that time we've also, and it didn't span the whole five years, but we did research additional markets as you know and as we did explain at the Capital Markets Day a short while ago and obviously entered one of those markets being being the European market through the acquisition of NKD, which became effective a month or so ago, a month or two ago. But it hasn't all been about growth. It's also been about strengthening our backbone internally, and I'm talking about all the tech modernization that we've been through. We re-platformed our ERP, and we've done a lot of work around our supply chain operations, to enable us to continue expanding and do so in an efficient way. Other areas that we become known for, especially as a value retailer, is the work that we do around ESG. We've come a long way on that. We've significantly progressed our shareholder engagement function and outreach. And of course, none of this is possible without focusing on your people. But with all that said, there's obviously a lot of discipline that has to be maintained during this process. I'm talking about capital allocation, talking about cost control and metric management because our motto is that we have to be able to do all those things and still deliver a profit. So if that wasn't enough to consider coping with all that and delivering profits, Just look at the world that we've been living in for the last couple of years as well. And we know all the turmoil that we've been through in South Africa, all globally. And some of the things just more particular to ESA was the unrest that we went through a few years ago, the boat shedding that we went through in 2023, and then recently, obviously, the impact of the tariff war and the U.S.-Iran conflict. There's quite a lot to absorb and to deal with. whilst we're trying to run a retail business. And I painted that picture because that's the background or the backdrop to what we always strive for in our business and that is consistency in our earnings. So what this table does is plot us against our competitors. It's the last five reporting periods and we're very proud of the fact that given what I've just said about the last five years, that in the last five reporting periods, and these are year ends and half years, we've been above that line in the black for each of those reporting periods. So obviously there's a lot to do to get us to that position, but very proud of that and obviously very proud of our team and everyone that's pulling together in the same direction to deliver those results. So there you can see the 2026 numbers for Mr Price and that is a 7.7% increase in headline earnings on a normalised basis and a 2.1% increase on a statutory basis and we'll obviously unpack that for you. Speaking of which, just some highlights. We'll go into the detail, as I said. Revenue is up 4.2% to almost $43 billion. And EBITDA was either up 5% or 7.4% to $9.6 billion, whether you're looking at a statutory or a normalised basis. I think normalised basis is the way to talk through these results, so I'll just follow that theme throughout this page and onwards. Operating profit at 6.2 billion was up 8%, and the operating margin was up 50 basis points. That enabled us to deliver diluted HEPs, so the previous page was headline earnings, this is fully diluted HEPs of 8% growth. At 1489.3 cents and we maintained our dividend payout ratio. Just to be absolutely clear and as I said Premier will dig into it. Normalised expenses includes the one sort of transaction cost relating to the acquisition of NKD. We did guide the market earlier that they obviously would be coming through and expensed in 2026 financial year. And the other very important aspect to say, although Prima will give you the detail, this is if there's nothing left to come in the 2027 financial year. So relative to where we are with those transaction costs, I did see one or two research papers or papers that did include them, but I believe that the majority of cell site hadn't necessarily included those transaction costs in their numbers. So there you can see where consensus is sitting, 1440 versus our normalized HEPs, which is 1489. And that will partly explain the difference between consensus numbers and our statutory numbers, which, as I said, were up 2.4%. One of the things that we try very hard to do, it's always top of mind when we sort of plan seasons ahead and when we trade through the seasons, We're not after market share at all costs. So what this graph does show, what the table shows, is that if you go back for the last couple of years, starting with 2024, what happened to our sales growth versus the market? But the real importance here is what happened to our GP percentage. So we're after profitable market share growth, and you can see the positive trend that we've had for the last couple of years. Other thing to point out is We did have a stronger base last year in H2 of 9.9%, so that obviously has got an impact on H2 this year in terms of performance. But I think just H2 in totality, and I'm talking bottom line here, was strong, and Pranil will take you through some of that. Okay, I think if you had to look at the last financial year, the way it started out, wasn't quite the way that it ended. And I'm talking about the retail environment and some of the macro themes playing out. As we started out the year, we had this prolonged period of no load shedding, so that was great for our ability to continue operating, particularly our stores. The port operations, Durban's got the largest port in Africa, as you know. but the performance of that quarter has been working really nicely. It's still not where it needs to be in the long term, but certainly looking at the last couple of years, it's vastly improved, and we're very happy how that's going for stock throughput. We've seen currency strengthening. We've seen interest rate cuts. Consumer price inflation was coming down nicely, and inside the GDP growth, it popped above 1%. That was all a real positive story, especially when you overlay it with what you can see down below with real wage growth and disposable income growth. The point just to make in that disposable income growth is that although you can see it tick up to 3.3%, that hadn't necessarily found its way through to discretionary retail. There were obviously things competing for consumers' wallets, and we've all read about the impact of online gambling as well. So the point there was, although a lot trending in the right direction, some really strong green shoots that we are obviously very thankful for, discretionary retail hadn't been an immediate beneficiary of that improved environment, but we were thinking that it was going to come quite not too distant. But then things changed. So in the last quarter of our financial year, We all know what happened with the currency shocks, oil prices, the knock-on impact on fuel. And obviously in those circumstances, consumer confidence takes a knock. So, yeah, you can see the impact overall on that. And I think the big thing for me is that as a business, we haven't been directly impacted too much by what's happening in the Middle East. but it's the knock-on impact on the consumer and inflation and interest rates that I guess is more the concern. But it's not all negative. If we had to just look at where we're sitting with our exchange rate right now, I don't know what it is this morning, 1630, 1640, we've got to compare that against 19 rand about a year ago, and that will give you a sense for how things have changed. So although in some regard you have to pick up some additional costs, don't forget that for roughly half of our merchandise we can benefit by an improving exchange rate. So just some key messages before I close out this section. When I was talking through what we have done in the last five years or so, talking through our earnings consistency, that I think explains to everybody the absolute sharp focus that we've got and the experience that we've got in managing disruption while doing many other things. We're still optimistic about the long-term future or the medium to long-term future in South Africa. Who knows how long this conflict is going to last, but we are on a good trajectory and I think there's no reason to believe that that won't resume when this nonsense is over. We've increased our diversification by entering into a new market and we'll speak a little bit about that as I've said at a high level but obviously you'll get more in our trading update at the end of Q1 and definitely in the first half of when we talk to you in November. The important thing as well is that amongst quite a difficult last few years we've continued to invest through the cycle and that was a strategic decision that we took So whether it was in our backbone, as I said, or store growth, we continue to invest, and I think that will put us in a really good position for an improving SA. But I think, you know, in the context of what I've just explained, value retail is the place to be. It is more relevant than ever, I believe. And we've got an excellent portfolio of brands. And whilst it's very heavily focused on the value customer, we've also got brands that do reach into the upper income customer. So I think we're really ideally positioned with the brands that we've got. And, of course, I'm including NKD in that. And there you can see their positioning between brands. Sort of on the same level as Sheet Street. Plays in price, but it's got, obviously, an element of fashionability as well. Okay, I'm going to hand over to Pranil, and he'll take you through the detailed results now.

Thanks very much, Mark. Good morning, and a very warm welcome to all our stakeholders joining us online on the webcast this morning. I'm pleased to present to you the Mr. Price Group's financial results for the 52 week period ending the 28th of March 2026. Against the backdrop of the volatility in the macroeconomic and operating environment that Mark spoke about just now, I'm happy to report that the F26 financial year delivered another consistent earnings performance outcome for the first consecutive period. As a reminder, the transaction to acquire the NKD business closed on the 31st of March, 2026, falling into the F27 financial period. Once-off costs, as Mark mentioned, and as we discussed in the March Capital Markets Day presentation that were incurred in F26 relating to the acquisition, have been excluded to provide a view of normalized performance to reflect the group's underlying earnings outcome on a comparable basis. Just to confirm also, as Mark mentioned, that no further transaction costs are expected in the F27 financial year. Getting into the detail of the results now, revenue was up 4.2% to $42.6 billion for the financial period, and retail sales was up 4.3% ahead of the market's growth per the RLC of 3.9%. Weighted average space grew 3.6%, and comparable sales was up 1.1%. A key highlight for the period was the gross profit growth of 6% to R17 billion, up 70 basis points in the prior year. And I was also satisfied with the cost containment efforts by our team, with normalized expenses growing 4.2% to R12 billion. Both the GP performance and the focused expense management resulted in operating leverage achieved, with operating profit growing 8% on the normalized basis to R6 billion. Net finance income was marginally up on last year at 612 million, and profit before tax was up 8.8% on a normalised basis. The growth in taxation was impacted by two things. Firstly, the settlement of a long-standing tax matter with SARS, which did not materially affect the group results, and secondly, the non-deductible consulting-related costs for the NKV acquisitions. Profit after tax was up 7% to 3.8 billion, and profit attributable to non-controlling interests were down almost 17% from last year. That is a reminder that relates to the reduction in the NCI from 24% last year to 15% this year. Finally, profit attributable to equity holders of the parents were up 8% on a normalized basis to 3.7 billion rand. Taking a closer look at the performance in the second half, as Mark mentioned, we were up on a very strong base last year. Revenue grew 3.3% and the base for revenue was 9.9% as we saw earlier on Mark's slide. But again, a key winner in the GP accretion, up 80 basis points in the second half to 42%. EBITDA was up 8.6% on a normalized basis to 5.8 billion and operating profit grew 9.2% on a normalized basis to 4.1 billion. against a base of 11.7%. Further operating leverage can be seen with an up margin increasing 90 basis points on a normalized basis to 17.2% and deleted HEPs was up 8.8% on a normalized basis, again against a base of 12.1% in the prior year. I think these results for the second half once again shows that the second half displayed strong operating leverage achieved through GP margin gains and tight expense management. Moving on to the segmental performance, the apparel segment contributed 79.6% to total retail sales, more or less in line with last year. Retail sales grew 4.2% for the apparel segment, outperforming the RLC's market growth of 3.4%. Despite the sector being highly promotional, operating profit grew 8.8%, driven by the segment increasing GP margin over the period. The Mr. Price apparel team and the Mr. Price sport team did well to expand GP margins by 50 basis points and 110 basis points respectively. It was also another fantastic year for the Studio 88 team whose store numbers surpassed 1,000 for the year and also grew profits by double-digit growth. The Power Fashion team focused on their store expansion program and almost doubled their store footprint since acquisition. Collectively, these two acquired businesses delivered in excess of R1 billion in operating profit for the year. Moving on to the HomeA segment, who contributed 16.8% to total retail sales. Retail sales in this sector grew 3.8% in last year, and the segment also grew GP by 50 basis points, particularly due to strong markdown management. This resulted in operating profit growing 5.1% for the sector. Collectively, the divisions within this sector own 30% market share per the RLC. The Mr. Price Home brand also retains the highest brand equity in the sector and holds a dominant level of market share higher than the other divisions. The Sheet Street team performed well, consistently reporting improved comparable sales over the last two years and improved profitability supported by space rationalization programs. Yappie Chef also delivered double-digit sales growth and gained 10 basis points of market share for the period. The telecom segment contributed 3.6% to total retail sales, up 0.2% from last year. Retail sales once again grew double digits at 10.3% for the year, resulting in 20 basis points of market share gains per the GFK. They also delivered consistent GP margin expansion this year to over 20%. As you can see, operating profit was impacted by ones-off costs, resulting in a negative 0.8% growth on the prior year. And Mr. Parcellier, as a highlight, was voted by MTN as the retailer of the year. During the year, our real estate team worked hard to deliver 196 new stores, bringing the total group-owned store count to 3,182 stores. From a segment perspective, the apparel segment closed on 2,500 stores The homemade segment on just under 600 stores and the telecom segment from a standalone store perspective closed at 86 stores. New weighted average space growth was up 4.1% for the period and net weighted average space was up 3.6%. New store returns continue to deliver strong performance with the return on operating assets higher than internal threshold set, and also multiples of VAC. Hence, the new store growth continues to be a material part of our capital allocation framework. The graph at the bottom of the page shows our investment through the cycle that Mark spoke about earlier over the last five years with an average new store growth of 194 stores per annum. On the next page there's a view of Group Space Growth and as you can see the space was driven by Studio 88 and its five trading chains that it operates, opening 80 new stores for the year to close in 1,006 stores. This was followed by the Power Fashion team who opened 32 new stores to close in 354 stores and then the Mr. Price Money team who runs the Mr. Price Cellular standalone concepts opened 25 new stores to close in 86 stores together with the 482 store-in-store kiosks that they run. The Mr. Price apparel team opened 18 stores and delivered six expansions to include the Mr. Price kids concept. Taking a look at gross profit, group GP percentage grew 70 basis points to 41.2%, which marked the third consecutive year of GP gains. As you can see, all three segments reported gains in last year due to a combination of strong merchandise execution by our merchant teams, lower markdowns than last year, and currency gains and exchange rate movements compared to the previous year. Just a note on the medium term targets that are reflected on this page. Our next five-year strategy process will occur later this year and Mark will talk to you a little bit about it later. All targets and metrics will be reconsidered and we'll also consider including the impact of NKD on this metrics and we'll update the market when we're ready to. Moving on to overhead expenses, taking a closer look now You can see that our team's reactive vault, trade, and cost containment efforts for fruit as normalized overhead growth came in at 4.2% on last year. Employment costs grew 7.9%, and it was due to partly opening 196 new stores that I spoke about earlier, together with LTI share scheme credits in the base. If you exclude that, it would have been up 3.3%. As I mentioned last year, due to performance criteria for vesting not being met, Those LTI shared schemes did not best in the prior year. Occupancy costs were up 6.9% and that came through from an increase in utilities, particularly higher electricity growth rates per nursery, which was higher than CPI, and weighted average space of 3.6%. Other operating costs was well contained, growing at 1.6% to 2.5 billion for the year. reflecting some austerity measures implemented during the financial year, looking at all discretionary spend and looking at what we could trade off in terms of the trade that we had seen come through. Group expenses to RSOI, the metric that we measure from an expense perspective, came in at 28.4% and on a normalized basis at 27.9%, well within the target range of 27.5% to 28.5%. The group operating margin was in line with last year at 14.2%, but expanded 50 basis points on a normalized basis and within the medium-term target range. The apparel segment grew 70 basis points to 16.1%, and the homeware segment grew 10 basis points to 12.2%. The telecom margin at 8.9% was slightly outside the medium-term range of 9 to 11% due to this one-off cost that I spoke about earlier. And once again, these medium-term target ranges will be reviewed later this year as we walk through the next strategy process. Taking a look at the credit performance now, credit sales grew 3.5% on last year to R4.4 billion and comprised 10.6% of total sales. Interest rate cuts during the year of 75 basis points, which happened earlier in the year, assisted in the growth of new accounts, which the approved accounts grew 11%, with the approval rate itself moving to 21.9%, up from 20.3% last year. The debtors' book was up 3.7% to 3.1 billion on the back of the increase in new accounts and existing account spending through the credit sales book. The net debt to book ratio came in at 8.9%, which was slightly up on last year, but we were comfortable that the ratio still is one of the lowest in the industry due to the strict affordability criteria that we have internally. The impairment provision at 13.1% was slightly lower than last year, but remains adequately provided for the book. Taking a look at the balance sheet analysis, and just to call out some material balances, Inventory grew 5% to 8.2 billion for the financial period due to strong stock management. We were happy with the shape of the stock at year end, with stock freshness remaining high, the zero to three-month age in category at 82.6%, and the stock provision at 6.3% adequately provided for even in the volatile trading environment. You'll note the cash and cash equivalents balance of 11.6 billion up from the 4.1 billion last year. And that growth in the cash balance was driven by the take-on of interest-bearing loans close to year-end. Excluding the interest-bearing loans, the cash balance increased by almost half a billion to $4.7 billion, which was up 14% from last year. The cash conversion ratio also ended up greater than 85%. And just to note, also on the interest-bearing loans of $7 billion, these were taken on for the funding of working capital requirements and also for a portion of the purchase price of the NKD transaction. Having a look at cash flow movements, you'll note that in April, with the opening cash balance at 4.1 billion, we then generated just over 9 billion in cash from working capital, before working capital, which was up 5% in last year. We had a small outflow from a net working capital perspective of 159 million, and then you will note the significant 1.1 billion spent on the investment category in terms of the CapEx spend for the year. The dividends were paid out at 63% of HEPs per the normal payout ratio at 2.4 billion, and you'll note also the interest-bearing loan that I spoke about that came in at the end of the year, which was 7 billion, to result in the closing cash balance of 11.6, but 4.7 excluding the interest-bearing loan. Having a look at the allocation of capital, CapEx for F26 was 1.1 billion, up from 830 million last year, so a 32% increase in CapEx for the year, of which almost 45% was allocated to the store environment, which included new stores, revamps, and expansions. The other big area of capital investment you'll note, accounting for 37% of the total CapEx, was the logistics environment, and that's where we further invested in the Gosport Park DC to support growth enablement for the business. In terms of CapEx outlooks for F27, CapEx for the South African business is expected to come in at 1.1 billion, similar to the previous year, and in Europe, capital expenditure of 24 million euros is anticipated. Majority of the CapEx is allocated to strategic enablement and new stores, and in South Africa, we anticipate 180 new stores for the F27 financial year, while in Europe, the NKD business anticipates 150 new stores approximately for the new financial year. Weighted average space growth for the group is expected to come in at 3 to 4% for the financial year. And group net debt to EBITDA on a pre-IFRS 16 basis is expected to be at 1.4 times, which is slightly lower than the medium-term target of 1.5 to 1.75 that we had guided the market to, which gives us sufficient headroom. As you know, we are a management team that is very focused on metrics, as Mark opened the presentation with. And it was pleasing to note that most of the metrics were either achieved or exceeded for the financial year, despite also having revised some of these metrics upward last year. The return on asset metric you'll note is in amber, but this was really due to the growth in the asset balance at the year end due to the timing of the increase in cash balance. When you exclude the interest-bearing loan cash flow that came in towards the end of the year, the return on asset was similar to last year and in line with the medium-term targets. As I mentioned earlier, all these targets will be reviewed at the next strategy cycle, which will happen later this year. Thanks for your attention, and I'll hand you back to Mark, who will talk you through the strategic focus and outlook areas.

Great. Thanks, Pranil. So looking at the South African business, and I did talk a little bit earlier about how value businesses are probably ideally placed in South Africa at the moment. Obviously the brands that you then have are just as important. And I think our brands still continue to be highly regarded and recognized. And there you can see Mr. Price Apparel remaining the most shopped apparel retailer in South Africa. And the Mr. Price brand is the 7 strongest brands across South Africa's top 100 brands. So our ultimate brand health is obviously very critical to us. The first thing that I just want to stress in relation to the South African business is that it does come on the back of some of the questions that we had surrounding NKD was that we've got a dedicated local management team. So what that means is that individuals in our business that have got an outreach into NKD and a responsibility into that business is really limited to Pranila Masal. The rest of our management team absolutely 100% focused on South Africa, and you'll understand why I can't be talking about a lot of discipline that I did in the first part of the presentation if we didn't have that kind of view on our local business as well. So it's a clear line of sight, clear responsibility, which I think is absolutely paramount. Spoken a lot about the financial discipline and execution. I think we've proved ourselves over the last couple of years. And I think with a differentiated fashion value offering and the 15 chains, in fact 16 chains that we now have, it's got very wide customer appeal. Obviously in South Africa it's 15 chains. We've got a fit for purpose value retail model and I'm going to touch on that a little bit in a minute. I've spoken about the infrastructure and that it is scalable. We have spent a lot of money on it. It will see us into the future quite nicely. And part of our performance over the last few years amongst all the turmoil was a proven supply chain and business agility, much of which is tech enabled. We've been allowed to talk about e-com, obviously. Our e-com sales did rise slightly ahead of our store sales, but we really believe that we do have the optimized channel strategy in South Africa. Our customers prefer to go and shop. They might browse online, and certainly the stores that we opened are delivering, and we still see that there's a good future for new store opportunities. And then lastly is the absolute focus on cash generation. We are cash students of business. This is what allows us to do the things that we've done. To invest in businesses, to maintain our dividend payout ratio and now to more than comfortably manage debt as we go forward. But I just wanted to leave you with one or two very, very clear views. And that as we look out to the next two years, so I guess you could really read this into FY27 and FY28 if you wanted to, is that the first point of focus for our group is the South African business. It's absolutely key to us. It's the majority of our business. and when I start unpacking some of the things that we're going to be focusing on, you'll know the extent of opportunity that we can, and why we're therefore focusing on it. So that comes first. What comes second is the delivery of the NKD business case. We did take the market through, what we are hoping to do in that business to 2030 nothing's changed that view so you can go back and refer to those materials but obviously that's delivering in terms of what we said to the market is very important to us and then thirdly the point I just wanted to perhaps emphasise is that at Capital Markets Day we did refer to a potential third territory so the point of clarity is when you look at what how important the South African business is to us, what we have to do there, and you look at what the business case we have to realise for NKD, we've got more than a handful of those two things with opportunities that are going to come out of that. So although we've done work in a third territory, I think from an investor point of view, you can take that out of any discussion over the next couple of years. We're going to be focused on those first two things. Critical, as I say, was our value positioning, our profitable market share growth, and scaling our operations. So I just wanted to dwell on that for a minute. But obviously our value positioning starts off and ends off with remaining people as value champions. That's what we're known for. We're known for delivering differentiated fashion, and there's a lot that goes on internally to deliver exactly that. Obviously in this process now with the potential for rising input costs, pressure on the consumer, managing our RRSP inflation is critical. We still want to give incredible value and part of the way that we actually do that is the big volume that we commit to. I did talk about the fact that we are after profitable market share growth. It's going to be even more added focus on our life-for-life, our comp store growth strategies. And I did mention about the store pipeline with the return that we get from it. So still very strong and that looks good going into the future. Just in terms of scaling supply chain operations, and it's really talking about further integrating the acquisitions over the last couple of years, what we have done is, in terms of our systems and our technology, we've now got the functionality to allow the acquired businesses integrate into our logistics network irrespective of the ERP or warehouse management system that they're currently on. So that's a real positive step forward. So whether you're talking about distribution centres or road transport or logistics, that will enable them to start coming into our process and our infrastructure. So we'll look forward to that starting to happen in this financial year. We spoke a lot about cash generation, spoke a lot about capital allocation, something in our business now is an increased focus on treasury management. We're feeling really comfortable about the debt to EBITDA position that we're in, but certainly managing the level of debt, and that will be done by the cash generation and the business, so feeling good about that. Managing the cost of that debt in Germany is absolutely critical to us, and we think that there's significant scope to reduce that. That's actually ongoing as we speak right now. If we do land it in the upcoming months, I think what's going to happen is that it will probably wash its face this financial year because there will be some costs that will be incurred to reschedule that debt. But looking then out into the new financial year, the net impact in KB business will be 2 to 3 million euros. That's what we're expecting per annum. So that would contribute nicely to their bottom line. But when you look at the focus that we're going to, Pringles spoke about an update, a strategic planning thing that we do. We do it formally every second year, but of course we're always thinking and talking strategy in our business. There's an opportunity to refocus on the BAPS and metrics in our business, particularly on our acquisitions. A lot of science into running a retail business comes out of that. We're going to review the business model and our ways of working. When I say business model, I'm not saying that we're going to start veering off of being a value retailer at all. That's not what I'm saying. It's really the thing that we do internally to manage the processes and the outputs that we do. We think there's an opportunity for doing things a bit differently. That'll be one of the key things that we'll kick off shortly. Pranil spoke about the KPIs that we're going to be resetting, the targets that we're going to be resetting, including NKD. And obviously, this is not a Mr. Price thing, but obviously I think that's something that's playing out in business in general, is the acceleration of new technology, absolutely critical. Something as a cash business that we've never, or we haven't probably focused on to the extent that we plan to now is, and of course any retail business has to target the right customer, but just looking at how that customer journey evolves and how knowledge of that customer informs your retail strategies is going to take another level of understanding. In that we're going to be evaluating all aspects of CRM, loyalty, customer personalisation and the data that we've got from our customers to inform all that. So to some extent there's going to have to be some consideration and there has been about how we've got capacity to do these things. Who's going to lead those projects? But those are going to be the big projects for this year that will unlock value over the medium term as well. So after the South African business, now we can move across to the NKD business and the strategic priorities there. Absolute paramount is we gave the market expectations. We want to deliver on those expectations. That's our first objective. I said you're getting an appropriate balance between store openings and the exiting of underperforming stores. I'll come back to that in a second when I take you through some of the F25 performance. But there's a really good opportunity for ongoing store openings there. And let's not forget, when you do close underperforming stores, they have got a nice impact on the bottom line. And I did say that at the Capital Markets Day. So that will certainly continue for the next year or two too. There are testing new markets, and Poland would be one example. So testing those markets and potentially considering other markets that we've got on our radar there is something that we'll evaluate on an ongoing basis. The great thing there is, and I did also say the Capital Markets Day, that we don't need new territories. If you look at the white spaces that we've currently identified for that business, In the markets that it presently serves, there's more than enough to deliver growth for the foreseeable future. The other charities will be able to add on to that. We've had an evaluation of potential synergies between the two companies, and as I said, I didn't want management teams on both sides integrating and losing focus. So I'm going to be handling that directly. And the first thing, although there are more than this, the first thing we're going to be looking at is really opportunities in the value chain. And there I'm talking logistics and supply base. So I think there's potentially some good opportunities there. One of the things that we're going to have to move forward with is making sure, getting to the point where our accounting policies align. That's going to take some work, but it will become evident when I take you through the next slide as well. So quite clear on the outcomes for NKD, and just to reiterate, staff and management team focused on their side of the ocean, and the NKD management team focused on their side. So absolutely limited or no distractions. These are extracts from the 2025 numbers. So if you do recall, NKD had a December year end. So these are extracts from those December 25 financial statements. Starting off with revenue, up 2.8%. Comp sales is 1.9%. And that was the point that I wanted to make about the top line, is that when you've got some profitable stores in your system that you're moving out, obviously it detracts from the top line, but it has got a positive impact on the bottom line. So that will continue for a while, but it's got a positive impact. They have made market share gains during F25 in the three largest markets, and you can see the numbers, but very, very pleasingly, when you look at the operating profit growth of 40%, that was driven by the GP accretion, and the GP accretion is sustainable. So, although they did a really good job on overhead management, it was that improved GP through sourcing, through markdown management, all those things, That's a little over 40.5% increase in operating profit. If you then look at the PAT, just like our business, when we acquired NKD, they had one sort of cost regarding debt refinancing and transaction, the transaction-related costs were like 2.2 million euros. So if you had to strip that out of PAT, obviously then the PAT growth would be positive. But there's a lot happening below that pant line, and it obviously depends on your capital structure. So there was obviously debt in there and the like. You can see the interest expense of $7.3 million, and that's what we, as I said, we're trying to manage down significantly. But the big thing was what happened to forex rates. So because they're on a different accounting policy, they don't hedge account, So without getting too technical, what it means that, and in that number there's realized losses and unrealized losses. They have to mark to market all FECs at the end of the period, and that goes directly through the income statement at a point in time. If you hedge account, what happens is that the impact of the FX gets realized at the throughput of the sale of that stock, so it's more closely aligned and it matches. That's the process that both the finance teams are going to be very actively getting to the bottom of it. And the first point is to prove that there are effective hedges and then consider when we could implement hedge accounting. In terms of the balance sheet, there you can see how the year-end closed out. Cash balance of $60 million, bank debt of $52 million, and that bank debt was part of the transaction that we took over that debt. So, I think the point with the financials just to stress is, Mr. Price wasn't responsible for this performance. We didn't own the business at that point in time. And really from a perspective of acquisition that we've had to date, and we know that we've had three locally, we've never had this kind of analysis of the past financial information. But because the financial information is freely available, we thought we'd just give you a sense of what to expect when you did see those financials. And just with regard to timing, we have to submit the financials to the commercial register. That's the authority in Germany. And then once that's done, I think it's about two to three weeks before, they do whatever they have to then to make it available to others. I'm not quite sure of the date, because that's not in our control, but these financials should be available by the end of June, that you can all go have a look at, and I think that's positive news as well, that you don't have to wait until December, and that was when they were released the year before. So, yeah, I'm sure you're looking forward to going through those accounts in a bit more detail. I don't want to talk too much about the U.S.-Iran conflict. Our supply chain is resilient. When you're looking at the carrier surcharges and the carrier rates, and I'm talking about shipping rates, we've had really good negotiations. Fixed our pricing out to December and those are really good rates. So very happy with those. And really we haven't really had any significant delays from a stock flow point of view to this point. We have had the impact of obviously increased fuel prices in our logistics network locally. That's unavoidable. But of course, if we know what they are, we can also make a decision as to how to pay and what GP percentages to target. So it's not all lost. And as I said, we've also got the impact of the stronger RAND. Yeah, I think looking forward, I'm feeling relatively comfortable. It depends which way things go. But as we stand now, I think probably looking good with minimal disruption. And in fact, it's not the direct impact of the conflict that I'm worried about. It's the impact on the consumer through increased interest rates and inflation. But we know as soon as it went negative, we know that a bit of good news can turn around the other way as well. So we'll have to be watching that very carefully. So I think the point is we're entering the F27 year rather cautiously. I think it's the right thing to do and the prudent thing to do. So, you know, of course some stock commitments were made prior to this conflict starting I think we've displayed our agility over the long term that we can manage through these things and if things do pick up, well we can certainly chase into stock and I'd rather be in that position than not. So yeah, we put a note on how April trade was looking. I think there was a bit of a consumer shock in April. but we've certainly seen a much better pick up into May and also into June. So I think I'll leave it at there and thank you all for attending and obviously as we go into New Year as well we're doing so owning 100% of Studio 8 that's just recently happened and just to reflect on that it's our biggest acquisition before NKD and it's been enormously successful for our group. So in that, I just really wanted to thank the management team of Studio 88, all their staff. Welcome to the group in a full capacity, can I say now, and we're really looking forward to working with them into the future as well. Great. Thanks for attending, and we're happy to go into Q&A now.

Thank you.

volume of questions, but we do have some time to work through as many as we can. I'll start with the most frequently asked question, which was trade post-UAN mark, maybe if you want to take this one, and if you can talk particularly in light of there being obviously a base to compare against in the local markets, is there any more comments you can give us in the comments that were made?

Yeah, I'll look into it. You know, I honestly don't feel that guidance in the short term is that valuable and any further guidance I can give in the local market was that I'm not talking negative growth you know when I said things were tough in April so it was positive but I just wanted to perhaps yeah I mean if you just sort of reflect on a six and eight week period we're into a proper reporting cycle now quarterly so without people worrying too much on anything We want to stick to that quarterly reporting cycle. And as soon as you're into a shorter cycle than that, and I mean the position, I don't recall the figures exactly, but last year when we actually released the trading update post year end, our growth was something like April, May 12%, June minus 5%. So you obviously set yourself up, and because of volatility, when we came out with a June quarterly trading update last year, it was obviously disappointed. So without getting into what happened to GEP, it's also dangerous, because you haven't necessarily closed off GEP for a six-week period, so you've got to be quite on your toes. So I think a quarterly performance is a much better assessment, but just to come back to the direct question, it wasn't negative growth in April.

Let's get back to a more macro question and then...

And you've made it clear that South Africa remains the top priority despite the NKD acquisition. Where do you see the biggest growth opportunities in the local markets, new stores, market share gains online, etc.?

Yeah, I mean what drives the consistency? I think that really gets into the heart of our business. It's brands that are powerful and it's people that are effective in their jobs. So if you're a business where there's a really good culture, then people are all pulling in the same direction. And when the decision is made, there's buy-in to it and it goes and gets executed. And then we hold people accountable. So it is a bit of a magical working environment with the culture that we do have. but in that you can't have a magical culture but there being no discipline. So discipline is a big part of that and we also I guess have to anticipate and not react. So things that you can anticipate and going back in perhaps the last couple of years when we've had the threat that we know that the FX rate is working against us, you don't wait until it lands to then try and protect your margin. So I'm just giving you an example. You can start playing around with your GP or managing your GP in anticipation of a future date so it doesn't hit the consumer just as hard in one fell swoop. So I think sort of pre-empting things also comes to mind. Look, I think within the delivery of the group numbers that we've had this year, there's some divisions that have done exceptionally well and there's a division or two that have struggled. So there's always a recovery of that. And it's how you budget going into the new year. You know, we're not going in with bold sales calls. We're managing it properly. But it doesn't mean that we don't want to overperform if there's an opportunity to. It just means that, and, you know, just going back to one of Pranil's slides there, I think there are two things in orange. One of them was stock term. So if you can go in a bit leaner and you can trade up and rather chase into stock, that will also sort out the stock turn direction. But there's no one thing. There's so many things that we turn over, so many opportunities we can look at. And I guess these bigger projects that we're talking about, although they might not have a direct impact on this year, they certainly will set those up for the medium to long term as well.

Thanks Mark and apologies for the audio issues on the first two questions. Just to repeat, the first question was relating to trade post year end. You all have Mark's response and the second was the drivers behind the consistency of the earnings performance in the last few years. Peniel, just looking a bit into the financial results, your outlook for gross margins and operating expense growth in South Africa in the FY27 year. Similarly, just around a few questions around expense management, some of the drivers in the 26th year, and then how you feel about expenses in 27.

Yeah, thanks for that question. I think we did say that from a strat perspective, our next strat cycle will happen in the next few months, which will allow us some time to review the medium-term targets that we set. But I think in the interim you can look at those targets that have already been put out for the South African business. So from a GP range perspective, off-margin range perspective, an expense to sales, that's how we're thinking about it until we get to that new five-year strike process, at which point they will then re-issue medium-term target guidance. I think from an expense perspective, yeah, it was a big effort by the teams, but the You know, maybe something to share with everyone is that, you know, when we say that cost management is in our DNA and we have a value mindset, I just want to reflect that, you know, in our boardroom there's a quote that says, every decision every day must align to our value roots. And that's not just a saying on the wall. It's something that we live. Every time we're in the boardroom making decisions, that's front of mind. So I think when there's a call to action to our teams, when sales come off, for example, or there's challenges, macroeconomically, the teams are very agile in terms of what they can do and the decisions that we need to make. We have lots of discussions about trade-offs that need to happen also so that we can deliver a profit wedge and I think that's really the key thing because when you look at the kind of operating profit growth versus the sales growth, the key is to get that wedge right so that the expenses grow at a lower rate than sales and then you see a really great performance on the operating profit outcome. So I think that's some of the key things that we use to manage that. And just diving a little bit into the F26 results, yes, we said that costs grew about 4% on a normalized basis. Just also to note that in there, there were some credits that came through or lower costs this year. One of the key things was The trend of the RAND compared to last year, so in terms of our African operations and some Forex gains that we got this year based on the currency strength versus last year where we took Forex losses that sat in other expenses, that was one of the key things that helped drive the wedge in overheads. and I think the other key thing is really around as Mark spoke about metrics and looking at store metrics and store economics and then also looking at the blueprints in our stores in terms of headcount and staff in stores and profit per square meter all of those metrics are managed and looked at quite tightly and then in relation to how sales is performing so yeah I think for the kind of short term the next probably until we reset those metrics or communicate the reset metrics. I'm happy to guide you to the current medium-term targets for this African business.

Thanks, Pranil. Just sticking with GP margin, can you talk to the FX gains that positively impacted the GP? Is there an assumption that this doesn't repeat? And just to quantify the breakdown between the FX gains and other components of GP drivers.

Yeah, thanks. So from a GP perspective, we said we were 70 basis points higher than last year. A lot of it coming in the second half, which came through from some currency hedge gains. We hedge out four to six months in terms of our treasury management policy. And I think that the key thing there, when you look at that split and how the GP was achieved, it wasn't just all related to those forex gains that came through. It was also specific in the homeware sector. We looked at market management quite closely compared to the previous year. And obviously, from a Merch perspective, our merchandise teams executed strongly, which I spoke about earlier. I think it's a combination of all those things that resulted in the GP margin gains. But remember, this is the consistency that we saw that came through last year also, where GP margin was up, and in the prior year. So we've had three years now, and I think it's just consistency using the same playbook across all the different levels within that GP recon that we can to actually get those gains. So, yeah, I'm comfortable with the range from a medium-term target perspective that we spoke about, and I think that's how we should think about it for the sectors within those ranges in the SA targets that we've set.

Thanks. I'm asking questions just in relation to some of the questions being asked and just the most frequently asked. I'm just staying with you for a second, Pranil. With regards to the NCI payments of the $1.6 billion to Studio, was that made after year end? And does this mean that the NCI in the balance sheet, would that be zero in FY27? And will there be a cash payment in FY27?

Yeah, so just talking about that, Mark mentioned a bit earlier that this was the year that we acquired 100% of Studio 88. So that payment fell due in the F27 financial year. So actually earlier this week, once their financials were wrapped up and the audit was wrapped up, the 1.6 billion for the 15%, the last 15% was made. And that payment will come through when we get to our H1 interim results, you'll see from a cash flow perspective. a mix of cash and debt used to fund that purchase price. And yes, correct, I think by the time you get to the end of the financials, you'll see that the NCI component will disappear from the balance sheet and also on the income statement you won't have a property attributable to NCI going forward.

Okay, how should we think about the pay down of the debt of $7 billion over the next few years? There have been other several questions with regards to the NKD debt and the Mr Price Group debt, rates of debt, so just any colour that you can share around that process over the next few years.

Yeah, look, I think we gave the guided range for debt to EBITDA a sort of comfort level, and even that was, I guess, conservative. When you take the comment that I made about the third market and the clarity around that and the fact that both businesses are cash generative, I think we're probably going to undershoot that debt to EBITDA ratio that we've actually publicly given. So if I was comfortable before, I'm even more comfortable and certainly management of, as I said, the quantum of debt and those debt finance costs is one of the key objectives this year. So, yeah, it's... Servicing the debt, managing the debt is not something that I'm worried about.

Okay, just a movie to some NKD, particularly outlook questions relating to CapEx. So there's just a few components to some of these questions. The first one, just talking about the GP margin gains in NKD. There have been gains reported on GP margin by other retailers in the region. Just talking about structural dynamics versus short-term sourcing and that outlook for GP margin going forward. And then I'll come back to some other CapEx questions after that as we stick on NKD.

Yeah, and obviously looking at the GP potential as we go forward was a big part of IDD. So it's no use having a GP gain and then that's it. That doesn't really position you well for the future. So everything that the management team does and has done to improve the GP was exactly what I was talking about when they were at Capital Markets Day. A new CEO, a new CFO, 2022, 2023, and the things that they've done and the internal changes they've made to the business to drive those outcomes was exactly what I was referring to as to what was giving me confidence. So obviously there's a lot happening behind the scenes to deliver those gains and to deliver future gains, and there's always a balance between resourcing and markdown management, but it really does depend on the product. They are known as a value player for their quality. They won awards for that. So I think that's pretty key. So ongoing GP gains is something that we do expect. And importantly, they also do have a buying office in the East that sets them up very nicely at a low cost to do that.

I think maybe just one piece to add on top of what Mark said also was in the capital markets in March, We also gave you from a five-year vision perspective what some of those targets for the business is and how you should think about GP. The range that we guided to was 62% to 64% over the period, and that's something that the team will manage closely to, and I think that range is sustainable to answer the question.

On the planned store openings for NKD, are those still from a regional perspective in line with what was disclosed at Capital Markets Day? And just also to talk about the age of the store base and are there anticipated revamps as part of that CapEx put forward for the coming year?

Yeah, definitely. Just to answer the second question first, they're very strong in store revamps. So there's a fair amount of CapEx going into that and I think they're revamping over 100 stores. The store openings themselves, where Bruniel quoted a figure of about 150, those are in the traditional market, so there's no new market planned or anything like that. And they're in the major territories that they are in now. But as I said, if you look at the store closures, on a net basis, there's probably going to be a net 90 to 100, I'd say, somewhere around there. So I think that gives you both a geographical split and a split between the balance of new stores and store closures.

Can you please talk to your supply chain in terms of cost pressures in the coming year, freight costs, cotton, polyester and other input costs?

As I said, you can talk about all the the impact of direct input costs but you've got the exchange rates going the other way. So, you know, I suppose like any other retailers, we've had some suppliers coming to us for cost price increases because of their input costs. Obviously, we've got to take that on a case-by-case basis and sort of build that up. The important thing is that we've got clarity on pricing. That's going to enable us to apply the margin that we need to and coming to the pass point that we need to. So as I said a little bit earlier, directly, I suppose the direct cost of shipping and the increased oil price for vessels, we're looking very good to the end of the year. Hopefully by that time the contract will be over and nothing to worry about. When I say we've got increased logistics costs in South Africa or in other markets, When you look at that compared to the overall cost base, the increase is not something that you can't manage.

Peniel, just coming back to a few questions for you. What is the outlook for working capital on FY27 given that you have raised the $7 billion in loans?

Yeah, look, I think on the cash flow slide, I suppose a little bit about the negative working capital of 159 million. Maybe just to give some color to that also in terms of how that plays out into F27. I think a key driver of working capital management that we've been talking about over probably the last three results presentations has been the supply chain finance program and the traction that we have gained with that over the last three years. In the first year the focus was obviously on the local supply base and then we moved into the international supply base and where we got to was quite a mature level in terms of the program. I was quite comfortable with where we landed at 90% coverage from a supply base on the supply chain finance program. So because we have maturity, there's not much further expansion we can do on that program. I think it's quite at a high level compared to some comparative programs that we've seen out there. I think the key thing to focus on though also when you talk working capital is also the investing cycle. The fact that there was a small outflow in net working capital didn't impact the capex investment of 1.1 billion. Also, the dividend payout of 63% of HIPs. And I think that's the key thing is that the cash generation ratio of greater than 85% is what helps kind of see through all those big cash outflows. I think Mark touched on the debt a little bit in terms of our comfort levels with managing that over the period. The South African business at 90% cash really gives us good optionality in terms of how we pay down that debt. And that's what we're looking at to kind of manage those outflows from an interest perspective. As we've seen, the first repo rate increase came through at the end of May and how we then look at going forward managing the cash flows to be able to give us optionality in terms of how we pay back those loans quicker than we need to.

Great. Thanks, Pranil. We are going to have to leave it there. I'm conscious that there is another presentation that people will be wanting to attend. We have taken note of all of the questions. There is a large volume, so we will come back to you on email for the ones that weren't asked today and in any follow-up sessions that are planned in the next few weeks. Thanks so much for joining today. Cheers.

Thank you, everyone.

Cheers. Bye.