Sims Ltd Sp/Adr

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the SIMS Limited HY24 results briefing. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements, including statements about financial conditions, results of operations, earnings outlook and prospects for SIMS Limited. These forward-looking statements are subject to assumptions and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those experienced or implied by these forward-looking statements. Those risk factors can also be found on the company's website, www.simsltd.com. As a reminder, SIMS Limited is domiciled in Australia and all references to currency are in Australian dollars unless otherwise noted. I would now like to hand the conference over It's Stephen Mickelson, Group CEO and Managing Director of SIMS Limited. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you're dialling in from. Today we're here to present the half-year results for FY24. I apologise in advance if my voice fades a bit. I've had a scratchy throat for the last few weeks. Presenting with me today is our new Group Chief Financial Officer, Warwick Ranson. John Glide, our Global Chief Operating Officer, is also here with me and Warwick. The presentation has been lodged with the ASX, along with the results release. First up, I will run through an overview of the results and discuss our strategic progress. Warwick will then take us through the financial results. At the end, I will return to talk about the outlook, after which we will have Q&A. I'll turn straight to slide five, which covers an overview of the results. It was certainly a challenging and disappointing half year for significant parts of the group. At a high level, the modest EBIT result was driven by a compressed trading margin, down 2.6%, but more tellingly, down 5.4% at constant currency. This deterioration in trading margin was not across the board. Both ANZ and SA Recycling improved, while NAM and the UK went backwards. There are a number of reasons for this, which we are addressing, and there are subsequent slides providing further explanation. It was pleasing to see SLS grow its EBIT, particularly in the second quarter of the half. Inflationary pressures, while showing good signs of easing, did persist. Costs for the group were up 8.5%, which was 5.7% on a constant currency basis. There are several up and downs in here, and Warwick has an excellent slide explaining this later in the presentation. While headline operating cash was 68.4% lower, I'm pleased with operating cash for the half and it represented a good cash flow conversion. Last year's half year benefited from a significant fall in inventory that had built up in June 2022 and was shipped over the subsequent months and turned into operating cash. Turning to slide six. Our position as a sustainability leader continues to grow. We were awarded the most sustainable company in the world by Corporate Night's Global 100. This achievement recognises our sustainable practices, deeply integrated into every facet of our operations. Sustainability is core for us and embraced by the organisation. Beyond our walls, its impact is significant and measurable. By providing high quality products, we enable our customers to significantly reduce the CO2 emissions from the production of steel, aluminium and copper. You can see this in the photos with a few examples of high-quality copper granules, polished 6X aluminium extrusions, and low copper shred. Not only is SLS repurposing data centre equipment for its customers, it is also assisting them to extend the lifecycle of their electronic devices. Our company's value is directly linked to our role in advancing decarbonisation, an immense opportunity that drives progress and innovation here at SIMS. Moving to slide seven and the importance of having safe operations. Our safety record, as measured by the main lagging indicators, is pleasing. Total recordable injury frequency rate hit a record low, just below one. And while there was an increase in the lost time injury rate, it is still down 14% over the last four years and was more impacted by low risk events this year. Both indicators are at or around industry world class levels. We continue to focus on leading indicators, which in my view are more effective in driving good outcomes, and we have introduced a new training programme for continuous safety culture improvement. The reaction from our employees on this new training has been hugely positive. The next couple of slides look at the market. Firstly on slide eight, we focus on the seaborne market compared to the US market. The first point I will make is that common to all our markets where we procure scrap, there has been a reduction in the supply of ferrous scrap. This has been largely driven by a downturn in post-consumer scrap availability. Two charts at the bottom provide evidence for this, the downturn in durable goods and the increase in the average age of vehicles. These are both US charts, but it is a common theme across ANZ and the UK as well. China has been exporting significant steel, and this has caused price pressures, particularly in Asia. As a result, global steel production, excluding the US, has contracted. Furthermore, the steel that is being produced globally, excluding the US, is at lower margins, often already low base, and this is shown on the top right-hand chart. Compare this to the US market. Margins are strong, driven by steel import tariffs restricting competition and legislated demand stimulus, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. Paradoxically, the demand for steel is coming from projects that do not produce significant scrap in the short or medium term. For example, new wind farms, new bridges, new rail, etc. You can also see on the bottom right-hand chart the quite extraordinary growth in EAFs that has already occurred and will continue to occur in the US. In summary, in the US, we have a highly protected steel industry, growing demand for steel and therefore scrap, but currently not a sufficiently growing supply of scrap. Slide 9 provides the price dynamics for our key products. Turkey HMS prices were relatively flat half on half compared to the prior year, but down consecutive half on half. Prices have started to lift at the end of the first half. Freight has risen and been volatile throughout the period due to geopolitical tensions and drought conditions in the Panama Canal. Freight price volatility has been a significant challenge in the first half. Zorba has had a strong performance over the last 12 months and is currently around the $2,000 per tonne mark. The biggest driver of this has been the improvement in the copper price. In fact, when you compare the two bottom charts, the correlation between Zorba and copper is evident. Slide 10 provides the explanation as to why ANZ and SA Recycling were more resilient than NAM and the UK in the market conditions and price outcomes detailed in the previous two slides. I will go through it by column, starting with the source of scrap. SA Recycling and ANZ source a smaller percentage of their scrap from dealers. In other words, they procure more scrap at source. This provides them with stronger margins that do not suffer as much when the buy-sell spread tightens, as it has over the last 12 months. The second column splits sales between domestic and export. Both SA Recycling and ANZ have a greater proportion of domestic sales compared to NAM and the UK. For SA Recycling in particular, this has been very beneficial. as it is nicely exposed to the strengthening demand for domestic scrap in the US. The final column reflects the composition of scrap, where composition is defined as processed or unprocessed. Buying unprocessed scrap affords the opportunity to add value, particularly through shredding, where end-of-life goods are transformed into ferrous feed for steel mills, as well as Zorba and other valuable non-ferrous products. As pictured on the previous slide, the price for Zorba has been very strong. Clearly we need to respond to the market conditions and dynamics, and we have been, but there are further opportunities and structural changes that we will deliver over the short to medium term to strengthen the NAM and UK businesses. Slide 12 shows what we have done recently and what we will be doing in the medium term to ensure all segments of the business meet the required return on their assets. Commencing in FY22 and largely completed in calendar year 23, we sold non-metal divisions where it was obvious that they would be more highly valued by others. LMS is the most material example of this. This allowed us to recycle the capital and focus on the core metal business. A number of acquisitions are listed on this slide, of which the most material was Baltimore scrap, also completed in calendar year 23. SLS spent this period building out its repurposing business model. In FY24 we have commenced improving our domestic sales channels in the USA. The acquisition of Baltimore Scrap is one of many initiatives contributing to this. We are in the middle of the UK Strategic Review and I will provide an update on this in a few slides. ANZ has continued to drive its competitive advantage to deliver good returns. SLS is focused on innovation, particularly around using micro factories to disassemble servers. It has also been increasing its reach within customers by offering a superior service to grow its share of available business. In SRR, we have fired up the pilot plant. I'm pleased to report that it has produced syngas using our shredder residue. There are more tests before we declare victory, but it is looking very promising. Given that FY25 is only a few months away, the executive team has been prioritising what we will deliver over the next two years. Two things that will continue are the targeted acquisition of assets that enhance our existing portfolio and, where possible, using recycled capital to fund these. There will be a big focus, in NAM in particular, on sourcing additional unprocessed scrap and ensuring we have more domestic sales channels in which to deliver our products. Successful domestic channels will in part be secured by reliably providing high quality innovative products. The shift in market dynamics over the last year have shown that relying solely on volume targets is insufficient. For instance, the increasing importance of unprocessed scrap and the need for a more balanced sales portfolio between export and domestic markets. Recognising these changes, we have shifted our focus. We have moved away from a simple and single FY25 sales volume target. Volumes alone were not driving the correct behaviours. We are still finalising the most relevant targets and I will provide them at a later date. Suffice to say, we need to get profit margin back into the NAM business, not just sales volume. SLS now has a proven and profitable business model and it will concentrate on delivering this at scale. From an SRR perspective, The first commercial plant is likely to be built in the USA, and we will seek partners for this. We will not contribute significant capex to commercialisation. I said at the very beginning of the presentation that it has been a challenging market, and the results for significant parts of the group have been disappointing. On slide 13, I want to explain what we have been doing to turn this around. Firstly, and most significantly, we have greatly simplified the organisation structure. This has resulted in some extensive leadership changes. By way of example, I have reduced my executive team from nine people down to six, plus me. This was the start of a larger cost-out program, which I will talk more about on the next slide. Before I do that, let me outline some of the other things we have been doing. We have already increased our domestic channel options, with more to be delivered in the second half. We have successfully run low copper shred trials and anticipate the sale of more significant volumes at price premiums in the second half. Management KPIs have been adjusted to reflect additional targets beyond a simple volume metric. We're also embedding much stronger data analytics into the business to assist in refocusing on margins. Turning to slide 14, which covers off the cost reductions. It is important to note that it was not a panicked cut costs, I don't care where program. It was a well thought through and highly analyzed initiative. It took over six months of planning with outside assistance to design a simpler and more streamlined organization. We sensibly increased spans of control and reduced layers. Where needed, we've strengthened the commercial and growth facing parts of the business. Overall, we are budgeting to save 70 to 90 million annually. 55 to 65 million has largely been implemented and will be fully realized in FY25. There will be a further 15 to 20 million implemented in FY25, which will be fully realized in FY26. Moving to slide 15, where I want to provide an update on the UK strategic review. I must emphasize that we have not yet decided the outcome of the review. I'm open to all ideas, ranging from a sale of the whole business through to retain options where we significantly restructure the business. In between these two bookends, you have various joint venture or partnership alternatives. Non-binding indicative bid proposals are due at the end of this month, and I can confirm we have received strong interest, which is not surprising when you look at the location and reach of our assets in the UK. How the process progresses beyond the end of this month will be largely determined by the type and complexity of the proposals we receive. Before I hand over to Warwick, I'll turn to slide 16, which looks at SLS. SLS made significant progress in the first half and I expect this to continue in the second half. From a strategic perspective, I believe SLS has proven it is a business model that is profitable and valued by its customers. Its strategy is sound and grounded and the tailwinds described on this slide are only getting stronger. Artificial intelligence is predicted to drive the growth of data centres at an even more rapid rate than the extremely fast pace of the last five years. These data centres have issues with sustainability, which SLS helps solve. It now has to deliver this at scale, and its recent implementation of micro factory technology provides one of the building blocks to achieving this. Over to you, Warwick.

Thanks Stephen. I'm going to keep my comments relatively short and high level given Stephen has described the market impact at some length already and I won't necessarily talk to every slide. Of course the team is available to respond to any specific items you may wish to delve into post the call. At a group level we reported an underlying EBIT result of just over $13 million with a statutory result of just on $164 million inclusive of the gain on sale of the LMS investment. We saw a high statutory effective tax rate given the inability to utilise our tax loss position in the UK and a lower tax base on the LMS asset given we equity account for it in the financials. Slide 19 is a high level summary of the underlying EBIT performance. So I won't dwell on this one and we'll move on to slide 20. In the US, we saw increased volumes from both the northeast metal and Baltimore acquisitions, and SAR capitalized on a full six months of its steel coast ship breaking business and smaller additional acquisitions through the period. As Stephen has already explained, the industry-wide trading margin compression was exacerbated in our NAM business. Our existing sourcing network, market diversification, and scrap composition all challenged the business in a market where intake volumes in both the industrial and retail markets were constrained from lower economic activity and the supply of scrap simply couldn't keep up with demand. The impact was extended by more subdued prices in the export market and negated the benefits of the strong domestic price environment. On a positive note, the acquisition of businesses such as Illuminisource, And the successful rollout of low copper shred in a number of regions continues to reposition us as a producer rather than just a collector of scrap with upside margin going forward. I'll come back and talk about our controllable cost performance in a few slides. But whilst I'm on this slide, we did see an uplift in SAR's operating cost base, both from the additional volume but also from labour-related inflationary pressures. In ANZ, we've got a well-balanced market portfolio, providing us with a level of flexibility to respond to market movements. We've also got a strong purchasing program in regional and mining volumes, which has helped maintain margin levels, although we did pick up just under $2 million in growth costs this half with a new project in Western Australia with no attributable margin in the periods. The tightness in supply which we've talked about is clearly evident in the UK results, however. The lack of available materials significantly reduced our intake volumes with a number of major dealer suppliers switching to direct container shipping in response to prices. However, we managed to improve overall margins by reducing our lower margin sales. Moving to slide 23. And excluding the internal realignment of the precious metals business, which is now part of the broader metals segment, we had a 7% revenue uplift at SLS with 700,000 additional repurposed units. Importantly, we've broadened our customer base while also increasing our service offering. Just to note that revenue margins may vary somewhat quarter on quarter depending on the specific activities we undertake. but the uplift has certainly been a great performance by the team. I'll cover the primary cost drivers in the next slide, but just to note that we don't expect any further costs for Sims Energy in the second half following the sale of LMS, and a number of the costs for the Rockley pilot plant are one-off in nature and related to the demonstration plant activities. I'll move to slide 25 on cost to provide some colour on both the operating and corporate cost increases which are also reflected on slide 24. Firstly, FX has played a major role when we think about our costs in A dollar terms. Only about 20% of our operating costs are actually A dollar denominated. We saw the Aussie lose ground from its high at the beginning of the calendar year and a sustained strengthening of the Australian dollar is yet to play out, with the US dollar maintaining its stability and China's economic activity not gaining steam. We added $29 million to our cost base in the period through growth, principally from a full period of North East metals, as well as the addition of Baltimore scrap in quarter two. In the US, we also introduced an environmental processing charge as a cost offset, although it's mostly been counted through our margins, given the non-uniformity of the charge versus the number of our competitors. So our comparative starting point is actually about $30 million higher this year. On people costs, we've experienced around a 3% to 5% uplift in our wage levels given current inflationary pressures, which is about half of the overall increase. We employed an additional 50 people into the Australian operations as we moved to fill critical operational roles that had been left vacant through the recent bounce of labour and skill shortages. We also incurred additional one-off costs with the retirement of a number of senior executives in the half. Wage and contract labour costs certainly continue to be a cost pressure in ANZ in particular. Also in Australia, we're continuing to see an uplift in state and regulatory levies on waste disposal, upwards of 30%. We picked up $6 million in additional system and restructuring implementation costs centrally as we work to uplift our information and data capabilities. These later costs, the executive retirement costs and the impact of the general salary uplift make up the bulk of the corporate cost increase. Offsetting these has been some good wins on fuel and maintenance efficiencies reducing our overall increase in costs against the adjusted cost base to around 4%, which in the significant inflationary environment we've been operating in, has been a fairly solid result. That said, as Stephen has already touched on, we need to continue to work through our cost out opportunities, ensure we are more resilient to the cycles. Moving briefly to cash and capital, and in line with our existing capital management strategy, we were able to recycle funds from the LMS sale into the Baltimore acquisition. We also had a residual contingent liability on the IllumiSource transaction as noted in last year's full year accounts. General and sustaining capital remained sensibly constrained given the operating performance and we expect to remain within our previous guidance levels in this area for the full year. We paid a full year dividend of just under $41 million for the 2023 financial year. And as noted in the accounts, the board is determined not to pay an interim dividend for the half year, given the company's strategic focus on investing in growth initiatives and our current operating cash performance. And just before I hand back to Stephen, in December, we renewed and extended our existing debt facilities, uplifting our available liquidity reserve by just under $200 million. The terms for these facilities have remained substantially consistent with what we had and are now in place out until October 2026. Back to you, Stephen.

Thanks, Warwick. The final slide before we open up for Q&A is slide 29, which looks at the outlook. We are anticipating an improved second half performance. This is partly driven by cost savings across the group. For NAM, the work we have been undertaking around better domestic sales channels will allow us to benefit from strong US demand. We also expect an improvement in securing unprocessed material, although this will be a longer journey. It is expected that ANZ and SA recycling will continue their solid performance, and the momentum SLS took into the end of the second half should also continue. It is worth noting that strong competition for scrap is likely to remain until there is more post-consumer scrap released. The outcome of geopolitical tensions are impossible to predict, but invariably they cause unexpected volatility in our industry. If we are managing inflation well, there is a risk that it remains surprisingly sticky. As you would expect, the macro trends haven't changed over the last six months. There is incontrovertible evidence that the demand for scrap is increasing as the steel, copper, and aluminum industries decarbonize. From a data center and cloud perspective, If anything, the growth has just got stronger with the commercial arrival of artificial intelligence. Before I hand over to the operator for Q&A, a big thank you to all SIMS employees. It's been a challenging six months with big changes to the business and organisation structure. Most importantly, you've looked after your colleagues and worked safely. Back to you, operator.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. And if you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your questions. Your first question comes from Meredith Schwartz from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. This is Akshay Chen from Bank of America.

Hi, Chen.

Thank you for taking... Hey, hey, how are you? Thank you for taking my question. So, firstly, the long-term target volumes... Now, Stephen, you mentioned the target volume will revise, but focusing on improving margins. I'm just wondering, does that mean strategically over the long term, we are going to see less buy-on acquisitions in the U.S.? And how should we think of improving margins? I understand that you have annualized 70 to 80 million annualized cost initiative, but that seems like very... A very bullish number. I'm just wondering how you are going to achieve the annualized cost initiative, given you mentioned the scrap competition will continue in the next few years. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Chan. A couple of questions in there. The first thing I would say around the volume targets, and you specifically mentioned acquisitions as well, we will definitely... continue to grow the business through acquisitions if and when those acquisitions become available and make sense. What I would say, though, is that I think Baltimore scrap is a good example of an acquisition that not only delivered us volumes, you know, around about 600,000, five, 600,000 tons per annum, but it delivered us sales channels into the domestic market. Now that we've integrated, that's not just sales channels for Baltimore scrap, it's also sales channels for the rest of our business. I think that's probably an example of how our focus is moving from just a pure volume target to it's the type of volume that we are targeting and the type of margins that come with that volume. We clearly have to get margin back into the NAM business in particular, and as a result of that, we're not just going to focus on volume increases. It's type of volume increases. It's making sure that we secure more unprocessed scrap, and then it's making sure that that scrap has some domestic margin, some domestic logistics optionality. It's not just about suddenly we're going to turn everything domestic. That's not the idea. We still have fantastic deep sea ports and that gives us all sorts of optionality. We just need to grow the domestic optionality as well. In terms of what those targets are going to be, we are working through those at the moment and I expect to come out at a later date with the mixture of those targets. On the cost front, the 70 to 90 million costs annualised does come from operating costs. And so we have completed a lot of that program already over the last, I would say over the last four months. We've put in place cost savings measures, whether it be around employee reductions and the various cost reductions that come with that as well. So we've put that in place and now we'll deliver on that. So I'm confident on that. We'll keep the market up to date on that. A lot of it happened, a number of it happened, sorry, towards the end of the second half. So there was little contribution, sorry, into the first half. So there was little contribution in the first half. And like I said, we're expecting 25 million contribution in the second half. And then that full contribution will roll out over 2025 and 2026.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Peter Stein from Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Hi, Stephen and Warwick. Thanks for your time. Hi, Peter. Stephen, just to expand on your thinking around the cost reduction exercise, just philosophically, could you give us a bit of a sense of how you're approaching the business and structures and obviously you inherited certain structures. Just wanting to understand really the bench strength in the organisation, how you're keeping that, how you're thinking about the allocation of cost from a philosophical perspective. Just delving a bit deeper please.

Sure Peter. So my philosophy behind the cost reduction has been about simplification of the business and I've I said in the previous thing, it wasn't a panicked, we've just got to cut the costs, don't care where they come from, we've got to cut the costs. It was a program that we started and had six months in the making, and the theme of the program was simplification. And as a result of that, we saw really good opportunities to increase spans of control. We had a number of, in my view, in the analysis board, we had a number of people that were potentially swimming in each other's lanes. So we could increase span of control without reducing productivity, without reducing the output whatsoever. And we could also reduce layers. We had a couple too many layers in the organisation. So it was not about reducing capability because we've just got to cut costs. It was saying we need to increase spans of control and we can reduce layers. And that does absolutely save costs. And I think my ELT structure is an example of that. When we looked at what each of the nine ELT members were doing, the remaining six had the ability to absorb those functions within their capabilities and in their job profiles. And that then flowed right down through the organization. From a bench strength point of view, I really like that question, because that was a big focus of it. We wanted to make sure that the people that we had identified as key talent, retained within the business. And there was that lens over the entire program. We have very good succession planning programs within SIMS. We're about to go through our formal, very formal annual one just next week, I'm going through it with the ELT, where we identify key talent and we come up with a program for realizing that talent and seeing them through the organization. That lens was completely over the restructure as well because we wanted to make sure we didn't lose that. So I'm very confident that the bench strength remains. I mean, in some ways, when you're increasing people's spans of control, you are giving bench strength the opportunity to prove themselves that they are going to meet the standards which we think they're capable of. So I think it's a very good opportunity to test that bench strength in a sort of half a step up as opposed to a full step up when they ultimately replace executives.

Gotcha. Thanks, Stephen. That's helpful. And then just a quick question on unprocessed sourcing. What changes there in the context of your business models, particularly in markets where you're not as strong in unprocessed? Why would the value chain necessarily change and what do you have to do to essentially achieve the shift that you're hoping for, particularly in NAM, I guess?

Yeah, so I guess I'll answer that a little bit at a high level first and I'll get John Glide, who we're fortunate to have here with us in Australia at the moment. He's come down from the US. So at a high level model, I wouldn't describe it as us changing our business model. Our business model has, at the end of the day, what's our strengths? We gather scrap, we process it, turn it into high-value products and sell it to our customers. That's the core of our business model. I think it's more around the execution, particularly of the procurement of scrap. And it's fair to say, and I think those pie charts, I forget what slide number it is, but the pie charts that show the three different categories of difference between ANZ, SAR, NAM and the UK, highlights the importance of unprocessed scrap. And I believe we need to get back to securing more of that, and I'll get John to discuss some of the types of things we'll be doing, as opposed to just securing volumes. And it's easy to secure volumes from dealers, but we don't get the same opportunity when we secure processed volumes to value add. So John, you're the thick of it.

Hello, Pete, how are you? A couple of things. Obviously, tactical bolt-ons can play a role. We've obviously got a number of shredders, and I think at the last Strategy Day we put up a slide around our sustainable shredder utilisation. We've got a number of shredders that we've got an enormous amount of capacity that we can look to fill that capacity. And one of the work streams that we're doing at the moment is looking at sub-regions and looking at that capacity and then looking at tactical bolt-ons within those sub-regions that can provide a want a better word, a base volume around those shredders so that we're less reliant on dealer volumes. The other thing is that Rob and the commercial team have been working very, very hard in terms of shifting, I guess, the targets within our buying team around a greater focus on securing scrap outsource and in turn getting more scrap that we can push through our shredders, push through our shears, push through our balers. So just shifting that mindset a little bit As Stephen suggested, you know, volume target, you know, drive certain outcomes. Just segments within that volume, we just want to shift that focus a little bit.

Thanks, John. That was useful. Appreciate it, Stephen.

Thanks, Peter.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Lee Power from UBS. Please go ahead.

Morning, Stephen. Morning, Warwick. Stephen, is it possible to just give a little colour on the guidance around the underlying improvement in the second half? Like, how much of that improvement do you think's cost out versus the core business? And maybe if you're willing to say how the third quarter of FY24 is tracking thus far against what you were doing in the second quarter.

Yeah, sure, Lee. As you know, I won't give specific guidance for the full year. That's something we don't do, but I'm happy to give a little bit more colour around it. The improvement in the second half is not just about the cost reductions. I think, in a sense, that cost reductions are, and I'll use the expression, easier to bank, because we have put in place already the necessary structural changes to achieve them. So they don't rely on a market outcome. But we are definitely anticipating improvement. What you're talking about is improvement in trading margin as a result of the initiatives that we are putting in place. In some ways, you could say, well, the second half should be better because at $13 million, the first half was a fairly low base to improve on. But definitely some of it will also come from trading margin. Sorry, I just forgot the last part of your question there. It's just...

I was just asking around whether the third quarter, by far, is tracking above or below the second quarter run rate.

Clearly, we are halfway through the third quarter, so I get some confidence from where the third quarter appears to be going for us to make the statement that we expect an improvement in the second half over the first half.

Thanks. Appreciate that. And then on the sourcing, kind of the ideal sourcing mix, so I think in NAMM, as you invested, you said it was 63% from dealers. Can you give us an idea of where that's been at kind of different points previously? Is this something that you've slowly shifted towards, getting more processed scrap, or has it always been like this? And then how easy is it to shift away from that? Because it's obviously a pretty large chunk of your source scrap when you're thinking 63%. Yeah.

Look, it has been there or thereabouts for a while. I mean, it fluctuates at any given period, but it has been there for a while. I think the difference as to the impact of it now is that the market conditions and the market structure have greatly contracted the margin, the available margin, and so therefore it's having a higher impact. In fact, if you go back in previous periods, particularly our record year from a couple of years ago, having that high volume of dealer sort of process scrap, it wasn't it was quite beneficial because we were getting more volumes through. The export market was hugely strong. We were making good margins on it. What's happened is as that tide's gone out, it's become obvious that those dealer volumes don't work well. Those dealer processed volumes do not work well in this type of market. And our view is that the NAM market in particular is going to be in this phase for a while. We've got the, you know, the demand for scrap in the US is just getting higher and higher as these EAFs are getting completed. At some point, the supply of scrap will come back. I mean, at some point, the vehicles that are sitting out there will come back through the market and durable goods will increase. And we just want to be prepared and ready for that. John, any sort of further thoughts from you having, you know, being in NAM for the last couple of years around that?

No, I think you answered it. you know, correctly. You know, dealer volumes have always, you know, in my time, represented a fairly sizable part of the volume there. And as Stephen said, you know, this will be a shift that takes time. As we talked about, tack-on acquisitions, bolt-ons, small bolt-ons can play a role. Just shifting the focus of our commercial team can play a role. You know, quality differentiation can play a role in terms of If we've got greater margins to work with because we've got price premiums attached to that quality, that gives us some opportunities around procuring more shredder feed. And as Stephen's pointed out, you know, shredder feed is pretty crucial to us. That's where we've got a large amount of investment. We've got a lot of technology on the back end. That's where the Zorba gets created. Zorba pricing is, you know, quite strong. I think we highlight it sitting close to $2,000 a tonne. So, you know, more tonnes through shredder. generates more Zorla and Zorba Quarusing is strong.

Thanks for that. And then maybe just one last one, if I can. Your trading margin in NAMM, like I guess there was quite a long period where it was in the low 20% range. We're looking at 17% for the half. Do you have a view on what's an appropriate trading margin for the business? And does any of these changes do they have any sort of meaningful kind of change around where you think that number should be, given it seems to have, for what should have been relatively stable, has swung quite a lot over the last few years?

Yes, we do have a strong view that what we're doing will improve the trading margin percentage because the more unprocessed we buy, the more value we add by processing it, and that will improve our trading margin. John's just given that very good example of Zorba. opportunity for trading margin in there. I guess what's really impacted NAM over the last six to 12 months has been the shortage that really is the, I call it a scrap drought, just the lack of supply coming into the market has tightened it up. But we've gotta get back to those low 20% margins. There's no reason why we can't, the domestic, increasing our domestic sales channels or our optionality of domestic sales will assist in that as well because you're going to be more buying and selling into the same market where we have struggled a little bit with buying out of the domestic market in the US and exporting because as I showed on the slides near the beginning of the presentation, the rest of the world outside the US has been pretty weak. You've got China has been exporting flat out into Asia, which impacts Turkey. So the rest of the world's margins are coming under pressure, which impacts their ability to pay for scrap, and you've got the domestic pulling it in. So that's why we need the optionality. Those are examples of things that are going to get us back to the margin that we need in NAM. And I guess that's one of the things we're talking about here. We've got to get the margin back in. It's not just about volumes.

Thank you. Appreciate the commentary. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Owen Verrill from RVC. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. Just a couple of quick questions for me. First one, just looking at the global market environment, I note that the Turkish pricing slide that you put on slide nine shows some degree of normalisation in pricing in the last few months. I'm just wondering, from your perspective, is there a large amount of volume underpinning that? Like, just how... How sound is that pricing number in terms of an indicator for what the global market is doing? And just wanting to get a sense as to what your conversations with your international customers have been like. How are they feeling about the outlook as we look into calendar 24? And has there been a material change in their usage of scrap and inventory levels?

So let me go on the Turkish one first, and I might let... John, because I know John has been talking with some of our customers, deal with how they're viewing the market going into next year. So the volumes into Turkey have been fine. I wouldn't describe them as hugely buoyant, but the volumes into Turkey have been perfectly fine. The issue that Turkey faces, and therefore the rest of the world are facing part of a seaborne market as well, because Turkey has such a big impact on the seaborne market, is its margins are squeezing because of the competition from China. That then flows back through to us and the margins that we're achieving because we're having to buy that scrap in a very increasingly competitive US market. So that's where the squeeze has gone on. It's not so much the price that Turkey is receiving, it's the squeeze on what we're having to to pay for that is probably the biggest issue. And then I guess the one last comment I'll make before I hand over to John on maybe commenting on what our customers are saying. The comment I would make is that there has been significant inflation come into the market over the last three years. And so maybe you're traditional where we've got a 380 price that flows back down through. There's plenty of margin available that will get scrapped out of the market. The price needs to be higher for that to happen. You've got increased fuel costs, increased labour costs, increased repairs and maintenance costs, increased contractor costs. The people that are going out and getting the scrap are facing increased costs. And it's not as worthwhile for them to get it at these prices. And so that will need to adjust up as well. And there is some of the dilemma. You've still got Turkey competing against a China that is... releasing a lot of steel into the Asian market. But, John, you've been speaking with our customers globally. How do you think they're feeling for the next period?

So the one thing I'd say about Turkey is the rebuild attached to the earthquake really hasn't taken shape at this point. So there is obviously at some point in time going to be a demand stream around that rebuilding phase in Turkey itself. Stephen's right. China does play a very big role. They are somewhat the elephant in the room when it comes to their total... steel production and how much they export. What I would say is the Turks are well, well aware of the domestic demand that's building in the US, and we're already seeing increased amounts of shred in particular, which is the ideal field stock for an EAF, being drawn away from them, leaving them proportionately with more cut grade scrap and less shred being available for the export market. But they also realise that to secure scrap, particularly off the east coast, they've got to meet pretty much the domestic pricing. So there is a dynamic playing out there where, in effect, you've got the Turkish demand competing with domestic demand in America.

Okay, that's good. And have you noticed any change in, I guess, inventory levels through your customers? Are they sitting on more or less stock at this point relative to, say, 12 months ago?

Inventory levels? Off the top of my head, I'm... I'm not aware of any particular change in inventory levels. I think generally speaking, and John, you jump in as well, I think generally speaking, over the last six to 12 months, customers have been reluctant to hold inventory because of the inherent risk in them, particularly in the risk in the demand. And we keep coming back to China, but China is such a big influence. What's China going to put into the market? And do you want to be caught holding inventory where China has just released a hell of a lot of steel into the market. John, any other?

As a general observation, and we do have a look over the fence of our competitors from time to time, no one's holding any significant inventory of scrap. I think it'd be fair to say that the scrap supply tightness is playing across the entire industry, including our major competitors.

Okay, just one last question for me, if I may. Just looking at the ANZ business, you know, the EBITDA margins in that business have sort of been bouncing around. You're about to cycle a very strong EBITDA margin in the second half. I'm just wondering how we should think about that business and the operating margins as we look into the second half 24 and whether there's any one-offs either in the last half or the second half 23 that we should be cognizant of when we're looking at our numbers.

I don't think so. Owen, I said in my summary on the outlook, we expect both ANZ and SAR to continue the solid results that they produced in the first half. And that's how we're seeing the second half start and how we're expecting it to play out. So I'm comfortable with that. Okay. Thanks, David.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Scott Ryle from Rimmer Equity Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you very much. I just wanted to ask you about capital management, which I think is quite a big topic if you're going to a zero dividend. So if I look at your net cash movement on slide 26, it's a relatively small part of the movement in net cash, but obviously it's a much bigger symbolic gesture to go to zero. I guess you've spelt out a number of improvements that you need to make for the business, some of which you want to do acquisitions, some of which you've got capex to improve the business. Warwick, thanks for mentioning it because it was only really a passing mention on the dividend and some of your debt facilities. I get the point that you've got debt facilities with capacity, but as per the normal terms, drawdown is going to be subject to covenant. If we sit here at the moment, how much headroom have you actually got to invest in the business, please?

G'day, Scott. Obviously, that varies sort of month on month in terms of our trading activity, et cetera. In terms of our existing debt facilities, so we have about half a billion in in terms of our headroom. I think, though, in terms of actually thinking about how much do we invest in the business versus how much we need to retain, that's something that I certainly want to have a look at more broadly. I've only been in the seat sort of six to eight weeks, so it's certainly on the list to think about. I think at the end of, well, on the reporting period, I think we had gearing sort of sat at around just over 10%. I'd certainly like to sort of, you know, have a preference for our leverage at about one times our average EBITDA. So, you know, and again, performance of the business going forward is going to be quite critical. We talked a lot with Owen around sort of, you know, trading margin performance, but I think the other opportunity we really have is around our fixed cost levels and how we think about those in terms of gaining some efficiencies across that to make sure that we're contributing that to the bottom line. So I think it's not just about sort of existing headroom on the facilities, but thinking about things like liquidity buffers, stock levels in terms of our existing, in terms of our strategy around that that Stephen's already described. But we've also got some opportunities, I suppose, in this quarter around our close out of our closed loop investments. So there's some residual cash that's sort of sitting there that we're looking at disposing. And one of the things I'm quite keen on doing is having a look at our land and asset base and what opportunities we have to gain some efficiencies and put some money back in the business around that.

I'd underline that, Scott. I think we've got a strong history of recycling capital as Warren referred to at the end and there's definitely further opportunities to recycle capital. I think we've done quite well at growing the business without having to take on leverage to do that.

And then, Stephen, can you just give me a little bit more colour? You've obviously said in the board decision, in the board meeting, that the Fed zero dividend to this half. So what is it that, in your view, will get the board's confidence back to declare dividends again, please?

Yeah, well, I'll also get Warwick to chime in as he feels appropriate as well. So I'll give you my sort of and then maybe Warwick being in the meeting as well, giving his view. I think it's an interim. First of all, it's an interim position. We've still got the rest of the year to balance out and let's see where the final dividend comes in at. And I think from the discussion, it was just reflective of what was our operating performance. Yes, we are seeing an improved second half, but let's see that play out before we would declare a dividend on it. So there was very much a conscious that it was an interim dividend. Now we're near a final dividend. We've still got the second half to play out. But I'm also happy for, you know, Warwick also spoke with the board at length. So Warwick, what's your views on that?

Yeah, no, I mean, again, if you look at our bottom line cash performance, our operating cash was, you know, just under sort of $10 million. We've got some commitments coming up around from a tax perspective in relation to our sale of the LMS asset. I think the other aspect that we certainly need to see is that conversion of some of those residual assets on the balance sheet and how we go there. So the big influence of course will be our operating performance through the second half and what we can deliver to the bottom line. So the board will take all those factors into consideration.

Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I had.

Thanks, Scott.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Rowan Gallagher from Jarden Group. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Stephen, Warwick, John, and good morning, everybody. Hi, Rowan. Just in regards to the cost savings program, first of all, congratulations on an appropriate initiative. With respect to that, what's the actual cost to implement these cost savings, and can you sort of help me out? I note corporate costs have doubled half on half. There seems a bit of a disconnect with the messaging around the cost savings, yet corporate costs have doubled.

I'll get Warwick to deal with the second one first around corporate costs specifically, over the corporate costs in the first half and why we see them coming down in the second half. In terms of the costs of implementing the program, typically when we went through it, it was around about a six to nine month payback is kind of the rough and ready measure of that. It's about a six to nine month payback.

And do we see or do we anticipate significant items being created?

We've got some significant items in in that first half. We have, and there will be some in the second half related to those redundancy costs, yes, as well. Off the top of my head, I can't remember what they were in the first half, but that's fine. They were $4.6 million in the first half. I wouldn't expect it to be materially more in the second half. I guess, yeah, I wouldn't expect to be materially more in the second half.

And Rowan, in relation to corporate costs, I suppose sort of two sort of broader drivers. So one is when we talk about the sort of doubling of corporate costs, that's an inclusive cost, including our allocated divisions corporately. So we haven't got the benefits out of Sims Energy that has flowed through there in the previous, in the comparative period. In terms of our direct corporate costs, there's probably really sort of two main drivers there. So one has been the ongoing implementation of our system enhancements. So once we sort of have reached development phase we end up continuing to evolve that system so that we've made continual investment in that which is hitting our corporate cost area. We're pretty much done in terms of the ANZ implementation for that. Now there will still be some costs that flow through there And then the other big sort of cost area that we've picked up was the retirement of some of the senior executives which have hit our corporate cost line.

And just in terms of modelling, in terms of composition, are we just going to assume those cost savings would be proportionately directed across all regions based on, I don't know, number of employees or Are some particular areas going to be more exposed to that cost out than others?

Yeah, so the majority of our cost out will actually be in the US in terms of the ones that we've currently flagged. And as I said, we'll continue to look at other opportunities, but mainly in the US for that.

Thank you, Warren. And then just finally, Stephen, with respect to the UK, can you just comment about the MTA or book value of the UK operations and and why volumes were down disproportionately versus the group. Was that a function of just a crappy market or market share changes, et cetera?

Thank you. Yeah, so let me deal with the second one first. It was a function of not being obsessed by just volume. So you look at it, while the volumes were down, the actual trading margin percentage was up. And so we dropped volumes that were not particularly profitable, to be honest. And the UK's got other things. That's the main reason for that. Why fight over volumes where they're not profitable volumes? So that was the reason for that. In terms of the net tangible asset backing, I guess vis-a-vis the proposals that we haven't received yet, I don't want to comment on that too much until we receive the proposals, but our view is that The net tangible asset backing of the UK is solid, very, very solid, in fact. So I don't want to comment too much further on that. We're in the middle of a process now that we need to work through. Okay.

And then just finally, you're doing a departure away from volume for volume's sake, which is, I think, encouraging. Can you just talk about what sort of things are in the mix in terms of, I don't know, whether it be incentives for the leadership team, et cetera, you know, more than just volume as it was historically?

I think the major change that we've implemented already, and there will be further ones around executives, but the major change we've implemented already is how we incent our buyers and the value that we put on... the source and the type of scrap, not just the volume. I think that is by far and away the larger change. So the incentive now is more around unprocessed at source. You can't move away from volumes entirely. Don't get me wrong. We have a fixed cost business and there's certain volumes we have to pass through. But there wasn't a recognition in the buyer program that the type of volumes you buy are also very important. So I think we've got a much more balanced incentive program for our buyers now. John, you were involved in that. That was an overall comment.

Absolutely. Also linked to that is an overarching EBIT expectation.

Yes. Yes, exactly. Got to get margin back into the business. Thank you, gentlemen. Thanks, Rowan.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Lyndon Fagan from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Just back to the balance sheet. Warwick, noted your comments about one times EBITDA being a target for you, but I guess the EBITDA number itself is very volatile, ranging anywhere from mid to low hundreds to almost a billion. I mean, how should we be thinking about Are you looking at a 10-year average, a 5-year average? Just a bit more colour about how you're thinking about managing the balance sheet. And then I've got a follow-up. Thanks.

Yeah, good day, Lyndon. Yes, no, certainly not a point-on-point EBITDA. Given the volatility in this industry, it's certainly an average. I haven't yet come to a conclusion in terms of what that should look like. That's the work that's in front of us in terms of actually sort of working through that.

Yeah, I mean, it does sort of raise a few questions going forward, which sort of leads me to my next one. I mean, it's been a little while now that we've been talking about competitive pressures in scrap purchasing. should there be any permanent erosion of margin in North America? I'm just wondering, you've got the confidence to try and get margin back in, but when I look at the historical averages, is there any certainty of getting back there? I just would love to get a bit more colour on, I guess, the key drivers on why we're at such a low margin and how you expect to unravel margin that back to a more comfortable position.

Thanks. First of all, and I will definitely get John to chime in at the end here as well. I do think we have confidence that margins get back into the US business. There has been some highly unusual events that have caused some of this and they will wash their way through the system. I mean, I know it feels like COVID is a distant memory, but COVID drove a lot of behaviour that is now flowing through. People drove their cars less, therefore they didn't put as many miles on their cars, they crashed them less. So that rump of potential shredder infeed hasn't come out of the system yet, but it will come out of the system and It's not just us, it's a global phenomenon. When you look at our competitors' results, you look at what's worrying them. The inflow has definitely been subdued, but it can't be subdued forever. It will come out. It's a market that should mean revert. So we do have confidence around that. The timing of it is obviously part of the issue. But completely separate from that, Getting margin back into the business is not just about volumes, it's about the type of volumes. As John said, we are well positioned. We have shredders in excellent locations that are not fully utilised. We are in a position to sensibly get margin back into the business by buying more unprocessed scrap and particularly NAM having options to sell it domestically. John, anything specific you want to add to that?

I'd just say, you know, the longer-term tar winds in our industry are still very, very strong, the electrification of everything. Invariably, people with internal combustion engines are going to be challenged with the thought of shifting to an electric vehicle, and I think there is a little bit of hesitation at the moment. People have held onto their cars longer for all the reasons that Stephen talked about. They've been driving them less, they're probably travelling less distance, and they're not crashing them. And I think... At some point that will normalize and people will probably make that shift to electric vehicles, which means there's an enormous pool of internal combustion engines out there that eventually will need to get recycled, shredded. So the medium and longer term prospects around that are very, very strong. There's no doubt in my mind that interest rates, cost of living pressures, all the things that we're seeing globally, ongoing inflation, albeit off its peaks, but still there, are playing a role in consumer sentiment. And if you look at consumer spend, there's a lot of spend in things like restaurants and entertainment and travel, and not a lot of spend around durable goods. And again, eventually, that sentiment and the psychology around that will shift and you will see consumers out buying durable goods again, which invariably will mean that they will throw out their old one. So there's a few Dynamics at play.

Thanks, guys. Thanks, Lyndon.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Simon Thackeray from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi, Simon. Thanks. G'day, Stephen. How are you? Just a quickie. You're the third CEO I've covered on this stock in the last 10 years, and we've had two five-year strategies. I just want to understand whether when you give us an update, are we looking at another five-year strategy which is not necessarily volume-orientated, or are you happy, by and large, with the structure of the business and it's some tweaking that you want to do around the unprocessed feed, but other than that, all systems normal?

Yeah, I am, it's fair to say I'm, by and large, happy with the strategy that we've put in place. You know, clearly I was part of the, you know, I just haven't arrived, I was part of the team that put that strategy in place. I think what we're doing here, you know, and What we're doing here is acknowledging that the market has moved over the last year in particular and quite dramatically, and we have to tweak. We have to respond to it to get margin back in the business. So it is around, you know, our core business hasn't changed, our core strategy hasn't changed, selling high-quality products, furnace-ready to our customers. We're having to tweak the sourcing of that because...

That's encouraging and very helpful. So I guess with that in mind, you described a scrap drought at the moment. So maybe just explain how your joint venture partner has managed with 60% domestic and 80% unprocessed to deliver only 100 basis point drop in trading margin versus 370 for North America and why it's been apparent to them for so long where the market's going.

So what I would say is for the same reasons that ANZ has also gone well, you know, performed relatively well throughout that period as well. It's the core position of their market. I mean, you know, our assets in North America are coastal facing and have always been a great advantage. And, you know, there's been periods of time where exactly the opposite has happened. And I, you know, it wasn't long after I joined where the market structure didn't suit SAR and it had quite a lean period while NAM did very well. It's market structure, because the US is certainly not one market. The northeast coast and the northwest is completely different from the Midwest, from down Florida. They are very, very different markets depending on how that market has grown up. I'm not too proud to say we can't learn out of our, you know, out of SA Recycling's book as well. And we are working and we talk closely with them and we are refining our strategy, you know, particularly around how we're going to source to meet the new market. And that's all I can say. And that's what we're going to, I mean, I guess now, Simon, that's what we have to deliver on.

So just summarising there, Stephen, are you characterising that more as a cyclical and some structural elements, but more cyclical than structural?

I think there is, I think the most structural change, and the structural change is around just, around the US versus the rest of the world, and just the sheer growth that's been put into the US market from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Build Back Stronger Act and all those various acts have just the demand that's grown in the US, and then you combine that with Section 232, which is the Act that says there's not going to be external competition in the US, it's going to be all domestic. It has really fuelled, and it's a structural change, it's fuelled that domestic market, and the domestic market has replied by building an extraordinary amount of growth in EAFs, which is fuelling the demand for scrap, so therefore You know, where there was maybe a cyclical element where, you know, export-domestic, export-domestic, export-domestic type cycle, I think we're saying for the next foreseeable future, I don't know, is it the next 10 years, it's really hard to do those types of calls, but it's hard to see the demand for scrap in the US abating, because I don't think who gets into governments, no one's going to remove Section 232, no one's going to try and open up, it's just not going to be populist to open up the US steel market to external competition. So I think that's a structural change that we're facing.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that assessment. And just at the margin, a tiny little follow-up question. The new Blue Scope New Zealand EAF, which is obviously backed by government funding and guaranteed scrap supply, I know this is small in the context, but what does that mean for ANZ export volumes when that comes online?

Oh, well, I guess, well, it's means that the volume that goes into that mill won't be available for export. So I think that's another interesting facet as well. I think we're seeing, you know, our other viewers, we're seeing the regionalisation of scrap happening more as countries are wanting to make sure that they have a steel industry.

Great. I'll leave it there. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thanks, Simon.

Thanks.

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

Thanks very much for everybody joining us on the call. We will see most of you over the next few days as we walk around Sydney and we walk around Melbourne. Thank you very much for attending.

Thank you, and that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.