Shoprite Hldgs Ltd S/Adr

Good morning and welcome to the 2024 results presentation for the 52 weeks ended 30 June 2024. Special welcome to our shareholders, fund managers, the media, and also our employees that are joining on this link. I want to use this opportunity before we go into more of the detail. absolutely are indebted to the people of ShopRite. Team ShopRite has once again defied all odds to deliver an exceptional set of results of which I am extremely proud and words is not enough to thank Team ShopRite. Our presentation will have the same format as usual with the exception that From the overall helicopter view of what happened in the past year, I will continue updating you on where our medium-term thinking is, where our attention will be directed to. And then finally, Anton will unpack the financial detail And we did this order change because I know in the end you are very interested in what the numbers are and what they mean and how to interpret them. For the fund managers, it's important to do your modeling on that. So we thought let's leave you with that. And then we end with the questions if you want clarity on things that we did not cover. It is a fairly comprehensive process. attend from us to cover the entire business in as close as an hour as we can. It is a rather large business to cover so quickly, but we will do our best. In summary, it's again a fantastic performance, outperforming the market on a revenue side almost by double. And it is the fifth year in a row that the ShopRite group have managed to outrun the market. We are not going to bore you with excuses and what went wrong and what is difficult. We all face them, so I will not throughout the presentation refer to load shedding, infrastructure problems, high interest rates, low economic growth, customers struggling, affordability, none of that. You all are very familiar with the South African context, so we will rather stick to what we can control. So just a quick summary of the year that was. For us, it remains imperative that we execute with precision what we deem to be our purpose and what we set out there to achieve for customers. Customers drive what we do and their needs and their requirements and changes in behavior. That is what we base our actions on, not the reverse. Very proud to be recognized as a top employer for 2024. We employed almost 6,500 new members to our team. We opened 292 new stores. We have launched first the extra savings subscription model. That was a defensive play for new entrants in the market, and we see very good traction in that, followed by more digital investment on digital. The check is hyper-proposition. News24 named ShopRite Group as company of the year. Extra Savings got some awards. The Employee Trust did payouts worth over $500 million to qualified employees. It means that not only are we customer-focused, but our people are important. That's how we deliver, through people. 6060 continues to really delight and inspire people. Like I mentioned when we started, the revenue or sales for that matter has grown double the market. And with that, by default, another year of very good market share gains. For me, a staggering amount is if we look at the value that's attributed to additional sales for the year, amounts to almost $26 billion. That is incredible. If we talk percentages... Just mentioning there, it's a 12%, but the like-for-like sales, if you look at our internal inflation, it will explain why we had some good volume growth, and I'll get to that now. Gross profit, almost $58 billion in monetary value, up 11.7. And in this very competitive market, and I will also again later on show the numbers that we have, given back in discounts, instant discounts, to consumers at the point, but still managed to be the most affordable retailer and maintain our margins. Slight reduction from 24.1% to 24% for this year, year on year. Trading profit is up a healthy 12.4% above that of the sales growth. And later on, Anton will help clarify the difference between the trading profit growth and that of diluted headline earnings per share, which are equal to the 7.4% growth in the dividend paid this year versus last year. Very pleasing to say we have again, it's now five years in a row, increased our number of customer visits, and basket size growth is actually, in this environment we're in, is exceptional because you will see that customers are much more promotional item focused. And hopefully, I think in the ShopRite environment, because we give such good promotions and so wide for the things that people need, that they save enough to be able to buy an additional item. The volume growth I've referenced to, the first half of the year, we did not grow positively on volumes, but that turned around in the second half, where inflation actually came down, speaking to a little bit of the affordability of consumers or their ability to have discretionary income. And important, I always say this, is that We need to grow volume to assist our suppliers and manufacturers because that is their greatest tool to reduce their input costs. Sometimes it's good to just zoom out a little bit and let's look at a three-year snapshot quickly. Let me just say, where will we be in 2021 and where are we now? And that's just the absolute numbers. It's not year on year on year. It is absolute between 21 and 24 years. And we've listed a few items there. So sales grew by 43%, or let's rather say that is more meaningful for me. It's almost $73 billion. We have been speaking quite a bit about how other income is going to grow, probably in excess of what revenue will grow in time to come with all these investments we made now starting to show a return on investment. And this will require us to start looking differently at margins as a percentage. If we look completely only at gross profit margin, I always say that customers don't really mind where the discount comes from, whether we took it from other income or we used some gross margin money to give them a better deal on a promotion. And in time, we will have to adapt to that also. Dividends, I already mentioned, but it's an additional billion almost. Stores grew by 744. It's a lot, I know. And that's why we stay on quite strong capital spent, capital investment in these. Also, not only new stores, but a fair amount of capital being invested in store revamps to make them fresh and new and enticing for people to come. Part of what I reference, why one gets the result of growing your customer base, because it is a pleasant experience. And extra savings globally, this is not only South Africa, globally this is a top class program, and also in absolute numbers, if one takes 31 million adults over the adult population of South Africa, that number is between 70-75%, which is incredible. And they use it. About 85% of our sales is accompanied with an extra savings swipe. 60 60 we all now know what a fantastic story it is 550 percent and now it gets into numbers that it's difficult to comprehend but continuous growth and this year again so I thought it'll just give us a little glimpse of you know where were we and what has happened actually but Again, for me, the absolute numbers is more meaningful than the percentages. Percentages can have a low base and be a high. So in this case, it's a high base and big numbers. So I have mentioned that we've outgrown the market by almost twice. We believe we are winning with our customers because we are so obsessed with what it is our customers need. The other thing that we're obsessed with, if I can use that word twice, is data and I'll get to that also, but it's the data and the fact-driven decisions that we can make based on what we see customers want and how they behave. Just as a reference point, if we exclude the mass-market stores, sales growth would come down to 10.5%. Without question, Checkers is the fastest growing grocery in the premium food segment. We're happy about that. It's almost as if we're currently in a scenario where Checkers and ShopRite is a South Africa incorporated hedge between people that has more discretionary income and giving people that are very price sensitive what they need at the absolute best prices. And In time, depending on how the macroeconomics changes, those two interplay with each other. 60-60, up 58%. USA sales increased for the year, 13.2. Second half of the year grew actually 14.2, so it accelerated. Liquor store, 20% up. Inflation, interesting. I mean, that's why the graph, It looks like there's a decline, but it's the decline in inflation rate. And consistently, you can see our internal inflation has been below official food inflation, ending for the year at 4.2 against the CPI of 5.4. And the food inflation of June only at 3.1%. Now, I know everybody says, you know, high inflation is good for retailers, but we have reached a point where customers have, they out. They cannot anymore. Customers meaning actually consumers. And there's no point in inflation. If I don't have any discretionary income left and prices just keep on going up, I have to buy less. I don't have more money And therefore, we think that lower inflation is not bad for us as a retailer. It's actually, I think it's good for volume growth, certainly. And we will certainly make sure that we give customers, continue to give customers the best possible promotionals and deals. I've said a couple of times before that we don't do knee jerk. We've got a strategy and we... execute against that strategy and for us it's the excellence of execution that surprise and delights the customer and that is our obsession with the customer and make sure that what we have determined is what they need and one is that we do it with operational excellence We've got this multi-year smart shop right data, and I know I probably overemphasize the data and the importance of it, but I just don't see one getting ahead without understanding the consumer better. And take the guessing work out of what to do and where to give your attention. Hence, the building of this data constantly changes. for the last seven, eight years to get a better understanding and then be able to deploy new technologies like artificial intelligence, et cetera, into our tech investments to give not us only a ROI, but a better experience to the consumer, both in-store and digital. We have upgraded the stores. Don't underestimate the in-store experience when you want to go digital omnichannel. It can't be only one. You can't only invest on the digital and you let slip on when customers in store. They still spend more in store. But they use both. So it's complementary. That's why we refer to ourselves as an omnichannel retailer. We continue to invest in technology, a very important part of our capital spent every year, and it will continue to be. As a matter of fact, it will probably increase. We continue to innovate and develop in our fresh food department section of the business for easier, better convenience and the investments in our cold chain capabilities continuously to ensure not only in-store, but by the time that you're in your home, your product is the freshest possible. I've made reference to market share before, five years of market share gains. In actual fact, it's 64 months of consecutive market share gains. Sales growth versus the rest of market, if you look at that graph, it looks like it's a diminishing graph. As a matter of fact, it obviously has the reference back to what the inflation is. What's important of that graph is that that gap remains. Now, we pride ourselves on saying we are Africa's most accessible and affordable retailer. It's not a marketing story. It's factual. So much so, and I love this, very creative from our marketing team is to create what it is in the form of the logo. Because affordability for us equals a promise. It's not a statement. It's not a marketing ploy. And if I show you that number now, or we talk about that number of what that meant for the consumer, but that sort of collects For me, what it is that ShopRite in particular stands for. A price promise. Most affordable supermarket in South Africa. We stick to our five grand solutions. My old story of, you know, I can do something small. I can be a car guard for an hour. I can get a five grand coin. I can buy a loaf of bread. Since 2016, we kept the price at five grand. If you compare that with what is currently the average price of bought-in bread, R17.99 around, maybe on promotion R15.99, you understand that we invest a lot to help people actually survive and make a meal, something in the stomach for R5. On top of that, there's no other retailer that I'm aware of that sells products for one rand that is commercially produced and available every day. But the ShopRite group does. You think about that. You can pick up a one rand coin and surprise and delight a kid with a packet of biscuits at one rand. That's what we think about. When I say we're customer obsessed, that's then the result of that. To put it into the bigger picture, for me, a staggering amount. It's almost difficult to believe, but almost 17 billion Rand in instant savings at till point in the last year through our extra savings customer discounts. Customers love it. On the spot. Not... and I redeem it later for a coffee mug. Instantly. And on the products that I need so that I can maybe buy something extra. I can now buy a one-rand suite for my kid also. What has become a very fine balance is the discounts, the promotions, the width of the promotion, balancing that with the gross profit margin. Because you will see that it's the highest contribution of promotional sales to the basket that we've ever had. And it's continuously increasing. It actually varies between brands. Some brands it's higher than that. And still for the ShopRite group to maintain gross profit margin is exemplary. Most of you are familiar with this slide where we illustrate just how we cover the entire spectrum of the consumer market. I especially show this for our international shareholders. It is clear that we are a multi-branded retailer. for the purpose to cover the entire spectrum of the South African consumer market. It goes from USAVE, our franchise model, across the spectrum, checkers at the more affluent market, and ShopRite, just this mass, middle, and price-sensitive market, and with it all, covering the entire customer base. We have of late went into some adjacent categories For very good reason. We are in pet, but there are certain pet products only allowed to be sold in specialized stores. I just quickly want to single out Medirite Plus and Unique Clothing by Checkers. Those were born out of what we saw in consumer behavior. We used to have quite a big clothing section in our hyper stores, and we noticed that people... They'd like to buy those in a specialized store. And understandably, you know, you buy a chicken and then you throw a shirt on top of that and then you wear it to work tomorrow. It doesn't feel right. So customers started to prefer specialized stores. And the same in the health and wellness section of the business. Not total toiletries, just that people feel, I want to buy that at a specialized or seemingly specialized store. And then we also notice that most of those specialized stores are actually in close proximity to our store entrances. So the supermarket does the hard work to attract the customers, and a lot of people feed off it. And hence that we said, because we own, or not own, we have around 140 pharmacy licenses, we can venture into also a wider selection in these specialized stores. ShopRite and YouSave, the brand, just missed this year the $100 billion mark. And that's not excluding liquor. We've added obviously much more. Also double-digit sales growth, very good. 19 million extra savings members, big number. Those value propositions you can see there on the board. Checkers and checkers hyper, hitting almost 80 billion. Very good growth and by the nature of the offering and what customers buy, it comes at a better margin and that's when I refer to It's almost also on a margin level, a bit of a hedge between ShopRite and Checkers. 12 million extra savings members, very loyal. The rest of the business units, the supermarkets, non-RSA as we refer to it, very happy to say that again this year, now two years going, almost three, hitting our medium-term target of around the 500 million profit contribution. This year, we're good at 631. Typical, what we've become used to in the African context is right at the last month of the year, June, we had some currency devaluations of 50%. So when you convert to REN, gone is the money, but still managed to report a result of 631 money. The other operating segments did well, almost $18 billion in sales, up 21%, which is commendable. What is notable here in other operating segments is OK Franchise. Not that they only go in market share, they increased their loyalty buy from us and they had above 20% purchases from ShopRite directly into business growth, into their business growth. Really a a good momentum we're currently experiencing, and also interest from prospective members to join the franchise team. Now a total of 621 stores. On the furniture side, it's a difficult market for furniture at the moment, but I think the most important point here is that we have scale in food, We certainly don't think we've got scale in furniture per se. To get there and where we come from, it will require substantial investments to really move a dial here. But I am not unhappy with the year on year on the profit line. You will see later, Anton will show that also, around about an 80% profit growth for the year. So it's not that they're not performing, but it is subdued at the moment. This then concludes my operational summary. We're going to continue into just give you a bit of a glimpse into where our headspace is currently for the medium term, where our investments are, what our priorities are. If I just quickly say, this is what we do every day, and it has not changed in the last couple of years, is to uplift lives every day. The lives of people, our customers and our people, our colleagues, our team members. And through all of this, not forgetting also our responsibility to the planet. You're very familiar with this. It's been fairly consistent over the last eight years. But we have to adapt. So we adapt one or two. And this is our priorities for sustainable long-term growth. And if I can just very quickly, I know you know all of these and you can read. But it's in those three columns. A smarter shop, right? And then that slots in there. Places to grow. What can we do? to, as I say, have sustainable long-term growth. If you ever thought, why are we investing in those adjacent new businesses? Because we need to continue to grow. And if you add in a single year $26 billion in additional revenue, you have to look wider than just a single discipline. Also within the core business, there's still a lot of opportunities. investment in the data and how we use it. Winning in the long run, there's that statement of leverage the platform. That is what we do. And if I reference to the flywheel, that's very clear then. Right at the end, I'll show it again, although I know you know it. Just quickly, we thought let's just stop for a moment at USAFE. And USAFE usually gets neglected. When we have a visit from a fund manager, so it's always a bit busy and people don't get to USAFE. They are also always in convenient places. So we've got some USAFE products just behind me. I've got my USAFE shirt on today. And I've got a very personal relationship with USAFE. I incubated it. I opened the first store in 2003. And then over time, it has been adapted to what it is today. And what is it today? It is a true limited assortment discounter, hard discounter. Definitely the cheapest formal retail format. In South Africa, 1,900 products on sale. In some regions, we are over a 40% private label contribution, and it's growing by the day. You will see I did reference the 14.2 of the second half, so accelerated growth. The tougher it gets out there, the less disposable income out there, the more relevant USAID becomes. Because of the interplay that there is between ShopRite, the larger store format, and you save. I know I'm repeating myself. I explained it before, but with the interplay is very simple. That month ends when I have a bit of disposable income. I go to the shop, right? The offering is much wider. There's other services. And anyway, I have to go into town, maybe pay something else in insurance or whatever. And mid-month, I'm a little bit strapped. So I can now save my transport money, which has become very expensive. and I can walk to a YouSafe and get my essentials. That's the interplay. We're also not ignoring digital. We have a digital presence. It doesn't mean we are moving away from a no-fraud business. We're just there on the mediums where our customers are. And certainly I believe that there's room for at least 1,000 of these stores in South Africa over the next five years. And we've got the various formats. The one on that picture is the Ikazi store. We use these formats, especially where we can't own land, like in tribal land areas. And also when there's very limited infrastructure, we can put these down and don't. have these people that live in these areas at a disadvantage and not having access to these products and pricing. And then we have a normal standard USAFE is around about 750 square meters. So we decided to just show you this video clip, give you a little bit of insight of what USAFE is and what customers think of it.

Keeping us in a better environment, you know. Normally to go to the shop you must catch a taxi. So to go to Amherst, it's too far. So if it's better from here, you can just walk to buy something.

From where I stay, I come here, I don't have to pay for transport. It changed our lives.

The store is making things easier for us. The variety of goods, everything is here, everything is accessible.

It makes a lot of difference because USAID is where we buy more products for less.

I hope that helped a little bit for those that are not familiar with the use of concept, what it's all about. Precision retail, I've been saying for a long time in the beginning, I don't think I was understood at all. It's becoming the terminology of a lot of retailers these days. If you're not laser focused, precise on retail, what the customer looks like, that you serve, with which brand, and then in return, what you then give them, offer them in terms of promotions and assortment and when. Not everybody has money at the same point in time. So it's important for us to continue with this. And just as an illustration of why extra savings work, has been an award-winning rewards program. It's the most used in South Africa. Of the 51 million members, they have swiped 560 million times, and that then equates to a sales contribution of 85%. And in that, we have 5,000 data points of... customer purchases behavior on each member. That will assist us in determining what the correct pricing is, what the right assortment is, what we need to promote and drive this whole notion of precision retail. As part of the precision retailing is what does it mean? So in the last year we have deployed a smarter pricing and promotion tool. It's things that the human can't do. Gone are the days that it's the gut feel of a buyer to say, this is the product I'm going to put out and this is going to go on advert. So we can actually determine with the data which is the preferred decision. And to illustrate what this can do is it has got 83,000 item relationships, through artificial intelligence, the pricing engine then makes recommendations to the buyer, just giving us better ability to get the pricing absolutely right. Assortment, similarly, that links into the right assortment at store level, and then the personalization, by definition is I get a different item at a discount to the person next to me opposed to a shotgun approach of general marketing. Looking at future channels, not only the fantastic growth results, performance, profitability, et cetera, coming from 60-60, also now advancing into more categories. I will cover that now. Beautiful story, since 6060 started, created over 11,500 new job opportunities. And in the last 12 months, it was extended to another 73 locations. And you can see, although a lot of people thought that after COVID this will fall off a cliff, as a matter of fact, it's just continuing to grow. On the right-hand side, you will see the delivery performance. So you can see every year we've improved on that. And now with the average delivery time at 33 minutes, if you think what does that really mean, it's not a record of any sort that we're trying to achieve, but that now reduces the amount and the necessity of additional investment in cold facility, keeping product fresh, because... 33 minutes is much faster than what any shopper would do by themselves, putting it in your car, going home and that. So it's just another enhancement to make sure that when the product reaches your house, your home, that it's fresh, as fresh as possible. In the digital world, one must continuously innovate to stay relevant and to keep the eyeballs on your platform. So what is new? We're going to extend the offer gradually. from 6060 to also include now additional 10,000 general merchandise products. And that means now on a single platform, you could order both your on-demand 6060 grocery and liquor requirement and also order some general merchandise that requires a larger delivery vehicle, but still be able to have a same-day delivery within a 60-minute window. So you determine when will I be home, and I select that time slot, but in the same day you will still get your delivery. It may sound like I'm overemphasizing the importance of data and data-driven decision-making, but not only does that allow us to give consumers what they need and at the right price. It also allowed us to earn alternative income from these investments and from the information we have and how we can help other brands and our associates and partners with their own products, determining when people consume it, when they are good for it on a promotion and when not. And also reduce the wastage when we fish when there are no fish. Rainmaker Media has really started to settle down. There's great interest in the market to use that medium. The ShopRite Rex platform, you will remember we had a partnership with Dunhumby before. Now we've taken this all in-house, you know, the thing of becoming a master of your own destiny, and through that also has now assisted our financial services, investments, growth, opportunities to be seized, really understanding what it is our consumers are looking for. And in one sentence, what we try to achieve through the financial services is to reduce the cost of transacting with us so that it gives you more discretionary income. Private label stays a topical subject all around the retail in the world. So Africa is no different. I've mentioned before that we don't have a specific target to reach at all costs because it will drive the wrong behavior. So Africa has got a very limited... supply of products and manufacturing capability. Certainly in our industry, it is not infinite. And our manufacturers are very sensitive in terms of volume. We are actually a very small community, and we are very protective to also help our suppliers through all of the macro environment that we have lifted. So we look at private labels completely different. It's not more of the same. It's what is missing in a category, and then that is where our attention goes. The result of that is we have now got 35 of our own private labels, or call it confined labels, that is now worth or exceeds 100 million of annual sales. A big change in consumer behavior is There's a higher propensity of people buying into private label as much as 96% of all of our customers now buys into that. Very great statistic is everybody always say local support, local support. We certainly do. If you think that slightly less than 90% of our sales comes from out of South Africa, the rest outside of South Africa, and our private labels sourced locally amounts to over 90%. Very good number for us. We do support local. We've introduced a lot of new labels this year, 846. We won some awards. Difficult category baby. Very pleased to have such a high quality product. Partnerships is important to us. We know we're not the best at everything. We can't do everything. OK Franchise is really exemplary partnership. I mentioned before that there's great interest and more and more so in that brand. As we give it more and more attention, we... are going to invest into growing that business, and we see the results. They grow our sales into our franchisees have grown by 23.8%, and they have managed their sales out in total market, measured by total market sales. They've increased their market share, which is great. Also, something new, we're fantastically happy or rather elated today by the fact that we can join the Discovery Vitality Program from September. And where we are is you are now have got the ability to select between what digital platform you want to use and what physical platform you want to use in terms of the whole food buy. We also of late have decided to join forces with some global players. especially on the tech side of the business where there are a lot of innovative startups. And it's expensive on your own to actually scale them and start to use their products and integrate it. So we formed a partnership called W23 between Sobeys from Canada, Tesco, Alderleys, and Woolworths Australia. And the idea behind this is that we will decide on a common purpose of investment. And where we are currently, it would actually result in anything that we do is multiplied by five in terms of costs. And what we try to achieve is divide by five in terms of the cost that we can share commonly in non-competing technology. We've now mentioned a few times that we invest for the future and for the long term. This year, we have invested substantially in expanding our distribution capability and capacity. First part of it is necessitated by deteriorating service levels inbound into our business, running at around 80%. With an outbound service level, that means from our distribution centers to stores at 99%. Hence, see this also together with our stockholding for us to ensure the on-shelf availability that supports customer service and the lighting of customers. When they come to stores, the product they're looking for is there, but also digital. They, not they, but the digital customer is even more demanding. They want it now, and they want it within an hour, and we deliver it in 33 minutes, but it's no good if I give you a half of what you order. So you can only deliver on that promise if you have the product on shelf. So we've increased quite a bit our on-shelf availability levels, although we also manage to keep stockholding as a percentage to revenue or sales equal to last year. We also have to support the number of new stores. I mean, the last year we opened 292 stores. This year we plan to do 265. Important point that I also must mention is really is the replatforming of our point-of-sale system We really sweated that asset as far as we could. And we've got this new state-of-the-art latest technology on a sales system that will allow us to now accelerate and introduce more of things we couldn't do before because of the aging of the platform. And then kudos to our IT team and also GK. a record deployment for both them and us for a project of this nature. And we are very confident that we will be done before peak season starts. We don't forget our responsibility to firstly our people, and people meaning our customers, and also then the planners. So we donated surplus food, almost $234 million for the year. The sustainable community food gardens, we have 248. Staggering number. I mean, 88 tons of food. And that's, in most cases, the entire livelihood of that community and the people around them. A good story. And we're in there with heart and soul, and we give a lot of effort to our people in all of the communities where we trade. In terms of the environment, we're driving what we can control the hardest. That is our in-store packaging. We're almost there that we can claim at some point that all of our own in-house packaging is reusable, recyclable, or compostable. It is widely publicized how much we already have done in terms of renewable energy. Six and a half percent of our total requirement is now there. Also big numbers, recycled, reusable, 67,000 tons of cardboard and plastic. And we also have commenced with probably one of the first wheeling examples where we wheel renewable energy to a specific location and that holds very good for introducing more renewable energy into into our environment in time to come you're all very familiar with our flywheel i'm not going to explain this again it's very clear where each of the developments and investments actually fits in this flywheel. The important thing that I want to reiterate and leave with you is that we understand, all of us, that the core supermarket business allows us to do all these adjacencies and assist in the customer experience, and also help us to continually grow and continually be innovative and interesting and with the partnerships and really try to give consumers a surprise and delight experience when they interact with us. This is the end of my part of the presentation. I hand you over to our very capable CFO, Anton LeBrain.

Thank you, Peter, for that introduction and also giving us some insights into the operational performance of the business and also reminding us of some of the key drivers that is driving the growth within the group. Before I delve into the numbers, there's two aspects that I would just like to deal with and remind just the listeners. The first one is we adopted IPR 17 during the financial year, which meant that we had to restate our 2023 financial results. And secondly, the Ghana region has been identified and classified as hyperinflationary, which means that our Ghana operation will also have to account in terms of hyperinflation. If I look at sales growth, I spoke about that 12% growth. Total income increasing 12.1% to 63.5 billion. Total expenses increased by 12.1% to 50.1 billion rand. And I think what pleasing was for management is that we saw a slowdown in expenditure growth during the second half where we saw a 9.5% expense growth on the back of a 10.1% sales growth. compared to that 14.8% expense growth that we saw in the first half. Mainly driven through, obviously, our saving within our load sheeting cost, which I will deal with later. Trading profit increased by 12.4% to 13.4 billion. And again, if I look at EBITDA, strong growth and reflection of the cash generation capabilities within the group to around 20.5 billion rand. Diluted headline earnings per share increased by 7.4%. And there seems to be a lag between what we see in our trading profit growth, vis-à-vis our diluted headline earnings per share, but one has to take into account base effects where we had a foreign exchange profit in the prior year that mainly resulted as we saw the Angolan Kwanzaa devalue during June of last year. And because of our hedging position in terms of our US dollar link bonds, we realized a 384 million rent profit. which gave rise to the increases in profit during our 2023 numbers. Also, a difference between what we look at trading profit and our profit before tax is the impact of the move within our finance costs in terms of the IFRS 16 leases, where we saw another 17% increase in the current year, which I will deal with later in the presentation. I think a more comparable number for us when we compare our trading profit growth will be to look at our adjusted headliner index per share growth, where we saw a 10.3% growth. Return on invested capital excluding IFRS 16 was 16.3% versus a 15% in the prior year and a WAC rate of 13.8%. Just a reminder on why do we look at ROIC excluding IFRS 16 is that we deem the lease liability that we account for as part of our invested capital as a non-cash flow item. Our dividend per share for the year, very positive growth of 7.4% in line with our diluted headline earnings per share growth for the full year dividend of 712 cents with a final dividend of 445 cents. Our return on equity was 26% versus a prior year of 24.8%. If we then turn to sales, Peter spoke a lot about what we've seen within the supermarkets RSA, where we saw that 12.3% growth to $195 billion, like-for-like sales growth of 6.3% and internal self-proof inflation. of 5.8%, nearly hitting that 6 billion rand sales target. Positive growth within ShopRite, YouSafe, the checkers stores, another 20% growth in our liquor business. And increasingly is where we look at our unique clothing by checkers, as well as the outdoor stores where we nearly reached a billion rand turnover in a very short period. Supermarkets non-RSA increased sales by 6.1% to 20.8 billion, with light for light sales of 4.3% and internal inflation of 9.3%. We've spoken about it so many times around the devaluations in the local currency and compared to the constant currency growth. of 22.1%. We again see a devaluation in Zambia of around 25.8% for the full year and Angola another 60%, which had a negative impact on purely looking at the rent conversion of the sales. Furniture increased by 2.3%. to 7.2 billion rand. Our credit participation was in line with prior year with around 14.9%. Although we saw more positive contribution as sales growth within our rest of Africa business, the South African market remained muted during the second half as well. Other operating segments that is mainly driven by the growth In our OK Franchise business, as well as our Pharmacy and MediRite business, we saw a growth of 21.1% to $17.7 billion. OK Franchise business grew at 23.8%, and our Pharmaceutical business showed increase of 15.3%. Although the group has got a strong franchise offering, the heart and the core of the ShopRite group is through our corporate store portfolio, where we currently have 2,322 stores. We added 201 stores, which came to about 4.5% in space growth. If I look at what we're going to add next year, we're going to add another 195 stores, which will equate to around 4.3% in space growth. We saw positive growth throughout many of our banners, and I think what's more exciting is that we've seen positive growth in stores. In ShopRite, we will add another 34 stores, Checkers and the hyper, we will add 38 and 1 stores. And then our liquor business, still opening more than one store a week, planned for next year at 61 as well. Our pet shop, we said during our previous presentation that we aim to open our 100th store by June, but we missed that target. And from the new store openings, it looks like we will be hitting that target before the end of December. If I look at total income, we saw an increase of 12.1% to 63.5 billion rand. Excluding the impact of our loss of profit insurance plan that we received in the prior year, that growth number would be around 12.6% for the year. Gross profit increased by 11.7% to 57.7 billion, with a slight decrease in margin from 24.1% to 24%. I think what is important to note is that the gross margin that we show here is a combination of all the segments. So although we saw a slight improvement and increase within our supermarkets RSA, the other segments we saw a slight decrease, especially from a non-RSA point of view where we saw those currency devaluations. I think what is very important to note again is also what Peter referenced to is the 16.9 billion Rand price investment in our customers. And then what is pleasing me is how we still managed a good performance in terms of our shrinkage and waste management. Other operating income, we saw a 15.2% increase and I will unpack that in the next slide. Interest revenue that we earned from our franchise business, now members, as well as our furniture business, and then more excitingly as well, the growth that we saw within our Credex business, we saw an 8.3% increase to $759 million. Our share of profit of equity accounted investments. This is where we refer to our investment in Pingo, our last mile service that we have as part of our 60-60 offering where we own 50% of the business. We saw some strong growth. And then as well as the retail logistics fund. where we saw the expansion and funded the expansion of our cadence distribution in KwaZulu-Natal, as well as the new Wales Estate Distribution Centre that we're developing in the Eastern Cape. We saw an increase of 6.8% to R268 million. Insurance revenue linked to our furniture book and sell, we saw an increase of 19.2% to 298 million rand. The Ghana hyperinflation I referred to, the net monetary gain, was around 135 million rand. If I then look at the various components of other operating income, what excites me about this slide is that Peter spoke a lot about some of these brands and banners and new business units, the RECs, the extra savings, Rainmaker. And if we look at all those various revenue streams, we see a growth of more than 20% on all three of those business units. Again, if I just had to exclude the impact of the insurance claim, this part of our income statement line actually increased by 23.3%. Just quickly, some of the income lines, our commissions received from our in-store kiosks. We saw an increase of 11.7% to 1.2 billion rand. And there I must also mention the increase that we saw and the profitability that we saw within our computer business. I spoke about directs and extra savings as well as our 60-60 business. where we saw an increase of 22.5% in delivery income on the back of that 58.1% sales growth in our 60-60 business, and then Redmaker, in a very short period of time, already producing revenue of R473 million. Operating leases reduced slightly by 1.5%, and it's just part of the process on how we're consolidating our property portfolio. If you look at the notes to the financials, you will see that there's another billion rand of assets held for sales where we're consolidating our property portfolio. Franchise fees received increased by 10.2% to R183 million on the back of that 23.8% revenue growth. If we turn to expenses and unpacking expense growth, we saw a growth of 12.1% to R50 billion, but our expense margin currently at 20.8%. Some of the major lines and cost elements within that total expenses were depreciation and amortization, where we saw an increase of 15.2% to 7.3 billion rand, still within that target range of 3% to sales that we've set ourselves. We saw growth on PPE to around 3 billion for the full year. Depreciation on our right of use assets was about 4.2 billion rand. And then we also saw an increase in some of our intangible assets in terms of our software developments, the increase in depreciation there, as well as we started landing some of these capabilities and projects, which I will deal with when we talk about our capital expenditure. Employee benefits increased by 13% to R19.2 billion. I think what makes the group very proud is that we were able to create 6,419 new jobs. We contributed, again, more than R100 million to the youth employment scheme. Peter mentioned that ESOP and how we staff benefited through that 247 million Rand paid for the year. The 500 million Peter mentioned was already for cumulative up to this financial year. And then last but not least, we continue investing in our staff in terms of training, and this year again, we spent R460 million on training. Insurance expenses relates to our insurance sale, where we saw an increase of 33.8% to R178 million. Other operating expenses increased by 10.2% to R23.4 billion, and The majority of that expense, we saw our electricity and water increase by 1.9%. You will remember that in the previous financial year, we spent close to 1.3 billion rand on diesel costs. That cost reduced to around 754 million for the year. We did not get that full saving because we obviously had to spend electricity costs. And I think the best way to understand the impact of the interplay between the diesel spend and electricity is to look at the electricity and water costs as a percentage of sales. Historically, we were running at a 2% ratio to sales. We saw that spike in the previous year up to 2.4%, and we're currently at 2.2%. So as the load shedding improves, there's no reason why we can't normalize back to that 2% ratio. Some of the other expenses that also increased worth mentioning is our advertising expenditure, where we saw a 10.5% increase to R4.1 billion, and that's on the back of supporting the growth within the business. as well as some of the advertising costs relating to our rainmaker business. We saw our maintenance expense increase at 12.1% to 2.8 billion rand, and then our security costs increased by 13.5%, which included some once-off expenses relating to protecting our stores during the election period. And pleasingly, we saw a slight reduction in our insurance costs, You will recall during the last year, we saw an increase of more than R100 million in our PTS insurance, and we saw a reduction during the last financial year in that. I then turned to trading profit through the various segments, saw that 12.4% growth to R13.4 billion, and I think pleasingly is our trading margin at 5.6%. We have not moved away from our longer-term target of achieving that 6% trading margin, From a supermarket's RSA point of view, 11% growth to 12 billion rand with a trading margin of 6.2%. Again, very pleasingly, if we look at our performance in the first half, we had a trading margin of 6%, improved during our second half to a 6.3% trading margin on the back of those cost savings that we achieved through our low cheating costs. Supermarkets non-RSA increased its trading profit by 6.2%. to R631 million. We did see a slight pullback in the profitability of that segment during the second half as a result of the currency devaluations we spoke about earlier, especially in key markets like Zambia and Angola. And we also had to take a credit loss impairment on our loan structures within the resilient property structure of R112 million. Our furniture business on the back of a 2.3% sales growth, so 82.2% profit growth. to R195 million as a result of insurance revenue and insurance income within that business within the second half maturing, as well as an improvement in our provisioning in terms of IFRS 9. Other operating segments increased by 18.5% to R506 million and mainly driven by that strong growth that we saw within our franchise operations. A year ago, we were standing here and I showed this graph and we were looking at interest rates. And by now, all of us would have hoped that we would have seen a reduction in interest rates. There's a lot of talk about reductions now in September, but the elevated level of interest rates has had a negative impact on our net finance costs, where we saw an increase of 17.5% to R3.8 billion. The majority of that finance cost relates to our lease liabilities. where we saw an increase of 17.3% to 3.6 billion. Our interest on our bank accounts that we earned, we increased by 16.8% to 529 million rand. And then our borrowings, although we saw a slight decrease in our borrowings with the elevated interest rates, we actually saw an increase of 17.7% to 704 million rand. If we then turn to more of the balance sheet indicators, we saw a very strong improvement in our borrowings to equity ratio where we went from 24.2% to 21.6%. And we had strong cash flows out of the rest of Africa back into Mauritius. And that really helped us to reduce our reliance on US dollar borrowings from $29 million down to $8 million. We moved $70 million or repatriated $70 million from our operations in Angola back to ShopRite International. And we also were able to move or repatriate $14 million that was restricted in Nigeria back to our operations in Mauritius. Our right of use assets increased by 3.7 billion rand and our lease liabilities increased by 4.9 billion rand. We saw a very strong positive move within our working capital. If I break it down, we saw an increase in our inventory levels, which I will discuss later. We also saw an increase in our trade and other receivables on the back of the stronger growth in our furniture book as well as our Credex, the growth in our Credex business. And in trade and other payables, we saw an increase of $7.7 billion. That increase, the majority of that increase was a result of cutoff, where we made a payment of 4.3 billion rand post year end. Now, if we look at our net cash balances of around 8.8 billion, where we saw that improvement of 2.2 billion, part of that is related to the fact that we only paid some of that trade and other payables post year end. We've changed the layout in how we present our capital spent to give the market a better perspective of what we deem as growth capex and the items that's driving that growth within the business. For the year, the group spent 7.7 billion rand on capex and as a percentage of sales, that is 3.2%, slightly higher than the target of 3% that we've set ourselves. But during our previous communications, we did give guidance to the market that we would spend additional cost and refurb costs on the stores we acquired from Asmart. That was $433 million for the year. And then secondly, also the expansion within the supply chain that Peter referenced to as well. From a growth CapEx point of view, that $5.7 billion, the majority of that was spent on our 292 new stores, supply chain we spoke about. And then some of the projects that was actually landed during the year and on which we're currently working is the point of sale system, where we've rolled out more than a third of the portfolio of the stores, the 60-60 general merchandise delivery that Peter spoke about, and then the personalization and pricing engine that we also roll out during the year. And then REX, there's continued developments on REX, but we can already see the positive revenue growth What is important to note is that all these projects are currently in implementation phase, already implemented, and that also gives rise to the increase in our depreciation costs where we have to depreciate these projects. From a maintenance capex point of view, 26% of our capex was spent on that, and it was around 2 billion rand. We then turned to inventory, saw a growth of 13.1% to 28.4 billion rand for the year, The majority of that increase was within the supermarkets RSA business, where we saw a 2.7 billion rand increase. What is pleasing for management is that although we had the expansion within Canelands, as well as already taking more than 450 million rand stock in on our Riverfield site, we still maintained our inventory to sales ratio in line with last year, around that 11.7 or 8%. From a supermarkets RSA point of view, the majority of the stock increases are within our distribution centers. And if I look at the store portfolio, excluding the impact of the distribution centers, we actually saw an improvement within the stock turn in our stores. And we see that improvement from the 8% to 7% in the due to sales ratio. Some of the reasons why we invested in additional stockholding is obviously to support that growth in our stores and also how we service our franchisees, maintaining our in-stock levels and servicing our 60-60 customers through our store portfolio and then the distribution expansion. Supermarkets non-RSA, we saw a slight increase of 200 million rand. And then although furniture looked like we had an increase of more than close to 1%, it's really on the back of the muted sales growth. From a Rand cent point of view, we saw a 100 million Rand increase. The group understands the importance of cash flow and how it acts as oxygen to deliver on the group strategies. And for us, there are two key metrics that we look at. The first one is a free cash flow conversion ratio. And that's purely using our free cash flow of R15.4 billion as a percentage of EBITDA of R20.5 billion. That gives us that 76% ratio. And the second one is how we look at our operating cash flows. That was around R23.6 billion as a percentage of EBITDA and that was 117%, both two very good performances. If we look at some of the various line items in our pre-cash flow, we saw improvement on our effective tax rate from 30.8% to 30.2% during the year, spoke about that positive inflows in terms of or changes as a result in the working capital, and then our maintenance capex, which gave rise to a free cash flow generation, of 15.4 billion rand and then our expansion capital and our continuation of paying dividends and following our dividend policy which gave rise to a 2.2 increase in our free cash flow If I then look forward to 2025, if we look at certain other financial indicators, there's no reason why we cannot maintain our income margin currently at 26%. And then if I look at some of the cost growth for the major items within our cost base, staff costs, we currently had around 8% ratio to sales. No reason why we cannot maintain that. Electricity and water spoke about that improvement in load shedding that we hope over the medium term will be able to get us back to that 2% ratio of sales and depreciation currently sitting at that 3% ratio to sales. We sometimes forget the impact of finance costs when we compare our trading profit to our headline earnings per share growth or profit before tax. And because it's such a meaningful number, one has to take that into account. We do expect to see an interest rate improvement, but although that improvement will help us marginally, I think the growth within that expense line will again be between 15% to 17% for the full year. Our effective tax rate, we estimate to be between 30% to 30.5%. Trading profit within our non-RSA operations, Peter spoke about that short-term target of 500. We have given Guidance to the market that for a medium term target, we're looking at that 600 to 700 million. That will only be achievable if we have currency stability. And we've already seen, again, currency instability within Ghana, where we saw the hyperinflation impact as well. From an inventory point of view, although the 11.8 for us was a very pleasing number, we have to take into account that we will also take live the Wells Estate distribution center in the Eastern Cape during the year, which should add between 400 and 500 million rand of additional stockholding. And then we're also moving in the second half of the year, we will be moving our transform wholesale business into a new site. From a capital allocation point of view, the board is applying that 1.75 times full year dividend cover. Again, no reason for us to see that change in the short term. And then, although we have a shared buyback authority or mandate in place, Our expansion capital is priority to anything we do within the business. Lastly, from a capital spend point of view, we're looking at around 8 billion rand of capital expenditure on how we will invest in our new stores, as well as refurbing and doing maintenance work in our existing store base. That concludes my part of the presentation. Thank you very much, Peter.

Thank you, Anton. I hope that has clarified a lot of your questions. So while we wait for Anton and for the questions to load, I just quickly want to take you through the two post-balance sheet transactions that occurred. I'm sure by now you've read both our sense and that of PECOR around our furniture and the decision we made around the furniture segment. So just very quickly then, I think there's a lot of detail in the sense per se. So it's a sale of assets and includes both of the brands, Crooked Furniture and Haseno, excluding the geographical areas of Angola and Mozambique. Why? What were we thinking? It's a question of... We've got scale in food. We don't believe we've got scale in furniture. And therefore, I think the excellent partner in this transaction is Pepcor. And I always feel a little bit guilty because we have got an extensive capital investment program. And every time we get to prioritize, then furniture is the last one to get a bite of the cherry. So for us to really, and I do think there's a lot more one can extract out of that business, and it will require significant capital investment from ShopRite. In this case, it's already been made by the PIPCOR group, and they were able to integrate this seamlessly like we integrate our adjacent businesses in existing infrastructures. They have invested in technology, so I think it's a very good fit for them, and it allows us to appropriate the capital where we are enjoying a much better return. Then also in terms of the Pingo business, where we've been a 50% partner up to now, that is the company that performs the last mile logistics, both as the digital offers. And we have decided to start discussions. We advanced the discussions at this point around getting 100%, acquire 100% of the equity. in bingo. Reason being, simply for us to own end-to-end the customer experience and also to invest how we believe will marry that the most. And also at the pace that one has to advance and enhance the technology to support an ultimate or very good customer experience. In terms of timing, both transactions we expect in the second half of 2025, i.e. after December. So on that, as usual, we very quickly will run through outlook. Just what we think most prevalent would be the question around inflation. So you saw what I already said, that June came down from 8.6 last year to 3% this year, and that trend is still continuing. What would the best guess be looking forward for the year? It would be a tough call to say below 3%. That's a hard call, but let's take it. It would be below 5% is what we expect. to be for the full coming year. And there's a lot of positive currently in terms of disposable income from consumers. There's some wage growth pressure, reduced low trading, fuel prices coming down now Wednesday again. And what Anton mentioned around the interest. So some good positive. And overall, a great positive environment we're experiencing, especially amongst the business community, is a positive outlook on South Africa at the moment. If we look just at the capital inflow three times that of last year already, that bodes well for the future or the medium-term future for us in terms of returns. So overall, there's a very positive look. And we have invested accordingly. I don't say we knew what was coming. We didn't know where the election was going to go. But because we are focusing on this African business and agriculture, We invest accordingly. We've invested in the supply chain. We've invested in digital. And we've invested in new stores, especially in areas where we're underrepresented. And we do not hope, we think any green shoot that will come out of the economy or for the consumer, we will, we're ready. We've made the investment. We're ready to receive the rewards from those investments. We have made, especially also on the supply chain, I'm very excited about that. And we have the platforms in place. I mentioned earlier the NOVA, we call it NOVA, but the GKPOS implementation that we will complete before going into peak. Just more of investments made that can be leveraged more and more and stand as good, similar to the investment that was made seven years ago on the office platform. And through all of this and the money spent, we will stay true to being the cheapest supermarket in South Africa and always focus on how can we help consumers for a better life and to survive. So on that, I think Anton, the questions is probably now loaded. So we'll go to some questions now. Thank you.

So maybe on that last point, Peter, that you made, there's quite a few questions around gross margin and with inflation and your price investment strategies, how do you think about gross margin going forward?

So like I started off almost to say, you know, there was market share gains, there's growth in excess of the market. And through all of this, there's one thing if you buy market share. It's another thing if you can gain market share and maintain your gross profit margin. And that means customers have given you the market share, not trying to buy it through price. So it's a responsible way of pricing. What we can't ignore is the increase. And it's actually increased from that 35% that I mentioned, into the nudes on the participation of promotional items in the basket. So we have to balance that to make sure that we can maintain those gross profit margins.

And then obviously with the investments in the pricing tool and all those things.

Yes, I think there was a lot of, not questions, but questions. attention on AI, the use of artificial intelligence in terms of pricing. Yes, we have invested in it. It's early days and the algorithms are learning every day. It's merely a tool to empower the buyer to make the final decision. And yes, there is transparency for the buyer. that decision-making time of what its effect will be on its gross profit margin, what's the likely uptake in volume. So it just equips them better. But, I mean, it's early days, but it helps. It helps a lot.

So I think, I mean, you spoke a lot about growth. So obviously the launch of an onboarding of Discovery Vitality, how do you look at it? And obviously what benefits will that actually bring to checkers?

The start of it all is that thing about the customer. We only listen to the customers. It wasn't us that said, hey, let us do this. Customers asked for it. From the discovery side, they saw it also. And their customers have asked for it. So how this works, let's just start by it. The first thing is we play ultimate partner. So you can select us and you can select separately physical and digital. Okay. So you've got choices. It's just that we another choice in terms of what does it cost? So for us, it's mostly marketing costs and some printing costs. We're changing some of the labels to indicate. So if you're walking in store, you'll see on our price label, there's that little right tick to show to you that this is a qualified product for the program. And where we are today, it's a... I almost want to say a marginal fixed cost, so it's not an escalating scale or volume-driven scale in terms of what it will cost to shop, right? So it's just one of those that we deliver to customers what they want, and I am very happy and grateful that Calvary saw their way to do a partnership with us, and we're very happy with it. In terms of how many customers, how big it will be, it's really not material. It is more important that we've delivered what our customers ask for.

Okay. Thanks for that. We've mentioned the 4.5% space growth, and we've mentioned, again, the 4.3% space growth for next year. There's quite a few questions around how do we look at store expansion, especially now that you can see we're also expanding in checkers and shop right next year, and in cannibalization. So how do we play that off?

If we just look back where we come from as an industry, I mean, we had those exclusivity arrangements. Some of them were geographical areas, not only in a center or very small catchment area. It was much larger. So now as we're moving forward, there are a lot of areas where we could not open some of our branded stores. And now as those areas now become available, we still see a lot of growth for us. in areas where we are underrepresented. And you will notice that we are opening more new checker stores than ShopRite stores, which has a much bigger distribution footprint already. So, yeah, that's where we focus.

So, David, just around discontinued operations and furniture. So, obviously, as soon as we trigger all those requirements in terms of IFRS 5, We will look at how we report on furniture in terms of discontinued operations and also how we will report in terms of our segmental reporting in the future. So at this stage, that's where we are. Peter, there's a question around how do we take a point-of-sale system, the conversion life, without disrupting our sales in the stores? At night. That's a short answer, yeah. You know, I'm too quick on this, so I don't have the next question for you. There was also a question around the Angolan bonds. So, yes, all of those Angolan bonds were shown as current assets because they matured at the end of August, and we did manage to actually get another $30 million of US dollar-linked bonds in Angola, which will act as the hedging for us within that market. So that was completed in the first two months. Peter, maybe just, I know you talked a lot about the rationale around the furniture transaction, but I think there's quite a few questions, and maybe that was before we saw the slide. I don't know if you want to add anything. I think you've spoken a lot about the furniture transaction. That's basically I think maybe there's a good question around USAFE. You've set yourself a target for 1,000 USAFE stores within the next five years. We did mention around the store openings that we will achieve in the 2025 years, but how do you look at that USAFE and what type of market are you really targeting within that environment and how do you think about the informal market?

Let me just make it clear. We don't target the informal market. It They do a fantastic job. They price by time of day. They give credit. Remember, they're in the community, so they know where you live. You're not going to run away when they give you credit. So it's a completely different offering there now. We're not trying to compete with that. We are focusing a bit about the consumer and what we can offer them. You know how in love I am with the Wonderland story. And you just have to come with me visiting those stores. You understand why I'm so obsessed about it. I know about poor people, but we have a lot in this country. So it's a responsible thing to do. So that's the rationale for you. In terms of a thousand stores that I mentioned, that is aggressive. I understand that. And yes, there may be some obstacles to get there, but to give it some context, I mean, for the two months of the year, now, July, August, we already signed for 33 new stores. So the hundred a year sort of, it's not out of bounds. It's not crazy. But yes, it will take some serious work to get there, but the opportunity is there.

So if we don't heat the five years, so don't shoot me, but we're going to try.

I think if you talk about opportunity, you've spoken about the fact that we have those MediRite licenses. So how do you see the pace at which we actually roll out the MediRite Plus stores? And then also there's a question around the unique stores. How do you think about the pace at which we're currently rolling out?

Almost the same immediate answer is it will be measured. It will, i.e., will be not overnight. We still in the learning phase, certainly as far as unique clothing is concerned, which of the income levels and geographical levels we see immediate returns and the most returns. You don't want to... discourage people, on our own people that needs to do the work and want to see that they're doing well. And if you make wrong decisions in terms of the catchment areas where the correct audience is, you will affect their own performance. So we're careful in how we roll it. Secondly, what makes clothing difficult in terms of fast rollout is you are seasonal bound. So we buy stock at least a year ahead of season, and we're going to get the stock if you now run too fast. So it's a balanced approach, and then on meteorite plus, I think it's a great opportunity. But again, it will be measured. We have that almost road, almost... already designed in front of us because we have 140 pharmacy licenses. And that's what we will focus already because you've got already a royal customer base and it's much easier to move them to a location as far as we can, as close to our own stores, supermarket stores. I did mention earlier, I mean, they do all the hard work attracting the customer and then A lot of businesses live off that.

Peter, I think the last question that I'm going to ask you, and I'll end on a high note, is how do you think about the competitive landscape that we're currently finding ourselves in?

We focus on what we do. As long as we deliver on the customer promise and what we see they require, Pricing is good. Customers are really, really looking for value. I think our pricing policy has been consistent and is right there on what is currently relevant in South African context. So, I mean, we don't get up in the morning and then we say, oh, what is the competitor? What are they doing? I mean, we first are... Are we doing what we're supposed to do? So that's our focus. Absolutely customer, not competitor driven.

Great. I think we've dealt with all the questions.

Thank you very much. I know it's been a little bit long. What we're going to attempt to do is try and be more cryptic in our interim presentations and then a little bit longer in more detail at year end. Thank you for your attention. Those of you that managed to stay with us, I appreciate that. And that then now concludes today. I'm going to, we are going to leave you with, for those that have a few minutes spare, just the endorsement of Jamie Oliver of our partnership on the Discovery Health Vitality Program. Thanks a lot and goodbye.