Wesfarmers Ltd Old

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding and welcome to the West Farmers 2023 full year results briefing. Your lines will be muted during the briefing. However, you will have an opportunity to ask questions immediately afterward and instructions will be provided on how to do this at that time. This call is also being webcast live on the West Farmers website and can be accessed from the homepage of westfarmers.com.au. I would now like to hand the call over to the Managing Director of West Farmers Limited, Mr. Rob Scott.

Thanks very much and welcome everyone to the 2023 full year results briefing. And I'm joined here in Perth today with all of our divisional managing directors and our CFO, Anthony Gianotti. To begin, I'll provide an overview of the group's performance, provide some comments on the positioning of our portfolio and our progress on strategies, following which Anthony will provide some more detail on our financial performance. And then I'll make some comments on the group's outlook and then Anthony and our divisional managing directors and I will welcome any questions that you have. So I'll start on slide four, which will be familiar to most of you. It sets out West Farmer's corporate objective, which is to deliver a satisfactory return to shareholders. we defined satisfactory as a top quartile total shareholder return over the long term. And we acknowledge that we can only achieve this if we continue to anticipate the needs of our customers, look after our team members, treat suppliers fairly and ethically, contribute positively to the communities where we operate, take care of the environment and act with honesty and integrity. So turning to slide five, I wanted to highlight three key takeaways from our results. Firstly, I'll start with our financial performance and it's pleasing to again report a strong set of results for the year with net profit after tax increasing 4.8% to $2.5 billion. Importantly, the group's profit result was underpinned by a 12.9% divisional earnings growth as our operating businesses continue to execute well and respond well to the market conditions. And you'll note that the difference between the divisional and group earnings is largely related to the change in non-cash property revaluations. There was strong growth in cash flows and the quality of the profit result have enabled the board to resolve to pay a fully franked final dividend of $1.03, bringing the total dividend to the year to $1.91, representing a 6.1% increase on the prior year. The second point I wanted to highlight was the group's portfolio of high-quality businesses provides both a mix of resilience and growth, and this gives us confidence as we look to the future. Our businesses are benefiting from their strong value credentials on everyday products. We are well progressed with proactive productivity and efficiency initiatives, and we will have new earning streams coming online this year as our lithium business ramps up the sale of spodumene concentrate. And finally, as always, the group maintains its long-term focus on value creation. Having worked to establish significant platforms for growth, the focus is now on executing these strategies to expand our operations in lithium and health to businesses that will benefit from strong demand over the decades ahead. And we're also proactively progressing a strong pipeline of growth opportunities across our existing divisions that you'll hear about today. And we maintain our focus on strengthening our climate resilience and pursuing opportunities that will contribute to global decarbonisation and responsibly support the energy transition. Turning to slide six, and the strong divisional earnings result for the year, which underpinned the group's performance. The divisional results are a credit to the 120,000 team members across the group who have maintained their focus on meeting customer needs and their commitment to the group's objectives. While divisional earnings growth for the year include the benefits of cycling lockdowns in the first half, it also reflects the benefits of strong execution within the retail businesses, leveraging their leading value credentials and omnichannel offers to meet changing customer needs, and also the industrial businesses benefiting from strong plant availability. The delivery of incremental growth as our divisions entered into new categories, enhanced ranges and expanded their operations has been another important contributor. And then realisation of productivity and efficiency benefits from proactive initiatives in recent years. This includes supply chain modernisation projects, the digitisation of operating processes and the increasing use of AI and predictive analytics. It's important to note that We have achieved earnings growth in Bunnings, Kmart and Officeworks whilst retaining our lowest price positioning. In fact, it's our commitment to lowest prices that allows these businesses to be successful, delivering a win-win outcome for customers and our shareholders. Turning to slide seven, I'll use this slide to speak to some of the divisional highlights and then Anthony will give more detail on the financial results. Bunnings delivered solid sales growth reflecting the resilience of demand across its offer and strong execution of its strategic agenda. Bunnings again demonstrated its capacity to grow its proposition and addressable market whilst maintaining strong returns. During the year this included the successful PETS launch and continued advancement of their whole of build commercial strategy. Bunnings also continues to make significant progress on its digital agenda with increasing engagement through the Power Pass app, Bunnings Marketplace and One Pass and Flyby programs, along with improvements in its educational and social content. Kmart Group delivered significant sales and earnings growth this year. The strong underlying trading performance in Kmart reflected successful execution of pricing strategies and operating initiatives in addition to the benefits from a normalisation of trading. With value continuing to become more important to households, Kmart's lowest price positioning is resonating strongly, attracting new customers during the year Following actions to simplify Target's operations in recent years, and we've continued to maintain a low cost base, and this has contributed positively to the Kmart Group earnings result for the year. And as recently announced, this year Kmart Group will pursue opportunities to leverage the strengths of Kmart's technology platforms and selected ANCO ranges within Target. WESF delivered record results for the year and continued to make good progress in the development of its lithium business and in its evaluation of incremental growth projects within the chemicals division. The excellent operating results, plant reliability and safety focus from WESF are a highlight for the group. Significant earnings growth in office works reflected benefits realised from productivity investments in recent years, as well as improved back-to-school trading, growth in B2B sales, and continued above-market growth in technology categories. Industrial safety again improved its performance, with the final deployment of Blackwood's ERP system in the first half a highlight for the year. The health division continued to advance its transformation plan with investment in supply chain capabilities, improvements to the customer offer and network changes to strengthen the competitive position of API and its pharmacy partners. The health team has also progressed attractive digital health opportunities, including the acquisition of instant scripts, which completed early July this year. The investments made in recent years to develop the group's data and digital capabilities are gaining traction and delivering value across the operating divisions and through the One Pass program and the group shared data asset. It's worth reflecting that e-commerce sales across our divisions, excluding catch, have grown by 150% or more than $1.4 billion since the 2019 financial year. Our businesses have also continued to develop and trial more sophisticated analytics models which are delivering improved outcomes in areas such as demand forecasting, product design, in-store and online availability and marketing effectiveness. And last year was the first year of rollout for the One Pass membership program, which is adding value to customers in our divisions, with more to come this year. As I noted at the first half results, Catcher's performance for the year was disappointing. Changes made throughout the year have supported improvements to performance in the second half, with losses reducing, and progress on key operational and customer metrics. Encouragingly, Catch continues to attract and retain a younger and digitally native customer cohort with strong engagement through the One Pass program. The Catch team remains focused on ensuring that financial and operating results continue to improve with clear plans in place for the year ahead. And it's worth noting that the investments made in Catch over recent years are being leveraged across the group to provide some centralised e-commerce fulfilment capabilities and to strengthen digital marketing programs. Turning to slide eight and the progress with our sustainability agenda. Recognising it's linked to long-term value creation, we continue to build climate resilience in our businesses Our divisions achieved a 2.4% decrease in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, making good progress towards their net zero targets. And progress was made to better understand our dependencies on nature through pilot participation in an emerging TNFD framework. As the largest admitter of the group, WESF continues to make pleasing progress, taking actions aligned with its net zero road map. Reflecting on our commitment to provide a safe and fulfilling work environment for team, improvements in safety results were recorded across most businesses. At a group level, TRIFA increased on the prior period, which was largely attributable to Bunnings, where results were impacted by a change in injury classifications to better align with the group measures, as well as some increases in manual handling injuries. The group remains at proportional representation with approximately 3.3% of Australian team members identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. The focus in the last 12 months has turned towards measures to support career progression of Indigenous leaders across the group and we've had over 100 team members participate in the West Farmers Indigenous Leadership Programme. Turning to slide nine, you can see the summarised performance for the group, but I'll hand over to Anthony now who can talk about the financial performance in more detail.

Thanks, Rob, and hello, everyone. I'll start on slide 11, which provides detail on sales and revenue growth across the group. I'll speak to sales and earnings performance for each of the divisions on the next slide, but at an overall level, we were pleased with the solid sales result across the group for the 2023 financial year. As customer behaviour continued to normalise and as value has become increasingly important, our retail businesses benefited from the everyday and value-focused nature of their offers, as well as from good execution of their strategies during the year. As we noted in February, first-half retail sales growth reflected both strong underlying demand, together with the impact of cycling COVID-related lockdowns in the prior corresponding period. In the second half, we saw some moderation in retail sales growth, but overall trading conditions remained robust with solid sales growth in Bunnings and strong growth within Kmart and Officeworks. Turning to divisional earnings performance on slide 12. In Bunnings, sales growth of 4.4% was supported by growth across both consumer and commercial segments. Bunnings continued to demonstrate the resilience of its operating model, with all trading regions delivering sales growth for the year despite the impact of prolonged wet weather across the East Coast during the 2022 spring trading season. Bunnings sales were supported by continued building activity and robust demand from commercial customers, which was offset by slightly lower consumer sales in the second half. Bunnings has seen some good consumer demand continue for necessity products that support recurring home repairs and maintenance and for smaller scale DIY projects. But compared to the second half last year, consumers have demonstrated a more cautious approach to bigger ticket purchase decisions and the commencement of larger projects. Overall, Bunnings earnings of $2.2 billion represented an increase of 1.2% or 1.9% after excluding the net impact of property contributions. This result continues what has been a remarkable period of growth for the business with earnings up 42% since 2019. Kmart Group delivered record earnings for the year of $769 million, an increase of 52%. The result reflects a combination of strong underlying consumer demand, solid execution of pricing strategies and operational plans, as well as benefits in the first half from a normalisation of trading conditions versus COVID-affected results in the prior year. As anticipated, we have seen a continued strong response from customers to Kmart's lowest price positioning, with comparable sales growth of 14.5% for the year and 12% in the second half. Kmart delivered sales growth across all categories, as well as growth in units sold and transactions relative to the prior year. Target sales results were broadly in line with the prior year, but with more variable performance across categories, particularly in the second half. Target continued to trade well across its apparel range, but with more challenging results in toys and home, highlighting the opportunity for the division to leverage the strengths of Kmart's ANCO range in these areas. Kmart Group continued to leverage its direct sourcing capability and progress proactive productivity and cost control measures, which helped mitigate cost pressures from inflation, increased shrinkage and ongoing exchange rate volatility during the year. And finally, as announced in July, the division is working to further integrate back-office sourcing and merchandising functions across Kmart and Target, which will deliver further long-term efficiencies. WESF delivered revenue growth of 8.7% and earnings growth of 23.9%, lifting earnings to a record $669 million for the year. A significant increase in earnings in chemicals was supported by higher average ammonia prices, strong customer demand and continued excellent operating results for the year. The chemicals result also benefited from a temporary pull forward of earnings associated with the time lag in pricing of customer contracts as ammonia prices declined in the second half. In clean heat, earnings were impacted by a lower Saudi contract price and higher WA natural gas costs during the year. And earnings for fertilisers decreased as a result of lower commodity pricing and a later seasonal break. As Rob's mentioned, construction of the Mount Holland mine and concentrator was completed during the year and commissioning of the concentrator is now underway ahead of the first planned sales of spodumene concentrate in the 2024 financial year. Officeworks' performance was pleasing, with sales growth of 6% and earnings growth of 10.5% to $200 million for the year. Sales were supported by improved back-to-school trading, significant growth in B2B sales and above-market sales growth in technology. As we noted in the release, Officeworks' second-half results included a sales benefit from the back-to-school voucher program in NSW. More broadly over the year, it was encouraging to see increased demand as more normal trading conditions returned in categories that were most impacted by COVID, including stationery, art, office supplies and print and create. Highlighting the benefits of proactive actions taken over recent years, Officeworks' strong earnings growth this year was enabled by ongoing investments to drive productivity and efficiency across stores, supply chain and in the support centre. Industrial and safety delivered another improvement in performance with earnings growth of 8.7%, supported by sales growth across the division and a modest gain in the first half from the sale of the green cap consulting business. Despite an improvement in performance, earnings were impacted by inflationary cost pressures and the timing lag in changes to customer contracts in Blackwoods. In West Farmers Health, sales were supported by new customer acquisition, elevated demand for COVID-19 antiviral products in the wholesale business and solid sales across the Priceline health and beauty categories, albeit with sales moderating in the second half. Earnings of $45 million reflected increased investment in the acceleration of transformation activities, the costs associated with the transition to the new Sydney Fulfillment Centre and the impact of higher operating costs in Clear Skincare. The result also included $13 million of non-cash amortisation expenses associated with purchase price accounting adjustments. Catch reported a loss of $163 million, including restructuring costs of $40 million relating to inventory provisions, team member redundancies and asset write-offs. As Rob has just reiterated, it's clearly a disappointing earnings result and the focus on actions to improve performance is ongoing. The underlying loss for the second half of $48 million was a reduction on the $75 million recorded in the first half. This reflected restructuring initiatives to reduce headcount and exit unprofitable first party products, as well as improvements in supply chain and fulfilment costs. Turning now to slide 13 and covering our other businesses and corporate overheads, which reported a significant reduction in earnings with a loss of $206 million compared with earnings in the prior year of $7 million. The key driver here was the impact of negative property revaluations in BWP Trust and BPI, which, while non-cash in nature, accounted for $164 million of the reduction in earnings. Other corporate earnings were also impacted by a decrease in dividend revenue due to the progressive sale of the group's interest in coals, a lower group insurance result, the benefit of the home-based equity distribution in the prior period and higher corporate overheads which included further investment in the group's cyber security capabilities during the year. Finally, we continued to invest in the development of the One Pass membership program and the group's customer and data insights capabilities through One Digital, with a net cost of $82 million, which is broadly in line with $80 million in the prior year. We expect a net cost of approximately $70 million for the 2024 financial year. Turning to working capital and cash flow on slide 14. Divisional operating cash flows increased 45.6% for the year, or 40.7% if you exclude the health division, which only contributed a partial year of cash flows in the prior year. Strong divisional earnings growth, as well as normalisation in the businesses' working capital positions, supported an increase in divisional cash generation to 101%. The group's inventory balance at the end of the year includes the impact of lower commodity pricing in Wessef and the reduction of inventory buffer levels at Kmart, partially offset by the impact of unit cost inflation across the retail businesses and investment in stock availability within our health division. Overall, we are comfortable with inventory positions across the group with good stock availability in the retail divisions, lower seasonal holdings versus the prior year and inventory cover ratios having now returned to be broadly in line with our pre-COVID levels. At a group level, operating cash flows increased 81.6% to $4.2 billion for the year, reflecting the higher divisional operating cash flows as well as lower tax paid due to the timing of payments. Free cash flows for the year increased $3.6 billion, reflecting higher operating cash flows, proceeds from the sale of the group's 2.8% interest in coals, and the impact of acquisitions in the prior period, partially offset by higher capital expenditure and lower proceeds on the sale of property. Moving to capital expenditure on slide 15. The group invested gross capex of $1.3 billion during the year, an increase of 12.6% on the prior period. This was largely driven by development capex of $394 million and capitalised interest of $42 million relating to the covalent lithium project, along with continued investment in data and digital and the addition of the health division. Proceeds from the sale of PP&E declined for the year, reflecting reduced Bunnings property activity. For the 2024 financial year, we expect net capital expenditure for the group to be in the range of $1.1 to $1.4 billion. And this estimate includes around $370 million to support the ongoing development of the covalent lithium project, as well as capex associated with a number of expansion projects in WESIF, including ammonia and sodium cyanide capacity expansions and ammonium nitrate depoddle necking. These projects remain subject to approvals. WESF's share of total capex for the covalent lithium project remains in line with prior guidance of between $1.2 to $1.3 billion in nominal terms and excluding capitalised interest. Turning to balance sheet and debt management on slide 16. The strength of our balance sheet continues to provide the group with significant flexibility and capacity to support investment in growth initiatives and to take advantage of value accretive opportunities that may arise. We continue to actively monitor the group's debt mix and manage exposure to variable rates. The average cost of funds for the year increased from 3.1% to 3.3% with a weighted average term to maturity of 4.4 years. Total finance costs increased $135 million as a result of higher average debt balances resulting from the funding of acquisitions and capex associated with covalent lithium. At the end of the financial year, the cost of drawn debt was around 3.7% and the group had available unused bank financing facilities of around $2.6 billion. Our strong investment grade credit ratings from Standard & Poor's and Moody's were maintained and the group retains considerable headroom within its key credit metrics. And finally, to dividends on slide 17. As Rob mentioned, the board has determined to pay a fully franked final dividend of $1.03 per share, which brings our total dividends for the year to $1.91 per share. This is consistent with our dividend policy, which considers available franking credits, balance sheet position, credit metrics, and our cashflow generation. And with that, I'll now hand back to Rob to cover off outlook for the group.

Thanks, Anthony. On slide 19, before I get to the outlook, I just wanted to talk about how the portfolio is positioned for the future. In summary, our operating divisions have emerged out of COVID in much stronger shape. And the quality of our major divisions provides an opportunity for attractive returns from incremental capital investment. This provides a great platform for value creation, providing both resilience and growth. Our retail divisions benefit from the value orientation of their offer, leading market positions and their focus on everyday and essential products. We have strategic domestic manufacturing capabilities in WESF, supporting customers in critical industries where Australia has clear competitive advantages. The Health Division provides a platform to build on our capabilities and increase our exposure to the structural demand growth in health and wellbeing sectors. And across the group, we're pursuing opportunities that support global decarbonisation with actions that strengthen our businesses and also through the development of new businesses such as Covalent Lithium. So turning to the group outlook on slide 20. This year we're very focused on the successful commissioning of covalent lithium and the sale of product, spodumene product, in the second half of this financial year. This is an exciting and important new earning stream for West Farmers and will help to offset the lower earnings expected in Wessef as a result of the recent decline in ammonia prices and higher gas import costs. In the retail divisions, we're confident that their market-leading value credentials make them well-placed to meet changing demand, acquire new customers, and to profitably grow share in an environment of elevated inflation and high interest rates. For the first seven weeks of the new financial year, sales growth for Kmart Group has continued to benefit from strong trading results in Kmart, but growth has moderated from the second half of last financial year. Sales growth in Bunnings remained in line with the second half of last financial year, with continued growth in both consumer and commercial segments year to date. Office work sales for the first seven weeks have been in line with the prior year. Cost pressures are expected to persist across Australia and New Zealand, driven by inflation, labour market constraints, higher wages and domestic supply chain costs. Westfarmers' larger businesses are benefiting from their capacity to leverage their scale and sourcing capabilities, which together with benefits from proactive productivity and efficiency initiatives, provides confidence in the group's capacity to adjust costs in line with trading conditions. Looking ahead, West Farmers will continue to develop and enhance the portfolio by making disciplined investments in existing operations, the development of long-term avenues for growth and to strengthen climate resilience of the portfolio. That's the end of our presentation and we'd now be happy to take your questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and make your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. We do ask that you limit your questions to one per caller and that clarifying questions are concise. You may then rejoin the queue for any additional questions. Your first question comes from Peter Marks with Baron Joey. Please go ahead.

Oh, hi, guys. Just a question on Bunnings and the impact of the pets launch. I think it was in March. Has that helped your sales materially, either through, I guess, sales in that category or just getting more foot traffic into stores on the back of it? And I'll notice your consumer business is back into growth in the start of the first half, 24. Is that the key driver there?

Yeah. Thanks, Peter. One category alone is never going to define the breadth of the Bunnings offer. What I think is really pleasing about pets for us is on a couple of fronts. We talked at Strategy Day about growing the market, growing our ability to participate in the market. This is a very clear demonstration of that. It was our most significant category expansion in close to two decades. It also sort of demonstrates the capability of the organisation to execute at scale and pace, our ability to sort of launch a new category very, very quickly with some solid market research behind it. has been really good, and it's absolutely brought new customers. We can see that through customer data. It's brought new customers into the business. So, you know, pleasing for us. You know, we've never seen more customers shopping our stores, and seeing positive transactions is really important. And I think a very strong value proposition for the four-legged member of the family is a really important thing.

That's great. Like if you had to have a guess at what's driven the improvement in the consumer or the growth in the consumer business?

As Rob said, you know, the trend of the second half has sort of carried into the first half. I think the reality is that, you know, Australians and New Zealanders are still working at home more. There's still things to do around the home. And I do think that when, you know, things are going tough, there's absolutely a flight to value, but it also means you need to find things to be doing a little bit more perhaps around the home than away from the home. So I think we're well positioned, you know, across the categories to be able to do that. And, you know, we're always doing things to our home, I guess, so that will continue. Great, thanks.

Your next question comes from Michael Smoters with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. My question's on costs, and in particular your outlook commentary on costs. You seem quite a bit more comfortable than most retailers we've heard from about your ability to mitigate underlying cost inflation. So just interested in... any more colour you can give us on what underpins your confidence there. And related to that, there's been a lot of media about restructuring activities in Bunnings. So maybe you could touch on that and also whether there were any costs associated with that taken above the line in the Bunnings result in the second half, please.

Michael, it's probably worth hearing directly from Mike and Sarah on this. And the high level comment I'd make is that all of our retail divisions have been very proactive over the last year or so on the productivity and efficiency side. That proactivity facing into opportunities to improve costs, improve efficiency, means that we're coming into this new financial year with some momentum. But I'll let each of the MDs talk to their specific divisions.

I might start, Michael. It's Mike here. So for us at Bunnings, it's all about being fit for the growth we want to enjoy in the year ahead. So we've long looked at the opportunities between our Australian and New Zealand business to leverage our investments into technology to make it more efficient to purchase product and support our team. And in other parts of the business, we'll continue to shape and evolve to meet the evolving needs of the business. We've invested a lot and we've talked about this previously. both at results days and strategy days, I guess, for the last few years in technology to improve productivity. We called out at strategy day, I think, something like 2.4 million hours of productivity improvements across our store network, which allows us to invest more in frontline service and make our stores easier to run. And we've been listening very strongly to our store team saying that they want, you know, a deeper sense of engagement with the business and that comes through having some flatter reporting lines. I will set the changes in the context of two other things. We employ close to 56,000 people in Bunnings. So these are very, very small changes. In no way, shape or form do they affect our frontline. And in fact, in F23, we employed 12,000 new people. So making sure that the business is optimised for growth is really important. But we're just as focused on that, not only in terms of how we structure and design the organisation, but also the processes to to simplify, to take those costs out. But also in COGS, we're always working really hard to make sure that we are lowering the cost of goods because all of these things combined really underpin the credential of our lowest prices policy. I don't know, maybe hand it in.

Yeah, thanks, Mike. I'd say first up the business model is our greatest strength and we have two elements within there which I think separates us from the market. The first one is our sourcing model which is obviously very mature and gives us the ability to ensure that any cost reductions that occur in cost of goods flow immediately through to the P&L and ultimately through to customers. The second one is our scale and our scale gives us the ability to obviously fragment costs to a greater extent than others can, particularly around technology. And the technology that we've been implementing over the last few years is now delivering results, is helping us on the revenue line and is helping us through productivity. And those two things mean that we can offset some of the costs which are coming through with our final margins.

And Michael, from an Officeworks perspective, look, I think very similar to Mike and Ian, we've been talking for a few years at results and at Investor Strategy Day around our proactive investment in productivity and ways to improve and modernise and simplify our business. A great example of that is the work we've done in our supply chain. We opened a new CFC in Victoria late in 2021, and, for example, that is absolutely delivering in line with business case, in fact, increasingly better than business case, with a cost per line of well lower than 20%. well, sorry, I should say a cost per line improving by a reduction of over 20% on the prior facilities. So, you know, we continue. We've opened recently a new IDC in Victoria and later this year we'll open a new CFC in WA. We're also continuing to invest in our store team with new technology to reduce costs and improve efficiency, but also improve the customer experience. So recently we've invested in new self-scan print and copy facilities and also new photo kiosks, and both of those have improved NPS and improved efficiency for our team.

Thanks. And the restructuring costs in Bunnings, how should we think about that?

They're immaterial, Michael. They're really just some alignments around structures, so nothing that's going to sort of make a noticeable impact to the P&L. OK, thank you.

Your next question comes from David Arrington with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, Rob. Hi, Anthony. If I could ask Ian Hanson a question on his division... It's sort of like a bit of gaining an understanding as to how we can factor in or what we can look for in earnings in the next couple of years. And if we're looking at – there's three parts to this question. The first part is I'm assuming 50,000 tonnes of spodumene in the second half. Most mines, we've done a bit of work on it, but mines similar to yours – You're looking at a cash cost, including royalties or all-up costs of about $1,000 a tonne, maybe a bit unders. Is that the sort of thing that we can expect from your mine, or from Spodgermine, or will you have a bit of ramp-up costs there? I'm just trying to get an understanding of what second half is. And then going into FY25, can you give us a bit of an idea as to... what the split we can expect from spodumene and hydroxide can we expect any hydroxide coming in in 25 or is it still largely going to be spodumene and the third part of the question if you don't mind i'm intrigued with this gas i asked you at the investor day about the gas costs and that there was this issue that you were talking about where some of the western australian gas providers were delaying and it was causing a significant increase in cost for gas Given the AFR article that we mentioned, you're paying about $6.5 a gigajoule more for your gas by the sounds of it. And my rough numbers is that you use 40 gigajoules of gas for a ton of ammonia. I don't know if that's about the right rate, but that's about $70 million of headwind if these producers aren't supplying gas. And I suppose I thought the chairman of West Farmers and the chairman of Woodside were mates. So I'm wondering what's going on in the whole part over there. As I said, I thought they'd share a bottle of wine and sort this sort of stuff out. So I'm just wondering what's going on with that whole gas market over there.

Hi, David. Thanks for the question. Let's start with the covalent questions or lithium questions. We're expecting to sell 50,000 tonnes of spodumene in the second half of this financial year. That's based upon our assumption that the concentrator... will be commissioned over the next few months and we start producing concentrate around October, November, which then gives us product to sell for the following six months, so the first half of calendar year 24. You might recall that our... Concentrator has a nameplate capacity of 380,000 tonnes per annum, of which our share at full rates would be 190,000 because of the 50-50 joint venture arrangement. So we're saying we're going to have 50,000 in the second half of this calendar year based upon a ramp-up following commissioning, but not a full ramp-up over the following six months. In terms of, sorry, is that clear in terms of volume?

Yes, that's your share, $50,000, but the costs, most mines are around $900, including royalties. Is that ballpark for you guys? I know you don't want to give too much, but is it ballpark that we can expect in that second half?

I think if you looked at others' operating costs, then when we're at the same sorts of rates as they are, we should be in a similar position. But I think you have to appreciate that during a ramp-up in commissioning, there are generally additional costs associated with that. So it might be that there are higher costs associated with our sales in the first half of next year. Mm-hmm. Yeah, thanks. And the split? And the gas? Well, I'll get to gas. In terms of the hydroxide split, we're planning to commence commissioning of the hydroxide refinery late in calendar year 24, which would deliver product. And by commissioning, there's a fairly protracted commissioning timeline. So we'd have product for sale in early calendar year 25, early to mid-calendar year 25. So we're hoping to get hydroxide sales and therefore earnings in... mid-25, early to mid-25, but it is very dependent upon how construction goes over the next 12 months and then how commissioning goes. In the interim, of course, we'll be hoping that the concentrator ramps up to full production rate and we'd be continuing to sell that excess concentrate that's not needed to feed the refinery until such time as it is required in the refinery.

Yeah, so we can expect full ramp-up of spodumene by 2025 and maybe a little bit of hydroxide, yeah. Yeah, yeah, by calendar year 2025, yeah. Calendar, so it's second half FY25, yeah. Yeah.

Now on to gas. Gas in Western Australia is interesting at the moment. What we've seen in the short term is a number of supply issues associated with existing fields. They are short-term supply issues. But what we've also seen is a... increase in demand in gas in Western Australia at the same time as some of the fields in the longer term are reducing their generation of gas as they get older, so you get less gas coming out of it. And there are some delays, what we consider delays, in gas coming online. And not so much because people are withholding gas, more that the approvals processes in WA, along with approvals processes for things like lithium mines and lithium concentrators and lithium refineries and other chemical processes and other mines, are taking a long time. And that's probably a factor of there being a lot of activity in Western Australia seeking approvals. new projects, and very tight labour conditions. So not just does that impact the projects themselves, it probably impacts the regulators who are trying to provide those approvals. So the lack of approvals delaying the gas coming on, combined with a short-term blip in demand, or lack of supply, has resulted in a movement in gas supply-demand balance, which has seen the gas price move up into double-digit here in Western Australia. And if you go back prior to the Ukraine invasion, gas wholesale prices in WA were around $3 to $4 per gigajoule, according to the ABS. In 19... Sorry, 2020, 2020, 21, they're up around the $5 to $6 per gigajoule, and they've continued to increase since then. And our concern is that unless we get more capacity coming on here in Western Australia at a time when there is more conversion to gas-fired electricity generation from coal-fired, then we'll see high prices. Over top of that, there is a question about the domestic gas reservation policy and whether that's being applied equally across all of the LNG export projects. And I do congratulate the state government in initiating an inquiry into the DOM gas reservation policy.

Well, maybe your chairman can ring his best mate and say, hey, what are you doing? Give us a bit more gas.

Hopefully we can sort it out without that, David.

Thanks, Rob. Thanks for answering it, Ian. It's very thorough. Thank you. You're welcome.

Your next question comes from Lisa Ding with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, it's a question relating to Kmart. So I wanted to maybe get some directional guidance or discussion around the margins going into 24. So we're merging the back end with Target. But, you know, I assume there's probably some global freight benefits coming through, but then also the Aussie dollar is working against us a little. So how should I think about, you know, the margins of Kmart going into 24? Thanks.

Yeah, I think first of all, good morning, Lisa. I think if you look at the work we're doing to bring the two businesses in line, so two brands, one operating model, that work will effectively be cost neutral as we go into next financial year. So there'll be some costs, but there'll be some benefits and the two net off. as we go through next financial year, and then the value that we get through efficiency, productivity of having one operating model really starts to flow in FY25 and a little bit more in FY26. I think when you look at the margins themselves, we already jointly source in a number of areas. We run one sourcing team, and we have done for a number of years, so I don't see too many fundamental changes. What we will get, though, is we will get the benefit of incremental volume through the ANCO products that move into moving to target, it's approximately 25% of the target range will be ANCO going forward. 75% will be unique to target and that's in apparel, soft home and toys. And that will give us a benefit because of that additional scale that we put through and because obviously those Kmart products make good margin within the Kmart business already and that will now be shared across Target. So if you're looking at over a time period, the greater benefits land in 25, 26. Bearing in mind this is on a much smaller business, Target's about 20% of the revenue relative to the 80% of Kmart. So yeah, so the effect on the overall group will be modest.

And what about the actual global freight prices coming down but netting off potential headwinds from the Aussie dollar? How do we think about that?

There are lots of movements out there. I think they affect... First of all, they affect everybody. What we have is we have a complete line of sight to all of those costs. We work very closely with our international shipping partners, of course, as well as our suppliers. We hedge on the currency to ensure that we've got knowledge around what our exchange rate's going to be when we do price our products. and we're confident we can continue to hit the lowest price in the market and make good margins which are appropriate for our shareholder returns. Yeah, and they're the two dynamics that we look at. So how do we make an adequate return for our shareholders? How do we maintain our lowest price position? And we feel like we have enough levers at our disposal to be able to continue to do that.

OK, thank you. Your next question comes from James Wang with Citi. Please go ahead.

Morning, guys. I have a question on Bunnings. So, this is towards the consecutive half where the EBIT margin declined for Bunnings. I'm not asking for exact number, but over that period, what's the rough breakdown between how much of that decline has been through GP as the business mix shifts sales mix shifts between DRY and commercial, and how much of that was in CO2VD, please? Essentially, you know, should we expect further long-term decline in the margin as sales mix shifts more towards commercial?

Look, I think, you know, thanks, James, for the question. You know, when you sort of look at our long-term EBIT margins, it's not something we particularly focus on. We're really focused on long-term returns, both for, you know, team customer and shareholder. It's a pretty immaterial change in the mix between commercial and consumer. It's still, you know, sort of broadly sort of, you know, 3763 commercial to consumer. The type of commercial customers we've talked about at many strategy days is very much the small to medium-sized, build-a-handy person where the... the shopping patterns and margin profiles are not dissimilar to a DIY customer. And I think if you look at our EBIT margin over time, it is actually pretty consistent. It does cycle a little bit between first and second half, and there's a little bit of abnormality with a spike in growth during COVID. But, you know, I don't think there's anything in there that, you know, should be causing anyone any concern. Okay, great. Thanks, Mike.

Your next question comes from Sean Cousins with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. Good afternoon. Just a question for Ian at Kmart. The result seemed to benefit from market share gains and some of the work on costs coming to fruition. I recall Kmart's indicated in the past that its sales might be a third across each low, middle and high-income customers, while one of the features of the investor day in April 21, I think, was the ambition to get customers to shop multiple categories. It's too few to do that. Can you discuss the performance of the consumer generally and how you're seeing that play across different income and age groups and the extent Kmart's winning share on trade-in and then the degree to which Kmart's been able to get customers to shop more categories as they seek out value, please?

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Sean. Good afternoon. Yeah, you're right, roughly a third, a third, a third. Not surprising because the way we categorise the income levels, so of course each business will categorise middle, low and high probably differently. We're seeing all three groups growing with us. They're growing in terms of absolute numbers and they're growing in terms of their average spend whether it's over a 12-week period or whether it's over a 52-week period. So we're seeing growth in all three. The growth is greatest in middle and high, not surprisingly, because we already get a big share of wallet from the lower income customers, but all three are currently in growth. Why are we growing share within each of those customer groups is because of what you just called out. They are shopping across categories and we're being increasingly successful of of encouraging customers to move into adjacent categories or into new categories within our stores. And I think that's a combination of our product offer continues to improve. The price proposition at the moment is continuing to strengthen. So our metrics would suggest that our lowest price positioning is stronger now than it was even six months ago with customers. And then, of course, we've got much improved customer data, which means we can do a better job of serving up the right types of products to the right customers at the right time. So I'd say at the moment where that gives us the sense that we're growing market share and certainly just trying to assess, you know, ABS data and other data sources that would imply that we are being successful at the moment.

Great. And my follow-up question is just around theft. That was a big issue for the Coles result, and you've called out a little bit of that in your remarks regarding Kmart, the Kmart group. Can you discuss maybe the impact of that? And we've had some questions around the checkout in the centre of the store, how that works in terms of making it trickier... ..or, sorry, potentially impacting theft as well, but maybe just touch on that issue, which is quite a global problem, but one we've seen sort of play out in some of the results more recently.

Yeah, just touching on the registers in the middle of the store, they've been there for about 10 years. So it's not a new dynamic. Yes, we did call out shrink because of the year-on-year movement. If you look at it on an absolute level relative to history, then it's still within the normal range of shrink, certainly at pre-COVID levels. But shrink did reduce through COVID for all sorts of reasons, including store closures. And now, of course, we've had a full year of store openings. That's then played through. We count our stock in the second half, so that's when our inventory loss crystallises. And so it was a movement year on year, more so than a completely abnormal result. Fantastic. Thanks so much.

Your next question comes from Brian Raymond with J.T. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Thanks for that. My question is actually about the impact of weather on Bunnings and probably to a lesser extent Kmart. Just in terms of the trading update, obviously we're cycling a very wet winter from last year. I think you can pull that out. and it's been quite dry along the east coast and relatively warm as well. How much is that helping your business? I know it's impossible to unpick completely, but just in some of those weather-dependent categories, are you seeing better performance year on year, and is that meaningfully contributing to the result in Bunnings? And then, you know, winter sell-through in Kmart, how's infantry looking and the impacts? that might have into the first half of 24.

Thanks. Thanks, Brian. Mike here. Look, we called out weather last year, and I really don't like using weather as a reason for trading performance. That's as much a message for my team as it is for you. But it is important that, you know, when it's prolonged, it will shift customer behaviour, and we saw that last year. We were very optimistic last year about spring trading really off the back of two years of sort of impacted markets ability to sort of sell across all states and geographies because of the lockdowns during COVID. So, you know, having a long, wet spring was frustrating. The outlook for this spring is to be a warmer, drier one, as you quite rightly pointed out. You know, and we anticipate seeing some good growth off the back of that. It's still a little bit early in the season. It's still a little bit too early. Cool, you really need the sort of soil to warm up. In the markets where, you know, traditionally you're seeing spring come early, so I think North Queensland, the business is behaving as we would expect it to behave, but we're probably six weeks short of having a much clearer picture on that.

Hi, Brian. The winter sell-through has been good. Winter came quite early, so although it's been a warmer back end to winter, we did get some cold weather early, which always helps. We sold through very effectively in both Kmart and Target on our winter apparel, ending the half cleaner than we were this time last year. The products continue to move through pretty effectively despite the weather, and if anything, we get the benefit of the new season, the summer product that's landing. And we've seen some pretty positive sell-throughs as we look at, again, Queensland and the warmer states, where obviously people are starting to think about shorts and dresses more so than jumpers and jackets.

But just as a follow-up on that one then, Ian, if it's not a bit of clearance activity around some of those winter lines, I'm just looking at your margins in the second half, down about 40 basis points year-on-year, or 30 basis points at EVT, sort of shrinkage is there, but you said it's not overly concerning. What is it then, if it's not clearance that's driving that bit of softer margin? Is it just normalisation or something else in there?

Well, we've called out some of the factors that are in there. So shrinkage is one, the movement year on year. Because when you do the percentage on EBIT for the second half and you compare it, it's not that many dollars when you add it all through. So shrinkage is one component. We took a bit of extra provisioning in target associated with the categories we're going to be exiting. So that's a second element that we put in there. None of those items are big enough to call out in terms of dollars as a one-off because they're modest in isolation, but of course they add up to a total. They would be the two I'd call out.

Alright, thanks. Your next question comes from Craig Wolford with MST Marquis. Please go ahead.

Afternoon or morning Rob and team. Can I just ask a question about the, I guess the approach you take about adjusting costs in line with trading conditions. At what point would there be a constraint or would you reassess the situation in terms of debiting the customer proposition, or should we expect that you can do that under most economic circumstances?

Craig might let Mike kick off talking about that. I think he'll give a good context on the broader thinking across the retail businesses, but Ian and Sarah could add to it as well.

Yeah. Hi, Craig. Just to sort of kick off, you know, I think any retail store will have a fixed base, which is, you know, certain administrative costs, leadership costs, those sorts of things. But a lot of the labour that sort of flexes from there is quite variable and rostering patterns and models allow us to sort of adapt and cope and I sort of look back over the last, you know, 15 or so years, we've seen a range of different trading cycles, and that can be trading region to trading region, and that can be something, you know, relating to weather, for example, where our ability to sort of flex up and flex down is very strong. So I think, you know, there's clearly a base at which you want to stop. That starts with the safety and wellbeing of the team, and then secondly, it's about the sort of practical operation of a of a site but you know particularly from a bunnings context you know we've got very large warehouses with very you know large weekly trading um volumes so our ability to sort of handle that flex is is very good and it's well proven and our operations team you know don't need a lot of um guidance on that they know exactly what they've got to do to um to do that and our investments in um Not only our new EVA, but also our new Ross Drink system, which has been now rolled out across our Australian stores, is going to give us even more flexibility on that.

Yeah, building on Mike's comments, if I put it into three buckets, the first one, Labor, which Mike touched on exactly right, is there's a fixed cost to run a store. And over the years, we've been figuring out how to make that fixed cost a smaller number so that variable becomes a bigger component. And that's through various productivity measures through technology. It's through looking at management structures in lower volume stores and other tactics that we've applied. So that gives us a bigger proportion of variable costs over time. The second one would be leases. And we've been doing increasing work with our landlords to ensure that as revenue goes up and down that the lease adjusts appropriately versus it's a one-way street where leases only go up. And we've got an increasing number of leases which have that mechanic now embedded in them. And then the last one, of course, would be clearance in a business like ours, because we purchase a lot of inventory up front. So ensuring that we've got good intel, good quantification, and we're adapting very quickly to changing in customer behaviour really helps us buy the right amount of inventory at the right time. We've also put a lot of work now in to reduce the lead times on our products coming out of our sourcing supply out of Asia. A combination of those things means we can adapt more quickly and have better intel from our demand sensing approaches, which means that we have less risk of over quantification.

And just building on Mike and Ian's comments, the only thing I'd add is I'd echo Mike's comments in terms of the store environment and labour management in terms of our supply chain. So certainly across our supply chain, it's a very similar approach. As we see a shift between stores or online, we're able to flex up and down our variable costs to make sure that we are still delivering a fantastic customer experience, but we are meeting the demand in the right way and managing our costs in line with it. So very similar to our store model, we apply the same logic into our supply chain as well.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Ben Gilbert with Jarden. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon here, morning over there. Ian, just a question for you. I was looking at the podcast you did the other day, and you're talking about potentially growing 10% into next year, but you said you've got to work 15% better. A lot of the discretionary retail, I suppose, a flat result would be a pretty good outcome. Is that sort of how you guys are thinking next year? Do you think the tools and the plans you've got in place could provide scope to see your Kmart earnings grow 10% next year?

Thanks, Ben. Well, thank you for listening to the podcast.

It's nice to know that someone has. That's all right.

I mean, clearly the podcast is more of a philosophy than it is a forecast for the next period of time. But just trying to give an indication that, you know, for a business to continue to improve when you've got the scale of a Kmart or a Kmart group, you've got to be thinking about being 50% better over the course of a three- or four-year time horizon. And really the way I tell that story is to try and break that down into something that's a little bit more tangible. It wasn't intended to be a forecast number for FY24.

If we think about what you guys are doing at the moment, like I noticed you've obviously put through a bunch of costs, all price cuts, and came up recently as well. Do you still, even with this backdrop and the costs, it sounds like you've had a pretty good start to the year. Is it still conceivable you think you can grow off this big base that you've established after a cracking fiscal 2020?

Yeah, absolutely. There's so much... Yes, yes. I mean, if I was in my trading meeting on a Monday, you know, there's so many opportunities that we see where we could have done better on any given week. And then we've got some new categories which we're exploring, which I think we covered some of those at the Strategy Day. Things like cosmetics, youth fashion, storage are examples where, you know, we're going into those categories in a bigger way than we have previously and we're seeing some great results out of that. So I know I feel very confident there's lots of market opportunity out there. I think customers are really tuned into value. And I think going back to Sean's question earlier, that really opens up our opportunity to connect with categories, with customers we haven't historically. And we're working really hard on apparel in both Kmart and Target. And we're seeing some good results because we feel like we're delivering better value than the majority of players in the market. And that's encouraging customers to come to us.

But you guys must be seeing growth in apparel there, because most of the market is starting to find apparel pretty tough at the moment, but it's never that you're seeing too much growth in apparel.

We've seen solid growth across all the main categories we then came up.

Fantastic. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Richard Barwick with CLSA. Please go ahead.

Hi, Al. Can we just talk about trading down? You obviously referenced that, and you have done across some of the different retail formats. Can you provide some colour, perhaps by business, what this might mean for EBIT margins? So in other words, is there a sort of a margin mix impact from trading down? So I guess if there is that trading down, are they coming down into lower or higher margin categories?

Hi, Richard. Ian here. I think, first of all, in Kmart, everything we sell is the lowest price, irrespective of the price point it's at. It's the lowest price for the equivalent item. So when we use words like that, we're thinking about all the products we sell versus there's a shift in mix necessarily within our own box. I'd say it's more of a comment on a market dynamic than it is on a dynamic within our store. So I wouldn't be looking at customer behaviour through a lens of there's a fundamental change in the mix of our products that we sell or the margins that we generate.

And maybe just to add to that, Richard, Mike here, when we look at our consumer category in particular, discretion and necessity exists in that. Ultimately, we may see a mix in the type of replacement light bulb or battery or things for the garden, but our ability to manage margin across all the different price points in our product diamond is really, really strong. So we wouldn't see that being margin dilutive.

And I guess just building on that, similarly as a house of brands, you know, it is about ensuring across our offer we have a range of choice for customers at Officeworks. And what we are seeing, though, is the investments that we've made in private labels certainly perform strongly over this period. We're seeing across stationery, education and art, our private label grow at about three times the rate of national brands, which is on the back of a strong investment around private label and really building partnerships great quality products at great prices to create choice for customers.

Okay. All right. Thank you. And just one follow-up, sort of related to Ian. Expansion of the Anko brand, I know it's early days, we're talking about global customers, but as that progresses, and I guess the sales there... How does that compare, or what's the margin you're making compared to the sales you'd be making across the rest of the Kmart group?

You're right, Richard, very early days, and I'd probably be saying what's my aspiration versus what's the result because of where we are. But we enter that business with a view that we aspire to a very similar final margin, an EBT margin, that's equivalent to what we have within the existing business.

Okay, so we shouldn't be thinking about that being either dilutionary or expansionary to the margin even?

Correct. It's a different cost model, not surprisingly. So it's a different first margin, but it's a very different cost base or cost of doing business to support that. And the intent, though, is a final EBT margin very much in line with what we generate from our retail business. Okay. All right. Great. Thanks very much.

Your next question comes from Phil Kimber with E&P Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. I just had a question on the WESF business, and I'm really looking at slide 36 there. So if we put the lithium to one side, the ammonia price and some of the other key prices are sort of heading back to the levels they were in 2017. And if I go back and look at the earnings of the business back then, they were $400 to $450 of EBIT. I mean, is that a sensible way to think about the West Surf business excluding lithium? Or have there been other sort of structural changes along the way that makes that not the way to think about it?

Hi, Phil. Thanks for the question. I think it's a sensible way to look at it, given that whilst our production may have changed slightly in the last few years, it hasn't significantly altered in terms of the volumes, either in ammonia or ammonium nitrate or sodium cyanide. And they're the key drivers of earnings in the chemical sector. And you're right, the ammonia price has dropped significantly. The current ammonia price at the end of July was $3.34. You compare that back to July 22 when it was $9.56. That's a rapid decline in global ammonia price. That's CFR US dollars. The other thing to consider is that we have benefited in this last financial year with the three-month price lag. So as the price has come down, we're pricing three months prior but buying on the current lower price as the price decreases. if the price starts to move up over the next 12-month period, the reverse will happen. So we'll be pricing on a previous period but buying on the current period when the price is moving up. But I think fundamentally your suggestion of looking back prior to the peaks of ammonia in particular and perhaps Saudi CP to some extent is something worth considering. Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Ross Curran with Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Hi, team. I suppose this is one for Emily. Just on Wes Frommer's health, you know, you've got a couple of new acquisitions coming into this business over the next year. So how should we think about, you know, success in health over FY24 in terms of both B&E and EBIT?

Yeah, sure. So I think from a growth perspective, the new acquisitions are designed to be earnings accretive to help us improve our return on capital. You know, as we said at the strategy day, The business is in a turnaround and a lot of our activity is really focused on investing for the long term. So over the last year, we've had great earnings growth. We've had a very modest revenue earnings uplift. And so a lot of our activity is really about continuing to invest in efficiency measures, which is all aimed at reducing our costs, which will add to our earnings profile in the medium term

And just as a follow-up, do you think that the move to six-day scripts will be a major headwind for you guys?

Look, there's two impacts to 60 days. The main one for us is on our wholesale business. So we do see a reduction in our wholesale mark-up on those particular drugs that move to 60 days. But the government has actually stepped in to compensate the wholesalers, which is really a reflection of the fact that that part of the business is low margin. So, you know, that will buffer a lot of the impact... The other impact actually is on our pharmacy partners who will see a reduction, you know, in their dispensary revenue. But from our perspective, you know, our Priceline brand has a very strong sort of front of store. So really, you know, some opportunities to work with them to enhance both the services and their front of store benefits. But there definitely will be an impact which will play out over time for our pharmacy partners.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Lisa Dean with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Oh, hi. Thank you for taking a follow-up. I'm actually trying to get some clarity on sort of group, like corporate, group overall investment priorities around supply chain and digital, because it's hard to read across all the different divisions. Can we get an update or a direction on the group... spend on capex and opex on supply chain and digital, whether it's 23 or some direction into 24 as well. Thank you.

Lisa, it's Rob here. So the way to think about supply chain investment is very much at a divisional level rather than a group level, because the investment is very much driven by divisional needs. And there's a combination of investment in new capacity, further automation and efficiency investments and so forth. And I think the best marker of that is really what we discussed through the strategy day, and I think each of the divisions have signalled that reasonably well. At a group level around... And I should also note a lot of the ongoing investment in data digital technology is also happening at a divisional level. The areas of future investment at a group level, at a corporate level... in the data and digital space have really been called out by Anthony around the one digital net loss costs, which we gave a forecast for the year of $70 million. So that's down on the $80 million incurred this year. And that really relates to the investment that's being made across the development of OnePass, the shared data asset, some other data and digital projects at a group level, So that gives you some good guidance for FY24.

Yeah, thanks. Just a follow-up on that. If I look at the 1.1 to 1.4 guidance for CapEx next year, or 24, how much of that would be roughly in supply chain? And then the second follow-up is on the one digital loss of $70 million. It seems small to me if it's basically building a big corporate capability around a lot of the data and the personalisation and potentially loyalty that we need to do. Is that because we're sort of managing to like a profit envelope or is it because we actually don't see the need to spend at this stage?

Yeah, look, just on that point, Lisa, there's a lot of, as I said, a lot of cost that is embedded within the divisional numbers. So a lot of the ongoing investment around developing out the divisional data capabilities, digital platforms. Also, the costs around flyby points, for example, and obviously that number, the 70 number, doesn't include the ongoing investment we're making in some flybys-related activities. I should note that we're really pleased how flybys is travelling and moving up to over 9 million active members is a good step forward. So we're quite happy with the investment, the level of investment, recognising that we've been... There has been a fair bit of investment in recent years. I'll let Anthony talk more to the breakdown of the CapEx forecast for the year.

Yes, thank you. Hi, Lisa. Yeah, so in terms of what is in the 1.1 to 1.4 guidance, there is obviously supply chain activity that occurs, you know, periodically across all of the businesses at different points in time. A good example is there's a new WADC for Officeworks, for example, in FY24. There's a new DC that we're building in Queensland for health. So those costs will be in there. And, look, in total... You know, they might be, you know, across all of the businesses, it might be $50 million to $100 million, depending on what level of activity is going on in each year. What I would say, there's no major supply chain activity in terms of the bulk of spend in that 1.1 to 1.4 is probably the best way to describe it.

And is there bulk spend in digital at all in that 1.1 to 1.4?

In terms of, no, so look, there's a level, as I think we've talked about, there's a level of capex spend associated with data and digital across all of the divisions. But in total, it doesn't make up a bulk of what's in that 1.1 to 1.4.

Yes. Especially, Lisa, just given that a lot of the ongoing investment in the digital and data space is often software as a service and OPEX.

And I think we've been making some comments about that, Lisa, over the last few years, where that spend is shifting more into OPEX as opposed to CAPEX as we move to software as a service. And, of course, as the accounting standards have changed, which require that to be OPEXed. So...

And there's no bulky OPEX either coming up that we should know about across all the businesses? No. Related to digital, I guess?

No, no.

OK, got it. Thank you, thank you. Your next question comes from Scott Ryle with Rimmer Equity Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks very much. This is for Ian Hanson, please. I was just wondering if you can talk about decarbonisation at CSBP, which Rob mentioned in the initial remarks. I think if I read your website correctly, you're about 11% below your 2020 baseline, and I think you did catalyst abatement upgrades first. I was wondering if you could just tell us what's left for the rest of the decade? Can you stay ahead of the safeguard mechanism baseline reductions? And what are the opportunities you see just for that business? Because I get that you've got a lot of other businesses that are tied into decarbonisation, but what are the... opportunities you can see for that part of the business if you're successful at decarbonising ahead of perhaps your plans or in line with safe carbon.

So, Scott, it's Ian here. I assume you're referring to our ammonium nitrate business. Is that the question?

Yeah, the ammonium nitrate ammonia, obviously.

Yeah, OK. So, yes, you're correct. We're at 11% below our FY20 baseline. And, in fact, we should be potentially further below that in FY24 because we're replacing one of the catalysts today in one of our nitric acid plants. Life has expired. and the performance needs to be improved. So we're putting a new catalyst in there. So that should give us greater abatement for the next 12 months in that plant. We have a target of reducing our current... level of emission, or in fact our FY20 level of emission, by 30% by 2030, and we believe we are on track to meet that. That will require us installing tertiary abatement into our ammonium nitrate facilities, but we're planning on doing that progressively over the decade. In terms of the safeguard mechanism, we believe that, subject to the FY27 review by the Federal Government, we should be okay with respect to the safeguard mechanism until 2030. Okay.

And then opportunities that you see in the market for lower carbon products?

Look, we're starting to have discussions with our customers now about lower carbon products, but to be honest, they haven't been terribly willing to engage. I think they see their priorities in other areas to reduce their carbon footprint relative to the carbon that our products deliver to their operations.

OK, thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Craig Wolford with MST Marquee. Please go ahead.

Hi Rob and team. Just a follow up on space or store growth. It was quite modest for, certainly for Kmart and Officeworks. Can you give us the guidance for what you expect for FY24? by the retail brands, as well as the Bunnings specifically. Can you give us an indication of what the space growth was in FY23, referring to square metre growth as opposed to store count?

Yeah, I'll start. I think we set a strategy over the next few years. We're sort of looking at 10% space growth. I'll need to come back to you on exact space growth for FY23, so we'll do that. But, you know, to give you an example, in the new stores that we opened, you know, we were picking up quite considerable spaces. So, One Thaggy in Victoria gave us 4,000 square metres additional space. Preston in Victoria gave also gave us sort of 6,000 square metre space. So our outlook for FY24, no net new stores for Bunnings, but lots of opportunity to optimise space between bigger and smaller stores and regional and metro stores. We've got three Beaumont tiles opening in Western Australia and we'll expand by about another 10 in the Toolkit Depot fleet over the next 12 months. But I'll circle back, Craig, on the exact space growth for F23. Yeah.

Yeah, in Kmart, Greg, we're pretty much in network optimisation within Australia, so it's a small number of stores when new catchments become available or we consolidate catchments to get a better economic outcome. In New Zealand, there's a little bit more opportunity and we're still opening stores, but it's a relatively small number in that market as well. So, again, we've called out pretty much it's five or less over the course of the next few years per year.

Sorry, I was just going to ask, is K-Hub likely to shrink further?

Every store we assess based upon its economic merits. We're quite happy with the returns that we're generating out of the majority of the K-hubs, but we've got roughly 50 of them. There'll be some stores which perform better than others, and if we don't think there's an adequate return from a store, then obviously we'll assess it in that time. But at the moment, we're pretty happy with the performance of the stores.

Great. And Craig, from an Officeworks perspective, look, over the last couple of years, we've been working really hard to optimise our property portfolio, as has been the trend in recent years for Officeworks. So we expect in FY24 to open five net new stores and we'll have one relocation. Our property strategy has been well established for a number of years now and we're continuing on that basis. Equally similarly to Mike and Ian, we're always looking at opportunities to optimise space and sales per square metre and that's part of, you know, one of the key drivers of our reflow programs that we've been running over the last couple of years as we improve adjacencies, we improve through range review processes that sales per square metre return and that's how we think about it at Officeworks.

Great. Thanks, Sarah. Thanks, Dan.

The next question comes from Ben Gilbert with Jarden. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking another question. Just a quick one over to you, Rob. Just on flybys, it's obviously a great program, but I imagine there's probably some interesting discussions internally around rolling out to other brands, such as Barneys. How do you see that on a five- to 10-year lens with some of these privacy, the Privacy Act review, and some ambiguity that might occur around whether it's 1P or 3P data? And is there any optionality in that separation agreement for you guys to take that back to 100% at any stage? Or do you think about building more internal capabilities around loyalty with the view that on a longer-term lens, you're probably going to have to have it in-house?

Yeah, thanks, Ben. So firstly, we're pleased with the benefit that we see within our divisions from flybys. And you're right, it took a while to arrive at a framework that worked for particularly our EDLP retailers. And certainly Bunnings and Officeworks that are now in the program are are leveraging Flybuys well. It's resonating well with their customers. Clearly, the way in which businesses like Bunnings Officeworks came out use Flybuys is different to how a supermarket uses it. But that seems to be adding value. And obviously, it's great for Flybuys members to have the benefit to earn points and redeem points across a much broader category of spend. So if you're a Flybuys member, you're much better off by virtue of being a Flybuys member today than you were five years ago. And that's what's driving the increase in membership and increasing engagement and NPS scores. So we're quite pleased with it. I think on your question of... data privacy rights and how that might evolve. I think what we're going to see is that as the regulations tighten up, it's going to really demonstrate the benefit of these types of programs where there is a very transparent arrangement around the data rights and the benefits for customers. And I think that transparency and simplicity, customers knowing exactly what's happening with their data, what's not happening with their data and the benefits they're getting will play to the strengths of well-established programs such as flybys. And there are things that we can do in flybys that we can't easily do within our existing businesses, and then there are things that we just have to do in our existing businesses that can't be done within flybys. And I'm sure that Coles would probably have a similar answer to that. So we'll continue to invest in flybys and the capabilities in our divisions and see it as adding value for all parties at the moment.

But does it make sense, Rob, to have a JV with someone that you're increasingly competing with? Because you look at API and Priceline, it's a big chunk of the supermarket. You've just gone into pet. I presume we'll see more consumables coming into Bunnings. Catch sells a lot of cleaning based with the products, health as well. I understand why it did it with the merger, but it seems like a bit of a funny, not funny, but a partnership that doesn't make a lot of logical sense on a multi-year view.

Yeah, well, one point I should note is that we've deliberately kept the Sister Club program and the Priceline loyalty program outside of flybys. That's important to note. But the other point I'd say is that, look, there is... There's always a degree of overlap between different businesses. You know, even if you... You know, between Officeworks, Bunnings, Kmart, there's a degree of product overlap. But it's really at the margin. And, you know, I think it would be wrong to get hung up with all the 1% areas of overlap. The bottom line is that... you know, we are not in the business of being a supermarket and supermarkets aren't in the business of, you know, selling apparel or home improvement products. So there's far more complementarity and benefit from leveraging that broader scale than there are issues getting worked up with some of the 1% differences.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time.

OK, thanks, everyone, for your time and your questions. Any further questions, please follow up with Simon and the team. Otherwise, have a great weekend.

That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.