Wesfarmers Ltd Old

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding and welcome to the West Farmers 2025 Half 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. Well good morning and good afternoon everyone and welcome to our half year results briefing. So today I'm joined by our Divisional Managing Directors and our CFO Anthony Gianotti. To begin I'll talk to the group's performance and key highlights across the portfolio and then Anthony will provide more detail on our financial performance. I'll conclude with some comments on the group's outlook, and Anthony, our divisional MDs, and I would then welcome any questions that you may have. So I'll start on slide four, which is a slide that you will be familiar with. The West Farmers' objective is to deliver a satisfactory return to shareholders, which we define as a top quartile total shareholder return over the long term. And we acknowledge that we can only achieve this if we anticipate the needs of our customers, look after our team, treat suppliers fairly and ethically, contribute positively to the communities in which we operate, take care of the environment and act with integrity and honesty. And this half has once again provided us with many opportunities to demonstrate progress in these areas and you'll hear this throughout our presentation. So turning to slide five, and there are three points I'd like to highlight from today's result. First, our financial performance. It was pleasing to deliver growth in sales, earnings and dividends in what was a challenging trading environment, with many households and B2B customers restricting their spending. We delivered net profit after tax of $1.5 billion, an increase of 2.9%. And as a result, the board determined to pay a fully franked dividend of $0.95 per share, a 4.1% increase on the prior corresponding period. The second point is that this result demonstrates strong execution across the group's portfolio of businesses. Our divisions continued to benefit from their proactive productivity initiatives and this enabled reinvestment in their customer offers, delivering even greater value, service and convenience for customers. And there's also been a lot of transformation and growth activity that will set our divisions up well for the future. It was particularly pleasing to see the group's largest divisions performing well, with Bunnings and Kmart Group's strong value credentials continuing to resonate, driving growth in transactions, sales and earnings. The third point is I wanted to note that we undertook a number of portfolio actions to improve shareholder returns and renew the portfolio, and some of which I'll talk to shortly. This is another result that demonstrates the resilience of our portfolio of businesses and the capacity of our divisions to adapt and prosper in tough markets. I'm also confident that we're entering 2025 with our businesses in better shape to manage risks, but also to benefit from any improvement that may occur in economic activity. Turning to slide six, I won't step through every division in detail on this slide, but I'll describe a few highlights from the half and then Anthony can talk to some of the financial results. Bunnings demonstrated the resilience of its offer and it continued to grow sales and earnings despite challenging market conditions, particularly in residential construction. Kmart Group's result builds on the very strong performance delivered last year as they continue to drive greater efficiency and expand and improve their ANCO product offer. This result also includes the integration of Kmart and Target systems and processes, which is simplified operations, and also the ongoing digitisation of operations, global sourcing and supply chain functions. Wessef delivered solid operating results for the half, supported by the chemicals business, and the covalent JV continued to make good progress at the Kwinana lithium hydroxide refinery, with construction 95% complete and commissioning 50% complete at the end of the half. In health we continue to invest in transformation activities and have been encouraged by the progress and performance of the consumer segment comprising Priceline, MediAesthetics and Digital Health that grew transactions, sales and earnings. Health's result was impacted by the wholesale segment which experienced higher supply chain costs with actions underway to improve efficiency. There were also one-off costs associated with an outsourcing of support functions in the health division to ultimately support future growth of the group. One Digital, which comprises our shared data asset, One Data and membership program, OnePass, continued to drive incremental sales for our retail and health divisions, leveraging the group's unique data and digital assets and omnichannel capabilities. And work is underway to develop a group retail media network, which will leverage the group's significant omnichannel audiences. Turning to slide seven, this slide sets out some of the recent portfolio actions and demonstrates the group's financial discipline and focus on shareholder returns. First, in December, we announced the sale of Corgas to a subsidiary of Nippon Sanso for $770 million. Now, while this sale is subject to certain consents and approvals, it's a great example of our disciplined approach to portfolio management. The sale recognises Core Gas's strong growth in recent years and gives customers and team members the opportunity to join Nippon Sanso, a leading global industrial gas company. More recently, we announced the wind-down of catch, which includes the transfer of catch's fulfilment centres to Kmart Group and some digital capabilities to our retail divisions. This decision will improve Westfarmers' earnings in FY26 as we eliminate the business's losses. It will also strengthen our retail division's omnichannel offers and improve Kmart Group earnings. The move to next day delivery for much of Kmart and Targus East Coast operations will be a great outcome for their customers. During the half, we also completed the divestment of Wessex LPG and LNG distribution businesses, which will improve Wessex financial returns. And we also completed incremental bolt-on acquisitions, expanding Officeworks digital education offer and also supporting health's digital strategy. Turning to slide eight. During the half we continued to deliver better outcomes for the environment, our people, our suppliers and the communities in which we operate. The group's TRIFA improved from 10.9 to 9.9 at the end of the half. This was largely driven by an improvement in Bunnings where we're starting to see the results of a multi-year program to create a safer workplace. We continued to embed climate resilience in our businesses, acknowledging its link with long-term value creation. And during the half, our divisions achieved a 2.5% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions. And a source of pride for our teams is the $55 million of direct and indirect community contributions made during the half, supporting more than 8,000 community organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Now, turning to slide nine, you can see the summarised performance of the group, but I'll hand over to Anthony, who will talk in more detail to divisional performance and the group's balance sheet and cash flows.

Thanks, Rob, and hello, everyone. I'll start on slide 11 in the presentation, where we've provided some further details on the sales performance 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 our ability to deliver good sales growth in what was a challenging retail environment. This was particularly the case for our largest divisions, Bunnings and Kmart Group, which performed well as their everyday low prices, market-leading offers and strong execution drove growth in transactions and sales. Turning to slide 12. At a total level, divisional earnings grew 4% for the half, and on a combined basis, Bunnings and Kmart Group increased earnings by 4.4%. Our retail businesses continued to execute well during the period, enabling them to deliver great value to customers and benefit from their continued investments in efficiency and productivity. Our retail divisions remained focused on keeping prices low and investing in the omnichannel customer experience. This supported growth in sales and allowed our businesses to mitigate cost headwinds and to fractionalise costs. I'll now step through the divisional results in a bit more detail. Firstly, in Bunnings, sales growth of 3.1% was supported by growth in both consumer and commercial segments. Higher growth in the consumer segment was supported by sustained demand for repair and maintenance products, growth in digital sales and strong demand for new and expanded product ranges. Commercial sales growth was supported by higher demand from trades and organisations, which was partially offset by lower demand from builders, where activity remains impacted by the subdued residential construction environment. During the half, Bunnings maintained its strong cost discipline and continued to invest in business improvement initiatives to support ongoing reinvestment in price and experience for customers. Overall, excluding the net impact of property contributions, Bunnings earnings increased 3.2% to $1.32 billion for the half. Kmart Group delivered earnings of $644 million for the half, an increase of 7.2%. This result is off the back of a significant increase in earnings in the prior corresponding period, with the division reporting 36% growth on a two-year basis. Kmart Group continued to benefit from its strong value credentials and unique ANCO product offer, which supported growth in units sold, transactions and customer numbers. Minor reductions in items per basket and average sell price in an inflationary environment demonstrated customers' focus on value and Kmart Group's commitment to low prices. Importantly, the earnings result was supported by the successful execution of long-standing productivity initiatives, including the integration of target systems and processes, which helped mitigate cost pressures and the impact of a lower Australian dollar. In WESF, earnings increased 2.9% to $177 million, with higher earnings across all businesses, partially offset by the impact of losses from our lithium business, which remained in ramp-up during the half. Favourable ammonium nitrate recontracting outcomes and strong demand across the gold mining sector resulted in higher earnings in chemicals, despite the impact from lower global commodity prices. In clean heat, earnings benefited from a higher Saudi contract price, which was partially offset by higher WA natural gas costs. In fertilisers, earnings improved as a result of higher sales volumes with a strong end to the 2024 growing season. In lithium, WSF's sale of spodumene concentrate in the first half contributed a loss of $24 million. This loss reflected lower market pricing and higher unit costs of production as volumes from the concentrator continued to ramp up through the half. The reported loss also includes WSF's share of Covalent's corporate and overhead costs. In Officeworks, sales increased 4.7% and earnings increased 1.2% to $87 million for the half. The result was supported by above-market growth in technology and an increase in demand across key categories as Officeworks' everyday low prices and value resonated with customers. Pleasing sales growth to consumer customers, including during the Black Friday period, were partially offset by softer sales growth to business customers. This is reflecting the challenging conditions affecting small to medium-sized businesses. Earnings growth was also impacted by one-off costs associated with the acquisition of Box of Books and the closure of Circonomy, as well as increased competitive intensity in technology categories. In industrial and safety, revenue declined 1.9%, reflecting the challenging economic conditions affecting customer demand, particularly across strategic customers in the mining and manufacturing sectors. Earnings decreased 8.2%, to $45 million, and this result includes one-off restructuring costs of $7 million to reset the operating model and the cost base in both Blackwoods and Workwear Group, with the benefits from these actions expected to be realised in the second half. The restructuring initiatives are expected to mitigate ongoing cost pressures and support sustainable earnings growth by leveraging the recent investment in new ERP systems across both Blackwoods and Workwear Group. Earnings excluding the restructuring cost increased 6.1% to $52 million. In West Farmers Health, we saw continued focus on transformation activities to accelerate growth and improve returns. Earnings of $28 million included $4 million of restructuring costs, as well as $9 million in non-cash amortisation expenses relating to business acquisitions. Excluding these costs, earnings increased 13.9% to $41 million, and we expect the restructuring costs incurred in the first half to be recovered within the remainder of the financial year. As Rob mentioned earlier, we were pleased with the performance of the consumer segment. Priceline's strong performance was driven by strategic price reductions on key value lines, network expansion, and the launch of new and exclusive brands. Metaesthetics performance improved from actions taken to optimise the network following the acquisition of Silk, including the closure of 34 unprofitable clinics over the last 12 months, the majority of which were clear skincare clinics. This stronger performance in consumer was offset by the pharmaceutical wholesale segment, which was impacted by higher supply chain costs during the half. This was primarily due to higher last mile fulfilment costs impacted by inflationary pressures and the renewal of recent freight contracts. Wholesale has a supply chain cost-out program underway and is expected to benefit from investments to optimise the network, including from the recently constructed fully automated fulfilment centre in Brisbane and the construction of a new DC in Cairns. Catch reported a loss of $39 million for the half, which was in line with the preliminary half-year earnings result which we announced in January. Catch will cease to trade in the fourth quarter of the 2025 financial year with one-off costs associated with the wind-down and transition expected to be between $50 million and $60 million. These costs will be incurred in the second half of this financial year and do not include the operating losses from catch as the business continues to trade through the second half. Turning now to slide 13 on other businesses. Our other businesses and corporate overheads reported a loss of $88 million, which was a $7 million improvement on the prior half. The key driver was the impact of upward property revaluations in the Bunnings Warehouse Property Trust, with the contribution from BWP increasing from $13 million in the prior half to $35 million. Group overheads were broadly in line with the prior corresponding period, while other corporate earnings were lower, driven by a lower group insurance result. Finally, we continued to develop capabilities in One Digital, including the OnePass membership program and the group's shared data asset, with a net investment for the half of $30 million. One Pass member numbers and retention rates continue to increase through the half, with One Pass members shopping more frequently and spending more across the group's brands after joining the program. As previously mentioned, the benefits of incremental sales from One Pass member spend and improved personalisation are reflected within the Retail Division's sales and earnings. Turning to working capital and cash flow on slide 14. Overall, the working capital and cash flow position remained strong during the half, with cash realisation across our retail businesses of 113%. Despite the strong performance in cash realisation, divisional operating cash flows decreased 6.3%, primarily as a result of cycling a significant increase in cash flows in the prior half, which benefited from normalisation in WestEff's networking capital in its fertiliser business. In this half, the divisional cash flow result reflected networking capital investment in Bunnings to support higher customer demand and in Wessef to support the upcoming fertilisers growing season. At a group level, operating cash flows decreased 11.1% to $2.6 billion due to the lower cash flow from divisions and higher tax paid during the half. Overall, we're comfortable with the inventory health across the group with good stock availability across all of our retail businesses and improved stock turn in Bunnings, Officeworks and Health compared to the prior corresponding period. Free cash flows for the half were $2 billion in line with the prior corresponding period as lower operating cash flows were partially offset by the acquisitions of Silk and Instant Scripts in the first half of the 2024 financial year. Moving now to capital expenditure on slide 15. The group invested gross capex of $594 million during the half, which was 2.9% higher than the prior corresponding period. This was driven by new store and expansion projects in Bunnings, partially offset by reduced spend in Wessex following the completion of commissioning activities at the Mount Holland Concentrator in the 2024 financial year. Proceeds from the sale of PP&E increased for the period, reflecting higher property activity at Bunnings. As a result, net capital expenditure for the half declined slightly to $555 million. For the full year, we do expect net capital expenditure for the group to be in the range of $1.1 to $1.3 billion, which is in line with our previous guidance. 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. Net financial debt decreased by $400 million over the half and the group's cost of funds of 3.92% were broadly in line with the position at the 30th of June. Our debt maturity profile improved slightly during the half with a weighted average term to maturity of 4.6 years. Our other finance costs, including capitalised interest, increased 3.2% to $97 million. Our key credit metrics improved during the half, and the group maintains considerable debt headroom within our targeted rating band. At the end of the half, the group had available unused bank financing facilities of around $1.1 billion. And finally to dividends on slide 17. As Rob's already mentioned, the board has determined to pay a fully franked interim dividend of 95 cents per share and this is consistent with our dividend policy which considers available franking credits, balance sheet position, credit metrics and our cash flow generation. In line with what we've done in recent practice, the group does intend to purchase shares on market to satisfy any shares that will be issued as part of the group's dividend investment plan. And with that, I'll now hand back to Rob to cover Outlook.

Thanks, Anthony. And turning to slide 19, before covering Outlook, I wanted to comment on the positioning of the group's portfolio. We have high-quality businesses that provide us with a platform for long-term value creation. Our retail divisions have market-leading positions, strong value credentials and broad customer appeal. WESF has strategic manufacturing capability, supporting customers in large critical industries, including in iron ore, gold and agriculture. Our businesses will continue to drive growth by expanding addressable markets and executing productivity and efficiency initiatives. And the group also has exposure to new and growing earning streams linked to the demand for lithium hydroxide and the health sector and also new strategies such as in retail media. Finally, the strength of the group's balance sheet, as Anthony said, creates optionality to deploy capital across our portfolio and taking advantage of opportunities that might arise. So turning to the group outlook on slide 20. Westfarmers remains focused on generating top quartile TSR over the long term, and we continue to invest to strengthen our current divisions and develop platforms for future growth. Australian consumer demand remains supported by strong employment and continued population growth, but higher costs remain a challenge for many households and businesses. Cost of living and cost of doing business pressures are expected to continue despite the recent modest easing of interest rates. While this drop in interest rates will provide some relief for many households and businesses, we think it will take time to stimulate demand for additional demand and investment. Weak domestic productivity and geopolitical developments add uncertainty to the economic outlook and broader market conditions. Now, our divisions are well positioned to mitigate these impacts, continuing to focus on executing productivity initiatives, including investments in technology to digitise their operations. The group's retail businesses are expected to benefit from their strong value credentials and expanding addressable markets. Bunnings, Kmart and Officeworks will retain their focus on enhancing the customer experience and delivering even greater value, service and convenience for customers. For the first six weeks of the second half of this financial year, Bunnings and Officeworks maintained solid sales momentum, with sales growth broadly in line with the first half, and Kmart Group's sales growth was stronger compared to the first half, supported by its unique ANCO product offer. Now, obviously, the value of West Farmers is underpinned by the quality and performance of our larger divisions, and we remain confident of their growth prospects in the years ahead. And consistent with our long-term focus, we're also optimistic for our new and developing businesses that have a minimal contribution to earnings at the moment but represent significant potential over the next three to five years. And this includes our health division, our lithium joint venture and retail media opportunity. Along with our joint venture partner SQM, Westfarmers remains focused on the development of the Covalent Lithium Project, which includes an integrated lithium mine, concentrator and refinery. First product from the hydroxide refinery is expected mid-calendar year 2025, in line with prior guidance, with production to ramp up over the following 18 months. In parallel with ramp up, product qualification with contracted customers will also commence, which could take up to nine months. We purposefully retain balance sheet flexibility and will continue to improve the portfolio through our disciplined approach to capital allocation in our existing businesses and with new growth opportunities. Before we open for questions, I would like to take a moment to recognise Ian Bailey. This will be Ian's last results briefing as Managing Director of the Kmart Group as he retires from the position in April to be succeeded by Alex Pozeska. Over many years, Ian has made an outstanding contribution to the transformation and growth of Kmart, which is now a world-class product development company and a trusted Australian brand. We thank Ian and are pleased that he will remain with West Farmers, serving as the chairman of ANCO Global and supporting a smooth leadership transition. With that, we're now very 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 one on your telephone and wait for 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 Michael Smotis with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi everyone. My question just relates to balancing the outlook for costs as well as the productivity initiatives and benefits that you've got in the pipeline. So how do you see costs in the next six to 12 months based on what we've seen recently? And I guess it makes sense to look at COGS and CODB combined. And then on the other side of the equation, do you think you can continue to offset the cost pressures that you've got with productivity like you have over the last 12 or 18 months?

Michael, I might... Rob here, I'll make some opening remarks. I might hand over initially to Mike and Ian just to provide a bit of context from their businesses, given the importance of their businesses. I'd say that all of our divisions have demonstrated in recent years a lot of capacity to drive continuous improvement and productivity, and we are finding that... there are more opportunities that are available to drive productivity given the new technology solutions that we have available and also better leveraging our data insights. They have been key drivers. So I think we have a very strong capability across our businesses around that. Although we've made good progress in recent years, there's still a lot to go after. So I think that... I think that's an important consideration. The other thing is that despite what you might interpret as some cautionary comments about cost pressures and inflation, the reality is that inflation is improving. So we should recognise that inflation last year was very high in relative terms and it is improving. We called out the Aussie dollar impact. Now, you know, we've talked about that many times over the years and I think we have demonstrated our capacity to... particularly in businesses such as Kmart and Bunnings, to manage the effects of changes in currency better than most. But I might initially let Mike talk to that, and then Ian can provide more detail.

Thanks, Robyn. Hi, Michael. To answer the question, you know, can we offset? Absolutely. We've got very strong... productivity initiatives right across the board at Bunnings, which are around making our stores simpler to operate, investments in fulfilment, so our Laverton North Fulfilment Centre in Victoria and a new one to be opened in Wacol in Queensland, you know, strip some costs out of supply chain and last mile delivery and even our investment into our own team members. running deliveries gives us a much better sort of returns profile. And from a COGS point of view, there's inflation and deflation that sort of runs through the different departments. When you think about Bunnings, there's so many different categories with different exposure to domestic and global markets. So you sort of see that move around a little bit. But there's definitely upward pressure on cost through... things like energy, workers' compensation, some transport costs as well. So it is a balancing act, but we've got very disciplined programs right across the business. Our operations team have stripped tens of thousands of hours of unnecessary task out so that we can, as Anthony said earlier, invest more in the experience for our customers. But that balancing act will continue. But, yeah, I'm very confident that we've got the balance right to continue to make the business easier to run and much more productive overall. to deliver that better return for customers.

Thanks. Thanks, Mike. And Michael, just a couple of additional comments from me so I don't repeat what Rob and... And Mike have already said, I think we've got a bit more used to managing inflation in the cost base over the last couple of years. So when we came out of COVID, it was a new thing. And I guess we hadn't had that experience for quite some time. I think we've got a lot more experience of it now. So we're much more used to adjusting our prices both up and down so that we give the best value to consumers. And we're always going to make sure that we price our products super competitively in the market. So I'd say that piece is there and we understand that. probably to a greater extent in an inflationary environment than we did before. And then we're going to continue to work on productivity initiatives to help offset as much as we can. And I'd say as you look in the outlook, sometimes we'll be able to do that really well. Other times we might have to move prices if that's what happens. If something like the exchange rate stays as low as it is for an extended period, then that will obviously have to flow through into cost of goods at some point.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Tom Carrath with Baron Joey. Please go ahead.

G'day, guys. Just got one on CapEx. It's been kind of low for a while now, especially when I exclude the investment you made in Covalent. I suppose two ways to look at it. One is that the businesses aren't as capital-intensive as they used to be, or the second one is that you just don't have, I guess, the opportunities for growth, and hence you're pulling back on the investment there. So I'd just be interested in your comments on how you're looking at the CapEx side.

Yeah, thanks, Tom. Yeah, look, I think there's clearly been a lot of one-off projects in CapEx over the last couple of years. But there certainly hasn't been a meaningful pullback in CapEx across the other businesses. And, of course, there's a lot in there. There's businesses that have come and gone through that period. And if you look at – and a good example, I guess, is in Bunnings at the moment. You'll see the CapEx numbers up quite a bit. On the previous half, as we've talked about a lot in Bunnings, the property activity will be very irregular. So there'll be periods when there's a lot greater level of investment, where there's more property activity. Obviously, COVID slowed some of that productivity. Sorry, the rollout of stores. And Mike will talk in a bit more detail about what's coming in the next sort of six to 12 months in relation to that. So I don't think there's... You know, our capital intensity hasn't changed. There will always be periods where there's a bit further investment in things like supply chain. And we've continued to invest in supply chain across all of our businesses. And we've talked about... You know, Mike's talked about the rollout of Waco, which will happen... Over time, we've talked about the rollout of new DCs in health. So we're continuing to make investments in CapEx. So I think we do have probably businesses that are a little bit more efficient around how we invest capital, but there's certainly no shortage of opportunities to continue to invest.

I think, Tom, Rob here, the other element to investment is... A very significant part of the investment that's going on around technology and digital doesn't show up in the CapEx line because nowadays a lot of that cost is OpEx related through software as a service and so forth. Yeah, if I just take data and digital, we looked at this the other day. We've invested, excluding the investments in catch, we've invested over $2 billion across the group in data and digital-related activities. Now, a lot of that has flown through the P&L. In fact, only a smaller portion of it has actually hit the CapEx line. So I think it's also important to recognise that element of investment in the group.

Is it a way to quantify that impact on the P&L or the margins? Because the margins for most of the businesses are still very healthy and kind of above or well above where they were pre-COVID. I'd just be interested in any quantification around that.

Look, ultimately, you just need to look at the ultimate earnings, right? Whether we're investing in new stores, DCs or technology, we expect a return. That's how we think about it. So ultimately, the best judge of are we getting a return on all of this investment is an enabling growth. You'll see that in our sales line and our profit line and the return on capital.

Yeah, got it. Great. Thanks, guys.

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

Thanks. Good afternoon from Sydney. Maybe just for Ian, in Kmart Group, what drove the margin expansion in the division? And you've called out a couple of factors there, strong apparel, mixed to anko i assume that is adding anko into target more into the most material there target getting better and then productivity which we've um discussed there i guess one of the questions we have seen or we have is that we've seen increased promotional intensity across apparel general merchandise retail that may have required kmart to reinvest more of its cost savings and hence maybe didn't not expand margins i'm just curious did you notice that more competitive environment and maybe more generally just going back to some of those margin expansion drivers in the period place.

Yeah, thanks, Sean. I think you covered a lot of them, so obviously you covered off the apparel, the move of ANCO into Target, which is only about 25% of the product offer, but at a healthier margin than the products that we used to have there, so that helps. Of course, we look at margin in the entire P&L, and the other driver which you didn't cover off was the fact we brought the two businesses together as one operating model. And that's enabled us to be more efficient as an overall operation and drop our cost base because of that activity. So that's also helped drive our margins.

And did you see heightened competition in the market in terms of one of the themes, I think, of the first half 24 result when you had a dramatic amount of margin expansion, you probably were able to retain more of the cost savings that you generated. Did you have to redeploy more of it in this period?

Yeah, it was a very competitive half, and I'd say we're anticipating that will continue. I mean, I think despite interest rates falling by a few basis points, most customers are still finding it pretty tough out there, so value is really important. And I think all retailers are trying to figure out how they respond to that. We're always going to try for that lowest price and maintain that lowest price position. You'll see that we called out within the result that we had a slight reduction in our average sell price during the half. which was because we decided to invest in price and maintain that leadership place. But clearly we had enough in the tank in terms of productivity and efficiency that we could manage that.

Great. Thank you, Ian, and thanks for answering the questions over the years on Kmart. Thank you.

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

Good morning, good afternoon, team. Thank you. I'd like to delve a little bit into WESF, if I may, try to understand a few things. The first question, or there's a couple of parts, I'm trying to gain the ammonium nitrate renegotiated contracts. If Aaron could say what percentage of the contracts were renegotiated and would that mean then that we expect or can expect further upside potential in that? And the second part of my question is in lithium. And I don't think it's too an unreasonable question to ask, Rob. I know there's commercial sensitivities, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the current hydroxide price is US$9,300 a tonne. Would your operation be profitable at that price if the current spot price were to retain? And I'd like your reaction... to what Kent Masters said in the weekend press, which really did concern me, when he made the comment at a markets conference, Kent Masters, the CEO of Elba Marley, he said that they believe that Western Australia does not have the chemical processing capability needed to build or operate a plant of technical proficiency that is required. In other words, they believe that it's going to be too difficult to build a hydroxide facility to operate it because Western Australia doesn't have the technical capabilities. I'd really like you to answer that because that worried me a lot because that concerns me that if you guys can't get your hydroxide plant right, there could be a big hole punched through West Farmer. So that's where my question's coming from. So if you could address those issues, that'd be really appreciated.

Okay, thanks, David. It's Aaron here. So we've got three questions there. I'll just start with the ammonium nitrate one. As you can imagine, over the last... I think we've flagged at these briefings over three to five years that the market was in a state of oversupply for a period, and that's obviously been tightening up in Western Australia recently. as the Pilbara in particular, the iron ore mines, have been increasing production. We've entered a phase in the last year or so where the market has got closer to balance. And when you look at our peers in the ammonium nitrate space in Australia, they've all made comments around pricing improving as contracts rolled and were recontracted. The same thing occurred for us over here, and we're benefiting from that. A lot of those contracts obviously can't go into the specifics of the individual contracts, but they are typically three- to five-year kind of rolling agreements. I think the benefit that we've called out in this result, I wouldn't – I wouldn't then start going and annualising that again and again as we roll forward. I think those benefits will remain in our earnings, but we're starting to cycle the benefits of those existing in prior periods. I'll just turn to lithium hydroxide, if that's OK.

On that topic... I didn't quite follow you on that, Aaron. If you've got three to five years, what percentage of the contracts would have been renegotiated in this little period?

It's actually been a period over the last year or so that those contracts have been renegotiated, David. What I'm saying is when you look at the half-year result now where we've called it out, I wouldn't go and annualise that for a full 12 months because we've already seen the benefit of that over a rolling 12-month period now. OK. Just moving on to hydroxide and really your comments around where pricing is at the moment, I think it's important to look at the timeline of the project. So we're still committed, as we've outlined here, that mid-calendar 2025 we expect to hit first product. commissioning is going well on the plant but we do expect it's going to take upward of 18 months to ramp that facility up and that's no different to really what the experience we've seen at least on the concentrator site out at the mine site that it will take that period. Clearly, once you move from that critical date for us to prove first product and then get to a full ramp-up period, you're going to get the fractionalisation benefits of those increased volumes to the cost. So I think we've flagged before that clearly, you know, in the early phase of the lithium hydroxide project coming online, they're not going to be our long-run target cost-per-tonne production. We do have, you mentioned today's spot price. I think it's important, we've flagged before, that we do have benefits like many, many players in the lithium industry when selling to Tier 1 customers. There are pricing mechanisms and... and structures in those agreements where we're not necessarily facing into the spot price, so that's also another important distinction. But I think when we look at the project alongside SQM, when we see the long-run cost position of our projects, vertically integrated operations. So you need to remember we're obviously procuring spodumene from the mine gate ourselves. We're avoiding all of the transport costs that, you know, Chinese refiners, et cetera, have to deal with. When you look at that vertically integrated operation, once we hit full production run rates and get to fractionalise that cost, we still think it's a viable and beneficial project for West Farmers.

Sorry, David, Rob here. Just to answer your final question around our capacity to actually... develop and operate successfully a refinery in Western Australia. Look, as you'd imagine, before we made this investment, we asked ourselves the same question, and it was a real benefit of partnering with SQM. So someone with SQM's international expertise and expertise in processing, that provided a level of technical knowledge and experience that complemented the very significant capabilities that Aaron and his team have in developing and operating major chemical facilities in Western Australia. So, look, at the end of the day, time will tell, and we'll be able to answer your question a lot more precisely in 12 to 18 months' time. But so far, at least, the team and Covalent have done an exceptional job of developing a project in a highly inflationary environment in line with budget. Commissioning of the refinery is, I think, as of this week, about 64% complete. So far, so good. But obviously, the next six months are critical. And we feel that we have adequate experience, capability, together with our team at SQM, to commission this and run it successfully. We also benefit from the fact that we committed a lot of this CapEx before the inflationary cycle really started to hit. You know, probably it's stating the obvious, but to try and build what we are building, if you tried to start today, it would cost a hell of a lot more than what it cost us when we started this process a number of years ago. So we're, you know, cautiously optimistic of our capacity, but at the end of the day, you know, time will tell in the next six to 12 months.

No, fair call. Well answered. Thanks, Aaron, for your answers. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Rob.

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

Hi, everyone. I wanted to ask a question on health. So even though it's not exactly the largest contributor to profit, it's actually now the third largest revenue contributor, I think 13% of revenue, and actually the second highest growth in terms of revenue for the half at 9%. So what I wanted to ask is, you know, it's been three years since the acquisition. Like, has it surprised you in how long it's taken to... basically reposition the business and are we past the hardest lifting parts of what we need to do to that in order to, you know, start seeing the returns come through because it is an important part of that growth driver, especially revenue.

Hi Lisa, thank you. It's Emily here. I think we're always pretty clear that it was a multi-year transformation journey. What we're really pleased is about is how our consumer businesses are performing. That is a key part of the earnings growth driver into the future. Right across all of our consumer businesses we have seen really pleasing uplifts in the half and we're happy with how that's coming together. We are I think disappointed at the earnings uplift in this half due to some one-off supply chain costs, as Anthony called out. But we are positive around, you know, the trajectory for the future and increasing earnings over time. And I think, you know, Rob also called out the investments that we're making in the half. We also had some restructuring costs because fundamentally we're really trying to restructure the cost base of this business. And sometimes things take slightly longer than you'd hope for and I think we're currently in that position but we're feeling very positive about our ability to continue to build the earnings profile over time.

Are we seeing the hardest part or the highest restructuring costs are kind of behind us and going forward we're looking at incremental improvements? Yes.

I think it's hard to say precisely the point that we're at. We're going to continue to make investments to deliver increased earnings growth into the future. We are continuing to invest in our network strategy, which, you know, is a combination of CapEx and OpEx, and that's really the point in the journey that we're at.

OK, thanks. Your next question comes from Brian Raymond with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just on Kmart margins, to follow up there from some of the earlier questions, the The impact that you've seen over the last few years, particularly FY24 and now first up 25 from some of those efficiency programs, you've outlined a lot of those already. I won't run through them all. Are they fully in the base now or is that something that we should expect ongoing uplifts from on a year-on-year basis? And then just the second part of the question is, the catch fulfillment centers for Kmart, just how that impacts online unit economics for Kmart, given you've got, it looks like about a billion dollars of sales coming through in FY25 from online, how much that can get fulfilled through the catch fulfillment centers. What's the sort of benefit that you might see from that? Yeah, just be interested in future margin opportunities that you might have in Kmart. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks, Brian. There's some things which are now coming into our base, so bringing the two businesses together, clearly that's a benefit that we get into the base and then that's there going forward. So broadly speaking, that's pretty close to being complete. When you look at the work we've been doing on digitisation and improving our processes, that's ongoing. So whilst we have extracted benefit and value, we see more benefit and value to be extracted. But, of course, we still sit in that inflationary environment, so that's the counterbalance which I think you've got to sort of factor in as well. But, yeah, I wouldn't say we're at the end of the road on productivity, but certainly some of those things are now in the base. When you look at the unit economics of online, you know, we've been picking from stores for a large number of years, and as the business has got bigger and bigger, we've gone past the point of efficiency to the point of inefficiency within store picking, which is why the central facilities now make sense to us and it improves our unit economics. Clearly, we've got to get those facilities up and running with us later on in this half, so we'll start getting those benefits in next year, not this year, in terms of financial year. And that'll really be able to help us distribute to customers in Victoria and New South Wales primarily, so clearly the two biggest markets, and it'll be the majority of deliveries in those markets will come out of those locations. I should say that's home delivery and not click and collect. We'll still pick click and collect within our stores, and that billion-dollar-odd number that you quoted includes click and collect as well as home delivery. Okay, great. Thanks.

Your next question comes from Adrian Lemme with City. Please go ahead.

G'day, team. Look, it's probably a question for Mike. Yeah, congrats on the solid results in Bunnings. Obviously, you're happy with how consumer's going. I was just interested with how favourable you found the weather over the summer period. I mean, my observation would be it was quite dry and nice weather, at least on the east coast of Australia. Have you got any insights there? I mean, I've noticed that in my local store there hasn't been much... clearance of seasonal product like outdoor furniture, for example, if I compared it to last year.

Thank you. Thanks, Adrian. The weather in certain markets was quite good, and I think we've talked weather over the years, and I think you've sort of got to take the good with the bad over time. So we don't place enormous amounts of emphasis on that. I think what you saw, particularly in the sort of outdoor and barbecue categories, was a real shift in capability in the team and the new ranges and the quality of those products overall. our ability to source better, you know, really gave customers an opportunity to sort of buy something different, new and quite differentiated, but at an incredible price, which means that as we've sort of gone through the season, customers have responded well to that. And we'd done the hard work sort of June, July 2024 to sort of work on clearing, you know, what was ranges that were at the end of their sort of useful life. And I think I've said this before, but, you know, in the types of categories in which we play, you know, we tend to sort of see the trends sit pretty consistently over sort of two or three seasons so there is also no need you know at this point in time to be looking to sort of clear the current inventory because that will sort of broadly carry through into the 2025 summer and into the start of 2026 so that's been pretty clean and I think that The thing that's sort of important to reflect on, particularly inside the result, is unit growth. So whilst we're pleased with top-line sales, the volumes of inventory and the volumes of stock that we're able to put through the business, the response to Black Friday, Halloween and festive were all really, really good. And I think, you know, combined with a strong, you know, spring in many markets, you know, we're up to really move, you know, significant amounts of product and not need to deal with any clearance activity. And that's left us pretty clean going into the second half as well.

Thanks, that's very helpful, Mike. Could I just ask a follow-up there just in terms of the volumes there? Like, clearly you've done so well in cleaning and pets. I imagine that's kind of helping that story. In those two categories, do you think now it's getting harder now to build those lines up? Or do you think there's still a long road front in those two categories? Thank you.

Well, I think as long as your value credentials are strong, you earn the right to be chosen, and I think that's what we've always tried to do rather than sort of, you know, scattergun, you know, the sort of range. We're very disciplined in our ranging architecture, you know, different categories that we're participating in more, you know, the introduction of automotive, the expansion of our tool shops. They're all driving really pleasing stories in terms of return on space and stock turn and improvement in, you know, sort of gross margin return on space, which is the main... you know, inventory productivity measure that we use at Bunnings. So I think across the board, you know, we've sort of seen really sort of solid activity, but they do drive some traffic to store. But, you know, the core categories of outdoor, you know, tools, paint, you know, all of these categories, you know, have continued to sort of grow and evolve and innovate. And I think When we're together for the operational briefing day, one of the things we want to clearly illustrate is that it's great to bring some new categories in, but there's actually genuine and deep transformation in existing categories, which is going to continue to drive growth because it's bringing innovation to the market, and that's what customers really value alongside the value credentials that we have.

Thanks, Mike. I look forward to being at that day. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Caleb Wheatley with Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Hi, Rob, Anthony and team. My question is back on Kmart Group and their ANCO brand. So you've called out strong pipeline opportunities with some of the major global retailers. Can you talk in a bit more detail about what ANCO or the Kmart Group might start to look like as these opportunities are pursued? Does Kmart start to become a bit more of a wholesaler in that sense? I know that you're trialling some offshore direct retail stores in ANCO as well, but how should we think about ANCO expansion in the context of Kmart Groups?

Yeah, thank you. I think first up, we're always going to focus on Australia and New Zealand and make sure we keep growing our core business in those two markets because it's obviously the vast majority of the business that we have today and super important. And ANCO is clearly a critical component that drives the ongoing success of those businesses. So the first thing is we wouldn't take our eye off that as a core focus. But equally, yeah, we've started that process now of taking our products into new markets. We've said, particularly in Europe and North America, we want to go to market as a wholesaler, working in partnership with some of the large retailers. And we're doing that both as a product brand, as ANCO itself, and we're also doing it supporting other brands such as, you know, Mattel and Fisher-Brice and Wooden Toys, which we've been doing for some time. And we still see those as good opportunities for the future. When we look at Asia, we'd rather go direct, and that's what we're doing in the Philippines, is opening stores with a partner in that market because we believe there's a better opportunity to create value in those markets by creating our own retail footprint. So what would our business look like in the future? We should see an increasingly large business, both from wholesale and ideally from physical stores in Asia. But as we've called out, super early days for that business. The numbers in the current results are completely immaterial. And at the moment, it's an intent and a plan, and we've now got to turn that into reality.

And I guess as you pursue that more and more, if there is traction with some of those offshore wholesaling opportunities, like in terms of capacity and production of ANCO categories or products to go and meet that wholesaling demand, is there much more investment or work required to get factories up?

to facilitate that, or how should we think about that part of the process? Yeah, we're learning a lot already on that, and some of the initial orders that we've had with some of our partners are pretty material, so in some cases the same volumes as we're already producing, in some cases ahead of that. We have a very mature supply base. We do not run to 100% capacity within those suppliers... So we have a lot of ability to expand within our existing supply base, and we have an excellent team spread throughout Asia who can find new sources, new factories for us if we need additional capacity. So it's something that's very much on our mind, and if we saw a rapid scaling, it would put us under a bit more pressure, but I think we've got the skills and resources in place to manage that.

That's great. Thank you.

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

Oh, hi, Rob and team. I think I'll ask a question around the lithium part of your business, and it's more of a fundamental as opposed to its result. Just interested in understanding the industry settings as you're going forward. You're about to... commission the liquid hydroxide. So if we think about the supply and what the cost curve looks like and the demand outlook, are all those things still within your business case and how could that impact the medium-term return on capital you might achieve in Covalent?

Yeah, thanks. I think just when you look at the industry side of things, our investment case was very much predicated on not making predictions on long-run prices and really benchmarking, starting with the core asset in Mount Holland and understanding where that would sit on the cost curve. I think since the time we've invested in Mount Holland and made the acquisition, there's clearly been new discoveries and new entrants into the global supply chain for lithium. But when we benchmark the mine and have a look at what's likely to come into the supply towards the end of the decade, Mount Holland is still very competitive from a grade, tonnage, and just logistically where it's located here to be able to feed the refinery in Kwinana still places it in a good position on the cost curve, and that hasn't really changed. I think the fundamentals behind the original purchase and where it sits in the industry is still valid. I think... When we look at overall demand for lithium chemical, we're still confident that you need many more Mount Hollands or Bryan assets around the world to come into the supply chain to meet a base case forecast of the increase in demand. There's been some upside, I think, in energy storage and larger scale batteries that we probably didn't factor into our view. So I think The premise around having a vertically integrated operation is the other key. The difference between us and many of the other, at least, Australian producers in the lithium industry is to be able to supply from the mine gate at cost the chemical refinery in Kwinana. and then take that product as one of the few, I suppose, non-China supply chain players in the industry to sell into tier one battery customers of the world. That thesis is still valid, and I think is what is going to serve Westphalma's shareholders well in the long term.

Thanks, Aaron. So I think just to be clear, you're saying most of the... I guess the vantage on where you sit on the cost curve is a function of the Mount Holland mine... How do you see the refinery fitting within that overall position on the cost curve?

Yeah, I think, look, with any commodity conversion business, you know, you do need to start with a high-quality resource upstream. And we've spoken around... I've talked about the quality of Mount Holland. I do think that is a fundamental... point, however. When you look at the refinery, I think the challenges on building a refinery in a place like Western Australia versus Asia is probably more on the CAPEX side of things, so that's clearly... And I think Rob spoke earlier around inflation and what we've dealt with on that side of things. That's clearly an element that makes building these kind of operations more challenging here versus other locations. But when you look at the OPEC side of things, there are significant benefits in being able to feed a refinery from a wholly owned West Australian mine rather than having to transport... spodumene over large distances, you know, from Australia to China, et cetera. So there's wins and losses on the OPEC side, but I think that's probably more of a CAPEX argument that you're discussing.

Thanks, Aaron. Your next question comes from Ben Gilbert with Jarden. Please go ahead.

I've seen Rob and team on media... Could you give us any idea around, I appreciate you've got a few businesses in the group, but how big you think it is today when you look at it? Because we look at, and the reason I ask is look at your comps. You've got Woolies and Kenway house over 500, Coles probably pushing 200, Amazon pushing 200, then a bunch of others, I'm talking million dollars there, coming in. Just where do you see it today and are you going to give us a disclosure around that moving forward given you say it's going to be a material driver and Do you think you can get to half a billion dollars, say, within the next few years at a 30%, 40% margin?

Ben, I'll just touch on this. Look, we're already doing a bit... Our retail businesses, health business, is already doing a bit of retail media business at the moment. I'd say it's... You know, it would be significant if you added it all up, but it's not significant enough for us to be calling out specifically at the moment. The types of numbers that you mentioned are certainly the opportunity that we would see over the longer term, and there's no reason why when you look at the... size of our digital audiences the quality of the brands and the both the in-store and the digital platforms that we have um there's no reason why we couldn't realize that type of opportunity uh but as i said that's a medium medium longer term opportunity i Look, I wouldn't propose... We're unlikely to be disclosing, giving you, like, a six-monthly run rate over the next year or so, exactly what the numbers are. But what we will do is... Nicole might... I'll let Nicole just talk at a broader level about how we're thinking about it, but we'll talk in more specifics at the Strategy Day on the opportunity.

Yep, thanks, Rob. Look, Ben, we're well positioned given our scale and uniqueness and the fact that we do have 12 million customers in our shared data assets. So that's rich first party data. It's across all life stages. They have propensity to spend. So working together as a group, I think, is really important. We're really at the stage now where we're looking at building out that single tech platform that is multi-tenanted, that actually gives us the opportunity to look at closed-loop reporting and going out with the divisions and meeting with their suppliers and their customers and understanding the importance of that, I think, has been critical in the last phase. But as Rob said, you know, we do believe this will drive incremental revenue and earnings for the divisions, but we'll share more at the Strategy Day.

That's really helpful. Thank you. We'll just carry on from that for good, so it's making a connecting question. Globally, you look at people who are doing retail media really well and maximising it, or if I look at Walmart, for instance, and arguably I appreciate a very different business, but in aggregate you serve pretty much everyone in Australia, across pretty much the whole house at the moment, all from front to back, as Bunnings talked to in the middle as well. How important is the supply chain in terms of feeding into that? Because if you look at Amazon, they're probably going to be pretty close towards $10 billion in turnover this year in Australia. a lot of capacity and well ahead of everyone. Do you need to start rethinking being, I suppose, yourselves are probably the only one that could really match with CapEx and serve everyone around the supply chain and then start bringing 3P in to maximise that media opportunity for more? Is that something you're thinking about or is it even on the horizon?

Ben, is that question... Is your question not about retail media? It's more about our capacity to keep growing on the digital e-commerce side?

Yeah, and it sort of flows on because maximising eyeballs, like you look at Walmart, it's driving 50% of incremental learning per quarter and it's a 3P capability which builds on supply chain and maximising eyeballs and it exponentially increases that media opportunity but also your reach into people's households.

yeah well first i'll answer it a couple of ways and others could add to it um as i mentioned earlier we've grown our digital transactions by five times in the last uh last five years so there's been very significant growth we are but i also wouldn't lose sight of the value of our store networks um The value of, you know, store networks in terms of how we engage with customers, the assets that we have, that is critical. Supply chain, I think, once again, also needs to be thought of not just in the context of the distribution centres that we are investing in. And, you know, the example we gave earlier of in Kmart and Target leveraging the centralised fulfilment centres, Officeworks would arguably have some of the most efficient state-of-the-art e-commerce fulfilment centres in the country. But we shouldn't lose sight of the value and the power of our stores as fulfilment assets in their own right. So we certainly don't feel that we're constrained by our supply chain capabilities. We'll continue to invest in them and grow. But I feel that, you know, in terms of continuing to grow our... omnichannel business which is both in-store click and collect digitally enabled sales more generally we are certainly not constrained in any way and in fact i'd go i'd go further to say that i actually think that the quality of our brands the extensive store networks we have are a point of difference that many of our competitors in this space don't have appreciate it thanks

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

Thank you. Hi all. I've got another question on lithium, Aaron. So you've obviously provided a pretty clear view on FY25 in terms of the way we should be thinking about earnings, but FY26 obviously gets a lot tougher to understand because you've got the the increased supply chain production, but then also the ramp-up of refining. And so the delta in, or the potential delta from the earnings impact could be pretty material. Can you just give us a sense of how the earnings might be phased? And ultimately what we're trying to get to is, can lithium actually deliver positive earnings in 26, or is that really only an FY27 story?

Yeah, thanks. So FY26 is a difficult year, as you flagged, because you're obviously going from a transition of first product at the refinery and, as I flagged, an 18-month ramp-up period. From what we've seen on other, whether it's our existing operations when we've ramped those up or looking at other refineries, it's probably unlikely to be a linear journey from day zero to the end of that 18-month period. I think it's fair to assume it's probably more... back-ended as you start to make improvements. So clearly feeding the refinery with spodumene is an unknown at the moment on how we go through that ramp-up period, but I think it is going to be more of a back-ended process along that 18-month journey, which means we're going to, FY26, still be selling or required to sell spodumene into the market. So I think we've been fairly... with where we sit on a spodumene front, and clearly that means in the refinery phase you're not getting the benefits of that full tonnage on your fractionalisation at cost. So it would be challenging in FY26 to generate profit on the hydroxide side.

Yeah, OK, and really what you're saying is probably even more likely a second-half FY27 story as well.

Yeah, I think FY27 is, you know, you're starting to get to a period where, you know, the refinery is the bulk consumer of spodumene and we can start to look at where our cost position sits and really start to get the benefits of tonnage.

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

Thanks. I just wanted to ask a question on Priceline. You mentioned in there strong performance driven by price reductions on key value lines. I just wanted to get a sense of, you know, what you're thinking for that business. Is that going to go, you know, up against... category killer type prices and how how can you do that in a sort of largely franchise arrangement that's my question thanks

Yeah, thank you. I think Priceline has a clear positioning in the market. We're really focused on value, and value takes a number of forms. It's about competing on these key value lines, which is what we've been investing in. It's also about bringing new and exclusive products to market, and it's about leveraging our... extensive loyalty program to bring kind of new and differentiated sort of promotions to the market as well as network growth so that's that's the strategy and that's what we've been pleased with the progress over the last six months all right thank you your next question comes from sean cousins with ubs please go ahead

Thank you. Just a question for Sarah in Officeworks. I guess maybe just the call-out or quantify what the collective cost, say, from a box of books and economy sort of was and how much that weighed on the first half. Does any of that kick into the second half? And then thinking a bit about also just... The benefits of range, how... This was discussed at the Strategy Day. How are you seeing any benefit, if at all, from AI product? Does Officeworks have the service capabilities to sell that and also sell it going a little bit more into TVs with a Sony range as well? Please.

Yeah, thanks, Sean, for the question. Look, the costs related to Circonomy and Box of Books were one-off costs in the first half, and you should think about those as mid-single digits impact to EBT. In terms of range, I look forward to sharing a bit more of our progress at the Strategy Day, but... Look, we've been really pleased with above-market growth in technology in the first half, and we're excited about the new product launches that will come through this calendar year. So I look forward to chatting to you about it at Strategy Day.

Fantastic. Thanks, Sarah.

Your next question comes from Lisa Ding with Goldman Sachs.

Please go ahead. Oh, hi. Just to follow up on the marketplace, the Bunnings marketplace, can we talk a little bit about how we're executing it, what we see as potential sort of medium-term opportunity and then the differences potentially in the economics there from a potentially lower revenue but higher margin type shape of growth thing?

Yeah, thanks, Lisa. We're really happy with our marketplace. It's been growing very, very strongly. We've got well over 100,000 SKUs heading to 200,000 SKUs and a fantastic array of sellers. We're very disciplined. It's what I would call a curated marketplace, so it fits the strategic framework of Bunnings if you sort of think about that front gate to back fence. So we're looking for... complementary products that our customers are looking for to improve their homes. So it might be in a bedding category or a sporting goods category where we don't think we have a natural ability to sort of service that in a warehouse format. What's particularly useful about our marketplace is that it's built into the broader Bunnings digital ecosystem. So you can transact your marketplace product while you're buying your regular products. They'll be fulfilled by the seller. And we take a commission on the way through. So we look at it really through both GMV, which is starting to become quite a significant number, albeit not material to the overall Bunnings number, but quite significant when you look at other marketplaces. In fact, our growth is probably outstripping some of those, and we're really happy with that. And then that obviously flows through to revenue. We'll continue to sort of build that out, and we're going to expand a little bit at Strategy Day on how we want to evolve the marketplace to sort of do other things than simple products, but into some more sort of service-oriented stuff as well.

I guess broad level, are we thinking that it'll be a material contributor to the Bunnings growth going forward or is it still a test and loan fee? Are we confident that it'll be a material contributor yet?

Very confident that it's going to be a strong performer. The materiality will really be a decision for us in terms of how many partners we want to partner with and we want to make sure that the customer experience is high and that there's nothing in there that dilutes trust. But yeah, it's well past test and loan. It's a deeply embedded part of the business. We've got a fantastic team. We'll pick up some capability out of the catch team as well, which will augment that, and that's a real positive for us. So, yeah, excited to see where it goes, and, you know, the materiality question will answer itself in the fullness of time.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Michael Simotas with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking another one. Just on catch, hoping to get a better understanding of what it looks like in the second half... So you've called out costs associated with the transition and closure of $50 million to $60 million. Is there any stock write-off included in that number? And the reason I ask is just trying to understand whether you're likely to take a significant gross margin hit in the operating loss from the business in the second half.

Yeah, thanks, Michael. It's Anthony. I can answer that question. So, yes, so in the $50 million to $60 million that we've called out, about half of that is non-cash, half of that is cash. So we do have provisions in relation to write-down of stock within that one-off cost. So in terms of sort of operating losses, which I guess is where you're getting to for the second half... We haven't given specific guidance, and it will depend a little bit on exactly when catch closes, but we have said that'll occur in the final quarter of the financial year. I think you can probably expect it will be lower operating losses than we incurred in the first half, is probably one way to read it.

Yeah, that's really helpful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Craig Walford with MST Marquis. Please go ahead.

Thank you for the follow-up. This is very much an accounting question. If I look at slide 60, which has got information on your lease liabilities, there's a reduction year-on-year in the lease liabilities for Bunnings. There's also one for Kmart. And because depreciation and amortisation these days includes the lease component to that, just trying to understand the outlook there, I noticed that Bunnings had a very small movement in depreciation for first half 25 versus the previous corresponding period. So I'd like to understand why we're seeing a reduction in liabilities and a small delta in the depreciation for most of your retail businesses.

Yeah, thanks. Yes, you'll find that the lease liability will move depending on the minimum lease commitments that we have across various leases. So it will depend on the lease profile and when new leases are entered into. So it will move around a little bit depending on when lease renewals come up and if there's new leases, what the minimum lease term is. So that's generally what determines how big or small that is. So For example, if we entered into a whole bunch of new leases in a particular period, then that would significantly increase both the asset and the liability, and you'll find that will move depending on, you know, basically what the weighted average minimum lease term is over a particular period. So it's probably not that predictable. Obviously, as we continue to open new stores, then, of course, that will generally go up, but it might not necessarily go up in a linear fashion.

And does that relate to this low increase in the Bunnings depreciation movement, apart from the previous corresponding period?

Are you talking about depreciation associated with the lease liability or, sorry, the lease asset, or are you talking more generally around depreciation?

I don't think we get further disclosure, but it was $408 million last year, total depreciation and amortisation for Bunnings, and $411 million, so it was only a $3 million... Yeah, it's a very small variance, yeah. Smaller than what I was expecting. Yeah.

That is all the time we have for questions today. We will follow up with any remaining questions. Thank you. I'll now hand the call back to Rob Scott.

Thanks very much, everyone. And as we said, please contact Dan and the team if there are further questions. Have a good day.

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