to Bidcorp's annual results presentation. We're very pleased to report another year of positive growth in a very volatile and difficult macro environment.

Our results continue to be enabled by our entrepreneurial culture and decentralized structure, enabling leadership to react quickly to volatile and changing conditions. Bernard and Dave will unpack the results when I hand over to them, but before I do, I'd like to thank a few people.

Firstly, our founder Brian Joffe, who continues to provide wisdom and support, to our senior independent director Nigel Payne, to the head of our audit and risk committee, Helen Wiseman, the chair of our social, ethics and governance committee, Tasneem Abdool-Samad, and our other non-execs, Paul Baloyi, Cliff Rosenberg, and Keneilwe Moloko, who are always available and work very hard whenever they are they needed. We also welcome Trevor Brown and Kathy Austin as new board members, who I'm sure will play a significant role in governance and guidance going forward.

Finally, a special thanks to Bernard, David, the head office teams, Ashley and Leigh, and the leadership and people around the world, whose dedication and commitment enable Bidcorp to deliver a positive growth story year in, year out. I will now hand you over to Bernard and Dave to take you through the results.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Stephen. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody.

It's a it's a privilege to be talking to you again and going through our results for the year just ended. Um in addition to the thanks that Stephen has given and thank you to Stephen for your continued uh guidance, support, uh and and wisdom and inspiration in in enabling us to do what we do.

Uh I want to extend my my thanks first and foremost to our 31,000 team members around the world. We operate in 31 countries.

Uh we really do have a an amazing team of people, an amazing management team, um who lead who lead us in these countries, uh and enable us uh to achieve the results we do. We we're in the fortunate position that we get to talk about it and uh uh seemingly take the credit, but it really is their hard work, dedication, and more importantly ability uh that brings us to where we are and allows us to talk about what we're doing.

I will move around the the uh the shop a little bit here, as is my style. Uh try to give you a feel for for what happened in the year, but I think more importantly, I'd like to spend more time at the end talking about the future.

Uh what's what's past is past. Um and I think what's what's more important and certainly more exciting is is what the the road ahead looks.

Once again overall, I think this was a very successful year. Um we don't need to overplay the the the volatility, the macro the macro-geopolitical problems, um the economic headwinds, all that negative stuff we can talk to and we can uh make excuses for.

Uh that's just reality. Get used to it.

Uh probably not going to change. We we operate in the world we operate in, and it's up to to people like us and our teams to make the most of that situation.

I'm really proud of the way our businesses has uh stood up and reacted to to the circumstances. It's another year of growth, and I think it's a year of very very solid growth.

Now, obviously on a on a very high level, when you look at the numbers, they're impacted by the strength of the rand, which has about a 1.5% um impact on the numbers. We we tend to focus on constant currency.

We actually manage our businesses in local currencies. The Polish business, we only talk about it in zloty, and uh in Chile we talk about the business in Chilean pesos, and whatever they add up to at the end of the day, they add up to.

We have no control over over currencies. Um it is what it is, and it adds up to what it adds up to.

Over 95% of our revenue is not in rands, is in various different currencies. Um so we talk about constant currency, which is the best measure we can find of measuring things on a consistent basis uh from year to year, but we absolutely look at our businesses in their local currency, and they have to perform according to their local conditions.

We've we've carried on doing what we do. Um yeah, it's a story of consistency, and I think the results are are consistently good.

Um we've seen another um very very solid year in challenging circumstances, and once again, I'm not making apologies for it. Um it is what it is.

We've got revenue up 5% in constant currency terms, uh bearing in mind there's very minor GDP growth. The the weighted average GDP growth of the economies in which we operate, weighted for the size of our business, is in the lower 1%s.

It's 1.3 or 1.4% GDP growth, annual GDP growth. There's very minimal GDP growth um in the environments we operate, and food inflation is also a similar type of number.

It's only about 1.5%. Now there was a lot of talk um in February and March about the uh the that the impending doom-and-gloom situation of of inflation, particularly on food and food chain supply.

Let me just say we haven't seen it. Um it might still come.

We don't believe it will. Uh there's very very little food inflation, and it's running in the low 1%s.

The offset to that is general inflation is running uh in the 3%s probably. Um and that's primarily in the labor line, which is the biggest uh driver of our costs.

A lot of that actually is coming from government inefficiency, from imposts, from social securities, from minimum wage levels, etc. Where I believe, I should get off my political uh stand box here, but governments are passing the burden onto business, uh and they're taxing they're taxing business for the inefficiency of government.

Once again, no no good crying about it. It's reality.

We got to do what we got to do. We have to seek out the efficiency gains um to offset those imposts that are unilaterally imposed on business um to various different degrees around the world.

We've got revenue increasing by 5%, which maybe is a little bit uh shy of where we think the the ideal uh level would be or our our aspirational level. There's also very little acquisitive growth in that in that 5% in the current year.

We made five small acquisitions in the year. Combined, they actually don't shift the needle by any meaningful amount on the on the revenue line.

From a gross margin point of view, we've seen a pleasing um improvement. Small improvement, uh but an improvement off a very reasonable base.

That comes out of our strategic imperatives of moving up the supply chain, of developing house brand, um of moving into more um vertical integration, light manufacturing uh and conversion process. Our expense base has been relatively well managed, bearing in mind the bulk of our our cost is labor.

Uh we were impacted by higher fuel prices from March onwards, which started coming down again in in late May and June. Um and in most our businesses, we made the election not to panic, not to knee-jerk, and not to pass on the increases by way of surcharges to our customers.

Uh and I think that will stand us in good stead going forward, and we'll talk about that in the prospects. We we did take a little bit of a of a of a knock to the cost bases as a result of the fuel price increase, um but we manage that relatively well.

The result of all of that is our trading profit in constant currency is up by 8.2% in the year. We don't like to play this game, but if we did play the game of normalizing that, on an underlying basis, we believe our operating profit was closer to 10% better than the prior year.

The normalizations we talk about they are very simply the direct impact to our Middle East business as a result of the war from from uh from late February onwards. Clearly, that would have had a direct impact.

Volumes were down substantially for a period of time. Costs were elevated.

Supply chains were were were in disarray. Um so there were significant challenges, which obviously did cost us uh both top line and bottom line in the Middle East.

Also if we adjust for the the the raw impact of the fuel price increase, um which once again we're not going to do because it's just reality, and it's just part of the game. If we did like others, and did that normalization, we think there's a very healthy 10% increase in in uh in trading profitability for the year.

What is exceptionally interesting about that is, in the first 6 months, our trading profit was up 6.9%. In the second half, our trading profit was up 9.5% year on year, comparative 6 months, 6 months.

Not withstanding the impact of the war, and the higher fuel prices, etc., and that's on an unadjusted basis. On an unadjusted basis, our operating profit was 9.5% higher in the second 6 months compared to the same period the year before.

That obviously tells you there's an underlying um sequential improvement or sequential increase um in our profitability. Like I said, five acquisitions completed in various jurisdictions.

Uh it's not a year of of of huge acquisitions. Um we are alert for our acquisitions.

We are very responsible in what we buy. Um it's not acquisition at any price.

Um so that yeah, on that front, we were relatively um quiet this year. They've all been bedded down and and are contributing.

Um as we look forward, the runway of acquisitions a little is a little bit uh a little bit fuller. We have made four small acquisitions, or three small and one relatively small acquisition so far this year in 2 months.

Um and we'll unpack those a little bit later. Technology is a huge component of of what we do.

Um we don't talk about a lot, and that's for strategic reasons. Um Yeah.

We understand that others look at what we do. Uh we are seen as the as the benchmark uh food service operator around the world.

Uh our our margins are are at the at the top of the scale, uh and obviously technology plays an important part of that. We continue to evolve our technology, and there's no one solution in in technology, and AI is proving that theory.

It's micro-solutions through through various different streams of the business, and there's a there's incremental improvement in a multiplicity of areas. There's not one thing that's going to fundamentally change the business.

There's a whole lot of things that are going to change the business to a micro-degree, which all added up, are going to have a significant impact. We're an exceptionally data-rich um business.

We have half a million customers. We sell 400,000 different products.

Every customer gets their product Almost every customer gets their product at a different price to everybody else in every different market. There's a huge amount of data out there that we have a huge amount of understanding.

We have a huge amount of historical data, uh and it's amazing what we can do with this in terms of of looking at potential um in terms of sales, in terms of margin, in terms of efficiency, in terms of missed opportunities, in terms of future opportunities, baskets, comparatives. Um There There's There's just a lot that's going on.

I think our decentralized culture is actually encouraging this, because the best results we're getting are where our people have the ability to do this very very quickly. The the the the cost of doing it is becoming incrementally cheaper.

Um as long as you can get your data and you understand what you're doing, uh you can you can derive benefit relatively quickly. We've got a multiplicity of these projects um going on simultaneously around the world, and where we do get on something that that looks like it's got potential, it obviously gets rolled out to whoever wants to take advantage of it, which generally is everybody who can.

Um And we've found we we're able to to get very speedy execution and and take up um of technological um improvements and enhancements. Our teams around the world remain relatively stable.

We've got a few transitory situations, which are being very well-managed. Uh yeah, our preference is always to to have a strong bench, um to build the talent from within so you got the correct cultural fit, the correct understanding, and we can continue the growth trajectory in those businesses.

We've got a few of those going on at the moment. We are a team who've been together for a substantial number of years.

Hopefully, we've still got a substantial number of years to go, um but we are very cognizant of the fact that there are a whole lot of younger, probably far more energetic and far more capable people than us, um who are chomping at the bit and who are who are getting into positions of leadership in the in the group, and that's really exciting for us, because they are pushing us, they're challenging us, and they no doubt are part of the reason for our our success moving forward. I think, just moving through it, what are we doing?

Um This story remains fundamentally the same. We don't come to you every year and telling you we've got a strategic refresh, and we're we're uh we're changing things, and we're getting consultants in, and we're yeah, we we're having to to to change our strategic uh path.

We're on the path. We know where we're going.

We know we can improve the the the scale of the business. We can increase the scale of the business.

We know we can improve the the margins um in the business. There are various different components that have some have less, some have more upside, but they've all got some upside.

Um And the challenge for us is to is to to to achieve that in some type of of of of harmonious, speedy way. We do what we do, and we don't claim to be good at everything.

Um We're We're We're a reasonably competent food service distributor, and that's what we do. We do understand that we're also a relatively good manufacturer of product, uh and we're extending our capability in that, and there's no doubt that that is giving us enhanced margins um and benefit through the group.

We'll continue to to drive that. Um We have a substantial number of manufacturing operations in the world around the world now doing lots of different cool stuff.

Um And that no doubt is is is pretty exciting about future prospects. I've always said that there's organic growth within our business.

We're not reliant on acquisitions to grow this business. There's plenty of organic growth in every market we operate in for sustained, continued, solid growth.

Obviously, we'll enhance that with with organic growth, but there actually isn't a requirement that says this model doesn't work unless you've got um acquisitive growth. The acquisitive growth is a little bit of a kicker, but the organic growth is the key driver of our of our growth, which I think is a great story and took talks to the strength and the and the quality of the underlying business.

By having that strength, the acquisitions really do give you a much larger boost, because you can get the synergies out of them relatively quickly. Our cash generating has been, I think, excellent in the year.

We spoke about the fact in previous years that we had a bit of a catch up on CapEx. Uh we haven't deliberately held back on CapEx, but we have gone through the peak of our spending phase, which was catching up on some of the COVID delays.

That should flatten out over a period of time. We will continue to invest in in capital, because that provides the organic growth.

That growth is a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot less risky than acquisitive growth. We know we can put new distribution centers in, we can put incremental capacity in, and we get a relatively quick ca- uh payback.

They're long-term assets. We're very proud of of of the uh the strong underlying cash generation of the business, um and the continued generation.

That's actually going to get stronger. The balance sheet's exceptionally strong.

David will talk to that. We've spoken about the investments that we continue to invest as as required.

We've got state-of-the-art um infrastructure. Uh we continue to invest in further infrastructure.

Um Our returns are all improving. All the metrics are going the correct way.

Um yeah, the ROFE, the ROIC, the ROE, and all of you have got a different way of measuring things. All of you think you're right.

I don't know what the right answer is, but I think the fact that they're all heading upwards and are all at I think very acceptable levels uh speaks speaks to the success of what our people have delivered. From a sustainability point of view, I know that the the urgency of that has has sort of left the investment world, but it's actually an important part of what we do.

We do need to do the right thing, um and by doing the right thing, not only are we doing the right thing for the planet, we're doing the right thing for our people. We're doing the right thing for our business as well.

By having a modern infrastructure, by having energy efficient uh refrigeration, by having an electric vehicle fleet where where the charging infrastructure allows for it, and the and the the metrics allow for it, all has a financial benefit as well. We have seen a substantial reduction in our emissions in the current year, and we are well on track to to achieve our targets um that we set our our uh our 10-year target that we set a year or so ago.

Moving on to the the uh regional analysis. We'll start with Australasia.

Now you all recall that for many years, the Australian, New Zealand business were the poster poster child um of the group. I guess for the last year or two, they've had a little bit of a breather.

Um There was some growth out of Australasia this year, 2% in constant currency, um which is both out of Australia and New Zealand. There was some growth.

Um Obviously, it's not at the at the levels we were expecting we were hoping for or that we'd come to expect in previous years. Like we say, this is nothing fundamental.

This is purely just a breathing space while they adapt to to to reality. The New Zealand business has rebounded very very strongly from about October last year onwards, and the Australian business has rebounded um in this calendar year.

Uh we've seen quite a quite a sizable improvement. The trading margins are still very very healthy in the in the 8%s.

Um I'm comfortable that we'll see that improve. We will see revenue growth.

Um It's not going to be at the 10%s. We'd love it to be at the 10%s, but it is going to be in the in the higher single digits, not the lower single digits.

Both the Australian and New Zealand businesses are in very very good uh shape. Um They did achieve all-time record results notwithstanding difficult economies, diff- difficult macros, whatever else might exist.

Um And the future the future continues to look bright there. They continue to to innovate um in terms of of products, um manufacture, vertical integration, um house brand strategy.

All of those issues are very well-implemented uh as well as technology. Um Yeah, there's a lot of technology that does come out of that part of the world that then gets adopted in in in our other businesses.

Australasia continues to to to be a very sizable part of our business and performing at very very strong levels. The UK had a a very pleasing year.

Um I told you we'd improve the margins, and we've taken them from 3.7% to four 4%. Now that doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a lot.

That's a 10% almost a 10% improvement uh in trading margin, which is reflected in a 12% increase in trading profit. Um We have 7% revenue growth.

That business is doing well on most on most fronts notwithstanding the fact that the UK isn't in great shape. The UK macro picture, the economy isn't really doing anything.

The the uh the mood is negative. Consumer sentiment is negative.

It's not a it's not a tightly happy place. Once again, we ignore what we can't control, and we focus on what we can control, and our team in the UK have have have done that exceptionally well.

It's a it's a it's a great story, and they're well on the road to to where we want them to get to. It's not going to happen in 1 year, but it will happen over a few-year period.

The one spot that we are seeing a little bit of challenge in the in the UK market is in the in the uh the leisure, the hospitality market. Um and that's just purely related to consumer spend.

The consumer just isn't isn't spending in in that segment as much as maybe they were. They're under pressure, cost of living, all the rest of it.

That is that is under a little bit of pressure. Fortunately, we got lots of other business that offsets that in the non-discretionary side, in healthcare, aged care, education, military, etc.

All in all, thank you to the UK team. They've uh delivered according to plan.

We're well on the on the road that that we choose, um and we should continue to see good improvement coming out of the UK. Europe once again was the poster child, uh good on them.

You can see margins have improved from 5.5% to 6%. Um There's still some more to go there.

Uh almost every business in the European cluster showed an improvement and performed well. Some to a lesser degree, some to a stronger degree.

Um Italy had a great year, and that's they've executed well. We've grown into the infrastructure that we put in a year ago.

It's enabled us to move pieces around and get far more efficient uh logistical coverage to through the country. We have to go through that process again.

The the Italian story is not going to be a linear line. It's going to be a little bit lumpy that we have to put in the the the investment to continue that that growth continuum.

As you get larger, as the base becomes larger, the disruption from those investments becomes much less. Uh which, going back to the UK, we actually put in some capacity last year, which came on at almost no cost to the to the overall P&L.

Um so once you start scaling, the ability to add that that additional infrastructure becomes far more diluted and non- non-impactful, um and then you start getting the benefit in in the years that follow. Italy had a great year.

The the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and our small business in Hungary had a had an awesome year. Um The start was a little bit slow, the summer last year wasn't all that great.

Um But we picked up uh that slack as the year went on and and ended off strongly. Poland doing amazingly well, brilliant business there.

Um Yeah. Great margins, great revenue growth, fantastic young team driving that business.

We've got some investment infrastructural investment great going on there. We're we're diversifying into manufacturing, so that they're doing all the right things there, and we'll see continued growth out of that.

The Baltic business is is maturing and becoming a sizable business in all three countries. Um We've paid our school fees.

It's That's profitable. It's operating at the correct levels, and we should start getting some some real um strong growth coming out of that.

We have the we have the base, bearing in mind I think there's only about 4.5 or 5 million people in total across all the Baltics. Um so it's never going to be the hugest business, but it will be a very solid, profitable, sustainable business.

It is already, um and we're we're at that point of its development now that it's it's it's out of the the development phase, and it's more into the maturing phase. Um Netherlands and Belgium both had a a a reasonable year with some with some growth.

Um I know there has been some narrative from others that the market is disastrous and terrible. The market's not great.

Uh The consumer's not uh overly joyous and and uh spending easily, uh but we continue to to uh to work hard at it, to grow our share, to grow our our revenue base, uh and to grow our profitability. Both of them um saw an increase in profitability and are are feeling fine.

Um We're certainly not where we were all that many years ago. There's still some improvement that can come out of the Dutch business, and that will happen in the next few years.

Uh The Belgium business is operating at the correct levels of profitability, uh and that that will scale up on the on the revenue line, uh which needs to to drop down into into the profit line. Spain and Portugal are our are our future our future stars.

We're still at the at the early stage of it. Um yeah, we just need to be a little bit patient.

These things don't come together in a year. Um Many of our countries, when you look at them, they were overnight successes that were 10 or 15 years in the making, and it's no different in Spain and Portugal.

We're on the right track. Um The businesses are profitable.

We're doing the right thing. We're investing.

We're putting infrastructure in. We're putting people in.

We're putting the correct building blocks in place. Uh We've got excellent teams.

We've got good businesses, and now we need to scale them up, which will happen over a period of time. Won't happen in 1 year, but will happen in a period of time.

Overall, the uh the European cluster had a 13% increase in in profitability and trading at 6%. Emerging Markets was a challenge, um which is a a tale of of two different stories.

Uh There's some very strong performers in in the basket, and there's one or two that that have uh held us back. In terms of the ones that have have held performance back, uh Greater China continues to be challenging.

Uh I think the year was a decline on the previous year. Um not a material decline, but it was a decline.

We are taking steps to to address that, to simplify the business, to to to get out of some areas that don't make sense. Um But it's not easy doing business in China in particular, um where you're selling Western product.

Uh It's not a It's not an overly generous market in terms of margins you can achieve, um at the gross level, highly competitive. Um Customer is highly price-sensitive.

It does create challenges. The Hong Kong and Southern China business is actually remarkably resilient.

We're seeing an improvement in in tourism and and throughput numbers in that part of the world. I think what's happening in in in in that region is Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou are becoming a a Silicon Valley, if you like, of of China, and that that's going to be a region going forward.

I definitely think that's something we'll focus more on, as opposed to the whole of China and trying to be everything to everybody in China. The other business that we uh had some challenges with that had challenges was our Middle East business.

Uh Everything was was hunky-dory up until February, making very reasonable progress, and then obviously the war came along, and, yeah, very quickly that changed. We are still profitable in the UAE um and in Saudi, but not to the extent we were.

We're hoping for a relatively quick recovery. When you look at volumes, they are almost back to where they were before, but it remains volatile, and and it remains unpredictable.

Our teams there went through a really traumatic, difficult time, so, yeah, obviously we we thank them for for their uh for their dedication and and uh yeah, and and and achievements through a very difficult time. Not only was the the the demand hit, but the supply chains were totally ruined.

Shipping couldn't happen. Most of our product has to arrive on ship.

It doesn't arrive by plane or road. Uh and almost all the product in that in that part of the world is inbound.

It's not domestic. There were there were huge disruptions in in uh in logistics.

They had to move things around. Things had to be airfreighted in when they could be airfreighted in.

Shipments were delayed. Shipments came in at the same time.

Ships were cancelled. Um Then you had date issues on product where you don't have demand, but you've got the clock ticking on the on the date of the product.

They they had to really contend with a lot of issues. They did it great, but, overall, obviously it's it it has a an impact of profitability.

In Turkey, we saw an improvement in the business. It still remains a a uh a a developmental issue.

We are still too small. Um We need to grow into our skin there, um and we're working very hard at that.

South America had a much improved year, and we're well on on on track there. Uh Chile, we're starting to see some some benefits of of our of our labor.

Brazil had a very reasonable year in a in a disruptive political environment. Uh they got an election this year, and, that's that's disruptive, but they're doing okay.

Uh and Argentina, a very small, but an exceptionally well-managed business. We learn a lot from that in how to manage in volatile, inflationary environment, they're doing a good job.

Uh South Africa had an awesome year, once again. Um Their profitability was up 15%.

Small acquisition wouldn't have really shifted the needle. Uh great operational excellence.

The the the market's not not special. The economy is not special.

The environment's not special. Um our business is, and uh our operators have done an excellent job, and, yeah, South Africa, once again, star performer, 15%.

Um Moving back into into Asia. Singapore had a had a overall flat year, but it was a very important year in terms of repositioning that business.

Um And the fact that we got through the repositioning and managed to maintain our profitability sets us up for a very exciting future in in Singapore, where the business is now correctly structured. We've got a distribution business, and we've got a manufacturing business, simple.

Do what they do, they'll do it well. Uh Malaysia, we had an acquisition there in July or August last year of a of a local dry goods business, uh which added a whole lot of product to our portfolio, which is very important so we can move away from imported and agency-based product, um which is which is the right thing to do.

Uh There's no doubt that we do not want to build our business on third-party agencies, because they are fickle, um and they they yeah. they're good time Well, I don't know what the saying is, but they're good-time friends.

In fact, in Malaysia, we uh we're exiting one of our larger suppliers. Now no longer larger, because they've been diluted uh in quite an important category, which has been replaced by some some other brands, including house brands.

Um But we certainly understand that our sustainability is built on our ability to control the product that goes through our our system, uh not other people's product, very important. Overall, that's where we ended up.

You add all of that together, you get the number. I'm going to hand over to David to take you through all the exciting numbers, and then we'll come back and talk about the future.

Thank you. Uh

thanks, Bernard. Uh morning to all.

Thanks thank you for taking the time to listen to us. Um listening to Bernard uh talk about the people reminded me of our founder's quote, Brian, where he said, "People create growth, and companies report it."

A special thanks to all, from my certainly my perspective, all the people, our management, our staff um out there in terms of, having generated these uh this growth. Um we've basically Bernard challenged us to deliver a reporting suite uh by the time we put the numbers out.

Uh and that has happened. The teams have rose to the challenge and and have delivered, a special uh shout-out to our finance team at the center for for what obviously our businesses finance teams, but certainly at the center, who have delivered on that.

Um That reporting suite contains a huge amount of information. Uh it's uh in terms of uh every uh acronym you can think of: IFRS, Companies Act, King IV, King V, um and many other regulations.

That's that's all being achieved. Um I just remind you, um and will encourage you to go through the information, because I think it tells uh everyone a lot about about the group and uh gives you a lot of granular information about businesses.

We've got new auditors this year, KPMG, thanks to them. They delivered an unmodified opinion.

Um and also, I guess, a special thank-you to PwC, who were the auditors over the past 7 years for their contribution to the group. Um And now to the numbers.

Um I think if you had to pick up one sort of uh comment, I'd say it's all about the cash. Um I think that was something that was, fantastically uh generated, both cash in from the businesses and, obviously, out.

Um and I'll talk a little bit about that. Uh revenue growth has been spoken about.

Gross profits were up, which I think was is a great uh testament to the execution of the strategy. Trading profit was up 8.2%, and Bernard's talking spoken a little bit about the normalizations.

HEPS up nearly 7% in constant currency. Um and I won't repeat what Bernard's said about the constant currency, but it is the methodology and the truer reflection um of the group's performance.

Our dividend also for the year um is up nearly 7%, which is ahead of uh normalized earnings. Um so we are rewarding shareholders.

I think also very encouraging um stat, which we expected, was that uh, we've got uh increases in returns, and that's absolutely something that we are focused on, particularly following um I guess, a slightly elevated capital investment program over the past few years, and we can see that now starting to to deliver. Uh free cash flow, as I said, was excellent at 7 billion, up significantly on the previous year.

All our metrics in terms of covenants and the like, net debt to EBITDA, are very conservative at 0.2 times. In terms of the P&L, um I'm not going to go through each of the lines.

Um a lot of it is is already there. I think, as I said, the the gross profit up 30 basis points really is just the businesses executing on on the strategic um requirements, the strategic focus.

Um Particularly, uh as there one of one of the uh strategies, I guess, from all the businesses was to maintain market share, um and having done that, there was some sacrifice of margins um to to continue with that, particularly where in economies where it is particularly competitive um and the economies are not doing so well. I think that's in the context, in the context of that, there's still an increase, and and uh that's an excellent result.

Highlight also, I think, is the cost of doing business, which rose very slightly. Um and that's really in the context of, as Bernard indicated, higher cost inflation, um and and elevated and remaining elevated.

I think just as an example, I think the UK um because of these government imposts, absorbed about 7.5 million pounds of additional cost uh alone, on which they had to um get more efficiencies. Um I think that the cost of doing business and the slight increase from 19 to 19.1% is is a is an excellent excellent result.

Obviously, in the latter part of the year, the impact of fuel costs, although it's not a necessarily a big number in the scheme of the group, um we're still seeing across most of the divisions somewhere between 40 to 50% increases, which which uh basically were absorbed, as as Bernard indicated. Trading profit was up uh 6.5% or 8.2% in constant currency, and pleasingly, all that translated uh through to increased uh trading profit margins.

I think that's even um more impressive, considering that uh effectively the emerging markets were flat, and Australasia went back slightly. Very pleasing result from a a margin perspective.

Um Looking below the trading profit trading profit line, uh interest interest on uh IFRS interest was up a little bit in constant currency. Um That probably was our expectation that that would come down a little bit, but I think you've got to bear in mind that we did refinance some some debt at higher rates.

Um They are not necessarily high rates relative to the market. I think our our credit margins are particularly competitive, and in fact, are excellent.

It's really that base rates, from a few years ago are are up and are probably normalized, I wouldn't expect that, we we're certainly as a as a world, we're not going back to to previous levels of of interest rates. Um The one uh detraction, I guess, from the from the results, if you're looking at trading profit growth down to to HEPS growth, is the tax rate.

We did guide to somewhere between 26 and 27%, and that's exactly where it's come out. Um But it is up versus the previous year, um but we think probably stable from from here on out.

Um Yeah, HEPS up EPS up 9.4%, that's really uh a function of we had large capital, uh fairly large capital items in the prior period, and so that reduced the base. Um So that's the reason why it's slightly above where HEPS are.

Um As Bernard indicated, currency volatility, which we have uh uh noted in all the updates going, through the year, uh did impact the results by 1.4%. Um We did buy back some shares in the period post, I guess, March, um and that was really allowed because we had massive, or excellent free cash flow generation.

Um And to date, we've basically bought back to the end of August, and we did have a a program in place through the closed period, about 1% of of the shares in in issue. We'll see the benefit of that uh buyback uh certainly into the into the results in FY '27.

Final dividend up 7%, well, 625 cents per share, but but for the year, up nearly 7%, which is a little bit uh higher than what the uh policy is, but in line with, or a little bit better than what we did certainly for the first half. On the cash flow, as I as I we've indicated, a very pleasing result almost at at every line.

Um cash flow after working capital uh which was up about uh nearly 18%. It's a fantastic result.

Working capital was very well managed broadly. We measure it over uh three different types of metrics.

Obviously, the absolute um impact, and and we had a generation of nearly 500 million in the period versus an 800 million absorption in the prior period. Um Our net working capital days, we we look at on a basically a 3-month moving average, because we don't hold stock for that long, and and generally, our working capital cycle is is pretty tight.

Uh and that tightened from 8 days previously to to around 5. Then the last area really is the working capital to revenue percentage, which gives us an idea of the amount of working capital absolute amount of working capital invested uh to generate the revenue.

Uh and that was also well-managed and came in pretty tight uh at 2.8% versus 3.5% uh in the previous period. Just a reminder, obviously, the period ends are are the the best managed uh from our perspective.

Um So that during the year, it does track around about 4 to 5%, you see some working capital release um through through the year, but but for the period-end to period-end, um it is absolutely uh correct and and genuine. Um Investing activities, um yeah, basically 6 billion, uh of of which about uh 1.2 billion was into acquisitions, not a not a huge chunk.

Bernard's spoken about uh the five bolt-ons that um were done. Uh The maintenance CapEx is probably a little bit elevated, but I think one's got to just understand that in that maintenance CapEx is is a number of depots that were actually categorized as replacement, um although they've added uh additional capacity.

They were a replacement of of older depots. Um And net debt, if you look further, the cash flow net debt is down at 3.9 billion, which is, as expected, after the pleasing um operating cash flows and the like, as it flowed through.

Balance sheet is in very good shape. I'm not going to spend too much time here.

Um Obviously, it's uh from our perspective, competitive advantage, and and we'll use it judiciously as as we see fit. In terms of liquidity, we have a one-band maturation going forward for our USPP.

It's hard to believe that's 5 years since uh Russia invaded Ukraine, but that was when we we took out our first USPP um debt. Um And that's due for a uh repayment in March next year.

We're looking at options, but um we'll we'll deal with that closer to the time. Um Our working our weighted average interest rates on foreign borrowings is 3.4%.

I, as I've said earlier, I think that's that's normal, and that's uh our expectation of where interest rates are going to be um, in the in the short to medium term, maybe even the medium to long term. Um Our RCF was renewed this year.

Um It is optionality from our perspective, um and uh we obviously grateful to the um banks, all six or seven of them, that that obviously supported us through that uh uh process and continue to support us in terms of affording us uh funding. Uh Our funding long term is is principally long term, and and from my perspective, I think we've got it reasonably right.

You never going to get it right over, 3 or 5 or 7-year period, but um we think we are obviously borrowing at very, very competitive rates, particularly in the in the world we live in at the moment. Solvency, liquidity, all those ratios basically reflect a very, very strong financial position.

Um Going forward, just a few things. I'm not going to give you some idea of of food inflation and core inflation, but we certainly, I'm no economist and, could be very wrong there, but that's our sort of expectation.

Our working capital cycle uh will normalize, and and our expectation once again is as we trade into the festive season in the first half of the year, there will be some absorption, but we should get that back into the second half. I've spoken about the maturity of the USPP, um and we will we will uh look at the options with that.

Um Our capital investments, as we've indicated for some time now, are moderating, and uh are are likely to be in the 1.5 to 2% range um where we've guided. We're not, as Bernard said, we're not going to stop spending, but but that's what we think is the the normalized range.

Um We obviously, and we've said this before, conscious of of balancing reinvestment um with, obviously, shareholder returns. I think uh just to note that we returned, including share buybacks, some 5.2 billion of the uh 7 billion uh free cash flow to shareholders.

Um And where the uh opportunity uh exists, we'll continue to to supplement investment uh either in, obviously, bolt-on acquisitions with share buybacks to the extent that they're accretive both to the group and to and to shareholders. No changes in the way we're managing the group from a financial perspective.

Um As I said, returns have picked up, and that remains an area of focus, and our expectations, we should continue to see um us being able to just uh generate best-in-class returns. Um The the year has started off off well.

Um Certainly, results for both uh revenue and and trading profit growth in July have been have been good, um and and we look forward to that continuing. From my perspective, we're obviously budgeting for continued growth into '27, um and uh on that, I'll hand back to Bernard.

Thank you, David. If we can just take 1 second just to look backward for 10 years, we've been listed as as Bidcorp for 10 years, uh and it's often good just to to to take a moment, reflect, and say, have we done a reasonable job or not?

Um I guess you need to be the judge of that, not us. We can only present the facts.

Um Bearing in mind, 2 years were impacted by COVID, significantly impacted by COVID. Um But over the 10 years, um TSR, including share growth and capital returns, has been about an 8% compound growth rate.

Um Our HEPS has grown by 10% compound. Um Our dividends have grown by about 18%, probably a little bit higher than that when you get the final dividend, compound over over the the the 10 years.

Our returns have improved. Um Our return on invested capital is improved.

When you look at all these metrics, they're positive. I think the most important part of it is the consistency.

Other than the two COVID years, all those graphs are consistently strong and show consistent improvement. That's been the 10 years so far.

I think, more importantly, we need to just look at what the future looks like. I think there's a little bit of a maybe a disconnect as to as to what the future looks like um from your point of view and from our point of view.

We're we're probably a whole lot more optimistic than maybe some of you are. Um And where where we are at the moment, we understand that we're strongly cash generative.

We've got an exceptionally strong balance sheet. We have firepower to make acquisitions as they as they become available at the correct price, at the correct metrics, with the correct strategic rationale for doing them.

There's no imperative that we have to do an acquisition, because that's the only way we grow. We've got enough underlying organic growth within our business to continue growing very very admirably.

Um So yeah, when you the the the buzzword now is the algorithm. What's your algo?

Our algorithm is actually relatively simple. Uh Forget about acquisitions, because acquisitions we'll talk about separately.

If we can see real revenue growth of round about 5 or 6%, we'd love more than that, we're aiming for more than that, in the current economic environment, if we can achieve um revenue growth of around 5 or 6% in in a low-inflation, low-economic-growth market, that's that's a good starting point. We we will improve our gross margins.

There's no doubt they will improve by 0.1, 0.2, 0.3% as we continue to implement our strategy, our strategy of house brand, of vertical integration, of of of mix, of customer mix. We will control our cost base.

Yes, there's there's higher labor inflation of 3 to 4%. We can manage that.

We are getting efficiency gains. We can manage the we can manage the uh the the the cost space.

We we don't have to put sub- substantial investments into this business. We're well We're well-structured, we're well-capitalized, we've got fantastic facilities in great locations being able to to offer a very high level of service to our customers.

The cost base isn't going to grow at the same rate as the revenue growth and the margin improvement. There's no doubt we'll see an uptick above 6% in operating profit if those other metrics are are in place.

Put on top of that, a little bit of efficiency gain as a result of AI, tech, and any other things that might come our way, but that that generally related to tech. Uh, a truck is fundamentally the same as a truck was 30 years ago.

They use a little bit less fuel, um but they're on roads that are more congested. Until drones become a delivery methodology, we're stuck with trucks, and there's not a whole lot you can do.

Yes, you can maybe uh route them or route them a little bit more efficiently, but it's a small marginal improvement. It's not a huge a huge uptick.

Technology will all play a role. Um Add onto that, some acquisition, and put on another 1 or 2% for for acquisition in a in a normal year, which is quite a lot of acquisition based on the size of the base, um but that's absolutely available out there.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out what the algorithm looks like. That might not be achieved every single year, but that's absolutely where the thinking is as to what this business should be able to do, which I guess brings us to where we're tracking.

We're 8 8 weeks into into the new year. Um The Northern Hemisphere summer has been exceptionally hot.

Um Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I actually can't tell you.

I think it's a good thing and a bad thing. Um We certainly sell more ice cream, but has it impacted tourism?

Has it impacted um spend? Not really sure.

The the football World Cup, was that a positive or a negative? I'm not really sure.

Yes, people went out more, but maybe they drank more beer and didn't eat so much food. Or maybe they didn't go on holiday, because they went to America to watch the football, or they stayed at home to watch the football.

All of these things are subjective. You can you can pull whatever narrative you you like out of them, um but notwithstanding whatever's gone on, our revenues are up about 6% for the for the 8 weeks, and the other components of the algo that we spoke about are in place.

We've seen the continuation of the of the trend I spoke about of the second 6 months being stronger than the first 6 months. We've seen that trend continue.

Where we're sitting at the moment, 8 weeks in, is we're very um satisfied that we're on the right path. Um Yes, it's an uncertain world.

Yes, there's volatility. Um but we seem to be managing that and uh heading in the right direction.

Just going on to a few other things on on technology. Um and we're putting this in because it seems to be flavor of the day.

Um You all want to know about AI. Um Whatever.

Uh you know way more about it than we do. We just know how to use the power of AI to get into the data, to give us these micro-efficiencies, many of them across many different uh aspects.

One of the important things that is happening, we're putting quite a substantial investment into replatforming our B2B um solution that's served us exceptionally well since we first implemented it in the year 2000, which is quite a few years ago, um and it's grown, and it's been developed. Unfortunately, the architecture, the under-the-bonnet stuff has moved from a from a uh an internal combustion engine to electric cars out there.

We need to re- re-engineer the the the total insides of what this thing does, which will enable us to give a much slicker, better, more comprehensive outwardly facing um product to our customers, which will drive penetration, search availability, product availability, um suggestive upselling, all those other things, menu planning, historical issues, which we've got all of that anyway. It just makes it that much more efficient, easy, easier to implement, um and give our customers the benefit of this of this technology, which enables them to transact with us easier, which hopefully means they transact with us more.

Um On the rest of the business, there's multiple streams of where technology's heading, multiple, I've spoken about them, micro-projects into lots of different areas of the business. Some of the stuff that our our teams have developed are absolutely phenomenal.

We give them a task, a week later they come back with with a solution that's that's absolutely mind-blowing. You get an app that does something that before would have taken weeks and weeks of analysis and would have been 80% correct.

Suddenly now it's 99% correct, and it's instantaneous and live. There's a lot of that that's going on.

Um We are implementing agentic AI into certain aspects of the business. It is being trialed, it is being developed, it's being used quite extensively in terms of selling opportunity, help opportunity.

Where's my order? Can I add to my order?

Can I place an order? Do you have this?

What's the price of that? Etc.

A lot of that can be is being developed with agentic AI, and obviously has quite a long uh a long path ahead of it, and it's very it's very exciting. It's very difficult for a for an old bloke um to to understand all of this stuff, and that's why we've got young people in our business who are teaching us and taking us into the future.

It absolutely is is amazing and and uh it's it's it's inspirational, and it will be a game changer. It's not going to totally unlock huge amounts of value, but it is a game changer that will unlock efficiencies and help drive margins up.

The other important part is what we call our continuum. This is our strategy.

There's nothing new in here. We're just doing what we said we're going to do and do a little bit more of it.

You do all of these bits, and you'll move up. You'll you'll improve your margins by the 0.1, 0.2, 0.3%.

Looking forward, we're we're very confident of where we're at. We're strongly cash-generative.

We've got a very strong balance sheet. We've got a lot of firepower for when the right acquisition comes along.

We're not our eyes aren't closed to the opportunities out there, but neither are we falling over ourselves um to make an acquisition for acquisition's sake. Um I've got quite a few questions here.

Some of them I think we've answered. I'll run through them relatively quickly.

Um, "What is the typical payback period of a new distribution center?" It's a very difficult question to answer, because you're building real estate primarily.

You're building a 30-year asset that's going to be worth more than you paid for it up front. On the asset, you've got no downside.

Where you do have a cost is, if it's additional infrastructure, you're going to start with low volumes, you're going to not be profitable. We're generally finding, within a year or two, a new a a new greenfield site will be at least break even or profitable.

It's only a 1 or 2-year payback, and then you start getting very quick incremental returns on that. "What gives you confidence in Australasia rebounding to high single-digit revenue growth in FY '27, given the econo- economies remain relatively weak?"

I don't know, maybe it's naivety, stupidity, or maybe it's just the reality. Uh we can see where we're tracking.

We know where we are 8 weeks in. We understand why that's happened.

We understand the customer mix. We can see some of the customer wins that we're we're achieving in both Australia and New Zealand.

Um Yeah, the there's a there's a pendulum, and the pendulum has swung, and we can see that that pendulum swung. You're right, the economy's not great.

The consumer's not great, and most of what you read is is negative. The big retailers in Australia reported their results today and yesterday, and they're both showing solid growth.

Now, that would tell you, in an economy that's not growing, if the retailers are growing, that's coming out of the food service spend. We're we're getting our share, and we're very comfortable with how our business is is tracking.

Clearly we must be doing something reasonably right. "Well done on strong cash generation.

What percent of EBITDA do you think cash generation will be over time?" Um I'll let David answer that.

It's about 110, 120%, David? It's normally between

110 and 120%. It's

strong.

I think on page 45 of the presentation, you or at the back, you can see what it's done over over the last uh 6 or 7 years.

Then, "Working capital, what do you expect for F '27? What working capital days are sustainable?"

Probably 5 days is as good as it gets, and probably as we move on the continuum and we get more into manufacturing, into house brand, into import, you actually see the working capital go up slightly, because your supply chains become extended. Hopefully we can keep it 5, 6, 7 days somewhere in that in that trend.

Um I don't think it it actually gets better than that, and I think 5 days is pretty is pretty good. "Please give us more details on what you see at ground level with food inflation or lack thereof, and any knock-on effect from higher fertilizer prices and/or El Niño effects."

Um We're not seeing food price inflation. Uh It's just not there.

I don't know what El Niño is going to do, and I don't know what fertilizer is going to do. It hasn't done it yet.

Um Nobody's really on the ground telling us that there's huge inflation coming. Um So I can't answer that question other than to tell you that we're not seeing that inflation um at the moment.

"Well done on the results." That's a very good question, thank you.

"Last time we met, you said that attractive acquisition opportunities were few and far between. Is this still the case, and if so, what can we expect capital allocation-wise going forward?

More aggressive buybacks and more generous dividend?" Um Yes, yes, and yes.

Our acquisition strategy is the same. We'll look at acquisitions.

There are a few that we're looking at. They may come off, they may not come off.

I don't think we're going to look at something that bets the farm and is going to be totally huge and and and outrageous. They generally are bolt-on, um not overly hugely sizable, and we'll continue to do that.

We're strongly cash generative. We'll continue to, hopefully, increase the size of the dividend.

As long as the share price remains depressed, and we we believe that that that the share price is depressed and um probably not correctly valuing the the the future opportunity, we'll continue to to to do buybacks. "The business seems to be holding up remarkably well in all types of economic cycles.

What do you view as the biggest risk to it over the near/medium term?" We're actually very comfortable with the fundamentals of the out-of-home market, and that the food service market will grow over a period of time, and people will eat more out of home than in home.

You look at the American graph of in-home, out-of-home, that shows that. Generally around the world, over the longer term, you get that as well.

I think the biggest risk to our business, which is the same risk to to to most businesses, is one of complacency and one of resting on your laurels. We constantly need to reinvent the business, reinvent ourselves, challenge ourselves, look for new opportunities, question what we're doing, uh and stay engaged in the business.

Nothing Nothing goes forever, and you have to you have to keep on top of your game. Uh You can't let that arrogance and and and uh complacency creep in uh And I honestly believe that the the biggest risk to our business would be self-inflicted, not external inflicted, which means it's very controllable, and we are aware of it.

"You've mentioned that food inflation hasn't come through as expected. If food inflation were to accelerate, would you view that primarily as an input-cost headwind, or do you think the business would be able to pass through those increases sufficiently to make it a net positive for revenue and margins?"

We've always said that the sweet spot for food inflation for us is 2 to 3% um where we get a little bit of leverage, because you can pass that type of increase on relatively easily. A few years ago, when we had food inflation of 15, 20%, it's very very difficult.

We don't see that food inflation of 15, 20% happening. Uh We see it more in the in the in the lower area, and maybe it will tick up.

Generally, because of the diversification of our customer base, because of the customer criteria that we trade with, generally there's a pass through. "You mention that July and August are continuing the positive momentum seen in Q4 '26.

How is this momentum translating to underlying constant currency sales growth, and what level of growth are you currently seeing?" We've answered that, 6% sales growth, and obviously we're getting the leverage below that.

"If the current oil price remains at these levels, does this shift the economics of using EVs in your fleet positively?" It does.

There's, however, a big issue with EVs, and that's most countries don't have grids that are capable of charging the EVs. Um So not only do you have to be able to afford the truck, but you have to be able to put infrastructure in that enables you to charge the truck.

Because these are heavy vehicles, you need you need significant power, and in many jurisdictions, the grid actually can't cope with that. Now, the next solution to that very technically is solar.

The issue with solar is that happens during the day. Our trucks are out delivering during the day, which means then you have to have a battery solution, you're charging the batteries during the day from solar and charging the trucks at night.

Becomes very costly, very difficult. I have no doubt that in 5 to 10 years' time, EVs will be a far greater proportion of the fleet than they are now.

These issues will be overcome with technology, and it's amazing to see the technological improvements uh that are happening over a period of time. With elevated fuel price on a on a comparable basis, when diesel was at its at its high, we actually found that EVs were cost- bene- cost-beneficial uh compared to ICE vehicles.

Once again, there's a little bit of an unknown, because we actually don't know how long an electric vehicle is going to last for. Is the battery going to last for 5 years, 7 years, 10 years?

Is there going to be any any life left on the on the rest of the vehicle on the componentry after that period of time? That's all a little bit unknown at the moment.

Um But we're pretty excited about what EVs um will will bring to the party. "Well done on the improved UK margin trajectory.

You've indicated that the business remains on track towards its medium-term margin and profitability ambitions. Given the continued pressure on consumer spending, particularly across the more discretionary leisure and hospitality segments, what are the key drivers that will enable you to deliver further margin expansion?"

Once again, it's the same it's it's it's what we've spoken about all the time. It's it's the house brand, it's the manufacturing, it's the simplicity of the operation, it's the streamlining, uh it's all of those things.

We're doing a little bit of everything that's giving us the benefit. Our team is executing very well, and we are seeing sales growth um and sales um net sales acquisition of customers in the UK.

That is that is is going well. Um Sorry, I'll just need to "Good morning.

Congratulations on very strong results. Could you please elaborate on the slower revenue growth in Europe region for the second half?

First-half constant-FX revenue growth was 7.5% with full year at 5, which implies second half was only 2.5%. What were the reasons for the slowdown in top line?"

I don't know that that number's right, and we'll come back to you. That doesn't sound correct.

I wouldn't have expected that in constant currency there was any any slowdown in the

There is some seasonality,

I think, related to We're talking about growth on a on a year-on-year basis, we'll come back to you on that. I'm not sure I I agree with that number.

"Where do you see the most attractive acquisition opportunities currently?" Uh Look, in in-country acquisitions is everywhere, because, like I say, we have relatively small market shares, we have the ability for this vertical integration, uh we're enthusiastic about what we're doing.

Just going back one step on the UK, one of the acquisitions we did make this year has been in the UK, in this current year that we're in now, which was a small bakery, patisserie type of business, uh which tells you where our thinking is, where we see some of that margin enhancement. "Please provide constant-currency revenue and trading profit growth trend in August and in July and August 2026."

Thanks for asking, but no. We've told you 6% revenue revenue growth, and profitability's ahead of that.

"Does the investment in vertical integration to manufacturing yield returns on capital commensurate with what the business has delivered historically?" No, it doesn't.

It gives you returns that are higher than that. Um These aren't exceptionally high-capital-hungry um opportunities.

Uh Manufacturing isn't what people think it is. You don't need the hugest factories in the world.

Technology's bringing the cost of equipment down quite substantially. Um So, they're actually very attractive opportunities for us.

There're a lot of questions. We're going to be here the whole day, David.

"Congratulations on the results. With gearing essentially negligible through FY '27, and the shares derated to 15x, would the board consider an ex- accelerating the repurchase well beyond the 1% done in 1 in FY '26, and what's the constraint?"

Um We're not going to go through the details, but obviously at these prices, we see share buyback as a as a very attractive option, and we'll continue to look at that. We need to balance that up with some potential acquisitions that may and may not be in the in the pipeline.

We don't want to also put a an underpinning in the market uh and drive the share price up, so, we're we're taking advice on that. "Could you please elaborate on the acquisitions done post-year-end, region, sizes?"

The largest one is in New Zealand. It's an export-based business into the Pacific Islands and a Fijian distribution business, uh revenues of about 80 million.

The other three, one is in South Africa, a manufacturing business, a food specialist food manufacturing business; one of them is in Poland, a specialist food manufacturing business; and one of them's in the UK, like I said, a bakery. All the three of those are relatively small.

Um The they're not going to shift the needle up front in any way other than give us avenues of growth in the future. "Please update on the UK margin target, and when will you hope to achieve this target?"

Um You know what they say about targets, huh? It's a moving feast, uh and it needs to be.

Because maybe 6% is correct, and maybe 6% is not correct. Maybe it should be 7%.

We're at 4%. If we got to 5% within a few years, I think we'd be doing well.

If we got to 6% within a few years after that, I think we'd be doing well. "Given that Europe delivered the strongest trading margin expansion this year at 46 bps while Spain and Portugal are still in integration/investment phase, how should we think about contribution from these markets to further European margin expansion as the benefits of structured investments, systems, integration, network consolidation, improved scale begins to come through?"

Look, we're at 6%, and fundamentally we believe 6% can move to 7% over the next few years. Uh When it's going to get there, I don't know.

6% is not utopia, and we continue to we continue to to to drive drive the business forward. I actually don't know what the answer is.

There isn't an answer. Because when you get to 7%, then you say, why shouldn't we be at 8%?

When you get to 8%, you say, why shouldn't we be at 9%? There actually isn't an end to this.

That's a that's a that's a that's a continuum. We get to somewhere so we can challenge ourselves to get somewhere further.

"Weighted average shares outstanding have increased despite buybacks. Can you explain why?"

Yes, I can, because I went to university about 50 years ago, and they taught me about weighted averages. We only bought them back in in May and June primarily, which means you've only got a 2-month weighting on that.

For for for 10, 11 months of the year, they were in issue, and that's why it's a weighted average. Where am I up to?

"How many acquisitions been made in F '27 year to date, and what is annual revenue?" Like we said, four, and annual revenues is probably in the region of about, I'm going to guess, 500 million rand.

"Can you give us an indication of how large labor and fuel costs are in your cost base?" I'm told that labor's 12% of our revenue.

Um Yeah, once again, that's on average, and you just got to be a little bit careful of of averages. Uh 12% of revenue sits in labor.

Um Fuel is about 0.5% of revenue. It's not the hugest number, um but when it does move by 50% or 100%, obviously it has an implication.

Um But it is only 0.5% of revenue. It's not immaterial, but a 100% or 50% movement is quite a big number.

"Given the strong balance sheet, will you raise the dividend payout ratio?" That's a definite maybe.

Obviously, it's under consideration. The board does consider the questions of capital efficiency, and we look at the dividend, we look at internal uh uses of capital, acquisition, buybacks, all the rest of these things.

Um yeah, there are a lot of there are a lot of moving parts. Those are all the questions.

Thank you. I know this has gone on longer than we thought.

Um The only parting shot I do want to leave you with is the fact that we are very comfortable where we're sitting at the moment in a very volatile world, and things do change on a dime, but hopefully they they they don't, and hopefully it improves. Um Yeah, one of the questions was, what makes you think you can grow in an economy that's not growing?

It reminded me of a of a of a saying that I saw somewhere once from Henry Ford, who said, "Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, either way, you're correct." We believe we can, we manage our business that way, we drive our business that way, we've got small market share, there's growth in every single one of our businesses, there's opportunity for improvement in every one of our businesses, uh and we're enthusiastically excited about the future.

We'll see you all in November, I suppose. Thank you very much, take care, and good luck.

Thank you.