Good morning everyone, and welcome to Cashbuild Limited's final results presentation for the 52 weeks ended 28 June 2026. We are joined today by Werner de Jager, Chief Executive Officer, Hanré Bester, Chief Financial Officer, and Shane Thoresson, Chief Operations Officer, who will be taking you through the presentation.

A special welcome is extended to our board and Exco members who are joining us on this digital platform. Should you have any questions during the session, please make use of the question tab on your screen.

I will direct your questions to Werner, Hanré, and Shane at the conclusion of the presentation. I would also like to draw your attention to the disclaimer at the end of the presentation.

Please note that this version contains industry-sensitive information and therefore differs from the presentation available on our website. It is now my pleasure to hand over to Werner de Jager.

Thank you, Marlize. Good morning everybody, and thank you for joining us this morning for the presentation of our results.

We'll follow pretty much the same format as you've become used to. I'll start with a few opening comments and some overview.

Hanré will take you through the details in the financials, and then Shane will take you through some of the product categories, and I'll end up with a bit of store development and a summary in the end. If we go straight into the nature of our business, nothing changed in the nature of our business.

We're still a mass retailer of building materials and related products and services. We offer quality product range at very competitive prices.

It's always been something that we're very proud of is the quality of our products and the fact that consumers can rely on the quality brands that they buy from Cashbuild. We still sell predominantly for cash, or as I said last time, very little on credit.

We have 317 stores, which I will deal with at the end a bit more. If we then look at some of the results on a high level, starting off with revenue, R12.1 billion, 6% up.

You can see there 4% on a 2-year compound basis and 1% down on a 5-year compound basis. If you see the detail there a bit, the 8% for the second half, a good performance for the second half helped by the inclusion of the Amper Alles business for the second half.

They joined in the results from the 1st of December 2025. If we then look at the normalized operating profit of R311 million, it's up 9% year-on-year.

What we've excluded here is the loss on the sale of the Malawi subsidiary, as well as adjusted for the refundable customer accounts income out of both of the years, last year and this year, to get a comparable basis. See there 2% down on a 2-year compound basis and 21% down on a 5-year compound basis.

That number, I must just warn you, next time round is going to look much different because of the COVID 2022 year that will be the basis for the calculation going forward. If we then move on to headline earnings per share, 960 cents, down 8%.

Again, here nothing's been adjusted for RCAs, and only the Malawi is out of this one. Then last but not least, net asset value per share, down 3%, and you can see there 1% up on a 2-year and 5% down on a 5-year compound basis.

I'll now hand you over to Hanré.

Thank you, Werner, and good morning, everyone. As Werner mentioned, revenue up by 6%.

We are pleased to report an increase in our gross profit of 8% at a gross profit percentage of 25.3%, up by 0.5 percentage points on the prior year. Our operating expenses at R2.76 billion increased by 7%.

Our loss on disposal of our Malawi subsidiary of R35 million has been reported at half year and not included in the operating expense number above and separately disclosed. Our other income of R20 million includes R16 million of refundable customer accounts, and in the prior year, R58 million of the same, as Werner mentioned earlier.

Our operating profit at R292 million and our net financing cost at R47 million, net finance cost increasing by R14 million on the back of the lower interest rate environment and the lower interest that we receive on our refundable customer accounts and our other cash. Our profit after tax for the year is at R173 million, down 24%.

Our normalized profit for the year after tax adjusted for refundable customer accounts and the Malawi loss is R196 million, 5% up on the prior year. Earnings per share at 786 cents decreased by 25%.

Our headline earnings per share at 960 cents decreasing by 8%, and our dividend per share at 626 cents, the same as last year, after the board has made a decision to keep the dividend the same. Weighted average number of shares at 20.4 million, reducing by 2% after some share buybacks during the year.

Turning to our gross profit and operating profit margin, our operating gross margin improving over the last number of years. For the last quarter, we were at 25.6%, positively affected by the Amper Alles transaction, as well as improved rebate settlement discounts and stock management.

This compared to the previous year, 25.3%, also showing healthy margin, which is just above our targeted gross profit margin target. The prior year's first half excluded one less settlement discount run at 24.3%, and hence part of the lower margin.

Overall, over the last 2 years, we are pleased to report a turnaround in P&L Hardware, as well as a number of P&L conversions into Cashbuild that contributed to improved margin. At operating profit margin, we had 2.6% for the year, slightly up on the previous year's 2.5%.

We are looking to improve both our gross profit and operating profit margins through responsible sales and gross margin growth. Turning to our operating expenses, with an increase of 7% as we noted earlier, operating expenses making up 22.8% of revenue.

On a comparable store basis, our opex increased by 5.4%. The comparable stores take all the stores that's been trading since 1 July 2024.

If we look at the various components of our operating expenses, people increased by 6% and 4% on a comparable basis. This is lower than the increases that we provided of 4.5% and 3.7% for executives.

Property increased by 6% and 4% on a comparable store basis. We are looking to improve our cost management in the area of property, and we're reviewing our cost structures and our lease periods continuously.

From IT cost perspective, this is the largest increase in rand value at 18% increase. As we mentioned in the past, we busy with the implementation and migration to our new SAP S/4HANA platform from our current SAP ECC 6 platform, which will be discontinued from 2030.

We also expect similar increases in the year to come as we wrap up on our implementation into the 2027 year. Our advertising only increased by 2% and 1% on a comparable store basis.

This is after some improved digital marketing and localized advertising. Deliveries increased by 5% and 4% on a comparable store basis, and we've seen the increase in diesel prices coming through in the last quarter of the year.

Customer transactions at 16.5 million transactions, up 4.8%, which is slightly lower than our revenue growth. This takes a similar trend to the previous year and the first 7 weeks of this new financial year.

Our average basket size slightly up at R734 per basket, and the trend for 2026 is similar to the trend of 2024, and we've seen now an increase in average basket size in the first 7 weeks, partly due to the introduction of Amper Alles, which has higher basket sizes. Turning to our segmental disclosure, we are pleased to report a 5% increase in revenue for Cashbuild South Africa and a 7% increase in gross profit at a GP percentage of 25.6%, up 0.3 percentage points.

Rest of South Africa is P&L Hardware and Amper Alles, and although we've seen a reduction in P&L's revenue by 2% after a number of store closures over the last 2 years, we are pleased to report a 5% increase in their gross profit. Amper Alles contributed R194 million of revenue for this financial year for the 7 months that they've been part of the group at a healthy margin.

The rest of Africa has been disappointing, with Botswana having their liquidity problems, and we've seen a reduction in both revenue and gross profit. Also to remind ourselves that Malawi has only been part of the 2026 financial year for 6 months as it was disposed of at the end of December 2025.

Swaziland and Lesotho performing well, and we've seen also an uptick in our revenue in Namibia, as well as opening two—three new stores, should I say, in Namibia. Looking at our normalized operating profit, Cashbuild South Africa increased by 2% to R245 million, Rest of South Africa with P&L and Amper Alles both contributing R10 million to operating profit.

Great turnaround, especially in P&L, and Amper Alles coming into the group. The rest of Africa, down 27% at R46 million, mostly relating to the reduction in our gross profit.

Capital investment for Cashbuild South Africa at R192 million, we continue to expand our store offering, as well as other top store models. The rest of South Africa with P&L mostly contributing there to capex in conversion stores, converting P&L into Cashbuild stores, as well as our Cabi-Fit introduction into our models.

Rest of Africa, increasing with the 3 stores that we've opened in Namibia. Headline earnings per share at 960 cents, down 8% year-on-year, with dividend per share at 626 cents, the same as last year, and improvement on 2024.

Our dividend policy has remained unchanged at 1.5 times cover, and we've paid to date R385 million to employees through the Cashbuild Empowerment Trust. Looking at our statement of financial position, we've got a strong balance sheet with cash and short-term funds at just over R2 billion, with refundable customer accounts at R1.4 billion.

The other movements during the year mostly relate to the introduction of Amper Alles with increase in right-of-use of assets, R80 million of increases in tangible assets, 4% of the 7% increase in inventories of R2.04 billion for the group, and our inventory days at similar levels to last year at 97 days. Our shareholders' equity at R1.8 billion, and our net asset value per share at R77.84, down 3% after the Amper Alles transaction put-call option with the debit against equity, as well as share buybacks of R77 million and dividends of R150 million reducing shareholders' equity.

Turning to the cash flow, we are pleased to report cash generated from operations before working capital changes of R777 million, up 8%. Our working capital inflow of R283 million, partly relating to the increase in refundable customer accounts.

For the rest of the cash flow items, referring to dividends of R150 million, taxation of R67 million, fixed asset additions and capex of R288 million, our lease payments of R313 million. We acquired Amper Alles during the year and funded that through a term debt facility for R100 million, and our share repurchases, as I mentioned, at R77 million, all contributing to a closing cash balance of just over R2 billion.

I'll now hand you over to Shane Thoresson, our COO, to take you through the product categories.

Thank you, Hanré, and morning, all. As Werner mentioned, I'm going to take you through some slides which are going to show you the performance of some of our major categories.

Before I do that, just focusing on the group sales by week, and as both Werner and Hanré alluded to the fact that Amper Alles is included specifically for the second half and from the period from the 1st of December. If we look at our group sales, a pleasing third and fourth quarter at 9% growth and 6% growth in quarter 4, and that on the back of average selling price inflation for the 12-month period of only 1.1% and for the fourth quarter specifically at 1.5%.

Happy that we're seeing some good sales growth during the period. We look at volumes of around R220 million per week, and going into the first 7 weeks of the new financial year, flat.

Perhaps I should explain at this point in time that we're going to see this kind of trend over the next couple of graphs where we see a fairly dramatic falloff during week 7, and that really relates to some severe adverse weather conditions during that particular week, icy cold, rain, and snow in various parts of the country, and also a short week with a public holiday in that particular week. Relative to the market over here, we obviously track the reporting of Stats SA, although that particular period that they report on is not comparable to the period we look at, but specifically looking at the figures reported on hardware, paint, and glass, we see that the last reporting numbers were flat on the prior year.

We then also look at listed retailers which are reporting and those specifically related to the hardware sector, the likes of SPAR, Build it, Italtile, and some of the cement suppliers, namely PPC and Sephaku. If we look at those numbers, we believe that we're still growing market share, and that's very encouraging for us.

If we move on to the cement sales, and we're looking at the volumes in terms of pockets, we see over here that mix for the third quarter was fairly consistent with the prior year, 21.2%, increasing during the fourth quarter to 22.7%. We see sales growth of 8% in quarter 3 and a decline of 1% in quarter 4, and that on the back of purchase inflation of 0.7%, which we have seen over the last couple of reporting periods, some inflationary increases coming through there.

Volumes of around 500,000 pockets a week, and again dropping substantially in the first couple of weeks down to a -10%, albeit on the back of a positive 10% growth in the first quarter of the prior year. Again, relative to the market, our information is that the market is flat, somewhere between flat and 2% and 3% growth, although if one looks at the last reporting from PPC and also from Sephaku, it's probably closer to flat and potentially even still declining on the prior year.

Volumes for the market between 12 and 13 million tons a year on the back of production capacity of around 20-odd million. Potential supply still outstripping demand, and notwithstanding that, we've still got imports coming through, mainly along the coast, but also now from Mozambique.

Those imports now account for north of 10% of total volumes in the market. This slide you've become accustomed to, it's a pie chart reflecting each individual cement supplier share of the Cashbuild business.

Although we've seen it fairly consistent over the last 6 months, there's certainly been some changes over the last 12-month operating period. We're looking at Mamba Cement now well entrenched as our primary cement supplier and in fact increasing in the last 6 months from 31% to 33% share of the business, and that on steady declines from both PPC and Sephaku, PPC from 12%, 11% to 10%, and Sephaku from 27%, 23% to 22%.

We've seen AfriSam fairly consistent over the period and some minor changes on some of the smaller cement suppliers. The changes in market share here are directly related to the individual strategies adopted by these various suppliers.

Those range from being very aggressive and trying to grow volumes in the market on the one end, and on the other end, not as aggressive and trying to manage their own individual margin. The Cashbuild strategy is still to offer the best value in terms of cement in the market, and those suppliers aligned with our strategy are maintaining or in fact growing their market share of our business.

We move on to timber sales. We've seen that a sales mix of 7.2% and 7.5% over the respective quarters.

Some good growth in terms of sale volumes, 15% and 9% in quarter 3 and 4, and this on the back of above-average purchase inflation of 6%. We've seen that as there's been some recovery in the timber market, we've seen some price increases coming through, although we can say over a number of reporting periods that we've seen a decline in terms of purchase inflation.

Volume here is around R16 million a week, and again disappointing for the first 7 weeks, 5% down. In terms of the market here, we track the reporting by a company called Crickmay, which I've alluded to in the past, and they specifically report on the lumber market, and for our purposes, more specifically building lumber.

Indications here are that in terms of cubic meters, we've seen growth of somewhere between 3% and 4%, albeit that those volumes are still down on those from 2019 pre-COVID year. Our total brick sales, and the makeup of this category is obviously the clay products, as well as the cement products, blocks and bricks.

Here we see sales mix of 7% and 7.3% across the two respective quarters. Some good volume growth here on the sales side, 13% in quarter 3 and 11% in quarter 4, and slightly above purchase inflation of 3.3%.

Volumes here around 16-odd million rand a week, and flat on the prior year for the first 7 weeks. Moving on to roofing sales, and roofing sales is really steel roof sheeting and concrete roof tiles, and sales mix here of 8.5% and 8.8% in the two quarters.

Again, good growth, sales growth of 10%, 7% in quarter 4, average purchase inflation here of 1.2%, and volumes here of around R18 or R19 million a week, and for the first couple of weeks a negative or decline of 8%. There's obviously been some reporting with regards to what's happening on the steel industry in terms of customs or import duties, and those range anything from 10% up to 50% depending on the type of product which is being imported.

As recently as this week, we've seen duties imposed on color-coated steel, which is used mainly for Chromadek sheeting or garage doors, and we've seen that at 28%. We do see the market, there is marginal growth in the market somewhere between 3% and 5% in terms of sales volumes.

We'll have to see what the impact of the duties has on sales in the marketplace. Obviously, we're not directly importers of product, but some of our suppliers do import raw material and then obviously manufacture locally.

If we look at opening sales, and here the makeup is obviously our doors and our windows, and again, a lot of steel-related product here, aluminum, and to a less and lesser extent wooden products. Mix here of 7.4% and 7.3% in the two quarters, sales volumes of 6% and 3%, purchase inflation at 1%, volumes of around R16 million a week, and a decline of 4% for the first 7 weeks.

The product still driving this category in performance here is still the aluminum-related products. Then we move on lastly to our decorative sales, and the makeup here is, as we've alluded to in the past, is obviously mainly flooring and paint and the related accessories and products.

We've seen very good sales volumes growth here of 15.4% and 14.1%—I beg your pardon, those are the mixes, 15.4% and 14.1%—sales volume growth at 11% and 9%, average purchase inflation of 1.3%, volumes of R33 million a week, and contrary to the other categories that we've seen, we're still seeing a good performance, 10% growth here for the first 7 weeks. Really that's on the back of our improvement in our sales on our paint-related category.

We've over the last 18 months or so introduced paint mixing or paint tinting into the business, and we've got good traction. We now have in excess of 6%—60, I beg your pardon, 60 of our stores offering the service, and not only we're seeing improvement in sales volumes, but also in terms of margin.

Those are all of the categories. I'm happy to take some questions later, but for now, I'll hand you back to Werner.

Thank you, Shane. I'll finish off with a few comments on store development and a summary at the end.

If we look at the sales by province, I've made a slight change to the slide by adding the comparable growth, being stores that is really been trading for 2 financial years because of all the changes in the makeup of our stores, closure of stores, new stores. I just thought it would give some better information if we show the comparable growth as well.

That's contained in the top block there on the right-hand side. As per usual, the number of stores at the bottom of the bar graphs.

If we look at the performance, Eastern Cape performing very well, followed by KZN and Gauteng. When you look at our countries, Hanré alluded to it, -4.6%, and even when you exclude the Malawi stores, still down 1.6%, and that's plainly because of the Botswana business, as was mentioned.

Then when we look at stores by the different locations as we classify it, containing information on the number of stores in the first line, then the sales growth year-on-year, and then also on this slide, a slight change in, it's not existing growth anymore, but comparable growth for the different areas. When you look at the performance there, metro and town stores both performing the best at just over 5%.

It's been a busy year for store development. Overall, you can see stores numbers they're declining by 1 to 317.

When you look at the other projects, excluding store closures and new openings, 36 projects for the year, which is the best we've done in the last 5 years, and it's a good number, and I expect some activity on this to continue in the year to come. At the bottom, when you look at the summary of what happened during the year in terms of the store development, new stores, 9 new stores were added.

You can see there refits, relocations, 19, and then conversions, 17, split into the P&L conversions to Cashbuild SMSs of 11, and then the 6 Cashbuild stores that were converted into Cashbuild Extras. The 3 Amper Alles stores that we acquired, and then there were 13 closures.

Just to mention the 2 Malawi stores that were sold is included in the 7 Cashbuild store closures there, all ending then on the 317 stores, as I mentioned. This is a summary of our different store formats or by brand if you wanted to call it that.

For me, this is a very good summary to show that we delivering on that strategy that we've embarked on, and you can see it very clearly on this slide. The traditional Cashbuild stores, they're 242.

Mentioned in the past, difficult to find sites and open stores there. Reduction mostly due to some closures, as well as the conversions into Cashbuild Extra stores.

Then the Cashbuild SMSs growing nicely, their conversions from P&Ls, and then also new ones that were opened for the year. When we look at P&L Hardware, down to 17, and we've been asked in the past where will this number end at, and we've quoted a number of around 15 always.

With the lessons we've learned on some of the test conversions we did with stores trading in close proximity to Cashbuild stores, we believe that this number will actually reduce quite a bit more below the 15 as we previously indicated. Amper Alles, they're the 3 stores.

You can see the Cashbuild Extras going to 8 stores trading, and then 7 Cabi-Fit stores trading now. Again, 5 of them being in-store, store-in-store concepts, and we're not adding that to the total number of stores.

Just the 2 Cabi-Fits that's standalone is added to the store numbers. This shows us where we opened the stores.

You can see on the right-hand side there, you can see the names and the areas and the formats that was opened. Then on the left at the bottom here, the stores that we opened in Namibia recently close to the end of the financial year.

Rundu was actually a traditional Cashbuild store, and you can see on the right here, Baobab Mall in Polokwane was also a traditional Cashbuild store that was opened. On the competitive landscape slide, always just for information purpose, I brought in 2 more competitors on the independent side being Laduma and BuildRite, both of them now trading just in excess of 20 stores each, we've just added that for information and completeness purposes.

Then just in summary, geopolitical tensions has had a negative impact, and other external pressures on our local economy, and it's weighing heavy on consumers' ability to spend. We can see it throughout the whole economy.

Our own DIY environment, Shane alluded to the Stats SA figures, our first 7 weeks flat, albeit slightly deceiving as was indicated because of that very bad week 7 that we had. After 18 months of fairly hard work and focus, we've now got a very strong new store pipeline.

It's something that we've been lagging for the last couple of years, and we're excited about that prospect. Our investment into our new formats is delivering the expected results that we wanted out of it, and we will continue to invest in that and as we see it's gaining momentum.

Then last on the slide, but not least, the Amper Alles acquisition, it's now bedded down, things are working, and the focus will now shift for us to find new stores and to grow that brand as well and to add more stores to the pot. That's it in summary from my side.

I just want to mention that for us, delivering on our strategy is key. We're focusing on it.

Getting top line is important, that's also a key focus area for us, and like always in Cashbuild, driving efficiencies is top of mind, and we'll continue doing that. Thank you for attending, and we will now take some questions.

Thank you, Werner. Just a kind reminder that you can post your questions by using the question tab on your screen.

The first few questions are from Johannes Potgieter from Lacuna Family Office. The first question is, what levers can you pull to return to positive operating leverage despite the unfavorable macroeconomic environment and weak demand?

What is your margin ambition if the economic conditions in South Africa do not improve in the foreseeable future?

Thanks, Marlize. Johannes, yes, of the levers we're planning to pull is store development is a big focus.

We have over 40 stores approved for opening in the next 3 or so years. We know not all of them will open at once, but that's a big, big area of focus.

We're looking at new models as well. We're looking at alternatives there to further improve our offer to customers.

Then various initiatives that we've been doing throughout the year, one of them, for example, was introducing of paint mixing into the different stores or paint tinting, and there's now in 60 stores it's available, and it's having a positive effect on our paint category. There's a various of those items that we're busy with.

Margin ambitions, it's a more difficult question, but our ambition is to slowly over the next 3 or so years work on an upward trajectory so that we can get back to the sort of 5% where we would be trading or we would expect to be trading under normal circumstances.

Thank you. Johannes, your second and third question have been addressed in the presentation.

The fourth question, could you provide some more detail on the expansion plans for Amper Alles, specifically the number of stores planned, the amount of cash investment that will need to be funded outside of Amper Alles' internal generated cash flow, and the targeted revenue and profit contribution over the medium term?

Thanks, Marlize. Johannes, at this stage, it's very, very early.

There's nothing that has been finalized or approved in terms of new stores for Amper Alles. There are a couple of opportunities which are being looked at at this stage.

As far as the cash investment is concerned, that really depends on the opportunity, for example, the size of the store, are we going to acquire the property, are we going to lease the property. It's very difficult at this stage to put a figure to that.

Thank you. Our next question is from Timothy Theophilus, Laurium Capital: "Congratulations on the results, and thank you for your time.

Two questions, please. The first one, how much of the third quarter and fourth quarter strength in many product categories was due to the inclusion of Amper Alles?

Second, what proportion of opex is diesel-related?"

Thank you, Marlize. Timothy, at this stage, the Amper Alles is really only the 3 stores, there's not a huge contribution, and the contribution that did come or that we did see from Amper Alles was specifically on the decorative category.

Timothy, then on the question of operating expenses, I'll answer it threefold. From a diesel usage perspective in our generators is only about R4 million of expense for the whole year.

Then as far as the surcharges are concerned on our delivery contractors, for the 3 months, that was also just under R4 million. Our delivery contractors charges us a fee based on either kilometers or a fixed fee, but the surcharge only related to about R4 million.

Then for the rest of the business, of course, it's included in the price. I hope that answers your question.

Thank you. Sihle Zondi from Foord Asset Management: "Hi, Werner.

Thanks for unpacking the results. Could you please give us a sense of the like-for-like salary cost number for this period?"

Sihle, in terms of the presentation, we mentioned there the increase is 4%. You're asking the numbers, just looking over a R1.1 billion number for existing stores for personnel cost.

Thank you. There are no further questions, and on behalf of Cashbuild, we would like to thank you for your participation.

Goodbye.