Jan Durand
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us this morning, and welcome to our final results presentation for the year ended 30 June 2026.
Today's presentation follows the structure set out on the screen. I will start with the performance overview, focusing on the key financial and operational features of the year, as well as treated progress made in simplifying and strengthening the portfolio.
Carel Vosloo will then take you through the delivery against some of our other strategic priorities, and Neville Williams will follow with the summarized results for the year. We will then spend some time on the major investee company updates.
Jurgens Myburgh, the CFO, will cover Mediclinic and the meaningful progress made on the restructure. Ronnie van der Merwe, the CEO of Mediclinic, is not with us today and will be retiring in mid-2027 post the conclusion of the operational separation of Mediclinic.
We, as Remgro are very grateful to Ronnie for his contribution over the years. It is also my privilege to announce that somebody of Jurgen's [ caliber ] will take responsibility for Remgro health care exposure post the implementation of that restructuring in 2027.
He will assume the role of CEO of Remgro Healthcare Holdings. Then the CEO of Heineken Beverages, Jordi Borrut; and CFO, Radovan Sikorsky, will cover Heineken Beverages with some very pleasing momentum building in that portfolio.
After that, the CEO of RCL, Paul Cruickshank will speak to the RCL Food results. And finally, Dietlof Mare will unpack CIVH and the opportunities created by the completion of the massive transactions with Vodacom and Herotel.
I will then close with a few comments on the outlook and our areas of focus going forward before we open the floor for questions. This morning, I'm very pleased to present a very good set of results for the year ended 30 June 2026.
This is the second consecutive year where the benefits of deliberate efforts started to come through more clearly in the numbers, as you can see. Headline earnings growth was strong.
Cash generation improved meaningfully and most importantly, that translated into a significantly higher dividend for our shareholders and in addition, create the capacity for a special dividend of ZAR 5.50 for the share -- per share. We are delighted to be able to return this kind of value to shareholders.
This brings the total cash payout for shareholders for the year to ZAR 11.45 per share. These are the outcomes we have been focused on delivering.
The main contributors to performance in the period were Mediclinic, Rainbow, CIVH, OUTsurance and Heineken Beverages. These are businesses where we have spent considerable time with management over the past few years and where we have supported or undertaken key portfolio actions to unlock value.
It is very encouraging to see the impact coming through in the numbers. The increase in INAV is close to 5%, but adjusted for distributions, mainly from dividends during the year that increases to almost 9%.
Overall, these results reflect the quality and the resilience of our portfolio, the considerable work undertaken by our investee company management team, the strategic actions undertaken from portfolio optimization perspective and the benefits of a more focused and engaged ownership model that we have progressively embedded across the group. As I reflect on the results and the tough operating context against which these were achieved, I'm very pleased to see how the stronger operational performance across the portfolio is now increasing, converting into earnings, cash flow and shareholder returns.
This is exactly what we set out to achieve. Over the years, we have reported back in a consistent manner now we believe we have delivered against the strategic priorities that we have articulated which I remind you on this slide again.
That past year was characterized by underlying capital global uncertainty, fluid capital markets and continued pressure on consumers. Against that backdrop, I'm very pleased to report what I believe is healthy progress on each of these objectives.
I must remind you that this is a journey and the work is never completed. We have a slide on each of these, so I won't spend much time talking through them here, but I will reflect on the corporate actions, and then Carel will talk about the traction on performance organization, capital allocation and sustainability.
The first objective is one we've been talking about over many reporting periods, implementing corporate transactions to reposition the portfolio. We have been on a journey over a few years of transforming the composition of our portfolio.
On the left-hand side of the slide, you'll see the meaningful transactions between 2021 and this year. Although, of course, it really started earlier than that the RMH and RMI transaction, which were the first meaningful steps from this journey.
The initiative was partly about increasing the scarcity of the assets in our portfolio, and having fewer listed entry points. But the more meaningful theme was about focus and simplification, building the portfolio around assets where we can generally have an impact, where we have strong partnership for focus delivery and compounding results over time.
Refining a portfolio is dynamic work and is never really complete. But we also don't want to be talking about portfolio transformation as a distinct initiative forever.
With the merger of Maziv and Vodacom assets concluded and the restructuring of our Mediclinic exposure mostly done, we're pleased to be able to draw a line under it. Over the same period, we've also exited a number of capital market exits, and we concluded that this year with the disinvestment of our residual stake in FirstRand.
Those are obviously easier to execute, but they matter and illustrate our commitment to a sharper investment thesis. So where does it leave us looking forward?
We believe this transformation of the portfolio provides a new platform to build on. The last two years have been strong, and the realized things don't always move in a straight line.
But let me hand over to Carel to talk a bit about all this translating into performance and capital allocation. I will now hand over to Carel.
Carel Petrus Vosloo
Thank you, Jannie, and good morning, everyone. So this first slide still deals with that first priority that Jannie spoke about, which is active performance optimization.
So Jannie has hit the highlights already, so I'm not going to repeat those. But suffice it to say that Remgro performance is really a sum of the part of the performance of the underlying investee companies.
And credit for the strong performance this year really belongs to the management teams and the wider teams in those investee companies. As Jannie did mentioned, we are very proud, though that for the second consecutive year is a broad-based performance improvement across the portfolio.
Comfortably more than 90% of the INAV reported an increase in earnings over the year. Some of the bigger contributors are mentioned there on the slide.
So Mediclinic and OUTsurance both at around 20%. CIVH, Rainbow, Heineken Beverages, all of those more than 100%.
RCL Foods had a tough year, unfortunately, down by 1/3. I think for reasons that are mostly appreciated by now, but Paul will again speak about that a little bit later.
And certainly, they're good plans of foot for turning that around. But I think the important point that we would like to make is that Remgro's performance is not just a function of what we buy and what we sell, but really importantly, of what we choose to hold.
And then importantly, what we do those assets while we hold them. This is where we think that our philosophy of a deeply engaged shareholder is critically important.
It allows us to create an ecosystem of ongoing continued performance improvement. We can ask better questions, we can my quicker decisions, we can join the dots between things that we see in different parts of the portfolio, hold each other accountable and intervene when it's required.
I think we have to be candid that these are not the things that will translate into earnings increases or cash flow increases from one year to another, but we do believe that it is -- that those are the things that will create a culture of ongoing improvement and hopefully compounding performance over time. On the next slide, we look at capital allocation, and we've shared with you before how we think about capital allocation priorities.
And we've got the four buckets there on the left-hand side of the slide. And we've always said that the most primary priority for us is to ensure that Remgro's balance sheet at the center is robust.
During the last year, we've increased our cash at the center from roughly ZAR 8.3 billion to ZAR 8.4 billion to in excess of ZAR 20 billion. That was a combination of operational cash flows, dividends, special dividends and also some divestments and Neville will unpack that in a bit more detail later.
But I think it's fair to say that we're slightly more than 10% of our INAV in cash that even in what we consider to be a highly uncertain global backdrop, we think that the Remgro balance sheet is very secure. And that priority is well catered for.
The second priority we've always indicated is that we will also retain enough capital to be able to support our portfolio companies where those might need capital injections. During the last year, we didn't have to inject any meaningful capital into any of our portfolio companies.
But I think it's fair to comment that two of those transactions that Jannie mentioned, both the CIVH Vodacom transaction and also the Mediclinic restructuring very meaningfully reinforce the capital structure of those two businesses, and they're certainly now well capitalized for growth as well. So, if those two 1st priorities are then catered for that brings us to returns to shareholders.
You would remember at the interim results, we reduced the guidance of free cash flow cover that we used to determine the ordinary dividend from 2x to 1.5x. So we're retaining that at 1.5x.
And again, Neville will unpack that in more detail. But the combination of the increase in earnings and the reduction in the coverage means that the dividend is up by a compelling 73% over the period.
As Jannie mentioned, we're also declaring a special dividend of ZAR 3 billion or ZAR 5.50 per share. And indeed, very pleased that the improvement in earnings translates into an improvement in cash flows, and that's translating into an increase in dividends to our shareholders.
We will continue to weigh up repurchases. We feel strongly about the compelling merits of those, we'll weigh that up against alternative capital deployment opportunities that's available to us.
So that so it certainly remains on the menu. And then lastly, on new investments.
At the interims, we also mentioned that we are investing more energy and resources into looking for new investments and certainly, there are many interesting things out there that we've been evaluating and looking at. But I want to reassure everyone that we will be incredibly disciplined in making new investments.
Having spent lots of time and energy simplifying our portfolio and streamlining our investment thesis, we will need healthy conviction that any new investment will add to our investment thesis and indeed, create value for our shareholders. The last slide I want to talk about is sustainability.
That third objective or strategic priority that Jannie mentioned. And this does sometimes feel like a topic where the words can get in the way of the message.
I'll speak about it really simply. There were two themes during the year where we invested meaningful effort.
The first one of those was embedding ESG and sustainability in our investment team and investment processes. So not only in new investments, where we've really built ESG considerations into our diligence processes but also in our existing portfolio in how we engage and set expectations and also share experiences with our existing investees .
This has become a much more prominent topic of discussion. So I can confidently say that we've made good strides at embedding sustainability in our investment processes and also in our risk management processes.
Very closely related to this is being able to understand the data and have good data against which we can measure ourselves. Again, not always easy because different metrics are important to different companies, also the scale, very different across different parts of the portfolio, but I can say that we've adopted a very useful sort of tool across 80% of the portfolio that allows us to collate and collect good data on sustainability metrics.
This also expands not only to our environmental footprint, but also to our broader shared value and impact on society and that we hope in future, we'll be able to also collect that in the form of a Remgro impact report where we can share with interested stakeholders the wider impact that we're having. So with that, I will hand over to Neville to take us through the results in a bit more detail.
Neville Williams
Thank you. Thank you, Carel.
I'm pleased to now take everyone through our financial results in a bit more detail. I will focus on three key performance measures, namely headline earnings, the intrinsic net asset value as well as cash generation at the center.
As Jannie mentioned earlier, Remgro delivered a strong performance in this financial year, with headline earnings up by 42.3% to ZAR 11.1 billion and headline earnings per share up by 42.2% to ZAR 20.03. The earnings growth momentum experienced during 2025 continued in this financial year, culminating in the strong growth in headline earnings.
Referring to the right-hand side of this slide. This 42.3% increase was, however, amplified by one-off items amounting to over ZAR 1 billion, consisting of a tax benefit relating to the impairment of intercompany loans as well as a tariff provision release, both in Mediclinic Switzerland division and a once-off Transnet pipeline cost refund at TotalEnergies.
Excluding these one-offs, headline earnings increased by 29.3% to ZAR 10.1 billion which actually demonstrates the underlying quality of the results as the growth was supported by stronger operational performances across key investee companies. The key contributors were Rainbow, up by ZAR 610 million, and that was driven by an exceptional performance by the Chicken division, followed by Mediclinic up by ZAR 562 million, and that's in the number excluding the one-offs due to a robust operating performance.
CIVH was up by ZAR 412 million as they turned around from a loss of ZAR 93 million to a profit contribution of ZAR 319 million, mainly driven by revenue growth of 15% at Maziv. The OUTsurance Group was up by ZAR 332 million, driven mainly by OUTsurance of South Africa's strong results.
And then Heineken Beverages turning from a loss of ZAR 50 million to a profit contribution of ZAR 111 million as they continue their positive recovery journey. Furthermore, central treasury contribution increased by ZAR 325 million, through increased finance income on higher average cash balances following the FirstRand disposal, while finance costs reduced to 0 after the redemption of the preference shares in the prior year.
These gains were partly offset by a lower contribution from RCL Foods, largely due to weaker performances from sugar and the pet food operations. The investment portfolio contributed ZAR 9.9 billion to headline earnings adjusted for once-off, representing an increase of 23.4% on the prior year.
The inbar labels show each investees contribution to headline earnings adjusted for one-offs of ZAR 10.1 billion. As you can see, the top 3 investments contributed 57% to headline earnings adjusted for one-offs.
Mediclinic is the largest contributor with 29%, OUTsurance Group contributed 17%, while Rainbow delivered outstanding growth contributing 11%. Jurgens will unpack Mediclinic results later in the presentation.
While OUTsurance and Rainbow have already released their results in the market. I'll quickly talk to Air Products and Siqalo.
Air Products contributed ZAR 686 million to Remgro's headline earnings, representing an increase of 6.7%. For the 12 months ended 31st March 2026, turnover increased by 5.8% and operating profit by 6.7%.
The on-site plant and pipeline business recorded moderate growth with stable and reliable plant operations supporting cost containment. The packaged gas business achieved steady volume growth across all segments with margin gains and ongoing cost efficiency improvements contributing to the overall performance.
Siqalo Foods contribution was broadly in line with the prior year. The result was resilient in a challenging trading environment with ongoing pressure on consumer disposable income.
Sales performance remained constrained, declining by 1.8%. As a result, the operational EBITDA decreased by 4.2%, reflecting that impact of lower sales volumes and deliberate increase in brand marketing investment.
For completeness, central treasury contributed ZAR 606 million while net corporate costs reduced the headline earnings adjusted for one-offs by ZAR 378 million. On the valuation of the top 5 unlisted investments, I'll start by making a few comments about our valuation methodology overall before I speak to certain specifics.
Firstly, our valuation process is robust, market benchmarked and subject to strong governance oversight, including review by the Audit and Risk committee, its valuation subcommittee as well as the independent auditors, Ernst & Young. Secondly, we apply standardized methodologies consistently from period to period.
And lastly, we continue to use a discounted cash flow methodology as our primary valuation approach and use observed peer multiples as reasonability checks of our outcomes. Just some context for this year-end valuation.
The cost of capital fell significantly in FY 2026, will that benefit landing in the first half to 31 December 2025. Against this, we moderate the terminal growth assumptions to reflect lower implied long-term inflation.
And in the second half, long bond rates rose slightly, and we're seeing that trend continue since year-end. Despite the slightly higher risk fee rate in the second half, we've kept our moderated terminal growth assumptions as we believe conservatism is suitable at this time.
The continued tough economy along with the second order effects of the Iran war on our economy, especially through increased energy cost, inflation pressures, logistics and weather demand -- weaker demand are reflected in management's forecast and in the risk discounts we apply in our valuations. So we believe the outcome is valuations, which are reasonable but conservative.
The graphs show the movement of the evaluations and implied multiples of the five largest unlisted investments in Remgro's portfolio across the three reporting periods. These five investments represent 83% of Remgro's unlisted portfolio at 30 June 2026.
In summary, changes in valuations have mainly been driven by lower cost of capital, but with downward adjustments to financial forecasts and a moderation of terminal growth assumptions in most cases. So overall, the multiples have remained reasonable when compared on a marketable noncontrolling basis to the observed peer set.
Please note that Mediclinic valuation reflects Remgro's 50% ownership in Mediclinic Holdings at 30 June, which includes 100% of each of Mediclinic South Africa, Mediclinic Middle East and Hirslanden in Switzerland. The Mediclinic ownership restructure was implemented on 1 July after year-end.
Referring to the table on this graph, the unlisted valuation process resulted in a modest 1% increase in the unlisted portfolio to ZAR 94.3 billion. Inclusive of dividends received from these unlisted investments amounting to ZAR 5.2 billion, the [indiscernible] growth was 6.5%.
The listed investments market value decreased by 8.3% to ZAR 58.2 billion since the prior year, mainly due to the disposal of our interest in FirstRand. OUTsurance and Discovery contribute approximately 83% to listed value.
The INAV bridge shows cash at the center increased by ZAR 12 billion as the FirstRand disposal converted listed value into cash with listed assets such as Discovery and Rainbow contributing steady double-digit growth. So the INAV per share increased by 4.6% to ZAR 305.80, including distributions to shareholders during the year under review, consisting of the final dividend of 2025, a special dividend of ZAR 2 per share, as well as the final -- the interim dividend of 2026 together with the eMedia [ unbundling ], the total growth was 8.9%.
Turning to cash at the center. We ended at ZAR 20.4 billion at year-end.
On the 1st of July, Remgro received an equalization dividend of $129.7 million, approximately ZAR 2.1 billion with the implementation of the Mediclinic restructuring, increasing the cash at the center to ZAR 22.5 billion on 1 July 2026. The free cash flow at the center is an internal performance measure focused on cash generated at Remgro Corporate Center and is disclosed in interest of transparency.
Free cash flow at the center and adjusted free cash flow at the center constitute pro forma financial information, non-IFRS and are presented to assist users in assessing operating cash flow generation at investment holding company level, so at Remgro at the center. Remgro delivered strong free cash flow at the center in FY 2026, increasing by 105.6% to ZAR 8.3 billion, mainly driven by higher dividends received, including the ZAR 3.1 billion of pre-implementation dividends from CIVH following the CIVH Vodacom and Herotel transactions.
Excluding these special dividends from corporate actions at investee companies, the adjusted free cash flow increased by 28.6% to ZAR 4.95 billion or ZAR 8.91 per share. And this increase was supported by a 23.8% increase in ordinary dividends received to ZAR 4.6 billion.
This bridge explains the ZAR 12 billion increase in cash at the center during the year. The increase was driven mainly by the free cash flow at the center of ZAR 8.3 billion together with net proceeds from the FirstRand disposal of ZAR 7 billion after CGT and ZAR 1 billion from BAT.
These inflows were partly offset by cash dividends paid during the year. This slide is the growth in adjusted free cash flow since 2021, the COVID period.
And this was driven primarily by a higher dividends received from investee companies over the last 5 years. The difference between dividends received and adjusted free cash flow at the center reflects the result of Central Treasury's net finance income or cost, together with net corporate cost.
Following the full redemption of preference debt in December 2024, Remgro has 0 gearing at the center and Central Treasury has since contributed positively to adjusted free cash flow. The Board declared a final dividend of ZAR 4.22 per share for financial year 2026, representing an increase of 70.2% from the previous year.
This brings the total ordinary dividend for the year to ZAR 5.95 per share, up 73% year-on-year. This 73% increase reflects the 28.3% growth -- 28.6% growth in adjusted free cash flow per share to ZAR 8.91, amplified by a high payout ratio of approximately 67% of adjusted free cash flow compared with the 50% in the prior year.
The dividend guidance is a cover of 1.5x by adjusted free cash flow for the foreseeable future. The Board also declared a special dividend of ZAR 5.50 per share.
These cash dividends, the final orderly and the special dividend amounting to ZAR 9.72 per share are payable on the 26th of October 2026. This concludes my results presentation.
Thank you. I hand over to Jurgens now.
Jurgens Myburgh
Thank you very much, Neville, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity. What I'll do this morning is talk to the results for the year ended 31 March 2026, with reference to the priorities we set ourselves, provide a strategic and operational reflection on the restructuring of shareholder's interest and set out the priorities that we set ourselves going forward.
For the year ended 30 March 2026, Mediclinic Group delivered a robust operating performance, navigating a fluid geopolitical landscape and a persistently challenging market environment. Adjusted revenue increased by 11% to $5.4 billion, up 5% in constant currency terms.
And adjusted EBITDA increased by 14% and to $842 million and was up 8% in constant currency terms. Cash conversion improved to 106% and the leverage ratio reduced to 2.7x.
The operating performance was underpinned importantly by underlying volume growth and favorable mix changes and reflects the progress against our previously outlined priorities, which includes the successful implementation of the operating model review, which drove efficiency gains and overall performance improvement. From a corporate perspective, we implemented the restructuring of shareholder's interest on the 1st of July 2026.
In addition to that, earlier this month, the Board of Directors of Spire Healthcare announced a recommended offer at 250p per share that included our undertaking to vote in favor of the Court Sanction Scheme, which we've approved we'll see us dispose about approximately 3% interest in the business before the end of the calendar year. Looking at the detailed provisional performance in turn.
Very briefly on Switzerland, adjusted revenue for the period increased by 1% to CHF 2 billion, and adjusted EBITDA increased by 7% and to CHF 283 million, driven by an increase in underlying volumes and the effect of the ongoing turnaround project on operating expenses. In Southern Africa, revenue for the period increased by 7% to ZAR 23.8 billion in what remains a challenging macroeconomic environment.
Compared with FY '25, paid patient days increased by 1.8%, with day cases increasing by 1.5%. Occupancy increased to 68.2% and average revenue per bed day was up 4.7% compared with FY '25, reflecting specialty mix changes.
Adjusted EBITDA increased by 8% to ZAR 4.4 billion resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 18.6%. Depreciation and amortization decreased by 3%, with ongoing investment offset by a marginal change in estimated useful life of some assets.
Adjusted operating profit increased by 16% to ZAR 3.3 billion. Net finance costs decreased by 4%, reflecting a decrease in interest rates on borrowings offset by lower finance income on cash balances.
Adjusted earnings increased by 25% to ZAR 1.7 billion. In year-to-date trading, we've seen good volume growth driven by inpatient admissions offset by network activity and cost pressures.
The commissioning of the new George Hospital at a cost of approximately ZAR 1 billion took place in April this year. We're excited about our improved offering in the region and are seeing year-on-year growth in line with our expectations at that hospital.
The additional asset base will increase the D&A charge of the business from FY '27 onward. In the Middle East, revenue for the period increased by 9% to AED 5.6 billion, driven by continued growth in client activity despite the impact of the regional conflict on operations during the month of March.
Outpatient and day cases were up 1.6% and 8.7%, respectively. Inpatient admissions were down 2.2% due to the disruption in March and the successful consolidation of Mediclinic [indiscernible] Hospital and Mediclinic Airport Road Hospital into an expanded Airport Road campus.
Adjusted EBITDA increased by 14% to AED 897 million, driven by revenue growth and strong cost discipline. The adjusted EBITDA margin increased to 16%.
Adjusted D&A decreased by 4% to AED 320 million mainly due to the impairment of right-of-use assets, leasehold improvements and intangible assets related to the closure of [indiscernible] hospital. Adjusted operating profit increased by 28% to AED 579 million.
Net finance costs decreased by 71% to AED 11 million, reflecting higher interest earned on bank balances. Adjusted earnings increased by 36% to AED 511 million.
In year-to-date trading, the business has continued to perform in line with our expectations despite the regional conflict. Revenue growth is driven by outpatient and day case revenue and the cost base has remained well managed.
We continue to monitor regional developments closely as it could impact the performance of the business. But at this point, can only appreciate the resilience of the region, its leadership and its people.
As mentioned earlier, the restructuring of shareholders interest was implemented on 1st of July 2026. Under the new structure, Remgro assumed full ownership of Mediclinic Southern Africa, while Investment Holding Limited, a subsidiary of MSC, assumed full ownership of Hirslanden.
Mediclinic Middle East and the investment in Spire Healthcare remain under the joint ownership structure. Alongside completing the restructuring, our focus has been on achieving the operational separation targeted for 31 March 2027 in a disciplined and methodical manner while protecting the strengths, capabilities, strategic focus, and clinical standards that have been built up over time.
Throughout this process, which continues under the leadership of Ronnie van der Merwe until his retirement next year, the priorities remain clear, patient safety, operational continuity, and the retention of critical expertise. From a financial perspective, the restructuring and operational separation is expected to give rise to a modest near-term cost increase as we build or absorb the necessary local skills and capabilities and account for the acquisition of Mediclinic Southern Africa by Remgro.
From a corporate finance perspective, the restructuring has seen shareholder flows, including dividends of over $300 million funded from available cash both at the center and within the Middle East division, which will, of course, impact finance income going forward. More importantly, with leverage ratios of approximately 1.3x and 0.3x at the moment, respectively, the restructuring provides the Southern African and Middle East businesses with the balance sheet capacity to fund future growth.
Looking ahead, we set ourselves the strategic goals and priorities for the Southern Africa and Middle East business, starting with Southern Africa. This is a mature and well-established business with a strong clinical platform, an extensive network, and clear opportunities for further growth.
The external environment is not without challenges. The economic growth remains constrained, regulatory uncertainty continues, and competition for doctors and skilled clinical staff remains significant.
Our response is focused and pragmatic. First, we intend to grow activity through selective expansion and broader participation across the health care ecosystem while maintaining and strengthening the core hospital business.
Second, we will continue to improve efficiency and margins through the ongoing implementation of the target operating model review and greater local accountability. Third, the replacement of core systems and implementation of electronic health records are important long-term investments.
These will provide a stronger platform for operational efficiency, clinical decision-making, and a more integrated patient experience. Finally, capital will be directed selectively to opportunities that strengthen our network, expand relevant services, and generate appropriate returns.
The targeted outcome is sustainable revenue growth ahead of inflation accompanied by incremental improvement in operating margins, noting the modest near-term impact of the restructuring on the cost base. The Middle East business operates in an attractive health care market supported by strong demand for high-quality specialized services.
Whilst the business has delivered a resilient performance despite the broader regional conflict, we remain appropriately cautious and are monitoring developments and the potential impact on the long-term prospects and performance of the business. Competition is also increasing as existing providers expand and new competitors enter the market.
Our response is, therefore, to invest selectively and to differentiate through clinical capability, patient experience, and operational execution. The immediate priorities are the following: first, to continue growing the existing business and improving operating margins; second, to execute the Abu Dhabi strategy successfully, building on the consolidation of services at the expanded Airport Road campus; third, to expand capacity and introduce additional specialties where there is clear demand; and fourth, to develop our virtual operation capabilities so that we can engage patients more effectively, improve access, and support retention across our network.
Our clinical powerhouse model and focus on client experience remain important differentiators. These capabilities allow us to concentrate expertise, strengthen care pathways, and compete on quality rather than capacity alone.
Over time, we expect new projects and operating leverage to support revenue and margin growth. In the near term, however, this could be offset by the modest impact of restructuring and potential risk presented by the regional conflict as mentioned earlier.
In conclusion, the following 6 observations. First, the underlying businesses are sound.
FY '26 demonstrated that Mediclinic can deliver volume growth, margin improvement, and strong cash conversion despite challenging market conditions. Second, the revised ownership structure creates greater strategic focus and capacity for future growth.
The Southern African and Middle East businesses are capacitated to more effectively respond to their respective market realities with clearer local accountability and more targeted capital allocation. Third, the transition is being managed with discipline; patient safety, operational stability, knowledge transfer, and business continuity remain non-negotiable throughout this process.
Fourth, we're preserving the capabilities required for future success. The expertise built within group services is being developed or absorbed into individual businesses, so that each has the necessary support, governance, and institutional knowledge to succeed.
Fifth, transformation continues; the business will continue to improve efficiency, invest in technology and data, strengthen clinical delivery, and respond to changing patient expectations. And finally, the objective remains sustainable long-term value creation; greater local accountability, faster decision-making, and focused investments should allow each business to pursue the opportunities more relevant to its market.
From a personal perspective, as Jannie referenced earlier, I look forward to transitioning to Remgro over the next 6 months and assuming direct executive responsibility for Remgro Health Care exposures, including Mediclinic. Mediclinic has evolved considerably over more than 4 decades.
What has remained constant is our commitment to quality care, patient safety, and the long-term sustainability of the organization. We believe the actions taken during FY '26 have created a strong foundation for the next chapter, and we remain focused on completing the transition responsibly and positioning the business for continued growth.
Thank you very much. I'll hand over to Jordi.
Jordi Borrut
Thank you, Jurgens. Good morning, I am Jordi Borrut, Managing Director of Heineken Beverages, and together with Radovan Sikorsky, our Finance Director, I will take you through our performance for the year, our priorities looking ahead.
Before we turn into the results, let me briefly set the context. This is our third year since the creation of Heineken Beverages.
We operate across African markets with a combined population of around 200 million people and attractive long-term growth fundamentals. South Africa remains our core market, and beer is the largest alcohol category, yet our share in beer is still below 25%.
That gives us meaningful opportunities to grow, provided that we do so with discipline and build a more competitive and profitable business. We also benefit from a capital-efficient regional model.
Most of our production is anchored in South Africa, combined with exports and in-market distribution partners across the region. Since the integration, our strategy has remained consistent.
We have 3 growth priorities that you can see in the bottom left: win with beer, build brands with power, and connect directly with our end customers. These are supported by 2 enablers: accelerating operational efficiency and building the organization and culture needed to move from challenger to champion.
We're making tangible progress across all 5 priorities. Let me start first with beer.
Momentum has strengthened across the portfolio, and Amstel is growing strongly and becoming a more meaningful mainstream proposition, which is important because this segment gives us scale. Our wider beer portfolio is also performing well.
Second, brands with power. Three years ago, we selected 13 power brands from a portfolio of more than 60 brands and concentrated investment behind them.
These brands are outperforming the broader portfolio, while the remaining brands continue to play valuable regional and local roles. Klipdrift is a good example.
It has a national footprint, is linked to the Springboks, and has delivered double-digit growth over the past 3 years, while regional brands such as Richelieu, Olof Bergh, Viceroy, and Commando complement it with strong local relevance. I will talk about our third growth priority at the end.
So let me move to the fourth one, operational efficiency. The integration created 3 years ago, gave us significant opportunities in fixed cost, procurement, and productivity.
We have maintained strong discipline and continue to invest to unlock savings. As an example, our new mega distribution centers in Springs and Sedibeng, are improving product flow and service whilst reducing distribution cost.
Moving to the fifth pillar, the challenger to champion. We have significantly strengthened the management team and the leadership pipeline below.
We are creating a simpler and more accountable performance culture while we continue to invest in our Brew a Better World agenda, digital capabilities, technology, and artificial intelligence. Returning now to our third pillar, direct customer connection.
Our ambition is to build a stronger connection with the end customers we serve, taverns, bars, restaurants, and retail outlets through our route-to-market partners, including distributors, cash-and-carries, operators, and retail chains. Our commercial execution has improved materially over the last year.
There is an independent annual survey of 65 major customers that's called Advantage Survey, which ranks alcohol suppliers across a range of performance criteria. I'm pleased to say that Heineken Beverages was named South Africa's #1 alcohol supplier.
We moved from 9th place in the previous survey to the first. This independent recognition reflects the progress we have made in the quality of our customer-facing teams, customer plans, trade marketing, insights, promotional execution, and portfolio offer.
With that context, I'll hand over to Radovan to cover the overall financial performance.
Radovan Sikorsky
Thank you, Jordi. Good morning, everyone.
Just going through the revenue slide, you can see that we have quite a significant improvement in the operating profit results in the headline earnings results of the company. But let me first focus on the revenue.
Revenue was broadly flat at ZAR 55.3 billion. Just putting some context into those numbers, we need to look at the different categories and also our footprint, African footprint.
Within the categories, there was strong beer performance. The revenues grew strongly, whilst we were softer in the spirits and wines category, which also have a lower -- I'm sorry a higher revenue per hectoliter, and that has a mix impact on the revenue growth.
In the second half of the year, we also had some headwinds in our African markets, which impacted revenue growth, whilst underlying performance in South Africa revenue remained strong. On the reported headline earnings, we are pleased to show a significant growth of 320% and, excluding amortization, ZAR 1.1 billion.
We can go to the next slide, and I can give a bit more detail. It gives us pleasure to show a nice strong improved headline earnings for 2026, whereas last year, we reported a headline loss of ZAR 268 million.
This year, we had strong headline earnings of ZAR 589 million. And I'll break it down into 3 elements: Firstly, the underlying performance of the business.
It's nice to see that there is now a sustainable growth of our headline earnings generated by the business, driven by the operational performance, but also to what Jordi mentioned, focusing on productivity and cost discipline. We also see improved operating profit margins and also healthy gross profit coming through despite the flat revenue, which is very nice to see, where we seek to really go for value and sometimes are a little bit less aggressive on the volume part of certain categories.
In terms of the second element, the reduced IFRS amortization impact had an upside of ZAR 194 million as certain of the assets come to an end in terms of the amortization. On the other third element, we see ZAR 351 million growth, and this is a combination of taxation, equity income from some of our investments that we have in Africa, and also the impact of lower NCI, which combined give us that impact.
We have also lower nonrecurring costs from integration coming through, and we are cycling these from 2025, which is also having an impact. So just to summarize on that, it's nice seeing the nice growth in our reported headline earnings coming through and the sustained growth in the business going into future years.
Jordi, I hand over to you for the revenue.
Jordi Borrut
Thank you, Rado. As Rado mentioned, looking at the portfolio, the picture is mixed but clear.
Beer delivered strong revenue growth with resilient contribution from Amstel, Windhoek, and Heineken. Cider was stable with Bernini performing particularly well.
Wine was softer, mainly because of pressure in the South African value segment, particularly with Paarl Perle and 4th Street. Spirits also declined, especially in Gin, where Olof Bergh faced intense pricing and promotional pressure in a declining category.
At the same time, several priority brands performed strongly, including Klipdrift, Amarula, and Bernini. This reinforces our view that focused investment behind the right brands is working.
If I look at now revenue per entity, South Africa continues to generate the majority of our revenue and also produces a significant share of the stock supplied to our international markets. Heineken Beverages International faced a difficult macroeconomic and trading environment during the year.
The result was disappointing, but the long-term opportunity remains attractive. We have strong brands, a regional model that combines local production with exports from South Africa.
Namibia delivered another resilient performance. It remains profitable, creates both operational and trade benefits, and continues to gain share across key beer and cider categories despite an intense competitive market.
Looking ahead, I will close with the outlook. We expect modest economic growth in South Africa.
Inflation and energy stability have improved, but consumers remain under pressure. Currency volatility and geopolitical tensions, particularly in the Middle East, continue to create cost and supply chain risk.
Despite that, the alcohol market remains resilient; beer and ready-to-drink products are leading the category growth, while competition and promotional intensity remain high. Illicit trade, particularly in spirits, continues to distort the markets.
Consumers are also balancing 2 needs. They want innovation and premium choices, but affordability remains critical.
Against this backdrop, our next phase must deliver stronger and more balanced revenue growth. We will continue to accelerate beer, cider, and ready-to-drink while rebuilding competitiveness in spirits with particular focus on strengthening our brown spirits.
In wine, our priority is to recover the right mix. We will not pursue volume at any cost.
The focus is on profitable growth and gross profit contribution. Commercially, we will build on the substantial improvement already made.
We will keep strengthening execution across channels and concentrate resources behind priority brands with the potential to build equity and pricing power. We are also transforming our route to market through a more active omnichannel model.
Our sales force, call center, and digital platforms are beginning to work together to capture orders and improve customer service. This is still at a very early stage, but it's an important capability for the future.
Finally, we will maintain strict financial discipline. We have improved the cost base and expanded margins, but our operating margin remains well below our ambition and the Heineken Group average.
There is still substantial work ahead in productivity, simplification, and margin improvement. The early progress is encouraging.
We have a stronger organization, better commercial execution, stronger cost discipline, and clear portfolio priorities. Our focus now is to convert those capabilities into sustainable mid-single-digit revenue growth and continued operating margin improvement from the current high single digit to a double digit.
And with that, I'll hand over to Paul.
P. Cruickshank
Thanks, Jordi. Good morning, everybody.
I'm just going to start with a few key features, which I'll unpack in more detail in the presentation. And -- but suffice to say, it was a challenging year for RCL Foods results, mainly driven by sugar and pet food operations, which has been previously mentioned.
I'll talk to sugar in a bit more detail, but the increased imports due to ineffective tariff having material impact on the results. Our food safety production challenges in pet food disrupt at our plant and had a material impact on volumes sold and produced in the period as well as mix in terms of our higher-value brands.
The market remains subdued with volume under pressure across a number of our categories. And with that context, continuous improvement in net revenue management remain key initiatives, and they delivered well for us in F '26 and supported our margin protection in an environment in which price increases were few and far between.
And then finally, on the positive, we entered into a binding agreement with Martin & Martin for the acquisition of that business, which will strengthen our pet food portfolio of brands, and it's very complementary to our existing dry pet food brand portfolio, with most of Martin & Martin being leading wet pet food brands. This remains subject to the competition commodity -- authorities' approval, which hopefully we'll see in the next few months.
Then just to unpack some of the highlights of F '26, and I'll start with the strategic priorities delivered. And despite the results and the challenging performance, we made good progress in our top strategic priorities in F '26 and starting with our first strategic pillar, People First, driving a high-performance culture is an imperative for us in a low-growth environment.
And we've done a significant amount of work on mapping our strongest talent to our highest value or most important strategic priorities work across the business. And this will be a continuing process, which we will do over the next 12 months.
Then under Right Growth, we had 2 successful launches in the year, one in baking with the Sunbake Sourdough launch and the other in Piemans, where we are pivoting Piemans into the Frozen Convenience category in the shelf space -- freezer shelf space within the retailers with a new Pockets launch, which is well received by the market. And then on the Future Fit, we advanced the next phase of our SAP IT road map.
This is a 6-year project, and we're entering now into year 3 and it will have a material and positive impact on the group from a control environment and access to data perspective and get all our operating units onto a consistent platform. And then finally, sustainability, we made good momentum in the year and have taken a process of embedding our sustainability KPIs into our operations, and this has gained good momentum in F '26.
From a results point of view, EBITDA down 8.6% and down the headline earnings level dropped to 27.1% down. The difference between 8.6% and 27% is largely a result of Royal Eswatini Sugar's performance in the year.
And for the first time in their history, making a loss. The challenges are largely the same as our sugar business as well as some agricultural challenges on their part.
So having a material impact on our ultimate headline earnings. Our return on invested capital, we've gained good momentum -- and we're on a good journey with our ROIC, getting our ROIC to at or above WACC in the end of June 2025.
Unfortunately, this year is a setback with both our statutory and underlying ROIC in single digits, and we need to bounce back quickly from that. One just further point on the slide is the -- despite the challenged results, we continue to invest behind our capital in our plants as well as our brand portfolio and did not cut any investment in this period, which will be important in the upcoming years.
From a market share performance, I always talk about the relevance and maintaining our relevance in the market. Our 3 culinary brands at the top continue to perform well and are within our trend lines and acceptable levels for us.
It's a careful balancing act to balance market share, volume, and margin. And we're very clear on what our aspirations are in each of those areas.
Unfortunately, pet food, you can see the impact of the pet food supply to the market on all of our brands, materially decreasing between Bobtail, Catmor, Feline and Canine Cuisine. And I'll come back to Pet later in the presentation.
From an EBITDA performance perspective, the majority of the reconciling items in the statutory 15.2% decline are in the prior period with only IFRS 9, which is a continuing annual adjustment, being relevant in F '26. In the middle section, you can see the impact on groceries and sugar, which I'll unpack in more detail.
And then just to unpack a little bit of more detail on each of the business units, I'll start with groceries. So culinary and beverage performances were strong in the year.
We were more than offset by the pet food production challenges. Culinary, in particularly, performed well.
Our market shares remain intact despite the volume pressures across our brands, but our brand equity scores have also increased significantly, and there's significant price competition in the market currently. In pet, we took a cautious approach following the recall in March in terms of testing and product release approaches.
And this maintains our commitment to the highest food safety standards. Unfortunately, the consequence of that was a 20.5% reduction in our pet food volume for the period, and recovery in that remains key in F '27 and probably into F '28, and I'll come back to that.
Bread, all-round bread performance was good, except for Sunshine. We delivered an improved performance and manufacturing efficiencies across most of the operating units in baking.
Sunbake performed well. We repositioned our pricing strategy in Sunbake, and volumes recovered nicely in H2.
Sunshine remains a challenge. It's a KZN-only brand, which we acquired a few years ago.
And following on from the strike in December '24, we have struggled to recover our volume and market shares in Sunshine. And as a result, there was an impairment in F '26 results.
Pies and Speciality delivered a strong result, particularly in the second half of the year. And then sugar, where the most material impact happened was 212,000 tonnes of deep-sea imports, up 24.2% on the prior year, largely as a result of ineffective tariff that was in place and obviously having a material impact by displacing the 212,000 tonnes into the export market.
And just to make matters worse, the international price of sugar decreased over the period. So we lost on the local sales price, and we lost on the deep-sea import price.
Other than the external factors, our overall performance and operational performance remains good, all mills are crushing well and including into this season and a significant step-up in Malelane, which has been particularly challenging for the last few years. It is our most complex mill, but has performed well in season '27 so far.
Then just to show longer-term history, splitting the groceries and baking from sugar, and you can obviously see the volatility and the commoditized nature of sugar playing out over the years, peaking at ZAR 1.2 billion in F '24 and then dropping to ZAR 755 million EBITDA in F '26. In this data set that you're looking at, only F '25 and '26 had imports flowing.
There were no imports in '22 and '23. So you can see an improved through-the-cycle earnings in sugar, despite the challenges that we had in the year.
And then importantly, the bottom part, which shows our branded part of the business, the trajectory that we've been on from '23 to '26 continues to improve. And despite pet, we still managed to be more or less in line with the prior year.
And then just looking forward, 3 callouts on this slide: key innovation launches in baking will be critical into F '27 and then further innovation coming in F '28. CapEx lead time driving that.
So quite excited about some of the things which are coming at us in baking. In pet, our focus is on recovery -- recovering our volume and our market share.
We do have a detailed action plan as soon as we can get to minimum stock levels, which we will implement, which includes investment behind our brand, both through price and marketing spend to regain our market share. That, coupled with the hopefully approved Martin & Martin transaction, will require some integration in F '27 and beyond and position those brands together with our brands carefully in the market.
And then finally, on sugar, whilst F '26 was extremely challenging and largely macro conditions, focus on items within our control remains a key theme for '27. The sugar tariff was implemented as our results were released into the market, and that will have a positive impact into FY '27.
We know we have a good-to-excellent crop in the Nkomazi area, and we're busy crushing that. And post year-end, we did have a strike, which has now been resolved, and the race is on to finish crushing our crop by the end of December, so that we can have a positive impact into the F '27 financial year for sugar.
And with that, I'll hand over to Dietlof.
Dietlof Mare
Thank you, Paul. Thank you.
I would like to go through the financial results for the 31st of March 2026. I think if you look at the results throughout the group from a CIVH point of view, we're seeing fairly strong performance year-on-year.
And that's basically driven through strong organic growth throughout segments within the company. We've seen degearing happening.
And then we're also seeing 2 landmark transaction being closed, which is fundamental for us as a group. And it took nearly 4 years to actually close these 2 transactions, which is very positive to report on.
So if you look at the financial period under review, we're seeing revenue growing by 14% year-on-year to ZAR 7.6 billion, and that's pulling through all the way to operating earnings growing 36% year-on-year. Even more positive is headline earnings.
We're seeing a swing in headline earnings of ZAR 723 million, resulting in a positive profit of ZAR 560 million for the year under review from a negative loss of ZAR 160 million the previous financial year. From a de-gearing point of view, we're seeing the net debt going down by ZAR 3.7 billion to ZAR 17 billion, and that's because of the Vodacom merger and the cash inflow from the transaction that happened.
From a corporate activities point of view, we delivered on the 2 transactions. So Vodacom was implemented on the 1st of December 2025.
We see ZAR 11 -- we saw ZAR 11 billion coming into capital injected by Vodacom. ZAR 6.1 billion of that was cash and then ZAR 4.8 million (sic) [ ZAR 4.8 billion ] was asset contributed from a fiber point of view, fiber-to-the-home point of view and a transfer asset point of view.
I'm glad to say that both those transactions have been incorporated -- assets have been incorporated into the organization, and they fully integrated into the current operations of Vuma and DFA. Vodacom then contributed another ZAR 1.8 billion to up their shares then to 30%.
So Vodacom owning 30% of Maziv and CIVH 70%. From a Herotel point of view, Herotel not consolidated in this reporting period.
But from the 1st of June 2026, full consolidation will happen from a Herotel point of view. But what we are seeing is Herotel contributing 620,000 homes passed to our current network, which is phenomenal.
And subscribers, 350,000 additional subscribers will come into the group. 300,000 of those subscribers are linked to fiber connections and 50,000 to wireless connections.
But I think more positive is the footprint of Herotel. We're seeing that they're covering 550 towns across South Africa, and these are secondary cities and urban and remote towns throughout the country.
So we're looking at -- obviously looking at technologies, building out fiber, putting wireless solutions in, and then also partnering with Amazon and the LEO partnership where we can actually start giving satellite services on the footprint throughout South Africa, connecting farms, connecting lodges, and actually building out different technologies as we go forward on expansion. So if I look at the main drivers for performance, it's firstly customer connections.
I think we saw very good organic growth firstly driven by Vuma's customer connections. So we're seeing uptake increasing, and that directly resulting in positive revenue growth.
Then we're seeing enterprise annuity stability and then disciplined cash flow conversions and working capital management. So from a Maziv point of view, we're seeing very strong revenue growth, revenue going up 15% year-on-year to ZAR 7.7 billion.
EBITDA up 14% to ZAR 5.3 billion and a very positive headline earnings result of ZAR 856 million, up from ZAR 22 million the prior financial year. So Vumatel is definitely our growth engine.
And I think that will stay our growth engine. So we're seeing big penetration uptake within our base, getting to -- trying to get to a terminal penetration rate of 70% over time.
And that's obviously tying in then with the revenue upside of 15% year-on-year growth of ZAR 4.4 billion and an EBITDA growth of 19% to ZAR 3.2 billion for the year under review. So the demand for fiber-to-the-home build is still there.
So we believe that we will start building out quite radically. And we started building in the last quarter of the last financial year.
And today, we're actually building and passing nearly 50,000 homes with fiber every month as we stand today, and that will continue. Obviously, focusing then obviously on connections and uptake on these homes that we pass -- additional homes that we pass throughout the network.
From a DFA point of view, this is a stable underpin for the -- from an annuity point of view, long-term contracts with the mobile network operators. We're seeing active links increasing 9%, very positive, and lifting revenue up to ZAR 3 billion for the year.
EBITDA, strong EBITDA uplift of 11%, very strong cost discipline, and we're seeing EBITDA going to ZAR 2 billion for the year at a very strong margin of 66%. Both Vumatel and DFA have very strong EBITDA margins, and that will remain.
So fiber-to-the-tower, this is where we believe that the underpin happens. We're tying up with long-term 15-year contracts, 20-year contracts with the mobile network operators.
And we're also then seeing scaling on the fiber to the business side in line with the rehabilitation and the modernization we did on our network in getting closer to the customer and expanding our footprint in the metro areas with the rearchitecture that we did in the last 12 to 24 months. If I unpack the financial results, CIVH growing 14% revenue year-on-year, 11% EBITDA, and that's underpinned by Maziv's performance.
Maziv's performance is underpinned by Vumatel and DFA. And as you can see here, revenue is growing very strong double digits, 15% on Maziv year-on-year, 14% EBITDA.
And you see the same happening in Vumatel with 15% and 19% EBITDA growth, revenue and EBITDA growth, respectively. And DFA, the same 9% strong growth, 11% EBITDA growth.
I think what's even more important here is the operating leverage that you're seeing here where EBITDA is growing faster in all these segments faster than revenue. And that's through discipline that we are doing within the organization.
I would like to unpack a little bit the growth of the financial year because of the transactions that have happened. And I think if I can highlight the strong organic movement and growth within the organization.
So what you're seeing in the Consumer segment, which is your fiber-to-the-home segment, we've seen Vumatel growing year-on-year reported 15% revenue year-on-year and 19% EBITDA year-on-year. If you look at it from an organic point of view, if I exclude the Vodacom assets, organically, Vumatel is growing 13% year-on-year on revenue and 16% on EBITDA.
So the Vodacom contribution for the 4 months from consolidation from when the transaction happens from December to March contributed ZAR 100 million to revenue and ZAR 78 million to EBITDA for the 4 months under review. Strong homes passed operating figures that we're showing 15% reported.
We only started building in the last quarter of the financial year. So organically, we only grew 7% year-on-year on homes passed, 15% reported because of the fiber-to-the-home assets that got transferred in from Vodacom -- from the Vodacom deal.
Subscriber growth reported 19% but a strong organic growth of 12.4%, underpinning the organic revenue growth of 13%. So fundamentally, we're seeing very, very strong organic growth within the traditional Vumatel business and the consumer segment that we believe will continue.
From a DFA enterprise point of view, we're seeing revenue growing reportedly 9% year-on-year, 11% EBITDA. From an organic point of view, we're seeing revenue growing 6% and EBITDA 9%, still strong growth underpinned by long-term contracts and fiber-to-the-tower MNO support.
Vodacom contributing ZAR 69 million to the revenue and ZAR 43 million to the EBITDA. Strong enterprise link growth of 9% year-on-year, 8.3% organic.
And then fiber-to-the-tower, we're seeing a decline of 7%, basically driven by 3 things: organic growth. So we saw strong organic growth of the towers where we're connecting towers and we're changing it from microwave to fiber.
We saw Vodacom assets coming in, obviously, nearly 2,000 links to the towers coming in, but then we had an offset of the Cell C terminations of their links that obviously had a negative impact on the link count for the year. This is a once-off transaction, and we believe that we will continue going into a growth period on the fiber-to-the-tower links if we look at the period going forward.
Just from a market point of view, really, I think we've got 2 segments in the DFA side, driven by the 5G rollout and densification. So we're seeing demand for access to data increasing.
We're seeing the quality requirements increasing. And we believe that there's still huge opportunities for us in the fiber-to-the-tower space where a lot of the towers are still connected with microwave links.
And we believe as demand for data and as demand requirements increases that we have to get solutions around this and that the MNOs will start pushing for fiber connectivity to these towers. So we're really positive on this line of the business.
These are long-term contracts. They underpin the cash flows.
and the annuity revenue within the group. 5G rollout will drive densification within metro areas as well as into rural areas.
From a business connectivity point, 588,000 business connections. We've modernized the network, we future-proofed our network.
We're seeing huge drive from an SMME point of view and demand where we have to give different services, different value sets that we have to build into our products and different quality requirements by the small and medium enterprises. And we believe that this is the growth engine, especially if you look at the fiber to the business connections, they grew 13% year-on-year on our new modernized network, and we believe that the future growth will actually come from this segment.
From a Vumatel point of view, I think we've got 18.5 million homes in South Africa. On the core market, I think it's quite saturated.
There's quite big overbuilt in these areas. Our focus in the core market is to drive connections and retentions within these markets, in the different segments that exist in these markets.
From a reach point of view, 15 million homes available, 3.7 million homes addressed at this point. So we're sitting with 12 million homes that we can still build across South Africa.
The market is quite active in this segment, and we believe that we will play a big part in covering some of these areas as well as using Herotel to actually cover some of these areas. So homes passed increased 13% year-on-year to 1.2 million homes passed.
We only started building in the last quarter of the financial year, so we will see this momentum going up. But we saw a very positive growth on subscriber numbers of 22% year-on-year to 555,000.
Very happy to say for the first time, we exceeded the 1 million active subscribers for a month. So we saw a 19% increase in subscribers on the total base of just over 1 million subscribers on a base of 2.3 million homes passed.
Herotel, I think this is the exciting part of it. For me, the benefit here is really the reach.
So we're seeing 550 towns, secondary towns, regional towns, rural reach, actually increasing our footprint. And I think this is where the opportunity sits.
So how do we actually capitalize on this. But with that, we're seeing 620,000 homes passed at this point.
And then what we're seeing is also a very strong subscriber activity ratio, 300,000 of those are fiber customers and 50,000 wireless site. So from a revenue point of view, we're seeing 14% growth on revenue year-on-year.
EBITDA, 21% also very good operating leverage within the organization. EBITDA, 41%, a little bit lower than Vumatel, but remember, that's a totally integrated network with an ISP in.
Operating profit very positive growth, 48% year-on-year to ZAR 270 million. And then a turnaround for me, which is quite positive on headline earnings from a negative ZAR 37 million to ZAR 44 million for the year-to-date.
We will obviously enhance this with the LEO and future opportunities with the LEO contract that we've signed exclusively with Amazon, where we will then obviously expand our footprint and go into areas with different technologies where we can cover the farms, we can cover the national parks, and we can cover more remote areas across South Africa. I think from a cash flow point of view, so CIVH cash flow is 100% consolidated.
We're seeing very, very strong cash conversion in the business and strong operational performance. So what we're seeing is we're seeing CapEx -- cash flow before CapEx increasing by roughly 36% year-on-year to ZAR 1.5 billion, and that's on the back of EBITDA increasing 11%.
So we're seeing also interest paid decreasing from ZAR 2.1 billion to ZAR 1.7 billion, and that's because of lower interest costs and the de-gearing that happened in the last 4 months of the financial year. CapEx increased from just over ZAR 1.8 billion to ZAR 2.6 billion, and this is because of the accelerated build that happened in the last quarter of the financial year.
And this obviously drives the strong net cash surplus then even with the higher CapEx that we've spent, we're seeing a very, very positive movement in the net cash surplus of the organization. So future outlook, look, is really we use our scale.
I think that's the key thing. We're sitting with 3 million homes passed by far the biggest fiber provider in South Africa, use our scale, if you look at it from a Vuma point of view.
The growth areas will be the -- reach and key areas. And these 2 areas we'll focus on.
Firstly, connectivity; we have to get the connectivity up. We have to get close to the terminal penetration as quickly as possible, and we have to continue building and absolutely use the market -- the 15 million or 12 million homes that's available to try and get our lion's share -- our share of that market.
So we will continue in driving those activities within the organization. From a DFA point of view, we really look at technologies where we can chase the towers, where we can absolutely convert the microwave links and the solutions around the mobile towers to fiber towers using the Herotel network in remote areas.
I think there's a natural fit to actually get Herotel to connect some of these towers. And then we will obviously also expand our current footprint to get to these towers in different ways with different solutions.
So fiber to the business, a big, big opportunity for us on the 588,000 businesses out there. How do we get affordability into those businesses with reliable quality services backed up by a quality network.
Herotel, I think this is where a big thing is happening, really looking at extending our addressable market. That's for me critical.
And then using different technologies to see how we can actually satisfy different needs within the organization. So where will we focus on next?
I think we'll stay very close to our core belief and our purpose is we have to close the digital divide. I think that's critical, and we're not going to change that.
And how we're going to do that is we're going to connect people as much as possible, drive and create that digital divide closure. And then basically, the main objective is to change people's lives across South Africa.
Thank you.
Jan Durand
Thanks, Dietlof. I will now conclude the presentation by looking ahead.
I think it doesn't take a genius to realize that we're entering the next phase from a much stronger base than 5 years ago. 5 years ago, 2021, the effects of COVID had flowed through into our portfolio, and we were actually having a few problems with some of our underlying companies.
But it's fair enough to say that the external environment remains uncertain. The geopolitical risk continues to escalate.
Technology disruption is accelerating across industries, and we believe global capital market conditions are quite precarious at the moment. However, uncertainty doesn't only create risk.
It also creates opportunity for disciplined long-term investors with liquidity. We believe that South Africa continues to present attractive opportunities in sectors where capital is constrained and where active ownership can make a meaningful difference.
The combination of a stronger cash position, a more focused portfolio and demonstrated execution capability means we can act when the right opportunities emerge. But optionality only has value when combined with discipline; we will continue to be selective, patient, and focus on opportunities where our ownership model and partnerships can create differentiated outcomes.
As we look ahead, our focus is shifting from portfolio transformation to value compounding. The transactions we have completed over the recent years have created a strong foundation.
We have simplified the portfolio, strengthened the balance sheet, and clarified where Remgro can add the most value as an owner and partner. The first priority for us is continuing the efforts on portfolio performance and composition, including ongoing efforts to balance our capital allocation priorities.
The second priority is to look for opportunities to accelerate growth, whether that is through new opportunities aligned with Remgro's strength or to further scale existing platforms where we see accretive opportunities. Lastly, building on our sustainability foundation and leveraging the power of our portfolio to have a position -- positive impact on the environment, the communities within which we operate, and indeed our country will remain a high priority to Remgro.
Across these priorities, we also see AI as an increasingly important lever to be applied across our portfolio to accelerate the execution of each business's strategic priorities. During the year, we undertook a deep dive across our portfolio to understand AI maturity, and where we -- and we were excited to see the breadth of use cases and also the opportunity to share collective experiences as we navigate this fluid landscape.
We are excited about the scope for exponential progress, but equally, we shall remain focused on the risk of disruption and the need for careful governance. As I said, we enter this next phase from a position of strength.
The goal is to convert the foundation we have built into sustained growth, strong cash generation and long-term value for shareholders. The future is even more unpredictable today, as you know.
But with our foundation, we believe that we can adapt to this uncertain environment. I am grateful for the tireless work of our business management teams and my team at Remgro, and I'm encouraged by what we've been able to deliver as reflected in today's results.
I thank you for your time, and we will now open the floor for questions. What I will do is I'll ask Claire to read out the questions that's online that you've posted online first, and she will direct them to the appropriate person.
And once that is completed, we will actually then open the virtual floor for questions from the audience on that. Claire, I'm handing over to you.
Operator
Thank you, Jannie. So we've got several questions online.
The first 2 are for Mediclinic. So perhaps we can start, Jurgens, with you.
Question from Jarred Houston at All Weather. What is the pro forma impact on the earnings -- on earnings of the Mediclinic restructure?
Is the accretion of the lower multiple paid on the SA business enough to offset the once-off restructuring costs?
Jurgens Myburgh
So perhaps 2 ways of answering this. The first, I would say that if you look at the adjusted earnings of the South African business and the Swiss business, which is included in our detailed results release, you'll see that they're very equal.
So stepping away from 50% of the one and taking over 50% of the other on a pro forma basis, would probably get you to more or less the same result in terms of earnings or adjusted earnings for Remgro coming out of the Mediclinic table, so to speak. The second way of looking at this is just to -- as I indicated as well, we are building and developing or to an extent, absorbing skills within the divisions that used to sit at a group level.
And that's going to show up in the cost base. But alongside this, we're leveraging scale as well as the continued implementation of the operating model review.
And so we looked at these to be able to set it off. But it's worth highlighting that we are absorbing and developing skills because of the restructuring, and that's why I mentioned it earlier.
Operator
Staying with the restructure, Carel, this one is probably for you from Jarred again. What is the pro forma EV/EBITDA multiple of the Mediclinic business post restructuring at the current carrying value?
Carel Petrus Vosloo
Thanks, Claire, and thanks, Jarred. I can't tell you exactly what the pro forma EV/EBITDA is, but I think on Neville's slide he showed it was 8.8x for the current portfolio construction.
I suspect it will be slightly lower, but not completely dissimilar. I can guide you to say that the South African piece is sort of mid-6 and the Middle Eastern piece is just shy of [ 10x ].
So it will be a mix of those 2. And in time, obviously, we will show you what the -- how the pro forma translates into actual valuation.
Operator
Question from Warren Riley at Bateleur Capital. Again, on Mediclinic, so for you, Jurgens.
In FY '26, Mediclinic Group declared a dividend of $45 million or 11% of group headline earnings. Could you provide guidance on the expected payout ratio of Mediclinic South Africa going forward?
My sense is that dividend flows to the center should increase post the restructuring.
Jurgens Myburgh
Feels like another question that Neville put in there. But what I will say is that -- well, firstly, more broadly on the dividend policy being unlisted and now with South Africa being 100% owned by Remgro, it feels to us like this is something we can be much more agile with.
Looking at capital allocation, in particular, we always start that focus with cash conversion. We target 90% to 100% cash conversion.
We got to 106% in this year, which is obviously a great result. Then maintenance CapEx, depending on the year, depending on the division and where you are with the investment would range between 4% and 5.5% of revenue.
As I said, as part of the formal presentation, both the Middle East and South African businesses are relatively low geared. And so from there on, it becomes a discussion of balancing growth and dividends.
So, it's an easy to see path where the dividend and capital contribution towards Remgro could be meaningfully higher just on a pro forma basis because if you exclude Switzerland. Switzerland is capital-intensive, high leverage, which these 2 businesses are not.
And so it's easy to see a way of a more meaningful dividend, but that has to be balanced with the growth trajectory of the business as well.
Operator
Next question is for Heineken Beverages. Again, from Warren Riley.
So perhaps you, Rado and Jordi. Heineken Beverages delivered a ZAR 44 million headline loss in H2, which is an increased loss from the prior year.
What drove this weaker second half after a robust first half? What EBITDA margin did Heineken Beverages deliver in FY '26?
And what is your medium-term target?
Radovan Sikorsky
I'll take this one, Jordi. So I can break it down into 2 parts, really.
If you look at H2 for us, the performance of HPSA was solid, and we had positive gross profit growth. But we really stepped up investments in the market in commercial activities, what we call ABTL, above the line, and below the line activities.
Particularly in below the line, we've increased investments, which we believe was a choice to be much better prepared for. As you know, we're a seasonal business.
So much better prepared for the season and going into 2026. So that was on the South Africa side.
Like I mentioned before, we've experienced some headwinds on the international markets. So the volumes coming through in that H2 were weaker, but we're already seeing nice recoveries going forward.
So those were the 2 real main impacts. If I look at the EBITDA margins, I'm not going to disclose exact numbers there, but we saw a nice EBITDA margin growth into 2026.
So we're looking at sort of low teens. And going forward, of course, we see quite a lot of headroom for improving our EBITDA margins.
Operator
Okay. A question for RCL, Paul, for you.
Regarding RCL and the challenging dynamics of the local sugar market dominated by problems, insufficient trade restrictions on imports. I took note of the SA Canegrowers statement that -- how local retailers according to them, still do not commit to sourcing locally produced sugar and how it continues to undermine local producers.
Without putting you on the spot, what does RCL's stance on this issue from Heinz at Netwerk24.
P. Cruickshank
Thanks, Claire. Heinz, thanks.
Let me just start with the 212,000 tonnes that come in doesn't really matter where it goes in terms of channels. And the fact is that it displaces local sugar and that sugar gets sold in at a significantly reduced price in the export market.
The master plan was signed by all parties previously, which includes production as well as sort of offtakers across the entire industry. And I think that's important context for the fact that the import still came in even though there was a master plan agreement in place.
And what I can say is that -- let me just segment the market quickly for you. I've got -- I'm going to call it formal retail.
And I think you'll clearly understand what I mean by that. The more informal retail being, call it, wholesalers, and then you get industrial and sitting on industrial subset of beverages, they're the most material consumer of sugar in South Africa.
Formal retail did not import any sugar. I can state that as a fact.
There was some sugar into the more informal retail being the wholesalers, but to a limited degree. The majority of the sugar went into the industrial consumers.
So that's where it is -- it's a different perspective to the SA Canegrowers. I'm not aware of their comments, but that's the data that we can see through SASA.
Operator
Thanks, Paul. Next question is from Richard Cheesman.
Carel, I think this one is right for you. Congratulations on strong results.
At what value per share is Capevin currently being carried? Secondly, what is the outlook for the business?
And what do you think needs to happen for performance to improve from here? And finally, given its relatively small size within Remgro, do you view Capevin more as a portfolio investment?
Or is it a business where you would potentially look to increase your exposure over time?
Carel Petrus Vosloo
Thank you, Claire. Sure, there's a lot there.
I will say on the carrying value. I think we carry it at around ZAR 11.70.
So that's down from slightly north of ZAR 15 where we had a year ago. In December, it was somewhere in between ZAR 13 -- mid-ZAR 13.
So the -- CVH is obviously facing a relatively tough spirits market, and that's a global phenomenon. That's not unique to CVH.
Radovan and the team are doing a great job at steering that business through that complicated time. And there's -- I think there's patience required and investment behind the brands is required, and we are confident that they're doing the right things, but we will need to be a little bit patient there.
On the last part of the question, whether it's a portfolio investment or something we would think about owning more of -- it certainly -- I wouldn't call it the portfolio investment. We're certainly quite engaged there, we're represented on the Board and colleagues are very close to the business.
But it's not been something on our minds to increase our stake in it. So yes, that's not -- our focus at the moment is on supporting the team and keeping that business stable and hopefully growing in future.
So yes, that's our priority.
Operator
Next question comes from [indiscernible] at 36ONE, Dietlof on CIVH. Congratulations on the results.
Three questions here. I'll group them together for you.
Why did FTTS; connections drop 7% year-on-year for DFA if the market is moving more from microwave to fiber backhaul and tower densification is increasing? Second one is how are you defending Vuma Reach market from Fibertime which is building where you are already?
And third, please unpack how the Herotel Amazon partnership works? And why can Starlink not do the same to enter South Africa?
Dietlof Mare
Yes, first of all, I think I did explain the fiber-to-the-tower movement. Firstly, there was organic growth in that.
So we are seeing people moving from microwave to fiber. It's a little bit more difficult to do because it's longer distances.
So it's always balancing the cost of connecting a microwave to a fiber line. If you look at long distances in rural areas, if you just build for one mobile operator, it costs you roughly ZAR 33,000 a month.
And if you look at the microwave cost, it's roughly ZAR 6,000 a month. So we have to get the synergies right.
But what we're seeing from an organic growth point of view is that there's a demand. So we're seeing Comsol really launching their 5G network.
So we're connecting those towers. So we're seeing really organic growth within the segment.
We also saw Vodacom. Vodacom transferred nearly 2,000 tower links to us, that was on their network -- onto our network.
So we saw actually positive growth on this segment. But then we had Cell C where we discontinued some of their sites.
They changed their strategy to move away from a mobile operator to an MVNO type of structure, and we discontinued some of their sites. So we believe this is a once-off.
But if you look at the trend in the market, the demand for fiber connectivity is really there because of the quality of the networks on the outskirts and in the rural areas. And we believe if you really want to roll out 5G throughout South Africa, you will have to obviously link those sites to -- because of capacity to fiber.
So really, I think it's a once-off, and we believe there's quite a positive trend going forward in the fiber side. If I look at the competition, we love competition, I must say.
And we love competition because we compete from a very strong P&L, and we compete from a very strong balance sheet. But if you look at the market in the Reach and Key segments, there's 14 million homes that don't have access to fiber.
So I think there's a huge opportunity before you start overbuilding and doing things, if you really want to close the digital divide in South Africa, listen, let's focus on the 12 million homes, and that's what we will focus on. So I think -- how do I compete with competition?
Listen, we compete with everybody. Our network on the core is nearly 60% overbuilt at this point.
I think we must just be more agile. We must be more flexible and we must change the way we do things.
But I think we must keep our principles intact, focusing on quality. You get people that do things fast, quick and in different ways.
I believe in sustainable quality networks because these areas that we cover need quality networks. Disposable income is scarce.
So I would rather believe in investing in quality networks, making sure that we can create a sustainable network in the long term. From a LEO Amazon point of view, we've got exclusivity with them, and it's a distributor agreement.
So we make a margin on their services. They use our license.
So it's a little bit different to Starlink. Starlink didn't want to give direct access to the consumer.
They wanted to own the consumer side of it. And they obviously had license requirements that they had to comply with.
Amazon did it differently, signed up an ISP type of a service provider license using the networks within and the companies within South Africa to actually provide those services from landing stations to end services to the end customer. What I like is because we actually have got a more direct relationship with the end customer.
Operator
Thank you, Dietlof. We have a question from Baron Nkomo, JPMorgan.
Following the Mediclinic restructuring and the disposals and unbundlings executed in FY '26, what does the target portfolio look like at Remgro in 2 to 3 years? Are there any concentration limits in place and what are the next concrete optimization steps that you expect to execute, Carel?
Carel Petrus Vosloo
Thanks, Claire, and thanks, Baron. So certainly, our portfolio composition is a dynamic process.
There's nothing, I think, that I can signal now on plans to meaningfully change it. I will say that we plan to stay on the same course.
So we've been in the process of simplifying the assets or simplifying the portfolio around larger assets and stronger partnerships and less noise. So I think that journey will continue.
But the specifics of that, we would need to see how that plays out in time.
Operator
We have a question from Jaco Scholtz at Reinet Investments. Congratulations on your results.
Given the cash pile of more than ZAR 20 billion, do you maybe intend to reduce the number of listed holdings further? And second question, which businesses do Remgro not want to acquire in South Africa?
And what do you prefer to consider? I think, Jannie, that's one for you.
Jan Durand
I think if you look at the past, never let the tail wag the dog. So if you're going out specifically to reduce your listed holdings, you always run the risk of overpaying and doing it at the wrong time.
And so we're very careful about that. And just to put it into perspective, I think if you look at the Mediclinic privatization, it was not something that we actively pursued.
It was something that just happened because of partner approach. So never do that specific.
For that reason, we'll never do that, and we might -- we'll never make -- we will try not to be -- once we do it to overpay for the asset because you actually take it once you purchase price, you take away all the upside opportunity for an investment holding company. On the second question, obviously, we're not going to divulge what we're looking at and what we're actually pursuing.
So I'll try rather be quiet, but businesses that's got -- you pay a little and you've got good growth and good cash flow. So that's all the business that we're looking for.
Thank you, Claire.
Operator
Okay. I'm going to take two more questions from online, and then we can move to the conference call.
I've got James Slabbert from Standard Bank Securities. I'll skip the Mediclinic question because Jurgens, you've answered that.
Outside of the sectors your portfolio is currently exposed to, which other sectors in SA would you be looking for as potential drivers of growth over the next 5 to 10 years, does fintech perhaps play a part in this view? And then secondly, how should we think about the potential for a higher rate environment and how this might impact fiber rollout over the short term?
I think the first one, Jannie, you can take that.
Jan Durand
I'll do the first one and [ you can take -- if you can say the second ] one. But maybe just quickly -- I want -- not in the sector.
I'm part of Business for SA, the partnership with government and the sectors, and I'm just talking from an SA perspective. I'm not talking from the Remgro perspective specifically.
But they've identified 4 sectors for employment growth to actually look at the unemployment problem that we've got, where we can actually employ a lot of people. And secondly, also with what they see in the South African context, where we've got a competitive advantage to actually grow economies where we can grow the economy in the 4 sectors that they've identified are mining, infrastructure, tourism and agri.
And we're really already playing on the agri side. If we look at agri from RCL's point of view, the sugar side and Rainbow Chicken in the chicken side, I think the one thing that we can say about those 2 industries that we're world leaders in that.
If you just look on a like-for-like basis, excluding subsidies across the globe, we're actually very, very good. Our farmers, if we look at the citrus industry across that, I think we can complement the farmers, the agri industry in South Africa.
So we see that still as a growth opportunity to feed the nation. And I think we play an important role in that.
Tourism, we all know about tourism, what's happening now. I think South Africa has become a little bit of a safe haven, especially the Western Cape and the Kruger Park are very areas that are growing quite significantly and continue with that to put those 2 together, if you look at it from a logistics side, linking airports, linking railway lines, linking roads, getting the trucks off the road.
I think the infrastructure environment is going to play a much bigger role going forward. I think there's a lot of international global partners.
We know MSC things that are willing to commit significant amounts of capital into the country. If we can just get a little bit of the red tape resolved and things like that and opening up the ports are happening.
The railway lines are happening and things like that. I think we can create tremendous growth opportunities for SA Inc.
just by looking at infrastructure and supporting the agri sector, the tourism sector, and the mining sector as well. Dietlof, if I can direct the last one to you.
Operator
I think I need to repeat the question. How should we think about the potential for a higher rate environment and how this might impact fiber rollout over the short term?
Dietlof Mare
Listen, the higher rate, I think if you look at data consumption, I mean, it's increasing radically. So we're seeing -- we have to bring the cost down as far as possible.
I think our philosophy was always to create an environment where we keep data in abundance. I think that's the key thing.
And if you look at the value leg of it and the value proposition side of it, you shouldn't be paying per meg or per gig. You should see that data in abundance.
And I think we're going to keep that philosophy, meaning the more people consume, actually the cheaper it becomes. We're looking at homes now in Mitchells Plain Using 700, 800 gigs of data a month.
So what we believe is we will follow that route. We keep open access.
We create a proposition where data is in abundance, and then obviously expand. But it has to make sense.
We have to get the CapEx down. I think back to Jannie's point as well.
I think people forget the maintenance side of fiber networks. We've got nearly 90,000 kilometers of fiber in the ground in South Africa.
The cost to maintain these networks is the thing you have to plan for. So it's always a balance between what we supply and what we sustain.
And I believe, listen, if we can create and keep the data in abundance, uncapped propositions out there, it can make sense as the demand increases.
Operator
A final question from James at Standard Bank. Jannie, economic pressures in South Africa are prolonged and this has a downward impact on valuation, does an acceleration of possible future acquisitions come into play?
Jan Durand
I'm just going to refer back to my last slide, where I actually mentioned, remember, difficult times and a higher interest rate environment, lower valuation, create optionality and creates opportunity. And I think -- but you need to do it with discipline in making sure that you pay the right price in the circumstances.
Operator
I've got a final 2 questions here, and then we'll go to a conference call. So Carel, on OUTsurance, has Remgro considered unbundling this asset?
And at what point would unbundling make sense? That's from Charles Wells at Titanium Capital.
Carel Petrus Vosloo
Charles, thanks. No, that's not something that we're currently contemplating.
Of course, never say never. So it's not -- we've done many unbundlings in the past.
So we understand, obviously, the mechanics of doing that. But no, it's certainly for now the exposure that we intend keeping.
Operator
Okay. And final question.
Chris Logan at Opportune Investments. Congrats on what is overall great progress and a great result.
Remgro stated that with this foundation now in place, Remgro is entering its next phase of value unlock focused on converting its reshaped portfolio into measurable value creation for shareholders. Could you please provide some more color on how this next phase of value unlock will proceed?
Jan Durand
Yes. Thanks, Chris.
So I think if it goes back to the strategic priorities that we've set for ourselves. It clearly is focusing on the existing investment to make sure that the continued momentum is actually going on, that we grow those things, looking for accretive opportunities in those existing investments for Mediclinic into Heineken for new opportunities, into Maziv for new oppportunities.
I think that will be a focus on the existing portfolio. And as we say, we're actively looking for new investments.
I've mentioned some of the areas where we might look for potential growth. But if the opportunity presents itself, we're, as I've always said in the past, we're open for business.
And lastly, as Carel has mentioned on disciplined capital allocation going forward and looking at a combination of things, and that includes, as we've just shown, we're more than willing to pay higher special dividends. We increased our dividends by lowering the cover as well as looking for, if the capital allocation more allows and we see the opportunities to also look at share buybacks.
So it's all of those things that we will unlock value for our shareholders.
Operator
Thank you, Jannie. We have no more questions online.
Irene, can you check if there are any questions in the queue on the conference call? [Operator Instructions] It seems we have no questions on the conference call.
Apologies. We have a question from [ Raviam ] of Anchor Stockbrokers.
Unknown Analyst
Yes, I also want to say congratulations on the results. And I hope I don't offend anyone, but I think if I look at this dividend performance of yours, it is now at a near record high.
And I think [indiscernible] would have been proud of you and your management team of the performance that you do delivered. Now just quickly on my questions, if I can just start off with the central business first.
I just want to get a few, I mean, obviously, this cash generation, you have a lovely problem, lots of cash. Just in terms of -- your thoughts around discovery.
I mean, that was always in the portfolio bucket. Is it still in that bucket?
Jan Durand
Carel.
Carel Petrus Vosloo
So Ray, we've moved it to -- or it's not included under our financial services investments. Discovery is a little bit different maybe from some of our other assets in that we only have an 8-odd percent stake.
So we don't have Board representation and perhaps the influence that we have at some of our other stakes. But it's certainly one where we've got a very strong partnership with the founders.
We engage with them frequently. So it's one where we think there's more runway, but acknowledging it's a bit different to the level of influence that we have on some of our other investments.
Jan Durand
Maybe just to add to what Carel said, I was worried you were not on the call because I was expecting a question from you. But if -- so we had so much press in the past to sell our discovery stake or to unbundle it, which is obviously not tax-effective.
And I think we've been proving ourselves that we kept it in the belly at the moment. So it's actually doing quite well for us, and we're quite comfortable sitting on that investment.
Unknown Analyst
I was unfortunately cut off during the presentation where you talked about the special dividend of ZAR 5.50. I was -- my question there was just, was it sourced from anything specific from the sale of FirstRand or -- yes.
So basically, what I'm heading towards is the $130 million that was received after year-end. Obviously, that's also a nice little fill-up for the cash pile.
Carel Petrus Vosloo
I'm happy to take that, Jannie. Yes.
So not really, I mean, we can link it to the money that came up from CIVH, we can link it to the FirstRand disposal. But in truth, we've got one pot of cash and that was -- it comes from that.
So it's not really -- there's not a read-through on the types of liquidity that we would expect to flow up the stream.
Unknown Analyst
Okay. And then I just want to move 2 questions on the operations.
The first is around CIVH, I just want to make sure that I heard correctly. You said that the net debt level was ZAR 17 billion.
I guess your year-end is March, right, ZAR 17 billion? So that means a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio around about 3.2x, 3.3x.
Now I'm just looking at sort of the growth drivers of this business going forward. EBITDA margin is sustainably at 68%, 69%.
And I would think that the EBIT margin will increase as you sort of sweat the assets more on the depreciation side. So I just want to know whether the debt side offers an opportunity to improve the bottom line earnings.
So I just want to get a feel of how you think about the net debt levels at CIVH, and maybe throw in the whether Herotel, what's the debt that it brings to the party?
Carel Petrus Vosloo
Claire, can I hand that to Byron, the CFO, please. Byron Billett.
Byron Billett
Thanks, Carel. Thank you for your question.
I think there's a couple of points, I think, we need to drive through. Maziv today has got a debt pile that is there to effectively launch the next phase of our growth strategy.
So from a debt perspective, we're looking at targeting anything between 3x and just over 3x. That's excluding the Herotel sort of package.
Herotel brings about ZAR 2 billion of debt. And again, I think Herotel in its own right has also got a sort of a growth strategy planned.
So we'll look at increasing our leverage there for the next 2 to 3 years while we expand, and then the leverage over the next 3 to 4 years will then start to decline. So while we are expanding, we're looking at that 3x leverage on average.
But obviously, there are certain pockets within this table that will be a bit more sort of higher than others. But I think that will normalize over the next 3 to 4 years as we sort of degear.
Unknown Analyst
Excellent. And then my final question, just on Heineken Beverages.
I'm now going back to '22 when the deal was announced and the pro forma EBIT margin, not EBITDA, EBIT margin was around 12%. So I don't know.
I mean, obviously, the disclosure is not that great for us to calculate the EBIT margin. But I just want to know whether a ballpark number of around about 7% to 8% is where you are currently and whether you are still sort of targeting that 12% level and how you will get there over the medium term, that's what I'm interested in.
So those are all my questions.
Radovan Sikorsky
Yes. Thanks.
Well, we don't disclose the exact details, but we have improved our operating profit margin over the last 3 years, and we are indeed in the range of high single digits, as I mentioned during my conference. With that said, we're still far -- I also mentioned below what we are aiming and the ambition to get much closer to the Heineken Group, which trades at mid-teens.
And we believe that certainly, we've got the portfolio, the strength, the market to get there, but it's a progressive move. So we -- it's about, as I said, mid-single-digit revenue growth and margin expansion based on our portfolio.
So although close actually, we want [Audio Gap]
Jan Durand
If not, I think -- are there more questions?
Operator
So if there's no one else in the queue, again from Charles Wells, Carel, Remgro never had an exposure to the retail sector. Is this a function of principle that Remgro doesn't like the sector or opportunity, good assets have not been available at realistic prices?
Carel Petrus Vosloo
Thanks, Claire. Thanks, Charles.
So it's certainly not a sector that we exclude definitively and say we won't go into retail, but we do like to stick to the industries that we have expertise. So in retail, we'd need to develop expertise to do anything meaningful there.
And we are also, obviously, conscious of the fact that in RCL and in Rainbow and in Hein-Bev, we've got meaningful exposure to upstream players. So we will be quite careful on how we compete with the partners of those businesses in retail.
So, it's not been a high area of priority for us in the past.
Operator
Thank you. We have no further questions online.
If there's nothing on the conference call, I think, Jannie, you can now close.
Jan Durand
Okay. Thank you, everybody, and thanks for attending, and have a good day.
All the best.
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