Good morning, and welcome to the Anpario plc investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in a listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll, and then I'd like to hand you over to Richard Edwards, CEO. Good morning, sir.
Yes. Thank you, Lily. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Anpario's presentation. First, apologies it was delayed from a number of weeks ago, because we had a delayed announcement by a few days. We'll start off. Marc Wilson, our Group Finance Director, will start off with going through those results. I will just talk a little bit about the geography and how we performed in certain regions around the world. There's a bit on Bio-Vet, our plans for it and what Bio-Vet's all about.
Once again, thanks very much for attending, and if you have any questions, obviously put them through the platform and we'll probably answer most of them at the end after we've run through the slides. Mark, over to you.
Okay. Yeah. As Richard said, thanks everyone for joining, and I'll walk through the results and talk to any questions that you've got at the end. I'm sure you've all seen the main highlights. Revenue up 23%, up to GBP 38.2 million, and a 23% increase, with the gross profit growing faster, up 28% due to increased gross margins in the period, up to GBP 17.9 million gross profit for the year. Adjusted EBITDA, we've got 57% back to GBP 7 million, which was the peak we achieved in 2021. And then diluted adjusted earnings per share up even higher as a result of the tender offer that we did through July 2023.
Cash, even after the outflow of cash from Bio-Vet, you know, still relatively strong at GBP 10.5 million, and we continued to increase the dividends now onto our sixteenth or seventeenth year of continued growth in the dividend. Just going through in a bit more detail, in terms of that revenue, we saw, as I said, 23% with growth in all of the operating segments that we report in across Asia, the Americas, Middle East and Europe, and all of those areas showing growth.
Some of it was the recovery from the difficult few years that we've had and other areas, in particular the Middle East, with strong organic growth in that period, and Richard can talk through that a bit later in the slides. Similarly, in terms of product classes, we saw growth across all of the major product classes in which we operate. There was again a mixed story in the sense that some of it was a recovery from the difficult period that we've had, notably the pellet binders, toxin binders and acid-based eubiotics. We also saw continued growth across other products such as Orego-Stim. As well, we saw the increased volumes, as you'd expect, and more stable raw material prices.
That enabled the continued recovery in the gross margins up to 46.9% for the period compared to 45% last year. In terms of admin expenses, overall, they were up 14% at GBP 1.6 million, but that does include a number of different things which are sort of more exceptional. Firstly, there was GBP 1.2 million of incentive provisions, so that's bonuses for the sales staff and management in light of the strong performance in the period. There was also Bio-Vet overheads for the Q4 period, as well as GBP 0.6 million of acquisition-related costs. In terms of those acquisition costs, we did actually look at 2 different acquisition opportunities last year, but we pulled out of one following due diligence.
Obviously, of course, we went ahead with the Bio-Vet deal. Adjusted EBITDA, as I said, it was up 57%. There was a high tax charge in the period. There was a low level of R&D spend, sort of as we've signaled in the past, that we expected, and a number of sort of non-deductible expenses such as the acquisition related amounts. As I said, the EPS up the highest ever, thanks to that, the tender offer that we did in July 2023 and that increase in the dividend, as I've already mentioned. Just moving on, just breaking that down in terms of the bridge of the adjusted EBITDA, then we've got the GBP 4.5 million EBITDA that we performed from last year.
This first green column, the increase of GBP 2.3 million, that's related to the increase in sales at last year's margins. That added GBP 2.3 million to the Adjusted EBITDA. We had the increased improvement in margin, which added a further GBP 0.5 million. We're still, as we sort of talked about in recent years, there was a redundancy and restructure exercise that we were going through in light of the difficult period for the agri market in general. The tail end of that has led to a further GBP 0.3 million in saving on, in terms of people costs. Then across a basket of other admin costs, again, there's kind of the efficiency savings and drive that we've been going through.
There was a, you know, saving, a further GBP 0.2 million boost in Adjusted EBITDA. We've then got the incentives, so that's the, you know, the bonuses for the sales staff and staff and management in light of the strong performance. The incentives are generally driven around growth, and, you know, whether it's from the sales team in terms of sales or, you know, the rest of the staff in terms of EBITDA profit. The focus is on, you know, all of those targets reset back to zero, and we need to provide growth in order to, you know, to be able to fund those bonuses for future periods. For the like-for-like performances then, you know, that cost part would largely be removed.
We get to GBP 6.6 million as the like-for-like EBITDA performance. Not quite getting back to that 2021 performance, but the addition of Bio-Vet, which we'll talk more about shortly, added GBP 0.4 million for that Q4 period and got us back up to that GBP 7 million in EBITDA. Just breaking down a little bit the performance of Bio-Vet and then the like-for-like. We can see the overall movements for the group in that shaded left column. We talk through Bio-Vet first, they added GBP 2.2 million of revenue in sterling for that Q4 period. Their gross margins are similar and slightly higher to ours, including all their production costs absorbed and distribution costs absorbed into that.
Their gross margins were 55%, and that's, you know, very, very typical for them. Going through the rest in terms of operating profit and EBITDA and profit before tax, then they contributed GBP 0.4 million. They're having a really strong period through that through Q4. Again, something we can talk about, Richard, so, you know, what's been going on in relation to the Bio-Vet performance. We've then got this central column, which has a number of acquisition-related costs, including, you know, the legal and consultancy DD-related costs around the transaction, as well as a few other things, such as we bought the building which Bio-Vet operate in. They were previously renting from some common stockholders, but not exactly the same.
We acquired that building, but we're measuring that separately outwith the earn-out and contingent consideration arrangement, which again, we can talk to. If you pull out the Bio-Vet business performance, some of the acquisition-related items, then we see the like-for-like performance and even outwith the acquisition of Bio-Vet then we saw very strong growth, revenue up GBP 5 million. It's the strongest growth in any single year. Gross profits up GBP 2.8 million, and you can see operating profit up 100%, and EBITDA at 47% or GBP 2.1 million. Moving on just to talk about the gross profit.
You know, through this period where we've seen a decline in gross margins, and there's been a number of ways we've talked about this, we're generally at the minute seeing a more stable raw material price environment, and with year-over-year 2024 compared to 2023, and we saw a full year benefit from the reduced costs. At the same time, due to increased volumes and the kind of highly automated but also, you know, fairly fixed costs of production that we've got, then we saw a reduction in the production cost per ton, which led to some efficiency savings and improved margins. Overall, our average cost for the basket of products that we sell reduced by GBP 1.5 million.
We've got the GBP 14 million of gross profit from last year. The overall cost came down on a like-for-like basis across the sales mix by GBP 1.5 million. In terms of the selling prices, average selling prices actually declined. Now, this is due to a number of reasons, including the fact that we saw a recovery in some of the maybe lower priced products such as the binders and things. But at the same time, you know, we're also particularly in places like the Middle East, a lot of the new business that we won in the year was quite large, high volume customers, and as you'd normally expect, you know, they get a discount for purchasing high volume. Overall, average price reduced.
Those two, the average cost reduction boosted profits by GBP 1.5 million and the average price reduction offsetting that by GBP 1.4 million. What we did see was a huge increase in the quantity of products that we're selling, and that is that GBP 3.7 million increase in that third column. Then if you apply the sales mix change into that as well, then you get a slight offset of GBP 1 million. If you look across all of our product classes, then pretty much all of the product classes that we saw were more profitable on a gross profit pounds per ton basis.
It was just that overall, when you look at that sales mix, that the average gross profit pounds per ton reduced. Across all the products, you know, there's been sales growth, improvements in profitability, and we've just seen a recovery in some of those other products as we were hoping to see. If we move on to talk about cash flow, obviously a strong operating cash flow from increased levels of profitability. In terms of working capital, there was a slight decrease in inventory, and this released GBP 0.1 million in the period.
It's related slightly to the strong trading and going through the raw materials quicker than we necessarily expected, but also slightly lower levels of finished goods stock in some of the subsidiaries around the world. Similarly linked to the higher sales level, we saw an increase in the trade and other receivables of GBP 1.9 million. There's been a GBP 2.5 million increase in the trade and other payables. That was largely due to the prior period having been relatively low. At the same time, we've got the Bio-Vet contingent consideration amount included in that GBP 2.5 million, so that's about GBP 0.8 million. We've got the accrual for the bonus, the incentive provisions of GBP 1.2 million.
That largely accounts for the delta there. Moving through the cash flow bridge, we've got the tax paid, which is just, you know, a function of the tax charge. In terms of CapEx, and then as we've been said before, and any of you that have come on the site visit that we arranged last year, and we want well-invested plants here. You know, it's highly automated. We've finished the program of automation that we originally envisaged. There's always things that we can do and improve in production, but you know, there's not a big requirement for further capital expenditure in the site, and plenty of room for growth for volume growth.
Then in terms of intangibles and from an R&D perspective, we continue to do a number of R&D work, but, you know, the levels we were at before, which is sort of GBP 1 million plus a year, they've reduced. There's a number of products that we've launched onto the market, and there continues to be a, you know, 20, 30 trials that we're working on, but they tend to be of a lower level, scale and proving new applications for the existing products because we, you know, we have a very strong product range, and there's lots of growth that those products can continue to drive.
Moving forward, there will be work on looking at combination products such as with the Bio-Vet probiotics and Orego-Stim, but I wouldn't expect a huge increase in the level of capital expenditure either on a tangible or intangible basis moving forward. We've then got dividends paid, that was GBP 1.4 million. Then the two further blocks, we've got the GBP 2.5 million which was the initial cash outlay for the Bio-Vet deal and there's a slide later I can talk through the numbers specifically on that. Then as I said, we bought the London buildings and that was a further outflow of GBP 1.8 million.
Year on year, then a slight GBP 0.1 million fall in overall cash, but still a very strong level of GBP 10.5 million, you know, to look at further deals as we were looking last year, and to look to further investments and organic growth that we can produce. Just taking a bit of a reflection because obviously it has been kind of a difficult few years in the agri market. I think we've held up particularly well, still remaining profitable and cash generative through that period when there's a lot of businesses that we've been looking at that haven't necessarily been in the same position. We've really shown our resilience through this period.
If we look on this left-hand chart, the bars show the Adjusted EBITDA by performance, and then the sort of dark purple is the adjusted earnings per share. You can see us getting back to that GBP 7 million Adjusted EBITDA that we talked about. In terms of the adjusted EPS because of the tender offer and the reduction in the number of shares, achieving the highest ever level of diluted adjusted earnings per share. On the right-hand side, similar from a dividend perspective, we've got the dividend per share in blue and in purple, then the payout ratio.
As we discussed through this period we continued to increase the dividend because we believed in the long-term growth, you know, prospects and the fact that the recovery would come and would carry on. We continued to increase the dividends, but the payout ratio increased. We've now backed down to kind of around 45% level payout ratio, and we'll look to continue to try and grow, you know, drive dividend growth as well as capital growth as well. Just coming through if you look at the middle you can see the compound annual growth rate over a sort of five-year period and a 10-year period in terms of Adjusted EBITDA, diluted adjusted earnings per share and the total dividends.
If you look at it from a you know, five-year perspective then obviously the Adjusted EBITDA has been on a bit of a recovery. But if you're looking on a 10-year period then the kind of the metrics that Richard, Rich and I often talk to is you know, seeking consistent high single-digit level growth, and that's what's coming through in the numbers and we'll look to you know, now that we've seen this recovery come through with the addition of Bio-Vet then that's the marker for us moving forward on a continued basis. That's the end of my section in terms of the numbers. More than welcome to ask questions and I will look to answer them at the end. I'll pass over to Richard.
Okay. Thanks, Marc. Just now moving to sort of segmental revenue. It's not often that we get four of our segments, the four main segments with sales growth across all of them. Normally, you know, sometimes we get three with one declining or half and half. That's really what helps, you know, drive the whole business for us. Within there are obviously some ups and downs in certain countries within those territories. Just broadly, what we saw is definitely a good strong recovery coming through from Asia and Middle East where over the past number of years we've refocused really on higher margin type products as well and found.
Moved away from sort of tender offer business which tend to be sort of price driven. Our team over there have really gone more for the higher value add. The Middle East is benefiting from improving their food security after COVID. They had an issue with a lot of foreign workers within the country. They couldn't afford to feed them, didn't have enough food to feed them during the COVID crisis. That frightened them and they are investing massively in being able to ensure food security. Those are just some of the reasons where some of those segments have done well.
Just going into a little bit of detail on Asia Pacific as I say, just general improved conditions and particularly margins for producers, following those difficult years. Really that was just, it was a reflection of the perfect storm in sort of 2022 and 2023 in Asia, which hit us but we've had some good recovery across many, you know, most of the countries over there apart from I think small declines in Bangladesh and Japan for various reasons.
After a long time working with a big integrator and distributor in the Philippines, we finally started to see stronger demand for some of our products and particularly for, you know, Orego-Stim that is starting to come through even more so now and we had good sales of things like Mastercube and Red Lite that is a natural insecticide. Malaysia again delivered a strong performance compared to the previous sort of few years. China was steady, flat sales, still doing reasonably well given that China, you know, in terms of its consumption, you know, so meat protein consumption and the malaise in the economy there, we feel we had pretty good performance. The pig market has improved to a certain extent and it's sort of stabilized now.
Generally, meat protein consumption remains weak and China can actually satisfy that sort of local demand. I think the Asia's still continuing to make progress and we expect it 2025 to continue in the same way. The Americas were really our problem child or a couple of countries there. Just firstly though, obviously Bio-Vet had GBP 2.2 million of sales in the final quarter. So that really sort of turned around, helped turn around that region that's benefiting from that. Because excluding that, the Americas would have showed a 10% decline in revenue. Really driven by quite a significant drop in our U.S. business, where we lost some pHorce business in the pork producer area.
U.S. pork producers or pig farmers have been under pressure because of some of the tariffs that are being put up in China and haven't been exporting as much. Really, I think through most of last year, most pig farmers will break even at best. We are seeing that coming back this year, actually. There's a few customer wins, and we are hopeful that some of that business, or hopefully most of that business, we can claw back within this year. We are just sort of waiting to see a number of particular other customers who are hopeful of going back onto pHorce, the pHorce product. Avian influenza has also benefited actually with high egg prices.
The producers that we've been supplying, providing they haven't been hit by avian influenza, have been doing very well. We generally supply the organic and free range to the market in the U.S. That did benefit us, but couldn't offset, as I say, the loss of Force and a few other customers. Just in South America, Brazil was a key disappointment. It is very tough in Brazil. There's been an oversupply, certainly I think of eggs in the early part of last or most of last year. I think that's changed and improved.
There's quite a lot of low-value market competition we have to contend with in Brazil, and we are at a slight disadvantage because if we're importing into Brazil, there's quite a number of different taxes, and there's a minimum profit margin or minimum profit that we actually have to make on our products within Brazil. That's really to stop dumping, product dumping into the country. We've always decided that we would not have a production plant there. We don't need one there. We'd prefer to have low fixed costs there, be fleet of foot, and be able to sort of react to sort of local changes. The market is pretty difficult in the poultry side for they have an excess of poultry meat production.
They're exporting that, and the prices that producers are getting are very low for that. At the moment, Brazil is just a difficult market. I'm told by a number of analysts it's a difficult market for most industries, but we don't have big asset or big capital investment there. There are a number of initiatives that we're looking at to try and sort of pull that around and work that around. Venezuela and Colombia showed some strong growth. It's patchy in the Americas. We do feel some of this will come back soon in the USA. Brazil, we think will still remain tough for most of this year. Just moving on to Europe, that was good. There's some good sales growth there with you know, sales up 15%, volumes up 6%.
We've had the countries that have been doing well, Israel, Switzerland, Austria. One of our competitors, certainly, in Europe, Biomin, was bought a number of years ago by DSM. They've been bought into a bigger company, and they seem to have lost their way. Our Austrian distributor distributed some of the Biomin's products, but is now starting to sort of switch to some of our products. We see there's some good opportunities to take some market share from a competitor, as I say, that has been sort of swallowed up by a big organization and really got lost in there. There's a number of, I mean, challenges in Spain. Spain's, again, a difficult market. It's the largest swine market.
It's the, I think it's just about the lowest cost producer in across Europe. It does get pretty competitive in that market. Again, there's a number of opportunities we feel we can look at. This year, Europe is doing well, where we are working with a big European organization to sell some of a range of our products in a number of different countries across Europe, including France, where in the past, in the recent sort of decade, we've not really done much. It's been difficult for us to sell into France, but we feel this company has got better links. As I say, the beginning of this year, Europe, the Europe region started off really well.
As I said at the beginning of this section, the MEA outstanding sales performance with sales up 78%, that now accounts, I think probably for the highest group, this region, in terms of 18% of group sales. That's it, as I say, it's been sort of continuing trend, but it really accelerated recently because of this policy, well, policies across a number of Middle Eastern countries to be self-sufficient on food security. We also Egypt, we also have started to go direct there, and that has helped sort of drive those numbers a bit more. You'll see Egypt was up by point eight million.
Good demand for Mastercube and Orego-Stim, and we think there's a good opportunity with the Bio-Vet products, which I'll talk about a little bit later. Our Indian partnerships continue to deliver, and I think it's had a real good start to this year as well. With that recent India trade deal that has been signed at top level, it's a high-level sort of signature, so a lot of the detail is still to be worked out, and it will be, certainly, probably a year or a number of years before we start to see some of the benefits, but we do think there's a lot of future potential in India for us.
We've got a good partnership there, and actually, I think we've got four people out there at the moment this week, which was a little bit worrying given some of the developments. They are focusing on looking at the dairy sector in the more northern part of the country. We got another couple of people down in the south, focusing on aquaculture, I think, and poultry. India, you know, is probably set to become the biggest or second-biggest economy at some point. We feel we've got a really good position there and the opportunity.
We probably feel India is our number one opportunity to a certain extent, and that's why we are putting a lot of sales resource or investing a lot of sales resource to support our partnership and the end customers in that country. Just to look a little bit on Bio-Vet and the outlook, I'll hand back to Marc just to go through the financials on the acquisition, for a slide, and then I'll come back in after Marc's gone through these numbers.
Thank you, Richard. Yeah, just to walk through some of the numbers. I mean, this is all in the business combination note, but just wanted to draw it out and see if to explain it and then see if anyone has any questions to go through at the end. The upfront cash consideration was GBP 5 million with an additional GBP 0.2 million that was paid in January following the completion accounts adjustment. But through the deal, we acquired cash of GBP 2.4 million. Bio-Vet, as Richard will come on to talk to, is very similar culturally in terms of the way it operates, and some of its you know mentalities and approach to the market.
They had a high level of cash that they carried within the business anyway. But at the same time, unfortunately, the founder, William Zimmer, again, Richard, give some background on, he passed away as we were going through this process and there was some key man insurance which paid out to the business. I think there was some residual cash left in the business from that. We acquired the business for GBP 5 million, but it had GBP 2.4 million of cash. That meant that the total cash outflow on acquisition was GBP 2.5 million. There is a contingent consideration element as well, which is $1 million or GBP 0.8 million.
That's based on 12 months EBITDA performance post-acquisition, and that not being less than $0.8 million. You can see on the bottom left the various different other assets that make up the net assets that are acquired within the business. If we include the contingent consideration earn-out, as I said then, you know, the total consideration was $5.8 million, and the net assets acquired described in that section.
If we think about that performance, that target performance when we were looking at the deal, sort of, through March and April last year and initial conversations with people at Bio-Vet, then, you know, they were going through a strong level of performance and but they also believed in further growth. But at the same time, through the H2 of the year, there was a number of different things in the market that changed, including avian influenza affecting some dairy cow herds across the U.S. Some of Bio-Vet's products are particularly strong in recovering those animals through that period.
Whereas avian influenza is usually a negative, you know, 'cause we're quite strong on layers and broilers where the usual approach would be to cull the birds then in terms of the dairy market, then usually people try and, you know, nurse those cows back to full health following the avian influenza challenge. Bio-Vet got some fantastic products in order to do that, particularly through the sort of summer months when there's a high level of heat stress. As we sort of entered towards the, you know, the final stretch of the deal, then they hit this really strong performance, particularly in places like California. Their level of performance for Q4 was exceptional, their strongest ever trading period.
They achieved sales of GBP 2.2 million, and as I highlighted before then, the Adjusted EBITDA was GBP 0.4 million for that three-month period. The full year target for EBITDA in dollars was $800,000, but they did GBP 0.4 million in sterling in just that three-month period. They're performing really strong, doing really well as a business. You know, it's highly likely, you know, almost guaranteed that that contingent consideration element will be paid, and you know, following this strong period that we've been going through.
That means we, you know, we can potentially look at paying that earlier, and working with them to start some of the integration of the business and things earlier, and Richard can talk to that on the next few slides.
Yeah. Thanks so much. I mean, we put out, when we did the deal, we actually said, you know, our strategic reasons why we did it, and I'll just sort of recap on those. Firstly, you know, they have a strong presence and expertise and capability in the ruminant and then particularly dairy. We do have some dairy knowledge and expertise, but maybe not as much as Bio-Vet. But Bio-Vet really is 100% focused, you know, really on dairy. They also have a probiotic product range, which was a gap for us. If we tried to develop and produce a probiotic, we just wouldn't. We could come up with a probiotic, but we wouldn't be known for that.
Customers would say, "Well, you know, aren't you the guys with Orego-Stim or the organic acid people, with pHorce?" We wouldn't have that backstory and that pedigree, and that is important. You know, this is an industry where you know, you need to be product specialists. So you need to be like a heart surgeon or an oncologist or a gynecologist, not just a general practitioner. They brought that probiotic expertise and that is, you know, compatible essentially with our phytogenics range. The other side was giving us a bigger presence in the U.S., which is the first or second biggest agri market in the world and will remain, you know, up there with China and now India probably at some point coming through, and Brazil.
That was the third sort of reason. The fourth was to give us better, as a risk management, an alternative in terms of a production facility that wasn't in the U.K. or wasn't necessarily in Europe, but it was on a different continent, and can supply potentially down all the way down to, you know, Argentina and Brazil if required, but depending on the logistics. It gives us that resilience. It's in terms of production facilities and gives us options. But if you look at, you know, on the more cultural side of the thing, you know, why is it highly complementary? Bio-Vet is an innovative and technically led business with strong capabilities, particularly in microbiology and the gut microbiome because of the probiotics.
Probiotics is all about microbiology and gut microbiome. That's not to say that Anpario isn't or wasn't, because actually a number of our products were developed by microbiologists many years ago. We've always been conscious that the gut microbiome in animal health is extremely important. We've probably moved to being more product marketing led. We've taken our technology, done a lot of brand building, things like Orego-Stim, pHorce, Mastercube, trying to get brand equity into those products, names and build power brands. With our extensive sales and distribution network, it allows us to open up those channels for some of these products to be pushed down into the relevant markets.
That's taking what Bio-Vet's technical product equity and pushing it, being more marketing led with it and building those power brands is what Anpario brings to that party. As I mentioned before, the probiotics, they enhance gut health, phytogenics to lessen the impact of disease and help the gut be more robust and a better environment for the probiotics to work in. If I can explain, just give an analogy of how we feel this work.
If you've got a block of apartments and you're the landlord, and you want to rent it out, and you want to rent it to nice people to come into these apartments who will look after it and be kind and be good people, then what you do is you rip out the old carpet, you paint it with some nice paint, put some nice furniture, put some decent windows in, light and airy, make it a nice environment to attract good people into those apartments. What Phytogenics does and what Orego-Stim does is basically the ripping out the carpet, painting it, cleaning it up. That basically in the gut, it helps to make the gut integrity better. It closes the gaps, it stops leaky gut, things like that. It makes the gut environment a better place.
It kills off, you know, bad bacteria, things like Salmonella and things. It's antimicrobial. It prepares the ground for when you put the probiotics in, and the probiotics can then proliferate and grow and give, you know, things like Lactobacillus and improve and enhance the gut health. We know there's a complementary effect between these two types of technologies. We know that some of our customers, for example, our Indian partner takes Orego-Stim. They also take a probiotic actually from Arm & Hammer. They administer those, or they sell those sort of in combination to customers. Customers use them half and half combination. What we've done is brought these two technologies together.
I don't think there's not another company in our sector that has the deep pedigree and understanding of Phytogenics and Probiotics. You will get some companies that say, "Oh, we've got an essential oil, and we've developed a probiotic as well." They've not done it with, by bringing in, as I say, like a heart surgeon and an oncologist to work together or whatever. We've brought the pedigree and the background of Bio-Vet alongside Anpario's pedigree in Bio-Vet, and that's what we've done over the years is acquire, you know, that strong background in particular product technologies and try to apply them and put them together. We've already done some testing on that. We've proven Orego-Stim is, at certain levels, is compatible with Bio-Vet's probiotics.
There's a whole potential raft of product development, either combining the products or going to customers and say, "Put Orego-Stim in for this period of time, and then start to administer, you know, the probiotic," and things like that. There's a lot of work to be done there, but there's a lot of product development opportunities before without having to go and start paying for pure research in universities or institutions. What Bio-Vet also do they manufacture smaller packaging things type products that go on to farmer, administered by the farmer or the vet on farm, and that will give sort of Anpario the access to that on-farm market for Anpario's products, particularly in the U.S. and that understanding.
Really Bio-Vet was sort of ahead of its time with some of its technology, which was very similar to, you know, Anpario. If you look at Orego-Stim, it's 25 years, over 25 years now since it was first launched and it's still growing. Bio-Vet, we feel, has just not necessarily had the global opportunity or the opportunity to take the products more globally, had a bigger audience or a bigger market to go at because they've really just concentrated on certain regions in the US. The projects that we're currently working on in integration products are, the first and the foremost is to try and take some of their key product brands, and you see them there, and I know there's a question on this, hopefully this answers it, into selected markets.
Generator DFM. DFM means Direct Fed Microbial to Americans, but to Europeans it basically is probiotics. There's a Generator DFM product, and we're keeping those brand names of Generator. If you see QuadriCal, that's calcium boluses that are administered through the throat of the cow, the animal, and then have various different speed of releases in terms of the calcium. QuadriCal will be a brand that we take internationally, and that really supports cows with sort of milk fever just after giving birth where they've got a deficiency in calcium. GoldLyte, that will be a brand that we take, that's an electrolyte, and we've already started to test by putting, combining Orego-Stim into their electrolyte product.
They've been doing some testing work on that, and I think they've got a product that's quite close to launch that combination product in the U.S. Then RumenAider is a capsule in a capsule, and I'll talk a little bit about that later. There's four sort of product areas, brands we're taking. There's Generator, QuadriCal, GoldLyte, RumenAider. We wanna build, you know, those brands into stronger global brands like we've done with Orego-Stim into power brands. As we go international, it will be branded as Anpario internationally, so it'll be Anpario company name, but we're retaining their product names. Then the other areas I just sort of mentioned about cross-selling Anpario's product through the Bio-Vet sales channel.
We're starting off with some of the Orego-Stim range and our Anpro mycotoxin binder range in the U.S., and I was there a few weeks ago for a few days with their sales team going through these products and they seem very excited and keen to have, you know, broader range that they can sell to customers that they're already seeing and through distributors and resellers that they're currently working with. There's Marc and his team sort of heading up just a gradual integration of their systems, financial reporting, things like back office of our U.S. business into the Barneveld Bio-Vet office. That's. It's not a heavy integration because their systems are good.
They had very good systems and there's some you know, there's some quite simple approaches that we can do with that. Then we will, I think as Marc sort of mentioned, depending on when we draw a line under the earn-out, it's due to sort of finish, I think, the end of September. Then we will combine the management structure following the earn-out in the U.S., to begin with, and we've already started to have some of those conversations with the key people about what that's going to look like. Then Shane Bailey, some of you may have met Shane if you've been up to our production plant, our Operations Director.
Shane and our quality manager were over a few weeks ago running through their production and processes and quality control, and that's really just at the moment, there's no big integration with any of the production side or whatever. That's just a collaboration and learning, and their production people are coming over to see what we're doing in Manton Wood, I think in June. You see those products, you'll see them on the Bio-Vet website. As I said, the RumenAider product, the Generator, QuadriCal. There's you know, these are mainly focused on ruminant products, dairy calf, beef, and small ruminants. Some, they do have some equine products as well, but it's small volumes, small sales volumes that they do with those.
The majority of the sales are in California, Wisconsin, and sort of Northeast, sort of New York State and around there where the main dairy regions are. Those are how they look like and but as I say, the branding on them when we go international will show Anpario rather than Bio-Vet, and that's how we'll sort of start off and see how that works. Just a little bit about some of their technology. The capsule-in-a-capsule is a unique solution where if you see the blue and the white tablet there, like a paracetamol tablet, that has the microbes inside. That has the probiotic in. On the outside is a yeast, vitamin, minerals.
If those were combined and packaged and left on the shelf, you'd see that the microbes, the bacteria would deteriorate. The survival of those microbes would be much less, and that's what they've tested against some competitor products that do combine them into boluses or just into sort of foil bags. That's the black line that you see where it drops down off significantly in terms of the survival of these microbes and then basically tails to nothing, I think, after about 40 days.
The red line is capsule in a capsule, and all microbial survival of microbes, they all drop off at some point, but this product will be designed that it's got at the 50% level enough of those bacteria and the bugs to still have an effect on the animal. This is really about transport, packaging, and this technology was developed more than 20 years ago. People have still not followed it, and this product, I think, grew about 70%, certainly in last year because it was being used to get the dairy cows through that period where they were catching avian influenza and try to nurse them back to production and productivity.
What's quite nice about, you know, having this position now in the dairy side is, in the past with Anpario, if avian influenza had got into a flock of birds, the birds would just be culled because it's cheaper to cull them, wipe them out, and try and eliminate the disease. You can't cull, you don't kill cows, they're too expensive. There's an even bigger job of disposing them, and so you have to try and nurse them back. There's a little bit of counter cyclicality here when there's an issue with avian influenza. I'd like to say that I obviously realized that a number of years ago when I started speaking to these guys, but this really came through sort of in the last year.
What we see there is, as I say, this technology that means that our products, and it's a little bit like the consistency level of Orego-Stim. We have the most consistent oregano oil on the market, which means consistent performance in the animals. This sort of thing, retaining that integrity of the microbial stability is important. I actually came across a product, actually in Ireland, that combines essential oils, I think fenugreek it was, with a probiotic. Someone I know who tested that product said that basically the microbes were all dead. They weren't there. They'd been obviously impacted. They were selling a product that farmers or vets thought was, had good microbial stability, whereas in fact it didn't have any, because of this exact problem.
That's a unique selling point that we feel will go down well internationally as well in certain countries where we can ship to. Just a little bit on these. These are just a number of photographs. I mean, again, I think that some of these probably would be on their website. We purchased a freehold. It's located about half an hour's drive west of Madison in Wisconsin. It's a big site, 3.5-acre site, and I think that's probably the U.S. acres as well. We basically can expand into that. We can put more, you know, there's probably a better warehousing and racking that we can put to even potentially take.
We currently use a number of different third-party warehouses, and one that will be not far from here, so we can potentially do some consolidation on that at some point. Really, some of it's different type of production. We can produce Orego-Stim liquid and powder there fairly quickly if we needed to. We don't need to do that at this point, but at some point we can. You see the current building's 25,000 sq ft, and there's the ability to add an additional 45,000 sq ft. It's a really good site, I think for $2.3 million, very good sort of value and investment for us for the future.
You know, this gives us, I don't know, 10 or 20 years of capacity when you combine that with the capacity we've still got in Worksop and Manton Wood. So I think that is just really it for the Bio-Vet side. Just trying to summarize now on the outlook. It's been a strong start to the year with an increasing sort of gross margin run rate as volumes have continued to sort of come through the production plan. We will, you know, obviously this year additionally benefit from a full year of Bio-Vet numbers in the thing because we just had the last quarter four last year. We are mindful of global trade conditions, and probably when we wrote these bullet points was back at the, in early or late March, so there has been some difference.
There's always something going on around the world, and we, you know, sometimes we get impacted with it. If we get impacted in one area, what you tend to find is there's a benefiting factor in another area. That's why we have that real diverse spread of geographic geographies, and now we're more species diverse and more product diverse. Avian influenza still may present some additional challenges. At the moment, we're not seeing anything major or big. You know, we don't feel that the tariffs are going to be a major thing once these things are smoothed out. I know there's a question on tariffs, and we'll come to that specifically because I think Marc has some numbers for the U.S.
as I said, these challenges reinforce why we do the deals like Bio-Vet to get and open up some of our synergies is to get more geographic diversity and species diversity, 'cause we can offset, you know, bad areas, weak areas with stronger areas. Overall, the demand for our products is expected to continue and, you know, to increase. We benefit gut health naturally, so things like antibiotics are going to need to be used less and less. Also, harmful chemicals like, as I say, formaldehyde, zinc oxide, those sorts of things. We all our products help improve production efficiency, and that's what we have to demonstrate to the farmer. As I say, we are replacing less desirable practices.
We have a strong cash position and, you know, we will continue to sort of seek complementary acquisition opportunities, whether it's strengthening our sales channels, bringing in another sort of product technology that is proven that has sales, or even you know, consolidating out some of our competitors where we can maybe bring in synergies by combining the production in either one of our production plants. That's another point about Bio-Vet. Having that platform and production facility there gives us, it makes it easier and gives another, you know, a bigger opportunity to maybe start to look at certain acquisitions within the U.S. that make sense where we can consolidate into the Barneveld site, and more volume we get through there, then it justifies putting more automation into the Barneveld site to really drive those benefits.
I'd just like to thank you for listening, and if we go back to the questions. Marc, do you,
Yeah, that's the end of the presentation. Yeah, that's the presentation. But we can see a number of questions that have come through. I think a lot of them are for me, Richard, so I'm happy to pick them up, and then I'll come back to you wherever.
Yeah.
If we first take the question from Peter M. How sustainable is the improved gross margin of 46.9% given the mix shift towards lower priced products? In terms of the mix shift towards lower priced products, it's really a return to a more similar mix to what we've had in the past. I don't necessarily see that as too detrimental to our ability to improve the margins. Obviously, it will have an impact, but generally the margin's improving. One of the things to say about that is particularly the acid-based eubiotics, which is quite a high volume area, then those products had an acute increase in their raw material pricing through some force majeure events on things like formic acid and propionic acid.
The margin on some of those products has improved at the same time. They are low-priced, but they are, you know, they are still differentiated, they still create good margins. What we do internally is we're focused on trying to generate 50% margin. That's if we take Bio-Vet separately for a second, that's, you know, the Anpario business, as it has been on a like-for-like basis. We've then got Bio-Vet which is, you know, producing a relatively consistent 55% gross margin level. That will improve the overall group margin anyway. As Richard said, as we're coming through this first few months of the year, we've seen an increase in the gross margin.
Generally, having a more stable pricing environment enables us to, you know, to be more assured in terms of the margin. Sales mix is usually one of the largest drivers. We've still got the opportunity to improve margins through increased efficiency through the factory. If we get more volume, then we'll get, you know, the gearing and the operational efficiency coming through from that. So there's more to add from that and there's more generally. You know, we have continued to look to put price increases through in this H1 of the year.
I think, you know, we are, you know, as we've gone through this year, we've seen an improved gross margin and, you know, we would expect to be able to deliver a margin higher than that 46.9%. Targeting a 50% margin on that like-for-like. Bio-Vet producing a 55%. And I think that, you know, the only thing to that is, you know, there's a question on foreign exchange. We've got some short-term, you know, short to medium-term mitigation hedging in place, which I can come and talk on that question. There is a bit of a headwind there, but at the same time, you know, we see ourselves as a, you know, a business that can produce higher margins.
You know, the products are high value add and should be able to generate those kind of returns and that is the focus for us as a business. Had we not increased those margins then, you know, the performance of the business would be nowhere near the recovery that we've achieved through this period. Moving on. Another question from Peter M. Can you elaborate on how recent price reductions might impact margins going forward? Again, as I've just been saying in terms of margins going forward, we would be expecting and targeting and have been seeing improved margins. And in terms of the price, the pricing of the products, then it's not necessarily that we've given price discounts to customers.
It's more that some of the organic growth has gone to higher volume. As you would expect, a customer buying a higher volume of products would get a lower price. When I was talking through that slide about overall price reductions, then that's taken across the whole range of products. Even within that, there are areas of growth that we've seen big customers getting slightly better prices. But as again, as I said on that slide, the actual gross profit that we've been producing across all the product classes has increased through this period in spite of the fact that. We've got to talk. There's a question about the production shifts and say this site can produce more than double.
It can, you know, go 2.5-3 times the volume that it can produce that it's producing currently. We are keen to make sure we're driving top line growth, but at a high margin. Yeah, if we can get back to that 50% great, but if we can hold it as close to that and drive volume growth and drive the overall profitability of the business, then we'll look to do that as well.
I think, Marc, just on that point as well, it's also, you gotta be mindful that higher value products, for example, you know, we sell some products at maybe GBP 1,000 per ton. And there we would be saying, "Well, you know, we need a 50% margin, so that's 500, you know, pound gross profit." But we could be selling a product that's GBP 10,000 a ton. And if you start to say, you know, we need 50% margin on some of those products, it may get too prohibitive. So, you know, we'd be making 10 times the profit. But so you may do it. So it may be that we have to make a margin of 30%, but our gross profit pounds per ton is still very significant.
We look at those two metrics when we're pricing and when we're looking. I mean, the ideal is a high value add product with as high a margin as you can get. You don't always get that opportunity. We manage those two metrics, the margin percentage and the gross profit pounds per ton. Sorry, Marc. Go on.
No problem. Okay, moving on to the question from Paul S. The board have not made any significant share purchases for some while. Does that reflect the view that you think the shares are fully valued? The board have picked up shares over this last 12-month period. Richard and Karen have exercised their options, their EMI options. And similarly, through this post the announcement, LTIP awards that vested and
Yeah, Marc, I think it cost me-
Yeah.
It cost me about GBP 120,000, I think. Was it December or something?
Yeah. I mean, overall, if you look at it, then the board have added 0.6% of the share capital, you know, in the last, you know, Richard and Karen, that was in December, myself in April. So we are highly aligned. You know, we've not sold any of those shares. We've acquired them because we believe in the long term, you know, long term growth. A lot of companies you might see one LTIP awards vest or other option awards, you know, at the very least, quite often directors will sell to cover the tax burden. But, you know, myself, Karen, and Richard have not been doing that. We've certainly not been selling any shares.
I've been acquiring shares consistently every year, granted, you know, maybe at a lower level. The board, I think the board own near enough 3% in held shares. You know, we've got the JSOP scheme, which does align us very closely on driving and delivering shareholder value. There have been purchases and increased commitments from the board. You know, as I said, we're very aligned and looking to for the benefit of all, you know, shareholders, stakeholders driving the value of the business forward.
We don't feel that the shares are fully valued, just to answer that question.
No, exactly.
The last-
If we thought they were fully valued, then you know we probably wouldn't you know can't give advice. You know if we thought they were fully valued, then we would perhaps look to sell some of those shares through those various exercises. If we get
Marc, to make a point, though, the last time we did GBP 7 million EBITDA, the share price was over GBP 7 or at GBP 7. But this time around, we've got 18% less shares in issue as well because we did that tender offer. That's why we feel as the value's not fully there.
Yeah, I mean, generally, yeah, in terms of the markets then, you know, we're hearing some hopeful signs that there's gonna be more inflows into U.K. markets and that will help as well, just generally across all, you know, all shares on the U.K. market, you know, them being more appropriately valued. There we go. Don't wanna speculate too much on why the market.
Um.
NG, I don't know if this question, Richard, is for you.
Yeah. Question, which of Bio-Vet's products are priorities for global rollout? Well, hopefully I've answered that. It was those four. It was, you know, obviously the probiotic, the capsule-in-a-capsule, the electrolytes, and the calcium boluses. If we were to pick one that we think has got some real good opportunity and that we've already got feedback from places like Vietnam, Middle East, I think India actually as well, fairly recently, is the calcium boluses. There's quite a good story behind that. All of those, to varying degrees, will be pushed into targeted regions. Actually, the boluses as well, I think in Brazil, when Andrew was there a few weeks ago, there's an opportunity. Yeah, those are the ones that we're gonna focus on.
Okay. I'll pick up Roger F's question. I know that in 2024, you moved to a two-shift working. Are you still on two-shift working, and is it practical to go to three-shift working? Is there generally adequate availability of labor? I mean, yeah, we did. We've ran three shifts in the past firstly, so absolutely we can go to three shifts. Through the reduction in volumes over the last couple of years then, we actually ended up consolidating onto single shifts for about a year. You know, due to the higher volume requirements then, that expanded to two. When I say two shift working, I think we've got five production lines.
When we work in one shift, we were operating all five lines at the same time. When we moved back up to a two-shift working, it wasn't that we went to two shifts working the five-line production lines all the time. It's not quite like that. We've got, we're not quite having doubled the production hours across the lines by going to that two shifts. There's still room to grow within that two-shift working by operating more of the lines. As I said, we can go to three-shift working. I think if you include weekends and stuff, then you can get more hours out of it still. There's still lots of capacity to grow the business.
Because the factory is quite highly automated for those that have seen it, then it does reduce the manual labor requirements. If we do, you know, if we did require additional labor, then generally, you know, it is available in the local area. You know, we're quite close to where the headquarters of Wilko used to be. You know, it's been generally an improved situation, following their closure to get labor. Generally, you know, if we need to grow the business, it's a function of increasing man-hours, which is available and just, you know, operating the automated production lines, you know, for more hours in the day.
As well, you know, it's, you know, I would encourage anyone that would like to come to get in contact with us and see how, you know, how efficient we can be as an operation. Moving on to the next question. Roger F, do you envision any important marketing, market planning of PMCs this year, Richard?
That basically actually urea formaldehyde. It's basically wood glue, which can be used as a pellet binder in aquaculture. We're not specifically aware of any countries, but what tends to happen is the India trade deal is a cracking example. I think the deal is we'll be selling sort of shellfish and salmon to India, and they will be selling shrimp back into the U.K. market. If they've got to sell into Europe and the U.K. market, then they can't use PMCs. One of our big opportunities we think in India, and that's why the guys are out there now into the agriculture market, is our pellet binder Mastercube.
It's really where the shrimp has been devoured or eaten that the regulation is sort of biting. You know, we do see that things like, you know, urea formaldehyde will gradually hopefully reduce in other regions. You know, I think that's some part like Honduras supply shrimp into some of the U.K., Europe, and I think the U.S. have banned PMCs as well. It. I can't specifically say, you know, how quick or how fast that will go or through other areas, but the trend is in the right direction for that product for sure. Marc, there's another one from Roger.
Okay. Roger's next question then. What is the criteria for entering the JSOP? Is it by length of service and job grade? The JSOP's been in operation since around 2011. Through that time period, it's mostly been for the Executive Board, but it's also been utilized for members of the Executive Management Team. The Executive Management Team includes, you know, the Production Director, Sarah. The Production Director, which is Shane Bailey, which some of you may have met. Sarah Osborne, who's the, you know, sort of group marketing and technical director. Then Andrew, who's the Group Commercial Director, as well as, you know, Richard, myself, and Karen.
Those individuals, you know, the JSOP scheme is there to retain good quality management, and to align people to, you know, shareholder value creation. If you look across those people, then, you know, I've been here 15 years. Richard nearly 20 years. Karen, similar to me, so around 15, 16 years. Sarah. Shane longer than that. Andrew similarly around 10 years. You know, it's very effective in terms of retention, and, you know, motivating those people to stay on board and be aligned with growing this business and backing and putting in the hard effort and retaining those individuals. It's typically reserved for those individuals. Are you planning. Another question from Roger F.
Are you planning to open up further subsidiaries overseas this year? We've not opened one for a couple of years. I think we are in all of the large markets that we want to. I wouldn't rule out opening up more, but it's certainly not the intention at this moment. You know, we've gone through a period over the last sort of 10 years of establishing subsidiaries where we want to be operating directly in, and they are, you know, the large key agricultural markets. Outside of that, you know, we've kind of gone through the distributors, and the distributors we're working with, they are, you know, we now call them partner distributors, where we're working with them and driving the end customer sale, and having that relationship as well.
It's not to say that we wouldn't rule it out, but no, there's no further plans to do that. We've got the operational footprint that we want. The plan now is to more go deeper into those specific territories and open up further growth. Okay. Moving on to another question from Roger S. I confess I'm having a mental block on this, but I note that in the full year results in the cash flow, there was an inflow from the issuance of shares of GBP 1 million and an outflow of GBP 656,000 to the JSOP. In interims, the proceeds of issuance shares was 656, and the outflow to the JSOP was the same amount of 656. Why the difference in those figures in H2?
Well, the issuance of shares includes the amounts that Richard and Karen purchased. They have EMI options and they exercise their option to purchase those. The difference between the GBP 1 million and 656 includes that, and there was another individual within the business that exercised some options within that they held that were close to expiring. The 656 was the inflow and the outflow to the JSOP. It's kind of a back-to-back situation. The rest was option awards, including those to Karen and Richard that they acquired and obviously the proceeds flowed into the business. Sat P, how will the lower US dollar impact your business?
In terms of dollar, then if you could revisit it for a second, which I'll come back to, then we've got a We've always typically had around 40% of our revenue in dollars. To be honest, in terms of purchasing or administrative costs, then there's not, you know, there's not a whole lot to offset that dollar inflow. We are exposed on US dollars. Generally, we've got excess dollars and a shortage of euros. Then, you know, there's a number of other currencies around the subsidiaries which have an impact as well. An increase in the Cable rate, you know, GBP/USD will have a negative impact on the revenue, and therefore, you know, flowing through the P&L.
We, you know, we're very conscious of this as a business, and we have, you know, financial instruments so foreign exchange hedges in place to mitigate that. We tend to go out 2-3 years with those hedging. That should enable us to offset the impact on the short- to medium-term. You can't really mitigate longer-term trends.
What we can do as a business, and this is why we have that hedging over a number of years, is as rates increase or move against us, then as we look to implement future price rises, then we can we've got a couple of years to manage that dollar price, and hike it up a little bit more, to offset the impact of exchange rate changes. Moving on, another question from Sat P. How will U.S. tariff impact your business? Hopefully, U.S.-U.K. trade deal will help. Well, we'll see what happens at 3:00. Hopefully, that it'll be good news. The tariff situation is obviously quite dynamic. What we can be sure of, you know, is the more short-term and direct impact.
If you look at it either last year, so 2024, or for the average of the last five years, then the increase in the tariffs between the U.K., U.S. would have reduced profit before tax by GBP 190,000. But that's before you include the corporation tax change. If we did nothing else, then corporation tax in the U.S. would be lower. And I think the net impact is about GBP 140,000 sterling for profit after tax of those tariffs. There are things that we can do to mitigate them. I mean, hopefully, you know, we'll hear some positive news. We've slowed down. You know, because we generally hold high levels of stocks in the subsidiaries anyway.
We have been sending stuff to the U.S. since the tariffs have been announced, but at a lower level than we would have necessarily normally done. There are other options that we've got. Richard talked about the fact that the Bio-Vet production site can produce Orego-Stim, and that's around half of what we sell within the U.S. market. That can help, you know, reduce the tariff impact there. There, you know, there are generally other things that we can look at doing to kind of mitigate as much as possible those tariff impacts. The best thing for everybody would be for a trade deal to go in place. In terms of tariffs more generally, then clearly there are some indirect and longer-term impacts.
You know, things like container availability, which I'm sure will start to have an impact. It's harder to quantify some of those. You know, as a business, we don't envisage the tariffs, the tariff situation in the U.S. will have a you know, a material negative effect on us. Bill H. How have you arrived at the price for Bio-Vet? Was it the result of an auction? Are there any comparative benchmarks to reassure shareholders that you have not overpaid? I think firstly, there was a competitive process, so there was us and another bidder. As Richard said, he's been speaking to the business since 2017.
I think you know there was a lot of cultural fit between the businesses, and I think you know the founder who unfortunately died through the process you know did see that you know we would be a good fit and as well. For us, you know, it would make it the home of the U.S. operations. They did align with that and see that there was opportunities for Bio-Vet to grow within the Anpario Group on a global basis as well. There was a long process that Richard's been going through and discussing it with them.
In terms of arriving at the price, as you would expect, you know, we, you know, do modeling in terms of discounted cash flow and various different things. That was done at a point, you know, March, April last year. You know, Bio-Vet generally been growing and improving performance for a number of years. They believed that they were just on the cusp of achieving higher growth, and so that's why we put the contingent consideration element in.
If you even look at that, you know, as I said, the target on which we'd sort of ran the modeling and the discounted cash flow and obviously checked that there was shareholder value creation possible, was done before that boost that they've seen through this avian influenza challenge and the increased demand for their product. If you look at it, they had $800,000 sterling target and they achieved $0.4 million. Sorry, $800,000 dollar target for EBITDA for a 12-month period, and they've produced $0.4 million in just 3 months. They're performing exceptionally well, and you know, we'd love to.
I think, Marc, just on the benchmarking, you know, there aren't many deals in this sector happening at the moment. People are sat on their hands. You know, a number of years ago, the multiples were higher than what we paid for Bio-Vet. We certainly don't think we've overpaid. We think we've got a fair good deal. It came with the property as well. You know, we were able to buy the property as well. You know, to get that position, we feel it was a good deal.
We wouldn't, you know, a lot of reasons why we haven't done many deals over the last number of years is because there have been some very high valuations in this sector. It's calmed down a bit now, but now everyone's sat on their hands probably waiting for those valuations to come back. As I say, I can, yeah, reassure you, we think we've got it for, you know, a good, fair price.
Richard, do you want to come in?
Yeah. Bit from Bill H. again. In terms of the long term, say 5-10 years, do you see the Americas overtaking Asia to become the biggest market for Anpario's products? Probably if you'd asked me that a year ago, I might have said yes, but with India. I was out in India in August. From what we see in India is, you know, we feel India's wants to be a Brazil, and it's got the resources and capability to be a Brazil in terms of producing significant amount of meat protein, such as chicken in particular, and them being a big exporter and a big industry for them. And shrimp exporters, as I already explained. Actually, I think that the biggest dairy. I think they have the biggest dairy herd in the world.
It's just that most of these herds are two cows in someone's backyard that we're actually supplying. They haven't started to industrialize to the level that obviously Brazil and the U.S. have. It could equally be with what we're doing in the U.S. with Bio-Vet and getting into there and certain things in Mexico and Latin America we're doing that it could take over Asia. Our Asia region covers China, Australia, yeah, and Australasia as well, and Papua New Guinea. It's quite a big area that's covering it. It's difficult to say. I think, as I say, India is the one that will surprise people, I think, going forward. I'm not bothered so long as they all grow as quickly as possible.
Um, Peter D-
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll take this one. So what level of savings do you anticipate following integration of Bio-Vet's back office systems? Would you describe it as a minor or significant? It's definitely in the minor category, as Richard kind of already said. There's no immediate rush to do anything. They've got a very good systems and controls in place. We're gonna be looking to, as you'd expect, move them onto our systems, but really look to have that office in Barneveld in Wisconsin as the home of the U.S. operations. Yeah, there will be minor savings as we, you know, pay less. You know, we don't have two different operating systems, two different ERP systems, two different CRM systems, et cetera. But they're definitely in the minor category.
you know, they're not. They've got good systems and controls in place, so it's a case of doing that at the right moment and in the right way. There's no rush either for savings or to improve their operating environment.
Um-
The last one.
I'll do this, Marc.
Yeah.
You can chip in. Just from Roger F: When asked why you have so few institutional investors, what answer do you give? I think, there's a couple of reasons. One is some of the institutions sold out on the tender offer at £2.25, which was smart of them. We did actually have one institution say, "We're selling out at the tender offer because we think there'll be an overhang and then your share price will be cheaper." He's still not back on the you know on the shareholder register. The other reason is, we haven't had to raise any money since 2009, and a lot of the funds...
We do speak to funds and some of the, you know, some of the well-known small-cap and micro-cap funds. They would like to get in. They would like to buy in, but if they try to buy off the market, there's not the liquidity. They can't get a hold of the stock and there's not big volumes that are selling at, you know, around the GBP 4 mark. It's difficult for some of those institutions. You know, we've had countless meetings where they would like to get a share, but it's very hard for them to get in. They've got to start buying small amounts, and some of these small-cap funds have got GBP 800 million or GBP 1 billion in funds and, you know, they would.
The minimum they want is sort of 1% of that fund, which could be GBP 8 million. It's very different. We haven't had to raise money. A lot of them, we see, in case we did need to raise money, and they sort of wait until we do that. We hope that, you know, some of them can start buying in smaller chunks and maybe build up from that. That is the AIM liquidity issue. As I say, we did probably have four institutions, I think, at least four that sold out in the tender offer, for various reasons. Some that had redemptions in their funds and had to sell. Others were because our market cap was too low.
We were down at below GBP 50 million and that, to be honest, the minimum for these institutions now is probably GBP 200 million, and that's the problem on the AIM market. You know, if someone buys in at GBP 50 million and we go to GBP 200 million, that's 4x the money. It's potentially more chance of doing that than a GBP 200 million maybe going to GBP 800 million. You know, we keep seeing them because you know, if we needed to raise money to do a more sizable acquisition, then we would need their support. There may be an institution that needs to sell, and they can then pick up the shares. I think at this price, the problem is there aren't many sellers willing to sell at the
in big amounts at this level. I think that's it. That's the last of the questions. Thanks.
Richard
taking your time. On that note.
Richard and Marc, if I may just.
Yeah.
Thank you for taking the time to address all those questions you have for investors. Of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Richard, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments?
Yeah. Look, firstly, thank you for your time and listening to us. You know, we have gone through, you know, a couple of difficult years, but we still made a profit. This company is very resilient because we built it geographically, we built its species to be diverse, and also product diverse. There are some good opportunities coming up in the global agri market. As I said, India we see as one and Asia continuing to do so. With Bio-Vet, we've got, you know, a lot of opportunity to take their products more internationally and develop combination products with our phytogenics technology and Bio-Vet's probiotic technology. You know, we're well invested. We've got a richness of product opportunities.
You do get ups and downs because, you know, we are working in war zones in, well, in India being a case in point. We, you know, we're still supplying, I think, into Syria and Yemen and Iraq. You know, and then you've got obviously Trump and the tariffs. We've always been able to sort of compensate for the downs in one area with a positive. I think, you know, we're a good, diverse business, resilient and a good growth business for the long term. Hopefully, those that are investors have seen a decent return and appreciate the dividend. Those of you who aren't, take a closer look at us and invest.
Thank you for your time.
Richard and Marc, thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close the session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This may only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Anpario plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation and good morning to you all.