Some Q&A afterwards to address any questions and concerns that the audience might have. Without further ado, I will hand over to Andy Gossage.
Thanks, Hannah, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for your time this morning. I just want to, I suppose, add some color, further color to the trading update that we released on Monday. I want to go back to our previous update, which was end of October, just before the budget. Back then, we talked about cautious optimism. Cautious because we could see that we'd had a difficult start to the year, and we were looking at a difficult H1. I think we articulated that on the equity development call at the time. We were optimistic because we could see direction of travel, and we could see that through the order book that, as we went through the year, we were expecting to see improvements.
The question was, and we talked about this on that call, was, would the improvements be sufficient to compensate for that tricky start? That narrative continued right through the way to the beginning of January. Beginning of January, we had an order book for H2 that was up 24%, and that cautious optimism remained. I think January is always an interesting month in the business because the peak trading, the run-up to Christmas, is such an important period, of course, for our retailers. When they come back from Christmas, we spend January talking to our retailers, reviewing sort of external data. There is quite a lot of trading updates that are issued in the early to mid-part of January. There is quite a lot of sort of macro data that are released by the likes of the BRC and the ONS.
We have our trade shows right now, actually, Birmingham Spring Fair and Ambiente in Frankfurt. We get a lot of face time at those shows. Typically, we release trading updates after those shows, once we've got a real feel for how retailers are seeing life. Because if they've had a strong Christmas and their inventory levels are in a good place, then we're taking orders from the 2nd of January. If that's not the case, then it's harder. What we saw this year was, this January was, I mean, really, Christmas wasn't too bad overall for most retailers, and their inventory positions, we believe, are there or thereabouts. What's changed this year is sentiment is very negative. Retailers are understandably very concerned about the impact of the minimum wage and NI on their P&L.
It is not really a point in time where retailers are feeling very risk-on in terms of ordering stock from suppliers like ourselves. I would say the sentiment in January was possibly as negative as I have seen it over the years that I have been in the business. That was evidenced more tangibly through the movements in our order book, which went from up 24% for H2 at the beginning of the month to up 13% at the end of the month. Chris and I made a decision that we would not wait till we could see direction of travel. We would not wait until after the shows because we had enough information, and we released our trading update earlier. I think that, obviously, is very, very disappointing and disappointing for shareholders.
I think, though, underlying those headlines is, I think, more room for cautious optimism because the direction of travel is still the same. It's just not to the degree that we were expecting. We have seen improvements of trade as we've gone through the year. We do expect H2 to grow. We do have a developing international business, which maybe 18 months ago we were accused by, I say not unreasonably, by some investors that our international story was a good story, but ultimately theoretical at this stage. We are now delivering on our international plans, and we can see the growth in international in H1 and indeed in our H2 order book. What are we expecting for FY25? I'd just like to talk you through where we got to that guidance of GBP 14 million-GBP 16 million.
Fundamentally, we expect sort of flat revenue, broadly stable gross margin with the exception of the shipping cost, which I'll come on to in a minute, and then a flat overhead line. By the way, just on that overhead line, this will be, we believe, the third year that we've held our overheads flat, which I think you'll find pretty unusual for a consumer business given the inflationary headwinds that there are on overheads. Also, particularly given that during that period, we have increased our investment in marketing spend, which goes through that line. Last year, GBP 18 million of the. A similar P&L for this year we would expect, except we've got GBP 2 million of one-off shipping costs.
For those who were not on the previous call back in November, we saw in response to the closure of the Red Sea last year, we saw a spike in shipping costs. Spot rates went from about $1,500 up to a peak of about $9,000. The shipping lines have now adapted to sailing around Africa, and rates are back down to about $2,500 at the moment. We expect going forward that on a round Africa basis, rates will be in a range of $2,000-$2,500, which is within a normalized range if you look over the long term. Eighteen million EBITDA, less than $2 million for shipping, sixteen million EBITDA. Now, why have we guided on $14 million-$16 million? We do have a lot going on in Q4.
We have quite a number of large product launches into European retail between now and our year-end end of July, about a couple of dozen. Just over half of those are scheduled for Q4. Now, those launches are scheduled and agreed with the relevant retailers, and we've obtained double confirmation that they're going ahead on those dates. Being an accountant like I am, I'm always a bit nervous about Q4 activity because it never takes much for it to slip into Q1. That is why we've guided on for a 14-16 range, just in case of that. I mean, just on those product launches, whether or not they—and we are reasonably confident they'll happen in Q4—these are fundamentally very positive developments because if these launches work and we'd be in the wrong game if I didn't think they did, we're a great product business.
If they work, then they will lead to escalating repeats, which will, of course, be for the benefits of FY26 and beyond. Okay, that's all I want to say at the moment. We have also highlighted, which I suspect not much of it will be a surprise to investors. We've highlighted the impact of National Insurance on the business, about GBP 300,000 a year on a full-year effect. We have also highlighted the impact of the EPR legislation, which we believe will be sort of GBP 300,000-500,000 a year, albeit that's on an unmitigated basis. We will be doing a lot of work to mitigate both those costs through the sort of continued productivity initiatives and automation. I'm just going to hand over to Chris Dent because I believe there were some questions around the share buyback, which Chris is going to answer now.
Thanks, Andy. Yes, we had a couple of questions in on the levels of the buybacks. Some of the very eagle-eyed people have spotted that we've been doing slightly less than GBP 1 million in the previous quarter. I want to make clear that when we make an announcement and when we have an agreement with brokers, that is up to a certain level. The amount that we quote in an announcement is the max and not necessarily the target. The reasoning behind the buyback is to return excess capital within our capital allocation framework. Overall, our policy is to be maintaining net debt at around one times adjusted EBITDA. First of all, to ensure that the business has enough capital.
If that capital is needed either for investment in tangible assets or investment in mergers and acquisitions, and most importantly, investment in relation to working capital, that's what the business first needs. Secondly is to distribute 50% of our profits as a dividend. Finally, to top up or have any excess distributed via share buybacks. The level of that share buyback is in relation to the excess capital which we are holding. Over the course of the period, we'd want to sort of moderate that so that we are, in essence, dripping and doing a constant sort of like buy in the market rather than doing a stop and a start.
Now, what happened over October to December is that working capital peaked, meaning that our net debt also peaked above the level of GBP 20 million, which meant our ratio of 12-month rolling adjusted EBITDA to net debt peaked at above that one times level, which we're looking for in our capital allocation policy. Therefore, we moderated down the level of the share buyback, but didn't cease it altogether. Obviously, the interesting question within that is why did sort of like working capital and net debt peak over the course of the autumn? There are really four reasons in relation to that. The first is that October to December is peak trading. We always see a peak during that period. Over the course of the year, our working capital and hence net debt will actually go from a peak to a trough of around GBP 15 million.
Quite a significant peak upwards and downwards. The second reason is that we're actually seeing growth in accounts which are landed rather than FOB. This means that we're bringing the goods into the U.K. for those customers rather than selling them to them in China. That shift increases our requirement for working capital. The third and the fourth reason are both related to the close of the Red Sea, which Andy mentioned earlier. The first of those is that freight rate peaked following the closure of the Red Sea. That meant that in our inventory during that period, we were carrying those GBP 2 million of extra costs before they worked their way through to the income statement. That we obviously see as a transitory amount of sort of like investment in working capital, but it did sort of like reach GBP 2 million over the period.
The fourth reason is in relation to the amount of time that things are on the sea now. Going around Africa rather than through the Red Sea is taking roughly 50% longer. It went from about 30 days, actually reached a peak of about 55 days, probably around 45 days at the moment. That meant that on water, we had about GBP 5 million extra. That is called goods in transit, sort of like in accounting terms. We had an extra GBP 5 million in relation to working capital on that. Obviously, we are very pleased with a ceasefire being declared sort of like in the Middle East. What will be helpful for our business is also that the Red Sea fully reopens. The first benefit of that is downward pressure on freight rates, which helps our gross margin.
Also, the reduction in freight time helped sort of like reduce those working capital requirements. And those working capital requirements really are the key driver behind our net debt and the amount of sort of like excess capital that there is available for those share buybacks.
Great. Thank you. That's helpful, kind of through, I know, some of the initial questions we had. Right, some more. How is the situation in Europe different to the U.K.?
Oh, in what respect, I guess, would be the?
I would imagine in terms of.
Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of the overall environment in Europe, it is pretty similar to the U.K. in the sense of sort of softness of demand for discretionary non-foods, obviously driven like it has been in the U.K. over the last couple of years by the cost of living crisis and food inflation. We often, to the extent we have a cycle, it's often countercyclical to food inflation. When food inflation's high, the consumer's basket is relatively fixed. So when there's high food inflation, there's typically less space in the basket for discretionary non-foods like the product that we sell. Very, very similar environments. Obviously, things like National Insurance may be not affecting it. It does not affect Europe, but overall, similar environments, discretionary non-foods struggling. I think that for us, though, we are tiny in Europe.
Europe is very much a huge market for us, even if it is slightly smaller than it was 12 months ago, it is still an enormous market. We have a tiny, tiny fraction of market share. It really is, we do feel with our European opportunity, which is looking more tangible now. I listened very carefully to those investors 18 months, two years ago that said, "Andy, nice in theory, but loads of U.K. consumer businesses have tried to expand internationally and failed. Come back when you start to deliver on it." I thought that was fair enough. We are starting to deliver on it. You can see that already even in the FY25 numbers, despite the disappointments, we are delivering on it. We feel that we are on the bottom rung of what is a very long ladder.
Okay, sticking with Europe, the EU online strategy was due to be presented to the board in January. How's that progressing?
Yes. I mean, there's been a tweak in our approach with online. I guess with international generally, we're doubling down on our two key brands, Salz and Belgrade. They are fabulous brands with fantastic stories to tell. European consumers, and when we did the market research, do not hate the British despite Brexit. They have a high regard for British products and British brands. We are sort of doubling down on Salz and Belgrade in terms of our investments into the EU. Amazon is a key platform for us. We have credible brand stores already across DE, FR, IT, and ES on Amazon. We're going to invest a bit more in products. The range on those platforms is a bit wider than it is now.
Of course, we're very experienced with utilizing the Amazon platform and utilizing the brand management tools that are embedded in that platform and the sales driving tools, which are also embedded in that platform. The great thing is we know what we're doing because we're good at what we do. We're in the process of deploying that across Amazon EU as well.
Okay. You talked about the order book in your trading update. How much visibility of future sales can it provide if it can change so materially?
Chris, do you want me to do this or do you want to jump in?
No, I mean, I can jump in on that. I mean, in any given period, obviously, you're building up a sort of like order book. That is starting to tell you something about the individual customers who are ordering and sentiment sort of like overall. We will go into the year at the moment with between 40-60% of the order book for the sort of like second half of the year. Around 60% for Q3 and about 40% for Q4. That is telling you something, but it's not obviously telling you the absolute and sort of like full picture. Within any given month when we enter it, we probably have about 80% of the order book there.
You are right, there are sort of like mathematical sort of like modelings and calculations which you can do to try and show you exactly how that is going to behave. What that is almost needing is sort of like all customers to be behaving the same, the customers who order early and the customers who order late, and for people to be sort of like following the same patterns and sentiment to remain the same. Going into this year, we are there and looking at it mathematically going, "Right, okay, I can see what my order book has been. I can see what it has been previously. And therefore, this is what I'm expecting it to be." However, once those mathematical models are starting to hit sort of like reality, then you're ending up with sort of like more real data.
This is the point which Andy was making about when you're coming into January. At that point, you're starting to no longer just be relying on a mathematical model. At that point, you're relying on feedback and data that you're getting from your customers about how they are feeling, about how they have traded over the course of Christmas, about how they have traded and how they're looking about trading over the sort of like next six months and the opportunities that are there for UP. With an order book, yes, it is giving you a certain amount of information about future trading, but it cannot and will never give you the full amount of picture that you have until you reach that month's trading, until you're really speaking and knowing how your sort of like retailers are feeling.
Just to add to what Chris has said there, we are entering that phase of the year where our larger retailers are very large retailers because they order on a much longer lead time. They're increasingly kind of closed for FY25, and they're actually placing orders for FY26 now because it's a much longer lead time. The larger contributor to the balance of the order book for and balance of revenue for FY25 will be smaller retailers who tend to order a bit more hand-to-mouth, often from stock and also online. I think with those two, of course, we have to come to a view as to where the revenues will be for those, but it tends to be within a range. Whereas sometimes with larger retailers, it can be a bit more binary.
You either win the order and it's a big number, or you don't and it's zero. With those two revenue streams, it can fluctuate, of course, but it's typically within a range. With online, we do feel online has had a pretty tough period, mainly because of air fryer comparatives. We've now seen online firm up. December and January, we saw the first months of year-on-year growth, monthly year-on-year growth for a while. We are confident that that will act as a firmish underpin of revenue and further orders over the balance of FY25.
You brought up air fryers, Andy, not me. Which product categories are strong and weak?
Yeah, we were hoping to leave air fryers firmly in FY 24, but unfortunately, the last of the boom was really Q1, FY 25. We do have that. We are confident that impact on the comps is behind us now. It is the sort of moderation of demands that is pretty across the board, really, in terms of products and product areas. I mean, Chris, would you agree with that? It is reasonably broad spread, I would say.
It is reasonably broad spread. I mean, one point I may sort of like bring out is that last year, we did see sort of like the benefit of quite a lot of clearance packages, which clearance packages are great. It is sort of like where our business sort of like started off. They were a symptom of sort of like the overstocks. We did sort of like take the benefit of those last year, which sort of like helped tactically sort of like with our numbers last year. We did see a peak in those in FY24.
They have certainly gone down more in FY25 than other categories, which for us is good for the sort of like the long-term strength of the business because we want to build on our own brands rather than sort of like having that clearance business of selling other people's brands. Obviously, it will always remain there as part of the business doing between 5 and 10, but that's an area of the business which is down more significantly because of the end of the overstocks.
Okay. That will nicely answer the question. Has the destocking headwind disappeared? Are they moving, I guess, in the other direction to an understocking situation?
I think that would be maybe a bit too much to hope for. I think that would be fantastic. I mean, you should never lose sight of the fact we are on the wholesale side. Our revenues in the short term can be heavily influenced by retailer inventory levels. We do see quite a lot of, and there can be an irony, by the way, that we can end up selling more stock in a more difficult environment because if retailers are risk-off, not ordering forward, then inevitably that leaves gaps. There can be, sort of counterintuitively, bigger opportunities in that kind of market to sell from stock. We think retailer inventories are pretty normalized. I would not want to go any further than that.
I think they worked incredibly hard over November, December because it was a tough trading environment to deliver the revenues that they did, which we saw in the various trading updates in January. That is not, again, when it comes to fundamentals, that is not a bad place to be. We had a really difficult couple of years, calendar year 22 and calendar year 23, where everyone seemed to be overstocked as a result of kind of buying off the back of a COVID boom, which then moderated. That was a very challenging period to manage a wholesale business on the wholesale side through. It is fundamentally good, but we do have this quite negative sentiment, which is inevitably and understandably meaning that retailers are being quite risk-averse with their ordering.
Are you expecting any indirect impact, positive or negative, from the threat of a tariff war raised by the US?
I would say it's pretty, I mean, not obviously so. We've seen over the last couple of years Chinese manufacturers pivoting to prioritizing the U.K. and Europe as exporting to America has become progressively more difficult. I mean, this latest round of tariffs on Chinese goods into America are on top of quite big increases over the last couple of years. I think politically, a lot of American consumer businesses and retailers are trying to diversify away from China. That has led to a sort of reprioritization because it was always, imagine like a factory production line. We've got our 10,000 units scheduled in. Then in comes Walmart with a 100,000 unit order. Guess which one they prioritize. I think we've seen that. We've seen that China itself is having some economic challenges. Its export business to America has been negatively affected.
We're seeing that in terms of kind of slightly softer factory gate pricing. That's welcome because during 2021, for example, we did see quite rapid factory gate inflation when sort of the post-COVID boom was kicking in. Some positives there. I think in the medium term, we always say that we do have our biggest risk is territorial reliance on China. If the large American buyers do manage to set up supply chains outside of China, that might be a way in the medium term for us to diversify by piggybacking off the work that they do there. I think there will be plenty of bumps in the road on that for them. I'm quite happy for them to have the growing pains on that while we watch from the sidelines and maybe move a bit later.
I think with these situations, you just never know. It's the Donald Rumsfeld unknown unknowns, isn't it? It's kind of what are the ripples that Donald Trump has taken quite a few big rocks and thrown them into the pond. It's clearly a very deliberate strategy. Some would argue it's been quite effective, but it does create ripples that you can't see right now. I guess going back to the question, nothing obvious at the moment, but we need to watch the situation quite closely. I do think, picking up what Chris said before, that the glimmer of a decent-sized upside, and I know we know it's top of the president's list of priorities, is if the ceasefire holds in Gaza and I'll let the people on this call make their own judgments on that, I'm not going to call Middle East geopolitics.
If it does hold, the Houthis have said quite clearly they've already stopped attacking shipping, the Houthis. They will continue to stop attacking shipping. That might lead to the Red Sea reopening. It will go from 45-55 day shipments, 27. It will lead to a collapse in shipping rates, I firmly believe. As Chris illustrated before, quite a significant working capital benefit, which could feed into things like capital allocation framework and the like.
Okay. There's a couple of questions here that I think are trying to get to the root of the timing of the trading update, focusing both on the extended producer responsibility legislation impacting margins and movements in shipping rates, obviously low in October, peaking in December, falling from the beginning of January. I guess how much both of those have impacted the downgrade from Monday and at which point you became aware of all of these impacts?
Those two factors, first of all, we were probably the earliest, I feel, in telling the market about things. The shipping crisis back in 21, we were months ahead of everyone else in terms of highlighting that as an issue. That was also the case with this kind of mini shipping crisis in calendar year 24. We were having conversations about it and we disclosed this in our trading updates at the end of October. Reduced, by the way. I think that would be an unfair criticism, I believe, because we've always been way ahead of other people on that. The impact of the NI and the EPR is really a 2026 challenge. I think us quantifying those numbers sort of six months before the start of that financial year, I think, is fair enough.
The EPR, by the way, it's really important that people understand that. I think we've been there's not a lot of R&Ss mentioning EPR, right? There's a lot of people out there facing seven-figure or even eight-figure challenges when it comes to EPR. You won't see there aren't many R&Ss yet. We're quite early on in highlighting this more widely to the market, even though the numbers for us are actually more modest. I guess one of the reasons why we weren't able to disclose it even earlier is, to be frank, the sort of inefficiency of governments, because even now, we don't know what the rates are going to be for EPR. That's why we've quoted a range of GBP 300,000-500,000, even now, even though it's coming in in April.
We've been given indicative rates, not actual rates, even though it's only a month or two away. We've had to fight hard to get those over the last 12 months or so. EPR has been a relatively unknown kind of impact. As soon as we've known with reasonable accuracy what it was going to be, we've disclosed. I'd say the NI and the NI impact and the EPR is largely about 26 rather than 25. I think we've got there quite early on.
Okay. Quickly on air fryers, is the sales issue an industry-wide category decline or specific to you?
No, it's industry. There was what was the money-saving expert, Martin Lewis. By the way, just a bit of background, because I'm sure we're all sick to death of air fryers, just a bit of background. We've been selling air fryers for over 10 years. In the autumn of 22, September 22, in response to the cost of living crisis, Martin Lewis, money-saving expert, did a piece on air fryers. It all went bananas. It went bananas for everyone. Like every boom that you have on this kind of product, there is some sort of hangover. We do think that air fryers have entered the public consciousness and are common features now in kitchens. We do think there will be an ongoing fairly sizable market for air fryers. When these things happen, everyone piles in.
What I would say about the air fryer boom, and to try and give us some credit, is obviously our revenue line benefited. What always happens with this is there's a stock overhang because people pile in, and then when the declining revenue comes, people find that they're overstocked. I think the team here have managed that really, really well because there's nothing in our we're not disclosing stock write-offs on air fryers. We've managed our inventory exceptionally well because as we went into this sort of spurt in air fryer growth, we acknowledged that at some point it would come off, and we managed our inventory accordingly. There's not been a stock hangover. Whereas elsewhere, and there is a certain retailer selling, I think, from memory, a 7-liter air fryer for GBP 13. That's a GBP 80 item.
That's all because they didn't manage their inventory position in the kind of eyes-wide open way that we did when we went into this boom.
Okay. Thanks. Perhaps one for you, Chris. Given the ongoing buyback, can you confirm that net debt is now comfortably below the one-times EBITDA level?
It is around the one-times EBITDA level at the moment. As we work our way through the spring, that will tend to sort of go to what I may call a comfortably below level. It sort of builds back up again in the autumn, but just below one at the moment.
Okay. Thanks. How often has the business faced such a drop in orders before, and how did you mitigate the problems previously?
I think to characterize it as a drop in orders is not quite right. We've continued to take orders through January. We've just not taken them at the rate that we did January last year. When you compare January 24 to January 25, in many ways, the fundamentals are quite similar. Christmas went okay. Inventory levels normalized. The difference between the two months is really sentiment and risk-on versus risk-off, I would say, in terms of stock ordering. I mean, we've always gone through periods like this from time to time where it feels like the world stops. Our retailers, no matter what's going on in their business, do need product on shelves. They do. Even when there's a pause, the pause always comes to an end because they have to get product onto shelves in order to function as a business.
It is unnerving when we go through a month like January. Very unnerving for the management team, not just shareholders. We have enough experience to know that things do normalize because people need product on shelves.
Okay. One for you both, I guess, and the board. Recent product development and the control of overheads are examples of why I rate the management. It has to be acknowledged that financial forecasting has consistently proven difficult. In view of this, should you really be taking a view on the share price by engaging in buybacks?
I'll pick up the forecasting thing, and maybe Chris can cover the buybacks, which is really about establishing a policy and following it. I think when you look, the whole things are relative, aren't they? I think if you look at the succession of challenges that the business has faced since really 2020, the various elements of the pandemic, the shipping crisis, the cost of living crisis, the retailer overstocks. Now we've got a global trade war going on, and we're a global trading business. It has been a, I mean, just to illustrate it, I spent the first 20-odd years of my career not thinking about geopolitics. It just was always stuff that happened over there. I got on with running whatever business I was in. Now I'm weighing up the risks of peace in Gaza.
We operate in, like every other business, in a volatile world. I think within the context of that, I think the team has managed those things pretty well. Obviously, very disappointing to downgrade on numbers on Monday. It was very disappointing to do so in May last year. If you look at the work we're doing, we've recognized as a management team that we have to find volume growth because it's hard to inflate when you're a discretionary non-food business. It's even harder in an environment where there's food inflation. We need to find volume growth, right? At the same time, we've got the same inflationary cost pressures on our overhead line like everyone else has.
There is a big squeeze going on, particularly for consumer businesses, where the top-line growth is really difficult, but cost growth is, cost inflation is coming through kind of pretty strong. If you take a step back, what do we have that I think an awful lot of other consumer businesses do not have? We now have an outlet into Europe, which is more tangible than it was, and puts us on the bottom rung of a different ladder, where fundamentally we are leveraging product developments that we have already invested in for the U.K. The operating leverage benefits of this strategy are quite clear. At the same time, we found a way through automation to mitigate that cost inflation. As a result, we expect that overheads for 23, 24, and 25 to be level.
I don't think you'll find many consumer businesses that will deliver level overheads, unless they've seen a big fall in revenue, level overheads over that three-year period, despite the fact we've increased our investments in marketing. What I always say about the automation is it's brilliant that it has mitigated those cost headwinds. I remain deeply frustrated because we'll really see the benefits of that investment over the last few years in automation when we grow. We'll really see the benefits of that when we grow. If we've seen improvements in our performance through the year, with international being a key driver of that, we see that as a medium to long-term trend. If we, as a management team, keep doing what we're doing, we'll see the rewards through enhanced revenue and profitability, but also improved EBITDA margins.
Great. I think that is it for the questions today. Welcome back, Chris. Listen, thank you to all of those.
All right. My internet's been a bit unstable this morning.
Thank you to all of those who have joined us today. I know we appreciate your time and interest to talk through the challenges and provide a little bit of comfort. Good luck to everyone.
Just one final word, Hannah, if that's okay.
Please.
Yeah, I just want to say, while you're thanking me, I'd like to thank everyone on this call. I think we do very, very much value our sort of retail shareholder base. I think something like close to 15% of our shares are held by retail. I was keen to engage with fire equity developments with you guys because we very much appreciate that. I feel in many ways, many of you understand our business better than others. I get some fantastic questions from retail. I think the fact we're a consumer business helps with that. I really do appreciate everyone's time today on this call.
A good note on which to finish. Thank you all.
Great. Thank you.