Welcome to the Wynnstay Group Full Year 2023 Results Webinar. All attendees are in listen-only mode, and questions can be answered at the end of the presentation. Written questions can be submitted at any time by clicking on the Q&A button. This webinar is being recorded. I now hand over to Gareth Davies, CEO. Gareth, over to you.
Thank you, and good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to our presentation. I'm Gareth Davies. I'm the Chief Executive. I've been with Wynnstay since 1999. My background is agricultural and commercial agriculture, and prior to being CEO, when I was appointed in 2018, I was the head of agriculture and joint managing director of, well, of Wynnstay. I'd like to introduce you to Rob. Rob Thomas is our FD. Rob joined the business back in October, became FD in January on the second of January 2024, and I'm very pleased to say that the transition of Rob coming into his position, taking over from our previous FD, Paul Roberts, who'd been with the business for quite some time, has been a very, very, very good, and I'm very pleased how that transition has gone.
I'll hand over to Rob to give you a bit of background to himself.
Thanks, Gareth. Good afternoon, everyone. Rob Thomas, I'm the Group Finance Director. I was previously an auditor with PwC. I've got 10 years' worth of agricultural experience as an auditor, advisor, and in-house finance. I've also worked within the logistics business. As Gareth said, the handover's been absolutely fantastic. I've been warmly welcomed by Wynnstay. I feel like I'm ready to hit the ground running. I think I'm in a great position and really looking forward to presenting the first set of results.
So, for those who don't know the business, an overview of what we actually do. Our business is about supplying farmers and customers in the rural communities with both products and services. We started as an agricultural cooperative in 1918. We became PLC in 1992 and listed on the AIM market in 2004. I'm often asked, "Well, what is, what does our business do?" And my summary is that we help farmers, both livestock and arable farmers, produce food in a sustainable way. We have a clear strategy. It is based on supplying most agricultural inputs, with the exception of agricultural machinery, within Great Britain. We do not export. We do have a balanced business model.
We supply both livestock and arable farmers, and you may have heard the term horn and corn, but what that effectively means is that sometimes livestock farmers do particularly well and arable farmers don't, and also vice versa. This, in itself, provides a natural hedge within our business and has certainly helped us deliver consistent results. We report in two divisions, firstly, being agriculture, which incorporates our feed division, our arable division, and a subsidiary, Glasson Grain Limited, and you'll hear more about these divisions later in the presentation. Specialist agricultural merchandising is the second division, which includes the depots and also a subsidiary, Youngs Animal Feeds. Our routes to market are varied. It's a multi-channel routes to market, via the depots, where people come and collect product, a product delivered direct to farm.
A key point of difference across all sectors, our advisors, those people who make appointments to go and discuss opportunities with our customers and also within our depots. In addition to our traditional routes to market, we are developing a digital platform, which includes online, although it's very much in its infancy. So our geographical reach, on the left-hand side, where we're actually based, is in the center, just on the borders of England, Wales, and the coloring really gives you an indication of our market share in any particular area. So, whilst we are Great Britain, we don't cover all of Great Britain, that we don't do much in the southeast of England and also various parts of Scotland. The map also shows where our manufacturing sites are.
So the green circles are our four fertilizer plants in the north of England. We have seven feed manufacturing plants of various sizes, and right in the center then, with a purple ring, is our arable plant based at Shrewsbury, where the seed processing takes place. Most of the deliveries direct to farm is done by ourselves, so we run 105 commercial vehicles, which are branded in Wynnstay colors, and our size of the business or the, or indeed, the number of employees working in the business, is just short of 950. The right-hand map gives you an indication where our depots are, and you'll notice that they're predominantly on the western side of the country, and that's because the model of our depots is based on livestock farming.
Livestock farmers predominantly on the western side and arable farmers on the eastern side. Livestock farmers buy little and often, while arable farmers would generally buy in bulk, and a smaller number of purchases per annum. It also shows where our Youngs depots are, three sites, Staffordshire and South Cheshire, are the subsidiary business, which supplies equine products to ourselves as Wynnstay and also to the trade. So the previous year's results, if I just run through the overview of the last year's results to start with, but there's a background to that. Just to remind everybody that the previous year was exceptional. The results were exceptional, driven by substantial one-off gains, particularly in terms of fertilizer prices.
Strong farm gate prices at the same time, sentiment was strong, and that certainly helped create a strong backdrop for the group... This year's trading, however, has been generated and performance has been generated against far softer trading conditions, with weaker farmer sentiment, particularly in the dairy and the arable sectors, coupled with higher costs, particularly labor, and also a weak final quarter for the group, and that was as a result of the arable sector being impacted by prolonged wet weather. As we expected, the one-off gains of 2022 did not repeat. And we also contended with the reversal of fertilizer raw material prices, and we reported this at the interim stage, that impacted our profitability.
Nonetheless, we have made progress within the group, certainly in terms of investment, and we've also completed the integration of the two acquisitions that we made more recently, being Humphrey Feeds and Pullets, and also Tamar Milling. But the full strategic benefits of these acquisitions are still to come through. And we're also delighted to highlight that it is our 20th year of annual dividend growth, and Rob will give you more detail of that later on in the presentation. The trading conditions are expected to remain challenging in the short term. However, we'll continue to invest, not only in manufacturing, but also in efficiencies within the business, and also to continue to help our farmer customers deliver their environmental outcomes and objectives.
The group's strong balance sheet and good cash flows do support continued investment, and we'll also consider acquisitions which will add scale and value to the group. I'd now like to hand you over to Rob to go over the financial review.
Thank you. So our revenue was up 3%, or just under GBP 23 million, year-on-year. As you may be aware, our revenue is impacted by macroeconomic factors, particularly commodity prices, and there can be some volatility in our revenue performance. So I'd just like to highlight three key drivers in that revenue performance year-on-year. Firstly, it reflects the full year revenue contribution from our acquisitions. In the previous year, we acquired Humphrey, and there was eight months of trade included in that result. This year, we've got the full 12 months of trading. At the start of the year, we acquired a business in Cornwall called Tamar Milling, and there's a full 12 months of revenue in this year's result that obviously wasn't there in the previous year.
Across our products and offerings, we've had some increased activity, particularly with our grain marketing business, GrainLink, and that's posted a record revenue with volumes up 30% year-on-year. However, the performance was impacted by deflation, particularly in fertilizer prices. Fertilizer prices reduced significantly from last year into this year, and that resulted in a reduction of GBP 21 million year-on-year. Our underlying PBT was GBP 9.2 million. As Gareth mentioned, this included some significant one-off gains in 2022, and conversely, there was some significant losses that were incurred, particularly in the first half of this year. That, again, was linked to fertilizer price deflation. As we reported at the half-year, there was an adverse stock realization that accounted for around GBP 1.5 million of one-off losses.
We also incurred some non-accounting losses at the year-end, and this related to our grain trading book. We take out wheat future contracts to commercially hedge our physical contract positions, and they are valued at the year-end under accounting rules, and the movement in wheat price can add some volatility. So at the end of 2023, the wheat price moved, and it meant that we incurred a non-cash loss of GBP 400,000. We actually made a GBP 400,000 gain on the same basis in 2022, so the net impact of that was that we took a non-accounting loss of GBP 800,000 in the year. Looking at the commercial impacts on our profitability, Gareth mentioned the weak Q4, the weak Q4 for arable activities. That was weather related.
The heavy rains in late summer and autumn meant that the autumn crop sowings were lower than anticipated, and that did impact the profitability of our arable and seed business. However, we did see some improvement in profitability from the activity improvements in the GrainLink business, which was positive. We also saw the contribution from the acquisitions that we made in the year. So while profitability was lower than in 2022, the record year, we think that it was a solid performance against a softer market backdrop. The reduced profitability flowed through to our EPS, which was GBP 0.3075, versus a record of GBP 0.8272 last year in 2022. Positively, net cash was higher year-over-year. That's on the basis excluding IFRS property leases, and that underpins the strong, strong balance sheet we have.
The strength in our asset business means that our balance sheet assets were a total of GBP 6 per share. Really, the excellent cash flow and strong balance sheet position underpins the 20th year of our consecutive, progressive dividend policy. We're proposing to declare a dividend of GBP 0.1725, and we really think that our investors value that, progressive policy and the dividend yield that Wynnstay gives them. The financial track record slides really show the performance in the charts. What I'd pull out here is particularly the gross profit, which we see as a KPI of our activity. We operate an absolute margin model, where we will price products on a pound per ton basis or pound per unit.
So we think that gross profit really better reflects the activity within the business rather than revenue, which can be impacted by commodity price volatility. So the performance on gross profit can be seen to be improved over the previous years, with obviously 2022 being an outlier in those record years with the one-off gains. That flows down to PBT as well. We can see the strength in the 2022 performance, and GBP 9.2 million of underlying profit looks like a solid return in the context of the previous years that we've made. We can see here the progressive dividend that's grown over the 20 years that we've been on AIM.
And again, I'd just like to highlight that that is effectively reflecting our confidence in the strength of our balance sheet, our cash flows, and our belief in the fact that Wynnstay is well-placed for future growth and development. So looking at the financial statements in a little bit more detail, as I've highlighted previously, revenue is up 3% year-on-year. We benefit from the contribution from Humphrey and the Tamar Milling acquisition. We do have the higher grain trading activity through GrainLink. That being offset by GBP 21 million worth of commodity price deflation, driven by fertilizer prices reducing year-on-year. As we expected, the one-off gains that we made in 2022 weren't repeated, but there are a couple of other points I'd like to highlight here. We did get a record contribution from our joint ventures.
That was, in turn, driven by a record performance from our joint venture, Bibby Agriculture, the feed sales business. That business has generated long-standing positive returns for Wynnstay, but very pleasing to see a record performance in the 2023 year end. I would also highlight that net finance charges have increased year-on-year. That reflects the higher cost of money, the higher base rates that have risen over the two-year period shown on the income statement here. Moving to the balance sheet. The balance sheet reflects the higher level of assets following the Tamar acquisition. We have seen, though, a reduction in like-for-like working capital year-on-year. In the previous years, we had seen an absorption in working capital as we saw higher fertilizer prices.
The higher level of sales did absorb working capital, just over GBP 13 million of absorption in 2022. As prices have reduced, we've seen that unwind, and we've had a working capital benefit of just over GBP 4.2 million in the year. The strong balance sheet is driven by higher levels of cash, positive net cash, if we look at it on a bank borrowing basis, and as I've mentioned, the balance sheet total equates to around GBP 6 per share. The cash flow, I'd just like to draw your attention to the cash generated from operations at GBP 20.3 million. That reflects the strength of the cash conversion within the business, the strong EBITDA, but of note, compared to last year in particular, the movement and positive generation of working capital compared to the previous year, where we absorbed it relating to fertilizer.
The net cash reconciliation. This is prepared on a full IFRS net debt basis, so that does include all leases. I'll draw your attention to the net capital expenditure of GBP 15.3 million. On an all lease basis, that includes GBP 6.1 million of new property leases or, sorry, renewed property leases during the year. These were existing leases, primarily within our depot business, and what's happened here is we've renewed the leases, extended the terms, so there's no change in the payment profile or cash cost to the business. The liability simply increased along with the duration of those leases. The next slide really explains the reconciliation in a graphical format. As we can see here, the light blue bars show the property lease impact year-on-year.
As you can see, it's grown from just over GBP 4 million to just over GBP 8 million. That's driven by primarily the lease renewals of GBP 6.1 million, offset by the GBP 2 million worth of repayments that we make in the year. We also acquired a small property lease with the Tamar business. So looking at the cash reconciliation on a net bank basis, which is how we monitor our net debt and also how the bank monitors it for covenant purposes, we can see the strong EBITDA. We can see the working capital of GBP 4.3 million that's been generated. I would like to highlight the GBP 9.1 million worth of net CapEx, if we ignore the property leases. Of note, we've invested around GBP 1.8 million in our Carmarthen Mill acquisition, phase one, during the year.
We'll talk a little bit about that in further detail, but effectively, that's related to finished goods, storage, and improved outloading, which should in turn increase capacity, but also speed up vehicle movements, which will lead to a more efficient offering. Additionally, we've incurred a capital spend of GBP 1 million relating to solar-powered energy. That's part of a five-year program where we're looking to increase the amount of solar power generation we have across our building and land portfolio within the group, with an aim that over a five-year period, that should offset the energy usage within the business, particularly within our feed manufacturing operations, which are quite heavy and intensive in terms of their electricity usage. The acquisition of GBP 2.7 million relates to Tamar Milling.
GBP 3.9 million of cash was spent on the interim dividend and the dividend relating to last year, and the GBP 1.9 million, as I mentioned, relates to property lease repayments. If we look at the net cash and net debt cycle, what I'd like to pull out here really is a couple of things. Firstly, we can see the cyclical nature of our business... at the year-end, we're at the height of our net funds position or the trough of our debt requirements. But conversely, at the half year, we're at the peak utilization of debt finance. That represents the cyclical nature of our business.
I think it also highlights the predictable nature of that cyclical profile, that enables us to plan our capital allocation and working capital requirements accordingly, operating within the facilities which do have ample headroom, even at the peak requirement. I think it also shows the growth of the business over that 10-year period, and how it's been funded appropriately and prudently during that time frame. The final financial slide just shows the segmental analysis. If we look at 2022, we can see the significant contribution that came through agriculture. We can also see that that was impacted by the one-off gains in 2022, but has also been impacted by the one-off adverse impacts in the current 2023 year, particularly in relation to fertilizer contribution.
But that was also the segment that was impacted by the weak Q4, which was weather-driven within the arable business, as I've mentioned. I think we can also see here the balance between the segments, and that's consistent with the broad theme across Wynnstay of having a balanced business model. I think we can see that the equilibrium has been returned somewhat during 2023. I'll now hand over to Gareth, who will talk through the trading background and also talk a little bit more about each division.
Thank you, Rob. As an introduction to the agricultural division, I'll give you an overview of the trading environment for our customers during the year. So the top table relates to what farmers receive for their products, and I've given you a comparison there of year-on-year, year-end. So following record prices for grain and milk in the year 2022, we've seen significant reductions in what farmers receive for these products. With milk actually weakening during the second half of our financial year to levels below the cost of production. And this has been driven following a weak global demand, and particularly from a weakening economy in China. We've seen steady increases, though, within beef and sheep.
It's also very pleasing to see that after a very difficult period for the free-range egg sector, the profitability is certainly returning to the production of eggs. While we have seen steady decreases in terms of fertilizer particularly, and also feed rations and the cost of diesel, costs for our customers haven't come down across the board. Labor has certainly increased in costs, as are the difficulties of having the availability of labor. Energy cost has varied. Certainly in some cases, energy costs have increased as well. But interest rates has been significant. The increase over the period has certainly stifled investment, and particularly from some sectors. If you take milk, for example, where income has dropped and the cost of money has gone up, investment at farm level is certainly being less.
And this has also been coupled with a fall in income from direct government support, which we'll cover a little bit later in the presentation. So our feed division. Our feed division also has a balanced business model, because we produce feed for dairy animals, beef, sheep, and also free-range hens, so we also have a balance within the feed division. Our actual volumes year-on-year were fairly, fairly similar to the previous year. However, like-for-like, they did reduce by 5.3%, and the differential being the volume that came from the Tamar acquisition. This reduction was clearly due to weaker milk prices and also the free-range sector, still recovering from the impact of avian influenza, reducing flock numbers and also the lower margins that were referred to earlier on.
Humphrey Feeds and Pullets, which was acquired in 2022, is now fully integrated into the business, and we've rebranded our poultry sector now as Wynnstay Humphrey Feeds and Pullets, and you can see that in the top right-hand caption. This will bring synergies of personnel, manufacturing, and distribution in due course. Tamar Milling has performed exceptionally well and above expectation as a result of increased volumes of the manufacturing site bringing efficiencies into production and also increased sales. I'm very pleased that those increased sales are predominantly coming via our depot network. As a result of that, we're able to capture the margins all the way through to increase profitability. Of course, it is our first manufacturing facility down in the southwest of England.
But the follow-up potential acquisitions are still to be still to come through. Investment in the feed division continues. Rob has mentioned phase one of the Carmarthen feed mill is completed. Phase two will now commence. And at the same time, we'll we'll continue to consider what is the best option for us to replace the Twyford facility. The Twyford facility that we currently operate from in Hampshire came with the Humphrey's business, and we have that facility on lease now until 2026. We've looked at a number of options as to how best to replace it, but we are getting nearer to a conclusion, and certainly the investment in Carmarthen will be part of that wider project that'll include manufacturing of feed in the southern part of the country.
One point of difference that I would like to raise in relation to feed, we increasingly include now a higher percentage of sustainably sourced products, such as soya and palm kernel. But in addition to that, we're always looking at opportunities of how do we reduce the carbon footprint of our customer base?... Within all our feed, our hen feed rations now, we include a product called phytase enzyme. What this product actually does, it increases the amount of phosphate available from other ingredients in the feed, and that improves diet utilization. But at the same time, it reduces phosphate excretion from the bird by 14%, and that is certainly a point of difference for us in comparison to some of our competitors.
It is our advisors on Farm who are our key point of difference here, bringing innovative products and ideas to our customer base to improve their efficiencies, their profitability, and very importantly, to reduce their carbon footprint, which will be attractive to those people who buy off them, the processors, to become part of the U.K. food chain. The arable sector performed well, however, there was variation within the sector. Again, the balance offering of products and services has enabled us to deliver a solid performance. GrainLink, our crop marketing business, had an exceptional year. Despite the U.K. market being back, the harvest was back about one million tons. U.K. wheat was back about one million tons to 14 million. GrainLink as a business increased volumes by 30%.
Very pleasingly, the additional volume was predominantly sourced from the eastern part of the, of the country, the East of England, and this is an area that we have targeted for geographic expansion. Fertilizer sales within the merchant division were up 2%, very pleased with that. The national market was down 10%, although margins were impacted by the fall in fertilizer prices. However, the very wet summer and autumn did impact sales of both grass and cereal seed, because effectively, conditions were too wet to plant. The reduction in sowing for the autumn period will certainly impact the 2024 harvest. However, we will still focus on increasing market share of our traded grain trading operation.
Certainly the recent investment at Astley, which has doubled the seed processing capacity of grass seed, will certainly enable us to concentrate further on increasing our sales of environmental grass seed mixtures. These mixtures include wildflowers, pollinators, and deep-rooted herbs. As farmers now respond to the government schemes, such as the Environmental Land Management Scheme and the Sustainable Farming Scheme in Wales, as they also improve wildlife habitats and soil structure. Our sales of environmental seed mixtures show significant growth year- on- year. Glasson Grain Limited is our subsidiary business based up in Lancashire on the River Lune. You can see there in the top right-hand picture, that's a picture of the dock. We're based on the dock. And we've already mentioned that the unwinding of the elevated fertilizer prices did certainly have an impact upon profitability.
However, at the same time, while the market was down 10%, our volumes here were only down 4%, so we certainly increased market share. The raw material trading activity at Glasson performed well and was ahead of expectations. However, the cost of living crisis certainly did impact our animal feed operation at Glasson, as certainly sales of bird food and sales to small animals were impacted, as well as extra costs from energy and labor costs. The facility here of manufacturing feed up at Glasson is different to the rest of the business. This facility is for manufacturing feed, as I mentioned, for small animals rather than larger farm animals.
But as we look forward at Glasson, we're certainly reviewing the activities within the operation as we seek further efficiencies, and particularly within manufacturing, as within the corn mill, for example, but also at the same time, efficiencies throughout the rest of the business. You would have noticed on the map I put up earlier, that we have 2 fertilizer plants on the East Coast near Goole, 1 at Goole and 1 at Howden. We made a decision last week that we will close the Howden plant and incorporate the activities into Goole. And that's a result of us being able to secure increased land and buildings and facilities at Goole, and that makes sense because of an efficiency point of view.
But the fertilizer business is certainly a strong business for us, and we will continue to seek the opportunity of looking for a manufacturing site in the southern part of the country. We have business down there currently, and we have a demand. The Glasson Fertilisers does give us a key point of difference over many of our competitors, as we're able to manufacture bespoke fertilizers. You may be aware that farmers throughout the U.K. now will be asked to do a nutrient management plan right across their farm. In other words, understanding what is the nutrient levels of their soils. They'll then be asked to match that to crop inputs, and the bespoke fertilizers will certainly enable us to do that and give us the opportunity of looking for enhanced margins.
So the specialist agricultural merchanting department, which comprises of our 53 depots and the subsidiary Youngs Animal Feeds. For those who are not aware of our depots, there's a picture on the right-hand side there. Pretty well akin, I would say, to a builder's merchant. 80% of the trade is done business to business, in our cases with farmers, but anybody is able to come to our depots and purchase, whether it be by cash or by card. So in comparison to the previous year, sales were 2% up revenue-wise, like for like. Our footfall was pretty well similar, but our margins were certainly impacted, as a result of not only of increased cost in terms of labor and energy, but also product mix, as higher margin products such as our own bagged feed were reduced.
And also, the weaker farmer sentiment certainly impacted the investment into infrastructure products such as concrete, metalwork, gates, et cetera, and fencing materials, as people just held back from investing into the infrastructure of their farms... We have a customer portal, which I mentioned previously. We currently now have 3,500 accounts signed up for the portal, but still today, the majority of these people would use the portal to access their accounts rather than trade online. While the depots do remain a key route to market for Wynnstay, we are also developing our digital offering, with the introduction this month of click and collect at certain depots.
But when I look at the depots, we continue to invest in our colleagues, and this is the main point of difference I think, with our offering within the depots over some of our competitors, to ensure that our customers are able to ask our staff what is the correct product to do the job. We currently have over 200 individuals who have got national qualifications in terms of animal health, being able to advise and sell animal health products. And increasingly so, we're training the depot staff in terms of animal nutrition and also crop nutrition with national qualifications. We're carrying out a number of projects in the depots, particularly in relation to stock holding and also the cost of servicing our customers.
ESG is certainly a key pillar of our strategy, and in line with U.K. agriculture, we have a clear ambition of becoming net zero by 2040. Our first TCFD report has been completed and will be featured in the annual report this year. Also following the formation of a sustainable farm advisory team last year, this team consists of external experts who will help us and guide us in terms of ESG. And that team will now be supported by an internal team who are responsible for creating the roadmap, how we're going to achieve our ambitions. Rob has referred to our some of the programs that we're doing internally in terms of carbon, solar, LED lighting, hybrid vehicles, to name a few.
I don't know if anybody here is a fan of Countryfile, but featured recently on Countryfile was a project that we collaborate in, and that's called Dancing for Daffodils - Dancing with Daffodils. We're a partner with a number of other organizations by looking at trialing a product, which is an extract from daffodil. It's an alkaloid that will be then included within the feed, the feed rations, and it would seem that if everything comes to fruition, may well reduce methane excretion by 30%. Now, if that is the case, it'll certainly be a game changer on our role here, that we will be a route to market for the product, and that will certainly benefit us in the long term.
But while we continue to work on projects with the research institutes and universities, we will continue to stage our own farmer events, such as the Arable Event, which is held on an annual basis in the West Midlands in June. This event is about bringing new innovative ideas to our customers. We would generally have attend anywhere between 800 and 1,000 farmers, and what they will see is new crop varieties, modern cultivation techniques, which is about reducing energy and therefore reducing carbon, but also very, very importantly, new techniques of how they can improve the soil health of the. The health of the soil, and therefore the health of the food that it grows. I think in summary then, it has been a solid performance from the business, while it has been in a challenging trading environment.
The performance was certainly impacted by the fertilizer stock realizations at Glasson, and also the weaker farmer sentiment, particularly in terms of grain, arable and dairy. But looking forward, we'll continue to invest in the business, particularly in manufacturing and the efficiency program that we referred to. While there are some short-term challenges for U.K. agriculture, the long-term future of food production in the U.K. is certainly positive, as food security and transparency of both safe and sustainable systems of food production is very much up the agenda, not only of central government, but also the devolved nations as well. The Group board is extremely confident that we will deliver our strategic ambitions, but at the same time, we're very, very clear on that we will maintain the balanced business model that we currently have.
This model has certainly helped us continually deliver positive results and even in challenging times. The financial strength of the Wynnstay business, with a good, strong balance sheet and good cash flows, certainly enables us to continue to invest in the business that we have, but at the same time, seek the opportunities of acquisitions that will add scale, geographic spread, and also strengthen the business for the long-term future. That's the end of the presentation, and, I'm very happy to take any questions.
Great, many thanks. To ask your question, click on the Q&A button. Our first question is: What will be the impact on your business of the U.K. government's incoming policy on farming and agriculture in the coming years?
Yeah, good question, that. I think, I'll answer that in two ways, really. If we did nothing as a business and didn't change what we're doing, and we're in the process of doing that, it would be quite significant. I've mentioned there about the Environmental Land Management Scheme and the encouragement of people to take land out of production into environmental schemes. So as a business, we would consult with external experts, Andersons, in this case, in relation to arable farming. And it is their prediction that within the transition period, come the end of the transition period, maybe 8% or 9% of the arable land would have converted into Environmental Land Management Schemes instead.
So by doing nothing, that would immediately say that, you know, our inputs in fertilizer and certainly cereal seed, would be reduced. But I think the opportunity for us here is already coming through. Our environmental land, our environmental seed mixtures of pollinators, wildflowers and herbs, are certainly increased significantly, and we're now in a position to be able to increase that further with the extra processing facilities that we have. The nutrient management plans, which are part of those schemes, quite rightly, dictate that farmers should only match fertilizer applications to crop needs, and I think we're well placed for that. And I've said earlier on, really, that, while the U.K. volume of fertilizers will reduce as a result, I think we're in a good, strong position to certainly maintain and grow our volumes at the same time as margins.
As far as Nitrate Vulnerable Zones in Wales, with a slightly different policy, farmers will become more efficient, and they'll certainly need to invest in the infrastructure of the business, and we're well placed to be able to supply products for that. While it'll be challenging for some people, there is a transition period, and, I'm very pleased that we, as a business, are along that journey and ahead of the curve.
Tremendous. Thank you very much. And sticking with government policy, have you any sense what a change of government would mean, mean for the agricultural sector, and has the Labour Party indicated anything significant that would be supportive of farming?
Well, I guess, true, a straight answer from myself there is that no, I've got nothing significant on that. I think, we do operate today as a business with, with effectively a number of governments. Obviously, there's a red party in Wales, there's a, there's a blue party in, in London, but, there's nothing significant come forward at this moment in time that says, there would be a change of policy. Agricultural support, as we know, was guaranteed in the same format until the end of this government, which is obviously within a year now. However, for the future, we've got nothing, of significant being indicated to us.
Thank you very much. How serious is the threat to U.K. agriculture from solar energy development consuming agricultural land, especially in East Anglia?
As far as I'm aware, and again, we're in discussions with the consultants that I referred to earlier on, there's an element of land going out, but I don't think it's hugely significant as a percentage of the total.
Great. Thank you very much. Could you give us some reassurance that our share values will not be too much reduced by dilution caused by issuing large number of new shares? This last year, it seemed excessive.
Okay, I think I'll take that one. Historically, Wynnstay used a combination, I think, of existing cash, borrowings and also use of equity finance to drive the strategic programs and growth that it's undertaken, and I think that's been prudent and balanced historically. Looking forward, you know, we are very focused on capital allocation, capital projects internally, and as we mentioned, we've got a strong balance sheet that enables us to do that. We're also well positioned to undertake M&A as appropriate. And, you know, that's a key part of our strategy.
What I would say is that we do have headroom in our borrowing facilities, so in terms of, you know, capital allocation for the next year, and any, what I'd call small to mid-scale M&A, would be facilitated through those existing facilities. Clearly, if a big opportunity came in the future, and it was appropriate, we would look to potentially other forms of finance and equity raises to do that. But in the short term, within the capital plan for next year, and also within that, what I'd call, you know, small to medium M&A, we'd be looking to do that within the existing facilities that we have.
Tremendous. Many thanks indeed, and regarding M&A, what would be on your wish list?
I think, you know, as we're very clear in our strategy, which includes growth by M&A, it is, U.K., or GB rather, it's agriculture, and it's to maintain our balanced business model. The sectors that we're looking to invest in is dairy, arable, free-range hens, and also higher input beef and sheep. So it's maintaining that balance. Are we specific on anything particularly? It's as long as we can grow the business, add value to the business, extend our geographical reach. So while our, our, our two latest acquisitions have been feed, that's not necessarily a direction that we're going in. We're particularly interested in maintaining that balance, because as I mentioned earlier on, our balanced business model has certainly helped us, as a business, deliver consistent results over a long period of time.
Great. Thank you very much. How is GrainLink gaining market share? What are your ambitions for its growth?
It's gaining market share for a number of reasons. First and foremostly, we started off with a business based in Shropshire, excellent reputation, good trading links. We've gained on the eastern side effectively through small acquisitions, such as AR Richardson, to giving us a start in the area, but more importantly, by securing the services and employment of some skilled operators, both those who understand the trade that we sell to, and also on farm level. In addition to that, on an annual basis, the agricultural supply trade release a table of those who buy grain in the U.K. in terms of creditworthiness, because on this side of things, we're obviously the purchaser rather than the seller.
I'm very pleased to say that consistently over the last three years, we have come as number two. Out of a list of about 15-20 people, we are seen as the second most reliable person to sell their grai
n to in the U.K. in terms of creditworthiness. I think, well, that in itself is a very positive, and it's consistently attracting people to our business. We're gaining market share by acquiring new traders, basically.
Great, many thanks. What's to be done in the next phase of investment at Carmarthen?
So we're currently looking at the Carmarthen project. I think we talked previously, this was a phased project, and it was almost modular in terms of how it would be undertaken. If we look at the first phase, we've done work on our raw material intake, but also our finished goods outloading. We're currently evaluating how we can further increase capacity, and that will be focused more around the actual milling process, so particularly with compound feed, the grinding and the mixing, and we'd be looking to invest in those parts of of the mill to unlock additional capacity. And that will form part of our strategy for South Wales, the West, and also within the the southern part of England, particularly around poultry. So we're currently evaluating that project as we speak.
We'd expect to make a decision and press forward with that, particularly within the second half of the year. And while we haven't finalized the evaluation of that project, we're looking at around GBP 3 million-GBP 4 million worth of spend of further investment in this financial year to unlock what would be around 60,000-80,000 tons of potential capacity.
Tremendous. Thank you very much. And the final question at this stage, anyway: When do you see a decision being made about Calne?
Yeah. So as far as Carmarthen is concerned, we will conclude the decision within, well, certainly within the first half of this financial year. As Rob has mentioned, we've looked at a number of projects there, and ultimately, we will conclude with certainly covering and securing the investment that we did in Twyford, so therefore we'll certainly cover poultry manufacturing in the site at Carmarthen. While at the same time, we considered how we would expand that. And it's making sure that we have a project which is positive to our business and also gives a return on investment, which is acceptable to our investors.
Lovely. Thank you very much indeed, and that is the end of questions. Gareth, have you got any closing remarks?
Well, first and foremost, we thank everybody for being with us this afternoon. Just to conclude by saying that the Wynnstay business is in a good, strong position. As I mentioned at the end of the summary, financially, we're strong. We've got a very, very clear strategy. We've got a clear path to where we're going, and we are in a position to invest not only internally, but also to grow the business from acquisition, as long as it fits our clear strategy.
Fantastic. Many thanks indeed, Gareth and Rob. For everyone listening, you'll now be taken to a web page to give feedback on today's presentation. If you can't complete it now, you'll receive a follow-up email. We'd be really grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete. Many thanks for joining. This is the end of the webinar.