Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Adairs Limited company update. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mark Ronan, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone for joining us on the call today. With me is our CFO, Ashley Gardner, and our Head of Investor Relations, Jamie Adamson. We're excited today to announce the acquisition of Focus on Furniture, a vertically integrated omni-channel furniture retailer operating in Australia for an enterprise value of AUD 80 million on a debt-free basis. Focus is a strongly profitable furniture retailer currently operating 23 stores together with a growing online business. In line with our retail philosophy, Focus is a vertically integrated business with all product design and development done in-house in Melbourne, allowing them to deliver a strong collection of well-designed, functional, and on-trend home furniture and bedding. As with our Adairs and Mocka brands, the business targets middle market Australia who are looking for quality products at a good price.
The acquisition of Focus has strong strategic alignment to our business model and retail philosophy. Focus operates an omnichannel model and owns their customers directly through their stores and online businesses. As a vertically integrated business, Focus controls the design and sourcing process of the majority of their products, which enables it to provide a value for money proposition with strong gross margins. We look to provide customers with well-designed quality products at a good value price point in an environment that is customer-centric. Given this strategic alignment, Focus is a strong strategic fit for the group and significantly expands our presence in home furniture, building upon a portfolio of brands that target the Australian, New Zealand home furnishings and furniture middle market. When we think about an acquisition at Adairs, we've always thought about an important part of that is a strong growth profile.
In Focus, we have a number of growth initiatives to deliver that growth over the coming years. I'll quickly talk to those, including store rollout. We have 23 stores today, and there is a significant potential to expand this network to 50 to 60 profitable stores across Australia over the coming years, with our initial focus being the eastern seaboard, including New South Wales and Queensland. Online growth. The Focus online channel is relatively new and has performed strongly to date with minimal investment. With additional resources, we see great growth opportunity coming from online as it works in conjunction with expanding our store portfolio. Complementing both of these strategies will be our brand awareness.
We know that as we roll out new stores and build upon the digital experience, we will have to increase our investment in brand to build upon the customer awareness of the great brand Focus is. These three strategies together will lead to driving share growth over the coming years. Complementing this will be our in-store experience. As with Adairs, one thing we really like about the Focus business is the in-store experience is critical to the execution of our business plans. We will look to continuously improve our store format and look to make some changes in the short term and then continue to invest in the store team who ultimately deliver a great customer experience in the Focus stores, and something we will continue to build upon.
We also understand range expansion, and we look forward to expanding the range and great opportunity in the short term in terms of home decorator and soft furnishing items that complement the Focus on Furniture offer as we start to look into other categories, occasional, furniture as well as other stuff such as outdoor and the like, that will continue to complement the range that Focus delivers today. The Australian home furniture market is large, with estimated annual sales of more than AUD 8.3 billion, with Focus today being a very small player in this large market. Focus has historically delivered stable sales and earnings numbers, and like many retailers, did a great job of capitalizing on the impact of COVID-19 over the course of the FY 2021 year.
As part of our due diligence, we have looked to estimate the impact of COVID-19 and believe a sustainable sales base of AUD 125 million and earnings of between AUD 12 million and AUD 14 million is what we will grow the business from. Importantly, to deliver these growth initiatives, the management team are continuing and are excited by the opportunity ahead. The acquisition of Focus brings significant expertise and existing infrastructure to the group around design and sourcing of larger furniture items, furniture retailing itself, and importantly, supply chain logistics and last mile delivery. Focus will continue to operate independently with the group providing support across a range of areas to help de-risk and accelerate our growth plans.
With multiple levers for growth, a strong strategic fit, and a great management team, we're excited to welcome Focus to the Adairs Group and know that together we can continue to truly build a great business. I'll now hand over to Ash, who will walk through the transaction details in more detail.
Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. As Mark said, the purchase price for Focus is based on enterprise value of AUD 80 million on a debt-free basis. We will be acquiring AUD 5 million of cash when completion occurs. We'll be funding the transaction through a combination of equity and equity placement with the outgoing or the current CEO and majority shareholder of AUD 6 million, and then the balance through existing and new debt facilities. We have a new debt facility of AUD 45 million, which will extend through until virtually for three years, which is extended beyond the current expiry of our existing facilities.
From an overall valuation perspective, we expect the business to be EPS accretive virtually immediately and that will continue. We don't expect to change our dividend policy, which will remain between 65% and 80%. From a leverage perspective, we have plenty of headroom on our covenants post-acquisition and don't anticipate any issues there. On that basis, we might open the lines to questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Apoorv Sehgal with UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for the call and taking my questions. First, just on the sustainable EBIT margins. It's about 9.6%-11.2% based on that sustainable revenue, and to the sustainable EBIT range you gave. That's well below the Adairs brand, which is sort of in the mid- to high teens normally. Given that last you described gross margins to be strong, is the delta there on the cost base? And I guess, is there an opportunity therefore to lift those margins to Focus?
I think there's a combination of levers. When we think about that sustainable earnings base, that's based on a historical running of the business, when we look at it that way. We think we can grow EBIT margins over time, and that'll creep through a number of levers. You think about store rollout. The store contribution margins, let's say they average 25%. As we roll out more stores and leverage the overlying infrastructure of the group and the support office team, we'll see that EBIT margin look to improve. Equally, we think there is opportunity in gross margin and some other elements of the business to move the EBIT margin up.
If we think about it from a historical perspective, that 10%-12% has been where the business has historically traded, and therefore that's the EBIT margin that we've portrayed in these figures in relation to a sustainable EBIT margin. You know, that's not allowing for the work that we see going forward and the opportunities that are out there in terms of growing that EBIT margin. We won't anchor it in the short term. There'll be an element where that's about where it sits and it'll grow over time.
Got it. Okay. Maybe on sustainable sales of AUD 125, just to clarify, would that be slightly lower in FY 2022, just given the lockdowns in the first half? Or have you sort of taken that into account?
We've taken that into account.
Yeah. Okay. Just one final question. We'd love to hear from you sort of the key points of differentiation versus some of the peers in space. You showed on slide 11, I think, a number of peers like Nick Scali, Plush-
Yep.
Just your thoughts on what makes Focus different.
Yeah. I think the beauty for Focus and how it plays into that market is. If we think middle market, I think about the space altogether, you've got the guys at the top, Coco, King, these sorts of brands that live at a higher price point. I think Scali sits sort of between them and Focus. You know, Focus is definitely a better value price point day in, day out than Scali is, and really competes more with, I guess, the middle part of your Harvey Norman model. You know, Harvey's have a high end, and they also have a bit towards a bit below where Focus sit and equally Freedom.
If I think about those larger national type chains, you know, there's no doubt that Focus sits in the middle there and is competing day to day with the likes of Freedom, Harvey Norman, Scali to a lesser degree, your Oz Designs and the like, all in that sort of space. And sits above them your, I think, your Fantastic Furniture and IKEA and even Amart. The sort of genuine middle market. Our go-to-market proposition as a brand comes back a bit to quality of the product, design and on-trend. If you think about, we aim to be a bit more on-trend, I think, than some of the others.
Largely, I would say, you know, Freedom do a good job of that as well, so we're gonna go toe-to-toe with Freedom, day in, day out. But the piece here that we then start to play out is, I think as a brand, sofas are the biggest part of the business. That's what we are really good at, and we'll continue to complement that with the ranges around it. That fashion on-trend, but really functional product as well. You know, we like to think about when the guys put together a product range at Focus, and you think about sofas in particular, I keep using the word Focus, but we are very focused on how the product comes together, the comfort in that product.
They're not only thinking about it from a fashion and trend and the right fabrications and the element and how trends are moving, but then also a high degree of comfort. It needs to be highly functional. We compete on, I think, on price. Realistically, we're aiming to be better value, similar quality, better value than a lot of those competitors in that space. That doesn't mean big discounts and big percentage off. What it actually means is developing a really good quality range with an element of off price, which we all know sort of sits within the furniture space. That would be my two big call-outs. It comes back to that on-trend piece and really good quality at a good price.
Very good. Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Aryan Norozi with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. How are you all? A few quick ones from me, please. Just the difference between the AUD 12 million-AUD 14 million of EBIT and the AUD 33 million that was actually reported. You've obviously taken out the COVID sales benefits from it in incremental margin. What about other benefits like JobKeeper and other sustainable things that add to it? Can you just give us an idea on the bridge between the two, please?
There's no JobKeeper in the FY 2021 actuals. It's really taking a view on the historic rate of sales growth and the historic margin and sort of bringing them back in line with where they were. It's a combination of sales and margin adjustments.
Yeah.
which is why the profit effect is a bit more proportionate.
Perfect. FY 2020, was there any JobKeeper in that? How much was it, please?
No.
No JobKeeper?
No JobKeeper.
Fiscal 2020 is a pretty clean number in terms of the sales and profit. Is that fair?
With the exception that we all know that come March, April of that year, stores closed.
Yeah.
You know, there's an element where it's probably, I would have thought they would have traded a bit better than that, overall, but they got a lot of it back. We're not talking, you know, 20% down in that year. It's probably more like 5%-10% over that last quarter.
Just in terms of like the assets, there's not a lot of asset accounting for FY 2018 and 2017. If I look at FY 2013-2016, it seems pretty consistent around that sort of 9%-11% range margin. Then FY 2019, it dips down to 6%. Was it just the weaker housing market and operating gearing leverage or what drove that weaker margin and that sort of step change from 6% to 10%, please?
In FY 2017, the history of the business is Rob initially sold out to a group that were doing a roll-up, and it became part of a larger group. In FY 2019, what you're seeing is that the business coming out of VA, which so those guys effectively ran a big strategy that online was gonna be the future. Took all the cash that Focus and some other brands were throwing off and poured it into online and digital, and forgot that you still need stock and the like to actually continue the businesses on the other side.
That lower margin really reflects the lower sales over that period and some payments made as they came out of VA and to put the business back right, investments in working capital, et cetera, et cetera. It's a historically abnormal sort of number. If you've gone back further, as you mentioned there, we've seen, you know, prior to that and historically, that 10%-12% is traditionally where it is, and that's where we think, you know, acquiring a business like this, we've got a really solid, strong, stable earnings base that with some store rollout and the like gives us great opportunity for growth going forward.
Yeah. Perfect. Last one, just in terms of the models there, I mean, something like a Nick Scali's, you've got an order book, and then you draw down on the order book and that drives your revenue. For these, for Focus on, is there a sort of order book perspective? Would the stronger order book drive revenue growth for the next 12, 18 months? Or it's not made to order and it's just what it is.
They have an order book similar to Scali, but the lead times are nothing like that. They do have stock that is made to order, but they really try to be more in stock and therefore your delivery times are, you know, the target is the average would probably be 6 weeks, but, you know, there's stuff that's two weeks and stuff that pushes out to 10-12 weeks. You know, the real sweet spot is to try and be in stock and get customer deliveries to them within sort of two to six weeks of the order being placed. The order book isn't as long because of that.
Okay. There's no big difference between your order book and your revenue that you're booking each period. We shouldn't expect a big uplift in revenue to make up for your order book. Is that fair?
Well, the order book's rolling continuously, you know, with six to eight weeks worth of sales in it. If the business is growing at 15%, then the 15% will be in the order book on top of the sales moving forward. If the business is flat, then the order book and the realized sales will be the same.
Yeah. Perfect. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Wilson Wong with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Can you just provide some details just around the impact of the lockdowns on sales in, I guess, in FY 2022 year to date, and then sort of how the trading has been sort of post re-opening?
Look, I think the no doubt when you've got 15 of 23 stores in Victoria, it's had a relatively significant impact over that, you know, 10-13 weeks of true lockdown. We've been really pleased and excited to see the sort of sales that actually came out of the stores offering the click and collect model. They probably were at times, you know, less than half their normal average weekly sales with that sort of store network closed. Reopening has been strong. You know, they've bounced back really quickly. Probably, you know, the beauty of having both the businesses be able to line up our Victorian sort of numbers.
We've seen similar strength in Focus as we've seen at Adairs, and now that's starting to head back towards a more normal run rate now that we're four or five weeks into that reopening phase in Victorian retail. You know, we've seen good strong sales growth as we've come out of lockdown, which makes up for a portion of the period that they were closed for.
Right. [audio distorted]
As we look forward, the gross margin before delivery costs is sort of low 50s%. There's delivery costs, and then you've got your running costs, which, you know. Store contribution is sort of circa 20%-25%, and then you go overheads after that.
Right. Just the final one from me, just around, just more broadly speaking, just the strategy. How's sort of the strategy around growing the online sales mix and change, I guess, with this acquisition? I guess with acquiring a primarily bricks-and-mortar retailer, it seems to be some change in tack from the previous sort of pure online retail acquisition.
Well, I think it's more in line with our stated strategy, which is all about omnichannel wins. We, you know, we're firm believers in omnichannel, and that's included. You know, there's lots of conversation thinking about how does Mocka have some sort of physical store presence which allows customers to touch and feel and experience the product. We think there's great online growth potential in Focus. But we also know in this larger category, we believe, and after a reasonable amount of work, that the customers like to experience that ability to touch, feel, sit on, sit at, this sort of larger furniture item, particularly in these investment type pieces.
I mean, one of the big differences between this business and our existing businesses is moves towards an AUD 1,800 average transaction value versus, you know, Adairs' at circa AUD 150 and Mocka, you know, between AUD 150-AUD 200, depending on market and time of year. When we think about that, we think more and more that in this space and, you know, we were very keen to make sure we built out the group and really targeted the full home furnishings and furniture market. In acquiring Focus, we've got a brand that has great potential for rolling out stores. Equally, we think there's a big online piece. The beauty of it getting it at such a stage of its growth cycle, you know, we've got 23 stores in place today.
We see the opportunity to turn those stores into omnichannel showrooms more so as we start to roll them out, versus necessarily being a traditional furniture retailer of, you know, big space, lots of couches, walk around. How do we make that a little more interactive? How do we bring online into the sales experience more and more are things that we've been talking through with the guys and thinking about how that plays out. I think as a group, you know, we're being very focused on omnichannel retail being that that wins. Over time, you know, we sort of see that online might capture 30%-35% of the home furnishings and furniture market, which means there's a big piece of the market that's gonna continue to be done in stores.
Focus allows us to not only access that, but also start to build out our capability to deliver last mile really well from an online perspective as well as the store portfolio broadens and we put our boots in the ground in terms of other states that allows us to really offer a heightened online experience when you can start to get delivery quicker, faster, more efficiently, utilizing a strong store network and property portfolio that enables that to come to fruition. I don't think we've changed our view on online. I think we're continuing our view on omni-channel and this starts to play into how we think about executing that going forward.
Just to clarify, what percentage of Focus' revenue is actually online at the moment? Do you expect that to sort of stay stable or grow, meaningfully over time?
Yeah, I think that's currently sort of at 12% or thereabout. Obviously, you know, with majority stores in Victoria, and Victoria's been closed, stores closed for so long, that's artificially inflated, probably double what it should be. We think it'll come back to sort of circa 6%, and then we'll build it out over time to 10 as we continue to grow stores. We'd still see it growing at, you know, a far faster rate than the store network. Our store sales, like-for-like sales. If it settles at 10%-12%, over the next three to four years, you know, we'd be happy with that, you know, on the basis that we've also, you know, grown the like-for-like stores and expanded the estate of stores.
Equally, I think as we start to think about it, the other opportunity this brings us is if the customer moves that way faster, we've now got a channel that allows us to execute on that, and it won't stop us investing. That's always been our philosophy, is not move ahead of the customer, but move with the customer and build out our store portfolio both for the Adairs, now with Focus and equally Mocka to complement an all-round customer experience.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Mark Wade with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, guys. It seems like a cracking deal. I'm just trying to think, is there a catch? I mean, why would these owners sell out at what seems to be such a undemanding valuation? Can you not sell Rob that?
No, Mark, I think the piece here is we've been working with these guys for a significant period of time now and largely you know, working through the strategy, building a relationship with the management team. I think the reason the deal is what it is is because in partnering with Rob and his team, they're really confident that we have the same vision for delivering Focus to the business that it can be that they have.
They wanted to partner with people that complemented what they were gonna do, saw what Focus was capable of, and were there to help them deliver on that, and therefore weren't sitting here thinking, "Well, I need to be greedy on day one and sell at a really high multiple," and all the rest of that sort of philosophy. You know, that's been one of our challenges. You know, many of you on this call will have spoken to us over the last 12 months, and I've regularly said every homewares business in Australia is currently for sale if you're prepared to pay a multiple of FY 2021. These guys were very realistic, and we were already talking to them before the end of FY 2021. We've spent a lot of time with them.
This is really about cementing a partnership with these guys in how we're gonna go to market together and what we bring to the deal and what they bring to the deal and the sum of the parts, really allowing them to be the business they wanna be. You know, I think it is. There's no doubt we think it's a well-priced deal and very fair. You know, we've always said the challenge over the last couple of years is what is that normalized? What is that stable base, earnings base? I mean, who really knows? We've done as much work as we can and tried to give obviously you guys guidance as to what that is.
You know, it's a fair deal and a great opportunity for the management team there to, with our support, to execute what they think Focus can become.
Mark, why wouldn't you put some handcuffs on them in terms of like earn-outs, like as you did for Mocka?
Well, I think I learned through the Mocka deal that earn-outs can be helpful, and they can hinder.
Mm.
We didn't want to necessarily go down that path this time. We preferred, you know, Rob investing alongside us and putting some of that equity back in is really exciting for us, that gives him the opportunity to share in the upside. But means that we're not constraining the business from a growth perspective. You know, you think about as we roll out stores up the east and seaboard, we're gonna need to invest in distribution centers and the like alongside those stores to enable that customer experience to come to fruition.
With that in mind, we were particularly mindful of things like earn-out in terms of this deal, because often that means you've got to invest ahead of time, and then how do you factor that into the earnings of that particular year versus. We, you know, what we wanted to make sure of is that we understood the growth strategy. We controlled the capital allocation, and we could control the earnings rate and the way that that rolled out. We could work together to deliver that, and we didn't have people working on different time horizons, short versus medium versus long. That's where we got to, and I think we've really. I think it also comes back to the price is very fair.
You know, it's not based on a future earnings that they're promising to deliver. It's based on a historical run rate of this business. Therefore, we felt comfortable that with a fair price, we didn't need to think about earn-outs, and we can incentivize the team to deliver by more standard employee-type metrics.
Yeah, exactly. Okay. No, fair enough. Seems a bit cleaner. Lastly, any reflection on what this deal means for the core business? You know, does it mean you're more, you know, I guess you're more upbeat about the outlook for the core business or is it, you know, or is it perhaps the opposite, you know, where you think it might be falling away a little bit quicker at the edges than you would've thought?
Oh, no, I don't think it has any real impact on the core business. I'm excited by the fact that as a group now, we really have a complete product offering in home furnishings and furniture. I think we have now within the Mocka, Adairs and Focus businesses, you know, a customer could largely furnish their entire home. That for me, when I think about where we wanna go as a group and how we want to really approach the market and how we think about the different customer experiences and journeys amongst each of those brands, that all really makes sense to me. You know, I think about it's a very different customer experience going into Focus to buy a couch or a dining table than it is to come to Adairs and buy some bed linen or some cushions and throws.
You know, I think what we've done here with this acquisition is rounded out the group and allowed us to go after the whole market across our different brands. It's allowed us now to focus clearly that this is where we're gonna do furniture. It takes out a bit of noise in the Adairs business. You know, we can still have a furniture range within the Adairs brand, but that will be very much focused towards on-trend, a bit more fashionable, a bit more unique, and we can play around with that. We're not having to think about, well, how do we do couches for the cushions that sit on? No, no, we've got a brand that does that.
Equally, we can start to think about is there some more cross-promotional stuff within the brands and even product moving between the brands. I think that Focus really gives us that opportunity. Because of its similar price point and market position, I think we're gonna push it up slightly in terms of look and feel, but not so much price point. Those two sitting alongside each other, Adairs and Focus, and then adding Mocka in as that opportunity, particularly when we get some, you know, different styles of customer, inner city, a bit more apartment living, smaller items, those elements. I mean, that's really a sweet spot for Mocka. I think we now start to really have the opportunity to go after the whole market across these brands.
I think naturally in time it becomes quite complementary, the three businesses all working together with a view to how we go to market. That, as I said, stops a bit of noise within Adairs and Adairs trying to be all things to all people. It really allows Adairs to not so much stick to its knitting and remove any range expansion strategies we've got, but really understand who the Adairs customer is, the Mocka customer is, and the Focus customer, and they will cross over across those brands, but often that'll be for a different purpose, and we can go after them based on that purpose.
All right. Well, great insights. Great deal. Congratulations and hope it goes well.
Thanks, Mark.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from James Casey with Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. I just missed the start of the call, so apologies upfront for that. Just the last statement on the front page, you talk about Focus operating independently of Adairs. How is that functionally going to work? Is this a separate business unit? Who will set their CapEx budget? How is it all gonna function within Adairs?
What we mean by that is operationally and to go after the strategic plan, we will have a management team within the Focus business, and they exist today. The same management team that's got it to this point will be there to deliver on those underlying strategies. As part of our normal, you know, annual process, we run budgets, how does that tie back to strategy, capital allocation is done at that point across all of our businesses and brands. You know, there's an allocation piece that occurs at that time, and therefore, once we've got through that process, then the business is free to go and deliver against that. I think when I think about Focus, we'll have that as an overarching philosophy.
We want the go-to-market, the customer, the product, and the marketing to be really concentrated within the management team, so they completely own that piece. They get the support of the likes of Ash, myself, as to thinking about the strategy, how do we execute it, who do we introduce them to? How do we pull that back together? We think about property. Property is probably something that will be centralized. You know, the last thing we want is, you know, having leasing executives across brands, going after the same space and bidding up, rental, rates.
What we'll do there is Michael Cherubino, who many of you will have met over the years as our property lead, will actually look after both brands, and we'll add some extra resource in to make sure that, you know, nothing slips through the cracks there. We state that on delivering the strategy and executing, but what Adairs, the group brings to these sorts of businesses is that support network and structure. I think about all sorts of corporate governance, risk, things like modern slavery and all of those elements. We centralize pieces of that to make sure we're consistent across the group.
When we think about how do we go to market, who are we contacting as customers, how do we do that, we really want the management team to own that, and that's how we think about it running independently.
Okay. Just one follow-up. The store locations, some of them are obviously regional. You've kind of inferred there's gonna be a subtle repositioning of the business, more to an on-trend, if you like, market position. Is that gonna be consistent with kind of those regional stores?
Yeah, I think so, James. I mean, as you say, I think the right word in there is subtle. This isn't about fundamentally changing this business. It's a good business. It's got a really solid base, and it's about complementing it as opposed to fundamentally changing it. At the end of the day, well, one thing I've learned a lot about over the last six, nine, 12 months working with these guys, they sell a lot of great couches. So, you know, you need that fundamental core will remain. Within this business, we can easily think about what range is where. That doesn't. You know, we can run a greater core range when we start to think about regional.
You know, the hot pink couch may not work in Shepparton, but might be all the rage in I don't know, somewhere else. I'll think of a store name. Moorabbin. Let's insult our friends at Moorabbin. When you think about the store mix and the store portfolio and the product within those stores, you know, clearly within a Focus store, a bit like in Adairs store and almost any retailer today, you don't have the full range on offer in every store. As this is a delivery model, you're not sitting there thinking about cash and carry, and I need to have the hot pink couch in there just in case someone walks in to buy it today.
What we can do is to obviously sell that through there, and so we can get a bit more of a mix of product on the floor to suit the customer demographic of that area. That's something that we will have the luxury of doing within Focus, and it will be something that we focus on as we deliver the store rollout strategy. We won't just be, you know, same thing for everybody. There will be consistency in our range, but at the edges, we will be able to make sure we curate that to that customer group.
Okay. Thanks, Mark.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Matt Parker with Auscap. Please go ahead.
Okay. Again, congrats on the acquisition. Touched on it a little bit earlier, just with the process you went through, was it an exclusive process in the end? Can I read through that? You know, through your dealings with them, how have you perceived their culture and is it a good fit for your current culture at Adairs?
Yeah. I wouldn't say we ever had an exclusive piece, but I would argue that the great thing about the work we've done with them is we've invested significant time in the due diligence process, in thinking about the strategy, those growth initiatives that you'll see in the deck, in working with the Focus management team on building that. That's not something necessarily as a relatively small business that, you know, it wasn't like we rolled in and they had a, "Oh, here's the growth plan, here's this, and this is how we roll it out." What we've done over the last six months in particular is work through, right, well, how do we do this? Where do you think it can go? How do we build this out? What are our options? Let's work through that together.
Let's build a document together that we all believe in, and then, you know, obviously for the management team there, then they've got the opportunity to execute on that. You know, I think that's been a great process. It's been a great process. I think it's been the, you know, financial and legal DD is always important, but ultimately here we're building a partnership with a management team who we think are highly capable of delivering what Focus can become. So that, I think you can naturally infer from that in terms of cultural fit. Yeah, we think these guys, they love products. They demand customer experience is good. There's some areas, you know, a lot of the time there was a lot of. They want feedback from me and Ash and, you know, what are we doing well?
What can we improve on? What do you see when you walk in the store? What do I see when I go online? What are the opportunities? You know, they've got a real continuous improvement. How do we be better? How do we get to what we're really capable of type of attitude, which I think sits really comfortably with Adairs in terms of how we think about going to market as well, both for our customer piece and equally within our team, within our business. You know, culturally, I think that's the exciting piece as much as anything for me.
Not only have we bought a really good business, we've got a great management team who I think are highly capable, and we've got a really strong set of growth levers that we can work our way through for multiple years to really build this business into the business it can become. You know, all of those things, see for me, then you can line up all the transaction metrics and all the rest of it on the back end of that. If you haven't got those first three, it's not worth progressing, and I think that's the exciting piece.
All right. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Your next question is a follow-up from Apoorv Sehgal with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks guys for taking my follow-up question. Just on the rollout, will the new stores likely be at a smaller size versus your current space average for Focus? Just the context is you making comments around having more of an omni-channel showroom type of approach rather than the traditional big space furniture retailer.
Yeah, I think we see 1,800 sq m as about the sweet spot for a Focus store. When we think about range expansion, omni-channel, all of those things, what we're not suggesting is to roll out range expansion, we need to move the stores to 3,500 sq m to fit in a whole bunch of extra product. What we think about is over time, that range expansion will work within that 1,800 sq m and deliver a higher rate of sales per sq m and a higher rate of sales per rent dollar as we start to think about those two elements. I don't think they fundamentally get smaller than they are today.
I think when I think about that showrooming, it's more about experience and how you start to link the digital experience to the in-store experience as opposed to necessarily space, 'cause I still think it's important. You know, a lot of Australians spend a lot of time sitting on their couch watching the telly, interacting with friends, doing all these sorts of things. It's a big part of a family home. Making sure that you've got the ability to actually sit on the couch that they're gonna get in their home at a point in time. As Ash mentioned, you know, aiming at that two to six week window is an important part of the shopping experience for those that come into store.
We don't wanna shrink it down so far that you don't get that actual experience. We know that that touch and feel is important to customers. It's more about leaving them about where they are and that 1,800 sq m being about the sweet spot. As we all know, you know, no two stores are exactly the same. As we introduce additional ranges, we won't sit here thinking like I think it's similar to Adairs. I mean, Adairs, we're thinking about upsize really matters, but that's 'cause we started in a smaller footprint. Focus, we're sort of starting with where we think the brand ends, and we'll add other ranges in over time.
Cool. That's all. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.