On today's call, we have Mr. Graeme Whickman, CEO, and Mr. Aaron Canning, CFO. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Graeme Whickman. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and welcome to the earnings call of Amotiv's results for the six months ended 31st December 2024. I'm Graeme Whickman, CEO, Managing Director, and more importantly, I'm here with Aaron Canning, the company's new Chief Financial Officer. So welcome to you, Aaron. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Some of you would have met Aaron at the AGM, and you're certainly getting an opportunity to hear from him today and our subsequent roadshow this week. A recording of this call, along with the presentation material, will be available later today on Amotiv's website. So I'll start the call by touching on the key messages, highlights, and operating divisional summaries. Then I'll turn over to Aaron covering off the financial section in more detail, and then we'll conclude with a short trading update and an outlook before conducting Q&A. So let's turn to slide four.
Overall, the result reflects what has been a challenging environment through the half and into H2. We've leveraged Amotiv's strong positions, and you'll see a lot of our disciplined cost management. It's been a half where we've continued to invest in growth to ensure we leverage the, what I'll call, the opportunity-rich future growth in an updated capital allocation framework lens. You'll see we're well positioned for a stronger H2, which we talked of at the AGM, with business wins, pricing, and substantive actions all within our influence. Importantly, our strong capital position is able to support both our continued buyback program and investment in the growth imperatives. And finally, we reaffirm again that we fully expect growth in both revenue and EBITDA in FY 2025 with a slightly stronger H2 skew.
Turning to slide five, where we detailed the group financial highlights, you can see overall revenue growth for the half at 2.3%, with PU up at 5.8%, LPE up at 3.6%, and 4WD softer by 1.9%. Now, as communicated at the AGM, the headwinds continue across the New Zealand landscape, the caravan and RV sector, and a little bit of the APG top 20 models. Gross margins were down slightly due to the inclusion of the LPE acquisitions, unit volumes, and some higher freight costs and some adverse 4WD mix, although we are taking pricing in early H2 across those segments. Underlying EBITDA was up slightly ahead of revenue, which reflects some proactive cost management and operational efficiencies.
However, underlying EBITA, so EBITA, came in at AUD 97 million, 1% down, which is a direct reflection of the continuing investment in the half for the near and medium-term future growth, and that investment trajectory will be detailed later in the financial section from Aaron. Cash conversion remained strong, which is typical for our group, and the headline would have actually been even greater if not for some one-off impacts that Aaron will also call out later. We announced an interim dividend of AUD 0.185, which is flat versus prior period and sits alongside my earlier comments about the continuing buyback program. Finally, our net debt to EBITDA leverage of 1.75 at the half remains conservative and in line with the capital allocation framework targets you'll see later in the deck.
Now, on slide six, I'm excited to share how we're progressing on the FY 2025 strategic imperatives we detailed in FY 2024 year-end and also at the AGM. Now, we've spoken in some detail in the past about our competitive advantages across the divisions, the attractive TAMs we service, the significant ongoing and strategic growth actions to drive our business forward. And in this slide, we highlighted what we think to be the key five outcomes to push for the pursuit of growth. And in that order, we originally talked about divisional optimization, which we've matured to enterprise optimization/Amotiv Unified. And we'll see a slide shortly about Amotiv Unified. It'll give you a bit more color. How we rolled out South Africa, the continued increase in profitable offshore revenue, the pursuit of operational excellence, and then capital management for organic and inorganic growth.
Now, in terms of status, I'm really happy to share we've made really good progress in all. We've quietly gone about our optimization and our early Amotiv Unified efforts since introducing this at our May 24 Investor Day. We've completed cost activities and 4WD, right-sizing in LPE and Powertrain distribution, ERP consolidation with efficiencies across the enterprise, resulting in a reduction of our cost base by about 80 FTEs through the first half and a further 20, actually, in H2 of FY 2025. I'm really excited to say South African manufacturing is up and running and earning revenue as of H2. The product's gone really well in terms of budget and timing. I congratulate both Jason and his team, and I'm sure Aaron will take all the credit for that budget in terms of time and budget. Well done, Aaron.
Of course, as we bed down this operation, we'll start hunting for further revenue opportunities over the medium term. Building our offshore revenue continued, and this was nicely demonstrated by the strong Vision X performance and also Thailand doing well for 4WD. Our operational excellence efforts were well rewarded through the half with a considerable, and I do mean a considerable array of external awards and ongoing people-centric hurdles achieved. Then finally, a capital management focus resulted in actions such as the current and ongoing share buyback program, a successful debt renegotiation, and then the updating and today publishing of our capital allocation framework, really to ensure that you, our investors, have real good clarity about this endeavor.
On slide seven, we're reminded that in late FY 2024, we moved to divisional operating structure and resegmented the divisions that represent those reporting segments and help with a more aligned and simpler reporting structure. The scale, the reach of the group has grown over recent years, and the composition of the revenue is nicely split across those three operating divisions. We also know in the background that the group has diluted its customer base. It's taken on more of the automotive life cycle, the nice mix of traditional aftermarket and what I would describe as targeted OEM and OES business. And in this half, 15% of our revenue was gained from offshore. So I'm very pleased in that regard. On slide eight, we detail our strategic imperatives to drive growth.
I trust we were clear at our recent Investor Day and year-end about our six key strategic imperatives that inform both our organic and inorganic growth approach. That's on the left-hand side of the slide. To the right side, you can see that there are four areas that support our growth opportunities: our mature-term enterprise optimization, and I'll give you a bit more detail on the next slide on that; the product development investment that's driving new business wins like U-Haul in the U.S.; disciplined changes where we're learning, like our Lighting Power Electrical U.S. go-to-market optimization; and then finally, bolt-on acquisitions, which we work studiously in the background on. Therefore, the intersection of the imperatives on the left and the drivers on the right is where we believe great growth opportunities exist within our existing portfolio and, as we said before, strategically aligned bolt-ons.
Now, for investors with good memories, you'll notice the top right item number one has been changed from divisional optimization to enterprise optimization, and we introduce for the first time the term Amotiv Unified, so let's slip over to slide nine, and I want to give you a flavor of the body of work we've already started in this half, so slide nine speaks to our thinking about leveraging our recent move to an automotive pure play. It's a methodical and deliberate effort to ensure that we drive efficiency and effectiveness within a series of defined business platforms. It's also a subset of our next horizon and strategic refresh, which over the next half you'll hear more of, and importantly, it's been internally led by our new Chief Strategy Officer, David Cecil, who joined us in Q2.
So the Amotiv Unified business platforms, they're internally conceived, internally inspired, internally led activities, which is the natural evolution that we've been indicating since our Investor Day last year. There are three waves with careful management in terms of avoiding initiative overload, and it certainly pays attention to the right cultural and practical change management. We've already kicked off wave one in the first half. It's leader-led with what I'll call the augmented assistance of subject matter experts where we see fit. It's a multi-year effort. And if you look at the slide, the middle of the slide details the universe of platforms under the microscope, and then to the right, what platforms we're actually targeting for the wave one.
Now, we'll be looking for either efficiency or effectiveness improvements in these key eight platforms, and that could range from removing subscale manufacturing and consolidating that all the way through to sensible ERP consolidation and consolidating kitting. So real tangible benefits in terms of effectiveness. In April, we'll give you more detail when we host our Asian facility visit for investors. Needless to say, there are some benchmarks on how and how not to lean into these types of work streams. And at the end of the day, this is about the unification of Amotiv, keeping the critical elements of our success, but leveraging the power of the group and scale. Something, by the way, our teams are leaning into, not away. And we've been building proof of concepts and leadership capability. And what I'd say here is our organizational maturity is supportive of this next step. Okay.
Let's move on to the divisional summaries. On slide 11, we start with the 4WD. The result was a solid performance, and I mean that in light of the weak pickup sales and SUV sales and the continued weakness in caravan RV in the overall New Zealand market. Revenue dropped slightly, but was supported with a little bit of modest acquisition contribution. Underlying EBITDA margins were flat on the back of good margin management in the face of certain cost inflation factors. Therefore, the 4WD team were proactive in their cost control measures. As you look all the way down to EBITDA, you can see a drop of about 8%, and in the face of the above comments, where pickups were down across ANZ by more than 12%, and if you actually look at it in Australia, down by 16%.
Hence the comment around actually a solid outcome in light of that. We were happy with the new business wins in the half. That trend just continues. I love it. A further AUD 16 million on the back of our engineering credentials. And also, interestingly, some capture of Chinese OEM business, which is an interesting trend. We've made good progress on our strategic imperatives, and many of these speak to the support of the second half, such as South Africa up and running, business wins in the US, cost outs completed in New Zealand, and some strategic pricing and a little bit more further operating model optimization in H2. Now, on slide 12, we turn our attention to LPE, lighting power and electrical.
So the revenue in the half certainly reflects some challenging ANZ dynamics, this being offset to a degree with a very positive U.S. revenue performance, overall revenue being up just over 3.5% for our acquisitions and organic down. The EBITDA margin underpinning this was stable at the organic level. However, at the divisional level, it dropped as we wait, and I will say expect in H2 to see the acquisition cost synergies within our influence start to roll through. Progress on our strategic imperatives and H2 confidence are buoyed by a number of critical factors, firstly in ANZ, such as some modest reseller destocking normalization, the price increases from February, the cost synergies I just mentioned, acquisition, and the right-sizing actions taken in H1 flowing through. And then secondly, in the U.S. and Europe, I've talked about our go-to-market optimization in the U.S. and some wins with Volvo and Scania.
The last slide before I hand over to Aaron is Powertrain. The result reflects continued resilience of the wear and tear market, which is served by this division. We experienced strong and above-system growth and penetration, actually including some really good growth in commercial vehicle penetration. Also with strong gasket performance, offsetting a softer domestic brake business as we went through our transition of the new distribution center in H1. Margins were held through appropriate cost control and also the flow through the FY 2024 late pricing. And that sort of offset freight and domestic cost inflation factors. Progress on our strategic imperatives were encouraging and leads to a modest H2 skew. This is driven by the productivity and cost benefits of the new distribution center for brakes, coupled with some strategic pricing in this segment and some disciplined investment in the Infinitev EV business. Okay.
Let me turn the mic over to Aaron now for some more financial details. Aaron.
Thank you, Graeme, and good morning, everybody. My name is Aaron Canning, and I have the pleasure of presenting my first set of interim results as the CFO of Amotiv. Just directing your attention to the group financials on slide 15. As Graeme mentioned earlier, revenue grew 2.3%, which was supported by acquisitions, most notably in our LPE business being CES or Caravan Electrical Solutions and our Swedish business, Rindab. And to a lesser extent, the inclusion of acquisitions in the four-wheel drive business being Milford. Underlying revenue was 3% lower due to LPE, most notably in ANZ, and a softer four-wheel drive business, most notably due to new car sales being lower, caravan RV market, and New Zealand.
Gross profit grew 5%, with margins being slightly lower due to the inclusion of the LP&E acquisitions, CES, and Rindab, and were impacted by higher freight costs and adverse mix in the four-wheel drive division. The benefit of price increases in H2 FY 2024 flowed through to this first half, which partly offset inflationary cost increases in the half, with further price increases to take effect across the second half of this year across all operating divisions. Our operating costs were pleasingly 1.6% lower in what was an inflationary environment and reflects the sustainable changes we made in the half to deliver a more efficient operating cost base. Within this total operating cost, we invested AUD 3.6 million in the expansion of our LP&E business in the US and our EV business, Infinitev. This compares to AUD 2.7 million in the prior period.
Depreciation, we've split this out for you to show for further disclosure, which highlights the investments we've made in the half in fixed assets and new sites and locations, which would include South Africa and new distribution center for Powertrain in Melbourne, along with the integration of our CES, Rindab, and Milford acquisitions. Underlying EBITA at AUD 97 million is marginally lower than the prior period and reflects the investments that we've made in the period in growth initiatives. Significant items, which is AUD 22.4 million, and a large number that I want to go and explain in more detail. We do have a separate slide on this in the appendix, which details this further. But of the AUD 22.4 million, AUD 10.3 million relates to cash costs due to restructuring and new business setup costs such as South Africa.
We have taken proactive steps to streamline our cost base as part of the evolution of Amotiv, with a particular focus in Australia and New Zealand in both the four-wheel drive and our LP&E businesses, and to a lesser extent, the powertrain and undercar division. These changes totaled 80 FTEs or full-time equivalents exiting the business in the first half. And as Graeme mentioned earlier, we expect approximately 20 further FTEs to depart in H2 through further optimizing operations and natural attrition. We expect the cash significant items cost in the second half to reflect these changes and other changes, and we expect that cost to be in the range of another AUD 3 million-AUD 5 million. As I said earlier, we break out significant items both in terms of cash and non-cash on slide 24 as part of the appendices of this presentation.
The total of 100 FTEs exiting the business through FY 2025 reflects approximately 4.5% of our workforce, with an annualized cost saving between AUD 10-12 million, which we will look to reinvest some of these benefits in FY 2026 to support future growth initiatives. Non-cash costs within significant items totaled AUD 12.1 million, the largest of which relates to a AUD 10.4 million impairment. We've taken the decision to impair the carrying value of our Fully Equipped business in New Zealand by AUD 9.8 million, which includes Goodwill and Brands. This business makes fiberglass canopies for pickups and utility vehicles in that market. The New Zealand new car market remains subdued, and we have an expectation that the current market will remain challenging for longer. We felt it was prudent to take this approach to an impairment in the half.
There's also some minor impairments relating to some brands in the LP&E division, again, which is outlined on slide 24. Our net finance costs, we've also taken the opportunity to split these out further for further transparency. It reflects the reduction in our commitments, improved margins, and benefits of refinancing, which are starting to flow through, with our interest costs actually being AUD 2.1 million lower. That's within net finance expenses. Within that number, there is, the benefit is masked by the NPV impact of the unwinding of the earnout provisions for our Vision X business in the US, Rindab, and CES. I would note that's in note five of our appendix 4D. Our tax rate for this half, excluding impairments, was 28.4% versus 30% in the PCP.
This is largely reflecting the higher proportion of offshore earnings, particularly in the U.S. and Thailand, that the business is now starting to generate. Of course, goodwill impairment is non-deductible. Hence, the effective tax rate is 33.1%. Statutory impact from continuing operations was AUD 33 million impacted by those significant items. The board approved an 18.5% dividend in the half in line with last year and complemented by our buyback. We now have 140.1 million shares on issue, with a dividend payment totaling just under AUD 26 million for the half. On the share buyback, we announced this at our AGM on the 21st of October last year. We commenced that program shortly thereafter. We continued to buy shares up to and including the 31st of December. The program has been on hold since then due to our internal blackout trading window.
Our intention is we will recommence this program in the second half, and we remain committed to purchasing up to 5% of our issued capital by October of this year. On slide 16 outlines our net working capital and cash conversion. Our net working capital has increased nearly AUD 23 million since June 2024. It is too high, and it remains an area of focus for the business to improve through the second half. In particular, inventory and improving our stock turns without compromising our competitive advantage of the breadth and depth of our range will be a focus for the second half and also beyond as part of the Amotiv Unified platforms. Specifically, in relation to inventory since June, there have been three drivers of that increase, the first being a destocking impact with AU resellers or Australian resellers in LPE.
We expected Q2 customer reordering patterns to be stronger than what they were, and hence our inventory levels remain elevated in that operating business. In four-wheel drive, we built inventory in South Africa, ahead of revenue being recognized from January. In the powertrain and undercar business, we transitioned to a more efficient non-warehouse, where we intentionally increased inventory in this period to manage that transition. When it comes to all three of these drivers, we expect these to normalize in the second half. Payables largely reflects timing differences in supplier payment times and inventory flow. On receivables, there was a one-off impact related to a major Australian reseller that related to an overdue payment that was not received in accordance with terms in the half. It has now been paid.
There were also some historical rebate claims dating back a number of years that were also claimed in the period. Both of those issues totaled AUD 11 million, and we do not foresee those repeating in the second half. Reported cash conversion was 76.5%, impacted by receivables. If I exclude the reseller issue, as I've just talked about, cash conversion would have been over 87% for the half. As you can see from that table on the bottom right there, that would have been a very strong result for this half. It is our intention to continue to reduce the reliance on receivables factoring over the period and into 2026. It is our expectation that our receivables factoring for FY 2025 for the end of this year will be lower than the same period last year.
We anticipate cash conversion for the full year of FY 2025 to be around 85%, noting that the business naturally has a lower working capital and a stronger cash flow performance in the second half, and we are not expecting the repeat of those one-offs, as I said before. Onto slide 17. This chart here from left to right really continues to show our continued investment in product development and our capability in this space as being an enabler and source of future growth. Our current investment levels at 3.2% of revenue are expected to continue through the balance of this year. Our mix of CapEx investments is increasingly reflecting the change of the shape of the business, with more investment in supporting our offshore growth ambitions in places such as South Africa and Thailand being great examples of that. And I'll direct your attention to the graph in the middle.
Our full-year CapEx spend is expected to be marginally higher, up to AUD 2 million higher than we previously advised at the AGM in October of last year. We expect it to be in the range of AUD 25 million-AUD 27 million, and we previously advised it to be around AUD 27 million. We expect this to be a high watermark for the business, with a reduction in CapEx expected into 2026. The chart on the right shows our investment is balanced between investing in maintaining and improving our existing capabilities, with investing in growth initiatives that are expected to deliver a future return. The FY 2026 forecast includes the establishment of our South African facilities, other production capacity increases in four-wheel drive, our Melbourne warehouse for powertrain, and consolidating our IMG business onto a single site here in Melbourne. Onto slide 18.
To my point before around the increased offshore earnings of this business, I wanted to direct your attention to the first chart, first of all, in relation to U.S. dollar exposure. We are well hedged for the second half, as you'll see from the graph. Our hedging is at favorable rates versus spot, and this coverage obviously begins to taper off from the beginning of May. We remain active in the market should there be any material movements in the cross rates between the Australian dollar and U.S. dollar between now and then. However, if current spot rates remain broadly unchanged as we head towards the end of this second half, we will look to reassess pricing to take effect from FY 2026 to mitigate any headwinds to our operating margins.
As we continue to grow our offshore earnings to the chart on the bottom right, we are building a natural hedge in terms of our increased U.S. dollar earnings and Asian currency earnings, the total of which both now represent 25% of EBITA contribution in the half. Next slide, please. Our balance sheet remains in a strong position. We have a long-dated debt profile, and as Graeme said earlier, our leverage remains at conservative levels of 1.75. The business continues to deliver stable and predictable cash flow earnings, and we do not expect any fundamental change to our leverage from our existing operations for the full year. We continue to benefit from a largely fixed, long-dated financing support from our lenders with market-leading rates and strong support from these lenders.
And to the chart on the right-hand side, our cost of funds have actually reduced 80 basis points on PCP, largely reflecting lower commitments and margin improvements, with the further benefit of our refinancing to flow through into the second half. I want to direct your attention to a new capital allocation framework, which Graeme touched on earlier. What you can see on this page is the formalization of our capital allocation framework that will guide our investment choices and decisions and align to our strategy. We will measure our performance against these metrics on an annual basis and report these externally. We will look to link our performance to internal performance benchmarks. It's a framework that we believe will ensure we deliver for our shareholders both in the short, medium, and long term.
We will continue to ensure it remains fit for purpose for the business, and we will also use this as a lens to guide and assess both organic and acquisitive opportunities. The metrics you can see from the right-hand side of the page refer to a continued view around the cash generation of the business and putting a floor around our expectations looking forward on that. To the sustaining capital point, I touched on ensuring that we continue to balance investment in both what we've got and also in generating future growth. From a target leverage range, we're going to maintain our leverage within 1.5 to 2 and a quarter times absent major growth initiatives.
We're going to be disciplined when it comes to looking at projects and value-accretive M&A, and we're going to continue to have a lens in relation to rewarding our loyal shareholders with payout ratios above 50%. And we'll look to complement that through additional returns such as the bet share buyback. And importantly, in terms of return on capital metrics, again, from both an organic and acquisitive lens, we're looking to deliver returns at greater than 15% over the medium term for both organic and acquisitive opportunities. So I'll now hand you back to Graeme to discuss the trading outlook and update.
Okay, thanks, Aaron. Thank you for taking us through that. A lot to consume there and a well-articulated thank you. So in terms of trading update, a pretty truncated January. A lot of people coming back in late and the like.
Haven't really seen any significant change in reported garage activity levels. The same two weeks or so of forward bookings. The January performance in terms of new vehicle sales and ANZ and the combined market, those trends have basically continued. And importantly, we've seen the South Africa revenue commencing in January, and that's also in line with plan. In terms of outlook, let me reaffirm we expect further growth in the group revenue and underlying EBITDA in FY 2025, driven by a slightly stronger H2 SKU. This is supported by factors largely well within our control. And these include the new business wins and product launches, the likes of South Africa, modest mix improvements and APG top 20 models. You probably see a little bit more Prado. Q3 pricing actions are already taken. The restructuring and optimization benefits that we're seeing with Amotiv Unified are already in place.
We expect the corporate cost to be lower than prior year, including that investment we're making in Amotiv Unified. The cash conversion expected to be circa sort of the 85% that Aaron's mentioned. And that will leave us with a strong balance sheet and a leverage position that supports the growth we've planned and spoken of in earlier slides. And then lastly, I just wanted to repeat that we'll have an opportunity in our investment calendar to chat with you more other than the roadshow we're about to commence with as we're hosting our investors in an Asian facility visit in early April, and that's something you can plan on. Okay, well, that concludes the presentation of the results. Done in 30 minutes. Before we go back to the moderator, I wanted to take the time to call out the Amotiv team who've worked really hard through H1.
The board, Aaron, and I are thankful for that hard work. And then finally, I've spoken in the last 12 months about the inflection point, about the next horizon for Amotiv. In this pack, you would have seen evidence of us rolling this out in a planned and deliberate manner, and I'm really excited by this prospect and where we continue to take the business. So with that, thank you for your time. I'll now hand you back to the moderator, and we'll coordinate the questions that you may have. Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question via the phones, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type your question into the ask a question box.
Your first question comes from James Ferrier with Wilson's Advisory. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Graeme and Aaron. Thanks very much for your time. Can I firstly ask you about the LPE segment? You talked there about the U.S. dollar revenue performance. Can you give us some color on what that looks like, excluding Vision X, which perhaps gives a more pure read on the greenfield investments with Projecta, etc.?
James, sorry, I'm a little confused as to your question. Are you talking about the E performance or the revenue performance? Sorry.
The revenue. So this is slide 13 where you talk, sorry, not slide 12, I should say, where you talk about the U.S. dollar revenue growth and just, yeah, trying to get a read sort of excluding Vision X and therefore perhaps a more clean read on how well you're executing on those greenfield initiatives with Projecta, etc.
Yes, that's fine. So essentially, if you looked at a total divisional level, I'll answer the question in a couple of parts. If you were to extract the Vision X revenue, then the remaining LPE would be down of just about 11% or so, I think it is, from memory. I don't have that number straight in front of me, but it's around that. So that gives you a cleaner version, the total division. And then the growth in Vision X in itself, if we were to group it all as U.S. for one second, including the fact that we've folded Projecta in there as part of our optimization, by far the significant majority is in the Vision X area, quite considerably. The Projecta improvement is great, and it's coming off a small base as we're folding it in.
In fact, we're seeing it quite significantly higher, but it's off a way small base. So the pure Vision X effort in its entirety has grown very nicely.
Thanks, Graeme. It's very pleasing to hear. On the corporate costs, I think I'm right in saying the previous guidance back in August was for around AUD 14 million in FY 2025. What's changed with the revised guidance, or what's driving the revised guidance there?
Yeah, look, James, much like we are looking very closely at our operating businesses, we are doing the same in relation to our corporate costs. We run a pretty lean ship, as I'm sure you're probably aware of. And so, look, it's a combination of factors. It's less people. It's also making sure we're really cost-conscious around any discretionary expenditure. And then thirdly, the PCP was a bit higher. There were some higher incentives in the PCP. So it's really people, less people, some discretionary expenditure reductions in the PCP being a bit higher. And to be fair to some of our members of the team, they've done some great job in terms of insurance renewals and other things where there's been some material improvements. So well done to them.
Sorry, James, I had wondered in the back of my mind your question around Vision X if it relates to the earnout. Suffice to say that they've triggered the earnout. That will be paid, and you'll be reminded that that only started at 10% CAGR over the three years. I can tell you it's higher than the 10%. Hopefully that gives you confidence in our capability to acquire something offshore and grow it materially through that period.
Yeah, thanks, Graeme. That has been a good contributor. Last question, and this is one for Aaron, probably just your comment earlier on the unified program and sort of the cadence of reduction in FTE there. I think you gave a number, or I guess you gave some guidance around the annualized benefit of that program. What was the dollar benefit to earnings in the first half?
Look, a lot of that happened late in the first half, so it wasn't material. So it was Q2, James, and so as Graeme talked about in terms of that second-half SKU, we're going to get the full benefit of that in the second half, so it's not a material number in the first half. It happened sort of in November, so not a big number. Hopefully that answers your question.
Yep, that is very helpful. Thanks, Aaron, and thanks, Graeme. Thank you.
Thanks, James.
Your next question comes from Russell Gill with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Couple of questions. Just personally on the LPE sector, you made some commentaries about the inventory and destocking, also commentary that a major customer, I guess, failed to pay you on time. Just maybe had some broad comments about that sector from a domestic standpoint, what you're seeing there, I guess, from an underlying demand perspective relative to, I guess, some operational challenges that might be happening at your customers, and I guess if there's any comments, you can provide that around different product mix and the like.
Look, the same. Thanks for the question, Russell. The same thematic existed as we commented at the AGM and actually as we were foretelling at the end of the year. We saw some destocking. We talked about that, and that really didn't come back through the course of the half. We're certainly in a less stronger typical macro environment, but we've had great success in that business with Caravan and RV, and that's been at quite a low ebb through this period, and of course New Zealand. New Zealand's somewhere between probably 10% and 12% of its revenue typically, and that's been pretty flat, so that same series of thematics have continued through the half, Russell, from when we last spoke. In terms of the payments, I think that likely administrative error, and that's already righted itself, so we don't expect that to repeat.
I certainly wouldn't, and hopefully we didn't, try to conflate a payment statement with weakness in the structure of that particular segment. That's not the point we're making.
It's fair to say the exit run rate for what you see for the end of the half is you see the inventory relatively clean in the channel, so there's no further destocking to come, and it should be sell in, sell out relative to demand.
Again, obviously we never comment on any specific customer, but I think what you've just said amply describes the situation. If anything, I'd argue it's probably a little more thinner than it normally would be, given we still track sales out, and clearly our sales in the bank are on a very different trajectory. Your comments are a perfect one, probably a bit leaner than probably what you even think.
Secondly, just on the 4WD segment, I just want to get a better understanding of, I guess, the operating leverage in this business. The revenue was down 1%, and the EBIT was down 8%. Just to get a better understanding, you're pushing pricing through here. How do we actually understand the operating leverage in this business? If we get a recovery, how do we think about, I guess, the margin in that business? Because it's pretty substantial deleverage on quite a small revenue. Is it because it's price rather than volume that impacts throughput? How should we think about, yeah, leveraging that business going forward?
I'll take a stab at that and then pass to Aaron. If you looked at the organic revenue, then it tells you a slightly different story in terms of the core piece. You've got some acquisitions rolling through there that sit in the background, and we talked about modest acquisition contribution. Even if you were to peel out and look at the organic revenue, it was around, I think, five point and a bit, and if you strip it out further again, it might be about six sevens. That is kind of the revenue position, and that's off a back, so therefore it translates a little bit more consistently with what you've just said about EBITA.
But what that is in the face of is obviously pickups that are down in Australia at 15.8%, in New Zealand a combined 12%, and SUVs down a little bit, and a continuing weak caravan market. And so the way we view that is that's transitional in nature, and actually we said it was a solid result. Don't get us wrong, by the way.
We're not sitting here patting ourselves on the back, but we think that's a solid outcome given actually when you think about the traditional throughput implications of the operating drop-through. We've been able to find other ways and other parts of that four-wheel drive, this is a specific APG, to share a growth in wallet that even though we've seen drops even more significant in the pickups, our revenue, our EBITs dropped at sort of half the rate as an example of the pickup percentage drop in Australia. So I think we've done well in the face of that, but at the same time, I would expect to see some further operating leverage drop through as we see some of the volume trickle back a bit and some model mix ticking back as well. And Aaron, I don't know if you'd like to.
Look, I'll just compliment Graeme, Russell.
So to answer your question, look, what is the greatest driver? Volume or price? Look, volume. So with softer volume, you do get deleverage because it's largely a manufacturing business. And so with increased volume coming through, we will see margins improve. In terms of price, you can see in our comments on slide 11, we are looking to take some price in the second half. There wasn't a lot of that in the first half. And also on cost, we took some cost out in New Zealand, which we'll get the full benefit from in the second half. But to come back to your question, volume is important given it's a manufacturing-led business, and you get more volume, you get the operating leverage, you get less volume, you get the inverse. And where we've had less volume, we've taken proactive steps to manage our cost base.
We'll continue to do that if we see volumes remaining soft in the future.
Great. Well, I've got you, Aaron, just because you did talk price. It's not just, I guess, the U.S. dollar strength. There's Thai baht strength with your big manufacturing facilities over in Asia. If everything did remain static from here, what sort of price rise is required for, I guess, FY 2026 that you'll need to implement at the start to kind of keep margins roughly flat?
Look, so for the balance of this half, as I articulated before, we're well cut. So your point is, look, if things don't move, what sort of prices would we look to take? And it's not just in this business. It would be across all of our operating businesses. Look, we haven't worked that through yet is the honest answer. And we're focused on landing the price rises that we've got in the second half first. And we do this in consultation with our customers here as well. So I don't want to get dragged into a number because it is a bit of a hypothetical, Russell, but I will draw you back to if it remains where it is, we will look at price to mitigate any risk to our margins.
And I think just to add that, Aaron, I mean, Russell, I think you know well.
You're a student of the game, and you've watched our business for a while. We've been pretty disciplined in our margin management, and we have margin maintenance as one of our key factors. We've yet to go into the budgeting cycle. FX is one of those elements. Domestic cost inflation, the freight, which is an elevated freight, is an example in this half. A lot of moving parts, but what I would play back to you is I think history is a good lesson here in terms of our ability, A, to have the pricing power, but also to keep those moving parts well oiled and still result in our core margins ticking along nicely.
Great. Thanks, Graeme. Just a very final question. Just on your, I guess, now formalized, articulated capital allocation framework, I just noticed in the flow chart around what the business seems, I guess, as value accretive. Should we deem a 15% ROSI a hurdle for investment? And obviously, let's call medium term three or four years, but that's now a hurdle on making acquisitions because, I guess, if we rewind a couple of years, there's obviously in this result some write-downs of intangibles and things like that. Obviously, New Zealand went backwards a rate of knots, but are we seeing 15% as a hurdle as opposed to when we deem value accretion and the whole concept around business diversification away from, I guess, ICE-led and domestic supply customer base is done? And therefore, we could allocate that 15% medium target relative to the opportunity of buying back AOV stock?
Yeah, that's a pretty good way to think about it, Russell. At the end of the day, having a cash capital allocation framework is about choices and about where we choose to invest our capital. It is a framework, not a set of handcuffs, I would note, so that these are guiding principles. But when it comes to things like making choices to buy back stock or to invest in an organic opportunity or an acquisitive opportunity, we will make those choices based on the return metrics that we see from those various options. So look, whether hurdle is the right word, it is a target, and we're going to be assessing all investment choices through the lens of that target amongst other targets.
I think the board and Aaron and I have worked hard on this, and we have a point of view around what we think is acceptable returns for our shareholders. I think that's a big stake in the ground. I think the point you're also making, Russell, is that we've made acquisitions in recent times to diversify the business to become more and more resilient, so we've got a mixture of OEM, we've got a mixture of aftermarket, we've got a mixture of different geographies. We've upped the rate in terms of PD and other things, and we're expecting that to pay off.
I would venture an opinion that the de-risking of our business, as I would like to call it, over the last five years, if we were working at 70% of 100% of our effort de-risking and the other 30% to grow the business, that'll be changed because the de-risking work has been done, and in part, that's come through acquisition, part that's come through investment. So I think Aaron's point is dead on. It's a much more stringent hurdle mindset as opposed to diversification to get the resilience in the business because the base business now has got some resilience to it. We've got levers to pull. So I think Aaron's point's really well made, and I just want to make sure that your view is that we're not looking to try to acquire further resilience through diversification. We've got that now.
It's now building on what we've got with the hurdle rate in mind.
Got it. Crystal clear. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
The next question comes from Tim Piper with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, morning, Graeme, and Aaron. Just to follow up on the LP&E segment. Just with this restocking, what was the trajectory of that through the half? It sounds like your comments might have suggested it got a bit worse than expected in the second quarter. Just in relation to your second half skew on the outlook, I mean, at the AGM outlook, I think you called out a reseller destocking unwind in the second half as one of the drivers of the skew. That sort of doesn't appear to be there in the outlook commentary on today's outlook slide.
Yeah, I'll answer in two parts, Tim, and please, Aaron, just jump in. Sure. I think it's less that it got worse through the half. It just didn't. We thought that maybe at the back end of the half, we might start to see it unwind, but we didn't see that. So that's how I'd interpret or how I'd ask you to interpret our comments. And then in the second half, what we said actually, and you will have noticed in each of the three divisional slides, what we think is important in terms of progress and strategic imperatives and also why we think skews in the second half are important. In the LP&E, you'll actually see that's in there. So we talk about a modest unwind of the reseller destocking. So we're expecting that to be part of H2 of LP&E.
We didn't want to build a laundry list in the outlook. Otherwise, I get a bit tired trying to list them all, but it's certainly in there. It's in our thinking, it's in our planning, and no, it didn't get worse in the half. It just didn't unwind as we thought it might be at the back end. Aaron?
Yeah, I'll just add to what Graeme said, Tim. So the point I made around the inventory being elevated is it really comes down to our inventory purchasing cycles. So we were purchasing inventory through that Q2 on the basis that we thought this reseller destocking was largely behind us, but it continued for a little longer through that second quarter. And as such, we were left holding some elevated levels of inventory. It's good inventory. It's just elevated.
To the comment that we made, we talk about normalization of reseller purchasing patterns on slide 12 for LP&E. So sitting here now, we see a lot of that noise behind us, and we see a more normalized cadence to both sales in and sales out dynamics for that business in the second half.
Okay, got it. Thanks. Second one on APG, South Africa, can you give us some sense on through the first half what kind of costs might have been carried in that segment on an underlying basis? And then now with revenue starting in January, the trajectory towards EBITA, breakeven, and then profitability within South Africa?
Yeah, it's just over two, sort of between two and two and a half that rolled through. So that's what you can sort of think about. And then, sorry, your second part of the question was more the revenue piece. Is that correct, sorry, Tim? In the half?
Yeah, it's revenue ramps up the move to breakeven and then profitability.
Yeah, we actually, and maybe I'm giving too much information here, we actually spent slightly more than we originally budgeted for because actually we're putting in further equipment there that actually we don't currently have business for, which might be a nod to the fact that we're going to go hard and try to win some incremental business beyond functional accessories, not material, but just a little bit more. The other thing is that originally we were going to have a progressive ramp up at the beginning, sorry, at the end of the half, and we're actually able to capture the full ramp, so we actually went from zero hero in terms of a supplier to Ford and VW on day one. We were actually going to do a progressive ramp. It was going to be a slow progression over a month or two, so we actually got the full revenue, which is great.
It put a pressure on us because we actually put another full shift on and employed another, I think it was 47 people. But it's a good problem to have. And so the revenue ramp has actually been pretty high trajectory from the get-go. The teams, the factories returned, I think, mid-January, which is the normal shutdown, and we're right into it. So the revenue ramp's good. And you can probably remember that we sort of articulated that the annualized revenue on a typical run rate of that business when we talked about the Conquest wins now a year ago was somewhere in the region of AUD 6 million-AUD 8 million or something like that in terms of pure revenue. I might get that number not specifically accurate, but it's around that region. Yeah, Tim, I'll just direct you to slide 24. And it actually breaks out the South African number.
So it's 2.7, but in that number, there's a bit of U.S. 4WD expansion. So as Graeme said, it's broadly around 2 million, but you can see it's a bit outside 2024.
Yeah, so it's been taken by the line. That's not within the operating line segment.
Correct.
Yeah, got it. Just one last one for me again on the second half outlook. Just for APG, again, your expectations around model mix improvements in terms of a driver in the second half, how material is your expectation around that? And what are the key changes you're expecting to flow through from a mixed point of view?
Look, we said modest, and again, we always at peril call our individual model, and then everybody gets a bit confused. But you certainly know, and we did talk to both at the full year and the AGM, that the likes of Toyota, Prado was down in some months 90% in any given month. And that model now is on stream launched. They had had to delay it. You remember that from last year. They had some problems with their Hilux, and then they had to delay their Prado around some engine stuff. And now they're fully in motion. And without talking to any specific customer, I do know that that particular brand has some significant order bank volumes waiting there for production to come in. So that's the model mix sort of space. Other than that, we're sort of expecting relatively similar APG top 20.
We're watching carefully about the quota in terms of the number of units, given that the first half pickups were down 16%. So we're just watching that carefully. You are also starting to see some of the OEMs come in and spur up the market in terms of incentive spend. So we'll see how that plays out.
Got it. I'm sorry, can I squeeze in one real quick one? I think before you have mentioned that you're going from bi-annual price increases to annual. There was one in January. Just confirming that you said that you would consider going with another price increase in July at current spot FXs. Did I hear that correctly?
Yeah, look, I didn't say July. I said 2026. So my point there was if we get significant erosion in our margins due to foreign exchange, we will have to reprice to protect margins. So that's the statement. I didn't say it was a certain month. I just said 2026.
Got it. Thanks for taking the questions.
Thanks, Tim.
Your next question comes from Elijah Mayr with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Graeme and Aaron. Just a couple for me. Maybe just firstly on just calling out sort of the net investment of AUD 3.6 million that was included in the adjusted EBITDA. Could you give us some guidance, I guess, for the second half in terms of expectations around some of that net investment and how we should look at that ongoing or how much of that is kind of sort of one-off as you're integrating these businesses?
I'll answer that, so of the AUD 3.6 million, the majority of that relates to our Infinitev EV business, and you would have heard Graeme talk to a disciplined EV investment in the second half, so what does that mean? It means that with the evolving and changing nature of the electric vehicle market, the hybrid market, the makeup of the car park here, that category is changing, and we must change how we approach that dynamic. And so what that means is our second half investment in that space will be lower than the first half investment while protecting our IP and capability in that space. But we're doing that more through a cost-conscious lens and also doing that to stand back a little and actually see how that category evolves and changes.
You will know recently, if you looked at the data, that actually EV sales have come up quite significantly, not only in Australia but also in offshore markets, so we're just ensuring our investment is commensurate with the opportunity that we see in the short to medium term in that space.
Yep, no, that's clear. And then just maybe secondly, sort of back on APG and the four-wheel drive business, obviously noting significant drops in sales. Can you sort of talk to, I guess, if there's been any change in fitment rates? You sort of called out pickups obviously still high at 90% and SUVs around 50%. Is that any change kind of year on year and sort of what you're seeing from a consumer behavior perspective?
A sharp question indeed, and that's why we actually put the fitment rates on the slide. So on the four-wheel drive slide, we actually purposed that in anticipation of that question, and the short answer is no. So fitment rates are not impacted, have not been impacted, and generally aren't impacted even in the most dire of times because they're essentially a functional purchase there. In some cases, they're considered, and I don't like this term, to be a grudge purchase because they are required to tow something. So no, we're not seeing any fitment rates drops. And then the functional accessory element of that, they're standardized parts of vehicle lines, so models. So they come, they're not somebody ticking the box. So no, we've not seen that at all alone.
No problem. Thanks for the question.
Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from Mitchell Sonogan with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, Graeme and Aaron. Thanks for taking the questions. Just following on from Tim's question before on APG, you mentioned about the mix, but maybe just talk to what visibility you have on the new vehicle volumes in the second half and I guess at a higher level, what has factored into your guidance there, noting that you mentioned first half pickups in OEs were down 16%. Thank you.
Mitch, you sound very European after your return from your sabbatical. The assumption in the background is that it's a similar sort of new vehicle sales environment. At this point, we might be expecting a tiny bit of improvement in New Zealand, but that's not super material. We're expecting, as I said earlier, maybe a slight improvement in the model mix. But what we don't have in the second half is some Hail Mary trajectory around new vehicle sales in either of the markets. So that's what the prediction is. As you know, we have generally between two and three months' worth of purchase order sitting in the bank. That depends on which vehicle manufacturer we're talking about. So that's kind of the baseline assumption. As Aaron said, within that, though, there's some strategic pricing to take place that applies to some of that OEM business.
Obviously, we get the benefit of the cost outs that we've placed in the first part, particularly in NZ, some more operating model cost outs and H2 to come that reflects actually a beneficial mix improvement between our OEM, OES, and aftermarket. Those are the sort of things that sit in factors that drive the H2 point of view.
Yeah, great. Very clear. And just on the gross margin at 44% in the first half with the different price rises that you're pushing through, should we expect that to remain largely steady or will we expect a bit of improvement in the second half?
Look, a marginal improvement. The first half, which we said was down 75 basis points, was a combination of the integration of some acquisitions that had lower gross margins and didn't have any synergy benefit in them and some adverse mix there in our four-wheel drive business. So as Graeme touched on before, if I talk to the acquisitions, we're expecting some synergy benefits to flow through the second half. So that will be positive on gross margins. Pricing, as I said before, will be positive. And the mix comment on four-wheel drive as Graeme has touched on, we don't anticipate maybe a modest improvement on mix, but not a significant difference. So if you put all that together, Mitchell, yes, an improvement, a modest improvement in gross margins in the second half.
Look, I think that the tangible piece around the cost synergy and acquisition, because we've used it in the pack and I asked it earlier on and I thought, "Geez, that sounds too corporate." The reality of that is that we've got a business called CES that is generating a certain level of revenue regardless of the caravan situation, right? We have a competitor's product currently being installed in the CES solution to their end customer. We are in the process of switching out that competitor's product to our Projecta product. That is the cost synergy piece we speak of. It's in our control and it's in the process of being rolled out. That's why we have confidence in that regard.
Yeah, very clear, and just a final one, Graeme. Just in terms of the continued resilience in the wear and tear market, can you maybe just provide a bit more detail on how you're seeing that? Has there been any volatility through the recent periods, and I guess just any particular areas of strength or weakness to call out? Thanks, guys.
Look, I mean, as we come into our earnings announcements, we double down on our field reviews and checks even down to the state level. So it gives us confidence around our view of bookings and wait times. And there's been over the last 12 months comments I've made around there's a little bit of disparity versus certain states. So there's a little bit of a thematic there at times that hasn't changed. We've talked a little bit about some of the major repair deferrals, which so much of ours is wear and tear as opposed to massive repair. So there's a little bit of that, but that really hasn't changed. Some commentary around the edges around service deferral, but that hasn't really come to massive fruition. And if indeed that did, we'd still get the cycle back when somebody still comes back.
Those have been some of the thematics that have been rolling around in the background for probably the last eight, nine, 10, 11 months. So I'm probably repeating myself, but there's certainly been no major change as we've entered and completed this half in that powertrain business, Mitch. So I'm afraid I can't give you any new volatility or new thematic. It's much more of the same.
Excellent. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Mitch. Good to have you back.
Your next question comes from Sam Teeger with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Graeme. Hi, Aaron, and thanks for the presentation this morning. Sounds like you might pull back some of the Infinitev investment, which would be helpful for near-term earnings growth, but can you talk a bit about the plans for the rate you'll be investing in greenfield opportunities going forward compared to what you've recently been doing?
I'll give you the first answer and then I'll ask Aaron to add. So you probably noticed that the word greenfield has been slowly but surely eradicated out of the pack because it becomes a rod for our back because we're always going to be investing in strategic growth. But I think the point to be made here is, and I'll call out the five or nearly six million, AUD 5.8 million we spoke about the last year and a half, which comprised of LPE in the U.S. and a bit of South Africa and certainly Infinitev. We always reserve the right to modify our view of the cash burn involved in those activities. South Africa we've done. LPE is an example. You'll see in the pack, Sam, that we talk about LPE go to market optimization.
That cash burn, which we used to call greenfield, has actually been reduced and we've actually decided to pull the Projecta work into Vision X. So naturally, the cash burn drops away in that. What we used to call greenfield will drop away. The infinitive business, Aaron's already spoken of that. We're just taking a really disciplined view of the cash burn of that business. We don't want to lose the competitive advantage we have, but at the same time, we need to be sensible. What we communicated to you at the year end in terms of potential spend will be lower by the time we finish the year. We'll continue to moderate any investment relative to the reward with some of those hurdles we spoke about in the short term. Aaron, would you like to add?
Yeah, look. I'll just on the terminology first. Greenfield, as Graeme said, we're going to be moving away from that. However, we're not going to move away from, obviously, our disclosure and transparency around where we choose to invest shareholders' hard-earned funds. So we'll continue to disclose that. We're just getting away from that title, as Graeme says. This business is a growth business and we're going to be investing in growth opportunities and we'll call them out accordingly. Look, I think Infinitev has been well spoken to. Second half investment will be lower than first half. Look, year- on- year, Sam, for the full year, it will still be up on the prior full year. And then likewise, we're looking at those other areas, BWI, the US, etc., as well. And not backing away from the opportunity, but just doing that through a more cost-conscious lens.
Excellent. Yeah, I think that'll be well received. Second question, what type of accessorization rates are you seeing or expecting on Chinese four-by-fours versus what we've typically seen with more legacy OEMs such as Ford and Toyota? Just trying to understand to what extent could this be a different customer and then we could have different accessorization rates going forward as the car park potentially changes?
Look, I mean, you've heard me talk in the past, SUV, passenger vehicle fitment rates of 10% in terms of tow bars, SUVs around the 50%, and then pickups around the 90%. What you're seeing is a continuation of the same trend. So you're seeing, if you think about SUVs, we're really interested in medium and large SUVs, not the small SUVs. And a lot of the Chinese entrants are actually small SUVs. So in terms of fitment rate, that's just not a concern for us. If you think about pickups, pickups are going to be interesting, Sam, because in the first outset, some of the Chinese pickups don't have the towing capability that the existing brands do. And so those brands potentially will be constrained in their potential ramp-up.
But as they grow their towing capability, I'm talking, say, the Shark at the moment as an example, so will they need to actually have a requisite tow bar to support that? And at the moment, it doesn't. And we actually have that, which is fortunate, as you would expect, because we have 93% market share. At the same time, you're going to see the Chinese brands start to export their vehicles not just into our market, but the other markets. And that's why it's so interesting to make the point that we made around the win we have with GWM. We are going to ship Thai-made tow bars to China for GWM models to then be fitted by their parts and accessories divisions in markets like Brazil, parts of Europe, and indeed our own market.
So if anything, our engineering credentials offers us a great opportunity with those Chinese brands because they cannot do it. So it'll be interesting to watch, but I think we're well positioned, Sam. And I don't think the fitment rate, certainly on the Chinese pickups, will differ at all of any consequence because at the end of the day, those pickups are being bought for functional reasons.
Got it. All right. And then last question, just in terms of the guidance, which assumes reasonably similar new vehicle volumes in the second half compared to the first half, if we do get a scenario where we have one or two rate cuts over the second half, potentially as soon as this month, Graeme, based on your experience at Ford, would you expect new volumes to pick up reasonably quickly or is there likely to be a bit of a lag?
Well, I think you'll have that combined with the level of discount spend. And the discount spend will probably be the bigger determinant. Then the rate cuts will be important. So it gives confidence, particularly as such a large proportion of vehicles are actually financed, not bought, as you already know, for cash. So that does help. But it'd be the inducements for people to step back into the market who've been sitting there for the last one and a half, two years thinking, "I'm not paying full tote." So I think that's probably more likely a bigger driver. And look, we haven't thought that way through in terms of our forecast, nor are we indeed even. We're still reacting to tariffs as an example.
You'll note in the pack we talk about the fact that Korea, Thailand, South Africa, Vietnam, where we have major manufacturing, we're all in tariff-friendly and tariff-favorable jurisdictions. So that may be a bit of a spur to our American aspirations again. So we're working through some of those macro rate cuts and tariff things quietly in the background, working out how we can make lemons, sorry, lemonade out of lemons.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Did I really say make lemons?
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Whickman for closing remarks.
Okay. Well, thank you for your time today. I appreciate the attention. I also enjoy the quality of the questions. Aaron and I are looking forward to spending time with our investors and some of the sell-side experts over the next few days. As I said, we have reaffirmed our guidance. We feel convicted to what we're going to achieve this year. And more importantly, hopefully, we've given you a flavor of this next horizon, whether it be our view of capital management frameworks in terms of capital allocation frameworks, and also Amotiv Unified, and I'm personally very excited about this notion of unification of our automotive pure play, so with that, looking forward to the conversations and have a great day. Thank you. Thanks, everybody.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.