Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's the appointed time of 9:30 A.M., and I declare the 37th Annual General Meeting of ARB Corporation Limited open, and welcome you all to the meeting. It's nice to see, so many familiar faces, and we have a quorum present, which is certainly a long way from the early years, Rog, when we were wondering whether we'd have a quorum of three members. My name is Robert Fraser, and I'll be chairing today's meeting of our company. We're pleased that we're again able to meet in person this year, and we look forward to engaging with you both during the meeting and informally after the meeting. Also extend a warm welcome to those shareholders viewing and listening to today's presentations via the online webcast.
For those attending in person in the room, just as a reminder, if you could please turn your mobile phones off as a courtesy to your fellow shareholders.
Can you remind us to turn them back on again at the end?
I will guarantee I'll do that, John. Although, I think it's probably better that we leave them off. I'd like to introduce our board. First, to my left, Founder, non-executive Director, and Chairman of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee, Roger Brown. I'm sure you're familiar with Roger.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Independent non-executive Director and Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee, Karen Phin.
Good morning, Robert.
To her left, independent non-executive Director, Andrew Stott, who is standing for re-election at today's meeting.
Morning.
To his immediate left, Independent Non-Executive Director, Adrian Fitzpatrick. Next along, Independent Non-Executive Director, Shona Faber. And we have one apology, and that is, unfortunately, our Managing Director, Andrew Brown, has an overseas commitment and is unable to attend today. It's actually the first meeting in 37 years since the company listed on the second board that Andy hasn't been able to attend, and he sends his apologies. While he's overseas, later this month, he will be representing ARB at the important SEMA Show in the US. Also in attendance today are the company's Chief Executive Officer, Lachlan McCann, who's on the far left. Thank you, Lachlan. He was appointed to this position on 5 July 2022. Our Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary, Damon Page. If you could stand, Damon, so people can see you. Thank you.
Our Director of Manufacturing and Engineering, Dennis Horton. Thank you, Dennis. A brief biography of the directors and the company secretary appears in the annual report of the company. We also welcome Kylie Byrne, our Partner from the company's external auditor, Pitcher Partners. Where are you, Kylie? Thank you. And we'd also welcome representatives of our share registry, Computershare. Thank you, Peter. From today, and subject to shareholder approval at this meeting, ARB's new external auditor, auditor will be Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, which is represented by Lead Audit Partner, Andrew Reid. Andrew, welcome. Finally, it's a delight, as always, to welcome former long-term ARB Director, John Forsyth. I did see you there, John, hiding at the back. As part of the ARB family, John still makes himself always available.
He's as sharp as ever, and we're very fortunate to have retained his sage advice, wise counsel at his usual charitable rate. Following the formal items of business at today's meeting, there will be an opportunity for you to join with the directors for some light refreshments at the back of the room. We've started the AGM a little early this year than in previous years, as you will have noticed. We know how much shareholders appreciate the opportunity to engage with the board informally after the meeting. I might just say quietly, we also didn't want to incur the additional afternoon meeting room charge, so you can see our culture has not changed.
The Notice of Annual General Meeting has been made available to all shareholders, and unless there are any objections, I'll take the notice of meeting as read, and I'll now take a moment to outline this morning's agenda. We will commence today's meetings with presentations by Damon Page, Dennis Horton, and Lachlan McCann. The online webcast will conclude following the management presentations. I'll then open the floor to questions and comments by those present, and subject to time, we'll try to cover as many of those as possible. For efficiency, we have already included in the management presentations responses to any questions received prior to today's meeting, which we certainly encourage.
Once the questions and comments from the floor have concluded, we will turn to the formal items of business, where we will consider the company's financial statements and reports, and a total of three resolutions, which is certainly less than last year, we had seven. Those three resolutions are the adoption of the company's 2023 remuneration report, the re-election of Andrew Stott as a director, and the appointment of Deloitte as auditor. The minutes of the previous meeting of the AGM last year, which was held on 28th October 2022, have been approved by the board and signed by me as chairman. The original minutes are tabled here, and they are available for inspection by any member wishing to see them by contacting Damon, the company secretary. Displayed on the screen should be the disclaimer.
Not sure who's driving that. I'll have a clicker. Oh, gee!
Oh, large screen button.
There we go. Oh, thank you, Damon. Displayed on the screen is the disclaimer regarding the forward-looking statements. You'll be familiar with such statements. While shareholders value our commentary, I'm sure you all recognize that there's much uncertainty, and all of the comments and forward-looking statements that we make are subject to the disclaimer shown on the screen.... We'll now turn to the company's performance for the year ended 30 June 2023, or FY 2023, as we'll refer to it today. At last year's AGM, we stated that the main elements of ARB's long-term growth strategy were as follows: To develop strategic partnerships with key original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, as we refer to them. To develop and release to market innovative new products. To expand our aftermarket retail network, and to increase our distribution and manufacturing capacity to accommodate our future growth.
I'm pleased to report that ARB has made excellent progress with all of these objectives during FY 2023, notwithstanding the reported reduction in sales and profits, which came off the back, as you know, of some extraordinary trading conditions and challenges during the COVID period. Most importantly, we remain positive about the long-term outlook for the company. The management presentations that will follow from our senior executives will discuss these matters in detail, and I would like to introduce these speakers. Damon Page will be the first to present, and will cover the financial highlights for the 2023 financial year. Damon joined ARB as CFO in 2014, and assumed the role of Company Secretary in 2019.
He was previously the General Manager, Finance Executive for a large public manufacturing and export agri business, and prior to that, he was an audit firm Account Director. Dennis Horton will follow Damon and cover our all-important manufacturing and engineering operations, including safety and training. Dennis commenced his career at ARB in 1996 as a warehouse leader. He has extensive manufacturing experience and has been responsible for ARB's manufacturing operations since 2006. He has served as the Managing Director of ARB's Thailand operations, or ORA, as we refer to them, since 2015, and has had oversight of ARB's engineering operations since July 2022.
Lachlan McCann will finish the presentation by covering ARB's Australian aftermarket, international export, and OEM operations, and he will conclude with an update on the company's first quarter trading performance and outlook, which you'll be pleased to hear. Lachlan is also a long-term employee of ARB, commencing with the company in 2001 in export sales and development, working with Roger Brown, in fact. He has provided consistently strong leadership in various roles across ARB's global operations, including as Managing Director of our Thailand operations from 2010 to 2014, as General Manager of International and OEM Sales from 2014 to 2018, and as Chief Operating Officer from 2018 until his appointment as CEO in July of last year.
The composition of our senior leadership team reflects the planned and smooth transition of the company's executive management team over the last few years to ensure ARB's ongoing leadership, company culture, and success. You'll see from the presentations that ARB remains in good hands. Our senior leadership team epitomizes our core values of driving excellence with passion, and it is with great pleasure that I now invite Damon to commence the presentations.
Yeah, thanks, Robert. Well, thank you, Robert, and good morning, everybody. A warm welcome to those who are here at the AGM and to those who are participating via the broadcast. It's my pleasure today to present the financial highlights to you for the financial year that ended 30 June 2023. For those on the broadcast, on Slide five, we see a 10-year history of key indicators. To the left, we see sales growth has grown relatively consistently over the last 10 years, with more rapid sales growth achieved in FY 2022 and FY 2021. ARB achieved sales revenue of AUD 671.2 million for the financial year ended 30 June 2023, which compares with last year's sales revenue of AUD 694.5 million. This is a decline of 3.4%.
However, despite the decline, sales have broadly consolidated the significant growth achieved in the two previous years. Sales revenue improved throughout the course of the financial year. This time last year, we reported a decline in sales of 10% for the first quarter, and in the half year, we reported a decline of 5.1%. And eventually, for the full financial year, our sales revenue was down by 3.4%. In the center of the page, profit after tax has broadly followed the sales performance over the last 10 years. Profit before tax of AUD 88.5 million was achieved, representing a 27.5% decline compared with the previous year. A number of factors impacted on the profit result, which I'll outline.
Firstly, high inflation impacted the business throughout all of the financial year, and while management sought to contain and manage operational costs very tightly, inflation had a significant impact, particularly on cost of sales, in terms of both procured goods from third parties and internally manufactured products, with raw materials such as steel and power costs experiencing significant price increases. This had a significant impact, particularly on our margins, our gross margins during the financial year. Now, while ARB put through a number of sales price increases to counter the inflationary impact, the sales price increases trailed the cost increases, and it has taken some time for those price increases to take full effect, given the continued sizable customer order book.
Secondly, the weaker Australian dollar increased those costs of sales manufactured in our Thai factories and those procured from around the world, which are often denominated in U.S. dollars. The company's exposure to U.S. dollars has historically been closely hedged through the income that we generate in the United States, which declined this year, leaving the company more exposed to that particular currency. The company built stock significantly over the last two years to mitigate supply chain disruptions, which resulted in an over-recovery of fixed factory costs last financial year 2022, which did not occur again in the last financial year, being financial year 2023. And finally, the company increased some provisions during the financial year, specifically inventory obsolescence and warranty costs by AUD 3.1 million and AUD 1.2 million, respectively.
Now, these, these provisions, these expenditures are, of course, non-cash items. Now, to the right of the slide, the board's policy has been to maintain a dividend payout ratio of between 40%-60%. Accordingly, dividends have tracked largely in line with profits made over the last 10 years, and the fully franked dividend of AUD 0.62 per share in FY 2023 was 12.7% down compared with the prior year, but represents a higher dividend payout ratio. The final dividend of AUD 0.30 per share will be paid to all shareholders tomorrow. Over on Slide 6, the company generated cash flow from operations of AUD 90.4 million, and this compares with the profit generated through the year of AUD 88.5 million. Now, two key factors impacted on our cash flow from operations last year.
Firstly, the higher inventory value of AUD 9.6 million, noting that the increase in inventory values is attributable to new product ranges, the cost of inflation, and the weaker Australian dollar. In terms of volumes, inventory volumes declined during the year. Secondly, the payment of taxes with a AUD 9 million provision carried over from FY 2022, compared with a AUD 3 million receivable recorded at the end of FY 2023. Now, FY 2022, where the profits spiked, we're yet to capture the higher profits in the tax installments, resulting in an underpayment that year, which had to be caught up in FY 2023. Those, those profits, of course, were captured in the installments paid in FY 2023, and the profit declined, resulting in an overpayment in FY 2023.
And so those two factors impacted on our operating cash flows for the year, which were broadly in line with the profit after tax. In the middle of the slide there, you'll see that payments for property, plant, and equipment of AUD 40.6 million were made during the year. 21.6 million spent on property and AUD 19 million spent on plants and equipment. The company has undertaken a significant property expansion program over the last two years, with its fourth factory completed in Thailand in December last year, and the completion of its national warehouse in Melbourne, in July of this year. We also have the ongoing development of our corporate head office here in Melbourne and our New Zealand operations in Hamilton, New Zealand, which will result in the consolidation of the Pro-Form and Beaut Utes businesses.
The company also paid AUD 45.3 million in dividends, being last year's final dividend paid in October 2022, and the interim dividend for financial year 2023, paid in April 2023. Now, the take-up of the dividend reinvestment program and the bonus share plan represented 15% of the dividends paid in April. At the end of the financial year, the company held AUD 44.9 million in cash and had no debt. Slide seven presents the sales performance for each of the three channels that we've traditionally and historically presented to the market, being the Australian aftermarket, exports, and sales to original equipment manufacturers or OEMs. Sales into the Australian aftermarket continued to grow and reached AUD 384 million, an increase of 2.6% over the last year.
Now, this particular sales channel includes sales from ARB's three domestic subsidiaries: SmartBar, producing and selling cross-linked polymer products from its roto-molding factory in Adelaide; Kingsley, operating out of Sydney, which designs and sells four-by-four accessories; and Go Active Outdoors, representing the Swedish brand Thule here in Australia. Now, the Thule brand, particularly, was a beneficiary during the COVID period, when sales within the bicycle industry really took off. Go Active sales of Thule products pulled back materially this year, and if we were to exclude them from the Australian aftermarket channel, then the rest of our sales through that particular channel grew by 5.2% in financial year 2023.
Export achieved sales of AUD 245 million, which is a decline of 8.7% compared with last year, and is largely attributable to the US, which was particularly impacted by the trade sale and subsequent restructuring of ARB's largest customer in the US, which has since downsized its retail network. Then finally, on the right of the slide, finally, the OEMs, which are more volatile and largely based on the timing of contracts and the release of motor vehicles to market. Sales revenue of AUD 42 million for the financial year ended 30 June 2023 were down 18.5%. Now, new contracts are already in place with the OEMs, which will underpin solid sales growth both in FY 2024 and again in FY 2025. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you for your interest in ARB, and I'll hand the time over to Dennis.
Thank you, Damon. Good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to be here presenting today. I'm gonna start off talking through safety at ARB. Okay, our business is complex, with a large and continually growing number of sites, both domestically and internationally. We have remote facilities, and particularly international facilities, can have a different cultural view towards safety. We have manual manufacturing processes, and we also have multiple warehouses globally, with the racking and mobile plant risks that are inherent with that kind of operation. We also have accessory installation facilities and the usual risks that may be associated with workshops. So earlier this year, we appointed a new safety manager who brings additional experience to our safety team and safety assurance efforts. Through our internal training and development program, we're providing mandatory safety training for all employees, including managers.
We've worked with external consultants to assist us with best practice, policies, and procedures for our highest risk plant and equipment and processes. Our recording and reporting has been, and continues to be improved, to give us better visibility that allows us to respond with more confidence to the risks in our workplaces. We're putting in more effort than ever before to engage with our workforce globally, to drive cultural change towards safety. We have structured programs in place to ensure we're constantly assessing and taking actions to control risks. Mental health or psychosocial health is a more prominent issue in today's workplaces, and we're continuing to improve how we identify and manage psychosocial hazards. We also participate in a number of awareness and fundraising activities, including the headspace Push-Up Challenge, Movember, and R U OK ? Day.
Now, these provide us with opportunities to have activities and conversations that engage with our people around mental health. A mandatory Mental Health for Managers training program has been introduced. We have held mental health awareness webinars and have appointed trained mental health first aiders in Australia. We have a number of psychosocial safety-focused policies, and our employees have access to an assistance program that provides them with free and confidential professional counseling. ARB University is our online training platform that now has 88 modules covering various aspects of our operations. We have mandatory induction and safety training for all employees, and then we have other mandatory training modules depending on an employee's function. For example, cybersecurity or modern slavery awareness training. This is a platform that provides us with records of completion, and in some cases, records of competency. We can automatically schedule updates and refresher training.
Outside of our training platform, we have a number of other initiatives underway. Partly through necessity, due to the availability of skilled labor, we've developed training pathways for welders, painters, and accessory installation technicians with a high degree of success. We have developed more in-depth training programs, and we have them available and being developed that can be delivered online or in person. We have various focused topic webinars that we deliver as required, and we utilize external training providers as necessary to target specific developmental needs. On to engineering and manufacturing. Our market-leading designs originate from our experienced and passionate design engineering teams. We now have more than 120 engineers spread between eight manufacturing locations in four countries.... Engineering development involves a complex value chain, with each step being critical to achieving successful outcomes.
With a fast tempo of new product introductions, this is something that we need to be able to do very well, and we have structured programs underway to help us continue evolving and improving in this space. New applications for existing products can be streamlined through the development process. However, new and significant products like ARB Earth Camper and OME MT64 are more involved and can take a number of years to work through every step and to create a product that meets our expectations. Our cadence of new product introduction is driven by things like new vehicle releases, our existing product design innovations, and new product platforms. Some of our recent new product introductions include the ARB Earth Camper. That's an exciting new product for ARB and one that speaks for itself. It's manufactured by ARB at our Thailand facility.
Another one is the OME MT64 shock absorber, which is a monotube aluminum body shock absorber with a large bore, providing a unique ability for us to be able to tune for both a comfortable ride and excellent performance, which is also manufactured by ARB at our Thailand facility. Another example is Zenith Bull Bar, which is a close-fitting, more aggressively styled bull bar that may appeal to existing and also new customers, and that's made at our ARB manufacturing facilities in Melbourne and in Thailand. And this exciting new product will be on our booth at SEMA, the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, which is beginning in late October. And there have been many other new product introductions in recent times, and some of those you can see listed here.
New product development is really at the heart of ARB, and there is a constant flow of ideas at various stages of consideration and development. We currently have a significant volume of ARB and OEM projects in work, also with a large volume coming through behind them that are already approved and in the pipeline. There's also a long list of ideas and concepts that are not yet approved that we can draw on as required. We continue to invest heavily in research and development. Domestic vehicle platforms are important to us and give our engineering teams plenty of work to do. We're also focusing heavily on international platforms, with U.S. vehicles receiving particularly focused attention. We have, at the moment, a Great Wall Tank 300 in our workshop here in Melbourne.
The Great Wall Tank 300 is the most popular Chinese SUV on the market today, and we're developing a range of accessories for that platform. We have imported a current model, Toyota Tundra, from the USA, something that we're doing to evolve our U.S. offering and complementing our relationship with Toyota in North America. ARB started life as a manufacturing company, and largely it still is today. We have manufacturing facilities on eight sites in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. There are more than 1,000 employees working in our manufacturing businesses globally, and our manufacturing footprint now exceeds 130,000 square meters. We've added five robot welding cells recently, giving us automated cells, 16 automated cells in total, with more investment in automation planned.
The intent with automation is to give us improved quality consistency, improved efficiency, to make us less reliant on labor, and to also increase our capacity. Right now, we're working on more than AUD 15 million of investment in property, plant, and equipment across the manufacturing facilities in the next 24 months. This includes acquiring the SmartBar site that we currently operate on in Adelaide. We've seen challenging times in Australia and in New Zealand post-COVID. We've seen higher rates of resignation. We've seen signs of employees experiencing burnout and lower engagement in many cases. Available skilled labor has been scarce, and there has been increased salary expectations from the people who have been available. A number of our local suppliers and service providers have closed down their operations and/or relocated offshore.
There's been changes to the skilled labor immigration rules that have slowed down our programs of bringing in skilled labor from our Thailand factories and from the Philippines. Having said that, prior to the immigration policy changes, we were successful in bringing eight workers from one of our factories in Thailand to work at our factory in Kilsyth, and the transition has been excellent, and that's something we hope to do more of, more of in the future. As mentioned earlier, we have been creating training pathways for skilled workers with a high degree of success, and we have had to increase salaries for some skilled positions, like welders, painters, and store people, to maintain competitive pay rates. Our local manufacturing operations in New Zealand and Australia are very important to us.
They're important in supporting new product developments, speed to market, and to ensure we keep our manufacturing culture alive. At the same time, our Thailand manufacturing operations are also very important to us. We don't have the same skilled labor shortages and associated issues impacting us in Thailand, and we're able to scale as required to allow us to grow the business in Australia and globally. Now, before handing across to Lachlan, I will just let a short video run, which is showcasing our Thailand facilities and people. We're very proud to be operating our own facilities in Thailand, and it does give us a distinct advantage. So now I'll hand over to our driver of excellence and passion, our Chief Executive Officer, Lachlan McCann.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. If I could just start, I think a round of applause for Dennis. Thank you very much for that. Hey, fantastic to have Dennis to present today and, you know, from 1996 as a warehouse leader, all the way through to presenting to our shareholders here today, a great achievement. Well done, Dennis. Another call out, if I could. We have Julie Sebire here at the front, who's my assistant, but also a mental health first aider. So if there's anyone in the room that's concerned about the content of today, Julie is certainly on hand to be able to take questions afterwards. Well, welcome everyone, and thank you very much, both for the people online and for the people participating in person today.
Great to have you here and, and lovely to see you. Today, I'll take you through a recap of the business through financial year 2023, provide some business updates through Q1 of 2024 financial year, and a few insights to the remainder of the financial year. There we go. So let's start with a look at the Australian sales and the four drives, four-drive vehicles, core to ARB's business. Last financial year, we saw a slow recovery to vehicle sales. A combination of factory supply constraints, Australian port disruptions, and competing demand from other markets led to constrained vehicle supply to the Australian market for the first half. The situation did improve, however, in the second half, and that trend has continued into Q1 of the new financial year.
Both the Ford Ranger and the Toyota Hilux four-by-four models recorded strong growth in the year of 30.1% and 18.3% respectively, and we understand that the order bank of both of these models remains high. Q1 of financial year 2024 have seen both the Hilux and the Ranger perform particularly well. There's been some inconsistent results, however, in the other four-by-four pickup models last financial year. The Mitsubishi Triton has an impending model change. The Isuzu D-Max supply has been constrained, as well as the Land Cruiser 70 Series. ARB was very pleased, however, to see the transition from the iconic 200 Series Land Cruiser to the 300 Series Land Cruiser move on, and sales of the 300 Series move to historical high, historically higher levels.
Broadly speaking, quarter one of the new financial year, the core ARB vehicle sales have been very healthy. We've seen record months of a number of platforms, and that has assisted ARB's business in Q1 of this year. ARB's aftermarket business in Australia is comprised of sales through corporate-owned stores, independent ARB stores, stockists, various forms of wholesale resellers, new vehicle dealerships, and fleet. Also included in our aftermarket business are sales by ARB subsidiaries, as Damon mentioned, of Go Active Outdoors, representing Thule from Sweden, Kingsley Enterprises, and SmartBar in South Australia. While sales were constrained due to operational output, particularly in fitting, ARB is pleased with the increased revenue we're cycling off, given the high COVID base. Some areas of the business were materially impacted as we worked our way out of COVID.
A good example of this is Thule's Go Active business, which Damon covered off earlier. Representing 71% of ARB's core sales, we've had an incredibly engaged and reliable distribution network. From independent ARB flagship store owners, all the way through to family-owned garages in regional and remote Australia, ARB has a motivated and diverse distribution network underpinning the largest part of ARB's business nationally. ARB's core aftermarket business performed well ahead of the reported 2.6% revenue growth and represents, fifty-seven point two percent of total sales. ARB's roadmap to flagship store development is well developed, and we see plenty of scope for continued growth in ARB's footprint within Australia. By the end of calendar year 2024, ARB anticipates upgrading 10 sites to flagship stores. Five of these will be corporate stores, and five sites will be independently owned.
Again, a strong sign of our independent network's desire to continue to invest their money in ARB, in the ARB business. Additionally, ARB is planning to open a further five new stores by the end of calendar year 2024. These will again be a combination of corporately owned and privately owned stores.... Consistent with new vehicle sales, ARB's order intake through Q1, financial year 2024 has been strong. The order book remains at historically high levels. Fleet contracts underpin the short to medium-term vehicle flow through our workshops and subsequent invoicing. Fitting output remains a priority one focus for the business. I've previously presented initiatives undertaken to improve the workshop output, including upskilling our technicians, fast-track induction programs for new workers, technician pathway to map a career for an ARB fitter within ARB, and our skilled migration program.
We now have eight offshore workers who are in various branches around Australia, with a further four employees to come on board from offshore by the end of 2023 calendar year. All initiatives are well progressed, and we are seeing gradual improvements in our fitting output. Ford and ARB's collaboration in Australia remains a focus and a driver for sales growth in Australia. If you haven't seen a spruced-up Ford Ranger or Everest out on the roads in Australia, you don't get out enough. They're everywhere. Keep your eyes open. More consistent availability of Ranger and Everest have supported ARB sales. There are further opportunities to expand the partnership with Ford in Australia. We're in constant contact with Ford about our collaborative strategies as it relates to new products from ARB and the new vehicle platform lineups coming from Ford.
I'm sure you've all seen banners and marketing coming through from Ford about their new plug-in hybrid during 2025. However, we won't be blessed with high-volume vehicle new sales forever, and we're in a good spot at the moment. In conjunction with this, selling was relatively easy during COVID, but we're very conscious that this won't last forever. Customer is king or queen, and we wanna make sure that our customer experience is second to none. As such, we've launched a significant internal initiative to educate, monitor, and manage best-in-class customer experience within ARB. We offer a premium product at a premium price, and we need to strive to provide excellence in customer experience for improved loyalty and customer retention. On to ARB's international business.
As reported, ARB's export business has had a challenging 12 months in a couple of key markets, including the U.S. and New Zealand. I'll talk through the U.S. business in the following slides, but to briefly touch on a couple of highlights in other international markets. ARB's European business continues to perform extremely well and had a good financial year in 2023. We previously announced that we're moving to a large facility in Prague of 5,000 square meters, and I'm pleased to announce today this transition has happened, and we are trading out of our new site. Our European business has had a positive start to the new financial year, and the outlook looks good for the rest of the year. On to the UK, and pleasingly, Truckman sales recovered well in the second half of financial year 2023, which was previously reported.
The sales uplift is directly related to improved vehicle supply to market, and we're pleased to also report that this trend has continued into the first quarter of the new financial year. ARB's New Zealand business, however, is flat. The New Zealand government imposed a clean car tax, which most of you would be aware of, that resulted in a severe slump in pickup sales. It's widely expected that the change in government after the results of the weekend will result in this tax being removed, and we are likely to see a pickup, therefore, in both pickup vehicle sales and hopefully ARB sales in Q3 of financial year 2024. In the meantime, the business has shifted its focus to sales of accessories of the secondhand market, which unsurprisingly picked up following the introduction of the clean car tax.
We'll now move on to the U.S. market. The U.S. business had a challenging 2023 financial year amidst continued restructuring of our key accounts. In response to this, ARB has broadened its wholesale customer base, both geographically and by product segment. Demand for ARB product in the U.S. remains strong. Structuring the right channels to market remains our focus. The industry is going through a challenging time, and despite this, we continue to seek opportunities for expansion. A couple of updates on those initiatives include ARB's e-com website, which is in stage two of beta testing, with nearly 2,000 friends, family, and industry partners making daily purchases on the site. Next week, we open up the site to a range of four-wheel drive club members and enthusiast groups with specific discounts. The feedback so far has been fantastic.
The system is working as expected, and we expect a public launch no later than early December, but possibly even into November. The Seattle retail store timing has unfortunately slipped from Q1 calendar year 2024. We're working closely with contractors to move as quickly as possible on this initiative, and I will be providing further feedback on the development of this store in the second half year presentation. I would like to emphasize, and there's obviously more information about our B2C strategy in further slides, but despite our investments in ORW recently, which I'll be talking about in a minute, the ARB flagship store for our, our business in the U.S. remains a key priority, and certainly, the delay is not a reflection of our interest to get that, that store up and running.
Toyota and Ford business is on track with two important model launches of the Trailhunter and the new U.S. Ranger coming in the next six months. Programs with both OEMs are being worked through diligently and remain on schedule. ARB has bolstered our U.S. team for the safe delivery of these programs, particularly the line fit Trailhunter program, which, as previously mentioned, has a range of products which adorn the ARB branding. For anyone venturing to Las Vegas for the SEMA week in a week or so, ARB will have both unreleased models of the Trailhunter and the Ranger on our booth at the show, really reflective of our partnership with both of those OEMs. On to some exciting news. Today, we're delighted to announce a new partnership in the U.S. with Off Road Warehouse.
Offroad Warehouse is a U.S. retail business with stores largely located in the southwest of the U.S.A., specializing in the sales and fitting of four-by-four accessories. ORW is majority-owned by Greg Adler, the former CEO and managing director of Transamerican, 4 Wheel Part s . ORW employs a number of key executives, formerly at 4 Wheel Parts. ORW currently has nine retail locations, plus new one location under contract, and a further two sites which are under a letter of intent. ORW employs 113 people. ARB has acquired 30% ownership in ORW for $5 million. The money will largely be used for expansion of the business. Strategically for ARB, we have specific rights to merchandise, market, educate, and stock ARB products in ORW to enhance the presentation of ARB products and the sale of those products through ORW.
The agreement also provides for specific ownership rights to ARB in the future as the business grows. ORW's recent trading performance has been positive, with consistent month-on-month double-digit revenue growth, importantly, in a slowing market. A little bit romantically, the Brown family and the Adler family built their businesses at the same time in the same industry with a similar retail focus from half a world away. Greg, and previously Greg's father, George Adler, have been customers, friends, and supporters of ARB for many, many years. The partnership is an exciting opportunity for ARB to fast-track our B2C strategy, particularly with new products we intend to bring to market in the US. We partner with experienced players who know and understand the U.S. market, have a great team in place to accelerate store growth, and will be motivated ARB sellers.
If you chat to Roger later on after today's presentation, make sure you ask him about the Air Locker story from George Adler. It's a great story. On to further news. In a strategic announcement, we're also partnering with another U.S. company. Not only a Tex-Mex snack food, but Nacho is a Phoenix-based startup company that specializes in off-road lighting. Nacho is majority-owned by Steve Adams, and Steve is the former founder of Rigid Industries, one of the leading aftermarket light brands in the US. Alongside Steve, Nacho employs a number of experienced executives in the off-road lighting industry. It's important to note that the U.S. aftermarket for light is quite distinct to Australia. In Australia, we favor large 9-inch lights.
We typically have big bull bars to attach them to, and we have a lot of kangaroos on the road that need light to spot, so the drivers can react. The U.S. market is different. The U.S. market prefers smaller 4- to 5-inch lights with smaller mounting footprint, and the lights are usually typically used for slow-speed rock crawling and appearance. Nacho holds a number of key innovation patents that, in our opinion, makes it the best off-road light in its category for the U.S. market. The Nacho light will be co-branded with ARB. ARB has acquired 49% ownership of Nacho for $2 million. The money will be exclusively used for the expansion and importantly, to fund the long list of new product developments Nacho has in the wings.
We're excited to learn, lean into Steve and the team's experience in the off-road lighting market and develop an aggressive sales and marketing program to... Excuse me. Sales and marketing program to grow the brand and sales in this new venture. ARB will support the sales and marketing efforts of Nacho globally. As the sales volume will grow, we'll consider opportunities to manufacture these lights in Thailand. The agreement does provide ARB specific ownership rights into the future. On to ARB's OEM business. ARB's OEM business had a weak 12 months in FY 2023, with sales declining 18.5%, now representing 6.3% of ARB's business. This was both forecast and reflects the cyclical nature of the business. An OEM full-service supply project typically has a 2 year-4 year development cycle.
ARB's OEM engineering team is running at full capacity right now, with a record number of future programs in the wings. Sales are expected to grow in financial year 2024, particularly in the second half. We're pleased to advise that the OEM business has recorded very strong sales to OEM customers in the first quarter of financial year 2024. ARB continues to work closely with a number of OEM partners on their EV programs, delivering important insights from an R&D perspective, as well as we evolve ARB's vision of aftermarket accessories for these platforms. Now on to a couple of key product updates, and for those who missed it, I thought we'd replay a quick video showcasing the ARB Earth Camper. Wouldn't you love to be there? Okay. The Earth Camper has created unparalleled excitement for internal and external stakeholders at ARB.
It's innovative, cool, and an exciting diversification for the company. Earth Camper is on commercial sale to end users, but as a long-term strategic player, focus has been on getting display units to our stores and having roaming demonstrator units out there in the field. We have good orders in the system. Quality and production has been our focus over the speed of production output as we wrap our hands around an entirely new production process. Orders from international markets have been received. Sales outside Australia will be limited to those markets with the same or lower compliance requirements to that of Australia. Compliance work for the U.S. and Europe is well underway, and we expect to be in market with the Earth Camper in those markets during calendar year 2024.
The ARB camper will be on display for the first time in the U.S. at SEMA in a couple of weeks. Now, maybe to those outside the industry, the MT64 shock absorber may be a little bit less sexy than the Earth Camper, but to our wholesale and retail network in Australia and internationally, MT64 was a tremendous add to the Old Man Emu lineup. Again, the marketing reach for this product, domestically and internationally, has been super strong. Demand has exceeded supply, and we're working hard at the moment on increasing the range, but also importantly, increasing production output. The next video is just a quick recap of MT64, as well as a couple of insights into some cool products coming down the pipe. Screaming through the silence. Jumping in the night. Jumping on a trip wire.
No one gets out alive. Ooh, sleep with one eye open. Orion will fall, hear the last word spoken. Ooh, sleep with one eye open. Orion will fall, hear the last word spoken. And the east has fallen, sleep with one eye open. Pretty cool. All right, we're, we're on the home stretch. Quick update on marketing. ARB's marketing team has been working to diversify our message as it relates to customer demographics and refining our message to be more relevant to our audience. A good example of this is our desire to connect to a younger audience, as well as those who are showing interest in the industry for the first time. We achieve this through improved content management, platforms such as TikTok, and broadening our YouTube presence.
Education, as well as cool content, has been a big enabler and has strengthened our viewership on YouTube in particular. The team has had a big twelve months and delivered global product launches on a number of key new products, as we've just seen through these videos. Okay, we'll just now move on to a trading update and the outlook to wrap up. So a trading update for the first quarter of the new financial year. The business has achieved marginal sales growth of 0.7% in Q1. The Australian aftermarket grew by 2.1%. We're seeing continuous improvement in fitting performance, but still not at the levels we'd like to see. There are higher-than-normal stock levels within our wholesale network, which has impacted sales performance.
Overall, however, it's been a solid start to the year, particularly in combination with the higher order intake that we've seen. The OEM business is off to a great start to the year, with a 35.4% growth in Q1. While we are comping over lower sales in Q1 of financial year 2023, we do expect to see continued strong sales in OEM for the rest of the year, ahead of further growth in financial year 2025.... Export sales, unfortunately, continues to lag. Sales declined 7.8% in Q1. We continued to experience weaker sales in the U.S. and New Zealand, but we're aggressively pursuing, as we've spoken to today, a number of initiatives to return to growth. The very good news story is that ARB's gross margins are back.
We've managed to return our GP to historical levels achieved in financial year 2021 and 2022. The improved growth, gross margins, coupled with a focus on cost controls, has seen unaudited profits before tax in Q1 of financial year 2024 grow to approximately 10% compared with corresponding quarter last year. Reflecting positively for the first half result. We're converting these profits to cash. ARB's cash balance has grown to AUD 64 million at the end of Q1, financial year 2024, from AUD 45 million at the end of the financial year, June 2023. And finally, to the outlook. We're cautiously optimistic as we move through the new financial year. ARB's aftermarket order book remains strong. We anticipate vehicle deliveries to remain healthy in the short to medium term, and we're accelerating our new store development program.
The export order book is holding up at recent levels. Our short-term challenge in the U.S. remains, however, and our direct-to-consumer strategy, coupled with improved wholesale development, will provide an opportunity for growth. Sales to OEM customers are anticipated to grow in financial year 2024 and financial year 2025, based on contracts that we have been awarded. The business is well-positioned for long-term success. We're developing healthy strategic partnerships with key OEM customers in Australia and in the U.S., incorporating ARB's branding. We have invested in and now have increased manufacturing and distribution capacity to support our future growth. The pipeline for new product opportunities and range expansions continues to grow, both domestically and internationally. All supported by a well-balanced management team with a positive blend of ARB know-how and external experience. That concludes my presentation today.
Thank you very much for coming along again, and I'll hand back to our Chairman, Robert Fraser.
Thank you, Lachlan. On behalf of the board and all shareholders, I'd like to thank Lachlan, Damon, and Dennis, the senior management team, and all of ARB's 2,000+ staff around the world for their outstanding efforts during FY 2023. The company achieved a solid result despite very challenging conditions, and we are well-placed for future long-term growth. That now concludes the online webcast, and I'd just like to thank all of those shareholders and guests who joined us via the webcast. We appreciate your attendance. Thank you.