I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Martin Nicholas, Group CFO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. As said, I'm Marty Nicholas, Breville's Group CFO, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our first half 'twenty one results call. I'll start by walking you through the group's first half trading performance, and then Jim Clayton, our CEO, will provide an operational and strategic as well as guidance for the balance of the year. Before turning to the specifics of the half, and we put this on the front page of our presentation, I'm going to start by noting that in the calendar year running to December 31, 2020, the group achieved revenue of over $1,000,000,000 Look, it's only a number, but an important number for us and a milestone in our growth agenda, especially when accompanied by accelerating profit growth. Now I'm going to turn to Slide 3 in the investor pack and the group summary results.
And in summary, we are delighted with our first half results, Delivering solid sales growth in all regions and all categories, which in turn has afforded us the opportunity to tactically step up our investments in medium term growth drivers while still maintaining an accelerating profit growth. Our overall sales growth of 28.8 percent was undoubtedly supported by the working from home and premiumization trends that we felt across the globe, but was also operationally facilitated by our decision to invest in inventory in May 2020, underpinned by our capital raise. Sales growth was strongest in our Global Product segment at over 34%. And this positive mix, along with lower promotional spend and the weaker U. S.
Dollar, more than offset the impact of increased freight costs, resulting in a gross margin increase of 1.1%. Whilst maintaining strong EBIT growth For this half of 29.6%, up from 15.6% in the prior period, We have tactically invested in the medium term growth drivers of our digital marketing events, product development and IT capability. Our investment levels here can be maintained or reined in depending on the sales trajectory experienced in our second half. We've also, you will note, increased our doubtful debt provision to reflect the seasonal peak in receivables. I'll say more on that later.
Our other core operational costs were largely contained. The resulting overall EBIT margin Grew slightly to 13.3 percent and our NPAT dollars grew by 29.2%. In terms of cash flow, we ended the half with a seasonally abnormal strong cash position of positive net cash $90,600,000 This was driven by working capital levels temporarily below equilibrium. Again, I'll say more on that later in this presentation. Our interim dividend of $0.13 per share, 100 percent franked, reflects the group's desire to self fund Future growth opportunities, both organic and inorganic, on a cash neutral basis.
And Jim will cover the target payout ratio in his section of for the presentation. So finishing on Slide 3. In summary, the first half was a pleasing and growth focused half for the group, both in terms of sales achieved and investments made. Now I'm turning to Slide 4. And here we see key segment performances.
Our global segment revenue built on its already strong growth momentum to lift to 39% on a constant currency basis. With broad based category growth that I referred to, Continued geographic expansion and our products proving more than relevant to the working from home reality, which effectively expanded our addressable market across all geographies. This 39% constant currency Global segment growth followed strong retailer sellout performances across our markets, which we largely managed to chase and match. Although this has, as you will see, meant that we've eaten into our normal inventory levels. Now across the globe, different geographies experience very different and often erratic retail backdrops.
But where access to physical retail was periodically restricted, our consumers successfully found us for our online channels and continue to show preference for our premium offerings. In our Distribution segment, sales grew at 7.9% With strong double digit growth in the more premium Breville local offering offset by lower growth in Cambrook and Nespresso. But most importantly, for the Distribution segment, it fulfilled its strategic role by delivering $15,000,000 of EBIT, a 15% growth, for reinvestment into the global segment. Well controlled core OpEx outside of the investment I referred to in the medium term growth drivers fueled this profit growth. Turning to Slide 5 now.
In terms of the Global Product segment sales by geography. Here, we see the $150,000,000 growth or 39% constant currency growth split out by region. As previously announced, the Global Products segment is now reported in 3 geographic theaters: the Americas, EMEA and APAC. And prior periods have been restated to facilitate comparison. All three regions delivered double digit growth, With the group benefiting from sustained geographic expansion in Europe and, as I referred to, an addressable market expansion arriving arising from the work from home phenomenon.
Turning to these theaters. In the Americas, The group delivered 29.1 percent constant currency growth, bolstered by strong growth in B2C sales and online channels generally as the bricks and mortar retail environment continued to face disruption. Of note, the Baratsa acquisition was also successfully completed in mid first half twenty twenty one. In EMEA, Europe, Middle East and Africa, despite ongoing retail disruption, the region performed well With robust growth in the UK and strong growth in Mainland Europe and in distributor run markets, And Jim will talk about this more. France posted a solid first holiday season despite the complexities of launching during the COVID period.
APAC achieved a very strong first half twenty twenty one growth with demand boosted by working from home, The strength of the Breville brand and ongoing price realization. As you know, retail stayed largely accessible physical retail stayed largely accessible to consumers Throughout the period, and the region was supported by nimble supply chain management to match this strong demand. Gross margins percentages remained similar across the 3 geographies. So looking at the size of sales by each theater, Breville's increasingly diversified global footprint provides us with stability in both sales and profit delivery in the face of individual market volatility. Of note, EMEA and APAC are now of a similar size, And together, they now match the Americas.
Turning to Slide 6. Here, we pictorially show, and I referred to it earlier, the reinvestment of our gains in gross profit while still delivering EBIT growth accelerating EBIT growth. Sales were strong and gross margins Boosted, as I said, by the tailwinds of mix, lower promotional activity and a trend for more premium products, which more than offset the headwind of increased transport and container costs. Gross profit dollars grew by 62,000,000 or 33% in the half. However, with the objective of driving medium term growth, A portion of this increased gross profit was reinvested.
We had accelerated our spend on our go to market capability, specifically on our digital defense, on our new product development and our IT team and capability. Looking forward to future periods, this accelerated level of investment can either be expanded further What trends down depending on sales momentum. But for now, we're on course to meet our strategic goal of 12% of net sales per annum invested in go to market and NPD. Downfall debt provisioning costs also increased in the half as our receivables balance grew in the peak season. Yet the appetite of our insurers to provide receivables cover remains very mixed as did the financial position of our in country retail partners.
The percentage of our total receivables that are either insured, Covered by our debt provision or do not require cover was held steady at 90%, the same position as we had at June 2020. Outside of these priorities, core overheads and OpEx were well controlled with some headcount increase invested to support growth. Having absorbed these tactical investments, our resulting EBIT growth Nearly doubled, as I said, to 29.6%, up from 15.6% growth in first half 'twenty. Turning to Slide 7 and the balance sheet. Here, we see the impact of the below Equilibrium working capital levels that we're experiencing and our investments in growth.
Under normal conditions, The group structurally invests in working capital to drive growth, and we expect to see working capital peak in December in the first half. However, this year, despite 28.8 percent sales growth, December working capital was 21% below the prior year And approximately $95,000,000 below what we regard as a normal equilibrium level. Inventory levels have been suppressed by continued strong demand, constraining our ability to rebuild normal cover levels. Receivables, in turn, have grown more slowly than sales as we have deliberately shortened terms to some customers. And also, the Christmas selling period began earlier in the year, meaning some receivables were already collected by end of December.
Meanwhile, payables have largely grown as the business. Collectively, this resulted in an abnormally low working capital, High cash flow and high net cash at December 31. This imbalance should unwind during the calendar year of to you, but perhaps not by June 2021. Looking at intangibles. Intangible assets of $237,000,000 grew by $77,000,000 on the prior comparable period, largely due to the acquisition of Bharatza in October 2020.
Excluding the IoT platform impairment that we spoke about in June 20 20. Internally developed intangibles are growing in line with recent trends as we continue to invest in NPD and our group IT platform. As mentioned, at December 2020 31st December 2020, The group had a net cash position of $90,600,000 which reflects the below equilibrium working capital mentioned above And the net inflow of $42,000,000 arising from the May 2020 capital raise, less our acquisition of Baratsa. Finally, the group's return on equity at 19.6% continues to show strong returns on the group's growth investments. I'm coming to a summary slide on Slide 8.
I hope that the unpacking or the limited unpacking of our reported numbers there has been helpful and what I can only describe is a pleasing half. The key messages I'd like to take away from this half's results are But we saw both revenue and gross profit grow strongly in the half with the mixed swings towards the Global Product segment. Gross profits were tactically reinvested in areas to support medium term growth, namely go to market, product development and IT. Outside of these priorities and alongside a consistent bad debt provisioning, other costs were largely contained. Our working capital and cash positions that we've spoken about, we do not regard as being at equilibrium and should correct in future periods.
So those are the 4 key messages. And on that note, I'm going to pass over to Jim Clayton, our CEO, to provide you an operational and strategic update. Jim, over to you.
Thank you, Martin, and good morning to everyone. Let's see, I'm on Slide 9. I'll give you an update on our progress with the acceleration platform, highlight key considerations as we move through the second half and end with our current outlook for FY 2021 on to Slide 10. Since last March, We've been navigating our way through an extremely dynamic environment. What the team has managed extremely well is the separation between the tactical and the strategic.
Tactically, we've run daily supply allocation and credit verification processes for almost every order as demand has generally outstripped Supply in each geography and counterparty risks have differed by customer. At the same time, we've had to pivot Operationally to address a spike in consumer orders from our websites. All this managed against the backdrop of U. S. China tariffs, Brexit and COVID, the physical retail shutting, opening and shutting again in several of our key markets.
It would be reasonable to think that all of this disruption could have impacted the continued strategic development of the acceleration platform, but it has not. While the sales, operations and customer support teams were dealing with the daily challenges, the rest of the company was methodically executing our We went live in France, while preparing for Mexico, Italy and Portugal. The NPD and go to market teams continue to push forward We're go to market focusing on the acceleration of our digital offense. We deployed our new corporate platform in the U. K, the U.
S, Mexico and Hong Kong, using Zoom and other collaboration tools to communicate and developed and took beans.com live. We closed the acquisition of Bharatza, and we executed an equity raise and lengthened our debt tenure to create the headroom to make all of this possible. It's external shocks such as COVID that truly test the robustness and resilience of your team, processes and platforms. Breville has been tested and we passed, which bodes well for the next 5 to 10 years. On to Slide 11.
We've been executing our acceleration program for quite some time, and I thought it might be helpful to visually see how things are changing. Here, I'm comparing the first half of FY 'seventeen to the first half of FY 'twenty one. The success we're seeing in our global expansion efforts is resulting in a more EMEA
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Asia Pac are now almost the same size as the Americas. If in the future we face a localized challenge in Any one region, the other 2 may be able to close the gap. Over this 4 year period, we delivered a pretty solid clip of Global Product segment revenue growth, A 21% CAGR. Both the Americas and Asia Pac delivered an 18% CAGR, While EMEA delivered a 39% CAGR across the 4 years. As we grow our existing markets and enter new ones, Revenue and profit will continue to diversify geographically.
On to Slide 12. In EMEA, France just went through its 1st holiday selling cycle and performed well. Our launch into France was particularly interesting because we did it during the COVID pandemic. But despite the challenges of COVID, we executed in store build outs like the one shown in Le Bon Marche, a premium retailer owned by LBMH, Engaged with all premium retailers, both physical and online, delivering a solid geographic footprint, which you can see in the upper left of this line and executed master classes with leading 3rd wave specialty country retailers and roasters. Given the challenges we faced, Andre, the rollout in France is exceptional.
On to Slide 13. Moving to the new markets. We are now live with our website in Mexico and Italy, and Portugal will soon follow. All three will go live with fiscal retail in March through April, selling through premium retailers as planned. Slide 14.
We are almost complete with our rollout of the new corporate platform in the Northern Hemisphere. Europe, U. K, the U. S, Mexico and Hong Kong are live. All we're missing in the Northern Hemisphere is Italy and Portugal, which are going live in weeks and Canada, which will follow.
We will then move on to New Zealand and Australia. As mentioned in previous reporting, we've also taken the Middle East live with our Web I don't believe I can overstate the size and complexity of this project, given that it all must be done remotely nor the importance of this project to the future growth of the company. The fact that our team is executing this program remotely Against tight timelines is a testament to the quality of our team as well as how comfortable we are working in distributed teams across time zones and geographies. The historical platform was an inhibitor to growth. The new platform will be an accelerator.
On to Slide 15. Over the last 2 years, we have built in house capability centers that have made this possible. When confronted with These many companies look to outside consultants to solve the problem. The digitization of our vertical however is simply a natural evolution that many verticals have already As such, we have chosen to build this as a core capability within the company itself. This will enable us to bring and support new capabilities to market much faster.
We've already seen this with the Jewel 11 Air and beams.com, Both 100% internally designed, developed and deployed, our internal team will also be doing 100% of the corporate platform deployment for Italy and Portugal. When we are finished deploying the corporate platform, not only will we have a platform designed for speed, but we will have a team that knows how to get the most out of it. On to Slide 17. Looking at the second half, we see both opportunities and challenges. We expect demand for our products to remain healthy.
However, we entered the second half with inventory tied across the globe. We are pulling all the levers we can to try to get in front of the demand line and repipeline our retail partners. It's too early to tell whether we will get this done by the end of the half or whether it will slip into FY 'twenty two, but we are committed to rebuilding the inventory to support future growth. Brexit finally happened and no surprise Just a couple of challenges, complexities and delays. We intentionally built our inventory buffer in the UK going into January and believe we have enough inventory to cover the expected delays.
Lastly, as we leave the first half on a solid financial position, we are focusing on FY 'twenty two and FY 'twenty three. As such, we will continue to drive investment and spend into NPV, marketing and IT to put the acceleration platform in a strong position for the forward years. Slide 18. Before getting to the outlook, I'd like to give an update on the change to our dividend policy. Historically, our payout ratio has been 70% of EPS on an annual basis.
With an increasing range of growth opportunities, Geographic expansion, increased capital investments and tuck in acquisitions ahead of us, we have chosen to change the target annual payout ratio We believe this will enable us to fund this growth on a cash neutral basis. At this level of payout, The dividend can and will be 100 percent frank. Moving to the outlook. We've had a good first half. And although we will continue to invest in our medium term growth drivers, we believe our EBIT for FY 'twenty one We'll now come in somewhere around $136,000,000 which is an increase to the guidance we provided at the AGM of $128,000,000 to $132,000,000 I'll now hand the discussion back to the moderator and open the call up for any questions you may have regarding our first half FY 'twenty one results.
Thank Your first question comes from Apoorv Seagal from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jim and Martin. Congrats on a strong result. Just my one question then, is this on the FY 2021 guidance? So that if I look at it, it implies a second half EBIT SKU of 30% versus 36% when looking at the last 3 years And suggest about 3% EBIT growth year on year for that second half. I'm just wondering if there's an element of conservatism in that guidance or if you can provide us the building blocks Why momentum would potentially sort of slow in that second half?
It looks a little bit conservative.
So maybe separate into 2 pieces, right? So there's one question, right, which is what does the top line do? And then the second question is what's EBIT going to do at the same time? That the EBIT question is a function of the level of investment We make in the second half for the acceleration platform for 2022 and 2023. So the guidance that we gave for the outlook Assumes investment in the second half for 'twenty two and 'twenty three.
Yes.
And Jim, I'll just add to that. And, Bob, you remember last half, despite hedging units, we had a number of normalization adjustments that we added to the accounts. If you look through those, the step up is considerably more. We're not going to do that. We're going to report against the normalized Half that we put forward is our underlying performance.
And there, Jim is exactly right. It's about the spend, Not so much around the sales trajectory.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Calum Sinclair from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Martin and Jim. Maybe just an extension to that, just around the supply chain. Have you assumed anything around retailer restocking And maybe just the visibility that you've been able to give to your manufacturers, I guess, to keep up with the demand. And is there an assumption Sort of the timing of Amazon Prime Day, either in the second half or in the first half of FY 'twenty two.
Look, the outlook, as we defined it, is Us trying to get catch up with demand, get in front of it and ultimately repipeline. So We mentioned that we think that may that could slip into 2022, and it's mostly because we don't know what the demand line is going to be specifically between now and then. So I think it's fair to say that our manufacturers are flat out, and we're all kind of pulling As hard as we can and as fast as we can. Amazon Prime Day, I would Zynq, I would hope for Amazon's sake that it's going to happen this year. So that would be naturally Kind of in the forecast of the second half, which again Amazon Prime Day at least historically has happened at the end of July, I think Amazon is still having a little bit of struggle depending on the geography because we're still going through hard lockdowns in some of the spots.
But Assuming that starts to settle out, maybe they can pull it off. If that happens, it then becomes a question of within any given geography, whether you're loading In the second half of this year and the first half of next year.
Thanks. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ash Chandra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Gentlemen, I know Bharatza has only recently closed as an acquisition, but any comments you could sort of make about how easy that's been to kind of integrate into your Global Distribution Channel and your thoughts on how that gradually scales into your broader global business.
Sure. My expectation is that it's going to be easy and I say that we Intentionally did not integrate them. So we acquired in October. They were having a similar experience We were being behind the demand curve. So that's a bad time kind of on both sides to think about going through the integration process.
We will be integrating them in the second half of this year and that looks to be a really straightforward process because it's just Kind of folding their SKUs into this corporate platform and the rest of it takes care of itself. So within that model, I think it will be as simple as AquaBoard or ChefSteps was. I think that the next step is they come with their own Go to market meaning what they've done over the last 20 years. And we'll need to go kind of theater by theater and evaluate With them, what's the right way to go to market in that theater? And then how do we leverage the infrastructure that Breville has in that theater to either help their existing partners accelerate like we've done with our partners in Europe and the Middle East, or whether we step forward And just pulled them in direct.
I think the bit that's a little different about Virotta is that as a general rule, Bharatza doesn't sell into our channel. And I mean what I'm going to call the mass premium channel, You know kind of Best Buys and Harvey Norman's of the world. They sell into the specialty channel, which is Coffee equipment retailers, roasters and so forth. While we through Breville and Sage have product in that channel, it hasn't been a core focus of ours. So in a sense, That's a bit of a pickup in the acquisition itself is to have a team that is really focused on that channel.
So it's as much about thinking About how Bharatza sits on top of the infrastructure of Breville globally as it is about how Breville folds into the Bharatza go to market.
And Jim, I'll just add to that. It's not really a comment on integration, and it's relatively small acquisition. But in terms of performance, Since you joined the Breville Group in October, it's been bang on line with what we expected. So we're very pleased with the performance integration and to come, as Jim says,
Now. Got it. And can I ask just along the lines of further acquisitions? Your balance sheet is Pretty healthy, but you're also calling out that you're running at a lower level of inventory than you think is equilibrium. In that context, how do you think about the sort of gearing that your balance sheet And Carrie, should there be another acquisition opportunity that you may wish to execute on?
Yes, so as we said on the working capital, it's I mean, this is a judgment number, but we think we're running about 95 A $1,000,000 below an equilibrium level, if you look at especially if you look at the inventory levels versus the growth in the business, and that's they're tight. So certainly, we'd expect that to flow back in over the next Half or 2 halves, and that is very much an investment in growth because as you know, we've laid down successfully laid down inventory pools across Europe, the new territories that we go into. That would actually be covered by our current cash reserves. So that would almost take us back to 0. And then in terms of what leverage the Board would find acceptable from acquisition, I think they've proved themselves to have good judgment in this space.
And we have debt facilities with very sensible Covenants in place, which would allow us in the short term to gear up if the right acquisition came along and then pay down Those leverage levels are something we're more comfortable with. I'm not giving an exact number, but giving you the feeling that we've got the flexibility to gear up in the short term if we wished and then Pay that down as the acquisition performs.
Got it. And sorry, just one last follow-up along these lines. Given the buoyancy that consumers or consumer demand is delivering for your type of product, Does it in any way, shape or form make prospective acquisitions harder to come by? So expectations on Price might be adjusting just in this environment.
Look, I think It's not necessarily that companies wouldn't be thinking about selling. I mean, obviously, valuation It gets a little more interesting in kind of how you think about what value you would pay. And within that construct, I think there is a little bit of complexity in that conversation. But We closed Bharatza in whatever it was October, plus our money in September, October. They were certainly in the Height of COVID starting in March, if you want to call it that.
So we've been able to negotiate at least one example of that. But it is definitely a part of the conversation of what's the both parties Can we get to agreement on what we think kind of long term sustainable is?
Okay, fair enough. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sam Haddad from Bell Potter. Please go ahead.
Hi Jim. Hi Martin. My question also relates to guidance. Can you give more color In regards to the increased level of investment in the second half, which areas of the business are you looking to increase investments? And at what point do we start to see EBIT grow in line more in line with top line growth?
So where's that inflection point in the time horizon? Given that you've also called out that you're approaching 12% of investment in product development and marketing as a percentage of sales, So I just wanted to understand those moving parts please. Thank you.
Jim, one thing
Good question. What I would say is historically I mean I think it's been a while since I looked, but I think historically we tended to have top line growing faster than EBIT. I think this half we reported EBIT drilling in line with top line.
Slightly faster. Slightly faster.
Yes, slightly faster. That's new for us. So look, from my perspective, if we were if FY 2020 and FY 2021 and 2022 and 2023 were The normal cadence, I think I could give an answer to that question. But given how dynamic the environment is, I think It's a really hard time to call what does equilibrium look like and how does that work out over time. So right now, it It feels much more tactical.
I would say when I look at the first half, I'm happy I'm really happy with what we did back in April May Where we did the equity raise and ran both an offense that assumed things went really well and a defense that assumed they didn't, That range, that aperture range allowed us to birth the top line that came out in the first half. And we continue to manage costs carefully and tightly. So I think we're going to be in this Play it high, play it low, aperture reality for a little while until we all feel like We can have any sense of real predictability to the future. And I think when we get on the other side of that, then I might be able to To give an answer to the question now, the other part of the question which is what are you investing in, that one's pretty simple, which is we NPV is easy, right, because NPV has a kind of 3 to 4 year cycle. So it's not bothered, if you want to call it, by The vibrations.
As we get to go to market and the corporate platform and so forth, we are investing in things that are not designed to affect FY 'twenty one, I guess the best way to describe it. So Everything we're investing in is for 2022 and 2023. And I'd say when you're tight on inventory, the last thing you want to do is Try to accelerate the top line with more marketing. So we're actually playing forward into 2022 and 2023 and there's a long list of stuff that we can do and are doing. So it's basically the goal that I set or the statement that I set back in April is that we're going through what I described as a marathon.
It's going to be a multiyear cycle whatever it is and we want to come out of that cycle with velocity. So on the strategic side of the business, we continue to play a year to 2 years ahead and we'll keep doing that until we all Collectively and globally, get back to some sense of normal and predictable.
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Just on that just one further question on that. In terms of the identified projects that you're investing in, will they roll into the first half of twenty twenty two?
Some of them will, if we turn them on. So it's back to potential, right? So if If we come into the first half of twenty twenty one and we're behind the 8 ball and we hadn't been able to get in front of demand and all that kind of stuff, I'm not turning them on Because for the same reason. But if we start to get in front and we can start Manage the top line, so to speak, because we've got enough inventory to play, then they're there to be turned on. So some of them are pointed at the first half of twenty twenty two If needed or if we can use them, others are second half in 'twenty three.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We now have a follow-up question from Apoorv Sehgal from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, good day guys. Martin, probably one for you. How can we think of doubtful guest expense in second half twenty twenty one compared to the $8,500,000 you banked in first half twenty twenty one and the $13,600,000 I think it was In second half 'twenty, is there any
way we can think about that?
Yes, sure. Second half 'twenty one, our receivables book We'll be lower, yes, it's a lower sales half. So when we hit June 2021, we'll have lower receivables than we had at December 2021. So taking the consistent approach we've got of trying to have 90% coverage, either insured, provided for Or of a nature that doesn't need coverage if the customer has a better balance sheet than us. So taking that 90% target, if the book is smaller, The size of our provision should be smaller.
So you would expect to see some of that come back to us in the second half, Assuming that none of it is actually required for retailers that actually go into liquidation, and we should remind ourselves that the environment is Anything but steady out there at the moment. We had one retailer in Europe last year that went under. We've had a couple in the States, but they were properly insured. So assuming that no one goes under, just the scale back of the size of receivables by the half year Would naturally see that size of that provision be reduced.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from James Casey from Baillieu. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gents. Just in terms of your acceleration program, just the marketing and R and D spend Specifically, can you just remind me as a percentage of sales where that was in FY 2020 and where it will be at the end of FY 2021 just so that will help me understand the guidance you've set. We didn't share, James, at the end of FY 2020 because of the abnormal period that we had in April, May, June as we
Good morning, Jim and Martin. Thanks for taking my question. Just taking a look at Global Product, I was wondering with the 39% growth Constant currency, was there were there any, I guess, one off positive tailwinds for many regions? I remember Previously, there was issues with Russia, either destocking or restocking or is that you guys hitting your strap Very well in that period. And then the margins have obviously come off just a little bit.
Is that something we can expect As you build out in further regions, noting there has been a bit of a trend to, I guess, You referred to it as premiumization. I would have expected some sort of margin expansion in that instance.
So maybe two things. Let me I'll take a shot at it and then Martin you can kind of clean up on the back. So The old Rest of World segment, right, is now spread across all of the 3 theaters. The lion's share of it sits in Asia Pac. And that portion of the business grew particularly quickly.
And it's basically because all of our distributors were going through the same reality. You don't understand. So if there was a tailwind, I guess if you within that model, we certainly felt that in rest of world mostly showing up in Asia Pac. The bit on margin, you have to be really careful about is that How do I say this? Gross margin percent did not go down.
So what you're looking at I think on the slide is the EBIT margin, not the gross margin percent. So Gross margin percent did not go down. We did see that effective behavior, which is if you look at Martin's Waterfall slide kind of on the front, you're starting to you see that improvement I think. So what you're seeing actually is The incremental EBIT dollars, that's just a function of how we report it. I kind of wish we didn't have to.
But When we generate more EBIT dollars in the distribution segment, those EBIT dollars are used as an expense in the global segment. So I've gone through this before, but let's say instead of generating whatever it was $3,000,000 of EBIT, it generated $30,000,000 of EBIT. Well, if we pounded that all into marketing and R and D in the global segment, the global segment's EBIT number might be 5%. If instead the EBIT number for the distribution had gone the other way from 15 to 13, Then all of a sudden the EBIT margin of the global products would have shot through the roof. So this is why I don't have a red box around That which is it's actually not helpful.
At the segment level, it's only helpful at the bottom. So Said another way, gross margin percent did not go down for Global Products. It went up.
Yes, I'll just add a little bit. Absolutely, gross margin went up by 1.1%, nearly 1.2%, and That was driven by the premiumization, the lower promotional spend and the mix that we were talking about. And that more than covered a quite heavy impost of freight costs. So container costs out of China are really booming at at the moment, but that was more than covered by that. Why didn't that flow through to EBIT margin, John, is because what Jim just went through, the choice of what we chose to spend on, including the bad debt provisioning.
So we increased bad debt provisioning by $8,000,000 That's close to 1% of margin in that period as
Maybe said another way. We never try to accelerate marketing and R In the Distribution segment. Yes. So if we spread Marketing and R and D evenly across distribution and global, then it'd just be steady as she goes. But distribution's role is to generate Positive EBIT which gets used in expense in the global line and the more EBIT it delivers, the bigger the expense of the global line and that causes them to shake.
That's great. Thanks, James.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Joseph Michael from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning Jim. Good morning Martin. Just a quick question from me around sort of the medium term revenue growth outlook. So if I look at the 3 halves Before COVID, you did sort of top line growth of 15% in 1 half twenty nineteen, 20% in second half twenty nineteen And 25% in first half twenty twenty, so sort of between 15% 25%. Is that a good way of sort of thinking about The medium term growth outlook for this business once you sort of strip out what you might call net new demand or sort of one off demand that we could Potentially be seeing me out.
Well, the first thing I would do is fall back to constant currency, Right. So I wouldn't look at the reported growth rate. I'd look at the constant currency growth rate, right, because you got the Aussie and the U. S. Dollar flying all over the place.
So I would have called the first half of twenty twenty, I think it was 20% constant currency. Yes. It's been a while since I've looked at it. So I think and that was a bit when we got into the second half, everybody's like, well, where did all this Demand come from and I was like, where did it come from in the first half, right? So in a sense, we were on a kind of a 20% Kind of growth rate if you want to call it that going into COVID.
And now on top of that 20 of last year, we just laid down 39. Look, I think it's really hard to call. I know you guys have to, I don't. It's hard to call 2022, 2023, 2024. There's a part of it where you can fall back to 2019 2020 and say, well, at some point, we'll get back to normal, what that is.
But I think the one thing that is potentially different, if I think about 2019 versus let's call it 2023 or 2024 however far out you want to go, Which is one of the things that's happening to all of us, not specifically is, I think we are seeing an expansion in our addressable market. So it's structural, which is if and I was trying to think of who it was, I don't know if it was I know Twitter has told everybody you can always work from home, forget COVID. Like so you're getting a different mix across companies of There's some bank that's like okay 65 percent of the people are going to work from home now. So that is going to settle out and there's going to be more people working from home in 2024 Than there was in 2019. Whatever that delta is, is a structural change to the addressable market for everyone in this category.
Now that is a step change kind of feel about it, right, which is well there's the new you got to go through the step change and then you should get Everybody should just kind of go back to their normal run rate. And I think the trick over whatever you want to call it 21% to 24% is Figuring out how that step change flows through to get back to a normal What's your run rate on the base of your addressable market?
Those are the things I
would consider when throwing the dart at the board. But for Breville specifically going into 'twenty two, it feels a lot like going into 'twenty one, Which is we're going to lay a very wide aperture offense down again, because the other reality that we're going to go through is as the Seeing rolls out and all this other stuff, what we're going to see is I think a fair amount of divergence across country, Which is well this country is in this state and that one is in this one and that one is in that one and so forth. And so we're going to have a lot of different realities underneath us In this global footprint that we need to be prepared to address operationally.
Great. Thank
you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Calum Sinclair from Macquarie. Please go
ahead. Just a quick follow-up. Just in the maybe on the competitive behavior and pricing environment, Are you able to share any feedback on the ability of some competitors to support retailers through this period given the elevated demand? And then on the pricing environment, do we see any inflation in some categories to offset freight and container costs? I mean not everyone's got a sort of FX tailwinds like yourselves.
So look everyone's going to have to what I would say with competitors and I think it's theirs to articulate For those that report publicly, you can get a feel for it. I think it's fair to say, at least from what I've seen, is Everybody is dealing with some part of this. I think what we see In the first half as you look across everyone who's reported and I said this at the time that we did the equity raise, what you're actually seeing It's kind of an internal management meeting in March April where everybody threw the dart at the board and said What upside do we need to be prepared for? And effectively, if everybody gets into the end of December low on inventory, That was their answer. They prepared for that much.
And so at one level, whether Our company is able to support retail during that period. It's kind of 2 parts to it. One is, where did you set the bar In that meeting in March. And then secondly,
how
fluid is your operational infrastructure to be able to change? And as an example, if you look at how Asia Pac did, that was not Something that was on the whiteboard, as we sit there in March. The total kind of the total inventory That we laid down to support a top line, you're looking at it in a sense in the 39%, but the shape of that 39% didn't exact We fall the way we thought it would. So that creates a lot of real time pivoting. So if a company is that agile, Then you can meet the demand where and how it happens.
And I think that's how you would have to judge kind of Everyone else's performance, because if they came up short, it was either they set the wrong target in the 1st place, so they weren't aggressive enough or B, they're not flexible enough to flow product to demand. And then, Calum, I think you had a second part to your question. That was the first. What was the second part?
Just whether we could see early signs of sort of inflation on pricing for some categories that you're in With some people you are offsetting container and freight and all those sorts of issues.
Honestly, I don't know. I mean we are in a slightly For position, just because of being Aussie has finally turned out to be kind of advantage in this world, the Aussie dollar.
But I
think the other thing that is a reality is that as I would assume this is true, Like you're going to have to validate this, but if you're running tight on inventory, then the one thing you're not doing Or hopefully you're not doing is running a lot of promotions. So if you looked at what your ASP might have been the year before or the year before that, in theory, Everyone should be doing better because they stopped trying to promote. Now if they just had their marketing plan and they were going to do it anyway, they didn't have the inventory to deliver, so be it. But I would expect that everyone's getting a little bit of benefit at the gross margin percent line just by pulling back on promotion. And that may or may not be enough to cover the headwind that's coming out on the freight cost.
I would think that's what they'd be netting out before they got to the point of are we going to have to increase price.
Great. That's it. Thanks.