Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the GWA Group Limited FY 2023 results. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Urs Meyerhans, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the webcast or conference call for GWA's results for the year ended 30th of June, 2023. My name is Urs Meyerhans, GWA's Managing Director, and I'm pleased to present the results today. Joining me on the call this morning, are Calin Scott, our Group CFO, and Craig Norwell, Group Executive for Sales. We look forward to talking further with many of you over the coming days and weeks. For today's presentation, I will first provide an overview of our group performance and key themes that will include a summary of our continued commitment to safety. Calin will discuss the group financial results for the year, including PNL, balance sheet, and cash flow.
Craig will provide an overview of our performance in our key end markets and some more details, specifically for Australia, our largest market. I will conclude today's presentation with an update on our strategy and provide a summary and outlook for the year ahead, FY24. We'll be happy to answer your question at the conclusion of the presentation. Moving to slide 5. Let me first provide you with key highlights for the past year. FY23 was a year of two halves. As you might recall from the half-year event, we started the year strongly with a solid Q1 sales performance. Unfortunately, we saw a negative shift in market sentiment from October, which was most pronounced in the residential R&R segment. This resulted in a declining sales to our merchant partners.
This was intensified by destocking by 1 specific merchant, and also from higher, higher Australian customer freight costs. You remember a few heavy surcharges and higher warehouse costs in New Zealand. All up, that resulted in a normalized EBIT being down 4% in the first half. We responded quickly to these challenges. Our focus on operational discipline and cost management, together with adjusting our operating model to align to market conditions, resulted in improved earnings and margins in the second half compared to the first half. Second half, EBIT was up 6.5%, with EBIT margins up 120 basis points on the first half. We continued to proactively manage inventory levels in line with the external market environment, which resulted in a significant reduction in working capital compared to financial year 2022.
As a result, full-year operating cash flow was more than double on the prior year. This led to a 15% reduction in net debt compared to FY22. That enabled us to declare a final dividend of AUD 0.07 per share, bringing the full-year dividend to AUD 0.13 per share, fully franked. As we go through today's presentation, I also will provide an update on our progress across several of our key strategic deliverables. Moving to slide 6. Safety remains our number one priority and commitment. As we detailed in H1, we incurred two minor injuries in our New Zealand business. This led to a disappointing increase in the TIFR. We are continuing to focus on enhancing our safety performance measurement, with a shift in emphasis towards measuring leading indicators of safety, such as worker insights.
We have seen a measurable improvement in this area, as you can see on the chart. In the last 12 months, we more than doubled Worker insights, which is measured as insights per 1 million hour of work. I will now hand over to Calin to go through the group financial results.
Thanks, Urs. Slide 8 presents our results first on a normalized basis, which excludes significant items, and then on a statutory basis, which includes significant items. Significant items for FY 2023 were a total of AUD 1 million after tax and related to costs associated with the right-sizing the organization in the second half, as we responded to the market conditions. Prior year significant items were AUD 12.1 million after tax, including costs associated with the implementation of the ERP/CRM system and closure of the China sales function. On a normalized basis, full-year EBIT is down 6% to AUD 74 million. That reflects the volume impacts, as mentioned earlier, particularly in the residential R&R segment, and higher domestic freight costs commencing in the first half, with these costs being somewhat offset by lower ocean freight rates in the second half.
Even as a result of our agile response to these challenges, we saw an improvement in EBIT and margin in the second half, which I will discuss in a subsequent slide. On a reported basis, EBIT is up 16%, with net profit after tax up 22%, reflecting the much lower significant items in FY23 compared to the prior year. Moving to slide 9. This slide contains a waterfall chart we typically present to set out the 2 drivers of earnings over the year. This is presented on a normalized basis. With regards to volume, the decline here is a reflection of lower activity in the residential R&R sector, as well as the first half destocking by 1 major merchant partner.
In relation to price mix, we implemented an initial price increase of 5% across Australia and New Zealand in July 2022, and 5% in the U.K. in November 2022, primarily related to cost increases. That was followed by a further price increase of 4% implemented in Australia in April 2023, and 5% implemented in New Zealand in March 2023. These are in response to increased customer freight costs. Turning now to freight. There are 2 components to freight. I'll start with outbound freight. As we detailed at the half year, we incurred freight charges related to higher diesel costs in Australia and New Zealand, which impacted our connected outbound freight cost to customers.
Inbound freight, as we also detailed at the half, that we expected to see the benefits of declining sea freight charges in the second half of FY 2023, and we expect to see this benefit continue into FY 2024. The higher warehouse costs related to the first half of FY 2023, where we held higher levels of inventory in anticipation of an extended Chinese New Year. Due to space limitations at our own warehouse facility, we held this stock offsite, incurring additional storage charges. In relation to foreign exchange, our average Australian dollar, U.S. dollar exchange rate for the year was AUD 0.79, which compares to AUD 0.72 for the prior year. We had some favorable balance sheet revaluations, which were partially offset by unfavorable AUD versus USD on purchases. As at FY 2024, we are currently 50% hedged at USD 0.68.
For AMP, despite the challenging market, we continue to invest in our brand realignment strategy. In relation to net cost changes, I have already mentioned our disciplined execution in response to market, which delivered additional savings in the second half, contributing to the improved second half, EBIT and margin performance. Turning to slide 10. As I had mentioned at the start of the presentation, FY 2023 was a year of two halves, and you can see that reflected in the tables on this slide. While revenue was down 2% for the year, we saw an improvement in Australia and the United Kingdom on a constant currency basis in the second half. This was offset by New Zealand, which is in recession. Craig will discuss the revenue performance by market in more detail in this section.
While EBIT is down 6% for the year, we saw an improvement in earnings of 6.5% in the second half and a lift in margin by 120 basis points. That reflects the price increases we implemented in Australia in April and New Zealand in March to address the increased customer freight costs, our cost management initiatives, and lower ocean freight costs. Our response to changing market conditions included adjusting our operating model, and Craig will provide some more context in this section. Operating initiatives, including right-sizing our business and disciplined market execution, including proactively managing inventory levels to market demand. Turning now to slide 11. This is a strong result. We continue to proactively manage inventory levels while maintaining the quality of stock holdings to support product availability for our customers.
You may recall at the end of FY 2022, our debt balance was higher than usual due to the timing of sales, which were impacted by the implementation of our new ERP system in April 2022. The combination of these resulted in a significant reduction in working capital compared to the prior year. As a result, cash flow from operations in FY 2022 doubled on the prior year to AUD 99.6 million. Cash conversion remains strong, with cash conversion ratio of 112%. Capital expenditure and other investment activity was AUD 2.2 million for the year, which was steady on the prior year. Our CapEx program remains focused on growth initiatives to drive revenue growth opportunities and cost efficiencies. Cash restructuring and other costs of AUD 2.2 million related primarily to the ERP CRM system and restructure costs.
Turning to slide 12. GWA remains focused on providing strong returns to shareholders, and the dividend policy is to pay 65%-85% of NPAT as dividends. As I mentioned earlier, our continued robust balance sheet enabled a AUD 0.07 final dividend, AUD 0.20. As you can see here, the final dividend is similar to that in the previous corresponding period. Our dividends remain AUD 0.20. Turning to slide 13. I will finish my section with this slide. GWA remains in a solid financial position. Net debt at 30th of June is AUD 117 million, which is 15% lower than the 30th of June 2022, and reflected the reduction in working capital and improved operating cash flow I discussed earlier.
Our credit metrics improved on the prior year and remain solid, with a gearing ratio of 22%, which compares to 26.2% for the prior year, and leverage down to 1.5x, which compares to 1.7x in the prior year. We have facility facilities of AUD 220 million, including a three-year multi-currency revolving facility of AUD 180 million and a separate AUD 40 million one-year multi-currency revolving bilateral facility. This facility expires in October, and we expect to extend prior to this date. I will now hand over to Craig Norwell to discuss our performance by market.
Thanks, Calin, and good morning, everyone. In my section today, I will provide some further context to our revenue by market and for Australia, more granularity by state. Turning to slide 15. This is the usual slide we present to show our revenue for each of our key end markets. I'll start in Australia, our largest market, which represents 82% of group revenue. We had a strong first quarter with sales up 7%. However, as Urs referenced earlier, we then saw a decline in residential renovation volumes over the second quarter and into the second half. While full-year revenue was down 1%, we did see an improvement in revenue in the fourth quarter, reflecting the 4% price increase effective from April, implemented largely in response to the increase in customer freight and sales initiatives executed in response to the changing market conditions....
These resulted in a modest increase in sales for the second half over the first half. One important initiative to call out is that we have recently realigned our Australian sales organization to a state-based structure, as opposed to segment structure. As you'll see on the next slide, each state has its own dynamic, and the new structure ensures we are able to respond more quickly to local customer needs and sales opportunities with localized solutions led with local accountability. A quick win already resulting from this change is the introduction of entry-level tap and shower ranges, a direct result of customer collaboration, with the goal to respond to the changing market conditions together. In New Zealand, we saw a deterioration in revenue, which reflects the local economy moving into recession.
We implemented a 5% price increase in March, and pleasingly, we saw revenue in local currency up 2% in the fourth quarter compared to quarter three. UK sales were up in both the half year and for the full year on a constant currency basis. Turning to slide 16. This slide details Australian sales for the year by state. In New South Wales, we had double-digit growth in the first quarter from strong commercial and residential renovation demand. However, as we've already called out, we saw demand declining for residential renovation from the second quarter and into the second half, which also caused some stock rebalancing from merchants. As a result of the challenging economic conditions, we've also seen some delays for key commercial projects in the second half.
In Victoria, you'll have seen the news of some plumbing groups and new home builders being impacted by the challenging market conditions. As a result, we had inconsistent sales across our customer base for the period. Queensland delivered a stronger result compared to a disappointing FY 2022, with growth through the commercial segment. The pipeline in commercial remains strong. In Western Australia, we had growth in both commercial and residential renovation, with some softness in residential detached new build. In South Australia, sales were resilient in renovation and replacement, while sales in the commercial and detached segments were in line with a strong FY 2022. Turning to slide 17. While the last slide demonstrated sales by market, this slide illustrates sales through our main customers in Australia. Earlier, I talked to H2 relative to H1, with pleasing improvement in H2 this year.
This chart compares each half to the corresponding half the prior year.
Pardon me, this is the conference operator. We have temporarily lost connection with the speaker line. Please continue to hold and the conference will recommence shortly.
Good morning. It's Craig Norwell. Our humble apologies. We had some technical issues here at our office, which meant we went offline. We're back online now with a plan B. What I'll do is, I believe I was probably on slide 16 when I was talking about the state performance across Australia. On that, I'll err on the side of caution and start there. Slide 16, this slide details Australian sales for the year by state. In New South Wales, we had double-digit growth in the first quarter from strong commercial and residential renovation demand. However, as we've already called out, we saw demand declining for residential renovation from the second quarter and into the second half, which also caused some stock rebalancing from merchants.
As a result of the challenging economic conditions, we've also seen some delays for key commercial projects in the second half. In Victoria, you'll have seen news of some plumbing groups and new home builders being impacted by the challenging market conditions. As a result, we had inconsistent sales across our customer base for the period. Queensland delivered a strong result compared to a disappointing FY 2022, with growth through the commercial segment, and the pipeline in commercial remains strong. In Western Australia, we had growth in both commercial and residential Renovation, with some softness in residential detached new build. South Australia sales were resilient in Renovation and Replacement, while sales in the commercial and detached segment were in line with a strong FY 2022. Turning to slide 17. While the last slide demonstrated sales by market, this slide illustrates sales through our main customers in Australia.
Earlier, I talked to H2 relative to H1, with pleasing improvement in H2 this year. This chart compares each H to the corresponding H the prior year. You can see the impact of economic conditions with overall customer sales reflecting the end market dynamics, where we are seeing positive results in commercially focused merchants, while sales are being impacted by merchants who are more exposed to the residential R&R segment. That impact has also been reflected in some destocking, with a changed focus to cash flow by some merchants. It's also important to bear in mind that we usually execute a price rise on the 1st of July. However, this year we did not, which resulted in no pre-price rise buying at the end of the year relative to last year when there was a significant pre-price rise buying.
A clear positive is that we are seeing some early signs of traction from our Win the Plumber strategy, with our significantly expanded customer base of more than 20,000 construction and maintenance plumbers. We have a defined range of products meeting the specific needs of maintenance plumbers, that we actively sell to plumbers and our merchant partners. In merchant A, this bundle of products achieved 15% growth in half two. With construction plumbers, our focus on increased customer coverage and category penetration achieved 6% growth in sales to these customers in half two, despite the market conditions. I'll now hand you back to Urs.
Thanks, Craig. We continued to focus on new product launches during the year to build our presence in core segments. We launched new products, including entry-level tapware, showers, and accessories, to increase our share in builders and affordable housing markets, and the continued expansion of our independent living range did well in the aged care sector. The launch of the entry-level product is in direct response to the changing market conditions. With the cost of living increasing, customers often seek out lower cost products, and our aim is to provide solutions across the different value propositions, from entry level to good, better, and best. This way, we are using our extensive expertise to deliver products and solutions for each pricing segment.
We also introduced a colored sink range to refresh our kitchen product offer, and added commercial tether products to capture growing demand in the education and public amenities sector. I will make a few comments about the continued advancement of our strategy, moving to slide 21. We continue to make excellent progress in core areas of our strategy, which is highlighted on this slide. The table on the left shows our targets by financial year 25. On the right, we provide an update based on the end of financial year 23. In the plumber, as you will recall, plumbers are the single biggest opportunity for GWA to grow volume and share in Australia and New Zealand. Over financial year 23, we extended our reach with Australia and New Zealand plumbers to over 20,000, which is nearly double from our total at half year.
We now have a clear understanding of the needs of the different plumbing segments, as we move into financial year 2024, we have initiatives in place to commercialize on this increased platform. We launched a successful trial of a new technical support service in the first half, we are now engaged with 6,700 plumbers in providing technical services. These services include a dedicated technical outlines to provide direct support to the plumber to ensure any issue raised can be proactively addressed. We also launched the Caroma Plumbers Hub, an app available on smartphone, which provides plumbers with the knowledge, tools and support to select, install, maintain, and repair GWA products correctly and efficiently. It also provides the plumbers with direct visibility of available stock. This provides the plumber with enhanced efficiency in the selection, procurement, installation, and maintenance of Caroma products.
Innovation through design and partnership. A key focus of our growth strategy remains on product innovation. We have an established five-year NPD roadmap to support our go-to-market product strategy. At our strategy day last September, we outlined a vitality index target of +10%, which is the % of sales from new products as a % of total sales. As I just mentioned on the previous slide, we continued the rollout of new products through the year, and traction from these products means we are currently tracking ahead of our 10% vitality index target. For customer service or experience, we continue to develop solutions to enhance our customer experience and make it easier for customers to do business with us. The new ERP we launched across Australia and New Zealand allows for consistent and improved reporting.
Our service levels continue to improve, with satisfaction in Australia and New Zealand increasing to 78%. In addition, we are able to consistently measure the transaction NPS from our merchant partners. As part of our customer first priority, which I will discuss shortly, we have identified key initiatives to further improve on this important measure. On capital management, as discussed earlier by Calin, we have made good progress except for EPS. This measure was impacted by the rapidly changing market conditions. We expect our strategic and operational initiatives to have a positive impact on our performance going forward. Let me move to the summary and outlook on slide 23. Let me summarize the key points from today's presentation before concluding with the outlook for financial year 2024. As we mentioned, financial year 2023 was a year of two halves.
Following a strong first quarter, the market declined from October and into the second half, primarily in the key residential renovation and replacement segment. We initiated a rapid and agile response to these conditions. Our focus on operational discipline and cost management resulted in improved second half performance compared to the first half. This resulted in increased earnings and margins, with significantly improved operating cash flow in the second half of the year. Our strategic updates demonstrate excellent progress and momentum on key initiatives. As we head into financial year 2024, we have, within the strategic framework, identified two key priorities, being customer first and profitable volume growth. The financial year 2024 priorities are clear, and we will execute on them with an organizational discipline. Moving to slide 24. Turning to the outlook for financial year 2024.
We expect increased demand for commercial in new builds, in health and aged care, and repair and renovation. Meanwhile, we expect the existing pipeline in residential detached housing to provide solid demand in the segment into the first half of financial year 2024. We also expect increased activity in multi-residential, social and affordable housing, and build-to-rent categories. However, demand activity in residential renovation and replacement is expected to remain subdued. Within that operating environment, we will continue our disciplined execution with a strong focus on customer first and profitable volume growth. We continue to target the investment in entry-level products, increasing our share of wallet with plumbers and customer experience centers across Australia and New Zealand. We are well prepared for financial year 2024. We have the right organization structure and clearly articulated priorities. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the presentation.
Calin, Craig, and I are happy to take your questions.
... Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the headset to ask your question. Your 1st question comes from Shaurya Visen from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hey, Urs, Calin, thank you for taking my question. I had 3, 3 questions, if I could just ask. Starting with New Zealand, right? You've called out that market, right? Ob-obviously, a weak market. Can you give us a sense of the end market breakdown for that one? You know, split between repair and remodel and, and new construction, or, or, or is that very similar to Australia? I also noticed that, you know, you sort of called out Q4 as, as being quite, quite solid. I-is it fair to say that, you know, that market has perhaps turned a corner? I'll stop there in New Zealand and, and then have a couple of quick ones after that. Thank you.
To answer the first part of the question, just in terms of the market dynamic and breakdown, we find the New Zealand market is quite similar to Australia in terms of breakdown by segment. On the second one, in terms of the increase in the New Zealand in quarter four, that's largely driven out of a number of the sales initiatives that we spoke to earlier. We think the market is probably gonna stay fairly subdued in New Zealand.
Right. That, that's helpful. Just, just a quick follow-up, as you get a sense, give a sense, you know, how within New Zealand, right, what are you seeing in, in the new construction and repair G model? How do they look to you, say, say, the first quarter of this year, or, or both markets look, you know, as you say, equally weak?
From a New Zealand new construction market, so they, their approval sort of started dropping a little bit before Australia. We see completions for new builds in the New Zealand market probably being a bit softer in in quarter one of FY 2024 than what we'd see in Australia, where we've got a stronger sort of pipeline leading into H1 of FY 2024.
Thank you. That's very helpful. So just move to the next one. You had a comment, you know, destocking by a key channel partner. Could you give us some more color around that statement, please?
Yeah, I can take that one. We certainly thought, probably similar themes tail too hard. When the renovation, softness in residential sort of started to appear through October, November, we saw one merchant in particular, merchant sort of be in our summary, reduce stock on hand the most, in the most obvious way. We also saw other merchants, start to prioritize cash over stock on hand, so that was through some of the tail end of half one. Through half two, we haven't seen any, any major shift in stock on hand from the levels that they hit at Christmas time. The decline's mainly been, sales out into renovations in residential.
Okay, that's super helpful. Last one, and then I can queue it back in. Urs, perhaps for you. You know, slide 21, right, where we have the slide on capital management, and you sort of called out EPS, right? As sort of tracking a better expectation. From where you stand right now, that number of 5%-10% EPS scheduled for 2020-2025, what are your current expectations? Do you think the upper end is still possible, or we should be more thinking towards the lower end? Thank you.
Thanks. We usually don't provide a guidance in regards to financials. If I tell you what, which one I'm targeting, I give you a financial forecast, which I'm not really happy to do so. As I said in the presentation, I do think we have the right measures in place. We've restructured organization, we have the right organization model, and we will do whatever we can to improve the performance going forward.
Thanks, Urs. Thanks, everyone. I'll, I'll jump back in later. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Peter Steyn , from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning, Urs, Calin, Craig, thanks very much for your time. Just a quick question on your entry-level products, strategy. Urs, could you step us through some of the unit economics there? You know, one would assume that it's a lower dollar margin unless you've got a materially better GP. How, how do you think about the introduction of this product? What impact is that having on your vitality index as things stand right now? What is the economic outlook for that product entry?
Let me give you some general comments, and then ask Craig to be more specific. The entry-level products, if you follow the company, we've probably, the company decided probably about 5, 6 years ago, to get out of the entry-level products. As you sort of move into the realignment of the sales organization, we clearly saw a lack of our product offering in that builder range. In regard to the margins, you're right, margin percentage is lower than some of the current products. As I often in terms of, you can't take margins to the bank, you can take dollars to the bank. As we sell through more, it will have a positive impact on EBIT. Clearly, also with the introduction of these products, it will improve our vitality index. You want to go specifically?
Yeah, Peter, it's really come from the customer collaborations I referenced around two things. One, to Urs' point, we've actively become not involved in the in the entry-level price product, so we've focused purely on good, better, best. We've got a number of customers that, that our sanitaryware offers had met their needs, but tap and shower hadn't, and there was a desire for us to be a full service provider. Certainly, the market economic conditions we've seen, too, have seen people start to downtrade in different types of sort of work and to different degrees around Australia. There's been a, I suppose, an enhanced demand for it. The benefit for us that we're seeing so far is, yes, not a lot to see in % margin, but bankable margin, slightly lower.
The advantage is we go from winning 3 of the 7 categories we play in to 5 or 6 of those categories. We've also seen a different type of support from those customers with a lot of the Caroma tap and shower collections through our Lunar, Urbane, and Liano ranges as well. It's not purely confined to this entry price point offer, but I suppose our offers through entry, good, better, best.
Got you. Hello?
Hello.
The next question comes from Lisa Hau from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning. Are you guys there?
Yes. Hi, Lisa.
Hi. Hi, morning. I guess just to continue on from, the entry-level product strategy, I guess how much has that impacted the mix in the second half? I mean, there were 2 rounds of price rises, and you've alluded to it in the comments, but it's been negated by a negative mix shift towards sanitaryware. I just wanted to understand the timing of that new product.
Yeah, look, the entry-level product, we've launched very in this, financial year 2023, it doesn't have had any impact on any of the margins in financial year 2022. You will see some of the, the benefits flowing in 2024.
Yeah. So what's happening with, that mix shift to comment then towards sanitaryware?
You mean financial year 2023?
Yeah, that's right. Just going to-
Yeah. I think when you take a line through, the shift in H2 and some of the stocking levels, we certainly saw sales out in tapware and shower, more impacted, and stock levels of, tapware and shower, more impacted. We proportionally sold more sanitaryware throughout the course of FY23, hence the comment on shift towards that category.
In addition to what, Nelson, as referred to in regard to this stock, and that Nelson mainly focuses on, on tap and showers. The impact of that is stronger in this category.
Yeah. Okay, that's great. I guess in response to one of Peter's questions, you kind of talked about, just, you know, the types of projects coming online in the next 12 months. People are starting to downtrade. You know, are there any particular types of trends that you're seeing, what they're kind of pivoting towards?
I think we mentioned the presentation is the trend you're going to see is social and affordable housing, and then clearly a new sort of category build to rent. The indication from some of our production partners, clearly there has to be a different price point to what we've offered in the past.
I guess to the extent that you're introducing, you know, new sales initiatives, what else do you think in the strategy and internal initiative, like Win the Plumber, to offset, you know, some of those potential volume and margin headwinds in the next 12 months?
The way we sort of structured the business, I mentioned our two priorities are customer first and public volume growth. Our target is clearly that, as I said, with some of the entry-level products, number one, but also with some of the specific offerings for the plumbers, we should see probably the volume growth. I think we mentioned in previous calls, we often talk about the plumbers. This industry doesn't move that quickly. While we have the 20,000 plumbers on the books, you will see some more traction in regards to commercializing on the increased customer base going into 2024.
Yeah, sure. Sounds great. I'll leave it there. Thanks.
Thanks, Lisa.
The next question comes from Daniel Kang from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Probably a question for Craig. With regards to your point on new local state-based sales structure, what, what sort of impact do you expect from this? Do you, do you see some cost savings as a result of the move?
Simply, no, in terms of. That's not been the motivation for it. It's been to use the resources we've got across all parts of Australia, New Zealand, in a more formidable way. The upside for us, Daniel, is really, there's a lot of peculiarities state by state in terms of, like, customer need, but also the competitors we sort of battle against. As I said in the presentation, it's really been about having a laser-sharp focus on local needs and being able to turn those opportunities into execution faster, linked to also this point on customer first and profitable volume growth, but in a way where we've got single point accountability through a market leader in each state of Australia and in the New Zealand market.
Oh, thanks, Craig. Just sticking with you, in terms of the decision-... not to raise prices in the first of July? Just interested in the reason, reasoning behind this. It, yeah.
I, I suppose, Daniel, it's as simple as, we'd taken price early in the year, and then we took price in April, in Australia, and we took price in March in New Zealand. We didn't see the, I suppose, the, the need in such close proximity to take price again.
We also, just to add to that, we've also seen throughout 2023, in the second half, we've seen some, some improvements in the international trade into Australia. Our position of let's see how this plays out, we clearly have monitored very closely. If required, we will consider a price increase, but we didn't find it appropriate doing it at the end of the year.
The price rises have been received quite well so far. Is that a fair statement? And just, an extension of that, do you see further price increases into FY 24?
Obviously, price increases have, were, have been accepted. I'm not sure if I would say they've been well received, but in short, they got accepted. If we would have raised the price increases too early, there probably would have been a question from our customers in regard to the cost base, as well as international rate is coming down in regard to cost, and we just want to first see how that sort of flows through. We're not ruling it out.
Thank you. Thank you, Jerona.
Your next question comes from Keith Chau from MST Marquee. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Urs, Calin, and Craig. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one, maybe one for Urs. Just trying to understand how GWA's volume performance in FY 2023 compared to the previous BIS Oxford Economics forecast of down 4%. Just wondering if you can give us a sense of how FY 2023 performed against that, including and excluding destocking. Furthermore, for FY 2024, do you think you will outperform or underperform the, the BIS Oxford Economics forecast of down 8% for the Australian market, please?
Yeah, look, if you look at 23 and you look at BIS, I think they had sort of suggested that there was somewhere between 4 and 5% volume decline. Our decline was slightly higher than that across our categories, as I say, particularly impacted by one of the destocking. It's hard to calculate precisely what the destocking initiatives would have translated into into percentage terms. Craig also mentioned that while we didn't see a massive destocking across other merchants, we clearly noticed in the second half there was a stronger focus on cash flow, and therefore, they were far slower in replenishing their own stock level.
In regards to 2024, we do believe that with our initiatives in place and again, the end delivery products, continue to commercialize on Win the Plumber, we would expect to outperform the market outlook.
Thanks, Urs. That's, that's really good color. The second one may be, to, to Craig on mix. I just want to approach mix from a different angle because I think, you know, there have been some changes in disclosure in the presentation, but it seems to me that mix potentially was already an impact in FY 2023, and part of that might have been due to customer trading down without, you know, even the introduction of new products. Craig, can you just give us some sense of what the mix impact was in FY 2023? Given these new initiatives, do you expect next to be negative again in FY 2024?
probably two parts to it, Keith. I think, as I said, we didn't see a pronounced down trade from those price corridors through the course of FY23, but we certainly had customer feedback requesting us to be more, I suppose, complete in our offer through that. The mix change in 23 was largely around the way that tapware and shower volumes, especially in merchant B, were represented in stock on hand shifts, and to a lesser degree, the renovation softness. That's what drove the buy towards sanitaryware. If I think about FY24, as Urs talked about, our big drivers of profitable volume growth are obviously Win the Plumber, which is a complete sort of category play to meet their needs.
You certainly see these new maintenance plumbers we're now engaging with as a technical partner, far more frequently replacing taps and, and showers than anything else. Outside that, through the shift in residential, so social housing, affordable living, and build to rent, that's a, you know, a total category play, so not a, a major driver of a mix shift. The other big bucket for us is healthcare pipeline, which again, is it's complete category, but comes with higher price point, higher margin product as well. Hard for me to say what that'll all net out to at the end of June next year, but there's no obvious reason there for there to be a shift based on where we're focusing on volume growth.
Okay, understood. Maybe if I turn to, to Calin, I think there was a comment in the presentation talking about how GWA's matching cost revenue. You know, typically there'd be an assumption on, you know, what costs need to go into the business or what could potentially come out. I didn't see anything in that respect, Calin. Apologies if I've missed it. Can you give us a sense of what cost out targets you have in place for FY 24? You know, we don't necessarily need to go into the work streams, but if we just understand, you know, given the forecast volumes to be lower, how much costs are we expecting to cut out of the business?
There's probably two, two main cost buckets where we see how we're going into 2024. One is obviously salaries and wages. As I mentioned, we right-sized the organization through the second half of 2023. We'll get a salaries and wages benefit coming through in 2024. And then the second one, I, I mentioned we would see, you know, some uplift or some cost relief from ocean freight continuing into 2024. Those are probably the two major drivers where we'll see some cost benefit coming through.
Potentially, given all of the assumptions above, and, you know, I'll, I'll take that last comment as, you know, no particular cost target outside of, of freight. Given the assumptions to the discussions that we've had across this call, is it a bit, I guess, optimistic for me to think that margins can hold this year or even improve?
Look, probably the one piece that we haven't spoken about, Keith, is just the negative impact from foreign exchange. You'll see on the, on the, assumption side, we call it out. You know, we had an average rate of $0.71 through FY23. At the moment, we're, we're hedged, 50% at $0.68. Keeping in mind that every, every cent costs us, anywhere between AUD 1 million-AUD 1.5 million on EBIT line. In terms of your question to, to margins holding, to, to some extent, we are at the mercy of, foreign exchange a little bit. If, if we assume everything holds from a foreign exchange perspective, then yes, it's accurate to assume that margins could hold where we are.
Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. Can I squeeze in one last one just quickly? Customer A seems to be performing reasonably well, which on the face of it, you know, maybe we'd interpret that as, you know, GWA doing quite well with that customer over time. Given what's happened with destocking over the years, there's a nagging part of me which wants to try and understand whether there are risks with customer A, actually, you know, potentially destocking going forward, if it's proven that their purchases from GWA are too high. Can you give us a sense of, you know, what your views are with customer A and also broader destocking going forward, please? Thanks very much.
Customer you know, it probably shows, and I think Craig mentioned, customer A is quite heavily involved with the plumber industry. I would say because that's a good benchmark for us, that mean the plumbers actually taking action. As Craig mentioned in his presentation, we've seen, probably over the last five or six months, we've seen sort of focus on all our key merchants, that is the shift from inventory holding to cash, cash flow maximizing. We haven't seen any major destocking. I would suggest with what we hear is going into FY 2024, there's no major risk in regard to destocking as we go into the new financial year.
Okay, that's great. Thanks very much, gents. Very, fulsome answers. Thank you.
Thanks, Keith.
The next question comes from Peter Stein from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, gents. Apologies. I somehow thought that we got lost again. Just ver- very quickly, probably one for Craig. Just in terms of your strategy scorecard, the net promoter score on yellow there. Could you just step us through what you need to do to get yourself happy with your outcomes on net promoter score?
Yeah, Peter. I think reflecting on FY 2023, the reason we put it as amber is we've seen improvement, on the measures we've taken from net promoter score across all customer types. One of the key drivers, that always talked about the two business priorities we've rallied around for FY 2024, around customer first and profitable volume growth, is really a, a greater, I suppose, bias and focus towards, our key merchant partners. Really around sort of how we embed, a lot of the ERP changes we've had in terms of clarity of information and, and flowing of communication around, I suppose availability and deliveries, and our responsiveness as an organization.
As we're conscious that as the market tightens and stays tight, the way we delight merchant partners in particular, will allow us to meet not only their needs, but the needs of the, the raft of plumbers we're going out after and other customer types. Really, the focus on merchants and a focus around customer first, is what we'd expect that to do successfully to get from amber to green at the end of FY 2024.
Gotcha. Thanks, Craig. Then just a, a quick one, Calin, from your perspective, just in terms of your debt packages , how are you thinking about fixed and variable rates from here? What could you be contemplating in terms of structures going forward?
Mm-hmm. Progressive data. Look, in, in terms of interest rate, we, we have a number of interest rate swaps in place that actually cover about 90% of net debt at the moment, and about 160% of growth there. Those mature between now and 2026, they start rolling out from 2024 to 2026. We have actually been able to blend and extend a number of those. I think in terms of the impact from rising interest rates on our business, we don't necessarily see a significant change in our interest profile. You'll also note that we've managed to delever the balance sheet with the result of our working capital unlock, that's also brought our interest charges down in 2024.
Yeah. Great. Thanks. That was, useful, extra color there, Calin. Thanks. I'll leave it there.
Thanks, Peter.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back the call to Mr. Meyerhans for closing remarks.
Well, thank you very much. Once again, thank you for joining us, and once again, our apologies for the technical hiccup. Technology is great when it works, not so great when it stops, and we're looking forward to catching up with many of you over the next few days and weeks. Have a good week. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.