IVE Group Limited (ASX:IGL)
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Earnings Call: H2 2022

Aug 25, 2022

Operator

If you could just bear with us for a couple of moments, please. We're just handing over to Geoff as soon as possible. Well, good morning, everybody. Thanks for your time this morning. I'm joined for today's presentation by our Group CEO, Matt Aitken, and CFO, Darren Dunkley. We will be working our way this morning through the FY 2022 results presentation as uploaded to the ASX this morning. It's fair to say at the beginning of FY 2022, there was a lot of volatility and uncertainty around, particularly across supply chains, including our own. These followed two years that were heavily impacted by COVID, albeit the company demonstrated through FY 2020 and FY 2021 its resilience and continued to deliver strong results.

Geoff Selig
Executive Chairman, IVE Group

We're certainly pleased today to present our FY 2022 full-year performance and, further, at the end of the presentation, provide guidance for the FY 2023 full year. We'll be following the contents on page 2 of the presentation, and I might just refer in the first instance, before handing over to Matt, to the dashboard on page 3. Suffice it to say, across all of the metrics, there's a strong uplift over PCP and a nice bounce back in revenues, which Matt will touch on a little later. Revenue is up 15.6%, EBITDA up 13.3%, and net profit after tax is up 66.1%. There's a slight reduction in net gross margin, which we'll touch on.

Net debt at AUD 76.8 million is significantly lower than what was foreshadowed in June as a result of strong collections, debtor collections in the month of June, which we'll also touch on. That ultimately resulted in a 71.1% increase in earnings per share. Today, we are declaring an AUD 0.08 final dividend. Matt will touch on the full-year dividend shortly. At this point, good morning again, and I'll hand over to our CEO, Matt.

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

Thanks, Geoff, and good morning, everyone. As Geoff just mentioned, the business delivered a very strong operating performance during FY 2022, resulting in meaningful shareholder returns. Guidance has been met, and strong cash flows have delivered increased balance sheet strength, all of which illustrates the underlying resilience of our business. In addition to the metrics Geoff covered on the previous page, I'd add that the increase in revenue of AUD 102 million versus PCP has been largely driven by strong new business and organic growth initiatives, despite some COVID-impacted sectors like travel, events, and exhibitions not rebounding to expected levels. The final dividend of AUD 0.08 per share takes the full-year dividend to AUD 0.165 per share, fully franked, and we've improved our ROFE from 14% to 21%.

Moving on to the strategic initiatives on pages 4 and 5 of the presentation deck. During the year, we executed two key strategic initiatives. The first being the Active Display Group and AFI Branding Solutions acquisition and integration. The acquisition of ADG and AFI completed in November for consideration of AUD 6.3 million. AUD 4.6 million of the consideration was paid on completion, with the remaining AUD 1.6 million payable as deferred consideration over a 24-month period. Post the full integration of both ADG and AFI into IVE's existing operations, the acquisitions are expected to contribute annual revenues of AUD 45 million, with EBITDA at AUD 6.5 million and NPAT of AUD 4 million. We expect that integration to be complete by Q1 FY 2023.

These acquisitions have significantly expanded our third-party logistics and retail display businesses, as well as further diversifying our offerings into events and exhibitions. To date, it's been very well received by all staff and customers. The second key strategic initiative centers around our Victorian footprint, where over the last 2 years, we've invested significantly in a site consolidation program. This will result in IVE operating from two precincts in Melbourne, driving further efficiencies and an enhanced client experience. Our Sunshine facility, totaling 52,000 sq m across three co-located buildings in the west of Melbourne, is the base for our Victorian web offset printing operations and letterbox distribution hub. The new Braeside precinct in the southeast of Melbourne, also totaling 52,000 sq m across four co-located buildings, is the base of our other Victorian operations spanning commercial printing, data-driven communications, retail display, and fulfillment and logistics.

Both the ADG and AFI businesses are being integrated into the Braeside precinct. In relation to global supply chain disruption, we touched on this in the half-year results presentation. Both raw materials and finished goods have been impacted and require constant focus and attention throughout the year. Our strategic decision to increase inventory holdings continues to place us in a strong competitive position to respond to client demands. During the year, we benefited from clients moving revenue onshore from Asia, particularly across the retail space sector, and we see more of this trend continuing as we head into FY 2023. The company remains well-placed to manage this dynamic, which is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Albeit, we have seen an improvement in supply chain stability in recent months.

The Group's balance sheet has significantly improved and strengthened over the last two years, owing to disciplined management of the business and continued strong cash flow. Net debt at 30 June was AUD 76.8 million, down more than AUD 60 million from two years prior, and this represents a pre-AASB 16 net debt position of 1.1 times. The strength of our balance sheet continues to place IVE in a very good position to invest in a range of organic initiatives and strategic acquisitions to further broaden and diversify the Group's revenue and earnings, and we will discuss this later in the presentation.

Darren will cover more details in relation to the balance sheet in the next section of the presentation, and as such, I will now hand over to him and ask him to step you through the financial results summary.

Darren Dunkley
CFO, IVE Group

Good morning, everybody, and thank you, Matt. If we just turn to pages 8 and 9, I'll take you through the profit and loss. We saw a strong uplift in our underlying revenue, EBITDA, and our NPAT. Revenue increased to AUD 102.5 million, a 15.6% increase over the PCP. Full-year revenue of AUD 759 million compares to AUD 656 million in revenue. AUD 30 million of this revenue increase includes eight months of revenue from ADG and AFI, acquired on November 1, 2021. Revenue growth of 11.1% over the PCP, excluding ADG and AFI revenues, reflects increased activity over COVID-19 impacted FY 2021, continued solid new business momentum, and ongoing strong client retention.

If you just move to page nine, a gross profit margin of 46.6% compares to 48.1% PCP. The reduction in gross profit margin over PCP is primarily due to contractual timing differences in passing on recent paper price increases, as previously foreshadowed. We intend to retain inventory at current elevated levels to ensure no disruption to client service levels and to place the business in a strong position to take advantage of further growth opportunities. We are closely working with our clients to successfully manage the flow-through of price increases as a result of upward pressure on input costs. As you can see by the margin analysis graph, the company's margins have remained stable over time.

EBITDA of AUD 96.6 million compares to 85.3 million in the prior year, an increase of AUD 11.4 million or 13.3% growth. NPAT of 33.1 million compares to PCP of AUD 19.9 million, an increase of AUD 13.3 million, or 66.1% growth. Growth in both EBITDA and NPAT over PCP was primarily driven by an uplift in revenue, offset in part by the contractual timing differences of passing on recent paper price increases. Earnings per share of AUD 0.231 compares to PCP of AUD 0.135 per share, an increase of 71%. Depreciation and amortization costs of AUD 42 million compare to AUD 47.2 million PCP. On a pre-AASB 16 basis, depreciation excluding amortization is AUD 16.9 million and compares to AUD 17.2 million.

Net finance costs of AUD 7.1 million compared to the prior year's AUD 9.5 million. Again, on a pre-AASB 16 basis, finance costs of AUD 3.7 million compare to the prior year's AUD 6.3 million, reflecting the benefits of reduced debt levels over the period. Non-operating items of AUD 8.2 million pre-tax are excluded from the underlying earnings. These include AUD 4.9 million for the relocation of four Victorian businesses to our Braeside precinct, as well as redundancies resulting from the ADG and AFI acquisitions and subsequent integration. AUD 0.7 million for acquisition costs relates to ADG and AFI. AUD 1.2 million for a one-off employee share issue, as previously communicated. AUD 1.7 million for software as a service cost for MIS systems still in the development stage. If we just move to page 10.

A further strengthened balance sheet provides significant capacity to support growth initiatives. Net debt, as Matt had already touched on, at 30 June of AUD 76.8 million compares to AUD 77.3 million in the prior year. Net debt of 1.1 times pre-AASB EBITDA is well below our stated target of 1.5 times. Net debt was better than the June 2022 guidance update due to better-than-expected debt collections in the month of June—a pleasing result, given the company's targeted and foreshadowed increase in inventory holdings. The reduction in cash on the prior year reflects AUD 35 million of senior debt repaid in August last year. The increase in working capital, circa AUD 30 million of additional inventory holdings, is due to the building of inventory levels as previously discussed. At 30 June 2022, undrawn facilities were AUD 35 million.

As of today, August 25th, undrawn facilities are AUD 55 million, following a further AUD 20 million debt repayment in July 2022. In May 2022, the company successfully renewed its syndicated senior debt facility for a further four-year term, with the maturity date extended to May 2026. The renewal achieved improvements in both terms and pricing and is reflective of our ongoing balance sheet strength, earnings quality, and our strong relationship with our syndicate members. Capital expenditure, page eleven. The company's excellent operational footprint is the result of targeted investment over many years. Full-year capital expenditure of AUD 13.9 million, excluding our Lasoo investment. AUD 3.8 million relates to the group's Victorian site consolidation. AUD 3.7 million relates to digital printing fleet upgrade and expansion. Lasoo investment of AUD 4.7 million to provide a greatly enhanced and expanded Lasoo platform, including user and customer experience.

Note a smaller ongoing capital expenditure for Lasoo in FY 2023. FY 2023 capital expenditure is expected to be circa AUD 14 million. Cash flow and dividends are on page 12. Strong operating cash flow, disciplined management of working capital, uplifting dividend, and improved return on funds employed. Operating cash flow of AUD 91.7 million, with a 95% operating cash conversion. Disciplined management of working capital, including reduced debtor days over the period and strong collections, offset by an increase in inventory holdings to mitigate supply chain volatility as we have previously discussed. Dividends: Final dividend of AUD 0.08 per share, fully franked, up 14% from AUD 0.07 of the prior year. Full-year dividend of AUD 0.165 per share, fully franked, up 18% from AUD 0.14 of the prior year.

The company's dividend policy remains unchanged, targeting a full-year payout ratio of 65%-75% of underlying NPAT. Return on funds employed was 21%, up from 14% in the prior year. I'll now hand back over to Matt.

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

Thanks, Darren. Just picking up on page thirteen and the discussion on strategic and growth initiatives. As we turn to page fourteen, IVE has had a clearly defined and well-executed strategy that's cemented us as the largest integrated marketing communications business in Australia now. We hold leading market positions across all sectors in which we operate. The execution of our strategy has resulted in a diversified, resilient business, supporting a consistently high dividend yield and a strong balance sheet for further growth opportunities. Since IPO, the group has consistently generated strong cash flows. In the last five years, we've generated an operating cash flow of AUD 380 million, free cash flow of AUD 290 million, and an average operating cash conversion to pre-AASB 16 and EBITDA of 100%.

The disciplined execution of our strategic investment program over the last 5 years has resulted in a significant increase in both revenue and earnings, albeit with COVID-19 impact in FY 2020 and FY 2021. Turning to page 15 and thinking about growth initiatives, we continue to organically grow revenue and earnings on the strength of our integrated offer, world-class operations, market position, and competitive advantage. Our strong balance sheet places us in a very good position to invest across a range of organic initiatives, together with attractive bolt-on and strategic acquisitions that may present themselves. In this regard, the company continues to allocate AUD 30 million-AUD 40 million to invest in a range of earnings-accretive opportunities as we embark on FY 2023.

One of the significant organic initiatives that we've been pursuing and continue to pursue is our Lasoo platform, and the investment and upgrade in that digital catalog platform. In FY 2022, we invested almost AUD 5 million to completely rebuild the Lasoo platform, and I'll have more to say about that in the next section of this presentation. At a packaging level, we've previously communicated that the company sees opportunities for both organic and acquisition growth in the packaging sector. Our near-term focus is on finalizing the strategy and plans to build our packaging capability over the coming 24 months. To this end, the company has been working closely with an expert advisory firm in recent months to further develop and refine our strategy to move more aggressively into the packaging sector. We've now completed an in-depth analysis of the packaging market.

This work has confirmed that our strategic imperative to grow our packaging offer is sound, and IVE should continue to actively seek an appropriate acquisition to expedite the strategy. The analysis has also identified other packaging markets which strongly complement IVE's key strengths, with the potential to further build out the breadth and depth of IVE's offering to its diverse customer base. We will look to provide a further update on our packaging strategy at the AGM. As we turn to the Lasoo section, so page 16 and then onto page 17. Lasoo today has a significant loyal consumer and retailer base despite limited functionality.

Over 200,000 active users per month on average, 23% of current users visiting the site daily, and 8.6% of decisions resulting in a "buy now" click to a retailer site, demonstrate a very high purchase intent from those people going to the Lasoo site. Many of Australia's largest and major retailers are very active on the platform. We believe that when we think about where we're taking the Lasoo platform and what we're going to discuss with you over the coming slides, that gives us a real market advantage in the way that we plan on relaunching Lasoo into the market. The platform has historically been positioned as a digital catalog aggregation site that was offered as an adjunct to the printed catalog, which still remains a very effective channel in today's marketing mix.

It has minimal investment in marketing functionality, superficial and inefficient comparison of specials, and no transactional capability, resulting in users being redirected to retailers' platforms and generating only modest revenue for IVE. We were unable to properly commercialize Lasoo given the legacy technology and limited historical functionality. As you turn to page 18, and we think about Lasoo tomorrow, a fully integrated e-commerce marketplace for retailer specials, eighteen months ago, we saw a meaningful opportunity, given the loyal consumer and retailer base I referred to, to transform Lasoo into a superior platform to drive a greatly enhanced online consumer experience and to deliver a commercial upside to our extensive retail client base and to IVE. In FY 2022, the group invested, as I said, just under AUD 5 million in completely rebuilding and market testing the Lasoo platform.

This investment provides an opportunity to commercialize and grow our already active user base on the back of game-changing upgrades and functionality, greatly improving the product range, pricing visibility, search and comparison engines, and consumers' ability to easily discover, compare, and purchase specials from multiple retailers on one platform in a single transaction. For IVE, we will derive revenue from multiple sources moving forward, including the existing digital catalog creation revenue stream, but more importantly, new commission revenue streams via a fully integrated e-commerce checkout capability and other new revenue streams, including lead conversion revenue for retailers not yet fully integrated, advertising and product listing revenue via a scalable self-service retailer portal, and data-related revenue commercialization on a subscription basis. I'll touch on some of these in the details for the revenue model in a couple of slides.

The new platform will go live in mid-September, so it's only a few weeks away. From a Lasoo launch perspective on page 19, there's strong retailer support, a best-in-class tech stack, a great customer experience, a user experience interface, and a fantastic experience team. Sixty-five of Australia's leading retailers across a broad range of sectors are already confirmed for launch, and 15 additional retailers will join post-launch due to integration timing. This is great validation of the platform, our strategy, and where we're taking it, given the commitments made by those retailers on a pre-launch basis. We're targeting further growth in retailer participation as platform traffic increases and marketing drives higher brand awareness. We still have more than 200 IVE retail clients to cross-sell this platform to over the coming months.

A significant number of retailers are already fully integrated, and we expect a further 20% of those to be completed in the next few weeks. We built a very experienced team with COO Rob Drake and Chief Product Officer Matthew Poole leading that, with Matthew Poole coming from Domain Group prior to joining IVE. Our scalable, best-in-class tech stack has been built on Amazon Web Services, integrating with leading platforms such as Marketplace and Salesforce. The group is committing AUD 4 million to the go-to-market consumer launch campaign, which starts in September. On page 20 of this presentation, you can get an insight into what that launch campaign will look like.

I draw your attention to both the radio and digital TVC graphics, which have embedded links that will let you play an example of the television commercial and the radio ads that will go to market later in September when we launch this product. On slide 21, we provide some illustrative revenue models. These models illustrate that as the business grows and active users increase, we expect the revenue profile to continue to shift away from what is a pretty traditional revenue stream today towards one that is more dominated by commission-based revenue streams that drive off the gross transaction value made on Lasoo, and we'll share more with investors over the coming months post-launch. As you'll glean from this morning's presentation, these are exciting times for the group. The business is match fit.

It has great people, world-class operations, a very diverse product and service offering, great operating leverage, and a strong balance sheet from which to execute ongoing growth initiatives. I'll now hand back to Geoff to briefly touch on Ovato and then take you through the outlook statement and provide some closing comments. Thanks, Geoff.

Geoff Selig
Executive Chairman, IVE Group

Thanks, Matt. Look, as we've said previously, across our same AUD 150 million worth of revenue, it's quite a diverse revenue stream operating across multiple sectors. Over the last 10-15 years, there's been quite a lot of rationalization and consolidation. Structurally, our sector is in much better shape now than it's ever been. One sector we operate in is the web offset printing sector. Our largest competitor in that sector is a business called Ovato. On the 10th of August this year, we released an announcement to say that we had entered into an implementation deed with the administrators of Ovato following their appointment on July 21.

That announcement said, I restate it here on page 22, that both of the parties agreed to progress in good faith negotiations for the signing of an asset sale agreement pursuant to which I would acquire all or substantially all or a material part or parts thereof of the business or assets of Ovato and its subsidiary. We felt it appropriate today to restate essentially what was in that ASX announcement on the tenth of August. Suffice to say, we continue to work in good faith with the administrators, and we'll update the market as appropriate moving forward. If we just move to the last slide of the presentation, which is our book and guidance on page 24.

We believe the solid fundamentals of the business and the strength of our balance sheet place IVE in an ideal position to deliver growth over FY 2023. As illustrated by the strength of our 2022 earnings, the heightened operating leverage across the business contributed to a significant uplift over FY 2021 as client revenue rebounded, as Darren said, post-COVID-19 impacted FY 2021, and that combined with the benefit of new business. We remain optimistic that the revenue momentum the business has as we enter into FY 2023 will continue in the near term. Our FY 2023 guidance is for an underlying EBITDA of AUD 105 million, excluding Lasoo, as noted below, which I'll refer to. NPAT of AUD 36 million, which would be a 9% uplift on FY 2022 NPAT. To restate, the company's dividend policy remains unchanged at 65%-75% of underlying NPAT.

The point to make here is that in the footnote, the AUD 3.3 million expected after-tax loss associated with Lasoo's consumer go-to-market campaign, primarily the go-to-market campaign, is excluded from our underlying results. At this stage, the dividend would be paid on the underlying NPAT number in the second bullet point of AUD 36 million. We expect our restructuring acquisition costs to be significantly lower than FY 2022, and as Darren said earlier, CapEx is expected to be around AUD 14 million. We'll continue to be vigilant over the supply chain, but it is encouraging to note, as Matt said before, that we have seen an improvement in the stability of the supply chain, and we take a lot of comfort, albeit it's taken cash to do it.

We take a lot of comfort in the fact that we're sitting on much higher inventory levels than we were 6-9 months ago. The initiatives for the year are to complete the Victorian business relocations by September. They have been delayed primarily because of weather in Victoria and COVID impacts on labor. We anticipate the successful launch of Lasoo in mid-September, as Matt has just walked us through, and we look forward, hopefully at the AGM in November, to providing more details around our strategy and plans for the packaging sector. At that point, I think we will finish the formal part of the presentation and be happy to move into Q&A.

Operator

Thanks, Geoff, Matt, and Darren. That concludes the presentation. We've got a few minutes to run through some Q&A. We'll start off first with any questions from Alice, and then, after that, we will take questions, and please write them on screen.

Geoff Selig
Executive Chairman, IVE Group

We need to work out the question. Okay, we have a question in relation to inventory, which is: Could you please estimate what the amount of inventory currently held is in excess of what a normal cycle would be?

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

Current inventory levels are about 6-8 weeks higher than what we would normally have expected them to be, or over and above current client commitments. I feel that that's entirely appropriate heading down into our peak Christmas period, and also given the volatility of supply chains. I'll just take a question now from Jonathan Higgins. Please go ahead, Jonathan.

Jonathon Higgins
Head of Research, MD, Unified Capital Partners

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the time today. Hopefully, you all can hear me fine. A couple of things from me today. Firstly, regarding the trading update at the start of June, you obviously had a net debt number that came in materially ahead. I'm just wondering if you could provide a little more context as to why that's come out where it is. It's obviously an almost spectacular result for the June period. Can you just give us an idea about that?

Darren Dunkley
CFO, IVE Group

Yeah. Yeah, I'll give you an update on that, Jonathan. It's Darren here. When we did our updated guidance for net debt in June, our collections had been a little bit slower up until that point, and we had a fantastic collections month for June that well exceeded what our forecast was. That was predominantly the main driver in our net debt number. Jonathan?

Jonathon Higgins
Head of Research, MD, Unified Capital Partners

I mean, in terms of that, there are a number of different growth initiatives that you've called out, excluding what happens with Ovato. You've got the Victorian site consolidation. I know you've taken up a lot in supply chains and are acting on that in a long-term manner, as well as the Lasoo you've called out with a number of slides there. Could you provide us with more color, whoever's best to do that, just on what we should expect in terms of synergies or savings out of, say, the Victorian site consolidation over the medium term? And also with Lasoo, I mean, obviously it's an investment that's dragging this year. You've called that out in your results. In the medium term, what are the ambitions for that?

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

The synergies for the relocations, John, are already embedded in the FY 2023 outlook number that we've provided, so the guidance that we've provided. They're, you know, I guess they're the hard synergies and the Phase 1 synergies, if you like, having only just gotten into that site for that part of FY 2022 and still having some businesses to integrate there. There may well be a Phase 2 of that, but they're currently reflected in our forecast for FY 2023, just on the Lasoo.

Geoff Selig
Executive Chairman, IVE Group

Yeah. Look, I think in terms of Lasoo, Jonathan, we've wanted today to provide, for the first time, a lot more color and detail around exactly what we've done with Lasoo and why we've made the investment and to provide an overview of the opportunity as we see it and where the revenue or the revenue streams will come from. We'd like to think once we go live mid-September and on the back of the AUD 4 million go-to-market campaign also in mid-September, that we'll see over the months following a pretty decent profile of the uptake and profile of users and revenues and gross transaction values and all the metrics that we're looking to unpack and then provide more detail around that, along with some more forward-looking financial information, when available and when we feel appropriate.

Jonathon Higgins
Head of Research, MD, Unified Capital Partners

Thanks, guys. Just another one from me regarding the inflationary environment. Perhaps you could tell us a little about FY 2023 in that context. Can you give us an idea about revenue recovery in FY 2023? Again, obviously you've been coming out ahead of where I had you on that, so that's a good result. Could you talk us through some of the points of inflation in your business, any call-outs there on labor or energy, or, you know, obviously paper and supply chains and such? You've been managing that. That's caught up in the gross margin. Please provide any color you can on those factors.

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

Look, labor continues to be a challenge, John. Every day I'm running the business, we've got almost 2,000 staff. You know, those labor challenges and impacts around inflation have been with us now for some time, whether they've been in particular parts of the business, say, maybe technology roles, or whether they're now more broadly across some of the other direct labor roles in our businesses and our production sites. It's something that we've had to deal with right through H2 of FY 22 and prior to that for some of those tech roles. I feel like we've got a good handle on managing our way through.

At an energy level, again, in our FY23 outlook statement, we have forecasted and/or incorporated what we believe will be the impact of ongoing energy increases on the business. We're trying to accommodate and budget for those accordingly. Our contracts are still in play at the moment for all of H1, so it will be more a matter of how we manage our exposure to that energy market coming into H2.

Jonathon Higgins
Head of Research, MD, Unified Capital Partners

Thanks for taking my questions, guys. Good job.

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

Thanks.

Geoff Selig
Executive Chairman, IVE Group

Thanks, Jonathan.

Darren Dunkley
CFO, IVE Group

Thanks, Jonathan.

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

One of the questions we had was, are there parts of the Ovato business that, if acquired, would be non-core and available to be sold off? Look, I can't really comment specifically on that. Suffice it to say, as we said in the announcement in relation to the implementation deed, we are exploring potential transactions for all or parts of the business. Should we, you know, reach the finishing line, we'll clearly outline what shape and form that transaction will take. That, at this stage, is all we can say.

Geoff Selig
Executive Chairman, IVE Group

A follow-on question in relation to that: The potential transaction is on the regulator's timetable. From our perspective, the company is in administration, and the regulator had a fairly ad hoc process for public inquiries, which closed on the 17th of August. That combination of those two components would suggest that the regulator is moving relatively quickly through the process. Ultimately, we are in their hands, or the administrator is in their hands. No clear timetables yet. We've also had a question in relation to recommencing a buyback. That's not on the company's plans at the moment, which I think we said at the half-year results or last year's full-year results. We did complete a buyback of 3.6% of the register 18 months ago.

At this point, you know, we're earmarking AUD 30 million-AUD 40 million for growth initiatives, not suggesting, at this point, any further share buybacks.

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

There's a question about the proportion of our total CapEx directed towards Lasoo going forward. We don't expect a material proportion of our CapEx to be directed at Lasoo on an ongoing basis. There will obviously be minimum CapEx requirements for that platform or ongoing requirements for that platform, but we expect those requirements to be largely quite minimal.

Geoff Selig
Executive Chairman, IVE Group

One of the questions is, do we expect packaging to have the same economics as legacy businesses, i.e., high conversion and high ROFE? Look, I think there are a couple of points to make on packaging, and clearly, we will say more at the AGM. It's a growing sector. It is a nice adjacency and very complementary to IVE's existing offering. If you took, for example, our logistics or third-party or fulfillment side of the business, it may equally seamlessly integrate into one of our existing footprints of our operations. We would see an immaterial gross margin in the packaging space relative to the margin in other parts of our business.

We would still be expecting and driving toward a similar EBITDA outcome for every dollar of revenue that we would be in other parts of our business.

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

One of the questions here relates to, in addition to the question about the Lasoo CapEx, the marketing spend, and whether it will be significant. As we've identified in the presentation, we're committing over AUD 4 million to the consumer go-to-launch marketing spend phase of the process. We think that is very sufficient to achieve the modeled levels that we're expecting. Bearing in mind also, we almost have somewhat of an unfair market advantage here because we're coming off the back of already having a very engaged consumer base and retailer base. We're not starting day one with no engagement with the platform and no one understanding the brand.

Geoff Selig
Executive Chairman, IVE Group

Yes, I think if there aren't any other questions at this stage, please feel free to contact Sean or the investors at ivegroup.com email address. If there's anything specific, we can certainly come back to you over the coming days. For the people that are on the call that we will see over the coming weeks at the roadshows, look forward to catching up. Once again, appreciate everybody making the time. On behalf of Matt, Darren, and myself, thank you.

Matt Aitken
Managing Director, IVE Group

Thank you, everyone. Thank you for your time. Copies of the presentation will be available on the IVE Group and Finance News Network websites later this week. That concludes the webinar. Thanks for your time. Have a good day.

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