With us today are Ruslan Kogan, Founder and CEO, and David Shafer, CFO and COO. As we have done before, there'll be a presentation followed by a Q&A. If you'd like to ask any questions, please feel free to type them in the Q&A, and then I will moderate after this presentation. Enjoy the presentation, and then we'll see you at the Q&A. Thank you.
Good morning, and welcome to our H1 FY23 results investor briefing. My name is Ruslan Kogan, the Founder and CEO of Kogan.com. I'm joined today by David Shafer, Kogan.com's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. David and I are pleased to present the group's financial and operating results for the H1 of FY23. We'll take you through our key achievements and initiatives for the period, and after the presentation, we'll be glad to respond to any questions.
Since launching Kogan.com over 16 years ago, we have been strategically building a diversified portfolio of businesses. This portfolio leverages the strong Kogan brand, provides us with diversified income, and strengthens our resilience in the face of unexpected challenges. We're also relentlessly agile and innovative, which allows us to quickly respond to changing trading conditions. Our team is always ready to face whatever challenges come our way with a nimble approach.
Our ability to navigate the well-known challenges of the past two years can be attributed to these qualities. I believe that our performance and achievements in the H1 of FY23 marks a significant turning point. During this period, we provided our millions of customers in Australia and New Zealand with unprecedented discounts. By doing so, we were able to significantly right-size inventory levels to current trading conditions and readjust operating costs.
We have multiple initiatives underway that have already resulted in efficiency gains through variable costs, as well as fixed costs continuing to be reduced. As a result of these efforts, we achieved robust operating cash flows and grew our net cash balance to $74 million as at 31 December 2022. Our Kogan FIRST loyalty program continued to grow from strength to strength. Our subscribers exceeded 404,000 by the end of the period. In this half, our most loyal customers have received over $14.2 million worth of benefits alone, which highlights the program's exceptional value proposition. The program continues to be instrumental in growing a loyal customer base for our business. With planned enhancements and following inflationary pressures and ongoing increases in logistics costs, we are today announcing an increase in the annual cost of membership from $79 to $99.
I'm pleased to report that Kogan Mobile Australia has returned to sustained year-on-year growth this period. This being our largest vertical, was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as immigration into the country stalled. At present, we have the highest number of Kogan Mobile Australia active customers in its history. We also achieved accelerated growth in Kogan Mobile New Zealand as an increasing number of Kiwis recognize the fantastic mobile plans we provide.
Kogan Money credit cards also continued its year-on-year growth as the no annual fee rewards card continued to gain popularity. During this period, we've reintroduced a number of verticals, being Kogan Insurance, Kogan Travel, and Kogan Travel Insurance through new partnerships. These relaunches have enabled us to offer customers even better value than before. Over at Mighty Ape, Gracie MacKinlay seamlessly assumed the position of CEO, which was announced at the end of FY22.
The company continued to provide the exceptional customer service it is so well known for, being recognized with multiple awards. The teams at Kogan.com and Mighty Ape are now well integrated. We continue to work on projects aimed at delivering synergies across the group. Finally, we finished the period by acquiring Brosa, one of Australia's largest online luxury furniture retailers. At the time of acquiring Brosa, they had 500,000 subscribers. We are extremely excited to welcome them all to the Kogan.com community. True to Kogan.com's style, we have quickly soft relaunched the website in the H2 of FY23, with the official launch coming soon. We are looking forward to delighting even more customers and growing our share of the furniture market through this new channel. On slide six, you can see the H1 FY23 Kogan Group performance.
Topline trading results largely reflect the drastic change in demand for online retail as lockdown orders associated with the COVID-19 pandemic eased. As I have discussed earlier, the business prioritized operational efficiency this period, with variable costs reducing by more than the decline in gross sales and revenue. These efficiencies, along with the reduction in fixed costs, are expected to continue as we progress through the H2 of FY23. Soon, I will be passing you on to David, who will provide you with a more comprehensive overview of these financial results. Over the last 12 months, we have delighted over 3.3 million customers throughout Australia and New Zealand. Just three years ago, we had less than 1.7 million customers. It is a testament to how much Kogan.com has grown in recent years.
Across our Exclusive Brands, Third-Party Brands, and Kogan Marketplace, we offer over 23 million products, all curated to deliver a convenient shopping experience and have customers coming back for more. We're clearly delivering on this, as the proportion of repeat customers grew to 68% in the H1 of FY23. As we continue to build a loyal customer base, it sets the foundation for further growth, and our team can't wait to continue delighting more and more customers. Throughout this period, our marketing has been instrumental in right-sizing our inventory levels. This elevated spending to clear excess inventory, along with deep discounting, naturally impacted our ROI and our customer acquisition cost. Due to the effectiveness of our campaigns, we have been able to progressively redirect our marketing efforts.
We have also been able to realize cost efficiencies towards the end of the H1 of FY23. This will continue through the H2 of FY23. We expect ROI in marketing to improve in the H2. When analyzing our website traffic sources, it is clear that the underlying marketing efficiencies we have implemented are producing positive results. Our owned and earned traffic sources have increased to 76% during this period, compared to 64% in the H1 of FY22.
This not only reflects the optimization of our marketing algorithms, but also the growth of our loyal customer base, who are increasingly visiting our platform directly. Kogan Marketplace is a key strategic pillar to delivering a capital-light business. We are on a mission to deliver a world-class platform with only the best sellers, offering a curated range of the most in-demand products.
This means sellers are reviewed across a number of metrics in order to deliver the best possible experience for our customers. The expansion of our platform to New Zealand in June 2022 was a major milestone for us, and we are thrilled with the rapid growth we have achieved so far. Our Marketplace gross sales in New Zealand more than doubled quarter-on-quarter, and we anticipate growth in this new market to continue. This period, we added Brosa to our Exclusive Brands stable, which is now at a total of 21. This division is essential to our business, offering a highly efficient method for delivering unique products from manufacturers to customers, resulting in exceptional value. Although there has been a decrease in the division's financial performance in the short term, it's positive to note that its long-term growth has continued.
In order to return to the lean business we have historically been known for, we continue to perform range reviews to optimize inventory levels. This ensures we are able to offer the most in-demand products at the most affordable prices. We continue to deliver more and more value to our most loyal customers via the Kogan FIRST program. It provides value by offering free shipping and exclusive deals on top of everyday discounts on our platform, Kogan FIRST Rewards Credits, and priority customer care. Kogan FIRST subscribers grew to over 404,000, an increase of 47.6% year on year. Renewal rates remain strong, and the program is delivering a growing proportion of repeat customers, allowing for marketing efficiencies to be realized. We have plenty more in store for the program as we look to further enhance it in the H2.
If you consider yourself a smart shopper, becoming a Kogan FIRST subscriber is a no-brainer. As I mentioned earlier, following ongoing increases in logistics costs and inflationary pressures, we are announcing an increase in the annual cost of subscription from AUD 79 to AUD 99. Our Kogan Verticals are vital to delivering the diversified business model I mentioned earlier. They have been key to producing critical cash flows for the business and growing the Kogan.com community by offering some of the most sought-after services and incredible value.
Highlights for the H1 include Kogan Mobile returning to positive revenue growth and achieving its largest ever active customer base, and Kogan Mobile New Zealand achieving accelerated growth. Additionally, Kogan Money credit cards continue to grow, with our no annual fee reward card continuing to make its way into more and more wallets and purses, both physical and digital.
I'm also excited to announce today we will be working towards expanding our Verticals offering in New Zealand during the H2, as we continue looking for new ways to delight our customers. We take great pride in our accomplishments as a business. Over the years, Kogan.com has been a trendsetter and recipient of multiple prestigious awards. Mighty Ape also boasts an impressive record. During this half, we received multiple customer service awards at leading New Zealand industry awards nights.
These awards reflect the dedication and customer-first approach our team adopts, of which the group is very proud of. Mighty Ape and Kogan synergy projects continue to be progressing well, with exciting projects on track, including the expansion of Verticals and the launch of Australian warehousing operations for Mighty Ape. I will now hand over to David, who will provide a more detailed overview of the financial results.
Thank you, Ruslan. Over the past half year, we have been squarely focused on ensuring that we consolidate our business in order to prepare it for success in the H2 and beyond. We are focused on achieving a sustainable level of operational capacity, a sustainable level of inventory, and a sustainable level of ongoing cost in the business. As you no doubt know by now, our business significantly ramped up its capacities through the H1 of the COVID-19 period in order to respond to consumer demand and our projections of future demand at that time. Following a reset in the levels of consumer demand as the COVID-19 impact subsided, we started to take significant action to slow and then to reverse inventory growth, reduce our warehousing footprint, and consolidate our product ranges.
These measures have had the desired effect of allowing Kogan to become more nimble and agile with a stronger balance sheet, smaller warehousing footprint, lower inventory levels, and has enabled us to now project a return to Adjusted EBITDA profitability in the H2 of financial year 2023. As you know, profitability was impacted in the December half as we offered deep discounts to assist with reducing inventory levels and operating costs were impacted as we focused marketing activity on clearing end-of-life stock. Importantly, this has all culminated in the business being set up for stronger results for the remainder of the year. Having cleared through the bulk of excess inventory, the business is now focused on returning to historical operating margins while maintaining a lean, agile cost base consistent with our heritage as a business.
I will now go through the drivers of our group's performance further in detail. In the H1, the group recorded gross sales of AUD 471.1 million and revenue of AUD 275.6 million. The decline in both gross sales and revenue year-over-year have largely been driven by the resetting of online demand following the easing of COVID-19 pandemic conditions. To briefly explain the difference between gross sales and revenue, gross sales reflects the total transactional value of Kogan Retail, Mighty Ape, Kogan Marketplace, and Kogan Verticals. Revenue reflects the accounting revenue of Kogan Retail, Mighty Ape, and only the seller fee-based revenue and commission received from Kogan Marketplace and the Kogan Verticals.
Despite the more subdued trading conditions, we did achieve year-on-year revenue growth in Kogan FIRST of 83.1%, a return to growth in Kogan Mobile Australia of 5.9%, accelerated growth of Kogan Mobile New Zealand of 75.3%, and continued growth of Kogan Money credit cards of 6.9%. Group active customers totaled over 3.3 million as at 31 December 2022. Kogan.com had over 2.5 million active customers, while Mighty Ape had over 773,000 active customers. We look forward to delighting these millions of customers in the future and converting many of them to Kogan FIRST subscribers to deliver even more value to them. Both Exclusive Brands and Third-Party Brands have been the center of focus for right-sizing inventory levels in the business.
As such, both revenue and gross profit from the divisions have been impacted significantly in the H1 of FY23. Pleasingly, our excess inventory levels have been substantially resolved, and we look forward to returning these two divisions to the historically strong gross margins. Kogan Marketplace gross sales declined by 35.7% year-on-year due to softer market conditions discussed earlier. However, overall seller fees reduced by a lesser percentage due to improvements in seller management and experience. The team were also excited to achieve rapid growth in New Zealand, having launched the platform there in late June 2022. As a business, we are continuously looking at ways to improve our operations and processes. Our proprietary marketplace platform is an area where the company can achieve ongoing growth without further investment in inventory.
We are currently investing in implementing an advertising platform for marketplace sellers to gain further reach within the Kogan.com website as part of our ongoing improvements. The growth of product ranges on the Kogan Marketplace means that customers have more choice than ever, and the business can become leaner without reliance on ongoing investment in inventory to drive sales. The group grew Kogan FIRST loyalty program to over 404,000 subscribers as at the 31st of December 2022, with revenue increasing to $10.8 million, an increase of 83.1% on the prior period. It's important to appreciate that the growth of Kogan FIRST represents a short-term investment by the business for long-term benefits. We have grown Kogan FIRST through strong investment in marketing and significant benefits to subscribers.
While we will always continue the great benefits to subscribers, the subscription model of Kogan FIRST means we don't need to continue to market to these subscribers at the same pace as we do non-subscribers. We believe the economics of Kogan FIRST for our business will improve over time and deliver for our business as well as our customers well into the future. We are already starting to see this dynamic play out as the proportion of website traffic from owned and earned sources grew substantially this period. We are also increasing the price of Kogan FIRST memberships following increases in logistics costs. We just marked the second anniversary of acquiring Mighty Ape, and we are delighted to report their strong financial results for the half.
While Mighty Ape revenue of NZD 87 million represented a reduction year-on-year of 9.1%, an improvement in gross margin of 2 percentage points resulted in gross profit of NZD 21.6 million, increasing by 0.2% year-on-year. Drivers of the gross margin included the sale of Kogan.com Exclusive Brands products at strong margins, as well as international freight normalization as COVID-19 pandemic conditions eased. Adjusted EBITDA of NZD 6.8 million was down 5.2% year-on-year as the business continued to invest in IT infrastructure that is expected to see long-term benefits. Shifting our focus to variable costs, which consists of warehousing and selling costs, these reduced by 38.4% year-on-year.
While the reduction in selling costs reflects softer trading conditions versus the prior period, the reduction in warehousing costs is due to the significant adjustment made to the level of inventory in the business. Statutory NPAT loss of $23.8 million was significantly impacted by deep discounting in order to substantially right-size inventory, as well as the non-cash compensation and the continued provision for the likely payment of Mighty Ape Tranche four acquisition payables. The non-cash equity-based compensation and the acquisition payables have been discussed at length in prior results releases. Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBIT, and Adjusted NPAT were a loss of $4.4 million, $12.7 million, and $9.6 million, respectively. Please see annexure two of this presentation for a detailed reconciliation of the adjusting items. On this slide, we can see gross profit contribution by each business division.
Mighty Ape, Marketplace, Kogan FIRST, and Kogan Mobile have all continued to contribute materially to the gross profit of the group. This period is an exception for Exclusive Brands and Third-Party Brands, which make up the inventory-based part of the business. The discounting that took place in the H1 was focused on these two divisions. The reduction in contribution by Exclusive Brands and the loss recorded through Third-Party Brands provides perspective on the extent of discounting that has impacted our profitability during the period. In other words, an entire division made a gross loss, meaning products were sold below cost. We note that in January 2023, unaudited accounts demonstrate that both of these key divisions have shown improvement in performance, and we look forward to returning these divisions back to pre-COVID levels of operational efficiency and profitability.
This bounce back in margin is primarily achieved by having sold through the bulk of the excess inventory and therefore no longer needing to sell these items at a loss. As a company, we have always been committed to delivering exceptional results while operating as efficiently as possible. Since our IPO, we have demonstrated consistent and robust operating leverage, with the exception of the past two years. I am pleased to share that the hard work and dedication of our team is now showing positive results. This period, we have successfully reduced both variable and fixed costs, and we have several ongoing initiatives that are expected to bring further operational efficiencies. We are eager to continue improving our operational efficiency in the H2 and to return the business to its previously strong operating leverage.
The group ended the period with a strong balance sheet underpinned by net cash after loans and borrowings of $74 million. Loans and borrowings totaled $11 million across the group as at 31 December 2022 versus $35 million as at 30 June 2022. As has been mentioned, the correction to inventory levels was a significant achievement for the group and has set up the business for a return to Adjusted EBITDA profitability in the H2. Inventories in warehouse reduced to $84.1 million, with total inventories reducing to $98.3 million. This represents a reduction of 38.5% since 30 June 2022, and the group continues to be focused on maintaining inventory levels in line with the prevailing levels of demand to ensure operational efficiencies are maintained.
Other key items include our acquisition payables, which reflect the Tranche four payment of the Mighty Ape acquisition payable as at thirty-one December 2022 versus tranches three and four of the acquisition payables as at thirty June 2022. The business completed the Tranche three payment during the half of AUD 14.2 million. Our balance sheet also reflects our acquisition of Brosa. The transaction involved the purchase of key assets being the inventory for AUD 1.1 million and intangible assets for AUD 0.4 million.
Strong cash flows provided by our operating activities drove our net cash balance to AUD 74 million net of loans and borrowings from AUD 31.2 million as at thirty June 2022. Having a strong balance sheet with healthy operating cash flows gives the business significant flexibility. The board will continue to assess appropriate capital management practices over the remainder of the financial year, having regard to the trading performance of the company and its capital requirements. I'll now hand back to Ruslan to discuss our outlook and some further detail on the exciting things to come in the H2 of the financial year. Thank you.
Thanks, David. We're optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead, having laid the foundations for strong results and a return to profitability for the remainder of the year. Consistent with prior years, the company will not be providing earnings guidance for the H2 of FY23. However, we will provide regular business updates for the remainder of the year. The business looks to the H2 of FY23 with confidence. We will be enhancing and further developing the Kogan Marketplace in Australia and New Zealand. We are excited to be launching additional verticals in New Zealand, as well as continuing to grow Kogan Mobile and other Australian verticals. We are also looking forward to further growth of our Kogan FIRST loyalty program. Finally, we expect the H2 results to reflect the significant recalibration we've made throughout our business.
January 2023 unaudited management accounts demonstrate the expected return to Adjusted EBITDA profitability in Kogan.com, and a continuation of strong performance of Mighty Ape. Group Adjusted EBITDA in January 2023 was AUD 1.5 million. Together with David and our board, I'm looking forward to the H2 of this financial year with confidence. This concludes our presentation. David and I look forward to meeting with many of our shareholders over the coming days. For those of you who have any questions or are interested in hearing more, please stay with us for the Q&A. Thank you very much for your interest in Kogan.com.
Thanks, Ruslan, thanks, David. Just as a reminder, if you could please type in your questions in the Q&A. Also, just to note, anyone putting questions in as anonymous, they won't be contributed. Please identify so we can help introduce your questions. We have a few questions already, I might start as follows from Tim Piper. If Ruslan and David, if you can comment on the following. Firstly, inventories are now less than AUD 100 million. Given the trajectory of the H2 gross sales, what do you see as a normalized level of inventory?
Thanks, Tim. Appreciate the question. We are expecting a further modest reduction in inventory levels by the next time we report inventory in 30 June. And that's, you know, driven by the current prevailing level of sales, as well as our expectations for the remainder of the H2. You can expect a minor further unwinding, not of the scale of the prior six months, but a little bit further unwinding of inventory over the next six months.
Second question for Tim. Is it possible to quantify the uplift in gross margin in January 2023 just from e-commerce channels, as the increase in verticals such as Kogan FIRST and advertising, et cetera, has a mixed impact on gross margin?
We did mention in the presentation that both Exclusive Brands and Third-Party Brands had a bounce back in gross margin in January. That's separate from the mix shift point that Tim is alluding to. We also mentioned that the primary reason for that bounce back in margin is the fact that we've sold through the majority of our excess inventory, and therefore, overall margin from those divisions are no longer needing to include loss-making sales to the same extent as last half. Once we've sold through the excess inventory, the bounce back in margin across those two divisions is pretty quick. That's what we've seen in January.
Last question from Tim. Current level of marketing spend as a percentage of sales sits at 4.8%. Do you expect this current level to be sufficient to return the top line of the business to growth?
We expect to see a lot of efficiency in our marketing moving forward because of the various dynamics that are driving that efficiency, as you're seeing in our results already. And one of those is, you would have seen in the presentation, our percentage of traffic from owned and earned media is growing. Meaning that, you know, we've got more people coming back and using our apps, going to our website directly, subscribing to our notifications of deals and offers and so on.
So, we're having to market to a much smaller portion of customers to win them to come to our site, and that's driving a lot of efficiency in our marketing. And the Kogan FIRST program is one of the big drivers there as well. You would have seen in the presentation, we've had significant growth in our Kogan FIRST subscribers.
These are customers that are subscribing to the program. They're seeing the incredible offering. They're getting free shipping. They're getting exclusive deals. They're getting amazing offers across both Kogan and Dick Smith. That's driving them to, whenever they need to buy something online, to coming to us first. That's creating marketing efficiencies, and that's what the program is designed to do. You will see the two into our future go hand in hand. As we get more and more Kogan FIRST subscribers, our marketing should become more and more efficient.
Thank you, Ruslan. There's a follow-up question from Jolyn Goh on marketing costs. I believe you've probably answered it, but just in case. Jolyn asked, on marketing costs, they were already down significantly in the H1. Sorry, have they continued to decline in January and do you expect a material reduction for the H2?
On the marketing front, it's, Kogan FIRST is a big driver of that. Through that period, we would have seen, Kogan FIRST continue to grow, get more and more subscribers, and those customers are shopping more. They're our most loyal customers, and it's a win-win-win for everyone. The customer makes a commitment to us and gets a Kogan FIRST subscription. We make a commitment to them and give them incredible deals and offers, and obviously, that reduces our marketing spend as well because they shop more often. They come to us first, and everyone benefits, our shareholders and stakeholders as well. It's a win for our customers and a win for our business.
Just staying on the topic of Kogan FIRST, Johann also asks, in terms of the Kogan FIRST renewal rate, is it in line with your expectation? Has the previous increase in fees to $79 had a noticeable impact on renewals, and do you expect the increase announced today to impact renewal rates?
Yeah. With Kogan FIRST, we're always monitoring the value that we're providing our customers, and it's not even so much how good we think the program is. It's what are our customers doing and saying. We can see from our metrics that our customers love the program. It's very unique in the sense that, you know, we're giving people big chunky discounts and offers on the big-ticket items that helps them live their best lives. You know, that's the unique offering proposition of Kogan FIRST. Whether you want an LED TV or dishwasher, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, whatever it is, you can get real decent savings at Kogan.com if you're a Kogan FIRST member. Customers are loving it.
You can see that come through, the numbers and, you know, Whether it's AUD 79 or AUD 99, obviously we'd rather not do the price increase, but with various inflationary pressures, we wanna keep the program healthy and we've had to raise the price. Compared to the benefits customers are seeing, it will be a, you know, the price rise we expect to be insignificant.
Just to remind everyone, if you've got a question, please type it in the Q&A box. Just to give people a last chance, maybe I could ask a question. Let's go up a level and take a more helicopter perspective on, you know, the industry and what's happening. How do you see the long-term growth thematics changing or not changing now that we're out of COVID and back to, I guess, a more normal lifestyle? How does that impact on the industry and I guess post COVID longer term?
Well, for us, you know, look, there's no doubt the last few years have been very challenging. There was obviously, you know, the periods of lockdowns. A lot of businesses overcommitted on inventory, including us. You know, we made that mistake and then we've been paying for it and fixing it and, you know, you would have seen January return to profitability. The one thing that it did teach us as a business, and one thing that's been optimized in our business is, you know, building out the various other revenue streams and ensuring that you've got a strong business across multiple fronts. If you look at our sales and profit, the majority of that now comes from non-inventory based income streams that are, you know, very strong income streams.
Whether they be our Kogan Marketplace, whether it be the Kogan FIRST subscription model, whether it be Kogan Mobile and so on. You know, while it has been a challenging period, our growth is coming from our subscription-type services, business model. That is what we see as the strength of our business moving into the future. Our inventory is very important to us. It's going to be more targeted, it's going to be more efficient, and it will keep delivering incredible value that customers come to find at Kogan.com. We're building a stronger business off the back of the last few years.
Thanks, Ruslan. A couple of questions that come in, from Steven Ye. Could you talk about advertising income stream given the decrease in the H1 year-on-year?
Yes. David?
The advertising income stream was previously made up of a different form of income to what it's going to form moving forward. Up until now, advertising on the Kogan platform has been quite ad hoc, and the advertising income that we've received has typically been from suppliers or service providers or payment providers vying for placement on the Kogan platform, vying for better positioning in our cart, those sorts of advertising. Moving forward, we're about to release an advertising platform that will be an always-on, so not an ad hoc, but an always-on integral part of the marketplace platform that enables thousands of sellers to gain prominence and position on the Kogan platform and will be a more stable form of income.
That's only about to be launched very shortly, and we'll only start seeing the impacts of that over the remainder of this calendar year. Whereas the existing form of income that we're comping year on year included significant advertising, streams from people like payment providers that are no longer available.
I'd just add to that as well. It's a very exciting part of our business because... Well, firstly, you know, from a strength of company perspective, like I spoke about before, our non-inventory parts of the business are now generating the majority of our sales and profitability. The advertising platform will be another one of that where we're, you know, leveraging our platform and subscriber base and all of our digital assets. What makes it most exciting is the marketplace, which drives a huge portion of our sales. The sellers who participate in our marketplace, which now has over 20 million items on there. They're the ones that have been coming to us saying, "Hey, I wanna reach more customers. Is there anything I can do to make my products more prominent?
How can I, you know, show my products to customers in this scenario and that scenario?" So on. It's a feature set we've built based off demand from our existing sellers on the platform. We're very excited by it, and we think it will be a huge value add to everyone in our ecosystem.
Thanks, guys. A couple of questions have come in on Brosa. First one from Johann. Will more inventory be needed to support growth in Brosa?
As always, we're a data-driven business. You know, obviously, we've been able to make that acquisition, which we're very proud of. We've soft launched it. We've even, you know, we've dedicated a lot of energy and resources to being able to, you know, untangle some of the mess that was there from the inventory position and try to help as many customers as we can from Brosa. In terms of inventory, obviously, as part of the acquisition, we took on a lot of inventory that Brosa had. We will be using metrics and sales data to say, well, what should continue as part of this business? Where do the metrics make sense? What's sustainable? What's going to be a strong business moving forward?
Look, a strong business moving forward obviously won't be everything that the business did before, but we will take the most sustainable parts, the parts that customers loved, and, you know, make Brosa a very efficient online retailer.
Wei-Weng Chen comments, in relation to the acquisition of Brosa. What are your thoughts on additional M&A, or would the plan be just to compete hard for share?
At this point in time, we're not actively seeking additional M&A. You know, we're focused over the last year on getting our own house in order, and we would wanna see a clear run rate of a few months, at least, if not more, of positive trading momentum before we would consider additional M&A. The Brosa opportunity was purely opportunistic. Obviously, we don't control when our competitors become insolvent. There might be more opportunistic events that occur over the next six, 12 months and, of course, we'll always be attuned to those opportunistic events that occur. We're not actively seeking M&A at this point in time. Our focus continues to be on improving our own trading performance, on making the Kogan business sustainable, resilient, agile and nimble.
All the sort of key things that we've tried to do and are in the process of doing over the last year. You know, once we've done that for a number of months in a row, then we're happy to put resources surrounding more potential proactive M&A. Not right now.
We've got a very strong balance sheet, and we will, you know, continuously evaluate the best capital management strategies for delivering long-term shareholder value for our business.
There's no further questions, we might close it off there. Maybe I'll hand back to you, Ruslan, just to wrap up before we move on to the rest of the day.
Great. Thank you. Yeah, look, it's been obviously a very turbulent period for e-commerce, and businesses that have inventory. We have taken various measures in place to address that. It's been a half of a lot of discounting. We said to the market what we're going to do, and we went ahead and did exactly that with our inventory. We had a problem that had built up. We had taken steps to fix it. You know, we're very confident with how we've come out at the other side of that and what the business looks like now and the lessons learned and the strategies we've implemented and the way that we've been able to build a more resilient company.
Obviously, one month's not a trend, but we're happy with how January business came out. It looks like a lot of the work is paying off. We're gonna continue with our long-term strategy, and we're pretty excited about the future.
Ruslan Kogan, David Shafer, thank you for presenting today and answering the questions. Well done on the results, and it's good to see the company returning to growth and onwards and upwards. Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.