Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the RWC third quarter trading update. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Heath Sharp. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our Q3 update. This is Heath Sharp, and with me is our CFO, Andrew Johnson. We're connecting today from Atlanta. You will see that we have released an update to the ASX this morning. I'll step through the highlights before opening for Q&A. Third quarter trading was exceptionally strong. Revenue was up 25% over the PCP on a constant currency basis and up 14% on a reported basis. All regions achieved very strong results. In the Americas, we had a record quarter with constant currency sales growth up 39%. This is ahead of the trend we had seen in the preceding quarters. We saw a dramatic impact due to the freeze in and around Texas. This impact was a lot larger than we had first anticipated. Nonetheless, our preparation and execution allowed us to service this demand incredibly well.
We started to see the impacts of the freeze towards the end of February, and it continued right the way through March, and we are still seeing the remnants of that increased demand in our numbers in April. I would remind you that March last year in the Americas was a very strong month for us. It included the load-in of a new stop valve range into Lowe's and was, in fact, a record month at that time. To be substantially ahead of that this year is quite an achievement, and we can attribute that in a large way to the impact of this freeze event. We estimate that of the 39% growth we experienced in the quarter, over half of that can be attributed to the freeze event in the U.S..
Critically, though, underneath this freeze demand, North America also demonstrated the continuation of the strong momentum in repair and maintenance that has been evident since the middle of last calendar year. In the Asia Pac region, we continue to see growth with volumes driven by a robust new housing construction market and ongoing repair and remodel activity. Of course, our factories in Australia supply significant volume of brass products to North America. As such, our Asia Pac operations also benefited from the strong demand that we've been experiencing in the U.S. EMEA, again, recorded a strong quarter. Trends in the U.K. plumbing and heating market are very similar now to those we've seen in other markets we are in, with strong activity in the repair and remodel sectors.
Continental Europe sales growth is more subdued, reflecting the commercial orientation of the FluidTech products, which are centered around water filtration and drink dispense. Nonetheless, we have recorded positive growth in the U.K. and Continental Europe for the quarter. Also driving sales growth in EMEA has been increased exports of FluidTech products to both Asia Pac and the Americas. In terms of April trading, we have seen momentum continue in all our markets with no sign of a slowdown. As we noted in our release today, April last year was a relatively soft month for us, following a very strong March. We're reporting very strong comps on a like-for-like basis for the month of April to date, but we are cognizant of the relatively weak period in the prior year.
I would note, as we have previously, that we are currently seeing very high demand for our products, especially in the U.S.A.. In the months ahead, we will continue to watch point of sales data closely. We will look in particular for evidence of a decline in remodel activity once vaccinations reach a level where people again start traveling internationally. Of course, the impact of the freeze this year is significant, and we will need to back that out of the volume before contemplating a revenue profile for FY 2022. I would, though, stress that none of this changes our view of our long-term growth. Our strategy remains unchanged, and as such, how we go about growing revenue remains valid. You will recall we have spoken many times about our desire to achieve above-market growth in all our regions.
In our core repair and maintenance market, this means a long-term average of 2%-3%, depending on market conditions, and we will always aim to put a point or two of growth on top of that by outperforming the market. We have a decades-long track record of achieving this through product leadership, deep end-user insights, strong distribution relationships, outstanding brands, and industry-leading execution. On top of this, our ongoing goal is to achieve some form of product or customer initiative in any given period to push our growth even further above market growth. We will continue to do this. Of course, we have had a period of exceptional demand, which will leave our base revenue at a higher plateau than we would have thought 12 months ago. This is a great position, and we can continue to apply our strategy and build our future growth upon this new plateau.
As we have discussed, the current market demand, prompted in part by COVID-related influences, are consuming the bulk of our time and that of our customers. That said, we have been active on future product and customer initiatives. We are very confident that we will have activity to report in this area in the next six to nine months. On the input cost front, we are pleased with the progress we've made so far in implementing price increases to mitigate rising input costs, in particular with brass. We indicated previously that we expect to be able to pass through the impact of metal commodity pricing and other cost increases via price increases. We are in the middle of the process, Commercial confidentiality prevents us from elaborating further, other than reiterating the process is progressing as expected. Ultimately, our expectation remains unchanged.
Passing through the impact is the only way to fully mitigate brass and other cost increases, and our expectation is that we will be able to do so. We iterate that position today, albeit with a little more confidence based on progress to date. Finally, I really need to note that this has been an incredibly demanding period, following an already very challenging nine months. From an operational perspective, the strong volume growth we've seen in the third quarter has meant that all our facilities have continued to operate at a very high volume. Our teams around the world have really had to step up, and they have done so admirably. Their execution focus and capabilities have allowed us to turn this increased demand into the incredibly strong trading numbers we are able to present today. I really could not be more proud.
It is a privilege, frankly, to be able to work with such a capable and dedicated group of people. Let me leave it there and open it up to any questions that you may have for Andrew and me.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. A voice prompt on the phone line will indicate when your line is open. Please state your name and company at the tone before posing a question. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll now take our first question from Peter Wilson of Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning. Just on the Texas freeze events, you mentioned they continued into April. In terms of, I guess, the inventory rebalancing and all the repair work, do you think it'll be contained in April, or could you see, you know, kind of stronger sales continue Well, that the influence continue later into the year?
I think, Peter, the freeze-specific influence, we'll have that wrapped up in April. I mean, it's the tail of it, as you say, with people just balancing inventory and reviewing what they've got on the shelf and getting it right. It's clearly we're coming to an end of it. Look, separate to that, the ongoing underlying demand, the general uptick in repair and maintenance is certainly continuing through this month.
Got it. Okay. APAC, EMEA, you attribute much of the strength to internal sales for the U.S.. Can you give us an idea of how the external sales in those regions are going?
Look, that result was predominantly driven by external sales. I think we were pleased to see a bit of a return to that intercompany shipments. What really drove the market, particularly, certainly in Asia Pac and EMEA locally was the U.K. plumbing and heating market, the core markets.
Okay. On the cost pass-through, last time we spoke, For the Americas, you said that, I guess a reasonable guide would be that you expect to hold on to about half of the margin increase since FY 2020. Is that still roughly appropriate?
Look, I think so as a minimum level. You know, volume makes a big difference. If this momentum continues, then, you know, going forward, we would expect the margins to get closer to the first half than what they were back in '20. You know, the key is of course the momentum going forward. As we've talked about the cost increases we've got to put back into the business, which will take a little bit off.
Got it. Okay, thanks. That's all for me.
Thanks, Peter.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question. At the tone, please state your name and company before posing your question. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
It's Peter Steyn speaking. Hi, Heath and Andrew.
Hey, Peter.
Thanks very much for the opportunity. Just one key question from me. You've stressed the brass costs. Could you give us a bit of a sense of how you've gone in the U.K. with John Guest on resin increases? Obviously, those have spiked subsequent to the freeze event. Just curious to get your views there.
Sure. Look, the market generally, we also moved prices back in February, we were seeing year movements in resin prices even ahead of that. We moved to help cover that. I don't think resin prices have stabilized at this stage. The market generally, we've seen a few people over there move on prices again, we're having a look at it as to whether that makes sense. By and large, I think what we did in the first instance goes an awfully long way to covering what we needed to cover. We'll continue to monitor it and judge what we do next.
Perfect. Thanks, Heath. I'll leave it there.
Okay. Thank you, Peter.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Thank you. We'll now take our next question.
Good day, Heath and Andrew. It's Keith Chau from MST Marquee. How are you both?
Good, thank you, Keith. How are you today?
Doing well. Well, thanks. Just to follow up quickly on Peter Wilson's question just on the margins. Sorry, did I hear correctly that the expectation is to get closer to the first half margin with a bit of give back from the cost issues that have come through?
That's certainly the goal. I think in this quarter, we would expect to achieve it. If the momentum continues through the next quarter, again, that would be our expectation, offset with just a little bit of additional cost coming back in travel and trade shows. Heading into '22, the key question remains the level to which the momentum continues at going forward. If the momentum stays really strong, then I would like to think we can get those margins over halfway between the '20 number and the first half number and closer to the first half. Volume makes a huge difference.
Yeah, indeed. It doesn't seem like there's any signs of this momentum slowing. We've heard it from the distributors that demand remains resilient. Obviously, the world hasn't reopened fully yet. Judging by your first quarter number, and particularly given the comping of that loaded in Lowe's, is there anything that would, at this point, make you think that there could be an easing towards the end of the year? I guess to that point, just keen to understand why full year guidance wasn't provided, given this demand resilience. If you can talk around that and potentially some of the key risks to full year earnings with a couple of months ago.
Sure. I guess having lived through the craziness of sort of nine or 12 months ago, you kind of believe that anything's possible with COVID and what might happen. There's a little bit of caution there, I guess, underpinning in our thought process right now. I would say, put the freeze aside for a second, the momentum as we discussed earlier for the first quarter continued from the first half. April, no sign, as I said, of it slowing. I'd like to think that we'd get to the end of this financial year with that momentum continuing. I think vaccines aren't going to roll out fast enough to impact that. Even if they do, which is obviously an unknown question. I guess what that leaves us with is then the freeze, which is a number we didn't expect and I don't think anyone on the call expected.
That clearly is going to be incremental to expectations. I guess that's how I'd view the full year at this point. Into 2022, we start to comp those numbers, we need that momentum to continue as much as it can to get a good comp, particularly here in the U.S. going forward.
That freeze event, Heath, do you think the strength of what we saw in terms of revenue benefit, do you attribute that to what has turned out to be a surprisingly large event? I think in prior discussions, it's been around the freeze event being isolated to the south, therefore, the benefits might not be as great. Is the strength from your sales, does that speak to the size of the event or does it speak to your product mix? Is there something fundamentally changed or what you're selling into the market that perhaps has been able to capture the benefits of that freeze more than you would have thought prior?
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. We've obviously looked at this really closely. I think there's two main issues there, and you kind of touched on both of them, really. The first one is, look, it was unprecedented. This was more intense than anything we've seen previously, for sure and certain. I think looking back, there were four or five days in a row where the temperature stayed below freezing, so zero degrees Celsius, 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Even during the middle of the day, it didn't rise above that temperature. That is a deep, solid freeze. In a southern state where the plumbing's not set up for it. What best we can tell, the intensity of that meant in any given street, whereas previously you might get one house in the street that has a broken pipe, it felt like the whole street was impacted.
It was one house in the street that didn't have a freeze impact and a burst impact. I think it was just really intense, first thing. Second thing, I think we've got the product on a lot more shelves now, including both the big box retailers there, plus all the hardware stores there, plus a really good wholesale representation there. If you compare that availability of product now to back in 2018, and certainly back in 2014, it is far greater than what it was. Many more outlets with more SKUs on the shelf these days than what they were previously, just more attention to it. We did manage to mobilize a bit of inventory the week before that weekend when it hit. I think we had a lot more product available in an area where the intensity was quite amazing.
I think those two things combined led to the number. Look, the other thing that was different, how that played out is when we resupplied, and that took us a while because you remember we talked about that first week after the freeze, not being able to get product in there. The open question then was, when we do resupply those stores, because everything that was in the stores went really quickly, of course. The shelves were empty for a number of days. The open question back then was, when we did resupply, how quickly would that come off the shelf? The answer that we subsequently saw was pretty quickly. We had to resupply a couple of times, and that is a little bit unusual, and I think that speaks to the intensity of the impact of the weather.
I think they're the two big things that have moved that needle such a great amount. Keith?
Okay. Thanks, Heath. Just one more follow-up before I let someone else have a go. Obviously, copper prices continue to go up, so your brass costs are continuing to rise. In this kind of environment, last time we spoke, at the results, copper was at $8,800 a ton. Last night it hit, I think, $9,500 a ton. Are you confident that even in this kind of cost inflationary environment, you can get all of the cost increases through or pass through into price?
Yeah. Interesting you mentioned the copper price. We've noticed there seems to be an impact. Just the two days before we talk to you guys, the price escalates. As we said at the half, this is going to have to be dynamic. This feels like it felt back in, I don't know when it was, 2005 maybe, where it was going to just have to be a dynamic reaction across the whole market. That's how this year is feeling. Does that mean two or three moves in pricing during the course of a period or the year? It could do. Does that mean more customers in due course will end up on an indexed or a rise and fall price structure? That's also an option.
I think we will just need to be really dynamic, really flexible in dealing with what's going to be quite a challenging period, or seems to be. We're not alone. Everyone's faced with the same thing and contemplating the same issues. It's not as though we're the only ones who have to deal with this and have these discussions, and that's certainly helpful.
Okay, great. Thanks very much, Heath. Appreciate your time.
Thanks, Keith.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Abraham Akra of Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, Heath. Firstly on the sales update you provided, you mentioned briefly that sales will be well up on April versus the PCP. Can you give us some color on how they are progressing compared to the previous month in March?
Look, the only real difference is that the big impact of the freeze has pretty much come off. As I said, there's some sort of remnants of shipments there and a few back orders we're getting out in relation to the freeze. The momentum in all the regions right now feels the same as what it did mid-March, same as what it did mid-February, mid-January even. The momentum's continuing. It just is a different period from a comp point of view. I think we posted at the end of the FY20, we had month-by-month revenue for each of the regions. You can see in there that April was just a softer month last year than March. That is what's going to make the comp better. The momentum feels the same in April right now as it did in March this year.
Yep. Got it. That's helpful. On the back on Keith's question on inflationary risk in terms of commodity pricing exposures, do you have any further thoughts on hedging the way any of these risks in the future? Have any of your thoughts changed from that perspective?
Hey, this is Andrew. I think we'd mentioned at the half that we're committed to looking at hedging. We purchase brass through third party, so hedging that transaction gets somewhat complex. We're working our way through it and hope to land on where we're going to be in the next month or so.
Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. In terms of your supply chain excellence and withstanding the surge in demand across the Americas in the winter freeze event, can you talk about your DIFOT scores and also whether you were stocked out on any products during that period? Were you able to satisfy the demand in the channel throughout?
Yeah. Look, really good question. The DIFOT during the quarter was not normal. It was below normal. When you look at that level of demand and what was happening, when you're going into the period, it was going to be tough. Supply chain is difficult around the world right now for all sorts, cardboard, plastic, whatever else. It's a really tough period. The key from an overall point of view, though, is just being on top of what's happening in the stores, working with your customers to get the right product in the right location, and we can mobilize and do that really quite well. I think it's a real differentiator for us in the marketplace. It really comes down to the DIFOT numbers start to become a bit meaningless in a period like this.
It's how well do you react in relation to the specific circumstances. The Texas freeze was a great one. I have no idea what the DIFOT number is because it doesn't matter. Were we on the phone every hour of the day with our customers to make sure we were serving them? Yes, we were. I think coming out of this period, we have absolutely bolstered our reputation for service and delivery and customer support. It's been a great period from that point of view. It was abnormal in terms of numbers and delivery performance and out of stocks and so on, for sure.
Yeah, that's helpful. Lastly from me before I pass it along, you had the freeze event impacting sales in March. Did you see any impact from the stimulus checks that were rolled out across the U.S. in terms of demand picking up furthermore?
Look, this is a bit secondhand for us or anecdotal for us. We watch closely the statements by the retailers and the hardware stores on what they're seeing, and they are indicating that there is some benefit to them as a result of the stimulus checks. Is that a benefit for home improvement or appliances or plumbing? We don't know. It didn't hurt, but I think when you look at the run rate of the momentum, it didn't feel that different. It's not as though it went from a 20%-30% pop during that period. It stayed about the same rate. That's about all I can point to, I guess.
That's helpful. Thanks, Heath. Thanks, Andrew.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Tim Evans of Morgans Financial. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, Heath. Congratulations on the quarter. Just a question. At the half yearly, you spent some time going through a capital management plan for the business going forward. I gather you would have needed to get this trading update out before you initiated the buyback that you mentioned. And I'm guessing your net debt is even further below your target range. Just interested in your view on the buyback going forward.
Yeah. Hey, this is Andrew. I think that from a capital management perspective, our board hasn't made a commitment yet on a buyback. What they have committed to is M&A, and I think that's our focus. Once we work through those resource needs, then we'll consider a buyback when we get to that point. At this point, we haven't made a decision in terms of if we'll have one.
Okay. Thank you.
Look, I'd also make the comment going forward, we'll, I think, probably connect with the market every quarter to give an update, particularly at the moment when there's so many moving parts and so much happening. I think it's helpful.
That's great. Congrats again. Thank you.
Thank you, Tim.
Thank you. I will now hand over to Phil for further questions on the line. Thank you. Go ahead, Phil.
Thank you, Laura. There are two questions on the line. The first is, we've mentioned that we expect to offset input cost increases through price increases. Can you please tell us what price increases are required across the business to offset the higher copper and resin prices?
I guess that goes back to what we're talking about at the half, Andrew, with the total impact of the cost level.
I think we have to be a little careful because this does get into commercially sensitive areas. Look, I think that given where copper and zinc has been, there's a range that's going to be high single digits to low double digits, but it really depends on the customer and the product that we're referencing.
Look, it's very definitely on a range-by-range basis. It's really a SKU-by-SKU basis. What we're doing with steel products is different to stainless steel, is different to brass, is different to plastic. That range probably is a couple of percent up to, I don't know, 12% or 15%, depending on the item. The overall number is it's like 9,000 is what? AUD 20 odd million total, AUD 30 million. We've got to offset across the whole business. We're working through that right now.
Thank you. The next question is, could we please provide an update on current manufacturing capacity and accompanying CapEx program?
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. Factories are busy. I think the factories are coping pretty well. In some cases, it's more getting hold of the raw material inputs, whether that be something basic like cardboard or a plastic bag, supply chain is probably more of an issue than the factories themselves. We are looking closely at capacity right now, and we have to take the view that this momentum will continue. From a production planning and from a capacity planning point of view, we have to believe that the momentum will continue as it is. We talked about CapEx quite a bit and where we did pause some last year, which is gonna make this year light on CapEx or lighter than what we expected.
Some of that will definitely carry over into next year. I think there's probably some additional capacity we'll put in place next year based on the current volume, the current run rate. The total amount of CapEx across those two years is going to be in keeping with the sort of the guidance that we've given previously in terms of relative to sales volume. It'll be directly in relation to the volumes we need. The capacity we need for the volume run rate we're seeing right now.
Final question online, then I think we've got one more on the call. Are we able to provide an indication of how our penetration into new construction markets in Americas and EMEA is going?
Look, I don't think it would've changed a whole lot over the last period. Our products are heavily repair, maintenance, and remodel-focused, and that's really been the driver over the last few months. Our new construction is really strong in all parts of the world, and that doesn't hurt us, but it's not really the driver of our business. I don't think that's changed in this period or.
No more online. I think we've got one more on the call, though, from Brooke.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. W e'll now take our next question from Campbell Crawford of J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking my question, Stephen, Heath, and Andrew.
Good morning, Brooke. How are you?
Yeah, no. Doing very well. Just on the impact to the sales from the storm, you provided sort of a bottom end saying kind of half the growth rates being due to the storm. Are you able to provide sort of a cap to that kind of commentary as well? Is it less than 2/3 of the growth? Just wanna try and understand a bit better how that range.
Look, I guess if it had been beyond 2/3, we probably would've said 2/3. Look, it's in that range. It's actually getting an exact number is a little bit challenging. When you look at the size of the change in just the demand generally, plus the freeze on top of it, getting within a few points is as close as we will get. I guess the way we look at it is if, as best we can, we back out that freeze. We also adjust for last year the rolling of the products into Lowe's. It all stacks up. If you apply that first half change in the revenue for Americas, which is 22%, against first quarter last year, Americas less that roll-in. It all makes sense. It all kind of adds up so that underlying momentum doesn't feel like it's changed.
Look, putting a final number on that freeze, as I said, we've still got a few back orders to deliver, a few orders coming in. It'll take the rest of this month to get a final number on it, Brooke.
No, that's understandable. Probably not easy to estimate. Just one other question. You talk about being in the process of going through the pass-through on pricing. Just want to understand really what you mean by being in the middle of the process. Is it the case that you've announced kind of a first round and you're going back for a second round, as you suggested earlier? Is this there's some customers you've yet to talk to? Yeah, just trying to understand really what's left to be done.
Look, every customer has a different notice period for price changes. Every customer has a different process, form you've got to fill out. They have their own internal processes where they pass it around various analysts and whatever else they do. Out of each stage, questions come, and we get the questions and we answer them, and they go back through their analysis and so on. It really is quite different per each customer. It takes from giving notice of the date that you're going to move price to getting it there, just the hoops you've got to go through. I would say what we're seeing right now is completely expected. None of the questions we've been asked were unexpected. None of the reactions have been unexpected, and it feels like the same process we've been through previously when we've done this.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Brooke.
Thank you.
If I have one more-
While waiting for further questions in the queue. Yeah. I'm handing over to Phil. Go ahead, Phil. Thank you.
One more online. Thanks, Laura. It concerns Europe and changes to regulation around climate and whether that has any implications for us and our manufacturing operations. I know Polypipe have referenced changes they're sort of aware of in terms of some of the resins they use for some of their products, et cetera.
Okay. Look, at this point, it doesn't look as though we'll be impacted, but obviously we're very close to that and looking at what those implications, if any, are. At this point, it doesn't seem to be the case.
Thank you. No more from me, Laura.
Thank you, Phil. We'll now take our next question from the queue, from Keith Chau of MST Marquee. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, Heath and Andrew. Sorry, just a quick follow-up on the price increase. You mentioned the range of price increases that you'd need to recover costs are anywhere between, Heath, I think you called out low single digits to maybe 12%-15%, something to that effect, depending on the SKU. Do I take it that the discussions you're having with customers revolve around those ranges as well? You're matching like for like what you're requiring to cover costs through your negotiations with your customers? Thank you.
Yeah. Look, I guess so. Back to the question that Brookie started with the process. We might deal with any given customer with 2,500 or 3,000 SKUs, three line items. We'll group them up as best we can and we're trying to offset commodity costs here. This is not a marginal increase activity. Each product range has a different impact due to commodity. A brass valve has a different % of copper in it than a brass fitting. The price increases that we're pushing through reflect that. It's really a mechanical process and whatever that % is, the range we go is sort of the range that's dropping out, if you like, on that spreadsheet. Yeah, it's very much in relation to specific products given their material makeup.
Okay. Thanks, Heath. Then a follow-up for Andrew. Andrew, I think in one of the prior questions, you mentioned M&A being the key priority with respect to capital. I'm trying to get an understanding of what the process has been internally, whether the company's actively engaged in M&A potential acquisitions at this point in time.
Keith, I'll kind of restate my answer. I think the priority is funding growth in the business, and that's supporting our manufacturing capacity, as we've mentioned, but it's also M&A. M&A has always been an important part of our growth story, and I think it'll continue to be an important part of how we grow this business going forward.
Thanks very much, gents.
Thank you, Keith.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from James Casey. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gents. I just wondered if you could quantify the sales growth you're cycling in May and June this year. I know you included a chart in the FY 2020 results, I think it was. Are you able to provide some numbers around the cycling impact?
Look, I haven't got that to hand. Humor me and let me generalize here. It was really starting in May last year in the U.S.. It's very different by region, James. In May last year in the U.S., we started to see the revenue pick up. May was up on 2019, June was up more on 2019, July was up even more on 2019, and then that kind of set the run rate for the rest of the half. U.K. was just the other way around. April fell in a hole. I think we were, what? 35% or 40% of the prior year in the U.K. Look, our comp in the U.K. or EMEA for April and May will be really strong. Based on the current run rate and what happened last year, it's going to be a great comp.
The U.S., the comp's going to get harder from April, certainly May, June, and then July, we're comping over that full, if you like, the 22% run rate that we talked about for the half. That'll be a tough comp. Great position to be in. If you compare back to 2019, from a two-year point of view, that's a great move. It really is going to be quite different based on the region.
Yeah. Okay. It was mainly the U.S.. I was interested in what you were citing there. Just one final thing. What was the AUD sales growth rate from the U.S. so translated back?
For the quarter?
For the U.S. market. Yep. You got 39% constant currency.
That's a really good question.
What was the net sales growth?
I haven't got that to hand.
Okay.
We'll have to take that one.
maybe chase it up with Phil after the call.
Yeah.
Okay. No probs. Thanks, James.
Thank you too.
Thank you. I'm now handing over to Phil. Please go ahead, Phil. Thank you.
Just one last question online, and then we can wrap it up. Are our company systems more sophisticated today than they were when previously facing such significant price increases?
For sure. For sure and certain. I think the systems are more sophisticated, the caliber of the people, the number of people we've got, just the scale of the business is different. Without doubt. That said, on the other side of the ledger, it's the same process that we're dealing with as we've dealt with in the past. I think we're better equipped to deal with it. The process from the other end hasn't changed, and that's, I guess, reassuring.
Thank you, Heath. No more questions online or via the phone call line.
Okay. Well, that being the case, I think we will wrap that up for the day. I really appreciate everyone's time tuning in. We look forward to getting back to you later in the year with our full-year result. Thank you very much, everyone.
Thank you all. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. Stay safe. You may now disconnect.