I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. David Surveyor, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We're here to discuss the Select Harvests capital raise and strategy. Thank you for the introduction. As noted, my name's David Surveyor, the managing director of Select Harvests, and joining me in delivering this presentation is our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Tim Bradfield. Thank you all for being available today. I think what we'll do is we'll start by talking you through the presentation deck, which is available on the ASX. So we'll give an overview of that, and then we will move into a Q&A. What I might do, you'll note there are some disclaimer pages. They are the usual disclaimers and basis for information contained in the presentation.
What we might do, I think, is start with the company update, and specifically the slide titled, "Unlocking a stronger Select Harvests," and then use that to go through the deck. So let me start by saying the company is partway through the execution of its new strategy. That work has identified a number of initiatives that increase our profitability and provide a disciplined approach using our project management office. In the short term, there are a range of opportunities that are sitting in front of us, the two largest of which are actions that seek to improve the performance of our horticultural assets, particularly yield, and we think there is a potential gain of up to 15% in the performance of our farms. And then the second issue is, for gain, is increasing the capacity of our processing plant at Carina West.
This year has seen the capacity of that plant increase to 40,000 tons, and we see the opportunity to increase this further to 50,000 tons. I think for several years there's been a view that Select Harvests would undertake a capital raise, and the company has determined that with our strategy in place, now is the prudent time to address the capital structure. This will strengthen the balance sheet and provide the financial flexibility to enable Select Harvests to enact its strategy. But given we're doing a capital raise close to the year-end, we're also providing an end-of-the-year results update, and I'll specifically spend some time discussing the results forecast, as well as the net debt forecast, its drivers, and why we think specifically as it relates to some logistics issues, what we have is more of an interim or immediate problem that will ultimately pass through in the coming months. The equity raise itself is AUD 80 million. It's structured as an institutional placement of AUD 30 million with an ANREO
We do not have large specific plans for capital spends going forward. Our future program is really about organic growth, and then the second application funds will be to support the capital expansion of our Carina West processing facility, to provide a further ten thousand tons of capacity and increase our total processing capacity to 50,000 tons. We view this as a low risk and also an outstandingly good return on investment, and we'll talk about that further as we go through the presentation, so if I move through to the next slide in the deck, specifically to talk about our crop and price update. In terms of the 2024 crop, hulling and shelling of the 2024 crop is largely complete.
The quality profile of the crop has been excellent, and we're expecting the total volume to be approximately 29,500 tons. This number is a record crop for Select Harvests, although slightly below where, in fact, we actually expected the crop to land. This year, we have contracted sales for the 2024 crop, running at about 80% of the total crop volume. And if you look at our total sales velocity for 2024, we have, in fact, contracted some 36,600 odd tons. This comprises some carry-in from the 2023 year, our FY 2024 crop, and of course, the external third party grower volumes that we have. Our sales rate has increased compared to the previous three years, where our average contracted sale rate had been 27,800 tons per year.
So the point is, there is a step change in our sales velocity, and that is something we have previously communicated to the market as one of our objectives. While there's still several thousand tons to contract out of the 2024 crop, our current view is the final price for the 2024 crop will be in the range of AUD 7.70-AUD 7.75 per kilogram, subject, of course, to a continuation of current pricing trends. In terms of the 2025 crop, the overall tree health remains positive. Bloom started on the 29th of July, completed on the 30th of August across all of our growing regions. And we've seen generally positive bloom with good bee flight hours.
We saw a very good flowering of our pollinator variety trees, but perhaps with slightly more patchy performance across our Nonpareil variety, and that experience seems to be consistent with the feedback that we've had from the rest of the industry. So on balance, our expectation is that 2025 will be another positive crop for Select Harvests. This, of course, again, being premised on continuing positive farming conditions. We think the macro forward pricing environment for farmers is extremely positive. If I take you back to 2023 , we saw a smaller Californian crop of £ 2.45. That crop has largely been sold through to the market, and the industry has the lowest carry forward crop it has seen in a number of years, at £ 500 million versus £ 800 million in the prior year.
I think there's also a general recognition that of that £ 500 million , there is generally low quality, which is also supportive of prices going forward, and we note the U.S. actual crop size has reduced each year since 2021 to now. We also hold the view, generally, that supply chains, particularly in India and China, have got low inventory levels. We think that bodes well for pricing, and the objective forecast for the 2024 California crop was, of course, 2.8 billion pounds, and the early harvest consensus seems to be, it will be that number or possibly slightly lower, with almond nut sizes reduced. And we also note there are varying reports on defect levels, but at this stage we are assuming defects will probably align around their normal rates for approximately 2%.
I think it's also interesting to have a look at the Almond Board of California's August report, because if you look at the carry-in, plus the 2024 crop receipts to date, and said that equaled effectively supply, and then looked at committed sales, it would, you would draw the conclusion that, in effect, all inventory is currently sold, and therefore we are seeing, resulting more price discipline from U.S. sellers. The upshot of all of this is that we're expecting strong prices for 2025, and we think that will likely continue into future years. I'd further note that our, that our views on pricing, are supported by other external, forecasts. Rabobank, for example, has spoken about a AUD 7.90-AUD 8.40 price for 2025.
For those of you that review Australian markets, you can also see that prices are going up on a week-to-week basis, and there is no doubt other places that you can look for resources to draw your own conclusions around where you think the forecast price will be for 2025, but clearly, it looks like it is moving upwards. If I move to provide an update on our trading position, the trading outlook for Select Harvests as of 2024 EBIT range of AUD 17-19 million, with NPAT at AUD 2.5-4 million, and importantly, underlying NPAT in the range of AUD 1.5-3 million.
I think it's worth noting that that number is slightly below the consensus position, but certainly within the analyst range of where they thought the profit result would land. So what I think I'll do is provide some key drivers for the variation from consensus. So I'll start with the positives, and that is with Select Harvests saying that we have a forecast price of AUD 7.70-AUD 7.75 per KG, versus what had been a consensus price of AUD 7.60. If you took the midpoint of the range that I've given you for Select Harvests prices, at the volume of 29,500 tons, that would add approximately AUD 3.7 million to our profit result. Then there are some negatives. The first is that in 2024, we have taken a write-off on some of the carry-in inventory for the 2023 year.
Now, we do not, by practice, run an inventory provision model, because not every year do we have an inventory write-off. It depends on the quality of the crop in any given year. The NPAT of this, however, is AUD 4.2 million, and you could well argue this is a one-off, and you could also argue that it's part of the 2023 result, but it's an operating issue, and so therefore, we think credibly, it sits within the underlying operating results. The second reason for the difference is the result of having delayed shipping, and we'll spend some time talking about shipping and logistics today, but we have delayed shipping of approximately AUD 20 million versus the consensus position, and that has a profit impact of about AUD 600,000. This is not lost revenue, and it is not lost profit.
It will be captured in the 2025 result. Then the third reason for variance for consensus is that our interest costs this year were higher than the consensus by about AUD 2 million, and the reason for that is the result of a higher than average debt level. So the net result of the positives and the negatives is an NPAT of AUD 3.1 million, which, if added to our forecast, would mean that our underlying NPAT would get us back to the consensus number. Moving on from underlying NPAT to forecast NPAT, there are three key issues to note. The first is a one-off gain on the sale of water, as we rebalance our water portfolio.
We have previously communicated the water portfolio rebalancing, and essentially what we are doing is we are taking, we are selling some water in New South Wales, and we are purchasing, with the cash generated, water in South Australia and Victoria, so that we better balance our water portfolio, more closely to where the volume of our farming is. There is additionally a one-off loss associated with the impairment of the Yilgarn farm-in. That is a lease farm, and the impairment is likely to be around AUD 6.5 million, and we have also taken a provision of AUD 1 million related to possible costs associated with the logistics issue that I'll now talk to in some more detail. So net debt this year will be substantially higher than our previous guidance of around AUD 170 million.
It will be AUD 60-75 million higher, and the driver for the difference is the delayed cash collection resulting from changes we have made to our logistics service provision. Now, before I get into an explanation of events, what I'd like to do is make a couple of observations. The first is that the issue that we are facing is transitory, it is cash delayed, and it is not cash at risk. The second point is that while I've noted that we're providing for a one million dollar provision for potential costs associated with this exercise, thus far, the costs have been minimal. We will see if that changes, of course, as events unfold, but so far the cost has been minimal, and in many cases, any costs that have been incurred have been taken up by our service provider.
And then the third point I'd make is really a customer-facing comment, which is, while no doubt we have created some difficulties for our customers through these logistics issues, we have not lost any of our customers, and Select Harvests retains strong customer relationships. Now, let me talk about what's happened. In effect, what's occurred is that as our sales velocity has increased, our processes have not scaled effectively, and that's really created two fundamental issues. The first is that it is taking longer than expected to produce all of the required export documentation, for any individual order, and that slows our ability to get product cleared at port, and customers therefore are delayed in paying for product. The calculated value of that is some AUD 35.5 million.
The second impact is one of orders, where we have an order in place, but we are awaiting a slot on a vessel to get product delivered and shipped to customers. The calculated value of that delay is AUD 20.6 million. You add those two things together, and you have AUD 56 million in terms of delayed cash, and we expect all of that money to be received by the end of December, and hence my comment on it being transitory. The company believes it is now getting on top of its logistics issues. We have engaged Deloitte to help us with process improvement, and we are now completing documents and error amendments faster than we are shipping, so the backlog is starting to reduce, and we have no incomplete document sets prior to September.
We've put some increased shipping volumes over the last couple of weeks, and that will help us push more product to market. I think in terms of learnings and managing forward, the company started to de-risk its shipping by adding an additional service provider. Their current performance on documents has been excellent, and internally, we will be doing our own process reengineering around order to cash logistics, so that we're better and more capable of managing at scale, and that will include things like process automation, clear lines of responsibility, and better process definition. If I move to the next slide and talk about the balance sheet reset, I think this slide shows you primarily the use and application of funds. So you can see that of the AUD 80 million that comes in, AUD 72 million will be applied to debt reduction.
There's AUD 5 million that is being applied to the capacity expansion at Carina West, which I'll come to in more detail. And then you see that AUD 56 million of cash coming in as we move through this issue related to our logistics piece. The net result is a pro forma debt position at the end of September of sort of AUD 110 million to AUD 100 million. That would get us to a gearing level of about 20%, and while the company does not have a formal policy on gearing, its target range is typically in the 20%-30% range, and we intend to hold our debt position in that sort of range going forward. Yeah, I think the other part of this slide is really a conversation on the logic for doing a capital raise.
Because some will ask, if we believe cash is arriving by December, then why would we do a capital raise now? So let's discuss that logic. Firstly, I'd say that a capital raise is a topic that has been considered by the board for a long period of time. It's a conversation that, in fact, even predates my arrival at Select Harvests. The board continuously considers the balance sheet position, and the company's held out from this position for as long as practical. The company's previously acknowledged it has more debt than it would like and needs to reduce debt.
So whilst the company could arguably continue to operate with a capital raise, the reality is that logistics experience has really demonstrated to us that it's prudent to reset the balance sheet so that the company is more capable to manage if, given that we operate in an industry that is prone to shocks, be it global events, weather, bees, Ukraine war, et cetera, et cetera. And so we need to balance and reset our position so that we have a clean base to move forward with our strategy. I can tell you that we did consider selling water and did discuss this with our banks, and they were generally of the view that water is a strategic asset.
They did not want us to sell water and increase operating costs, and I expect if we had sold water, the result would have been simply a reduction in our facility, so no net gain to our headroom position. The other obvious option is that we would look to sell farms, and given our core business is growing and selling almonds, with a strategy based on increasing almond volumes, this did not make sense to us. The point is that we consider the range of options for balance sheet reset, and the company has concluded that the most imprudent of these is a capital raise, so that we can build the business forward rather than be constrained.
If I move to the slide that is titled Strategic Priorities, I think with the 2024 results discussed, debt and capital raise logic discussed, I want to move to a conversation that's much more forward-looking, with a, with a focus on some of the opportunities that sit in front of Select Harvests. We see the global almond dynamic is clearly moving in a positive direction. The company has previously put forward its strategy, and it's built around the delivery of the four pillars that are on this page, the first being substantially growing our almond supply, the second being leadership in processing scale and efficiency, and the third being maximizing return from the crop, and then looking to drive some step-out growth....
I'll focus on the first three pillars as we go through the next slide, but what you can see is, you can see a number of ticks on this slide, and they go to the fact that I think we're making meaningful progress on a number of elements of the strategy. Let me move to the next slide, however, and talk about horticulture. I think there are a couple of points to be made on this slide. The first is that in 2024, we've had a fivefold increase in our external supply of almonds, to approximately 10,500 tons, and we will be seeking to grow that further over time. It is profitable business for us, and it also helps reduce the level of agri-risk that is direct to the company.
The second point I would make is that the company concluded in January 2024 a review of its horticulture strategy. We believe there is a AUD 10 million upside potential as a result of the work that we've got going on in this space, and the work is happening across three streams. The first stream is about increasing our yield, the second stream is about improving quality and hygiene performance on farms, and the third is a series of cost out initiatives. While some of the cost savings we think will flow into 2025, we're really expecting to see the yield and quality gains start to come through from year two of our program. If I move you to the slide on processing opportunities, I think our second strategic pillar is about leadership in processing scale and efficiency.
I think the key progress that's been made for the 2024 year has been a shift in our capacity from 30,000 to 40,000 tons, by effectively raising the operational cadence from approximately 7-10 tons per hour. The capacity shift has been matched to the increase in external supply of almonds, so that 10,500 tons that I've just referred to, and this ensures that we keep our business balanced. It's profitable and effectively comes with only variable cost to process, and helps spread our fixed cost base. We have now identified a low risk and low capital path to get a further expansion in Carina West. It's approximately AUD 5 million to get a 10,000-ton further capacity change to 50,000 tons.
We'll fill this capacity through our own on-farm yield, yield improvements and through increased external supply, and we can balance between those two to ensure the capacity is full. So we're confident that we'll get the leverage from increasing the capability of our existing plant, and we expect that capacity to arrive in 2026, on the basis there is a lead time for kits to arrive in Australia and get installed. If possible, we'll try and bring some elements of that capacity increase forward to 2025. And then if I can take you to the strategic refresh on sales slide. This is our third pillar around maximizing the value of the crop. We've really got four work streams that sit in that space.
The first is about making sure that we've got a customer base of the size and capability to consume our increased sales velocity and the increased volumes that we are selling. The second part of this is about making sure that we are maximizing our margins, so we're benchmarking our prices with international trading data, and we're also looking to optimize the tariff positions and margin advantages that Australia gets against Californian suppliers. The third thing that we're doing in this space is, where it makes sense, we are looking for increased direct supply with large manufacturing customers. That sees us potentially claw back some margin from intermediaries, and also allows us to get closer and a deeper understanding to the needs of our larger customers.
The fourth stream is really early days, but we are looking to optimize our supply chain, having done some work around our some activity-based costing work, so that we can make an optimal decision on any given day between whether or not in any given the global markets that we sell into, should we sell something effectively as kernel, or is there more profit in the moment for putting it into value add? So there will be more on that unfold as we go forward. So I think to summarize, Select Harvests has got a strategy that is underway. We are seeing some improvements starting to flow into the business. For the 2024 result, the biggest variance to the underlying NPAT consensus is the $4.2 million of write-off for the 2023 crop.
We have no doubt experienced some challenges around our logistics project. It's created a meaningful shift in our cash position. We think we're now starting to get on top of that with the backlog reducing and the effects transitory. But it has certainly highlighted the need to reduce debt, and the board, after serious consideration, has determined it's prudent to run a capital raise. 2024, I think pleasantly, saw us return to a strong crop. We expect 2025 will be another good year. The macro environment is clearly improving, with prices rising. We think we're starting to get traction on the strategic direction, and we want a clear path forward so we can get on with the delivery of strategy. We think there's a meaningful prize to deliver, and that's it our intent to do that for our shareholders.
So at that point, I will stop and open up for any questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Josh Kannourakis from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Good day, David and Tim. Can you hear me okay?
... No.
Oh, only just, Josh? Oh, hold on one second.
Better?
Yeah, better. Yep.
Yep, cool. Hey, can you just give us a bit of context in light of all these initiatives that you're putting through, and obviously some of the freight issues, how we should just be thinking about cost per kilo, rolling into sort of FY 2025? And also just a little bit more context around, you know, that value-adding and processing component, both what sort of maybe within this year, in terms of the assumptions on the numbers you've brought out, and then how you should be thinking about it into next year. Thanks.
Thanks, Josh. I think in terms of our cost base, at our mid-year results, we said that our cost base on a 29,000-ton, if you use that as your notional base, would be AUD 6.85. I think the way to think about our cost base going forward is, we will try and eat any of the inflationary impacts that are coming our way, and which all Australian businesses are facing. So we will look to run our cost base flat in absolute dollar terms as we go forward into the 2025 year. That's net of some investments that we're making in horticulture, as I was talking about, and particularly in terms of yield gains.
If we get an increase in the volume of a crop above 29,000 , clearly the unit price per kilogram would reduce accordingly.
Yeah. Okay. And so just in the context of that, the sort of value-added and processing coming into next year, like, how should we be thinking about that in light of all you've discussed?
First of all, we don't give a specific forecast of value-added in terms of where that sits in our model. But to answer your question, I think that the point that I was making, and you can see it on the slide, around the strategic refresh, and I was talking about the fact that we're looking to do optimization of mix and quality.
What will happen is, we'll make specific decisions in any given moment, whether or not we're better off servicing or putting product into the value-added space, or whether we're better off. It's more profitable to sell it as kernel, so that we can actually optimize the margin between those two different points when you look at sell price, cost to produce the value added, relative to the margin that you can get off kernel. Now, that said, we are increasing our volume of supply into APAC for almond milk this year, as that category continues to grow. Select Harvests has strong, committed relationships with each of the major manufacturers in that space, where you will more likely see flex in our volumes.
The issue that I'm talking about relates to whether we are slicing product or producing meal. That's where we'll start to flex our volumes.
Got it. And maybe just one quick one for Tim, just on interest. Given the debt level, and maybe just in the context of the discussions with banks and stuff, how should we be thinking about interest into 2025?
With the debt raise, interest should be getting better into to 2025. I'm not gonna talk about global interest rates, but yeah, on our profile, debt will be declining, and therefore the interest will be improving.
Okay.
I think that's the pro forma picture of our in the presentation deck. I think will give you some sense of where that would get to.
Yeah, and the rates, similar rates, though, in terms of the actual rate on the debt?
We have had no change in the rates that we experience. Of course, if depends what happened in global markets around the cost of money, but we've experienced no change or increase in any of our rates in recent times.
All right. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from James Ferrier from Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Good morning, David and Tim.
Good morning, James.
Could I ask you about the debt guidance, first of all? The revised debt guidance for FY 2024 is AUD 60 million-AUD 75 million above the previous guidance.
Mm.
You've talked through, David, the shipping component to that.
Mm.
What's driving the remainder of that higher debt, sort of $5 to, what is it? $20 million relative to the previous guidance?
Yeah, it's a very good and fair question, James. So I described for you AUD 35 million worth of product, AUD 20 million of product waiting on a boat. We have, in fact, another AUD 23 million worth of orders that we've got are also waiting to go onto a boat, but there is always a lag between getting an order and organizing the shipping. We've taken a reasonably conservative position in the way that we explain it, and we've just drawn a line with a view that says, there's that next AUD 23 million. We've assumed that would fall into the October period.
Actually, you could—I could have created an argument that said it was sitting in the September period. I thought that would be disingenuous, but if you put it in there, that would add to the full amount of money.
Okay. Understood. So then, so to translate that into the gearing topic, so you mentioned in your prepared remarks that the company's still targeting a net debt to equity of between 20 and 30 times. And obviously, you know, we know debt moves through the year, peaking in the first half, given the cost to grow the crop. So in the fullness of time, with the benefits of the proceeds of this equity raising, with the benefits of the delayed cash receipts.
Mm.
-related to the shipping issues, where do you see your gearing into FY 2025 within that range? Is it lower end, is it upper end? How much room do you have now?
I think the way I'd answer you, James, is that what we intend to do with this capital raise is that. So we intend to stay broadly within this 20%-30% range. Giving you a number of top end and bottom end, given the vagaries of crop sizes and everything else, I'm a bit loath to do. But I think the point really to be made is we think running the business at that sort of 20%-30% range is prudent in terms of the balance sheet, given the vagaries and challenges that can exist across the agri sector.
And so, we're not looking to take this capital raise and then go on a spending spree for the want of a better phrase, and consume the money that's been generated through the raise. We intend to keep our debt levels low and effective.
Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess where I'm going at with that question, David, is post this raise, do you think you actually have surplus capital available to pursue growth initiatives as they come along? Or are you still positioning this business to essentially operate what it is and what it has as efficiently as possible, and that's basically it?
I think what we're saying is, for the foreseeable future, our view is that we need to run the business tightly and effectively. We'll look to stay within that range. If a large opportunity came up at some future point, well, then that's a whole issue to assess on its merits as and when it sits in front of us. But at the moment, we do not have a program that sees us look, and we have no active things going on around, for example, buying farms or doing anything else at the moment.
Yeah. Okay. Last one, now just, previously you've talked about profit and cash flow improvement programs, and you've had,
Mm
... quantified targets on those, and they're very impressive targets, and you've demonstrated good progress on them. Can you-- I just, I haven't seen all the materials yet today, but have you confirmed those targets are still in place?
Well, we haven't. As to your question, we have not covered that off in this presentation, but I would say to you that the program remains, it remains intact. It is delivering as we expect it to, and when it comes to the full- year results announcement, we'll make sure that we provide an update on progress with that so that it's clear for everyone. We just took a view that in terms of this presentation, it would distract from what the key message and the key issue is, which was about a reset of our balance sheet, and making sure that we could get on with the Carina West expansion.
Thank you.
The other item on what we're trying to achieve, the logistics improvements we were targeting, have not quite met our target at this point.
Thanks, Tim.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. Your next question comes from Mark Topy from Select Equities. Please go ahead.
Oh, good morning, David and Tim. So Tim, just to pick up on that last point, can you help us to understand the change in the logistics? You know, what, why was it taken, and what other sort of benefits are you looking for in terms of the new logistics provider going forward, once you get everything sorted?
So the reason for our change was we were scaling the business up, so we were looking for a substantial provider that could scale with us. We were also looking for a reduction in the cost on a per kilo basis. What the... I think David went through the things that had gone wrong with the process since we brought it in. But if you have questions on that, I'm happy to talk to it, but that was really our motivation. So going forward, we are still looking for the same outcome, but I think we've just got to reassess the strategy of how we deliver that. So again, David talked, we've got some process improvements we can look at internally, but we have to look at what our partners can deliver as we go through this process as well.
So we have brought in another partner who is delivering very well, both on their ability to get our slots on boats as well as the documentation. So really, that is what we're looking forward to going forward.
So, just to understand, what would be the end benefit then? Like, can you give us any, without going into maybe specific numbers, but just to get a feel, what are you looking for in terms of cost improvement or?
Mark, we thought that we'd get. We thought there was a couple of million dollars without giving you a specific number in making the change, so it was a cost-driven reason for the change. I think the reality is, given what's occurred, we're not seeing the cost gain, and we've clearly had issues as it relates to the timing of our cash. We're really in the space, I think, getting the situation under control, which we are now starting to do, and so we are getting on top of it, hence why we believe we'll have cash in the door by December 31.
But then we've got a piece that says, "We need to rebuild forward and make sure our model's as effective as it needs to be." And so that's why we've got a piece of process reengineering to do ourselves. And then we'll also be making sure that we are weighting our shipping to service providers that can best meet our needs.
Yeah, sure. Great. Okay, and then just looking at that global market, there seems to be a bit of sort of pricing differential between in-shell and other processed.
Mm.
Can you tell us what's happening, like, in terms of the India market now coming into their festive season and China market? Can you give us a bit more insight as to... and how you're targeting to maximize the return in terms of the product now?
Yeah. So, well, firstly, I think you're right, Mark. There is, at the moment, almost a disconnect between in-shell and kernel price, so I expect that that will ultimately self-correct and go back to a sort of normal position. In terms of India and China, we are seeing good demand out of both markets. One of the things that we have been doing, however, is to that my point about tariffs and that tariff relativity between Australia and California. The tariff advantages mean that there's the opportunity for more margin out of China than India. So where we've got grades that can go into China, relative to going into India, we increasingly try and weight our portfolio to supplying into the highest margin application or highest margin market.
So no softness in China, given their economic backdrop, or?
One of the things that we have seen and is we see continuing demand out of China. One of the things that I think that has made a difference that may be unique to Select Harvests is that we have ensured that we've had a continuing, ongoing presence in China, so we're visiting it regularly. And I think there's no doubt that has helped secure in ensuring that we're getting good sales volume into that market. To my point earlier, you know, with the rate of selling of contracting 36,000+ tons versus a historical average of about 27,000 tons, you know, goes to make and underscore that point.
Yeah, sure. And then just lastly, in terms of the residual crop, in some years, I suppose we see that last portion of the crop being lower grade or being lower in terms of... How's it look, the quality of the sort of crop at the moment and sort of that residual crop, sort of quality and what the price expectations around that last 20%?
Well, I think, you know, first, if I start with the price piece, when we provide our AUD 7.70-AUD 7.75, it considers the product mix that we've got, including the back end of the crop, and our view on the prices that we'll sell it for. So it's got that consideration in it. And then to your question, generally across our crop profile this year, we have seen a return to good high quality product, and particularly at the bottom end of the quality range, it has noticeably returned back to its sort of previous long-term average. So we're not sitting there with a view that says we've got a low-end quality problem.
Okay, then. All right. Thank you for that.
Thanks, Mark.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. Your next question comes from Charles Kingston from K Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Can you hear me okay?
Yes, we can, Charles.
Very good, thank you. Just a question on, just noting your comments that alternatives were considered, selling water, et cetera, which you didn't think was, optimum, but was the sale of the company as a whole considered, given you do put forward your, market value, of our assets at AUD 5.75? And as I've raised previously, I think it was seven years ago, that the entire company was bid for at a price of AUD 5.85, which the board at the time, not you, but the board did reject, but swiftly raised further equity at AUD 4.20, post that, rejection. But, you know, here we are, seven years later, diluting shareholders yet again at a price of AUD 3.80, which is a very significant discount to what you suggest our assets are worth.
To be fair, it does make that AUD 5.75 figure just sound a bit hard to believe, given the raise again today. But first question is: Was a sale of the company as a whole considered by the board, given it really has been a bad experience and hasn't delivered any value, and we're diluting yet again? So that's my first question, please.
So, the answer to your question is the company has not considered, as part of this, a sale of the entire enterprise. The company is tradable, of course, on the market on any given day. But no, the company did not consider a sales process for the entire enterprise, and nor has the company been approached about a sale of the business.
Okay. But, you know, given that the discount again, but I'll take that as a... I'll accept that. Thank you. And then just the second question on the last earnings call, when the topic of raising equity in the balance sheet was raised, you said that we don't look at the business and think that we have a specific need to raise capital. I'm just struggling to reconcile that comment with the comments today that you and the board, well before your time, have been considering the debt levels are too high and the potential for an equity raise. So can you just help me reconcile those comments, please? Because-
Uh, yeah.
You did speak about selling water last time in the earnings call, and again, here we are raising equity, again.
I think it's a fair question to raise. I think what I would say is the company has publicly recognized over time that it does have a level of debt that is too high. What we have said is that we've been trying to do specifically over the program that we've laid out to the market is that we have been trying to through a series of operational improvements reduce our debt position and get it into better space. As part of that, we also spoke about a series of lines of defense if we were under pressure, one of which was the sale of water. I would absolutely acknowledge.
So, I think that's correct. But all that what has changed is simply that we had a program. If you took out this issue that we've had with our supply chain logistics, we would nicely be at this sort of AUD 170 million mark that we had previously forecasted that we would, that at the end of year position would land around.
But with the supply chain logistics issue, I guess all it has done is, it has highlighted the fact that over time there have been an accumulation of issues that have increased the debt profile of the company, and it goes to, if there was another risk or shock that came our way, as per my comment earlier about the agri space, certainly has the tendency for those to occur, it would be more challenging for the business. And so the business took a view that ultimately, given that scenario, the prudent action was to do a capital raise.
Okay, thank you. And then just finally to confirm that $5.75 market value of the assets that the company believes are worth. Appreciate there's a bit of dilution today, but are you still happy to stand by that value, and is it your, you know, target to somehow close that gap? So yeah, I'm not sure how it's gonna... 'cause it does seem chronic, but are you happy to sort of stand by that value, that the value of our assets is well in excess of where we're trading today?
Um, w-
Diluting again.
Yeah. So, with the inclusion, sorry, of my comment about that I've made earlier about the Yilgarn farm-in and a possible impairment on that, we have no other assets that we think are sitting there with any particular issue sitting around them. We don't have an audited set of accounts yet, so I don't wanna make promises ahead of the audit process, but I have got no reason to, in this conversation, to think that there's any change to the rest of our asset values.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.