Morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 2021 interim results presentation for Health and Happiness International Holdings Limited. Joining us today is Mr. Luo Fei, Chairman, Ms. Laetitia Garnier, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jason Wang, Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Joy Tsai, Investor Relations Director. Kindly note that this webcast is audio only and there is no video. During today's presentation, Mr. Luo Fei will first give some opening remarks, after which Ms. Garnier will present the group's business review and outlook. Following this, you may submit a question by text by clicking the question mark symbol on the left-hand corner of the webcast panel. Kindly submit all questions in English. Once again, you may submit a question at any time in English only by clicking the question mark symbol on the left-hand corner of the webcast panel.
I will now pass it over to Mr. Luo Fei for his opening remarks. Mr. Luo, please.
Good morning, investor and friends. The first half of 2021 was full of uncertainty and turbulence, much more than we expected when we set up our business plan for this year. Yet, despite this, the performance of our ANC and PNC segments overall met our expectations. There was a wide gap between our expectations and the performance of our BNC segment. There were two main reasons for this. First, a decline in overall demand across the entire BNC sector in China. Second, increasingly intensified competitions. Our strategy of transforming our distributor system, which we launched in the second half of last year to increase our distribution weight in lower tier cities, is the right path to take. It will take more time than we expect for this transformation, which covers both our internal organization and external distribution to be achieved.
In terms of our performance by region, our ANC business achieved double-digit growth in mainland China in the first half 2021. Due to the challenges that impact our BNC business that I just mentioned, overall sales in China expected negative growth. After two years of significant business decline in Australia and New Zealand market, negative growth was gradually narrowed, which is in line with our plan. Our new investment in the PNC segment is allowing us to quickly catch development opportunities in this very active industry, with PNC becoming a new driving force for our overall growth. It remains very important for us to maintain a healthy capital structure. After considering our capital needs, I'm happy to announce our decision to issue an interim dividend of 30% of our adjusted net profit to thank our shareholder for their support.
If we have learned anything in the first half of this year, it is that the more challenging the business environment it is, the more we must carry on our sustainable growth strategy and our mission to provide premium nutrition and care to families around the world. We believe this approach will continue to create long-term value for our shareholders. Now, I would like to invite Laetitia to present to you for the detail. Thank you.
Thank you, Fei, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening to all of you, and thank you for joining today's call. I'm now referring to the presentation, and I am on page three of the presentation that I hope you have in front of you. First of all, to set a little bit the scene on who we are as H&H today. Our mission and our vision that we have set in 2017 following the Swisse acquisition and integration of our group, and we set up the name for H&H, has still not changed today. Our mission is still to make people around the world healthier and happier, and our vision is still to aspire to be a global leader in premium nutrition and wellness while contributing positively to the society.
Why I want to reinforce that is that all the efforts that we are making, despite the challenges that we've been facing during the COVID situation around the world, including in China and the rest of the world, our strategy isn't changed. Everything we are making, every step we are making, is towards fulfilling this strategy and this positioning that we have set for ourselves. The recent Zesty Paws acquisition that we just announced 24 hours ago is obviously in line with that strategy, and I will come back to this acquisition. Today, we have eight brands in our group, three business pillars: BNC, Baby Nutrition and Care; ANC, Adult Nutrition and Care; and PNC, Pet Nutrition and Care, which we also intend to grow as a business as we go forward.
That's again the rationale for this recent acquisition. Coming back to the results of our group during the first half of this year, I'm now referring to page five of the presentation. We have reported +5% group revenue in the first half of this year. The newly acquired PNC business of Solid Gold of last year, and of course, excluding the recent acquisition we just made, we've been able to achieve a 5% revenue, which means that this PNC pillar is positively contributing to our revenue. For the -2% like-for-like, obviously the main challenge, and still witnessing through our business model of light asset and strong cash generation, we're happy to be able to strengthen once more our cash position.
Of course, because of this business model and this strong cash position, to be able, even with the acquisition that we just made, to announce and decide a 30% dividend payout to our shareholders, 30% of net profit for the first half of this year. I'm now on page six of the presentation, and just a few key highlights on how we look at the performance of the first half. Of course, on a like-for-like base, if we exclude the business and mainly due to the pressure faced with the probiotic. In Mainland China, revenue has dropped 2.5% on a like-for-like base but has grown 1.5% on a reported base. China is, of course, still our largest market and will continue to be. We are happy that the performance of our IMF business is in line with our expectations.
As anticipated, the probiotic revenue has dropped in the first half due to the high base of last year and obviously the drop in demand in the market, therefore reporting a -46.1% drop in the first half. Our other pediatric product segment has also dropped 31.1%, while our ANC Swisse China business has performed quite strong. I will come back to this performance, which is also in line with our expectation and what we committed to the markets when we met last time, supports with the strategy that we have carried forward for the ANC business and the focus on the domestic market. Other territories have performed quite strong, +10.7%, actually on a reported basis, high double-digit growth, +58.6%.
We'll come back to this performance, which is also. If we look at our three business pillars, obviously the challenge is clearly identified in the Baby Nutrition and Care segment, particularly in China, with the drop of the birth rate and the intensified competition. The progress we're making with our new channel expansion is here, and we are happy about this development. As I mentioned, this development takes time. It takes time to transform our channel, our distribution, our organization, we are carrying forward these efforts through the year while the pressure is mostly ANC. The newly added PNC pillar, we've seen minimal disruption from our Solid Gold. The business is now integrated both in the U.S. and China.
We've been very diligently putting the right teams in place, activating the brand in China, making sure we continue to grow the business in the U.S. market, and of course, we'll come back to that. Our recent acquisition is obviously intending to strengthen this pillar and its contribution to our group. We still believe we have resilient product portfolios. We are planning on renewing our brand and our product portfolio to be able to capture those trends. Of course, everything we're doing, we still have in the back of our mind that we need to make sure we return and contribute to our stakeholders and to the society, and we still have the intention to be a best-in-class ESG organization. We are still making all the right progress in this direction in parallel of all of our business efforts.
On page eight, you can see the performance of our different markets by region, and I will come back to that. I quickly mention that, of course, we're facing pressure in the Chinese market in the BNC segment. Happy to see that the gap narrowing for ANC on a trend to come back to positive growth and with other territories performing quite strongly. Obviously, China remains by far our largest and core market, and we're very dedicated to achieve growth in China. In the future, of course, we need to continue our efforts with our three business pillars, but quite happy to see also the performance of our other markets that are supporting the growth of our group. On the next page, nine, we have a growth contribution bridge. We're doing this for the first time, trying to give our investors more clarity on where is the growth coming from.
Obviously, on a reported base, both Australia and China are actually contributing positively to the growth, but not on a like-for-like base. The rest of the growth is coming more from our new markets, including Asia, EU, but also the U.S., and we'll come back, of course, to that market when we talk about the Zesty Paws acquisition. I will now switch to the performance by region and try to give everyone a little bit more color on the performance of our business. First on page 14, in mainland China, which is again our core market, segment by segment. I will come back, of course, to the performance in BNC, where we have mixed performance with growth in IMF, double-digit growth in probiotic, and also other pediatric products. Just quickly first on ANC and PNC.
As you remember, in the first quarter, we had a negative growth in the ANC segment in China. We explained to the market that that was due to a high base on the first quarter in 2020 during COVID in China with a peak in demand and then a normalization of the demand.
We were also confident that we can still continue to deliver double-digit growth for the total first half of the year in Swisse, and that's what we have delivered, plus 18.4%, which still shows the growth and the strength of the brand and its ability to continue to scale both in cross-border e-commerce as well as in normal trade, both online and offline. On the next page, 15, we can also see some, I would say, preliminary results of our activation of the Solid Gold brand in China, which I think also shows the strength and the ability of our organization to take on another brand, which had some awareness in China, but not so much. We now have a team in place who's been activating the brand, starting working directly with Tmall and JD.com, starting also onboarding some distributors for the development of our brands offline in China.
We have been able to deliver $12.4 million of active sales in China, US dollars, active sales in China in the first half of 2021. We obviously think that is just the beginning. We can and will be able to scale the PNC pillar in China. We're just putting the fundamentals and the base to, of course, sustain a longer-term growth of this new pillar into the Chinese market. Coming back to the performance of BNC, I'm now on page 16. The market has been quite challenged, but we have been able to maintain our market share in the market, which of course shows our commitment to continue to invest along with the channels. We've made some good development online with our market share in e-commerce channel.
Overall, I think in this environment, we're satisfied with this performance, that we're able to keep and maintain our market share in the cow IMF despite the strong competition and the intensification of the competition both in the channel and with our peers. I think it's important to highlight also that sorry, our goat IMF has performed quite well. It now accounts for 9.2% of our total IMF and has achieved strong and high double-digit growth in the first half of this year. I will now move on to page 19, talking about our Australia and New Zealand business. Obviously, we are quite happy and I think everyone can appreciate the turnaround of the Australian business. We've delivered on our guidance towards the lower drop of revenue and trying to bridge that drop. Obviously, it's still a -5.5% drop.
The gap is narrowing, and again, we are confident that we will go back to positive growth in the Australian market. The reason for that is that we have heavily focused and reshifted our strategy in the last two years towards the domestic market, trying to gain market share in the local market, making sure that our offering is fulfilling the needs of the local consumer, launching new formats, launching into new channel, and extending the brand in the local and domestic market, and this strategy is now paying off. We should continue to see progress and this trend strengthening during the second part of the year and beyond. Page 20. In other territories, of course, we are still in a pandemic situation globally. Despite this, we're very proud of all of our team's achievements and all the milestones that we have put in those different markets.
To name some of them, of course, the success of Biostime in France, still number one organic brand with increasing market share every month. We are now above 40% of market share in French pharmacies, a very strong brand awareness now and brand position in the French market. On page 21, obviously also in the ANC and PNC segments, we are happy about the development of the brand, the Swisse brand, in different Asian territories, which we're starting to scale up. Also, the development of our D2C and Aurelia skincare markets in the U.K. markets. Of course, for PNC, we should not forget the U.S. markets because Solid Gold is a U.S. brand, and it is still the number one market for the brand.
The brand has performed, I would say, above our expectations post-acquisition in the U.S. market with very strong market dynamics, good product launches, innovation that has supported double-digit growth in the U.S. market for Solid Gold, which I think is quite encouraging, both from a acquisition and post-acquisition integration perspective, but also supporting our choice to further strengthen that pillar in the U.S. with the Zesty Paws acquisition. On page 22, you have a mapping of where the growth is coming from in terms of contribution from these new markets. It's also the first time for us to provide this level of detail of information, and I think it gives everyone a better view of when we talk about new markets or other markets, which markets are actually contributing the most. You can see, of course, that Asia is still nascent and native.
Of course, it will scale up and become more and more significant. For the time being, our other markets revenue and growth is mostly coming from Italy, France, and the U.S. This, of course, is integrating the Solid Gold and the Pet Nutrition and Care pillar. I think that's a nice and natural transition to page 23 and following pages about the Zesty Paws acquisition. I'm sure a lot of you have been perhaps surprised when we announced this deal, both because of its size, it's definitely a sizable transaction, and also may be wondering why we're doing a new Pet Nutrition and Care acquisition less than one year after the Solid Gold acquisition. I think it comes back to our strategy and what we said at the beginning, that as a group, we are obviously trying to position ourselves as a full family nutrition and care provider.
We have a conviction that the pet nutrition segment is full of growth opportunities. It is already the case, and that this will continue as we have around the world, people are adopting more pets. It's not just a COVID effect. It's a long-term trend of the humanization and premiumization of the way people take care of their pets, and we believe that this trend will continue to carry on. Therefore, we want to strengthen our positioning in this PNC pillar. In this respect, Solid Gold was a very strategic acquisition, and we've quickly also scaled up the brand in China. We want to make sure this pillar grows faster, and that we have also a full product portfolio that helps us to fulfill all the needs of the pet nutrition segment. Therefore, Solid Gold is a pet food brand with dry and wet foods.
It does have supplement, but it represents less than 1% of the revenue. Zesty Paws is the U.S. leading online pet supplement brand. I think I can say it's actually, we don't have global data, but it is the number one global leading online pet supplement brand because the U.S. is leading in that field. It does have a pioneer and first movers advantage into a fast-growing category. The supplement category is actually growing very fast. Beyond that, what this company has done, and I'm now on page 24, is really disrupting the supplement category. Because the way we look at the traditional supplement category is more through the vet's recommendation when pets start having conditions.
As we see the same trend in adult nutrition, with people taking more preventive approach to their health, when we see, for example, the gummy trends in the adult supplements, this is exactly dependent of this into the pet supplements with a disruption in terms of format and the consumer-led approach of supplements where parents are also prescribing supplements for their pets in a preventive way. The way the brand has launched and communicated to consumer is a very disruptive, very digital-led and digital native approach. With more than 200,000 five-star comments on Amazon, the brand is definitely the leading brand in the segment. We've been very impressed about the performance of the brand, its edge-cutting approach, and very well consumer-led, and we think this is definitely a scalable brand, not only in the U.S., but also with global opportunities, especially online. I'm now on page 26.
We have tried to provide to our investors some market data about the size of the market. You can definitely see if we look at the U.S. market, that the pet supplement market is actually dominated by online, which is the fastest growing channel. Vet is no longer the number one recommendation factor, and the reason for that is that consumers are now proactively looking for these products through word of mouth and really in a proactive and a preventive way. The industry is growing also quite nicely. It's almost a +50% between 2015 and 2020, with strong dynamics, as again, the market is changing and consumers are coming more to this category. We, of course, are anticipating the business to continue to grow in the U.S., and we will be very focused on continuing to deliver the strong growth that the business has delivered.
I also want to mention, highlight that this business is profitable and has a track record of profitability because of its first mover's advantage. Of course, we will be looking at how we can scale the business into other markets, including, of course, the Chinese markets. We can come back to that during the question session if you have any questions. On page 27, coming back to H&H as a group, I still have to mention that we are making a lot of progress in sustainability. We are still on track with our commitments to become a B Corp organization, and we are making every step towards this certification at our entity levels. We've put in place a task force for packaging recyclability, and in different areas of sustainability, such as governance, diversity, and inclusion. We are making a lot of progress.
I would say that everything is on track, and the team is having more and more focus on these areas along with the business. Lastly for me on page 29, to give to everyone a full year outlook. We are still committed as an organization to deliver growth, and we think we can strive to maintain overall revenue growth for 2021. With improved margins in the ANC segment, while we will continue to face pressure in terms of margin in the BNC segment, especially due to the unfavorable mix with the probiotics. As a group, we will of course, continue to strengthen our unique positioning as a global family nutrition provider while continuing to focus on remaining a best-in-class organization from ESG perspectives. In Mainland China, we expect to deliver sustained revenue growth for 2021 amid pressure in IMF and probiotics.
In ANC, we'll continue to reclaim our Swisse leadership in the domestic ANC. In other territories, we'll continue to leverage on synergies that we've created with the rest of the business to continue to drive growth. Of course, we will also be focused in the second half of this year on the integration of our newly acquired Zesty Paws, as well as the refinancing of the acquisition. I guess that's also a nice transition to the next section. I would like to invite Jason, our CFO, to present on financial performance and additional information. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Laetitia. Good morning, everyone. Now let's go to page 31, the P&L summary. As you can see, Laetitia already mentioned very clearly the development of our revenue and adjusted EBITDA in the first half of this year. We are very happy to see also regarding the wise, we have maintained healthy adjusted EBITDA margin and healthy adjusted net profit margin as well. This also remained quite stable in the past year. Next page. Regarding the gross margin by category, the gross margin pressure from the product mix of change in the BNC and also the increased stock provision in ANC caused the margin to be 3.3% lower than the last year. If we look at the respective gross margin levels of IMF probiotics and other pediatric products all remain at a quite stable level.
Just due to the lower contribution of high-margin probiotics segment in the overall BNC segment, the weighted average gross margin of BNC is 1.6 percentage points below than last year. For ANC, the 3.8% below last year due to the CGMA, the case of the increased stock provision since we built up the safety stock in first half of last year, given the increasing consumer demand for immunity-related products amid the peak time of COVID outbreak. The demand came down quite quickly after the COVID peak time. Therefore, we increased the provision for those immunity-related products in the first half of this year. If we exclude this one special effect, the gross margin of ANC would have stayed at level of 68%, which would be quite stable from last year.
Meanwhile, the team is working very hard to deplete those stocks in many markets so as to minimize the impact going forward. Also, we are quite happy to see the PNC's gross margin now stands about 40% versus 30% last year. Next page. We can look at the selling and distribution expense ratio of the sales. It has stood at a quite healthy level of 38.7%. In between, we can see for BNC has recorded a 3 percentage points increase, but mainly due to the low base of last year, during which the consumer education activities and channel activities were either postponed or paused in the first half of last year amid the peak time of COVID outbreak.
Meanwhile, for ANC, we are very happy there is a 5 percentage points improvement in terms of the S&D ratio, thanks to the effective spending control in China, in ANZ and almost all the markets of ANC where it is operating. Next page regarding the admin expense. We can see we have managed to achieve a slightly improved admin expense ratio versus last year, owing to also effective spending control. There is just a one-time accounting treatment change, as we highlighted in orange in this page, due to just a reclassification of the business tax and the surcharges in China from sales discount to admin expenses. If we exclude this one-time accounting treatment change, then the admin expense ratio was even lower than that of first half last year. The next page regarding the working capital development.
As you can see on the total basis, we have managed to maintain the stable working capital in terms of both the balance and the turnover dates. If we look at the breakdown of the working capital, the trade receivables has enjoyed a good reduction of seven days, thanks to the strict credit control in many markets where we are operating in the first half of this year. For the inventory turnover days, we have achieved improvement of five days, and the balance of the inventory also stands at the similar level of last year. In between, we can see for the BNC turnover days increased from 132 days one year ago to 191 days. This is mainly due to the preparation for the launch of the new IMF packaged products price level of 130 days -140 days.
For ANC, we have seen a significant improvement from last year, from 298 days one year ago to now 178 days. This is thanks to the improved planning and management ability for the overall supply chain management. We expect to continue this improvement trend cut-off days and also a payable balance reduction along with our supply chain agility improvement exercise, as I just mentioned, for the inventory as well. Overall, if we put all three items together, we have been able to maintain a very stable working capital. Cash position in the first half of this year with the cash balance close to RMB 2 billion. For the investors who are new-- Solid Gold acquisition in December last year. Therefore, here we also listed the cash balance as of end of 2020, which is a better base for us to compare.
In comparison with the ending balance of 2020, we have also managed to achieve 7.6% increase of the cash balance. Overall, it is a very healthy liquidity position we have maintained. On the leverage side, we have maintained the stable capital structure and also with the healthy net leverage status as well. Our net leverage is 1.92x by end of H1. In comparison with our financial covenant of 4.5x , there is a sufficient headroom. If we take out the special effect made for the Solid Gold payment, the actual net leverage ratio would have stood at 1.4x , which is at a similar level of one year ago. Here, I want to just add one point, as quite some of you have the questions about then what will be the outlook for our net leverage after the Zesty Paws acquisition.
We have made very detailed calculation and projection. After the Zesty Paws acquisition, our net leverage ratio would increase to the level of around 3.5x-3.6x . This, in comparison with our financial covenant of 4.5x , still there is headroom remaining. Also, based on the EBITDA generation from both the existing business of H&H and Zesty Paws, going forward, we expect in the coming next three years, we will be able to deleverage our balance sheet gradually. Then in three years, we expect the net leverage to go down to the level of around 2x , i.e., to be back to the level prior to the acquisition. Therefore, it is a very clear deleveraging path we are aiming for. Overall, we will continue to maintain this profitable growth path with healthy liquidity and leverage status to be maintained.
This is a quick summary of our overall financial status. Thank you.
Thank you, Jason. We are now ready to take some questions from the audience. As a reminder, you may submit a question by text by clicking the question mark symbol on the left-hand corner of the webcast panel. Kindly submit all questions in English. I will now pass it over to Ms. Joy Tsai, Investor Relations Director, to commence the Q&A.
Hi, everyone. We have the first question from Anna Zeng from Piper Jaffray. Her question is, "What's the impact on China's recent policy to regulate infant formula industry?" Thank you.
Thank you, Joy. Thanks, Anna, for your question. Sorry. I guess you're referring to the recent policy changes in China in the education sector and whether there will be similar restrictions, such as price control for IMF, right? Obviously there have been quite a few rumors in the market. From our company's perspective, first of all, we haven't heard about anything formal in terms of policy change in this respect, and we do not think there will be any price control in the IMF sector for different reasons. We're still talking about consumer products in the food segment. Different from medicine, different from education, which are more regulated industries. Here, we're talking about a fast-moving consumer goods category. Currently, the price of IMFs has widely ranging, the range from HKD 100 to HKD 400.
There's a variety of choices for consumers to decide, depending on their purchasing powers and what type of product and formula they want to buy. Thirdly, because we think it's different and difficult to control the prices in the channel. For all of these reasons, we do not believe that there will be price control in the IMF sector, and we haven't heard about any formal policy which has been put in place. That's, I guess, what we can say from our end at this time.
Okay. We have the second question from Ting Hai Capital. He has two questions. The first is, "Given the company's slower than expected margin and revenue performance over the past two years, we are keen to know about the strategy and execution to cope with current situation, such as low birth rate." His second question is about the acquisition. "Is the plan to buy growth if we look at the most recent PNC acquisitions? For Zesty Paws 50x historical PE and buying the business sounds a bold move to us. How can you justify the rich valuation and how the multiples was decided?" Thank you.
Thanks, Joy, and thanks to Ting Hai for the question. I guess I will address both questions together because I understand where you're coming from in terms of why are we making this acquisition. Is that a passive move to buy growth while we're facing challenges in our core business? I will want to answer this question coming back to our strategy. On the valuation, I think, Jason, I would like to invite you to comment on how we've been looking at valuing this company, which we think is actually a very strategic asset and the right company for us. Obviously, we are not making this move as a passive move to buy growth because we're facing pressure in our core markets and core business.
I just want to recall when we did the Swisse acquisition in 2015. A lot of investors questioned us on why you're doing this. Is it because you're being challenged in your core IMF business? Why moving from BNC to ANC? That was obviously a surprise to the market. I think through the years, we've also proved that first of all, this was matching our strategy, both from a revenue and a market diversification. That diversification in this current environment is definitely healthy to have different revenue sources and to extend our business because it comes back to a growth strategy. I think we've delivered through the years on this extension into our ANC pillar. We've decided last year to also move into PNC pillar, which is part of the family nutrition. It's a fast-growing category.
We believe in its growth outlook, and we believe we're well-positioned to capture and be part of that industry as H&H, and therefore, 12% of our revenue. If we look at three years' time, we're looking at this number to go up to 20%. It's not because we are anticipating negative growth in the other pillars, it's because we are anticipating fast growth in this PNC pillar. It's a strategic move. I really think it's back to our strategy. I think we have consistently good forms of our peers. Of course, we have very strong domestic competitors, but we also have international competitors who are struggling and losing market share. In this environment, we are maintaining our share. I think we're well-positioned to be one of the brands who are going to enjoy the consolidation, and we'll continue to invest in the channel.
We now have the right product portfolio. We are making progress online with some strategy, and we will deliver on that. Of course, the current environment and the fact that the demands and the low birth rates is putting pressure on the overall business for BNC is a factor. I do think we are continuing to make progress towards delivering on our strategy, and our strategy is, of course, including BNC, ANC, and this newly added PNC pillar. Jason, would you like to comment on how we looked at valuation? Obviously, the multiple high valuation is the fact that we are forecasting high growth for the business, both in terms of revenue and profitability. This is a fast-growing segment. This company has a leading advantage in that segment. ensure this company and the growth that it can deliver in the future, and it's in line with our strategy. Jason?
Yeah. Indeed. Actually, we have conducted a very comprehensive valuation exercise. It is based on the various valuation approach, including the DCF based on our projection, but factoring the inputs from our commercial DD and financial DD advisors. Also, it's based on the approach factoring the transaction multiples of comparable deals in the pet nutrition segment. The consideration we are paying for Zesty Paws, this represents about 25x of the value EBITDA level. This is pretty much in line with the multiple of the comparable transactions in the pet nutrition area. Therefore, indeed, we need to look at the growth outlook as just explained by Laetitia, therefore we came down this, we see it's a fair and reasonable valuation.
Okay. We have the next question from Lynn Wu from Bank of America. Her questions are, the first is infant formula. Our goat infant formula achieved 72% growth year-on-year in the first half. Wonder how much of the growth came from the network expansion versus sales growth per store? How should we think about growth potential for second half in the medium term? Her second question is on the ANC China active sales. The growth was particularly strong in the second quarter, with a very encouraging 618 performance. With some of the third quarter demand already be realized in the second quarter sales, what's the quarter-to-date trend and our growth expectation for the third quarter and the second half? Her third question is on Zesty Paws. What's the expected timeline for the deal completion?
What approvals do we need to obtain for it to proceed? The implied valuation multiple of Zesty seems quite elevated. How did we arrive at this purchase price, and what are our assumptions for its growth outlook? I think for her third question, we have already answered that. Thank you.
Thank you, Joy. Thank you, Lynn. Perhaps on the Zesty Paws maybe deal completion and the approvals, Jason, if you would like to answer that and if you have anything to add on the valuation again, but I think we've already indeed covered this question. I will cover question one and two. Goat IMF, yes, 72% growth in the first half. As mentioned earlier, we're quite happy about this performance. Obviously, it's a mix of leveraging our Biostime distribution channel that we have built through the years in the cow IMF segment. It's also in line with the trend of consumers in China, more and more consumers are willing to purchase goat IMF as an alternative to cow IMF. These are the drivers of our success in this segment, along with, of course, the Biostime brand that we have leveraged.
Today, we have covered over 14,000 stores are selling our goat IMF in the Chinese market. We've made progress on distribution. Most of the growth in the first half has come from same-store growth rather than an additional expansion into the channel. That being said, we do still have room to grow in terms of penetration and distribution. As we continue to carry our further distribution expansion, especially including into lower tier cities, we do carry forward our goat IMF within the mix of our products. These are joint effort between the cow and the goat IMF to extend distribution. We still have room to play. I guess as a conclusion to the rest of your question, we should expect to continue seeing a strong double-digit growth for this goat IMF during the rest of the year.
On into China, I understand your question also because of the first quarter being negative growth and the second quarter being very strong growth. I think there is obviously, as we mentioned in May, an element of not so much shift from Q2 to Q3, but more from sales not realized in the first quarter that were moved to Q2. There is a bit of an element of, I guess, normalization when you look at the full first half. That being said, yes, we had a very strong performance in June 18. Now our team is already preparing for Double 11. I think overall, the guidance is that we will continue to maintain a double-digit growth for full year for Swisse in China.
Obviously, that will depend on the performance of the brand during Double 11, but we are quite confident that we can achieve the same success in Double 11 that we have had in 618. Of course, we need to continue to make progress in the normal trade channel both online and offline. Our team is very focused on delivering that, launching more products, registering more products, and expanding the brand beyond cross-border e-commerce. Jason, would you like to answer on Zesty Paws?
Sure. Regarding the timeline for the deal closing, we expect to close the deal around end of September or beginning of October. Regarding the approval to be obtained, we do need to receive the foreign investment approval from the U.S. regulator. Since this deal is in a non-sensitive segment, we don't expect any kind of difficulty to obtain the approval in time. Just like what we did for the SG deal last year. We also received the approval at that time very smoothly. Regarding the purchase price, as I just mentioned about the evaluation methodologies we used. Also just to want to highlight regarding the assumptions made for our projection, definitely we have included double-digit growth assumption for the ZP business going forward.
The next questions are from our fixed income investors. There are some similar questions. I will combine them. It is from George Wong from PineBridge, Bill Shao from Mirae Asset, and Tian Ran from Deutsche Bank. What are the plans to fund the acquisition of Zesty Paws? Will you look to call your U.S. bonds in October? Can the company share the amount of net debt Zesty Paws currently has? I think we already answered the question how we are going to finance the acquisition. Would the company expect the impact on rating per the communication with the rating agencies? Thank you.
Thank you. Jason, please go ahead. Thank you.
Yes. Actually, we already been in discussion with the rating agencies and also provided the information about this deal to the agencies. The agencies are also assessing the implication to our overall leverage status. I think more important is to show not only to the agencies but also to especially our debt holders and bank lenders that we will continue to aim for this de-leveraging path down the road. Just like what we did after the Swisse acquisition. If you may recall, after the Swisse acquisition in 2015. At that time, the company's net leverage ratio went up to the level close to 4x. Thanks to this cash-generating business model, we managed to de-leverage the balance sheet gradually in the following three years, down to a very healthy level below 2x.
Based on this proven track record we already built up in the past, then we feel confident that down the road also to be boosted by the gross contribution from ZP side, then we will manage to de-leverage the balance sheet again. In three years we can bring down the net leverage back to the level of two times.
Okay. The next question is from Manish and Ken of Southeastern Asset Management. It's about the Zesty Paws acquisition. This acquisition seems very expensive at 34x EBITDA versus where H&H is trading at 7x of the EBITDA. Why does this acquisition make sense, and what would be the EBITDA multiple Zesty Paws look like looking out three years? Thank you.
Would you like to provide your perspective on this?
I think for the company's strategy, either your organic growth or you're looking for the acquisition growth strategy, like we did in 2015 with from BNC segment, ANC segment. Now we are very clear to go to the PNC. Why we want to go to the PNC? We see very big potential growth in this segment. Combine together ANC, BNC, and PNC to achieve our mission to become premium nutrient provider in the world. I think this is a quite strategic fit acquisition. In terms of a price, you know it's a good asset. You need to pay the reasonable price, in a way you can get the asset, right?
If you're looking forward for the future growth in terms of revenue, in terms of profitability for the company, I think we're quite happy to have this asset in the number one pet market in the U.S., especially online. Also we can see the potential growth outside the U.S., like China and other market. That's why we think it's a favorable price for us.
Ken has a follow-up question. Why not buy your own company back at 10x EBITDA? Sorry. Buying back stock at less than 10x earnings or buying a new business at 25x EBITDA. That's his follow-up question.
I think it's a strategy thinking. What's our strategy to invest and to grow your business, right? Yeah, this question is quite You need to use your capital to drive your business to grow. This is a growth strategy. I think we believe this could move to PNC, to make PNC become stronger in our product portfolio. Also PNC is a very active industry. That's why we need to go to pet health and to invest that for the new fast-growing segment. Also in the nutrition sector. It's not like to put other industry. It's still in the family nutrition. You can have a lot of synergy like supplement. You can have the know-how, the same know-how for other nutrition and pet nutrition, those things.
Due to the time constraints, that was the last question for this webcast. Thank you everyone for joining us this morning. Please stay healthy and safe. I now announce the end of today's presentation and webcast. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.