Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Brait Interim Results presentation. All participants are in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions when prompted. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. Please note that this event is being recorded. I'd now to hand the conference over to Mr. Peter Hayward-Butt. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Welcome to all our stakeholders and investors. Good afternoon. Welcome to the unaudited interim results for Brait in 2024. You'll be very happy to hear, I can hear the collective sigh of relief that you don't have to listen to me today. We've got Kobus on from Premier, and he'll go run through the Premier results, and Dean on from Virgin Active, and he'll run through the Virgin Active results. And myself and Sabelo will run through some of the more Brait-related stuff. On the introductory side, we can start there. In terms of portfolio overview, I'll give an overview of that, and then we'll get into the detail. So in terms of Virgin Active, you know, again, credit to Dean and his team.
You know, Dean and his team being in situ there for probably about 18 months or so. We continue to see the growth in the business. We'll get into the detail of that during the presentation. But we've seen really good, strong growth, particularly in the international business over the last 9 months, from obviously the first of January to September. The international business has added more than 60,000 members over that period, with sales of just under 180,000. So again, very strong interest from members across those territories, particularly in Italy and in the U.K. And even the South African business, you know, sales have continued to be strong, 175,000 sales in that 9-month period, again, above 2019 levels.
But what we have seen is a slightly higher termination rate, in the, in the South African business. Dean, again, will touch on, you know, the reasons for that and what the management team are doing. But it's, it's pleasing to see in the last couple of months, that that has come back down to sort of more normalized levels. And we see good, good net additions, in the South African business as well. So from a membership perspective, pretty strong performance. We'll go into that in detail. Pleasingly, you know, we talked about yield management, on the last call. Yields up around 9% across the portfolio, and that's a function of two things: firstly, price increases, obviously in, in territories of around about 45%.
But obviously, the increased CBD or higher-yielding clubs, particularly in the UK and to some extent in Australia, coming through, and the international growth, which is obviously a higher-yielding subset of our membership base, have all added to the overall yield increasing by 9%. So strong membership growth, strong yields growth, has led to decent revenue growth across the portfolio. From an EBITDA perspective, very pleasingly, for the first month in October, all of the business units outside of Australia are now EBITDA positive. Again, it's a very long time... Well, we've never been able to say that since we sat in the chair here as TRG. And very pleasingly, if you looked at the run rate EBITDA, and that's what we talked about before, effectively, you take the monthly run rate, and you annualize it.
This time last year in October, that run rate was -GBP 4 million. That has increased to GBP 30 million as of September, and if you actually annualize the October run rate, it's closer to GBP 48 million. And again, Dean will touch on that. But again, credit to Dean and his team. You know, that's around about a GBP 50 million swing, or ZAR 1.4 billion swing in EBITDA over the run rate EBITDA over the last 12 months or so. Pretty importantly, over the last 12 months, in the Virgin Active business, we've refinanced both the international debt and the Virgin Active South Africa debt, extended the maturity dates, got, you know, reset the covenant levels, which will give those businesses the breathing room that they need, to grow into that capital structure.
Importantly, Dean and the team have finalized the renewal of the Vitality contract, the terms of that, which is very important for the South African business going forward. Then finally, I think I mentioned when we last had our results announcement, at that time, there'd been a GBP 50 million capital injection by shareholders into Virgin. I said that going forward, it was more likely to be funded by third-party capital or not by Brait specifically. We have reached the final agreements on the terms of a convertible preference share into Virgin Active for GBP 60 million. That will be based off the Brait NAV, i.e., the conversion...
You know, when it converts into shares in Virgin Active, it'll be done pretty much at the post-new money valuation, based off the valuation of Virgin Active today. And that capital will only be injected into the business where we find growth initiatives that beat our investment targets. There are many that Dean and his team are looking at, so this gives the business the ability to chase some of those growth initiatives, and Dean will refer to some of those during his presentation. From a Premier perspective, and again, massive credit to Kobus and the team, a very, very strong performance, and I've said this for a number of years, both on an absolute and a relative basis, relative to the competition.
The EBITDA growth of 24% was significantly above, you know, the market expectation at the time of the listing. That leaves the business with a last twelve-month EBITDA of ZAR 1.9 billion. I think you need to remember, three years ago, that number was ZAR 970 million. So a massive credit to, you know, to the team for, for all that they've done. Very importantly, it really was a broad contribution across most of the divisions, probably excluding the Mozambican, you know, business. And again, Kobus will touch on that during his presentation. Importantly, the return on invested capital remains above 20%, which again, is a fantastic result. And the business continues to invest, particularly in this Millbake business, in, in Mthatha and the Aeroton operations.
And again, I think that will stand the business in good stead going forward. You need to continue to invest in this business to keep ahead of the curve. And when you've got return on invested capital of more than 20%, you can afford to do that as a board. From a debt perspective, again, de-gearing, very significant de-gearing during the six months with some voluntary repayments to the banks. Has got the debt down to 1.4 times net debt to EBITDA, which is pretty much in line with where it has been historically. I think that will lend itself to dividends flowing from the business at the full year in March, at the March year end, and the business continues to look at complementary acquisition opportunities to deploy some of that capital as well.
So again, a fantastic result from, from Kobus and team, and I'll let Kobus touch on that. From a New Look perspective, obviously a slightly smaller contributor to Bright overall. I think anybody who follows the UK retail, you know, fashion retail sector will know it's been an extremely tough six months for everybody, probably other than, Next. Volumes were down across the board, both in terms of retail and e-commerce. I think the weather's played a key role in that. It certainly has impacted the New Look business. And from a perspective of New Look, like-for-like sales were down around 8%, although we have seen some improvement in the last two months of trading.
We continue, we continue to focus as a management team, you know, on the gross margin management, not sitting at all costs, and we've managed to increase the gross margin over the last six months, which has resulted, obviously, in some loss of market share. But I think from a value share, you know, we've managed to to claw some of that back. Very importantly, in this business, we concluded the debt refinancing, which was a massive overhang in the business. That has been extended out till 2026, with some new operating banks, and has given working capital, you know, freed up a lot of working capital for the business to continue to invest where required. And then lastly, from a management perspective, there seems...
There continues to be a focus on efficiencies, both in terms of logistics and distribution, but also in terms of central costs. Already this year, we've seen about a ZAR 10 million operating cost saving, and we should continue to see a bit more from some of the initiatives that have recently put in place in that business. From a Brait perspective, over the last 3 years, we've had about ZAR 10.8 billion of disposals of various businesses, which has enabled us to fully repay the revolving credit facility. As you know, that was fully repaid after the Brait, sorry, after the Premier listing in March. And the board remains absolutely focused, you know, on the unlock strategy and finding optimal ways to achieve this. There are many different options to play with. The board cons...
is considering, you know, all of them. I think, you know, given the track record of the board to ensure that they come up with optimal solutions over the last 3 years to the problems they've had, I think the board is confident of being able to achieve a good outcome, yeah, on this one as well. Just moving quickly to the NAV per share, and I won't spend a huge amount of time on this. This is more for information purposes. In the thirtieth of September, blue box, you will see there, that the NAV, if you look at the bottom, the NAV per share reduced from EUR 7.06 to EUR 6.84 on a undiluted basis, probably more relevant on a fully diluted basis, reduced by 1.5% from 5.93 to 5.84.
The main drivers, if you look on the right-hand side and under the movement, the 852 change that you see for Virgin Active is not the fact that we've written up the valuation of Virgin Active. In fact, on the contrary, I think in pounds it's slightly down. But during the course of the last six months, there was a capital injection. As you remember, the Brait share of that was ZAR 756 million. That and the slightly weaker rand exchange rate has resulted in a slightly higher valuation for, for Virgin Active. But on a valuation perspective, it's actually flat year-on-year. In terms of the cash equivalents, you need to put that together with the borrowings at the bottom.
Obviously, we repaid about ZAR 2.1 billion, just under ZAR 2.1 billion of the RCF from the ZAR 3 billion that we were sitting in cash. We invested, as I mentioned, 756 into Virgin Active, and there were obviously some operating costs during the course of the year. So that results in the movement from a cash perspective. We have hedged the coupons on the convertible bond all the way out till December 2024, and that sits under the cash and cash equivalents line of ZAR 520 million. In terms of the exchangeable and convertible bond differences there, all that is the accounting treatment for the equity component of both the convertible bonds and the exchangeable bonds. Obviously, you get close and close to maturity.
In the case of the convertible bond, that equity component is now very small, and it will get smaller and smaller again for the exchangeable bond as we get closer to maturity. So overall, a 1.5% reduction in the discount in the diluted NAV per share. I'll let Sabelo touch on some of the key drivers of that, going forward.
Thanks, Peter. Starting with slide 8, which sets out the movement in the balance sheet positions for the half year. To note at the outset that the peer groups for Virgin Active and New Look remain unchanged. Following its listing on the main board of the JSE on 24 March 2023, Premier's value at its closing JSE price of ZAR 60.50 per share, which equates to an implied EBITDA multiple of 5.4x. Virgin Active's rand carrying value has increased by ZAR 852 million, mainly due to Brait pro rata GBP 33 million subscription into its GBP 50 million rights offer in May 2023. Virgin Active is valued on a 3-4x sustainable EBITDA estimate of GBP 121 million, which includes GBP 3 million EBITDA from the Real Foods acquisition, in line with FY 2023.
The 3-4x valuation multiple of 9x remains unchanged. Net trade party debt of GBP 454 million includes GBP 20 million for costs deferred during lockdown periods. New Look's carrying value reflects a ZAR 124 million increase. Sustainable EBITDA of GBP 45 million is referenced to FY 2023 LTM EBITDA of GBP 42 million. Following a successful refinancing and improved working capital management, the valuation multiple was increased from 5x to 6x. This maintains a similar level of discount to the peer average multiple that applied at FY 2023.... of GBP 14 million includes GBP 1 million normalization adjustment for deferred costs during lockdown periods.
The decrease in cash of ZAR 3.1 billion was mainly due to the ZAR 2.1 billion full repayment of the BML RCF and Brait participation in Virgin Active's rights offer in May 2023. Turning to page 9. Liability movements were driven by the full repayment of the BML RCF, ZAR 164 million IFRS accounting charges, representing the tick-up in value of the deemed liability component for the two bonds, and ZAR 157 million translation impact on the rand current value of the 2024 convertible bonds. The slide chain analyzes Brait liquidity and debt and is set up on a consolidated basis.
The ZAR 3.6 billion proceeds Brait received from Premier's listing were applied during HY 2024 as follows: In April 2023, settlement of the outstanding amount of ZAR 2.1 billion on the BML RCF, and Brait pro rata subscription into Virgin's rights offer in May. Following its repayment, the BML RCF was amended to a facility commitment of ZAR 594 million and its term to 31 March 2025, interest at JIBAR plus 290 basis points and a 1% commitment fee. Cash of ZAR 520 million, which includes ZAR 326 million held in pounds for the remaining coupons on the 2024 convertible bonds, together with the undrawn BML RCF, results in available cash and facilities of ZAR 1.1 billion at the reporting date.
Brait is in compliance with all covenants at the reporting date. Thank you, and back to you, Pete.
Thanks, Sabelo. And with that, I'll hand over to Koos. But before I do, you know, I just want to say, I think it's a tremendous effort Koos and his team have put in, not just over the last year, but certainly over the last 2-3 years. And we're starting to see the benefits of that. Well, we've started to see the benefits of that. So congratulations to Kobus and the team. Kobus, over to you.
Thank you very much, Pete, and thanks for the kind words. I'm on slide 12 now, effectively showing the highlights of our performance for the six months. Summarized, where our revenue was up 7% to ZAR 9.4 billion. EBITDA just over ZAR 1 billion for the year. We've seen a nice pick-up in our EBITDA margin from 9.4 to 10.9%, and I'll touch on that in more detail in the rest of the slides. With a fixed depreciation charge across staying fairly stable across time periods, we've seen the gearing effect of EBIT then climbing by 33% to just over ZAR 800 million, with EBIT margin at 8.6%.
Then, as Peter had mentioned, our return on invested capital has gone through the 20% mark. Then, I just wanna also pay attention to the net profit line, where even though the EBITDA performance and the EBIT performance was quite strong, the prior year included some abnormal gains, that we have been highlighting in all our various communications to investors, around the unwinding of some of the funding instruments that we had when we were still a private company. That caused some abnormal gains in the prior year, and therefore, our net profit is only up by about 6% versus the prior year.
We've also made good progress with the cash generation that the business has had to reduce some of the debt, especially the additional term debt that we pulled last year in November, just before the listing, to do a pre listing dividend to the shareholders. We've managed to reduce a significant portion of that debt and have now gotten to a leverage ratio of around about 1.4 times. If we move to slide 13, around the divisional performance, you can see that the main engines of Premier, being our Millbake division, has really pulled strongly and has pulled strongly now across multiple reporting periods.
You guys will recall that last year we saw a massive increase in soft commodity inflation that really drove our revenue growth to almost 30% as we tried to push through some of the inflationary pressures through our pricing to the consumers. And we've seen the reverse of that trend this year, where commodity prices have really stabilized globally. We've seen a little bit of a deflationary side coming through, especially on the maize side, and that has resulted in us pushing some of those declines in pricing through to the market once again. That has caused our revenue growth to sort of flatten within the Millbake business.
But margins returning more to longer-term averages as we've managed to recapture some of the margin that we lost last year when the inflation was running very high. Just in terms of some specific operational items, our Pretoria Bakery really assisted us in this last six months. Last year, we only managed to fully commission that bakery at the end of September, beginning of October, so we've had the full benefit of six months' contribution in the last half year, and that has really pulled through and assisted us with efficiencies that have also improved our margins. Then we've also entered into the right category. We in month of May started to distribute a brand called Golden Delight.
It is owned by a company called Gold International, that have, up until this point, been pretty much a KwaZulu-Natal based business. We have taken the brand national using our distribution, sales, and merchandising infrastructure. And we effectively benefit in that business, as to the economies of scale of Premier by giving us a cost recovery of, our distribution, merchandising, and platform infrastructure costs. So, we, we quite in the early days of, of that brand going national, but, we are confident that we think that, this business will continue to make a meaningful contribution to the, cost structures, within Premier, where we will get some of a, cost relief, through the economies of scale that it adds.
If we move on to the groceries and international business, it's really, I guess, two different tales. On the one hand, we've got our milling and our HPC business being the Lil-lets and Dove brands, as well as the Mr. Sweet and Manhattan brands with Champion. Pulling really well, the business is performing well in South Africa, also Lil-lets in the U.K. having had a good six months performance, but the division being pulled down a bit by underperformance in our Mozambican business. The Mozambican operation at this point in time adds less than 2% of Premier's profitability. So it really is effectively a very small portion of our overall business and certainly not an element of big concern for us.
We continue to believe that we've got state-of-the-art facilities that have got big economies of scale, located in the right geographical location, with strong brands and good quality products. And that, as we believe the Mozambican economy will continue to perform better in the coming years, we certainly think that there's a good upside for that business to pull through. A manufacturing business ultimately is a very high cost based business, so you've got a lot of operational leverage. And as we see volumes and sales volumes going back to earlier years before all the economic meltdown occurred in Mozambique, I'm quite confident that we will see that profitability pulling through.
From an overall Lil-lets perspective, we've continued to invest a lot in our factory in Durban. We have relocated three Rootle machines back from Taiwan. We've always owned the machines, but they were located with a business partner of ours called K&H, and we decided to bring them back into our factory to further increase our economies of scale and to start to manufacture more of the fem care products for our UK business. And as those investments, together with the pads line that we put in three years ago, with a whole bunch of other investments around warehousing and logistics, we continue to see the unit cost of production in that facility coming down and really feel that we will be able to compete quite strongly in that area.
On the sugar confectionery side, once we had bought Mr. Sweet, which is now about 2, 2 odd years ago, we initially integrated the sales, merchandising, logistics, and back office functions. We have made huge inputs in terms of changing the way of working and the culture of the operation to become more in line with the Premier way. We have started with the harmonization of the factory footprints, whereby we creating centers of excellence, where we manufacture the same product across the different brands in one location. For the first step in that process was to manufacture marshmallows in our existing Manhattan factory, which is now making all the marshmallows in the group.
We have ordered a new licorice plant that will go to our Manhattan facility around August of next year. We've also started to change the manufacturing base for the speckled egg range to manufacture all of that in the same location, and a number of other projects that will follow on the back of that. I really do think that within the next two to three years, we would be able to step change the unit cost of production and the efficiency of our manufacturing footprint within that in the sugar confectionery business as well. We've launched some of the Lil-lets products on Amazon, the maternity and the teens ranges, and the early indications are that the sales have started to pick up quite nicely.
We've done some private label around Super C products into the US market as well, with a higher content vitamin C product that initial indications are also looking quite strong. So I think that we have made good investments in those businesses. And on the back of that, I've also decided to enter the scarring tissue lotion market. It's around Science of Skin, which is the product range that we had become aware of that had been developed by some medical specialists and plastic surgeons within the UK market. The quite strong support, research support behind them in terms of scarring on skin scarring.
We have effectively provided the commercial side of launching that product commercially within the UK and Ireland markets. Down the line, we'll also look at opportunity to bring it into the South African market. To further improve our economies of scale within the Mozambican business, we've launched the Sunbliss pasta range into the South African, initially only into the wholesale and independent trade. And on the back of the performance of that, we would look to eventually bring it into formal retail as well. But it certainly helps us in terms of economies of scale in our Mozambican business, especially after the work that we've put in over the last 2-3 years to completely refurbish and rebuild on all our pasta manufacturing capabilities.
That is just a highlight of the various items within our grocery business. If I now move to slide 15, around the income statement, I have given an overview previously of the highlights of the various numbers. And so, it just, from a divisional perspective, continues to show that, Millbake is the biggest division and really pulling strongly for us, and that I think that, as I've alluded to, our groceries international business will, has, has performed well other than the Mozambican operation. From a cash flow perspective, on the next slide, you can see the, cash flow generation coming through, from the improved performance.
I think it's worth noting that the month end in September, the thirtieth of September, fell over a weekend, and so a lot of our debtor cash flow only came in after month-end, otherwise our investment in working capital would've been quite a bit smaller than shown here, ZAR 222 million. Which means that our cash balances have been quite strong, and we've used the extra cash to make voluntary repayments on our RCF facilities, which always remains available to be redrawn should we need it in the future. From a CapEx perspective, we've continued to focus on our large CapEx projects, the biggest one of which is the shutdown of the Aeroton bakery that occurred at the end of July.
Which is a two-year project that will cost approximately ZAR 700 million to rebuild, so that project is in full steam underway. We've also continued to change the engines on our Mthatha Bakery while we're flying the airplane. The new cooler has gone in, and we will have a new oven in place before the end of our financial year, end of March. That will then also increase the capacity of that bakery by approximately 2,500 loaves per hour. Then I've covered all the repayments on the debt on that slide, but it is showing that our leverage ratio has then come down to the 1.4 level.
We anticipate in the remainder of the financial year, the second half, to see continued strong cashflow, and I think that we will be able to continue to make further repayments and bring the leverage ratio further down in the coming months. From an outlook perspective, I think it was a pleasing set of results. I think the business have executed well in terms of our margin management, in terms of driving the efficiencies across the business. We're gonna see sort of low single-digit revenue growth in the second half of the year as the deflation on the bulk commodities gets pushed through into the market. But we anticipate being able to continue our current financial performance into the second half.
We'll continue to benefit from reduced debt levels. Our debt, which is priced at probably just a little bit under about 10% per year at the moment, really does give us a lot of relief on the interest bill, to the extent that we can continue to draw to pay down the capital on the debt facilities. We'll continue to focus on our large bakery projects, the biggest of which, as I said, is Aeroton, and make sure that we get that facility up and running as quick as we can and really start to get the efficiencies out of that facility.
Then lastly, we have quite an extensive sustainability projects ranging all the way from environmental impact, where we try to make investments that improve our environmental footprint, to massive involvement in communities, where our brands are very strong and where we continue to make differences in the everyday lives of our consumers. With that, thank you very much for the opportunity to take you through the Premier section, and I hand over to Dean to start the Virgin section.
Thanks very much, Cobus, great results. Before I get into the specific Virgin Active performance and territory performance, I think it's important just to have a look at the overall wellness economy, the sector that Virgin Active and Kauai and New Play, just to see what is going on within the wellness economy. The Global Wellness Institute puts out an annual report, where they look at the various sectors within wellness, and growth since 2020 in the overall wellness economy has been at around 12% annually, putting the current wellness economy at about $5.6 trillion. They expect that growth to continue. In fact, they expect it to accelerate, with another 52% growth with the economy, the wellness economy hitting $8.5 trillion by 2027.
Specifically, what we see post-COVID is this continued mega trend towards fitness and overall wellness. It's no longer just a fad. It's no longer trendy or even a luxury. It's become an important part of people's lives and just a way of life. And one of the most important categories within the wellness sector is overall fitness. And fitness has almost become social currency. It's what people talk about. People form communities and tribes around it. Younger people are socializing around fitness. So really a strong movement to overall wellness. On top of that, there was a strong move, obviously through COVID, towards the digital wellness offerings. That has largely reversed, and there's a move towards what we call IRL, in real life experiences.
So, the move from URL to IRL. The social aspect of exercise is incredibly important. It's difficult to stay motivated to achieve your goals when you're exercising alone by yourself at home. And the social element has become increasingly important, and people want to exercise together. They want to exercise in spaces with other people, particularly as we see a big loneliness pandemic and a loneliness crisis. So the social element is becoming increasingly important, and we see our gym spaces being used not only for exercise, but as social spaces, people meeting at the spaces, people using the food and beverage offering, people using some of the workspaces. So really important as we see this move from digital to in real life.
So overall, the sector, the economy, the wellness economy growing exceptionally strongly. And specifically, Virgin Active is incredibly well positioned, we believe, to take advantage of that. We've got an incredibly strong platform, what we call our hardware of assets. We've got incredibly great locations in most of the major cities outside of America. I mean, incredible locations in Milan, in Florence, Rome, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Cape Town, Johannesburg, London. So really a strong platform of assets, and very difficult for competitors to replicate those specific locations in the city. So we believe a really good and strong moat built around the business, and really a strong ownership of that premium segment outside of North America.
We also have a really strong product innovation department, effectively our software of our business. We have two academies, one in Milan and one in London, where we deliver our, develop our own content, and that's whether it's yoga, reformer Pilates, boxing classes, Grid classes, strength and conditioning, which really gives us some unique IP in the marketplace compared to our competitors. And on top of that, Virgin Active is an incredibly well-recognized brand, global brand in the wellness space. So in addition to our existing locations, our ability at the right time to go into new locations with a recognized brand is enhanced because of the strength of the brand.
If I look specifically at the slide 20 that we on, and have a look at overall performance, for the first time now, we're at 90% of pre-COVID. As at the end of October, these are September numbers here, but as a group, we're at 90% of our pre-COVID levels. In October, for the first time, total membership, not active membership, but total membership, membership now exceeds 1 million. So strong recovery from post-COVID. In October alone, and on top of the numbers that you see there, we added another net member growth of 11,000 members.
Also important to note there on that slide, that 63% of our revenue is now earned outside of South Africa, though the southern business continues to remain robust and is the focus of us, we expect to see a continued increased share of our revenue and our EBITDA being earned outside of South Africa, with the significant growth opportunities coming from South Africa. And from a valuation point of view, the removal of this perception that we're a South African-focused business with the attached South African risks, as we start growing the revenue and the EBITDA outside of South Africa, we expect that to enhance valuations. If I look at South Africa specifically, one of the things that stands out on that slide is the terminations that remain elevated.
It's important to unpack that in a little bit more granular detail to understand those terminations. South Africa has a particular nuances that we don't see in other territories, in that our terminations are split between what we call arrears or financial terminations. Those are as a result of members having insufficient funds. We run debit orders, those come back unpaid. We don't see that in other territories. By and large, in other territories, in the UK, in Italy, across APAC, when someone joins the gym, they honor their contracts and the vast majority of time, have funds in their accounts, when those direct debits or debit orders run. As I say, South Africa has a particularly unique environment where we do have these unpaid or financial arrears.
Where the other portion of terminations are what we call member request terminations, and that's not as a result of financial means. Those are members getting to the end of their contracts, requested terminations, which are the same type of terminations that we see in other territories. When I look at the South African member request terminations, and these are the terminations that we've been working hard as a management team to address through initiatives like the loyalty and app, through personalization, through better product and customer service. We've seen a real improvement in those member request terminations. The member request terminations sits at around 30%. I think you'll see later on when we look at group terms, that 38%.
In South Africa, the member request, which is the equivalent to what we see in other territories, is at that low 38%. In particular, as Peter mentioned in the introduction, the August, September, October terms are significantly better than what we saw in August, September, October of 2019 in the member request, and that is as a result of those initiatives. And if we speak specifically around the app and the loyalty program, which we launched some four months ago, we are seeing really, really strong green shoots in terms of driving down the attrition percentage. If we look at a cohort of members, our low usage members, our members that are at risk of termination, those members we classify as people training less than one times per week.
We look at a cohort of those members pre-registering on the app, and we've compared them to their usage patterns for 12 weeks post-registration, and we've seen that usage go from 0.4 times up to just over 1 time per week usage. At 1 time per week, that member is far less likely to terminate their membership. And as I mentioned, we've seen that coming through in the member request terms, which have significantly decreased. So really positive green shoots. One of the big focuses of management, not only in South Africa, but across the territories, is how we reduce the attrition rate, and good to see that in South Africa, on the member request side, we're starting to see the benefits of that.
The app will be rolled out in Q1 next year in the UK, and we expect to see some of those benefits starting to come through in the second half of next year in the UK, and will be rolled out in Italy in Q3 next year. We do still face challenges on the financial or the arrears terms in South Africa. We have taken a number of steps to address that. That includes the promotional activity that we offer, no longer offering the upfront three months. We saw that led to the incorrect behaviors, not only from consumers, but from our sales teams as well, the free bags, et cetera. We've increased our joining fee.
We believe if someone is more invested and pays a higher joining fee upfront, they're less likely to terminate from a financial point of view. So various initiatives to address the arrears or the financial terms that we see in South Africa. From an Italy perspective, the business has performed even above expectations. Incredibly strong performance in all metrics in Italy. From a sales point of view, net membership growth, which brings into account terminations. It really is what we call a category killer. There is no one that can compete with the Italian business. There's some more small independent operators in Italy, but it certainly has established itself as the strongest and absolute killer in the category.
It's a very well-invested estate, so limited CapEx involved in investing in the existing estate. A very strong, what we call, group exercise offering, the boutique-like offering. All of those things drive down churn and establish a moat around the business. So we still see continued opportunities, particularly on the existing estate in yield, where we can yield up that estate quite significantly. But there are also new clubs that we can open in Italy, as we're still significantly under-penetrated in the Italian market, and opportunities to open new clubs in Italy, yeah. In the U.K., despite really, really tough trading conditions, and here we're talking about the last 12 months, so end of Q4 2022 through to 2023 this year. Tough conditions in the United Kingdom, some real economic headwinds.
Despite that, we've seen a decent membership growth. But as I mentioned, at the end of Q4 last year and the beginning of Q1 in 2023, there was still a significant impact of work from home, which impacted our CBD clubs in the United Kingdom. We have seen that in the last quarter start to reverse, and we see strong signs of recovery in the London CBD. So that not only drives our volume, but I think as Peter mentioned as well, those are high-yielding clubs in the United Kingdom. So as those clubs get stronger, we expect to see yield enhancement in addition to the volume increases in the United Kingdom. If I look at APAC, Singapore is now above pre-COVID levels, so a very strong performance there.
Thailand, to some extent, has lagged. It was the slowest to come out of the COVID restrictions. And in Australia, really a tale of two businesses there. Our CBD clubs, similar to London, but probably more pronounced there, so our CBD clubs in Melbourne, in Sydney, have been slow to slower to recover. We saw some sort of recovery, but it is still soft in the CBD. If I look at our residential clubs, which are actually the majority of our clubs in Australia, they're all of the residential clubs are now significantly above pre-COVID levels, so they perform exceptionally well.
But a focus on management in terms of those Melbourne CBD clubs, to ensure that as people come back to their clubs, come back to the CBD, we capture greater market share from that. From a head office point of view, important to note, we've done a very, very significant restructure of our head office structures. The business was very decentralized before. We had duplication of head office structures across all the territories, so Australia, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom, Italy, South Africa, all had its own head office structures. By the end of this month, the head office restructure will have been completed. We've moved to a much more centralized structure.
Not only does that obviously reduce costs significantly, we avoid the duplication of costs, but it also enables us to share best practices and knowledge and experience across our territories, enables far faster decision-making, and also facilitates future growth. In the past, if we wanted to go into a territory or a new territory or a city across Europe, we would generally have to go quite deep into that country because we would have to form a head office in that country, and therefore we would have to open multiple clubs. This new structure, which enables us to do single cities across Europe without needing to have a head office structure and utilizing that central structure.
So as I said, that process, completed by the end of this month, does deliver significant savings, but it also gears us up for, for future growth. If we can move to slide 21. Despite us to September 2023, we had some challenging first 3 months of this LTM period, still coming out of COVID. But despite that, all of the territories experienced robust membership growth over the 12-month period. We expect that to continue. In fact, we expect the membership growth going forward to accelerate and more in line with what we see in the last 3-6 months of the LTM period. And that's as a result of various initiatives that have been undertaken across all our territories in terms of membership growth.
There is a new incentive and sales commission structure that is focused less on units and more on revenue. So sales teams are now incentivized in terms of selling higher yielding products. They're incentivized to manage net member growth, so they also look at terms. All of these initiatives, including the rollout of the app and the loyalty in the U.K. and Italy, should see us continue a strong net member growth. Also in the territories that we operate in, we believe we are still under-penetrated when it comes to the gym membership model, including in South Africa. So with the existing estate, we see that there is still volume upside with the current club portfolio. We have even before, like in Italy, we where we look at potentially opening some new clubs.
If we move to the next slide, onto the key KPIs, I'm really positive now that group membership for the first time exceeds EBITDA break-even mark. We often speak about the operating leverage in our business, with 90 to 95% of revenue now falling to the bottom line once you get past that EBITDA break-even level. Particularly encouraging to see is that all territories except Australia are now EBITDA positive, and we see this incredible ability of these territories once we get past EBITDA positive, in terms of enhancing their revenue and their EBITDA. The attrition percent there at 38% is in line with best practice across the industry. But as I mentioned before, there's a focus from management to improve that further.
I mentioned earlier that, as I said, member request terms in South Africa sits at 30%, and if we can start improving the overall group and get that in line with the app and loyalty, with the rollout of our Group X program, the investment and the support from shareholders they provide in terms of the growth CapEx as we open different studios, all of that goes to improving the attrition percentage. We continue to focus, as I mentioned earlier, on the arrears terms as well. It's important for us in South Africa to look at that. Driving revenue as well will be the ancillary revenue. There's a new learn to swim program that was launched in South Africa that's approximately 20 clubs now are offering their own learn to swim program. It's exceeded expectations.
It's operating and generating margin and revenue, I mean, above our budget expectations. There's a new PT model, the Kauai business, in terms of ancillary revenue and the rental Virgin Active receives from Kauai, has been incredibly strong with high double-digit growth. Virgin Active Padel Club was launched, which brings in ancillary revenue, but it also works in terms of attrition, and providing additional service to our members. They're not needing to go outside our clubs to participate in paddling. We see that as a benefit in our attrition rate. From a yield perspective as well, important to note that the increase in yields that we've seen, but especially what we expect to see going forward, doesn't only come from headline price increases, in other words, our selling price increases.
There's a focus as well in terms of looking at the mix and what products we sell, premiumizing our products, moving away from some of the youth products and increasing some of the pricing on our young adult products, the removal of the once-a-week product in APAC, all products that reduce the yield there. So the yield enhancement will come, as I said, not only from price increases, but also from a sales mix as well there. If we move to the next slide? From a revenue point of view, with including the call, Kauai, sitting at year-to-date, ZAR 387 million. If I just look at October's numbers, and on annualized October's revenue on a twelve-month basis, that revenue now on an annualized basis is around ZAR 560 million.
The EBITDA that you see there at ZAR 13 million for the twelve months to September 2023, obviously having October and really good visibility in terms of what November's trading, we expect the EBITDA for the twelve months ending December to be at ZAR 25 million. And here I'm just demonstrating that impact of the operating leverage, where EBITDA, September 2023 is at 30, at December it's 25. It's all as a result of the territories being above breakeven, and you see that impact of the operating leverage, where the revenue starts to fall to the bottom line there. If we move to the next slide. Here, we're starting to look at the run rate, the annualized run rate, EBITDA.
Using the September number, as I mentioned, the actual to December 2023 will probably be in the vicinity of around ZAR 25 million EBITDA. The annualized September 2023 number is 30, but as Peter mentioned, if I use my October EBITDA and annualize that, we're at ZAR 48 million. Once again, the impact of the operating leverage in our business. So, the table on the right is demonstrating we put in our numbers and the valuations, September 2025 EBITDA of ZAR 118 million, and it seems a far stretch from where we are to call it December at 25, even in annualized, currently at 48. How does the business get to ZAR 118 million? Is that believable? Is it something that is achievable?
What we try to demonstrate in that table is that it's realistic, in fact, you could even say it's slightly conservative. So what do you need to believe for us to get to ZAR 118 million at September 2025? Well, one, you need to believe that we get back to pre-COVID levels. As I mentioned at the beginning, we're at 90%. We need to add another 10%. We need to get back to pre-COVID levels in two years' time, by September 2025, and I'll touch on the sales on the next slide. And then from a yield point of view, over the next two years, we need to add 5.5% growth on our September 2023 numbers. Once again, that's over a two-year period.
If I look at 2024, headline price increases are low. Those are the price increases we will put through in January of 2024. Those are all, if I average across the region, in around 6%-7%, at around CPI increases. What I mentioned earlier, and it's important to understand, is that 5.5% doesn't only come from headline price increases. That yield increase comes as a result of sales mixes, of changing our product mix, of selling higher yielding products. And also, as the revenue shifts to more of our international businesses, that yield increases as well.
Looking at that 5.5% and bringing that in perspective in terms of what we've actually achieved, growth from 2022, if you look at those numbers, the 2.5%, the four in South Africa, 6, 12, etc., it demonstrates that the 5.5% over the two years is achievable, and management certainly expect to achieve that and would hope to outperform that over time. From a sales point of view, how do we believe, how do we think we get back to pre-COVID levels in terms of our membership? If we start on the right-hand side of that graph, we look at the international business, current run rate of around 6,000 net member growth per month.
If we achieve 1.9, 1,900 net member growth, we get back to those pre-COVID levels. Obviously, as I've said, that international business is what will drive significant portion of our EBITDA growth are higher yielding products. So we strongly believe that those sales numbers getting back to pre-COVID levels in two years' time, September 2025, certainly in the international business, is very achievable. Within the South African business, the left-hand side graph there, slightly higher. We've got to do 3,700 sales a month compared to the current run rate. It is important to look and understand that the first part of this year was a challenging time. We're still, the new management team hadn't fully got to grips with the business.
And there's a lot of new initiatives, as I previously mentioned, that we believe will accelerate our growth. We shouldn't underestimate, as Peter mentioned upfront, the new Discovery contract that significantly lowered the joining fee within South Africa. That reduced joining fee does result in membership growth. We've changed the sales and operating structures in that the ops teams, the club managers have become more responsible for the sales teams. Previously, they were quite removed from the sales process and really just focused on the operations side, so we brought those teams together. New incentive structures, new ways we reward sales teams. So we believe in the South African context, the 3.7 net growth per month is achievable there. That's all from a slide point of view.
Just what's not in the slide, and I think important to mention, is that we've signed a management agreement for our club in Qatar. That's an, I was gonna say an asset-light business, but it's actually an asset zero, CapEx zero business. We're not required to put any capital into that business. We purely earn a license fee on revenues earned, and we also earn a share of profits there. We think it's important to prove out that model. This will give us a showcase, a showroom in the GCC region, and also, as I said, test that ability to roll out in new territories where maybe we don't necessarily want to do that with our own capital. So we're starting that contract to sign. We expect to have that club-...
At the end of the Q3, being the Q4 in 2024. So overall, if I can summarize, is that despite geopolitical risks that we've seen, geopolitical uncertainty and certainly economic headwinds, inflationary environments, the fundamentals of the industry, but particularly the fundamentals of the Virgin Active business, remain incredibly strong. Management continue to take defensive measures around cutting costs. We conserving cash, and we're extremely disciplined on where we invest our capital at the moment. But at the same time, we also believe we need to go on the front foot, we need to be offensive, we need to look at new opportunities. Things like the app and loyalty and innovation are important to our strategy going forward.
And all of that is around increasing the frequency of engagement of our members, whether it's in through our app in a digital environment, more engagement in clubs, and use the data that we're getting from that higher frequency of engagement to understand our members' needs better, to understand their goals, and provide a much more personalized solution that enables them to meet their needs. Through using that data, through personalization, we believe we can have an impact on churn, we can increase average spend per member, we can drive volume growth, and ultimately drive customer lifetime value for the business there. That's all from my side. Pete, back to you to look at valuations.
Thanks, Dean. And then before I, you know, touch on New Look and the valuations, again, you know, massive credit to you and the team. You guys have done a ton of work there that doesn't go unseen. We do see it, and we are extremely grateful for all the work that you guys have done, and we share your excitement about the business. Just quickly, a couple slides on New Look. So as I mentioned up front, you know, revenue down 11% year-over-year for the six months. Had a really, you know, two or three months that were tough. We started to see the, the back end of that, and things have started to look a bit better in the last two months.
But I think the first half of the year, and by that I mean the Q2 and Q3 of this year, have been tough for all of retail, fashion retail in the U.K. But I think very pleasingly, the strategy of management hasn't been to sell at all costs. You can see there the gross profit margin actually up year-on-year. So whilst there's been a slight decrease in the market share, you know, overall, they've managed to, despite an 11%, you know, reduction in revenue, see a much smaller reduction in actually gross profits. From an EBITDA perspective, obviously, it's a fixed cost business as well, 28% reduction year-on-year.
But I think, you know, reflecting on the year before that, where the business made, you know, GBP 2-3 million, I think still a decent result overall. We'll touch on a bit more detail on the environment itself. You know, it has been a tough, tough place to play from a weather, consumer confidence, cost of living perspective. They continue to be key factors, and I don't think any of us are sitting here today saying there's going to be any massive sun in the horizon. I came back from London this morning, and believe me, there was no sun in London. But, we do think, and many of the market commentators think, that probably a year out, you know, with hopefully interest rates starting to peak and come down, that the trading environment will be better.
Sales volumes were down across the board, both across, you know, retail, what we call retail, bricks and mortar, but also across, the online business, down 6%. But I think very importantly from this business's perspective, the refinancing of the debt, that we had with HSBC and extending that out to October 2026, has been a massive positive for the business. It's unlocked a whole lot of working capital, given us a new working relationship with Inditex, and I think, set the business up for success. You know, credit to management as well, costs under control, GBP 10 million down year-on-year in a pretty tough inflationary environment, and we still expect some further, cost reductions to come, in time.
So talking there quickly on the revenue and EBITDA, I think I've touched on most of these points. You can see revenue was 11%, EBITDA down 28%. As I said, mostly driven by lower volumes as opposed to gross margin. Gross margins were retained. Overall, like for like, sales declined 7.5% in the first half of the year. And as you can see, while, you know, in July, for example, it was down nearly 20%, it was down to only 6% decline in September. So we've definitely seen a pickup, and October continues to look slightly better. As we know in this business, the golden quarter, which is this quarter now, you know, to December, really makes or breaks this business.
And we would hope that, you know, we continue to see, you know, some strong performance in the Christmas quarter. Just touching quickly on the overall performance, I think we've broken it down into three buckets. You know, the general operating environment there, as I said, you know, tough, unseasonal weather, declining consumer confidence, cost of living, all of those things are massive impacts on a retailing business. You know, I think anyone who follows the weather in the U.K. will know it's either been pouring with rain, so you couldn't get out your house, or boiling hot, so that you wouldn't go and buy the autumnal wear that we've got out there. But we actually are starting to see, as I mentioned, you know, some really good full price demand for our autumn and winter products.
From a market perspective, the overall market was down. We kept our gross margin relatively high, and therefore, you know, from a business performance perspective, we were slightly down over the last six months in terms of market share, but retained our number two spot, you know, in the pack for value, i.e., we kept our gross margin. You know, from an outlook perspective, I think the focus of management remains on omni-channel customers, and we continue to invest and drive value out of our app and our website. From a margin perspective, we have seen margins improve, as I mentioned. Some of that has come through renegotiating with certain suppliers, and reducing seasonal markdowns. We'll obviously have to see how the Christmas quarter goes, but obviously, that sets up the business relatively well.
From a cost perspective, the management have taken a zero-based review of the entire business. As I mentioned, I think ZAR 10 million of costs we're seeing year-on-year savings this year, and we continue to see a focus on the whole logistics and distribution process, which we think will include some further cost cutting, particularly around automation. Just moving quickly on to the valuation, the last few slides. Again, we kept the format of this exactly the same, just touching on Virgin Active quickly. The September 2023 valuation is based off a September 2025 EBITDA. That number of 121 hasn't materially changed from March. Just to break that down to you, obviously, you've seen the exchange rate go from just under 22 to 22.
That 5% difference had around about a GBP 4 million impact on, on, on EBITDA, i.e., the South African EBITDA being translated into pounds, gets, got a GBP 4 million reduction. We've also lowered the forecast for South Africa, for the next, the next couple of years. That also reduced it by around about GBP 3 million. So overall, we've got a relatively similar number for September twenty-five of 2021. We've kept the multiple the same as we have since we started. You will see the net debt actually came down slightly, more a reflection of the fact that there was a GBP 50 million capital injection, in, into the business.
Therefore, overall, the actual value, if you took out the GBP 50 million capital injection, was down about 4% in pounds and up slightly in rand terms, given the depreciation in the currency. Just to touch on quickly, the convertible preference share that we talked about within the Virgin Active stable, at GBP 60 million, it will convert at the post-new money valuation that you see on this page. So take the equity value, pretty much the equity value today, you add the GBP 60 million to it, and that gives you the equity value that the GBP 60 million converts into. So it ends up with around about 8.5% of the company. If it converts into shares, including the interest rate, up that number would probably be close to 10%.
So relatively limited dilution from a Brait perspective, from a NAV per share basis. Just moving then lastly on to New Look. New Look, we've reduced the maintainable EBITDA just because of the first half of the year's traffic performance being down year-on-year. Clearly, it's going to be predicated on how December performs. Last year it was at 55. We've reduced that to 45. As we mentioned, with the refinancing of the debt facility and the improvements in working capital, we believe the business is in a better shape than it was a year ago, and we've increased the multiple to 6x, which still is a 40-odd%, 43% discount to the peer group average of 10.5.
Therefore, if you work that all the way down to the bottom, there's a slight increase from a pound perspective in the valuation of New Look year-on-year. That gets to the end of the presentation. So we'd be very happy to answer any questions, either online or on the call.
Thanks very much, sir. We will now be conducting the question and answer session. If you'd like to pose a verbal question, please dial in on the audio line on the information provided, and press star one on your telephone keypad or the keypad on your screen. For the benefit of the participants who have connected via the webcast, you are welcome to pose your written questions in the question box provided on your screen. Our first question comes from Greg Blanc of G.L. Blanc. Please go ahead.
Hi, Peter, once again, to you and your team. Well done, but just a little confusing, if you don't mind answering. What percentage does... do you own of the overseas operation, for starters?
Well, are you talking about Virgin Active, Greg?
Virgin Active, yeah, yeah.
Well, we don't split the two. It's, we own 67% of the holding company, which owns 100%-
So-
of the South African business and the international business. Yeah, 67.
Okay, so when I look at your valuation of ZAR 9.9 billion, and you've explained it exactly, you know, with obviously the capital injection, I presume that's for the 67%. So technically, you're valuing the whole of Virgin at ZAR 14.4 billion. Is that correct?
No, if you see on that page the equity value of ZAR 588, right? That's the value for 100%. We own 67% of that.
Right.
We own, we own our share of the shareholder funding as well, obviously. And so, yeah, so if you gross our number up by 67%, you'll get to that number, yeah.
Okay. Then just, and obviously my accounts is not as good as yours. I'm just trying to work it out logic. I mean, if in theory, you had to sell the gyms on an enterprise value, I mean, your total debt in that entity is ± GBP 450 million. Is that correct?
Yes, including the debt adjustment, yes.
Okay. So effectively, if I did a deal, you know, there's very little equity value for shareholders. That's really what I'm getting to. I mean, in theory-
Yeah. You know, you've got to look at the enterprise value to start with, right? So the enterprise value before debt is about 1... call it EUR 1.1 billion for the business, right? Then in addition to that, it's got EUR 450 million of debt, which leaves you with shareholder value of EUR 637 million.
Okay. So, so in other words, you're telling me 637 times the 24 will give me close to EUR 3 billion. Is that correct?
637-
In theory.
Times what, what 34 are you talking about? 24, you talking about?
Well, no, I'm just looking at, I'm just looking at, the currency, if, if what we're talking about now.
Oh, if you put it into rand. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, into rand.
Yeah.
So-
Yeah, so if you put that into rand, that's ZAR 23 per share, yeah.
Yeah. So ideally, all I'm looking at is that on a sale, because, I mean, I see EP came out with a very interesting statement that they weren't gonna do further sort of investments, and are looking to return value to shareholders, as I guess that echoed through you guys at Brait. So, you know, I come on to my beleaguered question, is how are shareholders gonna get that return value? Because Premier's done exceptionally well, which always defers me back to the question is: When will the time be to actually do a book build with Premier, get rid of that bond, or are you gonna wait till the end of 2024, and then hopefully get some valuation for the gyms? Because clearly, once again, your metric for the gym is not flowing through to the share price.
and I see Dean obviously doing a great job, but the market's not realizing that or accepting it at this stage.
Yeah. So, Greg, as we said before, you know, the way to get its value back to shareholders is either to sell the gyms, right, for cash and return that to shareholders, or probably more likely, unbundle the shares so the shareholders do get a direct stake in Virgin Active, you know, post the end of Brait's life. So that's the way we intend to get value back to shareholders, in which case, the market will decide there shouldn't be a discount because you'll be a direct holder into Virgin Active as a listed entity.
No, that's why I understand. That's always been my point, is rather let the market decide, than go based on your valuation. At least we'll get some sort of true realization what the share is really worth. Because even on a dilutive basis... And sorry, Peter, I'm driving, so I'm a little bit distracted. Is that on a dilutive basis, if you cash in that bond, it gets to about ZAR 5.58 a share. So the share trading at currently ZAR 2.30, you still at a massive discount to the net, whichever way you look at it. So I'm trying to work out in my mind, how do we get closer to that net? Or how, how do you maintain, how do you get to GBP 121 million of sustainable EBITDA, or are you talking to 2, to 2025?
Yeah, so those numbers, as Dean mentioned, currently on a run rate basis, if that's the best way to look at it, you know, as of October, the business makes, let's round these numbers up to GBP 50 million, right?
Right.
The GBP 50 million to get to GBP 120, as Dean said, requires 10% incremental members and a 5.5% increase in yields, you know?
Yeah.
So that might not take to September. It might take a year, it might take two years. But we've assumed it takes two years, and then put it on a multiple. So clearly, as the closer you get to that point, Greg, hopefully the market will reflect a better valuation for Virgin than it does through Brait today. Until we repay the convertible bond, it is impossible contractually to unlock value for -
Yeah.
give value back to shareholders, yeah.
Now, that I understand fully. And then one last question, if you don't mind, Peter. Can you disclose who your other shareholders are? You're only putting 10% of equity into the Pref shares, raising the money. Can you disclose that, or are they banks, is it privates, or, or what?
No. Well, so I mean, I'll tell you the shareholding currently that sits within Virgin Active, we own 67.4, as you know.
Correct.
Virgin, around 17%, from recollection. Dean and Brait own about 7.5%, and Titan owns 7.5%.
Great.
So the rest of the convertible bond has been largely taken up by the other shareholders, non-Brait shareholders.
Ah, okay. All right. Understood. Thanks once again, Peter. Thanks, guys.
My pleasure. Thanks, thanks, thanks, Greg.
Much appreciated. Bye.
See you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Pierre Brossy of HBK. Please go ahead.
Hey, Peter and team, congrats on a good set of results. Very nice to see positive news of all the businesses, pretty much. Just one thing on the Virgin Active preference shares, is that a mandatory convertible, or is it at the option of either you guys or the investors? And then the 8.5% dilution, is that including your sort of 6 million contribution, or is that just the non-rate shareholders?
So, Pierre, so look, it's difficult to get into the exact detail because there's many different ways. But, the honest answer is it can be equity settled under many different options, right? It all depends on, you know, what outcome. For example, the business is listed, needs to be equity settled. If it's sold, equity settled. Obviously, there are some instances where it would front rank, and therefore wouldn't be equity settled. But I think in the main, very similar to the exchangeable bond that Brait did, it can be equity settled, you know, at the election of the company. From the dilution perspective, the numbers I've run, assuming we do put in the money and it does convert, you know, that dilution would be minimal, as I said, the number that you mentioned. So, yeah.
So, does that answer your question?
Yeah. So the 8.5% stake is basically for the full ZAR 60 million?
Yes, but remember, you'll have interest rolled up, so it might be closer to 10. Round numbers, the 60 will convert, if it converts into around about call it 10% of the company, including the interest roller.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you.
Thank you. At this stage, we have no further questions from the conference lines. I will now hand over for questions from the webcast.
Okay. The first is from David Eborall at SaltLight Capital Management. Thanks, David. On Virgin Active, could you clarify that you recently participated in a GBP 50 million rights issue, and now there's a convertible pref for 60. What kinds of return are you expecting on this new capital? Can the Virgin business earn its weighted average cost of capital, and when do you expect this? So David, yes, there was a GBP 50 million rights issue in, I think it was completed in May, which we discussed at the last results.
As I said at the last results, for any new growth capital going forward, where we find projects or where Dean and his team find projects that exceed not your weighted average cost of capital, but your cost of equity, we will look at those, and we would, you know, decide whether to deploy the GBP 60 million as a new convertible issue... money into those projects. So yes, this is a separate, 60-50 million was completed in May. This is a new instrument. As I mentioned, it's based off today's current valuation on a post-money basis. In terms of what kinds of capital are you expecting, Dean and his team, we had a board meeting yesterday, and I'm not going to get into the detail of it.
Ran a whole lot of numbers on, you know, what returns the businesses have made, and this was a South African-focused discussion, but it's actually extraordinary what returns South African businesses made over the last 15 years. And I say extraordinary, very extraordinary. Not your weighted average cost of capital, but returns of capital north of 30% on a gym by gym basis. So we are highly confident, highly confident that... And we've seen it. Let me give you one example, and I know Dean's probably chomping at the bit also to answer. On Wimbledon, we've just spent money on refurbishing the Wimbledon site. We went there on Monday morning to go to the gym. It's looking absolutely fantastic. Now, let's say it costs you somewhere in the region of GBP 3 million to do so.
The yields on that business are going to go up from probably in the 70s, early 70s, up to probably in the region of GBP 125-GBP 145 a month. The payback on a deal like that is probably just over 12 months. So, you know, these, where you find the right opportunities and you've got the right estate and the right place in the market, there's absolutely money well above your weighted average cost of capital. If we're only gonna earn our weighted average cost of capital, we won't put the money into a project, that's for sure. So I think we are highly confident that where the right opportunities exist, we will then draw down on the 60 and put it into opportunities like this. Next is from Dylan Griffiths at Foord.
Can you comment on the possible book build of the remaining Premier stake?" No. We can't. Obviously, we can't. I mean, it remains an option for us to, at some point, potentially sell that stake or unbundle it to shareholders, but I'm obviously not gonna comment on anything more formally than that. Wallace Barnes: "What is your preferred option to raise liquidity to fund settlement of the convertibles or exchange? The market seems unsure about your ability to do this without another capital injection. Can you alleviate the concerns?" It's not for me to decide which it is, it's for the board to decide. We had a board meeting two weeks ago in Mauritius. The board... There's probably five or six or seven different alternatives that the board is considering. All have different implications.
The only thing I would say to the market, and it's not gonna alleviate the concerns, is every single time the board is needed to come up with a solution for either funding in the portfolio companies, funding at a break level, they've done it in a way that has minimized dilution and maximized value for shareholders. I think the market should take comfort from the fact that the board will continue to look after its stakeholders, look at all options, and will ensure that it does something that is in the best interest of all shareholders. Those are the only questions I have.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions from the lines or the webcast. I will now hand back to Peter Hayward-Butt for closing remarks.
Well, so thank you very much for that, and most, you know, most grateful to all of the stakeholders who've taken the time today. I understand what is your point of view, where the, the shares are trading. It's frustrating for all of us. I think the work that Dean and his team, and Kobus and his team have done around the, you know, the key assets within the portfolio should give people comfort that these assets are more than just heading in the right direction, and more than having just turned the corner. They really are great assets with great potential, and that will take time to realize that potential. We accept the point, and I think we should also say that the board continues to make sure that it's focused on, as early as possible, expediting returns of capital to shareholders.
I hope that will give everybody comfort. But we really appreciate your time and your support, and thanks for taking the time. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's event. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.