Boxer Retail Limited (JSE:BOX)
South Africa flag South Africa · Delayed Price · Currency is ZAR · Price in ZAc
8,564.00
+614.00 (7.72%)
May 11, 2026, 5:00 PM SAST
← View all transcripts

Earnings Call: H2 2026

May 11, 2026

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Morning. Welcome to our Boxer results presentation for the financial year ending March 1st, 2026. I am Marek Masojada, the CEO of Boxer. With me is my colleague, our Boxer CFO, David Wayne. We're presenting to you this morning from our Boxer head office situated in Westville, near Durban. Today's presentation will follow the usual format of four parts. Firstly, I will give a high-level overview of the highlights of our performance of the year, followed by David presenting a more detailed look at the financial results.

I will give an update on key initiatives we are working on and comment on our current trade and outlook for the year ahead. We will move into a Q&A session. We encourage you to send through any questions you have as we go through the presentation using the facility on the webcast broadcast. Our Boxer Investor Relations Executive, Stephen Carrott, will accumulate the questions coming through, and David and I will do our best to answer.

David and I are once again proud to represent the Boxer team across South Africa and Eswatini and share with you a positive set of results which reflect the strength and resilience of the company and the importance of Boxer's value offering in the daily lives of the communities we serve. The company has performed well and is delivering on both our financial and operational strategies and goals. For the past 12 months, we have been operating in a significant deflationary environment. We have seen reductions in selling price exceeding 25% in key commodity categories, which along with the value given by the Boxer rewards program, have brought much needed relief to our consumers.

Within the context of this environment, it is pleasing to report that Boxer has achieved healthy like-for-like volume growth in our existing store estate, coupled with an outstanding turnover contribution from our new stores. This has driven turnover momentum, resulting in consistent monthly market share gains over the year. In September 2025, we celebrated the milestone of store number 550 at Bridge City, KwaMashu, Durban, and by year end, our estate had grown to 576 stores.

We have taken the Boxer Retail offering to new areas and communities, and we're especially proud to open three stores, one across each of our formats, in the community of KwaThema, on the banks of the Msunduzi River in KwaZulu-Natal, a remote and previously underserved area. This development has changed the lives and opportunities for all in the community. We have achieved a significant growth in our trading profit, driven by strong sales, underlying volume growth, and new income streams. Significant scale benefits have offset the additional expenditure we took on as we listed, as well as the costs of our new distribution center.

Over the year, we expanded our workforce by 3,400 staff members, taking our total Boxer team to over 35,000. To support the expansion of the business and the development of our team, Boxer has extensive and exceptional in-house training, which was recognized during the year by the Wholesale and Retail SETA, with Boxer winning no less than 10 awards at their Annual Prize Giving. Our return on invested capital, or ROIC, remains sector leading, showing that our expansion program and new investments have maintained our enviable historical returns and adding significant value to the business.

In line with our guidance at IPO, I'm particularly pleased to report that the strong cash generation over the year has enabled the paydown of the ZAR 850 million long-term debt taken on at the time of the IPO. Boxer has during the course of the year introduced a dividend policy at 40% of HEPS. Our maiden dividend was paid to shareholders on December 8th last year. The board has also approved a final year-end dividend at the same payout ratio.

The Boxer team has executed well on key strategic initiatives. Our B Rewards program, launched in October 2024, is a valuable benefit to our customers, who are given continuous benefit and reward for shopping at Boxer. During the course of the year, we launched our internally developed B-Inside Supplier Portal, offering our supplier partners valuable consumer insights. This is a new income stream for Boxer.

A key project for delivery this past year has been the commissioning of our seventh distribution center, situated at oThongathi in KwaZulu-Natal, which opened smoothly in September 2025. This is a significant investment project in which Boxer has a 50% share in the ownership of the facility. We have created capacity to serve our growing store base. The DC is running efficiently. The economies of scale across our supply chain have enabled us to avoid the expected negative margin impact.

To summarize our key financial achievements in numbers, Boxer grew its turnover for the year by 12.3% with like-for-like turnover at 4.5% on a 52 versus 52-week comparison with last year. Trading profit grew by an exceptional 17.3% with a trading margin of 5.7% supported by exceptional margin management, new income streams created, economies of scales from volume growth, and good cost management. At PBT, profit before tax, we hit a new milestone in our history, surpassing ZAR 2 billion for the first time. Our net cash position of ZAR 709 million at year-end shows significant change from last year's net debt position. Our ROIC achieved for the year was 26%, an increase over the prior year.

As mentioned earlier, we are pleased to confirm a final dividend in line with our 40% payout ratio of ZAR 0.9537 per share, bringing our total dividend paid for the year to ZAR 1.4067. The calendar year 2025 represented our 48 year of existence. From the humble beginnings of two stores in Empangeni, KwaZulu-Natal, the vision of the Boxer team has been to grow the business into a significant national player through long-term sustainable growth built on a strong consumer value proposition, a solid infrastructure, robust IT systems, and processes across our stores, DCs, and support office, and a resilient business model.

We have a proud history of consistent growth in both turnover and profitability, which is reflected in the 15.1% CAGR or 76% growth in turnover over the past four years, and a 17.5% CAGR or 91% increase in our trading profit over the same four-year period. These are outstanding achievements and performances in a challenging economic environment. Our consistent turnover and profit growth is driven by two components, driving like-for-like in our existing stores and adding quality new stores to our estate, which has added a positive contribution to both sales and profitability.

In our FY 2026 year, we were extremely pleased to record a turnover growth contribution of 7.8% from our unlike stores, which is represented as the difference between our total turnover and our like-for-like turnover growth measures. The bottom left-hand graph reflects that we have been able to achieve consistent mid-single-digit like-for-like volume growth over the past three years. During the financial year, Boxer opened 54 new stores across our three formats. This was below our target of 60. However, despite the small miss, we were very satisfied with the 7.8% sales contribution from our FY 2025 and 2026 un-like stores.

It is important to remind you that we regard this percentage contribution to sales of our new stores as the most important measure rather than obsessing over the absolute number of stores opened. We apply rigorous selection to our new store opportunities and comfortable following a quality over quantity philosophy. Boxer still has a significant runway to open stores across the country, and the liquor catch-up remains a good opportunity. 61% of our superstores now have a liquor offering, which is up from the 55% of last year. I will now hand you over to David for the detailed financial results.

David Wayne
CFO, Boxer

Thank you, Marek. I'm pleased to present our results for the financial year end March 1, 2026. The Boxer team has delivered an exceptional set of results, and I'm proud to take you through the performance achieved over the year. Turning to the financial highlights, on a comparable 52-week basis, turnover increased by 12.3% to ZAR 46.7 billion, with like-for-like growth of 4.5%. Gross profit margin improved by 30 basis points to 21.6% of turnover. Trading expenses at 16.8% of turnover was up 20 basis points versus FY 2025. This resulted in trading margin increasing by 30 basis points to 5.7%.

EBITDA increased by 12.8% to ZAR 4 billion, while headline earnings increased by 13.2% to ZAR 1.6 billion. Overall, the business delivered strong growth in both revenue and absolute earnings during the year. Looking at some of the key income statement drivers behind the results. Trading profit increased by 14.3% for the year or 17.3% on a comparable 52-week basis. This was due to the combined impact of gross margin expansion of 30 basis points and strong growth in other trading income of 25%, which together more than offset the increase of trading expenses of 10.9%.

The growth in other trading income was driven by income from the B-Inside supplier portal, together with double-digit growth in value-added services. On diesel costs, the majority of the spend is captured within cost of goods sold, with a smaller portion reflected in trading expenses. This portion relates to generator operating costs and stores. Total diesel spend for FY 2026 was approximately ZAR 310 million. Net finance charges increased by 31.3% during the year, while the effective tax rate improved by 1.2 percentage points to 26.3%.

Gross profit increased from ZAR 9.1 billion- ZAR 10.1 billion, with gross margin increasing from 21.3%- 21.6%. During the year, we continued to reinvest into customer price in support of the Virtuous Circle strategy. This price investment reduced our point of sale margin by 70 basis points. This was more than offset by an excellent margin mix management and scale benefits, which resulted in overall gross margin expansion for the year. It is an exceptionally good outcome when we can invest in price for our consumers and still report an expanded gross margin.

It is worth noting that our internal sell price inflation of - 1.2% is substantially below Stats SA food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation of + 4.4%. The impact of supply chain costs on gross margin was effectively neutral, as efficiencies across the broader supply chain offset the expected initial drag associated with the Tongaat DC. Trading expenses increased by 10.9% to ZAR 7.8 billion. Trading expenses as a percentage of turnover increased modestly to 16.8% compared to 16.6% in FY 2025.

Employee costs increased by 10.4%, driven by employee growth, above inflation wage increases, and share-based payments expenses, and these were partially offset by increased employee tax incentives. Occupancy costs increased by 9.4%, reflecting annual lease escalations and continued store growth. Operations costs increased by 12.3%, primarily driven by higher PPE depreciation, electricity costs, and IT spend. Merchandise and admin costs increased by 11%, mainly due to increased card commissions and promotional marketing costs.

Included within the FY 2026 trading expenses were ZAR 31 million of ongoing listed entity costs, as well as a non-cash expense of ZAR 81 million relating to the IPO admission award. These costs are now fully incorporated in the base going forward. You'll be pleased to know that there will be no need to refer to them in future presentations. Net finance charges increased 31.3% during the year. The key driver was the swing in funding costs. In FY 2025, the group earned ZAR 45 million reduced to ZAR 1 million of net interest income in FY 2026.

This change reflects the impact of the balance sheet restructure associated with the IPO. Lease liability interest has also grown. This is in line with our accelerated store rollout strategy. We closed the year with net cash of ZAR 709 million compared to net debt of ZAR 180 million in February 2025. During the year, ZAR 650 million of long-term debt was repaid, and the remaining ZAR 200 million was settled subsequent to year-end.

It is worth noting that following the rapid de-gearing of the balance sheet, we expect to return to a healthy net interest income position in FY 2027. I point you to the fact that this has already started to play out. We had a net funding interest paid in H1 of FY 2026, and this shifted to a small net interest income in H2. The amount owed by Pick n Pay relates to overnight card acquiring settlement transactions and forms part of the normal day-to-day cash flow management processes. Net working capital remained negative at ZAR 498 million at year-end, compared to a ZAR -919 million in FY 2025.

A notable feature of this result is the ZAR 900 million investment in inventory during the year. This equated to an increase of 26.3% to ZAR 4.3 billion. The increase was driven by, number one, strategic buy-ins, also investment in new and existing stores, as well as incremental inventory relating to the Tongaat DC. You will note that the ZAR 111 million of inventory indicated for the Tongaat DC is relatively a small number. This is because its net of stock moved over from the existing KZN DC network. Trade and other payables increased by 9.4%, broadly in line with the cost of goods sold. Importantly, networking capital as a percentage of turnover remained negative at 1.1%, continuing the strong cash generative characteristics of the business.

Boxer incurred total capital expenditure of ZAR 1 billion during FY 2026, with 67% of the spend allocated to expansion CapEx. Store CapEx totaled ZAR 643 million, primarily related to the continued investment in the store network, while the prior year included a higher level of refurbishment activity within the existing store base. Supply chain DC. IT and other CapEx totaled ZAR 208 million and included investments in a new business intelligence platform and a point of sale hardware refresh.

The new business intelligence platform also enabled the launch of our B-Inside initiative. Boxer generated ZAR 1.1 billion of free cash flow during the FY 2026. This is despite the investment in inventory and both maintenance and expansion CapEx. If you look at free cash flow from the existing operations only, i.e., excluding expansion CapEx, our free cash flow generation for the year would be ZAR 1.8 billion.

The business also utilized ZAR 60 million for share repurchases relating to the new long-term incentive scheme. Headline earnings increased by 13.2% for FY 2026. This is despite several factors impacting comparability. These included the additional trading week in the FY 2025 base, the ongoing costs associated with being a listed entity, the expensing of the IPO admission award, and higher interest charges relating to external debt raised at time with the IPO. As part of the IPO, 157.4 million shares were issued, taking the total ordinary shares in issue to 457.4 million shares.

This had a significant impact on HEPS, as the new shares were included in the FY 2026 weighted average number of shares for a full 12 months. This compared to only three months in the FY 2025 base. As a result, WENOS increased by 33.2% year-on-year to 453 million shares. Accordingly, our absolute earnings growth was 13.2%. HEPS declined by 15% to ZAR 3.5167 per share. This is due to the dilution impact from the IPO share issuance.

We believe absolute headline earnings growth is a more appropriate measure to assess the underlying operational performance of the business in FY 2026. With the IPO dilution now fully reflected in the base, future per share earnings growth will more closely align to absolute earnings growth. In closing, thank you for your time and attention, and I'll now hand you back to Marek to take you through our strategic outlook.

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Thank you, David. The Boxer Virtuous Circle was introduced to the business in 2019 and has remained a critical tool used across the organization. Constantly evolving, we have added powerful levers under our four core pillars to drive momentum and strengthen our business model. A year ago, we added innovation as a fifth core pillar as we identified the opportunity and the need to introduce new business offerings. Key innovation projects have been developed and executed in record time, which have added significantly to our consumer offering as well as strengthening our business model through the new income streams created.

In late 2024, we launched our Boxer Benefits and More Rewards card, known as the Boxer B Rewards loyalty program. To date, we have reached a membership of 2.7 million customers with constant monthly signups taking place as more consumers enjoy the discounts and value-added benefits given through the program. In mid-2025, we launched our B-Inside Supplier Portal, allowing our supplier partners access to rich data showing consumer shopping patterns and behaviors.

A significant portion of our suppliers are taking advantage of this offering, which allows them to plan their growth strategies. In 2026, we are extremely excited to have recently launched the latest project on our innovation journey, Boxer Retail Media. B Media enables brands to connect with customers through advertising across Boxer's media channels. We are building a forward-thinking retail ecosystem that benefits our customers, our suppliers, and the broader market.

We believe B Media has the potential to become a significant growth engine for Boxer's future and will allow us to reinvest in our core promise of never pay more than the Boxer price. Our first retail media collaboration went live last night on e.tv with the screening of an exciting cooking show, The Inyama Battle, a collaboration between Boxer and 10 key partners. We are on a quest to discover South Africa's best street food chef, with incredible prizes on offer and the showcasing of well-loved South African brands.

Tune in every Sunday on e.tv at 5:00 P.M. to enjoy the cook-off. Our volume and value pillars remain critical drivers of growth, and we continue to improve on our store offering and our customer value proposition, staying true to the elements that make the Boxer discount format unique. The tight range, constantly reviewed for relevance and impact, strong market-leading promotional campaigns bringing excitement and value, new combos and multi-buys, and powerful service departments acting as strong draw cards.

The result presented today reflects an outstanding performance, which has been delivered through exceptional management of turnover, promotions, gross margin, and other drivers. Recent turnover trends are lower than those experienced in the second half of last year. We have seen deflation continue into the new financial year. We are receiving notice from many of our suppliers of pending price increases. While we will do our best to maintain prices for as long as possible, it is inevitable that there will be a return to an inflationary environment. We plan this year to open 60 new stores. We are confident in our ability to deliver this number.

Of the 60 planned, 82% of leases have been signed, 64% of new developments are in the ground, and 93% of our liquor license have been submitted for approval. Since the commencement of the new financial year, we have opened three super stores and seven liquor stores. Our FY 2027 CapEx spend is planned at ZAR 1.1 billion, with our expansion program making up the major share of the spend. The energy crisis brought on by the conflict in the Middle East has led to significant increases in the price of diesel and paraffin from April, which we are currently absorbing.

We will continue to carefully manage all available levers to offset the impact of these additional costs. Boxer has a strong track record of nimbly and proactively managing its income statement through periods of external disruption. Finally, we are pleased to now have a normalized earnings base, fully representative of our listed status, associated cost structures, and shares in issue, which simplifies future commentary and analysis. David and I wish to convey our thanks to the Boxer Board of Directors for their support, insight, and diligence.

We also give sincere thanks to our Boxer colleagues and team members, the Boxer group executive, our support office staff, and the thousands of Boxer staff members across our stores, our DCs, and our meat factory. You do an incredible job ensuring that our customers are always top of mind, experiencing the best Boxer has to offer, and entrenching our position as South Africa's favorite discount supermarket. Well done, and thank you. We now are going into our Q&A session, and Stephen Carrott will pass the questions through to David and myself. Stephen, over to you.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you, Marek. The first question is from Ya'eesh Patel , but we've got a similar question from Michael Jacks and Michael de Nobrega . Congratulations on a solid set of results. How should we think about flex on the dividend policy as gross debt is now at zero?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Thanks, Stephen. That is a high-quality problem that we've been starting to talk about. I think from a Boxer perspective, we're always looking for opportunities to invest, to expand, the growth of the company and to deepen the moat that protects our business model. I think, going forward, it's the job of the board and obviously the executive of Boxer to determine what levels of cash we want to hold within the business, and then we will direct our mind towards the impact on the dividend policy going forward.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. We have a second question from Ya'eesh. What are your expectations for inflation into H1 FY 2027 and FY 2027 overall? How quick are supplier increases expected to come through?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Yes. As you know, I spoke about in our outlook, we are seeing a multitude of price increases coming through from our supply base, and we expect that to play out as the year continues. It is offset by still some large deflation that's taking place in our key commodity category. Very difficult to give any type of outlook. I think at the moment we're still in the deflationary environment, and it will play out over the next couple of months, and we'll get a better view on what to expect in the second half.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. Another question from Ya'eesh. What led to the store expansion in Superstores not meeting guidance?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

I think, you know, the property rollout remains a key strategy of Boxer under the expansion leg of our pillar. I think, you know, we have a very strong pipeline, both for the year ahead and the year thereafter. It is the nature of the beast that things happen that affect building timelines, etc . We did miss our absolute store number, as I said in my commentary, I think very happy with the 7.8% contribution to our total turnover.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. I have a question on margin guidance from a few of the people on the call. The first one is from Michael Jacks of Bank of America. It says, you guided in the last year for margin compression but achieved the opposite for FY 2026. Should we still expect the trading margin to trend down in FY 2027 and beyond?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

We were very pleased with the way the economies of scale that were driven by the volume increases in our, in our like-for-like business flowed through. We were expecting, as you say, a compression in the margin, mainly due to the impact of opening our Tongaat Distribution Center. You know, we were delighted at the end of the year to see that that didn't take place, and that what really led to the increase in our, in our guided margin of last year.

I think, you know, our intention is always to make sure that Boxer leads the market in terms of our value proposition for our customers, and we think that that is what has rewarded us with our turnover result. We would see in going forward that maybe a flat margin outlook. I think, you know, as we've articulated, there's so many variables that are going on in the market at the moment that we're a little bit cautious to give an outlook as to what direction that will go in. You know, we will be striving forward to, you know, make sure that our income statement remains protected.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

We have an additional question from Michael, as well as Sa'ad Chothia from Citigroup. The question is, what is your diesel usage in liters per annum, and basically, how are you dealing with the higher direct fuel costs that you've experienced since March and April? Do you have plan to absorb these or pass these through?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Thanks, Stephen. Yes, I think we've given the number in our presentation. Our diesel spend for last year came in at ZAR 310 million. The recent increases in diesel are most unwelcome, and in fact, part of the good result that the efficiencies in our supply chain of last year were because of the lower diesel prices we experienced in 2025 versus the prior year. These current increases are most unwelcome, and yes, the costs will flow through, you know, many different areas of the business, both the direct costs in terms of our diesel spend, but also in the impact that it has on input costs for products such as packaging, etc .

We are currently absorbing the impacts of these costs. To give a number, we expect that if the diesel prices remain at current levels, an impact of around ZAR 15 million a month on the income statement, which we've absorbed. The first month was lower because we had taken a proactive steps to make sure that we had stocks of diesel, etc . We will be using every lever possible to make sure that diesel increase doesn't filter down into price.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

We have a question from Shamil Ismail of Primar esearch. What is the liquor sales contribution for the group? Is the liquor gross profit margin higher than the group margin? Thank you. I think, David, that one is for you.

David Wayne
CFO, Boxer

Yes. Thanks for the question. Liquor margin is slightly lower than the rest of the store, as you would appreciate, the OpEx cost is also lower. We see a fairly similar trading margin on the liquor basis.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. Another one from Sa'ad. You provided guidance a year ago that FY 2026 sales growth would be low teens, and the growth came in at roughly that. Can you give FY 2027 sales guidance? Marek, I think that one's for you.

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Sa'ad, thank you. I think we've given some guidance in our outlook statement. I think, you know, the sales volumes and growth at March and April are below what we experienced in the second half of last year. I think there are many variables that are going to determine how that plays out towards the end of the year. Ideally, we've given a guidance that, you know, low teens was our long-term goal. I think there are going to be a few management things to manage during the course of this year in terms of our new store rollout. Obviously, deflation, inflation impacts on our like-for-like sales. Unwilling to give a definite number at the moment, but we will be giving updates later on in the year.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. This one's for David, from Sa'ad. What was the headline earnings per share growth versus FY 2025 if you look at FY 2025 on a 52-week restated basis?

David Wayne
CFO, Boxer

Yes, thank you. On a headline earnings basis of 52 weeks, it would've been higher naturally, when we calculate it, but we have not disclosed that number, Stephen.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. Okay. A question from Michael de Nobrega . Can we get some more color on the margin mix initiatives and scale benefits that supported the gross profit margin in FY 2025, and how sustainable do you believe the your FY 2025 margin gains are over the over the medium term?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Right. I mean, we have given some color on that in our presentation. I think, you know, margin management during the course of last year was one of the highlights of the year. I think our commercial team did an exceptional job in managing our turnover promotional mix, and, you know, that includes supporting different categories, promoting different categories, enhancing performances within our service departments, all enabling us to maintain a market-leading customer value proposition, but also to generate the margin required to be a successful business.

Once again, going forward, I think, you know, every day we working on the different elements to support that business model, be it coming from new income streams that we've put in place that would support the value proposition that we give through to customers. You know, this will play out during the course of the year. The inflationary environment that is ahead of us will give some opportunities for buying in to support margin, etc . At the moment, we're not making any formal forecast, but we will be endeavoring to keep margin levels consistent.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. A question from Ken Osei of the IFC. Congratulations to Boxer and the entire organization on the very impressive results. Does management see opportunities to increase Boxer's supplier base, broadening access by new suppliers to Boxer while maintaining cost control?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Ken, thank you for the question. I think, you know, the development of new suppliers is, you know, really a key objective of ours. You know, starting at grassroots level, we've done a lot of work, as you know, in the small farmer space that are now supplying into our fruit and veg, department. Yes, answer to your question, we will be working hard to introduce new suppliers and support that growth within our Boxer, framework.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. We have a few questions from Warwick Bam of RMB Morgan Stanley. Firstly, have you identified any further opportunities from a vertical integration perspective?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Warwick, at the moment, no. We haven't got any firm plans in terms of moving wider than, as you know, our meat factory that provides a lot of value into our perishable categories. I think our focus very much going forward this year is in our innovation space, but we will keep our ear to the ground in case any opportunities materialize.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Right. Then another one from Warwick. How have your confined label products performed over the year, and did you see any change in sales mix towards private label in FY 2027?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

I think, you know, we continue on our confined label program. We did introduce another a number of exciting labels during the course of the year. I think it's well known that in our Boxer environment, we both use and promote the big and well-loved brands as well as our in-house brands together. We don't have a definite strategy to increase confined label materially. However, they play an extremely important part within our business, and they give us a lot of options when it comes to times of promotion to offer a deeper value. We will never go away from the power of big brands, which our customers love.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

A question from Damon Buss at M&G Investments. What percentage of suppliers are using the B-Inside program, and are you able to share any insights in how the economics work?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Thank you for that. Yes, we rolled out B-Inside during the course of last year, and we've seen, you know, really encouraging uptake from our major suppliers and our middle and smaller suppliers as well. I think they're seeing this as an extremely valuable tool to be able to monitor their own progress within the Boxer environment and formulate promotional strategies and collaboration with ourselves. It is a new income stream for Boxer, and we see a good road ahead to, you know, really enhance this offering.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. A question from David Fraser at Peregrine Capital. What will be your approach to supplier price increase requests? Would you allow all sort of justifiable increases to be passed through?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

David, thank you. I mean, that would, you know, obviously form part of a normal commercial negotiation that, you know, takes place on a regular basis between our commercial team and our supplier base. I think everybody, both parties are very cognizant of the impact on the consumer, and the price increase is really a last resort. That'll be handled in a very mature way between the parties.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Thank you. All right, this is our final question, again, from Ya'eesh of Standard Bank Securities. Have you seen any changes in consumer behavior over March and April given the higher fuel and transport costs? Has there been increased sensitivity to price and promotion activity?

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, obviously price increases or the diesel price increase was effective at the beginning of April, so, you know, it is early days. I think also transport cost increases and public transport also were delayed slightly. They didn't happen overnight. Those trends are still playing out. What we can anticipate in situations such as this is that our customers become far more discerning about their shopping visits into our stores.

They are planned well ahead with careful study of the promotions that are on offer. What we tend to see is a bigger basket size shop taking place as customers avoid the additional trips associated with the transport spend. Yes, early days. We are managing that or watching that on a daily basis to see the impact on that.

Stephen Carrott
Investor Relations Executive, Boxer

Mark, David, that's the end of the questions. Thank you very much.

Marek Masojada
CEO, Boxer

Great. Thank you, everybody, for joining our FY 2026 result presentation this morning. We look forward to engaging with you during the course of the year. Thank you.

Powered by