To the results presentation for 2025 Calgro M3. Welcome to some of our board members that have joined us, all the stakeholders. You'll be seeing some of you during the week and next week, and all the staff that's listening in on this. I'm going to start off. I'll just sort out this clicker. Okay, I'm going to start off with a year under review. I'm going to just touch on the underlying business performances. We'll hand over to Sayuri to do the financial review for us, and then we'll go back to the future and then question and answers. There's a tab on the top right corner for question and answers. You're welcome to uploading your questions there. I think if you look at the 2025 set of results, it's a pleasing set of results.
If you take into consideration that construction activity was slowed down, deliberately slowed down, leading up into the local elections because of the uncertainty and the political uncertainty that was associated with going into the elections. That is lessons learned through the 2019 cycle. We had some issues with units invaded that were half built, and it took years to resolve those issues. The focus during the year was on the instruction or the installation of infrastructure, moving away from half-built units. That uncertainty was prolonged past the elections itself, with the formation of the Government of National Unity and delays in budget. The group focused more on the private sector and then public sector during the year under review, and that has resulted in revenue being down about 32%.
The reality is we completed less than 1,000 units during the financial year, and that's where the revenue went down. The focus during the year ahead will be to pick up, ramp up that construction activity again. Saying that we focused on the private sector, just keep in mind that the cycle on the private sector development is a little bit longer because of the revenue recognition where these sectional title units need to be completed before we recognize the revenue on that. The cycle is a little bit longer, although the margin is higher. If I just touch on the business, looking at the business, the revenue was down 32%, although looking at combined revenue, we're only down 11%.
That is a result of the focus on Southfield's development that received a lot of focus on completing those units due to the stage of completion they were leading up to the elections. There was a bigger contribution from the JVs during the year. Combined revenue down 11%. Our margin was above the target market of between 20%-25%. That is also a result of leading towards the private sector, as well as unlocking historic investments where land that was acquired for the Fleurhof project in 2010 already was disposed of in the private sector market at existing grant rates. The margin is a bit higher. Our debt to equity is stable at 0.65, saying that our internal targets are 0.75 and our current sitting at 1.5 debt to equity ratios. What happened during the year?
The net asset value was increased because we invested in infrastructure for our existing projects. We also acquired the Buncan Felt property, and that all led up or contributed to the net asset value improving. Just touching on the development business, the development business margins, like I said, was a little bit higher than target market at about 27%, with Memorial Parks at 50%. I think the important thing for the Memorial Parks was actually the cash collection. We collected ZAR 95 million in cash from that business during the year, and that was able to carry or carry out group over there. That was a target set some years ago. I think for the first time that was reached, as reported in the August results, that that target was actually reached. Just a little bit more detail on the—sorry, just help me there with the clicker.
If you look at the—we touched on the revenue. The revenue is down as a deliberate slowdown on the construction, as we discussed. The margin is about target. The net asset value increased. We do not have to look at financials only. I think we need to look at the bigger picture and the company is in a good space. I think where we are currently, we are in a position where the pipeline is strong. We have got a good balance between new projects coming online and projects contributing. I think that is important for us, our ability to move between public and private sector when the need arises, and also to have a combination of projects that are capital intensive for infrastructure and other projects where the infrastructure is being installed, and we can start unlocking value on that.
The pipeline is strong, and I'll come back into detail on the pipeline and the specific stages of development where we find ourselves. Okay, if you look at the strategy, the strategy for the group remained unchanged. There was no change in strategy. If you look at the capital allocation, the capital allocation will always be a combination of the need for working capital, investment in future by investing in infrastructure. At the same time, we've got to look at the dividends to be declared. We need to look at share buybacks. Capital allocation will always be a moving target for us, and we need to balance, keep on growing and unlocking value for shareholders. If we look at the development business more specifically, I think the focus this year will be on marketing and sales, where we're currently carrying too many completed units on balance sheet.
We're coming through a negative interest rate cycle and with a consumer under pressure, and that led to the reality that we're carrying more completed units on balance sheet that we would like to reduce. On the Memorial Parks business, we will keep on growing that market segment. It's a great company to have at this stage, the simple fact that it's paying overheads and there's a lot of growth opportunities on that. If we go to liquidity, we need to look at our capacity on that, and that's a capacity between financial capacity and human capacity, capacity of human capital or talent capital, we'd like to refer to it. In combination, looking at sustainable growth. I think our focus in this year will be on sustainable growth, balancing, contributing projects with new projects coming online to ensure that growth for us.
If we look at the other stuff, not financial, our target, we set ourselves a target to have 50% women employment. We're currently at 47% with a target that's growing. We're sitting with training that has increased quite a bit during the financial year. We're looking at consumer or preferred preferential procurement, and those are down. Those were in line with revenue. We didn't build enough, so our preferential procurement spend went down with that. If you look at the group as a whole, the majority of our wealth was reinvested back into the group. We were fortunate to retain our independence on the board. We've got an independent chair. We've got an independent lead director on board. We've got all our certification on health and safety. We were retained. We were fatality-free. There's a lot more to look at as just the financials.
We're happy to report that it's been a pleasing reporting period with regards to social and ethics and governance side. If we look at the underlying business itself, the integrated development will be our core business going forward. It will stay our core business, still contributing more than 90% of growth through revenue. We will keep on doing that. We like the ability to move between public and private sector. We lean towards the private sector during the year under review because of the uncertainty in the political environment. We see that going forward, going into a recovering market. We're seeing interest rates coming down. We're seeing inflation at 2.7%. That could lead to more reduction in that. Saying that, we can't see it in the numbers as yet because that cycle takes a little bit longer. We don't see the reaction or the numbers coming through immediately.
We're about nine months behind the curve. The important thing is we will keep on doing the core business of integrated development, where we cater for a market from the fully subsidized to social housing to the gap-filled affordable rental and housing markets. That will be the core business going forward. If we look at the business itself, like I said, we're sitting with a recovering market where consumer confidence is up. We're sitting with financial institutions. The appetite for funding is returning. We are looking forward to the year and heading into a positive cycle. I touched on the stock on hand. As a group, we're carrying completed units in excess of the amount that we're comfortable with. We increased our marketing capacity during this year already.
We appointed a new head of marketing and sales into the group, and the focus will be on bulk sales and reducing these units carried on hand. On the infrastructure side, we invested about ZAR 228 million in total, combined with ZAR 208 million on the development business plus the Memorial Park business. We have reinvested our money into infrastructure that will be unlocked in this recovering market. I think the biggest thing to look forward to is this recovering market with regards to consumer confidence. We know the consumer was unappreciated in 2024. The consumer is not out of it as yet, but confidence is recovering, and we are sitting with appetite from the financial institutions to support this going into the future. If we look at our pipeline, I think the important thing to note is that we have changed the pipeline to reflect core projects that we are looking at.
The Buccleuch project gave us the ability with an additional 20,000 units coming online, gave us the ability to differentiate between core pipeline and non-core pipeline. We've been reporting on projects like the Eastern Cape, where we've got a pipeline of 14,000 opportunities. The group's got no intention of developing that in the near future. We differentiate it now between core pipeline and non-core pipeline. I'll come back to where we are on that. It's important also to note that the balance between existing projects, where we've got Fleurhof project that was initiated in 2010 already, Southfield has been coming for a long time. To blend that with new projects with different requirements. We're sitting with a Buccleuch project that needs to go to ground and Frederick in Cape Town that needs to go to ground.
Those projects will compete for our attention, for our capital, human and financial input. Because they're on different phases of development, it's a healthy balance. We're sitting with a healthy balance sheet, a healthy pipeline, strong pipeline that can be unlocked going into the future. I'm going to quickly touch on the environment in the development area. During one of my discussions this morning in an interview, talking about the environment, there's not a lot of developers in this market, talking specifically this integrated market, and the barrier to entry is too high. We're currently sitting with a barrier to entry that's higher than normal, where anywhere else in the world, when you develop in this market segment, bulk link infrastructure should be in place.
The environment we're currently in, we need to create the bulk link infrastructure first before we can actually start with the development of this. I'm going to quickly touch on the Buccleuch project. There's a lot being said about the Buccleuch project over the years. That took years. And the previous team, Lucas and Waldy's on the call, it took years to get the project to where we actually exercise our option to buy this land. Just to touch on that, the land has been transferred to a joint venture that we are doing with Eris, where Eris will focus on the industrial, commercial, retail, and office space, allowing Calgro M3 Holdings to focus on our core business of residential development. It is an exciting new project that's coming online. This land has been transferred in September last year into the JV. And we're currently on site.
We established on site to start removing platforms created during the 102 years that the project was owned by Vitz. During the previous tenure, there were some platforms created that we removed in order to create the opportunity to install infrastructure on that. Those contractors have been on site for a couple of months now. Our new contractor, Jonan, has been appointed, and we are currently on site and set to start with the installation of infrastructure. In the first phase of the project, we will see a lot of road infrastructure being created. We will build a strategic link between the Mulberry intersection on the N3 and the Woodmead intersection on the M1. We will build a strategic link, upgrade the intersections, build an undercarriage under the N3 to get access to Lindenburg Park for job opportunities.
For the first 18 months, we'll see a lot of infrastructure being installed, putting us in a position where we can actually start the internal infrastructure and construction of top structures in the next 18-24 months. Once again, it's important to note here that we need to balance the new projects coming on board that's hungry for investment in infrastructure with projects that's actually contributing and generating cash from operations. If we look at the location of the project, for those that don't know where the project's located, it's adjacent to the N3 close to the Mulberry intersection and on the M1 to the Woodmead intersection. On the pipeline, we're talking about bringing a minimum of 20,000 units to the market. We secured rights for more than that. On the conservative approach, we will say there will be a minimum of 20,000 units to be constructed.
I think for the first time, we're heading to a project where we can reset the benchmark of integrated development and spatial planning again. If you look back to 2010, when we acquired the Fleurhof development, we were on the front page of the annual reports for human settlements with the model that was implemented. That model is 15 years old, and it's time to start relooking at a new model. I think we've got the opportunity to reset the boundaries of integration and spatial planning. I want to quickly quote on a press release that was released last week, Wednesday, from the president's office with regards to phase two of operation in Blelo, where it says, "The next phase will implement reforms in three new areas.
We need to address the apartheid legacy of spatial inequality, which forced millions of South Africans to live far from economic opportunity. This is what we've got in mind on this project. I'll quote further to say, "The poorest of South Africans spend as much as 40% of their income on transport to get to work." It also says, "The structure of our cities needs to change to enable people to access work. We cannot continue to build houses on the periphery of our cities and towns. Finally, we're going to undertake a regulatory review to remove barriers of low-cost housing development and incentivise investment in the urban centre as opposed to outlying areas." I think we've got the perfect opportunity on this project to unlock that, set new standards, benchmarks, and with regards to integration and spatial planning.
If I go to the Memorial Park business quickly, it's a great business to have as a property developer. Our income is lumpy. As I mentioned, the rest three units need to be completed and transferred out. Our revenue recognition only brings it to book once it's transferred out there. Memorial Park has now reached their target of paying the group overhead, which is a great business to have at this stage, being property developers with lumpy cash flows. The market in the Memorial Park business, it's a huge market. There's a big market out there. The market is dictated by lack of service delivery, public cemeteries reaching capacity. I think the market is out there. Our challenge will be to grow our existing parks, the number of parks contributing to revenue.
We need to move away from our reliance on specific parks like Nazareth Park and Fourways and Derby More Hall that's been good to us. It will be great to see Rustenburg coming online later in this year after our town planning issues have been resolved and another park coming on board to contribute to that. The Memorial Parks business grew 48% year on year in sales. To see great growth, we've lowered the barrier to entry with a lay-by product that's been introduced some time ago. We're seeing the results of that because a lot of these lay-by products are now reaching maturity where the final installments were received, and we only recognize that once the last of the installment is received. An exciting business to be involved in at this stage and looking forward to growing this into the next phase as well.
If we look at the pipeline on the Memorial Park, once again, we need to diversify this between stages of development where it's exciting to bring Rustenburg online to combine that with a project or a park like Fleurhof and Fourways has been contributing for a while. I think that blend needs to keep on need to be retained, and we need to keep on adding new parks to complement that blend and the growth on that. If we look at the pipeline, we mentioned I've commented on the pipeline that the pipeline is strong, healthy. It's a good balance between old and new projects, where old projects are good to us currently. We're unlocking historic value. You would have seen during the year with margins above target market, where we unlocked some land acquired a long time ago and putting it back into the market now.
On the development business, we need to increase our sales capacity, which we are in the process of doing, to ramp that up, look at more bulk deals, and to reduce the stock that we are carrying on hand. On the Memorial Park business, we will keep on growing. There is no reason why we cannot. We are looking at acquiring new opportunities, but we will take that, and it will come back to it all comes back to our new hashtag, sustainable growth. We need to grow this sustainably. It is great to say you have got a great pipeline, but we need to be able to roll that out responsibly and in combination of old and new projects. I am going to hand over to Sayuri for the financials, and then I will come back for the future.
Thank you so much, Ben Pier, and thanks to everyone joining us this afternoon.
I'm going to take you through the financial statements for this period. As always, I'm going to start with a look at the statement of cash flows. Okay, having a look at our statement of cash flow for the year, cash generated from operations has shown a reduction year on year from ZAR 149 million- ZAR 107 million. Now, Ben Pier has touched on the reasons for this, but just to bring them all together, the first reason for our reduction in cash generated from operations is as a result of that deliberate slowdown in our previous financial year, where the group slowed down operations as a result of the 2024 elections in order to mitigate any invasion risks on half-built units. What that entailed was we moved away from top structure constructions or units per se, and we moved into more investment into infrastructure.
That resulted in about ZAR 208 million being spent in the period on bulk link infrastructure within our residential property development business. Now, that did not all generate cash from operations. However, what that does provide us is it provides us service opportunities for future financial periods, which the group will benefit from. Another reason for this cash generated from operations declining in the period is the ZAR 100 million, which was spent in the year on the Bank and Felt District City, previously known as Fresnel, land payment. What that does do for us is it increases the group's pipeline by that minimum of 20,000 residential housing opportunities. The first phase, Q1, the first phase infrastructure was commenced in Q1 of 2026, and that was just on-site services.
The bulk link requirements for phase one of that development are not considered to be very significant for the amount of output that we get from that development. Finally, the reason for the cash generated from operations reducing from ZAR 149 million- ZAR 107 million is also as a result of that stock, which is being carried on the balance sheet at the end of the financial year. We have adapted our marketing strategies, and we have refocused on bulk sales in order to liquidate that at a faster period and anticipate for that to liquidate in the upcoming financial year.
Looking further down our statement of cash flows, and in particular at the increase in finance costs, finance costs increased from ZAR 111 million- ZAR 134 million in the period as a result of our increase in borrowing, which I'll touch on as we move further down the statement of cash flow, as well as we should see a reduction on that as the interest rate as a result of the decrease in the interest rates. However, we are cognizant of the fact that most of our interest rates are based on a three-month driver, so it does take a little bit longer for that reset to come through into our financial statements. That gave us a net cash generated from operating activities decreasing from ZAR 91 million-Z AR 34 million. However, on the back of significant investment into the balance sheet and into our future service pipeline.
Just moving down the statement of cash flow and having a look at that movement in our borrowings balance, proceeds from borrowings went up by ZAR 305 million. Now, portion of that increase is as a result of the refinancing of the repayments made of ZAR 158 million in the year. The balance was as a result of debt raised for capital commitments such as the repayment of the Bank and Felt dam payment, as well as other capital commitments and projects. This year was a milestone year for the group with the first dividend paid of ZAR 10.8 million. That was the previous year's dividend that was approved by the board. A subsequent dividend has been declared and approved, and I'll touch on that as we move along in the financial presentation.
This all culminated in the cash and cash equivalents balance for the year, ending at ZAR 154 million, bearing in mind that we did still have available to us and do still have available the ZAR 100 million overdraft, which remained undrawn at the end of the financial year. Okay, I'm going to move along to our statement of comprehensive income. I'm going to start with a look at segmental revenue contribution. Revenue for the period did show a decline. However, as I've previously mentioned, this was as a result of that deliberate decision to slow down our construction activities at the end of the previous financial year, which did roll into the first half of our current financial year. This decision was to ensure that we mitigated any invasion risks and the consequences thereof.
I want to start with the table at the bottom of this particular slide. This talks to what we define in the group as combined revenue. Combined revenue is not an IFRS measure, but what it is, is it takes into consideration our IFRS revenue and the revenue which is generated within the joint venture companies in the group. The reason we look at combined revenue is because as a company, we invest various capitals, be it the financial and the talent and human capitals, to invest into these joint ventures in order to generate units that are then delivered to end users. This when making capital allocation decisions is what we look at when deploying capital at the beginning of the financial year.
When looking at our combined revenue, which is the indicative measure as disclosed in our segmental report, the reduction in revenue has reduced from 32% to an 11.53% reduction for the period. Having a look at the general split on our IFRS revenue, residential property development still contributes the most to the business, which did show that 35% reduction period on period. However, I do want to spend a little bit of time just working on that Memorial Parks number. Memorial Parks increased by 41% year on year, which is an outstanding set of results for that particular business segment. This increase also combined with a significant increase in cash collections to ZAR 95 million achieved its goal of covering group overheads for the current period, which is a fantastic outcome for that particular business segment.
Now, the increase in Memorial Parks revenue stems really from two places. One, really successful marketing campaigns, which increased market awareness and increased both the lay-by offering as well as reservations in the particular business. Secondly, the lay-by book. Our lay-by book stems between zero months and two years. As we have now reached the completion of that two-year cycle for quite a large portion of the book, revenue has now started to be recognized. As Ben Pierre mentioned earlier, the revenue is only recognized on the lay-by book as it is fully paid off. As the sale is completed and the ownership of that particular grave has transferred to the end user, we recognize revenue, which we can see directly in the increase in the revenue on the Memorial Parks business.
Lastly, I just want to touch on the restatement on the revenue in our income statement. Over the last few months, we have been going through a JSE proactive monitoring review. As a result of that, our Memorial Parks comparative has been restated based on the outcome of the review. The two elements that have changed on this particular business are, firstly, in the past, our maintenance revenue was considered a separate performance obligation. After a couple of back and forths with the JSE, it was concluded to reassess this. Instead of recognizing this as a performance obligation under IFRS 15, this is now treated as a cost provision under IAS 37.
Therefore, all that happened was that we increased revenue by ZAR 7 million, but increased is an equal value to a cost provision, and that impacted had a zero impact on our statement of comprehensive income. The second restatement impact was a reevaluation of the performance obligations with regards to burial rights and burial services. As a group, we had assessed this to say that a burial rights and burial service is highly interrelated because you cannot provide one without the other, and we provide our clients with an open grave front. After back and forth, the reassessment of this is we've now recognised a deferral for the burial service, and we've deferred ZAR 8 million into our balance sheet until such time that this service has been provided to clients. The impact of that on the 2024 statement of comprehensive income is a ZAR 900,000 reduction to revenue.
Both of these is fully disclosed in the financial statements, and those are available on the group's website. Okay, after that mouthful, I'm going to move on to the statement of comprehensive income. Further down, looking at gross profit, our gross profit percentage increased to 29.4% as a result of the benefit out of the historic land value and infrastructure, as well as the mix of our units moving towards the open market. This is above our target range of 20-25%. As we start investing into new projects, we do anticipate this to return to within that target range. Our share of profit of joint ventures has increased from ZAR 9.4 million- ZAR 42 million in the current year.
This increase is a direct result of that increase in the revenue from our joint ventures and directly correlates to the capital investment decision made to invest in the joint ventures and direct handover of units to the end consumer in our South East development. Profit after tax has decreased to ZAR 166 million in the period, which shows a reduction of 14%. Moving along to the statement of financial position, and in particular, starting off with the asset base, our asset base has shown an increase, and that increase is the direct result of that investment in our assets in the current year. Construction contracts remains the largest contributor to that particular asset base at ZAR 1.6 billion, directly related to that infrastructure investment, as well as the units which remained on hand at the end of the financial period.
Investments in joint ventures is also your other big movement on the asset line on the asset section of the balance sheet, which has increased to ZAR 136 million. This increase is directly related to the increased performance within the joint ventures in the period. Looking further down at our equity and liability section, just to mention, stated capital increased to ZAR 33 million. This small uptick was just a share allocation of shares issued as part of a share incentive scheme, which vested in February 2025. Looking at trade and other payables, I have just marked the two numbers on the liability section, which have increased, which have been restated as a result of the change in the performance obligations. When looking at trade and other payables and the movement between 2024 and 2025, you can actually see the 2023 and 2025 numbers are pretty consistent.
That is because your 2024 number showed a slowdown in operations from that decision taken to not build, to slow down building at the end of the previous year, which is why the comparative period looks like such a big movement. Just borrowings, I am going to skip ahead. I have spoken to the movements in borrowings year on year, so the actual increase and decrease in payments. I am going to focus here on our maturity profile. In the 2026 financial year, the group has about ZAR 300 million up for maturity. We have been able to secure a facility refinancing for roughly ZAR 250 million of that. It is the intention to refinance debt on an ongoing basis, which comes up for maturity.
In combination of that statement, just looking at our covenant section, our net equity ratio is at 0.65, which is well below the regulated covenant of 1.5 and our internal target of 0.75. With that in mind, we do intend to refinance maturing debt as well as slight increases in debt in the upcoming period to assist with just capital commitments and into projects and just carrying out operational requirements. Our debt service cover ratio at 1.38 is also within its regulated covenant levels. Any increases in debt in the upcoming period will definitely be below internal and regulated covenant levels. Finally, just on our dividend declaration, the group's dividend policy is calculated at a minimum of 5% of headline earnings per share with the board approving a current dividend of ZAR 0.0863703 per share, which will be paid to shareholders on the 2nd of June, 2025.
I'm going to hand it back to Ben Pierre for the future. I thank you all for joining us today for this results presentation.
Okay, we look at the future and the revenue from here. I think the picture says it all. We've got our eyes on bank consult, but we won't be dependent on bank consult and bank consult alone. We shouldn't forget that there's a lot of infrastructure to be installed to unlock debt for development. It will be a combination between the old and the new. I think if we just touch on the outlook, focus on diversification. We like the idea of having exposure to more than one project. Things can go wrong on projects, and it has gone wrong in the past.
The current or the year ahead will see a lot bigger contribution from the Western Cape and our Cape Town office because we broke ground and we're under construction with what we call the Chipperfield, which is phase three of the Belhar development. We will keep on moving between these projects and diversify them. At the same time, and I'll come back to the disposal of non-core assets that I touched on, although we say we will look at disposing some of our assets. At the time, it is not completely gone with regards to new acquisitions. We like the exposure between Western Cape and Gauteng, especially moving away from KwaZulu-Natal during the last reporting period or even before that. We will keep the balance between exposure between projects and between provinces.
We don't want to be solely dependent on doing developments in a project or with a specific metro. If we look at the growth and sustainability, and that's our hashtag, sustainable growth, just to touch on that, that is the combination where we say we need to combine new projects like Bank & Felt while we're still rolling out. Sure, project is not end of life yet. When we acquired the project, the intention was to develop 6,000 units in that development. We're getting very close to completing our 10,000 units completion and with a pipeline still going up to 16,000. We will be in Fleurhof for quite a while still. Fleurhof will contribute for quite a while still. We acquired some time ago, took an option on acquiring land adjacent to the Fleurhof project, and that will leverage off existing infrastructure created over years.
It will be added to that pipeline. That new 16,000 pipeline will include some of that. If you look at the cash flow, we will be cognizant not to just raise debt to keep the cash flow going. It needs to be a combination of cash generated from operations and debt. For the first time, because of the pipeline and the size of the pipeline, we will consider disposing some of our non-core assets. That is not a new message. That has been coming for a while now. In the recovering market, we are currently seeing interest in these projects where we will dispose, or are in the process of disposing, our exposure to KwaZulu-Natal and potentially the Eastern Cape as well. If we look at the Memorial Park, the Memorial Park is all about growth. It is a good business that is contributing.
We need to grow that contribution from the 8%, which is a great performance for the reporting period. I would like to see that increase in excess of the 10% target being set. If we look at the product offering, we will keep on adapting to changing market conditions and market demands. We will even not only adapt, I think it's time to start setting new benchmarks with regards to integration and product offering as well. On the market insight, we've now got 15 years of experience of doing the Fleurhof project with regards to integrated developments. We will leverage off that. And there's a lot of lessons learned on the Fleurhof project that's been implemented in the new contracts with public sector when we go into the Bank & Felt project. At the same time, oh, I skipped myself here.
At the same time, looking at market insight, like I said, while we're looking at the lessons learned on the Fleurhof project, the Memorial Park, there's a lot of data available on the Memorial Park, and we need to use that. We need to leverage off that and learn from that. Data currently shows per park where the target market is, where the leads come from, what are the products that's selling and should be selling. I think on the insight, looking back at the Memorial Park, the lessons learned over the last couple of years is invaluable. If we look at the financial strength, it comes back to the balance between old and new. We need to keep on going. We've got a robust balance sheet and liquidity position, no major capital investments going into the new financial year.
Saying that, we know we're starting Bank & Felt, but Bank & Felt can't start everything at the same time. We'll see in the first 18 months a lot of investment in roads and infrastructure and then grow it from there. Digital innovation attached on that, the data currently being tracked on the Memorial Parks. Memorial Parks is now being tracked on a daily basis to see what is happening on the parks and look at the performance of the parks. We're also seeing a lot more data on the development side of the business where we compare our exposure to the financial institutions, the products that's selling, and where we would like to go with that. The profitable outlook, it goes back to the development business that will focus on the disposal of the existing stock we carry on hand in combination with disposing some of non-core assets.
We will balance that. The pipeline is robust. It is solid. We will leverage off that. Capital allocation, like always, we will balance our needs and our requirements between the need to have working capital to invest into our future and unlock value for our shareholders. In conclusion, I want to summarize the development business and say, yes, we will adapt to market conditions and we will set new standards. I think we have got the project to enable us to do that. If we look at the sustainable growth, the Memorial Park is part of our vision in growing in that. Just in closing, I would like to quote Dr. Adrian Sebor on a comment he made during the Harting Investment Conference last month where he made the comment and said, "Let's not be resilient. Let's grow and contribute towards growth."
Thank you.
I'm going to open it there and straightly we'll share the questions. So you'll come and join me.
Look at the questions.
Can I go on the first one?
Okay. So you've been the first question comes from Rob Nothal. Thanks for the update. On slide 10 of 38, you mentioned an optimum of 300-500 is optimum construction role. What does this translate to as handovers?. Can we expect 800-900 handovers per half, 1,600-2,000 per annum?. What is your targeted handover for 2026 financial year?. Indicative number would be good.
Okay. Yeah, Rob, if we talk about this 300-500, that's the size of a body corporate you would like to see. It doesn't refer to handovers for the reporting period or for the year.
We see that the target market, we look at the target market, and when you hand over a completed unit on a sectional title basis, these units need to be tenanted. The optimal is you do not want to give it too big a handover and it takes too long to tenant them at the same time to get the best price out of the contractors. We look at that 300-500 is the optimal size of the developments. We need to start doing more than one at a time, and we need to grow that in excess of the 1.5 that we currently do. They all understand the questions.
What is that one?.
The next one is from Hayden Smith. Thanks for the update. How much inventory do you have that you are not comfortable with?. Can you quantify?. Is there an overconcentration in particular areas?
If so, what areas?. What do you mean by bulk sales being the focus for these?. Thanks.
Okay, I am going to do the bulk sales one first, the last one. Bulk sales is where we do not sell units on an individual basis, but where we sell units in these blocks of 300-500 to entities targeting the rental market. We will not only target the consumer out there and say, "Come buy one unit in a development," where we start looking at. We have had some appetite from the outside and interest where people are looking at acquiring units for rental stock. Those will be the. In this post-reporting period, we have engaged with some interested parties out there, and there is definitely appetite to start setting that in bulk sales and at the rental market. Is this part of the question?.
How much inventory do you have that you're comfortable with?. Can you quantify?.
Yeah.
We're carrying completed stock in the value of about ZAR 600 million. That's completed stock. That's a combination of units completed in our retirement village, Lavina Vale, some high end of the market. So we've got around exposure of ZAR 100 million in that market segment. The rest is split over units that just come online with the last units in the Jabalani project just completed now. There are 180 units that were just added to that list recently. We're sitting with Fleurhof, a project that was completed, and that goes back to the size of the body corporates we're talking about. Where when these projects are completed and made available for sales, it takes longer to get rid of them. We would like to do them in smaller chunks and have them over.
We're carrying stock on Southfield, on Fleurhof, on Jabalani, and a combination of that. We're currently in the process of concluding some bulk deals on these, aimed at specifically the rental market.
To clarify, just 600 is as at now, the value as of today. As at the end of the financial year, it was probably about half of that.
The next question is from Rob Nothal. When can we expect first handover of units at Bank and Felt? Quarter two of June 2027 is a question. Yes, the infrastructure on there, the first 18 months, we'll see phase one and two of the bulk and link requirements where we will do the intersections that I referred to earlier. The installation of infrastructure will overlap that. We're looking at 18-24 months away. Yeah, 2027, second half 2027 is a realistic expectation.
Next question comes from Menelesi Butalesi. Memorial Parks now cover 100% of group overheads and achieved a gross margin of 50.09%. Given the cash-generative nature and scalability of the segment, how aggressively does the group intend to grow it? Could this business eventually be unbundled or spun off to unlock further shareholder value? Never say never.
I think from how aggressively does the group intend to grow it, look, I think one must always remember that the capital required to grow the Memorial Parks business is quite onerous on the group because it is very difficult to raise capital to grow the business. We do weigh our capital allocation decisions when we do make that decision, which is why we would like to have the parks up and running before we invest into the next one. Do you want to?
Yeah.
I think that will be just a sustainable growth. We'll keep on growing that. One more question from Hayden Smith on the bulk deals. On your bulk deals, are these done at lower margins? Not specifically. We see a trend where we've done more than one transaction where there's 19 units sold, and we couldn't initially understand why someone would buy 19 units. That would just stay under the trigger and not become a commercial transaction. On these, yes, there is a small discount, but because there's no marketing cost associated to that. If we just walk away from our marketing commission, it's actually not a big discount. On the bigger transactions, yes, we will look at a discount to those. On the smaller bulk sales, it's basically we won't incur the marketing cost and that we will return to the prospective buyer.
There are no further questions.
There is nothing on the Q&A here.
Nothing on the Q&A.
Okay. Is that it?
Okay. Thanks a lot. If there is anything else, you are welcome to contact myself or Sayuri, and we will see what we answer that. We will be seeing most of you during the next week or two weeks. And thank you for your time.
Thank you very much.