Good afternoon and a warm welcome to the webcast of our annual results for the year ended 31 August 2025. I am Bertina Engelbrecht, Chief Executive Officer of the Clicks Group. Joining me here today is Gordon Traill, our Chief Financial Officer. We will be taking you through the presentation of our annual results and respond to your questions after the conclusion of our presentation. This slide sets out the outline we will follow. I will start with a review of our financial year. Gordon will follow with an overview of our financial results. I will take you through the trading performances of our business units, first Clicks, then UPD, and I will then close with the outlook for the group. Please submit any questions that you may have via the webcast platform during and after the conclusion of our presentation.
Sue Hemp from our Investor Relations team will read out your questions, to which Gordon and I will respond. I will now commence with a review of the year. At the macro environment level, green shoots are sprouting, such as a slight expansion of GDP growth, the easing of domestic inflationary pressures, and lower debt servicing costs. Although confidence levels are below historic averages, the latest Consumer Confidence Index reported a modest easing of pessimism. Despite some challenges, particularly the high unemployment rate and fiscal constraints, we maintained performance momentum because of our focused results orientation, resilient business model, brand strength, and incredibly loyal Clubcard customers. In the year, we delivered diluted headline earnings per share growth of 14.1%. This is comfortably within our guidance range and an enviable return on equity of 49.2%.
We are reaping the benefit of the foresight of past leaders who launched our loyalty program in 1995. In August, our Clubcard celebrated its 30th anniversary with over 12.6 million active members who contributed 82.6% to our sales. Last year, I said I would be disappointed if we did not exceed our store and pharmacy rollout targets. True to form, our teams did not disappoint. We increased our Clicks store count to 990, pharmacy count to 780, and primary care clinics to 225. We are strengthening our relationship with the Department of Health, a key stakeholder. Post the year end, additional pharmacy licenses are being issued. This supports our pharmacy expansion program. In a subdued trading environment, customers focus on value by switching to lower-priced brands, buying on promotion, and using loyalty programs.
As a value retailer with a respected private-label program, we were well positioned to leverage our market-leading shares in defensive retail categories. Customers responded favorably to our product and price offers, resulting in market share gains in our core health and beauty categories. I will provide greater detail on the market share and category performances in the retail segments review. Stabilized, and the business is gaining positive traction. Purchasing compliance from both Clicks and the listed private hospital groups has recovered. Expense management, as Gordon will share in more detail, was exceptional. As a group, we embrace inclusive transformation with a strong emphasis on gender diversity and local empowerment, the results of which are reflected in our B-BBEE level three rating and our top achiever status in the UN Women's Empowerment Principles. I now hand over to Gordon, who will take you through the group's financial results.
Thank you, Bertina. Good afternoon. As in previous years, we will cover the financial performance of the group, starting with the group highlights. If we consider the financial highlights, group turnover increased by 5.3%. Retail turnover grew 6% for the year, with half two slightly slower due to new stores and pharmacies being opened later in the year and lower inflation. UPD had a slower second half after the recovery from the system implementation in the previous year. Total income margin grew by 90 basis points, resulting from strong growth in private-label, supply chain efficiency income, and lower shrink in the retail business. The group trading margin at 9.8% increased by 60 basis points due to the growth of retail and good cost control from UPD.
Diluted headline earnings per share for the group increased to ZAR 1,362.00 per share, up 14.1% from last year, within our guided range of 11% - 16%. The group's operations generated strong cash inflows of ZAR 6.6 billion. During the year, we returned over ZAR 2.7 billion to shareholders in dividends and share buybacks. The group's return on equity at 49.2% increased from 46.4% in the prior year. The dividend declared for the year has been increased by 14.2% to ZAR 8.86 per share, which is a 65% payout ratio. Retail had a slower second half due to the later opening of stores and pharmacies, inflation remaining muted, and a slower flu season. UPD's compliance levels in both its main channels continued improving, resulting in good growth in sales to Clicks, while positive growth was maintained in the hospital channel.
If we exclude the unicorn disposal in the prior year, retail grew 7%, with same stores growing 4.7%, excluding the additional trading day in the prior year. New stores and pharmacies added 2.3% to the top line, while selling price inflation averaged 2.6% for the year, lower in the second half. The distribution business had a consistent performance in the second half, with good compliance from its major sales channels. The business grew despite continuing genericization in the hospital channel and low inflation. Bertina will cover the detail of each business's performance later in the presentation. This slide reflects our total income earned, which has increased by 8.4% for the year. You can see the total income margin in retail was 70 basis points higher than last year, as there was good growth across pharmacy, health and beauty, and personal care, driven by private-label.
In addition, the previous investments in systems have allowed us to generate additional supply chain efficiency income. UPD's total income margin was down 10 basis points to 9.9%, and this was due to the higher ACP increase granted in the previous year. Overall, the faster growth of the retail business at 8.1% and the growth in UPD has resulted in the group's total income margin being 90 basis points higher than last year. Retail costs grew 7.9%, which was lower than in the first half and remained well controlled. In the second half, cost growth was 7.3%. Store staff bonuses have increased by 9%, which is on top of a 21% increase in the prior year and is well deserved based on this year's performance. In the year, we have added a net 55 Clicks stores and a net 60 pharmacies.
We are looking forward to continue accelerating our pharmacy growth in the next financial year. We would also like to thank the Department of Health for their support in the last year in working with us to close the gap in stores without pharmacies. Comparable retail cost growth, excluding new stores, was up 5% for the year, with costs growing at a lower rate in the second half. The IFRS 16 interest charge increased as a result of the increase in the number of renewals in the period. The growth has slowed from the prior year. UPD's costs have grown lower than turnover as the system's implementation was completed and efficiencies have been extracted. It is pleasing to note that costs grew 1.6% in the first half and 2.2% in the second half.
Employment costs in the second half continue to be well controlled, although we're ahead of the first half due to the provision of performance bonuses. Other costs fell by 3.9% in the second half as a result of good cost control and lower debtor provisions required. The investments in solar have paid off, with electricity, water, and generator costs for the year declining by 35% despite the higher electricity tariffs. Our investment in electric vehicles has resulted in further efficiencies, with transport costs down 0.2% year on year. Further investments are being made to allow delivery with electric vehicles, which will come through in our financial year 2026. This further supports reducing our carbon footprint. Retail grew trade and profit by 8.4%, with the margin improving by 30 basis points to 10.5%. This has been due to good sales growth, strong other income generation, together with efficient cost management.
UPD's trading profit increased by 9%, with the trading margin increasing by 10 basis points to 3.3%. This was due to consistent sales growth and good cost control. Overall, the group's trading profit increased by 12.1% to ZAR 4.7 billion for the year. This slide reflects the growth in turnover, trading profit, and margin of the group over the past five years. The company has sustainably grown its performance through various economic cycles. To note that in the last year, inflation has moderated, interest rates have reduced, and we have all benefited from the lack of load shedding in the past year. There are some concerns, though, with the impact of external tariffs further straining the economy. That said, the group has demonstrated its ability to continue to evolve the trading margin over the past five years. Inventory levels for the group have increased by four days to 78 days.
Retail stock days are one day higher than last year, and inventory remains well controlled, although increased due to the later opening of new stores in the year and higher levels of inventory being held ahead of the warehouse management system going live in Cape Town. UPD stock days at 45 days are three days higher than last year, partially due to higher levels of GLP-1 buy-ins and unicorn stock held year-end. Overall, working capital was well managed, with net working capital days at 34 days. This slide shows the movement of cash during the year. As you can see, we started the year with cash of ZAR 2.7 billion, reflected in dark blue on the left-hand side, and ended the year with ZAR 3.3 billion on the right-hand side of the slide.
The group has generated cash of ZAR 6.5 billion, highlighted in green, working capital inflows of ZAR 73 million, repayment of lease liabilities amounting to ZAR 1.1 billion, and tax payments of ZAR 1.2 billion. ZAR 985 million was reinvested in CapEx across the group. Of this amount, ZAR 599 million was invested in new stores, as well as Clicks store refurbishments. ZAR 152 million was spent on distribution centers, including the expansion of our Centurion DC, and ZAR 234 million was spent on IT and other retail infrastructure. We returned ZAR 2.7 billion to shareholders this year, and this was in the form of dividends of over ZAR 1.9 billion and share buybacks of ZAR 751 million. The final cash dividend of ZAR 1.5 billion will be paid out to shareholders in January. This slide shows our commitment to a disciplined approach to capital allocation.
We expect to continue to invest in the business and return capital to our shareholders through dividends. Over and above this, our preference is to return any excess cash through share buybacks, which is demonstrated in this graph. Since 2006, we have bought back 164 million shares at a cost of ZAR 7.8 billion. At the closing share price on 31 August 2023, the value of these shares would have amounted to ZAR 61.2 billion. CapEx of over ZAR 1.2 billion is planned for the year ahead. ZAR 662 million will be invested in our store and pharmacy network, and this will include 40 - 50 new Clicks stores and pharmacies and 70 - 80 retail store refurbishments. ZAR 594 million will be spent on IT systems and infrastructure.
ZAR 88 million of this amount will be invested in UPD IT and warehouse equipment, and we will invest a balance of ZAR 506 million in retail IT systems and infrastructure. This will include the completion of our new pharmacy management system and rollout of the implementation of the new warehouse management systems to our two other DCs and further investment in solar. We will continue to grow and invest in the retail footprint. UPD is positioned for growth now that the implementation has been completed, and we will continue investment in systems for pharmacy and our distribution centers in the retail business. This slide reflects our medium-term financial targets. We have made good progress against these. Importantly, the group has continuing headroom for growth, particularly in expanding the retail store base. While we have shown good progress, these targets will not be revised at this stage.
As indicated earlier, we have increased our investment in the business for growth. In framing these medium-term targets, we continue to seek to optimize the balance sheet, improve working capital efficiency, enhance cash returns to shareholders, and maintain the dividend payout ratio between 60% and 65%. This slide demonstrates how the group has sustained its financial performance over the past decade. This is reflected in the 10-year compound annual growth rates achieved in diluted headline earnings per share of 13.5% per annum and dividend per share growth of 14.2% per annum. The compound annual total shareholder return over the past 10 years equates to 17.3% per annum. These excellent growth rates have been driven by strong organic growth, particularly in our health and beauty business, which has been supported by an efficient supply chain.
This has in turn translated into strong cash returns, which have not only been reinvested in the business but also allowed us to progressively increase our dividend. This graph shows the group's share price performance over the last 10 years. This performance is all the more pleasing when compared to the return in the Food and Drug Retailers Index of 4.6% and the Top 40 Index of 7.8%. This performance is a testament to the hard work of all our employees throughout the group. Earlier, I noted that bonuses for employees have again increased. It is pleasing to note that our long-term shareholders have also benefited. I will now hand over to Bertina to cover the trading performance.
Thank you so much, Gordon. I will now take you through our trading performances, starting with Clicks, followed by UPD. This is the review of the Clicks business. Despite this subdued trading environment and a muted cold and flu season, the retail business delivered a solid result. Existing stores grew sales by 4.7%, excluding the extra trading day in 2024. Inflation slowed down from 6.3% last year to 2.6% this year, and we achieved volume growth of 2.1%. I now turn to the four categories to provide you with greater detail. Pharmacy sales grew 6.9% despite a soft cold and flu season, as well as significant price reductions in key molecules to align with medical scheme formulary compliance requirements.
Turnover in our 24-hour UniCare format achieved growth of 8%, driven by strong support from doctors, the implementation of our after-hours doctor service, and the exceptional performances of wound care, diabetes, primary care, and IV clinics. Despite the delay in opening new pharmacies, we accelerated in the second half to open a total of 62 new pharmacies for the year, of which 29 were in the last quarter. Clubcard customers contributed over 87% of pharmacy sales, and we continue to be rated as the customer's first choice retail pharmacy. We have increased our primary care clinic count to 225. Clinic sales increased by 10%, driven by medical aid-funded services and support for our virtual doctor consultation services. Front of Health and Baby achieved strong growth, with value growth of 8% and volume growth of 10.1%. In the Baby category, volumes were up 15.3% compared to value growth of 6.2%.
Front of Health growth was driven by the extension of our healthcare elevation to 138 stores, exceptional performances in sports and swimming, which was up 27%, and the continuing strong momentum of branded supplements up 29%. Our integrated Baby strategy is entrenching our position as the leader in Baby. Despite price deflation, driven by supplier-branded diapers and baby foods, as well as supplier infill challenges, this category is continuing to perform well, with private-label and exclusive brands the key to our success. Sales in our standalone Clicks Baby stores were up 23%. Baby store-in-store sales grew by 12.4%, and online Baby sales grew 27%. Sales growth, as you can see, is gaining momentum, and we are evolving margin. Sales in our beauty and personal care category were up 7.4%.
Despite a heavily competed beauty market and the disappointing performance of The Body Shop, we grew sales ahead of the market, fueled by new launches and the continued rollout of the elevated beauty hall concept in key nodes. The personal care category delivered a strong performance, up 9.8%, driven by strong private-label sales, which was up 17.6%, strong promotional sales, and innovation in Oh So Heavenly, Being Kind, Dove, and Vaseline product ranges. Our exclusive Body Freshness range was up 42.6%, driven by exponential growth in spritzes, which was up 44%. In May, the new Body Shop owners unveiled their post-acquisition turnaround strategy with new product development launches, such as Farthawk World and Passion Fruit. These new ranges are in-store, and the teams are working to improve the infill rate. General merchandise sales performance was disappointing, up just 4.4% due to our underperformance of small household electrical appliances.
In the next section, I will provide you with more detail. Despite the increasingly competitive environment, we are continuing to extend our market shares in core, beauty, and beauty retail categories. Let me take you through these, starting with Health. It is a relief to report that our intentional efforts at engaging collaboratively with the Department of Health to advance our public health agenda of improving the accessibility and affordability of healthcare is delivering results. We opened 62 new pharmacies in the year. Although 29 pharmacies only opened in July and August, we gained market share of 20 basis points, creating positive momentum for our new financial year. Front of Health declined by 30 basis points, despite strong gains across sports and swimming, up 140 basis points, first aid up 290 basis points, and incontinence up 100 basis points.
Our comprehensive Baby execution, which integrates our private-label and online offering, convenient locations, competitive pricing, and Baby Clubcard benefit strategy drove our market share gain of 80 basis points in Baby. Exceptional gains were recorded in diapers, up 110 basis points, Baby Wet Wipes up 270 basis points, and Baby Dry Foods up 230 basis points. Pleasingly, we have identified even more opportunities to grow our share of Baby. We continue to gain market share in beauty and personal care. Skincare gained another 20 basis points, fueled by strong share gains in face wash, lip care, and moist wipes, and we defended our market-leading share in hair care. Personal care continues to gain market share, up 60 basis points across every measurement period, with strong gains in Body Freshness, SanPro, and Sun Care. In general merchandise, we declined by 40 basis points in our legacy category of small household appliances.
This was due to significant out-of-stocks in the first half and an oversupply in the market. What is encouraging, though, is that over the last quarter, we were once again regaining market share. I now turn to the key drivers that support our growth, starting with value. Our brand position of feel good, pay less, supported by generous Clubcard rewards, extensive private-label and exclusive ranges, and convenient locations resonated with consumers. Despite heightened competition, we stayed true to our legacy as a value retailer with great everyday pricing and promotions. In so doing, we maintained our competitive pricing against all major retailers on a volume-weighted price index that excludes our three for two promotions, bulk offers, and Clubcard cashbacks. We grew promotional sales by 12.4% to account for 47% of turnover across all front shop categories.
We are committed to delivering on our public healthcare agenda of extending access to affordable healthcare for all. The convenience of our pharmacy and clinic network, virtual doctor offering, and partnerships with healthcare funders enable us to deliver on our agenda. In the year, generics grew by 8.8%, accounting for 59% of sales by value and 71% of sales by volume. Cash rewards are relevant, especially in a tough economic environment. During the year, and with the support of our affinity partners, we returned ZAR 855 million to loyal customers in the form of cashback rewards. Our differentiation strategy is premised on responding to changes in consumer demographics, preferences, and shopping behaviors within the context of the trading environment we face. Our private-label and exclusive ranges are core to offering the consumer choice.
Private-label and exclusive brands delivered sales of ZAR 9.7 billion as it continues its momentum of growing sales ahead of total retail sales. Customers trust our private-label brands because of their proven quality and price positioning. This year, one in every three products sold in our front shop was a private-label or exclusive product. Private-label and exclusives contributed 25.9% to total sales, 30.6% to front shop, and 12.3% to pharmacy sales. Our private-label and commercial teams drive innovation and quality, in addition to supporting our sustainability and local empowerment goals. In the year, six of the private-label products won SA Product of the Year in their respective categories. Sales in our six standalone baby stores grew 23.7%. We increased our Clicks Baby store-in-store executions from five last year to 14 this year. This is what enabled our gains in baby market share, as we also improved margins in this category.
The execution of our elevated beauty halls, which is now in 44 stores, is driving increased sales in the big beauty brands and in brands exclusively available in Clicks. Our affinity partnership with an equity investment in Ark, a retail brand focused on the premium beauty market, enables us to extend our access to the premium beauty customer. In this month, Ark opened the largest beauty store in Africa at Centrum City to great acclaim. This year, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Clicks Clubcard loyalty program. The nostalgic reflections of loyal customers who shared their Clubcard journey with us and on their social media platforms fill us with pride. 30 years on, we are still growing with an active Clubcard membership base that increased to 12.6 million this year.
The contribution of Clubcard members to total sales increased to 82.6%, accounting for 80.7% of front shop and 87.4% of pharmacy sales. The 2025 Truth and Brand Map loyalty white paper confirmed the Clubcard program as the most used loyalty program in South Africa. It continues to provide us with a mechanism to attract, engage, and retain customers through personalized experiences that reinforce emotional affiliation to our brand. The use of advanced analytics to drive focused customer segmentation and tailored personalized rewards is critical to the success of the Clubcard loyalty program. This is an area that requires targeted investment in technological enablement as well as in the correct skill sets. Although online sales grew by 15.9%, we can and we will do better. Pharmacy is a key driver of our sustained performance. By November, we will have completed the national deployment phase of our LEAP pharmacy management system.
We can now leverage the system to enhance service levels and increase sales. The expansion of our store network is progressing well, and we are accelerating our pharmacy and clinic rollout program because of its proven positive impact on front shop growth. Internally, we have invested in people and improved processes to support our growth aspirations. We ended the year on 990 Clicks stores, one UniCare specialized 24-hour pharmacy store, 780 Clicks pharmacies, and 225 primary care clinics. We remain committed to delivering affordable, accessible healthcare. 53.2% of the South African population live within a 5 km radius of a Clicks pharmacy. We have increased our primary care clinics to 225. These are profitable due to medical aid-funded services such as diabetes and the extension of our virtual doctor consultations.
Now that NKIM has been integrated and the rebranding of the UniCare concept approved, we will be extending our specialized 24-hour UniCare format by two greenfield sites and two acquisitions by February of next year. As with property, we have invested in the skills required to accelerate the growth of this format, and we are accelerating our presence in lower-income areas, with 247 of our stores located in such areas contributing 23.7% of turnover. That completes the review of the Clicks business. I will now turn to UPD's trading performance. UPD's fine wholesale turnover, which excludes bulk distribution and preferred supply contracts, was up 5.2% despite a subdued cold and flu season and lower inflation. A pleasing improvement against last year's - 0.5% performance. This performance is attributable to greatly improved service levels, which has always been a core UPD strength.
All operational service metrics are being met, and the investments we made in systems, people, and processes are bearing results. I will briefly turn to the core customers in this channel. As UPD's largest customer, Clicks contributed 58.4% of turnover. Sales to Clicks pharmacies grew by 9.5% as purchasing compliance improved to over 98%. Clicks is growing ahead of the market and is accelerating its new pharmacy openings and, importantly, actively driving purchasing compliance. This will greatly benefit UPD. Sales to the private hospital channel, which contributed 36.2% of turnover, grew by just 1.4% despite improved purchasing compliance. Volumes, though, were up 8.8% due to increasing genericization and growth in the non-listed acute hospital space. The continued decline of sales to independent pharmacies and other smaller channels is eroding UPD's market share, which is down to 26.2%.
The improved purchasing compliance from both Clicks and the private hospitals, as well as the stabilization of UPD's operational and service metrics, will sustain its performance. UPD's total managed turnover, which includes fine wholesale sales as well as turnover managed on behalf of bulk distribution clients, was up 2% to ZAR 30.5 billion. In the prior year, UPD's total managed turnover was down 6.7%, so this is a good turnaround. The growing contribution of generics, now 75.7% of volume versus 68.8% last year, coupled with lower price inflation, had a deflationary impact on turnover. The UPD team focused on improving quality and service levels and invested in its key account management principles to drive sales. During the year, UPD stock levels were elevated to improve stock availability for retail pharmacy and hospital formulary lines and to also improve access to GLP-1 medicines for its customers.
The termination of excess property leases has been completed. We have, as Gordon pointed out, extracted the surplus costs carried during the wholesale systems rollout, and we have now also implemented more effective time management practices to reduce variable employment costs. The UPD team achieved excellent cost management at a low growth of just 1.9%, aided by its early investments in solar, batteries, and electric vehicles. The wholesale systems implementation is complete. On the bulk side, the new systems have been rolled out to seven distribution clients, with the rollout to the remaining distribution clients on track to be completed by March next year. In support of our commitment to a sustainable, carbon-neutral future, we are in the process of ordering another 40 electric vehicles for use nationally. This completes the review of our trading performance for the year. It was a challenging year.
Despite positive shifts in macroeconomic indicators, the early promise of an improved trading environment did not fully materialize. The resilience of our business model and our teams was tested. I am incredibly proud of our performance. It was forged by teams with an unrelenting focus on excellence. In retail, the teams delivered superior income growth and margin expansion, coupled with truly outstanding shrink and wastage results. The continued growth of private-label and exclusive brands inspires confidence, and the contribution of Clubcard to turnover is positive. Our new stores, pharmacies, and clinic openings, as well as the record number of store revamps, exceeded expectations. Bongewen Tuli has inherited a healthy business from Vikesh Ramsunder. I'm confident that she will lead the team to even greater success.
Korega Mangoshe and the new Rest of Africa team delivered a stellar performance, with sales growth in every territory exceeding target due to strong delivery of the operational and customer service metrics. I'm going to call out Kornay Fissa and the Namibia team in particular, who delivered a consistent, exceptional performance. The UPD's team performance in the second half of the year was outstanding. The operational and customer service metrics are aligned to our goals, and the work that Trevor McCoy and the team have put into improving the business has created positive momentum for the new financial year. Our group services team, under the leadership of my colleague here, Gordon Traill, has been instrumental in delivering, and they even see, say, getting very, very close to the upper end of our medium-term financial targets.
The IT team under his control has partnered well with the business to progress our IT investments. We still have so many opportunities to increase our scale, to leverage our loyalty and strengthen customer loyalty, to extend our private-label offer, to extract efficiencies, and to improve on our digitization. What matters most is our people, especially our store pharmacy teams and our DC teams. Last night, we were privileged to have our top 10 store managers and our top 10 pharmacy managers, as well as our Clicks and UPD DC general managers, join our senior leadership team as we took our teams to our results after close of the market. This provided them with the opportunity to represent their teams and for us to publicly recognize their contributions. In presenting our results here today, Gordon and I acknowledge that we do so on behalf of our people.
From our board and executive teams to all of our people and their extended families, thank you. I will now conclude our presentation with the outlook. Although the macroeconomic indicators are improving, the consumer remains constrained. The consumer is therefore prioritizing value, convenience, and rewards from companies that inspire trust. Our retail strategic pillars of value, convenience, and differentiation, supported by our private-label and exclusive brands program and Clubcard loyalty program, is aligned to the consumer needs and positions us for sustained growth. In distribution, our strategic pillars of quality, efficiency, and customer excellence are fundamental to profitable growth.
We remain well positioned to thrive in this environment due to our competitive advantage in defensive health and beauty sectors, our growing market-leading shares in core retail categories, and in pharmaceutical wholesale and distribution, our sustained long-term growth opportunities underpinned by our value proposition and customer service, and our increasing scale, which enables us to maximize efficiencies and leverage it for effective execution and reach. Over the past five years, we invested in systems in both retail and distribution for growth. We have invested in LEAP, a modern pharmacy management system to fuel our pharmacy growth. We invested in infrastructure and in the expansion of our store, pharmacy, and clinic network to support growth. We invested in adjacencies in health and beauty to extend our access to market segments in which we are under-indexed.
We are now poised to fully leverage these investments made to improve service and increase sales in our network. In the 2026 financial year, we will increase the number of UniCare 24-hour specialized pharmacy stores to a total of five. The Sorbet and our customers are our most profitable Clubcard customers. Increasingly, we still have opportunity to increase Clubcard penetration in these businesses. Our first Sorbet master franchises for Botswana and Mauritius will be concluded in 2026, and we are on track to extend the number of Sorbet stores in South Africa. We will deliver on our medium-term target of 1,200 Clicks stores. In 2026, we will open another 40 - 50 stores and 40 - 50 pharmacies. Over the medium term, we will open 10 - 15 UniCare stores.
Our private-label and exclusive brands program is core to our offering, and we are driving towards our goal of achieving a 35% contribution to our front shop sales. The objectives outlined above require investment, which will be supported by our planned CapEx spend of ZAR 1.3 billion per annum over the medium term. The increasing scale of the business and requirement to plan for succession necessitated a review of our executive structure. In September, the group executive was expanded to six members to drive focus, create capacity for growth, invest in core capabilities, and to prepare for succession in our usual disciplined manner. The expanded group executive portfolios, in addition to the CEO and CFO, cover retail South Africa, Rest of Africa retail, UPD, our investments in health and beauty, and people.
The complementary diversity profile, broad sector experience, and track record of performance of the expanded group executive team significantly strengthen our leadership capability. Earlier, Gordon shared with you our pleasing performance against our medium-term targets. No wonder I remain confident of the group's capability to continue to delight shareholders by delivering on our medium-term targets. Thank you so much for listening. I will now hand over to Sue Hemp, who will assist us with taking your questions.
Thank you, Bertina. The first set of questions I have come from Michael Jacks at Bank of America. Hi, Bertina and Gordon. Congrats on the solid results and thanks for taking my questions. I have three. One, can you please elaborate a little more on the LEAP pharmacy management system implementation, expected benefits, and whether it is a differentiated Clicks or UPD versus peers?
I can take that one. First of all, Michael, thank you very much for the message that you've sent us. Let's talk a little bit. By November, we will have completed the rollout of LEAP to all of our pharmacies. In my notes, what I said is now the next step for us post-deployment is to really utilize the system in order for us to improve service levels and, of course, as well, to increase sales. How will we do that? It's to ensure that the pharmacist, when they are consulting with the customer, has the opportunity to now also talk about expanded services, first of all, within our network, but importantly, some of the complementary medicines that the patient ought to be taking. You know, when we take an antibiotic, ideally we should be taking a probiotic as well. That's what we mean in terms of the expanded benefits.
We are, of course, also, because of a quicker ability to service the customer much more quickly, what it means is the pharmacist has more time to consult with a patient that is standing right there with them. Differentiation, you know, all of the pharmacy management systems were built at a time when there was no corporate retail pharmacy. What we have done is to acknowledge that retail pharmacy is the bedrock of our performance. What we have done is really ensure that we've got a modern system, which no one else has, that will create for us an incredible advantage going forward. The process to develop a modern pharmacy management system will take years. Gordon, I'm not sure if you wanted to add anything.
The only other point is probably on the last point regarding, does it give us a differentiation? It does give us a differentiation because there is no other system in the market just now that is modern and web-based, and our competitors are going to have to find something that they can use.
His second question, market share trends are positive in many categories, but you've lost some share in general merchandise. Has this been to online or offline competition?
The way that we look at the competitor is every competitor, not only in South Africa in terms of bricks and mortar, but every online player within South Africa and every online player globally. That's really our competitor set. It was because we had significant out-of-stocks in the first half of the year, and there was a glut of supply in the market itself. What we have to take is we look at all of these opportunities to say, you know, where can we do better? I would say we didn't do good enough. Now we are poised to really focus on that in our usual manner. As I've noted, in the last quarter of the year, we will once again regain market share in that legacy category of ours. I will not give up on it.
His third question, you mentioned earlier in the year that you were accelerating on e-commerce. The online store and app look great, but delivery options and lead times are still limited. What are you doing to address this?
I think we recognize that we can do better in this area. Over the next 12 months, we are going to be re-platforming our online system, both on the app and the web, and that's going to allow us further delivery options. Not only that, a lot of other functionality that we're going to be able to roll out. I think that as we watch this space in 12- 18 months, we should be in a very different position.
Another set of questions from Michael Fleming at Avior Capital Markets. Good day, thank you for letting us ask questions and well done on the great set of results. His first question on the beauty and perks from pairs. Could you please elaborate on how you see the competitive landscape evolving and where you view growth to come from in this category?
Let me talk about the market in terms of three segments. First of all, thank you very much, Michael, for the comment. The market really is in three sectors. The first is the super high LSM customer, which is super protected against any of the economic indicators in the country. You see that really in the performance of Ark. That's the reason five years ago we took an investment decision to invest in Ark. We've got that exposure to that premium beauty customer. The way in which it works, Ark is an affinity customer. That customer comes and redeems their cashback rewards within a Clicks store. We, of course, play very, very solidly within the middle end of the market. The things that we have done is, of course, we use our Clubcard program. What we do as well, we've got private-label and exclusive brands. I think that is great.
To grow our market share, we have specifically elevated our execution in beauty. That's the 44 elevated beauty halls that I speak about. We have seen incredible growth in those stores. We are learning from what we've done there, and we are improving even more. Our performance and market share in skincare is not by accident. It is because of the way in which we have changed the customer journey by bringing skincare much more to the front of the store itself. Then there's the lower end of the market. Interestingly, we have got a private-label brand actually at the lower end of the market called Smudge, which in the SA Product of the Year actually won two of the SA Product of the Year awards. I think great opportunity for us there. Yes, heavily competed.
That's the reason why the way in which we are preferring to, if you will, respond to the changes in the market and competitor activity is to really stratify the market into these three broad sectors and to ensure that we are acting in order to respond to the needs of every one of those segments.
His second question, could you please expand on the rationale for the warehouse management systems rollout across the three retail distribution centers? Do you expect any large operational disruption during the implementation? What efficiency or benefits do you anticipate once it's fully deployed?
The rationale was to create capacity because the ways of working on the previous warehouse management system limited the amount of product that we could get through these DCs. In introducing the new warehouse management system, it allows parallel working and just allows throughput through those DCs and extends the life of those without further expansion. Expansion will be necessary at some point, and we've been doing that in Centurion over a period of time. Do we expect disruption? I haven't been through our system implementation yet that there isn't some disruption. What I am pleased to say is that yesterday we were actually picking up, you know, in the Cape Town DC above levels that we were doing in the prior year. It's hard work. I really commend our systems implementation partner, our IT teams, and especially our DC teams for working with us.
I think we've got over the hump in that one. Everything is really firing at Cape Town DC now.
Thanks, Gordon. His third question, Clicks Group has built up a strong cash position of ZAR 3.2 billion. How are you thinking about capital allocation priorities going forward? In particular, would you consider accelerating store expansion or increasing share buybacks?
I think we always look at investing in the business, and that we've been doing on a consistent basis for a number of years, and reinvesting in our systems. We've also increased the number of stores. We've also done some smaller, you know, some acquisitions over the past few years. We've set out what our dividend policy is, being given the range of 60 to 65%. Where the opportunity has come up, any excess cash has been returned to shareholders through share buybacks. I don't think any of that is going to change over the next few years. We would consider expanding or accelerating store growth where the opportunity came up. We've done that in the past, where in certain years we've grown store expansion by 100 stores where there's been an acquisition.
His last question on post-period trade is also asked by Sara Chopia from Citi, who says, "Afternoon team, well done on the pleasing result. Can you give some color post-period trade?
One of the teams actually asked the question last night, and I said, "I'm not displeased." Gordon and I certainly are not displeased by the performance since we started the new financial year.
His second question is, "What sort of inflation can we expect in FY 2026?" Thank you.
I think since our Reserve Bank is doing such a great job on inflation, and it's good to be commended for that, you would probably expect that inflation is going to be remaining on the lower side.
If we could encourage the Reserve Bank to then also look at the interest rates, I think that the consumer would certainly welcome that.
Attayali from Invest Securities says, "Please, can you provide some color on occupancy costs in retail remaining flat year on year despite higher than guided store growth?
I think the thing to bear in mind with occupancy cost growth is it's not actually rental related, or it's not the rents. It's largely the other aspects of store costs that include parking, etc. It does include some turnover rentals, but it's really the lowest element of the cost growth related to stores. Store cost growth sits in our ROU depreciation and our IFRS 16 charge.
I'd also be fair to say, Gordon, that you know we have taken control of that as well. We've put in metering, for example. We check all of the bills that are coming through for payment. We don't take it for granted. We've invested in solar. There are a number of things. We've got automatic switches, for example, in the stores to switch off electricity at night when it's not trading. It's also not as a consequence of luck. We have done work to get us to that point.
It also asks about post-period trade, which we've answered, but says, "In particular store openings, including pharmacies," and I think we've now given numbers during the presentation of 40 - 50 stores and 40 - 50 pharmacies. If we get more opportunities, we will open more.
Maybe the point to call out is that the teams have promised me that we will get to number 1,000 by December.
Jovan Jackson from Fairtree says, "Good day and thank you for the webcast. How should we think about the normalization of intra-group profit on unicorn stock? Do you recoup this through increased retail margin in FY 2026?
This is a little bit of an odd year because of the unicorn disposal. In the prior year, what we had was we had an intergroup profit related to the unicorn stock that we had purchased when Unicorn was still a subsidiary. That's been unwinding during the year, which is where the intergroup profit comes through. That is not a one-off because that does move into retail. That will sit in the retail division next year. This year is an odd year.
Kamal Samakabani from Sunlong Private Wealth says, "Well done on the net 55 new stores. Can you give some color on the execution challenges or constraints that resulted in the bulk of openings being delayed until Q4 of the financial year?
We would always prefer to open our stores earlier. What impacted us probably more last year was some weather-related challenges that impacted landlords, which just pushed store openings later. It's not something that we planned to do, but it was an unfortunate impact.
Kamal also asks or says, "Commercial and private-label sales were both up strongly in double digits. With internal inflation low, one would have expected a bit more of a pickup in volumes than the 2.1% reported. Can you give some color on what's driving the volume outcome?
We did have some really excellent growth in certain categories. Where it was probably a little bit slower in the year was on the pharmacy side, and that was due to later opening of pharmacies, both this year and in the previous year when we couldn't open pharmacies. We've got, although we've worked really well with the Department of Health, we've still got over 100 applications for new pharmacies that are waiting to be considered there. As we get these, we're really seeing a very nice volume boost on the pharmacy side, and that also impacts the rest of the store as well as those pharmacies that are rolled out because we see a real lift in front shop when we drop in the pharmacies.
Another question from Kamal, "With the rollout of the new pharmacy management system, LEAP, have there been any teething issues or disruptions to operations?
LEAP was a very different rollout because we could do it on a store-by-store basis. It was in a very controlled manner. No, we haven't really seen any impact of the store rollout.
I was also going to say, you know, one of the things that we learned through the UPD system is that we have invested in project management capability. Secondly, you know, understanding that change management must be integrated into any new particular project, as well as training. I think that's the reason, probably, Gordon, you know, even if you look at the SEP upgraded UPD September last year, you're looking at the LEAP program, you're looking even now at warehouse management systems. I think they've all gone a whole lot smoother because we've taken the lessons and we have applied those lessons and we are trying to do better.
Another question from Kamal: "Can you comment on the performance of the 247 stores located in low-income areas relative to convenience and destination formats? What percentage of these stores include a pharmacy component? Have there been any unexpected trends or outliers in performance so far?
Generally, these stores actually ramp up in terms of sales much quicker and have been performing ahead of the rest of the state. I think the trends that you see are probably in line with what you would expect. You see a very big component of baby in those stores. Because we offer such good guarantees in our electrical, electrical is also a favored destination in these stores. It's not dissimilar to the performance that we see in the other stores.
A question from Talia Ginsberg at Oumtomba Wealth. "If 55% of SA population lives within a 5 km radius to a Clicks, would that mean co-mobilization is possible?
The way that we look at it is it's 53.2% to a Clicks pharmacy. Remember, we've got 780 pharmacies. Not every store currently has a pharmacy because, as Gordon called out, we still have a gap that we're working to close with the Department of Health in terms of the issue of the pharmacy licenses.
Daniel Fairman Else from Aylers & Co says, "Well done on the results. You mentioned that the wholesale market share loss is due to decreased sales to independents. Is this a strategic choice?
We've always said the reason we acquired the UPD business in the first instance was for it to be the preferred supply chain partner to Clicks in order to fuel Clicks' growth in pharmacy. That it does very well. If you look over the period, how the Clicks market share within UPD's wholesale channel has just grown, that's good for UPD. The second one is that UPD has got strength in terms of the list of private hospital groups where you see that happening. Of course, partly it's because UPD, up until probably the first half of the year, was a little bit hamstrung by the effects of its systems implementation, but that has now recovered. What is happening within the private hospital space is there's increased genericization, so that's having an impact there. Are we super concerned about independents? Not necessarily.
The reason for that is because we've always said UPD, because of its low margins, has to always focus on efficiency and profitability. What we shouldn't be is a place where people use us to circle through because they are managing their credit risk.
Warrick Bann from Morgan Stanley. Firstly,
What are the challenges at The Body Shop?
The challenges of The Body Shop is, you know, as always, when you've got a change of ownership. First of all, you know, there are some transition challenges there. The second bit is that the new owners, as one could expect, focused on the areas that they wanted to turn around first, which was the corporate portfolio, The Body Shop corporate portfolio in both the U.K. and, of course, within the U.S.. What that meant is that product development and innovation, which is so critical to any beauty brand, was maybe put later on the agenda. Now that's where we are, and we can see the new product ranges coming through. I think we are cautiously optimistic about what the future holds.
The second question is about what we think about the medium-term prospects for the small electrical appliances sales growth. I don't know if there's anything more you want to add from what you've got.
No, I think maybe we didn't have sufficient stock in the first half, and the market had an oversupply.
I have a very complicated list of questions here from Dino Cummins sent to Investec. I'll take them one by one. Given the disinflationary pressure on comparable store sales, volume growth, OpEx control, and further total income margin expansion will likely be required to provide earnings support. With this in mind, could you provide a bit of color on, one, the GLP-1 opportunity for Clicks and SA?
GLP-1s have been growing very, very fast over the past 24 months. We referenced that at interim. To bear in mind, there are high sales, but because we maintain a very low dispensing fee, our income that we generate from those GLP-1s is much lower than any sales growth. The opportunity would be as the originators genericize, and that is where there would be likely to be some margin that's possible because generally in the generics, you're earning a higher margin than in the originators, especially on UPD side in terms of distribution.
Secondly, is there an expected benefit to Clicks following the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing pharmacists to now administer HIV treatment?
In that particular case, we did provide commentary. Obviously, our public health agenda is how do you extend access to affordable healthcare. You're talking here about a vulnerable segment of the population that we could most certainly support both through our pharmacy program. We are reviewing very carefully the implications of the decision or the judgment and what, if any, how would we respond to that. We are supportive broadly of the outcome of that judgment.
Mainly, the rollout of PCDT or Primary Care Drug Therapy Pharmacist Model, and whether you're seeing any consumer traction here.
We've probably seen more traction in terms of the virtual doctor consultations, and most certainly an increase in medical aid co-funded services through the clinics itself. Those are probably the two areas we will continue to focus on.
Four, are there any OpEx levers you can pull to drive positive operating leverage in existing stores?
I think some of that is going to come out of the systems investment because that was the thing in LEAP. To free up the time of the pharmacist to consult with patients and hopefully to deal with more patients in the same period of time. There are always opportunities that we've got because we can look at the same that we've done with UPD, rolling out smaller electric vehicles within the DC, within the retail DC network because we saw that UPD managed to slightly reduce their overall transport costs with those. We're always on the lookout for the big things that we've done, but we've always been able to eke out further efficiencies.
I think we've answered these remaining three questions, which are on the outlook for inflation, the benefits of LEAP, and the warehouse management systems possible disruption. Salome Marouma from Mergens Investment Managers says, "Hello, everyone. Well done on the performance. On UniCare, how are the store economics of the 24-hour store versus a normal Clicks with a pharmacy in it? What are the opportunities with this kind of format?
The opportunities we always see are about ensuring that we, in the mind of the customer, in the mind of doctors and the healthcare profession, are seen as the place to go to. First, I think understand our positioning in terms of healthcare. What UniCare does is UniCare offers a comprehensive suite of services. That's why we talk about the wound care clinic. In fact, the catchment area, if your normal catchment area for a Clicks pharmacy is five kilometers, for a UniCare store, it's actually 50 km. You've got a much broader catchment area from which you draw patients. You now find that many of the specialist doctors actually refer their patients to a UniCare store. Thirdly, there's an opportunity for medical aids.
I think that the specific data point is that something like over 50% of medical aid members who go to a 24-hour service should not have gone there first if they could have gone to a doctor. The fact that we've got a 24-hour doctor service attached to the 24-hour specialized pharmacy means that we can support medical aid schemes in that regard. Of course, the script flows into that store. There are other things such as, for example, diabetes management, the IV infusion clinics, and the travel clinics. UniCare, for example, works a lot with corporates to drive vaccination. Very often corporate people that are traveling or local municipalities, the people that work, for example, in sanitation, they've got to have certain vaccinations. It's a very, very different format, high, high, high service touch that we have there.
Janee Bray from Loriam Capital says, "Congrats on the results. How much of a concern is Shoprite and SPAR's expansion into pharmacy? With regards to your market share gains, who are you gaining market share from?
I guess we're thinking about that one for a minute. First, I mean, my own view always is competition is good because, you know, if we weren't doing a good job as a drugstore, then no one would be interested in trying to emulate our success. That's the first thing I take from that. The second is to always remember you mustn't be arrogant and you mustn't be complacent about your success. That's the second part, that we look at the competitors coming in and we understand that it's because we've been able to show them that you can do this successfully and profitably. I think it's always being aware of what it is that they're doing and how do you respond to it.
To really, really, really compete with us, you have to have an integrated pharmaceutical distribution, wholesale, and retail pharmacy model supported by an independent group such as LEAP. I think that is probably our single biggest advantage. Our single biggest advantage is that we've got a completely integrated strategy. Of course, if you spoke only about, if you ask the customer, "Name me a pharmacy," you know, we come up first consistently. Someone else comes up second, not a grocer. Third comes up LEAP, which is a brand that we own. I think that we are very well positioned without being arrogant and without being complacent because we are still nowhere as great as we could be. We are only on the path to greatness now.
Jamie from AAP asks, "With 47% of sales now promotional, do you see that as the new normal? How will you protect margins if that level persists?
I think if we look at the last few years, we've consistently grown promotional sales as a percentage of our total sales, which we've been happy to do because suppliers have worked with us because they've wanted higher volumes and have funded the growth in promotions. It's also supported by the growth in our private-label and exclusive brands, which is at a higher margin. That's also allowed us to evolve margins over the last few years. I don't see that this is going to change.
Craig Meadowall from Denka Capital says, "Thanks for the presentation. Given the trading margin is near the top of the medium-term target range, and you have alluded to not updating your targets at this point, could you provide any further detail around the margin profile going forward?
I think we will always be, we will always be aiming to evolve our margin, which is one of the graphs showed. However, we've also got to bear in mind that if you take something like the UniCare 24-hour pharmacy format, which is profitable, but it's much higher turnover, and to a certain extent, that could result in a little bit of margin dilution, not profit. We've just got to bear that in mind over the next 12 - 18 months. The rest of the business will be, you know, evolving the margin.
Some more questions from Kumarta Mukhuvani at Sanon Private Wealth. "Can you give some color on how FlexiCare is performing and whether it's starting to gain real traction or scale within the business? Also, are there deliberate plans in place to accelerate growth of the offering?
We are working with the Discovery team. It would be fair, I think, to say that we are not satisfied with the performance of FlexiCare. We are working with our partner, which is Discovery, to say, you know, what is it that we have to do to improve the performance of the FlexiCare product?
I think in the interest of time, a last question from Kumarta. "Can you give some color on the rationale behind strengthening and expanding the group executive team? Where did you identify capability gaps or areas needing reinforcement?
It's not so much about identifying gaps. It's about what is it that we have to do to ensure that we are positioned for the future. That's really what it is all about. First, South Africa, there can be no doubt South Africa has got tremendous opportunities for us to expand. It therefore made sense that we focused on South Africa, and that is why Bobby Wain-Tooley was appointed to specifically focus on South Africa. When I look at the rest of Africa retail and the complete outperformance of it, it made complete sense to say, now what we do need is an executive that can focus specifically on the rest of Africa because every market is different. We most certainly want to make sure that we get the offer right. This is about Southern Africa and the areas in which we already are.
You look at Namibia as an example, where we have added two stores in the last 12-month period. The forecast for Namibia's GDP growth is fantastic. Why would we not be there? It's about the focus on the rest of Africa. The third one is around people. I used to head up People and Corporate Affairs and was making sure that we do not neglect that in a retail business, the people are the difference and that we needed to have a person at this level. Finally, it's, of course, UPD. The final one is that we've made investments in adjacencies such as Sorbet stores and UniCare, which are all health and beauty. What we now need to do is to ensure that we've got dedicated focus on that as well. That was the reason for expanding the group executive, not gaps, but opportunities to do better.
There being no further questions. Thank you so much, everyone, for dialing into our webcast. The questions that you asked were really great. It's made me think, and I'm sure Gordon as well. We'll leave it at that. Thank you.