Welcome to everyone to this prerecorded KAL Group interim results presentation for the period ending March 23. I'm joined by Graeme Sim, our Financial Director. The presentation should take approximately 40 minutes. Questions can be submitted from the start and will be answered at the end of the webcast. Today's agenda is on the screen covering structure, trading brands, footprint, key trends, operational updates, financial performance, segmental reviews, cash flow performance, ends with CapEx and debtors, after which questions will be handled. Apart from our holdings company name change to the KAL Group, the structure and subsidiary shareholding has not changed since our presentation of the 2022 full-year results. As a result, post the PEG deal, the TFC direct black ownership status is 52.72%, well above the current requirement of 25% as required by the Liquid Fuels Charter.
For those seeing the presentation for the first time, please note that Kaap Agri Namibia, second from the right, is a 50/50 venture with Pupkewitz in Namibia. It is also pertinent for everyone to note, those that do modeling around recurring earnings attributable to shareholders of the holding company, that the KAL Group shareholding in TFC, far left on the screen, is 58.2% or 61.4% when including ETI. This slide gives insight to how the business has diversified in terms of the trading brands being deployed in each of the segments and excludes the corporate division. The largest segment is still our Agrimark division, far left, consisting of 168 business units as it, half year that have 63 fuel pump stations in operation.
The division includes the Agrimark brands, New Holland Agency business, Forge in Natal, FarmSave in Natal, also included in the left-hand segment are, Agrimark Grain Services segment consisting of 15 silo and seed complexes and our manufacturing interests being Agriplas and Tego. The second-largest segment in the company is on the right-hand side, the Retail Fuel & Convenience segment. Which includes The Fuel Company, TFC, and the recently acquired PEG, consisting of 89 business units with over 300 retail touchpoints at the 85 retail fuel licensed service stations currently covering all major oil co-brands in South Africa. Following on from the previous slide, this slide shows the segmental income streams and the trading brands being deployed in each of the segments. Our supply chain acts as a support service for the acquisition, distribution, and logistics of products for the group.
All the above are supported by our corporate and financial service departments, with two offices and 13 financial service units spread throughout South Africa. In total, there are currently 272 business units in South Africa and Namibia, which operate 148 fuel licenses in total. I think more importantly, in the top right-hand table, we repeat a very important statistic mentioned in the previous presentation. This table on the far right is a comparison of channel trading profit contribution for the KAL Group and gives clear insight into the results of our diversification strategy we have been following for the last number of years. Since the acquisition of PEG, our retail channel trading profit contribution has grown dramatically from 34%- 46%, mainly due to the high retail trading profit contribution that PEG brings to the table.
When splitting Agrimark fuel to Agri and allocating the rest of the group's fuel to the retail trading activities, it's now evident and important to note that 75% of the KAL Group's trading profit is coming from non-Agri trading activities. In 2011 by comparison, non-Agri trading activities delivered less than 25% of trading profit. While Agri-related trading has doubled in that time, the retail trading profit growth rate has just been far higher. This slide is a geographical heat map of all the business units. On the left, the whole KAL Group, and on the right, just the TFC business, which now includes PEG. This inclusion of PEG has reduced the concentrated exposure in the Western Cape. The KAL Group now operates 148 retail fuel licensed sites in South Africa and Namibia, of which TFC operates 85 in South Africa.
Whilst the Agrimark footprint has largely been focused on water-intensive areas of South Africa, the TFC footprint has focused on cluster and routes in all provinces in order to achieve economies of scale in terms of management and support services to the network. The PEG addition diversifies the TFC footprint to approximately 50% highway high volume sites throughout South Africa. The footprint has not grown since the previous presentation in numbers, giving us time to consolidate on the addition of PEG since late in F 2022. The footprint growth since 2017 has, however, mostly been in the Agrimark, having grown to 237 business units out of a total of 272. Despite this, we have grown earnings. Load shedding impacts in two ways for us.
Firstly, it has in terms of operational cost point of view, we have been able to decrease overall OpEx year-on-year by 2% when excluding the impact of load shedding. We have prioritized CapEx to only ZAR 75 million spend in the first half of the year, which includes replacement CapEx of ZAR 22 million. Other key trends during the period were group revenue growth of 68.4% achieved on the back of high 19.7% inflation, excluding fuel price impact 12.1%. This growth has been supported by DC value throughput growth of over 14.5% at a 6% lower cost to serve, and space utilization now up to 95%. Agrimark Grain Services, as expected, decreased profitability due to a more average wheat harvest received.
Our New Holland agency business profitability has also reduced due to the similar pressures on farmers, as mentioned above, due to load shedding. Our support service cost to serve is slightly up by 0.6% of GP against the comparative period last year on a like-for-like basis. Having bedded down the PEG addition to our group, trading profit contribution from retail offerings was 12% higher, with the contribution from non-Agri trading activities now exploding to 75% of total trading profit as mentioned. From a working capital point of view, stock and debtors value growth remained lower than cost of sales growth as well as credit sales growth, which assisted us in reducing debt to equity to 52.9%, lower than a year ago when excluding funding required to fund the PEG acquisition.
The PEG acquisition and disposal of the TFC Properties has proven to be return-enhancing, with an improvement in return on invested capital for the period. We also believe that our compound annual growth rate of 19.2% in reoccurring headline earnings since pre-COVID indicates a high level of resilience through extremely challenging times. This graph is a group quarterly turnover year-on-year trend graph for the last eight quarters. It excludes PEG turnover so as to highlight the performance of the like-for-like pre-PEG business. The blue graphs being our retail category quarterly sales trends, and the green graphs being our agri category quarterly sales trends.
Firstly, in terms of the retail category, despite a recovery in retail convenience and QSR trading in the TFC traditional sites, the overall retail trading is reducing, with Q2 of F 2023 being the lowest quarter-on-quarter in two and half years. This has been driven by the building material categories, which have turned negative over the last quarter for us, albeit with our sales still seemingly above other sector comparisons. While the FMCG increase is coming from TFC, we therefore are seeing less cement sales but more coffees and pies. In terms of agri categories, it is very evident how much load shedding has shed our sales to this sector due to the enormous pressure on farmers to keep food cold at huge cost and having a negative impact on their expenditure levels with us. In general, economic factors still weigh heavily on the trading environment.
Some confidence uptick is being experienced in some of the sectors that we have exposure to, like convenience retail. The CPI seems to have topped and fuel has come off its record highs. Fertilizer is following same suit in terms of reducing in price, while other commodities like cartons and packaging material have increased. This all leads to low business confidence levels. We have, however, a belief that we will gain market share in these trying times. The revenue for the first half of F 2023 has been driven by mainly the TFC and PEG performance. This has been supported by revenue growth of 11.8% on a like-for-like basis, being driven by convenience retail. Inflation, excluding fuel price impact, was still high at 12.1% for the period. As mentioned, grain revenue is lower due to lower wheat harvest than the prior record year.
The manufacturing tells the tale of two sides, actually. Firstly, similar farm expenditure pressures reducing the Agriplas sales to farmers. While on the other hand, Tego's new extra volume perm bin sales starting to kick in in Q2 , which was as per expectation and good news for us. I'll now hand over to Graeme to take us through the highlights for the first half of the year and the financial performance.
Thanks, Sean. If we take a look at the highlights for the half year, the group has produced a credible trading performance under continued challenging trading conditions. Revenue grew by 68.4% and includes PEG for the full six months, with like-for-like comparable sales growing by 11.8%. We saw a 183% increase in the number of transactions, this mainly the result of including PEG transactions for the period. excluding PEG, group transactions still grew by 4%. EBITDA increased by 30.9% to ZAR 521.3 million, a strong measure of financial health and cash flow generation. Recurring headline earnings grew 18.1%, with recurring headline earnings per share growing by 8.7%.
We consider recurring headline earnings per share to be a key benchmark to measure performance and to allow for meaningful year-on-year comparison. Group fuel volumes increased by 102.8%, with the Retail Fuel & Convenience segment inclusive of PEG growing volumes by 175.4%. We did 33 million transactions in the period, up 183% from last year. Lastly, an interim dividend of ZAR 0.50 per share has been declared, being 8.7% up on last year's interim dividend of ZAR 0.46 per share. As communicated in November last year, you will see a change in the naming of the various segments. In line with our brand review process, Trade has become Agrimark, and Grain Services has become Agrimark Grain.
As a reminder, last year, we also reviewed the methodology applied to segmental reporting and made improvements in the trade debtors and borrowings, as well as the associated interest received and interest paid have been allocated to the operating segment to which they relate. This provides a more accurate representation of invested capital within the various segments. For the first time, Agrimark is no longer the highest revenue contributor in the group, being surpassed by Retail Fuel & Convenience post the acquisition of PEG. Agrimark does however remain the highest profit before tax generating segment in the group. Revenue increased by 8.9% year-on-year, with operating profit before tax increasing by 1.2%. The key focus areas in this environment remain to be margin enhancement, cost management, and stock and footprint optimization.
Retail Fuel and Convenience, which now also includes PEG, increased income by 252.8%, with operating profit before tax increasing by 134.2%. Revenue increases were driven by the addition of PEG, non like for like sites, fuel price increases, and strong contributions from convenience store and quick service restaurant offerings. Despite the positive impact on return on invested capital, the sale and leaseback of TFC property sites resulted in additional rental expenditure compared to the prior year. Overall, good expense management and fuel price increases contributed to higher profitability. Costs incurred to trade during periods of power interruption were significant in this area, given the nature of the business, amounting to almost ZAR 26 million for the six months.
Agrimark Grain experienced a decline in revenue of 16.8% of a lower more average wheat harvest, with operating profit before tax decreasing by 11.3%. In the manufacturing segment, irrigation-related revenue was negatively impacted by the curtailment of infrastructure spend, largely load shedding related, with segment revenue decreasing by 14.4%. The performance of Tego Plastics has improved due to constantly increasing contributions from the new extra volume perm bulk bin. Segment operating profit before tax reduced by just under ZAR 5 million. The corporate division cost, which includes the cost of support services as well as other costs not allocated to specific segments, reduced from 0.5% of revenue to 0.2%, the result of leveraged centralized support services.
Just as a reminder, in the operating segments, gross assets include stock, trading fixed assets, and debtors, while net assets reflect the impact of trade creditors and borrowings. In the corporate segment, gross assets include corporate fixed assets, net assets reflect the impact of the group borrowings relating to corporate assets only. I'll give more detail around the debtors in later slides. This is a graphic representation of the previous slide, showing contributions by segment. Retail Fuel & Convenience revenue contribution has grown from 26.2% for the first six months of last year to 54.9% this year, due largely to the inclusion of PEG for the current period and high fuel prices. Profit before tax from Retail Fuel & Convenience has also grown in contribution from 12.8% to 25.9%.
Agrimark Grain contributions to revenue and profitability have come off due to the average wheat harvest experienced, and their net asset contributions are fairly similar year on year. Looking at the income statement, Gross Profit grew by 68.4%. Gross Profit increased by 54.8%, but at a rate lower than revenue growth, due largely to the higher contribution of lower margin fuel revenue. This translated into a lower GP margin year on year. As mentioned previously, GP percentages in the Retail Fuel & Convenience segment are heavily impacted by fuel price increases. In the GP, rands do not increase when fuel prices increase, resulting in GP percentage reductions. More of this in a later slide. Effective cost management remains a key management focus area, especially given increased inflation and trading margin pressures.
During the period under review, operating expenses grew by 72.9%, due largely to the inclusion of PEG, while like for like expenses grew by only 0.4%. Expenditure incurred directly related to load shedding amounted to ZAR 35.2 million for the period. When excluding these costs, like for like expenditure decreased by 2%. Transactional banking costs on high inflation-related fuel transactions remain problematic, as these costs need to be absorbed by fuel retailers without any increase in margin. Recurring headline earnings grew by 18.1%. When excluding the impact of additional direct costs incurred related to load shedding, recurring headline earnings grew by 27.2%. Recurring headline earnings per share grew by 8.7% to 381.64 cents.
Return on equity being driven, being only six months return on full equity remained at 10.3%. An interim dividend of ZAR 0.50 per share has been declared as mentioned, up 8.7% from the ZAR 0.46 last year. The three graphs at the bottom illustrate the continued strong five-year performance of the business reflective in the year-on-year recurring headline earnings per share growth. Moving on to the balance sheet, total assets grew significantly due largely to the acquisition of PEG, the sale and leaseback of TFC Properties, increased stock and trade debtors balances, and increased cash on hand. Working capital has been managed effectively. Trade debtors grew by 8.1% year-on-year and at a slower rate than the increase in credit sales, with debtors not within terms as a percentage of trade debtors increasing by 4.2%.
Inventory grew by only 17.5% compared to revenue growth of 68.4% due to the impact of centralized procurement and distribution, and the higher contribution of quicker moving convenience, retail, and fuel stock. Creditors days have reduced due to the mix of creditors. While strong trading performance and the effective management of working capital and capital expenditure had a positive impact on borrowings, high inflation increased working capital requirements and the PEG transaction resulted in a higher net debt position. When excluding the impact of the funding required for the PEG acquisition, the group's debt to equity ratio, calculated from average balances, decreased to 52.9% from 55.8% last year, with an interim net debt to EBITDA increasing to 4.3x compared to 3.9x last year.
Interest cover of 4.7 x, down from 7.9x last year. Including the impact of the PEG funding, the group's debt to equity ratio increased to 73.8% when compared to last year and in line with expectation. The first capital and interest repayments on the PEG-related acquisition debt have been made. Net asset value per share continues to increase, albeit that assets are at historical values. Group interest cover reduced to 4 x, remains healthy. In summary, the balance sheet is strong and has further strengthened during the period. Gearing levels are appropriate and within our internal thresholds. Inflationary pressures, specifically on working capital, have put pressure on funding headroom during the first half of the year. However, facilities are in place to meet our ongoing requirements.
This slide reflects the recurring headline earnings waterfall between half year 2022 and the current half year, 2023. Gross profit growth has been strong, growing by ZAR 537.8 million year-on-year. Expense management was excellent, with the increase largely inflationary related and due to the inclusion of expenditure from PEG, as well as new and non-like for like TFC sites as mentioned. Like for like expenses grew by only 0.4%. Interest received increased due to a combination of higher debtor balances, increased interest rates on debtors accounts, and the inclusion of PEG's strong cash generation. Interest paid increased due to a combination of higher interest rates and higher average borrowings for the period, which included the funding of the PEG acquisition. The Kaap Agri Namibia joint venture continued to perform well.
Headline earnings adjustments mainly relate to the profit on disposal of TFC properties in the prior year. In total, recurring headline earnings grew by 18.1%. When excluding the impact of the additional direct costs incurred related to load shedding, recurring headline earnings grew by 27.2%. We consider recurring headline earnings per share to be a strong indicator of sustained wealth creation, as it eliminates the impact of infrequently occurring events. As such, this slide illustrates the items impacting earnings to calculate headline earnings per share and recurring headline earnings per share. Headline earnings adjustments in the current year are minimal, and in the prior year related largely to the profit on disposal of TFC properties.
Non-recurring items also minimal in the current year, but in the prior year included new business development costs as well as certain legal costs associated with the disposal of TFC Properties. While adjustments for the remeasurement of put option liabilities exercisable by non-controlling subsidiary shareholders were added back in the prior year, these put options no longer exist going forward. As mentioned, recurring headline earnings grew by 18.1%. Recurring headline earnings per share grew by 8.7% year-on-year. Lastly, as you'll see, recurring headline earnings grew by a compound annual growth rate of 19.2%, and recurring headline earnings per share by a compound annual growth rate of 15.5% when compared to March 2020 pre-COVID levels. The load shedding continues to have a widespread detrimental effect across the entire economy.
During the past six months, direct load shedding related costs in terms of diesel, generator maintenance, and the like have cost the group just over ZAR 35 million, more than 3x the cost for the entire 2022 financial year. Added to this, the indirect cost of lost sales, which have not been factored into these graphs. Half year recurring headline earnings growth of 18.1% was achieved. As mentioned, when excluding the direct cost of load shedding, this growth was 27.2%. As such, direct load shedding costs reduced recurring headline earnings growth by just over 9%. Given the nature of Retail Fuel & Convenience business requirements, the cost of load shedding in this segment is the highest, contributing 73.8% of group load shedding costs. What has management done to address this?
We have embraced the load shedding challenge with implementation of a 10-point action plan, with the intention of reducing the net financial impact of these severe and continued power outages through identified turnover opportunities, specific expense rationalization initiatives, and deliberate capital expenditure and working capital management. We are also reviewing the feasibility of various power management and replacement opportunities, and during the period expanded our solar capacity with an installation at our Agriplas factory in Cape Town. Over the past few years, return on invested capital and economic value add have been prioritized as key performance indicators to measure our efficiency of allocating capital within the business. As you are aware, we have invested heavily into the business since 2017 through upgrades and expansions and via acquisitions.
During this time, we also experienced subdued economic conditions and drought which reduced returns, and we also saw the impact of COVID during 2020 and into 2021. Despite this, through a committed focus on return on invested capital and EVA, we have been able to reverse the prior declining ROIC trend and significantly reduce debt levels. During 2022, we completed two significant ROIC enhancing initiatives. Firstly, we disposed of TFC Properties without any negative impact on the operations of TFC. Secondly, we concluded the acquisition of the PEG Group, housing 41 highly cash generative retail fuel and convenience service stations throughout South Africa. Together with a continued prudent approach to capital expenditure, the annualization of the TFC Property disposal and the PEG acquisition will further enhance ROIC.
Ongoing high interest rates are, however, expected to result in an increased weighted average cost of capital by year end. Despite the negative economic conditions, given our Group growth objectives, strong financial position, and based on strict return on invested capital principles, we continue to explore various earnings-enhancing agricultural and retail expansion opportunities. Lastly, as mentioned in November, you will notice in the remuneration report tabled at our AGM in February that 40% of executive reward in terms of the long-term share incentive scheme is linked to EVA as a performance hurdle, with management incentivized to outperform specific ROIC targets. I'll hand back to Sean for the segmental reviews.
Thanks, Graeme. The first segment review pertains to our Agrimark division, including Agrimark's packaging material DC, supply chain, and New Holland agencies. In the first half, our strategy has remained unchanged and focused on market share, selective footprint expansions, optimization efforts, and maximizing supply chain opportunities. Sales of agri inputs were very flat year-on-year due to prior year high input costs, port challenges, logistics costs, and load shedding costs incurred by farmers putting severe pressure on their expenditure levels with us. We experienced fertilizer deflation in the Q2 , while we experienced packaging material inflation during the half year. Animal feed sales growth was very healthy.
Retail sales growth was moderate at 0.7% in this division, this was mainly off the back of building materials categories contracting by 5.3% versus a sector contracting by around about 10%, while other retail categories were all positive. The New Holland agency sales were also under pressure due to the farmer pressure incurred due to load shedding, et cetera, contracted by 16.8%. Subsequently, operational expenditure was curtailed in that agency business. Fuel volumes were healthy at 4% growth, with mainly distribution centers gaining market share due to our robust fuel availability and capability to supply. DC throughput grew by 14.5%, while cost to serve decreased by 6%, inclusive of load shedding costs. All in all, resulting in a very low 1.48% increase in revenue for the total division.
Operational expenditure growth, including load shedding cost, curtailed to only 2.6%, profitability declining by 18.5%, also majorly impacted by higher finance costs due to the rate increases. From an outlook point of view, we will continue our market share drive supported by our business to business digitization initiatives. In that vein, currently our top 200 customer purchases with us are growing at a faster rate than the overall purchases. The low table grape harvest in South Africa will continue to put pressure on those farmers, while the rest of the food sector outlook is stable to good, with some cost pressures of the prior year actually lifting. The second half of our wheat year is expected to be lower than the first half. With farm cost pressures lifting, we expect increased expenditure levels with us in the second half.
Retail diversification will continue. It is heartening to see our urban Agrimark branch revenue growing by 9.8% in the first half and expected to continue. Our retail margins have improved by 50 basis points by the end of the first half, emanating from our continued focus on central pricing, assortment, and replenishment optimization initiatives. Tego Agency sales also saw an uptick in Q2 and are expected to continue into the first or the second half. In terms of the first half review of our Retail Fuel & Convenience division, which for the purpose of this review, includes PEG for the six months and excludes TFC Properties disposed of in the prior financial year. The strategy is now focused on earnings enhancing footprint growth, which could include current site reconsiderations and looking forward, a concerted understanding and preparation for the service station of the future.
One new site was added to the network at Worcester Mall, while one site in Hartbeespoort was exited at the end of its contract. The story of the first half is undoubtedly the strong growth experienced by both TFC ops and PEG in their retail convenience, being 27% growth and 16% growth respectively. This growth is coming from convenience stores and quick service restaurants alike as the trend towards on-the-go meals continues to move forward. TFC operations liters grew by 3.6%, while the PEG liters contracted by 0.8%. Both performances are high ever above fuel sector trends. The TFC group profit for tax grew by 190%.
This growth was as expected considering the PEG acquisition, could have been better was it not for the ZAR 25.9 million cost of load shedding, as well as much lower fuel stock price adjustment gains in the period. At the end of the first half, the average site tenure was 11.6 years. This based on a very conservative view on all the sites being taken. From an optic point of view, we have seven KFCs in the pipeline. We have a few Mugg & Bean conversions and are considering a few convenience store conversions, all being part of a drive to capitalize on the retail convenience uptick in this sector.
Fuel site pipeline is being kept low purposely, and although a number of sites have been offered to us, our investment criteria remains strict, and in some cases, we are considering current site disinvestment to improve overall returns of this division. Our forward-looking liter growth is currently 20.6% as expected by year end. Keeping in mind that PEG is actually like for like from July this year. Supply chain synergies in both retail and fuel supply will continue to be utilized. Operational expenditure focus will remain on the cost of salaries and wages, as well as co-curtailing the load shedding impact. Our strategically structured direct black ownership is still above 51%. We have kept this slide to emphasize that fuel profitability is driven by volumes and not the price.
Starting on the right-hand part of the slide, it is evident that although average fuel prices year to date are 25.7% higher than the same period of the prior year, the regulated petrol margin per liter, bottom left-hand table, has actually stayed the same. Therefore, higher price has not led to higher profits. Second point to note is, yes, in times when there are several fuel price increases, as there were in the first half of F 2022, we are able to benefit from fuel stock price adjustments compared to this year's first half in which prices were more stable and much less fuel stock price adjustment gains were made. It is volumes that will drive the profitability on a sustainable manner, not price per liter or price changes.
As can be seen in the table below the graph, if price per liter, as at 31 March for 95 unleaded was ZAR 22.95 on an inland basis, with a regulated petrol gross profit margin per liter of ZAR 2.42, this would result in a 10.5% GP margin. With an increase of ZAR 1 in the petrol price, the gross profit rand per liter of ZAR 2.42 stays the same, yet the gross margin drops to 10.1%, with us still making the same rand value profitability per each liter sold. The reversal happens when a price decrease on petrol occurs. It is therefore not the price of petrol that drives profitability, it is the volume sold. Diesel margins are not regulated, and in general, make up over 60% of the group fuel sales.
Diesel margins per se remain relatively stable as well per site. In our group, Agrimark and DCs have grown volumes by 4%. Traditional TFC sites have grown volumes by 3.6%, while the PEG sites have decreased volumes by 0.8%, with 45% of the group's fuel volumes now coming from the PEG sites. In terms of our grain services division and first half review, the strategy is unchanged from our last update. We continue to invest where it makes sense. As can be seen on the graph on the top right, in particular the light green line, wheat intake has normalized after the prior two record years. The volume of grain contract facilitation year-to-date, as indicated in the graph on the bottom right, is also lower than the prior two years' peaks.
All in all, therefore, a decrease of 11.8% in profitability, quite acceptable for the division compared to the previous record year. From an outlook point of view, both wheat and canola planting should be similar to the prior year. Early rains have been more favorable than the prior year, but I must emphasize that currently an El Niño weather pattern is expected to develop by September. As usual, we highlight that the second half earnings are normally smaller in comparison to the first half. This division should remain a solid profit contributor to the group. Our manufacturing division is made up of Agriplas and Tego. Agriplas producing irrigation products for the agricultural sector, in particular the food sector. Tego are currently producing bins for harvest and storage in the same sector, as well as contract manufacturing of alternative injection molded products.
In terms of the first half review, strategy unchanged, both Tego and Agriplas continue to identify market share opportunities, launching new products, optimizing operations, and focused on mainly the food sector. The bad news is that Agriplas had a very slow first half and only showed signs of an uptick very late into Q2 . Revenue was down 14.6%. Profitability down, even although OpEx was decreased by 9.9%. The good news is that Tego has experienced a very positive uptick, with Q2 being a net profit contribution, and year-to-date net costs reducing by 30% versus prior year. We expect the second half to exceed the first half. Tego's new extra volume perm bin has been successfully launched and is dominating sales currently.
They will continue alternative contract manufacturing, which has also seen volume upticks. The second half, therefore, outlook is positive. I hand over to Graeme to cover the highly positive feedback on cash flow, capital spend, and debtors.
Thanks, Sean. Moving on to cash flow performance for the six months. From this graph, one can see that the group cash generation remains strong and is expected to increase going forward due to the cash generative nature of PEG. Working capital has been managed effectively. Inventory has grown at a slower rate than revenue growth due to the impact of centralized procurement and distribution, the higher contributions of quicker moving convenience retail and fuel stock. Trade debtors grew at a slower rate than the increase in credit sales. However, debtors not within terms as a % of trade debtors increased year-on-year. With regard to creditors, important to note, as in previous years, is that 7 months of supplier payments are made in the first six months due to the timing of year-end supplier payments. This normalizes again across the full year when reduced supplier payments are made in September.
Trade creditor payments are also impacted by the nature and timing of certain fuel and packaging material payments. CapEx during the period was prioritized and well controlled, with ZAR 75 million spent on various expansion and upgrade projects. Interest paid was higher than previous periods due to an increase in interest rate, as well as the increase in average net interest-bearing debt. Lastly, the final dividend paid relating to 2022 was ZAR 93 million. In summary, a healthy and well-managed cash position for the period, showing similar trends to last year. Inflationary pressures, specifically on working capital, have however put pressure on funding headroom during the first 6 months of the year. Facilities are in place to meet ongoing requirements.
With regard to capital expenditure, capital spend during the period was prioritized and well controlled and was more evenly spread throughout the business than in previous years. During the period, we spent ZAR 75 million on CapEx. Of this amount, 71% went towards expansions, 29% replacement and upgrades. Included in the expansion CapEx was the increase of grain storage capacity at one of our silos, as well as the cost of the new XVP bin mold at Tego. In our corporate space, we also incurred costs in terms of our ERP modernization project. Consideration is being given to reprioritizing certain capital expenditure into alternate electricity generation capacity, with a number of sites being identified for this. As always, a bit more insight into our debtors book and our debtors model, including the three additional slides we included for the first time in November.
We trust this will enable a more complete understanding of our credit environment. Our strategy to grow the debtors book remains key to our business model. This is done through responsible credit extension for the purposes of enabling revenue growth by increasing the consumer's ability to purchase from our various offerings. As a reminder, credit granted can only be used for purchases at our various Agrimark and TFC outlets. We provide production credit, not consumer credit. Our stringent and well-entrenched credit vetting process takes into account a range of variables, including financial and non-financial factors, as well as the nature and value of any securities provided. The resultant credit rating is then used to determine the size of the facility that is approved, as well as the interest rate charged to the account.
Our debtors book grew 8.1% during the period and now totals 16,280 accounts, with roughly 21% of these being seasonal accounts with payment periods linked to the cash flow cycle of underlying product. These seasonal accounts could have payment terms from three months up to 12 months. The contribution of debtors by product type at half year remained fairly similar to last year, with the exception of fruit, which was slightly higher. Our bad debt write-offs continued to be very low and are reflective of the quality of the underlying accounts, with only 0.07% of the book being written off during the six months. You will recall, during 2022, a decision was taken to write off a long outstanding account which was subject to a fraud investigation and process.
This write off has been excluded from the green bars on the graph as it relates to fraud and not debtors risk. The five and 10-year average bad debts written off include all write offs, even the exceptional write off in 2022. Despite this, the default trend remains very low. Lastly, we make in the region of 225 basis points net interest received on all accounts. If we look at our not within terms debtors, in other words, the debtors that are overdue, the graph shows the monthly and average five-year trend of overdue debtors as a percentage of total debtors and highlights the following. Annual monthly trends are similar year-on-year, except for April to July 2020, reflecting the increase in wine grape overdues resulting from COVID lockdown restrictions on alcohol sales.
July 2020 saw late payments being received from certain Western Cape table grape farmers who were waiting on exporter payments. 2022 was a very good year from a collection perspective. The current year started in the same manner. However, during February and March, we experienced delayed payments from certain citrus and fruit customers. These environments have been particularly hard hit by labor unrest, port-related logistics challenges, timing of cash inflows from exports, and then obviously load shedding. That said, the overdues are fairly region-specific, and despite being out of terms, we hold good securities and are engaging proactively with these customers. No material default is anticipated. This has pushed our out of terms as a percentage of debtors up by 4.2% and above the five-year average. We do, however, anticipate this returning to previous levels over the next few months.
In summary, our book has been resilient during the past few years, and despite a recent uptick from specific customers, the book remains in a very healthy state and is well secured by various securities. We are well-positioned to support our customers, given the stable agri conditions being experienced in most of our areas. The next three slides are the additional graphs I referred to earlier. This graph reflects the debtors balances by month by underlying product group from March 2022 to March 2023. Note that the only significant product group that is exposed to dry land farming is wheat. Furthermore, the large exposure to table grapes during December to March is driven by packaging material, which will be far lower in the event of a poor harvest.
The various product groups have different harvest timelines and at such different cash flow timings, which reduces our single cash flow constraint event in the group. You will also see that no product group ever gets to zero. The reason being that even during off-season periods, farmers continue to spend on their accounts, be it for infrastructure maintenance, upgrades, pre-season activities, etc. Product groupings with shorter seasons, example, vegetables, also have a less cyclical and a flatter cycle. Ultimately, a good spread over the various product ranges, which reduces risk. Our agri strategic focus revolves around water-intensive farming areas, and this graph shows the credit sales by month by river system from March 2022 to March 2023. The highest sales areas are the Berg and Hex River systems, which aligns to the wheat and table grape information on the previous slide.
The wide geographic distribution of the debtors book is evident and ensures the impact of regional weather or other challenges is lessened in addition to also smoothing the cash flow from debtors. We have a decentralized credit team structure in all the regions who engage face-to-face with customers, supported by a centralized credit vetting office. The growth opportunities for Agrimark in certain of these river systems is very encouraging and various CRM initiatives are yielding good results. In summary, a good spread over a wide geographic area which further reduces risk. The last slide on debtors sets out how long our debtors have been customers of the group. This slide has not changed since November, so it's merely for those who have not seen it before.
Almost half our debtors by credit facility value have been with KAL for more than 10 years, and 72% have been with us for five years or more. Only 12% of debtors have been customers of the KAL Group for less than two years, and this 12% even includes accounts where there have been entity changes, by example, where a farmer previously traded in a CC and now trades in a Pty. It's clear that a very large percentage of our debtors have supported the group for a long time, and this ties into the low default rates we are able to achieve. We know our farmers well. We are familiar with their individual operations, and we have very close relationships with them.
With regard to the risk profile of the book, 57% of the book is considered to be low and very low risk, with less than 1% being seen as very high risk. In summary, the book is well managed, stringently vetted, diversified from a product and geographic perspective, has an exceptionally low default ratio, and is suitably secured. Furthermore, we are well-positioned given the stable agri conditions being experienced in our areas. Trust these five slides give more insight into our book and why we consider it to have a well-balanced risk profile. Sean will close out from here.
Thank you, Graeme. We can summarize as follows. In terms of the first half of the year, Agrimark Packaging Material, New Holland Agency, Agrimark Grain, for the first time in many years, were all under huge pressure. TFC Group volumes increased in a contracting sector and Retail Convenience has been flying. D.C. throughput continues to grow, our support services cost to serve is being well controlled. We have continued our digitization initiatives with good progress on our ERP modernization, our B2B data-driven market share approach, and our business-to-customer online or B2C online initiative. To summarize a bit of this B2C online in the first six months, we are averaging 4,500 hits per day. Our average order completion time is improving every month. 65% of our sales are outside of the Western Cape. 40% of sales are auto categories.
Our e-catalog has over 47,000 SKUs. Users visiting the site has been over 750,000 in the six months since the launch, with a return user rate of 17%. A basket size of over ZAR 1,000 has been achieved. We are happy to say that a net positive bottom line contribution, excluding the uptick in retail queries in store since the launch of the e-catalog. CapEx was curtailed in the period. We are repositioning this for alternative energy projects in the period. When one excludes debt for the PEG acquisition, debt levels have actually reduced. We continue to improve ROIC and EVA. As previously reported last year, we made provisions for lower fuel stock price adjustments this year and have used the provisions to soften the impact of that on a year-on-year basis.
From an outlook point of view, as stated, wheat and canola planting should be normal, but we need to watch the El Niño in Q1 of F 24 as expected. Farm cost pressures are definitely lifting, and we expect, therefore, that increased farm expenditure in the second half. We believe our urban retail uptick and our urban branches will continue and that retail margin opportunities will continue to be capitalized on. TFC focused on maximizing the retail uptick. Tego will maximize the extra volume pump and success. Agriplas is expected to beat the prior year second half, having started April with a very healthy order book. To end off, although economy is expected to remain sluggish, we will capitalize on changing consumer trends, continue finding volume and value enhancements for our shareholders.
I thank you for everyone's attendance at the session. We will now consider all questions that have been submitted. Thank you, everyone, for over 60 people joining us online. We do have a few questions that we'll handle now. Let's start from any administrative questions can be referred to our company secretary. The contact details are on the website. The first question that we received, is what the numbers would have been excluding PEG from an acquisition point of view, as well as what the inflation number would have been excluding PEG. Graeme, could you please answer that for us?
Thanks, Sean. I think it's clear that PEG has had a positive impact on our results, and it reconfirms the decision to acquire this business. If you just look at the revenue excluding PEG, we're up about 13.4%. As per the slides as well, our like-for-like, which excludes PEG or any of the other non-like-for-like in the business, was up 11.8%. Expenditure, up to 0.4%, excluding the load shedding costs. Expenses have been like-for-like expenses, really well managed in the business, decreasing by 2%. Excellent job there. Recurring headline earnings per share, excluding PEG, was down 3.8%.
PEG contributed ZAR 0.4382 per share to the recurring HEPS number, and that's very much in line with the circular that went out at acquisition. In terms of the circular, we indicated about ZAR 0.81 for a full year at that point in time 48.3 cents coming in for the six months, nice in line with that, and again, just stresses how that business has performed in terms of our expectations. Then just from an inflation perspective, excluding fuel and inflation number, although coming down slightly towards the end of the half, still ended at 12.1%.
Thanks, Graeme. Yes, we can see you. There's another question. Just to confirm what the EBITDA growth would have been excluding load shedding. As I have it, and Graeme can confirm if I'm wrong, excluding load shedding, EBITDA growth would have been around 37-38%, which is quite healthy. Shows a lot of resilience for the period. There's another question. Am I correct in saying that the price-to-book ratio is relatively low at the current moment? The net asset value being just over ZAR 40 a share and the share price today being around ZAR 39, it's obviously not a full one price-to-book ratio. Management doesn't normally give advice on the price of share, but we concur that we believe the price-to-book ratio is too low at the moment.