Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for taking the time to join us for our annual results presentation. On the agenda for this afternoon, we'll look at the review of 2024, followed by quite a bit of time that will be spent on our data analysis. We'll then move into our financial results. We'll then deal with our targets, our achievements against what we set out to do. We'll also look at targets for the coming year, and we'll then also spend time with discussing the outlook. Finally, at the end of the presentation, Graeme Lillie, who's joining me, will read your questions. And also, just a word of welcome to Jacques Bestbier, our CFO, who is also on standby to assist with dealing with your questions.
So, ladies and gentlemen, in a weak retail trading environment, the resilience of the business model is evidenced in the performance, with revenue that increased by 9.8%. Merchandise sales increase of 4.7%. Just pause to say that some good support came through in the merchandise sales line during quarter four, where merchandise sales increased by 6.7%. Gross profit margin, a very strong performance in half two, finally settling at 43.1%. Strong collection rate of 79.7% supported a record high performance in terms of the number of satisfactory paying accounts at 81.3%. Operating profit increased by 13.1%. Earnings per share benefited from our successful share repurchase program and settled at 15.9%. EPS up 7.1%.
And then, ladies and gentlemen, once again, the company will be rewarding our loyal shareholder base, the increase in the total dividend of 21.1%. This clearly illustrates the confidence that management and the board has in the group's medium and longer term prospects. These results were achieved against a background of challenges. Really traded during a time where a lot of challenges actually presented themselves. First and foremost, if we look at the bigger picture, the world economy was negatively impacted by geopolitical tension and the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as the war in the Middle East. We also had to deal with severe port congestion and rail line disruptions, specifically referring to the rail line between Durban and Johannesburg.
I'll give you a status update on where we are at in terms of port congestion and all of these problems when we get to the outlook section of the presentation. No secret that exchange rate volatility was... also poses posed a whole host of challenges during this period. As a group, we imported 37% of what we sold. Obviously, exchange rate volatility made things more difficult. The agricultural sector also remained under severe pressure during the last 12 months. Just to give that a little bit of color, we all know that the agricultural industry supports rural towns in South Africa. The Lewis Group has got a significant footprint and a big interest in all of these towns.
It always makes it a lot more challenging when the agricultural sector are under as much pressure as what we've seen during the last 12 months. Without spending too much time on it, the actual pressure in this sector came about as a result of very, very high input costs, fertilizer prices that were more than 100% higher than the preceding year, price of fuel that was 25% higher than a year ago. And then farmers also had to deal with an outbreak of avian flu during this period, and big struggles to actually get their exports out of South Africa into the world markets. There was no surprise that unemployment remained stubbornly high at 32.9%.
All of these, and some other factors, impacted the economy really badly and resulted in less cash being available in the economy, which ultimately led to a decline in cash sale purchases. Then in the especially in the fourth quarter, political uncertainty also came into play in a big way, and we'll talk about the current status quo when we get to the outlook section of the presentation. Rising costs, we all know the story. A lot of pressure that came through with high energy costs, high food prices, elevated fuel inflation, and high interest rates during this period. The Lewis Group responded well to these challenges, and merchandise sales increased by 4.7%. We also made significant investments in the growth of the debtors book.
That growth finally settled at 15.6% and supported other revenue streams very nicely, with other revenue streams that increased by 17.2%. I mentioned that. The second half was a really strong trading period for us, and we took the opportunity to expand margins during this period, and GP finally settled at 43.1%. Merchandise sales in our traditional brands increased by 6.9%, strongly supported by a growth in credit sales of 15.8%. Cash sales under pressure for the group, with a decline of 11.8%. UFO, unfortunately, as you know, UFO is our cash trading brand, suffered as a result of the non-availability of cash in the economy and decline in sales declined by 12.6%.
The higher merchandise or the higher GP categories, being furniture and appliances, performed in line with last year, and once again contributed 86.5% of total sales. Operating costs were well managed during the period and increased by 5%. Our robust balance sheet once again enabled the group to continue with our share repurchase program. 4.2 million shares were repurchased during this financial year at an average repurchase price of ZAR 40.82. So important to note that almost 47% of shares in issue has been repurchased since we listed the group. Ladies and gentlemen, we believe in the resilience of our business model, and we also believe in the resilience of our customers and the target market that we sell into. South Africa, we are a resilient nation.
We believe although there are a lot of headwinds at this point in time, things will normalize and ultimately change for the better. If one actually share that view, it will make perfect sense that the group continue to invest in the markets that we sell into. We see these tougher economic times as excellent opportunities to actually go and find quality retail space, and we've done just that over the last 12 months. We've added or expanded our footprint by 3.5% by opening a net 29 new stores in 2020. Four of these stores were opened outside of South Africa. Gives us a store count of 138 in Rest of Africa now, 16% of the store base, and these stores also contributed 16% of the group's revenue. Small format stores, we added 9 small format stores to the total.
We now trade out of 52% of our Lewis outlets in these smaller formats. I think it's also fair to say that this strategy are now nearing a point of maturity, and that these small stores are making a meaningful contribution to the results of the group. In keeping with ensuring that our stores remain up to date, that the look remains fresh, 150 stores were refurbished during this period. The left store expansion table speaks to the fact that most of the new stores in the period were opened under the Best Home & Electric brand. Now bringing the business, and this is the business that the group started way back from scratch, now successfully trading out of 170 outlets.
Our client engagement strategy via social media continued to gain traction during this reporting period. For the group, we've added 730,000 Facebook followers, and the group now enjoys over 3 million Facebook followers. The group generated more than 7% of merchandise sales through social media and online channels, and we see this as a continued area of growth for the Lewis Group. It's also encouraging to note that a large percentage of customers that we are attracting into the group's sales mix, into our fold, are, in fact, younger customers. That bodes well for future sales. We've had good successes in terms of our share buyback program, with a further 4.2 million shares that were repurchased during this period. It's also part of our plan to continue with this strategy.
We see this as a very good tool to enhance shareholder value. We must also just pause to mention that the net asset value per share during this period increased by 8.2%, ZAR 89, and as things stand, the share is still available in the market, ZAR 50. Therefore, the strategy will continue. Like I said, a very good tool to utilize to enhance shareholder value. Our final dividend, a very strong increase of 32... 37%, I should say, in terms of the final dividend... that will become payable in July. Very attractive dividend yield of 11.5%, but most certainly also not a one-year wonder.
If we look at the average yield, average dividend yield over the last five years, ladies and gentlemen, you will see that that is actually a very attractive 10.3%. The next slide is a snapshot of the execution of our active capital management strategy. For the last 12 months, ZAR 170 million was utilized as a tool to return capital through our share buyback program. Also paid dividends to the extent of ZAR 267 million, returning, and this basically resulted in an annual return of 19% to shareholders. We've been consistent in our execution of this strategy. The average return over the last five years, of 19%. Right, the next slide now clearly illustrates that we've been following through on the commitments that we have been making.
So we made it clear 5 years ago that it is management's intention, within the parameters of affordability, to return at least 100% of attributable profit to shareholders through the avenues of share buybacks and dividend payments. Happy to share with you that our average now, over the last 5 years, actually settled at 110%. If you look at this reporting period, once again, 100% of attributable profits that will be returned to shareholders. Then move on to our data analysis. Our cash collections, our installments, installment collections during this period have finally settled at a very strong 79.7%. This is our second highest collection rate, not only over the last 5 years, but since we listed the group.
Slightly down on last year's performance, and this is only as a result of slightly slower collection numbers that came through during the collection months of August and November. But a very, very strong performance that supported the satisfactory paying percentage in the book. As I stated earlier, satisfactory paids are now at the highest level ever. Collections, we collected ZAR 520 million more during this period. That's an increase in collections of 10.9%. A good improvement in contractual arrears, reducing from 27.8% to 24.5%. Then we move on to debtor costs. So our debtor costs increased by 70.3% during the period, solely as a result of an increase in our impairment provisions.
Just to spend a moment, net, net bad debts written off actually reduced, reduced by 1% on last year's performance. So ladies and gentlemen, it is counterintuitive that an improving debtors book attracts higher levels of debtor provisions, and therefore, we want to unpack this a little bit further, try and explain it a little bit better today. Good place to start is to look at what happened to the actual size of the book. The gross debtors book increased by 15.6% for the year. If the quality of the debtors book remained exactly the same, it's fair to say that the impairment provision would have increased in line with book growth. I just want to draw your attention to what happened to the outcome of our impairment model provision.
So the impairment model provision increased by 13.3%, well below the book growth of 15.6%. We then move on to the economic overlay provision. So in terms of IFRS 9, IFRS 9 requires that consideration must be given to potential future changes in the economic environment. And the current very high levels of global and local uncertainty resulted in an increase in the economic overlay provision of ZAR 178 million. So on a look-through basis, the outcome of the economic overlay provision last year resulted in a debtor provision of 2.8%. This year, because of high levels of uncertainty and the fact that one should consider, the potential impact thereof on your debtors book, economic overlay provision increased by ZAR 178 million, resulting in a provision of 5%.
Total impairment provision, therefore, moved from 36% last year to 37.5%... and the movement in that impairment provision from the ZAR 2.163 billion- ZAR 2.606 billion, resulted in an income statement movement, or charge, I should say, of ZAR 443 million. Therefore, finally resulting in a debtor cost percentage that increased from 12% to 17.6%. So the underlying quality and the good health of the debtors book resulted in a reduced impairment, 33.3-32.5, and the economic overlay, because of future uncertainties, actually added the additional ZAR 178 million to our impairment provision, and that resulted in an impairment provision of 17.6%. So let's get back to the underlying quality of the book.
Record high satisfactory paid performance at 81.3%, which compares favorable to last year's 80.4%. Also important to note that the 5.5% of customers in the non-performing account bucket is also the lowest that the group has seen since forever and a day. It's basically the low point. You will also now recognize the impairment provision percentages, 36% of last year, that increased to 37.5%. And then some good news, ladies and gentlemen, on top of the debtors performance, we've also seen a very nice increase in the number of customers. What I want to highlight is that we now enjoy 42,000 additional customers in the satisfactory paid bucket, and this actually will give very good support to repeat sales as we move forward.
So in 2020, the satisfactory paid position reflected 70.5%. Now a steady increase, and it looks like we've now reached a point of stabilizing above a level of 80%, being almost ten percentage points higher. We then move on to our financial results. Income statements, just to once again mention that we have adopted IFRS 17 during this period, and that the adoption of this accounting standard does not have any material impact on earnings for the current or for prior periods, and that the comparatives have been restated. Revenue up 9.8%. Merchandise sales up 4.7%. Gross profit, just to put the achievement into perspective, last year, 40.6%, a nice expansion of 250 basis points to 43.1%.
I mentioned that expenses were well controlled during this period, with an increase of 5%. Operating profit expanded by 13.1% to ZAR 690 million, and our operating margin, a nice expansion from 13.7%- 14.8%, with the attributable line increasing by 6.2%. Move on to the segmental analysis. The traditional retail brands, being Lewis, Best Home & Electric, Beares, and now also Bedzone, performed well during this period. Operating profit expanding by ZAR 40 million, and our operating margin settling at 18.3%. In the traditional side of the business, a net 33 new stores were added. 10 of those stores were opened under the Bedzone, our bedding specialist business during this period. UFO, unfortunately, not a good top-line performance.
Some good work has been done in this business, to actually restructure and to reduce our operating expenses in this business. We'll note that our operating costs reduced by 19%. This reduction in expenses resulted in an increase in operating profit. That's the operating profit line before impairment and capital items, increased from ZAR 4 million last year to ZAR 9 million this year. Unfortunately, as a result of the poor top-line performance, we had to write the remaining balance of the goodwill. That was ZAR 59.9 million. We had to write that off during this period, and further impairments of the right-of-use assets to the extent of ZAR 33 million were also made during this period, and that resulted in operating loss of ZAR 83 million compared to last year's ZAR 104 million. Four underperforming stores in UFO were closed during this period.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the management remains committed to turn the performance of UFO around. We have not reached the point where we want to give up on this business. I think we've shared with the market in the past that UFO has got a strategic position to fill in. It's got a strategic role to play in the group. We will continue to refine our merchandise offering, and we've got further plans afoot to also enhance our social media and online strategies to actually get top line in UFO. On the balance sheet, I mentioned the point that we enjoy the support of a robust balance sheet. Two points that I want to pause on. So stock levels were reduced quite significantly. We carried 17% less stock than a year ago.
So if you asked us three months ago, do we believe that this is the appropriate level of stock holding, and well, is this what one can expect moving forward? The answer to that question at that point would have been yes, but unfortunately, the world has changed since then, or especially so the world of shipping, and I'll unpack that going forward. But long story short, moving forward, and when we report results again in six months' time, you will see quite a significant increase in inventory levels to basically deal with the problems that we are facing with at the moment. Then borrowings. Borrowings increased by ZAR 408 million during this period. This is solely as a result of quite significant investments that has been made in growing our debtors book.
As a matter of fact, we've invested ZAR 973 million in the growth of the book over the last twelve months, and on top of that, we've also utilized ZAR 170 million for share repurchases. The management is very comfortable with current borrowing levels, and I'll unpack that a little bit further when we get to the outlook section. Key ratios, earnings per share up by 15.9%, EPS up by 7.1, then also some expansion, return on equity up from 8.7 to 9.3. ROCE up from 7.9 to 8.6, and our return on assets also moving in the right direction from 9.2%- 10%.
So although the movement in our returns have been slower than one would have liked to see, we can just mention today that management remains committed to get to our ROE target of 13%, and we believe that it will take maybe two years longer than what we first anticipated, but we are most certainly on the road. We believe that we've planted the correct seeds to actually achieve that. I've touched on borrowings, so although the 11.7% borrowing ratio is outside of our targeted range for the year, it's the significant investment in the debtors book, which is a good investment, that have actually taken us to 11.5, and I'll unpack our medium-term views and targets when we get to the outlook section.
We've spoken about a nice increase in our total dividend of 21.1%. All right, ladies and gentlemen, so on a look-through basis, a solid set of results when, when one compare the results to what we set out to achieve and what we said to the market 12 months ago. Gross profit, a nice, nice, nice performance, well above the upper end of our target range at 43.1%. The target for the new financial year, 40%-42%. One needs to be conservative in terms of setting the GP target, especially when considers what's happening in the world of shipping, and I'll give you the detail into the next slide. Increase in operating costs, well contained at 5% below the lower end of the target range.
We all know that there is a lot of inflationary pressures coming, coming down the line, and therefore, a target range of 6%-10% for the 2025 year. In the medium term, we believe that we can bring cost containment the down step up and basically get it to a position where costs increase by somewhere between 3%. The satisfactory paying customers, we spend a lot of time on, on discussing the record. It's a good achievement. The team has done really, really well. If you look at the 2025 target range, similar to this year, and then in the medium term, we'll also be satisfied if we continue to manage our debtors book and have satisfactory customers that falls within the parameters of 77%-80%.
17.6%, the debtor cost front, above the upper end of the target range because of the economic overlay provision that I have discussed. We believe that there's room for improvement in the 2025 year, and therefore a target range of 13%-17%, and when things start to normalize and when we start seeing some improvement coming through in the local economy, we believe that we can run the business with a debtor cost percentage that falls within a range of 12%-15%. Operating margin, nice expansion. Target range for 2025, 12%-16%, as the performance of the book starts improving. A further medium-term target range on the operating margin of 16%-20%. Borrowings, now at 11.7%
2025's ceiling, and this is not a target range, a ceiling, to actually raise borrowings at levels of below 25% has been set. And if we look at the medium term, that's also our medium-term, medium-term ceiling. And for your benefit, gearing is also included at the bottom, and that obviously includes the impact of IFRS 16. Right, let me move on to the outlook. I think if one must summarize the outlook, one word, the most appropriate word will most probably be uncertainty. I think if we look at the worldwide economy today and start discussing macroeconomic headwinds, there's a lot of uncertainty in the system. 50 elections that will be taking place worldwide. With elections come uncertainty. Uncertainty comes elevated levels of risk. We look at the world's biggest economy.
They woke up to the news this morning that the Republicans are facing a significant problem, and that Mr. Trump is most probably going to have to sail through some, let's call it, stormy weather as we move forward. Then we've got the two wars in Russia and Ukraine, got the war in the Middle East. Yes, the world is just an unpleasant place at this point in time. Even if one works on the assumption that the war in Russia ends tomorrow, it will be very difficult, very, very difficult, to reintegrate Russia into the world economy. And one might well end up with two very distinct groups, a very real divide in the world.
That, in itself, ladies and gentlemen, will lead to a situation where we don't get back to a position where one can say that it's, that it's business as usual, and world trade will most probably be impacted in, in quite a permanent way. So, yes, like I said, the world is... This point in time is not a place that basically makes for, for stable or for a favorable outlook. In South Africa, we've got political uncertainty. We still have a very real risk of social instability following the local elections, something that all of us can just watch very closely at this point in time, and the next 40 days will obviously be telling. Who knows how it will all pan out? Also, we also have a couple of key portfolios that are vacant as we speak.
A very important appointment needs to be made to the position of the Minister of Trade and Industry, so very interesting times that basically lies ahead of us. Electricity supply remains at risk. We all know that load shedding might return. Then we need to talk about the severe port congestion, shipping delays, and what we are seeing in the shipping market at this point in time. So when we last spoke to the market six months ago, mention of the fact that a lot of ships were lying outside of Durban Harbour, waiting to come in, waiting to offload merchandise that was desperately needed by all retailers for Christmas trade. We also mentioned that Transnet, at that point in time, made commitments that the backlog would be cleared within three and a half months.
But six months later, and although there has been improvements, the backlog has not been cleared. As things stand today, ships are still waiting for anything between 10-14 days to actually enter into the Durban Harbour. And this has also motivated some, some of the bigger shipping lines to actually start sending smaller ships, to actually run the route to South Africa. To put that into perspective, in the past, the shipping lines used ships that on average carried 10,000 shipping containers. They are now utilizing ships that have got capacity to carry 3 or at maximum 4,000 containers. This, together with a whole host of international problems, have now led to a significant shortage in shipping space, and shipping prices have actually gone through the roof during the last 5 weeks. So what does that mean?
Five weeks ago, shipping rates were sitting at just below $2,000, out of China that is. Today, to get that same container onto a ship into South Africa will cost you anything between $8,500 and $10,000. That's if you can find space on the ship. Turbulent times. It's going to take a lot of smart planning to actually sail through this storm. Consumer spending is expected to remain under pressure, depressed during this period. But one must also pause, ladies and gentlemen, to say that the whole picture that I've painted thus far is a very grim one. That is not actually Lewis's outlook. We believe that we've proven through very many previous economic downturns that we've got the experienced management team that can actually sail through these turbulent waters.
I think this current set of results also speaks to the fact that we've got the ability to actually find those positive golden nuggets, and to actually turn those into sales. We've got the ability to pull the appropriate levers at the right time to make sure that collections continue to move forward. It's for these reasons that we continue to make investments, not only for today, but also for the longer term. Therefore, you will be seeing a minimum of 20 new stores that will be opened during the 2025 financial year. You will also see further expansion in our debtors book. We've got the systems and the people to continue to benefit from the higher appetite for credit that exists in the market at this point in time, and we will be doing exactly that.
We will also continue to support local communities that support the group. We have been doing so for very many years. We're going to also step those efforts up, and we will be doing so through our social upliftment programs in the year ahead. Then, very importantly, we will also continue to invest in our own people, our staff. During the last financial year, we did over 29,000 training interventions. This plays a critical role in terms of upskilling our people to enable them to deliver the best possible customer service. It also places our employees in positions where they can grow personally to provide a better life for their families. Merchandise, as always, a key focus. New ranges will be launched into our traditional stores during August and September of this year, and into UFO during October to benefit from Christmas sales.
As always, a big focus on exclusivity and also a focus on bringing value to customers in our target market. Then finally, we will continue to create shareholder value through our share repurchase program. Our latest mandate was obtained from shareholders in October. It's a mandate to buy back 10%, and as things stand today, we have been successful in terms of buying back 3.3% of shares issued from October to this point. Ladies and gentlemen, yes, we believe that we've got a solid foundation to build on. We've got a book that speaks to 45,000 traditional customers that is in the best state that the debtors book has ever been. And we will utilize our relationship with these customers to actually build a better Lewis for the future. And with that, we will now open the floor for questions.
Thank you. Thank you, Graeme.
Thanks, Johan. First two questions relate to UFO. First is from Cobus Cilliers from All Weather Capital. He says, "Well done on a good result. On UFO, what additional options have been looked at? Are conversions to other banners within the company an option, given how different the customer profile is for UFO versus the traditional segment?" He also asks, "How are the leases structured, i.e., the weighted average lease expiry for the 39 remaining UFOs?
All right, Cobus, yes. Thank you very much for your questions. Thank you for your compliment as well. So first and foremost, we are not prepared at this point in time to actually even start considering giving up on UFO. We acquired this business to actually give us a foothold in the higher LSM groups that is available to sell to in South Africa. And before this current downturn, UFO has actually done exactly that, and very successfully so. We have been through difficult times. We've restructured the business now. Like I mentioned in the presentation, the cost base today, it's a very different cost base to what we had 12 months ago.
And we believe that we've got sufficient plans afoot, and those plans are really centered around exclusive furniture and enhanced social media and online strategies. We believe that those plans are strong enough to actually start giving us some top line traction. As you can imagine, that is what's needed in this business at this point in time. As a matter of fact, if we can come through this next financial year showing a sales increase of 7%-8%, UFO will actually start generating profits again. We still have a very, very stable and loyal management team deployed in UFO. It's people that knows and understand that segment of the market well, and I've got full confidence that we will actually turn the UFO business around.
Your question with regards to leases, we typically sign three-year leases in UFO. We've closed 4 underperforming stores during the last financial year, and if you ask us, out of the 39, how many of those are really underperforming and how many of those do we actually wish to close if we can? There's 2 out of the 39 that are really underperforming stores that we might not be able to remedy, Chris. So not a big proportion of the 39 stores.
Thanks, Johan. Then a question from Charles Boles from Titanium Capital. He says, "Congrats on another very credible result." He asks, "The UFO acquisition has been a struggle. With hindsight, what has been the reasons for this? What have been the learnings?" He says, "This echoes of Ellerines acquiring Wetherlys. Is going more upmarket a viable strategy for Furniture Retailers?
Charles, good afternoon to you, and thank you for your questions. Charles, yes, if we look at the history of UFO, I mean, after acquiring the brand and after changing some of the approaches and strategies in UFO, we actually experienced quite a good trading period. But our problems basically started during the COVID period. As we came out of COVID, we had supply issues. We had to make changes to our merchandise ranges at that point in time. And to call it what it is, a lot of the merchandise that we then introduced into the business, and really out of need and shipping delays and no continuity in supply, a lot of those ranges that did not work.
I think it's fair to say that we lost a little bit of market share during that period. It also took quite a bit of time to actually get sell through on those lines before those lines could have been replaced. New ranges went into that business during October of last year, with limited successes, but definitely some good learnings that were made out of what we've seen in terms of those ranges, Charles. The long and short of it is, we don't believe that it's fair to actually compare this acquisition with that of Wetherlys. In the case of Wetherlys, a lot of the core management actually exited that business at the time of the acquisition.
That is not something that happened in UFO. We still have the necessary expertise in that business to basically turn it around, Charles, and therefore, we are not in a position where we are going to give up. We believe that we've got the expertise to actually make a success of this business.
Got another question from Charles, relating to Bedzone. He says, "There seems to have been a proliferation of bedding retail outlets. Is this space not becoming overtraded?
Charles, yes. It's most definitely overtraded at overtraded area of the market. You're absolutely right. There's an awful host of basic stores and specialty bedding stores out there in the market. So why did we enter? The answer to that question is simply that we basically enjoy excellent buying power in those categories. If we look at the rest of our business, close to 20% of what we sell through all of our other business units are, in fact, basics. So we've got very good long-standing relationships and very good negotiating power where it comes to basics.
We believe that we've got quite a unique positioning in the market, and that the look and feel of our stores will actually attract customers to come in, to come and have a look at what is available and on display in Bedzone. I could also mention that 2 of the stores, the first 2 that we've opened, have now been running for more than 18 months, and that the results coming out of those stores, one can say that they are reaching maturity now. The results that are coming out of those stores are indeed pleasing results. We believe that we can basically go in and disrupt that section of the market.
Thanks, Johan. Another question from Charles, relating to Lewis raising its debt levels. He says, "The gearing limit in 2023 was 15%. It's now been raised to 25%. Can you provide some insight into this thinking?" He asks, "Is this likely to keep increasing? This seems to be a red flag, given that gearing has been a key reason for failures of credit retail.
Yeah, Charles, so first and foremost, I don't think that the ceiling of 25% is, in fact, stretching our business, potentially stretching our balance sheet in any way, shape, or form. I think in anybody's books, gearing levels are, or borrowing levels of 25% can only ever be considered as being conservative. The reason for the change in thinking is quite simply that there's opportunity available to actually make a very good investment, that is an investment in the debtors book. It is an investment in a debtors book that is now performing at the best levels that we've ever seen in the history of the Lewis Group.
For those reasons, as long as we can maintain the quality of the book at these sort of levels, if we are successful in maintaining collection rates where they are at, Charles, we really don't see this as taking on significant levels of risk.
Thanks, Johan. No further questions on the web call.
Ladies and gentlemen, so with that, just once again, thank you very much for your attendance. And just to once again extend an open invitation to anybody that would like to book time with management, please get in touch with Graeme, and we will gladly set aside time for a meeting. Thank you very much, and have a good afternoon.