Hi everybody, thank you for joining us this morning at our interim results presentation. My name is Neville Brink, CEO of the Group. I'm joined by Zaf Mahomed, C FO. Over the next one and a half hours, we'll take you through our half-year results presentation. The format that I'm going to follow is I'll give a quick overview of the results. I'll then work throu gh the divisions, the three operating businesses and I'll then hand over to Zaf and h e'll do the Group financial results. I'll end off having a brief discussion on the next six months outlook. I'll talk a bit about our strategy. We should have about half an hour for questions.
Let's kick off straight away. Let me just start by saying people ask me how I felt about the results. Although we are flat on last year, it's a quietly pleasing result. Why I say that is it points to the diversification of our business and the strategy that we've developed over the last five years of broadening our ability to deal with the volatility of a fishing industry. It is a volatile industry, and we've had some tough challenges this six months, but overall, our business has done well because where we've had challenges, other businesses have stepped up and replaced the earnings that we've seen a drop off, in particular the Fishmeal and Fish Oil side.
Lucky Star, our strategy remains to grow that brand and expand into new categories. We spent substantial capital in Wild Caught side, enhancing and upgrading our factories and vessels, and they certainly have delivered this year. On the Fishmeal and Fish Oil side, where we've had challenges, both in S.A. and the U.S.A., those assets are very well-positioned. They're operating extremely well, and are well-positioned for growth in the future. A pleasing performance in terms of the diversification and dealing with a very unpredictable environment. Just some highlights.
Lucky Star, and obviously I'll go into more detail in each of these divisions, but Lucky Star, strong margin-driven performance. We've seen revenue growth. Our volumes were flat on last year. On last year's six months, volume growth was a record. We've had some supply constraints, and I'll talk a bit about that, and we've had to deal with that but a good performance out of Lucky Star. On Wild Caught side, very, very good performance from, in particular, the horse mackerel business, but both horse mackerel and hake.
Assets doing well, good ability to be out there at sea delivering performance. No unplanned breakdowns, so a good growth from that business. Our division which really is struggling this year, through really no fault of their own, is S.A. Fishmeal and Fish Oil business, where we simply haven't seen the landings that we were expecting. We invested in those assets in both Saldanha Bay and Laaiplek over the last two years, those assets are looking good, but you need fish to drive volume through those factories, it's high fixed costs, the under recovery of fixed cost has been a problem this year, we've had no product to sell into the market, which has driven the performance down.
U.S.A., despite the fact that they are down on last year, a good performance. Remember, in the U.S.A., in our first six months, the bulk of the time, they are in a closed period. We run that season from October to April, effectively in the six months, they have one month of operating. In the October 2025 year, it was better than the October 2024 year in terms of catches and t he rest of the year is used for maintenance. Obviously the product that we sold in this half was obviously, from a price point of view, down on pricing that we had in the 2024 year. A drop-off in profit, but still a very good performance.
Zaf will expand about our balance sheet. Significant reduction in debt. Obviously, a large portion of that, working capital but w e've restructured our balance sheet, and Zaf will talk about it, and we're in a very good position from a balance sheet point of view. Let's look at the divisions now. I'm going to start with Lucky Star Foods. Operating profit, almost 41% up. Revenue up 4.4%, and that's driven a significant improvement in OP margin. It came with difficulties because over this period we started experiencing stock shortages and we went into an allocation mode. Sorry, I jumped a slide there.
In terms of what happened at the factory, we saw an increase in pilchard quota this year from 44,000 to 51,000 almost 52,000 tons. Disappointing in the sense that certainly the pilchard resource seems to be recovering strongly. The research that determined this TAC was late in going out. The Africana, the research vessel, only went out in April. We believe that if the research went out when it was supposed to go out in the early part of this year, later part of last year, we would have had a much higher allocation of quota. Right now we are coming to the end of our catches and the pilchard resource is still out there very strong and we are trying to motivate for an additional allocation later in this year from the authorities, so s trong recovery in pilchards.
You see the yellow block there with our Namibian quota. Last year, there was an experimental quota late in the year in October of 10,000 tons. The biomass study has reflected a strong recovery of the pilchard biomass in Namibia. They gave us a 10,000 ton quota. Late in October, we only caught about 4,500 tons. We're hoping that the allocation, or we're expecting the allocation this year to be somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 tons. It is late in being allocated. We were hoping that that would've been allocated already because our factory in Walvis Bay is certainly geared up to go fishing and produce product, and Lucky Star requires that product. As soon as that opens up, we will be producing and bringing it into South Africa.
As you can see, the landings on the bottom left are up on last year. The problem at the moment that Lucky Star faces is the availability of frozen raw material that we source around the world, and I'll cover some of the strategy around there later. The effect of that is that our factories in both St. Helena Bay and Langebaan didn't have the frozen production to put through their factories. You can see their first quarter, second quarter last year, 1.5 million and 1.6 million cartons, 3 million cartons in total. Whereas this year, we've only produced around 800,000 cartons and t hat reflects in the number, but it does lead to under-recovery of fixed overheads in those factories.
What we were fortunate last year, as you remember, we invested heavily in stock. We bought frozen stock from, particularly, the Pacific, substantial stock, and that stock has certainly stood in good stead in that we were able to sell this into this year. We are now getting to a point where we'll go back into the market to look for frozen stock. We have been looking for frozen stock, and I'll talk a bit about that later. A good performance. A little tough in terms of not having the raw material to produce through our two factories.
As you can see, Lucky Star volumes are flat on last year, 5.1 million cartons. Last year was a record six months, so we maintained that despite the fact that we had limited supply, and we are managing the supply to our major customers in order to try and slow down sales a bit. Difficult with a brand as strong as Lucky Star. It still has a very, very high penetration. As you can see, fourth largest brand in the country at 94% penetration. Four categories we operate in, canned meat, fish, vegetables, and other products, and noodles. A very good, strong, good performance.
Why the margin has increased substantially is, one, we had relatively well-priced stock from last year, so our cost of sales was well-priced. Obviously, with the shortage of stock, our storage costs have come down and our freight cost has gone down substantially. We've managed the promotional material quite closely to limit the amount of promotions we went out there, and that helped us both on a margin basis and a revenue basis. Good performance from Lucky Star.
Obviously, going forward, the availability of raw material is key for this brand. Certainly, in quarter three, we're going to continue in an allocation mode. Locally, we are hoping for a second allocation in South Africa and a substantial allocation in Namibia, which will certainly help in the short term to drive production and availability of stock for Lucky Star. Internationally, we buy product from two main regions. One is the Moroccan-Mauritanian area, and currently, Morocco and Mauritania have experienced, over the last two years, a low ebb in terms of their pilchard catches. It is improving now.
Currently, Morocco has a ban on exports of pilchards. They want to supply their own canneries first. Over the last couple of weeks, the catches have exceeded what the canneries can absorb. Post-Eid, where they are going into an Eid holiday now, but post the holiday, we are hoping that Mauritania will unban the exports of pilchards, and we can certainly buy some more product from them. The main Pacific season starts now, from May through to October. We are active in that, but we have a number of our suppliers there going into the Pacific region.
Korea, Japan, and the Russian vessels will be operating in the Pacific region, and they will go and test the waters in the next two weeks, and we've got substantial orders placed with them. The product from those regions will probably only arrive in quarter four, which will mean that quarter three will be a low stock, we're going to have to manage that stock very carefully. Constrained quarter three, we're expecting a substantial improvement in quarter four.
The strategy remains the same in terms of Lucky Star. It's a strong brand. We continue to grow that brand. We've got flavor extensions in the canned pilchard side. We're re-entering the U.K. market, which has been a traditional market. We are going back in there now. We've got substantial orders to go into the U.K. market. Our entry into Ghana is now starting to get real traction. We went in last year, it's starting to grow and then w e are obviously active in the school nutritional program, that is certainly growing. The brand, despite the constraints on raw material, is still growing, and we'll have to manage this interim period where we have a shortage of product.
On the canned meat side, we've had a very, very good run in our canned meat side. We've introduced a second line now in our St. Helena Bay factory. We have two factories, one in Kraaifontein and one in St. Helena Bay. Both factories now are running flat out in terms of promotion at maximum output, and we simply can't keep up. Canned meat side is doing extremely well, and we are going to introduce some new products in that category. Then, as you know, we have, and we did this last year, started the test of the noodles market. It certainly has started to gain traction now. We are contract packing.
There's a contract packer that is packing Lucky Star noodles for us. We have expanded nationally now with that brand. The intention is to invest in the full value chain over the next short period. Canned vegetables for us has been a product category that we've started to slow down. The margins are tight. It's highly competitive category that we operate in. It still gives us good market share and forward facings but w e've now reduced our penetration in the market to target those areas where there's slightly better margin and slightly better cost in terms of going into that market. We've reduced our volume offtake in the canned vegetables side.
We are going to be launching one new product. I don't want to expand too much on this, but it'll be done in the fourth quarter, in a new category under the Lucky Star brand. Again, the strategy of expanding Lucky Star outside of pure canned fish will continue. Let me Wild Caught Seafood, a business that's done extremely well here, off a low base, I will say that, ZAR 74 million last year, ZAR 204 million this year. Of that ZAR 204 million, there is our fuel hedge in that of around ZAR 40 million. That came through in the first half, and Zaf will expand exactly how we put that hedge in place at the financial instrument. Certainly, it has helped this business.
We hedged our fuel, 70% of the fuel for Wild Caught business, Namibian vessels, and S.A. hake vessels, but not the Desert Diamond. The Desert Diamond was held for sale, so that didn't fall into the fuel hedge, but certainly it has helped this business. Solid performance from hake. Our hake vessels, as you know, we invested over the last two years in upgrading those vessels, and you can see it coming through in sea days there, 542 sea days versus 515 last year. That is just a simple fact that those vessels are operating well and not breaking down and can get back to sea as quickly as possible. They come in, turn around, discharge, and get back out to sea.
Catch costs have gone up, and that is driven by fuel that the hedge doesn't sit in there. Fuel costs, and that is going to be a constraint going forward. Fuel costs are a big component of our hake business. 30% of their operating cost is in fuel. Catch rates have remained more reasonably stable in hake. What we've done as part of the strategy of this division is the vessel goes out and fills up every day. That is the target. If we don't catch the hake, we then target the bycatch and so i t's driven operating costs down because you're catching more of every other species, and you're filling the vessel up as much as possible each day.
From a market point of view, the market remains very, very strong. Prices are at record levels. There remains a shortage of whitefish worldwide. Cod supply is short, and it's driven generally cod prices through the roof. I don't know how consumers are affording it, but the result is that other whitefishes have also gone up. We simply can't keep up with demand, and pricing is certainly at record levels. As you can see in the last bullet point, our fuel hedging in this part of the business, in the hake business, ZAR 17.3 million is the fuel hedge that we recognized in the first six months.
We just received our new vessel. Very exciting. It arrived last week. A second-hand vessel, but I was on the vessel last week, and the vessel is in superb condition. Brought in from Argentina, 1987, which is relatively new in vessel age. Very nice scoop, very wide beam. We'll be able to accommodate a dual factory vessel. This vessel essentially will replace the Desert Diamond. It allows a lot more flexibility in operating both in the bottom trawl and mid-water trawl species. When horse mackerel is short or catch rates are slow, you then can target your bottom trawl, and vice versa.
It allows a lot more flexibility and can counter the volatility of the Desert Diamond. As you know, the Desert Diamond was feast or famine, and it just isn't fit for purpose so t hat vessel will continue to operate. We are selling that vessel. This vessel will be replacing it. It will go through a major refit over the next six months and should be back into the water fishing in both horse mackerel and hake in January of next year. Very exciting looking vessel, and I'm looking forward to seeing it perform. On the horse mackerel side, very good performance, in particular from Namibia. As I said, let me start with South Africa.
Desert Diamond had good landings relative to last year. Last year, we sent the vessel to Namibia because the catch rates of horse mackerel in South Africa were very poor, so it operated part of the time in Namibia. It came back in the early part of this financial year, started fishing, and certainly horse mackerel has started to improve in South Africa. We put it through a dry dock, and because it was held for sale, we expensed the full cost of that dry dock, almost ZAR 30 million, against this vessel.
We didn't depreciate. We didn't capitalize any of the cost and depreciate it. The vessel will continue to fish for the rest of this year. There are a number of buyers that are looking at the vessel, but we expect the vessel to be out of our lives by the end of the year, but it will continue to fish and i t had a good performance for the first six months. Namibia was a star performer. Despite the fact that catch rates came off slightly, the operating costs reduced quite substantially. Obviously, there was a hedge as well in this business of ZAR 24 million. Market remains very buoyant. The need for cost-effective protein still exists, and our horse mackerel prices are at record levels. A very good performance from both South Africa and Namibia, and look forward to going forward with these two businesses.
The two smaller businesses in the Wild Caught sector squid and lobster. Let me start with lobster. Steady performance. The TAC on West Coast went up by almost 60%. A little surprising to us because of the level of poaching, but DFFE is saying that the resource is recovering, which is positive to see. The South Coast lobster also increased. They're very stable. It's a very small part of our business, but both doing well. The disappointing species in this business unit is squid. As you know, we invested last year in both rights and fishing vessels. We increased our fishing rights and increased our fleet, and we invested in a brand-new cat vessel that we built but t he species had a very poor year.
I've put a graph there at the bottom just to give you an indication, and that's industry catches over the last 20 years. Not just ourselves, industry catches. You can see there are these troughs and spikes, and right now we are in a trough. The expectation is based on history, is that we will see a strong recovery of squid. It's a short-lived species. It lays eggs, and if the conditions are not right, sea conditions and temperature conditions, then you do have a low recruitment. Certainly, based on what we're seeing on other species, in particular in the West Coast, hake and horse mackerel, we're seeing a strong recovery. We're hoping that this species will recover next year. It is a species I believe in, and we will see the recovery.
One of the key points is, in a fishing industry, you have to have diversification. You've got to be in all species because one is up and one is down. This, I'm confident this will recover. The catamaran, even though we've had a poor performance, the catamaran within the context of our other vessels, outperformed all of the other vessels. I'm very pleased with the way that that vessel has performed.
Obviously, it still is at a low level, but once the species returns, we should see stronger performance from that squid vessel. The business which really had a tough time, and it's reflected in the numbers, operating profit of almost ZAR 140 million against a break-even last year. This was a simple fact of no fish. As you know, this is an industrial fishery. High fixed cost factories require volume to drive production through those factories. Two species that we catch is anchovy and South Atlantic herring, red-eye, as we call it. Last year, we had a record red-eye catch. This year, red-eye has been very limited, and initially there was a zero allocation of anchovy. DFFE later then just recently issued a 30,000-ton quota, a very small quota, and that's really as a bycatch to pilchards.
When the vessels are catching pilchards and they do catch some anchovy, they don't have to stop on the pilchards. That is declared as bycatch against the pilchards. It is disappointing, because, and many of you've seen our factories over the last couple of months, we've invested in those factories. The Laaiplek factory is superb at the moment. It can produce high-quality meal and oil, but it needs volume to go through that. Obviously on the sales side, no production, no sale. It is a disappointing performance.
Again, this is a business that we've invested for the long term. I'll show you some graphs here just in terms of where we are with the resource. Top left-hand side was the red-eye landings. The light blue is what is issued by the department and what we caught last year. As you can see, we had a record catch, 96% of what they issued, we caught. This year, they had a similar allocation of around 200,000 tons as a buckle. The industry's caught 28% of that. We're out there looking at the moment and we're certainly hoping that that'll improve going into the second half.
Anchovy TAC and catch, as you can see, 2025 was a low year. This year so far, we've caught no anchovy, so a tough year. Long term, it's important, the question is why are we in this industry? Long term, I still believe that this industry will deliver, and I'll talk a bit about the market later because the market is a key component Fishmeal and Fish Oil and where it's going. Top left-hand side is the anchovy biomass. As you can see, it's a short-lived species, three to four years, but it bounces back strongly.
Last year we had a low, 2024. When I said two years ago was a low. The biomass measurements this year, last year in 2024, the biomass measurement was 113,000 tons against a high, you can see 6.7 million tons is the top end in the early 2000s. This year, the biomass measurement was up to 626,000. A strong improvement in the biomass. Still a low biomass, but what is key there is this upward trend. We're certainly hoping that going into next year, that trend will continue, and we'll have a decent allocation of quota. It does bounce back very quickly, and we are very well- positioned at the moment from a factory point of view to take advantage of better catches and production.
The biomass on red-eye herring is fairly stable over the last couple of years. Surprising that we haven't seen the fish, but it seems to be at a level that will continue there. It appears, and I was hoping that anchovy would bounce back strongly this year, it appears that things will get better and we'll have a good year next year with the recovery both of anchovy and red-eye herring. A tough year for them and will be a tough second half, there's no doubt. U.S.A., similar business, as you know. Produce fishmeal and oil. A reasonable performance, operating profit of ZAR 270 million against ZAR 370 million last year, down ZAR 100 million margin, and which shows that we brought costs under control, margin in line with last year andt his was just a function of pricing.
Daybrook is in a very good position now. We started the season. The season has just started four weeks ago. This is a 28-week season. We start middle of April and finish middle of October. For this year, obviously volumes were very similar to last year in terms of sales volumes, pricing. The only difference between this year and last year was pricing came off. In 2024, the Peruvian catch was very good. It is a commodity market we play in, and we saw prices come off relative to 2024 and t hat's what drove the performance, the reduction of ZAR 100 million operating profit.
In terms of landings, long-term average is around 600- million fish, as I've explained before, in America, they don't count in kilos or tons, they count in fish. We land around 600 million fish on a long-term average. If you exclude the 2021 when we had the hurricane, it's around 625,000 tons. Right now, our catch rates, after four weeks, are almost double what we landed last year. You can see on the right-hand side, the red line is last year, the black line is ours. The long-term, the five-year average is the dotted line. For the start of this season, we are well ahead of last year and, in fact, 20% ahead of the five-year average. It's a very good sign out of the industry for the season.
Based on the current projections, we certainly should exceed the five-year average of 625,000 million fish. Certainly hoping to get closer to 700 million fish, which will bear us in good stead for both the balance of this year and next year. A good performance despite the fact that they're down, but very positive signs coming out of this fishery in terms of going forward. I spoke about this last year. We are, and it's our partners, Westbank, we'll be introducing a new vessel, a new type of vessel. I thought I'd just show you a picture and give you a little fishing lesson. The left-hand side is our current vessels. We have 12 of those vessels that go out. That's a carrier vessel with two skips or purses on the back that get deployed when they get to the fishing grounds.
We have planes that go out and look for the fish. When they spot the fish, the fleet goes to where the fish are. They deploy those two purses, and those purses drop a net, a purse seine net, and circle the fish. The vessel on the right-hand side is an Alaskan purse seiner that has been operating and t hese are the vessels that operate in the salmon, Wild Caught salmon industry in Alaska. They are smaller vessels. They're jet engine. You don't need to deploy two purses, t hey fish. They are a purse seiner on their own. The key for this is can that vessel on its own circle the fish quick enough and quietly enough to catch the product?
The big difference between these two vessels is the crewing. The vessel on the right, the new one, has a crew of four and can stay out to sea for a month. It doesn't have to come back every day. The vessel on the left-hand side, our current vessels have a crew of 14. Operating costs are a lot less in this vessel. The trial will be can these vessels purse effectively in the fishery, in the menhaden fishery, as they do in the Alaskan salmon industry. Both fish are fast-swimming fish, so it'll be interesting to see. We will use one of our vessels on the left as a carrier vessel so th is vessel will stay at sea, purse. The carrier vessel won't carry the two skips. It'll come alongside, put the net, put the pump into the purse, suck it out and go back down to the factory and run backwards and forwards.
We have to use two or three carriers. It'll be interesting experiment. As you know and as I explained before, this fishery is not a TAC fishery. It's not governed by quota or tonnage. It's governed by time. Between April and October, we can catch as much as we can. The resource is very, very healthy. The biomass has seen strong growth. Currently, the industry takes between 4% and 5% of this biomass out, so there's lots of scope to increase the volume uptake of this and w e're hoping that this vessel, and if it works, these vessels are available. The Alaskan salmon industry has taken some strain, so there are a number of these vessels which are available for us to bring down.
It'll be an interesting experiment, and we're certainly hoping that this will deliver, and our partners are very optimistic about this new fishery. Let's see how this operates. I will be visiting the States in June and go and visit and get on one of these vessels to see how it operates. It has just landed in Fort Lauderdale. It came down by a carrier vessel, landed there. It'll be in this fishery in early June so v ery exciting new development. I want to talk about the market, and this again, is something we don't control, but it has a massive effect on pricing in the Fishmeal and Oil market.
Top left-hand graph is the Peruvian catch. Dark blue is what they call the first season. Light blue is what they call the second season. Last year, first season was 3 million tons, second season, 1.6 million tons. Normally, this industry catches about 5 million tons a year. This season, they announced a very low first season allocation, 36% down on the first one, 1.9 million tons. The fleet went out and have been really battling to catch fish, so much so that the authorities put in many bans.
Certain areas get banned of fishing and i t was not only the catch that they were battling with, it was the amount of juvenile fish, the youngsters in the catch. The levels were anything between 40% and 70%, and obviously, that is you destroying future biomass. The authorities are very concerned about the level of biomass and the level of catch, and they've currently put a second ban in. The vessels went out, put a second ban in. That ban will expire on the 26th of May, then they'll make a call on whether they either close the season permanently or allow them to continue fishing.
The current catch is around 450,000 tons compared to that 1.9 million tons. Very, very low catch. The second point that has come through from the authorities is the start of an El Niño event. The water has warmed, hence the lack of catch and the poor catches. The concern is that we're going into an El Niño period. We know certainly South Africa, we're going into El Niño. There, they're going into El Niño, they're talking about a potential super El Niño. If that is the case, they won't have a second season.
Now that has a massive effect on the market, the Fishmeal and Oil market. If you look at the top right-hand chart there, currently, world production is at a nine-year low. That 4.9 million tons, that's all fishmeal and oil, fishmeal in particular production is at a nine-year low, that 4.9 million includes the 1.9 million allocation of this year from Peru. If the catches are either stopped or curtailed, that number is going to be very, very low.
On the bottom left, we've seen the continuous growth of aquaculture and the aquafeed demand. As you can see, growth is expected to continue at a CAGR of around 3%. Demand continues to grow. Right now, from a buyer and seller point of view, we're out there talking to buyers. Most of the sellers are not going to commit right now. Buyers obviously would like us to commit. We know the pricing is going to go up. We just don't know to what level. We are holding back as an industry. It does put Daybrook in a very, very good state, given the fact that we're having good catches and reasonable oil yields, and the fact that over the next few months, we will see a massive reduction in supply of fishmeal and oil.
This is not only positive for Daybrook for the second six months of this year, but certainly into 2027, where we will see the real benefit of this dynamics that is playing out in the industry at the moment. Do not know what the price is, the indications are at the moment that fishmeal prices are somewhere between ZAR 2,500 a ton and ZAR 2,800. The latest indications we have seen on oil are somewhere between ZAR 5,000 and ZAR 6,000. Going back to the levels that we saw in 2024. Very positive for U.S. and for South Africa if we can see fish come back next year. I will hand over to Zaf now, and then I will come back and talk a bit about outlook and strategy.
Thank you, Neville. Strong performances by both Lucky Star Foods Wild Caught Seafood helped offset lower results from Fishmeal and Fish Oil businesses. Revenue declined by 6% to ZAR 4.9 billion. Despite the overall decrease, Lucky Star Foods delivered 4.4% revenue growth, supported by sustained demand and a favorable sales mix. Wild Caught Seafood segment benefited from strong pricing and improved catch rates, contributing to revenue growth of 19.1%.
In contrast, revenue from the Fishmeal and Fish Oil segments was negatively impacted by lower South African industrial fish landings and weaker global Fishmeal and Fish Oil pricing. Operating profit was slightly below the prior year, declining by 1.6% to ZAR 665 million compared to ZAR 676 million in the comparative period. Headline earnings per share increased by 7.7% to ZAR 3.498 per share, primarily due to a significant reduction in net interest expense compared to the six months ended March 2025.
An interim dividend of ZAR 1.10 per share has been declared, unchanged from the interim dividend paid in the comparative period. The group's net debt to EBITDA ratio improved to 1.1x , which is a significant improvement compared to the 2.2x at the end of March 2025, reflecting capital repayments made across both regions and lower working capital levels in South Africa. From an operating profit review perspective, the first half of the 2024 financial year represented an exceptional performance, as Neville mentioned, with fish oil prices at record highs. Total operating profit of the first half of the current financial year is in line with two of the past four years.
Despite this, contribution by segment differs significantly in each year, reflecting the benefits of the group's diversified business model. Lucky Star Foods delivered a strong performance with operating profit increasing by more than 40% to ZAR 324 million, driven by solid sales volumes and stronger operating margins. Its contribution to group operating profit increased from 34% to 49%. Better pricing, improved catch rates, and lower fuel costs contributed Wild Caught Seafood delivering a strong turnaround.
Operating profit increased significantly from ZAR 74 million to ZAR 204 million, and operating margin increased from 5.7% to 20%. Fishmeal and Fish Oil Africa recorded a loss of ZAR 139 million compared with a loss of ZAR 5 million in the prior period, primarily due to significantly lower red-eye and anchovy landings, which were down 62%, together with a reduced availability of pilchard trimmings from our canneries. Daybrook's operating profit declined by 26.7% from the prior period due to weaker global Fishmeal and Fish Oil prices.
Despite this drop in financial performance, its operating margin remained consistent at 24.2% compared to 25.7% in the comparative period. Moving on to our detailed income statement. Gross profit margin improved to 28.1%, primarily driven by strong performance of both Lucky Star Foods and Wild Caught Seafood segment. Lucky Star Foods achieved higher margins due to lower inventory holding and fish procurement costs, a favorable sales mix, and higher volumes of locally caught pilchards, which mitigated lower local canning production.
Wild Caught Seafood margins improved due to higher volumes, stronger market prices, and lower fuel costs. These improvements were partly offset by weaker margins in the Fishmeal and Fish Oil segments. Operating profit decreased marginally by 1.6% to ZAR 665 million. Overheads were down 6.1%, which includes a fuel hedging gain of ZAR 43 million, of which ZAR 33.4 million is unrealized. Our fuel hedging strategy help manage this key cost input during the period and I will cover this in detail in the next slide.
Excluding the impact of fuel hedging, as well as the net effect of the Desert Diamond suspended depreciation and class renewal costs amounting to ZAR 30 million, overheads declined by 3.3%, reflecting the group's focus on cost containment. Net interest expense reduced by 31.3% to ZAR 99 million. The ZAR 33 million net interest reduction in South Africa was primarily due to materially lower working capital levels and the positive impact of capital repayments.
In the U.S., net interest expense decreased by ZAR 12 million due to lower debt levels following capital repayments made in both the current and prior periods, a favorable rand exchange rate effect, and the transition to a revolving credit facility in December 2025, which eliminated negative carry. The effective tax rate increased to 25.4% from 24.3% due to a lower proportion of U.S. earnings, which is taxed at a lower rate. Profit after tax increased by 5% to ZAR 422 million, compared to ZAR 402 million in the comparative period. Detailed financial statements have been included in the appendix to this presentation and the results booklet, which is available on our website.
As I mentioned earlier, some detail on our fuel hedging. Fuel is the largest cost in Wild Caught Seafood business, representing approximately 1/3 of operating costs if you assume crude oil at $65/bbl . The annual cost at this level is approximately ZAR 360 million at an average usage of about 25 million L of fuel. At the beginning of the financial year, we structured a cap and collar hedge covering approximately 70% of forecasted fuel consumption for our hake fleet in South Africa and horse mackerel operations in Namibia. The hedge is based on our estimated fuel usage, excluding Desert Diamond, which is held for sale, and runs from November 2025 through to September 2026.
The collar is set with a floor at $60/bbl and a cap at $65/bbl . The structure provides protection when the oil price exceeds the cap as we receive cash inflows that offset higher fuel costs. There is no hedge impact within the collar range, and we forgo any benefit from falling prices below the collar. Operating profit for the first half includes a fuel hedging gain of ZAR 43 million. Of this, ZAR 9.4 million is realized with a further ZAR 33.4 million in unrealized gains as oil prices have traded above our cap strike rate.
A 10% change in the oil price has an impact of approximately ZAR 10 million on our current operating costs. It should be noted that the hedge was taken using the ICE Gasoil price, which has a higher correlation to the marine gas oil that we use. This has the added benefit of approximately ZAR 20 million, as gas oil has increased by 89% compared to Brent crude at 60%. We spoke a lot about working capital. Net working capital reduced from ZAR 3.3 billion to ZAR 2.7 billion. Primary driver of this was a 60% reduction in Lucky Star Foods inventory, largely due to lower volumes of fish procured, which came off elevated levels in the prior period.
Fishmeal and Fish Oil Africa inventory decreased by 50%, reflecting lower production output. Higher levels of frozen fish procurement are expected to result in higher working capital levels and inventory holding costs during the second half. This will result in higher short-term borrowings and a corresponding increase in interest expense in South Africa. The group has sufficient credit facilities to fund any increase in working capital. The group's net debt declined by ZAR 1.8 billion from ZAR 3.5 billion to ZAR 1.7 billion at the end of March 2026.
This decrease was driven by a reduction of ZAR 1.3 billion in South Africa and $ 445 million in the U.S. due to capital repayments made across both regions and lower working capital levels in South Africa. The group's net debt to EBITDA ratio accordingly improved to 1.1x , which is significantly lower than the 2.2x in the comparative period. In South Africa, the ratio improved from 3.7x to 1.5x , and in the U.S. from 0.7x to 0.3x . The group complied with all end covenant requirements relating to all its debt facilities during the period.
The U.S. balance sheet reflects a significant deleveraging over the period, with gross debt having reduced by $88 million from $107 million at the end of September 2021 to $19 million at the end of March 2026. $123 million of gross debt and $132 million in dividends have been paid since the acquisition of Daybrook in 2015. This amounts to approximately ZAR 4.2 billion if we assume an exchange rate of ZAR 16.50 to the U.S. dollar. The primary focus has been to deleverage the U.S. balance sheet and reduce U.S. dollar debt. The transition to a revolving credit facility in December 2025 has further enhanced the capital structure by eliminating negative carry and will now allow more dividends to flow through to the group.
In South Africa, net debt has decreased to ZAR 1.6 billion, driven by capital repayments and significantly lower working capital. As a result, the leverage ratio dropped to 1.5x . A short-term facility of ZAR 1.6 billion remains available to support working capital needs in South Africa, providing sufficient liquidity headroom. Capital expenditure for the half year was ZAR 116 million, down from ZAR 183 million in the comparative period. Spend included scheduled maintenance for the hake fleet, a deposit for the acquisition of a dual-purpose vessel, and regular maintenance at the group's processing facilities. The planned capital expenditure for the financial year is ZAR 542 million.
Replacement capital expenditure represents ZAR 312 million, which is largely in line with our historic average spend and includes an additional canned meat line on the West Coast. The most significant capital item is ZAR 230 million for the recently acquired dual-purpose vessel that was delivered in May 2026. This vessel is currently undergoing a comprehensive refit to equip it to target both the hake and horse mackerel fisheries, further supporting fleet versatility. Fishing operations are scheduled to commence in January 2027 following completion of these upgrades.
The interim dividend has been maintained at ZAR 1.10 per share, unchanged from the prior year, reflecting operating profit in line with the prior period, the lower working capital levels, and takes into account the unrealized hedging gains recognized to date. Cash generated from operations increased significantly to ZAR 1.4 billion, compared to ZAR 10 million in the comparative period. This improvement was mainly due to a reduction in working capital requirements during the period, largely resulting from lower volumes of fish procured by Lucky Star Foods. The group delivered cash operating profit of ZAR 821 million for the six months to the end of March 2026, with South Africa contributing ZAR 476 million and the U.S. contributing ZAR 345 million.
Reduced working capital levels released cash of ZAR 603 million, largely resulting from lower volumes of fish procured in Lucky Star Foods. The group paid ZAR 246 million in dividends, which was a final dividend of ZAR 1.75 per share declared for the FY 2025. Free cash flow conversion has improved significantly and underlines the positive impact of reduced working capital requirements, as well as the strong cash-generating capability of the business. As a result, the group repaid ZAR 993 million in net debt.
In South Africa, this included repayment of short-term facilities as well as capital repayments on term debt. In the U.S., the transition to a revolving credit facility resulted in a further repayment of ZAR 567 million, significantly reducing debt levels. The group's cash balances closed at ZAR 459 million, compared to the ZAR 603 million opening cash position.
Following the significant reduction of U.S. debt to an optimal level and the move to a revolving credit facility, the group will prioritize the reduction of debt in South Africa, along with maintaining focus on cost control and prudent capital expenditure. The strategy of investing in our assets and reducing debt over the past four years has positioned the group to capitalize on resource availability, market demand, and stronger pricing. Thank you, and I hand back to Neville, who will cover the outlook for the business.
Thank you, Zaf. Where to for the next six months? Lucky Star obviously is a great brand and continues to have strong consumer acceptance and demand. We are in a position we have sufficient stock, relatively sufficient stock for the next couple of months. The focus will be on replenishing the frozen stock, in particular for the quarter four and for going into next year. I've spoken about that in terms of the plans. We're certainly hoping that both the Pacific and the Morocco will fire, and we will get some additional product from our Namibian and local suppliers as well, so a strong focus on managing costs.
We will be obviously limiting promotions over the next period because we simply cannot supply the demand that the customers want. We'll have to manage this period until we can replenish the stocks at a level that can drive promotion again. Good business. Constrained slightly at the moment in terms of supply but g ood prospects going forward as soon as we can replenish that stock. On the Wild Caught side, pricing remains very, very firm. We've got a leverage. Our vessels are in a very good state at the moment. We are managing input costs so o bviously, fuel is a concern for us. We have a hedge in place. Long-term trend of where fuel is a big concern and we have to manage that very carefully. We do have four vessels going into maintenance.
The two Namibian horse mackerel vessels and the two hake vessels are planned for standard repairs and maintenance, which will pull back some of the sea days. This business, based on supply and demand, is in a very good position for the balance of this year. On the Fishmeal and Oil side, you've seen what's happening to the market. How that'll play out over the next couple months is going to be interesting to see. Certainly, there's no doubt that pricing on both fishmeal and oil is going to increase substantially.
We will be talking to our buyers over the next couple of months in terms of setting some prices, but we'll be setting prices for this year and for next year. Good outlook for the Fishmeal business, in particular in the U.S.A. and certainly in S.A. if we see a return of both anchovy and red-eye . I think that covers it. Happy to take some questions.
Morning, everybody. Neville, questions we have so far are from Wessel Joubert at Oyster Catcher . How do you balance expansion of Lucky Star pilchards into other countries with supply constraints and pricing?
Good question. Obviously, we are always trying to grow our Lucky Star brand and this is, in my mind, a short-term blip. 80% of the product we get for Lucky Star is supplied from various geographies outside of South Africa. Indications are that the Namibian biomass is coming back strongly and should that happen, there is plenty of room for growth so w e do have to balance it. Allocation mode is never a nice position to be where customers are looking for stock and we cannot supply them. I don't want to restrict our sales force in terms of growing our market share. Even the new countries we go in, we will be limited in terms of supply. It is a fine balance.
Second question from Murray Moore at Aylett. When do you expect a Namibian pilchard quota allocation?
Latest indications are by the end of May. We were hoping that it'd be earlier. The industry is pushing hard that the authorities make a call. I think that obviously it's not a TAC yet, so the question is who does it get allocated to? We believe that it'll be kept with government and what they call government objectives, and industry can purchase the quota from them. We're comfortable with that. The latest indications was by the end of May.
Next question is from Nick Wilson, News24. Could there be a shortage of Lucky Star canned fish on shelves because of the supply constraints?
I don't think there'll be a shortage on shelf. There's sufficient stock for us to certainly go forward for the next four months. The question is, thereafter, if we don't find supply, then there may be a shortage. We are being very cautious about our promotional activities. We are limiting volume offtake by being scarce in our promotional activity. It's a double-edged sword. We artificially reducing volume output to try and manage the stock that we have going forward over the next three, four months, and hopefully by then we'll have the replacement stock.
Another question from Murray at Aylett. With the potential for strong results out of Wild Caught doing what it's doing, is there potential for you to be debt-free in a year?
I don't think we'll ever be debt free. We will always have a working capital facility. Typically, our working capital facilities run from March, normally it's at about ZAR 1.5 billion, to September at about ZAR 750 million. This was an unusual year as we spoke about pilchard procurement. We will always have a working capital facility because that is the nature of the Lucky Star business. From a term debt point of view, we would hope that we would be able to, other than the share that's paid out in dividends, that now Daybrook is in a far better position to pay more dividends to South Africa, given that it's now on a revolving credit facility. Would it be within a year? Not quite, but yes, we looking at reducing our term debt in South Africa as the next stage in our balance sheet optimization.
Thanks, Zaf. Another one from Murray. This one for you, Neville. Canned meat seems to be coming through nicely. Peak margins. What's the margin split between pilchards and the rest?
Let me say that certainly the margins on canned meat are better than on the canned fish. The margins have improved on canned fish, as you've seen. Margins on canned meat are hesitant to say what they are, but they're certainly better than canned fish.
Okay. We have no other questions at this point. I think we can close-
We can conclude. Well, thank you everybody for joining us today. I look forward to seeing you over the next couple of days. We're having one-on-one meetings with a number of our investors, so certainly, we're in a good position and I'm certainly looking forward to the second half. I think it's going to be a very interesting second half with some challenges, but with certainly some bright sparks on the horizon. Thank you, everybody.