Good morning to all our guests this morning, both in person and online, local and international. A warm welcome to all our franchisees, international franchise partners, investors, business associates, and shareholders. I would like to acknowledge our board of directors and our Spur Corp board executives, who have worked in unison to guide and inspire us to deliver the results that you're gonna see today. First of all, I'd like to thank Mike. Mike, want to thank you in person, just for your continued wisdom and direction. Thank you for making the past four years' journey so meaningful and offering us your advice and perspective on all the solutions we consider and the opportunities we explore. Mike, we're blessed to have you at the helm of Spur Corp.
I also want to welcome the other board members that are present here this morning. I can see Lerato here, and I know there's a couple more online. Thank you for being here. I'd like to express my thanks to all the executives that are here today. I was just chatting to them earlier, telling them what's gonna happen next time, as well as each member of the Spur Corp team, who have just simply demonstrated their commitment to our business, and through their passion and hard work, have worked closely with our franchise network to deliver another year of great results, which you're about to review. We recently held our values awards for 2024 , and I acknowledge the 87 finalists and winners, who are the beacons that uphold our values and set the example for others who work with them.
In this room, I see a few winners, and I applaud Phil, who won the Civitas Award. I don't think Pierre's here, and he won the PvT Award, which is in memory of Pierre van Tonder. And there were many more winners. Congratulations. And finally, my acknowledgement goes to the customers who vote by stepping into our restaurants daily, as our franchisees and their restaurant teams await to offer them a great dining experience. At this point, I also want to express my sincere condolences to my team who have lost loved ones during the past year, and there have been many, and more recently, to a most valued franchisee who has lost his loved one. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. Memory eternal for these blessed souls.
If we move on to our agenda, this morning, it gives me great pleasure to officially open up the presentation of our fiscal 2024 full-year results, and that's the period July 2023 to June 2024. And Cristina, our CFO, who's looking gorgeous as ever, joins me to present the financial and segmental review after the business overview. Welcome, Cristina.
Thank you.
We will end. So the fiscal 2024 results mark the fourth cycle and year-end presented by our current executive leadership team, an executive leadership team who kept Spur Corp's purpose at the core of everything. Our business model and company values have guided every decision. Step by step, we have surely built momentum in our commitment to leading for the greater good and accelerating innovation and transformation, and this is evident when you look at the company today and the results that will be announced this morning. If we look at the results at a glance, the franchise restaurant turnover grew by 11.5% to ZAR 10.6 billion, and by 7.4% if we exclude sales from the Doppio Collection acquisition.
Revenue rose by 14.1% to ZAR 3.5 billion, supported by stronger franchise revenue, increased sales from manufacturing and distribution, and higher sales from our retail company stores. Comparable profit before tax increased by 9.3%, and pleasingly, headline earnings increased by 10.8%. The board has approved and declared a final dividend at 118 cents per share to shareholders. This represents a total dividend for fiscal 2024 at 213 cents, 213 cents. I will now provide you with an overview of the business performance in fiscal 2024, and some performance highlights which have been achieved by the respective brands. Our vision to create sustainable value through consumer-led innovations and to build franchise restaurant brands that lead the experience continue.
We have remained disciplined in our approach and focused on our business model. Our business strategy and growth plans have been developed to ensure that our core purpose is integrated into our future path. Leading for the greater good embodies our commitment to making a purposeful contribution to a better, more inclusive and sustainable world. Our purpose has been expanded into the next tier of meaning, where everyone has a place at the table. Through intentional transformation, the greater good resonates with the core value of people first. Through innovation and ethical leadership, we dedicate ourselves to making a meaningful impact on society and building a sustainable future for all. Spur Corp and its wider network continues to be a place of equality, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. We are committed to creating value for our customers, our franchisees, our people, and all the communities we serve.
In a world where people hunger for meaning, we can serve at a table where we are all welcome. I will briefly mention some key highlights and transformational initiatives in this presentation as it unfolds, starting with something on enterprise development. It is our deliberate mandate to drive entrepreneurship and job creation. Our initial partnership was to sponsor the awards of the best cooperative at the National Presidential SME Awards, and the awards aim to coordinate key role players in support of small enterprise development, and Spur Corp was a participant. We invested over ZAR 500,000 in enterprise development this year, which included about ZAR 362,000 for the Khayelitsha Cookie Machine, which we bought to help them with the production of their biscuits. This machine will enable 15 more jobs to be created.
The Khayelitsha Cookies was first trialed in KZN in Spur, and will imminently roll out to all our Spurs nationally. John Dory's restaurants are already on board, and we hope The Hussar Grill will follow shortly with a specialty cookie, maybe. One of the highlights of this year's initiative and contribution to leading for the greater good has to be our Ops Cadets Learnership. We launched the Ops Cadet program in July last year. It was a twelve-month program that was initiated to empower unemployed youth and develop a pipeline of young operations professionals through learning, practical training, mentoring by operations managers in our restaurants. The program is a NQF Level 5 generic management accreditation, and these participants received formal training through eight theory modules, financial and people management.
In addition, they had many practical workshops around supply chain transformation, People, Leadership, and Culture, and they also received hands-on experience getting to know the ropes as part of the restaurant team across the brands. The combination of theoretical and practical training has equipped these Ops Cadets with the necessary skill and exposure for their future roles. What is wonderful to see is that these 18 individuals, most of them have been employed already in our network or with us. I think we've got about six or eight still to be appointed within the next few months, and we're looking forward to seeing them thrive in our organization. This is an amazing initiative, and I want to acknowledge the people who played a role in setting up this initiative.
Colleen Carr, who's head of PLC, our ops champions that helped lead the program, and everyone in PLC that helped manage such a comprehensive program. The wonderful thing is that not one student dropped out. I think one was given an opportunity internationally, but an awesome opportunity, and I look forward to us doing more of these kind of initiatives. And those aren't my boobs. The participation of women in business has helped and is helping and will further improve their social and economic status, which is vital to driving the economy of Africa as a whole. Since we just recently celebrated Women's Day, it gives me great joy to share with you these female facts. On our board, 60% are female, ExCo, 50%. At Spur Corp, 53% of our employees are female.
In our company-owned restaurants, 50%. This year, 53% of females got promotions, or all our promotions, 53, were females, and 60% of our staff in the franchise restaurants are female. So in addition to this, Spur Corporation is also a finalist in five categories in the Gender Mainstreaming Awards, which are scheduled for the end of October. And they are organized by Business Engage, which really focus on gender mainstreaming in the private sector. I want to congratulate Colleen's getting lots of mentions today. Our PLC executive, who won Positive Role Model in the Western Cape. Congratulations. Vuyo Henda, our CMO, actually won this award about two years ago. Congratulations, Vuyo.
Now that we're talking about women and what we're doing to try and prepare our young women for future life, the Sadima Sisters program supports young schoolgirls with monthly sanitary products. We're doing this in partnership with Ubuhle Foundation. We increased the number of girls each time. We've now got 773 girls who are supported across four provinces. Remember that once we put them onto the program, we support them for their entire high school period. It's about four to five years, which is awesome. I'm now gonna take you through the trading overview for fiscal 2024.
So if we look at the map of where we trade, we continue to lead as the largest casual dining franchise restaurant group, with seven hundred and one restaurants trading primarily across the continent of Africa. Two weeks ago, we did cancel the franchise agreement for our remaining two restaurants in Saudi Arabia due to non-compliance. So the group now trades in 14 countries, including South Africa, with ten well-established and diverse brands. We have 98 restaurants in the international market, and there are many more in build right now for the first half of fiscal 2025. If we look at the restaurant count by brand, and you can see the numbers on the screen, Spur Brand has the largest footprint of 307 locally, and 30 internationally.
This represents approximately 48% of the total group. Out of our top 16 multiple franchise groups, they own 220 restaurants, and we remain committed to building our pipeline of franchisees, our young entrepreneurs, our Black franchisees, our female franchisees, and it's pleasing to note that our top Black multiple franchisee is the fifth largest in our restaurant count and our seventh largest multiple franchisee in turnover value, so the future looks good as we transform our pipeline. Post the end of this fiscal, we already, we've already opened nine new restaurants in July, and also this week, in fact, relocated one and y ou start with a good year. If we look at the restaurant count, revamps are starting to gain momentum now with all our new restaurant designs, and we'll talk about that shortly.
This year, 47 revamps were concluded, and we geared up our development division, because we have over 70 revamps planned for the year ahead. That's a big transformation planned for this year. New restaurants this year, we opened 25 in South Africa, 11 internationally, and then we know that new was the addition to the 38 Doppio Collection restaurants which we've added to our portfolio. If we look at fiscal 2024, the reinvestment by franchisees on new or remodeled or revamped restaurants is estimated at ZAR 350 million. So on behalf of our board and executives, I applaud our franchisees for their commitment and investment to ensure that our brands remain refreshed and appealing to our consumers.
Some specifics on the SA trading this past year before we go on to the brand updates. So if we look at Spur, has shown a solid performance over the last few years. It's really phenomenal, this brand. We set at high targets this year, but it's increased system-wide sales by 7%. Spur represents 66% of total SA sales. This is not counting our sales. Panarottis, we'll talk about them shortly, also increased by 10.8%, RocoMamas by 7.8%, and both represent 10% or each of sales. And then the Doppio Collection brand, as you can see on this slide, Doppio Zero, Piza ē Vino, and Modern Tailors, have only been here for seven months, so that's from December 2023 to June 2024.
If we look at the monthly trend line, and if you just draw your attention to the red line, which is fiscal 2024, this shows you that our trend line for the past three years has been similar with some unexpected sort of patterns this year. The first quarter was stronger, and the second quarter slowed down but we did have another buoyant year-end season. You can see a beautiful growth every December, and we're praying for one this time, and in half two we saw that the trading patterns were more unpredictable, and then they started peaking towards the end of the fiscal, which helped us deliver the numbers. As early as January, we commenced rapid planning to increase sales activation on all fronts, and I applaud the team.
The minute we saw the decline in January, we collaborated to look at what we needed to do. There were increased bucks, there were bucks extended, there were waiter incentives introduced. We focused on the customer experience because we thought, we can't lose any customer. We must give them a great experience, so they return. We upped our marketing investment and communication to the loyalty club, and that is what really got us through the year. If we look at South Africa that we serve, 73% of consumer spending is reliant on 21 million people, who make up the working middle class and the privileged, which our brands primarily serve. In contrast, the majority of South Africans fall outside of these segments, and many remain unemployed and reliant on support from government grants and the extended community.
This confirms that we, as an organization, need to accelerate our societal action to create an even greater social impact through franchisee community activity, educational programs, youth empowerment, and environmental initiatives. Most importantly, economic growth and prosperity is only possible through sustained job creation, and Spur Corp remains committed to supporting the GNU by creating employment opportunities to build a better South Africa. We must remember that with every successful restaurant and every new restaurant open, we extend our contribution to making a positive impact through employment. The restaurant industry is like a perfect place for a first-time job. If we look at the customer count trend line, this was also an interesting one to observe. The red line on top of the bars is, fiscal 2024. You can see August and September, we saw a lovely growth.
Christmas was on par, and I think in the whole industry and retail on, as a whole, we were all disappointed with April, and then we did see a bit of a pickup in May, June. Even though customer count was fairly flat, our average spend per head did increase, and that was mainly due to menu inflation. If I look at international, international represents 10% of the group's turnover, and the 19.9% growth that you see on this chart is using a constant exchange rate, and we know that the portfolios of Africa and Mauritius remain our prominent regions, but a great performance from this portfolio. The international portfolio has reached ZAR 1 billion sales in fiscal 2024, with an increase of 10.5% on previous year.
Revenue grew by 16.5%, and this portfolio delivered a profit of ZAR 23 million. However, trading in Africa does have its challenges. Volatility was experienced in selected markets. In Kenya, we had the political unrest in July last year, terror threat stress that followed in October last year, and then political unrest just recently in June, which did affect our growth performance. Ghana is a struggling economy and has experienced hyperinflation, with food inflation climbing further from the 22.6%, right up to 24%, which has affected local spend, but we're sure it will recover. It does happen in Africa. Turnover, India is still struggling because of the Porsche incident, which caused the ban on alcohol sales in all outdoor seating areas in May, and there's no indication of when this ban will be lifted.
We have had growth in many of the other regions, like Zambia and Mauritius, and growth in Zimbabwe was up to 82.6% in ZAR and a growth of 74% in US dollars, due to three high-volume restaurants that were opened, our restaurants, that opened in half two, and I'll show you some of those pictures shortly. And in addition, we have two new strategic sites planned in Harare, which we hope to open by December this year. And then the two Spurs that are opening in Zimbabwe and one in Mowana, in Botswana, you can see the concept picture on the slide, will be the first two Spur restaurants outside of South Africa to take on the Pegasus new look. The new look, as Spur branding, has got a project name called Pegasus.
So look out for these new restaurant designs. Let's take a look at some of them. This is RocoMamas Corner. Some of our board members have been on the site to see it. It's a magnificent site, a busy center and a hub where we operate really well, and the consumers have accepted this brand. If we look at Bulawayo, I think I showed you the concept pics last time. This store is now trading. It's a high-volume store. It's got a magnificent play area. I couldn't capture it in little photos, but it's in the suburbs of Bulawayo, and people are just streaming in with their families. It obviously didn't make the time for the new look, but in time, these things will be converted, but a beautiful store.
And then this was an interesting conversion. This used to be our John Dory’s in Maerua Mall, in Windhoek. It was recently converted to a RocoMamas, and I think it's doubled in turnover, but once again, suited for that mall, for the younger market that are coming to the movies or going out for entertainment. So really awesome to see, and there are many wonderful examples of great development that's happened in the international category. So if we look at the total group turnover, if we look at the 12 months to June, growth of 11.5% for the group.
If we look at the like-on-like, and I think that's what we're always interested in, I think a very good performance, even though we can see John Dory's still taking strain, but when I talk about John Dory's shortly, you'll see it's imminent. We did have two closures at John Dory's. This is like-on-like, though, and it's still a bit flat. This does exclude Doppio Collection, which obviously only traded for 2024 and not for previous years, so they exclude it on this table. I would say that a growth of 5.4% on like-on-like in a market that is very challenging and where we've seen certain competitors close shop, I think it's a formidable performance, so well done to the team and our franchisees.
So every effort that creates value will start and end with the customer. At Spur Corp, as you can see on our business model, customer experience is one of the important levers. Everything we do is consumer-led, and we try and ensure that it's consumer-led. We're trying to build up planning teams to ensure that our planning teams are representative of the markets we serve, so that we can have proper insights of what we need to develop, and all we do, we try and do from the customer's point of view. I'm now gonna take you through the restaurant reinvention, starting with the dine-in environment.
So this year, if I had to pick one key driver that permeated through the organization, it was definitely reinvention and innovation, and I'm hoping just to display some of those for you this morning. So if we look at the restaurant reinvention, we must remember one thing, we are a franchise business. At the core of our business appealing brands that lead the experience, and it's our responsibility to ensure that those brands remain healthy, remain relevant, remain appealing to our consumers. Sometimes a franchisee will tell me, "Well, what's wrong with the concept? It's worked. It's working," and it's not about not changing it, it's about the customers that you're turning away by not changing it, so very key to us, and there's been amazing work.
In fact, when I saw the summary, I was so surprised at how much the team have accomplished with our franchise network. And so Hussar Grill, our specialty team have successfully developed a new Hussar Grill concept. There's only features of it at the New Market store in Alberton. John Dory's, I'll talk more about it, a beautiful new concept store, really performing well. Doppio Zero, two bespoke styles in New Market and Tyger Valley. Spur, obviously a major rebranding, with 19 of the restaurants taking on the new CI. And Panarottis already have 38% of the network transformed. So clearly, the brand's starting to look healthy, the network's starting to look healthy, and the benefits are being realized by franchisees.
If we look at some fast facts, our regional contribution remains similar to what we've seen before, Gauteng obviously being the prominent region. Western Cape has performed well this year, and we know it's because of the increase in tourism. Day part sales was an interesting one. If some of you remember the previous slide, we've definitely seen a growth in dinner. In fact, dinner has grown by 16.9% in sales. So that's really awesome. That's starting to show that maybe we're getting back into our usual routine, which COVID had deflated, but a good performance on lunch and dinner. Our takeaway portfolio is similar. We just saw a stronger performance on Uber Eats this year.
And pleasingly, we're happy that our collect, which is call and collect, click and collect, or walk-in collect, is still at around 55%, and we know that that's a better margin for the franchisee, so we're quite comfortable with that figure. If we look at the VK brands, it's actually amazing to think that the VK brands were born through the COVID period, and we have managed to sustain and keep the market share. It hasn't grown phenomenally, but we've kept that volume, which is phenomenal, with five main brands, and you're all familiar with them, but the two leading brands in the VK portfolio is Pizza Pug, and we all know pizza is such an awesome item to order takeaway, and then Just Wings.
And I know Cornelius and Amanda are always challenging who's gonna be number one, but Pizza Pug is leading the way by far. If we look at just some highlights of the casual dining brands, this is one of my favorite slides. The Spur rebranding has definitely been probably one of the biggest milestones in the history of Spur, because it was such a massive shift preparing this brand for the future. So I'm just going to pause a while while you enjoy a clip which captures the mood of some of the recent restaurants. Such joy! I mean, there's nothing more awesome than the Spur experience. I mean, you just see the people that work in the restaurants, they love this brand, and the consumers love this brand.
And I think this new enhanced Chief, this vibrant Chief, I think has been so well accepted by the South African consumer and our franchisees. It's incredible how the momentum has picked up and the acceptance of the great branding that has been accomplished with a very strong team that led this project, headed up by Vuyo Henda, and our development team and our Spur COO, a really awesome work. There's so many things I can tell you about Spur. I'd be here the whole morning, but it is a strategic milestone. We've got 90 new looks. We've got about 40 planned for this year, which is unbelievable, so really awesome performance. The Springbok and Spur partnership is just unbelievable. I think we've taken two legendary brands and just created such amazing awareness.
Someone told me the other day that we've overshadowed the main sponsor, but I think the marketing team have been very successful in integrating the players into the restaurants, into the advertising, and it just resonates with people, the excitement at the field when you see the kids on the field with this new Spur branding; it's just simply awesome. As I mentioned earlier, it has been a year about reinvention and innovation. Our brands have done a phenomenal job on launching many innovative products. I had a look at all those numbers recently. I didn't want to share too much because the competitors are gonna pick up on it, but our menu innovation has been best in class.
Just to give you an example, two new products for Spur, and they're not necessarily those two pictures, generated in excess of ZAR 87 million. I mean, the volume when you launch a product that's successful at Spur is unbelievable. So really awesome. And I take my hat off to the teams. I applaud the supply chain team, who have been patient with the brands, working with suppliers to test and trial, and negotiate good pricing, so that we can benefit the network. On that point, I wanted to mention that this year, our supply chain, through all its initiatives and special supply chain forums, improved pricing to the value of ZAR 29 million, to the benefit of the franchisee.
If we look at the importance of loyalty, and our loyalty has increased via our family clubs and strategic alliances, we do have, I think we mentioned it last time, a new app capability where you can scan and earn your bill, which is awesome, and we recently appointed a chief information officer, and we're hoping that next year when we present, we'll show you a whole lot more features that our apps will do, but I wanted to particularly mention the strategic alliance partners. We've got several. One of our big partners is Old Mutual, which have got over two million loyal members, and they love Spur as the reward and as the vouchers. We continue to partner with Vodacom and Capitec, and our most recent strategic partnership is with Sasol Loyalty.
They're about 1.9 million members, and they're also gonna be using Spur vouchers as the reward. I think what it's starting to show is that Spur is a very appealing reward mechanism, hence, the attraction of these strategic alliance partners. So loyalty did increase, and this was particularly because the Spur marketing team and the brand embarked on a major loyalty campaign. I think the investment was well over six or seven million. The franchisee's marketing fund was invested in this, and it positively impacted the group. The team had over one million entries to win a car. That's Wesley from our Cape Town office, handing out the Western Cape one or the Eastern Cape one. So awesome for people to be rewarded, especially in times where the economy is so tough.
We also had many app downloads, and the app sessions increased to over 200%. But for the group overall, we had new sign-ups of over 1.1 million. That's new customers, new loyal customers. We now have active users of 3.1 million, and still remain the leading restaurant loyalty club, and our voucher redemption for the group was 76%, but 78% for Spur. If we look at just the amount of community events that happen, I happen to be on this WhatsApp chat group, and the ops managers are not allowed to apparently, this was their leader who told them, not me. They're only allowed to post their community activity after seven o'clock, and at seven o'clock, the WhatsApp starts going, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, because there are so many activities.
You can see the estimated number this year. These are all community events funded by our franchisees. They're supported by the ops manager and marketing for all the collateral. It's unbelievable what our franchisees are doing in their local communities. If it's not the aged, it's the orphans, it's school kids that have never had the opportunity to experience Spur, it's the underprivileged, it's the disabled. There are just many examples of what happens in the local communities. So on behalf of our board and executives, I applaud our franchisees for their efforts and generosity in making South Africa a better place for all. Spur Foundation, which has also taken on its new branding. This year, we fed 1,600 early childhood development center children every day.
We are so eager to encourage our franchisees to add on new menu items. At the moment, it's only ZAR 1 from every kid's burger. We've set ourselves a high target that we would like to double this in the next year. This is important. We know how many children go hungry every day in South Africa, so our commitment remains, and our focus on the ECD centers. To support that, this year, we funded the training of 124 principals and teachers in Alexandra and Khayelitsha. In July, just this last month, we funded another 60 teachers as well, so really awesome. The Full Tummy Fund has also selected World Hunger Day as its day and its annual event, where we'll do a lot of packing of food across the centers.
It's quite a great vibe. We get suppliers involved, we get franchisees involved and our own team. And the food packs that were packed this year on World Hunger Day will feed nine hundred and forty-five children, so really awesome initiatives. And all we have t he only message we have on this initiative is, we need to do more, but well done to the Spur Foundation. Just to have a quick glimpse at some of the stores, this is the Golden Spur. You'll remember Golden Spur was the first Spur that opened in 1967, just down the road in Newlands. This Spur is currently, we're busy developing the memory wall, so in about three weeks' time, you can go and have a look at it.
But people have welcomed us back in the Rondebosch area, and especially the young students who are always walking the streets there. Emerald Creek, we were out of Bryanston for a while. We're back, which is wonderful, so all the local private schools are there every afternoon. The mothers are there in the morning. This one, interesting to see, this is the brand in the night. We had to stick to a black and white treatment of all the corporate identity for this landlord. We were all a bit worried, but it actually looks beautiful, a great store, performing well. Also, I didn't mention a lot of unique play areas that we've developed. That was one of our reinvention projects last year.
We had a dedicated team looking at the reinvention of play areas, and our design team also came up with six different themes for the new look. You can see this is Zeerust. I had the opportunity to visit Zeerust about 10 days ago. A great store in a very, very conservative trading environment, so it's certainly attracted consumers to the store. It's about 380 square meters, a beautiful investment and a beautiful entry in a market that serves a lot of young families. Texas, one of our strategic sites here in one city, just a beautiful store. You saw it on the clip, just a magnificent play area, high volume store, really awesome, and the franchisees always challenge us on high volume stores, are we really gonna grow the turnover much more?
So we really are proud of this kind of presence. It's changed the face of Spur in that center. We've had quite a few revamps in the Centurion, Pretoria area. This is Golden Oaks Spur. It was a relocation and a new store, Lone Hawk in Glenfair. Our project team visited a lot of the stores in this catchment area to do the review and look at what we needed to perfect. You can see the beautiful branding. This has got a prominent pylon that you can see from quite a distance. Beautiful entrance to the themed play area. Phoenix Spur, this was a very old look, Spur in Pretoria. Because I live in Pretoria, I sort of used to frequent it. It's unbelievable what this Spur has done.
I think in June, it's revamp month, it was up 40%. In July, it was up 14%, so it obviously balances off in the end. But we're starting to see consumers that haven't been into a Spur, people are saying, "Oh, wow, this is the new Spur." Also, a fantastic play area and also a teen zone. Another feature which I forgot to mention. No, that isn't the Hussar Grill, but we've had a call from a lot of our upmarket locations to carry a better range of wines. So what we've placed in the dining area, in the date night area, we are putting a wine counters or cabinets adjacent to the date night area, which is away from the kids.
But this now offers adults the opportunity to also enjoy Spur in a bit of a quieter environment, with a great glass of wine, and obviously, our usual beautiful quality food. I wanted to mention, you would have noticed in all the new stores, the shape language, which you can see their taste for life and the pillar, and many features. This is a unique language that we've developed for the new look. When we started the revamp, it was quite expensive. We had to send out the wood or get the wood cut out externally and come back, and it was starting to cost a lot. So we invested in a CNC laser cutting machine, a CapEx of about ZAR 1.3 million. This is our decor division.
You can see one of our ladies laying out the shape pieces which then obviously get moved to the store to be assembled in the restaurant. What is wonderful with this, it's created a future as well for people's jobs in decor. But more importantly, it's delivered a cost improvement on the revamp, on the shape elements, of about 20%, a benefit for the franchisees. This is hot off the press. They actually sent me these photos last night. They were put onto the slides this morning. This is a new Mountain Peaks Spur in Vergelegen, which is just here in Somerset West. Beautiful little store. Congratulated the two franchisees, the two franchise partners.
The one sent me a message back saying, "This is a sexy little Spur." So I'm waiting to go and see it, to see what he means, but, it looks awesome, and congratulations. Panarottis, yeah. Panarottis has definitely delivered an awesome performance. I said great, Cornelius, but it's awesome. I think Panarottis has delivered on every front. It still represents 10% of the group's turnover. We embarked on a small town strategy. It's now in full swing. We opened 11 new Panarottis this year. That is amazing. Congratulations. And we also revamped 11, and as I mentioned earlier, we're close to half of the network being in the new look. And this has ensured that we are attracting new and returning customers.
We recently received our Kantar tracking study for wave seven, and it is showing that this brand is attracting new levels of awareness, new trial and new usage, and that has a lot to do with the improved marketing direction that we set. So well done to the marketing teams and the brand managers, and the menu innovation for this brand has also been awesome. Whether it's a spicier pizza, a meatier pizza, a fresher pizza, or a healthier option, this brand has ensured it's responded to its customer needs, and above all, because of the leadership of this team, they understand the importance of customer experience, and we've seen that permeating the Panarottis restaurants. Let's take a look at some of them.
Northridge, Bloemfontein, a new site, also a great experience for the Bloem Free State people. This isn't our first one. We've got a couple in the Bloem area. Vredenburg, one of our smaller town strategies. Our smaller stores are around 250 sq m, about just over ZAR 4 million investment. So a great opportunity for a franchisee that wants to run a smaller store and still get the return on investment. Thabazimbi, another one that's part of our small town strategy. Hermanus, we already trade in Hermanus with a Spur and a Hussar Grill. This Panarottis is across the way of a Spur. Hasn't taken any business away from Spur. In fact, it's probably taken it away from competitors because this store has been well-received by our holidaymakers and local residents as well.
Lydenburg, also another small town strategy. Someone went to Lydenburg the other day and said, "My goodness, what's going on there? The roads are busy being revamped." But as President Ramaphosa said, he wants the country to look like a building site, and it does in Lydenburg. But this beautiful store has started to make a difference in that town. This is a revamped store of The Grove in Pretoria. A lot of you will know this center on the eastern side of Pretoria. Also, an amazing transformation. And this store, I was in it a few months ago. It was actually, there was a rugby match on, that's why maybe it was busy, and people were just streaming in and out. It was unbelievable. So really wonderful to see the stores.
We don't we can't photograph them full for you, but really an awesome thing. I wanted to just mention one more point on Panarottis. We had a vision on Panarottis, and that was that Panarottis has a place in South Africa to be the place where people eat pizza at a table in an unintimidating and welcoming and affordable manner, and I really believe that the vision for this brand is starting to unfold. We see a great future of Panarottis in our network, not only in South Africa, but also in the rest of Africa. John Dory's new look, really awesome. I've always said John Dory's has just got the most amazing quality product. Just yesterday, we were part of a master class sushi little event. John Dory's has opened six new restaurants.
The numbers haven't quite come in, but a lot of them have only traded for seven months or less. Only one of the new stores has traded for ten months, so we're hoping we'll reap the benefits of that. The new look restaurant at Cavendish Square has opened now officially. The bars that you see on the top right-hand quadrant shows the current monthly average turnover for all the John Dory’s in the network. At Cavendish Square, that's its turnover for the first month. If we look at it, we obviously projected one of the days only. Cavendish first month, and if we look at, let's say, the honeymoon period doesn't last and we shave off about 20%, it's still gonna deliver probably double the volume or that of the monthly average turnovers we currently enjoy.
The restaurant is the first John Dory’s halal in a captive where there's a captive audience of halal consumers, but it's a beautiful store. Try and go and visit it. We're busy negotiating two other strategic sites. Unfortunately, I can't mention the location, but I look forward to showing them to you in February, so really awesome. And this brand continues to thrive on quality seafood platters, as sushi has endorsed its quality through introducing things like master classes, creating the customer experience of the sushi belt, and the well-trained sushi chefs. And sushi represents 20% of the total John Dory’s turnover. And they've created with a very limited marketing budget, they've improved the environmental sustainability awareness, and they've also received great campaign results, so this brand is on the right path.
It's starting to show traction. We have to be patient, but we believe in it, and we're very proud of it. Well done. John Dory's continues to support beach cleanups. We try and attend as many as we can. They're supported with the Save the Fishies initiative. We know that there's one rand from every hake and chip sold that goes towards all the environmental sustainability initiatives that John Dory's gets involved in. It's not only beach cleanup, it's teaching kids to swim, saving the turtles, and many others, and we continue to support sustainably sourced seafood in our restaurants. This is the look of the Cavendish Square, Claremont. You can see the beautiful new branding. We now have a strong brand icon for all our brands.
The little fishtail is John Dory's, which has brought a new little sparkle and life to this brand. It's really been well-received. A beautiful, yet attainable, welcoming, not unintimidating, a beautiful sushi bar feature. So really awesome. Well done to our franchisees at Cavendish. To move on to our RocoMamas brand, and it's one that I certainly love and enjoy. They do make me feel a bit uncomfortable with all their differences, but they've had amazing innovation. The Big Dipper was an innovation that launched just recently. Their like-for-like turnover growth has been 8.2%, which is fantastic, because we've seen an improvement of some of the restaurants. The menu innovation has continued with the shareable pans.
Tame the Flame, which is the 10 by 10 by 10 competition. What it means is you get 10 Fire Wings, you get 10 what they call fries with Fire Wings spice, and you've got 10 minutes to consume everything. It's been a great success, and we've had a lot of people trying to participate in it, but more importantly, it's created a great social media activity and awareness. We've also introduced a Grand Master Smash contest. Essentially, here we train the grillers to know how to smash the burger properly. Remember, that's one of the key attributes of the RocoMamas burger, which is the handmade smash on the premises, and then all these smashers, the regional winners, will go into a national event.
And they've also won many awards, Best of George, Pretoria, Ekurhuleni, for best of burgers in sit-down, takeaway, milkshake, et cetera. I also wanted to acknowledge Brian Altrich, who's our founding partner, who remains closely aligned to working with our leadership team to come up with some of these menu innovations and also keep the ethos of the hospitality vibe that was started by him for this brand. So really awesome, and we appreciate everything he does for us. RocoMamas only opened one store this year, but at least it's a high-volume store. It was also opened by our female Black franchisees, who own another three RocoMamas, so they now own a portfolio of four RocoMamas. This site has been a resounding success.
We thought it was just honeymoon period, but it's kept very high levels. It's one of our top-performing RocoMamas. Beautiful-looking store, well-received by the local market. Polokwane is a relocation in Polokwane. It's amazing when the site is right, the difference it makes to performance. This store is performing well. We're also pleased that we've secured another site for the same franchisee, also a Black franchisee, who secured another site in Mall of the North. Oh, no, it's not Mall of the North, it's, it is Mall of the North. Kevin, is it? Mall of the North. So we've secured another site in Polokwane, and that's awesome because Polokwane is full of consumers, and the growth and expansion plans are great. So also a beautiful store.
And then our most recent here in our hometown, Cape Town, is Rondebosch. This is in the same center as the Golden Spur. Beautiful Rondebosch site, ideal for smash burgers and students in the area, so do go out and visit it sometime. Our Green Feather Awards this year was awarded to a RocoMamas franchisee. It's Rita Bierdecker, who's been a franchisee for 42 years. This is her operator. This store is unbelievable, what it does in terms of waste management, water controls. It even has on-site a vegetable garden that incentivizes staff to go green, and they won ZAR 50,000 in the Green Feather Awards, and it's an initiative that we continue in order to create awareness for environmental sustainability with our franchisees and also our teams.
I'm now gonna move on to Specialty portfolio, and I'd like to term it as our new baby in the, in the group, but they are twenty years old. Our Specialty portfolio, obviously, we announced the, the partnership with Doppio Zero, last year, and it was effective on the 1st of, December. If we look at and we remind ourselves of the rationale of why this acquisition and partnership was made, we all knew it was a strategic reason. Hussar Grill successfully enjoys a very good, night trade dominance, and the attraction to the Doppio portfolio was that Doppio Zero, dominates day trade. And you'll recall this slide, and I've updated the stats for you for the two big brands.
So you can see that out of the restaurants in the current portfolio, and this includes Botswana for Doppio Zero, you can see Hussar Grill sitting at 70% night trade and Doppio Zero at 72% day trade, so that's breakfast and lunch. So a beautiful complementary business here, which is really the dominant players in this portfolio. In this slide, I thought it was important for you just to have a look if we rank the restaurants by monthly turnover. So they're ranked one to 27, it doesn't include Botswana. You can see the red bars are Doppio Zero. So the average monthly turnovers are higher with Doppio Zero, simply because they enjoy all three day parts.
They're dominant in day, but they also have evening trade, and then the brown bar is actually the Hussar Grill monthly averages. But what I want to draw to your attention is just the importance of the company-owned restaurants. So our company-owned restaurants with this partnership shifted from four to 14, and in the band, the block that's highlighted amongst the top 13, I have to actually quickly count it. I think there's 10 company-owned restaurants. You can see the black ones are marked for Doppio Zero, and the two are marked for Hussar Grill. So all I'm demonstrating here is that in the portfolio of specialty restaurants across these two dominant brands, we've got the powerful 10 company-owned that are showing a great performance at a turnover level. So if we look at their contribution, it represents 24%.
This is company-owned stores, 24% of turnover, 82% of revenue, and 34% of profit, so these two brands are the focus area for this portfolio. Our priority over the first seven months, we had appointed a integration coordinator, one of our senior individuals. We looked at three main focus area. The first one was to leverage the brand equity benefit. Doppio Zero has great brand equity with the landlords. We opened four new restaurants in fiscal 2024. Four new ones in half one are planned. They've been signed, and they're imminent, and some of these are high turnover sites. Also, pleasingly expansion into new regions, Cape Town, Polokwane, and also obviously in Botswana. Restaurant innovation continues. Our partners, Paul and Miki, are innovators.
They've got an amazing flair for menu development and restaurant design and hospitality. So that's really been the focus, how we refine the offerings, how we improve the restaurant experience. And what we've also done in the last seven months, this appointment was actually secured just before the deal was active. The appointment of an industry expert as head of operations for the Doppio Zero brand, where there's been a strong focus on customer experience and employee experience. If we look at the rest of the portfolio, you can see Doppio Collection in the Doppio Collection portfolio, Doppio Zero represents 81%, just to emphasize the dominance, and the other brands are relatively small. We have successfully opened a second Modern Tailors Ambassador. The first Modern Tailors is in Rosebank in Johannesburg.
The second one is in Krugersdorp in Pretoria, a beautiful store. I'll show you a picture shortly. Ciccio's, we had a pilot site in Melrose. We're planning to exit that site. The site hasn't worked for us. Piza ē Vino, we are busy setting the future direction and defining where that brand's going. And we focused a lot on integrating the team, and we have already started leveraging the synergies at Doppio Foods, with three products in trial for one of the major casual dining brands. If I look at some of the images, a lot of you would have visited Tyger Valley already.
Doppio New Market in Alberton, a beautiful site, high volume site, and Modern Tailors, just a beautiful restaurant, once again, portraying the specialty of Indian cuisine or Indian-inspired cuisine, and I think a specialty on a gin bar feature as well. So a lovely store that has just launched, and we're hoping to market it into that local community. If I look at the Spur Corp specialty brands, and we look at the contribution of Hussar Grill, that's 70% of the portfolio. So once again, Hussar plays a dominant role in the mix of the current specialty stores. If we look at some of the smaller brands, Nikos did close two poor-performing restaurants, and this happens often with smaller brands. We are pleased that those brands are closed.
They weren't performing well, franchisees weren't performing well, but they have delivered a like-for-like growth of 18%. So Nikos, the year is next, this year coming. We're hoping to secure some new sites. As I mentioned earlier, we're setting the direction for pizza and pasta, and this will include Casa Bella. We did open one new Casa Bella this year, and Hussar Grill remains a leading grill house, with its wonderful enhanced speciality experience. This year, it did have its debut into regional radio, and it will also celebrate its 60 years. If we look at Nikos Montecasino, this is the founder's restaurant. When there's always a show on at the theater at Montecasino, there's an amazing vibe, and Mamma Mia was just so suitable to the sort of Greek heritage of Nikos.
It was unbelievable, the customer experience. We went to experience it simply because we wanted to demonstrate what is possible with this amazing brand. If it's managed by the right leadership in the restaurants, the right GMs, the right employee experience and customer experience, this brand has a future. Casa Bella has opened in Menlyn Shopping Centre. It's a little bit slow on the start. Menlyn is a high traffic shopping mall. We've got to build the brand equity in Pretoria so that it can reach the same levels of our successful Mall of Africa Casa Bella and our Montecasino Casa Bella. And Hussar Grill at Kloof has revamped, which is lovely new ownership. It's an existing franchisee who owns Spurs, who's moved into specialty.
So he's a great operator and a committed franchisee, so we thank him for his investment, and also a beautiful looking restaurant. This has really been a winning site. You saw the Doppio Zero in New Market. These stores are sort of adjacent to each other, so we gain in the day trade as well as the night trade, both high volume stores. This one's owned by our biggest franchisee, and this has some features of the new look. It was already in build when we signed off the new look, but a beautiful restaurant. If you ever venture to Alberton, remember, you need two passports, but a beautiful shopping node, and we're very pleased that our brands are gaining market share in those.
We've now arrived at the point where I'm gonna hand over to Cristina, who's gonna take you through the financial and segmental review, and I'll see you back shortly. Thank you.
Thank you, Val. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll start the financial review by turning to the income statement. As Val mentioned, you can see group revenue increased by 14.1% year-on-year, ahead of the increase in system-wide sales of 11.5%. Excluding Doppio Collection for the seven-month period, the growth was 7.5%. Notably, however, the revenue from the franchise and company store activities, the first line on the screen, you can see increased by 31%, with the contribution of the additional company store revenue. This, with the marketing revenue, which increased by 15%, and then the additional growth in sales of suppliers via our outsourced distributor partner of 8%, results in this blended 14% growth that we mentioned.
That's translated into an improved gross profit margin at 32% versus 30.5% in the prior year. Moving down the income statement, there's an improved tax rate at 28%, as you can see on the income statement, resulting in a net margin of 9.8% versus 10.5% of the prior year. Net profit, as you see on the screen, has increased by 10.7% which has translated into the earnings per share, increasing by 10.7% as well. This next slide, the segmental overview. Sorry, just one moment. We just had a technical difficulty for a second. I can't see the screen. I think it's back, and now it's gone again. Apologies, stakeholders. Just want us to be able to see the screen. Perfect, we're back.
This next slide is a one-page summary of revenue profit margin for FY 2024 and FY 2023, which will be unpacked with the individual segmental slides that follow, so I won't dwell on it too long. I suppose the key message to note is that Spur remains the key contributor to franchise revenue, and then RocoMamas and Panarottis on par now, at their contribution at 1.2% and 1.3% of group revenue, and Speciality is catching up now at 1.1% of group revenue, nearly the same contribution. We could also see the increase in contribution from the company-owned stores at 5.5%, but we'll unpack that in segmentals.
If we move on to the segmental analysis for South Africa, which on this slide you see both the total franchise revenue as well as Spur, because it's the most material contributor. We can see that franchise revenue, local franchise revenue, has increased by 11% on the top left-hand side, and with Spur as the most material brand, containing 50% of the South African store footprint and representing 68% of their revenue, it's increased by 6.7% over the last year. You'll see a slightly slower rate of trading in H2 is evident, where H2 represents 95% of H1's trade, in last year, and this year it represents 90%. So my messaging is second half of last year represented 95%, and this year, second half represents 90%.
Franchise profit has increased by 10.6%, as you see on the top right-hand side, with the Spur brand increasing by 6.5%, with this year's margin for Spur at 87%, and the overall franchise business at 82%. Some really healthy operating margins being driven by our Spur brand, which we are very proud of, and extremely thankful to the Spur operating team for being able to deliver these results. If we move to the rest of our franchise businesses, excluding Spur, an incredibly busy slide, I'll start on the left-hand side from the top. RocoMamas is the first line item, and you'll see RocoMamas increasing revenue by 5.9%. Steady revenue in the first and second half of ZAR 23 million and ZAR 22 million rand respectively.
Panarottis, a good trading performance, again, also ZAR 22 million and ZAR 21 million in the second half. John Dory’s is flat to slightly negative, with ZAR 19 million, if I'm right, ZAR 19.5 million in both periods, in both reporting periods. Specialty has displayed a 101% increase, in revenue with the inclusion of Doppio for seven months, and for comparative purposes, we disclose to you that the revenue excluding Doppio Collection would have been 12.7%. On the right, RocoMamas and Panarottis profit increase ahead of revenue, for the year at 11.6% and 17% respectively, which we are incredibly proud of, and the specialty has increased by 68%. Again, excluding Doppio Collection, the increase in specialty would have been 14.6%, so ahead of the revenue increase.
John Dory’s is reporting the same profits, largely, from the prior year, sort of ZAR 11 million, ZAR 12 million year-on-year, and a margin at 57%. So probably it is the lowest profit margin in the group, with the rest of the brands reporting between 70% to 78% of the profits. If we look at the retail company stores, revenue increased by 119% with the inclusion of Doppio Collection. Excluding Doppio Collection, we actually have a decrease in revenue of 4.7%, but that's purely due to the fact that in the FY 2023 numbers, we had an additional two stores, being Modrockers and Rocabams Green Point, trading as company stores, and those are not trading as company stores in FY 2024, hence the decline.
If we had to look on a like-for-like basis, sort of excluding Doppio, excluding the stores that are not trading in FY 2024, the revenue increase for other stores would have been 5.1%. Profit on the right-hand side of the slide in brown is the underlying Spur group stores, so excluding Doppio, Modrockers, etc , and they're trading ahead of the prior periods at ZAR 6 million, versus, ZAR 5 million in the first half. The reported values that we have on this slide show profits in the second half of ZAR 6.4 million, and that excludes the impact of the PPA, Ciccio's, and IFRS 16. With the reported segment numbers in H2, it is a loss of ZAR 5 million and a full-year profit of ZAR 2 million.
If we move to the manufacturing division, this segment contains the trading performance of the group's supply chain activities from procurement, from manufacturing of sauces, and sales of retail sauces and products. And it mirrors a 9.9% increase, 8.7% excluding Doppio, mirrors the patterns in turnover sales. Pleasingly, we've been able to introduce new products into our retail lines, so we've introduced Durkinaise, we've introduced Creamy Chili, Barbecue Sauce, Durky Sauce, in different sizes. And we've also introduced new line items being manufactured in our central kitchens, factory, which includes the Spur sweet, sticky barbecue basting, as well as a bottled peri peri sauce. So revenue in H2 represents 90% of H1 in the current year, and last year it was 94%, very similar to the trend noted in the Spur revenue.
Profit is an increase of 5%, and the contribution from Doppio Collection in this segment is not material. So 5% for the division or segment overall. If we move to the marketing funds, we can see an increase in marketing revenue of 14%. As mentioned earlier, the loss of 3.6 is directly attributable to marketing fund deficits for John Dory’s and RocoMamas. But pleasingly, the value of marketing funds that have been collected to be spent in future years, which is disclosed as a contract liability on the balance sheet, which you'll see a bit later, is 32 million ZAR. So the overall fund's healthy in terms of having adequate funds for marketing activities.
If I move to shared services, on the left-hand side, other, you're reminded that it comprises of our decor business, the main businesses are decor, training, and the export department. Before I talk to the numbers, you'll see on the bottom left-hand side some decor items. There's an example of decor items that have been produced for the new John Dory’s look, new sort of shell images, which are produced off the CNC machine that Val mentioned earlier, and add a beautiful and internally generated decor design to the new-look John Dory’s. So with the benefit of our new look, we have seen, you know, various expansions and revamp activities in the year, and we see improved trading performance from specifically the decor business and the export departments, as we export products or decor items cross-border.
This has been somewhat offset by unrecovered costs in the trading department, which the group has invested in as we evolve the training model within that department to meet the group's future skills needs and future development strategy. On the right-hand side is our corporate, shall we call them, indirect costs. The interest income has grown with cash on hand and improved rates, regardless of the fact that our interest expense has gone up slightly with increased lease liabilities. But importantly to note is that the shared overheads, excluding interest and income, is reflected at ZAR 189 billion, which is 13% higher than last year, and that will be unpacked in the next slide.
If we unpack that 13.3% increase, the ZAR 189 million expenses that I referred to, you'll see that we have added back, or at least identified, the legal costs that we've incurred in the year for the GPS litigation, which is nearly ZAR 6 million for the year. We've had some financial instruments, IFRS adjustments of 4.5, and then the due diligence costs that we incurred for the Doppio Collection of ZAR 2.5 million. Stripping that out of the ZAR 189 million for comparability purposes, you'll see that our comparable shared overheads is ZAR 176 million or ZAR 177 million, which represents a 7.4% increase over the year.
A further breakdown detailing the different departments that make up that ZAR 176 million is included in the appendix to this presentation for stakeholders' information. International. Good performance from the segment, as Val mentioned, ZAR 1 billion turnover recorded this year, 16% growth in revenue and 46% growth in profit. Val has covered the performance, and we're just, incredibly proud of what this international team has been able to achieve in uncertain trading environments at times. Moving to the balance sheet, largely unchanged structure from what you have seen and what was presented in December. If we look at property, plant and equipment, it's moved by ZAR 90 million, really relates to additions, which you'll see in the cash flow statement, a little bit later. As well as some depreciation that's come through of ZAR 8 million.
And that's the largest movement that takes the reconciliation up to ZAR 106 million for assets. Right-of-use assets have increased along with the right-of-use liabilities, with the introduction of Doppio Collection's corporate store leases. That's the same as what you would have seen in December. And if we move along. Sorry, we can just maybe continue. I just want to move on to, right. Then we have the biggest asset on our balance sheet is our intangible assets and goodwill, at ZAR 500 million, at a notable increase of ZAR 137 million, really being the addition of the Doppio Collection intangibles and goodwill. Again, what you have seen as at December.
We can confirm that all intangible and goodwill valuations have been tested at year-end, and that from on a consolidated basis, there's an overall sort of sizable headroom to carrying value reflected on this balance sheet. Other non-current assets, as you can see with the footnote on the right, consists of our equity investment, our investment in another associate, as well as some deferred tax assets, all temporary differences, no assessed losses. If we move to inventories, you'll see it on the cash flow statement, an increase of ZAR 14 million, ZAR 7 million due to the increase in inventory held by our outsource provider in logistics, and ZAR 7 million from production in the manufacturing facility, as well as some inventory that's held in the Doppio Collection stores, company-owned stores and factory.
The working capital is unpacked on the slide, cash flow slides that follow. Cash is reflected at ZAR 366 million. The next sort of key line item's contract liabilities. If we look at the sum of short-term and long-term, a value of ZAR 63 million, and that's split into two categories: ZAR 32 million in the deferred marketing spend, which I mentioned earlier, so ZAR 32 million carried forward into 2025 as marketing cash available to spend. And then the other half, ZAR 31 million, is the initial franchise fees received, which are already banked but are amortized over the life of the franchise agreement, so that represents a contract liability. Loans payable are the minority interests in our shareholders, minority shareholders in Doppio Collection.
I suppose key to note is what is that our balance sheet remains asset light, and we also report that the group's return on equity is 29.6% for the year. If we look at the cash flow statement, first thing to note is the profit before tax was ZAR 342 million, and operating profit is ZAR 344 million, thus earnings is converting into cash with no material net non-cash impacts for the group. There was an increase in receivables. As you see there at ZAR 39 million, which is largely offset by the increase in payables as trade has increased, as well as the introduction of the Doppio Collection balance sheet, but the net outflow in working capital largely as a result of the increase in inventories, which we do expect to normalize.
This is the first period comparable to 2023 that we've introduced the Doppio Collection balances. Yes, I think also important to note that in the Doppio Collection, balances are included within this cash. It is pleasing to see that the Doppio Collection generated ZAR 19 million, ZAR 19.5 million rand from operating activities in cash. So that's been great to see for the seven months. On the second slide, moving down the income statement, we've looked at net finance. You'll see tax being paid really mainly from our main South African industries per group, the dividend that's been paid through to shareholders, investing activities, mainly 60% of this ZAR 81 million, ZAR 67 million rand is the purchase consideration for Doppio Collection, and the balance of ZAR 14 million rand relating to CapEx.
CapEx is half of it or so is Doppio Collection spend, and the other half has been computer equipment, plant and equipment that we have bought within Spur, including the CNC machine of ZAR 1.3 million. Financing activities, we've bought ZAR 7 million in company shares this year, and we've repaid leases of ZAR 16 million. So that then leaves us with a closing cash balance of ZAR 366 million unrestricted, and our unrestricted cash of ZAR 62 million, total cash on hand ZAR 428 million. The acquisition of Doppio Collection, the note at acquisition is here for you.
In the interest of time, I'm not going to go through it except to say that, pleasingly, it's exactly or pretty much as we reflected to you in December, which means that, our initial PPA has been reviewed, and it has been audited, and there's been no change to the disclosure that we presented to the shareholders previously. And so we indicate. There you can see, settled in cash on shareholder loan, the ZAR 67 million investment into Doppio Collection. I did go through it quite quickly in the interest of time. I know our stakeholders will look at these numbers clearly and closely, and therefore, I will now hand you back to Val.
Thank you, Cristina. Had a little break there. Good. Just to close off today's presentation, I wanted to just briefly mention our forecast for the future, and it is unpredictable. That's why we're living in a VUCA world or VUCA world. There's all different acronyms, but I think they're all saying the same thing, is that trading is really unpredictable. I think there has been a forecast that we will see an improvement. We're hoping that that could happen, where the pressure of consumer spending will be eased a little bit, with some of the activities in the market, whether it's reduced interest rate, whether it's a two-pot system. We'll see how it materializes. But for us, we do believe that it will still be subdued.
But I thought I'd just share with you how our journey for the greater good continues. It's definitely gonna be a future of a tech-enabled restaurant and customer-facing digitization, one that will definitely be our focus for the future. If I look at our brands, Spur will continue to lead as the family casual dining experience, and obviously, the rapid rollout of the branding. If I look at Panarottis, we'll continue on our small town strategy, and I know the team's got quite a lot of restaurants in the pipeline. And we'll continue to bring people over a much-loved category and product, in pizza.
On the right, if we look at John Dory's, it is our commitment to continue to do all the activities we need to, to increase sale and profit for both the franchisee and ourselves, by the presence in strategic trading locations. RocoMamas will continue this positive momentum that has started, and it will remain the leading, not normal smash burger brand. The center blocks, if I look at initiatives that permeate across all the brands, the family club and the loyalty will be a big focus. As we build loyalty, it is a time when people are looking for personalization, they are looking for care, they are looking for rewards. It will become our focus going forward. Supply chain effectiveness will continue to improve franchisees' return on investment.
Our team have done a phenomenal job, and we continue to scrutinize every opportunity with our very valuable suppliers. We'll continue with value-added campaigns and product innovation. It has delivered the goods, this last year, so we'll continue. And then, of course, to keep our network fresh, we're gonna continue with our revamp strategy, our R8 development strategy, remodeling, and opening new restaurants to increase our footprint. We certainly haven't reached saturation in South Africa, but we are looking to expand in South Africa and in other places in the rest of Africa as well. On the specialty side, we've got a formidable portfolio driven primarily by the Hussar brand and the Doppio brand.
And we are gonna try and own the night by leveraging the brand equity of these two brands, and also look at the expansion of the more bespoke, smaller brands. So we know that it's gonna be tough out there. We've got a strong focus around our people. We've got a strong relationship with the franchisees. We know that about fixing the ethos and the culture of an organization, it's what creates unity, what creates productivity, and I really do believe that the journey that Spur started in 2021 is starting to gain momentum.
I think people are working in alignment to where we're going, and trying to plan our business, with a purposeful future, yet delivering results to our shareholders and ensuring that our franchise network remains profitable, and creates a return on investment for their investment. So I just wanna say thank you, for your time this morning. It's been wonderful to share these numbers with you. We look forward to fiscal 2025. For the year ahead, we're also planning to open about 47 new stores locally and 13 internationally are planned, for fiscal 2025. I saw a hand going up. That's our new business manager, so he's got it all wrapped up for the year. We're now going to switch over for any questions, and I'm gonna ask Cristina to join me here as well.
Thank you.
Thanks, Val. We have a number of questions that have come in on the webcast. The first is from Kobus Cilliers, from All Weather Capital, who says: "Good afternoon, Val and Cristina. Are there any specific categories where the business sees opportunities? Are these organic or inorganic in nature, and are they local or international?
He's talking product category, huh? Product category. Kobus, first of all, congratulations. But lovely to hear that you're on the call. Yes, I think there are opportunities, and we identified those probably eighteen months ago, and our first stance, while we were seeking for those opportunities, was to ensure that we were pushing those categories within our own menus. So if I take a category like chicken, for example, we run a very strong chicken business, and we made it our business to push chicken, to look at all innovation around chicken. Chicken, at the moment, we probably are about 30% of all plates served will have chicken on them. So yes, we are looking at opportunities, and they probably will be local, but we are looking at every location where we trade.
Next question from Kobus is: "Are there any brands that are not meeting internally set hurdles? And if so, what is the timeline for corrective measures?
Yeah, that's an interesting question, Kobus, and I think it differs per brand. I always like to respond in a responsible manner to say that, you know, these brands are franchise brands, so a franchisee has brought funds in and invested in our brand. If these were anything different, we might be responding differently, but we have a responsibility to our franchisees' investment. So we will try and do what we can first before we close a restaurant, or do what we can first before we close or end of a brand. So it's difficult to say, but I think if I look at Nikos, for example, Nikos went through, I think, the last two reporting periods, we showed some decline in the brand, and we've tidied it up. We now have a smaller footprint.
You saw the like-on-like growth. I don't know if it was a like-on-like, the 18% growth. I mean, that's amazing. So it shows it's possible. Even John Dory's, and I know some of our investors are impatient about John Dory's, but we have 44 franchisees. I'm not just gonna- we're not just gonna close the brand until we've tried, and it's already starting to show some future. So I think it differs per brand.
Thanks, Val. Now there's a question for Cristina, also from Kobus: Does the board have a preferred cash balance once the uncertainty of any future possible liabilities have been removed?
Thank you, Kobus. I think I should probably ask our chairman. No, we haven't discussed a preferred balance, but what we have discussed is looking and analyzing at our free cash balance, ensuring that at this stage, while we still undergo our GPS arbitration process, that we are mindful of any outflows that may be required in that respect, that we are mindful of maintaining a dividend flow to our shareholders on an ongoing basis.
And that, and then as well, that with our uncertain sort of times that we're going through, both locally and, I suppose, the rest of markets, that we do retain, let's call it a few months' worth of cash flow that buys us some sort of buffer in the context of not needing to reach out for any debt or the like, support for the organization. But no specific number that's been set by the board, no.
Thanks, Cristina. Then we've got two questions from Swaledi Mohali from Noriam Capital. She asks: Are the renovations and reinventions a cost that is taken up by the Spur Corp or by the franchisees?
Thanks, Swaledi, for the question. The franchisee is accountable for the investment of the revamp. It's built into the franchise agreement, and they are supposed to provide for it in a sort of a five-year cycle. We sometimes extend that to a five to seven-year cycle. So yes, the only accountability we'll have for revamp will be for company-owned stores.
Then a second question from Swaledi: Please elaborate on what the benefits are of the strategic partnerships with Old Mutual, Vodacom, and Capitec.
Okay, it's a great question. There are huge advantages. Our belief is, wherever we can entice a consumer to come and experience the Spur brand, we'll take it, and we are already seeing that a lot of these non-food loyalty programs are seeing the benefit of using a Spur voucher as an incentive. So they're actually buying the vouchers for us, so everyone wins. The loyalty club, their loyalty club works because they give great benefits, the consumer loves the reward, and we get the benefit by customers stepping into our restaurants.
Thanks, Val. And then another question for Cristina, this comes from Tinashe Hofisi from SBG Securities: Could you please explain the primary drivers of the operational expense increases in the past year?
Primary drivers b eing a organization which is really asset light, other than company stores, asset light, but human capital intensive, the primary driver has got to be salary increase, which we believe we take a very responsible process, undergo a very responsible process with the support of our PLC head and our REMCO. So let me not give a long-winded answer. The primary driver, first and foremost, 50% of the cost is employee-related. The rest would then become, now at this stage, information technology support, because of the digital world that we live in, and how that needs to be amplified. Marketing activities, because of the nature of the business, we're a consumer-led business. So those, I would say, off the top of my head, are the three primary drivers for cost base.
Graham, if I may add, I think it might be appropriate, just to also understand, the commitment we have to ensuring that at Spur Corp, we don't only pay minimum wage, we pay the living wage, so the minimum living wage. So that is important for us as we grow the organization, to be sure that we give our people a reasonable lifestyle and a living experience. So just to note in terms of the employment cost.
Thanks for clarifying that, Val. A question from Chris Logan of Opportune Investments: Thank you for the presentation. He says, "Marketing expenses have increased by 7.3% of revenue in 2022 to 9.9% in 2024. Can you please explain who you maximize return on the spend - how you maximize return on the spend?
Chris, yeah, that's always a good sign when you see marketing spend increase, because marketing spend can't increase without turnover increasing. And yes, we've got a lot of key measures in place, which we share with our franchise councils to show how responsibly our marketing teams are investing, their fund, their marketing fund. And those vary from media reach, to consumer research, to return on investment of social media. So we do have key measures. The team have got certain benchmarks they've got to work to. So for example, at least 60% of the fund has to be invested in external media in order to draw traffic into the restaurants. So, always a good sign when there is a high spend, but we do take it seriously and responsibly.
Graham, may I just amplify something in the context of the concern was really the annual sort of increase? I think for me, sort of in finance, the key indicator for me is to look at the balance sheet and see if there is unavailable funds still to be spent, because that means from a cumulative basis, the marketing fund has spent less than what it's collected, because the spend is not always matched to the period in which it's received. So that's a very key indicator.
Thanks, Cristina and Val. Then there's a question from Khara Moeng, from Nitrogen Fund Managers: In the two months post the reporting period, what have the trading conditions been like for the franchise and the retail company-owned stores?
Moeng, do you want the real picture? It's been tough. June did end well. In fact, you saw it on the graph. July is our second biggest trading month to December, and we've enjoyed two amazing Julys, post-COVID. This July, because of the way the school holidays fell, we had, I think, seven or eight days less in July of the school holidays, and, you know, with the tight economy as it is now, we rely on the public holidays, the school holidays, the month ends, the paydays. So July wasn't bad, but it was tough. I think it's a bit strained. I think it's definitely given us the message that it's not necessarily gonna be an easy half one. Much tougher, much tougher. August is a bit better. What did we have?
August, we had the Cape Town taxi strike last year, so that'll be a bit of a benefit in a way for the Cape Town region.
But then our next question is from Ashish Singh, from MP9 Asset Management. Thank you for the insightful presentation, and well done on a good set of results. He has two questions. The first we have covered, so I'm not gonna repeat that here. The second one is: What investments are being made in technology to enhance the customer experience, and how will this impact future growth?
Okay. In terms of technology, if we look at technology, there are two main aspects. The one is, how do we build a restaurant of the future that's tech-enabled for ease of transaction, for ease of experience in the restaurant? So some of that will be about development of, digital capability that obviously the franchisees will take on. The next one is the consumer facing. We know the consumer is in a digital world, and we need to be leading the way there in terms of whether it's the apps, whether it's the way you book for your, dinner arrangement, or whether it's the way you transact at the table. So we're looking at two, the restaurant and the consumer.
And then obviously behind the scenes, we are looking at some investments of upgrading some of our systems, so that we have an ease of processing, a lot of the administration. Obviously, it's a big network, and there's a lot of admin. There's a big marketing fund, so there's a lot of administration, so looking at some investment on that side in terms of our people's records, etc . But the main focus will be around consumer-led, technology innovation.
Right. Then we have a question from Keith McLachlan, from Integral Asset Management. He says: Can you speak through the logic of targeting the night trade in new restaurants, instead of trying to expand existing restaurants to capture more of this night trade? Surely incremental gains in existing brands would bring higher ROIs, rather than pushing capital into new brands that could stand empty in the day, but to get volume at night. He's just wondering the logic of this.
I'm not understanding the question. Can I just ask for clarity on the question? Are we investing in night trade?
Yeah, in new restaurants for night trade, rather than expanding night trade in existing restaurants.
Oh, you mean the brand?
So like a Harare Hussar doing lunch and dinner.
Oh, yes. Sorry, I didn't get the gentleman's name.
Yeah.
It's Keith McLachlan.
Keith. Keith, thank you for that question, challenging question. Okay, with all restaurants, we open our doors for trade, and we try and market it through all the day parts. That's our priority. But we know depending on the location, depending on the shopping node, depending on the catchment area, some brands and some locations are more suited to day trade, more suited to families, more suited to night trade. So we never open a restaurant thinking we're only gonna get one day part. Hussar Grill doesn't open early for trade. It's just not profitable to do. But it does open for lunch, and if you've seen some of the latest marketing, we're pushing lunch with lunch specials, more affordable, trying to get the business owner.
So with every restaurant that we open, we try and expand to all day trades as best as we can, and I think, the Spur is a perfect example of years ago when they introduced breakfast, and everyone thought, "You can never have breakfast at Spur," and we now have a 10% contribution to turnover in breakfast.
Thanks, Val and Cristina. There aren't any further questions on the webcast.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone.
Just tell me when we're off.