Earnings Call: H1 2021

Feb 24, 2021

Good morning, and welcome to our interim results presentation. Joining me today is Riza Isaacs, our Group CFO, and he and I will be taking you through the group's performance for the first half of the 'twenty one financial year. We're also going to be providing you with an update on some of the key strategic initiatives that we've been working on across the broader business. But before we get into the detail of our presentation, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all of those who have played a significant role and contributed to the results that we'll be sharing with you today. We all know that the impact of the pandemic has been significantly more pervasive than initially anticipated. Over this past year, many lives have been upended. Businesses have closed, many people have lost their jobs, many have suffered through illness, and tragically, many have lost loved ones too. And certainly, we see evidence of all of this throughout our organization. Our people are facing a myriad of challenges, and so our primary focus remains the health and wellness of our people and, of course, the health and safety of our customers. Over these past months, I've continued to develop a deep appreciation for our company's culture and its character. I've really been inspired by the many incredible examples of passion, commitment and resilience from our teams and individuals across the organization and how they continue to show up for each other, for our customers and our communities. I've said this before, but I really think it's worth reiterating. Our group is so much more than simply a business. It has real purpose, a purpose that is centered around making a positive and enduring impact on people's lives. And that purpose and commitment is underpinned by a value system that has genuinely informed the way in which we have responded as leaders and as a business throughout this crisis. I would sincerely like to thank our 45,000 employees across the 13 markets in which we operate, who work tirelessly and passionately every day to serve our millions of customers despite the substantial challenges they face in doing so. I would, in particular, like to acknowledge our teams on the front line. They courageously put the needs of their colleagues and the customers ahead of their own and continue to deliver the exceptional service that we are renowned for. As you know, across the Woolworths Group, our suppliers are integral to our success. What we do and how we perform is in no small measure due to the exceptional partnerships we have with our suppliers, and I would like to thank them for their continued support and commitment to our business. Of course, our customers, both those that have been with us for a long time and those who have more recently begun to experience the Woolworths difference, you are at the center of everything we do. Thank you for your support and for continuing to place your trust in us. Moving on, I don't plan on spending too much time on this slide, which provides broad context to the retail trading environment across our markets. I think we're all pretty familiar with the pressures we're seeing on multiple fronts impacting economic growth confidence. And whilst there seems to be some growing optimism around the outlook for Australia, the road ahead in South Africa is more challenged. As we reflect on our performance, the 1st 6 months of our financial year have remained challenging amidst ongoing headwinds and uncertainty. Over the recent months, we've had to contend with brief but severe lockdowns in Australia and the 2nd wave of COVID-nineteen in South Africa. But notwithstanding these challenges, it is really encouraging to see that all our businesses concluded the half with improved trading momentum, particularly in the last 6 weeks of the period. The performance of our South African food business remains exceptional. Once again, we've grown market share over the period, with this now being the 10th year of consecutive market share gains, a really outstanding performance from our foods team. The trust in the Woolworths brand has remained steadfast and, in fact, strengthened during this period. This is in part testament to our ongoing new product development and innovation and our amplified price investment strategy, which is really resonating with our customers. Looking at our FBH business, it has continued to lag the market. And while we may be somewhat pleased with the pickup over the festive season, we're not calling out any green shoots yet. The strategies though to improve the underlying profitability of this business of this business are well underway, but we're only at the start of this journey and have a lot to do to address some of the foundational challenges we face, and I will talk a little bit more about that later. The performance of Woolworths Financial Services remains impacted by COVID-nineteen, with the book contracting by just over 2% versus December last year. And although our impairment rate over the half has ticked up, it remains very healthy by industry standards. Turning to Australia. Early expectations of a recovery were tamed by the imposition of a 12 week lockdown in the state of Victoria, and this resulted in a number of unplanned store closures across both our businesses. Victoria State represents roughly 20% of our turnover in Australia. But across the region, our teams have successfully implemented various initiatives to drive online sales, to maximize the Black Friday and Cyber Monday trading periods and also to improve overall profitability over the period. Our profit performance here was in part supported by a measure of negotiated rent relief as well as the government's JobKeeper initiative, which aimed to protect jobs from the impact of lost sales. And Riza will discuss this in some detail a little later. A key focus for us over the period has been the strengthening of the group's balance sheet, and I am pleased that we have achieved what we set out to. We've remained very focused on trading the business and managing inventory levels and generating and preserving cash, and we're successfully executing against our capital plan. You'll recall that earlier in the year, we sold our Burke Street menswear building in Melbourne and used those proceeds to pay down debt. In December, we announced the sale of our Elizabeth Street building in Sydney, the proceeds of which will further significantly reduce our net debt position. And this transaction, in fact, is expected to conclude in this quarter. I'm also very encouraged by the progress we're making against our strategic initiatives, not only in terms of our balance sheet performance but also operationally. We'll cover this in some detail later as well as how we intend to build further momentum towards restoring the financial credentials of our group. We do have a lot of work to do, but I'm confident that we're going after the right things in the right way to achieve the right outcomes for all our stakeholders. In the meantime, I'd like to hand over to Riese to take you through the details of our financial performance. Thank you, Roy, and good morning, all. Just to kick off with a quick IFRS 16 reminder. The results for the half are post IFRS 16 having adopted the statement last year. All numbers presented are post IFRS 16 unless, of course, called out differently. The impact of IFRS 16 is shown by business in the back of your packs. The COVID impacted half year, which makes comparison to last year tricky. Nonetheless, a very pleasing result having started the financial year with significant uncertainty and as we headed into our key trading period over November December. Starting with the key call outs in the financial overview section. Group sales were up 5.3%, marginally down in constant currency. Adjusted profit before tax was up 24.6 percent to ZAR2.7 billion and adjusted diluted EPS grew by 19.4 percent to ZAR193.7 per share. We published a trading update and statement on the 25th January and are within the earnings per share ranges we shared with you. One of the highlights and most pleasing aspects of our performance was that we reduced gearing by ZAR5 1,000,000,000 to ZAR6.8 billion. And within that, Australian net gearing was ZAR83 1,000,000 versus a ZAR366 1,000,000 as at the end of June. We have made significant headway in reducing our Australian bank gearing to more sustainable levels. And then just touching on another debt metric. Net debt to EBITDA on a pre IFRS 16 basis was at 1.1x, down from the 1.6x last year. This is notwithstanding a heavily COVID impacted calendar year. There were many lessons for us as a group during the COVID crisis, and learnings are continuously being applied, which is having a positive impact on not just operations and earnings, but also on the balance sheet and cash flows. When we last shared the results with you, we reported on a very difficult period where earnings were down nearly 70%, and the focus was on generating cash and protecting the core of the business. The teams across South Africa and Australia showed incredible commitment and dedication in getting to the position that we did. This period, we get to report on not just strong cash flows and a stronger balance sheet outcome, but also a recovery in earnings. This is testimony not only to the strength of our brands, our relationships with our suppliers, the resilience of our value chains but also the outstanding efforts of our teams over what continues to be a very volatile and uncertain time. Moving on to the group income statement. This is a group income statement, a segmental and statutory view and a reconciliation from adjusted EBIT and adjusted profit before tax to profit after tax. Adjusted EBIT was up 14.5 percent to ZAR3.9 billion and adjusted profit before tax was up 24.6 percent to ZAR2.7 billion. For Woolworths South Africa, another excellent Food performance with FBH and Financial Services earnings down about 40%. Also, a better overall result from our Australian businesses, notwithstanding the ongoing COVID disruptions. Positive leverage through the finance cost line, which is down 2%. This line includes the IFRS 16 lease finance costs. Within this, bank related finance cost was 8% lower due to lower gearing and base rates. Overall adjusted profit before tax was up nearly 25%. Moving on to adjustments in tax, there are few in this period that have an impact on earnings. The profit on the sale of the Bergstedt menswear building of CAD23 1,000,000 a ZAR274 1,000,000 gain, lease exit and modification gains of ZAR452 million. These resulted from our space optimization efforts in respect of David Jones. There were several leases where we exercised break clauses and surrendered leases. This also benefited our balance sheet by reducing lease liabilities and had a positive impact on equity. And then in terms of the taxing adjustments, we did not recognize the deferred tax assets on assessed losses in respect of David Jones last year due to the uncertainty emanating from COVID. These losses have been set off against the profit on the sale of the Bourke Street men's building and the David Jones operating profit for the 6 months. We also treated the ZAR174 1,000,000 benefit of the unwind as an adjustment to earnings, which is consistent with the non recognition of the asset last year. This result is in our group effective tax rate reducing to 23%. Profit after tax was up 75% for the period, also bolstering our net equity position. Moving on to the next section. Here, we show the reconciliation of adjusted diluted HEPS to diluted EPS. Prior year adjusted diluted HEPS was €102 per share. This year, we are at €193.7 per share, a growth of 19.4%. There are adjustments of 0.465 per share relating to lease exit and modification gains and the utilization of the tax losses in David Jones of 0.168 dollars per share, which takes us to HEPS of $0.257 per share. The profit on sale of the property is $0.28 per share. This is a capital item, so it's added back to get to EPS of $0.284 per share versus CAD0.62 per share last year, a growth of 75%. Impact of COVID-nineteen on sales performance. Here, we graphically show the sales trends for all four businesses over the half. Sales across the group have shown an improving trend, especially in the last 6 weeks of the period. Starting on the top left hand side, FAH was down 11% for the half, minus 21.8% for the 1st 10 weeks, we shared that with you previously. This improved to minus 6.3% for the next 10 weeks and minus 3.9% for the last 6 weeks, still negative but an encouraging trend and in respect of an important trading period. Foods was up 13.9% at 10 weeks, up 7.6% for the 2nd 10 weeks and up 12% for the last 6 weeks. The minus 7.6% really impacted by month end and the shift in spend between the periods. David Jones was down 11.5% for the 1st 10 weeks. We then had the VIC lockdown and an improved run rate of -4% in the lead up to Christmas and Boxing Day. Country Road was up 8.8% for the 1st 10 weeks, again the big lockdown and then an outstanding performance in the last 6 weeks, up 6.7%. Our teams were really focused on minimizing disruptions to trade as a result of COVID. In South Africa, we had more than 100 COVID incidents in December alone, where we had to close stores for deep cleaning. We now preemptively close stores during the evening so that we can trade the following day. While in Australia, we converted some of our stores to dark stores to enable better fulfillment of click and collect and online orders. Moving on to the segmental results, starting with Fashion, Beauty and Home. A still COVID affected 6 months, with formalwear and occasion wear down significantly. We're over indexing these categories, especially over the festive season. This negatively affected the performance of women's outerwear, our largest category. This was to some extent offset by positive momentum from footwear and accessories and lingerie. It was also a good response to summer newness, price disruptors, KVLs and our new athleisure range and solid performances from Kids Wear, Beauty and Home for the half. Black Friday was smaller than expected, which was the general market feedback. However, our approach was to spread the promotions and deals over the month of November, which worked well. Online sales more than doubled and was 4% of total sales for the period. And within this, Beauty plus Home online sales were 10.7% of total sales. Gross margin stabilized at around 46% versus the 46.6% achieved in 2020. We had a smaller winter clearance and Black Friday, but clearance activity really continued through the half. A strong focus on costs and expenses, which were down on last year with savings from variable store costs, partially offset by increases related to utilities and also COVID related costs. Other operating costs were flat on last year. Adjusted EBIT was down 40% to GBP580 1,000,000 with an operating margin of 7% on a pre IFRS 16 basis. As mentioned, a lot to do in this business and Manu and his team are focused on executing the various parts of the turnaround strategy, including customer, brand, product, price investment and space optimization. Roy will talk more about our FBH business a bit later. Moving on towards Food, another outstanding market leading performance from Food in what continues to be a very difficult time for many consumers. December trade was up nearly 15% and Christmas ranges were again very strong, this despite the headwinds, store closures where we had COVID incidents, restrictions on cafes and wine sales, food traffic down in the major centers and CBDs and prepared impacted by the loss of the lunchtime and the convenience customer. Frozens and Groceries continued their strong run and customers responded well to the new low price in poultry, which was the largest category invested in during the period. We saw a 20% sales uplift and over 2% market share gain post the launch. We also saw positive shifts in price perception and the halo effect of new and existing customers buying into poultry for the first time. Online sales grew by over 150%, and it was 2.2% of total sales. GP margin was up on last year. The higher demand translated into higher volume rebates from suppliers, and the team also did an exceptional job in predicting and responding to changing migration patterns between the coastal areas and Gauteng as a result of COVID. This resulted in better availability and reduced waste. Overall pre IFRS 16 return on sales was 7.7 percent for the half, really a model income statement. Market leading top line growth, good margin management and cost control, one really cannot ask for more. And outstanding performance by the fresh and long life teams led by Julian Novak and Jane Pellet. Our Financial Services business remains in good shape despite the tough credit and collections environment, with Sivi Pillay and his team really focused on protecting the core of the business as we deal with the fallout from this pandemic. The closing book was down 2%, which is not unexpected given trading conditions. Lower interest rates and store traffic affected interest income, transactional revenue and collections. The impairment charge was 4.1% versus 3.6% the previous year, with book coverage at 25% versus 20% in 2020. This is due to a much higher IFRS 9 overlay and provision for customers in forbearance and payment relief. The lower revenue and collections resulted in lower EBIT for the half of ZAR248 1,000,000 but nonetheless, a commendable performance given the challenges in this sector. David Jones had an improved result through focused trade plans in respect of Black Friday and the festive season. We had strong campaigns, which capitalized on the pent up demand. Turnover and concession sales ended the half 8.8% down. There was a substantial decline in footfall over the period with CBD stores in particular affected. The Vic lockdown, the cases identified in New South Wales, Perth and Brisbane all had an impact. And there was good momentum in December up until the Sydney COVID cluster. People really were discouraged from going into the CBD in the lead up to Christmas and on Boxing Day. This affected Elizabeth Street with the lower traffic and no tourism. There was, of course, a shift to online with this channel growing by 50%, now 17% of total sales, quite a remarkable shift in a very short space of time. Gross margin was modestly stable on last year at around 35% and clearance stock was down by about onethree, notwithstanding the buildup of stock from the VIC lockdown. Promotions and discounting, especially over Black Friday and Christmas trade, were more sharply managed, which had a positive impact on margin. And earnings were up on the year, dollars 56,000,000 versus the $42,000,000 last year, although the COVID impact on sales and margins was offset by JobKeeper benefits and negotiated rent concessions. Food was significantly affected by COVID. The low activity at Four Courts also affected our BP business. And food was a CAD12 1,000,000 drag on EBIT for the period versus CAD13 1,000,000 in the prior year. A lot to do in this business, but again, the team is focused on building a more sustainable David Jones. We have solid with the balance sheet, but also in terms of merchandise and assortment, space reduction, food, digital and data and cost reduction. Moving on to Country Road, a very pleasing performance despite COVID. Within the stable and exceptional performance from the Country Road plan with sales up 10.7% for the 6 months, a consequence of the hard work of Ella Roseby and her team over the past 2 years across women's, men's, kids and home, really all cylinders fighting in this business. The heritage product strategy was very well received by customers, which is testament to the strength of the Country Road brand. Online benefited from the store closures and it was up 50% and it was nearly onethree of total sales for the half. Country Road was also the best performing brand within David Jones across concessions and owned by. Gross margin declined by 2 30 basis points primarily due to the weakness of the Aussie dollar against the U. S. Dollar. Inventory was well managed, down 9%. Expenses were down 21%, a focus on space optimization and discretionary costs, also recognizing the benefits from JobKeeper and negotiated rent relief from landlords, which offset some of the sales downside. EBIT was up nearly 45% to CAD94 1,000,000 with a pre IFRS 16 operating margin of 16% for the half year. And outstanding performance, which has continued into the second half. CapEx was again a focus area with us continuing to pull back on non essential CapEx but accelerating growth initiatives like online, loyalty, data and digital. Total CapEx for the half was ZAR600 1,000,000. There are some timing differences in here. For South Africa, our CapEx will be at more or less the same levels as 2019 2020. In respect of David Jones, the second half spend includes the start of the refurbishment of Burkes Ridge Women's Day, which will be funded from our annual CapEx budget. Country Road CapEx is down given where we are in the cycle and also due to targeted space reductions. The forecast CapEx for 2021 is down about ZAR1 1,000,000,000 from the ZAR2.7 billion that we previously guided year 2, but in line with what we spent in 2020. A significant portion of the variance on last year is due to the Elizabeth Street spend. Moving on to the group balance sheet. As a result of COVID, we accelerated key projects to build a more resilient business, which includes strengthening the balance sheet. I won't repeat what is in the call out boxes. This is clear in terms of the explanation of inventory, accounts receivable and payable. Overall, another outstanding working capital outcome across the group. Apart from some timing differences in accounts payable and delays in intake, there is nothing else that is unusual in working capital or working capital movements. Shareholders' funds are at ZAR8 1,000,000,000 with a pre IFRS 16 net debt to equity ratio of 0.6 times. Our balance sheet metrics have shown a substantial improvement in spite of a mostly COVID impacted 12 months. For Woolworths S. A, the underpinning of the Food business, together with suspending the dividend, has put us in a stronger position from a balance sheet point of view. The balance sheet strengthening plan for Australia is well underway, with Bourke Street men's proceeds received in the period and Elizabeth Street proceeds expected in the second half. Just a quick stance on IFRS 16. A lot of numbers in this slide, which I'm going to leave with you to work through. Really just wanted to touch on a few key messages here. Firstly, the focus on space optimization and how this translates into the numbers, especially the liabilities in average lease terms and then secondly, a reminder of the impact of Elizabeth Street in terms of the sale and leaseback. Total lease liabilities for the group is at CHF24.3 billion versus the CHF26.2 billion last year, showing a decline in all three of our businesses. The consolidated group number obviously affected by translation, but the David Jones liability, which is the largest in the group, reduced by CAD250 1,000,000 and country owned by CAD100 1,000,000 over the past 12 months. The other key stat is the average remaining lease term and the remaining lease terms with no options, which is relatively low for WSA and Country Road at 3.42.7 years, respectively. Within Woolworths, the average for FPH is even lower, which gives us greater flexibility. We are targeting a 7% reduction in space by June and upwards of 15% over the next 3 years. And in the note at the bottom of the slide on Elizabeth Street sale and leaseback, Overall, a good outcome for us and we get to separate the covenant group, but we do swap bank debt for lease liabilities, which is essentially termed out to 20 years. Net gearing at year end reflects the ongoing focus on cash generation and preservation. The debt in Australia will be recalibrated on the sale of Elizabeth Street with an appropriate maturity profile. As you can see, we had about ZAR8 1,000,000,000 in cash on hand at the end of the period. This was in the main due to the drawdown of facilities in Australia. Cash balances were expected to be held through the December period, reducing after period end through the working capital cycle and with the settlement of facilities. On the sale of Elizabeth Street, we will split David Jones and Country Road into separate covenant groups. And post the sale, we will have adequate working capital and other facilities in place for both businesses. Moving on to covenants. We were well within our Australian covenant undertakings at the end of December, and covenant was testing was suspended, if you can recall. However and as you can see, we were within our pre COVID limits for both SA and Australia, which is really reassuring. Just again to clarify and remind you of covenants and commitments as they relate to the group. We have 2 separate covenant groups, one for SA and one for Australia. These are ring fenced. There is no recourse or cross guarantees between the 2 from a funding or lease perspective. The cross guarantees that exist between Country Road and David Jones in respect of bank debt will fall away as a consequence of the sale of Elizabeth Street. There will be a 12 month rental bank guarantee in respect of David Jones, but no commitments from any other company in the group in respect of the Elizabeth Street lease. The CAD75 1,000,000 WHL facility in the form of the 2nd lien loan remains in place, but is not expected to be utilized. Cash generation. Cash generated from operations in half was ZAR6.5 billion. The improvement in working capital was ZAR1 1,000,000,000 with some timing differences relating to inventory and trade payables, but again, an outstanding working capital outcome. Finance charges on lease liabilities was ZAR1.6 billion, dollars which is new to the cash flow waterfall and the Bergstedt men's sale generated 1,500,000,000. Gearing was reduced by 4,800,000,000 through the period. Dividends and capital structure. No dividend has been declared for the half. We are encouraged by our balance sheet progress and improved operational performance, but as we have said before, a dividend will be considered in the context of prevailing conditions, and we will have a look at this again at year end. Then just to cover recent trading. This is an extension of the sales slide presented earlier. We have added the post half year 7 week trade figures. The start of the calendar year can fluctuate depending on where the half year is cut off and with changes in back to school dates. FVH spread down 8% for the 1st 7 weeks of the second half, in this case impacted by later back to school dates as a result of COVID. And Schoolwear is a big category for us, and however, we expect to close some of this trade back. Price movement is expected to be between 10% 12% for the second half due to the high levels of clearance we saw last year. Food traded up 10% for the 1st 7 weeks with the positive sales momentum continuing, and sales continued to benefit from the consolidation of spend. Price movement in H2 is expected at 2.5% with bulk buys and mix having pushed price movement last year. Underlying inflation is expected to be around 5%. David Jones was down 3.3%, still impacted by the CBD traffic, but also remember we had a non COVID impacted January last year. In the case of Country Roads, continuing its strong run, up 3% also against the non COVID impacted January last year. That brings us really to the end of the financial review. And let me hand you back to Roy, who will update you on the progress against our priorities. Thank you. Thank you, Riza. At our 2020 year end results presentation, I'd been with Woolworths for about 6 months, and I shared with you some of my initial perspectives on the business, and in particular, where I believed some of our more serious challenges lay. I also outlined where we see opportunity, both in terms of our core business as well as in new areas of potential growth. As a leadership team, we've now undertaken a comprehensive review of our strategies across all our businesses and have begun implementation with a view to addressing the key challenges and restoring the financial health of the group. What I plan to share with you now is some of the progress we've made over the past several months and what we've been focusing on and in so doing, bring you along the journey with us. As we go through the upcoming slides, you'll see we've made use of red, amber and green arrows against each initiative to provide a perspective on the progress we've made and some of the momentum behind each of these initiatives. Turning to unlocking and creating value in Australia and New Zealand. We have successfully completed several initiatives across the region. You'd recall, our primary objective here was the restructuring of our balance sheet and the subsequent implementation of a more sustainable funding structure for each of our businesses, and we've made very good progress in this regard. We sold our Berg Street menswear building in the half for $121,000,000 And in late December, we announced the sale of our Elizabeth Street building for $510,000,000 And as mentioned, we expect that transaction will likely conclude in this quarter. This enables us to achieve several important objectives. Firstly, it allows us to pay down debt. And Riza has shown you the significant improvement in our net gearing position, which in fact will further reduce with the sale proceeds of Elizabeth Street. Secondly and importantly, we also accomplished the separation of the covenants that financially bound David Jones and the Country Road Group to each other. The increasing focus on working capital, in particular, our inventory management, has also contributed positively to the reduction in gearing levels. And as a result of this, and consistent with my undertaking to you, WHL has provided no additional funding to the Australian businesses, and we don't expect this position to change. In terms of our refreshed product and brand strategy, starting with the Country Road Group, we are very pleased with the work our Managing Director of the Country Road brand, Elle Roseby, and her team are doing and the strong performance they've delivered. There's no doubt that our decision to exit the brands from Myer was the right one, both strategically and commercially for the Country Road group. It's imperative though that we keep driving this momentum across our full portfolio of brands, including Politics and Witchery, which have been more directly impacted by the shift to casualwear categories as a result of COVID-nineteen. We're also partnering with The Iconic, the leading online marketplace for fashion in Australia and New Zealand. Given its low crossover with our existing CRG customer base, this enables us to tap into a new younger cohort in a very cost effective way. Turning to David Jones. Performance across the premium and luxury categories of the business has been very pleasing, but it's not consistent across the rest of the categories. The work currently underway around a refreshed merchandise strategy will address these inconsistencies and the ongoing deterioration we've seen in our GP margin. The importance of creating inspiring and engaging store experiences cannot be overstated if the brands are to remain relevant. What we've achieved in the refurbished Elizabeth Street store is really resonating well with our customers. And although traffic is down by more than 50% in the CBD location, due mainly to COVID, customers who are visiting the store are certainly spending more time there. And our ATVs, the average value of each transaction is up by almost 70% versus the prior year. The store is achieving the best conversion rate within the fleet, and the net promoter score for the store is 20 percentage points higher than it was last year, with very positive feedback on the shopping environment and the levels of customer service. We're taking these learnings and selectively deploying them across the rest of the David Jones portfolio and are also incorporating them into the planned redevelopment of the integrated Berg Street store. We continue to make good progress on space optimization as well within the existing stores. This has given us the opportunity to expand our luxury brand ranges through the introduction of things like pop ups and kiosks, and it's also enabled us to maximize high traffic locations with low cost, low risk formats, all of which really amplify the customer experience. As you're aware, our GP margin in David Jones has been challenged for some time. This has been due in part to our approach to inventory management, which has not been optimal. Over the past year, we've tightened up on our inventory management, and our clearance stock is now down by a third year on year. And we'll continue to build on that, not only to arrest but also to reverse the decline we've had in GP margin. Pleasingly, with regards to Country Road, the successful execution of our product strategy has resulted in significantly higher levels of full price sales. Another key focus for us has been space reduction and occupancy costs. We reduced our David Jones footprint by almost 4% over the half and our Country Road Group footprint by almost 2%. And we have established a clear pathway to at least a 20% reduction in space across the David Jones fleet, challenging ourselves to accomplish our 5 year target in 2. Our intention is to exploit every opportunity we have. We continue to negotiate with landlords with the objective of accelerating further space reduction initiatives and improving the flexibility of our lease portfolio. We need the right size at the right rent and in the right location, and that will be an ongoing focus for the team. But we're mindful that we need to do this in a cost optimum way so as to protect shareholder value in the process. At our 2020 results presentation, we announced our intention to extract more than $20,000,000 of annualized cost from our operations, and I'm pleased to report that we're well on track to achieving that. The losses incurred in our DJ Food business simply have to be addressed, and we remain focused on our commitment to achieving a breakeven position in this business during the next financial year. We are close to finalizing a clear plan of action, which we look forward to sharing with you in due course. Scott Fife was appointed as the CEO of David Jones in November 2020. Scott has been the CEO of our Country Road Group for the past 4 years, where he was instrumental in transforming CRG into a market leading omnichannel retailer. I've also now had the opportunity of working closely with him over the past year, and I'm really pleased to have him lead our DJ's business. In terms of the CRG CEO, the recruitment process is well underway, and we'll update you on that as soon as we're in a position to do so. As we move on to talk about the strategic turnaround of our fashion business and the growth in beauty and home, I have asked the Head of our FBH business, Mani Maritz, to join us to outline some of the very specific initiatives that are underway that are targeted at repositioning the business. And he'll also talk to the progress we're making against these initiatives. Over to you, Mani. Thank you, Roy, and good morning. I'm going to take you through the strategic turnaround of our Fashion business and the growth in Beauty and Home. Our market share continued to decline over the first half. Although we did see a relatively better performance of the November December period. But it's too early to say these are green shoots, they are not. We have a lot of work to do in addressing some of our challenges in our fashion business, but I can assure you the work is underway to turn this business around. The starting point is to be clear on who we are and what we stand for in the apparel space. We are known for our trusted quality. It is what sets us apart, and quality will remain central and foundational to our proposition going forward. There's clearly a need for us to be more relevant in both style and trend, but we're not aspiring to be a high fashion or fast fashion business. We're anchored in our wardrobe essentials, in everyday wear and what we call our beautiful basics. And what we do is underpinned by strong sustainability credentials. So that's who we are. At times, we have deviated from our DNA because, to be frank, we haven't anchored ourselves in a deep understanding of our customers, their motivations and behaviors. I'd like to take a moment here to talk to you about why we've lacked that deeper understanding, how that impacted our offering and the confusion it then created for our customers. Historically, we have attributed our relatively inconsistent performance in FBH to poor execution. But this underperformance, in fact, has been a combination of poor execution and strategy. When we think about strategy, the starting point has to be anchored in the customer with deep appreciation for who the customer is. And I don't think we got this right. To be candid, our view was not fully informed. It was too narrow and 1 dimensional, and we relied on a limited data set of existing customers and didn't fully consider the broader customer universe. And although we applied the conventional segmentation tools, our outcomes resulted in a fairly broad and rudimentary characterization of our customer segments based on simple demographics rather than appreciating the more granular behaviors, the needs and wants that really drive shopping behavior. This allowed for a too wider brief, which resulted in inconsistent expression of the brand and product across various categories season after season. By way of example, if you look at these images of our offering for the modern younger customer over the last 5 years, you can see that there is very little consistency in the expression of the brand. The interpretation of our modern segment vacillated quite materially. So if you were a modern customer, you were bound to be confused by our offer. This approach played out across all our customer segments, resulting in customers that were confused or felt that our proposition did not resonate and consequently left the brand. Our strategies going forward have to ensure that we not only reengage with these customers that loved us but have left us, but these strategies also need to ensure that we remain relevant for our current customers as well as compelling for new potential customers that don't really know us today or haven't shopped us before. But we're not going to do that unless we have a deep appreciation of the customer and develop insights on their motivations in a much more granular way. I hope you can appreciate the shift that is needed in our understanding of the customer and how that informs our product strategies. The team has done a lot of work to build an analytics capability, which now provides us with the relevant insights to inform and shape our product strategies, and that will continue to evolve. Our refreshed brand and product strategies will intensify the focus on the growth of our core categories. It's really pleasing that our kids wear and baby wear categories are performing well and growing share despite the increased competition. But in reality, we need to address the fundamental challenges in our womenswear and menswear ranges if we are to turn this business around. Over the half, we've begun increasing our casualwear ranges and pulling back on formalwear. In support of that, we've launched a stronger athleisure range, merchandise as a collection, both in store and online, and early indications are very encouraging. We've spoken before about the fact that we over proliferated both in terms of brand and product and that we need to reduce the breadth of our offer and really do more with less. As part of that, we've commenced exiting from Studio W and W Collection brands in our clothing ranges, which will allow us to offer a more targeted and relevant proposition. This will not only improve the quality of our buy, but should also reduce our levels of markdown. An element of the refresh strategy is targeted at establishing ourselves as an authority in selected categories. And to this end, we'll be introducing, on a highly selective basis, complementary brands to reinforce this positioning. This strategy is not dissimilar to the approach we adopted in our foods business several years ago, which was to complement the shopping experience by selectively adding particular national brands to our predominantly private label portfolio. A further key focus area for us is an expansion of our beauty and home business, where we do see real opportunity to gain market share, particularly in growing our online penetration, which already exceeds 10% of sales. We need to improve our value perception. As we mentioned in the previous results presentation, our value proposition doesn't fully resonate with our customers. In short, we've become too expensive. We've earmarked ZAR250 1,000,000 for price investment, initially targeting a number of our key value lines. And obviously, we are doing this without compromising quality in any way. Our customers have responded positively to this. There's further opportunity for us in consolidating our buy and our supply base by shifting towards longer term contracts. All of these will enable us to improve our economies of scale and, in turn, leverage those efficiencies to drive improved value for our customers. And so we've updated our sourcing strategy, which will help us improve flexibility, reduce lead times and leverage local supply chain opportunities. A key to fixing our fashion business and growing beauty and home is to ensure that we have the relevant capabilities and competencies in our team. We've also need to redesign core processes and improve ways of working across the business. We had become a complicated business, over structured, too many layers to the decision making process, all of which added time, complexity and cost. As a first step to becoming more agile and responsive, we removed a layer of decision making across the FBH business and will continue to review our ways of working to flatten our structures and simplify our processes. Lastly, reducing space and improving productivity is a key focus area for us, particularly in the context of the shift to online. We reduced our trading space by 2% over the half and are on track to deliver a 7% reduction by this June. We need to improve our trading densities and profit per square meter metrics and rationalizing unproductive space is integral to that. Unlike our DJ business, our average lease duration in FPH is relatively short, which plays to our favor and gives us a lot to work with. As we streamline our brand and product portfolio, rationalize our physical footprint and simplify our structures and processes, we're editing to amplify. The initiatives I've shared with you are intended to improve the financial health of our business through more full price sales, lower markdowns and improved trading densities. Accomplishing this will establish a solid foundation from which to drive profitable market share growth. Thank you. I will now hand back to Roy. Thank you, Marni. Whilst there is undoubtedly significant opportunity for us to address areas of our business that are not operating at their full potential, I did say to you in our last results presentation that, that will not compromise our focus on our food business, which remains a standout performer underpinning our group results. We've continued to gain market share over the period, and that is notwithstanding an increasingly bigger base and an intensifying competitor environment. To effectively respond to our customers' needs and wants, we'll continue to invest in delivering a world class food experience. And central to that is our capability in innovation and new product development, which is strongly enabled by our partnerships with our suppliers. By way of example, our research indicated that more than 60% of consumers were eating more vegetables than they were 2 years ago, which inspired us to create a successful range of plant based products. We have also introduced ranges of plant based dairy alternatives and conscious confectionery, free from dairy, sugar and gelatine. We also know that ethical farming is an area of growing importance for our customers, as it is for us. We've been on this journey for some time and have implemented many industry leading initiatives in this regard, for example, our free range chicken and eggs. In conjunction with our suppliers, we have developed our own breed of Angus beef with no routine antibiotics, no growth stimulants and, believe it or not, even greater space for the cattle to roam. Lastly, we are really proud of our award winning earth friendly brand. This household cleaning range is 100% recyclable and naturally derived, and it's very much in line with our sustainability initiatives. Our partnership with suppliers is a key competitive advantage, and we know that that is not easily replicable. It allows us to deliver high quality products and allows them to invest in innovative processes and facilities as well as sustainable practices. We are very committed to our local suppliers who now account for more than 90% of our products sold through our stores and online. Shifting and improving our price position and perception is a key lever to making our brand more accessible. In the first half, we launched our poultry price investment, which has really resonated with customers. We've not only grown market share in poultry, we've also brought in new customers who may have come in for our chicken, but now they're shopping into other categories too. So leveraging those insights to really drive that halo effect will remain a key focus for the team going forward. We have also launched our promo price for longer campaigns, focused on delivering consistent value to customers on their basics, and this also continues to deliver very strong results. That said, we still have opportunity in this space, and we'll follow through on our intended investment of ZAR750 1,000,000 into price over the next 2 to 3 years. And we'll continue to work in close collaboration with our suppliers to drive mutually beneficial efficiencies throughout the value chain to the benefit of the customer. Our strategies of making smaller stores bigger continues to yield results, with extensions achieving trading densities well ahead of our national average. Convenience is not just about having the right physical footprint. It's really about offering our customers a seamless experience, whether they're shopping in the store or online. And in support of that, we've continued to extend our click and collect offering during the half. And we've also launched a trial on demand delivery service, which I'll share a bit more about later. A final word on foods. You'd recall Spencer Son, who over the past 5 years has successfully led our foods business, is now leaving us at the end of this month to take up a new opportunity in New Zealand with his family. Zaida Rylands, CEO of our SA business, will now take direct leadership accountability for our Foods business in addition to her current responsibilities. Zaida has a deep understanding of our Foods business. And you'll also recall, she spearheaded its tremendous growth and innovation in her role as MD of Foods between 20102015. I'm fully confident that under her direction and with the full support of our very experienced and highly talented Foods leadership team, we'll continue to sustain our market leading momentum. As mentioned at the full year result, we are laying the foundation for data driven decision making across the group. As part of this, we have partnered with Amazon Web Services, ratcheting up our advanced analytics capabilities across the group, and we're beginning to leverage some of these insights and actions. As we referenced earlier, this capability is improving our understanding of our customer and our broader target market. It is also proving instrumental in our space rationalization strategies as we use our car data to track and to measure potential sales transfer in a more granular way and with greater accuracy, which in turn better directs how we reshape our store footprint. Looking ahead, we are very excited by some of the opportunities we see to deploy and scale our learnings, whether it be to better inform our buying decisions, help us get closer to the customer or refine our personalized engagement and rewards program to really drive loyalty. In addition to embedding data analytics across the group, we are also fast tracking our omnichannel capabilities. We're seeing a seismic shift to digital engagement and online shopping across all our markets. It's not just omnichannel, but everywhere channel. And for me, doubling down on our efforts in this area is critical if we are to become a truly connected retailer. We've seen a strong performance over the period from online, supported by increased fulfillment capabilities, particularly over the peak periods. David Jones and the Country Road Group have grown their online sales by more than 50% year over year. And in fact, there's more we can do in range extensions and online only brands through a drop shipment model to keep driving up that momentum. The Country Road Group, in particular, is considered a market leader in the digital and online space. We have a great opportunity here to leverage their skills and their knowledge across the rest of our business. FBH and Foods have grown roughly 120% 160%, respectively. But in the case of South Africa, this is coming off a much lower base, with our online penetration still in the very low single digits. I've mentioned before that we've not invested as we should have in the space and have come up short as a result. We are prioritizing both CapEx and OpEx accordingly. We've grown our Woolies Food click and collect offering to more than 25% now of our online food sales just in a matter of a few months and have more recently launched an on demand trial, Woolies DASH. Now the launch of DASH has been operationally challenging with ramp up capacity and on time deliveries lagging both demand and our own expectations. But as a trial, it is providing us with some great learnings, which in conjunction with the feedback we're getting from our passionate customers, it is helping us shape our offering in this regard. We'll get this right because it is pivotal to us being able to offer a fully integrated customer experience. I have also previously mentioned that we are very focused on how and where we allocate capital. You'll see it increasingly shift towards our digital initiatives, whether it be in pursuing strategic marketplace opportunities, building digital marketing as a core competence or investing in new ways of engaging digitally with our customers, such as through virtual wine tastings, our virtual beauty tutorials and virtual stylists. One of the great things about having a diversified portfolio of businesses in the group is that it does provide us with the opportunity to learn off a broad base and leverage investments across multiple business units. This is something that will help us accelerate our digital and data transformation ambition. Coming on to our good business journey, this is something that we are absolutely passionate about. It features prominently across all of our strategies and is integral to how we operate as a business. For us, the sustainability imperative is clear and compelling, but it is also something that makes good business sense. Over the past 5 years alone, through the implementation of various initiatives, we've achieved over ZAR1.2 billion of cost savings. At the end of our last financial year, our good business journey concluded its cycle of 5 year goals with a number of notable achievements. We exceeded our CSI target in contributing almost ZAR4 1,000,000,000 to our local communities. By investing in energy efficient technologies, such as our closed door refrigeration in our stores, we now service almost 3x the square meterage we did in 2,005 for every megawatt hour used. 92% of FBH and 80% of the country road group's cotton is now sustainably sourced, leveraging programs like the Better Cotton Initiative. And we've made significant progress in our packaging journey as we work towards our vision of 0 packaging waste to landfill. Since setting this packaging target in 2018, we've already eradicated 100 of tonnes of packaging, and now 87% of all food product packaging is fully recyclable. What is really noteworthy is that 151 of our Woolies stores are now entirely plastic bag free, as are all CRG stores, both in Australia and South Africa. While our good business journey is well entrenched in our South African business, we're also stepping up our efforts to gain greater traction in Australia. David Jones has launched its Mindfully Made platform, providing customers with a series of curated sustainability assortments. It has also launched its partnership with the clothing rental platform, Glam Corner, in support of the circular fashion economy, which helps to reduce the environmental impact of unused clothing. Country Road partnered with Landcare Australia to support the regeneration of Australian farmlands with a specific focus on increasing biodiversity in cotton growing regions. Across the group, we are working towards our inclusive justice vision of inspiring inclusive growth for all our people. This important initiative focuses on addressing racism as a priority, along with ensuring meaningful transformation within our business and tracking, measuring and holding ourselves accountable for progress in this regard. We're now in the process of finalizing our new group wide good business journey goals and commitments for the next 5 years. Our approach is to ensure that they're science or context based and, where possible, aligned with global collective actions and commitments. For us, sustainability is a core competitive advantage, and it will continue to play an integral role in our approach to doing business. But as a group, I don't think we do enough to showcase some of our efforts, whether it's to our customers or to the investor community. So you can expect to see us doing more as we dial up our sustainability messaging going forward. I'll wrap up now with a few final comments from my side. We are satisfied with our first half performance and the progress being made against strategic initiatives, but we're also cognizant that we're up against a tough second half. The macroeconomic outlook in South Africa is bleak, with long standing structural constraints to growth being further exacerbated by the new and more infectious COVID-nineteen variant as well as ongoing risks to energy supply. A further factor will be the pace and the extent of the vaccine rollout, which is currently underway. Our food business, which has underpinned group results during the pandemic, is also up against a particularly tough comparable base in the current half. This is due in part to significant levels of stockpiling that took place in the second half of last year at the onset of COVID. And whilst Australia has fared better than most economies in the face of the pandemic, the impact of closed borders on tourism and the end of government support initiatives is anticipated to place pressure on discretionary spend, particularly in CBD areas. Finally, we also expect continued pressures on our supply chain as we contend with shipping delays, port congestion and the increase of global freight rates. I mean, yes, there are clearly headwinds that we need to navigate, but our challenges are not insurmountable, and I am confident that we can overcome them. As I've said before, there are some easier wins, which we've identified and we're going after. There are also some bigger challenges that will take a bit more time, but with bigger payback, and we're going after those too. It really is up to us, the leadership of this company, to ensure that we emerge both strategically and operationally stronger and not to simply endure the impact of the pandemic. In my book, success will come if we as an organization focus on controlling what is within our control. So you can expect us to show continued and real progress against our strategic initiatives. You can also expect us at our next results presentation to share with you our updated margin targets, along with our revised dividend policy. So in closing, let me say that I'm really excited about the potential in this group. I do see significant opportunity for us as an organization to be more externally focused, to sharpen our competitive edge and to dial up our sense of urgency and drive real accountability across our business. We also need to leverage the synergies that we should be getting from being a diversified group and harness the collective passion and determination of our people to not only rebuild our financial credibility, but to also restore the business to its rightful place. And with that, let me open up for questions. Our first question comes from Fonika Maseko of Renaissance Capital. Can we assume this facility has now been closed as it no longer seems necessary? Yes. Good morning, Finneko. Yes, I mean, I think, as you know, we put the $75,000,000 sort of second lien facility in place at the onset of COVID, essentially to ensure the liquidity of the business through the period. I made a commitment or an undertaking to you at the time that no further funds would flow from South Africa in support of the Australian investments. And I'm sticking to that. The facility is still in place and that will certainly be reviewed in time. But as I say, commitment and undertaking made, we're sticking to. We've got quite a few questions on the Foods business. The competitive landscape is certainly intensifying. How confident are you in the defensiveness of the business? And how are you looking to sustain your growth momentum? Thanks for the question. Yes, I mean, clearly, when you reflect on our results for the last 6 months, we're sort of reporting really an outstanding set of results from the Foods business. And this is now something that I think we're becoming sort of more familiar and quite used to. I mean, this is the 10th consecutive year, as I mentioned in our presentation, of market share growth. And when you are a market leader, you do have a bit of a target on your back. So we sort of anticipate competitors coming after us. And to a greater or less extent, there's been various attempts to, as I say, wrestle our sort of preeminent position from us. But our food business, if you do take a look at it, is built on a very significant sort of back end capability. For a start, let me just start with the team. I mean, we have a remarkable team running our Foods business today, and they've been around for some time. We have a collective sort of 120 year plus experience of that leadership team. And certainly, under the leadership of Chan Pillay and Julian Novak. I mean, they're doing a phenomenal job at driving this business. But more specifically to some of the back end capabilities, I mean, what we do have, which I don't think is that easily replicable, is obviously this new product development engine and this orientation around really driving innovation. And you see that coming through literally year in and year out. More than 10% between 10% 15 percent of the product you'll find in our stores year in and year out are new or innovations that we've brought to the market. I mean, we also have a very compelling sort of centralized distribution capability with a very strong cold chain competence, which as I say is not easily replicable. Back to the innovation piece, I mean, our partnership with our suppliers and the way we co invest in driving our business forward and the very deep long standing partnerships with suppliers are also a significant advantage for us. And we do what we do, really pursuing very strong sort of sustainability imperatives at the same time. So there's a lot going on in our Food business that really makes it robust and certainly allows us to withstand these competitive sort of forays from time to time. But having said that, I mean, there's also significant opportunity and headroom for us going forward. We talk a lot about affordability and accessibility, and those are 2 sort of overarching themes around the food strategies going forward. And we do see the opportunity to still significantly continue to grow this business in a profitable way that we have through focusing on things like price, through focusing things on product and range extension, expanding our service offerings and clearly also very specifically focusing online where we know we have some significant opportunity too. So all in all, I think it's a great performance. It's a great food business, but really confident that we can continue to go from strength to strength. We have a question from Saad Schatzia. I understand the combined debt in Australia will be paid down, but how much debt do you expect to take out in each of CRG and David Jones by June 2020 1? Rizo, do you want to take that question? [SPEAKER RIZO PEREZ DE SOLAY:] Sure. Thanks, Thad. Thanks for the question. So as I have noted, subsequent to the receipts of the Elizabeth Street sale, we will split the covenant group into 2 separate groups and separate funding facilities in place for David Jones and for Country Road. In actual fact, David Jones will be in a net cash position, and Country Road will have debt of between $100,000,000 $120,000,000 which, based on EBITDA gives us a comfortable gearing covenant in that business. We've had quite a few questions come in around the FBH business. Could you give us some insight into the signs we should look out for and the turnaround in your fashion business and the timing of these initiatives? Yes. Thanks for the question, Janine. Yes, I mean, I think as we look at our FBH business going forward, clearly, Marni and the team are busy with a significant refresh and re strategizing of the business. And certainly, the things you could expect to see over the next sort of couple of months, certainly over the next year. I think from a customer perspective, there's a series of things that you would see and also from a financial performance perspective. But Mani, why don't you take that question? Thanks, Roy. I'm sure this is probably the $1,000,000 question everybody is really keen to hear. Obviously, as you've noticed, there's an overproliferation of brands within our private label brands within our business, and we're looking to edit to amplify that. What the customer will see from a customer's perspective is a growth in our casual wear offer in both men's and women's wear. You'll see a reduction in formal wear in our business. The growth of athleisure, which we launched in February of this year, which has been very well received by consumers, and we see a continued growth and expansion of that range. What we're also going to do is dial up our key categories, which we term as beautiful basics, and what we're also going to do is add in, on a highly selective basis, some 3rd party brands. From a financial point of view, what you're going to see is an improved in gross margin, you're going to see a growth in full price sales, a reduction in markdowns and also a reduction in space and hopefully driving up improved turnovers and trading densities. A question has come through from Brian Thomas of Laurium Capital. Can you help us quantify the impact that the Australian support contributed to the business, both in the form of JobKeeper and also the Rental Relief? Perhaps you can explain what it was, how it works and what the glide path is from here? Thanks, Brian. In the notes to the income statements on David Jones and County Road, we've disclosed the net amount of JobKeeper and Rent Relief for both dollars $39,000,000 in David Jones and $35,000,000 in Country Road. The bulk of that relates to JobKeeper. The scheme was intended as the name of the scheme suggests, JobKeeper, keeping people in employment, so essentially as support to business to keep staff employed. And it was based on certain eligibility criteria, turnover being one of it. So if your turnover dropped by a certain amount, you effectively qualified for the scheme. All amounts that we receive effectively flowed through to employees, so there was no amounts retained in the business. In some cases, we had to top up amounts, where our employees were actually paid more than what the subsidy effectively paid us per employee, but that's essentially the way the scheme works. We have a couple more questions from Foneco of Renaissance Capital. At the last presentation, you had indicated a proposed accelerated schedule to exit marginal stores. Yes, Fenneka. I guess that's sort of one of the challenges sort of I have is just being a little bit aggressive in terms of some of our ambitions. And in fact, I mean, the commitment around the accelerated accomplishment of that space reduction target still remains pretty much intact. I mean, we did talk about putting out or we did put out a sort of a target of around a 20% space reduction for our David Jones fleet over the course of the next 5 years. I committed to sort of making that happen within 2, and we absolutely remain committed to that. We have a clear pathway to making that happen. But I think it's going to be important for us to go beyond that. I mean, it's no secret that we have now 45 stores in David Jones, a couple less than the last time I spoke to you. But we do need to go further. We're overstored for that market and for the business that we have. And our discussions, debates, negotiations with landlords are ongoing. We do have the opportunity to continue to look at lease exits, but it's important that we do that in a way that effectively is value accretive. There are some long term sort of liabilities associated with these leases and coming out of them obviously requires some significant give and take and negotiation with landlord, But really, it's our commitment to do that in the most value accretive way going forward. And another question from Fonika, probably for Marni on FBH. To what extent has the post period performance been affected by range edits and category launches? What were the timing of these launches? Yes, thanks for that question, Finike. I suppose the second wave of COVID, which impacted the return to school, which normally takes place in sort of the 3rd week of January, that being delayed, had had a significant impact on our business over that period. What we have subsequently seen is an improved performance over the February month, as schools have returned towards the middle of this month. However, we still have are facing challenges in both our women's and men's wear areas, and that will take us some time to repair. But on a positive note, as I've said before, we've launched Athleisure in February, and I ask the analyst to go and have a look at our stores. You'll see there's a significant statement in our big stores. And that has been very, very well received. And we see some significant growth in that athleisure category over the next couple of months years to come. We have a question from Peter Cromberge. What is WHL's gearing position likely to be at year end? What is its optimal gearing level? The gearing level as at the end of December, obviously, it's a very pleasing 1.1x. If you look at SA, it's effectively 1.5x and Australia at 0.6x. But also remember, we are at the low point in our working effectively our working capital cycle. So our net gearing at projected net gearing at year end is expected to be better than what it was as at the end of December, obviously helped by the fact that we're not paying a dividend in this Roy, we have a question for you. Could you give us an update please on the progress on your capital plan? Yes. Thank you. I guess when it comes to David Jones, I mean, we know we all know that it's been a fairly painful journey. And as we communicated probably almost a year ago now, we sort of set out a bit of a process around what we were going to do to turn that business around. I mean, our priority has been really focusing on the restructuring of that balance sheet. You recall that the levels of debt were unsustainable, and we needed to not only reduce debt, but also given the covenant arrangements that are sort of intertwining David Jones and the Country Road Group was something that we wanted to deal with. And so we did lay out a particular process, a particular plan, and I'm really pleased to say that we have pretty much executed quite well against that plan, and it's giving us the opportunity to, obviously through the leveraging of certain asset sales as well, really address that debt position and move towards the opportunity of separating out these covenant groups and setting up these businesses to sort of independently stand alone financially going forward. So overall, really good progress that the teams have made on that. And as I say, it gives us a great basis to sort of consider where we take those businesses into the future. Thank you. We have a question from Akumile Mashalaba of 91. How should we think about the targeted annualized savings of $20,000,000 relative to the $75,000,000 of government support and rent relief received in the half? Yes. I think the $20,000,000 yes sorry, you repeat the question again. Sorry, of course. How should we think about the targeted annualized savings of $20,000,000 which we communicated for David Jones and Victory Road Group relative to the $75,000,000 of government support and rent relief received in the half? Yes, I think those 2 should be looked at separately. I mean we have an underlying cost base that we need to address within David Jones, and we are tackling that from all aspects, and that's included in the $20,000,000 but the $75,000,000 is effectively separate to that. And maybe a final question on the outlook for dividend resumption. Could you provide some guidance on the outlook for dividends resumption, especially in the context of the expected conclusion of the sale and leaseback of Elizabeth Street during this quarter? What of the expected conclusion of the sale and leaseback of Elizabeth Street during this quarter? What key balance sheet indicator or metric is being tracked to have the Board feel comfortable to resume dividends? Sure. The gearing position, as I said, is at the end of December was very pleasing at 1.1 times. However, we still have COVID to contend with and we still in the throes of actually executing our Australian Capital Plan. So think we will definitely have a look at our target capital structure as at the end of the year and also our margin targets and guidance as at the end of the period and we will consider our dividend stance at year end. All right. So, yes, I mean, I guess there's probably a couple of other questions that many of you still have. We're looking forward to going forward and engaging with you perhaps in a smaller group or a 1 on 1 basis over the next several days. But really want to say thank you very much to all of you for tuning into the results presentation and giving us the opportunity to share with you some of the progress that we're making. Really excited about the possibilities, as I've mentioned, but look forward to sharing more of our plans and progress in the coming days months. Thank you very much.