Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Zeder Investments interim results presentation. My name is Johann le Roux, and this morning I will take you through a short presentation of what has transpired at Zeder Investments since our year-end in February. On the agenda for today, I will discuss some noteworthy events, mainly some cash flow movements, and also the status of the Pome asset disposals. I will spend some time on our update at some of the parts and our revised valuations. Spend some time on our portfolio review, and only remaining asset that is Zaad, and our strategy and how we have been going on so far. Please note the email address at the bottom, if you can email your questions throughout the presentation. I see we have already received a few questions, then I will be able to respond to them at the end of the presentation.
In terms of noteworthy events, since year-end, we managed to sign 4 agreements on all the Pome assets as housed within Capespan Agri. Those 4 assets consist of 3 primary agricultural farms and also the Novo Packhouse in Paarl. The first transaction, the Tweekop farm, we signed the agreement for purchase consideration of ZAR 283 million. The main CP for that transaction was the Competition Commission approval. We have obtained that Competition Commission approval, and that transfer is in process in the deeds office currently. Obviously, to the extent that we will receive funds from Capespan Agri and Zeder Pome, we will consider special dividends. On the Appletaardte farm disposal consideration, agreement signed for ZAR 190 million. That CP relating to the Competition Commission approval also obtained, and that transfer is also currently in the deeds office.
The Misverstand farm do not need CompCom approval. There is a funding condition that we are working on. It is not going to be a problem, that is still in process. That purchase price is for ZAR 45 million. The Novo Packhouse, also an agreement for ZAR 195 million, we have also obtained the Competition Commission approval for that transaction. That transfer is in process, but it is not currently in the deeds office. I think in all, we are very happy with the offers we received on these assets. In total, it is a consideration of ZAR 730 million. We must just remember that Zeder Investments’ interest through Zeder Pome Investments in Capespan Agri is only 7.1%, so the amount due to us is about ZAR 621 million. Our valuation has obviously been adjusted to take these asset sales into account.
When we look at our valuation of the Zeder Pome Investments at ZAR 599 million, the difference between the ZAR 621 million and the ZAR 599 million is mainly as a result of transaction costs, there will be some CGT payable at a Capespan Agri level. In terms of additional cash flow moves, since year-end, we have paid two special dividends. One was as a result of the disposal of Capespan. The other one was the final amount of restricted cash from the TLG transaction that was released. In all, it was dividends of ZAR 462 million that was paid to shareholders. Prior to year-end, we made a loan to the Pome business to assist with their working capital. That loan was refinanced with a third-party bank and repaid to Zeder Investments. Subsequent to year-end, we advanced further loans to Zaad.
Two loans, one loan, the biggest one, to increase our interest in May Seed. We found that it's important for us to have a mechanism to potentially obtain control, especially in light of our strategic process that we're following at Zeder, and we think that's quite an important tool for us to have. The additional funds was used to assist Bakker with its continued IP investment. In terms of our interim results, the business and operating environment, I always like this graph. It's the Agbiz agribusiness confidence index. When you look at Q3, you can definitely see an improvement. It's gone up to 48 points. Unfortunately, still lagging behind the mean or the 50-point mark. I think in the industry, there's definitely a sense of optimism. I think it's mainly attributed to the government of national unity. I think there's definitely optimism in the market.
I think on the ground, things are still tough. The right things are being done. Municipal service delivery, infrastructure, ports, those are still obstacles that need to be overcome. I think there's optimism around plans to address those issues. Also, I think in the weather, it's been a difficult year with the El Niño that we had in the prior summer season. It wasn't good for oil seed and maize and the sunflower bulbs. That's been a difficult year. I think the sentiment is far more positive on the weather front going forward. There's a La Niña projected, as you know, to try and project the weather is always a difficult thing. We expect a continuation of the uncertainty. Obviously Zeder, where we are now with our seed business, has got assets across the world.
We think we're well positioned, obviously we have a strong balance sheet at Zeder with no debt and cash resources. In terms of our sum of the parts update since February, the biggest changes has been the dividends that we paid out. The decrease of ZAR 0.33, ZAR 0.30 of that was special dividends paid. The balance of ZAR 0.03 has got to do with our marginal decrease in our valuation of Zaad, obviously the marginal increase in our valuation of Capespan. We don't have any debt on our balance sheet at Zeder, obviously we anticipate our cash resources to be bolstered and increased as the Pome asset disposals are being completed. Our discount to the sum of the parts is one of the things that we've worked on as a result of our strategic review that we're doing.
Currently, our discount is around 10% to our sum of the parts. In terms of our portfolio, you all know Zaad. It is our remaining asset. Once the Pome assets have been disposed of. The business had a tough year. It's reported a decrease in recurring headline earnings of around 27%. These were mainly attributed to the performance of Farm-Ag, May Seed, and various associate investments. I think a lot of these factors are attributed to weather, to industry trends, but this remains an agri business, obviously, in agri, there's always factors completely out of your control. Just some detail on it. I think if one looks at all the performance on a continued business operations basis, the recurring headline earnings would then only have been down by 18.1%, if you exclude the non-performance from smaller associate investments.
From the 27% to the 18%, there would have been a lower decrease. These smaller associates are not core to the Zaad group. We're focusing on exiting them. We're in discussions with various parties, quite advanced discussions. It'll actually mean that about ZAR 26 million of earnings will go back onto the income statement if we can dispose of these, and obviously we'll get a cash process in that will be used to settle debt. Our valuation of Zaad has gone down by 3.5% for the period. The decrease in our valuation was mainly driven by impairments we made in some of our African investments, mainly our Zimbabwean operations, and to a lesser extent also take into account the challenges in the chemicals industry. That's a worldwide industry and not unique just to our business.
Our valuation principles on Zaad, we follow an EV/EBITDA multiple approach minus net debt. We segment the business into two, into chemicals, into seeds. We also apply a multiple to each operating unit. Where a business is not supported by cash generation, we use a heavily discounted NAV approach. In terms of the markets that we operate, especially some of the African markets, high inflation, especially on the income statement, can very often give a skewed result of business. We adjust the IAS 29 to give a reasonable degree of comfort of how the business is performing the true operations of the business. If I look at the portfolio of Zaad, maybe a little bit more color of all the components. Agricol historically used to be a core sunflower business. It's diversified in recent years to also be a key player in soya, wheat, and canola.
As a result of the El Niño in the last year, it wasn't a very good season for sunflower, nor was it for maize. Agricol had a very, very good winter crop season, and we're very confident of the upcoming sunflower season. We can already see some higher sales this part of the year compared to last year. I think there's a general optimism in the summer markets, not only about commodity prices, but also about the La Niña weather prediction. On Farm-Ag, I've mentioned it at the full year results presentation, significantly down on prior. There was a massive position in the market in terms of chemical prices where people were sitting on stock that were bought in trying to mitigate for harbor and supply chain issues.
Where there's a massive decrease in raw chemical prices, which meant that you obviously had to get your stock out at these lower prices to try and remain competitive. That had an impact. At Farm-Ag, that stock's been worked out of the system. We've expected a better performance or let's say quicker recovery, but it has been slower. There are some green shoots in terms of the markets and pricing coming up from chemical prices. We think we're going to get back to previous levels. As I mentioned, these challenges are not unique to Farm-Ag. There's definitely a similar trend in the industry, and I'll show you slides now on some of our competitors.
I think in addition, as a result of El Niño, there was a big drop in applications or late applications of herbicides and fungicides, and that's also an indication a negative impact on the business. Obviously, like I said, there's a La Niña weather pattern lying ahead, that should also be positive for Farm-Ag. Farm-Ag is a good business. We think it's got very good growth prospects. It had a big focus on the KZN belt, the Eastern Gauteng or Eastern Lowveld areas. Also in West Africa, we've since made a strategic decision to rather focus on South Africa, especially in the Western Cape, where we think we've got good growth. The crop protection market in SA is estimated about ZAR 12 billion and expected to grow, and our share of that is still small at around 6%. We're positive about the growth of this business.
Just a slide. I also showed this at our full year results presentation, just to give you an indication on the graph on the right that how severely raw chemical prices came down. Obviously the trade is coming to the market, and to remain competitive, you also have to adjust your prices. The next slide, these are three not direct competitors, but also big players in the chemical market. If you look at their results during 2024, you can see they're all down. I think we can see improvements in the market. Gross margins are returning to more normalized levels, and even Chinese supply prices have increased, and we also expect to increase over the next 12 months. That'll obviously mean margin enhancement at your own operations. Just in terms of our African operations, they've performed in line with our expectations.
The operating environment in Zimbabwe initially seems to have improved with the introduction of the ZiG currency. In the last week or two, that's also devalued, I think one day, about 43%. There are significant challenges in terms of inflation, interest rates. Access to foreign currency. We've made the decision to exit our position in this company or this grouping of companies. We are speaking to a few people, and I think it'll be good for the business to exit this. It's taking up a lot of time. Unfortunately, the position in Zimbabwe has remained the same over the last period. Bakker had a significant improvement in their performance. This business is obviously going through a transition from OP or open pollinated seeds to hybrid seeds. For the last year, we've had an increase of 55% of sales of our own IP.
I mean, that's a big number. If you look at their July and August, let's call it their Q3 sales, there's once again, also a significant improvement compared to the prior. I think we're on the right path there. It's just taking a little bit longer than expected. We've lost some time in terms of breeding as a result of COVID. Obviously we need to establish the marketing channels for these IP seeds. Obviously the turmoil in the Middle East is also contributing to some challenges there. May Seed. May Seed is an absolute market leader in that area. Once again, the Turkish economy has come under pressure with high inflation and political uncertainty. A big portion of May Seed's revenue is being generated in foreign currency, so you're not that exposed to the deterioration of the Turkish lira.
Also in addition, there's been some unfavorable weather patterns and also low soft commodity prices in key times, which obviously resulted in lower hectares of specifically sunflower, maize, and cotton planted. That's obviously also had a negative impact in our Turkish business. EAC, our East African business, I don't know if you'll remember from the last 2 reporting periods, they were also going through a drought period and did not perform well. That's turned around completely. Once again, you just have normalized weather and the business performs. It's been going very well there, and we remain very positive about EAC and its growth prospects in the entire East African market. Just a slide on the left-hand side also showed this at our full year results. It's just an indication of a basket of emerging market currencies in Africa compared to the US dollar.
You can see the continued significant decline. On the right you'll see it's a map of the Turkish inflation rate versus interest rate. Initially in 2022, when inflation went up to 60%, 70%, 80%, there was no increase in interest rates. Not the normal policy that you would follow. Inflation came down, then inflation shot up again. Only now, towards the end of 2023, beginning 2024, you can see a significant increase in interest rates. We've felt that below the line at May Seed as well. Obviously, in addition, also in that area, you've still got the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Initially, they had some benefits to us because seed providers that moved out of those areas moved to Turkey or use our services. That's definitely positive.
I think the uncertainty and turmoil in the Middle Eastern market does create further uncertainty in the larger region. May Seed is a very good business. It's got very good products, and it is a market leader in that part of the world. In terms of our strategy, I mean, how have we done so far in the 2025 year? We've managed to pay dividends to shareholders. So far this year, ZAR 462 million returned to shareholders. We anticipate further special dividends as the Pome asset sales come through, and we receive dividends from the underlying companies. Capespan has obviously been concluded in January this year. All the agreements have been signed on the large Pome assets. Comp approval have been obtained. Most of them are in the deeds office, so that's all going around smoothly.
I think obviously compared to the prior year, there's been value created for shareholders. We still remain engaged with third parties in Zaad. We'll obviously consider these in a manner that's reasonable to third parties in Zeder, but also fair to the respective management teams. I think we're well-positioned, and I'm confident that we'll be able to show further progress at the next reporting period. The next graph is an interesting graph. Just went back and kind of mapped the journey. In 2020, Zeder's market cap was around just over ZAR 7 billion, and our sum of the parts about ZAR 10 billion. The black is the market cap, the dark green is the discount. Obviously the two combined would have been our NAV or our sum of the parts.
At that stage, our discount was at about ZAR 2.96 billion. Part of our strategy was to try and unlock that discount and return the funds to shareholders. The portion in the light green on each of the blocks to the right is what we've given back to shareholders, and also if you've used those proceeds and invested it and just obtained a repo interest rate. Not a market-led prime, but a repo interest rate. You'll see in 2021 was the disposal of Pioneer, 2022, Quantum Foods and Pioneer. We had the Kaap Agri unbundling and the TLG sale. We had the Agriv ision sale, and this year so far, the Capespan sale. At the next reporting period, obviously hope to add on the Pome asset disposal. Our market cap currently, or our NAV currently about ZAR 3.3 billion.
We traded a 10% discount, that's gone from 29% to 10%. Obviously, from about ZAR 3 billion to ZAR 300 million. That's effectively reflected either in the disposals, the money the shareholder received or in the remaining market cap. I think our strategy has been the right strategy. We'll continue with it. Obviously, the disposal of the Pome assets will enable further special dividends in the short term. Yeah, I'm quite happy. I think from a shareholder point of view, one would be quite happy with the progress that's been made to date. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings me to the end of my presentation. If you can maybe just bear with us for a minute or two while we just collate the questions, I'll be back shortly to answer your questions.
Thank you. It seems if you've got fewer assets, you also get fewer questions. We have a few questions. The first question, can I ask estimated timing for the receipt of final proceeds from the Pome Investments asset sales? I think where we are now, we are confident that all four of those transactions will be concluded this year. It's obviously up to the respective boards of Capespan Agri and Pome Investments to pay dividends to Zeder. Our board will obviously need to decide to what extent we will be paying dividends to shareholders. We have mentioned before that our intention is to pay out the dividends we receive to shareholders. That's still a board decision. Hopefully that can all be done this side of the year.
The next question, can I ask, with Zaad as the only remaining asset post the sale of Pome, is it the intention of Zeder to delist from the JSE as and when any asset sale of Zaad is made? Or is PSG and management considering a new incarnation for Zeder? I think firstly, what's important to understand is how does a delisting process work. A delisting process is not something for a board to decide one day we want to delist and tomorrow you delist. Someone needs to come to the board, approach the board, and make an offer to all shareholders, for a certain price, that needs to be part of a scheme of arrangement. It's not in the board's hands to do that, but obviously anyone is welcome to approach us.
I think obviously, if one looks at the business now within Zaad, that is still a big check. Once Zaad is out of the business and it is a smaller business, maybe there is a higher probability of such a transaction potentially taking place. But we are not in that control, and unfortunately, I also cannot speak on behalf of PSG. The next question, with the domestic planting window ahead, can I ask how has Q3 started for Zaad and its domestic seed and chemicals business? With a favorable La Niña ahead, have you had any uplift in demand for seed variants? I think it is a good question. I think farmers are generally optimistic. I think we have definitely seen some more interest in white maize, and also in soya. Sunflower is normally a little bit later. On the chemical side, we have had a decent or better July and August.
Not such a great September, but I think the chemicals also really only start moving in October, closer to the rainy season. So there has definitely been an uptick on the seeds side that we can see at Zaad for our domestic companies. The next question, can you clarify where the expected value of the pending Pome harvest is included, and how much variability is there still to the harvest estimate? Yeah. So currently our valuation is very much based on the four asset disposals. Obviously, what is still remaining in the Pome company is the 2024 harvest that has been pushed in the market. So when one looks at the balance sheet of Pome Investments, it is sitting in inventory debtors, a Pome working capital loan, and also in creditors. So it is a little bit unsure of how that will pan out. But I think currently we remain positive.
I think the question is probably, are there any upside in our valuation in terms of the Pome harvest? So that also is uncertain, but my view would be that there probably is about a ZAR 20 million upside in terms of the Pome season, the 2024 Pome season that has already been harvested. The next question, the ZAR 599 valuation of the Pome assets includes relevant transaction costs and other obligations in terms of the various transactions. Does this imply that the net expected proceeds to Zeder will be ZAR 599, or are there further material costs that have not been included? No, that ZAR 599 has taken into consideration all the potential costs relating to these specific transactions that need to be incurred at all the levels at Capespan Agri, Zeder, Pome. So, I think that number, there is nothing material that needs to come off that number.
There is a question on the loans to Zaad, whether the loans that were not for increasing your May Seed, they go. I have mentioned that went into the IP investment at Bakker. Next question, on the impairments and the disposal of the Zimbabwe operations for Zaad, does this make potential disposal proceeds of Zaad more executable for Zeder? I think so. I think our experience has been part of this process that it is quite difficult, especially for foreign investors, to get a handle on the business operations in Zimbabwe, just because there is so much uncertainty. So yes, I think potentially when this is out of the packet, I think it will definitely It takes a risk element away and it takes an element away that is quite difficult to value. So I think yes, it probably will make discussions on a Zaad level easier. There is a next question.
When do you expect to receive the proceeds of the 3 farms and Novo Packhouse? As I mentioned, I think two of the transactions are already lodged in the deeds office. Confident we're going to conclude all 4 before the end of the year. Can you provide an estimate of the value of the Zimbabwean business in Zaad? It's at about ZAR 150 million in our valuation. It's a small part of our valuation. This is obviously after the impairments that we've made. Can you provide more detail regarding the strategy to dispose, part dispose, Zaad? What options are being evaluated, timeline, number of interested parties, valuation of Zaad? Is there any upside scenario to the value of Zaad? Obviously, as I mentioned, we're looking at options within Zaad. I've mentioned the African operations, I've mentioned the fact that we want to exit some of our associate investments.
That's a drag on earnings. I think the key things for us is we need to factor in a few. One is obviously one needs to be fair to the management of Zaad. That's important. We also have to make sure that we obtain the best value for Zeder shareholders in the shortest amount of time. Those are all the considerations that we take into account. Unfortunately, I won't be able to give more detail of the parties. We are in discussions on various parts with various interested parties. There's a question about the Zaad valuation. Let me just see. There's a valuation here that says, unsure of the valuation, especially on the earnings multiples. The assets for sale, one would assume that Zeder would be targeting to sell at the higher price.
If this is correct, it implies that the value in some of the parts could potentially be understated. How should investors look at the valuation? What is the probability that Zeder can sell these assets at the higher values? It's obviously our intention to always try and obtain a premium to the sum of the parts for our shareholders. That's what we're working on. That's our aim. Obviously we don't have signed agreements yet, otherwise we would have put out the relevant communication to the market. There's a question. It's a question of the sale of Zaad is taking a lot longer than expected. Having no news is very frustrating for shareholders. Can you give us some guidance with regard to the timing of these disposals? How many parties are looking at them? Have Zeder set any deadlines for offers to be received? Yes. We've run formal processes.
I've mentioned before that we even included Rabobank in our processes to try and get international investors on board. We're still in discussions with parties at the top of Zaad also, but also there's more of a focus now to look at individual parts purely because we obviously also want to make progress and then show progress to the market. We're definitely not sitting and not doing anything about it. It's a business with lots of moving parts, and it probably could be easier to look at disposals on a chemicals and seed basis, maybe, rather than something at the top. There's a question of whether Zeder would be willing to engage in a merger and acquisition. I'm not sure if the question relates to acquisitions in our portfolio. No, there's no plans for us to invest. Our strategy is not to invest into anything new at the moment.
If anyone's talking about merging with Zeder, anyone can come with a proposal. Currently we have nothing like that on the table. Just going to see if there's any more questions. If you can just bear with me. Ladies and gentlemen, there doesn't seem to be any more questions. Thank you for your time today. The CoSec email will still be open, if any questions come through later, I will respond to them individually. Thanks for your time. Have a good weekend.