Thank you very much, and thank you for the introduction. And good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and well welcome to DCC's results presentation for the year ended 31 March 2020. We're all living in unprecedented and very challenging times at the moment due to the COVID-nineteen pandemic. And one manifestation of that is that we can't be together in the London Stock Exchange this morning to present our results. So we are doing our first virtual DCC results presentation today.
So I'm delighted to be joined by Virgil O'Dwar, our Chief Financial Officer, and you've got myself, Donald Murphy. We'll run through our results presentation over the next 25 minutes or so, and then open it up for questions and answers. So thankfully, I don't have to read our disclaimer to you. It's there just to to give the legal details. I'm going to cover off the results, highlights and the introduction.
Fergal is going to take you through the business and financial review. And then we come back and update you on current trading and the impact of COVID-nineteen on DCC's business. So despite the very challenging macroeconomic environment, the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the onset of the COVID-nineteen pandemic in our final quarter, it's been an early year of strong growth and development for DCC. Group operating profit increased by 7.3% to GBP494,300,000 demonstrates the resilience in DCC's business model and the phenomenal capability, agility and commitment of all 13,200 colleagues who work across the 20 countries that DCC operates in. Pleasingly, all 4 of our divisions achieved operating profit growth over the prior year.
We continued our trend a very strong free cash flow conversion with an excellent 100 percent conversion of operating profit to cash at during the year. It's really a stellar performance when you consider that many of the markets that DCC operates within. We're in lockdown in the run up to our year end due to the COVID-nineteen pandemic. DTC's return on capital employed, our key operating metric was strong at 16.5%. A key element of DCC's strategy has been the maintenance of a strong and liquid balance sheet.
And at the 31st March 2020, CCC had very modest levels of net debt at 1,000,000 net of lease creditors and had cash on its balance sheet of 1,000,000,000. And committed credit facilities of $350,000,000. Our extremely strong financial position leaves the group very well placed to navigate this period of unprecedented uncertainty and to continue our long track record of growth and development in the years to come. It was another very active year from a development perspective with GBP 170,000,000 of capital committed to acquisitions. The highlight of the year were the acquisitions of our nutritional businesses in the U.
S, the acquisition of BioGlobe in November 2019 and AmeriLab Technologies in March 2020, adding both new customer relationships and enhancing our product format capabilities in the U. S. Market. We now have a substantial presence in the U. S.
Market. It's the world's largest health supplement nutritional products market, and we're well positioned to continue to grow in this market due to the fragmented nature of the market.
We also completed a number
of verticals on acquisitions across each of our divisions. I'm very pleased with the impact of the lockdown to announce that we completed the acquisition of a small gas and power business here in Ireland recently very recently and completed bolt on acquisition in our propane business in the, in the U. S. The COVID-nineteen crisis presents significant challenges society and the economies in which we operate in. As I say, we're operating in unprecedented times like nothing that we have seen certainly in our lifetimes before.
Thankfully, all DCC businesses have continued to operate effectively as we quickly moved to implementing our business continuity plans across the 20 countries we operate in. We are continuing to supply all the essential products and services that our customers require Our first priority has always been the health, safety and well-being of our people, and we implemented our business continuity plans with most of our Most of our sales, marketing support services, people working from home, and our frontline workers continuing to deliver our products and services to our customers. While demand has been impacted by the lockdowns in most of the markets that DCC operates in, our business has continued to trade robustly and are significantly profitable albeit behind the prior year. I'll just hand over to Fergal now who'll take you through the highlights for 2020 and our business overview.
Thanks, Stonewell. I mean, the challenges we thought we had to face up the year just come by. We have Brexit our own uncertain economic environment well, they paled it in significance with the emergence of COVID-nineteen late in our financial year and the devastating impact it's had on society and the global economy. We will be talking obviously in some detail about COVID-nineteen, but firstly, our 2020 results were very strong with some notable positive features. We push ourselves every year to achieve good profit growth, convert all of those profits into cash, which in turn drives strong returns in our capital.
It also provides the firepower for continued acquisition development activity. And we do this while trying to retain a very strong, well funded and liquid balance sheet. Notwithstanding the challenges that were there, we managed to do a lot of these things well in the year just end us. And I suppose it is the driving commitment of our 13,200 colleagues throughout the group that has continued to deliver. Just moving on to the financial summary, our revenue number gets dominated by the underlying price of our barrel of oil, which obviously has been declining.
Excluding the energy businesses, revenue was up 6.7%. We saw strong growth in our operating profits up 7.3%. Roughly half of this was organic. Our finance costs are up surely because of a technical IFRS 6 adjustment. Adjusted earnings per share up 1.3%.
That's after a near 5% dilution from the extra weighting of the shares half year waiting of the shares, following our equity issue back in September 2018. Are increasing the final dividend by 2.6 percent to give a total dividend increase for the year of 5%. We're really pleased with the free cash flow during the year, 100% conversion to get $192,000,000 of free cash flow. And our balance sheet metrics remain strong. We'll talk about them in a minute, but net debt of only $60,000,000 net debt to EBITDA of 0.1 times.
And again, our return to capital employed exited 16.5 percent, well ahead of our cost to capital. A quick look at our division results all ahead of the prior year. Strong organic growth in LPG, retail and oil and an underlying organic increase within Healthcare when you adjust for the disposal of our UK Pharma Business and related Irish manufacturing facility. Technology was, although showing growth was held back organically, by more difficult trading conditions in the UK, which were mainly Brexit and COVID-nineteen related. Then just maybe talking a bit in a bit more detail about the divisions.
Within LPG, strong growth of 13.1% roughly three quarters that this was organic. We saw good volume growth continuing, with continuing all its LPG conversions. Where we help our customers not only save in their energy bills, but also reduce their carbon footprint at the same time. Customer wins in the B2B natural gas space and strong procurement and cost control also helped the underlying profit performance. For the LPG division.
The standout performances were in Britain, Ireland and the U. S. Retail and oil, profits are up nearly 6% on a constant currency basis. Roughly half of this is organic. We saw increased penetration of value added products and services and strong cost control, as well as the continued expansion of our retail and HGV networks.
There were good overall performances in Britain, Ireland, Denmark and France. In TCC Technology, as I already referenced, We were held back by difficult trading conditions in the UK, driven where revenues and operating profits declined. That was mainly Brexit and COVID-nineteen related. We did see good growth in North America and Continental Europe. Healthcare, underlying operating profit growth was in excess of 8% of continuing activities, 3rd of which was organic.
And we're really excited about the acquisitions of Health And Beauty Solutions of the 2 U. S. Acquisitions, IIM Labs and the Marriott Labs. Both journey days with both are performing well. Last but not least, we'll move on to our cash flow.
Look, the numbers speak for themselves, operating cash flow up 10% on the previous year at $666,000,000. Really, really pleased with the capital, the working capital inflow of 49,000,000 despite the negative impact of a lower oil price. Free cash flow $492,000,000, a 100% conversion of profits into cash, And this is on par with our 26 year record, which we show as a right hand podium, since we floated as a public company. And that's 101%. Our closing net debt excluding the IFRS 16 leases is $60,000,000, a very strong well funded and liquid balance sheet.
Within that, there are cash balances of $1,700,000,000. We also in addition have committed facilities of $350,000,000. So we have available liquidity on the balance sheet of around 2,000,000,000 our net our debt has an average maturity of 6.1 years. This extremely strong well funded and highly liquid balance sheet leaves us well placed in navigating uncertainty of created by COVID-nineteen and to continue to grow and develop into the future. So, thank you.
Back to you, though.
Thank you all. I now want to just give you an overview of how DCC is responding to the COVID-nineteen pandemic an update on current trading. And then I want to take you through just a couple of the wonderful things that DCC businesses are doing to play their part in the battle against COVID-nineteen. With the onset of the COVID-nineteen pandemic, in the final quarter of financial year, We took swift and decisive action to ensure the health, safety and well-being of the 13,200 people that work across 20 countries and 3 continents that DCC operates in and to ensure that our customers receive the essential products and services that DCC provides. As restrictions were put in place by governments to prevent the spread of the virus, we triggered our business continuity plans.
All DCC businesses remain operational with appropriate measures put in place to protect our people. The vast majority of our sales, marketing and support functions move to working from home including ourselves, my first day in the office in over 7 weeks. We've seen significant change in demand patterns across the markets we operate within with increased demand for heating related products, healthcare products, particularly PPE and other COVID related products, and the technologies necessary to support people working from home. As markets went into lockdown, we've seen demand for transport fuels and consumer technologies being negatively impacted. We've been actively managing our cost base and resources.
All discretionary and non essential expenditure has been curtailed and capital expenditure has been limited to essential maintenance and HSE related spend. As we discussed earlier though, we have continued to be active on the development front and very pleased to have completed a couple of acquisitions. Thankfully, all VCC businesses are operating effectively and trading robustly, albeit behind the prior year in the seasonally less significant period of the year. To give you a flavor by division, in LPG, we've had good domestic and cylinder demand across France, Britain and the U. S.
Despite warmer weather conditions during April and so far in May. We've had strong cost control across the businesses, mitigating somewhat the impact of lower industrial and commercial demand as businesses have been closed during the pandemic. Operating profit is behind the prior year, reflecting the lower commercial volumes within our business. In our retail and oil business, we've had strong demand from domestic and agricultural customers, Transport Fuels, as I mentioned earlier, has declined significantly during the second half of March and into April as many of our markets went into lockdowns. However, volumes are starting to increase in May as restrictions ease.
Operating profit in our retail and oil division is only modestly behind the prior year due to In our technology business, we've seen strong consumer and e tail demand, particularly in working from home products and products actually to like lower end mobile phones and gaming products to keep people occupied while working from home are locked down in their homes. Products in the ProAV and other B2B categories have been impacted as installations of enterprise technology has been difficult due to the lockdown. Relative performance to the prior year has improved in the second half of April, and into May, although operating profit is behind the prior year. And finally, in Healthcare, as you would probably expect, we've had a very strong performance in the 1st 6 weeks of the year well ahead of the prior year. We've had good demand for nutritional products as consumers are focused on strengthening their immune system coupled with the benefit of the recent acquisitions of Iron Labs and Ameri Labs.
We've had strong demand indeed Vitol for COVID-nineteen related products, PPE, and other related products, more than offsetting the reduced demand for elective procedures and elective surgeries, and our primary care business has performed very well. So overall, DCC is coping extremely well with the challenges presented by the COVID-nineteen pandemic. We're really proud of how DCC's people have responded to the challenges presented by the COVID-nineteen pandemic. They have strengthened their capabilities, their agility and the phenomenal commitment in ensuring that our customers continue to receive the essential products and services that DCC provides. But we've also been playing our part in the battle against the virus I'd like to give you a couple of examples of how our divisions are dealing with and providing support to our customers and our partners to help the fight against the COVID-nineteen virus.
Firstly, in our LPG business, DCC propane in the U. S. Rapidly provided propane to heat the outdoor temporary testing facilities that were being erected through the rollout of of propane solutions and heating solutions into our customers. This one in the picture is in Washington State. DCC Retail And Oil partnering with BP are providing free fuel to the emergency services and NHS trusts using our fuel card products.
And we're also providing free hot drinks to the NHS and emergency services workers at our retail petrol stations. In DCC Technology, working with 1 of our resellers, we rapidly rolled out the IT infrastructure to support the NHS frontline workers. Including the technology necessary to get the Nightingale Hospital up and running in a very short period of time. Finally, in DCC Healthcare, we donated Raspberry colored scrubs to the Royal, Glamorgan, hospital to distinguish between the COVID-nineteen department and the rest of the hospital just thus ensuring the safety of the workers. We've also been producing hand sanitizer in our and beauty business.
These are just a few examples of what DCC businesses are doing to help to fight against the virus. So in summary, DCC's businesses are performing very well. It's been the year to the end of March 2020 has been a year of strong growth for the group. We've had an excellent cash flow performance and continuing our development activity. We're really proud of the way the BCC people across all the markets that we operate within have responded to the challenges presented by the COVID-nineteen crisis and while it has impacted on demand across our businesses, the essential nature of our products and services means that DCT's businesses are performing robustly, albeit behind the current year.
And with the strong liquidity position that Virgil talked about earlier, DCC has the platforms, the opportunities, the capabilities that we've built over many years to continue the growth and development in the current market environments to continue that long track record of growth and development. We leave you with our, our favorite slide, which just shows the the continued success of the group over our 26 years as a public company with our strong operating profit growth of 14.5 percent, our dividends increasing year on year. And as we mentioned earlier, the board proposing a 5% increase in the dividend for the year which is 66 consecutive year of dividend growth. Our strong free cash flow conversion of over 100% over that 26 year period. We've had one of the highest total shareholders returned on the putty.
And with that strategy and with the liquidity of our business, we're well positioned to continue that growth development in the long term.
You. Your first question comes from the line of James Winkler Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning. Just wondering if, obviously, you gave, you gave a bit of color for security screening, which is greatly appreciate it. I'm wondering if you can give any more detail in terms of volumes with respect to the energy divisions of how those have been trending out rather than just profitability, within the 1st 6 weeks of trading specifically? And then, next one would be on, in terms of impact of COVID, I mean, was it, was it typical business, we tend to talk about negative drop through, but obviously the revenue EBIT relationship is a bit different your business. I'm wondering if you could give some insight on how to think about sort of the impact on profitability of a decline in this year and given the COVID headwinds?
Thanks.
Yes, no, look, James, it's, thanks for the questions. That's it. It's incredibly challenging times for all businesses to be trying to forecast. And we're clearly not giving guidance as part of our results. So I think we have, which again, we don't clearly do normally.
We've given an awful lot of detail in our trading statement of the trading performance over the last 6 weeks. And I think that just demonstrates the resilience in the business model. That's we've been trading so robustly. And significantly profitable, albeit behind, behind the prior year. And, you know, the first quarter is clearly a small part of DCC's DCC's year.
The first half of our year is about 30% of group profits. So it's only a proportion of that. So it's way too early to be making calls. I think we didn't and decided that we wouldn't give more details than the detail that's in that statement because If we do, I think people will be trying to extrapolate that up on 6 weeks of trading in an unprecedented and very challenging environment. So from our own perspective, we're just very proud of how the group has responded to the crisis, where delighted I don't think we ever talk we'd be talking so much about being an essential products and services.
We're delighted that our businesses are trading, all of them. Essential products and services and our business continue to operate. And look, demand is different from market to market and we'll see, as I say, in the transport fuels, it's been well back in the market. So we're in very severe lockdowns and starting to ease come out of the lockdowns, but we're not going to give any more detail on that.
Okay. And then lastly, just curious if in terms of the increased demand in certain areas, for example, COVID related products within Healthcare. Is there any margin implications on that of basically taking lower margin due provide services through a pandemic or has that been in line with what you would expect?
No, I think Again, they're actually the margin profile of products within the healthcare business just varies dramatically. It's it's actually been very strong demand, for, COVID related products. They're lower margin products, clearly and our focus hasn't been on margin management of those products. It's been on getting the products in and getting them to the frontline workers. So the team in our DCC Vitol business have done a phenomenal job in sourcing product.
Linking up actually with our, with our team in Shenzhen in China on the technology side to bring onboard new suppliers and get those critical products into the market in both Britain and Ireland. So it's been about get the products and get them to the frontline workers and keep people safe
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Alan Smiley from Davy. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning guys. It's Alan over at Katie. I have 3 questions, please. The first one is backward looking cash conversion. As you flagged, a very strong number last year, despite the fall in in kind of oil prices from January and then but accelerated in February.
So if you could talk through some of the offsets, or where things came through stronger than expected to offset some of those headwinds to start will be great. And then I guess 2 kind of bigger picture questions on M and A. Firstly, you obviously continue to close transactions, which is very positive. How should we think about, your M and A process currently and your ability to transact medium and larger deals, just given the current global travel restrictions. And then kind of bigger picture in terms of the landscape and pipeline, while it's like very early days, is current disruption even to any changes in kind of vendor pricing expectations and or competition for assets?
Thank you.
Thanks, Alan. And Fergel might take the working capital and cash conversion piece.
Yes, I mean, the working capital performance was good. You got to remember that that we kind of went into full lockdown. About 10 days to go before the end of our financial year. So leaving aside the whole thing of trying to prepare set of accounts and get them audited the whole issue about your cash collection so on was something that we have to be very alive to. So our people throughout the group just worked tirelessly with an increased focus on the whole area of working capital.
The biggest most notable one that, that was probably in the area of inventories which are down like for like significantly on the previous year. A lot of that is in the technology space. Where some of it obviously is activity driven, but somebody is to do with increased levels of demand for enabers to home working and so on. So our inventories came off quite a bit. So it with the main drivers, our debtors and creditors movements were more at us at watch.
Alan, just moving on to the M and A side and it is. And we're delighted actually to have completed a couple of acquisitions. As I said, a very interesting power business here in Ireland supplies 80,000 customers, which we completed last Friday and a bolt on acquisition to DCC Propane in the U. S. And that just demonstrates that the DCC M and A machine continues to operate even in lockdowns.
Now clearly, it creates challenges. But we have, we have over all our time really worked really hard on building long term relationships with targets. So it's not as if you come at something new, pretty, pretty quickly. So it's a a long process. So we have plenty of things in our pipeline that we have relationships.
Know the business have been to see businesses. So we'll continue working those. There's lots of things. As Virgil said, we've managed to do our audits for the entire group virtually. So there's lots of due diligence and in any of those process that you can do well remotely.
But ultimately, there has to be an impact on timing, but I think it's probably, we're probably well positioned to keep managing that over the next number of weeks months to come. I think one of the in the current environment, you don't like in any way talking about positives, but the strength of the balance sheet, the liquidity that we have and the challenges that the demand shock is placing on lots of businesses out there undoubtedly will create opportunities for these DCC to deploy capital, going forward, we have, you know, we have a very, as I say, active pipeline of opportunities that we work on. But the most important bit is the platforms that we've created across the 20 countries and 3 continents that we operate within further growth. And if you look, going back, it's only 2 years, sorry, just over 2 years ago, that we made our first acquisition. In the in North America.
And now we have 18% of our capital employed in North America. We have 3 or 4 divisions in North America. And we're raising 100 people working for DCC in North America. And the great thing is, we've very modest shares of very large markets So, we have plenty of opportunities for further capital deployment. So, I think the challenges that the current crisis presents will ultimately be beneficial to DCC down the road, but our focus is just navigating our way through to the current environment and continuing to get those essential products and services to our customers.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Rory Mackenzie, UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning all. It's Rory here. Firstly, I wanted to ask about the unit margins in energy. Mostly profit per tonne was up 8% in LPG and probably up 10% in return oil. So could you 1st, you break that down in terms of the gross margin and the SG and A improvement?
Or just if you could give a sense within the 2 divisions? And then secondly, did you see any unusual buying in February or March materially boost that kind of unit margin in these divisions?
Okay. Well, I think Rory that couple of things to start with the retail and oil. So, mix is really the biggest impact in the retail and oil business. There's obviously been a good cost performance across the businesses, but the we had you can talk about before. So if you look at the volumes, the volumes are high, I don't know.
And that was a conscious decision to walk away at a very high volume low margin, particularly in that and aviation marine and commercial sectors in the UK, which thankfully, we had walked away from. So that has low margin business, that clearly has boosted the margin. We've had strong performances, Virgil talked about earlier. In our premium differentiator fuels, which is, which is enhancing margin. And we have, we've expanded out in higher margin areas like the lubricants business and continued investment in our truck stuff and earlier related services.
So it's kind of mix, cost control has been good, but the volume mix has been the driver of the margin improvement in the LPG business. Again, we've had that continued growth in the oil to LPG conversions. So we've had very good volume growth to volume growth. We're getting leverage on that, which is which is improving the, improving the margin. And we've got cost control across the businesses a little bit probably an early lag effect on the product price, but nothing material in that.
So it's it's really then mix and volume growth in LPG. And if you want to add anything.
No, the gross margins, we'll give you them in slide 21. On retail and oil, 4.61 last year, 4.87 pence per liter is the gross margin, up 5.6%. For all the reasons, Don has talked about mainly you're moving away from relatively less profitable business and our premiumization and so on. And then on LPG, some obviously increase of over 3% from £297 per tonne to £307 per ton. So not a whole lot of move there, Lori.
Okay. Thank you. And then just to follow-up, on the last comment you made about the acquisitions. I guess, on the outlook, rather. I guess, after the last oil and gas downturn, you saw lots of great opportunities in Europe effectively coming as majors exited downstream assets.
Just thinking about the U. S. Landscape, and the fragmentation of ownership there, would you say it's unlikely that you'll see the same kind of kind of wholesale change in landscaping such a short time frame or are there chance that you do see kind of bigger steps forward quickly like you saw last time around?
Yes, I think it varies across the 2 divisions Rory. So the LPG business pretty much is very few oil majors still owning LPG assets. So it's probably less of a feature. In the LPG business and our as well as our focus, our energy focus really in the U. S.
Is in the LPG sector, while we're, we'll look in the retail and all, but the where we have the, where we have the presence in the market is in the LPG sector. And that market is just very different. You've got a smaller number of large players that are, would be, would have plenty of leverage within the market. And then you have a very broad array of kind of mid and small players within the market. So you have 4000 with 4000 LPG businesses in the U.
S. So there's plenty of opportunities for growth and we're we're actively looking for opportunities over there. I think the broader point on the oil majors is, we've seen that in the past. Where, in periods of depressed oil prices, M and A has always been our portfolio activity is always a key part of their capital. Management.
And there's been periods where we've benefited because there's more assets coming to the market. And with current oil prices, you'd have to assume that that is likely to happen again. So we have strong relationship we've become a bit of a partner of choice and we're we'll work those relationships to try and find the right assets for DCC.
Great. Thank you very
much. Thank
you. And your next question comes from the line of Sam Bland, JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Good
morning. Two questions from me, please. I think in the results release says that trading in the 1st 6 weeks of this year has gone, maybe a little bit better than initial expectations. Just wondering if you could give any color on sort of which bits have gone particularly better, since your expectations at the beginning of April. And I guess coming back on this LPG piece, LPGs, well, certainly in volume and also profit was a pretty strong performer last year.
And you mentioned the oil to LPG conversion. I think that's been a theme that we talked about in previous years, but looks as if it's kind of accelerated in the last 12 months. Is there any particular driver for why that that convert rate of conversion has improved Thanks.
Yes. Well, I think if we look at the 6 weeks, Sam, and as I said earlier, not being evasive on it. We don't want to get into more details than we have talked about, but I think we have And I suppose just generally, and I'm sure all companies are the same, just given the challenges that are out there and you're trying to forecast, I think we would have been more conservative or measured when we started into April and we were probably pleasantly enough surprised by the, just the improvement in our forecast we went through the month and into May. And that probably goes across, actually each of the sectors, maybe we had probably with the exception of health care where we had seen very strong demand and anticipated strong demand. I think the retail and oil business we call that out has performed, performed very well during that period.
Some of that was, you know, demand bit of pent up demand coming from the end of March into April, but it's a difficult environment to be, to be calling numbers in and you tend to be conservative. Maybe that's kind of is really the nature of the comment that relative to where we start. The month has improved as we went through the period.
Energy Gas.
Oh, yes. So on the Oil And Gas side, it sounds like that, Pat, and you're right, like that has been a feature for a while. I think the, we have, we have been just, leading, really, in that area. And, it is it's not only we talked about it before. We kind of started that as a energy transition or a green energy solution helping customers reduce their carbon footprint, then the dislocation between the oil and the LPG price, not only made us lower carbon, but but lower cost solutions we could give to the customer.
So, we've just been getting, we're getting increased traction on that. And I think we're substantially reducing people's carbon footprint by giving them a more competitive solution. So it's it's a compelling proposition and we think there's plenty of room for further growth there. We've also been growing strongly, our Gas And Power business and that's Again, an area that we want to continue to deploy capital in.
Understood. If I may, one quick follow-up in the technology business. I remember that was kind of market weakness around in the UK, I think, around Christmas. And obviously, COVID more recently has caused some problems. But was there an improvement in technology sort of in the in the interim.
I don't know whether it was sort of January or February. Did it get much better or did it stay at a fairly depressed level?
No, I like, I think the technology has been story from last year. There was two parts. It was very difficult in the UK. And you know, an awful lot of that was uncertainty surrounding Brexit. Which impacted on the enterprise and consumer products area and that just remains tough.
Some of the international businesses the European business performed strongly. We had the benefit of the Amecom and Comtech acquisition, and we'd strong growth in North America, in ProAV, in Pro Audio and lighting and in consumer electronics products. So that had been the feature of last year. Clearly, there was a there's been demand and in most markets, but in the UK market, there was demand, significant demand for working from home technologies that I talked about earlier, but on the other side of that, you have businesses and lockdowns. So there's no installations of of ProAV systems of enterprise products, of B2B products.
So it's, it's remained pretty, pretty challenging. But longer term, those things clearly come back and technologies are enhancing. They're upgrading all the time. Is getting more sophisticated. So, those, that demand will come as we come out of these lockdowns and into the future.
So, I think the business has been robust. A key feature and something that we specialize on is really selling into the, into the online sector of the market. And we've been doing more and more of that. Cash flow out of our tech business has been very good as Virgil called out earlier as well. So it's okay.
Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Jerry Hennigan, Goodbody Stock. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. Don, just to follow-up to that previous question. Obviously, your implied organic growth in LPG in the last year was particularly strong. 1, if you can retain that and 2, aside from OIBDA to LPG, conversions, has there been a has there been a sense here that you've picked up some market share from some other players, whether it be in Europe or the U. S?
Yes. No, and thanks, Jerry. We have been growing our market share in LPG and You've probably heard me talk many times about LPG been a kind of a creeping market share, sector. And that's always been our focus to, just outperform the market and grow our shares. So we've, we have been, we've continued to to do that.
As I say, we've kind of really focused over the last number of years on, in the commercial sector on the oil to LPG conversions and lower carbon. Solutions for our customers and that that's been going well. And we think there's opportunity incentive opportunity for further growth there. We've also been expanding out the business into the CASM power sector. And we had very, actually, strong growth in our B2B, gas and power business in France and the business in Ireland has performed very well.
In the last year. And as I say now, further strengthening it with the acquisition of, of budget energy. So That's an area that's, we see opportunity for further growth. And so the LPG business is has been a very strong contributor over the last number of years and prospects refer to growth. And you talked about the small market share we have in the U.
S. Market and we went into the U. S. Market area to build a much bigger business. And hopefully we'll do that over time.
Okay. I just wanted to see if I can. Obviously, some parts of the business are doing in others and it's a fraction of what's happened since, since March, such, but where do you see the greatest challenges for the business in the current environment? Which size of business and which particular elements?
Yes, and again, Jerry, I think for, for, as you say, for every every business, it's been incredibly challenging. We're very lucky in DCC that we are operating in essential products and services. So every business every market that DCC operates in is up and running and supplying the products and services that our customers require. So We just our number one focus is making sure that we protect the health, safety and well-being of all the people across the organization. All of us all of us on this call are working in different ways in the current environment.
And that's been that's something that we've adapted to and really well and the agility of our people, to cope with all that. So look, the reason companies aren't and we're not giving guidance is because of the level of uncertainty that's out there. But, I think we're were pretty well placed really. Our 1st 6 weeks, as we said, have been, very robust significantly profitable. Albeit behind the prior year.
And there'll be plenty of challenges, I'm sure, as we go forward, but the resilience in our business model diversity that we have, the geographic spread, all those things are really paying dividends at the moment.
Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of George Gregory BNP Paribas Please go ahead. Your line is open.
I had three questions, please. Firstly, just a point of clarification. Sorry if I missed this, but are you, are you using, any of the government's retention schemes or tax deferrals that have been offered, and if so, if you're able to provide any any color on their impact? That would be helpful. Secondly, just in terms of the the shape of the balance sheet and obviously a strong, a very, a very strong net position, but within that, you've got a large, an even stronger gross cash position.
I just wondered if you had any particular thoughts on the capital structure and the quantum of cash that you've got there. And finally, perhaps one or Donald, a lot of talk around the current challenges and risks and opportunities that have presented themselves in the near term. I just wondered if you had any thoughts as to the medium term risk and opportunity set, once one would hope that the current situation normalizes as you reflect on a post COVID-nineteen
Okay. And George, just the first one, really, just very modest actually in and it is called out in our statements. But we have, in some places, we have, we have, trying to ensure that we protect roles in working with the governments to do that. So we have, we have kind of very modestly relative to our cost base, taken some of that support, but it's really about protecting jobs in the current environment. So it's pretty, pretty modest to that further on the
on the balance sheet, George, I suppose, firstly, given the current status, We're glad to have us. We're glad to have that liquidity. We're glad to have that very strong funded position. So, if you break it down, I mean, we've always said that March is our best position and we always look to our capital structure to be around and to put us through the peak of our capital requirements, which is October, November. So, we would like going forward, as we always say, this is no different than what we said before, to spend, whether it's around $400,000,000 a year while in excess of our free cash flow on development activity.
And in doing so, you'll see that capital structure change slightly over time. But at all times, we'd like to keep our peak net debt to EBITDA of less than 2 times.
So, George, just the, you talk about the medium term and beyond, like, so, like, there's clearly incredible uncertainty out there as to, well, hopefully we'll start to see lockdowns ease in a number of markets, but what's going to come after that and will there be spikes in the virus again? And will there be, will there be further lockdowns or whatever? Like, that uncertainty just makes it makes any of those calls in terms of timing difficult. But standing back from that, I think we have, and there's nothing new in this. We've talked about this for some time.
We've very clear strategies for each of our 4 divisions in terms of how we want to build and where we want to build those businesses. We have, we've built those platforms. And there's no doubt that the opportunities will be there. For us to deploy capital and build greater share in the markets. We're in and indeed, to enter into new markets over time.
And I think the current environment is going to assist in that in the medium, longer term. And DCC's liquidity position, and our focus on generating high returns on capital and our investments will position us well to continue that growth and development. You know, question what's medium term, you know, at the in the current environment, you know, we see, but I think we're in that we're in a strong position. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Rajesh Kumar from HSBC.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for your earlier thoughts on the capital allocation strategy. Just in terms of discussions with suppliers, what is the nature of discussion when you're talking about the next 3 to 6 months in terms of the the bridge you draw over the COVID-nineteen disruption. Are the suppliers asking you to stock up more or provide additional services? Some color on that would be quite helpful.
And second is, appreciate that most people don't want to sell their business when the world is in a turmoil. But in terms of M and A, how are you thinking for 2021?
Okay. Thanks Rajesh. Well, look, on the supplier side, And clearly, that varies dramatically by division. So in our oil and gas, businesses. We have, we very little stuff.
We buy product from pretty much all the, all the suppliers within the market. And we have millions, thankfully, of end customers. So there's no difference there and we keep very little stock in the business. So there's no there's no opportunity, even if you wanted to stock up, so no change really on the oil and gas side, in the healthcare side. Again, it's clearly, it's been a period of, unprecedented demand for PPE and or the COVID related products.
And as I mentioned earlier, we mobilized our teams, including our team and our technology business to make sure we could get those products into the markets in Britain and Ireland. There's clearly been a pretty substantial falloff in elective procedures and elective surgery, which will impact on demand for those products, but clearly that that will come back after the focus on the on COVID has has eased a little bit and the health care systems start to get into, in tender activity. So again, there's no change in terms of suppliers and no one asking us to stack up or anything like that in the current environment. And then finally, within the tech side, and I think it's Virgil. Mentioned earlier, actually there's been some really good work done on the balance sheet management and reducing kind of stock positions.
There was a little bit of challenge in terms of some of the supply chains as China. Was struggling in the first quarter of the year, but there's nothing materially different rejection, in our tech businesses either. So, pretty much the same. I think on the M and A, on the M and A front and, time is, time is going to tell, but we have we will continue working on the opportunities that we have. Clearly lockdowns and inability to travel makes it a little bit more difficult.
But we have, say, we've demonstrated that we can complete M and A even in the height of lockdowns and thankfully, lots of the things that we're looking at are in markets where we have teams of people on the ground. So, that doesn't impact we'll see what's difficult in this environment. It's difficult to us what numbers do you focus on and all those kind of things because the environment for everyone is, is challenging and different, but you know, DCC has been in the M and A business for a very long period of time. We've spent $3,300,000,000 on acquisitions. And as 70 acquisitions.
So, I think that experience and skill and capability will benefit us as we go forward.
We will now take our last question. And your last question comes from the line of Chris Bamberry from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. Three brief questions, if I may. With regard to the technology supply chain, is that now approaching normal? Secondly, the exit from the low margin products in retail and oil is that now complete? And finally, could you give us an estimate of the weather impact of last year and the year to date?
Thank you.
But the weather impact is in everything that's going on. It kind of it just seems like such a long time ago, the weather impact wasn't material last year, really, Chris, relative to the prior year. We had a little bit of a bounce, but nothing too dramatic. The weather in, and we kind of called it out really in April, had been particularly mild in some of the markets that impacted a bit on our LPG business, but it's you're not talking about material numbers in terms of our numbers for for the year as a whole. The technology supply chain piece, I think we're not certainly people aren't flagging any particular issues, really at the moment from a supply chain perspective.
And just your last point, Chris?
Just the exit from the low margin products.
Yes. That's that's all complete. And it kind of was really a lot of that was in the first half of the year. So we kind of call it last November. So thank you all for your time and attention.
Thank you.