All right. I think we're, we're all present and correct. So, good morning, all, and welcome to DCC's interim results presentation. For the 6 months ended 30th September, 2018. I think I pretty much know most people in the room or most people in the room know us.
At this stage, but I'm Donna Murphy, Chief Executive of DCC, just in case anyone doesn't know me, and just to introduce the team who are here to answer all the hard questions later on. So we've, Tim Griffin, who's making an appearance for the first time as a results presentation. Tim was that Tim was with us then in a capital market same or so. So I think a number of you met Tim down there. Conor Kaufman, Managing Director of the Healthcare Division Henry Cobben, Managing Director of the LPG division, Eddie O'Brien, Managing Director of the Retail And Oil division, and everyone knows Virgilodoir, a Chief Financial Officer of the group.
So thankfully, I don't have to read the disclaimer. I don't even have to read the agenda. So just moving on and for anyone on the phone to slide 3, And we're really pleased with the performance in the first half of the year. We had strong operating profit growth. And again, a very of period from a capital deployment perspective with 1,000,000 committed to acquisitions during the 1st 6 months.
So that's a that's a material amount of acquisition spend in the 1st 6 months, but our first priority in DCC is always driving the organic performance of the group. So our group operating profits on continuing activities up 15.9%, 16.5% on a constant currency basis to 41,900,000. Keating for us, all divisions performing very much in line with our expectations As you all know, DCC's year, the first half is seasonally less significant. So about 30% of our operating profits are in the first half of the year. So, we're very much weighted towards the second half performance, but as I say, very, very pleased with the performance across each of the divisions.
Adjusted EPS and continuing activities, up 12.1%. 13% on a constant currency basis to 107.1p. The board has approved an interim dividend increase of 10 percent to £44.98 per share. And we've had a, as you know, a very progressive dividend policy, growing our dividend year on year. Over our 24 years as a public company.
We were particularly pleased with our equity placing We generated 1,000,000 before CAF on the completed on 2nd October. And that enables DCC to continue to implement our targeted acquisition strategy. And for many of you that were at our Capital Markets Day, our whole focus on our capital markets, they were really to talk about why we believe that we had the platforms, the opportunities, much more importantly, the capability to continue to build DCC into a global leader in our chosen sectors. And it was very important for us to have the financial capacity to do that. So the placing was very important for us and we're really pleased to have that completed.
Just looking at the financial summary, on the revenue line, revenue up 24.7% and as you all know, really given the quantum of our business in the energy sector, looking at the revenue number in isolation, doesn't mean a lot because depending on what's happening with the cost of the commodity, the revenue can move around significantly. In the energy businesses, we look at the volumes. So in the first half of the year, our LPG volumes grew 14.9 percent to 742,000 tons of gas equivalent. And our retail and oil business, our volumes grew 2.4 percent to 6,200,000,000 liters
a fuel.
And I always kind of pause when, oh, 6,200,000,000 liters or 12,300,000,000 liters in the year as a whole, we deliver an awful lot of fuel to an awful lot of customers across the business. Excluding the 2 energy businesses, our revenue was up 15.3% and about a third of that was organic growth in the first half of the year. Operating cash flow was very strong, 1,000,000 And one of the things that you'll notice in our results, our working capital days have moved to 1.3 days positive from 1.7 days negative in the prior year. And that was really reflecting the acquisitions that we completed at the end of last year and the acquisitions this year, which have positive working capital characteristics. On a like for like basis, our working capital was broadly in line with the prior year.
And the strength of the balance sheet post the placing net debt at the end of the half year would have been 1,000,000 again, keeping that financial strength, which has been a key element of the growth strategy for DCC. So just looking at our divisions, and it's on Slide 6 for those on the phone, operating profit and say across each of our 4 divisions, we were really pleased with the performance and very much in line with our expectation. The LPG business on a constant currency basis, back 7.5% two factors impacting on the business. And again, we had talked about this and it's very much in line with expectations won the significant increase in the cost of products during the 1st 6 months. And then secondly, the organic investment that we're making to build natural gas and electricity business in France.
Retail And Oil division, up 34.5%. So very strong. Growth in the first half of the year. Our Healthcare division, up 22.5%, again, very strong growth in the first half of the year. And the Technology division, up 25.6 percent on a constant currency basis, in the first half of the year.
Again, the weighting of our business, the split of profits by division is less meaningful in the first half of the year, but it's outlined there 29% in LPG, 40% in retail and oil, 19% in health care, and 12% in technology last year. 44% of our profits in the year as a whole were in our LPG division, 30% within our retail and oil division, 14% within health care and 12% within the technology division. So just going to move on and look at each of the divisions in a little bit more detail. So looking at the LPG division, And as I say, very pleased with the performance in our LPG business, very much in line with our expectations. And in the seasonally, less significant first half of the year.
Operating profits back, as I say, 7.2% on a reported basis, very much due to the increase in the cost of product. And as you will know from prior results, there's a lead and lag effect within the LPG business. So when the price of product is rising, it has an impact on our profitability or on our margin. When it's falling, we get a benefit. So as the price is rising, it has that short term impact on our profitability.
So in the first half of the year, the price of propane on the 1st April was $4.60 a ton. And it ended on 30th September at $6.38 a ton. So almost a 40% increase in the cost of product during the first half of the year. And that has to work its way into the market. The second factor, as I said earlier, was the investment in our consumer natural gas and power business in France.
And that's it's not often that DCC makes organic investments in the business. So that is that obviously we're investing profit to grow that business. Volumes up 14.9 percent during the 1st 6 months to 742,000 tons driven by the acquisition. So Shell, Hong Kong and Macau, which we completed in January last, the retail west and the Tega businesses, which we took on on the 1st April, all the acquisitions. And last year was a very material year for development within the LPG division all the acquisitions performing in line with our expectations.
So we're really pleased about that. And that was a it was a big year for development going both east and west and to say all those businesses fully integrated into the group and performing in line with our expectations. So the Budapest business in France performed again in line with our expectations. We continue to deliver good procurement benefits and also very strong focus on cost management within the business aligned with that, we've been leveraging the Boutigas brand to extend the range of products and services that we provide to our customers. And that's making good traction that you'll have seen.
The bootlegass, click and collect, those who were in mercy with us as we went to the SO Retail Petrol Station. So you saw the Click and Collect device. We're rolling those out across the market in France. We have been investing in a wood pellet business, which is going well. And clearly, the most material investment has been in the natural gas, the consumer natural gas and electricity business.
And we've been making good traction in recruiting customers but in what is a very competitive market. The business in Britain and Ireland, despite the warm weather and actually the warm weather, which is less significant and less material in the first half of the year. But this year, it was extremely mild over the summer months, which actually impacted in demand for agricultural products So despite that, our volume growth was actually very good in our business in Britain and Ireland, and that's continuing this growth in the oil to LPG customer base where we're taking on commercial customers converting them across from oil. So overall, very good performance within the LPG division, very big year last year in terms of that growth in the scale of our LPG business. And we now have an LPG business with operations in 10 countries, leadership position in 7 of those countries, on 3 continents, we sell 1,900,000 tons of gas equivalent across that business to almost 1,000,000 customers And then we have about 4,000,000 customers using our cylinders across the business.
So we have a business of real scale, but the really important bit is we've got platforms because lots of those markets are fragmented like the U. S. Market. We've talked about the German market. So the opportunities with the capital we have to continue to build operating profit up 33.5 percent in the first half of the year.
And again, in the seasonally less significant first half of the year, Volumes 2.4 percent up benefiting from acquisitions, marginally behind on an organic basis. Reflecting that impact mainly in the agricultural sector due to the very mild weather. The business in Britain and Ireland formed really well organically. And of the overall division, a third of that profit growth was organic, so really strong underlying organic growth. Within the retail and oil business, strong organic growth in Britain and Ireland.
So despite weakness in the agri sector, We had really good growth in the commercial sector, which is an area that we have been targeting and continuing to build out the business into adjacent areas. So lubricants, aviation. We're investing more modestly, but we're investing in retail, petrol stations in Britain. And we're also expanding out the range of services that we provide to our HDV customers, our truck stops, and the acquisition of Snap is a modest acquisition, but extends the range of services that we provide to those customers. And that again has been fully integrated into the Certus business in Britain.
Really pleased with the performance in Scandinavia. Our Danish business, and you'll recall, we acquired some former Shell assets from Couche Tard the year before. They have been fully integrated into the business in Denmark. And we're really extracting the synergies. And that business is performing, and that acquisition is performing well ahead of our expectations.
The retail business in Denmark has performed very well, and we're making really good progress in extending out the range of differentiated fuels that we sell to our customers. So Danish business has performed really well in the first half of the year. The Norway business, and we talked about this at the full year time, business now is fully integrated. Into the group. The market remains challenging, but we're really focused on optimizing the business in Norway.
And then our business, our retail business, in Sweden continues to perform strongly. So really pleased with the performance across the business in Scandinavia. And our retail business in France Again, a strong organic performance in the first half of the year. And we're leveraging, so we rolled out those that traveled around with us saw the new synergy, identity on the sites. So the sites have all been refreshed.
Got the synergy differentiated fuels on the product and we're benefiting from that. And all the value added services then that we're putting on the sites like the Boutagas Click and Collect, the Amazon parcel, motels, rolling out car washes, investing in adblue on the retail network generate additional income. So similarly to our LPG business, we now have a business of real scale in the oil market. Operations in 8 countries leadership position within 6 of those countries. We sell 12.3% or we sold last year 12,300,000,000 liters of fuel across that business.
We've, again, about 1,000,000 direct customers in our oil business and millions of customers come to our retail site. In the space of 4 years, we've gone from a handful of retail sites to over 1000 sites that we own and operate ourselves today. So significant development within the retail side of our business. So overall, really pleased with the performance in retail and oil. Moving on to health care, again, really strong performance in the first half of the year, operating profit up 22.2%.
Two parts to our business, DCC Vitol, the business is supplying products and services into the health care providers, very strong profit growth in the first half, particularly in the supplies of medical devices, medical products and services to GP surgeries. And we also have had 2 small bolt on acquisitions, further strengthening our leadership position within the GP supply markets here in Britain. We put growth in our Medical Device business in Ireland, a satisfactory performance in a more challenging market here in Britain. And again, good performance in our pharma business. So overall, the DCC Vitol business performed really well in the first half of the year.
In the health and beauty business, and this was an area that we focused a good bit of time on when we were at the Capital Markets Day, again, the trends in growth and the organic growth in this business has been very strong, particularly in the nutritional. Product area. So again, the first half of the year, really strong organic growth. We also benefited from the first time contribution from at least in the nutrition sector, good growth across our key customers. And a lot of our customers are international brands, and we started manufacturing for them here in the market in Britain and then expanding the relationship out into their international markets.
And now the present in the U. S, which is a very large, very fragmented market, where we feel we can further consolidate that market within the U. S. So very strong growth in nutritional products benefiting from people consuming more and more complex nutritional products, which plays really into our sweet spot in terms of the products that we like to manufacture. And then our beauty business, again, very strong organic growth in the first half of the year across our existing customer base who are growing their business.
And then we've had quite success in expanding out a range of customers. Because of the success and the growth of this business, from an organic perspective, We're a bit capacity constrained. So we talked previously about some projects to increase our capacity. We're doubling our capacity within our soft gels business down in wells. All those projects are moving ahead to plan.
So we'll have significant increase capacity into the next financial year. So finally, our Technology Division and really pleased to report very strong growth in the Technology Division, but it's been a great year or a great half year in terms of capital deployment and talked previously last year, we had 3% of our capital deployment or acquisition capital deployment in the Technology division. So a bit of pressure on the guys to find the right opportunities this year, the vast bulk of the capital deployment has been within the Technology Division So we're really pleased with the development activity. The biggest part of our business is in Britain. A business in the UK and Ireland performed very well organically.
And we had a couple of smaller acquisitions that have been fully integrated into the UK business, including the Condor acquisition, that we announced earlier this year. We've been driving really strong revenue growth and we've talked about this before in particular focus on certain product areas. So audiovisual products has been growing very strongly for smart home. And all the technology that's coming out now to be able to turn on your kettle, ultimately, if you want something to turn on your kettle, repair and refurbishment of mobile devices that business has been growing very strongly. And enterprise infrastructure particularly on the back of the growth in cloud computing where we're providing the enterprise infrastructure into the data centers, very good growth there.
We made significant progress in upgrading our infrastructure. So we've talked about a number of very material investment projects across the Technology Division. We now have new national distribution centers here in Britain. We won in France, which we moved into earlier this year and a couple of weeks ago, we moved and fully integrated into a new national distribution center in Gatenberg in Sweden, which services the Nordic market. And our enterprise SAP project that we have been working on for some time is now live and a part of our business in the UK.
So there's been material progress in the major projects we had undertaken across the business. Business in France, there's two parts to that. The the piece of the business, the larger part of it, supplying the resellers and electrician market has performed very well in the first half of the year. Actually, again, benefiting, we're investing in the AV products that is going well for us. And we're seeing operational improvements now within the Consumer business, which has been I suppose, a more challenging area for a period of time within France.
Very active development period, so really pleased about that. And particularly pleased in building this business out into the North American market with our presence now in Canada and the U. S. And those markets are very large. They're very fragmented.
They very much fit with the skill sets the DCC, how in acquiring, integrating, extracting synergies. So the stampede business, which we announced at the time of our AGM, which is a business that is sales and marketing business focused on professional AV products, mainly in North America at present in the UK, which has been integrated now with our existing UK business and similarly a small presence up in the Nordics, which been integrated with our business in the Nordics and the Jam business, which brings us very strongly into the Pro audio into musical instruments consumer electronics. So both those businesses together, we have $600,000,000 of revenue now in the technology sector. Within the U S. And a real platform for further growth.
So again, building real scale and geographic breadth into our technology division. So as I say, all in all, from a trading perspective, we'd be pretty pleased with the performance in the first half of the year. Just the development activity and talked about some of this as we went through, but it was a very active period and it's not just about development, it's about integrating. So it's one thing to buy something, but you've got to integrate it into the group. So there's been We've been consuming, if you like the £900,000,000 of acquisitions that we have done over the last 12 months It's been a big first half for us, $270,000,000 in a range of acquisitions, let's say 240,000,000 of that within the technology sector, smaller capital deployment across the, the early sectors in the first half.
The U. S. Thing and North America has been very important for us. We now have 3 divisions with businesses in North America. And when we look at each of those businesses and each of those markets, they're all fragmented markets opportunity for further growth.
And the thing we talked about before about the platforms, we've created platforms in 3 of our divisions now, in the North American market for further acquisition. Technology, I've talked about the 2, the stampede and the jam acquisitions and the opportunities that presents for technology. And it I suppose nearly, in some ways, really important in the technology sector, because we leverage the same brand relationships. And that's one of the important things in technology, we deal with all the global brands and those global brands, we're much more important to them now having a presence in North America well as having a very strong presence in Europe and we can leverage those relationships to provide more products, more services, to the customer base. And the integration of the businesses that we acquired in the prior year within the LPG sector.
So there's been a lot of work to say everyone gets excited today of an acquisition. The work always say this in the business, the work starts that day. It's not the end of it. It's only the start of it. So We've been really busy integrating all those businesses.
And as I said earlier, all performing in line with expectations. M and A, M and A is a core competency of DCC. We've been at this, going right back to our origins. But in our in our 24 years as a public company, it's been a very important part. So our first priority is organic growth across our business.
Second focus then is our M and A activity. And it has been when you look at the graph, It used to be very jagged edge because before we had the big slices at the end of us, you could see it more. But like Acquisitions come at different times at different paces, at different periods. So we never ever try and push acquisitions to happen sooner then that's right because otherwise you overpay and our fundamental focus is always on return on capital employed and generating high returns on capital employed. And that's a message that we're really keen to get out to all our shareholders.
We won't acquire unless we're generating appropriate returns for the business. But we have ramped up the acquisition activity. And in the last 12 months, so the rolling 12 months, up until the end of September, GBP 900,000,000, spent an acquisition. So that's by far a record the last 3 years on average, almost 1,000,000 on acquisition. So we spent GBP 3,000,000,000 on acquisitions, but it's 260 acquisitions.
And it actually doesn't matter whether it's a GBP 500,000, a 1,000,000 10,000,000, a 500,000,000 acquisition. The actual process of acquiring and integrating the business are broadly similar. So we have built a lot of experience in the group in acquiring and integrating business. And that's why we have confidence that we can continue to build out this business geographically. And we think all our shareholders should have that confidence as well.
But it's not at the expense of compromising on returns. So if you look at the return on capital, so despite that ramp up in investment, actually our returns and capital have grown over that period from 2009 to 2018. And that's really focused on acquiring well, but then integrating and extracting the synergies of the business. And I say it's a core competency that we've built within the organization. I always say this is my favorite slide, but the last slide I always say is my favorite slide as well.
But this, just to talk about diversity, because I think it is important. We have We have a diverse business. We have opportunities to deploy capital across each of the four sectors that we operate with When I joined the group back in 1998, it was a long time ago now at this stage, the technology division was the largest division in the group And we used to go around and we had a small energy business and some investors say, why don't you get out of that boring oil energy business and focus on technology? And we said, no, committed to diversity. We see opportunities to deploy capital across each of the sectors that we operate within around the energy business for a long period of time.
If you'd have asked me 2011, would the LTG business be the largest division in the group? I probably wouldn't have called us. We've been 35 years building that business. We were only in Britain and Ireland. We had looked for lots of opportunities 6 years later, we're in 10 countries, 3 continents, leadership position in 7 of those business and in fragmented markets that will create opportunities for further capital deployment.
Technology last year, 3% of our capital deployments, the vast bulk of it in the first half of this year, diversity works for us. And as we've been growing, there's different growth rates, if you look over the last 10 years across the different divisions, because of the opportunity set that is in front of us, but the returns on capital are all very strong across each of our 4 division. Less than 12 months ago, we had no capital deployment in North America, now 14% of our capital deployed. Is in North America. So the diversity works, the breadth and the geographic growth of the organization has created more opportunities for more platform for more capital deployment.
So we really feel good about the business. What we don't do is force the pace and acquisitions come and everyone always ask us, well, but next, when is it going to come? And that's the only thing we don't answer. We think we have the opportunity set in front of us across each of our divisions and diversity has worked and hopefully will continue to work for us. So in summary, very strong performance from a trading perspective.
Each of our divisions performing very much in line with our expectations in the first 6 months active period from a development perspective. The equity placing very important to us in terms of our plans and ambition to continue to build this business and having the financial strength to go and do that. And the most important bit, which was the focus going back to to our trip down to my size that we have the platforms, we have the opportunities, and we have the capability to continue to build ECC into a global leader in our chosen sectors. For the year, our reiterating our guidance that we gave as we started into the year, that the group expects this year to be an early year of growth and development. That is our favorite side.
Hello.
Thanks. Hi. It's Alan. Alan Smiley and David. Can I ask 2 on LPG to kick off, please?
Just firstly, just given the recent pullback moly price. How should we think about the input price development for the second half of the year? Obviously, it's 30 days still. And then the nat gas electricity rollout in France, which is over 1 year on, the initial rollout. It's a slow moving market, but is it possible to update us on where you are versus plans or when that business should turn to profit?
Sure. The lead and lag question. So clearly, and the numbers when you look at the commodity movement in the first half of the year has been very material. And that takes a little bit of time to work its way through. So we're we're well on our way in working that into the market.
Perhaps a little bit more to go in the second half, but pretty modest. So we're pretty much we're pretty much there, from a commodity perspective, sort of no idea of what's going to happen with propane prices in a month's time or 2 months' time. And if I had, it probably wouldn't be I wouldn't be standing here. The Natgas, and that is something that we're very pleased about. In going into this, in the consumer market in France, 90% of that market is still in the hands of the incumbent.
So We see the opportunity to leverage the Budapest brand because it's very much a consumer oriented brand. So we've proven that the brand works. We've proven that we can get good traction. In recruiting customers. As we said earlier, the market is very competitive at the moment.
So got to be kind of measured about some of that, the key thing that we wanted to do was prove that we can sell natural gas and electricity under the booty gas brand and we pretty pleased with that. So we'll see how the business develops going forward now.
Sorry,
you mentioned actually challenging market conditions on the retail side in Norway. Is that a function of what's happening on the EV side of things? I was just purely the dynamics in that market.
Definitely enough function of EVs and very much dynamics in the market, Jerry. And maybe Eddie, do
you want to Yes, Jerry. I mean, obviously, we talked about how the dynamics on the market leader had changed its way to go to market early last year. So things have slightly improved, but that sort of dynamics and pricing is still there. And as that continues, we'll have a challenge in market, but the organization is embedded in well. The management team are doing good, looking at other opportunities in the So we're pretty happy with the integration.
And once the market dynamics change, then profitability will naturally improve.
I think we've seen this before, like if you look back over time and So if you look at retail, retail margins and it's a Norway is a very consolidated market as well. So measured in kind of what we say about it. But like if you look back over time, you go through periods in retail where retail margins kind of can the negatively impact for a period of time and they bounce back and there's probably a little bit of that in the Norwegian market the activities that Eddie has talked about.
Just to follow-up on the question with regard to natural gas in France, have you been surprised with the level of competition in that market as a
No, I think the, so a couple of things probably have been in place. So I think when you look at the look at the market dynamics, Jerry, like 90% of customers, B2C customers broadly with the incumbent. So I think it's obvious that people are going to go and play in that market. Total has been very active. They've made some very material investments.
So, and some of the retailers or some of the hypermarkets have played in the market as well. So that kind of competition doesn't surprise me that there has been not similar in ways to the LTG business, the ramp up in the commodity costs in the periods of time probably makes this challenging as well in the market. So it's a couple of things at play at the moment, but the key thing for us was, can we leverage Food And Gas brand to really substantially grow a customer base? And that's something that we're really pleased about.
Just finally on the opportunity set, obviously, but you've been very active in the North American market. Do you still see if the opportunity set is as big as it was when we sat here, sort of 6 months ago, 12 months ago.
Across the group, right now.
And in terms of pricing as well, across the group?
Across the group, yes, no, like and maybe just go back a couple of weeks to the south of France because we talked, I think, a lot across each of the divisions about the opportunity set. And there's a and that's only a couple of weeks ago. So nothing clearly nothing has changed. I think the I think for us, the whole focus, and ways, you look back over that chart I had earlier and the level of acquisition activity, there's in the last 12 months, $900,000,000 of acquisitions, the quantum of anything that we've ever spent before and nothing has changed in terms of the dynamic of the market in terms of pricing since we went through that because it's very recent. So I think we have proven that we can deploy significant amounts of capital in the sectors that we operate within, and we have platforms to go and do that.
Keep coming back that the return on capital is the key thing. And we have and that's why diversity is very important to us. I think if we were just a single sector business, you might feel under more pressure to do things in a sector because that's all the opportunities that you were looking at. We have real opportunities to deploy capital across each of the four Good morning.
Rajesh Kumar from HSBC. What sort of discussions have you had with your suppliers on the LPG business? I mean, how much of the investment was initiative from DCC versus the supplier saying we need to compete in the market. And this is a strategy we are taking So I mean, do you have some idea on what sort of return you expect to make on the investments you've done in that market? In next 18 to 24 months.
Do you mean from an acquisition perspective?
No, the investments in the LPG market in France. Is it driven by the supplier or by
Natural gas, natural gas, like for natural gas. No, that's very much it's our it's our investment decision. So we and going right back actually to May 15 when we announced the Butagas acquisition. 1 of the opportunities that we put on a list of opportunities that we believe we'd be able to extract value out of that business from was a business to consumer natural gas offering natural gas, both natural gas electricity back then, because of the strength of that boudicas brand. So there's no supplier putting any pressure on to do anything.
What we do is we buy the commodity wholesale and we sell it retail, to the customer. So we're leveraging the strength of the Boodegas brand to build that business. And that's been that has been our focus. We started to do this, well, this wasn't more, more, more, more significant way in 2008, in Ireland, and we've built a business now more focused on the B2B sector. That has about a quarter of the market in Ireland.
So we've proven our ability to build an natural gas business in these markets and we just felt the trends of good gas brands in France was a key, starting point that our marketing investment would need to be a little bit less because the brand was very well known into the market. And we've proven that in the period since we launched them. We only launched it last November. So it's relatively recent But as I say, there's it's really about where we take it from here.
Understood. Thanks for that. And on the technology and health there, could we have the organic sales growth, please? That would really help. And finally, on technology, What is the type of discussions you're having with your supply is, especially now that you've just gone into the U.
S. Sure. So are you discussing with your European suppliers potential to cross sell products? Yes. Maybe Tim,
do you want to take the technology question a further back on that.
Yes. So, I mean, with regards to your organic question, I think Donald kind of talked to, the overall group's number of hours is pretty much in line a third of the top line growth is coming from organic. With regards to the approach to the vendors, obviously, we have a bigger print and a greater relevance to our vendors. So spending a lot of time talking to him about wider agreements versus what is often a license to hunt in geographies, at a macro level. So really looking to try and get European wide and global contracts to distribute Now clearly from the vendor's perspective, they'd like us to be everywhere.
And the way that we do that is using our supply chain services where we don't actually have a physical presence. We create a virtual presence so that we can say yes to vendors, and we're doing that with a number of global brands to be able to be in multiple geographies of people when we're not and that's working well.
And I think that the team kind of particularly picked out a couple of areas like AV as one of them where the likes of LG, the likes of Samsung, they're coming to us and we're actually encouraging us to look at our markets and actually see acquisitions that we acquired were one of them that San Pedro came from some of those relationships that we had here pointing us in a direction. So as a source of opportunities for further capital deployment, those relationships are very important.
And you're finding yourself appearing in the same vendor in multiple will say AV is very big for us, mobile is very big for us and that leads us to Samsung in both instances today. And it's it's an interesting dynamic. Organic growth for it.
If you strip out the energy businesses, the rest of
the business grew about revenues by 15%. That's Healthcare And Technology together. Roughly a third of that was organic 5%.
Apologies for the voice, Peter Rational. Doctor. Does looming EU withdrawal throughout any issues?
For who? No, we've been, and clearly, that's the question. Probably a couple more from, a couple more from journalists today than from analysts in ways. We've been pretty pretty, pretty clear about this. From a commercial perspective, broadly pretty much all the products that we sell across the group we buy and sell in the UK or the UK.
So we're not importing lots of product into the market. So there's probably less of an impact on the nature of the products that we sell a pretty necessary for everyday life, whether it's fuel for your car or gas to eat your home or our health care products, our technology products. So I think regardless and uncertainty clearly is not good for anyone. There's lots of uncertainties. There's lots of speculation.
I think commercially from a business perspective, we don't see a huge amount of risk bar. What's going to happen the performance of the UK economy. And we're not going to be clearly insulated from that, but the nature of our businesses, again, are no business that is recession proof in any way, but they're probably less impact us than maybe some other business are as well. So, we like everyone else, we'd like to get more visibility on what's going to happen, but we'll deal with whatever happens.
Hi. Annalise from Morgan Stanley. Two questions. Just following up on that last one, the very strong organic growth in the Healthcare division. There's been a lot of reports in the press about, businesses stockpiling medical equipment and medical devices ahead of that, is that something you've been seeing from your customers, or is that organic growth being driven by other factors?
Kenna.
From a revenue point of view, our organic growth is primarily driven by the Health And Beauty business. Which has been consistently strong organic growth business. Obviously, in D. C. Vitol, we're more driven by government healthcare spending, which typically isn't, isn't increasing dramatically.
So our organic growth is kind of flattish in the Tahoe. So we haven't seen any benefit of the Brexit stockpiling now.
And then the other question I had was, you mentioned obviously now you're in, in the U. S. In 3 of your divisions. Is there any appetite as both for the U. S?
Or is that not an attractive?
It's always appetizing.
No, look, we do. We're were obviously, and it's kind of interesting the way business develops. We had come back to pretty much a business in Britain and Ireland and go back to 2009 when we made our first investment, in building our energy business outside of Britain and Ireland. And we probably wouldn't have picked the market because we'd have picked the bigger markets, whatever. And there's an opportunity to buy Shell's business in Denmark and did a case study on us at the Capital Markets Day as well, but it was really interesting because one, we bought a good business back then, both of the small business and we said to the team of people on the day stood up in front of them when we bought the business and said, fund starts now, but much more importantly, we want to build a much bigger business and we have built a much bigger business in Denmark over the next number of years, but much more importantly, because we were in the market, we started to build relationships with people, not just in Denmark, in neighboring markets, and we've built a very large business now in Scandinavia.
And we can kind of trace the routes to going down and our first investment in Denmark all those years ago. So I mean, when you get a presence in a market, it puts you into a different play and having a presence now in the U S, like clearly there was things active, it wasn't retail west that led to say, jam acquisition or whatever, but actually having a presence in the market makes a big difference to us. So I think the fact that we have presence now, a strong presence in 3 of our divisions. The U. S.
Market, 14% of our capital employed, there was nothing 12 months ago, I don't know whether to be in 12 months' time or 24 months, but I think the opportunity set will be there for us to deploy capital in all those sectors. And hopefully, we can talk about 4 as opposed to 3.
Caroline Roll from EBS. Just in terms of the weather, can you remind us how much profits can swing around depending on the weather?
Yes. It depends clearly on the level of weather, but like we probably we have If we go back kind of a go back to 2011 to 2012, when we went from the coldest winter, on record to the mildest winter on record. As a percentage of our profitability, we had a very material swing because the heating dependent part of our business is very significant. So when we look at the mix of business now, it's certainly less than 10% of group profits would be if you went from a very cold to an extremely mild, I think an important factor over that period of time has been the geographic diversity of the business. So we were back then, we were in Britain and Ireland.
So we were very dependent on what happened in the weather patterns here, whereas now, and even last year when we talked about weather in the business, we had We had milder weather in this part of the world with slightly colder weather in front and you get the balance there. We now have pre cold in the U. S. At the moment. So you guess that the geographic diversity helps kind of minimize some of that impact.
But weather is a feature of our business And again, I think someone asked me a risk in the second half of the year earlier. And clearly, if you got a very mild period, that has a risk. But I think investors understand that, see through that. If it's going to be very mild, it'll have an impact if it's very cold. We'll have a benefit, but We kind of, it's a bit out with our control.
We have spent a lot of time getting our cost base much more flexible going back to those days, that was a key focus for us afterwards. And we're probably in a better position to deal with it, but weather will be weather. Hello? Hello? Oh, very polite.
Thanks. Tom Belton from Berenberg. Can I just ask a question on organic growth and how that ties into the point you made on divesting the group? And I suppose as the capital deployed has on a mix basis shifted more towards the technology business, which is arguably kind of through cycle higher organic growth business. How should we think about organic growth for the D.
C. Group going forward in the next 3 years versus the 3 years just gone?
I think the, I think you've got to look at organic growth in terms of the dynamics of each of the individual businesses. And then it's a it's a consolidation of what happened. So you're right, technology, and we love the technology business because it's a higher organic growth and it's a much higher organic volume growth and obviously the elements of price deflation within the market. But the organic growth and technology is clearly there, and we've been delivering that. There's very strong organic growth within our health care business, both actually the tile business and the and the health and beauty business, the child benefiting from all the trends that people live in longer, needing more health care, the the health and beauty business, the nutritional trends and people have been more discerning in the products that they take we have been delivering good organic growth in our propane business and the work that Henry and the team have been doing in the oil to LPG conversions.
I think that's probably positively surprised people over a number of years that in a market that's kind of flattish we've been delivering kind of between 3% 6% organic growth over a number of years. As we have extended out a range of products into those commercial customers. And again, the retail market, we've had very strong organic growth in the first half of the year, but the dynamics are different within the energy business. They're not high growth markets. And we have to fight hard to deliver our organic profit there.
So it'll be it'll be a consolidation of where we deploy the capital. Alan.
Yes, thanks. Just two follow on questions. The first one for Conor. How much of the capacity investments in Health And Beauty Solutions is used to the opportunity set in Europe? Are you seeing any, cross regional opportunities yet in the U.
S. Given the acquisition or is that just too early to say?
I mean, we are investing a little bit in our U. S. Plant, but the majority of of our investment is in our, as Don mentioned, in our Softgel plant. And that's really driven by demand we're seeing in Europe. I mean, we've We've led the European market in terms of vegetarian softgel capsules and that's become quite an important trend in the European market, less so actually in the U.
S. At the minute. And so certainly our confidence in making that investment is is substantially driven by what we've seen in Europe. There may be opportunities in kind of high end more expensive capsule to supply them into the, into the U. S.
As well. But I mean, obviously, our ambition will be to have softgel capability in the U. S. Market as well and leverage our expertise for teens across the two lines.
Good one for Eddie. I'd be interested in the French retail network given the rebrand and the refresh. Is that any meaningful impact on on-site volumes or default?
I think, honestly, we've been expanding out into the click and collect and the car washes. So from that point of view, we've acquired back one of the venture partners, Wastek was a profit share we've taken up business by 100%. So it has a positive impact on profits. We still have a bit of work to do with the footfall. So with the club service in that, we're looking at, can we drive dynamics, footfall, especially into services like car washes and click and collect?
Overall volumes in the market are off about 2% mainly economic and for other regions.
Talked about it earlier, but the club search is launching our own, loyalty scheme. And again, We've had a focus in the group about innovation, and this is one of the innovations that we did where we were able to leverage anonymous kind of credit card customers that were coming to our sites to turn them into customers that become loyal if you like our customers that subscribed to our loyalty program. And the traction that has been pretty good. So again, it gives us the opportunity to to drive marketing initiatives, marketing campaigns, across the retail business in France. All later questions, are we?
No, Kevin doesn't want to ask you a question. I don't think he's not alone. On the phone.
It appears there are no questions via the phone line at this time.
Okay. No question. So I think that's if there's no further questions here, I think that's it for now. And just thank you all for coming. Thank you all for your ongoing support and we'll be around if Newen has any further questions.
Thank you very much.