Day and welcome to the Marks & Spencer Analyst call. This meeting is being recorded. At this time, I would like to hand the call over to Archie Norman. Please go ahead, sir.
Morning, everybody, and welcome to our results session. It's a very good day today because we've got a decent set of results and excellent weather coming for the bank holiday weekend. We've got here in this room, obviously, Stuart, Allison is here, Fraser, and a whole lot of other people who don't get to say anything. We're going to start off with Stuart's usual opening.
Thank you, Archie. Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. When we held this call a year ago, it was under a very different set of circumstances, and I'm pleased to say we're in a far better place today and as a team very much looking forward. Let me give you a take on last year. This was a year of 2 halves. The 1st half, as you know, was dominated by operational disruption. As always, our focus during that time was our customers. We found new ways to keep serving them, and we were transparent with our communications throughout. We're grateful that they rewarded us with their trust, and M&S remains the most U.K.'s trusted brand according to YouGov. We served 34 million customers last year, our highest number ever.
We never take trust for granted, and I want to thank every single customer who shopped with us last year. As I always say, if you haven't shopped with us, then please do. Our colleagues worked incredibly hard to recover our business, and in the second half of the year, we returned to sales and profit growth. The work done in recent years to strengthen cash generation and improve resilience meant that we were able to respond and recover without compromising our financial health, and we ended the year with a strong net funds position. This strong financial footing meant we could accelerate our transformation despite the disruption, and we continued to invest with discipline where it mattered most: our stores, our supply chain, our digital and technology, and of course, value. I once said that this was a lost year, but on reflection, it wasn't.
It was a year of learning and everyone coming together as one team serving our customers and continuing our transformation. I think we came out stronger. Let me touch on the financial headlines. Total group sales were GBP 17.4 billion, up 20% on last year as a result of the consolidation of Ocado Retail. Excluding Ocado Retail, sales were GBP 14.2 billion, 1.9% ahead of last year. M&S Group adjusted profit before tax was GBP 671.4 million, which includes the receipt of GBP 100 million of lost profit cyber insurance proceeds, which were claimed and received during the half. Free cash flow from operations for the period was an inflow of GBP 131.3 million. Despite a challenging year with reduced profit and cash generation, we maintained a net funds position excluding lease liabilities, reflecting strong profit conversion and disciplined debt management.
Food was a standout performer in the year, growing 7% in sales and 3.5% in volume. We constantly outperformed the market, and by the end of the year, we had grown our market share to the highest point of 4.1%. This puts us firmly on track to achieve our ambition in doubling the size of our food business. If you include M&S sales on Ocado, our market share was 4.6%. We served 800,000 more customers in the year in our food business, the biggest gain of any supermarket, and we did that by doubling down on what we do best: quality, innovation, and value. As the team in food always say, "If in doubt, add quality in," and it's one of the things that sets us apart from the rest. This year, we upgraded more than 1,000 products, including entire categories such as Italian meals, deli, and dairy.
Our quality perception scores are the highest they've been, and the gap between M&S and the rest of the market continues to widen. We launched new products almost every week in our food stores, totaling 1,500. This included our Only... Ingredients range made with minimal ingredients, which was an instant hit with customers, a genius idea from our food development team getting us ahead of customer demand for clean eating and minimal ingredients. Looking forward, value is more important to our customers than ever before. We made significant investments, including areas like protein and fresh produce. We're constantly investing in price. Our price index to the main supermarkets is the best and lowest it's ever been. In fashion, home, and beauty, sales were more challenged, down 7.7%, store sales down 2.3%, and online sales down 18.4%.
Both stores and online were in growth during the fourth quarter with improved availability, in time for customers to enjoy the summer range, which is now resonating. We've been making good progress on our product appeal overall. Our formula in fashion is simple: deliver the best quality and style at the best price. As one fashion editor recently put it, "M&S has finally dumped the front." As a result, we're now attracting customers across a wider age range, and both in womenswear and menswear, our customers are getting slightly younger, with a 16% increase in customers under the age of 30. We're doubling down on value. More than half of our spring/summer fashion is GBP 30 or under. In lingerie, the team did a great job on our GBP 10 bra.
Last year in just 2 colors, this year 7. We sold 1.8 million GBP 10 bras in the year. In fact, our market share lead in lingerie is so strong that over half the women in the U.K. wear a bra from M&S. With all that said, across our fashion business, although we're starting to attract a younger customer, we will always remain a broad church. We want to extend our customer base, not replace our core customer. In our international business, sales were down 7.2%, with an improvement in the second half as new business in wholesale and online marketplaces partly offset the declines in owned and franchise. During the year, we made real progress with partners who share our ambition to build a global brand.
We've seen an encouraging early response to our investment in trusted value, and we've continued to accelerate our new growth channel, securing targeted wholesale partnerships with Coles in Australia for food and Nordstrom in the U.S. for fashion. This is alongside driving online growth by launching marketplaces like Zalando and Amazon. Our partnership with Zalando has driven a 200% growth in new customers to M&S in Europe. Touching on Ocado, the team continued to make solid progress, delivering a small profit for the year. Sales of M&S on Ocado were up 17%, and M&S sales on Ocado reached GBP 1 billion for the first time, with more potential for growth ahead. Talking about our transformation, as you know, we've been reshaping M&S for growth, and we're moving to the phase that we now call reinvesting for growth.
This year, we plan to invest between GBP 650 million and GBP 750 million of capital net of disposals. The next three years are critically important. We have a clear plan centered around three key areas of disciplined investment. First, our stores and online, where our customers experience M&S. Last year, despite the disruption, was our most ambitious year for store renewals in a decade. We picked up the pace with new store openings averaging a payback of less than five years. In food, we opened 12 new and 18 renewed food stores, including Cannock, Hatfield, and Farnham, attracting more families as we work to become a shopping list retailer and doubling the size of the food business. This year, we plan to open 18 more bigger, fresher food stores as we accelerate the pace of openings.
In fashion, home, and beauty, we opened 3 full-line stores last year, and we're working on our new modern store blueprint: easy to shop, fully omnichannel, showcasing the best of M&S with 2 full-line stores opening this year. We'll open our new R&D format store in Pantheon in Oxford Street later in July. On supply chain, we've signed off and agreed 2 new food distribution centers in Avonmouth and Daventry. Together, these new facilities will add 1.7 million square foot of additional capacity, getting ahead of our growth and supporting our plans to double the size of our food business. Daventry is our largest ever investment in our food supply chain, and we will modernize our network with the latest automation technology. Avonmouth and Bristol will support the modernization of our supply chain and increase network capacity in the southwest.
In our fashion business, we took a big step forward, acquiring a 437,000 square foot modern, fully automated fashion distribution center in Lichfield. The new site will add capacity, increase efficiency, reduce cost, and improve margins. For customers, it means better availability and range, faster delivery, later cutoff times for next-day delivery, and fewer split parcels. There is so much more to do in our fashion business. In data, digital, and technology, we're playing catch-up, but the good news is we have a clear plan, and we're making progress. Each of our managing directors has that plan embedded into their businesses, working hand in hand with our D&T team so each business owns their technology transformation. This also means hardwiring AI across the whole business and investing significantly in our data capability. Data is the foundation of our business, and it's critical we invest here.
That leads me onto Sparks because Sparks has been on the pad, on the to-do list for 10 years or more, it was in our top 3 of customer complaints over recent years, and now we're improving it. The team have done a great job launching the new Sparks programme, but this is just phase 1 with more to come. Across these capital investment priorities of stores, supply chain, and D&T, we're moving forward with pace, reinvesting for growth. Now finishing on Outlook. Retailers have been hit with a triple whammy of headwinds: higher taxes, including national insurance and new packaging taxes, more regulations such as the Employment Rights Act and the new HFSS rules, and cost pressures from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Of course, for our customers, a lot of uncertainty, especially closer to home.
In M&S, we have a clear plan. We're in good financial health, unshaken by recent events of last year, and we're very much focused on what's in our control. Getting back to our strategy, our job is to protect the magic and modernize the rest. We have a big modernization program, and we're only just a few years in. It's going to be a big year ahead. We have momentum, and we're going to continue with the transformation plans we have in place. We have a strong culture, a hardworking, focused team, and we have a growth business. We expect to keep making progress with profits growing again compared to two years ago. As I've always said, there's an extraordinary opportunity ahead of us, and we are on it. Thank you. I'll hand back to Archie.
Thank you, Stuart. Okay. Well, we've got about 35 minutes for questions, and so we'll try and get through them as fast as we can. Please, if you could, just say who you are to remind everybody, and then we'll take 1 question at a time. If you want to come back and ask another, that's fine. I think we should start with Isabel de la Brava from Morgan Stanley because, Isabel, I understand that this is your first week back from maternity leave and that we should be congratulating you on the birth of your son, Matteo. Many congratulations, and please ask the first question.
Hello. Good morning, and thank you very much for the warm welcome back. It's great to be back and looking at Marks & Spencer. My first question is around fashion, home, and beauty. I was hoping you could give us some comments around availability and newness and how those performed over the fourth quarter and then into the first quarter. I think at the CMD, you outlined plans to increase newness by about 30% and increase the mix of trade-ups, so if you could give us some color on how that has developed over the past couple of months and how you expect it to develop over the rest of the year, that would be helpful.
Let me kick off with that, Isabel de la Brava, and thank you for the question. Look, I think the first thing is as we exited the year in Q4, some of that growth, of course, was driven by promotion and clearance. The good news about that, in Q4, our performance was +4%, but that meant we entered quarter 1 in a relatively good position when it comes to stock. Now, stock is 2 weeks higher than it was this time last year, but the mix of stock is what we call good stock, good condition. It's either core or newness for summer. I think we're in a pretty good place with stock cover of around 15 weeks. Just on your point of availability, I'm pleased to report some slightly better news of only 2 weeks ago because availability has been top of mind.
It's been pretty good online, as in our stores, our stores have dragged up until two weeks ago. Our availability is running in the high 80s, and when we compare that on last year now, it's better. That doesn't mean we've got everything right. What we have learned, again, for the third year in a row is our smaller sizes are way outselling any of our expectations. Customers on the call will notice that when you're shopping online or in our stores. We do have a slight availability problem still on size 6, 8, and 10 in some areas of womenswear and in some parts of menswear, small sizing in shorts and T-shirts. That's because we're also outselling those areas. I think the last point for me is I think we're in a pretty good place.
I said to the team two weeks ago, we had the hot weather of two weeks ago, and we beat our budget pretty significantly. I said to the team, "Keep the faith. You've got extremely good product." I think it's the best range reviews I've ever done. We're on trend. Our volume value is good. Don't forget, one of the facts I gave the media call earlier is 50% of our newness in womenswear is under GBP 30. I think we're in a very good place. I expect us to make progress in Q1 and Q2 versus two years ago as well. We just need a bit of hot weather, which we're going to get in the next seven days, and a little bit of luck.
Thank you very much. Very clear.
Thank you, Isabel. I think demonstrating even more favoritism, we should go to our famous alumni, Richard Sheridan from Bernstein. Richard?
Hello. Can you hear me?
Right. We'll come back. Yes, we can, Richard. Fire away.
Oh, fantastic. Sorry about that. Hello. Good morning, Richard Sheridan from Bernstein. It's good to be here. Firstly, on fashion, home, and beauty, when do you expect to see the investments in supply chain transformation and the tech platform start to translate into margin improvements?
Richard, good question. Look, of course, when it comes to the investment, the first investment is Lichfield. The good news about Lichfield, as I said in my introduction, is that really that's accelerated our supply chain capability for online. That will open in around 1 year from now. I'd like it a bit before 12 months, but let's see. What's happened with that GBP 67 million of investment? It will give us more stock holding points online, about 20% more, 80% more picking capacity, and like I said, a much better customer experience. Anyone that shops our online knows we have to go to multiple points. Parcels are normally split. We can't quite keep up with the main competitor on service delivery times.
All of this will help all of those customer metrics, and we expect to see benefits of that from FY 2028, benefits in availability and service and therefore sales, but also benefits in cost savings from FY 2028 as well, really driving an improvement in online margin because, as you know, that's our biggest gap and biggest opportunity. It will be a few years, but what I would say is this has probably accelerated our online doubling our online business strategy by 3 years.
Richard? Fantastic. Thank you. That's very clear. If I could just ask one more, how are you currently thinking about inflation trajectory in the U.K.? If it comes, how do you expect the responses of customers to differ between food and clothing?
Yes. Well, look, a quick comment on inflation. Obviously, the numbers came out this morning, Richard, and food inflation came out at 3%, a bit lower than I thought it would, but really in line with where we are. Food inflation, I'm sorry, clothing inflation, moved up slightly month-on-month. There's a couple of things on inflation. The first is what's happening externally. We know inflation is really being driven, not so much by the Middle East yet. It's being driven by all of the cost increases passed from our suppliers to us. In my quote today, I called it the triple whammy headwinds. Now, the majority of that is what's already known, the first being the increase in taxes. I won't go through them all because it's well documented. This extra GBP 150 million for us as a business is a significant headwind.
On top of that, you've also got some other headwinds around some regulatory burdens coming our way, whether it's nutrient profiling model or mandatory reporting or the deposit return scheme. Don't forget, just in 1 month, we had to pay a packaging tax, a new tax of GBP 40 million. The reason I say that is I have been very clear that the government does have choices. If they really want to help retailers and food retailers particularly in a very competitive market, the fact that our margins are single digit, 4% or 5%, the fact that the majority of our food, everyday essentials, are negative margin or just about break-even demonstrates that this is a very competitive market. In fact, the U.K. does have some of the lowest prices in Europe on those everyday essentials.
My ask, I've said, to the government is you do have some choices. How will this play out? Richard, it's hard to tell because we are trying to mitigate the majority of these headwinds. We have a cost-out program, as you know, of GBP 120 million. We're aiming to pass as little through as possible because we want to reinvest in price to regrow volumes, and that's the same in food and fashion, and grow cash sales and margin. I haven't got a crystal ball, but we're trying to do the right thing and still be competitive in the market.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Richard. Shall we go on to Frederick Wild from Jefferies?
Alison, thank you for taking my question. It's Frederick Wild at Jefferies. I think the first question is on everyone's favorite topic of political rumors. I don't suppose you could comment on whether you've heard anything, had any discussions with the government on the rumored price caps and the impact of those. Just more broadly, thank you for your comments on the inflation outlook. Could I refocus on consumer expectations into this year, especially as consumers start to see more budget pressures coming in half 2, whether your guidance, whether your internal budgets assume any weakening of consumer behavior, either in food or clothing and home—oh, sorry—FH&B later this year? Thank you.
I don't think, thank you, Freddie. I don't think probably in this meeting we should dwell on this sort of price cap idea. I mean, I think it's one of those flaky ideas that's had a political life of about 30 minutes. Stuart, do you want to?
I won't go as much as I did on the media call, but I did call it quite preposterous. I said I don't think the government should be trying to run businesses. They should try and run the country and work with business for a growth plan and really work on a plan to help working people. There's a couple of things. Look, I don't know where this price cap. We haven't been told about it. I first read it in the Financial Times yesterday and in the media today. We haven't had any direct communication on it. It, of course, started with the SNP in Scotland. By the way, some of the business rates in Scotland are higher there than anywhere else in the country. Look, what I'm hoping for is someone that sees common sense on that.
The second point on inflation I've raised on the previous call, on the customer point, we research our customers frequently, and we asked 2,000 people, 2,000 customers just on Monday, the biggest thing on their mind. Money and cost of living does come up. It comes up with also the low confidence in the country's direction and the political uncertainty and volatility. All of that put into one means our value perception across retail has taken a slight dip. That's despite the fact that inflation is only running at 3%. In fact, on the everyday items people buy most, if we just call out some of ours top of mind, like the price of a pint of milk at GBP 0.85, I mean, that's at negative margin, and that's with us also giving our farmers a fair price. That price we've held for a couple of years.
The prices of a loaf of bread, I think, is GBP 0.75. That's been the price for the last 3 years, and we lose margin on that price. Other everyday items like eggs or sugar or flour is single-digit margins. I think what people do forget, government included, is that food is a competitive market. We have some of the lowest prices in Europe. On everyday essentials, they're pretty margin dilutive. Customers are worried about value. They're hoping retailers still provide better value. Customers are savvy. They know we've been impacted by a lot of cost headwinds, and they're just slightly anxious. Going back to M&S, my summary for us is we've always democratized quality.
We've always, in the last few years in our transformation plan, with our launch of Remarkable now six years ago, put value at the very heart of our product strategy, and we will continue on that. Our plan is never about the %. It's about the cash. We want to be a volume growth business. Like I said, in fashion, we're very focused on the fact that half of our summer is GBP 30 and under half of our summer range.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Stuart. Okay. Shall we move on to Georgina Johanan at JP Morgan? Yes, Georgina?
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I've got 2, please. I'll ask them 1 at a time, perhaps. The first one was just going back to the new Lichfield warehouse. I was wondering if you could just clarify in terms of CAPEX spending. I think that several hundred million GBP had actually been set aside for that site, and it looks like that's now going to come in a lot lower. If you could just clarify that, please, that'd be helpful. Also around pick cost because I think you gave some details about Castle Donington being around GBP 1.30 for a pick cost. Just if there's anything you can share in terms of your early expectations of how much better that might be at Lichfield, either in absolute or percentage terms, that would be really helpful. That's my first one, please.
Thank you, Georgina. I'll hand over to Alison for some of this and give myself a two-minute break.
Hi, Georgina. Thanks. The headline purchase price that you will have seen for Lichfield was GBP 67 and a half million. Now, the automation in that site needs to be commissioned, and that will be about another GBP 20 or so million. We've set it out in the RNS that you have seen. There's GBP 70 million in the Lichfield investment line, and then there is about GBP 20 million more in the D&T line. There'd be a small amount of OPEX as well, but that's relatively minimal. Then on pick cost, look, we're still working through what the efficiencies are that will be delivered from this site. I think that the one thing I would say is that Stuart has already said that this was a pull-forward purchase.
We had earmarked next year, actually, probably for a Greenfield site, which would have cost a lot more and taken a lot longer to bring online. The fact that we were able to acquire it this year and at a significantly lower headline price really is the day-one benefit.
We're hoping for a lower pick cost, and John will look forward to giving an update at the Capital Markets Day.
Yeah. Thanks, Anne.
Great. Thank you. My other comment.
Do you want to do it over sec? Go on.
Hi. Sorry. Just a super quick one, please. Just to clarify, when you're talking about profit growth resuming versus FY 2025 in this current year, should we take that to mean a sort of mid-single-digit level, mid-single-digit plus, or is that the wrong interpretation, please?
Well, it's probably the right interpretation. I mean, there's so much uncertainty and unknowns, but we're feeling confident we can show progress on 2 years ago.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you. Shall we go to Yash Gandhi? Yash Gandhi at UBS?
Questions. Yash Gandhi from UBS. Firstly, congratulations on finishing the year on the front foot. Appreciate it's not been the easiest one. My question revolves around fashion, home, and beauty. Can you shed some light on what's your level of confidence in getting back to pre-incident levels of 11% margin? Can you please lay out the puts and takes on external factors, investment drag, and also if there's any mix effect from online and offline there? Thank you.
Well, hi, Yash. Just quickly from me on this. I mean, look, I'm reasonably confident. The reason I'm confident in getting back to those margin levels, we've always guided at 10% or greater than 10%. The team under John's leadership is very focused on both online and stores. We've got some upside coming our way on sourcing. Supply chain, as I said, will be later in 2 years, but that Lichfield point we've made is a good opportunity for FY 2028 and beyond. If I look at our product mix, we're doing less promotions. Now, we do need the good weather, but we're back now at the 80% mark on full price. Now, we will have a sale. If I look at May and July, those numbers are looking pretty in line with the sale number of 2 years ago.
The stock health, as I call it, is pretty good. There is a lot of uncertainty. If I look at the market, the market is quite subdued. You've only got to look at the last Kantar results to see that. I think we're as best placed as we've ever been with good product, great style, good value, and we've got some good controls now back in place. If I look at full price sales, again, our intention is back to the 80% level.
Got it. Super. Thank Thank you so much.
Thank you. Now, I think we should go to Clive Black. Clive, you'll be pleased to hear that Stuart's been quoting your note on food policy to the world's media earlier today.
It was a very good note.
Do you have a question?
That's a bit worrying, but well done on navigating the past year. Thank you for taking the question. I'll just ask the one. In terms of your food business's growth strategy, maybe you could give us an indication of your expectations for 2027 in terms of site procurement. How easy are you finding it to procure food sites? That was a little bit of frustration in times gone by. Maybe just set against that, how have recent store openings performed to the point you are more or less excited about what new stores could do for you? Thank you very much.
Thanks, Clive. Well, look, we're confident in our food business. As we say, it's very predictable. We're on our journey to doubling the size of that business. Our new and renewal stores have played a big part of that. I mean, I've not worked in a food business where paybacks have been as strong as the paybacks we're getting. Now, if you look at the sites, I remember when I became chief executive resetting the targets of the five-year plan into three and a year later saying, "Oh, we got that wrong. We can't do it." We have been given a few gifts.
That doesn't mean the property team haven't worked hard because, as you know, when we converted the Debenhams sites, what we learned from those acquisitions is actually some of those stores for our growth plans were now outperforming them, and we would have actually made them bigger. The second gift we got was the Homebase. We still had to work hard to do the right deals around those Homebases, either taking the very long lease or the head lease. As we've opened these stores, they have proved very successful. I was in Cannock recently, which has I mean, we've been performing 20% above our expectations in that store. Putney was an old store we closed. We reopened. That still has performed double-digit above our expectations. Luton as well has performed way above double-digit above our expectations.
Even in our 4-line stores like Bath and Bristol, I mean, Bath has been performing about 5% above our business case and Bristol about double-digit, 10%-12% above our business case. We're finding the sites better because of those Homebase Debenhams stores. That's one of the things. One thing I would say in food that we're learning, in order to get the full range in and for customers to do a full shop with the kids and the family and a trolley, that blueprint that Alex and the team have dusted down is now moving to a 20,000 sq ft blueprint. It's never going to be a 35,000, 40,000, or 50,000 blueprint. We want good returns per square foot. We are learning that some of those stores like Farnham, 20 is about right. I think we're in a much better place.
Don't forget, even at the end of this year, only 35% of our stores will be new or renewed. We're playing 25 years of catch-up.
Very good. Thank you very much, José.
Shall we get Richard Chamberlain from RBC? Richard?
Yeah. Thanks, Archie. Morning, guys. Just, I guess, a couple of follow-ups, if that's all right. What sort of space contribution to sales then should we expect for the food business in the coming year, and how do you see that sort of varying between the first and the second half? That's my first one. Thanks.
Alison.
Hi, Richard. Reasonably consistent throughout the year. We're expecting 2 to 3 percentage points of growth from non-like-for-like space, Richard, and then incremental volume growth, obviously, across like-for-likes.
Excellent. Okay. Thanks, Alison. The second one is on the clothing, I guess, online business and expectations around sort of penetration. I just wonder, with the addition of the new Lichfield DC, do you expect online penetration actually to rise above 50% long-term? Do you think you can hold the store sales stable in that scenario? Thanks.
We're not going to change the 50% because I still think that's realistic. What Lichfield does is help us get to that 50% a bit quicker than we had planned. I dare say, I'm hoping, slightly cheaper because spending GBP 67 on Lichfield was a lot better than spending GBP 200 million doing it ourselves. I mean, pre-incident, our online participation was 34%. We think we'll get to above that, and we're on the journey above that. I think 50% is realistic. We're hoping that our stores don't forget, we'll have less stores, but overall, that will be the other 50% of the business, but they will be better four-line, more modern stores. We are behind on that. We've only just started what we call renewal program on fashion, home, and beauty. In food, we've been on this now for 6 years.
In FH&B, we've been on it for 12 months.
Richard, I think the important thing with Lichfield and with some of the automation that we are making into Castle Donington is margin improvement rather than necessarily the mix of online and store sales. Lichfield, because it's earlier, because it's cheaper, will help us to start to get that online margin up. The improvements in Donington will help to increase some of the store margins as well.
Okay. Great.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Richard. Shall we go to Monique, follow-up from Citi? Monique?
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. The 1st question I had was just on the food gross margins. Just in the context of the inflation you're seeing, but obviously also that focus that you have, Stuart, that you've been talking about since the Capital Markets Day of value and value perception, should we think about the food gross margins being pretty stable this year, or should we expect some level of price reinvestment either via the kind of value ranges or via loyalty?
Yeah, Monique, thank you because it's a good question. Look, I think we can expect the food margins still to be how we outlined it at the Capital Markets Day last year and the year before, a net margin of above 4%. The reason we hold the 4% is actually that's not our priority because we expect cash growth in the margin through volume. When we look at our cost-out program, there's a couple of things we're doing that Alex and the team are on to help mitigate some of this inflation. The first is we have a cost-out program, as you know, of GBP 120 million, and there's quite a lot of that in our food business. The second, the team are doing a really good job with our fortress factories, our key suppliers. We've been investing in those suppliers to get more operational improvements and more efficiency.
I think that, therefore, protects us to some extent around some of these inflationary headwinds. What I do always say to the team is we always invest in value. Last year, the team invested about 50 basis points in value. That's why I say to Alex, always focus on the cash. We think the 4% and thereabouts or greater will be still the right number.
Great. Thank you. Just one follow-up on the dividend. Just trying to understand, obviously, you've done a small increase in the payout ratio this year despite COVID, just given the progress you saw in the second half. If you can indeed achieve the guidance you've sort of soft outlined for this year, could we see a potential return to the pre-COVID levels of payout ratios?
Alex, I'll let you.
Really, Monique, what we're focused on, firstly, is cash generation within the business and then investing into the significant growth opportunities that we have, which we have also set out. Very clear about our priorities for the use of cash, which is investing behind growing the business and building a more efficient business. For now, for this year, next year, we will aim to grow the dividend. Over time, we will aim to fund through cash both our continued investments and an increase in the dividend. The focus for now is on investing into those growth opportunities.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you, Monique. We're running down the clock a bit, but let's go to Adam Cochrane and then we'll go to Anne Critchlow at Berenberg. Adam?
Thanks, guys. A question for me on investment and returns. With the title reinvesting for growth, would you be able to there's lots of numbers on payback and cash contribution in the statement. In terms of your non-maintenance CAPEX, GBP 500 million last year, GBP 700 million in the year ahead, what profit number can we expect was achieved from that CAPEX investment both last year and expected for the year ahead, please?
I'll let Alison do some detail. I mean, top line, the reason we called it Reinvesting in Growth is because at the very heart of our strategy is we know with the cash we're generating, we need to get this business on track for the medium to longer term. When we look at those three areas that we've outlined now for multiple years, it's stores, modernize now store estate. That is very proven. The good thing about our store modernization program is our paybacks are very strong. The second is supply chain. That is a longer payback. If we compare that to a store rotation program, we're aiming for way below the 5-year payback. With our supply chain program, typically, that's a slightly longer payback, but we still think that will be pretty strong, especially with our Lichfield acquisition.
Don't forget the distribution like Daventry, that investment that we're opening the FY 2029 actually helps us deliver that double-sized food business and will provide a much better, more efficient supply chain in food. Of course, the third is D&T. When you look at our total maintenance and total CapEx, as we said, around GBP 700, if you split that, our maintenance is about GBP 150. We call it keep the lights on. Our property is averaging around GBP 200, supply chain around GBP 200, D&T around GBP 140. We do have very strict hurdle rates in place. That's why there is one other we call reinvest because we know we need to reinvest in value as well. It's a cultural thing in the business, but with discipline. Alison, what?
Yeah. I mean, Adam, the most obvious return is the non-like-for-like top-line growth in food that we specifically call out and that I've just put a number on for the coming year. Really, with the others, with D&T and with the supply chains, the D&T investments are only really starting now. Those growth investments will have the return hurdles that we have set out for you, which is a 20% IRR and about a four-year payback, and then the supply chain investments, which have slightly longer payback. Over the next few years, you will start to see that mix coming through the P&L, and we will be clear about where that is coming from. Lichfield, obviously, will help to drive the online margins, so you will see it there.
Investment in online with the customer experience, for example, some of the D&T investment into online or commerce platform into improving the look and feel on the website, those investments are very quick to pay back and will pay back in the year.
Yeah. I just want to say.
I understand where everybody's coming from with this. You want to take a CAPEX figure and extrapolate it into profit outlook. That's understandable. It's a mixed picture. I mean, we do have investments like SAP upgrade and replacement, which is very hard to attach a return to. As you said, there's maintenance CAPEX. Overall, we look at everything on a weighted average cost of capital, depending on type investment, roughly 14%. Over time, we're now at a stage of making strategic investments which will create a much more valuable business for many years to come. That's the way we look at it. Sorry, Adam, you want to come back on that? Yeah. I just want to make sure that we can measure externally how this increase in CAPEX is coming through.
Obviously, it's a decent increase, and hopefully, it generates those returns. I just want to make sure that we can measure it effectively from the outside.
Yeah. I don't think it is easy to measure from the outside, but when we come to the Capital Markets Day, we'll set it as obvious.
Let's also, Adam, I'll get Fraser to pick up with you to have a conversation and go through the process with you.
Okay. Thanks.
The most obvious, Adam, is in non-like-for-likes as we've shared.
Thanks.
Okay. Thanks, Adam. Okay. It takes us to go a couple more. We need to close. Shall we go to Anne Critchlow at Berenberg?
Thanks very much. I've got two questions, please. The first one's on systems. Just wondering when you expect to have the systems in place to interpret customer data. Do you intend to use that to sort of feed back into product development and buying decisions, or is it really just more about personalization at the individual customer level? The second question's on fashion input costs. Just interested to hear what you're seeing in terms of any pressures from higher polyester costs and when it might filter through to you as well. I know there's quite a time lag. I guess you've got an offset from a historic weak U.S. dollar or two. Any comments there useful? Thank you.
I'll let Alison do costs. I'll touch on systems. Look, I think what's very important for us is building our data. We know that can be used for multiple purposes, and you've really said it, Anne. The first is to drive personalization online being our priority and Sparks being another priority. Building that data up, hopefully, will differentiate us. That's critically important. In terms of product development, we do use our customer data, but more often than not, we do different research with customers on product development. In fashion, it's very easy to work out future trends. That's done separately. In food, we research with customers what's on their mind, how are they, their lifestyle, and the things they're looking for.
That's why the team came up with Only... Ingredients, as on the list of things on people's mind was still health and how to make it more accessible. That's why the Only... Ingredients range has been really resonating, and I think the team have done a great job on that. I'll let Alison answer the cost question.
On fabric costs, Anne, thank you. There's nothing in right now. We're in discussions with our suppliers in the Middle East, obviously, to track where any increased sourcing cost pressures may come from. Separately to that, though, we have a sourcing transformation program, which John has been on for the last six months or so now, which involves moving more towards the sort of fortress supplier program for fashion that we have been running in food for a while and which will bring sourcing benefits from longer-term contracts with our suppliers in the Far East. That should go to offset any significant cost pressures coming through as a result of what's happening in the Middle East. There's nothing in at the moment.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Look, we are over time, I'm just going to take one more and really apologies for those who didn't get in. We'll pick up through the day. Very happy. Stuart, I'm sure Stuart and Alison are happy to talk to people if they didn't get in. Shall we go to Warwick Okines at BNP?
Thanks, Archie. Morning, everyone. Yeah, just one from me. I suppose I was just hoping you could step back and talk about how different your capabilities digitally are today compared with pre-incident. How much do you think you've moved forward over the last year?
It's a good question, Warwick. Last year, we were literally, as you understand, just recovering the business. I still think it was quite remarkable, which is why a few months ago, I said it was a lost year. I changed my mind completely. It was quite remarkable, the advances we made in store rotation, in supply chain. Actually, as we recovered our D&T, some of the plans we started to resurrect from our earlier transformation program, recovering our BEAM, relaunching Sparks, which was quite a considerable effort, of course, at the same time, mapping out the transformation program we laid out. We have our Safe & Secure program, which is on track. We have a huge program with SAP that Alison is leading. That is a multi-year, very complex program on technology.
I think we're in a good place because in each part of the business, each MD owns their technology transformation. As you can expect in fashion, it's really geared towards online customer experience and processes around sourcing and critical path. John, with the D&T team, have made good progress on that. In food, it's very much around forecasting, allocation, pricing, and also supply chain. Alex and the team have made good progress. I think we've recovered well, and we'll explain more at the Capital Markets Day because it will really be a Capital Markets Day for FH&B and D&T.
Thanks, Ian.
Okay. Thank you, Warwick. Thank you, everybody. Stuart, any last comments from you?
No. We're available all day, Fraser and Helen, myself, Alison, to pick up any questions. We thank you for your support, and thank you for your questions today.
Brilliant. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Have a great day.