I'd now like to welcome Hartley Atkinson, CEO, to begin the conference. Hartley, over to you.
Great. Thank you very much. Look, welcome, everyone. What we'll do is go through the investor presentation, and I will go through it and mention the page numbers just so we can keep track. Obviously, there is the disclaimer on page two, so please be aware of the details in that notice. Flicking on to page three, this is just quickly a summary of generally the business, what we're doing. Just reaffirming our NZD 300 million revenue target. We sort of can see good growth this last year, and that target is well and truly now in sight. We managed to get to NZD 254.7 million, up 22%, which is about a 17.6% five-year CAGR. Operating profit was slightly ahead of guidance at NZD 24.4 million. Pleased also to have an increased dividend, and to reaffirm that growth target.
Other important parts, looking at it on the top right. Certainly expanding our global footprint is kind of a really key target that we're focusing on and takes quite a lot of work. We are working hard on those different areas, Europe, North America, and also South Africa as well. Going down onto the boxes below. Active, the R&D pipeline is something we're also doing a huge amount of work on. At the moment, we have a pipeline, which we'll look at in more detail, a number of patented products. We also do have some off-patented products. To tie in some IP into that, we've also got a fridge-free project, which will be IP-related projects. Instead of having to store them under refrigerated conditions, you won't have to store them in a fridge.
That is actually quite significant and well-recognized by various customers around the globe. On the right, we are also commercializing some of our R&D presently, which is also important to start to get the money flowing in from there to help also fund the ongoing R&D. We did do nine licensing agreements. We closed during this financial year. We do have a significant number that are currently under negotiation, and we have about seven R&D projects we're working on commercializing. In that bottom box, we do currently have sales have started in 87 countries around the globe. Flicking on to the next page, which is page number four. We just wanted to put this slide in because you can see that over the years, we have had growth literally every single year after year after year.
In fact, the current 17.6% five-year CAGR is not much different from our overall 20-year 17% CAGR. If we can keep up that sort of growth, the sales will roughly double, as I'm sure you can work out, between every four and five years, sort of four-point something years. That's an important thing. We are a business that's working on growing, and that's all part of it. That's page number four. Moving on to page number five, investments in growth to drive this long-term value. We have been investing pretty heavily, actually. What we're pleased, though, as well as investing heavily, we are able to report a record profit on top of that. It's not just all about investing. We are getting operating leverage, which we can show you later on in the financial pages.
We have got, as we mentioned, operating profit of NZD 24.4 million, EBITDA of NZD 28.8 million. That's enabled us to report a record dividend. We're able to increase our dividends, which is also very pleasing. Certainly, look, there's a fair amount of money being put into R&D, and we also got a profit forecast this year for between NZD 28 million- NZD 32 million. Looking at that graph on the right, what you can see, obviously from the picture is, look, the profit has been relatively flat, going sort of up and down over the last four years, despite a large increase in sales. We obviously keep you aware of that. The main driver behind that was there is a lot of investment in these new business hubs or affiliates or whatever you want to call them. They're not really yet profitable.
We've got to the stage now that we have got the leverage that we see as our sales increase, the profit will increase along with it. That's really a kind of key part there. Flicking on to the next slide, number six, Australia. Pleasing, we have ongoing strong momentum, in our largest market. I often say to people, "Hey, look, to be honest, we are an Australian company that happens to have its office in Takapuna." We are very focused on that market. We have a lot of boots on the ground in Australia. Great to get revenue growth of 19% and also a similar increase and operating profit as well. New product launches are helping, we are also getting sustained growth from our existing products as well.
We do see there's ongoing opportunities in the Australian market, and that's really what we're focused on to keep on growing and taking advantage of what is our largest market. Flicking on to page number seven, New Zealand. We're actually very pleased. We got double-digit growth, up 11% in sales revenue. Operating profit was up 7%. New Zealand's market, we read a lot about it in the papers, to be honest, and try and ignore it, about negative things. We're pleased. We ignored that and just really knuckled down and got on with things, and able to grow revenue by 11%. Pretty important part of our business, and we're carrying on to get good results there and certainly want to keep on growing our New Zealand business. That was page number seven. Moving on to page number eight, for Asia. Pleasing.
Revenue was up 41%, which is reasonable growth, to NZD 15.6 million. Operating profit was better, up 111%. We did have, I don't want to dwell on it, we did have a few things we talked about last year with particular disruptions. As you can see, very much in line with what we said last year, that's well and truly resolved. You can see the upward lift. We certainly work on carrying that on. There is basically growth across Asia, also some new launches into some new parts of Asia, being Thailand and Taiwan. That'll help as we can start to establish those markets, which will still take time. Certainly, obviously, the largest market is China. That will take time. We are getting good growing results with our cross-border e-commerce and getting some slow but steady progress internally within China.
Going on to page nine. This is our global map of our business. You can see the red dots and the circles where we have our offices, New Zealand, Sydney in Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, up in Hong Kong. Hong Kong effectively is the headquarters of our Asia business, and we have a manager up there who coordinates all the Asia business. In South Africa, in Cape Town, we have our office there. Quite a lot of work has gone into that. We acquired a number of about 14 product licenses from an existing player in South Africa. That's taken a good three or four months, going into the back end of last year to integrate that. A lot of work went into that. We've also got a CEO, who's very experienced, who's helping us run that.
There's a stock control person, there's a part-time finance person. We had one reg person, we've had to increase that to two reg people now for the South African market, which we see going forward has some good growth potential. Going across to North America, we have a small office in Detroit. Originally, that was to help run our American licensees, but that is starting to morph, where we're more involved in our Combogesic tablet launch now, where we're basically running the whole thing in conjunction with one American partner called Alexion. Also we have our OTC products. More work is slowly building into the U.S. office. In Canada, in Toronto, that's our Canadian office. We have a number of launches underway at the moment and over this financial year. A lot of work is going to Canada.
Across to Europe as well. We have ongoing work in the U.K. as well, with launches across this year in the U.K. We have a little satellite office in Ireland. That's really just to coordinate our EU business. We do have a fair chunk of business in the EU, and it's starting to grow nicely. That's certainly something that's important. Countries in yellow is where we are selling. Countries in blue is where we have agreements. White is where we're either not going to or it's still in progress. The key one probably is Japan. We've done a lot of work on that, and we'd hope to get a firm agreement there. We do have an option agreement, but we're keen to get a firm agreement and then to Japan to turn blue, maybe even yellow quite quickly.
Turning the page to page number 10. You can see last year we still had that dip, but this year is more respectable with NZD 28.5 million overall, including licensing income. Overall sales were NZD 25 and a half. Potentially, that actually could have been larger. We had a number of shipments delayed right at the close of the year due to various geopolitical things. Look, always going to be some unders and overs, but overall, we saw that as a pleasing, solid result. Really, we're very focused. This number, we're wanting to significantly increase this over the next few years. Really, growth is what it's all about for the international division. We've added a few places. Egypt is actually certainly quite a reasonable market. A lot of people live in Egypt. That's been added. Taiwan, as I mentioned before, is part of Asia.
Licensing income was up a wee bit. Licensing income consistent around that number, potentially, though, some of the larger R&D projects come into line, that can increase quite significantly over time. That's that page 10. Clicking on to page 11. Look, just a bit of rough detail here about what's happening. The U.K., this work with Combogesic, expanding the product range is an important thing. Look, we had thought we could break even towards the end of last year. We didn't. We see we can break even this financial year in the U.K. South Africa, as I've mentioned, we've got those 14 new products and the existing staff. Last year, we didn't make a profit in South Africa, that was a drag. This year, we would expect to make positive earnings in the South African market this year.
Canada, we've got some launches, as I mentioned. Big contract field force is helping us as well. We don't think we'll make money in Canada this year. Maybe we will, but we're not planning on it at this stage. That will be a drag. You can see the first two were loss-making, and so is Canada, but at least we're turning two of those around. It's just a time thing and the volume of products, and that's something that we're quite used to, having gone to different markets over the years. Page 11. Going to page number 12. United States, this is, as you know, the largest pharma market in the world. It's tricky in terms of there's a lot of detail and a lot of local key points that are not necessarily the same as everywhere else in the world.
Been doing a lot of work on the United States. Very difficult to put any sort of firm forecast on a market like the U.S. To be honest with you, it's kind of a variable, really. We're used to this sort of thing where we go in there almost with a blank sheet of paper, we fill in all the bits, and then we start to roll them out. That's literally what we're doing. That's the U.S. The big thing there, actually, sorry, just to dwell on it, the big thing there is the Combogesic Rapid launch is only really occurring now. It was delayed and didn't feature in the last year. That's a big project.
We're focused on the wider launch and will be released into the market in July, and most of the launch activities will be in September, which will correspond with PAINWeek, which is a big thing in the U.S. It's a good time to launch in September. Europe, as I mentioned, last year, we did have to take over our product acquisition from a defunct, bankrupt German company, and those products, we're just working on getting them out to various partners. That has gone a little bit slower than we'd planned, mainly because regulators have a knack sometimes, even ones that are very predictable, have a knack of going slow, and they have, to be honest.
Some of that's gone maybe six or eight months slower than we'd anticipated, but they are rolling out this year, where they should have been rolled out at the end of the last financial year. Hong Kong, we've got a lot of work on Hong Kong, a big pipeline of products, a lot of registrations now in place, and we're starting to work on growing that. Singapore is a work in progress. We've expanded our business into the private hospital market, which is actually going well. Government, we work a lot with the Singaporean health authorities. That's gone very well. We have got a pipeline of products, and Singapore is a very solid market for us at the moment. That's page 12. Going on to page 13. Yeah, this is some of our existing R&D that's starting to come to market.
Our intravenous iron product is actually still R&D, but we did do a licensing agreement into China with kind of the fourth largest pharma company in China. The specific reason for that was that as an outsider, you can't really run the whole development program for China without a Chinese partner. That was a deliberate step to get Grand Life Sciences involved. That's underway presently. Maxigesic oral, Maxigesic IV, talked a lot about those in the past. Look, they're still underway, and we're doing pediatric studies at the moment, which will help to expand certainly the IV indication, which is actually quite important. There's that. Hospital injectables, we mentioned we started that project, SINAJET. Look, we've got the first dossier filings have started. There's about five of them to be filed, or have been filed, or will be filed this financial year.
We have got some licensing agreements, starting with that. In Crystaderm, Micolette, Kiwisoothe, capsaicin are all underway and we're having agreements with those. Pascomer, we have an orphan indication. Some licensing happened last year, and it's also underway now. The dossier is filed in a number of key jurisdictions. Registration for that, we would hope is not too far away. Amongst all this too, though, we have also got some quite significant projects, specific local projects. A couple of them as examples, we will be planning to file this year. They're significant greater than AUD 50 million kind of markets, and we see those as really helping our Australian business once they finally get registered in Australia. Flicking on to page 14. Here is our current R&D pipeline.
Probably this is about it in terms of adding things, because we've really got quite a lot to digest. Certainly, we see it as a very valuable part of our business. Have mentioned to people, we've done a lot of work on valuation things, and we do see as a valuation in excess of $1 billion. We have the hospital injectables, the SINAJET projects we talked about just before. We have the fridge free project we're doing with our partner in the U.K., Stablepharma. There's about five products in phase I, then another nine products in phase II, and they cover a market of in excess of $6 billion. The first two or three projects are presently underway, and we're looking to start another one as well to add that in.
Got a migraine project, which is part of SINAJET, that's we're aiming to file that next year. Pascomer for wine stains, this is actually advancing. It's in phase II at the moment, clinical studies in Spain and in Texas in the U.S. as well. This is underway, and actually a very nice project. One of the probably biggest parts of our portfolio in terms of valuation is the iron injectable. It's a new chemical entity. We finished the first phase III study, which is actually very positive, showed a number of advantages over the existing market leader. Basically, it's so well-tolerated you can give it as one dose for everyone, which is not the case with other iron injections.
Yeah, that is pretty significant, and that's really what ties the key proposition for it, the fact that it doesn't impact a number of parameters, which are a concern otherwise with injectable iron products where they actually are relatively toxic. Our product doesn't have a lot of those features like affecting plasma phosphate levels or things like that, and also being able to give it once. One of the other results, for example, was with the existing market leader product, it had about a 29% instance of administration side effects, where ours had a 2% incidence of administration side effects. We've got a big job, though. We've got our final study where what we're doing is we're just looking across different ethnicities, so that we can register it globally. Sort of easy to say, but actually quite tricky to execute.
We've had quite a lot of meetings in Tokyo, for example, with the PMDA to tie the Japanese in. We've got a clinical study that we're planning to start in September, about 1,366 patients, and it would have study sites in New Zealand, in India, in China, in Japan, in the U.S., and in Europe. The antibiotic eye drop as well, which we are going to FDA soon to open our IND. By opening IND, meaning we run our human clinical studies. That's kind of for us, a very important endpoint, opening the IND. Strawberry birthmarks for babies with basically strawberry birthmarks on them, a topical treatment. Done a lot of progress on that and also working on getting our IND submission started next year. Keloid scars as well, that's still early phase. Burning mouth is early phase.
We just licensed, actually, which hasn't been announced anywhere yet, but we just licensed rather, a novel injectable formulation from Massey Ventures, who we've got partnerships with another couple of projects. Really keen to extend our partnership with Massey. They're great people to work with. Basically, it is a decent-sized market with an estimate of between NZD 3 million- NZD 3.7 billion category by 2032-2034. This is a really exciting project, albeit at an early stage. NasoSURF is still continuing at the moment. That's our R&D pipeline. I will hand over to our current CFO, Malcolm Tubby.
Thank you, Hartley. Yeah. Slide 15, the P&L. Revenues up 22% to just over NZD 250 million. Gross profit increase is around about the same, little bit less, 21%. A little bit of a drop in the margin. There's a bit of currency in there, primarily the euro in the last year, and the other bit's product mix. Operating expenses are reducing as we get our leverage going, down to 33.8% from 35.6%, and that does include the R&D spend that we expense. That gives us a record operating profit of NZD 24.4, up from NZD 17.6 last year. Taxation, now we're fully imputed now, the dividend gets full imputation. That leaves us net profit after tax of NZD 14 million. If we move on to the balance sheet, we can see we've been increasing our working capital, as you'd expect, in line with the revenue growth.
Inventory, we have pushed that forward up to about five months at the minute. That includes the products we've purchased for South Africa. With the uncertainty at the minute, we thought it would be more prudent to move those levels up. We're building stock for the new launches. We're happy to stay at five months for now. We'll see when everything settles down, we can start pulling it back down, as we're able to. Debtors grew as well, in line with revenue, part of that revenue growth coming from international. Typically, we see longer debtor days, normally about 60 days, for those international customers, primarily because they're buying bigger amounts of stock each time. It's not weekly orders we're supplying like it is for Australia and New Zealand. The ERP project did produce a little bit of a glitch for us in debtors.
There's a little bit of money we're still looking to collect from the debtors. Apart from that, we're very pleased with the ERP transition, which we did on the 1st of October, through to NetSuite. Equity down the bottom there, up to over NZD 100 million now, NZD 109 million. If we go to slide 17. Cash flow, the outflow there from operating activities as we build up our working capital. The investing activities primarily are the intangibles, and then the net cash, which is the increase in the debt. Sorry, I should have mentioned on the balance sheet, we put a new facility in place with the BNZ of NZD 50 million. That's a three-year term that we did in December. That's the cash flow, and I'll pass you back to Hartley to the outlook.
Yeah. Thanks, Malcolm. Just the last slide being number 18. Yeah, look, the outlook really, the summary is we're positioned to drive that future growth in both revenue and earnings. We've talked a lot about investment, but we are also looking to increase our sales, our revenue, and our earnings in parallel. Basically, we're focused this year on pushing towards our revenue goal of at least NZD 300 million sales. Backing this up is going to be ongoing expansion in our Australasian markets. We're working on that. There is a strong program of new launches across the international business hubs. Really also, as sort of mentioned before, it's those hubs starting to make a contribution or pay their way or however you want to word it, with U.K. and South Africa looking for that to make a positive contribution to earnings this year.
Canada and the U.S., don't want to say yet. We're not sure, to be frank exactly, but that'll follow even if it's not achieved this year. That'll follow obviously then that sort of really helps the overall profitability. Continued progress in R&D and regulatory milestones. This is very important. A lot of work's going into R&D with that large clinical study, but that's not the only clinical study. We're kicking off the pediatric ones, as I mentioned, but then got a number of other very interesting and valuable R&D projects. We really are wanting to make sure we realize the value and monetize the R&D pipeline. The good thing is we're able to do that without raising capital. With a lot of investment, we're not running off to raise capital. We're funding all of this out of existing profits.
We've also got an active licensing program, so that continues as well to monetize our IP. It's important too, because it helps to pay and offset that R&D spend. Yeah, look, as I've said, we're going to make significant investments this financial year, and we're aiming for that operating profit between NZD 28 million - NZD 32 million.
Hopefully, a reasonable overview of both the results and looking forward as well. I'm happy to try and answer any of your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Hartley. As mentioned, we will now begin the Q&A session. Your first question is from the line of Ben Crozier of Forsyth Barr. Your line is open.
Morning, guys. Well done on a very solid result. First question from me just on your Australian margins. I think you put a comment in there, you see opportunities to improve the operating leverage in that Australian business over time. I think margins have been around 20% the last couple of years. Do you have a target in mind? It's presumably not going to be immediate because as you say, there's still exciting growth opportunities in there. Do we think margins can go to 21%, 22% or up to 25%? Just any idea of how much operating leverage you can get out of this business as it grows?
Yeah, over time, we do see we can get further improvements out of it. I guess the one proviso is, if we see a really good opportunity there, we would take it. If we see something going particularly strong, as a new launch, we would put more money behind it. Yeah, we see we can get more leverage going forward, particularly in Australia.
Yeah. Maybe just on the revenue growth, I think to get to NZD 300 million, you need another 20% revenue growth, which as you say, is not too dissimilar to what you've done historically. Can you give a bit of a color on what the portfolio did and existing portfolio growth this year versus new product growth, in contribution between the two of them?
Yeah. Overall, the underlying products still continue to grow. For Australasia, it was around about a total of about NZD 6 million that came out of products we’ve launched. Of that, NZD 6 million growth from the products we’ve launched in the last three years.
Yeah. No, that's pretty encouraging underlying growth then.
Yeah.
Maybe just last one on this net debt or the working capital swing. How much of it was inventory purchased within that acquisition in South Africa versus the move to five months? Just so we can get an idea of when you drop back to your previous inventory levels, how much could unwind.
Yeah, it was just over NZD 3 million of product that we bought from the other party. Then we've done some extra ordering ourselves. Probably allow NZD 4 million-NZD 5 million for South Africa in total.
Yeah. The rest of it, you just keep it this five months ordering, while the uncertainty is still out there in the market. Once that resolves and you have more confidence in supply chain, that's when you'd bring it down. Is that the plan?
Yeah. We'll bring it back down. It depends on what the product is. That's an overall number. You do have a little bit of a build up when you're launching in those new products into Australasia or new markets like the U.K. and the U.S. You will buy more stock up for the launch. Typically, you'll go to a good six months. When you get into those big markets, that's going to be even harder to make sure that you have got the right inventory levels.
Yeah. No, that's clear. That's all from me. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Your next question is from the line of Juri Tels of JS Alpha. Please go ahead.
Hello, and good morning, everybody. I have two questions. First one is on CapEx, please. You spent roughly NZD 10 million last year. Can you give us the estimate for this year, please?
The estimate for this year will be probably, we've got it at around NZD 10 million, on the basis that a fair amount of the R&D this year will need to be expensed.
Yes. Okay. Roughly unchanged. Second question is around Australia. I noticed that when you compare the first to the second half year, growth softened significantly, I think from a 30% to 10%. Can you elaborate a little bit more? Is this due to basis effect or maturation, or what's behind that, please?
Yeah, it was a particularly strong first half, as you say, 30%. There may have been a little bit of spillover potentially into the second half from that. Overall, we've seen the 20% growth. It's a little bit tricky when you try and do the two halves, particularly for Australia, because the second half is the summer months, and you will sell more OTC in the second half, typically.
Yeah. Please, staying in Australia, when again, I compare these two halves. You've added roughly NZD 8 million revenues from half year one to half year two. The EBIT remained flat. Can you remind us if there's a bit of seasonality in the costs of Australia, or was there simply a lack of operational leverage?
Historically, yeah, it's more profitable in the second half.
Okay. That's all right for now. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you.
Your next question is from the line of Adrian Allbon of Jarden. Please go ahead.
Good morning, team. Maybe first one for Malcolm, actually. Just on your opening guidance, and given that the net debt did tick up quite a bit and you just put the new facility in place, are you expecting your net debt to move down on a 2027 view?
Yeah. Yeah, we are.
Okay. All right. No, that's cool. That's mostly a normalization of inventory and a lift up in profit, been the two drivers?
Yeah.
Okay. That is good. Maybe the next one is for Hartley. Just in terms of the international segment and noting that is still generating losses, what sort of level of revenues do you need to break even there? Because obviously, as you scale, you are constantly looking at introducing new markets.
Yeah. The main driver of losses there is more the fact we're booking the R&D against it, to be honest. It's a matter of where you book the R&D against. It's still washing its face reasonably well if you take that out. It is true. Like I said, if you look at the international divisions, the U.S., Canada, U.K., South Africa, we're losing money, but then that's already swinging around this year. We see two of them making money, so basically the U.K. and South Africa are making money. The other ones we're not 100% sure about. We're budgeting for a loss. If things went very well with something, then we could turn that around. Yeah, look, it just takes a good three or four years really, to be honest, to flick it around till you get the scale.
We've done it before, same we did in Australia. That took a good four years or so, I think, to turn it around. Yeah, it is about three or four years really.
Okay. No, that's helpful. Just on the R&D, can you give us an estimate of what you're planning to spend on R&D in 2027?
Yeah
Spent a bit of time in the presentation going through the actual, the widths and the depths of the pipeline.
Yeah. Basically NZD 25 million.
NZD 25 million. Cash. Total cash.
Yeah, NZD 25 million cash. That's increased. We've gone from NZD 15 million- NZD- 18 million- NZD 25 million. There is a bit of an increase as those projects are bigger and some bigger studies, but there's more value to be created out of it as well.
And would you anticipate-
Yeah
the split being 50/50 between expense and capitalized?
We think it's probably about 15% expense, 10% capital.
Okay. NZD 15 expense, NZD 10 capital. Thank you.
Yeah.
Just, I guess the other point, just in terms of as you start the presentation, you've now got stronger line of sight on the NZD 300 million. Just in terms of that bridge for us, how much of the NZD 50 million is the ANZ markets in terms of how you're thinking about it in terms of growth?
Yeah. Mark's got that number somewhere. It is mixed, though.
It is mixed, yeah.
all in one place. There's quite a lot has to come from international as well. South Africa, having that acquisition does help as well, tick that off. Mark, you've got the exact number, haven't you? Roughly.
Yeah. It's where you expect, as you said, Australia, and then good growth rest of the world. They're the two leaders, supported by New Zealand and Asia.
Just in terms of, I guess, as we think about, and this might be the wrong terms, but in terms of your base business, which is the home markets of Australia and New Zealand.
Yeah
Are you able to give us a sense of how much of the NZD 50 million bridge is from those two versus rest of the world and international?
Yeah. I can do it as percentage. It's probably easier. Australia, again, we had 20 good, 19% this year, so late teens next year. New Zealand should be able to hold on to around its 11% growth. Another significant step up for the rest of the world and a slightly smaller step up for Asia in percentage.
Okay. No, that's good.
If you apply those, you'll get 50%. Yeah.
Perfect. Okay. Thank you guys.
Thank you.
Before we continue on to the next question, a reminder, if you would like to join the queue, to press star one. Your next question is from the line of Mark Topy of Research as a Service. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Hartley. Just a couple questions if I could. Just to go back to Australia and what's happening in the pharma market over here. Can you just maybe, sort of observation here is that maybe Chemist Warehouse is stalling in terms of its growth, and the independents are picking up more share, and even some of the supermarkets like Coles. I'm just wondering about the mix of products and whether you see perhaps more opportunity with some of the independent pharmacists. They're fighting back and providing more service sort of a proposition as opposed to Chemist Warehouse.
Yeah, look, that's a good big picture point. What we're careful about is we do have a good number of boots on the ground. We have 25 pharmacy reps in Australia, and I think it's about 10 or 11 merchandisers, and then key account managers. Certainly, we see it's really important to cover everywhere, and exactly as you've alluded to. Also some categories anyway do differ. Like for instance, if it's vitamins and skincare, Chemist Warehouse has always proportionately been bigger. Other things like, say, pain category and things where people want to talk to their pharmacist or get some advice, it's been bigger with some of the independents or the groups, say like TerryWhite Chemmart. We're just very careful, to be honest, to work with everyone across the market.
We've seen in some places, companies pull back on their sales force and then do more focusing on key account management and reduce the number of boots on the ground. We've purposely not done that because we still want to make sure we engage closely with all of the market, including all of the independent pharmacies, wherever they are. If they're in Broken Hill or wherever, we still want to see them.
Sure. Certainly the supermarkets like Coles seem to be picking up share in that space as well. Would that include Coles in your kind of thinking?
Yeah. Look, we only expanded to supermarkets in Australia from memory about two years ago. We've had quite long experience in the New Zealand market, so certainly going forward, and it's been happening. We do want to make sure we also work with the supermarkets as well. Australia's a little bit more limited in terms of product offering. In some ways, the New Zealand regulatory systems are a bit more lenient or flexible and a wider range of products are in supermarket. Yeah. No, look, supermarket, you can't ignore it and it's an important outlet for customers, so we certainly work with them as well.
Very good. Just secondly, just on the supply chain. I guess there's a lot of pressure on sort of costs and coming into. Have you seen any sort of cost pressures from your supply chain, your ingredients coming from offshore?
Yeah, look, we've seen some. Had some discussions with people as well. It's interesting, we're seeing a lot less out of China. I know when I go to China, spend two weeks there recently, I looked at them and said, "Come on, what are you thinking?" They just looked at me and said, "No, it's going to make no difference." Some other jurisdictions, Europe, I think there's been some increases, certainly India and places they have. China's less so. We have had a little bit of price stuff, it's mainly been out of Europe and India, whereas China, to be honest, hasn't seemed to make any difference at all yet.
Right. Then just lastly, I suppose a more kind of generalized question. With the growth and expansion, you talk about South Africa and other regions, can you talk to how you see the management structure of the company growing from this point in terms of accommodating and being able to manage some of these offshore businesses, including sort of the risks associated with some of these offshore businesses?
Yeah, that's a good question. Look, we have chosen our areas pretty carefully. They're predominantly run on the old Anglo-Saxon/British kind of regulatory system. Maybe with the exception of the United States, where it's much easier because the same regulatory dossier is handled in all those territories. Effectively, we're pretty much able to manage all the regulatory work from our head office in New Zealand. The only exception we made was South Africa. We have a couple of people there, but they work in closely with our head office team. We do have CEOs or managing directors in each of those territories. We see it as pretty important, and I don't know where, we've heard it from other people I know that have globalized their business. It's actually quite important to hire a heavy hitter.
You don't hire some young junior, because basically you really need people that know people. Our problem in the market is we don't know everyone. Just the same in the U.S. where our guy kind of knows everyone, including even people like Mark Cuban, who's a bit of a legend in the U.S., and same in Canada. It's quite important to get that senior person, and then we're sort of slowly building our infrastructure and things like sales force and marketing into each of those offices. U.K., we just hired a senior marketing manager there who can help us with Canada and that sort of time zone. Really that it's still run from our head office, but we have certain bits of it that's more and more being taken over by the local people in terms of running the day-to-day sales things.
Okay, great. That's kind of what I was getting at, how it's going to evolve over time. No, great. Thanks for your time there and congrats on the result.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
This does conclude our Q&A session, and I'd like to turn the call back over to Hartley and Malcolm for closing remarks.
Great. Thank you very much everyone, for your attention and interest. Just to reiterate that we are really pleased our team has worked real hard and continues to work hard. Great that we could get record sales, record earnings, record investments and a record dividend. Thank you very much for your support and interest.