I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, the 22nd of February, 2023. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, John Cullity, CEO of EBOS Group. Please go ahead, John.
Thank you Michelle, welcome everyone to EBOS Group's half year 2023 results presentation. My name is John Cullity, CEO of the group, and I'm joined this morning by both Leonard Hansen, our CFO, and Martin Krauskopf, our EGM for Strategy, M&A, and Investor Relations. I'm very pleased to report that EBOS has achieved another record half year result driven by strong organic growth, as well as benefiting from a significant contribution from acquisitions completed in the prior year, including Life Healthcare, which performed in line with expectations. The strength and diversity of our portfolio is reflected in the result, with both our healthcare and animal care segments delivering double-digit EBITDA growth.
The key financial headlines of our half year results are: revenue increased by 17% to over AUD 6.1 billion, underlying EBITDA increased by 39.3% to AUD 289 million, underlying NPAT increased by 29.6% to approximately AUD 142 million, underlying earnings per share increased by 12% to AUD 0.745. We also further strengthened our balance sheet, positioning the group to pursue further growth opportunities, the board declared a meaningful increase in the interim dividend of just under 13%. Before we go through this morning's presentation, I should point out the following. The results are expressed in Australian dollars, unless we otherwise note, the presentation refers to both statutory and underlying results.
The underlying results exclude AUD 13.5 million before tax and AUD 9.4 million after tax of non-cash amortization expense attributable to the Life Healthcare acquisition purchase price accounting. The commentary this morning is predominantly based on our underlying results, and we have included in the appendix a reconciliation between the reported and underlying numbers, as well as a further explanation of the purchase price accounting methodology. The group once again saw strong performances from both the healthcare and animal care segments, highlighting the benefits of our diversified portfolio of businesses. Both segments achieved organic growth, and as noted previously, the healthcare segment benefited from a strong contribution from acquisitions, reinforcing our strategy of investing for growth. Our healthcare segment increased underlying EBITDA by approximately 38%, driven by our community pharmacy, TerryWhite Chemmart, institutional healthcare and contract logistics businesses.
Key highlights of this performance were: the community pharmacy wholesale volumes grew strongly, driven by both customer and market share growth, as well as some benefit from COVID-19-related product sales. TWC continued to grow its network, which now exceeds some 540 stores and delivered total sales growth of just under 19%. Our institutional healthcare division recorded very significant growth driven by our Life Healthcare acquisition, as well as increased wholesale sales to our hospital customers. The integration of Life Healthcare is well progressed, and as noted earlier, its financial performance was in line with our expectations, providing significant earnings growth for the group. Our animal care segment delivered EBITDA growth of approximately 32%, supported by strong pet market, pet care market conditions and the benefits of our pet food manufacturing facility.
Our key brands, Black Hawk and VitaPet, continue to maintain their leadership positions in their respective markets. We are very pleased and encouraged by the performance of our new pet food manufacturing facility in Parkes, which is now fulfilling all of Black Hawk's production requirements and providing a competitive advantage for the brand. In terms of other group highlights, we recorded underlying operating cash flow of $161 million, up 41%, ROCE of 14.4%, which is in line with our expectations following the Life Healthcare acquisition, and net debt to EBITDA reduced to 1.76 times, reflecting both strong cash flow and earnings growth. Leonard Hansen, our CFO, will take you through each of these points later in the presentation. The group has performed very well despite operational challenges that have arisen due to the macroeconomic environment.
These challenges have included instances of manufacture out of stocks and increases in labor, freight, and other input costs. Our businesses, though, have continued to implement strategies to mitigate these cost impacts. Our underlying EBITDA margin has increased by 76 basis points in this period as a result of these initiatives, as well as the benefit of acquisitions of higher margin businesses. On this page, you can see that all of our divisions contributed strongly to the group's performance, with each recording double-digit growth in gross operating revenue. You can also see the strong uplift in our institutional healthcare division with a near 100% increase in gross operating revenue, which was benefited from the acquisition of Life Healthcare. This slide provides further details on the group's financial performance on both a reported and underlying basis.
The increase in underlying EBITDA of AUD 81.5 million or 39.3% reflects an increase in revenues of 17% and a meaningful expansion of our EBITDA margin to 4.7%. During the period, underlying net profit after tax grew by AUD 32.4 million to AUD 141.6 million, representing growth of approximately 30% and underlying EPS grew by 12%. The earnings per share growth is lower than the net profit after tax growth due to the impact of the Life Healthcare acquisition, a large proportion of which was funded by issuing new shares.
Our long-term track record, and you can see the H1 of FY 2023 continues our long-term track record of delivering strong and steady performance to our shareholders with a focus on earnings and dividend growth, cash flow generation, and maintaining a strong balance sheet. On sustainability, the last year has been a significant period for our ESG program, as we have progressed new initiatives and accelerated our ambitions to become a carbon neutral company. The EBOS board took decisive action towards carbon neutrality by approving the scoping of an 18.8 MW solar array, which is forecast to meet all of the group's Australian electricity requirements by FY 2027. The first phase of this major infrastructure investment includes a 240 kW roof-mounted array at our pet care manufacturing facility in Parkes, New South Wales. Phase one installation is on target for completion by the end of this year.
We are now preparing to deliver the second phase of the project, a 6 MW ground-mounted solar system, which is expected to be completed in FY 2024. Last year, we set a target to become a carbon neutral for scope one emissions during FY 2023. These emissions include, but are not limited to, emissions from refrigerants and company motor vehicles and are on track to be measured and offset prior to the end of this financial year. In addition, we have recently developed a new ethical sourcing strategy, which aims to engage suppliers that are aligned to our corporate values. The strategy is supported by a supplier code of conduct and an ethical sourcing policy, which outlines specific supplier requirements on child labor, employee payments, and anti-discrimination and harassment.
Following the recent weather events here in New Zealand, our teams ensured that supply channels remained open to continue to serve the affected local communities. In one instance, our Onelink and Healthcare Logistics operations here in New Zealand, combined with the New Zealand Defence Force and Health New Zealand to deliver urgent medicines and medical consumables into the Whangārei Hospital in the Northland region that was impacted by road closures and flooding following the recent Cyclone Gabrielle. This is just another example of the critical importance of our healthcare businesses and how they relate to the supply of medicines and related products across both New Zealand and Australia, and underlines the commitment of our people in times of natural disasters. We look forward to providing everyone a more detailed account of our ESG program in our 2023 sustainability report.
I'll now move to the discussion on our segments. First off, our healthcare segment. Healthcare generated revenue growth of 17.6% and underlying EBITDA growth of just under 38% with both our Australian and New Zealand and Southeast Asian regions growing earnings strongly. This performance was driven by organic growth across our community pharmacy, TWC, institutional healthcare, and contract logistics businesses, supplemented by the performance of recently completed acquisitions. Reinforcing my earlier comments, despite ongoing cost pressures across labor and freight, our healthcare segment maintained EBITDA margins for the base business and drove margin expansion through acquisitions. Moving now to the specific components of healthcare and starting with community pharmacy. The community pharmacy business continued its strong performance, recording revenue growth of just under AUD 580 million, up 18.4%, and GORE growth of AUD 48 million, up 17.2%.
There were several key drivers of the result, including customer and market share growth, strong performances from our community pharmacy retail brands, including TerryWhite Chemmart, above-market growth in ethical sales to our major wholesale customers. Growth of high value specialty medicines and growth in the OTC sales category across various categories like cough and cold. In addition, as I said before, the result did benefit from COVID-19 related product sales, including antiviral medications. The GORE margin in this area, and the GORE margin percentage reduced slightly, largely reflecting the higher proportion of ethical sales as well as a fixed CSO income pool. Turning now to TerryWhite Chemmart. Our TerryWhite Chemmart business, which is reported within our community pharmacy result, continued its expansion with an additional 26 net new stores joining the network during the half.
The TerryWhite Chemmart network now comprises more than 540 stores nationally, reinforcing its position as Australia's largest health advice-orientated community pharmacy network. TWC network sales demonstrated strong performance with 18.6% total growth and 15.8% like-for-like growth. A continued focus and investment in our TWC catalog and promotional programs, increases in media spend, growth in our consumer brands, and the development of the myTWC app, which provides customers with a convenient and safe way to order and manage medications and bookings, all reinforce TWC's positive performance. Turning now to Institutional Healthcare.
Institutional Healthcare generated very strong revenue growth of AUD 286 million, up 19.4%, and GORE growth of AUD 129 million, up 81.3%, driven by the contributions of five acquisitions completed in the prior year, as well as growth in our Symbion Hospitals business. Our recent acquisitions have significantly expanded our presence in both medical consumables and medical technology distribution. With respect to Life Healthcare, further progress has been made during the half on its integration into the group's enlarged medical technology division. Management now anticipates that implementation of the integration activities to be undertaken in the H2 of the financial year will result in a one-off cost of approximately AUD 12.5 million before tax. The integration activities and expected costs include rationalization of opera ting sites and inventory lines, IT systems integration, and stamp duty costs.
The financial benefits from these activities and rationalization activities will be realized in FY 2024 and beyond. Turning to Contract Logistics, which increased its GORE by AUD 16 million, up 26%. This was primarily attributable to growth in Australia from new and existing principals, and growth in New Zealand from continued demand for storage and servicing of protective equipment. Consistent with our strategy of investing in our operational infrastructure to support our growth, we are well progressed with the construction of new Contract Logistics distribution centers in Auckland and Sydney, both of which will be completed in 2023. Turning now to our Animal Care segment. Our Animal Care business had a very strong organic growth performance, with revenue growth of AUD 17 million, up 6.3%, and underlying EBITDA growth of AUD 12 million, up just under 32%.
This growth was driven by strong performances from our leading brands and businesses, Black Hawk, VitaPet, and Lyppard, as well as the benefits of our new pet food manufacturing facility and growth as well in Animates, our New Zealand pet retail joint venture. Our Animal Care team have done an excellent job in bringing our manufacturing facility on stream, with the facility now operating efficiently and meeting all of our commercial production requirements. Our self-manufacture strategy is enhancing our local supply chain capabilities and providing a competitive advantage for the Black Hawk range. Strong pet market conditions have continued in this H1, our brands and benefit businesses have benefited from this. Black Hawk and VitaPet increased sales by 15.2% and 6.3% respectively on the prior corresponding period, and they both continued to maintain share leadership in their respective segments.
Lyppard also experienced strong growth at the GORE line, with lower sales revenue growth being a function of a reduced exposure to lower margin businesses. That concludes my commentary on our segment performance. I'll now hand over to Leonard Hansen, our CFO, to cover the financial information.
Thanks John. Underlying cash flow from operations for the six months to December 2022 was AUD 161.1 million. This represents an improvement of AUD 46.5 million on the prior corresponding period due to earnings growth with a higher underlying EBITDA of AUD 81.5 million, offset by higher interest and tax payments of AUD 19.6 million and AUD 11.7 million respectively. CapEx for the period was AUD 35.4 million, lower than the prior period by AUD 7.9 million. This provides an underlying free cash flow number after CapEx of AUD 125.7 million, favorable to the prior period by AUD 54.4 million. Working capital management remains a key focus for the group. It enables our strategy to invest in growth opportunities while returning value to our shareholders.
Our investment in working capital of AUD 423 million is up AUD 158 million from December 31, 2021. This is primarily attributable to an increase in working capital of AUD 120 million from the acquisition of Life Healthcare in the H2 of FY22. Compared to June 2022, we've invested a further AUD 35 million in net working capital to support the 17% increase in sales that we have reported for the past year. Our cash conversion cycle of 17 days, an increase of two days from June 2022, reflects the customer's stock holding requirements of our enlarged Medical Devices business. Return on capital employed as at December 31, 2022, of 14.4% reflects the impact of our strategic investment of the Life Healthcare business and is in line with our expectations at the time of announcing the transaction.
The group remains committed to its 15% return on capital employed target and expects to exceed that level in the medium term. Net debt for the group, excluding leases, was AUD 837.5 million as at 31 December 2022. That's a reduction of AUD 22 million compared to June 2022. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.76 x is favorable to the 1.94 x that we reported at the end of FY 2022. Our conservative gearing provides capacity for further acquisitions and growth investments with approximately AUD 400 million of debt headroom available. At 31 December 2022, the group has a weighted average debt maturity profile of 2.7 years. Underlying EPS for the half is AUD 0.745 per share, growth upon the prior comparative period of 12%.
The EBOS board have declared an interim dividend of NZD 0.53 per share, and this will be imputed to 25% for New Zealand tax resident shareholders and fully franked for Australian tax resident shareholders. The FY 2023 interim dividend is an increase of 12.8% on the FY 2022 interim dividend and represents a payout ratio of approximately 30%. The group's dividend reinvestment plan, which was strongly supported by shareholders for the FY 2022 full-year dividend, will be available for the FY 2023 interim dividend, and shareholders can elect to take shares in lieu of dividends at a discount of 2.5% to the volume-weighted average share price. Thank you, and I want to hand you back to John.
Thanks Leonard. In conclusion, we are very pleased with the group's performance in the H1 of FY 2023, which included double-digit GORE growth from each of our divisions, reflecting strong levels of organic growth and significant contribution from acquisitions, including Life Healthcare. Further, the group generated double-digit EPS growth. We've reduced gearing. We generated ROCE in line with our expectations. We've increased dividends to shareholders. We've got very strong market positions in both healthcare and animal care. We are, as shown by our H1 results, successfully navigating through a very difficult operating environment. Our balance sheet is strong, and we're well-positioned to pursue further growth opportunities. With that, I'll conclude the formal part of the presentation and hand back to Michelle to facilitate any questions.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Gretel Janu with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. firstly, just on Community Pharmacy. 18% growth, very strong there. How much of this is driven by the growth in TerryWhite and the expansion of your network versus your other customers? Just trying to work out what's the underlying market growth here, relative to how much you're gaining share in this division? Thanks.
Thank you Gretel. Well, we don't split out. Your first question is, I think, how much of the growth was driven by TerryWhite. We don't split out how much of the growth is driven by individual customer groups per se. You can see in the result that we had very strong growth in TerryWhite on its own, with, you know, total sales growth there of just under 19%, right? Which is slightly above, of course, the total growth that we've got in the Community Pharmacy segment. I think your second question, I think, was directed or was a question on market share, I believe. Is that correct, Gretel?
Yes, that's right. Market share to work out, you know, what the underlying market growth would be.
Yeah. We think, Gretel, we estimate, and it's, you know, can be a bit rough, but we estimate that we've taken over the last, say, 12 months, just under about a 1% market share growth, right? We've increased our market share by about another 1% in the last 12 months.
Excellent. You're still basically saying that the underlying market is still growing more strongly than what it has historically. Is that a fair representation at the moment?
Yes. Yes, Gretel. The underlying market is very strong. Particularly in the last six-month period, we've had the benefit of t he whole market's had the benefit of strong sales of COVID antiviral medicines, and also in terms of sales revenue, new PBS lines that have come on. The whole market's growing very strongly.
Excellent. Understood. Just on animal care, in terms of the margin expansion that you're seeing there, is your new manufacturing facility operating at full utilization at the moment? Do you anticipate further margin expansion, you know, in the next six to 12 months as well?
The manufacturing facility is not operating at full capacity. It's operating at a capacity that can satisfy all of the Black Hawk production volumes at this point in time, but it still has additional capacity that it has it is capable of doing. In terms of margin expansion, I don't think there might be some further margin expansion to come, but it wouldn't be anything significant, not like the uplift we've had in the H1.
Right. That's all I had. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Ridgewell with IP. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, and excuse me, congratulations on the H1.
Thanks Stephen.
Just on the following up on the questions on the core business, and your comments that the industry growth has been strong and API clearly growing strongly. Sigma perhaps going backwards a little bit. Did you see, do you see the level of cold and flu demand that you're seeing in the H1 as sustainable? Really the question is, you know, is the demand that you saw in the H1 of cold and flu and antivirals well above what you would've seen historically and particularly pre-pandemic? Perhaps, you know, perhaps if that's the case, it's not sustainable.
Is it simply the case that it's bouncing back strongly from last year, where perhaps you had a couple of very strong months at the end of H1 2022, as COVID kind of came through, and before that had been pretty low with lockdowns? Just interested in how you're seeing that demand profile for cold and flu, which has really been very strong in the last six months.
I think, l ook Stephen, we don't have a crystal ball on it, but I think our take on would be that it's most unlikely that those growth rates that we achieved in the H1 in OTC and also ethical sales would be repeated in the H2, right? Particularly if we don't have any further outbreaks of COVID, then we will see a decline in the sales of the antiviral medications, right? They are particularly strong when we have the outbreaks. The cold and flu category is an interesting one because that overall category may be stronger, you know, on a year-round basis now than what it was previously. That's just one we've probably got to, you know, monitor as, you know, we get into the H2. Hopefully, that gives you some extra flavor on the way we think about it.
Yeah. No, that's helpful. Perhaps just on your market share comments, that you've gained to 1%. Sigma's now saying it's stabilized its ERP and is reducing stock outs. To the extent that's the case, would you still be confident of continuing to gain share in the H2? Perhaps as they improve their performance, do you perhaps give up a little bit of that share, you know, as they, as they improve your service levels to their pharmacies? Just interested in what you're seeing, you know, early into the, into the H2.
I think as we've discussed probably with many of you, is that the business we always expect the business to increase its market share in any particular period. We think that the strength of our business and the strength of our TerryWhite Chemmart business and the growth that we're achieving there gives us confidence in that in that thesis. you know, regardless of Sigma's operating performance, we still think we can continue to take market share.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks John. Just, just maybe one more. If you kind of break out the, yo u had an update at the AGM where you broke out the underlying EBITDA and it implies that in December quarter, that's lifted to about AUD 147 million underlying EBITDA. You know, and if you can maintain that run rate, you know, maybe consensus needs to move up about 3%. I guess the question is, you know, are there any things to kind of call out that would suggest that December run rate, you know, isn't sustainable at this point that you can see?
I think if, you know, because we probably typically haven't released before, you know, quarterly information that you're referring to. I'd just be a bit careful in extrapolating it like you potentially could do because, you know, the December quarter is probably the strongest quarter in the whole 12-month period, right? It wouldn't be right the way we see it to just extrapolate that out, right? I'd be cautious doing that.
Okay. No. That, that's helpful John. Sorry if I'm allowed to sneak in one more.
Yeah. I'll just jump on that Stephen. I think I'd say, you know, what typically we see the business has done. Typically, its H1, H2 results have been pretty well, you know, 50/50 over the years. You know, it shouldn't be probably too much different from that after you maybe potentially adjust for things like the COVID antivirals, et cetera, and the strength of those.
Yeah, that's very helpful John Cullity. Just one more, just on that $ 12.5 million restructuring charge that you've kind of flagged. I'd probably provide a little bit more detail on what's driving that. I guess, you know, was there potentially you could have taken that charge against, I presume it's mainly against Life Healthcare in the H1. if you'd taken that charge, would you still, you know, would you still be able to say that that company or that acquisition had met targets? Just a little bit more color. I think we're getting a few questions on that from the market as to what's behind.
Yeah.
You know, that charge.
No, it's actually not related to Life, the Life Healthcare business. It's actually related to the old, call it the old EBOS Medical Devices businesses. It's related to businesses like our acquisition of LMT National Surgical, right? Where we will, with the integration into Life Healthcare, we will no longer sell some of the LMT National Surgical inventory lines. We'll be selling the Life Healthcare inventory lines, right? Those inventory write-offs are about probably half of it. We're moving out of sites for LMT National Surgical Cryomed, MD Solutions. We're rationalizing operating sites. We're ending leases on those to have a more integrated medical technology division, right? We're integrating IT platforms into the Life Healthcare IT platform, right? There's some stamp duty costs that we've got to incur.
Just to be clear, it's not writing off anything to do with Life Healthcare, right? It's integrating those other businesses. Which was always, you know, always the plan and one of the benefits of the acquisition, that we did with Life Healthcare is that we acquired, with Life Healthcare, a fully developed management team and a medical technology distribution platform business for which we could then, in effect, slot our other businesses into. I think we did communicate that at the time of doing the Life Healthcare acquisition that that's what we would do. Of course, we didn't know at that time what the cost would be.
That's very helpful. Thanks J ohn. That's all for me.
No problem. Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Dan Hearn with MST Marquee. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Well, good morning. Thanks very much. I was just wondering, could you talk about the impact of that price reform we saw in the H1, just with the shifting of prices or minimum prices for the lower priced drugs? Is there any significant tailwind there, and how will that go into the future?
It was pretty minimal impact, Dan, in the H1 from the price reforms. There's expected to be, though, a far more significant impact when we get to 1 April of 2023 on the sales line. Largely minimal impact in this H1 result.
Well, perhaps could you actually talk us through that next change then? What are you expecting an impact on your margins from that April change?
I'd probably have to wait, Dan, till we see it all in the various, you know, medicine categories. Maybe. You know, that adjustment in historical periods, not so much in recent times, but if I went back four or five years, that adjustment could be somewhere between, you know, AUD 60 million to over AUD 120 million, I think we had periods of impact on the revenue line, right? From the price performance disclosure. We just need to, you know, probably see the details of the actual impact before making a comment as to the exact amount that we expect.
Okay. Thanks John.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Adrian Allbon with Jarden. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Oh, good morning team. Just on first question.
Good morning.
Like, I know that you sort of like collapsed the disclosure on or stopped the disclosure on Life Healthcare. Is the intention, like when that division's like fully formed, or I guess it is fully formed? Can you give us a bit more detail on that division, like you sort of do with TerryWhite within Community Pharmacy?
No, Adrian. We were very open at the time of doing the Life Healthcare acquisition that the medical technology division would form part of the institutional healthcare business. We'll call out key highlights of that from time to time, but it won't be reported separately, and it was never intended to be reported separately.
Okay. Well, as like, as the GORE of that kind of division more like 35%? Just mathematically, just to help us out.
I think we talked about the GORE of the institutional healthcare division, Adrian.
Yeah, you do.
Mm-hmm.
I guess it's within that, there's quite a separate presumably the Medical Technology Division, the GORE is a lot higher.
Well, it is higher, but we don't call it out separately. We only disclose what we've got in the presentation, Adrian.
Okay. Just coming to, like, the slide at the end it talked to on 2022. Where you talk about aiming to go back to your ROCE target of 15% over the medium term. Can you just? Like if I just use consensus systems, I would have thought, like, consensus would have had you there a bit faster than what you define as the medium term. Just trying to understand, is there anything, like, we're sort of missing on the capital envelope?
Adrian, we don't provide forecasts, right? I think, you know, that's the comment we make. You know, maybe we could update you a bit more on that when we get to the full year results, right, for FY 2023. We're very reluctant to put forecasts out there, which is, you know, our custom, and everyone knows that.
Just on, I guess, on the more committed stuff, like on in the H2, like, can you sort of talk about what the committed CapEx is likely to be? I mean, you sort of talked about solar arrays and stuff like that. Can you give us a sense of.
Yeah. Yeah. as Leonard can comment on theT
Yeah.
T he expectation.
I would expect, I think, Adrian, that our CapEx in the H2 will be a bit above our H1 CapEx of sort of $30 million-$35 million. I would expect our total CapEx for the full year will be somewhere between $75 million-$80 million. That's lower than last year, but that's the sort of number I'm expecting. If we think about CapEx going forward, then sort of a number of about $65 million is what I think now that's sort of the normalized number, so to speak, of CapEx for FY 2024 going out.
Sorry, just on that Leonard comment. Leonard, would that include some of this ESG stuff that, like, that you're investing in, like, in terms of, like, I think I can't quite recall what John was referring to earlier. It's like there was a phase II of the solar stuff.
Yeah. That's right.
I think, John.
Includes that, Adrian.
All in, Adrian. All in.
Okay to that. Okay. Okay, very good. Then, can you just, like, on the Just coming back to the institutional healthcare business, can you, can you just give us a little bit more color around the share gains that you've made in the, in the, in the Symbion space? Like?
In the hospitals business?
Yes.
In the hospitals business?
Yes.
I think it was up about 1% or 2%, Adrian, right? We might have to come back to you on that, but it wasn't anything, you know, huge. There wasn't any huge jump in, I'd put it that way. Right.
Okay. That's good. Well, thank you for that.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Saul Hadassin with Barrenjoey. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First one.
Saul.
Just looking at the operating cost base for the healthcare division through H1 2023. John, your comments about, you know, those pressures that you've experienced through some of those cost lines. As we look into H2 2023, is there anything to note as relates to sort of another step-up in that cost base now that you've absorbed, you know, Life Healthcare in the H1? You know, labor costs, EBA, expiration and such. Anything that we should be aware of that might see that operating cost base increase again sequentially into H2 2023?
I don't believe so, Saul. I think, you know, if we give you some sort of flavor on sort of the increases that we've absorbed in the H1, on average, you know, the cost base of course is in the, and the numbers are being impacted by the acquisitions. If you looked at, say, the raw labor increase across the group, it's probably run at somewhere 4.5% across the group, right? In freight, we have taken double digit rises in our freight costs, but that's in the H1 result. We're not expecting that. We think that's probably leveled out now, those increases. There's nothing else that's, you know, you know, we're expecting to, you know, increase in percentage terms on that cost base.
I think actually the business, in terms of being able to preserve its EBITDA margins in the environment, has done a, you know, a really good job of doing that. It's certainly a focus for us all and a watch. I wouldn't be expecting, you know, anything untoward, in my mind, coming out in the H2 on those, on the operating cost base line.
Thanks for that color John. In animal care, just noting the leverage being achieved between revenue and EBITDA, that retail revenue growth rate of 11%, I'm just wondering, can you give us any insight to how much was volume versus price?
The substantial majority of that would be price.
Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Do you think those price increases are sustainable on a go-forward basis? I assume they're sticking relatively well and you're not seeing a lot of impact on volume. Can you just give us a sense of how much further you think that price point has to flex higher?
Well, I think that probably depends on the environment, Saul, right? There's probably still some further price adjustments to come through. Probably not as significant, I don't believe, as what's had to happen in the H1. You know, certainly the ones that have been put through in the H1 have largely stuck, right? Haven't impacted on sort of the volume growth of the business. That's pleasing, and we'll just see what conditions hold into the H2 and what needs to be done.
Thank you. Last one from me, just on that $12.5 million integration cost that you've called out for H2, can you give us any sense of what a sustainable savings might be off the back of that cost?
I reckon about AUD 3 million or so.
Achieved beyond, i s that an FY 2024 sort of run rate, we expect to see those benefits come through?
Yeah. It'd probably be phased, you know, at least half of it come through in FY 2024, right? Then ongoing from there.
Great. Thanks, guys. That's all I had.
Okay, no problem.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Montgomerie with Forsyth Barr. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, John and team. Thanks for taking my questions. I might be reading into it a little bit too much, but the minority interest was quite high and higher than I thought, potentially implying the Transmedic business in Asia is performing quite strongly within the Life Healthcare business. Are you able to just comment here on that business and the sort of growth rates being experienced there?
Actually, yeah, Matt, it's performing very well, but it's pretty well in line with how we thought it was gonna perform. I think in the overall results, I think what you've probably seen is there's probably been some disconnect between our expectations on areas like interest depreciation and the outside equity interest and what was sort of in consensus. If that tightens up as a result of these reports into the full year sort of earnings projections, then that's good. Yeah, you know, we're very pleased with the performance of the Transmedic business in Southeast Asia. As you know, it was a, for us it was a key attribute of the whole acquisition thesis for us. Yeah, as I said, it's basically performed in line with our expectations.
Great. Thank you. Then maybe going back to one of Adrian Allbon's questions before on the GORE margins within Institutional Healthcare. I know you're not willing to disclose, but it looks to me as though on an underlying basis, the base, excluding the Life Healthcare businesses maybe declined 150 basis points versus the H2 of last year. You know, would just be interested in your comments on, you know, if there's any seasonality in the new base business or if last year was particularly high for some abnormal reason.
I think, yeah, I wouldn't read probably too much into it, Matt. I think in any of the periods, you know, there could be some of the COVID products that are swaying the margins up and down, like from last year to this year. In that Institutional Healthcare business, there were some sales of RATs in the prior period, so that could impact on it all without, you know, having the complete analysis in front of me. I don't think I'd be reading anything too much into that.
Great. Thank you. Maybe one more. You've commented in the release just on the COVID benefits and the antivirals, et cetera. Are you able to quantify that in the community pharmacy segment for us?
Yeah. In the community pharmacy piece, we had overall revenue growth of sort of 18%. We think, you know, we estimate that the antiviral probably contributed, you know, somewhere around about 7% of that growth, right? You exclude that growth, you've got organic growth there of about 12% or so.
Great. Thank you. That's all from me. Cheers.
Okay, no problem.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Sean Laaman with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen, and congrats on the solid set of numbers. Just back on the ROCE target of midterm of 15%, you know, just on the obvious question is, you know, looking back, you know, you've had 18% in the past. I know, John, you said you're not giving guidance, but, you know, is there anything that might warrant you not ever getting back to those levels again? You know, maybe talk us through some of the working capital and issues that could ultimately achieve that thing, that level?
Yeah, I think, Sean, what we said, if I provide a bit of background here. When it was up at 18%, 19%, et cetera, ROCE, then, you know, our internal view was that that was all very nice, but really what we strived to do at the group was return a ROCE of 15%, right? We didn't want our ROCE performance to limit the strategic initiatives, growth initiatives of the group. Didn't think that was in the interests of long-term shareholders.
Even though we had that overperformance in ROCE, we're still looking, you know, for value accretive sort of deals that we could pursue and still bring the overall group ROCE in with around about the 15% level in, you know, in a, let's call it a medium term timeframe, right? I'm quite pleased that at the end of the six months we've been able to generate a group ROCE, you know, around about, you know, the 14.5% mark with such a significant acquisition that we undertook, and be in line of sight of the 15% mark again. Do we get to 15% mark in 2024, 2025? I just don't know. Certainly just to sort of comfort our investors, et cetera, that, you know, the 15% mark is still a valid target for the group to pursue.
Great. Thank you John. That's all I have.
No problems.
Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to John Cullity for any further remarks.
Thank you, Michelle. That concludes today's call. I'd like to thank everyone for the attendance and your interest in the company, and I wish everyone a good day. Goodbye.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.