We just checked how many. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our presentation. If you are able, can we just make sure your microphones are muted and probably your videos not running as well? We just had a couple of technical challenges here, but hopefully you can hear us well. Trevor, I can see your face on the screen. Maybe you can give us a thumbs up if you can hear us okay. Can you hear me okay? I'm just using you as a bit of a check here. Can you give us a thumbs up? Okay, great stuff. All right. Apologies for the delay, everyone, but thanks for joining. With me is Tim Runnalls for this presentation on our first half, 2025 results. We'll move straight into the details of the result and an update on our business. So we'll move to slide two.
So, highlights here: our first half EBIT of $35 million and NPAT of $24.2 million are record results for the group. The graphs on the slide show the trend over the past seven years. It's an outcome we are very pleased with and illustrates the strength of our product portfolio and application focus, and our focus and discipline on improving and operating our businesses and the steady introduction of new products. Collectively, these elements mean we've overcome the impact of what remains a pretty challenging environment. The first half result was highlighted by a strong rebound in demand for dairy consumables in our Agri Division, which gave it a strong increase over the prior comparative period when we suffered some significant destocking activity. The Industrial Division result was fractionally below the record prior comparative period.
In part, that was due to the impact of lower sales in the second quarter in our largest market in the U.S., which in part we attribute to the election cycle. As in prior elections, we see a reduction in spending, particularly in infrastructure applications during this period. First half operating cash flow of NZD 32.2 million was strong, below the record prior comparative period, but we deliberately increased inventory to manage and mitigate risks, and there are a number of them. There's the impact of increased shipping transit times caused by some of the geopolitical issues, risk of port interruptions that we anticipated could occur in North America and around Christmas, and to provide a buffer of time to manage the impacts of potential increases in tariffs into the U.S.
Record earnings and strong cash flow means our net debt remains low and allowed us to increase our interim dividend by 6% to NZD 0.09 per share. As previously, that remains 50% imputed, reflecting the international composition of our earnings. We are guiding for full year net profit after tax of NZD 52-56 million. Achievement of this would represent another record result for Skellerup. The guidance is a small reduction at the top end from the initial guidance we issued in October. An obvious question is how might changes in tariffs or possible changes in tariffs in the U.S. impact us for the rest of the year?
Of course, the likelihood of changes might be pretty difficult to predict, but the action we've taken to increase inventory over the first half means the impact of any future changes is unlikely to have a material impact on our FY25 result. I'll pause there to hand over to Tim, who's going to go through a bit more detail on the drivers of the first half result.
Thanks, Graham. The chart on slide three, which is a fairly well-used reflection of our business, shows the key drivers of the 12% increase in NPAT we've seen over the first half of FY25. So moving from left to right and starting with the Industrial Division by application, we've seen good growth in products used in potable and wastewater applications, particularly in Australia, with a move to polypropylene pipe where several customers have specified us in their products and continued growth in smart metering products. This has been somewhat offset by a reduction in demand in infrastructural pipe in the key U.S. market, which, as Graham mentioned earlier, tends to be impacted in line with the election cycle in the U.S.. So we believe there's an element of deferred demand in this market, and we've seen a strong return in January 2025.
Strong demand for solar roof flashing products, particularly in the U.K., has benefited the roofing and construction sector of the market. Continued weakness in the Australian residential construction market, however, has partly offset these gains. We continue to see growth in supply of products into our key customer in the hygiene sector, and we expect further opportunities on this to come. Exploration and mining revenues were down, which was largely anticipated given the somewhat mature profile of our key products in this market. Although demand was down on the prior year, it continues to exceed our expectations, and we expect to finish this sector in line with the prior year. The reduction in sport and leisure is driven by softer marine foam demand, particularly in the U.S., where customers have only recently cleared their overstock positions, and we're now seeing a lift in activity in this sector.
Weaker demand from European and Asian ski boot and snow boot manufacturers and customers has contributed further to the decline. Moving to the Agri Division, Dairy has benefited from strong demand, particularly from international customers, both from OEMs and for our own high-performance dairy rubberware products. You'll recall that in the first half of FY24, we were impacted by significant customer destocking activities, which have not been repeated in HY25. The stronger demand has flowed through into our manufacturing volumes, which, together with equipment and process improvements, have yielded a lift in gross margins. Offsetting this, the demand for rubber footwear products in our key New Zealand market was weaker in tougher economic conditions and, to a lesser extent, a benign climate in New Zealand. This meant the footwear result fell short of the prior year.
Conversely to dairy, the lower demand translated to lower production volumes and, as a result, slightly lower gross margins. Worth noting that both the Agri and Industrial divisions have been impacted by increases in freight costs, which have partly offset the operational gains achieved. You'll note the favorable FX result for the period. This is largely a factor of us not seeing the same headwinds as we experienced in the prior half year. Our hedge positions aided the result pre-tax by about $500,000 against the prior period. And just a reminder that the group has a relatively strong natural hedge and our net exposure is fairly small relative to top-line revenue. That said, we're well hedged for the second half and against the U.S. dollar at rates of around 60 and the Australian dollar at rates of around 90 cents.
Noting the decrease in interest cost, and this was largely due to the reductions in interest rates in the New Zealand market and a lower average level of debt relative to the prior comparative period. Slide four is a reflection of our key financials, a large proportion of which has been covered already. Looking at the seven-year trend and setting the first half of FY24 aside, you'll note that the revenue for HY25 is largely in line with that observed in HY23. However, the EBIT earned in this half is roughly NZD 1.5 million higher than the HY23 period, reflecting the improved gross margins achieved through a focus on improving prices, new products launched at better margins, and an ongoing focus on operational improvements.
Lower financing costs, offset by a slightly higher effective tax rate, although not out of line with historical norms, has meant that NPAT finished up 12% on the prior year and up 4% on the prior record, which was recorded in December 2021 or HY22 on the table. Operating cash flows, Graham mentioned earlier, was NZD 32.2 million and strong, reflecting the increase in after-tax earnings, but also impacted by the strategic moves taken to increase the level of inventories held at market. As we mentioned, this was to counter potential trade tariffs, threatened port worker strikes in the U.S., and increases in some key raw materials to ensure the continuity of supply given ongoing supply chain challenges. Depressed customer demand, particularly in the potable water market in the U.S. and for footwear in New Zealand, has meant we've carried some slightly higher inventories into the second half.
We expect to recover some of this investment, but we anticipate we'll probably need to be carrying a slightly higher level of inventory for some time given ongoing market uncertainty. Capital and intangible expenditure was in line with prior years and reflects our continued investment into more standardized equipment and new product development. Net debt is at NZD 20.4 million, only 6% of total assets. Although an increase of NZD 5 million on the closing position at June 2024, this is anticipated and reflects the timing of dividend payments and the investment into inventory. With that, I'll hand back to Graham to cover more detail on the Agri and Industrial divisions specifically.
Before we dig into that in detail, a slide here which provides you a breakdown of our revenue by application and geography, which you'll have seen before. I guess the key message here is there's no significant changes. When you look at the two pie graphs on the top of the page, revenue by application, it highlights the slightly higher growth achieved by dairy, potable and wastewater roofing, construction, and hygiene. They grew to a slightly larger share of the pie, while footwear, automotive, and mining reduced somewhat. As highlighted in previous discussions, the aggregate of our revenue from dairy and potable wastewater applications accounts for around about half of the group's revenue. Important to note that most of these products require food safety or potable water standards, so something that ensures we have a strong position in this market and a strong competitive position against new entrants.
The pie graphs at the bottom, as I said, show by geography, and they highlight the better growth for Europe, U.K., and Asia, and the impact of slower footwear and high-performance foam sales on New Zealand and the U.S. in the first half of the year. I'll move now to slide six and some further detail on Industrial Division. So revenue up 5% on a constant currency basis. There was a 4% increase. Earnings down 2% on the record result in the prior year, breaking a four-year trend. As we've already touched on, potable and wastewater markets, the largest application for this division were mixed. In Australia, we enjoyed good growth with gaskets for polypropylene pipe for wastewater and check valves for smart metering applications. These two applications were expected to provide continued good growth in the years ahead.
In the U.S., as Tim noted, demand was soft for potable water gaskets and tapware, particularly in Q2. We expect stronger demand, particularly for pipe gaskets in the second half of the year. Again, roofing construction, we've touched on a little. U.K. and Europe continue to be strong on the back of solar installations, and we expect this to continue. The Australian market remains challenging with construction at low levels, but I think our team's done an excellent job against a pretty large headwind there and protecting our position. North American sales were relatively flat. As expected, health and hygiene sales grew slowly, and this remains an area of very good opportunity for future growth. We've got several projects with a key customer at various stages of development in the hygiene space. High-performance sales were down. High-performance foam sales, I beg your pardon, were down.
The U.S. market in particular remained weak, although we did get a boost in orders before Christmas, which has provided a good start to the second half. We expect a stronger result from high-performance foam in the second half of the year. In Europe, we have leased a facility in the Netherlands, and we've appointed a leader to speed growth in this market, and that will begin operating towards the end of Q3. Moving now to slide seven and a focus on the Agri Division. As we've commented, the first half of the year, a very strong rebound from a weak prior comparative period when international customers destocked significantly. In international dairy markets, to be frank, we're generally less profitable than they are now. The New Zealand market has also been strong. The increase in demand was accompanied by productivity gains in our facilities.
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Come around at 7:05 this week, and I was wondering what you've done for us this day.
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5 o'clock.
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All right. We've heard it from Bill. Mum's going away. We've managed to mute him, so that's good. Just going back to where I was, the increase in demand and revenue was met well with productivity gains in our facilities. The investments we both made and are continuing to make in that capability. The Thriva calf feeding teat was successfully launched. The New Zealand market is our largest immediate opportunity, and the feedback's been excellent. The product has been ranged nationwide, so we're well placed for the upcoming calving season, which generally runs from July to September. The international market, medium term, remains a very significant opportunity for us. The initial uptake in this market, although small, has been faster than we anticipated, and we have some very important trials underway in both Europe and North America.
We've also successfully launched some new high-performance milking liners as planned in the U.S. market, and the results from those today have been good as well. Footwear as we've touched on, unfortunately, more challenging in the first half. New Zealand's our largest market here. Economic conditions, relatively benign weather, and of course, sales fall below the prior period and our targets. Based on the information we have in terms of communicating with our customers, it's not a market share change for us. It really reflects the category and a reduction in spend in that area. We are soon to launch the Red Band Low, and that will provide a boost to sales in Q4. As part of the launch, the Red Band Low will make its debut in the Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix at the Auckland Domain on Saturday.
So if you're in Auckland, if you fancy getting along to the Red Bull Trolley Grand Prix, you'll see a Red Band Low racing around the course at some stage. We also have a women's lifestyle boot under development. Our concept and design work is complete, and we're moving into manufacturing prototypes. Moving now to slide eight and some updates on ESG matters. I'll start with governance. No changes to our board. The mix of skills and experience and commercial rigor that our board apply is invaluable to Tim, myself, and our team. Yesterday, we had the board visit one of our Auckland sites where our leaders there talked about the growth opportunities and also the health and safety initiatives and highlighted that as a continuous improvement activity, which of course it is. And it's a statement that really reflects our group-wide culture towards health and safety.
Alongside each site's annual programs of work, we use external and peer assessments to evaluate and identify improvements. We've also introduced a quarterly bulletin that we share group-wide, and among other things, it includes details of incidents, learnings from our sites across the world, and the response to this and feedback on this has been excellent, and I'm sure will contribute to our goal of zero harm. From an environmental perspective, our priority currently is on developing transition plans and emission reduction initiatives, and that's in response to the identified climate risk related and sorry, climate-related risk and opportunities that were reported upon in our annual report last year. Just to close, the final slide, or nearing the close, at least the final slide provides you with a little bit of an update on strategies and initiatives for earnings growth.
In the presentation in August last year, we talked about these elements as being key drivers for our future growth. Having a customer-focused approach to development ensures we remain disciplined with capital allocation, both from a human resource point of view and a financial point of view, and frankly, enhances our prospects for success. First half highlights, we've touched on a few of them already, the Thriva calf feeding teats and high productivity liners for single-use shells using single-use shells. Although it's early in the program for these products, the sales and demand to date has been very promising and exceeded our expectations. Our water pump extension to our vacuum systems for liquid waste in the U.S. is now on market. The uptake in Q2 was a little slower than we anticipated, however, we're seeing an acceleration of sales in Q3.
And we've got very high conviction for the success and benefit of this product extension. So we're looking forward to a stronger contribution in the second half of the year. We've also continued to launch into production and added into our pipeline new projects for valves and diaphragms for potable water for hygiene and appliance applications in both the U.S. and in Europe. Increasing our in and our near-market presence is an important strategy to protect both our current business and support future growth. I do stress we do have significant distribution presence in all our markets. And most notably, during the past six months, we've upgraded that facility in Chicago, which supports roofing construction products in that market and also provides us with a facility to house some of our dairy products as well.
As noted, we've leased premises in the Netherlands to provide us with the opportunity to penetrate the European market for high-performance foam products. Enabling greater in-market manufacturing presence has been carefully progressed. We have successfully moved new equipment into production in New Zealand for dairy consumables, which is an enabler to establishing capability in international markets. We're in a position to carefully plan that and put that in place when we think the right time to do so is. Our clean room for non-invasive medical products in the U.S. is operating well. We have invested and committed to new moulding capacity and capability in our facilities in Europe, which will be commissioned in the second half of the year. The investment in new equipment, which better lends itself to wider global deployment, as I've noted, is also delivering gains in productivity.
So aided by more sophisticated mechanization, faster cycle times, and less engineered and production waste. So our investment in this capability not only provides us with a more flexible platform in terms of where we do things, but absolutely contributes to the improvement of our existing operations as well. And just the final thing I'll highlight on this slide today is capitalizing on the global breadth of our business. As you know, we are a global business. More than 80% or around 80% of our revenue generated in international markets. And we have an international platform and people spread throughout the world. As noted, last year, we broadened the responsibility for several of our leaders, which helps connect our businesses to collaborate more effectively.
We're also better leveraging the development and technical centers for broader benefit across the group to improve both current production processes and aid new product developments. To close, we'll move to slide 10. This is really just a wrap-up and a reminder of how we see our business. That is we have deep technical expertise that we apply for products for precision, high performance, and conformance applications. We're very focused on ensuring that our development efforts are driven by real understanding of customer needs. We have an in-market presence and scalable manufacturing capability that we can continue to exploit and grow. Another important element is how we organize and measure our businesses.
We have accountability, capability, and we measure across the group our businesses in a way that rewards their performance and ensures we have good commercial perspective on all the activities we engage in, so with that, thank you for listening, and we'll now take questions. Perhaps if you could just raise a virtual hand or drop us a note in the chat, and we'll respond to your questions in sequence of receipt. Let me try to drop them in the chat, so really a few questions. Josh, go ahead, please.
Morning. Thank you, Graham and Tim, for the presentation. Maybe just a straightforward one to start. Can you just clarify constant currency revenue growth by division? I think you did make a comment, but I missed it earlier.
Yeah. So it's 4% for Industrial to Agri.
3%.
3% for Agri.
Brilliant. Thank you. Just in light of EBIT being down 2% in Industrial, you mentioned there was some cost growth in that division, some of which might reverse in the second half. I think freight was mentioned. You also had some cost growth, which I think you said was to support future growth like personnel and warehouses. Can you just dive into that? I guess seeing revenue up, but EBIT down, some explanation of the difference, which is obviously cost, would be helpful.
Yes. I think there's three elements here. We did see some increases in freight costs. And of course, we're able to offset some of that with pricing increases in market, but that was a factor in the first half result for some of our businesses. We have invested in some additional resource for growth. So those personnel costs are not going to reduce. And we've improved some of the facilities that we're operating in. So yeah, there were some cost increases in the first half. And as I noted, Q2 was a little softer than we anticipated. We expected that our first half result for industrial would have been in line or maybe fractionally ahead of what we achieved last year. But we did see some delay in sales, particularly in North America in the second quarter of the year, which impacted.
As noted, the demand for marine foam products continued to be subdued, although again, positive signs there with demand that we've seen at the beginning of the second half of the year.
Okay. Thanks. The volatility in the Agri Division appears to be behind you now. Just curious, can you provide some detail on how those conversations went with customers? Are you of the view that those events are largely behind you now and you don't expect to see them going forward?
Yeah. I think if we reflect back on last year, our observation was that the destocking activity in the dairy sector came somewhat later than it had for many of our industrial markets and applications. So we'd experienced the destocking activity across the Industrial Division probably six to 12 months earlier. And so that did catch us by surprise in the first half last year. We also had some large customers with December year-end. And so there's always a little bit of management of demand that we typically see around that period. But I think the anomaly really was first half 2024. First half 2025, we expected to be quite a bit stronger, and it was. There's still seasonality in our business. The general profile of our business is that we have stronger second half than we do in the first half in both Agri and Industrial.
In Agri, that's influenced by the concentration of demand, in particular in the New Zealand market, whereas the international demand tends to be more even throughout the year. And in the industrial side, the first half is always a little bit softer. You've got the northern hemisphere summer, which holiday period over that sort of August, September period, which we always anticipate and often is a little bit quieter. Whereas the second half, there's no sort of Christmas interruption. There's no peak season in the northern hemisphere summer. So we see a stronger result from the Industrial Division typically in the second half of the year. So we continue to be seasonal, but definitely first half 2024 we see was a bit of an anomaly for the dairy sector.
Okay. Thank you. Last one from me. Just with your hygiene customer, the opportunities you're talking about, do they extend to the consumable unit potentially?
Yeah. So there are basically three opportunities we're working with at the moment. They are moving ahead with what they call the over-the-counter product. So we think that one will materialize quite quickly because that's largely an adaptation of the product we are already supplying. But we're also in conversations with them to potentially broaden the solution that we add to them, sorry, that we supply to them. So we may take on responsibility for molding some additional parts and slightly increasing the sub-assembly. And then the third one, yes, we're in discussions for their sort of packaging or consumable part, which is, if you like, the fluid that goes into these systems. And they're having a particular issue with one particular product, which gives us an opening and an opportunity into that division and an opportunity to improve ourselves.
We did. I don't think I've covered this off, but earlier in the year, our leaders in the U.S. had a meeting with the leaders of this business, including the CEO, and they were effusive in their praise for how we perform for their business, so you always like to hear that, so we're in very good shape with regard to future growth for that customer.
That was brilliant. Well done, guys. Thank you.
Okay. I think Rowan, you might have been next. So would you like to fire away and then go? I can see you're there as well, but we'll take Rowan first.
Perfect. Thanks, guys. Just a question on the Agri margins. That was a particularly strong lift, particularly given revenue only went up 3%. You talked to productivity improvements, and then it looks like second half Thriva will come online and your new milking liners as well. You always get kind of best margins when you launch the products. And if you look at the seasonal history of it, second half does seem to have a much stronger EBIT margin in Agri over the last kind of 10 years. It's been 6% type lift between the two halves on average. How should we think about second half Agri margins? And then outside of that, how should we think about Agri margins going forward? Because if you put in that normal seasonality and then you start to annualize it up, you're at some pretty strong numbers.
Yeah. So look, I think as we noted, while the Agri Division revenue was only up, I think, 3% on a constant currency basis for the first half, dairy was up around about 8%. And footwear was down commensurately to pull down the average. And you might conclude, okay, so dairy has significantly higher margins than footwear, which is not the case. But perhaps a way to think about it is we have a substantial capital investment in our dairy manufacturing capability. So in the first half last year, obviously, with demand down, some of those costs are relatively fixed. So we truly get operating leverage when we see demand return to stronger levels. So in part, that answers your question in terms of the quite significant improvement in margin over the reported margin over the first half of last year. As Tim noted, there's also a contributing factor there.
Last year, we had a little bit of a headwind with FX. And so far as the hedging positions we had and delivered some unfavorable results in the first half last year, which sort of pressed the EBIT margin a little bit for the Agri Division, whereas that wasn't the case in the first half this year. We had a slight tailwind with some favorable hedging positions. Not huge and not material. And then to go to the second part question, we certainly have a target to continue to improve the margins in that business, but we are investing in development resource to meet that as well. So I don't think you should anticipate a significant uplift in EBIT margin for the second half of the year. It should be a little stronger.
And obviously, with the revenue growth and the typical seasonality in the second half of the year, it should assure us a good result for the Agri Division. But in the medium term, we think with the new products we're launching, we can improve the margins in that business.
Thanks. And in terms of the extra inventory you've got on in the U.S., you said there's limited earnings headwind from tariffs. Yeah, how should we think about that? Do you expect net debt and inventory to be down over the second half as you use up that inventory? And then that's kind of your more normalized position, or do you think it'll kind of this level of extra investment needs to stay across the business because of other growth opportunities such as biomanufacturing in Europe?
Yeah, I think we will definitely see some reduction in inventory in the second half of the year. But I guess there's another factor that drove the increase in inventory in the first half as well. And that is a significant amount of inventory is held overseas. And with the weakening New Zealand dollar, that elevated the value of inventory as well when you convert it back to New Zealand dollars. But yes, we'll see a reduction in the second half. I think we are likely to close with a balance that's higher than what it was at the end of FY24. And because we think it is prudent, probably at least in the near term, to continue to carry slightly higher inventory for a range of products in North America because, as everyone would observe, it's pretty fast-moving changes in terms of what might happen with tariffs.
So one of the things we can do to mitigate immediate impact of those sorts of things is to carry slightly higher inventory. Across the range of products we sell into North America, we do have the ability to certainly adjust pricing for some of those products. And then, of course, as we've talked about, we're evaluating the merits of alternative manufacturing locations for some of the products that we sell into that market.
Thanks. That last bit was going to be my next question was progress on tariff mitigation. Can you just give us an update on your thoughts? And then if it's kind of no change, then kind of what pricing power and kind of potential impact do you see maybe in FY26 if Trump tariffs are still going then?
Yeah. Well, we're certainly not assuming that the tariffs that were already in place for imports from China and the additional 10% that's been added. We're not anticipating that those are necessarily going to be eliminated. And Rowan, you'll know that with that additional 10%, the annual cost of tariffs for us in North America will be in excess of NZD 4 million. So that provides the opportunity, the incentive to think about where should we do things. So in terms of what we manufacture at our facility in China for the U.S. market, it's vacuum systems and a little bit of rubber footwear. We have some other products manufactured by other partners in China that go into some of the other applications in North America. But those are the largest two, and that's within our control to consider doing that somewhere else.
We've evaluated a number of locations, and we've actually got a couple of our people in Vietnam next week who are going to examine that more closely in terms of it's one thing to move assembly there, but the second thing is to have a supply chain with good qualified suppliers. So we're going to be having our experts over there next week dig into that in a little bit more detail. So I'm happy with where we're at in terms of evaluating that. And obviously, we're monitoring closely to understand what might happen in terms of tariffs being applied on other markets in other countries. So the first thing is to understand it well. We've made good progress. We've looked at three different markets, and we're probably leaning more towards Vietnam as an alternative or option for some of that activity for vacuum systems.
And that's our priority at the moment. And then, as I noted during the presentation, in terms of capability to manufacture, for example, our dairy rubberware in the U.S., we're in a stronger position now with some of the changes we've made in our factory in New Zealand to work towards putting together a plan to deploy some of that in market. We're not committed to doing that because we don't see an immediate need to do that. But it's certainly something that we're continuing to evaluate, and we've got a couple of options in terms of how we might do that.
Thank you. I'll let you take questions from someone else.
Okay. Guy Hooper, please go ahead, mate.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. I mean, just to follow up on the inventory, I mean, you're building your inventory base. Is there any sign that your customers are potentially building inventory as well or that they're going to, just given the trade volatility?
No, not our customers. No, not at all. And as I noted, actually, if we're focusing in on North America, the demand for the products where we have a higher level of inventory was a little bit softer than we anticipated. So I don't think, for example, in the liquid waste sector for vacuum systems, our customers quite rightly perceive us as an American-based supplier. So they weren't sort of, I guess, alert to building up inventory for fear of pricing increases being imposed on sales to them. So no, we're not concerned that our customers are built up inventory and there might be some adjustment in that regard. In fact, what we saw in January for North American sales was a pretty strong month, and we saw some of the sales that we had previously anticipated we might have seen in November or December.
Okay. Well, to address the second part of the question. I mean, can you talk a little bit about some of the run rates that you're seeing either as you exit or enter the third quarter? I mean, particularly in some of the cyclical exposed areas, you mentioned you're potentially going to see some green shoots, some foam. What are those run rates across the Industrial Division?
It'd probably be good to look at it from an application point of view. As you know, our potable and wastewater products are more infrastructure-related, but also consumer products in terms of they're going into tapware and applications like that. It's hard to draw conclusions because we've been through a period of relatively subdued demand in November and December and then a very strong start to the year with January. I guess what we can say is our sales today in February continue to be strong. So the indications are pretty positive for that potable wastewater sector in North America. The other factor for, if we look at roofing and construction, that had pretty steady first half. We've got a couple of nice opportunities there with some new products that we may realize towards the latter half, the second half.
Initially in January, demand was a little bit soft, but if you think about roofs, it's winter over there, and we've seen a bit of a lift in demand just over the past week. So I think we're in pretty good shape as far as that's concerned. I've been quite excited by a couple of opportunities we have there. For foam, definitely that has remained more subdued for longer, particularly into North America, but also into the ski and snow market in Europe, which, whilst it's a little bit smaller for us, it's a significant enough contributor. So we're not expecting any rapid turnaround for that ski snow sector in Europe. But we did have a very strong month in January as far as marine foam goes, and the orders are definitely stronger. So we'll see a stronger second half for marine foam in North America.
Great. Thanks. I'll pause and let you take some more questions.
There's a couple in the chat. So, Sara or Tara, apologies for the pronunciation. Similar question, talking more about how the Industrial Division's tracking at the start of calendar 2025. So I think we've covered that all. And then Adrian Allbon, can we talk or guide how much new products launched in the last three odd years has contributed to growth and as a percentage of total sales? So that.
Yeah, hard ones are answered off the cuff, Adrian. So we'll come back to you on that. I don't want to sort of give an answer straight off the cuff. We'll come back to you on that. And then a way of thinking about the Industrial Division, and I don't mind saying this, obviously the first half result was slightly below the prior period. The year-to-date result after January, I think we were banging along, was slightly ahead of the prior period. So the shortfall that we had in the first half, we recovered in the month of January. So we're heading in the right direction for the expected better result in the second half of the year. Any other questions? Don't think we've got any more in the chat. So if there's no one else that's going to pop their hand up there, we'll draw it to a close.
Thank you very much for your time and joining the call. As we've expressed throughout the presentation, pleased with the first half result, obviously the standout performance from the Agri Division, and really pleased with the position that we have across our businesses to not only deliver a strong second half result, but also stand us in very good stead for the years ahead as well. So thanks for your time, and we'll talk to some of you a bit more later on. Thank you.