Okay, we've clicked over 10:30, so we'll get on with things. Welcome, everyone, this morning. Thanks for taking the time to join the call today. Looks like we've got a good, solid group of people online, so thank you very much. Usual team presenting. Aaron Saunders with me, the Group CFO, and myself, Todd Hunter, the Group CEO. We'll go through the results, then we'll open up for Q&A at the end, so people can just use the raise hand function. Great to see James and Kieran have already got their hands up, so I look forward to that. Alternatively, you can just use the chat, and we can see the questions come up. Either is good for us. We'll just open the audio as well, so you should—I think you can probably just do that yourself.
We'll sort that out when we get to the end. Let's sort of kick off with things. I think we're really pleased with the six months just completed. Another record result for the business, highlighting yet again the consistent earnings trajectory for the group. Turners has continued to grow earnings despite what's felt like a very, very challenging macro environment for us to operate in, particularly sort of the change from the beginning of the calendar year into that April, May, June period. Turners has—we've seen vehicle margins grow, finance has been an absolute standout result, and insurance has delivered really good growth as well. We've also taken a number of steps, which Aaron will go into, to improve our capital effectiveness. In short, I think this is another great result for Turners.
Yeah, the used car market itself has recovered somewhat over the last year, but really the big change has been the reduction in used imports coming into the country. That's sort of driven the fastest aging of the fleet than we've ever seen before. Largely, that's just simply down to the government regulation that's been in place with the Clean Car Standard. That's put quite a lot of pressure on securing stock locally. It's just sort of forced more dealers into that sort of local sourcing channel. The expectation is that will reduce with the announcements this week around the relaxation to the Clean Car Standard. That will certainly open up that import channel and make it more viable going forward.
We believe there are a number of benefits for Turners with more replacements, more replacement of older vehicles leading to increased volume for our damage and end-of-life division, more transactions in the market, which just drive opportunity for Oxford and Autosure. Just going back to that earlier comment, it should reduce competition for local stock as more displaced sort of import dealers go back to Japan. I think definitely a benefit for the group. That pressure on securing stock has forced a number of these smaller sort of marginal operators to leave the market. I mean, it's an interesting graph when you kind of look at that over that sort of seven or eight-year period, just how much that has dropped. So, 27%, but you have to go back to 2012 to find dealer numbers as low as they are now.
Okay, I'll just hand over to Aaron now. He's going to take you through the next sort of 10 or so slides.
Thanks, Todd. Good morning, everyone. Results-wise, we're pleased. We've eked out a good increase in revenues, particularly in the auto businesses. Profit lines, profit before tax and profit after tax, both up 13%. Earnings per share, up 11%. The directors have declared a fully imputed dividend of NZD 0.08 per share, which will result in a slightly over 10% increase in the full-year forecast dividend. In terms of profit growth, it's been well distributed through the auto-focused businesses, with a little bit of interest cost savings coming out of corporate. Auto retail profits have lifted due to improvements in owned car margins and a stronger commercial business. That's our trucks and damage and end-of-life business. Finance profits have been boosted by solid growth in the loan book and an improving net interest margin.
Insurance has seen good growth in the premium base, which will underpin higher profits going forward. In terms of the balance sheet, inventory levels have grown since September 2024, but they do remain low relative to historical levels, and we would certainly like to grow these further at the moment. Finance receivable growth has come about as a result of strong market share gains across the originator base. Property, plant, and equipment assets are up, and that is off the back of completion of new owned sites in Christchurch and Napier, and the purchase of a new site in Dunedin. Borrowings are up in line with the increase in finance receivables. An important need for us, we have deployed no additional capital to support the increased lending in that business. The business continues to be well funded.
We've made some really good progress in the last 12 months, just reshaping our facilities. Our corporate capacity is more than sufficient to support our committed branch expansion plans in auto, which is sites in Auckland, Tauranga, Whanganui, and Dunedin. There is a strong appetite from our lenders to support us further.
Sorry, I'm just going to make sure I've got everyone muted here. I think we have—yeah, good. Sorry about that.
We have completed our inaugural public term out transaction out of the securitization warehouse, and that executed on the 10th of October. That's a really big step in the funding of Turners and Oxford Finance. It's our first public transaction. The main warehouse, Mezzanine Warehouse, is funded by BNZ, and we've essentially brought in 13 new investors into that public deal. Yeah, particularly well supported by local institutions as well as a couple out of Australia. The structure gives us quite a significantly improved capital effectiveness, which really will support our growth objectives in Oxford without that requirement to put any further capital into the business. To give you an example of how this structure has landed, our capital requirement has reduced from 8% or NZD 16 million on the NZD 200 million facility down to 1.4% or just under NZD 3 million.
That is a real win for us in terms of enabling further growth in Oxford. Which leads me to capital effectiveness, which is something we are prioritizing across the business. That is at a board and management level. Yeah, we are prioritizing increasing our capital efficiency and the way we allocate to ensure the business remains agile and also focused on the highest returning opportunities. The recently completed term out has not only reduced our capital requirements but contributed to reduction in funding costs. We are developing a deeper capital management framework across the business, really optimizing our finance structures, reallocating surplus capital from lower return areas, and driving targeted growth, particularly in auto retail and finance.
These initiatives, I believe, supported by the strong culture in the business and a highly engaged workforce, just on two-thirds of whom own shares in the business through participation in the employee share scheme, really position Turners to capture further upside as the market conditions improve. In terms of our dividend forecast, shareholders continue to be rewarded with a payout ratio of just under 70% of net profit after tax, and that'll take this year's forecast dividend up to NZD 0.32. That's a cumulative annual growth rate of 11% over the last 12 years. Based on a share price around NZD 7.70, that results in a gross yield of 5.7%.
Great. Thanks, Aaron. We'll just go over the segments now. Yeah, let's start with auto. Auto retail revenue up 6%, profits up 9%, which is good. Good to see that operating leverage. Growth driven by an increase in locally owned units and higher margins on that locally owned stock. As many of you will know, we sort of relaunched Tina campaign this year, Tina 2.0, and this associated sort of uplift in marketing spend of about NZD 600,000 over the first half last year. We've had a very positive response to that new campaign. We have seen a reduction in the number of lease consignment cars through the business, down around 8%. We've also had a lower proportion of retail cars sold, mainly due to vendors prioritizing speed to sale, that auction channel over the retail channel.
It's just that prioritization of speed over return in what's been a pretty challenging demand environment. Also, we are purchasing a higher number of older cars, which kind of reflect what's happening in the fleet with that rapid aging going on at the moment, which means we've just got less retail suitable units being purchased. Margins have improved. Despite the macro challenges, the division has delivered margin and profit growth half on half. The rapid aging of that New Zealand vehicle fleet has resulted in more end-of-life vehicles being purchased, which, as we said before, are unsuitable for retail. That non-insurance written-off segment is a growing opportunity for our damaged and end-of-life business. You can see that in the red part of those bars there. In terms of our branch expansion plans, we've delivered five new projects over the last six months.
That is a larger site in Invercargill, the three sites in Christchurch, and a Napier commercial site. We are really pleased with the progress we have made on that front. We are also really pleased with how the pipeline is building. We have added Dunedin in there, and we have got Roscommon Road, Tauranga, and Whanganui now all sort of locked in for delivery, which is great to see. The pipeline of opportunities is continuing as a continued sort of focus for us. We have a number of sort of in-progress negotiations at the moment. They are not concluded, but certainly kind of a lot of lead in the air in terms of things that we are working on, which is good. Finance, yeah, super result for the Oxford team in the finance division.
Revenue up 10%, segment profit up 18%, and that book is definitely back in growth mode, which is great to see. We're continuing to sort of grow our quality metrics or improve our quality metrics. We're certainly not foregoing any sort of downgrade in terms of the quality of loans that we're looking to onboard. We've managed to achieve a small amount of NIM expansion over that six months as well, which is really positive. You can see just we've had really solid growth in that first half, 13% up over first half last year. I wanted to let you all know today as well that we've actually just broken through NZD 500 million yesterday. The team are stoked with that, and certainly that's been achieved much earlier than we'd anticipated at the beginning of the year.
It is good to see the momentum in finance continue into the second half. Yeah, our quality focus has not shifted. We are still seeing sort of small lifts in our overall credit scores, which is good. That is just as a result of us continuing to tweak and tighten our credit policy for the opportunities where we see to do that. Yeah, I think everyone should take comfort from the fact that we still have a laser-like focus around the quality of this loan book. I mean, this is a slide we have shown many times before, but I think it is important to just review that that quality focus leads to very good arrears performance. Yeah, we are tracking at generally less than half of what the industry average is for the auto loan book across New Zealand.
And also good to see our hardship applications have sort of backed off a little. You can see there we have moved from 67 in the first half last year down to 55 a month in the first half this year. I suppose I would take that as another small sign that things are improving more broadly. Lastly, just a nice little lift in NIM off the back of some of the improvements in funding that Aaron was talking about. Just a continued really disciplined approach to our risk pricing, which is helping as well. Okay, let us talk about insurance quickly. Gross written premium up 10% in the first half, and obviously that flows into our earned premium going forward. Really good to see that top line sort of revenue growth.
The reason that has happened is we've increased the breadth of distribution in our dealers and brokers, and our digital direct offering is certainly starting to get some traction, which is always what we've planned for. We're continuing to see good growth in that MBI, Comprehensive Motor Vehicle Insurance partnership with Vero. Our risk pricing is more layered, leading to that improving claims ratios and the quality of the portfolio. Just a reminder that we don't underwrite that motor vehicle insurance risk. We just take an earn on every policy sold and every policy renewed. That's the growth in the motor vehicle insurance portfolio. You won't see those revenue numbers flow through our accounts, just the commission that we earn. It's a digital direct.
Just the fact that claims continue to be well managed, as you can see on the left-hand side of that slide with that graph there, there's a little bit of claims inflation. It seems to be pretty specific to a certain category of cars, which unsurprisingly to those who've heard from us before relates to European cars. That's something that we're just keeping an eye on going forward. Yeah, just wanted to call that out. In credit management, the recovery here has been challenging, and you can see that with revenue down 14% and profits down 42%. There's no doubt the economic situation is having a negative impact on consumers' ability to meet arrangements. Our kicked promise rates have dropped. We've also seen a number of major clients go through system projects.
They've changed out their collections software, and that has resulted in extended periods of debt not being loaded. Excuse me. Debt loaded down 24% half on half. We should see that debt load improve as those system projects are completed and debt load normalizes. The challenging trading conditions are resulting in a slower turnaround in this business than we expected. As a result, our plan is to review the carrying value of that business at year-end based on the second half performance and the momentum and outlook that we see for that business going forward. Excuse me. In terms of servicing and repairs, yep, we've been busy rebranding that My Auto Shop business to Turners Servicing & Repairs. Largely, that's completed now. We've lifted the number of technicians since the beginning of or since the first half last year.
Yeah, we're really seeing a great developing relationship with BTNZ as well. We have taken over their pre-purchase inspection product in Auckland and are looking to roll that out in further locations around the country. We have now clipped over more than 4,000 Google reviews with an average score of 4.9. We know we continue to deliver a great customer experience in this business. Just a few comments around the outlook. We feel like the risk outlook has remained pretty stable for us. A number of our particularly regulatory risks have improved with changes to the Clean Car Standard, the climate reporting threshold increasing, and some of the changes the government have introduced around the CCCFA as well. That aspect of our risk has definitely improved.
I think we continue to feel the recession risk has decreased, and trading conditions should improve as the impact of those lower interest rates flow through and the primary sector kind of trickles down through the economy. More specifically, yeah, pretty much the same game plan for us. Continuation of our branch expansion plans. We think we'll see some recovery in lease units and improvement in retail numbers as the economy continues to track out of recession. Consumer confidence builds and consumer demand builds off the back of that. Vehicle pricing, yeah, certainly should lift off the back of that, which will be supportive of margins. In finance, yep, we maintain our credit discipline. That remains a key priority. We are seeing expected improved performance in FY2026 as a result of lower than expected impairments and credit losses and improvements in interest margin.
We will see continued growth and origination in the second half. Insurance, yeah, growth in gross written premiums will flow into those forward earnings. Claims ratio is stable and just further contribution from the new distribution arrangements we have in place. Yeah, in credit, the challenging conditions feel like they'll remain, and we'll review that carrying value at the end of the year. Guidance-wise, yeah, I mean, clearly there's still some sensitivity around the pace of recovery in the economy. No one will be too surprised about that. Yeah, we feel like we're certainly on track to deliver a result around NZD 60 million in profit before tax, and that will deliver an expected dividend payout of at least NZD 0.32 per share. Just final few comments from me just before we open up for questions.
I think this year so far reminded me of that Mike Tyson quote, which is, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." It is fair to say that the first half has definitely unfolded differently than we expected. I think it has been probably much harder than we anticipated when we kind of got through the last quarter of last year. That recovery has been much slower. Demand has been more impacted. We have had lower consignment volumes and more competition for local stock. Despite the punch in the face, we have reacted. The teams have done an outstanding job, and we have still delivered a record result in the first half of this year, which just goes back to demonstrating the group's resilience and agility in keeping us on track for delivering another record full-year outcome.
Our teams have continued to press forward regardless of the challenges to keep expanding the branch network, grow the loan book in size and quality, and grow insurance revenues. We think, yeah, that second half is definitely going to be more favorable than the first half as the economy improves. Okay, we'll open up for questions now. James, do you want to kick off?
More than happy to. Yep, thank you, team, and congrats on a good performance. It's an easy game to avoid recessions, obviously. Yeah. Hey, just going back to the comment with regard to inventory, looking a bit light. Obviously, yeah, the branch expansion is probably helping you source more. Can you talk to anything else that could sort of improve that? Yeah, just sort of interested in sort of price versus margin, etc., if there's anything that could be done to improve volume or if you're prepared to take the margin.
Yeah, I mean, it's a delicate balance, isn't it, James? Because we could quite successfully go and buy a lot of cars very quickly, but buy a lot of problems. It is always a managed effort. What we have done in the last sort of probably couple of months is put quite a lot more focus into the actual cars that we're trying to target, the kind of response and kind of customer kind of contact plan that we have around getting people to the branch and just being, I'd say, more reactive. That has certainly worked. We've really prioritized to our branch managers that they need to be personally involved in these transactions.
That is their number one focus at the moment. We've seen quite a good uplift in our buying over the last four to six weeks. Inventory is back lifting again. We're back over that 3,000 units owned, which is really, really positive for us leading into these critical summer months of trading for us. It is typically a higher demand period. People kind of come out of the winter period. They're just feeling better about life because the sun's shining and there's less rain, and they've got more time on their hands to go and purchase cars. Combined with that recovery in the economy and confidence and things, yeah, we're seeing the right things happen. I think we're seeing the right things, James, and the kind of focus that we're giving it is seeing us improve.
Obviously, on the system side of things as well, as far as avoiding the wrong type of cars for losses, how is that going across the country?
Yeah, it's going well. I mean, if you recall, over the last two years or so, we kind of deliberately targeted that lower price stock because that was where the demand in the market was. The demand had kind of leaked away for those cars north of NZD 20,000. We are kind of going back into that space as well. I think we are, again, positioning for this recovery, focusing on the right price points for where we think the demand is going to be.
Obviously, your chart with regard to dealer numbers falling, has that provided any opportunities from a further site acquisition perspective? I'd imagine sort of weak economy and, as you say, those dealers being in trouble, is it spurring up other options for yourselves?
Yeah, I think it is. I mean, Aaron, you probably want to talk about Invercargill as a good example of that.
Yeah, definitely, James. On the 1st of April, we moved into a new site in Invercargill, which is about two and a half times bigger than our existing site. That had been a competitor of ours who pulled out of that market. Similarly, the site that we just purchased in Dunedin was previously tenanted by a car dealer who had shut up shop. Certainly, yeah, the state of the economy and the car market in particular is throwing up quite a bit of opportunity for us.
It does feel like now is the time to go harder in terms of our branch expansion strategy.
Yeah, I probably concur on that. Nice work on the finance book. Good to see that through 500. Maybe just talk about your sort of aspirations for that book and where in that sort of premium space that you are, where you think your market share is and could go to.
Yeah, so our market share in Oxford sort of tracks at around 8%. Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of opportunity left for us from a market share perspective, no question. We've had good success in terms of traction with the broker community in New Zealand. That's kind of been very positive for us. The traction that we're getting is around the speed of response that we can give dealers and brokers.
It's the speed of an answer, whether that's a no or a yes. We can give them an answer very, very quickly and not take any more risk on in that decision from our side. We really put a lot of effort into making sure we get the critical information upfront, but not get more information than what we need to make the right decision. Yeah, that's working really, really well. In terms of our aspirations, I mean, we're growing really well at the moment. There's no reason that it can't continue. Yeah, we're thinking big here.
Yep, kind of things. Thinking big, obviously, the 17 technicians in servicing and repairs, etc., that seems like a low number relative to the number of sites around the country for Turners itself. I assume many of those sites would have the potential for two or three or more vans, I would have thought. Can you talk about what that could look like? Is that a 50 or 100 in a few years' time?
Yeah, it could be up there. I think we're taking a measured approach to this. We just want to make sure we're bidding in the model, making sure that we can see the growth in demand to support that. I think, I mean, probably what has surprised us a little has been I think the economic sort of environment has probably caused people to kind of delay some of that vehicle maintenance and servicing. We probably haven't seen demand growing quite as quickly as we would have liked.
I think that will change, but we're going to take a measured and sort of responsible approach to that.
Yep. Last one from me. I'll pass over to others. Maybe just more on the credit management review with regard to the goodwill there. Roughly sort of NZD 25 million potentially of goodwill there, albeit some of the comments that you talked to sounded more one-off in nature with regard to the impacts on that credit management side of things. Just sort of interested about what's driven your view to need to review that to the downside, or is it just a permanent view that it's going to be a small business and tighter margins?
Yeah, I mean, I think there certainly have been structural changes in the credit market, James, over the last five years. For instance, the revamp of the CCCFA, I mean, I guess the thing that kind of stands out for me is before that, every couple of months, you get a letter in the post from the bank saying your credit card limit's gone up by a couple of thousand dollars. Now, that doesn't happen now. In fact, to increase your credit card limit, you've pretty much got to go through a whole new application process as the banks apply those affordability requirements for the CCCFA. I think the big kind of opportunities in that business are really around growing share of what appears to be a slightly smaller market, and particularly in terms of collecting unsecured debt on behalf of big corporates like the banks. Perhaps what's changed is our view that some structural factors have changed in that market.
That is kind of borne out by the fact that we are just not seeing the recovery that we have expected over the last couple of years in that business. Yes, there have been some point areas where banks have been upgrading systems and things like that. I think we just want to have a look at that business, revisit the trajectory, re-look at where we think we can grow it, and then just assess that business off the basis of the fact that it is not part of the core auto story. Our focus and our significant competitive advantage lies in that used car ecosystem.
Yeah. From that, does it sort of increase the potential that a disposal is being thought about?
It does not reduce it, James.
Yep. Very good. I will pass it back to others. Again, well done as an outstanding result for a dodgy economy that we have all been experiencing. So well done. Thanks.
Thanks, James.
Thanks, James. Hey, Kieran, shall we hand over to you? Can you unmute yourself, I think, hopefully?
Yes. Can you hear me all right? Yep, sure can. All right. Good morning, guys. Thanks for the presentation and well done on another strong result. First one from me is just on auto. We have seen the margins on owned units tick up 17% from what was a fairly soft prior period, but they are down 16% from 2H2025 levels. Can you just talk us through what drove the half-on-half decline? Was it digestion of the new Christchurch sites, the weaker economic conditions, and maybe just talk to the seasonality of the margin profile in that business as well?
Yeah. I mean, my view is always that margins are strong. Transaction volumes are normally a bit lower during the summer half for us, which is the October to March period, but margins are always stronger. I think the other thing probably that I'd call out is that we've ended up buying more older vehicles at lower values, which have still delivered positively for us, but slightly lower dollar margins than we see on the kind of higher ticket price vehicles. I'm pretty comfortable with where margins landed in the first half, given that the first half of this year for us, the April to September period, just felt almost like a rerun of April to September last year in that reasonable momentum coming out of summer. April, whether that was Liberation Day or people getting a reality check post-summer holidays, but demand.
Employment, unemployment curve.
Yeah. It just felt like it materially softened in that April to June quarter, which is exactly what happened in the year before. We are hoping that we will get out of that cycle in the year ahead. Certainly, there is a spring lift in margins. There are more buyers in the market. Inventory is somewhat constrained. I feel that whilst we have not broken the seasonal pattern, we are coming into the better part of that seasonal pattern now.
Margins are tracking kind of $100 north of where we ended up in the average for the first half, Kieran, into the second half. You are kind of seeing that lift already.
Do you think it is reasonable to assume with that building momentum that we will see a year-on-year improvement in the second half, or are you going to be held back by—yeah. You do? Okay.
No, I think, I mean, it feels stop-start a little bit at the moment. There is certainly a two-speed economy. South Island and lower North Island are really, really strong for us. We had a little bit of disruption with the transition in Christchurch, which maybe cost us 300-odd units because there was just a lot of moving parts moving from one site to three. Yeah, certainly feel that things are on the improve. Yeah, I'm pretty confident we'll beat the second half of last year.
Cool. Thank you. Next question is on Oxford. You obviously saw some strong ledger growth for the first half, up 13%. I think in your four-month update, the loan book was up just 5% year on year. Can you talk about what drove that acceleration in the last two months of the half? Should we be extrapolating the first half book growth and then expansion into the second half, or would you expect some slowing?
Yeah. I think that 5% number that we quoted at the—I think it was at the ASM—was on the March number, whereas that 13% is on the September comparative. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we are seeing good momentum here. Yeah. I think, I mean, Oxford will be a beneficiary of kind of more retail sales in the Turners network. We're seeing good share growth across dealers and brokers, independent dealers and brokers. Our direct business is growing nicely. So yeah, I mean, I think momentum should continue right here.
Yeah. I think, I mean, our focus has changed slightly. In the first half of last year, we were really focused on rebuilding interest margins. To some extent, we were suppressing growth with our pricing strategy. Now we are very comfortable with where margins have got to, sort of post the OCR cuts out of the RB. Our focus is no longer so much on optimizing margin. Our focus has shifted more to growth with the kind of underlying fact that our credit policy is the tightest it has ever been. We do feel that at 8% market share, we have got a really, really good service proposition. Our pricing is more competitive than it was this time last year. Yeah, we should see a continuation of those strong growth rates.
Great, thanks. Just the last question, a little bit of a tick up on your impairment expense through the first half. I appreciate rates are relatively low, but how would you expect that to track through the second half? Would you not expect that to be coming down now that unemployment's starting to peak?
Yeah. I think unemployment is always a lagging indicator. I think there's two things going on in the employment market. For a start, it's a very strong job market in the South Island. That's almost behaving like a different country at the moment. Just focusing on the North Island, it's not just unemployment. It's underemployment. I think that unemployment, if you listen to the bank commentators, probably has another one or two points of increase to happen. There is also significant underemployment, and people aren't getting as many hours as perhaps they want or need to support their lifestyle. I do think that story has a little further to play out. Our credit losses are up on the first half of last year.
That simply, I would put that down to a function of a larger book. Also, I mean, as Todd said, hardships probably peaked in the first half of last year, but there are still elevated levels of people coming to us under pressure. Those are the good people, right? Those are the people who come to us and say, "I've got a problem. How can you help?" I would say we're seeing, as an anecdote, we're seeing as many cars being left at the airport as occurred during the GFC. That is people leaving the country. I would put that down directly to the employment market. People are actually going back home to where prospects are probably better at the moment. That should change as the employment market improves.
Certainly, yeah, certainly it feels like there's a bit more to play out in that unemployment story. The way we look at it is we created a buffer under the provisioning standards under IFRS, and we will generally release that buffer as the economy normalizes. That's probably got another 18 months to run, Kieran.
Great. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Kieran. Grant Lowe, should we bring you in? You should be able to unmute yourself, hopefully.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me okay?
Yep, sure can.
Great. Yeah. Congratulations on a good result. Just reiterating that. Just around the couple of points. I haven't quite got my head around the financing changes just as yet. In terms of that term out, etc., with the equity base that you've got at the moment, how should we think about the capacity for receivables based on today's sort of equity base?
I mean, I think in the medium term, we can grow that book by 50%-60% without having to allocate further capital to Oxford.
All right. Okay. So north of NZD 700 million, sort of the way to think about it. Yeah.
Up towards NZD 800 million. Yep.
Yeah. Yep. Okay. No, that's great. No mention of the FY2028 target in the presentation. Obviously, you've said that the NZD 65 million will be achieved or expected to be achieved ahead of schedule. Obviously, you're very well on track for that. What's the latest thinking on that?
We'll update at the year-end around that, Grant.
Yeah. Yeah.
Clearly, no change in our thinking, though, in terms of what we've communicated previously.
Yeah. Clearly, we're going to get to it sooner than FY2028. Yeah. Yep.
Okay. No change. That's great. And then just last one for me around the Christchurch sort of projects and transition impact, etc. You've sort of quantified the NZD 600,000 of marketing side of things. Are you able to put sort of a rough number on what that sort of drag was from those Christchurch projects? You mentioned the 300 vehicle sales potentially lost, presumably some startup costs, perhaps. Do you have a rough idea of the drag that might have been in the first half?
Yeah. I mean, it'd be the order of NZD 500,000, I'd say, Grant.
Okay. No, that's great. That's all for me. Thank you.
Thanks, Grant. Okay. I'm just going to check in on Kieran's. Oh, Kieran, you want to ask something more?
Y eah. I might just jump in with one other question.
Yeah. Sure.
Just thinking about industry dynamics, and you touched on it at the start of the presentation, but with the Clean Car Standard impacts, we've seen the sharp decline in ex-overseas registrations and dealership closures have accelerated. On the face of that, it seems like a positive for Turners. At the same time, you're saying net-net with the changes that were announced this week, you're actually expecting to benefit overall from the reduced Clean Car fees. Can you just elaborate on that point and sort of talk us through your thinking?
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, Kieran. Firstly, there are kind of two aspects to the group and that or to the kind of auto ecosystem in which we operate.
Oxford Finance and Autosure both benefit from higher transaction volumes and particularly penetration in that import space. Further growth in imports will be good for both of those businesses. In the auto space, the car retail space, higher transaction volumes broadly are good for us in that we have this big sort of local sourcing engine. We have seen some competition, particularly Google AdWords and things like that, by dealers who are not able economically to source cars out of Japan. We expect that to dissipate. On the sourcing side, we would expect to see a bit less competition with the import restrictions easing off. That is a good thing for us. The more cars, particularly older cars that leave the fleet, the better that is for our damaged and end-of-life business.
Whilst we might see a little bit more competition at retail, and we might see a slowing in the trajectory of dealers leaving the marketplace, on balance with gains in Autosure and Oxford and further kind of churn-related opportunities in the auto business, we're quite happy to see a tick up in imports. In fact, we've been adding our voice in lobbying for relaxation in that Clean Car Standard. Overall, from a kind of New Zealand point of view, I think we're better to be replacing 22, 23-year-old cars with eight-year-old imports than persisting in keeping those older cars on the road. In a Turner-specific story, our business really is about pivoting to where we see the best opportunities. Relaxation of the standard will result in us importing some more cars. It'll result in others importing some more cars.
In the medium term, we still think scale, reach, operating leverage, brand will kind of see us building further market share in this market. Yeah, we're kind of comfortable with a more vibrant import market from that point of view.
Great. That's helpful. Thanks, Aaron.
Okay. I'll just quickly flick back to the Q&A and just see if we've got anything there. Yeah, we've got a question from Kenneth Center, sorry. A number of your buildings have very large roof areas. They certainly do. Probably less so now, but less so than we used to. Has Turners considered solar to reduce onsite expenses and/or insulate the company from energy cost increases? Yeah.
Great question. We have solar installations in two of our sites. I think economically speaking, solar is still marginal. You get a pittance for putting power back into the grid.
It is really solar plus a storage option, essentially batteries. There are certainly areas where solar makes a huge amount of sense. I'll give you an example. We are expanding one of our operations in Manukau. We will draw more power from the grid. Vector would like us to pay for a larger substation that will essentially cost us north of NZD 300,000. We can put in a solar or a battery solution for about NZD 100,000. That clearly is an economic answer, an optimal solution for shareholders and for the environment. I think over time, solar, the economics will become more compelling. There are point opportunities for us across our network. Many of our newer sites are really quite small buildings. We will look at solar installations over time to take some of the load away from the grid.
But I do not see a full switch out being economic for quite a long time.
Okay. Are there any more questions that anyone would like us to answer before we wrap up? If you can either raise your hand and you can unmute yourself to ask the question or just drop something into that Q&A feature within Teams. Okay. That feels like we have probably come to an end. Of course, if you do have a question that you want to ask later, just get in touch with Aaron or I. Our emails and phone numbers and things are on the presentations and the documents and things. We are always very happy to answer any questions that anyone has. Thank you very much for your time this morning. Enjoy the rest of your week. Thanks very much. Thanks, everyone. Very good.