Good day everyone, welcome to the Bapcor Full Year Results conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Stefan Camphausen, CFO of Bapcor. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, Desi, a warm welcome from our side as well. As Desi said, my name is Stefan Camphausen. I'm the CFO of Bapcor. With me are members of Bapcor's Executive Team, and together we will present Bapcor's FY 2023 full year results in the next 60 minutes or so. This will be followed by a Q&A session, and I would like to remind everybody that you will only be able to participate in the Q&A if you're joined via the conference call dial-in, not via the webcast. Further, as already advised, today's call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to hand over to Noel Meehan, Bapcor's CEO and Managing Director. Thanks, Stefan, and good morning, everyone on the call. Let me add my welcome to all those people that have joined this morning. Much appreciated for your attendance as we go through the financial results for FY 2023 for Bapcor. Let me start with an Acknowledgement to Country. Bapcor would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of Country throughout Australia. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. We all recognize the continued connection of all First Nations people with Country across Australia, in particular, all those on where Bapcor operates and where we meet today. As Stefan said, we're joined today by a number of the operating EDMs. We'll go through the presentation today, where we'll talk about both how we've performed and also, very importantly, how we're transforming as an organization. Bapcor, you know, with Australia-Asia Pacific's leading provider of vehicle parts, accessories, equipment, and service, and solutions, spread across a number of verticals, trade, wholesale, retail, and also obviously, operations in New Zealand and also, in Asia, which is incorporated into our Bapcor Trade business. Over 5,500 team members. My thanks to all the team members that do what they do each and every day to deliver the results that we're going to take you through today. Over 1,000 locations. For the first time in Bapcor's history, we've just generated over AUD 2 billion of revenue. As you can see, Bapcor has been around for a number of years, originally starting from the Burson business through lots and lots of acquisitions. As you can sort of see, we're in this phase of the organization now where we're taking a good business and working towards making it an even better business, so a business that's Better Than Before. As you can see, we continue to look at acquisitions as we move forward. Some fundamentals in terms of what drives our business. We're in the aftermarket and mainly targeting cars that are four years and above in age. You can sort of see on the charts on the slide, the average age of vehicles is increasing, and so is the number of vehicles on the road. We believe a pretty resilient industry to operate in and has been for many years. That provides us with opportunities to continue to grow the business with good underlying demand. Turning now to FY 2023 highlights. If I sort of break the commentary into the perform side of things and the transform side of things. On the perform side of things, let me call out a few things. Revenue, we saw revenue growth across all segments. From Bapcor perspective, up nearly 10% to a record AUD 2 billion. Pro forma NPAT for the second half was in line with what we said in guidance, slightly ahead of the first half, so AUD 63.3 million compared to AUD 62 million in the first half. Also really pleasing to see, to see on the slide, in the second half of 2023, we saw margin improvement come through in our trade and wholesale businesses. Overall, if you look at the results, the FY 2023 further demonstrates the resilience of the Bapcor model in a diversified business, we're very pleased on that. In terms of network expansion, we continue to be capital disciplined and look at ways to improve our return on invested capital and grow the business. Over years, through a variety of either acquisitions, buying new stores or conversion of franchises, we added 31 new locations. The consolidation of warehousing is continuing in Bapcor. For all intents and purposes, the DC, the Melbourne consolidation, is essentially finished, we're now focused on optimization. The Queensland warehouse, the build has been practically completed, and that we will start integrating businesses towards the end of this calendar year into the Queensland operation. I said a number of months ago, inventory is enormously important for this business. Saying yes to customers more often is something that we need to continue to do. We did say, for a variety of reasons over the last few years, that inventory had been elevated through pandemic, supply chain issues, all those type of things. We set a goal at the start of the financial year last year, that by the end of the financial year, we would have reduced inventory on a like-to-like basis by AUD tens of millions. Absolutely delighted to show that we've been able to deliver on that commitment. Really also very pleasingly, in the second half of the year, you'll see in the cash flow that Stefan will take you through a little later on, is significant improvement in cash conversion in the second half of 145%, bringing the full year cash conversion to 107%. With that, obviously a reduction in net debt, so we've got a very strong balance sheet. On the transformation sort of agenda that we've been working through for the last 12 months, a number of things I'll call out here.... Continued board renewal has happened with the addition of both Brad Soller and Kate Spargo to the Bapcor board. From my team's perspective on the group leadership team, delighted to have two new EGMs on the team, who joined us during the year. Tracey Wright, who is the EGM for Specialist Networks, and Kristoff Keele, who is the EGM for Strategy and Transformation. I mentioned a number of months ago that Bapcor was doing lots of things as an organization. One of the things that we wanted to continue to develop as an organization is be a purpose-led organization to build on the strong foundations of the values in the organization. Lots and lots of work has been gone into that, involving both employees, team members, but also customers, stakeholders, and investors in what the Bapcor purpose should be. It's with great pride that I announce that purpose today, and you see it on the slide. Bapcor's purpose is to be there for what matters most. I think it's an enormously important sort of juncture with the company going forward, which will then help us focus on what matters most, be there for our customers, our communities, all stakeholders, our team members, and so a really, really great step going forward. Lots and lots of work has been done, and we'll take you through that shortly on Better Than Before on the transformation program. My quick uptake on that is everything is going to plan. It's in line with what we've said. We've got no change to the targets that we've articulated for 2025, and we'll take you through that in a little bit more detail later in the presentation. Recapping on some of the financial highlights for 2023. A solid result, which was in line with guidance, improved cash generation, ongoing resilience of the business model, demonstrated by what we've been able to deliver, and a very, very strong balance sheet, with gearing at 1.1 times, which puts us in a really good space for looking at optimization and growth going forward. If you look then back at sort of the resilience of the business over a number of years, you can see here a five-year history showing a number of KPIs around P&L. As you can sort of see, the business has grown. The really pleasing thing you see on the chart here is the stability of gross margins in the business over a number of years. Yes, you know, we continue to, continue to sort of say, "Well, how do we continue to grow the business?" We'll do that in the most capital efficient way. Again, I think we've got a backdrop of a resilient business. Health and well-being, enormously important for every organization. A number of things in terms of the health and well-being I'd like to call out. One of the big things we are doing in the organization, we'll continue to do so, is to try to make things easier. Make things easier for our customers, our team members, our suppliers, and everybody else that deals with us. We're making some great progress there. We've got more work to do on that, but that is part and parcel of what we're doing with our Better Than Before push. In terms of one of the other big initiatives that underpins Better Than Before, it's to simplify our processes. We've been a very acquisitive business over a number of years, and, part of doing Better Than Before is to simplify our process and make things easier so we can focus on customers. Keeping team members safe is obviously something that every organization should do, and as you can see on the chart on the right-hand side, we've got still more work to do. We've made an enormous improvement in the injury frequency rates reduction that you can sort of see there. In terms of one other thing I'd call out, in terms of one initiative that we've put in place, very conscious, we've got a lot of frontline team members and 5,500 people that work really hard at Bapcor each and every day to service our customers. We've done two things from a people and culture perspective in the year. We updated our parental leave policy. We introduced a domestic violence leave policy and also introduced what you can see on the slide there, Back Day. What does that mean? Everyone that has a birthday, and we all have birthdays, we give people a day off for their birthday that they can take close to their birthday. Again, just as a bit of a thank you and reward for our team members. I then talk through the segments, and then I'll, I'll hand over to the segment leads to talk through their individual segments. You can sort of see on this chart, on the pie chart on the left-hand side, the composition of revenue across the business with a hi-- heavy bias towards trade and wholesale. We do have a retail element, 20%. Then if you look at the chart on the right-hand side, really pleasing to sort of see the stability of margins. Yes, they go up and down, but again, if you look at the trade and wholesale, particularly in the second half of the year, despite all the headwinds and economic pressures, our margins at gross margins, have con-- and EBITDA margins, sorry, has continued to improve in the trade and wholesale sector. Looking at the footprint that Bapcor has established over many, many years, we've got a very good footprint, both in Australia and New Zealand and emerging into Thailand. We have lots of opportunities to grow the footprint across the geographic areas that we're in, involved in. We'll do that in a capital efficient, sort of measured way. Then on the right-hand side, again, just a reconfirmation. You've seen this slide before, when we look at our revenue spend and what customers buy from us, there is a bias towards non-discretionary spend, which, bodes well, I think, for the future of the business and just backs up the resilience of the aftermarket industry that we operate in. I'll come back and talk to you slightly, a little bit later on, but now let me hand over to the AGM of Trade to take you through the Trade segment, Steve Drummy. Thank you, Noel, and good morning, all. My name is Steve Drummy, and I'm the AGM of Bapcor Trade. We've had another strong year in trade, and pleasingly, revenues are up just over 11% versus FY 2022. With 8.8% growth in same-store revenues as well. EBITDA grew 7.9% versus FY 2022 to AUD 124 million, which is also another good outcome. In terms of EBITDA margin, the full year margin is slightly down year-on-year, but we have seen a real improvement in the second half of the year on the back of successfully implementing targeted category and pricing initiatives. All in all, the financial outcomes reflect the resilient nature, as Noel mentioned, of our industry, as well as our leading market position. In terms of the businesses within Bapcor Trade, we've added two new stores to the Burson Network and will continue to grow in the future. Both Blacktown Auto Spares and the P&N Spare Parts continue to perform strongly since acquisition, which is pleasing. In Precision Automotive Equipment, we had a record year, with sales up more than 25%, driven by our focus on our key accounts and our dealerships. Finally, we've made continued operational progress with the team in our Thailand business. Over the course of this year, Trade has continued to focus on improving our vehicle safety and ensuring our people are responsible road users. This has assisted in decreasing the number of people seriously injured and also reflected in a significant reduction in our injury frequency rate. I want to thank our customers and our supplier partners for the ongoing support they continually show us. We will continue to be invested in their success. Overall, it's been a really robust FY 2023 for the team, and I'm very proud of the performance that the Trade team have achieved. I want to make sure I thank every team member for their leadership and their hard work in FY 2023. I'll now hand over to Tracey in Specialist Wholesale. Great. Thank you, Steve. My name is Tracey Wright, and I joined Bapcor as an EGM in April this year. We are going to present on the Specialist Wholesale part of the business. On the one hand, Specialist Wholesale is a market leader in the truck and auto electrical sectors through what we call the networks part of the business. On the other hand, we have the wholesale part of the business, which acts as an aggregator and importer for One Bapcor. My colleague, Craig Magill, will dive deeper into this part of the business later in the presentation. Overall, the Specialist Wholesale segment achieved revenue of AUD 766 million in FY 2023, representing growth of 9.5% on FY 2022. This growth was driven by realizing opportunities in our market-leading Truckline business and was particularly supported by growth in regional areas, representing Truckline's relative competitive advantage through its strong regional presence, as well as the positive impact of regional economic conditions in mining in WA and Queensland and agriculture in New South Wales. In terms of EBIT, wholesale achieved AUD 103 million for the year, which represented a margin of 13.4%. Similar to what you heard from the trade segment from Steve, our EBITDA margins improved in the second half of the year through leveraging growth and improved own-brand performance and integrating the light and heavy truck offerings to our businesses. Own brand sales as a percentage of total sales grew to 60.5% of the revenue, with growth particularly in the established brands of JAS and Baxters, reflecting overall growth in the auto electrical market category. With regards to our integrated light and heavy truck offering, we piloted leveraging our Japanese truck parts business, WANO, across our heavy truck network under the Truckline brand, to deliver a more integrated customer offerings. Preliminary successes of this approach have also supported the second half EBIT growth that we saw. We had a total of 11 new stores in wholesale through three acquisitions and eight greenfield developments throughout the year. One of the acquisitions we're particularly excited about is the addition of E-Max into our truck operations towards the end of the year. This acquisition provides opportunities into previously untapped product categories for the business, including quality and heavy-duty electrical wiring harness systems, electrical connectors and accessories, and airway products. Like Steve, I'd just like to thank the team for an amazing effort throughout the year and really proud of what was achieved. I'll now hand over to Tim to talk about retail. Thank you, Tracey. Good morning, all. My name is Tim Cockayne, I've been with Bapcor for more than 4.5 years, developing a modern retail offer through growth, modernization, and digitalization. In FY 2023, we had a solid year in retail, with revenue up 8.3% and EBITDA up by 1.7% against the previous period. Like-for-like, sales were up 5.6%, pleasingly, we've continued to grow our own brand sales through the network to 34.3%. Some key highlights for the year included opening the 100th company-owned Autobarn store, double-digit like-for-like growth in the Midas business, which is one of the parts of the business that is franchise operated, the launch and growth of the Accelerate Loyalty Club, the successful product range developments and disciplined range reviews through our merchandise teams. As you're also all aware, during FY 2023, there have been increasing headwinds in all retail markets due to cost and macro pressures. We are and will continue to work to mitigate these impacts by targeting increased basket, basket sizes and average spends across the customer base, which is being supported by our new Accelerate Loyalty program. I'd now like to hand over to Martin in New Zealand. Thank you, Tim, and good morning, everybody. Firstly, I'd like to thank the whole New Zealand team for their dedication and efforts across what was a challenging FY 2023, particularly given the difficult macroeconomic conditions in the first half of the year. Having said that, customer and pricing initiatives led to same-store sales recovering well in H2, with good momentum evident going into the new financial year. This was especially pleasing given the significant nationwide disruption from ongoing weather events, including Cyclone Gabrielle. As a company, Bapcor has continued to support our team members, customers, and the communities we operate in through these most difficult of times. In line with our improving top line, H2 margin performance is also pleasing and provides a sound platform from which to navigate New Zealand's recessionary conditions. The ongoing consolidation of operations onto super sites, coupled with the expansion of existing locations, means we can deliver a superior service and product offer, product offer to customers, and this remains a key focus here in NZ. Finally, the acceleration of a One Bapcor approach has seen even greater levels of business unit cooperation within both the New Zealand segment and the Australian Specialist Wholesale cohort. This will be built on further across FY 2024. Thank you again, and I'd like to hand back to our CEO, Noel Meehan. Thanks, Martin, thank you to all the other AGMs for giving an update on the businesses. Let me just give a quick update on supply chain. Supply chain, you've heard me say many, many times, it's an important part of our value chain. We're making great progress, and as we continue to make great progress there, I believe it will become a competitive advantage for the organization moving forward. A few call-outs on the slide. If I look at the network and one of the key KPIs we look at each and every day is the fulfillment rates on emergency orders. Over the whole year, it's averaged in excess of 98%. There's many days during the year that we've actually hit 100% over many, many times. Yes, we had a number of sort of teething issues 18 months or so ago. Glad to say that we're through all those. Again, if I just looked at the emergency order fulfillment rate yesterday across the business, it was running at 99.6%, so real improvement there. Well done to the team there. We're in the process now in terms of, again, further supply chain optimization on how we can centralize inventory management and also build capability around dynamic sales and operational planning, again, to build that muscle on supply chain, which again, is important to the whole value offering. In terms of DCV, as I said earlier in my opening, we've essentially finished the consolidation. We had three warehouses successfully transitioned during the year. Now the focus for the team at DCV is obviously to continue the customer service offering, improve operational excellence, and look at optimization opportunities going forward. Moving to Queensland, you can sort of see just on the right-hand side there, a couple of pictures. You'll see from top to the bottom, on DCQ, pleased to say we've got a 1.8 MW solar panel installation. We've also got, as you can see in the middle there, some cantilever racking. Down the bottom, if you've got a very keen eye, you can see that we've also got a number of electric vehicle charging units, which is very important, obviously from an ESG perspective. Really importantly, all of the lessons from Melbourne have been translated into Queensland. We've learned from some of the teething issues. We're well, well prepared for Queensland. The cantilever racking is something new in Queensland, but again, will give us an operational efficiency. Pleased to sort of say, as we start integrating those businesses, the first one that will be integrated from a big segment perspective will be our Trade business, which we'll start commissioning later this calendar year, probably November, December-ish. No movement away from the guidance that we've provided, that once all seven warehouses are integrated into Queensland, we're expecting an EBITDA benefit between AUD 4 million-AUD 6 million. Really pleased. Let me now hand back to Stefan to take you through some, some of the detail on the financials. Thank you, Noel. Starting those financials with the income statement on slide 21. We already spoke about the strong top-line performance, with revenues exceeding AUD 2 billion for the first time in any financial year in Bapcor's history. Moving down the P&L, I would like to highlight Bapcor's robust gross margin at 46.7%, which was stable year-on-year, reflecting the resilience of our trading performance. In terms of cost of doing business, this remains a focus area for us, given the temporary margin compression and input cost pressure that we are experiencing. While pleasingly, the cost of doing business margin slightly improved during FY 2023, from 32% in the first half to 31.9% in the second half, we will continue to work on this. From an overall bottom line perspective, our full-year pro forma NPAT of AUD 125.3 million was in line with guidance. Once again, we have provided detail on Bapcor's pro forma adjustments, comprising of DC consolidation and Better Than Before costs, which are in line with what we have communicated previously. Turning to the cash flow on slide 22, with our focus on accelerating inventory turns during the year, we have significantly improved cash conversion from 67.8% in the first half to 145.4% in the second half of the year, taking the full-year cash conversion to 107.4%, as already highlighted by Noel earlier. This pleasing outcome represents an operating cash flow of AUD 320.7 million for FY 2023, which is a significant step-up of 73% compared to last year. We've also continued to invest into the growth of the business, both organically and through M&A, in a targeted and disciplined manner, as well as increasing returns to shareholders. Overall, we had a positive net cash movement in FY 2023, which takes me to our sound financial position and balance sheet, as shown on slide 23. On the back of the significantly improved cash generation, which, as discussed, was driven by reducing our inventory by AUD tens of millions in line with target and guidance, both our net debt position and leverage ratios improved year-on-year. This continues to provide us with financial flexibility to implement Better Than Before, pursue acquisition opportunities, and invest in growth. Moving to slide 24, we wanted to illustrate the very strong improvements we've made in our capital and inventory efficiency during FY 2023. As you can see, inventory increased in the first half of FY 2023, as the measures we actioned early in FY 2023 took effect in the second half of the year, we have achieved a full year like-for-like reduction of almost AUD 50 million, our inventory efficiency improved. Finally, I would like to conclude the financial section with the overview of our dividends. For FY 2023, a final dividend of AUD 0.115 per share, fully franked, has been declared, taking the full year dividend to a new record level of AUD 0.22 per share. This represents a payout ratio of 59.6% at the upper end of Bapcor's dividend policy, and is a reflection of both our strong balance sheet as well as our confidence in our markets and performance. I will now hand back to Noel. Thanks, Stefan. If I can now sort of flick towards the transform side of things of the presentation. You've seen the slide 27 before in terms of Better Than Before, and as I said back in November last year at the Investor Day, it's a natural evolution of the business strategy with an unchanged focus on our customers. It'll be focused around, obviously, the cultural side of the business, complemented, obviously, with the purpose of the business, a push on efficiency, a clear strategy with the customer in the center of what we do. We want to leverage the scale of Bapcor, Bapcor, without losing the customer face and intimacy that we have with our customer-facing businesses. Slide 28, is, again, just a repetition of a slide we've used before. We've got a track record, you see there, of strong performance. At the heart of Bapcor, Bapcor is a business that procures, distributes, and sells parts. By all of our businesses working together, we believe we can create significant value moving forward across a number of areas in procurement, pricing, property, fleet, and also supply chain. Most importantly, as we continue to transform as a business, we do have to make things easier for our people, unleash the power of our people, deliver more for our customers, work with our suppliers on a more strategic basis, and ultimately, deliver more value for shareholders. On slide 29, again, very similar to what we've presented previously. No change to the targeted goals FY 2025, where from a discrete perspective, the Better Than Before program, we're targeting AUD 100 million net EBIT from that discrete program, split across those three areas in commercial, COGS, and costs. Also looking then on a simple average basis, over a three-year basis, to take the return on capital to in excess of 12%. If I then go to slide 30, in terms of the progress that we've been making since the implementations of the Better Than Before program. If you go back to where we were sort of, completing a number of initiatives at the half year, you can see on the right-hand side, the way to read this slide is more of the initiatives moving to the right is a good thing because that means they're more complete. Obviously, the easier ones get done first and the more complex ones tend to get done later. We've made really good progress on terms of moving initiatives from left to right, and we'll constantly continue to evolve what's in the initiative pipeline, as you can sort of see on the left-hand side. My key takeaway to everyone on the call today is the Better Than Before program is on track. All work streams are progressing as planned, and we are very, very confident in the work that we're doing to take this business to a new level of performance. To try and give you a bit more color on this, I'll just ask Craig Magill to sort of talk through some specific case studies that we've been doing in the business. Over to you, Craig, if I can. Thank you, Noel. Good morning. I'm Craig Magill. I've been with the Burson and Bapcor business for the last 10 years, with previous responsibility for the trade division that Steve spoke about earlier. My current role is EGM for the Wholesale Division, which is the import aggregation elements that Tracey referenced. In addition to other things, I have the responsibility for the development and implementation of the new group procurement commercial services department, which includes procurement and group category management functions. Let me explain our general approach first before I talk about some specifics in the case study detail. Under the, under the Better Than Before project framework, we are executing a procurement work stream. This is a significant project in scale, impact, and complexity. It's a multi-stage build covering all direct or product and indirect spend across the group, which is circa AUD 1.4 billion. I t all started in February. While some, some vendor term alignment and benefits have been achieved in prior years in Bapcor, the B2B opportunity is to truly leverage 100% of Bapcor spend. As a part of our capability build, we have appointed a new Chief Procurement Officer, Scott Walker. Scott started with Bapcor in June and comes to us from Coles, with extensive procurement experience, including working at General Motors, so he actually understands the automotive environment. The overall objective is to create deeper, more strategic relationships with key vendors, aligning brands and products where it makes sense across the group business units, leads to fewer suppliers at more favorable unit cost and terms and conditions. We believe in many cases, this becomes a win-win with our supply partners. I'll now provide some highlights in regard to the case study, which is on slide 31, which is actually a well-progressed pilot in one of our categories. We initially built a project team to kick off, to kickstart the procurement work streams. This has now evolved to current state with the implementation of group category management team within the procurement commercial services structure to coordinate and drive implementation of the initiatives group-wide and obviously maximize value capture. We are upgrading systems, mapping and implementing new processes, engaging cross-functionally to execute, and I'm very pleased with how well the business is embracing and executing the project. It's a group-wide team effort of the highest regard. Now specifically reference the procurement process part of the pilot. Incumbent, local, and international challenger brands were engaged through a mixture of RFP and direct, direct negotiation. Far as outcomes, in this pilot category, three key supply partners are increasing their breadth and depth of business with the whole of Bapcor, helping deliver improved outcomes in line with the targets we set. This also creates more value for themselves, Of course, as a consequence, there are some previous incumbent suppliers who are exiting the business. This outcome will allow us to have an improved customer offer at lower cost, better terms and conditions, including net working capital benefits, also enables a reduction in supply chain complexity, removal of duplication, and lowering of SKU count. Another aligned and significant work stream centers around consolidating private label or home brand proliferation, making smarter and more strategic ranging decisions, maximizing the penetration of selected hero brands across the group. Private label penetration has been a focus of Bapcor from its inception. There has been significant investment acquiring quality businesses with brands, allowing Bapcor to vertically integrate the volumes. This, as you will all be aware, is quite profitable, and our progress over the years has been very strong. Our work on private label is enabling strategic ranging programs, being not only embedded in the procurement work stream, but also enabling the example being referenced on the right-hand side of the slide, which is to provide a broader offer to market, smarter use of working capital, a more comprehensive offer to align customer bases. It's simply a better, smarter offer to market than our previous approaches. I've been a part of the Bapcor leadership team since the day we floated on the ASX. I'm incredibly proud of what we have built at Bapcor. With the scale we now have, the Better Than Before program is giving us the structure and the impetus to seize the opportunities at hand, plus unlock layers previously out of our reach. I'd like to publicly commend and thank the teams across Bapcor, attacking the challenge for the hard work they are doing, and say, say this is a very, very exciting time for Bapcor. I'm excited to be here. I'll now hand back to Noel. Thanks, Craig. Before I go through summary and outlook, you will see in the back of the presentation other case studies. There's lots happening in the organization, but thank you, Craig, for giving us that level of detail. Moving now to the summary and outlook. You can see on slide 34, the balanced scorecard, which is consistent with what we disclosed earlier on in the year. I won't go through all of the numbers there, but that's something that we'll continue to update every six months to the market. Again, to hold ourselves accountable as to where we're going with the organization. I mentioned purpose-led early on in the presentation. You see on slide 34, the articulation of the purpose. This has been launched after months of work, with over 1,200 team members, suppliers, customers, and also a number of investors. And the articulation of the purpose you see on the right-hand side, "Be there for what matters most." There's lots of evidence across many, many different geographies in purpose-led organizations, delivering lots of value for both team members, but also obviously stakeholders and customers. It's focused on three efforts, three circles on the right-hand side. Number one, making things easier. Number two, making things Better Than Before, and Number three, delivering on our, on our commitments. This will be launched and brought to life across Bapcor over many, many months. I think unites the organization to the One Bapcor purpose and builds on the significant platform that we've got with strong values. It, it helps people understand what we really mean by what matters most in terms of focus and efficiency and culture and those type of things. Absolutely delighted on where we've got to there. Moving now to the outlook for FY 2024. You'll see on slide 35. A number of sort of comments. Let me try and summarize some of the comments before sort of closing out the presentation. As we look into FY 2024, we're expecting solid demand in Trade segment to continue, but probably more likely at normalized longer-term growth rates rather than what we've seen in the last sort of a couple of years. Specialist Wholesale segment will continue to benefit from growth and consolidation opportunities, particularly in the truck market. Our retail segment, not unsurprisingly, has some challenging sort of economic conditions and more uncertain trading environment. Things like the loyalty program that we've brought through and increase in brand, our own brand sales, are levers that we're pulling to try and mitigate some of these market impacts. Underlying demand in New Zealand, we expect to improve versus the prior year. As an organization, we're not immune to some macro headwinds in terms of temporary margin compression from cost inflation and other external factors, such as payroll tax increases, investments in capability and higher depreciation and those type of things. What are we trying to do with the business in terms of our focus and our targets? As Stefan said, we've got a very strong balance sheet. We intend to keep a strong balance sheet to give us flexibility to respond to opportunities to further grow the business. I mentioned the importance of supply chain, so we'll continue to bolster our supply chain capability. There is an enormous focus on the organization to remain focused on return and improving the return on invested capital. We will continue to expand the network across the business, and we're very, very focused on the articulation and delivery of the delivery of the Better Before benefits in line with previous communications. You can see there at the bottom of the chart, we've said previously that gross benefits in FY 2024 of AUD 20 million-AUD 30 million are expected to flow through, most likely heavily weighted to the second half. Partially offset, though, then some of the one-off transformation and OpEx costs as we sort of go through there. The last slide before sort of handing back to Stefan, then we'll go into Q&A. How would I describe the year? Enormously proud, and thanks to all the Bapcor team members and all of our supplier partners and customers that deal with us each and every day. To deliver such a resilient performance, where all of our key targets were achieved and in line with guidance, I think is absolutely fantastic. Really good to see the strength of the trade in the wholesale markets and the stabilization of New Zealand. Yes, we have got some macro headwinds, particularly in the retail sector. The Bapcor purpose, be there for what matters most, I think is really important for the future of the organization. Better Than Before goes without saying that we've got the AUD 100 million net EBIT target for 30 June 2025, and the return on invested capital target of 12% average return on capital employed. Lots of focus there. We're on track to do that, and we'll continue to update and give more detail as we progress through that. What does it mean in terms of the outlook for the organization? You can see there, Bapcor expects a solid underlying performance in FY 2024, subject to obviously, market conditions. We do expect the Better Than Before benefits to come through as articulated on that 20-30 gross, less some operational cost and one-off costs. I'll just hand back to Stefan, and then we'll go into Q&A. Thank you, Noel. This is formally the end of the presentation. We'll head straight into Q&A. I would like to hand back to Desi, our operator, to share the instructions for the Q&A session. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are joining us using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, that is the star key, followed by the digit one, if you have a question or a comment. We'll pause for just a moment. We'll take your first question from Mitch Sonogan from Macquarie. Good morning, Noel and Stefan. Thanks for taking the questions. Can you hear me? Yeah, all good. Please go ahead, Mitch. Good morning. Yep. Okay. Thanks, guys. Just a quick one. On the segment EBITDAR margins, they all improved half on half. In the second half, X retail was only down 10 basis points. Just looking out into FY 2024, is the second half margin a decent base for us to expect looking into that year? I guess the second part of that question is just, can you maybe touch on what cost inflation you're seeing across the business and any implemented or planned price rises and initiatives to offset that in 24? Thank you. Good morning, Mitch. Thank you for your question. If I go to the first part of your question in terms of sort of the second half margins, look, I think it's probably a decent base to go forward with the caveat, obviously, around the retail side of things, which we'll have to sort of see what happens there with the market. I think, as a working hypothesis, I think what you sort of articulated is correct. Obviously, in terms of longer term, Better Than Before benefits will come through, and that will further enhance margins longer term. In terms of specific cost inflation that we're seeing, again, if I, if I refer back to some of the outlook comments, on things like payroll tax and those type of things, I'm not being political here, but, if I look at what's happened with some of our states, impose sort of increases on payroll tax-... in terms of order of magnitude between payroll tax and workers' comp, that's probably, you know, AUD 3 million-ish extra sort of cost into the business. Wage inflation is probably running on average across the business at, you know, probably 4%. There's hotspots in different parts of the, the market, which you'd expect, but probably, you know, that side of things, so. Then if, if you then sort of say, in terms of our pricing philosophy, you look back at sort of the five-year history of Bapcor. In terms of cost of goods sold, increases, and those type of things, and as an importer, like everybody else, they tend to get passed through on a regular basis. I think that will continue. We just need to continue to be very vigilant on things. Energy prices are going up, obviously. Insurance goes up and all those type of things. Everything that we're working on in terms of optimization is trying to mitigate those impacts as best as we possibly can. As Stefan sort of articulated, Mitch, albeit a very minor decrease in cost of goods sold in the second half, you know, it was a decrease it didn't get out of sort of whack. So again, I think the team are doing a pretty good job there to, to sort of mitigate that cost inflation. Yep. Excellent. Very clear. Just a, just second and final question, just in terms of the inventory reduction, that was a great outcome, down 26.2% of revenue. Is there any further to go in 2024? Obviously, yeah, relaying that back to Better Than Before, I guess just thinking about where that trends to, through 2025, 2026, or what the target is, through the Better Than Before program. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Mitch. Let me, let me answer it this way. Obviously, delighted with the improvement. Inventory is key to this business. You've got to say yes more often to your workshops. Delighted to sort of see us being able to do what we said we were gonna do. Look, I think, I won't give a specific target, but I'll say this: 26.2% is a pretty good number. We'll continue to try and optimize that. We will get some further improvement through consolidation of warehouses and those type of things. As we, through Better Than Before, continue to look to improve the return on invested capital, which currently stands at 10.4%, to get to that average of 12% in 30 June 2025, you can work the arithmetic out, says that we have to make a significant improvement on return on invested capital. It's across the board in terms of capital efficiency, including inventory, as well as proper performance, will together get us towards that in excess of 12% target, which targeted on return on invested capital. Great. Thank you. We'll hear next from Tim Piper from UBS. Hey, Noel and Stefan. Tim here. just first one, following on from the last question on inventory. clearly, that's come down quicker or more than expected. does that play into your confidence around the timing of starting to realize the Better Than Before benefits in 2024, just given how much of the program is revolved around procurement? Thanks, Tom. Look, if I sort of deal with the inventory side of things, if you look at, because we import and have long lead items, long lead terms with lots of suppliers, as we were going into FY 2023, and we said at the start of FY 2023, we were targeting tens of millions of AUD of reduction, but we didn't think that would happen until the second half of the year because it takes a long time for it to happen. So, I was confident we were gonna get there, and, but it was gonna take some time because these are complex supply chains that you're managing. If I then go to the link into Better Than Before, if I talk just on the gross benefits that we're targeting for next year, AUD 20 million-AUD 30 million, we've got lots of plans in place to do it. It will be weighted more towards the second half of the year. Again, what we're trying to articulate, Tom, is coming back to the purpose slide, is when we make a commitment, and we've made the commitments, I wanna be known as a management team that deliver on those commitments. So, I won't say they're gonna be delivered earlier, but I'm gonna say that I'm confident we've got plans in place to deliver in line with what we've articulated to the market. That if I go one step further, just to preempt any, another question from somebody else, people might say, "Well, if you get AUD 20-AUD 30 million gross next year, how are you gonna get to AUD 100 million the following year?" Again, it's exit run rate that's gonna be really important next year. Got it. Thanks. Maybe just second high-level one on your outlook commentary around trade going forward and normalizing back to sort of historical averages. I assume you're sort of talking about like-for-like growth, that sort of average 4.5% odd, for pre sort of five years pre-COVID, outside of FY 2019. Is that right? Then I guess the question is, there's been, you know, obviously a lot of talk around the increased age in the vehicle car park, inflation being higher. Is there not an argument that we could be in for a period of, of actually higher than historical average, trade growth? First of all, Tim, let me apologize for calling you Tom. I just realized that I couldn't read my handwriting. Apologies for that. On, on the trade, what we're trying to say is, if you look at what's happening in the marketplace, and we've had extraordinary like-for-like sales growth over the last couple of years, I don't think it'll switch back to historical-... There is an argument to say, it'll go towards that 4% or 5%. We're just being a little bit cautious to say to people, "Don't be expecting 8% and 9% going forward." You might then get more than four or five, it won't, it won't flick overnight to that. Hopefully that sort of helps where we're sort of trying to guide you to. Got it. Thanks. I might just squeeze one more in just on the retail segment. I mean, second half looks like you like the likes are up about 1%. Any commentary you can kind of give on the, the progression of growth through the half, like where you sort of exited, May, June, July, in terms of the year-on-year like-for-like in revenue? Second part of the question, I mean, it sounds like the earnings are gonna skew to the second half in 2024 on Better Than Before. Does, does retail sort of play a part in, in a, in a second half earnings skew in 2024 as well, do you think? Let me have a go at this. If you look at the business, again, from a Bapcor perspective, and I'll come back to retail, the retail tends to be more first half biased than second half biased because of Christmas and Black Friday and a bunch of things. Where the other businesses tend to be pretty even across the year. If I answered the question on July performance, if I look at July across Bapcor, and I've made the comment that it was a solid performance, all segments in July had higher revenue this July than they did 12 months ago. Like-for-like sales in retail will be coming up, but again, the... As Tim sort of mentioned, on things like the Accelerate program, and it's, it's in the detail, but we've only launched the loyalty program, you know, since December. Credit to Tim and his team, we've got 600 sign-ups to that program. Again, what we're trying to do is mitigate if like-for-like sales come down, how can we mitigate it with other things? Hopefully that gives you some color. Yeah, thanks. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press the star key followed by the digit one if you have a question or a comment. If you find that they've been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. We'll move next to John Campbell from Jefferies. Hi, Noel. Hi, Stefan. Just a couple of questions. A lot of my better questions have already been asked, unfortunately. Just on the Better Than Before, a key part is obviously procurement, improved procurement. I guess, one of the cautions to date has been that people thought, you know, that suppliers were gonna push back hard against your ambitions for better procurement. Can you just give us an update as to how supplier discussions, negotiations, et cetera, are going? Yeah, John, I'm happy to do so, and I'll probably build on what Craig explained. We've got obviously a choice of, of suppliers and partners looking, with whom we work going forward, and they do want to work with us going forward. There is a lot of value that we are generating by working together, and what that means is that we are, in many cases, achieving a true win-win situation, where there's actually more volume and more profit, maybe at a slightly lower margin, but more volume, more profit for our future supplier partners, as there is for us. A lot of when we think about procurement, it's not just about transferring $1 of profit from a supplier to us. It's actually by working together, generating more for our supplier partners and for us. I think what is fair to say is that, and then, then again, refer back to the private category explanation that Craig made, for those supplier partners with whom we will go forward and that we want to work with us, that has absolutely worked out. I think what is also fair to say is that some suppliers do not want to work with us and do not want to work in a value-added environment. If that is the case, then we're obviously parting ways, as, as you should. Pleasingly, from, our perspective, in those categories, which we have worked so far and that are nearing the finish line, A, we are delivering benefits in line with our targets, and it is a situation which is beneficial for us, plus it is beneficial for our supplier partners. It's not just about a value transfer from one to the other. Great. Thanks, Stefan. Just two, two other questions. Obviously, the Melbourne DC, when, when you commissioned it, and ramped up, you were obviously in a tough time in terms of COVID and, and labor availability, et cetera, et cetera. Could you just give us an update on, on the risks, I suppose, about around the Queensland DC, how you see it and, you know, the steps you've taken to mitigate any of those issues that you had with the Melbourne DC? I'd be also happy to do that. I think that there are two things that I would highlight. Number one, we've had a lot of lessons learned out of DCV that we have incorporated into DCQ, that means that we are starting in a much better position from the get-go. Just touch base on the labor, the specific labor element of it, as you said, COVID and the disruptions have impacted what we were able to do in DCV. One of the benefits we're having in DCQ is that we've a lot of our pre-existing warehouses are actually in a reasonably close proximity to our new central distribution center. What that means is that we. Attract a lot of our existing team members from the existing warehouse into warehouses into the new one, and therefore, a lot of the transitional risk that we've had in DCV, where we moved far away from our existing warehouses, isn't there to the same degree in DCQ. Saying that, I'm 100% sure not everything will go perfectly according to plan, but I think from the get-go, with the lessons learned out of DCV and with the proximity of the new warehouse compared to the pre-existing ones, we're in a much better position to commence operations. Thanks, Stefan. When do you expect to be commencing commissioning of DCQ? We, we have started to transition two of the bulk operations that we've got in the greater Brisbane area, so the heavy equipment, that goes to that point that Noel raised around the cantilever racking, which we've installed, which is particularly for optimizing space when you move big and bulky equipment. They are in there. They have transitioned successfully. Having said that, in terms of quantum, that is very, very small. At this point in time, the first litmus test will be when we transition the trade business into DCQ, that will be towards the end of this calendar year, early in FY 2024. Great. Thank you, Stefan. Look, last question from me. Obviously, COVID was a difficult time, I think, for M&A, and, you know, we all understand that. Also, you know, implementing a massive transformation program like you are is probably also makes M&A more, more challenging. Historically, Bapcor's done pretty well, particularly from bolt-on M&As, over, over the years. Can you just give us a sort of a sense on where you see-- I mean, I think you mentioned it in your, in your preso, potential acquisitions or the like. Can you just give us an update where, where, where you're at with that in terms of, you know, getting back to that constant and regular sort of bolt-ons, I suppose? Yeah, yeah, thanks, John. As you say, you know, Bapcor has been very successful at doing lots of M&A over a number of years. If you look at the half year, you know, we've done some and we'll continue to do more. I, I think the way, the way to think about it is, particularly in the Truckline space, and you saw Tracey spoke about one of the acquisitions we've done recently, a company called E-Max. I think the Truckline space is an area obviously of importance and attention. The trade business, we've continued to grow, and do that by either, you know, our own store rollouts or buy and sort businesses. Those areas that, that we are looking at and, fair to say, look, we have been approached. Our name tends to get mentioned with every M&A opportunity in the industry. We have had a look at a few things this year, in the last 12 months, and in some cases have participated in sort of the, you know, looking at things and, but remain very diligent in terms of the, the multiples we're prepared to pay, and we'll walk away from things. I think the way to think about it is you will continue to see lots of sort of opportunities come through and probably an overindex on, you know, proportional terms on truck rather than sort of passenger, just given the, the state of the markets. Thanks very much, Noel, and congratulations on what you've achieved to date. Thanks, John. Thank you, John. Elijah Mayr from BLFA, your line is open. Just a couple of quick one. I guess around the EBIT expectations at a net level, FY 2024 from Better Than Before, and I guess some second part is where we should look to across the segments of where those benefits will come through? Thanks, Elijah. So if you, I think about FY 2024 and Better Than Before, we said there would be cross-benefit between AUD 20 million and AUD 30 million, and that's what we are targeting. We still have some remaining costs that we are going to spend, and all of that we've tried to summarize on slide 29. The net contribution or the Better Than Before will, you know, depending on whether we land at the high end or the low end of the range, will then probably be, you know, half of that, I would expect, there or thereabout. By some of it, and I think it will be reasonably evenly split between COGS and costs, probably not so much, and a little bit of commercial. To, to Noel's point, you've got initiatives that are a bit less complex, and they are also smaller in quantity, but they are the ones that tend to be done first, and, they would more be in the cost space, I would, suggest, rather than in some of COGS-related ones. Again, would refer back to what Craig explained with regards to, to the complexity of these processes that we are working through, in procurement, for example, to ensure that we are maximizing the benefits. That does take time. It does lead to a bigger quantum, but it does take a bit longer. Largely in the second half 2024, should we expect to see that, sitting in Trade, Specialist Wholesale, New Zealand, Retail or, or sort of split across the segments? There will be, it should come across, it should come through across the board. In all of the segments, there will be some benefits out of- ... before in FY 2024. One, I guess second half 2023 was the implementation phase for Better Than Before program. What was the, I guess, the biggest challenge and biggest surprise for you guys as a team in that implementation phase? Oh, thanks, Elijah. Look, it's a really good, really good question. You know, we, we've been planning this for a while. Obviously, we announced it to the market last November. Look, I think if I look back on it, and we've got still a lot of work to do on it, the diligence that, that the team went through on what we call building the bankable plan with real rigor, has just been outstandingly impressive. You know, all of the initiatives that we sort of articulate on the slides, and we've got sort of 300 of them, have a detailed business plan and a detailed execution plan. They're not just sort of. They start from an idea and then go through a stage gate process. The way the organization has embraced that challenge has just been phenomenal. Really pleasingly, the initiative owners are people that are putting their hands up across Bapcor to say, "I want to lead that initiative." The identification of talent in the organization, to me, that's been an absolute, you know, sort of highlight. Is it without its challenges? No, it's not. There's lots of challenges and lots of rigor. We've, you know, through Christophe and his team, we've got a small transformation office. The cadence of work is pretty hard, and I'm very conscious of that. We've got a good team. We've got people that are aligned behind Better Than Before as a way of doing business. That's probably been the highlight to me, the embracing of the concept. We'll move to the next caller in the queue, Sam Teeger from Citi. Please go ahead. Oh, good morning, Noel. Hi, Stefan. Thanks for the presentation this morning. Good morning, Sam. Good morning. Yeah, when you use the word solid, is it reasonable for us to assume this implies double-digit growth, or is that a bit of an optimistic interpretation of the word solid? Just confirming, the AUD 15 million of net benefits that Stefan referred to before from Better Than Before, is that part of the solid? I, I break it. I think the best way to think about it, Sam, let's, let's break it into two. You have the underlying business, and then you have the Better Than Before that Stefan spoke about. In terms of the underlying business, and I say solid, if, if I look as, as a proxy for what we've seen in July, and I mentioned this earlier, all businesses have grown revenue. What does that mean on an aggregate basis? You know, mid-single digits from a Bapcor perspective. Now, that's not all translating into the bottom line because of, obviously, some of the, the cost inflation and those type of things, but that would be sort of the guidance that we're trying to sort of give to people. Right. Just to clarify, solid would be, from an earnings perspective, less than mid-single digits, and on, and then on top of that, you'd have the Better Than Before net benefit. Yeah, that's the way to think about it. All right, great. Just one for Stefan. In terms of the comments on higher D&A and interest, is there any sense of the magnitude, or if you can let us know, roughly what you're thinking? I didn't get the second part of the question. I think that the line broke up a little bit. Can you just repeat that, Sam? Yeah, just in terms of the higher D&A and the higher interest outlook for FY 2024, just if you can kind of give us a bit of a steer or a sense of the magnitude? Yeah, I think generally speaking, over the past two years, we have invested, and obviously the investment period, then the D&A goes up in the following periods. That is something also with the, with finalizing DCQ, and continued investment into the businesses, that I would expect to continue. In a targeted- Okay. Discipline session. All right. Then look, just on the retail part of the business, when you guys are converting franchise stores to company-owned stores, are you seeing better sales performance, or do the franchisees drive the business harder, given they have more personal upside? How do the franchise same-store sales compare to company-owned same-store sales in FY 2023? I guess any comments you can provide just around the metrics you're getting at the moment when you are converting stores from franchise to company-owned around cost, margin uplifts, and et cetera. Yeah, look, if I, if I look at, Let me answer the second part of the question first, Sam, in terms of like-for-like for FY 2023. Franchisee like-for-like and company store like-for-like is basically the same. No major difference between the two of them. If you look at the franchisees that we've got, I think we've got on Autobarn, 36 and 102 company stores. The majority, obviously, of those 36 by default, are really good franchisee stores. What tends to happen sometimes, not always, is there can be a generational change. A franchisee might approach us and say, "Look, you know, they're interested in sort of, sort of selling to us." You're inheriting a pretty good business by and large anyway. Again, you don't see a material sort of shift on that one, but tends to be good franchisees that you're buying. You do see the dilution on, sort of margins because of sort of the accounting impact. Okay. And sorry, can I just, I just ask one more on trade? I guess, what are you seeing in the market now that makes you think growth will moderate? Are you just being a bit conservative, just trying to kind of marry your outlook on trade to what we heard from GUD yesterday? They seemed a little bit more upbeat on their aftermarket outlook, and just any color on the promotional intensity, in the broader trade sector would be helpful. Thanks. Thanks, Sam. Let me try and give some color. Again, the way we look at it, upon it, and, you know, there's no doubt we've had a really good year in trade, as Steve articulated. You look at that revenue growth number that we had coming through there, you know, 11-ish percent, you know, more volume than price came through that. When we go and talk to-- and everyone talks to different people, but when you go and talk to workshops, anecdotally, you know, 12 months ago, you might talk to a workshop and they might say, "Well, I've got, I don't know, three weeks of work," and now it's two. I guess we're just sort of, you know, taking that into consideration in sort of the, some of the commentary that we put out there. Cool, just on the promotional intensity? No, no, look, you know, the, the, there's always different promos that go on and all those type of things, but no, no major shift. We're just, we just, I, I think we're just getting better at it. Thank you. We'll move next to Craig Wolford from MST Marquee. Morning, Noel. Morning, Stefan. I just wanted to kick off with a question, just double checking on the AUD 20 million-AUD 30 million Better Than Before savings. That will be the actual impact on the P&L in FY 2024. It's not a run rate figure? Yeah, that, that is the gross number of drop through. You have to deduct the associated cost, which tried to explain earlier. You would expect kind of half of that, potentially as the net drop through, but it is a drop through, it's not a run rate. That's clear. Thank you. Then the called out wages, what's on your wages and big payroll and a few other items? What about rent? Do you have any exposure to CPI-linked rental bills? Yes, absolutely. That is another area of cost inflation. We've got 1,000 locations, roughly, and we've got a lot of different terms and conditions, and quite some of them are CPI-linked. Some have a cap, some don't. Many would have been signed years ago, where inflation was not necessarily on anybody's radar screen, given the low or zero inflation environment that we've enjoyed for a decade or so. So there's definitely quite some exposure there, part of which, again, we are addressing through Better Than Before and by building a central property function to actually take us to a better place with regards to that. There's an element that is actually washing through as we speak, and that has contributed to the increase of cost of doing business, FY 2022 into FY 2023. Having said that, and just to reiterate the point, during FY 2023, the overall cost of doing business has been stable. Well, quick one. Just on the interest expense, sounds like you've in play may mean that the credit spread narrows, but, looking at your detail of your financial accounts, it looks like there's a fair bit of variable rate exposure. Do you expect the average interest rate on your debt to be higher in FY 2024 than FY 2023? Yes, is the short answer. If you think about the average level of debt, FY 2023 to FY 2022, that has, of course, increased. Then towards the end, overall, the closing balance has decreased, but the average level has gone up, so has the average interest rate. So that's something that we're on both aspects, the average level of debt through the cash conversion, by taking out some fixed rate swaps, in terms of the interest rates, both aspects is what we are addressing. Right. Then, so one probably more geared towards that core retail. Can you clarify if it's 1%-ish, same store sales growth, June half year? Can you give us a sense on transaction numbers versus average transaction value for that division? Let me, let me try and answer it, Craig. I don't have the specific detail off the top of my head, but I guess the way we look at upon it. Again, if I use. Let me use July as an indicator. So revenue for retail in July compared to 12 months ago is, you know, slightly higher. Part of that, you know, like for like, down a little bit, but then you then look at, you know, whether it's basket size and those type of things, and it's, you know, the Accelerate program, which is our loyalty program. We're doing lots of data analysis there. What we are seeing there, and I won't give the exact number, but the average spend on a loyalty member is higher than the average spend on a non-loyalty member. Now we've got 600,000 loyalty members who are spending more than- My understanding is a lot of the products are still seeing quite a bit of inflation. There might be individual product inflation that may be average spend up, though, probably because of the basket mix contribution. No, no. Look, I think the way I'd look at it, Craig, sorry to jump in, but the way I'd look at it is, you know, and what we've done for the last two years, we price scrape against, you know, probably 1,200 products each and every day to make sure we're on the money with the market. If you look broadly what's happening in retail, in our business, you might take the higher priced items, which used to be things like we used to sell lots of roof racks and obviously electronic equipment and those type of things. You know, they're declining. On the other side of things, oils, you know, spare parts, and those type of things is increasing. You're sort of seeing that happening. It's, it's quite a different mix. Understood. Thanks, Noel. Thanks, Craig. We'll move next to James Casey from Ord Minnett. Hi, good morning, gentlemen. just to get a sense of your progress on your Better Than Before program, within your procurement initiative, have you actually introduced or executed your category management plans in any single category to date? Thanks, James. Good morning. Look, as Craig sort of articulated in sort of the case study that he went through earlier on today, we are well, well advanced on a couple of the categories. The nuance in it is. Let me try and explain it this way, James. Let's say we've negotiated new contractual terms. We've then got to go through a process, obviously, if we're moving product out or new product in and those type of things, that takes time. We, we can say, yes, we've signed contracts with new terms, but you've then got to you know, exit your old stock and bring in your new stock. That'll take some time, and hence why we're saying that the gross benefits that we're expecting next year is more weighted towards the second half of the fiscal year rather than the first half. Okay. Thanks, Noel. With, with relation to the truck parts business, I notice you've introduced your Japanese truck parts into the Truckline business. You've commented before about the underperformance of the WANO brand. Is that pilot program you're running there, is that precursor to potentially combining those two operations and consolidation of sites? Look, it's a good, good question, James. Look, the introduction of the Japanese truck parts across the business is making a lot of, you know, strategic sense. Over time, we'll continue to sort of say, "Well, how many locations do we need? And are there consolidation opportunities?" And those type of things. You know, we haven't got a definitive plan to say, "Okay, by X, we're gonna, you know, consolidate plans, so sites and those type of things." We'll just optimize our network going forward. Okay. Just one last one. Just with regards to your gearing position, it's, you know, all your focus on capital efficiency, you're potentially moving into a strong, stronger financial position going forward. In the absence of acquisitions, would you consider a buyback to improve your capital structure and make sure it's as efficient as possible? That's an interesting question. I mean, capital allocation is something that we look at from a strategic perspective, and in the end, it's a question of alternatives. We see a lot of opportunities with a very good return profile from a business point of view, both organically and inorganically. For as long as those opportunities carry higher returns than what a share buyback would potentially do, that should, of course, be the preferred investment option. We look at it from a very rational point of view and to try to maximize shareholder value. Okay. Thanks, Noel. Thanks, Noel. Thanks, James. Your final question today will come from James Bales from Morgan Stanley. Oh, hi, guys. In the outlook commentary, you called out increasing payroll taxes and investment in capability. Can you maybe firstly, give some indication on the magnitude of each of those buckets of spend? Good morning, James. Yeah, look, let me go on the payroll tax one. If you look at payroll tax and workers' comp, order magnitude is about AUD 3 million. On the investment and capability, is that separate to Better Than Before, or how should we think about that? I, I think it's more linked into Better Than Before than separate to Better Than Before. I think, you know, the way to think about it is, I'll give you a simple example. We've got 1,100 properties in the portfolio. Previously, we didn't have any sort of, call it, centralized property capability. We're now just building that, those type of things, same on pricing. It's, it's more linked to, into Better Than Before than outside of Better Than Before. Okay. When we look at the sort of central overhead line, how should we think about the change versus the second half run rate in 2023? From a segment node point of view, in terms of head office, you will see that kind of half year and half year does increase, you know, a couple of million bucks in the low single digits, one or two or 3 million. That in essence is-... A little bit of a mix of BAU and Better Than Before. I think we spoke previously, for example, about the investment we've undertaken into our safety resources, where we started with, you know, let's say one dedicated person. We now have dedicated people in every single segment. The outcome of that, or one outcome, is what we've discussed earlier with regards to the reduction in the injury frequency rate. Plus, in line with our values, it's absolutely the right thing to do in terms of duty of care for our team members and for ourselves. Some of that is flowing through, so is the investment into some B2B-related capability in terms of, for example, the transformation office, and property procurement and so on. All of that is coming through there. I think the two relevant points that I would highlight is, I think at the Macquarie Conference, we highlight quite a bit of an overview of top 10, top 15 roles that we've added. You will see that again, there is a mix of Better Than Before and what I would call business as usual. Just in terms of Better Than Before, in the Better Than Before scorecard that we provided to you on slide 29, you can also see some of the quantums in terms of steady state OpEx, which directly relates to procurement, category, pricing, property, and technology. Awesome. No, thanks for your help. I appreciate it. At this time, we'll just turn the conference back over to your host for any additional or closing comments. Thank you, Desi. Just in closing, we would like to thank all participants of today's call for your continued interest and support of Bapcor. We are looking forward to engaging with you over the next days and hopefully in person. For everybody watching the soccer tonight, of course, go Matildas. Thank you, and bye-bye. That does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.