Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Capral Limited H1 FY 2024 results webinar. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question via the phone, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. And if you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please enter it into the Ask a Question box and click submit. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Tony Dragicevich, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Capral's first half 2024 results presentation. I'm Tony Dragicevich, CEO and Managing Director of Capral, and I'm joined on the call this morning with me by Tertius Campbell, our CFO. Today's agenda, which we'll just turn to the next page. First of all, I'll start with an overview of the business, a brief introduction on Capral, who we are and what we do. Then I'll run into the first half highlights, and a bit of background on the business and the markets in which we play. Then I'll hand over to Tertius to run through in more detail the financial results for the half year, and then I'll come back to me for strategy and outlook and guidance. So let's turn to the next page, which is the overview of Capral. So for those of you who don't know, Capral is Australia's leading supplier of aluminum extrusion and rolled products. Now, aluminum is a strategically important material. It is strong but lightweight, and plays, as a consequence, a key role in global decarbonization initiatives. In Australia, bauxite mining, alumina refining, and aluminum smelting make the aluminum industry Australia's largest value-add export earner. Combined with downstream operations such as extrusion, which we are the major player, and fabrication, it also makes the aluminum industry one of Australia's biggest employers, so very important to the Australian economy. Now, let's turn to the next page. We'll just describe our business in a little bit more detail. So Capral's core business is the extruding and distribution of aluminum. We've got six manufacturing plants, or six extrusion plants, a total of eight extrusion presses, 65,000 tons a year of capacity. In addition to that, we have a large distribution network, which we own and sell through, eight major distribution centers and fifteen trade centers. The key markets in which we operate are residential, commercial, construction, and a wide variety of industrial markets. Our overall market share is around 28% of the aluminum market in Australia. Our turnover, a bit over AUD 640 million for the last 12 months. Our gross assets are AUD 455 million, and in excess of 1,000 employees. So now turning to the first half highlights. So volume and earnings were in line with our expectations for the first half. Residential demand was weaker than the prior year due to low commencements and a reduced pipeline of work. However, industrial demand remained solid. The margins were maintained through effective cost management and recovery through price increases. So now we'll turn to some more detail on the performance highlights. So as I said earlier, the first half results were in line with our expectations. Our volume in a down-turning market was off 6% to 33,500 tons. And as a consequence, our sales revenue was down 5% to AUD 313 million, with our metal cost being reasonably stable through the first half of the year on average. Our underlying EBITDA, AUD 28.7 million, was down 9% on the same period last year, albeit the first half last year was the beneficiary of a AUD 2 million credit claim reversal. So on a like-to-like basis, our earnings, you know, weren't too far off the same period last year. Just turning to NPAT, net profit after tax of AUD 14.7 million, compared to AUD 16.6 million, first half last year. Earnings per share, AUD 0.83, down 11% on the AUD 0.93 for the first half 2023. On a really positive note, our net cash position improved, from December year-end to up by 14% to AUD 67.8 million, at the 30th of June 2024. Our net asset tangible asset backing per share increased from AUD 9.89 to AUD 10.43 a share. In terms of capital management, as most of you will be aware, we announced in February an on-market buyback of up to 10% of our stock. And in the first half of the year, we bought back the equivalent of AUD 0.18 per year, and as a result, there's no interim dividend declared at this point. Our safety performance at 4.7 total reportable injury frequency rate was on par with last year and is industry leading for Australian building product manufacturing companies. Overall, a very solid result for the first half of the year and in line with where we expected it to be, more or less. So now turning to a bit more discussion on our volume. Just a headline there is that our industry diversification does support our volume during, you know, the cyclical downturn in the housing market, which we're experiencing. So volume, as I said earlier, was down 6% on the first half of last year. The residential was soft as commencements remained low for the second year in a row, and the backlog of work dissipated. Resellers have returned to imports as the supply chain has normalized, and both those two factors were partially offset by ongoing infrastructure investment and strength in our industrial sectors. Just want to talk about our channels to market first, and I'll talk about the industry exposure. So firstly, channels to market. As you can see by the bottom, the graph on the bottom left-hand corner of the page, 50% of Capral's volume is directly from our manufacturing sites to our large customers. The other 50% of our volume goes through our distribution centers and trade centers, with extrusion making up 70% of that volume and raw product, which is sheet and plate, making up the other 30% that goes through our distribution centers. So we're roughly 50/50 between mill direct and through our distribution centers, our own distribution centers. In terms of industry exposure, which is the other graph in the middle of the page there, as you can see, our largest single market remains residential building, at 40%. But the industrial markets, which comprise a whole raft of markets, including transport, marine, general manufacturing, signage, facade work, makes up, drives around 48% of our total volume. Now, the big change for our business over the last five or six years has been the less reliance on residential building. We go back to 2018, our residential exposure to the residential market was 44%. It's now down to 40%, and it's really as a result of us growing our market share in our industrial markets, our overall industrial markets, which we've lifted our exposure from 44% up to 48% of our total volume. And clearly all that means is that when we do hit the big downturn in the residential markets in particular, we're less exposed than what we were five years ago. On the right-hand side there, you can just see how our volume moves each half year, so six monthly. Typically, historically, we've had stronger second halves than first half. However, in the last couple of years, as the residential markets come off, that has stabilized, and as the pipeline has reduced, we've over the last couple of years had slightly lower second half of the year, so we'll see where this year pans out, but we're expecting it to be down slightly on the first half of this year at this point. Turning now to a bit more discussion on the residential housing market. So as you know, residential commencements have slowed. You can see from the bar chart on the right-hand side of the page there, 2003, 2024, housing starts, total commencements are low, the lowest they've been in over a decade, but have come off very high levels, post-COVID, you know, post-government stimulus. So this year, 2024, the latest estimate from the HIA is 165,000 starts, and which is pretty much in line, more with where it was in 2023. Obviously, the starts have been impacted by the significant rise in interest rates, the removal of government incentives, particularly around first-timer, first homeowners, and higher building costs. What we're anticipating or what the forecasters are anticipating in the next couple of years is for housing starts to start to lift in 2025, but the bigger lift will be in 2026 and beyond, to fulfill a growing demand for housing stock in New Zealand. Sorry, New Zealand, in Australia, in the next couple of years. So let's now turn to some examples of the residential projects we recently completed. Just to give you some idea of where our products end up. So these are all projects that have been completed by our Capral's residential fabricators over the past six to 12 months. A terrace house in New South Wales, done by Fin Windows, one of our key fabricators in New South Wales. A beach house in WA, using the Capral Artisan Framing Systems, completed by Busselton Aluminium Windows. On the right-hand side, an upmarket home in New South Wales, completed by PCW Commercial Windows using our AGS framing systems. On the next slide, we will just show some examples of some commercial projects. Catherine McAuley College here in New South Wales, using our Capral commercial framing systems, also completed by PCW. PCW seem to be at the forefront here. Also completing a community center in Monterey, New South Wales, using our commercial framing systems, and Queensland Glass with the Gold Coast Airport, using Capral's curtain wall system. These are some examples of where Capral's systems are used. Proprietary systems are used both in residential and commercial projects around Australia. Now we turn to the industrial sector. So the industrial sector has really underpinned our volumes for the first half of the year, as the residential sector's come off. The sector has remained solid. As you can see, it's quite a broad industry, covering off transport, marine, solar, industrial construction, manufacturing, and general fabrication, and also through a number of other aluminum resellers. So firstly, transport. This sector, as you can see by the graph below on the left-hand side, is holding up at record highs, and on the back of growing freight demand. And customer order books are healthy, and they're most of our truck building customers have order books out to 2025. In marine, commercial ferry book builds, particularly locally, have been solid. It's good to see the local marine builders, ferry builders, now starting to win contracts in Australia. Defense building is forecast to lift. The government has announced a number of initiatives, particularly around border patrol and other vessels, which we will be looking to supply over the next couple of years. However, the recreational vessel market demand is slowing with the downturn in the overall economy. In terms of solar, demand for local solar rail remains steady. This is the domain of imports primarily, because it's typically very simple systems with only a small number of extrusions required to make up the rails that the solar panels sit on. We do have a small share of that market, and we are looking to grow it, but it's tough against import competition in that particular segment of the market, where we have the, you know, solar rail distributors importing directly. The one bright spot on the horizon, albeit it's gonna be a few years away, is the government Solar Sunshot initiative. Under the Future Made in Australia program, the government has announced significant support and funding for the development of local solar panel manufacturing, and Capral has just announced a supply partnership in conjunction with Tindo Solar, who are the only local producer of the solar panel at the moment. We're looking to build a mega factory over the next couple of years, and we're looking to be their partnership supplier in that, albeit that's a few years away. In terms of industrial construction, the infrastructure investment remains steady. The cladding sector continues to grow, as there's more demand for aluminum facades and sun shading systems, which certainly have grown in popularity as the fire code has become more pronounced and more stringent in the Australian environment. Manufacturing and general fabrication markets have remained solid and held up, and our market share gains against imports to our direct customers have held up very, very well. In terms of the reseller market, this is where we have seen some volume return to imports, as the supply chains have normalized, and as we've announced previously, we have been looking to expand Capral's footprint through acquisition, and in the last six months, we've announced two small acquisitions, one in Victoria and one in Queensland. So you can see there, that chart on the bottom right-hand side is an index of Capral's industrial volumes, from 2012, index from 2012, and you can see that the last 10 years, our growth in our industrial business over that period has really focused on, gaining market share against imports in this channel, and also increasing our distribution footprint, with our direct distributor and our direct customer base. So now we'll turn to some examples of recent projects, in the industrial area, and we'll have a short video to show at the end of this, which I think you'll find very interesting. So first of all, on the left-hand side here, Borcat Trailers, one of the largest trailer manufacturers in New South Wales, based in Wetherill Park. We're a primary supplier of both aluminum extrusion and plate to Borcat. In the middle here, picture depicts a marina development that was built by Siltech. So all the marina pontoons and pathways you can see on that picture are aluminum and supplied by us to Siltech in Western Australia. And on the right-hand side is a ferry built by Incat in Tasmania, and we're just gonna show a short video in a minute. But before we do that, I just wanna explain what we do with what we call our Crafted with Capral videos. So about 18 months ago, we developed. We decided we would develop in conjunction with our customers to showcase some key projects, Capral's supplier relationship with those customers, and showcase the products that they're building. So this helps us develop a much closer relationship with these customers. It provides them with some pretty classy marketing material they can use in their own right, and it also allows us to show our customers where Capral products can be used. So I think we'll run straight into that video. It's been condensed down to, I think, a relatively short time. These original videos last for four or five minutes, but this is a bit of a condensed version of the one for Incat. A lot of people, when they think of high-speed ferries, it'll be the typical Incat bow that will come to mind with those wave piercers. It actually slices through the sea, which basically makes it more efficient, makes it faster, but fundamentally it makes it more comfortable, and it is a signature part of Incat's design. Innovation's a real hallmark of the Incat culture, and it's that entrepreneurial spirit, innovation in both design and the way we build and where our boats are operated, but also the willingness to take some real risks in the innovation space. Hull 96 will take 2,200 passengers, about 225 vehicles. It's the largest ferry we've ever built. It's 130 meters long. It'll be the world's largest battery electric vessel when it's launched towards the end of 2025. It's so much bigger than the next closest example of a fully battery electric ferry, and the fact that it's aluminum and it's been designed and built, you know, here in Tasmania, when you just look at all those things and you take a step back, it is quite remarkable. We use aluminum more than any other material, but that's basically how our ships are built. And therefore, it's something where we need, you know, a reliable supplier and a supplier of quality material. Incat has developed a very close relationship with Capral over many years. Having someone here in Hobart that we can pick up the phone, call into the office, have a conversation with, adds real value to our procurement process and our production process more broadly. That aluminum from Capral is a key ingredient to our vessels. It's the best quality for our team to build with, but it creates the best and most reliable hulls that become the ships that our customers use all around the world. Okay, well, I hope the audio on that is coming through reasonably well. I think we may have some transmission problems, but, hopefully if you're able to see that video, you can get an understanding of why we're developing these Crafted with Capral videos. So I'll now hand over to Tertius Campbell, who will run through the half year financial results. And we'll just turn to the next page, please. Yeah. Thank you, Tony, and good morning to everyone. Amidst inflationary pressures and low volume, Capral has produced yet another good performance. Our fully integrated value chain continues to reap the benefits of our reasonable volumes, good asset utilization, tight cost control, and prudent capital expenditure practices. In summary, the key financial highlights for the first half of 2024 encompasses healthy earnings in line with our expectations, strong balance sheet, and a very excellent cash position. So if we move to page 14 of the presentation. In terms of metal cost, you'll remember that during 2022, our total metal cost, which is metal prices, the LME, plus the premiums we pay on it, rose to record highs, placing enormous pressure on our working capital requirements. Over the past 18 months, the LME has moderated somewhat, but it's not yet back to the pre-war in Ukraine levels or COVID levels. So the LME spiked yet again by 15% at the end of Q2 this year, but since have come down again. This increase hasn't really impacted on our working capital. Just turning to the P&L on page 15, Capral's earnings for the first half were in line with our expectations. The underlying EBITDA amounted to AUD 28.7 million, which is only 3% or slightly lower than the previous year, after taking into account the AUD 2 million claims provision that was released in the prior period, the non-recurring benefit that we've received in last year. The lower volume contributed to a 5% decline in revenue, while the 6% lower sales volume had an AUD 1.1 million adverse impact on earnings. It was offset by solid margins and a favorable product mix. The AUD 2.5 million impact of inflation on non-metal cost impacted earnings. Nonetheless, some cost-saving initiatives and efficiency projects provided a measure of mitigation. Underlying EBIT, at AUD 16.9 million, was down on last year, predominantly driven by the volume, inflation, and the prior year one-off benefit, as I mentioned earlier. No additional deferred tax asset was recognized during, at this stage. Net profit after tax of AUD 14.7 million lagged the previous year, primarily attributable to the items above, but partly offset by a AUD 1 million lower, operating finance cost. Our earnings per share at AUD 0.83 is 11%... lower than first half 2023, but it's positive, was positively impacted by the lower weighted number of shares on issue due to the share buyback scheme. If you look at page 16, balance sheet, Capral's financial position remains really strong, with a net cash position just short of AUD 68 million at balance date, noting that no working capital loans were utilized during this half. The cash position allows Capral to continue the share buyback announced in February this year, and also progress our CapEx program and potential future acquisitions. Our debtors days outstanding at 43 days is a very good result. Normal mid-year higher stock levels and higher metal prices increase the inventory value. The average monthly working capital requirements fell by approximately AUD 20 million compared to the first half 2023, and a further AUD 3 million since the second half of 2023. Some further reduction is anticipated over the next six to 12 months, obviously contingent upon sales levels and the aluminum input cost. Capral has distributed all its franking credits, or the remainder of its franking credits, during the first half as part of the FY 2023 final dividend. Additionally, there are still 95 million in net accumulated tax losses eligible for recognition as a deferred tax asset in future periods. Next page is cash flow. Our cash generation remains strong, assisted by further release in working capital, especially driven by strong debtor collection and some timing of payments. This contributed to a free operating cash flow of AUD 17 million after outflows for the planned expenditure program, as well as the acquisition of ATC, in this half. Additional AUD 9 million was returned to shareholders through dividends and buybacks during the half. No unfranked interim dividend will be paid. However, the declaration of any final unfranked dividend will be evaluated by the board at year-end, taking into account the return of capital through the buyback program. We can just look at page 18, which is the capital return page. This graph shows the progress Capral has made in regards to cash return to shareholders over the last few years. Total cash return relating to first half 2024, through on-market buybacks, were equivalent of around AUD 0.182 per share. Since the start of the buyback in second half of 2023, 704,000 shares, or about 4% of the total on issue, have been bought back and canceled. The buyback of up to 10% of shares, as announced, will continue during the second half, recommencing next Monday, the 2nd of September. Tony, that's the only comments I want to make on this, so I return back to you. Okay, thanks, Tertius. As you can see, the company's balance sheet is exceptionally strong, with a significant positive cash balance, and we will talk a little bit about that when we get to the end of the outlook section. Okay, so in terms of strategy and outlook, we just turn to the next slide, please. We will continue to focus on increasing return on invested capitals, improving our competitive position, and growing our presence in aluminum distribution. We turn to the overall strategy of the business, and I won't go through this in detail. Most of you would have seen it before, but basically, what we do when we develop our strategic plans, is we understand and build upon what our strengths are in the market, our range, our footprint, both in terms of manufacturing and distribution, and our product development teams that we have within the business. We continue to continually try to be better. One of our key values in Capral is Better Every Day, and that's about optimizing what we do, whether it's manufacturing, supply chain, or investing in new technology. And then looking to build upon that to grow for the future and leveraging our core capabilities into new opportunities. Okay, so let's go into a little bit more detail in the specific areas of the business on the next page. First of all, manufacturing. We'll continue our process improvement programs that we have through our six manufacturing operations. We will spend maintenance capital to ensure the ongoing reliability and efficiency of our plants. We're currently progressively upgrading our shop floor control systems, and by the end of this year, four out of our six plants will have upgraded their systems to a common platform. We're also undertaking a big project to bring our Penrith plant back up to a new standard. First stage of that was completed about a year ago, and over the next two years, stage two and stage three of the Penrith extrusion plant upgrade will be completed. In terms of the aluminum distribution, we've had a big focus on growing our window and door, which we call Building Systems, part of our business. This is the supply of Capral Systems to the small-to-medium-sized window fabricators in the market. We've recently released new window and door range to market, residential one, and upgraded our system software. A new paint line is now operational in our New South Wales site. First time we've had a paint line in this part of Australia, and that's operating very well, enabling us to grow our share into that sector. We continue to look to grow Capral's direct distribution channel, both organically and through acquisition. Over the last few years, we've made four acquisitions in this area, of the small trade center business, and we'll continue to look for further growth by acquisition, into the future where it makes sense. In terms of sales and marketing, we continually invest in technology to improve our sales effectiveness and service, with customer interfaces and digital marketing, and also embarking on how we can use AI within the business to assist both our staff training, and access to technical data, and also to give better information to our customers on a quicker basis. We've recently upgraded our website and our eStore, and that's been very successful. We continue the Crafted with Capral series, one of which you've just seen, and we've also developed what we call Capral Can Do videos, which showcase our extensive operational capabilities and our value-add capabilities. Just turning to the next slide. Looking at some other market opportunities specifically, and touching on antidumping, so lower carbon Capral is the only ASI-certified supplier of lower carbon aluminum to the market. We have undertaken a significant auditing process and certification to achieve that, and we now have an offer of both LocAl Green and LocAl Super Green to our customers, and we're looking to enhance and grow those sales into the market. The focus is on both the architectural homes and the architectural market, plus also the industrial markets, and influencing the specification of, like, lower carbon material when we're talking to architects and specifiers. In terms of solar, we've already spoken about the solar rail market is a big market, over AUD 60 million worth of solar rail in Australia. Difficult to grow share against imports in this area. We do have some really good customers, but we typically have a, you know, a modest share of their business because, they're able to import at pretty low prices in this area, despite the fact we have, antidumping programs in place. Capitalize on the government funding programs for their Solar Sunshot program, which is looking to develop solar panel manufacturing capability. And we're working very closely with the key players in that market, and as I said earlier, have very recently signed a partnership with Tindo Solar in this regard, albeit the volumes won't start to come on stream for some time. Continue to work with cladding system suppliers to address the new fire standards and re-cladding opportunities, which has been a growing market for us. And just quickly talking about imports and antidumping. Retaining market share gains is, you know, a priority, and we've been very successful at doing that in our end customer markets. We continue to fight for fair trade. We're still very active in this area. We have measures in place currently against China, Malaysia, and Vietnam. We are not the only country in the world. I mean, almost the U.S., Europe, and even Canada, as of last week, and some countries in South America, have announced and already have in place, dumping measures against imports on aluminum extrusion, particularly out of China. The measures our measures on Chinese imports come up for review in late 2025, and we've begun the process to apply for the continuation of those measures. And last but not least, aluminum has been added to the government's strategic minerals list, which will give us some advantage going forward, particularly around carbon emission reduction, not so much for Capral as an extruder, but certainly for our upstream suppliers, our smelter suppliers. So now turning to our ESG framework, I won't go through all the detail here. We typically go through this in quite a bit more detail in our sustainability report, but just hitting the high points. This year, our integrated management system has been enhanced to align with the IFRS, upcoming IFRS reporting standards. So we're capturing all the data we need to be in a good position to comply with the new standards and also data capture for environmental product declarations, or EPDs, as they're better known in the market. We've expanded our learning hub for our staff and to develop and enhance our employees' skills, and we've also enhanced the tracking of third-party freight to measure Scope 3 emissions more widely. So our vision in terms of waste management is to become a zero-waste company. And our target is an intermediary target to reduce Capral's waste by 10% by 2030, and we're well on track to achieve that. So our overall commitment to sustainability, big focus on increasing the circularity of aluminum and sourcing of lower carbon aluminum. We're looking to introduce some recycled content into our billet. We are working with the local smelters to develop and increase the level of aluminum recycled in this country, and we will be a recipient of that billet when it comes to us. Our target is net zero by 2050, as we've already announced a couple of years ago, with a 20% reduction by 2030, maintaining our ASI certification, and as I said, we're well placed for the first reporting standards when they come into play in 2025. So now turning to the outlook. This is the final slide for us. We've left our earnings guidance unchanged for the year. We are starting to see the market soften, but we are, you know, we're still confident at this stage of our guidance for the full year, with our underlying EBITDA between AUD 50 million and AUD 54 million, with net profit after tax between AUD 23 million and AUD 27 million. The industrial and commercial markets are expected to remain firm. Residential building commencements are forecast to remain soft for the remainder of 2024 and start recovering in 2025, so that part of the business will continue to be soft. LME, as we know, is highly volatile and subject to a number of global factors, but we do expect it to moderate in the second half of 2024 from the peak, the 15% peak we did see in the second quarter of this calendar year, so particularly in May and June. Inflationary cost pressures continue to impact, especially, you know, the employees wage demands, energy, continuing battle on that front, and packaging and freight costs, albeit they are starting to moderate a little. Working capital is expected to remain close to current levels for the balance of this year, subject to, you know, obviously with the acquisition of the Apple Aluminium business, there was a slight lift in inventory as a result of the acquisition, which we announced last month. And on this basis, Capral will be in a position to continue the return to shareholders, firstly in the form of the on-market share buyback program, which we currently are running. As you've seen when we went through our balance sheet, we've got, you know, over AUD 60 million worth of cash, net cash position, albeit that's end of month. And we certainly are in a position to continue that share buyback through to the end of the year, and depending on where we get to later in the year, we'll decide whether we need to top that up, the return of capital or return to shareholders with an unfranked dividend as may be required. But we will be driving that share buyback program for the balance of the year, and hopefully we'll see a lift in the buybacks, as we are targeting them to be. All right. That's the end of the presentation. I think we'll now hand over to see whether there's any questions. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question via the phone, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad, and if you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type it into the Ask a Question box. Your first question is a phone question from Andrew Johnston from MST Financial. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Congratulations on a good result. I'll come back to the gross profit per ton number, but first on volumes, you mentioned most of that was resi, but you also indicated that you'd lost some, there was some volume had gone to imports from product that normally you would sell to the resellers. Did that have much impact on your overall volume? And secondly, can I assume that that's lower value product that you've lost to those imports? Yes, Andrew. As you know, we supply a number of other aluminum distribution businesses, resellers. There are quite a number in Australia. And we are a secondary supplier to those customers. Post-COVID, in the years following COVID, when supply chains were dislocated, we saw a significant increase in demand from other aluminum resellers, which we were able to supply, given our capacity at the time, to a reasonable degree, albeit with our focus on our direct end customers a priority. Now that supply chains have normalized, we have seen those resellers return a portion of their business back to import, in order to get better prices. So, that's... Clearly, for us, that is our lowest margin part of our business, which is why, quite rightly, we say that we recognize that our average gross margin per ton has lifted, partially as a result of our more favorable sales mix. ... Okay, and that's-- Thanks, Tony, and that's a good segue into the second part of the second question around gross products per ton. You know, that's up 25% since 2021 on my calculations. And you've already indicated part of the contribution was from, you know, perhaps losing some low margin volume to imports. Where were the other contributors, and to what extent was your growth in your proprietary window systems contributing to that better gross margin? Yeah, the gross margin it was certainly not up by 25%, Andrew. I'll have to maybe check your, check your numbers on there. But certainly the gross margin, you know, per ton, did lift in the first half of the year. As I said earlier, it was, you know, where we did see some volume decline in the residential, major residential fabricators and the other aluminum resellers, they that tends to be our lower margin business. So in terms of the overall mix, that was favorable, leading to a higher average gross margin per ton. Our Building Systems business and our distribution business overall tends to be at the higher end of the margins, and we continue to focus and grow on in that segment, and as a proportion of our total business, it continues to increase. However, the volumes in that sector were also impacted by the slowdown in the housing market in particular. You know, the growth in that area was relatively modest in the first half of the year. However, we continue to focus on growing our share in what has been a bit of a softer market for Building Systems. Okay, and, thanks, Tony. And just one final question around overhead. There were two significant moves, or three moves in overhead. First, your freight expense declined, and I think that probably declined on a per ton basis as well. Yeah, it declined on a per ton basis as well. Secondly, there was a large jump in other expenses from first half CY 2023, and then the occupancy costs looked like they went down compared to the second half of 2023. Okay, I might need Tertius's help on this one, but freight costs were down because of the volume was off. Contributing to that was the fact that our plants were not running at capacity, so therefore we were able to supply more readily. The plants were supplying more locally than transporting product interstate, so there was a change in the freight mix to bring the freight costs down. And also, as a result of the large increases in freight last year, we lifted our freight charges to our customers to help recover some of the additional freight costs we incurred last year. So those were the key factors in bringing the freight number down. In terms of the other costs, the big increase there is the fact that that's where I think, Tertius, the- The AUD 2 million. - the AUD 2 million in credit claims, last year's numbers benefited by the AUD 2 million credit or reversal of that provision- Provision. which is why that increased so much, and I can't comment on the other one. Well, the occupancy cost, also remember, Andrew, that after AASB 16, the actual rent cost is not in that occupancy, so rent cost is. So that is just overall other costs, like outgoings and so on, in terms of the. So there's not really a significant movement on that number. It is just a kind of an annual small decline in some reductions. So overall, it's basically the same as last year, but the actual rent number, it will not be included in there. You commented on the impact of rents earlier on in the call. Yes. So thanks very much. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question via the phone, please press the star key followed by the number one. We'll pause again for any further questions to register. Thank you. There are no further phone questions at this time. I'll now hand the conference back to your speakers to address your webcast questions. Thanks, Harmony. So we've got a question from Peter and Sheila Dufty: "Considering future demand for copper, is aluminum wire extrusion an alternative in the future? And does Capral have any research in this area? That's a question I'm unable to answer. A bit too technical for me, and we're, you know, certainly as far... if aluminium was able to to take over from wire in terms of a conductor of, we wouldn't be in a position to supply it, 'cause we only supply extruded aluminium. It would be drawn. So that would be, that'd be drawn aluminum, which we don't manufacture, so that would be an overseas import. So no, I'm not able to comprehensively answer that question, I'm sorry? Okay, and then there are quite a few questions with the same, basic question, so I'll just consolidate that. So the answer is, with a, with net cash of over AUD 60 million, and the share buyback very low at the moment, would the board consider, paying dividends for full year, or will we execute on acquisitions? Right. Yes, quite rightly, one of the standouts, if we look at our results for this year, apart from the earnings being where we thought they would be, is the improved cash position and of the business. We, you know, we have been generating cash as our working capital levels have fallen. Our profits have been very solid. That resulted in half-year, and you know, probably excess cash. We, as we said at the full year results, our first priority will be return via share buyback. The trading of our stock in the first half of the year was relatively low, and we, our buyback program was relatively non-aggressive in terms of our buying back shares. But we will be improving that within our, you know, within acceptable market guidelines to lift the level of buyback in the second half of the year, which starts, I think, Tish- On next Monday. Next Monday. So we do expect, providing there's adequate liquidity in the stock, that the buyback rates will improve in the second half of the year. The board would be in a position, given our cash position, to add to that buyback with dividends if it was felt it was required at year-end. However, we must recognize, as Tertius just mentioned, that any dividends that we now pay will be unfranked certainly for the medium term. So that's the you know taking into account the needs and requirements of our shareholders overall, we believe that buyback is our first priority. And if we're unable to meet the distribution ratios that we have that we normally... That, as part of our capital allocation policy, then we would look, if required, to unfranked dividends. However, we are, as we have done in the last two years, we have made some strategic acquisitions, albeit relatively small, and we will continue to seek those out where it makes sense, as I mentioned, during the presentation. So that's where we are. I think that hopefully answers that question as comprehensively as we can. Next question is: How much are you spending on anti-dumping each year? Oh, okay. That's a good question. I can't give you the exact number, but I'll give you an approximate number. We take the anti-dumping cases on behalf of the whole aluminum extrusion industry. Because we are the largest player, and we have the share of the market that we do have, which is about 40, a bit over 40% of the local extrusion market, about 40%-45% of the local extrusion market. Given our market share of that, we're able to take the cases in our own name, rather than have to bring other extruders locally into those cases. But the other extruders do financially support the initiatives. The net cost to capital is around about, Tertius, I'm saying about two- Yeah. Between AUD 100,000 and AUD 200,000 a year. So it's not huge. We do have an external consultant specialist assisting us with the taking of cases, and it does depend on the activity levels, and this year will be certainly this year and the next twelve months will be more intensive, with the looking to continue the duties on China. Next question is: How far are you along your 20% reduction by 2030 of Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions? We're on target. Our target, we have to reduce by 1.5% per annum. We provided that information at our full year results, and we were running ahead of that target, as at the end of December 2023. We recalibrate every 12 months, so the update on that will be provided at our year-end results in the sustainability report. But we believe we're well on track to achieve that. Okay, next question is: Will we still have a nil tax payment at to the ATO for the calendar year 2025 and 2026? And I can maybe just answer it. Yes, we will. We still have around AUD 200 million of assessed losses, which will be available for us, and will take, as Tony mentioned earlier, it will take a in the medium term, should be all tax-free. Yeah. Um- It probably current earnings rates, maybe somewhere between five- About five- Five to eight years, something around there. Yeah. Yeah. Next question is: Have you considered having an annual meeting on site, as PWR in Queensland does?... All annual meetings are online? No, our annual meetings are online. We do have investor days, where we do invite people to visit our sites. So we do those, you know, every second year, and so if you know any investor wanted to visit our sites, and our investor relations company at Tyche reach out to them, and they'll, we'd be happy to put you on the invite list for one of our site visits. Last question from Peter and Sheila Dufty is: Does the company currently supply Austal? Yes. We do supply Austal. Austal is, has been, for many years, and still is, one of our largest industrial customers. Austal has shipyards, as you know, as you probably know, in the Philippines and Vietnam, and obviously in Perth, Fremantle. We are the primary aluminum supplier to their Fremantle, to Austal's Fremantle site. Shipyard. Yep. I don't have more questions here. Harmony, back to you. Thank you. There are no further phone questions at this time. I'll now hand back for closing remarks. Okay, well, thank you for your attendance on the call today. It's been a solid first six months of the year. Clearly, you know, we're at the bottom of a housing cycle, and while we are not as reliant upon it as we once was, it still is the largest part of... It drives 40% of our volume, so it is gonna impact upon our business. We're working very hard to diversify our sales and volume base. And you know, it's gonna be a pretty tough year the next six to 12 months, but very confident the company is well positioned to take advantage of what will be a growing market and demand for you know, residential windows and doors and commercial windows and doors and industrial aluminum products over the next three to five years. So thank you for your attendance, and we'll look forward to doing this again in six months' time.