Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Bidvest Interim Results presentation. All participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions when prompted. For the benefit of other participants who have joined via the HD web phone, please ensure that you have given your microphone permission to make yourself audible before accessing the question queue. If you should need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Ilse Meiring. Please go ahead, ma'am. Thank you, Judith, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As Judith said, my name is Ilse Meiring, and we thank you for dialing into The Bidvest Group's results for the six-month period, which ended on the 31st of December 2020. As customary, Mpumi Madisa and Mark Steyn will present the results and the outlook. After which, there will be a question and answer session. Before we go into the details, I would like to hand over to Bonang Mohale, the Chairman of The Bidvest Group. Bonang. Afternoon, colleagues. After this, I'll hand over to my boss, Sis Nompumelelo Tembekile Madisa. On behalf of the board of directors and the entire Bidvest family, we express our heartfelt sympathies, sincere condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of those many thousands of people that have lost their lives to this dreaded pandemic, which has disrupted our lives in such a traumatic way. The consequential effect has been grief and severe disruption to livelihoods, which makes the critical return to a form of a better normal economic activity such an urgent imperative. Our hope for this is centered on the successful vaccine rollout throughout not only our country but the world, because it's when all of us can travel freely and safely that we can look forward to indeed a better normal. Our government must be commended for the rapid rollout program now underway, with nearly 70,000 healthcare workers already vaccinated. Significant work is also ongoing to secure sufficient vaccines for the future, which will allow us to move deeper into the phase I rollout campaign, while also ensuring readiness for the phase II and III campaigns. This will ultimately cover the majority of our adult population. Over the past year, Bidvest has participated in many different ways to assist in countering the effects of this pandemic. We are continuing to work closely with all our social partners, agencies to ensure a successful vaccine rollout by providing numerous resources at various levels of the program. Tending to the financial and operating performance, I'm pleased to say that the group has produced a pleasing set of results in all aspects. This is directly related to the agility and experience of our entire management team, ably led by Sis Nompumelelo Tembekile Madisa, and the over 10,000 people that make up the family. We thank them for their continued contribution to creating value for all our stakeholders. Sis Nompumelelo, over to you. Thank you very much, Chair. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to start with just some introductory remarks before going into the financial highlights for the period. As an opening, just to say that it really gives myself and Mark huge pleasure, in really presenting a set of results that we're really proud of. The first six months of this financial year have been tough from an economic perspective. Across all our three major territories, South Africa, U.K., and Ireland, we've obviously been experiencing the knock-on effects of the various lockdowns in those territories. In South Africa, in fact, we only went to level one lockdown yesterday. In fact, in the U.K. and Ireland, they're still in their third lockdown. We're hoping that by end of March, they'll be coming out of that phase. Notwithstanding the really tough economic environment, our business has really weathered the storm. Recovery has been good across all our divisions. While some of our businesses have been impacted by structural changes such as work-from-home policies and practices, constrained consumer spending, et cetera. On the other hand, we've really had spectacular individual performances from some of our businesses and significant market share gains, in particular in our trading businesses. Just two characteristics stand out for me, in terms of what I think were really big drivers for these results in the first half of the year. The first one being the strength of our diversified operating model. Our diversity enabled us to weather a very difficult economic environment. We had exceptional, outstanding performances from some of our businesses. While some of our other businesses were challenged by the various economic challenges, we were able to, through our diversified model, present what is a solid, consolidated set of results. Secondly, the strength of our decentralized operating model really came through. Our decentralized operating model gave us agility, it gave us flexibility and nimbleness, and this really shot out in the first six months. Each and every one of our businesses very quickly got to work, controlled costs, and used the levers available to them to right-size their businesses for the current and anticipated future demand. At the same time, we continued to look for growth opportunities with many of our trading businesses, as I indicated earlier, increasing market share in a globally contracting economic environment. At Bidvest, our people are our most important assets. Reiterating what my Chairman has already said, I'd like to take this opportunity to pass condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of the 44 Bidvest employees who sadly succumbed to the COVID-19 virus in the recent months. Since the start of the pandemic, as Bidvest, we have lost 79 of our colleagues, and today, most of us have now been directly impacted by COVID-19, having buried our own close family members and friends. I suppose one of the things this pandemic has reminded us is how valuable life is and how valuable family is. Touching further on the Bidvest family, it gives me great pleasure to report that 95% of our employees are back at work from 75% who were not working in the hard lockdown of April 2020. We are back full-time in the offices in most of our 200 plus businesses with the COVID-19 health and safety protocols implemented across all our operations. At this point in time, let me also take a moment to pass a really big thank you to governments in South Africa, the U.K., and Ireland for the employee support that they've provided. In South Africa, the UIF, TERS benefit, and furlough support programs in the U.K. and Ireland created significant safety nets for our people. For that we are really, truly grateful. Lastly, as I close out the introduction, it gives me great pleasure to report that Bidvest will pay for the cost of vaccines for all our employees who are not on medical aid. Turning to the financial highlights for the period, slide five of the presentation. Trading profit is up 3.5% to ZAR 4.1 billion. We've had really excellent performances from our services and commercial products division. Automotive and freight also performed well. Broad branded products delivered a really resilient result. Unfortunately, financial services fell short of expectation and I'll unpack this further when I get to the divisional review. As expected, we closed our acquisition of PHS in May 2020. So in the first half of this financial year, PHS is a significant contribution to the results. Cost management has been outstanding. Expenses increased 1.3%. On a like for like basis, expenses were down 9.6%. Our standout performance has to be cash. Operational cash generated is up 86.2% to ZAR 6.2 billion. We've strengthened our balance sheet. When Mark goes through the key highlights of the balance sheet, he'll touch on the salient features. Really, balance sheet performance in the group has been quite spectacular. ROFE improved to 31.3%, normalized HEPS is up 6.1%, I'm pleased to also report that we'll be paying an interim dividend of ZAR 2.90 per share, which is up 2.8%. On the same slide, if I can just talk to the graph, really one of the things that we have been doing over the last half year is measuring our performance on a month-by-month basis and really looking out for that recovery, out of call it what we call the COVID-19 months. From April, you see the drop in trading profit, and that's really April hard level five lockdown, particularly, mainly in South Africa. In May, that uptick in revenue, sorry, this is a revenue slide, not trading profit, in revenue is really because of PHS coming into the numbers. PHS came into the numbers in May. What I think is important on this slide is the recovery that you see from May into July, August, September, October, and holding at our revenue number of ZAR 7 billion plus per month. That's really the underlying business recovering. I think that slide shows you how the business has really just showed a very resilient performance. Moving on to the next slide in terms of our journey, we continue to focus on diversification and cash generation and obviously focusing on capital light businesses. From 2016 when we unbundled our food distribution business, Bidvest really became, call it almost 100% South African entity, mainly an industrial business. At that time, we articulated our ambitions around expansion, both locally but also into niche areas from an international perspective. In terms of geographic mix, it's great to see that we've moved from 2016 financial year, we were predominantly South African, to today, we're 20% of our trading profit is offshore. Equally so from a service mix, we'd indicated that we want to grow our defensive services contribution, and today, 65% of our trading profit comes from our service business with 36% from our trading and distribution businesses. At this point, I'd like to hand over to Mark, to talk you through the financial highlights for the period. Thanks. Thank you, Mpumi, and good afternoon, everyone. As per normal, I'd like to say a special thank you to all those involved in the production of these results, as well as the operating teams in each division. The results presented today are a reflection of their successful efforts in a difficult trading environment. As opposed to the last year-end, this period did not present any material new accounting complexities, and it was nice to have a little bit of a breather. There has been a reclassification between goodwill and intangibles on the balance sheet as a consequence of the completion of our PHS PPA, otherwise, no other material changes. Some general comments before we actually jump into the numbers. I think it's important to contextualize this result, in particular with regard to the COVID-19 impact, both Bonang and Mpumi have already talked to it. While the last six months gave rise to ZAR 84 million in direct COVID-19-related costs, which is obviously much reduced from what we saw in June last year, the trading impact in a number of sectors continues to be significant. Travel and related businesses are still materially affected, but these have all been appropriately resized to absorb this low cycle. Similarly, the extension of work from home and the delayed educational return has created pressure. Both these areas, though, will present upside once we start to emerge from the lockdown fog. Despite this, most businesses have produced really good results, and we're encouraged by the post year-end trading to date, as Mpumi's already indicated. The strong steps we took last year to protect our financial position continue to bear fruit. Our liquidity and solvency have improved, expenditure control has been good, and cash management has been exceptional. The success of this is evidenced by our closing balance sheets and cash position, both of which we are very proud of. In terms of acquisitions, there've been no material acquisitions in the last six months. As you recall, we did acquire PHS in May last year, and that's bedding down well and meeting expectations. We've had one smaller bolt-on in Noonan. They acquired a group called The Access Group in the U.K., which is a security-focused business, at an equity value of GBP 24 million. We are also very pleased to have finally disposed of our Mumbai airport investment last month after a number of years in this process, and the disposal of our Bidvest Car Rental business is ongoing. With that as a backdrop, let's dive into the numbers, and turning to slide nine. Revenue up 3.4% to ZAR 44.4 billion. It has been enhanced by PHS in the numbers for six months and Adcock for an additional one month. Again, to really understand the group revenue, you do need to unpack the individual divisional performances, and we'll do that a little bit later in the presentation. I think what we're very encouraged by, though, is revenue has steadily improved, as you've seen from the graph that Mpumi talked to just now, post the lockdown. We're seeing the businesses stabilizing. We see very good organic growth in commercial products, with services flat. The rest of the divisions from a revenue perspective, down single digits except Freight. I guess the one area that obviously we're managing very closely, travel, aviation, and hospitality, which still remains very weak with the current lockdown in place, as well as the related foreign exchange trading. From a gross income perspective, we've managed to maintain broadly flat our gross margin at 30.2%, which was very pleasing. We did have, with the inclusion of PHS, an enhancement to the margin, but this was offset by the trading in Branded Products, Financial Services, and the travel-related businesses. From an expenses perspective, this has always, or certainly for the last couple of years, have been a highlight for a Bidvest presentation. On a gross basis, we've maintained, or operating expenses rather, are up at 1.3%, but on a like for like, they're down 9.6%. We're very happy with this performance. We are obviously benefiting from restructure programs that took place last year, but there is a continued strong focus on cost containment in each of the divisions. From a trading profit perspective, trading profit up 3.5% to ZAR 4.1 billion. We're very happy with this result, especially given that the comparative was a pre-COVID comparative. We're seeing excellent results from Commercial Products and PHS. Automotive, Freight, and Noonan delivered good results, particularly given the revenue pressures that those sectors faced. Our SA Services businesses, if you exclude the impact of the travel and related businesses, also performed very well. Profits were lower in both Branded Products and Financial Services. Our organic trading profit contracted 8% off a pre-COVID base. This does include the final MIAL mark-to-market adjustment of ZAR -144 million. In terms of other costs, not a lot to talk about on the acquisition line. Acquisition costs of ZAR 8 million mainly relate to the Plush acquisition in Adcock, and there were some sundry disposal processes. On the amortization of acquired customer contracts, that's up quite a lot. On the completion of the PHS PPA, there was additional amortization there of the intangible of an additional ZAR 99 million. In the net capital items line, that's predominantly the disposal of our Ontime Automotive business in the U.K., which was slightly offset by insurance claims proceeds across the group. Moving to our financial charges. They're up 3.6%, including IFRS 16, so it's on a like for like basis now. I think we were very happy with that result given that we had additional funding come into the mix because of the PHS acquisition, which resulted in additional 5.5% finance costs. Across the group, we maintained our CapEx programs. We haven't stopped spending. That continues. Our average borrowing cost across the group has reduced, now down to 4.6% pre-tax versus 6.5% last year. Obviously, a reflection of lowering interest rates across the board. Our EBITDA interest cover remains conservative at 8.6 times. From an associated income perspective, now that we've effectively exited from Comair, and we've got a very small shareholding remaining there, the only material JVs left in the group are within Adcock in India. The reason there's been such a big shift in the comparative there is the prior included Comair losses, which are now no longer repeated. From a tax perspective, our tax expense, if you exclude the impact of the MIAL ForEx impairment and our capital items, is broadly in line with the S.A. statutory rate, which is really the core rate for the group as a whole. Obviously, we enjoy slightly lower tax rates in both the U.K. and Ireland. As these businesses continue to grow in the group, this will lower the overall group tax rate. From a non-controlling interest minority perspective, this is now predominantly Adcock, which is consolidated from June last year. Our effective shareholding now in Adcock is 56.1%. From a HEPS perspective, as Mpumi mentioned, HEPS from continuing operations up 6.3%. Normalized HEPS from continuing operations, and you'll recall that normalized for us excludes acquisition costs, the amortization of acquired customer contracts, and the COVID-19 costs, is up 6.1%. HEPS from discontinued operations, which is the BCR business, was ZAR -0.075. It's pleasing to be able to report the resumption of dividends again after the COVID delay at year-end. As Mpumi mentioned, interim dividend ZAR 2.90, which is 2.8% above the ZAR 2.82 declared last year. Our cover ratio is 2.25 times, which is consistent with the policy range of 2 to 2.5 times normalized HEPS. Moving to our balance sheet and our debt and funding. I think broadly, we're very comfortable where we've landed from a balance sheet perspective. Our balance sheet is certainly stronger. We maintain a conservative approach, which is consistent to previous years, particularly with respect to our debt and funding. Net debt after cash and cash equivalents is down to ZAR 15.8 billion from ZAR 9.2 billion at the end of the year. You'll recall that the year-end position was elevated because of the PHS bridge. We're comfortably within all our covenants. In fact, both key ratios are improving. EBITDA interest cover to 8.6 times versus 8.4 times at year-end. Our covenant there is three and a half times. Net debt to EBITDA at 1.7 times versus year-end at 2.1 times. Our covenant there is three. What's obviously benefited that ratio is the significant net debt repayment of ZAR 2.5 billion, which has come through our cash flow. 64% of our gross debt is now long-term. We successfully raised a long-term debt program of ZAR 4.75 billion locally. We did talk on a previous call. That was finalized in November, which has been used to assist with the PHS bridge takeout. Moody's did downgrade the group last year in line with the sovereign to Ba2. We've continued to monetize our non-core assets and generate good free cash flow to further enhance headroom, and we've got adequate funding facilities in place. From a debt and funding perspective, very comfortable where the group has landed. We have included, as per normal, an interest cover graph, really to demonstrate the relative stability of our interest cover. It's been very consistent over the last few years. The spike in net debt that you see in the 2020 year was the PHS bridge. Obviously, now starting to see that start to come down. In terms of that bridge, we have repaid GBP 330 million in December 2020. GBP 234 of that was via local debt, GBP 96 million was via free cash. In terms of our debt maturity profile, as you can see, there's no significant maturities in the 2021 financial year. In 2022, the foreign debt reflected there is the PHS bridge. In 2023, the foreign debt there is the euro term loan. Just to remind everyone, we have two further one-year extensions on that facility. Lastly, moving to our cash flow. As Mpumi said, this is an absolute highlight for us. Cash conversion at 124% is exceptional, really has been a great cash result. Cash generated from operations at ZAR 6.2 billion versus ZAR 3.3 billion last year is fantastic. What we have seen in this number is a very strong working capital position. Working capital released by ZAR 336 million versus a ZAR 2 billion absorption last year. This is uncharacteristic, and it resulted from reduced inventories and accounts payable. While we're obviously very pleased, particularly with the inventory release, we are monitoring our inventory levels quite closely in the light of supply chain restrictions, which we are seeing across some markets. We're unsure at this point as to whether we're going to see a working capital absorption in the second half of the year, but I think that largely depends on the strength of what the second half recovery looks like. From a cash flow perspective, we still continue to spend CapEx, so that's still in the numbers, and we have seen a very strong debt repayment in the last six months. Our cash generation graph, which we always include, normally demonstrates an absorption of working capital in the first half of the year and then a release in the second half. Obviously, this six months has thrown that on its head a little bit with a strong release. My expectation would be that if businesses start to come back strongly in the second half, that we would see an absorption. This year will be a bit of a reverse, quite uncharacteristic of our normal cycle. Just finally, some concluding comments. It's very encouraging to see the improvement of the COVID-19 statistics, both in South Africa and in the U.K. and Ireland. The rollout of the vaccine programs will obviously enhance this. This will stimulate an acceleration of the return-to-work scenario. Our businesses have been appropriately right-sized for current demand levels, and so we expect upside as businesses come out of lockdown. Profitability has returned across the group, and our financial position is strong with good capacity for growth. Thank you. Thanks, Mark. Thank you very much. I'm now going to go through the divisional review, starting with the services division, with each division, I'll touch on the key financial metrics, then talk to some of the key drivers behind those individual divisional results. If we start with services, revenue is up 28% to ZAR 14 billion. Trading profit up 38% to ZAR 1.7 billion. Trading margin at 12% increased from 11% in the prior year. EBITDA up 42% to ZAR 2.1 billion. Funds employed down 40% to ZAR 1.6 billion, ROFIE at 210% is now more than double what it was in the prior year at 92%. The services division has really delivered an excellent set of results. The half year, as indicated earlier, was supported by PHS Group, whose performance is in line with expectation, making a trading profit contribution of GBP 24 million. Noonan operations in the U.K. in particular, continue to be impacted by lockdown restrictions, mainly in the HORECA sectors. Outside of this, the rest of the business performed well, and we continue to be impressed by that management team. In terms of our services operations, the division was negatively impacted by declines in the businesses that are directly exposed to the travel and tourism industry, with a €250 million year-on-year swing in profit contribution. On the upside, our facilities management cluster did well. Our security and aviation cluster also delivered a good result. Our allied services cluster continues to be impacted by low occupancy levels in the offices. Overall, the teams across all the clusters are focused on identifying opportunities for growth, and the new business pipeline is also strong. Asset management was strong, as reflected in the decline in funds employed. Cash generation was good. ROFIE at 220% is really excellent. The work that's been done by this team, especially in terms of looking for growth opportunities both organically and by acquisition, is really impressive. Noonan, in fact, has made an acquisition that we brought on board early February this year, 2021, and I'll talk to that in my closing remarks. If I move to the next division, Branded Products. Revenue is down 5% to ZAR 8.9 billion. Trading profit down 19% to ZAR 800 million. Trading margin is 9.1% down from 10.7% in the prior year. EBITDA down 17% to ZAR 900 million. Funds employed up 1% at ZAR 6.5 billion, and ROFIE at 26.7% is down from 32.5% in the prior year. Branded Products faced really, really significant headwinds in the first half of the year. The work from home and learn from home policies adopted by both business and educational institutions, together with constrained consumer spending and the absence of the flu season, which impacted Adcock, has significantly impacted trading in this division. Gross profit margin pressure was apparent in most areas of the division, expense management was really excellent, with expenses declining by 4.8%. If I move to Adcock, they've just released their results. Those are available, on a standalone basis. Adcock was negatively impacted by the absence of the flu season. Gross margin deterioration is due to unfavorable exchange rates, product mix, and unfortunately, we also had lower recoveries in one of our factories. Strong performance as well came out from our consumer division, who are up 48% on the trading line. OTC was down on prior year, that's the link to the absence of the flu season. Prescription flat year on year. The hospital division was nicely up. The balance of the division aligned their operating expenses to revenue as declining print to post volumes, low office occupancies, and constrained consumer spend put pressure on the top line. The back-to-school season was unfortunately disrupted by COVID-19 uncertainties, and this placed quite enormous pressure on our businesses supplying basic and tertiary education institutions. Overall, margins were impacted by mix, lower rebates and exchange rate pressure. One of the really great performances in this division, if you exclude Adcock, operating and direct expenses were down 18%. That gives you a sense of how much work went into cost containment. The teams must really be commended. While trading profit is down 19%, this division has delivered a trading profit number of ZAR 800 million, notwithstanding the above-mentioned challenges. If I move to our third division, Bidvest Freight. Revenue is down 13% to ZAR 3.4 billion. Trading profit flat year on year at ZAR 600 million. Trading margin at 19% is up from 16.5% in the prior year. EBITDA up 1% to ZAR 800 million. Funds employed up 16% to ZAR 4.2 billion, and ROFIE at 31.2% is down from 35.9% in the prior year. Just in terms of those metrics, the last two, so funds employed and ROFIE, are primarily impacted by the ZAR 1 billion investment in our LPG terminal. We'll start seeing an improvement in those metrics as we move forward. Holding trading profit flat off a 13% decline in revenue is a solid result from the freight division. Bulk agric and mineral commodities performed well in the 6 months, with volumes of yellow maize quadrupling and chrome and manganese volumes increasing year-on-year. Our bulk liquid terminal was impacted by lower fuel and chemical volumes, as well as price concessions. Bulk liquid volumes are expected to recover from April onwards, which is great, and export slots for maize have already been booked from the end of April onwards. Our LPG terminal was commissioned in October, in line with budget, and is performing well. On the other hand, import and export volumes remain slow, impacting two businesses in this division, Bidvest International Logistics and Bidvest SACD. Restructures in both these businesses are complete, and the teams are focusing on securing additional volumes. Our Namibia operations are experiencing similar volume challenges, while our Mozambique operations are performing well. Overall, the team did produce a solid result, and we look forward to their contribution for the second half of the year. If I move to the fourth division, Bidvest Commercial Products, revenue is up 7% to ZAR 6.9 billion. Trading profit up 44% to ZAR 500 million. Trading margin at 7% is up from 5.3% in the prior year. EBITDA up 34% to ZAR 500 million. Funds employed is down 13% to ZAR 3.7 billion, and ROFIE at 26.7% is up from 16% in the prior year. Commercial Products really, really delivered an exceptional set of results, with phenomenal trading profit growth achieved across most areas of the division. In fact, in this division, most of the businesses were well up on last year. These results were driven in the main by market share gains, strong brand equity, growth margin uplift, and really solid cost control. The trade cluster, which comprises our electrical and plumbing business, produced an excellent trading profit result. The catering cluster exceeded expectations and did well in the second quarter, in particular, boosted by export revenue and overall reduction in expenses. The DIY tools and Workquick cluster delivered an outstanding trading profit result due to the increase in DIY projects. Yamaha was a standout performer in the leisure cluster, and this was really driven by increased demand for luxury goods. The industrial cluster's trading profit result improved off the back of increased growth margin, reduced expenses, and increased revenue from consumables. There is friction in the supply chain. Mark referred to it already. This is being actively managed by management, but we do highlight it because our ability to have stock and deliver on increased demand is what really also contributed to the results in this division. We're cognizant of those supply chain challenges, which are global, but as I indicated, management is actively managing this. A 44% increase in trading profit against a non-COVID 2019 half year is really a spectacular performance from this division. If I move to our fifth division, Bidvest Automotive, revenue is down 7% to ZAR 10.6 billion. Trading profit up 6% to ZAR 300 million. Trading margin at 3% is up from 2.7% in the prior year. EBITDA up 1%, ZAR 300 million. Funds employed is down 25% to ZAR 1.9 billion, and ROFIE at 34.4% is up from 24.7% in the prior year. The automotive market overall in South Africa continues to be impacted by a weak macroeconomic environment, constrained disposable income, and lower consumer confidence. According to naamsa, the South African new vehicle dealer market volume decreased by 12.7% year-on-year for the six months ended 31 December. There's real contraction in this market. McCarthy sold fewer new and used cars, and sales to fleet customers were also depressed as customers held back on CapEx expenditure. Obviously, liquidity being a key focus for all businesses. Aftersales activity was impacted by lower mileage and subdued trading activity with our panel clients. The team focused on cost containment, and the result of that is a 10% reduction in operating expenses off a 7% decline in revenue. To drive further efficiencies, innovation and technology is being leveraged through the introduction of robotics, and our online auction platform is also gaining momentum in virtual. Our Namibia operations delivered a solid performance for the half year due to increased new and used vehicle revenue in that territory. Delivering 6% growth in trading profit off a 7% decline in revenue is a commendable result. Lastly, Financial Services, revenue is down 5% to ZAR 1.3 billion. Trading profit down 39% to ZAR 200 million. Trading margin at 12.7% is down from 19.8% in the prior year. EBITDA is down 27% to ZAR 300 million. Funds employed is down 2% to ZAR 3.7 billion, ROFIE is unfortunately disappointing at 9.2%. The Financial Services division really experienced an extremely difficult half year. They were really impacted significantly by the knock-on effects of COVID-19. The bank's foreign exchange business has been harshly impacted by the global travel restrictions. FX notes and the World Currency Card reduced quite dramatically. FX trading margin remained under pressure and interest rate cuts also had a negative impact on interest revenue and average yields on cash. In relation to our fleet business, which is a significant contributor in the bank, fleet income reduced due to higher maintenance charges as a result of an extension of a sizable fleet contract, and also at the same time, we had a municipal contract that reached end of term. The bank's balance sheet, on the other hand, is strong, adequately liquid, and adequately capitalized. Total loans and advances grew 14%, and deposits are up 8%. Cash and investments are also up on the prior year. Really, our challenge in the bank's balance sheet is our declining leased asset balances. The team just really needs to secure more fleet contracts so that we can deploy the excess capital. The bank's digital journey is progressing, having reduced its retail footprint from 63 branches to 21 during the period under review. Looking at our insurance businesses, Bidvest Insurance revenues were impacted by lower premium income collected as consumers' disposable income came under pressure. The negative revenue variance was offset by cost containment initiatives, low acquisition costs, and improved claims management, resulting in a good trading profit growth year-on-year. Compendium held its own. However, policy cancellations remain a concern, and we've already alluded to constrained disposable income earlier. Bidvest Life, new volumes were up year-on-year. However, this has been offset by higher claims. The first half of the year was really tough for this division. Looking forward, we expect the pressure on FX income to continue into the third quarter of the financial year. Overall, we expect improved trading to June. We have appointed a new CEO for the division, Hannah Sadiki. Hannah started on the 1st of October 2020. Hannah brings with her 30 years banking experience, and we're really confident that she'll be able to bring a lot of value to this division going forward. Hannah also joins us as the first Black female divisional CEO in the history of Bidvest. On corporate and properties, Bidvest Properties really managed to weather the storm. The portfolio's vacancy rates are at the bottom end of industry averages. Revenue declined as a result of rental reductions and an increase in building vacancies. Operating expenses, though, remained well controlled, and the market value of the portfolio is circa ZAR 8 billion. Ontime Automotive has been disposed of, and as Mark indicated earlier, we're very relieved and very happy to have closed off MIAL on the 5th of February, and the ZAR 1 billion proceeds have been banked. Moving to just strategy and outlook. We've got a blueprint, and I suppose, let me call it the DNA of the group that really is what drives performance and what enables us to deliver in the way that we do. Maybe just touching and highlighting some of the areas that are on this slide. Leadership. Our entrepreneurial leadership style and culture in the business is really fundamental. It's our winning formula. It's part of our magic. This is entrenched across all our divisions. Our business managers, CEOs, and MDs understand that what is expected of them is to treat the businesses and run them as if they were their own and take personal accountability. We also have best in breed. Our management teams are the best in their industries, and they're experts in their field, and all of this contributes to the kinds of results that we deliver. Diversity and inclusion will always be important, and I'm very happy to report that at an executive leadership level, and this is from our divisional CEOs up, 45% of the team are women and 45% are Black. In relation to strategy, we continue to focus on diversifying our portfolio, continuing to broaden our service basket. We'll allocate capital efficiently. We'll continue watching our debt levels and keep these within an acceptable range, while at the same time creating capacity for acquisitive growth. Expanding in niche areas internationally remains our focus. We've identified hygiene services, facilities management, and plumbing and related services, and we've ticked on the hygiene and the FM side, and we continue looking for a plumbing and related type acquisition. Our people are our number one priority. You can imagine when you employ more than 100,000 people, the health and safety, the livelihoods of our people are really key and important. A lot of work is happening behind the scenes that you don't see, but we're working hard in terms of ensuring that our 100,000 plus people are key Bidvest ambassadors out there for us. Technology innovation remains key within our business. The only way that a business remains future fit and ready is through leveraging technology as an enabler and key driver. We're very comfortable disrupting our own business. This is evident when we acquired the drone business in our security portfolio, bringing the disruption within our own organization and being comfortable to enable our businesses to evolve accordingly. Lastly, in terms of structure, our six pillars of operations really give us focus. We're very comfortable that we can continue to grow within those six pillars, both organically and by acquisition. Our decentralized model gives us the agility and flexibility that I've already spoken to. It's part of our DNA, and it'll remain. I think the way that we've been able to deliver in the first half of the year is really because this decentralized model enabled us to do a number of things all at the same time across 200 plus businesses. Of course, we've got our established governance processes, which we work through in line with our ethical business practices. Underpinning all of this is our core values of honesty, integrity, accountability, and respect. We will continue focusing on these areas as we move forward. In closing, just in terms of the outlook going forward, we anticipate that the tough economic environment is likely to persist. It's around quick decision-making. We've taken action very quickly. We've optimized our cost bases, we've improved efficiencies, and we're really very comfortable that our businesses are future-fit and our models are sufficiently scalable. We've expanded our geographic footprint and we'll continue leveraging this going further. In terms of growth, we'll continue looking for growth opportunities, both organic and by acquisition. As I'd indicated earlier, Noonan finalized a bolt-on acquisition in February of a company called The Access Group, who are a security and cleaning business in the U.K. The value that Access brings to Noonan is as follows: firstly, it expands our geographic footprint in the U.K. At the moment, we've got two regional offices. With this acquisition, we'll move to nine regional offices across the U.K. We'll also be merging two large security portfolios in the U.K., and this acquisition will take Noonan, from a security perspective, to number 1 in terms of market share in London and number four in the U.K. Our cleaning business does get a bit of scale, but overall, in general, is still a subscale, in general, when you look at the whole of the U.K. There are further synergies that have been identified and as always, through a due diligence process, we look for areas and opportunities for EBIT uplift. The team has done this, and these will be delivered over a two to three-year period. Enterprise value for this acquisition was GBP 24 million. In closing, I'd like to thank Gillian and Mark. I think we've had a fantastic six months. Whilst it was tough, we had fun. In fact, I think across all our management teams, we were able to bring back hope, and we were able to bring back energy, which is important. I'd also like to thank the divisional CEOs, and also in our expo, Ilse and Akona, just all for their leadership. Because good results really fall on good leadership. The team has done exceptionally well. To our 100,000 plus ambassadors out there, I thank them because Bidvest is a people business. We produce these results because of the people that we have. Lastly, we remain very confident in our ability to deliver sustainable growth and create long-term value for all our stakeholders. Thank you very much. I'm happy to take questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mpumi and Mark. I'm going to hand back to Judith. Great. Thank you very much, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you'd like to ask a question, you're welcome to press star and then one on your touchtone phone or the keypad on your screen, at which time you'll hear a confirmation tone. Following this process will place you in the question queue. If you decide a question has been addressed and you wish to withdraw your question, you're welcome to press star then two on your touchtone phone to remove yourself from the question queue. Just a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you're welcome to press star and then one. We'll pause a moment while we wait for the question queue to build. Thank you, Judith. While we wait for any questions to be posed, we've got a question here from the webcast. Comes from Dumisani from Allweather Capital. He is commenting that we said that our non-core assets, the cleaning up of that portfolio, is nearing completion, and that Adcock is now classified as core. Does Bidvest have any specific preference for holding listed or unlisted investments? Okay, happy to answer that. Yes, you're absolutely right. Cleanup coming to an end. Adcock is core. We do have a preference. We prefer not holding listed entities. We've got a very clear preference. That's preference number one. The second preference is that we also do have a preference for owning 100%. Most of our subsidiaries we own 100%. Adcock is obviously an anomaly from that perspective. There's history to it, which is known and understood. Yeah, that's the answer to that question. Okay. I suppose there was a question whether Adcock is core, but you've mentioned that is indeed core. Second question, I suppose, that comes from Ross Cridda from JP Morgan. Do you think financial services can be fixed with minor changes, or should we expect major restructuring here? Thanks for the question, Ross. Yes, we think it can be fixed. The reality of what happened in the first half of the year for financial services is that when travel bans were put in place, FX revenue just went to zero. A significant portion of the business, that top line just really went to zero, and that is really the material impact there. As travel restrictions lift and people start moving around and that demand comes back, we will start seeing a recovery. Really, the big thing here, and I spoke around it, we have got excess capital in the bank. We can deploy it. Great returns and margins from our fleet contracts, and we just need to land a couple of those again. Really, that is what is required in this business. Mark, I do not know if there is anything else you want to add, but those are the two. It's absolutely the key issues. Yeah. Ross, they're not going to take massive amounts of change from where we are now. As you'll know, we've already done quite a lot of the actual infrastructure restructure that we needed to do. In terms of taking out the branch network, particularly on the Forex side, that's been done with the restructure of the appropriate people as well. I think the heavy lifting from a restructure point of view has already been done, and the Bank is now well-positioned, obviously, for the travel market to then open again. Thank you. I'm going to combine two or three sort of questions that's similar in vein. The question is, where will the next round of cash flows be allocated, in terms of growth, acquisitions? You made a specific reference to a plumbing type acquisition. Has any targets been identified and any specific geographic areas that would be of interest? Let me pick up the sort of capital allocation component of that. Obviously, and you can see it from what we've done in the last six months, we have been looking just to pay down some debt, and that's specifically in relation to the PHS bridge. We did a significant amount of that in the six months. There will be some more to come now. Obviously part of the capital will be allocated to that. We continue to look for acquisitions through this timeframe. The process that the business has always gone through hasn't changed. We have, as Mpumi already alluded to, have done one in the U.K. There are a number of others that we are actively pursuing at the moment offshore. We will continue to do so. All of those are currently at a sort of bolt-on level, which for us is about ZAR 500 million. Certainly, the capital allocation from an acquisitions point of view is gonna carry on as is. In terms of plumbing, have we found anything? We've seen many, but we are looking for a particular business model. We acquired Plumblink about seven or eight years ago. That business has really been absolutely spectacular, has grown from strength to strength every single year. It's got a specific model, and it's quite unique. Whilst we've seen a number of acquisitions, when we kind of peel it back and look at the revenue mix and the profit mix and the margin mix, we haven't yet found what we're very comfortable to proceed with. We continue looking. As you know, we don't rush the goalie when it comes to acquisitions. We must find the right operating model, and then we'll look further in terms of having further conversations. From a plumbing perspective, we're just not yet. We haven't found it yet. All right, Judith, I'm going to come back to call as call. There's two questions on the line before we will revert to the webcast. The first question comes from James Twyman. If you could open his line, please. Thank you. Yes. Hi there. Thank you. I've got a few questions. Firstly, could you just say how much debt is in the U.K. now, after your refinancing and compared with how much it was at the peak? Secondly, the cars. You've sold quite a few cars from the car rentals business. Could you just give us some idea of how much cash has come in from that business, which I think is very substantial, but also how much more there is to come in the second half? I had a final little question, which is just on the travel business, what your plans are in terms of are you planning to sell all of it, some of it, or where are we on that? Thanks. Yeah. Let me deal with the debt question first. In terms of overall offshore debt, and you recall, we've got the two components of it. The first component relates to our FM service businesses, which was Noonan, UDS, Future Cleaning, et cetera. We have a euro facility in play there for €320 million. That facility still remains in play. The facility had an initial period of three years, which terminates next year in September, with two additional one-year renewal periods. That still remains in play at €320 million. The other debt that we put in play was the PHS bridge, £516 million in total. That runs through until December 2021. We paid down £350 million of that, with £186 million remaining. In terms of discontinued cash, we brought in, and this is now obviously the sale of the vehicles from BCR. We've brought in ZAR 600 million to date. James, if I can answer your question on our travel businesses and what the plan is there. Last year, when we made a decision to dispose of Bidvest Services and BCR, we obviously had our travel businesses also in the mix. Because of the impact in the travel and tourism industry. Our travel businesses are asset-light. We've restructured sufficiently. We don't have huge capital investments in those businesses at all. We're very clear that from a restructure perspective, there isn't really more that can be done now, and it's really around waiting for recovery from a volumes perspective. We're very comfortable to stay with our travel businesses, and they'll rebound at the right time. BCR and Bidvest Services, on the other hand, were capital heavy. We had ZAR one and a half billion in vehicles in our car rental business. We would've needed to recapitalize Bidvest Services at license renewal point at ZAR half a billion, and we just didn't feel that we wanted to have that kind of capital locked in when we knew that volumes would take a while to recover. Travel services, we're still in the game. Thank you, James. The next question comes from Paul Segars. Paul? Yeah. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Great. Thank you. Hello, guys, and well done on the numbers. Two questions from me. Maybe just on Noonan. Can you give us a sense of the trend that you've seen in terms of revenue and profitability, and what do you think has been the impact, maybe to Noonan, but also to PHS, if any, from the work-from-home phenomenon post-COVID? I'm just trying to get a sense of what the negative impact has been to some of those operations, cleaning, et cetera, and what we could see happening when things hopefully open up. That's the first question. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. In relation to Noonan and what happened in that business, the business has really done well. Our biggest challenge there has been the acquisition that we made, which was Future Cleaning. Their exposure is mainly in the HORECA center and in particular, cinemas. Cinemas really just closed down in the U.K. That's where the significant negative pressure has been. The rest of the business, Ireland is strong. Our operations in Ireland are doing very well. The U.K. operations, the drag is just lockdown, cinemas closed, and Future Cleaning's exposure on the cinema side is quite significant. Impact of work from home. In both businesses, the impact is obviously with the vacancies, your contractual revenue declines, right? Because you then have clients where you're unable to bill for that full contract. What both businesses have done is they've picked up on the one-off work. Whether it is big decontamination of offices from a Noonan perspective and obviously from a PHS perspective, sanitizers have become a big consumable item that we didn't have before. The reality fact, people are washing their hands more. From a PHS perspective, consumables in terms of soap are up. Just in terms of one-off work, both teams have been able to pick up on the one-off side to compensate for the decline on the contractual revenue. Just in terms of the underlying contract pool, particularly around hygiene services, because that's how we really measure the growth of these businesses. From a PHS perspective, that underlying contract pool now has grown consistently for, I think end of January was 21 months straight. What that says is that on a net basis, you're growing the net amount of, or net value of contracts versus the contraction thereof. I think we're very, very comfortable that they've managed to do that despite what's happening with COVID. Paul, you had a second question? Okay, guys. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Ilse. Thank you for that answer. That's helpful. Just on the freight and LPG contract ramp-up, obviously was a little bit late, but now it's operational. Can you just remind us how we should think about this in terms of annualized revenue and margins going forward? Thank you. Sure. It was a 1 billion ZAR spend. We've consistently said that we're targeting a return of 20% after tax over the life of the project. Volumes have come on board with commissioning now. As you say, we did commission about three and a half, call it four months later than expected. We were actually quite chuffed with that given some of the COVID-19 delays that were around. It's certainly performing from a financial perspective as we expected. In fact, volume levels are looking to be better than what our anticipated plan was. In this particular year, you'll see eight months of LPG coming through. I guess an extension to the same question, there is a second LPG project that we're looking at in Isando, which is on the cards as well, and that's probably got another two years to go before we can bring that to market. Thank you, Mark. Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you very much, guys. All right. Let's go back to the webcast questions. Mark, a question here for you. What local debt is maturing in 2022? Yep. What is the business plan for this debt? The local debt, and I can refer you to, we've actually put it in the presentation. Give me two seconds. It's on page 11 of the presentation. We've got pref shares that are maturing, and I think one small bond. We've got adequate free cash flow to cover those. Obviously, depending on what happens from an acquisition perspective, there's nothing significant that we need at that point in time. We will use free cash flow to pay them down. If there's an acquisition opportunity, we'll look to roll them. All right. A question on PHS. Warren comments that the PHS trading margin of 16.2% looks ahead of prior guidance. What drove this, how far advanced are we in terms of the synergy extractions? Warren, I'm glad that actually we've been able to deliver early. Let me talk to the main drivers. It's the one-off work that I spoke to earlier. PHS, I mean, has picked up a significant amount in that space. That work comes in at higher margins than the contractual revenue that we get, and that's really what's boosted PHS's numbers. In fact, they're working a lot on vaccination. Rollout and yes. testing stations, et cetera. They've picked up quite a significant amount of, call it COVID work, which will be temporary in nature because I suppose once in the U.K. they're done with the rollout, all of that will dry up. For the moment, we'll take it, and that's what's boosted our margin. Unfortunately, because of lockdown and inability to travel, some of the synergies that we'd spoken to, we've actually only been able to deliver on the one. If you recall, we'd spoken about a bin liner project. We've been able to roll that out now 100% to all our clients. That contribution is material in the number, and it has contributed to that margin uplift. The other areas we still need to get to, and hopefully when we can travel, we can do that, and that's obviously in relation to supply chain and kind of combined procurement between Syna and PHS. The work with Noonan has started, but we expect that it'll pick up momentum in the second half of the year. The extension of the range? The extension of the range, we haven't gotten to that yet. We do still need to have a look at their range and just bring in some of our best practice. Those, I mean, to answer your question, we've only hit one of the synergy benefits. We've still got the three others to follow, and it's really been the COVID work that's boosted them up. We maybe just, as a follow-up in that region, Warren also asked what the contribution from government support systems and schemes were in this period. I don't know if we know the split. I mean. No. Yeah Certainly, the contribution from a South African perspective has been very significant, in terms of the UIF TERS. I mean, really Given that we're such a large employer in the South African environment, it really has enabled us to support our employees and keep them in work. I think, as Mpumi did in her presentation, we've got to thank government for the process that they put in play. It really has kept a lot of people in employment. From a U.K. and Ireland perspective, I mean, they've got furlough schemes in play there. Similarly, it really has helped them to keep people in play. The overall support in all environments was significant. A question, thanks Mark, from Munira, from UBS. You mentioned market share gains. She's interested to understand what the nature of the market share gains were, is that competitors closing down or out of stock, or what is driving those market share gains? Okay. Most of those market share gains, I did indicate that we saw that in our trading businesses. Just maybe to tell the story of what we've seen coming from April lockdown through to December, is some of our trading businesses in the lockdown were designated as essential services. I suppose with limited points for purchasing, our sales did pick up, and we did pick up some new customers during that time, and we've just held on to those customers, which has been great. There was obviously a shift from a customer purchasing perspective, and we've held on to some of those customers. That's the first point. Secondly, one of the things that we also did pick up was an increase in just sales. What gave us the advantage, and I spoke to it as well, is just our inventory levels. We had the stock. Before the lockdowns kind of hit, our management teams and our trading businesses anticipated that something was coming, increased their inventory levels. When you had global lockdowns and really cargo not moving, we had stock. The suppliers that had the stock were the ones who could fulfill the order. Just from that perspective, we were able to pick up, and we've kept those clients. Because clients want to go to suppliers where you're not given these long lead times when you need to deliver. That's what also pushed us from a market share perspective. Yes, there are some of our competitors who have closed down. The number of companies who've gone into business rescue in the half year, or from April lockdown across very different industries is there. We have picked up from some of that benefit. It's a combination, really, of all of that. We definitely can see that the market share in those trading businesses is up nicely. Thanks. All right. Those are the questions that's been loaded on the webcast. No, I don't see any further questions in the queue on the call. It's one going, gone. Thank you very much for participating. We will load a recording of this call on the website later today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thanks for joining us, everyone. Thanks, everyone. Cheers. Bye-bye. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Bidvest, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your line.