RS Group H1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 7, 2024

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the RS Group Plc Half Year Results 2024. My name is Becky, and I will be your operator today. I will now hand over to your host, Simon Price, Chief Executive Officer, to begin. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Becky, and good morning, good afternoon or good evening, everybody. Thanks for joining us today, and thanks for your continuing interest in the RS Group. Welcome to our interim results for the 6 month period ended 30th September 2024, and also welcome to this new virtual format that we're making this interim presentation in. It should take about 30 minutes to do the formal piece of the presentation. I'll do a quick overview and share some thoughts about the markets.

Speaker 1

Kate will take us through what's driving the numbers and the regional performance. And then I'll wrap up by highlighting some of the positive strategic and operational progress that we're making along our exciting medium and long term journey at RS and which we shared with you in a bit more detail at our Capital Markets Day a few weeks ago. We'll leave plenty of time for questions at the end, and Becky, our moderator, will remind people how to ask questions at the end of the presentation, but we should be through by around 10 So as I've mentioned before, we like to start all meetings at RS with a values highlight and a health and safety moment. And as we're virtual and there's no particular benefit to pointing out the fire exits in King's Cross, I thought I'd share how our values are actually driving changes in our approach to health and safety to ensure we better embed it into our DNA. So as one team delivering brilliantly, doing the right thing and making every day better, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that every employee at RS gets home safely every day and in at least as good a physical and mental state as when they arrived at work.

Speaker 1

And this means that as one team, we watch out for each other and hazards anywhere and all the time. We deliver brilliantly by role modeling safe behavior, continually assessing the risk the work that we do and that others do before they undertake it. We do the right thing by empowering everyone to intervene if they see any potential hazardous action or behavior anywhere by anybody. And we make every day better by constantly looking for ways to improve to ensure that everyone at RS goes home healthy every day. So into the meat of the presentation itself, and I'm actually really pleased with the progress we've made at RS in the first half when we're executing better and at pace.

Speaker 1

What are the key takeaways for me around our first half performance? Well, markets were a bit tougher than we anticipated at the start of the year. However, our sales per day has stabilized. We're continuing to invest in a targeted way to enhance the RS proposition, And we're exercising strong operational oversight, which is driving that execution and also things like cash performance and cash generation. And importantly, we're managing the things that we can control well whilst making good strategic and operational progress, delivering on the key programs in each of those five areas of our business that our strategic plans are focused on.

Speaker 1

That's customers, products and suppliers, solutions, experience and operational excellence. And I'll share a bit more about these later on in the presentation. And all the hard work that we've done in the first half has resulted in revenues that were broadly flat. Gross margin that declined as we anticipated. Operating costs were broadly flat with efficiency savings and integration benefits offsetting restructuring costs, inflation and increased strategic investment.

Speaker 1

And as a result, PBT came in at just under €120,000,000 and EPS was 18.7p. And the Board's recommending a 2% increase in the interim dividend to 8.5p. So whilst it's not immediately apparent in those headline numbers, the good underlying progress that we're making is positioning us extremely well for when markets return to growth. Now before Kate takes you through what's actually going on and driving these financial outcomes, let's take a quick look on what's been going on in our markets. So generally, they've been a bit softer than we anticipated at the beginning of the year.

Speaker 1

And we shared a version of this chart with you before, which shows the strong correlation between manufacturing PMI data, that's the gray line, and RS like for like revenue growth, which is the red line. As you can see, PMI has been below 50 since the end of 2022. And although there was positive momentum going into the beginning of this year, this momentum definitely softened into Q2. And I think this reflects the significant ongoing headwinds that most industrial customers are facing, things like increasingly real geopolitical risk and regional conflict, slower than anticipated economic growth and political complexity and change, all of which is leading to continued uncertainty and hence, our markets remaining softer than we originally anticipated, although at least post Wednesday, there is greatest political certainty in the 2 in 2 of our largest markets. Now drilling into our transaction data on the right hand side of the chart, average order frequency continues to improve.

Speaker 1

Orders were stabilized, but average order value remains depressed. And this suggests customers continue to buy, but with supply chain constraints easing and surplus inventory burning down, they're buying in less depth and just for their immediate and slightly depressed need. Pleasingly though, we continue to gain share across most product categories and comparators are getting easier. The pace of like for like revenue decline continues to slow. And although all markets remain choppy, we've even started to see a few more green trading days across more markets in the last few weeks.

Speaker 1

And most importantly, our sales per day have stabilized. And with that, let me pass you over to Kate, who will take you through what's driving the numbers in a bit more detail.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Simon, and good day, everyone. I've now been at RS for over a year, and during that time, we have delivered significant operational change. We have a clear, data led understanding of our business, we monitor the commercial drivers, and we understand the levers to pull to optimize our performance. We are navigating subdued external markets well, responding with strong execution of our strategy to ensure we are well placed to gain market share and demonstrate improved operating leverage as market conditions improve. So let's move on to what's driving our first half results.

Speaker 2

This slide summarizes the results for the 6 months to 30 September on a page. Year on year revenue was broadly flat with like for like down 3% after adjusting for acquisitions, trading days and FX. Adjusted profit before tax largely reflects previously signaled normalization of gross margin as well as reduction in like for like sales volumes. Actions taken on costs have absorbed inflation and the signaled increase in organic investment. Adjusted operating cash flow conversion has been strong with effective working capital focus.

Speaker 2

And we've announced a 2% increase in the interim dividend to 8.5p per share, consistent with our progressive dividend policy whilst recognizing the need to grow into a normalized dividend that reflects the unwind of post COVID trading.

Speaker 1

Our digital performance reflects the broader market context, particularly in the reduction of smaller transactional purchases, which are conducted through the web, and we were pleased with the relative outperformance of our e procurement solution, where we've added customers in year, which helped offset lower market demand. This is also the primary driver behind the outperformance in Service Solutions supported revenue. Our own brand, RS Pro, also grew with increased penetration in all regions.

Speaker 2

Turning to our revenue. Group revenue was broadly flat with like for like performance in Q2 similar to Q1. Like for like sales declined by 3%, largely a function of reduced volumes due to the reduced average order values as Simon has referred to already. In our 3 product categories, Facilities, Maintenance and Other Industrial categories grew by 2%. Automation and Control, which includes electrification, reduced by 4% and Sammis and Passives, Cables and Connectors declined by 10%.

Speaker 2

FX accounted for just under 2% impact, which was offset by an increase in trading days. We have signaled our conviction that there is significant opportunity to improve the operating leverage in our cost base. So looking at our costs in H125, there is an additional quarter of distillate, some cost inflation and a small FX gain. However, through structural and management actions taken in the year, we have more than absorbed inflation, the restructuring and integration costs and the increase in organic investments in the half. We've delivered CHF 13,000,000 of incremental restructuring and integration benefits, which is ahead of our plans.

Speaker 2

We flexed our cost base appropriately to market conditions with a net GBP 7,000,000 benefit in the first half of the year. And we successfully negotiated an improved commercial outcome on the exit from the Netherlands distribution center, which was included in the Distlakt acquisition and gave us a one off benefit of GBP 5,000,000 So let's bring this all together. Our operating profit margin reduced by 150 basis points to 9.3%. 80 basis points is attributed to the reduced sales volumes versus this time last year. 100 basis points was the annualization of the previously signaled reduction in gross margin, which relates to the unwind of inflation benefits, and this was evident in the second half of last year.

Speaker 2

And the net result of our cost actions has improved our operating leverage by 50 basis points. Moving on to our regions and starting with EMEA. Total revenue increased by 2%, including the extra quarter's contribution from DistroLEC. Like for like revenue was down 3%, reflecting weak industrial production activity, resulting in reduced average order value. This was most notable in semi's passives and the A and C categories, which was in part offset by growth in Facilities and Maintenance.

Speaker 2

Our performance in key country markets was consistent with what we'd expect from the different product mix profiles and the market environments as indicated by PMIs. Despite the market backdrop, we had a strong performance from the business areas we have highlighted as strategically important. Our corporate customer revenue has grown by 6%, a function of more targeted sales and marketing efforts. And Ares Pro and revenue supported by Services and Solutions continues to outperform. Our like for like gross margin is down 150 basis points, much of which we'd already seen in the second half of last year and is consistent with the unwind of prior year inflation benefit previously signaled.

Speaker 2

This accounted for over half the profit decline within the region with cost inflation and the effect of lower average order values impacting our variable cost ratio. Let's move on to the Americas on Slide 13. Our like for like revenue fell 3% with decline in the U. S. In part offset by a strong performance in Mexico.

Speaker 2

A weak industrial market backdrop led to PMIs being below 50% in U. S. And Canada during the majority of the first half. Our offer in Americas largely serves builders of industrial assets and companies with small production needs, which require automation and control and electrification products. Therefore, our revenue performance is more correlated to CapEx and Projects and Industrial sentiment.

Speaker 2

We had a strong performance in Mexico as our higher service offering resonated well in an environment where capital spend in the verticals we serve has been increasing. Service Solutions also performed well as we ramped up our design and technical services offer in the U. S. Web improved, resulting from increased marketing investment to drive traffic to our site following the rebranding 18 months ago. Our digital performance declined as larger customers reduced their order values.

Speaker 2

RS Pro delivered a small growth in revenue as we improved customer awareness of the product offering through sales tools and incentives. Like for like gross margin fell by 0.7%, consistent with the inflation unwind evident in the second half of last year, and operating profit reflected the gross margin impact and reduced sales volumes, partially offset by improved cost control. And moving on to Asia Pacific. Like for like revenue fell 2%, reflecting the economic backdrop across the region and the slow electronic market recovery. Our product categories that are more industrial focused delivered strong growth with performance improving against weak comparators, and we have benefited from developing our service solutions offer, especially offering e procurement to our higher value customers.

Speaker 2

Gross margin improved by 1.2 percentage points with favorable exchange rates reducing our cost of goods sold, which in turn dropped through to improved operating profit of £1,000,000 We delivered strong cash conversion, and it's pleasing to show the significant improvement in adjusted free cash flow versus the prior period. We generated £89,000,000 of free cash flow, a conversion rate of over 100% with lower EBITDA offset by working capital discipline and a normalization of inventory turn. This is also evident in the improvement in working capital efficiency. Capital expenditure remained steady at 1.2x depreciation as we continue to invest in our physical and system infrastructure. Net debt decreased to $437,000,000 with an associated gearing ratio of 1.3x.

Speaker 2

And our cash generation balance sheet and debt facility headroom provide plenty of capacity for continued strategic investment. Finally, to wrap up, I wanted to help a little with some factors to consider in regards to the modeling of our second half. We are ensuring that we are well placed for when market conditions improve. We are continuing to invest in delivering our strategic action plan. This year, our organic investment is likely to be at the lower end of the guided range of €35,000,000 to €45,000,000 per annum.

Speaker 2

Our cost savings and efficiency program is expected to deliver similar incremental benefits in H2 as those delivered at H1 with similar level of associated costs. And this will complete the CHF 30,000,000 cost savings program that we announced this time last year and start to deliver the additional 150 basis point cost efficiency improvement that we talked about at the Avesta event in September. We anticipate similar cost inflation, including the normalization of employee incentives, the latter of which will be H2 weighted. And we've shown in the first half, we have been proactively managing cost, demonstrating our flexibility to manage expenditure. And there is no change to capital expenditure guidance, which is £50,000,000 around and continues to support physical system infrastructure investment, including progress on the 2,030 ESG action plan.

Speaker 2

And the guidance points, including trading days, foreign exchange, tax rate and the summary of the operating cost actions, is included on Slides 2930 of the pack. I'd like to now hand you back to Simon.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Kate. And as I said at the outset, I'm pleased with the strategic and operational progress that we've made in the 1st 6 months of this year as we continue to effectively to work effectively on the things that we can control and importantly, better position RS for when our markets return to growth. So at our investor event in September, we outlined our strategy and our action plan to deliver 1st sustainable first choice outcomes for all of our stakeholders, but particularly for our customers and our suppliers through optimizing our advantage position in through cycle growth markets, through strengthening our differentiated offering to drive market share gain, by investing to improve efficiency and operating leverage and acquiring in a disciplined way to accelerate value creation and growth. And as set out in our strategic wheel, we have detailed plans that focus on addressing opportunities in the 5 main areas of our business of customers, products and suppliers, solutions, experience and operational excellence. Now taking each of these in turn, let's have a look at how our improved execution and delivery in the first half is positioning us going into the second half and beyond.

Speaker 1

We continue to invest in all categories, but We continue to invest in all categories, but are particularly focusing on our higher potential value customers. Why? Well, this allows us to have greater strategic engagement with them, and they have lots of relevant spend, giving us an opportunity for accelerated growth, reduced volatility and the ability to differentiate and tailor our costs to serve more effectively. We touched on many of the customer actions that we were taking at the Capital Markets Day, and I'm pleased to report that virtually all of them are on or ahead of plan and in line with or marginally below cost to deliver. And as you can see from the chart on the right hand side of the slide, even in more difficult markets, these value customers high value customers continue to outperform and grew by 5% in the first half, a good reason and good evidence as to why this is an area of focus for us going forward.

Speaker 1

Entering H2, we'll start using more granular segmentation and improved data and systems to activate sales and associated market segmentation and better focus our marketing resources and through active pipeline management, our salespeople to drive better returns from more targeted investment in our customers. In Products and Supplies, we're focusing on expanding and curating our technical product range and building closer and more strategic relationships with our key suppliers. Why? Well, this results in improved availability of the products that our customers want when they want them and drive share of wallet growth and the opportunity for greater direct supplier support. And we've made good progress in the first half.

Speaker 1

And in particular, I'd like to call out the launching of a much improved product management system that has been some years in development at RS. And as a result and as the picture on the slide highlights, we enter H2 having removed a long standing systems constraint on product ingestion, and we can now triple our capacity to launch new products each month. And we've reduced our technical product onboarding process that allows us to adopt a product in 3 days rather than 3 months. And we're already beginning to utilize this capacity to strategically accelerate expansion of our product range and to build more automated curation capability. We're also increasing our RS Pro brand investment, particularly in America and upgrade upgrading and harmonizing our inventory planning tools and process processes,

Speaker 3

all

Speaker 1

of which strengthens and extends our product offering, availability and improves our supplier engagement over time. We're focusing and aligning our services our service and solutions offering to deliver valued scalable solutions that create strategic engagement with our target customers and drive product pull through. This has involved exiting, rightsizing or refocusing a number of our services and solutions to target them more at our core B2B customers in H1, and all these actions are almost complete. We're also continuing to integrate our RS Integrated Supply businesses under New Sheet leadership, who are tasked with improving the scalability and returns from our integrated supply investment. Sheet leadership, who are tasked with improving the

Speaker 4

scalability and returns

Speaker 1

from our integrated supply investment. And ongoing investment in some of our digitally enabled solutions, such as eProc is the chart on the right hand side on the right hand side of the slide shows, things like reducing onboarding, increasing automation and continuing to drive sustainable product pull through is allowing us to see reduced volatility and increased growth from these digital products. And eProc grew by 5% in H1. Innovation remains a critical support to our continuing pivot from being a transactional distributor to a solutions provider. And as we enter H2, we'll be launching an enhanced innovation process across the group to support innovative development.

Speaker 1

And we'll also be continuing to look at exiting loss making contracts in RSIS more rapidly and looking at opportunities to accelerate our 2 year program of migrating customers onto our common technology platform, which we continue to enhance with increased functionality, whilst looking to add further opportunities for process improvement and automation to drive greater scale and efficiency. We're enhancing our customer experience to provide a more consistent, seamless, tailored and best in class experience across all channels to increase loyalty and drive greater insights. And in the first half, we've made a lot of progress. And I'll call out, in particular, the rollout of our enhanced AI enabled web search capabilities, which are now embedded across 27 websites in EMEA and Asia Pacific. And with our last major market, the Americas, due to go live at the end of the month.

Speaker 1

The chart on the right hand side demonstrates what we're seeing from this more enabled and more effective website. This is actually a chart of the UK nil return search performance since the website, which we piloted in the UK, started in September last year, and we're seeing a nearly 60% drop in people who come to the website but don't buy anything and more importantly, a 3% increase in conversion. We also enter the second half, having completed the first phase of what has been a major systems and software upgrade to improve visibility, availability and delivery of our products to our customers. We will launch the customer facing functionality of this upgrade in early December, which will provide meaningful and accurate delivery promise data for our customers who, in addition to enhancing the service that we can provide to them, will result in significantly reduced order cancellation, minimize open orders, which create unnecessary complexity within our system and reduce materially the need for manual customer services intervention, all of which represents a continued enhancement and improvement of our already strong digital experience and capability. And as Kate alluded to, we've also made good progress in driving operational excellence and improving the efficiency and sustainability of our physical, digital and process infrastructure, creating more flexibility in our cost base and improving our operating leverage and drop through.

Speaker 1

We continue to invest in our distribution infrastructure, expanding our DCs in France and in the U. S. And as Kate mentioned, beginning the exit of the DC that we acquired with DistroLEC in the Netherlands. We also announced the reorganization of our information services and technology function to improve efficiency, prioritize and enhance delivery and better support our businesses and our operating model. And we're beginning to consolidate our global shared business service functions to low total cost labor environments across the group.

Speaker 1

And as a result, and as Kees referenced, we delivered €8,000,000 of cost savings and an additional €9,000,000 of accelerated integration benefits during the half, mainly from DistroLEC. And as we enter H2, we're continuing to invest in, consolidate and improve the efficiency of that global distribution infrastructure that I referred to with new tools that allow us to actively manage our routings and our carriers to optimize freight costs and our carbon consumption more effectively. We'll start consolidating our applications estate whilst improving our data architecture and accelerate its ingestion into a global enterprise data platform as well as continuing the consolidation of our shared service functions as we appoint senior leaders to drive definition, harmonization and continuous improvement in some of our global processes. Associated with these actions and as we actually actively continue to manage our cost base, we've announced actions that we expect will result in further 1% to 2% reductions in headcount in the second half, and we continue to look to and to drive more cost effective infrastructure. And last but not least, we saw a really positive contributions from our recent acquisitions, where despite market softness, particularly in DistroLEC, we remain on track to more than cover our cost of capital for all three acquisitions within 3 years as originally targeted.

Speaker 1

Taking each of them in turn, Resul continues to perform strongly as Kate alluded to, both in its home markets in Mexico and as we expand into Central America. And particularly as we enhance their digital presence and range and introduce RS Pro into their offering. I'm particularly pleased with the progress that we made integrating DistroLEC, where we are well ahead of plan, both in timing and synergy delivery and where the potential is materially ahead of our original estimates. And importantly, combining RS and DistroLEC is demonstrating the significant scale benefits we can generate from the right acquisitions. And although it's early days and despite quite a difficult macro environment in Australia, Trident is already performing strongly and better than planned.

Speaker 1

Importantly, in all of these acquisitions all of these recent acquisitions, we've demonstrated that we can create really significant value when we acquire the right sorts of businesses. And I'm pleased that our acquisition pipeline remains strong, although we remain extremely value disciplined. And putting all this together, as I said at the outset, although you can't see it in the absolute numbers yet, I'm really pleased with the underlying progress we've made in the first half. We're executing much better on the things that we can control, and we're still investing to make good strategic and operational improvements in the business. And this is positioning us really well for when industrial sentiment improves and markets return to growth, which they will.

Speaker 1

In the meantime, we're responding effectively to tougher than anticipated markets, removing waste, driving efficiency and taking actions that will improve our operating leverage. While short term trading visibility does remain limited, we continue to flex appropriately. And as a result, we expect the outcome for the full year to be in line with current market expectations. And importantly, our performance in the first half confirms that as we set out at that investor event in September, we're well positioned in fragmented markets with an attractive through cycle growth characteristics. We're driving market share gains through a differentiated technical and digital product and service solutions offer.

Speaker 1

We're investing to improve efficiency and operating leverage of our global infrastructure to drive significant margin expansion potential, and we're accelerating growth through disciplined acquisitions. And the progress that we're making gives us continued confidence that we'll deliver that revenue growth of twice our markets, the mid teen adjusted operating margins, cash conversion of over 80% and sustainable returns on capital of more than 20% in the meantime medium term. And that brings us to the end of the formal presentations. With that, I'd like to now hand back to our moderator, Becky, who will open up the meeting for questions.

Operator

Thank you, Simon. Our first question is from Rory McKenzie from UBS. Rory, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good morning. It's Rory here. Three questions, please. Simon, you're referencing some more green days on your system. I imagine that's not just trying a new color scheme instead of RS red.

Speaker 5

So can you talk about what that looks like? And is it because you're driving better sales intensity? Or is it just market trends? Secondly, on gross margin, obviously, you were still down compared to last year, but I noticed it did up sequentially for the first time in about 2 years. So can you talk about the dynamics within that and what your expectations are for H2?

Speaker 5

And then finally, a question for you had a lot at the past day. Can you just talk about in your U. S. Business, how much you import or expose the imports and from where? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Rory. I'll take the RS Red and the import question. I'll leave Kate deal with the gross margin question. Look, I'm not calling a turn to market, but you allude to RS Red. When I first arrived, I thought we just produced only red numbers on our screens.

Speaker 1

In the last 6 or 8 weeks, we have worked out that we do have green that works on our monitors, and we are seeing more green days in more markets. But it's definitely not being driven by a fundamental return to growth. What it's being driven by, I think, is stability in a number of places. Comparators are getting easier, and we do continue to gain share. Finally, I think we are beginning to see the benefits of some of the investments that we've been making.

Speaker 1

Our key customer growth remains strong. The freeing up of capacity to adopt new products more rapidly is beginning to create opportunities for us to sell more and gain share. So markets remain choppy, and I'm not calling anything other than that. We don't expect any market growth for the remainder of the year. But within that, we're performing pretty well.

Speaker 1

And as I say, we are seeing a few more green days in a few more markets that we than we've seen for the last 18 months. On U. S. And imports exports, virtually everything that goes into Mexico is imported from the U. S, virtually all of their procurement is in dollars.

Speaker 1

And there's not, I think, very little that goes from Mexico into the U. S. So whilst we're monitoring what happens around sanctions and all that sort of stuff, we don't think that it will materially impact our U. S. Or our Mexican business.

Speaker 1

Gross margin, Kate?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Simon. So just as a reminder, Rory, on gross margin. We talked about this at the end of last year when we were talking about the trading in 2022 and 2023 that we expected an unwind of inflation tailwinds that we'd had in prior periods in gross margin. Much of that was fully evident in the H2 numbers of last year. And when you look at H1 'twenty four versus H1 'twenty five, really what you're seeing is an annualization of that gross margin basis point decline that we saw in H2 annualizing into H1.

Speaker 2

I think what I've said before with regards to gross margin is because of the nature of how we buy the inventory turn that we have, that changes in inflation rates do give tailwinds and slight unwind of tailwinds depending on the timing of that inventory acquisition. And that combined with the trading effects that we talked to in 2022 and 2023 is primarily what's driven this unwind.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Rory.

Speaker 3

Thanks. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Annalise van Meehan from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, good morning, Simon. Good morning, Kate. I have three questions, please. So firstly, on the organic investments, €35,000,000 to €40,000,000 on Slide 9, it looks like it's €3,000,000 deployed in the first half. And you mentioned being at the lower end of that €35,000,000 5 to 40 for this year, which implies still quite a big step up in those investments in the second half.

Speaker 4

Have I understood that correctly? And perhaps could you remind us what the priorities are in terms of that organic investment at the moment? And then secondly, on end market growth, you've talked about gaining share in some of your markets. You've again talked about growing at 2 times the market. Was that the case in the first half?

Speaker 4

And perhaps you could comment on where it is that you've gained share and perhaps where you haven't? And then lastly, just as a follow-up to the tariffs question, could you remind me, do you source anything that you sell in the U. S, do you source from China? And if so, what's the percentage that comes from China?

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Annalise. Morning. Organic investment, Kate?

Speaker 2

So just as a reminder, Annalise, what you look what you see in the flying brick charts is a variation on half one spend last year to half one spend this year. That's not the absolute amount that we spent on organic investment, it's the increase in organic investment. So again, as a reminder, what we said last year is that we were at a run rate of around €25,000,000 We expected that to increase to of the order of €40,000,000 per year with a range of €35,000,000 to €45,000,000 So we have spent broadly in line with that expectation in H1 of this year with an incremental step change as we signaled in H1 this year versus H2 I mean H1 last year. With regards to what we're spending it on, basically, it's all in line with the strategic priorities that are set up in the wheel that we talked about in the Capital Markets Investor Day in September. These are focused on both revenue growth activities.

Speaker 2

So good examples of that would be what we talked about in customer relationship management tools, customer data, master data and the like. It also includes our digital investment, including things like search capability and the like. It includes in the last half completion of the big project that Simon talked about, deliver to promise in terms of trade tacking and also enabling faster ingestion and publication of new products. And of course, it includes process investment, both in supply chain, middle and back office process investment. So it's spread between those strategic initiatives that we talked to before.

Speaker 1

And the only thing I'd add to that is there's quite a lot of investment going on into a new and upgraded digital commerce engine, which we've actually had a beta test on in Mexico. It'll be launched in America towards the end of this year, and that'll be rolled out over the next 2 or 3 years in Europe. That would be the only add I would have on where we're spending that strategic investment. And on tariffs and what comes in from China, it remains the case that a lot of electronic components are produced in China and Taiwan from our suppliers. Our suppliers are managing their supply chains appropriately.

Speaker 1

Where it directly impacts us is RS Pro. We have been on a program of resourcing critical supplies for our that support our RS Pro brand over the last 18 months, and we're accelerating that. And we will always import stuff from China. But if the cost of importing it increase, we will pass those costs on to our customers, and we are trying to risk mitigate our RS Pro supply chain based on current macro geopolitical issues. So it's being actively managed.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Annalise.

Speaker 4

Thank

Operator

you. Our next question is from David Brockton from Deutsche Neimers. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Good morning all. Please now continue with the trends for 3 questions. Firstly, very encouraging that last signs of green days across the business. The one area you do have a bit more visibility is North America.

Speaker 6

So first question, can you sort of say whether the book to bill in America is now back above 1? Secondly, on distroec, again, pleasing to hear that you've reconfirmed you can get that business to cover its cost of capital within the next year or so. Can you just give us profits that that business contributed in the first half, please? And then the final question, just in respect of the customer Net Promoter Score, again, pleasing to see that up in the Americas. Can you confirm if that was up in EMEA and Asia Pac 2?

Speaker 6

We see if the group number is in the appendix, but I think you may have changed the calculation or the provider. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thanks, David. North America book to bill, it gives us about 8 weeks visibility and it's sort of flattish, not above 1 yet. I think marginally more positive than we would have been talking about 6 months ago, but nothing to highlight negative or positive. On DistroLEC, I'm looking at my finance director next door. Do we disclose what's the company?

Speaker 2

Yes, it's David, it's happily in the R and S. So we've got a paragraph on distrolect where it contributed £79,000,000 of revenue and €7,000,000 of profit, but that does include €7,000,000 of integration costs. So overall, a pleasing contribution for DistroLEC in the half.

Speaker 1

Yes. And I think whilst DistroLEC has faced some of the same challenges in markets that the broader RS Group in Europe has faced, David, we're very pleased with the progress we're making on DistroLEC, both in terms of the integration the absolute integration itself and the progression of the gross margin. The exit from our DC that we acquired in the Netherlands will also materially reduce the costs of the supply chain across the whole of RS. So we're very pleased with how Distroelect is going. And we've also acquired some great people in with DistroLEC who are now bringing their skills to bear across the whole of RS.

Speaker 1

So yes, we're very pleased with that one. And then Net Promoter Score in EMEA and Asia Pac. Again, off the top of my head, I can't remember what the Net Promoter Score was. I would expect it to be down a little bit in Asia Pacific and EMEA in part because of our launch of delivery to promise, which gave us a couple of hiccups in delivery, which have now been fixed, but it's still at very attractive levels. And I think it was only a marginal drop.

Speaker 2

Yes. And EMEA, just to be clear, it was a very marginal drop, down about 90 basis points there or thereabouts, so 50.8% down to 49.9%. Percent. And then in APAC, it's improved 1.9 points.

Speaker 6

Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Thanks, David.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from James Rhodes from Barclays. James, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hi, good morning. I've got 2, please. First is on cost savings. It sounds like you found some extra savings in the first half. Can you tell us where you found them from, what they are?

Speaker 3

And what the new total of structural cost savings sales you're looking for is? And then secondly, on trade receivables, they look notably lower. Do we interpret this as a one off, a good push around the half or are there some structural changes to your processes, which should mean better cash days in the longer term?

Speaker 1

James, it's morning. Pleasingly, I'm going to hand both of those over to Sienna.

Speaker 2

Thank you, James, for the question. Much appreciated. With regards to the cost savings, I mean, I think as you would expect, we always seek to try and over deliver wherever we can. Where the cost savings are coming from are the areas of making sure that we're very well focused, removing duplication and some sort of structural positioning in terms of harmonizing processes so that we are doing one thing consistently once and there's more opportunity in that same vein. What we talked about before and I think we announced this time last year was the €30,000,000 of savings that we expected to have all actions taken by full year 2025 and the full annualizations of the savings in full year 2020 6.

Speaker 2

We expect today to be ahead of that, and that will also help us eat into the improvement in efficiency that we talked to in the Investor Day, where I called out 150 basis points of further additional improvement. So for now, I'm very keen to make sure that GBP 30,000,000 gets banked, the GBP 150,000,000 basis points gets delivered and then we'll look to see what more we can do. With regards to trade receivables, I think also you'll recall that in H1 last year, we had quite high inventory levels and associated working capital. What I'm seeing in H1 this year is much more disciplined with regards to inventory levels. Those have now normalized.

Speaker 2

And I've seen a release with regards to net receivables and payables, which is what you would expect. When receivable volumes when revenue volumes are a bit lower, you would expect a degree of release in working capital. So I'm confident that it's working in that direction. I'm not signaling today a significant change in our days sales outstanding or days payable outstanding, but clearly, we will seek to improve our working capital wherever we can.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thanks very much.

Speaker 1

Thanks, James.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Sam Dindal from Stifel. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Good morning, guys. It's Sam from Stifel. A couple of questions for me, please. Firstly, on RS Pro in the U. S, should we expect that to be sort of a gradual increase at the time?

Speaker 6

Or will there be a step change as you can add more products for your curation and the brand sort of gains traction there? And then secondly on M and A, I don't know if you can give any color on the pipeline. Would there be anything bigger sort of result or distract type we should expect in the next year or 2 or given the focus on the operational improvements, is there sort of enough to do there? Many thanks.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Sam. So on RS Pro in the U. S, look, I think we think there's significant potential to grow RS Pro in the U. S. I think what we've learned though, it's not just about product curation.

Speaker 1

It's also about brand recognition. And I don't think we probably invested enough in both the RS brand, don't forget we only transitioned from Allied back in at the beginning of 2023. And then and therefore, in a related way, RS Pro. So I think continued investment in that space, and you will see RS Pro sales in America grow, but it will be gradual and over time as you build brand recognition and as you curate your product suite to the right set of customers who recognize what the brands and the products associated with it stand for. So don't expect an immediate jump to the more group level averages.

Speaker 1

It'll take time. Don't forget, we've been selling RS Pro in the U. K. For 20 years, and that's our highest RS Pro share in the world. I don't expect it to take 20 years, but it won't it won't it will it'll take longer than a couple of years.

Speaker 1

On the M and A, look, the pipeline is good in sort of difficult markets, in a fragmented market. There are a number of distressed players out there. There are also generational changes being triggered. And there are some bigger things out there. So the pipeline is full.

Speaker 1

We've got plenty to look at, but we remain very value disciplined. We're still integrating, particularly DisraeliQ, which takes quite a bit of resource, but we're also getting towards the end of that integration. So who knows? But the important thing for us internally at least is that we have proved to ourselves that there is very clear value to be created from combining the right acquisitions in the right way within RS. So nothing more to say, full pipeline, very value disciplined, looking at what's crossing our desks and pursuing those that we would like.

Speaker 6

Brilliant. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. If you have any more questions after the call, please e mail investorrelationsrsgroup.com. I will now hand over to Simon for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for joining the call and for putting up with this remote format, and we'll check how that worked for everybody. But the main message that I think we'd like to leave you with is, look, we are operating effectively in markets that are marginally more challenging than we thought they'd be. We're working well and focusing on the things that we can control.

Speaker 1

We're executing better, and we've continued to invest strategically and operationally in RS that is positioning it well for when markets return to growth. In the second half, we expect markets to continue to be choppy. We're not anticipating any return to growth in any of our major markets for the rest of this year, but we are seeing 1 or 2 more green days in 1 or 2 markets. I think we're well positioned to deal with what the markets might throw at us. And in the medium term, we're very excited about the opportunity here, and we're positioning ourselves better to realize it.

Speaker 1

With that, thanks for joining, and we look forward to seeing you in person at the annual results presentation next year.

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Earnings Conference Call
RS Group H1 2025
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