Pets at Home Group Plc (PETS) Q2 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to our Interim Results School. We are pleased to have delivered a solid set of results which are proof that our business is resilient and our strategy is delivering. As sales growth for the half has been pleasing, we grew consumer sales by 8.6%, fuelled by particularly strong growth in our Vets business. We've had a very busy H1, and this has weighed on our first half profits, which are down 19% to 47.8 million. This is largely the shape we expected. Our retail business suffered some disruption through Q2 as we transitioned to our new distribution centre. This disruption is now behind us, and with cost headwinds easing into H2, we expect an improved performance and maintain our guidance to deliver flat PBIT for the full year. As we reflect on a solid first half performance, it's worth looking back to our strategy, which we set out in May to build the world's best pet care platform, knitting together our unique products, services and advice to provide an unrivaled experience for pets and the people that love them. And as we continue to deliver against our strategy, our plan will unlock significant value for all stakeholders, including our shareholders. We plan to deliver 7% consumer sales CAGR, outgrowing our structurally growing pet care market by 300 basis points. We expect a 10% CAGR in PBIT with improving free cash generation as we move beyond the peak of our capex investment. And with our already strong balance sheet, surplus cash generation will be returned to shareholders. now the first half of financial year 24 has been a critical period for the business as we've been building our platform for future growth and as we stand today we've made significant progress against our plan first we've launched our new stafford distribution center t...