Accrol Group Holdings PLC

LSE:ACRL

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Welcome, everyone, to the half year results of the Accrol Group Holdings. Joining me today is Richard Newman, our CFO, and Chris Welsh, who will become the new CFO on the beginning of May of this year. I just want to give you a little bit of background to the performance for the 6 months of this year. We are clearly very pleased with the performance of the group in the first 6 months. It's been incredibly strong. Our volumes you see there have increased by 14% from the prior period. I'm pleased to say that every retailer, every SKU that we supply is in growth. Our revenue clearly has been impacted positively with the price increases we have passed through, and we'll give you more of a flavor of that in a moment.

I'm really pleased to say that our market share has now climbed to just under 22% of the U.K. market. And that's up from when I joined the group in late 2017, early 2018, our market share was something like 6%. We passed through significant cost increases of over GBP 80 million in the last 15 months. Our belief now going forward is we don't see a further price increase impacting the customer base and pretty static tissue pricing.

Our wet wipe business, which we bought just under 2 years ago, John Dale, has performed particularly well, and we'll see sales of somewhere in the region of GBP 6 million this year from our wet wipe business, up from GBP 1.5 billion in 2021. Also, we've completed the final piece of automation of our sites and the new capacity in our Leyland business, very much our capital investment in the business is very much behind us. And we'll give you a flavor of the modest capital that we expect to be spending in the group going forward. And I'll also update you towards the end of this presentation, the findings of our strategic review and where we're taking the business.

I'll now hand over to Richard Newman, who will take you through the numbers and the performance of the business. Thank you, Richard.

[Richard Newman, executive]

Great. Thank you, Gareth. Good afternoon, everybody. Yes, just to talk through the market, first of all, just a reminder that the U.K. tissue market is now a GBP 2.5 billion market at retail sales value. That excludes wet wipes, which is another GBP 0.5 billion market on top of that. I guess the key dynamic that we've seen within the tissue market over the last period of time is the growth of private label. Brands versus private label has been sort of 50-50 in the market over the previous few years.

That trend did change a little bit through COVID, where the brands strengthened somewhat. But now that position is completely reversed. Private label is now 54% of the market. And given our positioning with the discounters and our strong position within the private label market itself, we're obviously enjoying volume growth on the back of those trends. We've seen overall growth in the period. We're looking at of 14%, which has helped us grow our share up to just under 22% but importantly, we've seen growth across all of our categories, toilet tissue, kitchen towel, facial tissue and wet wide, so consistent growth across every area of our business. These are the summary numbers, which I'm sure many of you will have seen and read in terms of the headlines. What I'll do over the next few slides is just talk you through the bridge, if you like, of the revenue year-on-year, the profit and the debt.

So if we start with the revenue slide, what I wanted to demonstrate here was just not only have we grown on the back of price, but there is underlying volume growth there, which I've talked about, and it gives you there the actual in the text talks about the growth of the categories that I've just described.

Over the course of the last sort of 15 to 18 months, we have had to implement 4 separate price increases, very substantial price increases and you can see the impact that they've had cumulatively over the course of the half year of adding GBP 38 million in just the 6-month period. And we've done that without losing any customers and, as I've said, growing our volumes in each and every customer that we serve.

If you roll it on and we just look at the profits at the EBITDA I think this chart just demonstrates the scale of the cost inflation that we've been dealing with. You can see just in the half year period, almost GBP 40 million of input cost inflation that we've absorbed and then had to pass on to our customers. We've been successful in doing that. We've passed on all of those price increases. And in total, the total cost inflation across the period is over GBP 80 million and we will recover and have recovered all of that through our pricing activity.

And just to reinforce the point. Our anticipation is that we won't need further price increases going forward. We think this bout of inflation has probably peaked. We're not seeing our costs decreasing yet. We think we're seeing them plateau in a number of areas. And our assumption is that they will slowly start to -- some of that inflation will slowly start to unwind probably over the next 6 months. The chart here is just about our debt position. So this just bridges from the full year position through the half year position, a slight expansion in our debt.

Really 2 drivers of that, that I'd highlight. One is we've continued to invest in the business. We put in the final new line into our Leyland facility, and we've also invested in the full automation of that facility. So that now means we've got in our main manufacturing sites in Blackburn, in Leicester and now in Leyland. We have fully automated kits, and we've invested in every single line. So that really marks the end of significant capital investment in our core business. And the other thing we've had to contend with probably over the last 18 months is we've seen an expansion in our working capital.

That's partly been driven by inflation, which obviously expanded the value of our stock and our debtors. But we've also had to take quite cautious positions in terms of how much stock we hold just to manage risks in the supply chain. Most recently, in this half year period, there are a number of issues at U.K. ports, particularly at Liverpool and also at Felixstowe, which were disrupted due to industrial action. That's now passed us by, and we're in a position now where we're able to unwind some of those contingency stocks, and we've started doing that through the second half.

So as we look forward towards the full year, we've given guidance that our full year net debt will come in lower than this position as working capital unwinds and the lack of significant capital expenditure going forward. And then there's just a few commercial highlights here. I've highlighted the volume growth. I think perhaps just to make it real in terms of the branded offer versus the private label offer. There's a statistic sort of 3 quarters down that chart, which just shows that's for a full pack of toilet roll. That's the price differential that you'll see on shelf between the brand and our own private label product of equivalent qualities. There's still a substantial differentiation in price on the shelf. That's what consumers are looking at. And that's why we're seeing this significant growth in our volumes as consumers make that switch.

The other thing I'd highlight on this page is all the labels of all the retailers at the bottom of the chart there. It's really just to emphasize the fact that we serve a very broad customer base. We serve nearly every growth service counter retailer in the country, probably only Asda there that's missing. And no one customer dominates us. We don't have any customer that's more than 20% of our total business. We've got a well-balanced portfolio of customers, and we've managed to grow volumes in each and every one of them.

And then finally, the next slide, just some operational highlights. So I've talked a bit about how we've now finished our investment in all of our core manufacturing capability and capacity. So all of our plants now fully automated. Our productivity levels are the highest they've ever been, driven by that automation and that program of investment over the last 4 or 5 years, which probably totaled about GBP 20 million in total. We're seeing the benefits of that. And that investment is complete. And we estimate ongoing our sort of maintenance capital, if you like, is around GBP 3 million per year. So that's significantly lower than the levels that we've been investing over the past few years.

I think I'll pass it back to Gareth. Thank you.

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Thank you, Richard. I'm just going to take you through a couple of slides just to conclude this section. And the first one is just around the environmental and social and governance part of our business. We published a very detailed second report in around November of last year. So just some highlights that I think that just show the real step change in the group and how relatively small things can have enormous impact. So we moved to 38-millimeter core for our toilet rolls in the period. And that small change there meant that we're able to put 15% more rolls on every journey, which was able to remove 12% of our vehicle movements. And that is a significant reduction in our CO2 emissions, but also our cost of logistics.

We've also, in the period, seen a 15% reduction in our tissue waste, a 3% energy reduction across our business despite the fact that we're a growing organization. We are very proud that we are a Living Wage-accredited employer. Everyone in our organization earns at least the living wage. When I joined in late 2017, early 2018, I think something like 75% of our employees was on the minimum wage. Now that is a reflection partly of clearly the investment that we have made, the reduction in headcount. But I'm a strong believer in having a skilled workforce, and that enables you to drive significant improvements across the board.

I believe that we are the only manufacturing business in the Northwest that is a Living Wage-accredited employer. And we are the only tissue business in the U.K. that is a member of the Living Wage group. We're also really pleased with the improvement and increase in females in leadership roles in our organization. Now up to just under 25% of all leadership roles now are filled with females in our organization, and that's up from 6% in 2020. So if I look forward, how confident are we as we entered into the second half of this year? Well, the easy answer is very.

We are really pleased with the continued strong performance. The reality is the cost of living crisis that's impacting the U.K. is benefiting us. And Richard's referenced there to the cost of a brand compared to the equivalent private label product is a real easy example to understand why private label market share is now at 54% as opposed to the brands of 46%. We have an incredibly strong range of retailers that we deal with. The only retailer that we don't deal with today, and I'm very confident that we will soon, is Asda.

And that gives us an enormous strength in the market. It's something that we understand what is driving change across the whole of the U.K. retail landscape. And we're able to share that information with all the retailers in driving growth for them across the Household Products division. So a strong start to H2. We've already announced to the market that we are trading marginally ahead of expectations in revenue and EBITDA performance, and the business now is incredibly well positioned to take advantage of the changing market dynamics.

So I was going to give you just a flavor of the conclusion of the strategic review. Some of this we've already covered. This is a very different business today than it was probably even 18 months ago. As Richard has mentioned, the investment that we've made is very much behind us. We fully automated every site. We are the best invested U.K. tissue manufacturer. We are the lowest cost producer in the U.K. We're able to measure that with headcount data that we see with our competitors and our output numbers.

The market, as I said, is changing enormously, and we are really pleased with the position we now find ourselves in. We have an exceptionally strong set of people across the business that's enabled us to improve so dramatically as an organization. This is quite a busy slide. You can read this slide at your leisure. But what's important, what we're trying to get across is the scale of the organization. We are a multisite business throughout the U.K. Geography matters in supplying the retailers.

We have capacity across our business, and it's an incredibly well-invested organization. And as you can see there, a real flavor of how old the machinery is. We have got the newest machine park compared to any of our competitors. And it's something that I know that will benefit us as the market changes going forward.

So who are we today? Well, as Richard mentioned, we are the market leader in private label. We are the fastest-growing business in the U.K. We've got an incredibly strong retailer customer base. No one customer is bigger than 20% of our turnover. We've ensured that, that has been one of our mantras over the last 4 or 5 years. We deal with every retailer and every grocer in the U.K., except probably Asda. As Richard said, every single one of them, every one of our SKUs is in growth during this period. And we -- as part of our DNA, is our relentless approach to operational efficiency. It's something that will never leave us, assuming that I know -- puts us in a very strong position to really benefit going forward with the levels of returns that we expect as a management team.

So before I pass it over to Chris to give you a little bit of flavor of the mill and our advancement there, I think it's just important to reflect where we expect to get different parts of the group. So our core toilet and kitchen towel business, we expect that to grow to around about GBP 250 million over the next 3 to 4 years. Today, it's around GBP 200 million in revenue terms. Our facial plan, again, we're currently selling at around GBP 20 million revenue per year, up from GBP 10 million, probably 12 months ago, and we've got capacity and investment plans there to get that to GBP 30 million.

And our wet wipe business is probably the biggest growth area. We bought John Dale, as I said, just under 2 years ago. We bought it because it's one of only two manufactured in the U.K. that's able to sell a water industry-approved flushable wipes, which is solely made from tissue. When we bought that business, turnover was there. It was around GBP 1.5 million. This year, in 2023, revenue will be around GBP 6 million. We've got capacity to grow that business to GBP 12 million, and the physical building will allow us to grow it to around GBP 40 million, with relatively modest investment of around GBP 3 million over the next 3 years. We can really see us scaling that business going forward because of our very, very strong retailer base.

Our Oceans direct-to-consumer brand is still part of our thinking. It's been growing at around 10% per year. We've actioned additional resource in that field, and we see that as part of our organization. Chris will give you a flavor of this. But we absolutely intend to return to the dividend list, and we're looking at what is the best way returning funds to our shareholders as we see a very strong cash-generative organization.

I'll now hand over to Chris, who will just give you a little flavor of the mill. So Chris, there you go.

[Chris Welsh, executive]

Good afternoon, everybody. Pleasure to join today's call. We're pleased to announce that we've made significant progress on our plans to build a paper mill with an optimal location selected, which we believe will provide a lower energy and labor cost solution to securing a significant portion of our raw material paper real requirements moving forward. We expect that machine to have a capacity of around 70,000 tonnes and operate in an incredibly efficient manner, producing 1 to 2 grades of data.

We anticipate that there will be an initial approximately GBP 10 million worth of cash outlay for the group over the next 2- to 3-year period, and the plant will become operational in mid-calendar year 2025, but we will release more information to the market over the next few months as the project continues to develop. And then as Gareth mentioned, just wanted to touch on our capital allocation policy. And we view the ongoing CapEx requirement for the core business to be around GBP 3 million per year for sustaining our maintenance CapEx. And we intend to resume our progressive dividends or a share buyback program over the coming period, as is prudent to do so. And then in terms of -- finally, to finish on our net debt cycle, we anticipate that net debt should return to typical levels of around 1.5x debt-to-EBITDA leverage, as we move forward.

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Thanks, Chris. Just to summarize and then we'll open up for questions. We're clearly very pleased with the performance of the business in the first half, and we're very confident about the performance in the second half of this year. Looking forward, our market, the private label sector has been growing incredibly strongly. The Accrol business now is that we know it's the lowest cost producer in the U.K. We're relentless about that. As Richard and Chris said, our major capital on the core business is very much behind us.

We have a strong full team now in place. Our mill plans, which we will update the market on a pretty regular basis over the next 6 months as elements of that progress, is an incredibly exciting step change for the group and is in an area that gives us a real long-term, low-cost energy solution, I think, is vital for the long-term success of Accrol and for it to be able to deliver consistent levels of appropriate EBITDA performance.

And then finally, just to finish, I'm very grateful to our -- some of our long-term shareholders who have been with us throughout this journey. It's certainly been challenging at the beginning. But I am very pleased with how much they -- how supportive they have been, and also our bank, HSBC, who again have been throughout the journey and they can see how positive we are looking forward to the future.

So on that note, I'll end the presentation and open up for questions.

[Unknown Executive]

First question here. Whilst the RPI contracts with customers make a lot of sense, will Accrol miss out on margin enhancement when paper prices and energy costs for, i.e., the time lag of price decreases having endured a very tough time into a rising price? And there's another question, which is, can you give a little more explanation of how the index-linked contracts work? More specifically, do they guarantee a minimum profit margin?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Should I -- I'll pick up that one, and Richard, Chris add some color if you feel at the end. So the we have indexations with the vast majority of our customers, but they're not -- all I know is incredibly good for the organization, for the group, for the tissue industry is that it isn't easy to point to a simple index. So there's not a simple pass-through of as prices drop, but there's an immediate pass-through of savings to the retailers. And whilst that is, therefore, challenging when you try to push prices up, it's clearly a benefit to the group on the flip side.

And I think that is very, very important. We've worked incredibly hard as an organization, and it's part of the reason why you'll there's a lag on the gross margin percentages that will flow through in the second half of this year and into the beginning of next year. So whilst we're not seeing, and Richard raised this point, we're not seeing any significant reduction in tissue pricing in the short term if and -- as and when that started to flow through, we wouldn't expect to immediately pass that volume and that benefits straight back to the retailers.

And I think I answered all of that because it was 3 bits of that question, but I think I've answered all of that.

[Unknown Executive]

Do they guarantee a minimum profit margin?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

No, no, they don't. We don't have, and I wouldn't want that. That sounds like a cost-plus sort of model. And I think that would be -- well, I wouldn't want that in place for any business at all as really honest.

[Unknown Executive]

The cost increases recovered from retailers seem to obscure the published figures. Not showing a normalized trend with excess of revenue increases and margins falling to 18%. What will margins return to? And can you give some color on the potential for margin enhancement over the next few years?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

I suppose a headline of where we see -- where I see, and I've always seen this business, but clearly, it's had -- the world has changed dramatically over the last 3 years. But I have always seen this business as a teen EBITDA business. That's why I've stayed in the organization. That's why we've invested heavily in the business. Our margins, our gross margins historically have been between 27% and 30%, and that's the level of where we would expect our margins to get back to. But I'll let Richard give a flavor of sort of the reasons why you see a little bit of a lag and why it's currently at -- I think it's 18%, just in the 20% in the first half.

[Richard Newman, executive]

Correct. I think the question is right in terms of when you look at the published numbers, obviously, our margins have been diluted over that period as we've effectively chased the cost inflation. So I think we've talked previously about that there's a lag in the system between some of those costs coming through in our ability to recover it.

I think that lag, we're pleased we've done well to sort of reduce that lag to the minimum possible. But over the time, we know that we're looking at, there's clearly a lag in there, which will unwind. We're already seeing our margins in half two, as you might expect, are better than half one. And we're confident those margins will expand again to more normalized levels as we get into full year '24.

[Unknown Executive]

And could you detail the low-cost energy solution in more detail regarding the mill?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

And with regard to the energy piece, what we will do is -- all as I can say -- I said this in the presentation. In the next 3 to 6 months, we will be outlining in more detail all aspects of the mill. I suppose I think, as I'd say in the presentation, the part of the energy solution is a solar element to it. And again, we'll give more flavor of that in the next 3 to 6 months.

[Unknown Executive]

And good volume increases in wet wipes, but it's not clear from the figures that the acquisition is producing profitable growth. Could you explain?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Again, I think that obviously, as investors, you'll see the improvement in the wet wipe business in the full year numbers. We are very pleased with the wet wipe growth, and we're very pleased with the levels of margins that we are attaining within that business. It's probably 2 or 3 percentage points higher than our core toilet tissue business. So it's something that we are very keen that we continue to expand and grow. We've made some significant changes in the organization, simplified it. Reduced down the number of people that we've got working in the organization.

There'll be further investment in the business to make it -- give it excess capacity, but also improve its margins going forward. We're very mindful of where we grow. So the flushable wet wipe business predominantly is the revenue percentage in there, is an area of wet wipes that has strong margins in the U.K. So we're very pleased with John Dale. And I think that will come -- the numbers will show through in the full year.

[Unknown Executive]

What's your capacity utilization across core, facial and wet wipes? When might you need to consider additional capacity?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

So again, the facial business, we've grown that from around GBP 10 million in revenue to GBP 20 million. It's a modest -- I think there's a modest GBP 1 million of further investment in our facial plant, which will then push capacity up to GBP 30 million. And then with our wet wipe business, again, I think we mentioned this earlier. We've got capacity of around GBP 12 million in our wet wipe business and with modest investment, again, about GBP 3 million in total over probably 3 years would then allow that business to grow to about GBP 40 million.

So the very different cost of machinery in both sectors. But the growth potential for the business in those 2 areas is quite substantial.

[Unknown Executive]

And of the GBP 10 million for the mill cover just the land and building? Will the machines be leased? Will there be capacity in the GBP 10 million building to add more machines without extending? And why only 1 machine now when 2 would still be only 80% of Accrol's expected annual tissue volume?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

So I'm going to go into huge detail around the mill at this stage other than just to confirm that we're not leasing the machine and the -- and/or the land or buildings. There wouldn't be any lease -- sale and leaseback funding. But we'll give more of a detail on the mill in due course. With regard to why we're not building 2, I mean the facility will have access to build 2, if we wished. I'm not a big believer in fully integrated businesses.

I find that many of them are -- have different issues going forward. But we're definitely not going to run before we can walk. We'll get on and build the first mill and review what the next phase is for the organization, but it's clearly a very exciting period for the organization.

[Unknown Executive]

And the question here says, Accrol has been a real roller-coaster ride, given the relatively stable nature of the demand profile of the industry. How far away is Accrol from becoming a much more predictable and stable company with the contract changes, mill build, currency hedging? Is your objective to make this a stable company with strong cash flow?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Well, my easy answer is that if you look forward now in the business, I think we are entering into a very exciting period for the organization. This is the point where I was expecting to get the business probably a couple of years ago, but obviously, you didn't envisage a pandemic or a war. So there have clearly been some elements that have been outside the group. But the effort that has gone in, in transforming the organization, the simplification, the investment, the business I see today is incredibly exciting to be part of. And the whole point of our work and effort is around delivering -- bore into consistent levels of return that shareholders are excited about. And I think we're in an incredibly strong position as I look forward to help deliver that.

[Unknown Executive]

Can you tell me how much the strategic review cost and why was it necessary when it seems that the decisions that are likely to be made would form part of the day-to-day running of the business?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

I think we've spent about GBP 25,000, GBP 30,000 in external consultants who helped us, challenged us with regard to ensuring that we look to every possible option for the group. The logic was that there was no more difficult than at the time. I think when we announced the strategic review, the share price was 20p and I look at this business, I look at the assets that we have, if you wanted to buy the assets, it'll probably cost you about GBP 150 million to set a business like this.

To have a customer base as we have with the breadth it's got with the relationship we've got, I think, would take a group 15 years to build something like this. I think this is an organization that is ridiculously undervalued. And part of that strategic review was to see whether or not there was -- are we doing the right things? Clearly, there's been some dramatic changes since we announced that. The cost of living crisis is -- has been an enormous positive impact upon the group.

The change in the retailer dynamic, again, is an incredibly positive change for the group. So we wanted to be open about considering what was the best route for the organization. I remain very confident about this business. I think that it is a set of factories now that is really well positioned to take advantage of a market that's changing positive. And it also produces -- I know stating the obvious, but produces a product that you can't live without. And I think that's quite unique.

[Unknown Executive]

And what ambitions does the group have inorganic growth either in the U.K. or abroad?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Once an area that I would -- in the last 18 months, we've started to realize the value, the enormous value of our customer base and the range of customers. And I think that the growth that we've seen in John Dale is a real example of how that strength to transform an organization here. We've gone from -- as I said, we've gone from revenues of GBP 1.5 million there. And our run rate now is at a level which means that we need to start making our first machine investment for that group to give it more capacity. And so I think the real strength of this group is around the retailers that we have and how we then maximize that opportunity.

[Unknown Executive]

And wet wipes have had a highly negative press since although being flushable, they don't break down like toilet paper, consequently, they cause blockages. Do the wet wipes you produce break down so as not to cause these problems? And if so, do you use this as a marketing aspect?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

The easy flippant answer is yes and yes. So our -- the flushable wipes that we sell out of the John Dale business, we are only one of -- I said this earlier, we're only 1 of 2 manufacturers in the U.K. that has a flushable wet wipe that's approved by the water industry. So you can flush these down the toilet. You can put them in a glass of water, they disintegrate and disappear. And that has been a cornerstone of our growth aspirations with the wet wipes business. And absolutely, it's the marketing selling reasons for these products. They are a little bit more expensive than traditional wipes. But the response from the retailers has been fantastic.

[Unknown Executive]

And why consider share buybacks when hopefully the moneys would produce even higher returns by investing within the business?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Well, the easy answer is that we will consider both. It depends at the time what we feel is the right use of our cash. To be brutally honest, when the share price was 25p, our view was that we felt that was ridiculously undervaluing the group. I don't know what it is today. At 33p, we think it's ridiculously devaluing the group. Clearly, at the time when we look at what we feel is the right thing to do with our cash, we'll put it into where we feel is the -- gives us the best possible return. And I very much hope that there's a -- we will just make the right decision at the time, and we see this happening in full year '23, '24, but the cash generation for the group in the medium to short term is quite profound.

[Unknown Executive]

And what's the timing of a return to dividend? And how will you prioritize between dividend and share buybacks?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

So I'll probably refer to my previous answer, '23,'24. Richard, do you want to give a flavor of -- I'm conscious about that...

[Richard Newman, executive]

Yes. I think what we're indicating to our announcement is our confidence in cash generation going forward. So the combination of improving earnings, the lower levels of capital expenditure drain on the business going forward. We've said all the heavy lifting has effectively been done in the past.

I think what we're saying is there will be more cash available going forward. We want to maintain a sensible debt, an efficient debt structure, which is why we sort of indicated that 1.5x level is where we think is efficient for us. And then the remainder of the cash, I think what we're just trying to indicate is that there will be choices to be made, whether there's bolt-on acquisitions, whether there's a return of that to shareholders, whether that's through a dividend or through a buyback.

I think what we're really just trying to do is indicate that we're aware that it's our desire to return to a dividend policy. We'll pitch that at a sensible level so that it's sustainable going forward. But really is just trying to give a sense of confidence that we have in our cash generation going forward.

[Unknown Executive]

So everything looks as good as it could be and the future looks very bright indeed. So Gareth, why did you sell about GBP 1 million worth of shares recently?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Well, it was GBP 1 million of the shares. I think it was 1 million shares. I've sold shares twice in 5 years. And there was a particular personal reason why I needed to do it. And the Accrol shares were the most liquid thing that I had at that time, and it was just a personal reason. I'd like to think that shareholders would allow me to sell shares at some point in my career at Accrol. But I don't intend to sell any further or any more shares.

[Unknown Executive]

And is your growth rate the same across all product lines and customers? Do you expect any areas of the business to grow quicker?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

Rich, do you want to pick that one? I know you referenced in your slide -- one of your slides. Do you want to pick that up?

[Richard Newman, executive]

Yes. So I think, again, the broad point is that we're growing all categories, all customers. Clearly, within that there's different rates of growth. I don't think it's -- I think everyone would understand that our customers, people like Aldi and Lidl, they're seeing tremendous growth in the market overall, and we're obviously key suppliers to them.

So we're seeing strong growth there. And across the various categories, some of this is a reversal of some of the trends in -- during the pandemic. So for example, our facial tissue business, we've seen huge growth there. Now that's partly because during the pandemic, there was that slowdown and has recovered somewhat. So that's our fastest growing area. But I think on one of the slides, all of the -- all categories, toilet tissue, kitchen towel and facial tissue are all growing by sort of teen percentages. And that's what we've seen as we've gone into the second half beyond this set of numbers, that's continued.

[Unknown Executive]

Tremendous. Thank you very much. And that's the end of questions. Gareth, do you have any closing remarks?

[Gareth Jenkins, executive]

I'd just like to thank everyone, first of all, joining the presentation. I hope you found it useful. We really appreciate all of your interest in the business. We're obviously excited about the future. We think we know we've got an incredibly strong organization, well-invested business in a market that is growing. And we really look forward to the next number of years in the group. So I appreciate your time today and, hopefully, speak to you all again soon.