Firstly, on behalf of our entire team, I extend gratitude to our customers. Your partnership over the past seven decades has fuelled our growth, challenged us to innovate, and inspired us to continuously raise the bar. As we embark on this new chapter together, please know that your satisfaction and success will remain at the forefront of everything we do.

As part of our existing growth and investment strategy, our commitment to business in South Africa and our team and stakeholders here, we are looking forward to launching exciting new products. Foremost is our Bell Motor Grader that we will be proudly manufacturing in Richards Bay as from next year. We believe we’ve designed a leader in performance and reliability that will take its place alongside our ADT line in the local and global markets.

Our Articulated Dump Truck continues to perform well globally, and we have some innovative developments to ensure we continue to be a technology innovator and leader. This includes the first commercialised above surface autonomous ADT operation using a Bell truck, which was launched in Europe earlier this year. Our engineering team will also be working with a European technology partner to develop a fully battery-operated ADT as part of our responsibility towards finding suitable solutions for a zero-carbon future.

To grow our presence in the underground mining space we are working on a six-ton LHD (Load Haul Dumper), and to complement our Forestry & Agriculture product range we have our newly developed Bell Timber Processing Head, which we expect to put into production during early 2025. Our new Bell Heavy Industries (BHI) division takes our manufacturing solutions beyond yellow metal. Through BHI we aim to help stimulate the South African manufacturing sector via contract manufacturing and skills transfer to support local demand.

Looking to the local market, we expect this year to be relatively flat, especially with national elections in May. The construction sector remains volatile with the promised large infrastructure spend not materialising as quickly as hoped. Although coal exports are a concern, we expect demand from other mining sectors to remain consistent with the levels seen during 2023.

Rest assured that whatever happens, we will be doubling down on our efforts, working closely with our alliance partners, to continue to deliver strong and reliable machines and support to our customers.

Thank you for entrusting us with your business and your friendship.

Yours sincerely

Ashley Bell

Group Chief Executive Officer

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