Sparkle Lane Business Plan — Sensitivity and Scenarios

How the plan responds to throughput, price, subscriber churn and water cost moving against it, with downside and upside cases.

Sensitivity and Scenarios

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15.1 Single-variable sensitivity
15.2 Scenarios
15.3 What management can do inside a bad year

15.1 Single-variable sensitivity

Figure 20. Sensitivity of Year 5 EBITDA.

Driver	Effect on Year 5 EBITDA	As a share of base
Cars per day ±10%	±R832’000	±61%
Blended ticket ±8%	±R666’000	±49%
Labour ±10%	±R263’000	±19%
Rent ±10%	±R164’000	±12%
Subscriber base ±150 members	±R628’000	±46%
Water tariff ±20%	±R33’000	±2%
Overhead ±10%	±R129’000	±9%
Year 5 base case EBITDA	R1 363’000

Throughput dominates: ten per cent on cars per day is worth R832 000 of Year 5 EBITDA — 61 per cent of the base case. The subscriber base follows at R628 000 for 150 members, which is the same exposure viewed from the other side, since a subscriber is a guaranteed 31 washes a year. Water, the regulated constraint that determines whether the business may trade at all, moves EBITDA by R33 000 for a twenty per cent tariff shock. Both facts belong in a funder’s head at once.

Figure 21. Year 5 group EBITDA across throughput and subscriber base.

The grid shows how the two levers interact. At 58 cars a day the business needs roughly 1 000 subscribers to reach the plan; at 74 cars a day it reaches it with 600. Neither lever alone is sufficient at the low end and neither is necessary at the high end, which is why the operating disciplines in Sections 4 and 11 target both.

15.2 Scenarios

Figure 22. Year 5 EBITDA across scenarios, with debt service cover.

Scenario	Definition	Year 5 revenue	Year 5 EBITDA	Debt service cover
Base	The plan as presented: three sites, 59 cars a day blended, 1 000 subscribers.	R8.32m	R1.36m	1.46x
Wage pressure	Labour 10% above plan on sectoral determination and retention pressure.	R8.32m	R1.10m	1.54x
Subscriber shortfall	Subscriber base 150 members below plan at every point.	R7.69m	R0.73m	1.02x
Wet year	Walk-in volume 15% below plan; subscription revenue unaffected.	R7.49m	R0.53m	0.74x
Wet year and wage pressure	Walk-in 15% down and labour 10% up in the same year.	R7.49m	R0.27m	0.38x

15.3 What management can do inside a bad year

Lever	Available within	Value	Comment
Defer the next site	One quarter	R2.0m to R2.3m of capital and its service	The gates make this automatic rather than discretionary
Push subscription acquisition	Two quarters	R628 000 a year per 150 members	The only lever that raises revenue without depending on weather
Roster harder to the demand curve	One quarter	Up to R263 000 a year on a 10% labour movement	Requires discipline, not capital
Grow the detailing mix	Two quarters	Higher contribution per bay-hour at the same throughput	Constrained by trained technicians, not by demand
Reduce group overhead	Two quarters	R129 000 a year on a 10% cut	Marketing and technology are the flexible lines
Renegotiate rent at review	At review	Rent is 20.8% of mature site revenue	The largest fixed cost after labour

The first two are the ones that matter. Deferring a site removes both the capital and the debt service it would have carried, and pushing subscriptions is the only revenue lever in the business that does not depend on the sky.

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