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Operator: To all sights on hold, we do appreciate your patience and ask that you continue to stand by. To all sites on hold, we do appreciate your patience and ask that you continue to stand by. Go outside on hold. We do appreciate your patience and ask that you continue to stand by. To all sites on hold, we do appreciate your patience and ask that you continue to stand by. Please standby, your program is about to begin. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 CarMax Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Lowenstein, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. David Lowenstein: Thank you, Nikki. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our fiscal 2026 second quarter earnings conference call. I'm here today with Bill Nash, our President and CEO, Enrique Mayor-Mora, our Executive Vice President and CFO, and Jon Daniels, our Executive Vice President, CarMax Auto Finance. Bill Nash: Let me remind you our statements today that are not statements of historical fact including, but not limited to, statements regarding the company's future business plans, prospects, and financial performance are forward-looking statements we make pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our current knowledge, expectations, and assumptions and are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. In providing projections and other forward-looking statements, we disclaim any intent or obligation to update them. For additional information on important factors and risks, that could affect these expectations, please see our Form 8-K filed with the SEC this morning, our annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025, and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q previously filed with the SEC. Please note, in addition to our earnings release, we have also prepared a quarterly investor presentation and both documents are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Should you have any follow-up questions after the call, please feel free to contact our investor relations department at (804) 747-0422 extension 7865. Lastly, let me thank you in advance for asking only one question and getting back in the queue for more follow-ups. Bill? Bill Nash: Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Today, I want to start with our priorities. While our second quarter results fell short of our expectations, we remain focused on driving sales, gaining market share, and delivering significant year-over-year earnings growth for years to come. We have a differentiated and best-in-class omnichannel customer experience and are focused on maximizing that advantage by driving operational efficiency and sharpening our go-to-market approach. With this mindset, our key priorities include, first, focusing on price and selection. This includes maintaining competitive prices while minimizing macro factor impact and having the cars consumers are looking for at CarMax's high-quality standards. Second, driving consumer awareness of our differentiated experience. This includes not only our new brand campaign "Wanna Drive," but also enhancing the conversion waterfall from web traffic all the way to the ultimate buy and/or sell decision. Third, delivering incremental SG&A reductions of at least $150 million over the next eighteen months. This will be broad-based, and it includes leveraging technology to drive efficiencies and our net promoter score to new heights. And finally, generating additional profit through components of our diversified business. This includes increasing CAF penetration and profitability in a responsible and thoughtful way. It also includes pursuing other opportunities across our business to drive incremental flow through to our bottom line. We are already making progress across these fronts and are confident in our strategy and our earnings model, which will produce high teen EPS growth with mid-single-digit retail unit growth. During our first quarter call, I mentioned that we saw an increase in sales volume in March and April due to the tariff speculation. This impacted our performance in the second quarter in two ways. First, we ramped our inventory ahead of the second quarter to support this growth. Across May through June, we saw about a $1,000 in depreciation, which negatively impacted our price competitiveness and our sales. Second, while hard to quantify, we believe there was a pull forward of demand in the first quarter. In the second quarter, we responded by lowering retail margin to drive sell-through, and we intentionally slowed buy to balance our inventory with sales. This strategy has worked as both price competitiveness and inventory position have improved since that time and have put us in a better position for the third quarter. During the quarter, we delivered total sales of $6.6 billion, down 6% compared to last year, reflecting lower volume. In our retail business, total unit sales declined 5.4%, and used unit comps were down 6.3%. Pressured performance across our age zero to five inventory were partially offset by increased sales in older, higher mileage vehicles. Average selling price was $26,000, a year-over-year decrease of approximately $250 per unit. Second quarter retail gross profit per used unit was similar to last year but down approximately $200 from the first quarter. The sequential decline was more than twice our historical average, reflecting the actions that I mentioned earlier. We will continue to focus on maintaining our price competitiveness. And we remain disciplined yet nimble in leveraging selection and margins to drive sales. Wholesale unit sales were down 2.2% versus the second quarter last year. Average wholesale selling price increased approximately $125 per unit to $7,900 and wholesale gross profit per unit was historically strong and similar to last year. We bought approximately 293,000 vehicles during the quarter, down 2% from last year. We purchased approximately 262,000 vehicles from consumers with more than half of those buys coming through our online instant appraisal experience. With the support of our Edmond sales team, we sourced the remaining 31,000 vehicles through dealers which is slightly up from last year. This quarter's outperformance is a direct result of a decision to pull back offers to rightsize inventory. We are no longer intentionally slowing buy and expect to see year-over-year improvement in the third quarter. At the August, we launched our new "Wanna Drive" brand positioning campaign that brings to light our unique omnichannel experience. Our net promoter score is the highest it's been since we rolled out our digital capabilities nationwide. Driven by record high satisfaction among customers purchased online as well as those using our omnichannel experience. "Wanna Drive" spotlights this unique offering, empowering customers to buy their way, with the clarity, confidence, and control to navigate the journey on their terms. "Wanna Drive" appears across TV, streaming, social, digital, and audio and represents the first phase of a sustained multiphase strategy. This approach, we will complement with increased advertising spend, demonstrates our commitment to long-term brand investment that supports our growth objectives. As previously discussed, we've been focused on driving SG&A efficiencies. We're pleased with our progress so far and have line of sight to at least an incremental $150 million in SG&A reductions over the next eighteen months. This does not impact our growth strategy as we will continue to invest in initiatives that position us for the future. Later, Enrique will comment on the anticipated scope of our efforts and the likely timing. At this time, I will now turn the call over to John to provide more detail on CarMax Auto financing and our continuing focus on full credit spectrum expansion. Jon Daniels: Thanks, Bill, and good morning, everyone. During the second quarter, CarMax Auto Finance originated over $2 billion resulting in sales penetration of 42.6% net of three-day payoffs, which was 60 basis points above last year. Weighted average contract rate charged to new customers was 11.2% versus 11.4% last quarter, and reflects downward rate testing executed within the quarter. While CAF's full quarter increase in penetration appears modest, we believe the tariff pull forward in Q1 negatively impacted CAF share during the early part of the quarter. Since the beginning of the fiscal year, we have made underwriting adjustments that translate to 100 to 200 basis points of growth but the full realization of this growth can be impacted by noncontrollable factors, such as customer credit mix and partner lender behavior. It is important to note that more than half of the impact from these adjustments comes from recaptured Tier one segments but with additional criteria overlaid to reduce risk. While the remainder comes from within the top half of the tier two space, which we have been testing over the past year. Third party Tier two and Tier three penetration in the quarter combined for 23.8% of sales versus 24.4% last year as CAF growth had an impact on partner volume. CAF income for the quarter was $103 million, down $13 million from FY 2025. Net interest margin on the portfolio was 6.6%, up over 50 basis points from last year and relatively in line with last quarter. GAAP's loan loss provision of $142 million results in a total reserve balance of $507 million or 3.02% of managed receivables exclusive of auto loans held for sale. Of the $142 million, $71 million is attributed to new originations within the quarter, while the remaining $71 million is an adjustment to the loss expectation of the existing portfolio. Also of note, was seen in the first quarter, there was a reduction on the required provision stemming from $16 million in the reserve allocated to loans booked prior to Q2 now classified as held for sale. The primary driver of the $71 million adjustment on the existing portfolio comes from additional losses anticipated within the 2022 and 2023 vintages. Recall, these customers have been the most impacted by the convergence of rapidly increasing vehicle prices and broader inflation. Despite the observed worsening, these vintages still remain highly profitable, an estimated lifetime profit of $1,500 per unit versus $1,800 contemplated at origination. Additionally, they continue to shrink in size and contribution to the overall portfolio as they are replaced with more recently originated Tier one receivables at significantly lower loss rates. Note that 2024 and 2025 post contraction vintages continue to be right in line with our original loss expectations. Regarding the funding aspect of our full spectrum efforts, yesterday, we closed our 25-B transaction, our second non-prime securitization of the year. This was upsized to $900 million in total notes and for the first time, included the sale of most of the residual financial interest in the transaction to third-party investors, thus resulting in off-balance sheet treatment. We expect the gain on sale to be approximately $5 million to $30 million in third quarter income. We also expect to receive approximately $40 million to $45 million in additional CAF income related to servicing fees and the retained beneficial interest over the life of the transaction. As a reminder, going forward, there will be no loss allowance or provision for this pool of loans. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Enrique to discuss our second quarter financial performance in more detail. Enrique Mayor-Mora: Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Second quarter net earnings per diluted share was $0.64 versus $0.85 a year ago. The decrease was driven primarily by lower volume and the CAF loss provision adjustment. Total gross profit was $718 million, down 6% from last year's second quarter. Used retail margin of $443 million decreased by 8% with lower volume and relatively stable per unit margins. Retail gross profit per used unit was $2,216 in line with historical average. Wholesale vehicle margin of $137 million decreased by less than 1% from a year ago with lower volume partially offset by a slight increase in per unit margins. Wholesale gross profit per unit was $993. Other gross profit was $138 million, down 4% from a year ago. This was driven primarily by EPP, decreased by $6 million driven by lower retail unit volume. Service recorded a $4 million margin, reflecting a small improvement over last year's quarter. Continued efficiency and cost coverage improvements were partially offset by the deleverage inherent in the lower year-over-year second quarter sales. On the SG&A front, expenses for the second quarter were $601 million, down 2% from the prior year, driven primarily by lower stock-based compensation. Continue to realize expense savings, but they were offset by cost pressures in the quarter. SG&A to gross profit deleveraged 350 basis points to 84% as lower volume more than offset lower costs. The continued deployment of AI technology remains a key driver of efficiency gains and experience enhancements across our operations. For example, this quarter, Sky, our AI-powered virtual assistant, continued to deliver year-over-year double-digit percent improvements in containment rate, customer experience consultants productivity, and web and phone response rate SLAs. We recently fully rolled out Sky 2.0 which leverages AgenTeq AI and expect this release will drive even more efficiency and experience improvements. As Bill noted, we are committed to further reducing our SG&A by continuing to deliver efficiency gains across the business. The investments in technology, systems, and processes that we have made as part of our omni transformation will allow us to substantially reduce spend through several key initiatives. Modernizing and consolidating our technology infrastructure, automating manual processes, renegotiating and reducing third-party contracts, and eliminating redundancies across the organization. The goal of at least $150 million in SG&A reductions over the next eighteen months represents a material improvement in our cost profile, and reflects the execution on a plan that we have been developing with outside support. While we expect to realize some of these savings this fiscal year, we expect the vast majority will materialize in our exit rate by the end of fiscal 2027. In addition to offsetting inflationary pressures, these ongoing savings will provide additional flexibility to reinvest in areas that directly drive sales. While also serving as a tailwind to our already robust earnings model of a high teens EPS growth CAGR when retail unit growth is in the mid-single digits. We will continue to provide updates on this initiative during future earnings calls. Looking forward, I'll cover a few items. Regarding marketing, we expect an increase in per total unit spend in the back half of the year, particularly in the third quarter as we appropriately support our new brand positioning launch. We expect service margin to face pressure in the back half of the year due to seasonal sales volumes. For the full year, we still expect to deliver positive margin, which is a direct result of our efficiency improvements and cost coverage measures. Turning to capital allocation. During the second quarter, we continued our share repurchases at an accelerated pace, buying back approximately 2.9 million shares for a total expenditure of $180 million. As of the end of the quarter, we had approximately $1.56 billion of our repurchase authorization remaining. Now I'll turn the call back over to Bill. Bill Nash: Thank you, Enrique and John. Our customer-centric car buying and selling experience is a key differentiator in a very large and fragmented market and positions us well for the future. We are intently focused on driving this differentiated and best-in-class experience doing so with greater efficiency. As you heard from us today, we're actively executing on our key priorities which include driving sales, advancing innovations to improve customer and associate experiences, bolstering our marketing efforts, increasing company-wide efficiencies, and expanding CAF participation across the credit spectrum. All of these priorities will give us added flexibility and strengthen us for the future. With that, we will be happy to take your questions. Operator? Operator: Thank you. And at this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Brian Nagel: Hey, guys. Good morning. Bill Nash: Morning, Brian. Brian Nagel: So the question first question I want to ask, just with regard to used unit sales. So, Bill, if I if I heard you correctly, you know, it seemed like the most disruptive factor here in fiscal Q2 was you know, now it's was was a clearer or pull forward in demand. You know, into the fiscal first quarter. So the the question I have is, you know, it could could you are there numbers you can give us to to size that better, you know, that that disruption? And then you know, as we look as you look through the quarter, I know you typically don't discuss, you know, sales trends in the quarter, but you know, following that pull forward impact, I mean, has the has the business or have sales got back to a more normal run rate, and what is that? Bill Nash: Yeah. So, Brian, first of all, you know, like I said, it's actually, we think, two factors. And I would put the I put the other factor probably first because it is hard to quantify exactly how much each one is. But know, my commentary around buying inventory up and then seeing that depreciation happen, I would say that is probably the the most impactful and then the pull forward. But, again, it's hard to it's hard to quantify exactly how much each of those each of those are. Know, for the quarter, each month, was was down year over year, and each month got a little weaker throughout the quarter. Now what I'll tell you for September and month to date is that it is stronger than the quarter and any of the months in the second quarter But when I look at it from a year over year, it's still a little soft on a from a year over year standpoint. But certainly, we put ourselves in a better position the start of this quarter, both on an inventory position as well as from a a pricing standpoint. Brian Nagel: That's helpful. If I could I ask a follow-up? Bill Nash: Sure. Brian Nagel: Just just with with regard to pricing. So, you know, the know, CarMax has, for a long time, talked about, you know, you know, know, having attractive pricing within the market. It seems me just listening to your comments say that you're you're focusing on this more now, So I guess that's is that the case? And then know, the the question I have is, are you seeing something in the marketplace or other competitors are getting more price aggressive that CarMax may have to change some of its stance there? Bill Nash: I think the the pricing commentary, first of all, is is you're right. We're always focused on pricing. We want to be competitive. I think in the quarter, we we fell into a spot where we weren't as competitive. Again, I feel better about where we are now. Then the only other thing I would add to that is I think we just need to continue to be as nimble as possible. When it when it comes to pricing. Mean, you saw in the quarter, we saw that South dollar depreciation over a month period and and, you know, we started acting on it very quickly. And there's a lot that goes into that decision. You know, as far as what do you do with your prices when you see depreciation, that kind of thing. But I think the takeaway for for that I want you to hear is that always focused on on competitive pricing. And, certainly, the focus as we go forward is to continue to be as nimble as possible because it is a it's a it's an aggressive environment out there. Brian Nagel: Right. Appreciate all the color. Thanks. Bill Nash: Sure, Brian. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Rajat Gupta: Great. Thanks for taking the question. Just got a couple. First one on CAF. Last quarter, had mentioned that you expect CAF income to be up year over year for the full year. Can you give us an update on that? And if it has changed, I'm just surprised by just the magnitude of, you know, the provision pickup know, because we had your last earnings call just two months ago. So curious, like, how could it how could it have changed so dramatically in shift for the short period of time? And any color there would be helpful. And I have a quick follow-up on SG&A. Enrique Mayor-Mora: Sure, Rajat. Appreciate your question. First, let's touch on the cap income. Obviously, as mentioned, there's a larger provision impact this quarter. Also, we mentioned we're excited about the the twenty five b transaction, which will yield gain in, you know, in during Q3. You put all that together, Yeah. We did highlight that we thought there would be, you know, increase year over year in CAF income. I think we're gonna be, you know, flat to down. Obviously, two more quarters to go, but flat to slightly down. But I think there's some nice trade offs that are occurring there. Obviously, all disclaimers with, you know, how does the consumer perform, how does sales come in, because that would yield a provision origination for us. But, hopefully, that gives you a little flavor on the income cadence. Regarding provision, it's certainly a fair question. I'll give a little color on what we saw for the quarter beyond what I did in my prepared remarks. So let's highlight the 22, and 23 vintages. That customer as I mentioned, high ASP, you know, certainly a higher APR environment, higher overall payment they were seeing, They come into the, yeah, the purchasing cycle with excess cash from COVID. And they hadn't fully experienced inflation yet. So we had a lot to learn about that customer. Initially, we saw some you know, again, we're coming off of incredibly low trough loss rates of 19, 20, 21 vintages. So hard to gauge how those twenty two and twenty three vintages were gonna perform. We saw an increase in losses initially, but that's not surprising because it's coming off of trough lower vintages. So there's previous years. So as we watched that customer perform, we saw it and thought maybe it was a pull forward in losses. Ultimately, as we saw a little increase, so maybe a timing curve adjustment, And then we watched that customer begin to struggle and continue to struggle a little bit. We made some adjustments that we thought were very smart for consumer and smart for us, and that has proven to be the case. And that was we adjusted our extension policy in the fall. We saw more payments come in had we otherwise not done that, so we were pleased to see that. But we had to watch that play through. We saw some of those customers coming back into delinquency and loss during Q1. It's obviously a tax time season as well, so it's a little muddied. So we did make an adjustment in Q1. And we wanted to watch it all play through. We saw some good performance initially with, again, those extensions. We wanted to see how much was gonna come back in delinquency. Unfortunately, during the quarter, we saw more revert back to delinquency and loss. That being said, you know, we've we've made a a significant adjustment this quarter as you see. We made what we would say a sizable adjustment last quarter I think we have a a much better handle on where these guys are are gonna land because we've watched these extensions play through almost completely at this point. Also, if you look at the totality of those vintages, you're about two thirds of the way through those vintages. So there's about a third left. So it's really gonna ultimately, you know, play through. There's more to come. But it really has played through. And then if you look at these twenty four and twenty five vintages, we are extremely pleased with those. So, you know, we're watching those losses early on. We're now twelve, fifteen months through there, and that stuff is right on the mark from what we expected So, yeah, hated to have to make an additional adjustment. I think there are a lot of, you know, confounding factors that had to play out. We feel like we have a mess much better understanding of them. And then I'll end with and, again, just as a reminder, these things are incredibly so profitable. You know, $1,800 versus maybe what we anticipated, $1,500 because of these loss adjustments. Roughly a half a billion dollars we're gonna achieve in lifetime value across the 2223 vintages. So a lot to say there because I wanted to explain what was going on there. But hopefully, that answers your question. Rajat Gupta: That that's that's helpful color. And just just on the SG&A, could you elaborate a little bit more on the areas of cost reduction? I'm curious because it seems to me that, you know, a lot of you might need might be tied to know, the omnichannel support function. Because you've already gained good productivity on your in store salespeople. I'm curious, like, should investors be worried that know, these actions might hurt your ability to recover some of the share loss that you seen. I'm curious, like, how do you balance those two? Enrique Mayor-Mora: Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks. Yeah. And and also, like, what he offers offset from the pickup and advertising. Thanks. Yeah. No. Absolutely, Rajat. I'll I'll jump into it. We do not think it's gonna impact our growth strategy. As I noted in my prepared remarks, our investments in technology, systems, and and processes are really going to allow us to rationalize our costs. So very specifically, I'll give you some examples. So we have a a stronger ability to retire legacy systems. Have an ability to lower licensing usage as we either need less of them or we can eliminate certain functionality as well given our investments in technology such as chat. Due to invest investments in Sky. Become even more efficient in our call centers, and I've been talking about that for quite a few quarters at this point in time. Able to automate manual processes, and leverage AI to even more frequently review third party contracts. So those are just some of the examples. That will help us take out that 150,000,000 and if you'll note, those examples don't really impact our growth strategy. And part of our thinking as well is that there is a portion of these savings again, it's $150,000,000 at least 150,000,000 that we do expect to direct back to investments that have a direct tie with sales, you know, such as an example this quarter would be marketing. You know, we are going heavier up in marketing, appropriately so, or our new brand positioning, and that'd be an example of something that we're gonna go invest in. I do think it's important to remember, right, that we had been in investment mode as we transformed our company into an omni retailer. But once you're done with that, the next step really is to optimize and then rationalize that spend. And that's where we are. Rajat Gupta: It's not a it's not a net $150,000,000 reduction. Is there a net number? That you can give us? Enrique Mayor-Mora: Yeah. So it's gonna be net of any ongoing SG&A expenses to accomplish. That number, but it's not net of any kind of onetime charges that we may end up having to to incur. But it is net of ongoing expenses to to realize the savings. Rajat Gupta: No. No. I meant, like, net of, like, investment in other areas like advertising and other sales initiatives. Is there any Like I said, there there will be part of those dollars that will be a reinvestment back into the business to drive top line sales. However, that being said, know, we do expect just the SG&A savings to be, you know, a material tailwind to our already robust earnings model. Rajat Gupta: Understood. Great. Thanks for the color, good luck. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Sharon Zackfia with William Blair. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Sharon Zackfia: Hi. Good morning. I wanted to go back to morning. I wanted to go back to Brian's question on price. And as you think about it, and I know you're talking about reinvesting some of the SG&A savings. And back in 2019, which seems like forever ago, you had talked about kind of maybe targeting some lower GPU to drive incremental sales. So kind of putting that all together, is there a a thought process or a strategy about taking of the bulk of the 150,000,000 and really reinvesting it to the consumer and price your selection to drive the top line? Because it does feel like the consistent market share story that we had had in the past has kind of become much more volatile, you know, post pandemic. Bill Nash: Yeah. Sure. I I think you're thinking about it the right way, but I would expand on it a little bit. I mean, the $150,000,000 in SG&A reductions, as Enrique pointed some of that we will reinvest directly back into things to of driving sales. The other piece I would tell you, which is another reason why we're focused on it, the key priority, is just being able to generate additional profit from other parts of the business. Because that also gives you flexibility and allows you to reinvest some of that in price. So, again, I think it goes back to Brian's initial questions that we wanna be as nimble as possible make sure that we're as competitive as possible, and we feel like we're gonna have several levers to be able to do that. Sharon Zackfia: Bill, can I just follow-up? And do you think there's price in less elasticity of demand that if you were more aggressive on price, you could stimulate sales in a profit accretive way? Bill Nash: Yeah. There's look. There's always elasticity when it comes in. You know, we've talked about this before. You know, we know pretty much because we're constantly testing. You take prices down a certain dollar amount, we know what you get for that. The what you have to think way we think about it is is that that when you look at the price elasticity, there's a lot of things that go into that equation. So for example, your variable expenses. So the better that you're doing in your variable expenses, it makes that equation easier. The capacity of your of your operational workforce. Are they at capacity? Are they not? Capacity? Are you having to pay people for unproductive time? Your ancillary profit attachment, how well we're doing on things like ESP or or finance, there's a lot of things that we look at to decide, okay. Does this make sense? And that equation changes depending on the market factors. I mean, even without taking some of those things in, the elasticity will change just given what competitors are doing. So we will con continue to be nimble. We will continue to make improvements in some of these other factors because, again, that makes the elasticity pay off. Sharon Zackfia: K. Thank you. Bill Nash: Sure. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Bottiglieri with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Chris Bottiglieri: Hey, guys. Two questions on credit for me. So the first one is, can you elaborate on the servicing fee of $4,045,000,000? I would think there's probably some servicing cost to achieve that servicing revenue. Just was wondering if you'd help us think through the cost since the receivables won't be in on the balance sheet, but the expenses will be. And then bigger picture question on credit. Like, you guys are normally really conservative, you know, really prudent guys historically. Kinda pushing into deep subprime now. The market's you know, I think beyond your control is getting a little bit weaker. Wanna kinda, like, test to resolve. Like, how committed are you to pushing into subprime right now? Just given the macro backdrop? Is it something you're gonna pull, you know, forward into regardless, or if macro keeps worse or you'd have maybe hit the brakes a little bit. Bit? Bill Nash: Yeah. I'll start off and then I'll I'll pass it over to John. Just wanna to clarify something on deep subprime. Know, John and his comments talked about going into really the top half of what we call the tier two. So you know, we're not talking about deep subcoms. I just wanna have some clarification there. And then, John, I'll let you add just to that end. The first part of the question. Jon Daniels: Yeah. Kicked me under the table because he wanted that one. Yeah. I mean, that we wanna make that very clear. I mean, it is not It it is not deep subprime at all. Again, we have been in tier three space. And we we have experience there and all that. But, again, we're trying to be very prudent to your point, Chris. Of how we go down when we go down. Now make no mistake. There is there is money to be made there. We have partners that make tremendous profit there. You need to price it right, provision correctly, service it correct. We believe, you know, we're learning how to do that. So but, yeah, I wouldn't characterize it as deep subprime. There's a lot of penetration to be gained as we inch our way down there. No doubt about it. To your first question on the expenses, I just just to step back because I like to take that after I speak to the overall program. Again, we are super excited because it ties to the first question. The the full spectrum nature. We have laid out a plan, and I think we have gone after that plan. First, it was, hey. We're gonna bifurcate our securitization program. We've done that. We've executed multiple deals now there. We said we're gonna recapture volume in tier one and expand into tier two. Again, we're being very prudent about that. Then announced that we that plan to do a deal where we're actually gonna sell the the future's residual interest in that deal, and we've done that very, very successfully. So we are super pleased. This was supposed to give us flexibility. Obviously, you know, give us insight into to what a deal like this looks like, and we've I think, hit on all of those. That being said, we've enjoyed the game. We'll enjoy the game that we're gonna see 25 to $30,000,000 in new highlights also referenced the additional value to be gained on the servicing side. Again, future interest there. On the expense on the expense there, yes, there is a little additional volume to be gained from the servicing side. There is a cost to us, but, yes, we will make additional additional value there. Enrique, anything you wanna add? Enrique Mayor-Mora: Yeah. And, Chris, you don't see the servicing income. It'll be broken out the cap contribution line, so you'll get a good view of that kinda on go forward reporting. And while the servicing costs will be embedded in kind of your your your cost of your business. Right? And so that's how it'll be reported. And you'll see that moving forward. Jon Daniels: Yeah. And and and the 40 to 45 also includes retain Yeah. Some retainers. Also, income from the five percent retention as well, the five and five. So we expect that'll continue as well. So, you know, all in all, like John mentioned, we're really pleased with the deal and the execution of the deal out there and and and really proud of the teams in getting that done. And as John mentioned, this just fits our overall strategy, and we are executing on that strategy. Chris Bottiglieri: Gotcha. Okay. Is the is most of the income coming from the beneficial interest or from the service fees? Or would I like to mention that a at all? Jon Daniels: Yeah. It's coming from kind of a mix. Yeah. It is. Chris Bottiglieri: Okay. Okay. And thanks thanks for clarifying this stuff, Rami. You did say that prepared remarks. So spoke there, so thanks for clarifying Yep. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from David Bellinger with Mizuho. Please go ahead. Your line is open. David Bellinger: Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question. Can you help us walk down the path back to positive unit comps and what the the timeline could be there? Bill, you mentioned the aggressive environment. So maybe if we take this up to the industry level, is the used car market just getting materially worse in your view? Or are there some macro cracks forming with these CAF adjustments? Or any other signals of a more strained consumer? Or do you think this is more of a competitive element here in Q2 versus other players in the sector and something that you guys have to invest against going forward? Just help us piece all that together. Bill Nash: Yeah. So, you know, when I say aggressive environment, I wouldn't say it's necessarily more aggressive than last quarter. It's been aggressive aggressive for a while. I think, you know, on the the strained consumer, I think we are seeing where consumers, especially your your mid to high FICO customers, they be sitting on the sidelines a little bit, and we just measure that by just pure app volume. Think we're seeing that with you know, it's a it's a little bit of a headwind in September, but that's not you unique to us. We we've talked with our finance partners, and they're seeing something similar. So you know, again, think and and even that, you know, consumer's been distressed for a little while. I think there's some angst. You could the consumer sentiment isn't isn't great. But again, I think we've put ourselves in in good shape, and I think the priorities that we we're focused on will will continue to pay dividends. You know, as I think about the full year, we we set out this year to to gain market share. And, you know, look, through the first half of the year, we feel good about it. Through the calendar June, which is where we have data through. Would just caution people when you're looking at June, July, and August, it's tough on a year over year comparison just because of the CDK outage last year. But you know, we're not backing off of our stance. It's like we started this year going after market share. And at this point, I don't see a reason why we would back off that. We expect to gain market share for the full year. So hopefully that that adds a little color. Jon Daniels: Yeah. David, I'd to just jump in on the consumer just to highlight a few things again, the cracks issue set. I think there's something incredibly unique about the twenty twenty two to twenty three consumer, and it is an industry issue. You look at other issue lenders out there, they would tell you, those are some tough vintages. It's kind of the perfect storm of IAS and probably an overconfident consumer coming in with they think they have plenty of cash. Get hit with inflation. If you look at the 2425 consumer, they're just more eyes wide open walking in the door. Prices have come down a little bit. They're you know, interest rates have come down a little bit. Typically, people that buy in a a in a more stressed environment perform usually better. Now, again, we think we have reserved. We watch very carefully, how those guys performing, and and we know they might perform worse than maybe pre COVID. Yeah, I think that 24, 25 consumer is gonna just be a a better one. Bill Nash: Yeah. So I think to your point, David, you know, the second quarter second quarter kind of event that would be a second quarter event. You know, truing that up, but we feel good about where we stand on that know that that's getting to be less and less of a population. As John said, the extensions are kinda back in, and that's really what this was to to to clean up on. So we we feel good about where we are there. David Bellinger: Great. Very helpful. Thank you. Bill Nash: Thank you, guys. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Ciccarelli with Charisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Josh Shang: Hey. Good morning, guys. This is Josh Young on for Scott. So as we think about the slowdown in sales here, is it a function of you just aren't getting people into the top of the funnel, or is it more you get them in there, but then they're kind of falling out of the bottom? Just any color on how you guys are thinking about that would be helpful. Bill Nash: Yeah. No. Look. Our our web traffic is up year over year. Our conversion as you go down the funnel is actually improving. I would say the biggest opportunity and some of it I think we can control and some of it we we can't control and that's that's really kind of web traffic to what we call a selling opportunity. Do does the customer do something that we can then you know, kind of start the process versus just folks that come to the website that are just, you know, viewing cars. Some of it is gonna be that we can't control because there's gonna be some folks who are they're they're window shopping. Others, I think we we can control and just how we how well we do in the presentation on that first initial glance how we make this the website stickier at that that topper part of top of the of the funnel. So I think it's a little bit kind of macro, but I think there's absolutely some improvements we can make. Josh Shang: Got it. That's helpful. Thanks. Bill Nash: Sure. Operator: Thank you. We will move next with David Winston with Morningstar. Please go ahead. Your line is open. David Whiston: Thanks. Good morning. I was kind of staying on that question. I mean, maybe help me fill in some blanks here because, I mean, it sounds like at the beginning of the quarter, you wanted to the the tariff the juicing of demand didn't really happen on the quarter, so you're you were trying to clear inventory to get rid of that depreciation. But you're saying web traffic was up year over year conversions improving. Yeah. Your unit volumes were slowed down over 5%. Used prices have been elevated for a long time now. Is the consumer just staying away, or is it that they're still having sticker shock despite this many quarters of elevated pricing? Bill Nash: Yeah. David, just so just for clarification, the web traffic is up. What's down for us would be what I would call selling opportunities. Once we have a selling opportunity, the conversion, we're actually seeing some good improvement in conversion just down through the rest of the funnel. So the opportunity really is, a customer hits our website, actually getting them to do something on the website. And, some of that I think is in our control. Of it is not in our control. You're just gonna have folks that are coming in there and realize, well, you know, either they're just looking or they just they're not ready to to to buy. So that's that's of the clarification of you know, your question between, well, your traffic's up, your conversion up, why aren't you seeing more sales? That's why. Jon Daniels: And, again, I would say not all traffic is considered the same. A seven eighty comes through the door versus a five eighty comes through the door. They convert it tremendously different rates. David Whiston: Yeah. In high quality, is that down even at the very high end of prime. Right? Bill Nash: Well, yeah. What we're seeing is that the the higher FICO customers, the app volume is down. So and that, you know, that's a that's a core customer of of ours. And really, you're seeing that kind of and John, keep me honest on that. You're probably seeing it probably 600 and above is probably down, certainly at the high end. I think the one area that's maybe not down is probably low FICO five fifty and and and below. Right. And and and I think, again, I don't think we're alone there. We can talk to other, you know, other lenders other dealers. You can see it in the credit bureaus. It's it's apparent. David Whiston: Okay. Thanks, guys. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff Lick with Stephens Inc. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Jeff Lick: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Bill, I was wondering if we could talk about the concept of the reserve inventory that you guys do, my understanding is it's any it's at the most, seven days, it's usually around seven, but not not always seven. But you know, our records or just our analysis shows that you know, roughly about 40% of your inventory at any given time online is reserved. And it know, it appears that you know, let's just take, you know, a unit that is probably attractive because someone's reserving it, so someone else who wants it doesn't see it. Or it's, you know, at the back of the queue. I'm I'm wondering your thoughts there you know, in terms of how that's affecting sales and if that's a policy you're looking at changing. Bill Nash: Yeah. No. I look. I think there's both reserve inventory and there's that that can't be transferred. I think the the reserve inventory generally is is inventory that has a customer that's basically interested in that that inventory. And, you know, that's obviously when you've got a customer in Richmond that's interested in a car and Pennsylvania, we think that's a a huge benefit that that customer can actually get that car. So that plays into our transfer. You know, I think the only thing that we'd be looking at there from a reserved inventory standpoint is just making sure that we're being active on how long a consumer can actually hold the car or reserve the car, and that's the the the transaction is progressing. On the the vehicles that are labeled not transferred, only reason they're not transferred at that time is because that's generally related to title issues. In some states, you can sell them, you'll see it on our website, hey. This can't be transferred because you can sell that car without a title in that state. There's other states you cannot sell a car without the without the title, so we're not gonna transfer that car in that case. And then once the title becomes available, it certainly can be open for transfer it's still around. So it's those are the two buckets we think about that would bring just kind of your overall available inventory down. Jeff Lick: And do you you know, I'm assuming you won't disclose this, but in terms of the amount of sales you know, of the percentage of people that are reserving I'm wondering what percent actually buy versus it goes back in. So how much of the inventory actually kinda sits out of out of view of the next potential buyer for seven days. Bill Nash: Yeah. I mean, we haven't gone into the specifics, but, obviously, there's you know, we look at the economic of that. The other thing I'd let you know is even on the reserved inventory, consumers can still express interest for it and say, hey. Please let me know if this doesn't does not actually pan out with that that customer. Keep in mind, you think about the reserved inventory, you know, a third of our sales are through transfers, and they go through the reserved inventory process. So you're absolutely right. We go through an economic decision, and where we are with that is we feel really good about it. You know, can we add a little extra friction just to make sure that cars aren't held for reserve over, you know, three days? Sure. But that's a that's a a small enhancement. Jeff Lick: Okay. Great. Thanks for taking my question. Best of luck. Bill Nash: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Montani with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Michael Montani: Yes. Hi. I just had two questions. The first question was really around the credit trends. Can you just give us some more color in terms of the progression that you saw playing out throughout the quarter? When you think about kind of delinquency rates, and then how we should be thinking, you know, for provisions into the third quarter. And then the other question, let's do that and hopefully get to the other one. Jon Daniels: Sure. Yeah. Appreciate the question. Yeah. If you look at delinquency rates for the quarter, there's definitely a seasonality trend that you're always gonna have to observe there. So you're coming out off of tax time into Q2. It ramps up delinquency ramp will ramp up through through the rest of the calendar year and then back down through delinquency time typically. So but all in all, you look at overall delete delinquency rates, we're really looking at it by vintage We're looking at it, are they as expected often not the best indicator of ultimate loss, timing of loss, what have you. But if I think broadly, you know, through the quarter, aside from, again, those vintages that we've adjust that we adjusted on, as you can imagine, the delinquency trends on the newer stuff, and and even the older stuff that's more seasoned continued to be in line. So again, we feel very positive as we're gonna continue as we continue to put on that again, lower risk, tightened stuff. That'll perform well. So, hopefully, that addresses your addresses your question. Enrique Mayor-Mora: And, Mike, I think part of your question too was just on the the kind of provision as we as we go forward. And I I think the way I think the way to to think about that I mean, you saw what our provision was for our origination this quarter. You saw what the what we're calling the true up is. The way you should think about it is the provision this quarter for the new originations, I think, you know, that's pretty representative. You know, we'll we'll just with the stuff that we're going into, it it might be a little bit higher. But you know, we feel good about the true up. So the provisions, John, and, you know, you certainly speak up, but we would expect it to to be more You saw the $71,000,000 this quarter. Again, you you can go back and look at where we didn't have outsized strips where it was probably lean a little higher considering that we are, again, going after, yeah, a little bit lower in the credit spectrum. So that's gonna require a higher upfront provision. But, yeah, a hopefully, the the true ups are going to be minimal. That is our goal through this. We feel like that older stuff is rolling off. So, yeah, I would think you'd you'd see more in that $70.80 certainly south of a 100 thou a $100,000,000 range from a provision standpoint. Jon Daniels: And like John said, right, what we're seeing in the '24 and twenty five vintages is they are consistently meeting our expectations in terms of what the loss trends are. So what we're really talking about here, and we've taken a a material hit to our provision this quarter, what you're really talking about is the provision for new originations that John and and Bill just spoke to. Michael Montani: Okay. And then the the follow-up question that's helpful was just around some of the cost savings. So you had called out 150,000,000 you know, which could work out to somewhere around $200 a a car here potentially as reinvestment fuel if you decided to do it. And then on the COGS front, I believe you've said in the past that could be another 100 or $200 there as well. I just wanted to understand, you know, you know, is that separate and distinct? Am I kind of in the ballpark there in terms of some of COGS opportunity? And then kinda bottom line, if if it does require several $100 of reinvestment in into sharper pricing, you know, is that something that you all are committed to doing in order to kind of reinvigorate the top line? Bill Nash: Yeah. So okay. A lot of neck questions. Let me tackle the the the COGS and the SG&A. You're thinking about that the right way. They're they're separate. Separate initiatives. So on the COGS side, if you recall last year, we were going after over a couple years, we were going after $200 in cog savings. Last year, we actually got a 125 at the beginning of this year. We actually talked about going after another 125 for this year. So we're ahead of where we thought we'd be from a $200 goal. Will tell you we're still on track for that 125 for this year partway through the year, and that is a separate and distinct initiative versus the SG&A savings. So we we don't wanna get those two muddied up. To your question about, hey. If if you know, would you be willing to reinvest all that back in to be you know, to make sure that you're competitive? What I would tell you is yes. But would also tell you I don't think that's necessary. I think that we'll be able to take some to to the bottom line. Absolutely, but we'll invest some of them back in appropriate amount. And as I said here right now, I don't I can't see a scenario where you'd have to take all that savings and put it back into and and to price. But, again, I also want you to know that we're gonna we're gonna continue to be price competitive. Michael Montani: Thank you. Thanks, Mike. Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Pearce with Needham. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Chris Pierce: Hey. Good morning. Just kind of following up on that question, I guess, you were a lot about pricing in the quarter, pricing going forward. Is this something that you know, should we reset our because you guys had sort of reset GPU expectations kind of higher with your performance. Does this conversation around pricing mean that investors maybe reset GPU expectations modestly lower? Or is it too soon to tell? Or how kind of intertwined would those be? Bill Nash: Yeah. No. Chris, that's a that's a that's a great question. And, you know, what I had had said at the beginning of the year is, from a modeling standpoint, you can kinda think about year over year on a retail GPU will will be similar. I also said, hey. You know, in any given quarter, there's gonna be some some some puts and and takes, and I think that's what you're seeing here. Think we still feel comfortable for the year as a as a whole to use that kind of retail GPU target. But what I will tell you is, you know, if you think about the third quarter, if you look at year's third quarter, it was a record high. So I would expect this to certainly come off of that. From from from last year and be more kind of in in the historical historical range. And I think didn't ask it, but I think you can think about wholesale being the same way on a on a year over year. I think you can know, keep that target that we talked about being very, very similar. But similar to retail, you know, last year's third quarter wholesale, one of the strongest, probably the top two or three GPUs that we had in in wholesale for the third quarter. So I would expect to to down and be more in line with kind of historical averages on that one. For the quarter. Chris Pierce: Okay. Thank you for that. And then just I might get my years wrong here, but at the '22, I believe, was calendar 2022 when you guys had too much inventory at that period in time and dealers were being more aggressive on price, and it kinda took you longer to work through because you wanted to hold margin versus pricing. And it there was sort of a longer reset to your inventory level. I I just wanna confirm that's sorta not what we're talking about here because of kinda your commentary around September and this being more onetime, or I guess I'd just love to hear you kinda talk through that, and apologies if I got the dates wrong given your system for line up the quarters. Bill Nash: You actually did get the date wrong. It's it was it's really which I think what you're referring to is the the the big depreciation event. Which we saw in calendar '23 and twenty four. I believe there was one in '23, and there were two in '24. That that we worked through. And and just to to remind everyone, on those events, it was about for each of them, it was about $3,000 in each of the event over a few months. So the degree of it was was different back then. Than it is here. And this this event, a couple different things. One, it was a thousand dollars over about a month period, and then you saw some stabilization. And then we're also going into a period where you know, you're gonna see generally seasonal depreciation. So we wanted to make sure we get we got through that. But yeah, those events that you're talking about, basically, at those times, you know, you look at that elasticity with all the things that we talked about earlier that go into that equation. And, you know, we held our margins a little bit more because at the time that that made sense. This one actually, it made sense. Let's get this stuff through. And so, again, we'll we'll tackle these things as as they come up. Chris Pierce: Okay. Thank you, good luck. Operator: We have a follow-up from Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Rajat Gupta: Oh, hi. Thanks. Just wanted to follow-up on CAF. Just going back to the commentary, I'm still expecting flat to slightly down Could you help us a little bit more around the third quarter? You're going to get the gain on sale the 900,000,000 but you're also gonna lose, a quarter of net interest income. On that 900,000,000. So it almost feels like a wash. Is that is that the right way to think about it? If if you could give us a little more color on how you'd get to you know, still flat income even if you have, like, 80,000,000 provisions in the April and maybe the fourth quarter. I just want to bridge that. Thanks. Jon Daniels: Sure. Yeah. I I think you've got a a couple things going on there. First, yes, you've got the income, but you're gonna realize that you know, all upfront. Whereas, again, the receivables, you're gonna no longer have there. You were gonna gain that income over time. So that's a bit of a a pull forward. Your overall NIM will will be impacted. There's no doubt about that, Rajat. You're you're correct. But, yeah. Obviously, when we look at the provision going out, that's a key piece of it. But, again, you're bringing on higher NIM receivables as well. So I think that's that's that's helping benefit you to bring that NIM back up in the probably by the fourth quarter off of where you are in the third quarter. So I think all that's playing together Yeah. I think you got servicing income. You have the 5% retention. Right. So there there are things that, you know, should provide a tailwind. Rajat Gupta: Yeah. Jon Daniels: And, again, I'd probably say it's more slightly down a lot a lot plays into what's the origination provision, where's the NIM, where the losses go. Ultimately. But, yeah, I'd say probably slightly down more than flat. For the full year? For the full year. For the for the third quarter. No. No. For the full year. So take last fiscal year, this fiscal year. That's what I'd refer to. Rajat Gupta: Understood. Okay. Thanks for the color. Operator: Thank you. We do have another follow-up from Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Brian Nagel: Hey, thanks for slipping me back in here. So my follow-up question and I think we've discussed this in the past, but did you notice anything with regard to I'm I'm I'm looking at used car unit demand. Anything notable with regard to kinda, you know, the the different type vehicles? I mean was there a stronger trend, high end, low end, that type? And did anything shift as we push here through the fiscal year? Bill Nash: Yeah. I think a couple observations. I mean, I still just the industry is a is a as a total, you're seeing older vehicles Like, if you look at older vehicle registration, older vehicles being, you know, older than ten year old, ten years old, that market segment is doing better than the the the zero to 10. You know, from the in the first quarter, we kinda had a barbell effect where you're under $25,000 cars were up year over year, so were, like, your 40,000 plus. This quarter, pretty much everything was down. The the under 25,000 was was you know, as a percent of sales, was up a little bit over over last year. But, you know, as far as the other ones, they were either down or or a little bit flat. So you still picked up some more as a percent of sale and the the under $25,000 card. Brian Nagel: And then built to that end, I I know you're you know, you've been, you know, merchandising different. To say, to to reflect the consumer preferences. But, you know, so as you look forward, is is is there are you are you pushing further into that that older inventory within the system? Bill Nash: Yeah. Look, we've obviously, Brian, been focused on this. I think if we look at the what we call that value max sale, let's call it six years and older or more than 60,000 miles. We had you know, a bump up in sales in that. We're up if you look year over year, we had a nice little tick up, which means you know, we had more of that that available. I think our goal will be continue to have more of that available, but I also think that we have to make sure that there's also a good selection of later model used cars as well because that appeals to a lot of CarMax customers also. So know, you can't go to at some point, you have, you know, the the benefit that you get of having older, higher higher mileage, will be offset because you don't have some of the vehicles that, you know, the core car customer is looking for. So we'll we'll walk that we'll walk that line. Brian Nagel: I appreciate it. Thanks. Bill Nash: Sure. Thank you. Operator: And we don't have any further questions at this time. I will hand the call back to Bill for any closing remarks. Bill Nash: Great. Thank you, Nikki. Well, listen. Thank you for joining the call today and and for your questions and your support. As always, I just want to thank our associates for everything they do to take care of each other and the customers in our communities and and we will talk again next quarter. Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That concludes the second quarter fiscal year 2026 CarMax Earnings Release Conference Call. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the KWS SAAT conference regarding the publication of the financial results '24-'25. [Operator Instructions] Let me now turn the floor over to Dr. Jorn Andreas. Jorn Andreas: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our analyst and investor call for the fiscal year '24-'25. I'm very pleased to share how KWS has delivered in a challenging agricultural environment with a robust operational performance and a number of deliberate strategic choices that set us up well for the future. Before we begin, as always, a brief reminder. Today's remarks include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and you will find the full disclaimer on this slide. And with that, let me take you through the year's highlights. Over the past year, we navigated a weaker agricultural market condition with resilience, and we delivered our full year targets in line with the latest guidance. Two signals stand out: a strong increase in free cash flow and a low net debt position, both underlying KWS earnings power and balance sheet strength. We also sharpened our focus. We streamlined the portfolio. We repositioned the corn segment as we also anticipated and communicated earlier and set a new financial framework designed to drive sustainable, profitable growth. As a leading seed specialist, this means targeted long-term investments in growth areas and in our innovation pipeline and continue to help to address the real challenges facing agriculture. At the same time, we want our shareholders to participate in the company's long-term success. We are aiming for a higher payout ratio, while maintaining a strong commitment on dividend continuity. And looking ahead to '25-'26, we are confident in the resilience and the trajectory of our market-leading businesses. So even if market headwinds unfortunately won't disappear overnight, we expect to stay on our growth path and create sustainable value for all our stakeholders. Let's now take a look at our key performance indicators for the last fiscal year. So the figures presented on that slide relate to the continuing operations of KWS following the sale of our South American corn and sorghum activities that we closed in the first quarter of the last fiscal year. Net sales of EUR 1.68 billion were at previous year's level, including a slight negative currency effect. On a comparable basis, so on a constant exchange rate basis and without portfolio effects, organic growth was plus 1%. So overall, I find this quite remarkable as an outcome, given the declining acreage that we've seen in our global ag markets, in particular, in our core European markets. EBITDA was EUR 351 million, down 13.4%. This reflects special items and operating developments. Keep in mind that previous year included a positive onetime effect of EUR 28 million from divestments of our Chinese corn business. We also had higher costs on the administrative side, increased R&D and also selling expenses. Net income declined to EUR 140 million, mainly due to lower EBIT and a higher tax rate. The financial result, however, improved significantly, driven by higher interest income after we materially reduced our net debt. A very nice result is our increased gross margin, which grew slightly to 63.1%, benefiting from positive [Technical Difficulty] sugarbeet. So this development clearly demonstrates our pricing power even in times of challenging commodity market and the premium innovation [Technical Difficulty]. Free cash flow from continuing operations improved substantially to EUR 123 million, mainly due to higher cash from operating activities and lower CapEx. As a consequence, our net debt fell significantly from EUR 385 million to EUR 62 million or 0.2x EBITDA. So all in all, this is a very solid picture against the industry backdrop. A quick walk-through of the sales bridge. We achieved a slight organic growth despite the continued headwinds and lower acreage, organic growth of plus 1%, mainly driven by sugarbeet and vegetables. With this, we slightly exceeded our latest sales outlook where we guided around 0% growth. On the other hand, FX effects had a negative effect of approximately 1% primarily related to the Turkish lira. Overall, this underscores our ability and our resilience to deliver stable sales under challenging conditions. Our 2 differentiators, the economic value of our [ varieties ] and the broad portfolio that balances opportunities and risks. To illustrate, in the last fiscal year '24-'25, we generated 2/3 of our sales with new varieties, which is a strong indicator of our innovation power and also a clear evidence of our R&D effectiveness. We also achieved a new record, 584 new varieties approved in the last year -- last reporting year. That's an increase of more than 4% versus the previous year, which means with this, we're also laying the foundation for future growth. Our income statement reflects both a robust underlying business performance, but also several one-off items. So let me walk you quickly through the special items that impacted our results. First, prior years included a positive onetime gain of EUR 28 million from the sale of our Chinese corn business. This year, we benefited from the reversal of a VAT provision amounting to EUR 7.7 million in our Sugarbeet segment. So this was established in the previous fiscal year related to a claim which we successfully fended off. Another one-off effect is the EUR 20.7 million write-down related to the divestment of our North American joint venture, AgReliant that we completed in June 2025. Despite these effects, we maintained a strong profitability of an adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.4%, while continuing our high level of R&D investments that are crucial for our long-term competitive advantage. Net income from continuing operations reached EUR 140 million or EUR 4.24 per share. And taking into account the extraordinary gain of EUR 96 million from the sale of our corn and sorghum business in South America, earnings per share increased sharply to EUR 7.16 per share. Let us now turn to our segments, and we are starting with Sugarbeet and Sugarbeet net sales rose to EUR 872 million on an organic basis, plus 2.2%, even though acreage declined by roughly 3%. The context matters here. So European producers reduced contracted areas from last season's very high base, moving essentially back toward normal levels. Growth was driven primarily by Northern, Western and Eastern Europe and also, but to a lesser extent from North America. Our sustainable product innovations, CONVISO SMART and CR+ continue to lead. Together, they account now for 61% of our segment sales, which is up from 56% last year. We also launched unique combination varieties, so a combination of CONVISO and CR+ across several European countries, which will also support the future growth. EBITDA increased 5%, including the EUR 7.7 million onetime provision reversal. EBITDA margin rose to 45.5% so overall profitability improved, supported by portfolio mix and sustained pricing power. Moving on to corn. I mentioned it earlier, corn saw a fundamental strategic change, which I address later. Market-wise, Europe moved lower with reduced acreage in our continuum corn operations, which includes the pro rata contribution of AgReliant, sales declined 2.7% to EUR 683 million. Adjusted again for FX and portfolio, the decline was minus 1.6%. So Europe held stable and the decline came mainly from North America, reflecting FX, but also volumes in a pretty competitive market. EBITDA was at EUR 53 million, below prior year's EUR 82 million, which had include, however, the EUR 28 million onetime gain that I mentioned. The EBITDA margin [Technical Difficulty] accordingly below last year. Let's now turn to Cereals. In Cereals, net sales declined as expected by about 4.6% to EUR 263 million, driven by weaker commodity markets and a declining business [ in Russia ] where we benefited from onetime sales in the previous fiscal year. Our largest crops, hybrid rye and oilseed rape were slightly down versus last year, while wheat was stable. EBITDA declined to EUR 43 million, reflecting the softer top line and continued high R&D investments, in particular with regards to our hybridization efforts in cereals. On the other hand, Vegetables continued to perform very well. It was our fastest-growing business unit in the last fiscal year, top line 16.2% to EUR 72 million. And this increase was primarily driven by spinach seeds, which accounts now for 2/3 of the segment sales. We added sales activities across key European markets. We improved our go-to-market, which supported the dynamic sales growth and also strengthened our global leadership in spinach seeds. The bean business was flat in a slightly softer market. So also here, we were able to gain market shares. EBITDA was at minus EUR 22 million below last year due to the planned step-up in expenses for breeding and sales expansion. These are, as you know, deliberate investments to build a significant long-term position in the vegetable seed market. Operating cash flow increased significantly to EUR 228 million, mainly because cash outflows for inventory and receivables were lower. Cash outflow from investing activities was at EUR 105 million, slightly above last year. However, last year included roughly EUR 40 million proceeds from the sale of our Chinese corn activities. So that is important for comparison purposes. Investments focused on production, R&D capacity, including the completion of our lead seed storage in Einbeck and the opening of an R&D center for vegetable seeds in the Netherlands. So overall, free cash flow improved substantially to EUR 123 million. As a consequence, our net debt position improved substantially from EUR 385 million to EUR 62 million or 0.2x EBITDA. In practice, that puts us close to a net debt-free position. Two main drivers. First, our annual EBITDA of EUR 350 million already covered a large share of the starting debt and our M&A proceeds of EUR 277 million from our divestments further debt. Net working capital did build through the year, but it remained significantly below the prior year period, supporting free cash flow. Our capital structure is now fundamentally stronger, giving us flexibility to invest in growth, advance our strategy and, of course, also selectively pursue M&A from a position of strength. I'm pleased to report that beyond the operational delivery, we reached key strategic milestones in our positioning. Most notably, we realigned our corn segment, streamlining the portfolio with divestments in North and South America and in the prior year in China, of course. The result, higher profitability and a much stronger financial position. Going forward, KWS will focus on the profitable European corn business, where we already today hold a market leadership position. So we are deliberately exiting sales outside Europe in exchange for higher margins, in exchange for reduced currency and market risks and also lower capital intensity. So by exiting the corn GMO markets, we've also reduced our dependence on external IP and can concentrate on our own proprietary breeding technologies. This focus supports our goal of sustainable profitable growth, it supports our goal of entrepreneurial independence and it also fits very well to the growth opportunities we see in Europe, in particular, in grain corn. With the portfolio adjustments behind us, we are now entering a new phase of corporate development, and that's why we have refreshed our strategic framework, and we set new medium-term financial targets. And our priorities rest on 3 pillars: First, expand our market leadership in established crops. We want to scale activities where we see additional value potential such as vegetable seeds. And of course, we want to continually push innovation in plant breeding. And these 3 drivers, lead, build, advance, they form a clear framework for our profitable and sustainable growth in the future. And over the next 3 years, so over the midterm period, we're targeting a 3% to 5% organic net sales growth and EBITDA margin of 19% to 21% alongside our 2030 sustainability ambition. And in this context, we have also updated our dividend policy. KWS values continuity, and we are committed to stable and increasing dividends. We are now aiming for a higher payout ratio of 25% to 30% of earnings after taxes adjusted for portfolio and other onetime effects. And for last fiscal year [ '24-'25 ], the Executive Board and Supervisory Board will propose a dividend of EUR 1.25 per share [indiscernible] year-over-year. So that implies a 26% payout ratio of adjusted earnings after taxes. And as always, we will balance dividends with investments, inorganic growth and potentially M&A. That balance is important to us. Let's now turn to the outlook for the current fiscal year. In line with our midterm ambitions, we expect a comparable net sales to grow by approximately 3% year-over-year in '25-'26 so despite a subdued -- still subdued agricultural backdrop and an expected decline in Russia due to import restrictions and localization of seeds. And I think that's a strong statement. We also expect an EBITDA margin of 19% to 21%, so consistent with our midterm target range. This excludes a positive special effect of around EUR 30 million from the sale of our license rights as part of the divestments of our North American corn activities that we will recognize in the first quarter '25-'26. Yes, with that, and before I close, I would like to warm you -- invite you to our Capital Markets Day on 18th of November 2025 in Einbeck. So my fellow Board colleagues and I will share deeper insights into our goals, into our growth ambitions. And while we offer [Technical Difficulty] participation, I would be delighted to see many of you in person. So you can really expect a full day of presentations, Q&A with deep dives on strategy, on business, on financials and also on pipeline and innovation plus on-site insights into our innovation capabilities. We talk about genome editing, we talk about hybridization. And of course, you will have a look also at our sugarbeet production backbone. So there will be ample of opportunities to have direct conversations, and I look forward to welcoming you on 18th November in Einbeck. That concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to the Q&A together with our Head of Investor Relations, Peter Vogt. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And first up is Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research. Oliver Schwarz: Congrats on the past results. I've got 2 questions here on the results. Firstly, I saw that earnings were boosted by a reversal of provisions to the amount of EUR 7.8 million. Could you elaborate on that one? Secondly, I saw that -- or realize that the outlook is now basically performed on -- when it comes to earnings on the EBITDA level, no longer on the EBIT level. But still, you tend to report the EBIT as the prime earnings figure in the segmental overview. Is that going to change in the future? And what's the rationale in regard to switching from an EBIT guidance to an EBITDA guidance? That would be my questions. Jorn Andreas: Oliver, thank you for your question. So yes, correct. So on the VAT provision, we basically refer to VAT provision in the amount of EUR 7.7 million that we took basically earlier -- in the previous fiscal year. It relates to a dispute [Technical Difficulty] in Russia with the applicability of a certain VAT rate, and we successfully tendered this off in front of the court. So that put us in a position to reverse this provision, and that had a positive onetime effect that we recognized in the Sugarbeet segment. On the EBITDA, correct, yes, so we are switching essentially from EBIT to EBITDA, and that is mainly driven by 2 factors. First is we had a longer discussion in the first half of this year, market perception study where we talked to many people in the financial community, and there was the preference and the rest also to be more comparable also to our peers in our industry. And that's why we switch from EBIT to EBITDA. And also internally, that provides us with a much cleaner view on our operating performance because it strips out accounting effects in particular with regards to the purchase price allocation also in our vegetables segment. So with that, we want to make sure that we are consistently also reporting internally and externally with a true view of our operating -- underlying operating performance. And this will be also the guidance going forward, both on the group level as well as on a business unit or segment level. Operator: The next question comes from Christian Faitz from Kepler Cheuvreux. Christian Faitz: I just have a question on your relatively cautious outlook for this current fiscal year. Is that because pharma profitability in your relevant markets continues to be low? Or what's the background to essentially a flat development minus obviously the 3% envisaged organic sales growth? Jorn Andreas: That's a good question. So exactly as you're saying, so we are still in a period of, I would say, subdued agriculture commodity prices. So when you look at the price development, then we are essentially on 2020 commodity price levels, which has, of course, an impact on the producer margin. So there is not so much, of course, an incentive of our customers to increase production, to increase acreage under these, let's say, price -- commodity price conditions, and that has also an effect on our guidance. We still believe that the 3%, we are actually making also a strong statement because the market will be more in the area of 1% to 2% growth for the current fiscal year. So we believe with this outlook, actually, we will be able to grow faster than the relevant markets. And of course, what we also took also into consideration in our outlook and I mentioned this is that we will have also [Technical Difficulty] also going forward based on the current activities to increase the localization of production and the reduction of the import quota. So that has an effect that has been built also in our guidance. But still, this is very much also with what we guide for the midterm. So we actually feel good with that. Operator: And next up is Michael Schaefer from ODDO BHF. Michael Schaefer: The first one is on your outlook statement on -- for sugarbeet. I mean, you're looking for a slight organic growth. This is, if I understand, despite what you're expecting maybe from Russia, maybe some clarification to what extent you expect the Russian business or how this to evolve in sugarbeet primarily? And then also related to the sugarbeet business, you are forecasting basically a lower margin in the Sugarbeet segment for the current fiscal year. This is on the back of the special effects, which -- to the VAT recovery basically, which you accounted for. However, if I strip this out, I'm getting to something like 44.6% margin for last year. So question is, how do you see basically this on a more comparable basis, the margin to evolve on sugarbeet? This would be my first question. The second one is on the vegetables side. [Technical Difficulty] correctly, you provided some undistorted sort of profitability target of -- or a number of around 20% margin for the vegetables business on that one. So if I strip this out compared to your reported negative number, so I'm getting to something like a EUR 36 million -- EUR 35 million of extra OpEx, which you are basically earmarking for investing into further growth. So I wonder how this number is evolving in the years to come on what's baked into the midterm guidance for the segment or for the group in general, how this is evolving. So this would be my 2 questions. Jorn Andreas: Very good, Michael. Very good questions. So as you rightfully said, so we believe that the market -- of course, the sugar market is still under pressure. I mentioned already a very weak commodity price situation still. Of course, as a seed producer, we are only indirectly affected by these commodity price movements. However, we believe on an acreage basis for sugarbeet in our relevant markets, it will be more stagnating in the current fiscal year. We initially had a more optimistic outlook, but I would say right now, what we see in front of us, it's rather stagnating. However, what we've also demonstrated in the past, and that's really important is that even under those conditions, we are to grow and we also increase our profitability, thanks to our innovative product portfolio. So the pricing power that we have, the portfolio effects [Technical Difficulty] innovative varieties CONVISO, CR+ and also our unique new combination varieties always puts us in a position to be able to grow and also to deliver value even under, let's say, adverse, I would say, market conditions. That means also that we are confident that we will be able to maintain also the profitability. You rightfully said we had in the last fiscal year, the reversal of a provision, which is a positive onetime effect. We will not, of course, have that in the current fiscal year [Technical Difficulty] a profitability well above 40%. So with that, I believe we are well positioned also to navigate also this more challenging environment that we see. I mentioned Russia. So for Russia, I would say our outlook is stable. So for us, sugarbeet remains a better business for us also in the current fiscal year. For the other crops, it's more an opportunistic business because here, the localization of the activities in Russia have already progressed quite a bit, and that's also baked into our guidance that in particular, when it comes to corn, for example, we have a much lower forecast for our business. And this is more on the opportunistic side. But so far, I would say the situation in Russia is neutral. It hasn't worsened. It hasn't improved, and that's also how we react to this market picture. Vegetables, yes. So we are really happy also with the operative profitability. You can imagine with the 16%, we are able to also turn this into a very nice operating leverage for our underlying business, so spinach and beans. So that's really on the positive side. But at the same time, we need to build our go-to-market structure. We need to build our breeding infrastructure. We are roughly halfway through, let's say, the innovation cycle of what we call our foody crops, so tomato, pepper, cucumber, melon and watermelon. So you will see also, I would say, until the 2020s, an additional buildup of expenses in order to build that structure, but our goal is over the midterm for the next 3 years to launch basically product launch varieties in each of the foody crops so that you see also now traction when it comes also [Technical Difficulty] years. So that's what you can expect. So further buildup of structure in the next years, but also a launch of key varieties that will be the driver of our future growth in the years to come. Michael Schaefer: Can I have a follow-up on vegetables, please? I mean you reported strong organic sales growth in the past fiscal 15% plus, but guiding for flat organic sales growth for the current -- for the ongoing fiscal year. So what's holding back? Jorn Andreas: Well, it's more a comparable topic. So of course, we are now comparing ourselves against [Technical Difficulty] 16%. It's a significant growth, and we've been able to capture very good market share, particularly Italy, other parts of Europe. We also saw nice growth also in North America. That's why we've been a bit on the cautious side and say, okay, based on that high comparable level, I think would be for us already a good result if you can sustain this also given, of course, the pressure that the consumers have when they choose these products. So I can -- from my side -- I mean, I would not be surprised if we can maybe put a little bit on top of that, but we said, okay, based on the very good, let's say, lending of last year, that is basically what we see in front of us. Operator: At the moment, there are no further questions. [Operator Instructions] There are no further questions. Jorn Andreas: All right. If there are no further questions, then again, thank you very much for your interest in KWS. And as I said earlier, please have a look at your Inbox to see the invitation to our Capital Markets Day. So we look forward to welcoming you Einbeck, continue the dialogue on site and of course, also over the coming weeks and months together with our Investor Relations team. So thank you and all the best until then.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to H&M Group's Conference Call Nine-Month Report for 2025. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that this conference is being recorded. Today, I am pleased to present Joseph Ahlberg, Head of Investor Relations. I will now hand over to our speakers. Please begin. Joseph Ahlberg: Good morning, and warm welcome to everyone. Today, we present the third quarter results for 2025 for the H&M Group. I am Joseph Ahlberg, and I'm Head of Investor Relations. Before I hand over to our CEO, Daniel Erver, I would like to share this morning's setup. As usual, Daniel will share a short summary of our results, a run-through of selected highlights from the quarter as well as a brief outlook, then we will continue with a Q&A where Daniel; our CFO, Adam Karlsson; and I, will be available to answer your questions. So with that, please go ahead, Daniel. Daniel Erver: Thank you, Joseph, and good morning to everyone. It's great to have the opportunity to speak to all of you again. In the third quarter, we continued to take important steps in the right direction. So let me start by summarizing some of the key numbers from the quarter. The positive sales development continued in the third quarter. Sales grew by 2% in local currencies. And this growth should be seen in the context of having 4% fewer stores at the end of this quarter compared with the same period last year. Our upgraded online store rollout earlier this year has been very well received by our customers around the world contributing to a profitable growth in the quarter. Inventory continued to develop in the right direction and decreased by 9% in SEK compared with last year, and that's mainly, thanks to an improved demand planning capabilities as well as in combination with the well-executed summer sale. The composition of the inventory is good, and we see further opportunities for improvement in the fourth quarter. Sales for the month of September are expected to be on par with last year, and this should be seen in the light of high comparative sales figures from the previous year. We increased our operating profit compared with the same quarter last year, thanks to a stronger customer offer, good cost control, and improved gross margin, where a clear majority of the effect was driven by improvement work in our supply chain, as well as somewhat positive external factors. Additionally, currency exchange effects were positive for the gross margin development in the third quarter. This means that we reached an operating profit for the third quarter of SEK 4.9 billion, and this corresponds to an operating margin of 8.6%, up from 5.9% during the same quarter last year. The increase in profit shows that we are on the right track as we continue to make progress in line with our plan to create fantastic products with outstanding value for money, inspiring experiences and strong brands. Now we are on the right track, was also reflected in the response we got from customers when H&M opened in Brazil for the first time in August. I had the opportunity to join the team on-site and seeing the pride of our colleagues, the reception in social media and above all, the excitement of customers entering our stores for the first time was absolutely remarkable. We successfully built on the core of our plan with elevated products, inspiring experiences and a strong brand and combining these strengths with a deep curiosity for the local market. Please take the time to enjoy a short video from the opening. [Presentation] Daniel Erver: I hope you could feel some of the energy that we felt by being there. And based on this positive reception from our customers and the opportunity in a well-established fashion market, we see good potential to grow both in Brazil and in other parts of Latin America moving forward. With 2 stores and online already in place, we will open 1 more store in Brazil during this year. Additionally, 4 stores are signed for 2026, all in top locations in important cities, including the first store in Rio de Janeiro. Another highlight this quarter was the opening of our new flagship store in Le Marais, in Paris, which you can see on the left screen in front of you. This store has an assortment presentation and interior, that is curated for this special location. And this is a great example of how we strengthen the brand, while we are also creating an inspiring shopping experience in one of the world's most important fashion capitals. We continue to elevate our shopping experience both in stores and digitally, as well as strengthening the integration between both of these channels. As a part of this, we will continue to upgrade a large part of our physical stores worldwide with improvements in layout, presentation and tech features. In parallel with improving the customer offer, we continue to drive our sustainability agenda forward, and we are making clear progress towards our ambitious goals, as we continue to integrate sustainability into all parts of our business. And this morning, Fashion Revolution released their results from the latest What Fuels Fashion? 2025 report. Out of 200 major fashion brand and retailers, H&M ranks first for its level of public disclosure on decarbonization and other sustainability areas. Finally, I would like to share 2 great fashion moments from this quarter. First out, COS returned to New York Fashion Week for the fourth year in a row, underlying their ambition to build a global power brand in the accessible luxury category. The strong autumn/winter collection emphasized materials, contrast and craftsmanship. And last week, H&M opened London Fashion Week by presenting the new autumn/winter collection. The show clearly highlighted the strength of H&M's collections and the creativity of our in-house design teams, featuring both womenswear and menswear. The collection is now available in stores and online with a wide range of price points to cater for a diverse set of fashion needs. With leading models on the catwalk and many well-known guests in the audience, the show also included a special performance by British music talent, Lola Young, featured here on the right. While we continue to drive our plan forward, the world around us remains uncertain. With geopolitical challenges and a cautious consumer, it becomes even more important for us to stay focused on what we can influence and where we can make the biggest difference. Everyone across the entire company stays fully focused on our customer offer to always deliver best and outstanding value for money. In an increasing complex environment, our strong culture, together with good cost control and flexibility, allows us to build a stable foundation for long-term profitable and sustainable growth. With that, thank you so much for listening in this morning, and I will now hand you over to Joseph to take us through to the Q&A. Thank you. Joseph Ahlberg: Thank you, Daniel. [Operator Instructions] So with that, over to you, operator, to facilitate the questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question goes to Fredrik Ivarsson of ABG Sundal Collier. Fredrik Ivarsson: You've been talking about the strength in women's collections during the last year-or-so. Can you give us an update on the various performances in the categories during the quarter? Daniel Erver: So womenswear continues to be the main priority for us as a company as we make progress on our plan. We're really, really focused to win women first, and that's where we put the most emphasis. And as we shared before, that's a long term work, where we work systematically and disciplined to strengthen the customer offer. As we shared before as well, we see a lot of the learnings that had an effect on womenswear will be relevant for our other customer groups as well. And sequentially, we start to see an improvement in other customer groups. But the main priority and the main strength still remains the womenswear performance and collections. Fredrik Ivarsson: Okay. And the second question on cost. OpEx down 1 percentage point or 1% local currency, despite, I guess, top line growth and underlying cost inflation and such, can you share with us the sort of key drivers of the lower OpEx? I guess I recall you spent quite some money on marketing in Q3 last year, for instance, did you reduce those kind of costs or is it anything else in there? Daniel Erver: So overall, I think it's important to recognize in this quarter, it's been a tremendous work done by the teams on cost efficiency. And as we continue to invest and have a high activity around strengthening the collections, improving the experience and investing in marketing and branding, we gradually learn what takes an effect or not and then are very disciplined in steering resources and investments towards what really impacts the customer. I don't know, Adam, if you want to shed a bit more light on the cost development? Adam Karlsson: No, it's -- as you said, Daniel, it's generally quite a broad efficiency improvement we see. We've managed to plan our store operations well connected to how we execute on the summer sale. We see that we have improvements in our logistics efficiency, and that can also see and be reflected in the stock levels coming down, which supports OpEx on the logistics side. And then the overall long-term ambition to reduce complexity and bureaucracy in our organization still supports the margin expansion here. So it's a broad profit improvement from many parts of the operating part. Fredrik Ivarsson: Okay. So it sounds fairly sustainable then to me, at least? Adam Karlsson: Yes. We see that we have done long-term improvements and that is one of the benefits, for example, of now improving the management of the stock, and that reflects both in how we operate the stores and also benefits logistics efficiencies. So with that trend, we see that we have a good foundation to continue to be efficient within our operations. Operator: The next question goes to Niklas Ekman of DNB Carnegie. Niklas Ekman: Yes, can I ask you to just elaborate a little bit about current trading? And I know that this is a short period that it's always tricky. And maybe for just that reason, I know you had 11% growth last year, but minus 10% the year before. Is there anything you can say about weather comparisons, anything about underlying markets? Any tangible improvements to your own collections? Just anything you can -- to shed some more light on this figure, which today at least seems to have been a lot stronger than what consensus had assumed? Daniel Erver: Yes. As you already pointed out, it's a number that should be handled with a lot of caution because it is very short-sighted, and we are now in a period, at least in the Northern Hemisphere and especially in the northern parts of Europe, where weather is changing dramatically going from summer into fall, and that has a significant effect on customer demand, while September is a volatile month, and we should be really cautious to manage the number as you point out yourself. What we have seen is that we saw a good weather development late August, early September, and then we have seen a little bit warmer end of September. So it is a month where the weather really is shifting. When we look at the trend, we see it very much in line with the sales trend that we have seen so far. So we -- there is no significant deviation from the trend that we have seen when we look ourselves at the September performance. Niklas Ekman: Okay. That's very clear. Second question, just on Q4 here and the guidance that you're giving about the external factors saying that they will be less positive in Q3. And I imagine that, for instance, U.S. dollar and freight should be a lot lower year-over-year compared to the effect in Q3. And you mentioned tariffs here as a negative. So can you elaborate a little bit about these different components here behind the guidance for Q4? Adam Karlsson: Adam here. It's a balancing effect here that we believe will somewhat neutralize. We see the benefit of the dollar-euro pair working in our favor throughout the spring into the summer and into the autumn. But against that, we have then the impact of the tariffs that will then -- based on the tariffs we paid during the Q3. A lot of those garments will be sold during Q4, and that's when they affect our profit and loss. So there are some counterbalancing effect here. But the effect we speak out as currency, freight and raw materials are still to be seen as somewhat positive. Operator: The next question goes to Daniel Schmidt of Danske Bank. Daniel Schmidt: Yes. Maybe a question on the growth potential. You talk about it when it comes to Latin America, and you seem to be very excited about the start so far in Brazil. Do you think that the expansion plans that you have for Latin America will be able to turn the trend when it comes to net store closures in 2026? Daniel Erver: So we are really excited about the opportunity in Brazil, mainly based on how well we have been received by the customers in Brazil and how they have appreciated our offer. But we also see continued opportunity to optimize the store portfolio, and that work is ongoing. For Q4, it will have a slightly negative impact on sales, as we have communicated before. The outlook for 2026, we will share connected to the Q4 report. We're working hard to find opportunities for H&M to continue to be a growth company, and that's part of the work, but the specific numbers of what we'll see, we will share in the fourth quarter when we talk about the total net effect of the optimization work that we will do in 2026. Daniel Schmidt: Okay. But is it fair to say, you mentioned 4 new stores in Brazil for '26, for example, is it likely that there will be many more stores in Brazil than these 4 or are the lead times much longer than you think? Daniel Erver: As always, when we work to establish ourselves in the new market, it's important that we establish ourselves in the right locations, and that is really to be in the malls with the right customer demand, in the right location in the mall where we can provide the full H&M experience, and then Brazil is a mature fashion market and retail market, but it's also a well-established market. So it's not new malls being built. It's finding locations in existing very strong performing malls, but it's fine in those locations. And that's the work that needs to balance speed for chasing the potential with quality of building fantastic stores in the right locations. So when we look at the total portfolio optimization, of course, Brazil will be one key important part, but we also see opportunities in other parts of the world as well as continued need to consolidate part of our portfolio or we don't have the customer demand. So we will come back in Q4 with a more holistic view of how we look at 2026. Daniel Schmidt: Yes. Maybe just 1 question for Adam then. The question was already up on the table, but could you maybe sort of give us a ranking of the impact when it comes to the gross margin of these factors that we've talked about, improved supply chain, internal factors, markdowns, FX? Adam Karlsson: Yes. I'll try that. The majority of the improvement comes from our own work, so to say, the work that we've been speaking about how we collaborate with the partners in our supply chain, how we leverage that partnership, how we also work all the way down to second and third tier of our supply chain to ensure that we have a very competitive offer in -- that we can put in front of our customer. So the majority comes from our own work. Then we had last year some effects that went against that and those we don't think we will have sort of supporting year-on-year in Q4 as we did now in Q3. So majority will remain. The trend is clear, but some of these one-off effects that we saw during Q3, we don't think will materialize in Q4. Operator: The next question goes to Adam Cochrane of Deutsche Bank. Adam Cochrane: Well done on the results. Firstly, the markdown was much lower than I think we expected in the third quarter. Can you just say how you cleared the inventory position with less markdown than you were expecting? Did you do anything differently or was it the consumer demand was stronger than expected? Daniel Erver: This is Daniel. Starting off, the team has done a great job with how we executed the summer sale. So we were able to solve a lot of stock with us in an efficient way, which is well done on the execution of the teams working throughout our market. We also see with stronger collections that we are in a better situation. We still do see a need -- having a cautious consumer that is squeezed for -- although having a squeezed wallet, we still see a need to use a reduction to activate the customer from time to time, and that's why we still have a fairly high level of activity in Q3 and that will also continue into Q4. So we monitor the cautious customer clearly, and we do activities, but we are stock level wise in a very good situation after well-executed summer sale. Adam Cochrane: So still on that point, are your collections better and they're selling well? And at the same time you have to do selective promotions in order to get other consumers to spend the money? Is it a sort of mixed impact on the consumers? I'm trying to understand really how you can have better collections that are being received well and you still have to puts some markdowns or promotions in to get other consumers to purchase. Daniel Erver: Yes. The work we are doing is a long-term journey to strengthen and build a really strong competitive offer. And to do that, we always need to make sure that we offer outstanding value for money. And that's both in the price and how we work closely with suppliers, as Adam shared, to really offer outstanding value for the price that we charge, but it also is around how we provide short-term offers and activities to really stay competitive. And here, we act differently in different markets, and we monitor the market situation. And we're also looking at the customer base that we have and the ones we're moving towards, and in that play we need to still work with activities and reductions to activate the customer, even though we see gradual strengthening from the full price performance of well-received collection. Adam Cochrane: And then the second one is you talked about some of the store refurbishments that need to happen and the tech investments and things. What is the scale of these store refurbishments when you go across your existing estate? How much do you have to invest on a store? What's the -- is there any sales uplift that you do from that? And how long will it take you to go across the entire estate to get them into the -- to put these investments into each store? Daniel Erver: We're working across the entire portfolio with the different levers to build a really competitive experience. Sometimes that's a full rebuild of a store. We have done that, for example, Times Square is a good example of a full complete rebuild of a store in New York, and we have many others. And then based on those rebuilds and our updated formats, we find components that we believe are good for strengthening the experience, the service, the customer offer in a wider part of the portfolio. And then we, with a lighter program, rolled that out to a wider set of the portfolio, and that's the work that we're mentioning in the report that is starting now and that will reach sort of at the lower investment level, but with improvement -- important improvements for the consumer it will reach a wider part of the portfolio, and that's a work that we are initiating now that would happen in the fourth quarter, but then also moving into 2026. Adam Cochrane: Think it will be completed by the end of 2026? Daniel Erver: No, it's an ongoing work. We have almost 4,000 stores, and we always need to make sure that we are competitive in each location. So it will be an ongoing work of optimizing and improving the experience. Operator: The next question goes to Warwick Okines of BNP Paribas. Alexander Richard Okines: First question is on tariffs in the U.S. I was just wondering what sort of proportion of the goods sold in Q3 were actually bought in the tariff regime? What was sort of pre and post tariff purchases? Adam Karlsson: Adam here. It's varied throughout the quarter. So what we call out here is that we've seen an increase throughout the quarter, and we believe that increase and the effect will sort of become fully loaded towards the end of Q4 and then into Q1 next year, given, of course, the uncertainty of the exact tariff level. So we're not giving any guidance on those, but it's just when the goods were imported and when they were planned to sold. So it's an increase throughout third quarter that will be potentially fully loaded end of Q4 and then continue as far as we know currently then into first quarter next year. Alexander Richard Okines: And on those products, when they are sold with tariffs, have you made any price adjustments to reflect that or is your gross margin commentary just reflecting that you're taking all of the tariff impact yourself? Adam Karlsson: They are of course linked, but they're also, separate those questions. And we need to ensure that we have the right customer offer at all times and we respond to how the consumer and the competitive set is looking. So the gross margin comment right now, it's more on the sort of the consequence of us importing garments with tariffs and a higher portion of garments that has been imported with tariffs will be sold in Q4. Alexander Richard Okines: And if I may just squeeze in 1 more. Just sort of clarify, you talked -- when you talked earlier about Q4 guidance on gross margin, you talked about sort of balance effects that were somewhat neutralized. Does that mean you're expecting tariffs to largely offset the other benefits in the gross margin in Q4? Joseph Ahlberg: Thank you, Warwick. This is Joseph speaking. Of course, we still guide for a net slightly positive effect from external factors as we write here in the report. So that is taking all these effects into consideration, but we do indicate that the net effect is slightly smaller than it was in the third quarter based on our judgment connected to the sort of -- sorry, headwind becoming a bit more negative than from the tariffs, which -- to the technical effects Adam just pointed out. Operator: The next question goes to James Grzinic of Jefferies. James Grzinic: Congratulations on the spring/summer. I had a couple of questions really on gross margin. The first one is, can you perhaps remind us what the FX loss that impacted Q3 last year was, specifically, so that we can maybe take it out of the 180 basis points increase year-on-year that you just delivered? Joseph Ahlberg: Thank you, James. Joseph speaking. Yes, last year, we called out the negative FX effect as a factor explaining the gross margin development, meaning it was one of the significant factors that explained the development. This year we see those effects becoming positive instead. So with a negative effect in the comp base and the positive effect this year, the net effect then becomes positive to the year-over-year gross margin development in the third quarter. Now looking ahead, we don't expect these FX effect to give a significant year-over-year effect to the gross margin development in the fourth quarter when looking at the comp base of last year for the fourth quarter. But then again, we cannot make predictions, of course, on the FX development, but the outlook is more neutral for the fourth quarter presently. James Grzinic: I guess I just wanted to exclude the fact that there were exceptional charges that fell last year due to FX. So you're just referencing the ongoing impacts of contracting in dollar, basically, just to clarify that? Joseph Ahlberg: Yes, so when it comes to the FX effect is what we described last year, part of it is exchange rate losses on intergroup liabilities and receivables. And so it's the FX movement in the quarter. But again, it's important to stress that a clear majority of the increase in the gross margin comes from the improvement work we are driving in the supply chain and the somewhat positive external factors we saw in the third quarter. So we remain as a -- as a robust trend also for the fourth quarter. James Grzinic: Understood. Can I also ask, I appreciate the point on the theoretical dilution from gross tariff impact. But one of your peers in the U.S. has talked about moving considerably on pricing a couple of weeks ago and that was happening at a point where everybody in the space seem to have been doing exactly the same immediately post back-to-school being over. First of all, can you confirm that you are also observing that, that there's an industry in the U.S. that is clearly back-solving for those tariff costs through accelerating price increases? And how do you intend to move if indeed you're also observing that or if you -- indeed, you've moved at all? Daniel Erver: So we are done here. We also recognized and observed that there are price increases happening in the market in the U.S. in -- as a general statement, we see the same thing. And we are monitoring those developments closely to make sure that we offer a really competitive offer. We are cautious and prudent about the development in U.S. for the fourth quarter given the effects that Adam spoke about that we see that we have already paid tariffs on the garments that have imported and those garments will be sold in the fourth quarter; hence, we will see a bigger impact of tariffs on the gross margins. And while we see that on the one hand, on the other hand, we are continuously looking at how do we have a competitive offering and how do we optimize our pricing position and that we do in the U.S. as we do in all other markets, and that leads to both price decreases and price increases to stay competitive, and that's an ongoing work. But we are cautious about looking at the Q4 development in the U.S. given that we know we already paid tariffs that would impact the gross margins as we look into the fourth quarter. Operator: The next question goes to Richard Chamberlain of RBC. Richard Chamberlain: A couple of points of clarification, please. Just back to the comments you made about markdowns, expecting a higher -- somewhat higher impact for Q4 as a result of -- partly as a result of the Black Friday timing shift. Would you expect that timing impact to reverse fully in the first quarter? That's my first question. Daniel Erver: So that's correct. You see that specific shift, we will reverse in the first quarter, but we don't give any guidance for reductions in the first quarter. That would be dependent on how well our collections are being received during the autumn as well as the consumer sentiment as we head into the first quarter. So just that specific effect will be shifted, but we don't have a guidance for the first quarter at this point in time. We will come back to that when we meet for the fourth quarter report. Richard Chamberlain: Okay. Great. Very clear. And my second one was on the -- when you're talking about the supply chain in the statement, you talk about a more flexible supply chain with a higher share of purchases made in the current season. But at the same time, you're planning for extended transport times. I just wondered how that's influencing your thinking about how much inventory you need to have now in the business and how that will affect your sort of working capital profile in the fourth quarter? Adam Karlsson: Adam here. If I start with the transportation lead time, we still see that the negative effect we saw during the autumn of 2023 still persists. We cannot sail the shortest route between sort of supply chain in Asia, customer in Europe. So that still persists. And then within those guardrails, we try always to optimize both the design lead time, how we buy and source the mix of that and of course, how we ultimately secure that we are responsive and flexible throughout the supply chain. But that is what we call out. That sort of shift when it comes to transportation lead time. That has not -- that we're still seeing and observing that we're not sailing the shortest route. So that's what we call out. It's not worse than it's been, but it's not obviously a lot better either than the last 18 months. But then on the responsiveness on the suppliers here and how we collaborate them. Daniel? Daniel Erver: And then as an really important part of how we strengthen the product offering and making sure that we have the most competitive product offering, we are working on how do we increase the speed and reaction time in our supply chain. And that's a wide work that includes both, as we mentioned before, how we move production closer to the customer with what we call nearshoring or proximity sourcing, but it's also working with a set of suppliers that can be much quicker and where they can support with a larger part of the product development process, for example, it's working early on and preparing components to be able to do the design decisions at a later stage still being quick. So it's a broad spectrum of activities that we do where nearshoring is one, but not the only one. We also work a lot with how we collaborate with some of the best suppliers in the world to really speed up our supply chain. And that's how we build up higher responsiveness and can buy more in season, which creates better position and also more relevance for our customers. Operator: The next question goes to Monique Pollard of Citigroup. Monique Pollard: Two questions from me. The first one is just on the space impact in quarter. So obviously, as you mentioned, 4% fewer stores versus last year. But obviously, you'll be closing stores that are less productive, you might be opening larger stores. So what's the overall contribution to sales of that 4% fewer stores? Joseph Ahlberg: Monique, this is Joseph. So in this year so far and also expected for the full year, we do see somewhat negative net contribution to selling. So adjusting for this effect, we would see a slightly higher top line development for both the third quarter and expected for the full year. Monique Pollard: So that impacts quite a bit less than the minus 4 of the stores presumably? Joseph Ahlberg: That is correct, Monique. We do close low productive, low profitability stores and open the best possible stores, looking in every corner of the world for the best expansion opportunities. Monique Pollard: Understood. And then just a quick one on the marketing cost. Is it possible to quantify the marketing costs that were incurred in the quarter versus the -- I think it was about SEK 350 million last year, please? Daniel Erver: So we're keeping a very high activity when it comes to how we strengthen the brand and how we create excitement around all the brands in the portfolio, like the cost show we show, but especially with the focus on the H&M brand, where we continue to invest and have a high activity level. A great example is the Brazil opening where we used the opportunity for H&M entering Brazil as a global event to strengthen the relevance around the brand. And also, of course, the show we did in on London Fashion Week last week, that was a really strong statement of putting our own collection on display and sort of building excitement around that. So the activity remains. And as we have increased activity over the last 12 months, we also learn a lot of where we can find efficiencies and be more disciplined to steer investments that have a significant improvement and really break through all the way to the customers. And that's the ongoing work. We want to send a clear signal that the activity level is high. We believe a lot in strengthening the brand as part of our journey, but we also find efficiencies where we can really focus around the things that really makes a difference. I don't know, Adam, if you want to shed a bit more light on the development. Adam Karlsson: No. I think it reflects what we said that we had an autumn last year of sort of a restart of investing like an overall broad investment in brand and that ambition stays, but we believe that we can find clever ways to get the same and more effective in other ways. So I think that is partly reflected in the Q3 result here where we optimize the resource use and still, as you said, have a very high ambition and engage with a lot of customers all around the world. Operator: The next question goes to Georgina Johanan of JPMorgan. Georgina Johanan: Just 2 questions from me, please. First of all, just in terms of all of the underlying work that you're doing with the supply chain and going through the different supply tiers. I appreciate you're doing sort of more nearshore and can be more reactive and so on. But at the same time, you've obviously talked about markdowns continuing to move higher. So I assume that you are actually achieving sort of better buying with those suppliers, if you like. And I think by the end of this year, you're probably close to some 200 basis points or so cumulative. So just trying to get a sense of how far through that process you are because just from a high-level perspective, 200 basis points is already a great achievement in that regard. And then second question, I think you mentioned in the release around how the digital business is contributing strongly to profit growth at the moment. And I just wondered if that was coming from like the incremental sales that you're generating or actually if there's any initiatives that's been done, particularly around logistics or anything else in the digital business that is supporting that profitability, please? Joseph Ahlberg: Georgi, first question I can answer. This is Joseph. So on the supply chain, we are really driving several initiatives at the same time. We, for instance, have been talking about the work we do working closer with our strategic suppliers. This has been where we have consolidated the supplier base to work very closely with a shortlisted number of strategic suppliers who now stand for a big share of our total order value. And these suppliers, we work very closely with them, open book costing and so on to really make sure that we can deliver on our business idea with really high quality, good sustainability commitments and the right fashion and, of course, at an unbeatable value for the money. In parallel to this, we are ramping up this work that Daniel talked about earlier with collection suppliers with their own product development capabilities where our own design team work very closely with these suppliers design teams to very quickly turn around new design ideas to ready products reaching our customers. So that is also being ramped up at the same time as we are sort of on the other part of the supplier base and working closely with the strategic suppliers. So I hope that clarifies the sort of 2 directions we're driving in parallel. And when it comes to -- yes, the second question, I hand over to Adam. Adam Karlsson: Or did you have a follow-up question? Sorry. Georgina Johanan: I was just going to try and understand if possible sort of -- because that makes a lot of sense, but just how far through that process you were and whether we should be expecting comparable gains into a third year? Joseph Ahlberg: Yes, we do see that the -- if we take the collection buying sort of the in-season buying has been growing steadily. The share has been increasing over the past years. So now we are achieving a fairly high share for selected categories of products like light woven and so on. Daniel Erver: I think looking at the 2 different, as Joseph clearly explained. So I think the work when it comes to optimizing the way we collaborate with our suppliers on the costing models, the consolidation and so on, we have come fairly far in the work, and that's given a lot of support to the gross margin. And we think we are not done, but we're far on that journey. When it comes to increasing the pace of product development, buying more in season and speeding up the relevance to market, we have taken the first good steps, but there's still a lot of steps to be taken on that journey and how we speed up and become more relevant. I think to try to guide on the question, we have come quite far on the improvements of how to consolidate and build stronger gross margins. That work will continue, but we're far along. When it comes to increasing the speed and pace and buying more in season, we're more in the beginning with some great first steps on that journey. Adam Karlsson: And then I think there was a question about the broad cost sort of activities we drive. And I think that can also be seen in 2 parts. One is the effects on the -- sorry, Daniel. Daniel Erver: I think the question was around digital, the updated digital store and the sort of what has been... Adam Karlsson: Was a long time ago we got the question. Repeat the question. Joseph Ahlberg: Georgi, would you like to repeat your second question? Georgina Johanan: Yes, it was just -- I think you mentioned in the release that the digital store has been contributing strongly to profitability improvements. And I just wondered if that was simply coming from more sales in the digital store or if actually there were specific initiatives around maybe logistics or what you're spending on tech or marketing or whatever it was in the digital channel that was particularly supporting profitability improvements. Daniel Erver: When it comes to the digital development, both the sales team and the tech team has done a great job with -- including our creative teams to take the -- sort of provide the imagery and build up the experience. All of that has significantly improved with the rollout of the new optical experience that was sort of concluded at the end of the spring to all our markets where the experience really, really elevates the product offering and elevating the product offering with a stronger product offering and stronger products, that builds an even stronger value for money, and we see that is being really well received by the customers. So that combination of a great product offering where we have improved the design, the product development, the making, the material choices, combined with more inspirational imagery, better flow, better search functions, better size recommendation, that in combination has driven a strong comp sales development, and that's a tremendous job done by our teams. Then we see that -- we continuously look at the customer promise and the different offers that we have and how we provide a competitive experience. And actively and connected working on how can we reduce the return rate given that we don't want neither for the stock management nor for the planet and our sustainability targets, it's good to have high levels of returns. And that's also work that had a good progress during this quarter where we managed to lower the returns, which we see as very positive for both profitability, but as well for our climate impact. So those are the 2 things for this quarter. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And the next question goes to Sreedhar Mahamkali of UBS. Sreedhar Mahamkali: Most of them are already asked, but I just got a follow-up from James' question on tariffs and another small follow-up on something else that was discussed. Just on tariffs, how are you thinking -- I understand your point about watching the market, watching the consumer. Are you planning to follow your key competitors that you're watching? If they move, you move, what sort of kind of time delays that we should be thinking about? Clearly, it would be a persisting headwind if you didn't adjust pricing into next year. How should we think about it? What sort of time delay? How do you think about it? That's the first one. If you can just expand a little bit more, that would be very helpful. And a little bit more short term into Q4 on OpEx. Is there anything we should keep in mind in local currency changes in OpEx? Or is Q3 development of 1% reduction in SG&A a good indication for Q4 also? Daniel Erver: Thank you for the question. I'll take the first one, and then Adam will take the second one. We are in all our markets, monitoring the price development and how this -- I mean we have many markets with quite significant inflation where we continuously adjust prices based on the market competitive situation that we do in the U.S. as well, which leads to both price investments and price increases. And we see a general sort of gradual increase in the market. With that said, we always want to protect that we have a competitive customer offer and offer the best value for money, why we are cautious about Q4, where we already now know based on the tariffs that we paid in the third quarter that they will impact the gross margin. So we will evaluate. We are assessing the strength of our collections and sort of making sure that they are positioned with a competitive price. But of course, when we are paying increased tariffs, it will have an impact on our gross margin. Sreedhar Mahamkali: And I was trying to understand, you're not trying to increase your price gaps. You're trying to keep the price gaps where you want them to be but look to move over time rather than... Daniel Erver: Broadly, yes. But in that, there are always -- sorry. Go ahead. Sreedhar Mahamkali: No, go ahead, please. Daniel Erver: Broadly, that's a fair statement, but we always find opportunities as we look at the competitive situation and our product offering in making changes both up and down. But broadly, that's the direction, yes. Adam Karlsson: And on the OpEx side, I think we spoke about 3 effects that we believe are fairly sustainable. But for Q4, I think one can see that the store operations efficiencies and also the logistics efficiencies are likely to remain a little bit more caution on the marketing advertising side as we -- last year, when we relaunched the brand, we had quite a lot of costs connected to marketing during Q3 that were not there this year. So a little bit less positive impact on the marketing side for fourth quarter. Operator: The next question goes to Matthew Clements of Barclays. Matthew Clements: Most of my questions have been taken, but I thought I'd maybe zoom out a little bit and focus a little bit less on the long term. Just wondering, when you look to some of your benchmark peers, where do you see on cost the biggest and most exciting opportunities going forward? And could you highlight a few areas of initiatives that it's in-store efficiencies, RFID, self-checkouts, et cetera, or in logistics, automation, et cetera? What are the opportunities where currently H&M is underperforming where you think there's a scope basically to catch up and equalize? Daniel Erver: It's a broad and very interesting question that we work with. I think one clear view is that as we work on strengthening our customer offer and really being competitive in offering outstanding value for money, one key piece will be to increase store productivity and increasing the sales per square meter and store productivity is an important way to sort of balance the cost base because many of our costs are not fixed or are fixed. So when we drive productivity gains, we drive a better profitability. So I think that's one important scope where we see compared to some of the best peers that there is potential for square meter productivity. And that links, of course, very closely to both the experience, but especially to what we put into the store and the product offering, which is priority #1, 2 and 3 for our entire organization. So that's one important piece. I don't know, Joseph, if you want to elaborate on other cost? Joseph Ahlberg: Certainly, we have taken good steps on the inventory productivity over the past 2 quarters. We have stock composition, which is good, where we are slightly lower on the number of pieces versus last year. So this is also, of course, an area where some of our competitors are slightly ahead of us still, and we have long-term targets, which are more ambitious than the levels we currently have. So this is, of course, an area also that will help us generate a lot of operational efficiencies as we approach these targets. Matthew Clements: Just a follow-up on the inventory point. What are the key kind of initiatives at the moment? I mean kind of maybe some of your peers might talk about RFID reducing stock management time, visibility through the supply chain, et cetera. What are the kind of areas where you think you can work on over the next couple of years? Daniel Erver: This is Daniel. I'll start. One important area is to have a really, really competitive product. And a big part of what we spoke about with creating speed and flexibility in the supply chain is one key enabler of making sure that we have a very good quality, relevant product as well as strengthening our design teams and really sort of celebrating that know-how and those design team, both with competence, but also with the tech features to help them do efficient, really relevant design. So that's one important piece. We see with the use of RFID as we start to increase the precision and have real-time data, what we carry in all our different locations, physical stores, warehouses and so on, we see a lot of opportunities for optimization where we can offer better site availability at a lower stock level and having less safety stock to still have a very strong site availability. So here, we're excited about the opportunities as we start to roll out RFID at a broader scale. And then we work actively with the teams on improving the demand planning. So using all the data we have in a more efficient way to be more precise how we forecast the demand and then work actively with improving the supply to be precise to that demand, which also then helps us to come down in stock levels. And that's one -- that work that's been done over the last year that shows effect in this quarter, lowering the stock to sales ratio while we're actually increasing availability to the customers. Those are a few of the examples. Matthew Clements: Okay. That's very helpful. And then maybe one near-term question on regional performance. Just looking across your key markets, are there areas where you're particularly happy with performance, areas where you think there's room for improvements and weakness? Just interested on that front. Daniel Erver: If you look at this quarter, it's a quarter of quite even performance across the markets, where there's -- we believe there are opportunities in all markets, but there's no one single one sticking out in particular for this quarter. It's quite even performance across the geographical regions. Operator: The next question goes to William Woods of Bernstein Societe Generale Group. William Woods: The portfolio brands were soft relative to the overall group this quarter and have slowed down on a pretty easy comp. What's driving the weakness in the portfolio brands? Adam Karlsson: Adam here. One of the effects that we see is that, of course, the decision to close Monki as a physical store concept. So we also highlight then that we have within the portfolio brands about 10% fewer stores. So that is one isolated main effect and connected to the closure of Monki stores. And I think worth calling out is we see strong performance in costs, really continuing to build a very strong position in the market and building excitement around the brand, which we have seen with both the list rankings over the last 6 months as well as the reception of their fashion show in New York, which was really well received. So I think that's worth a call out. We also see our youth concept weekday performing well and having a good quarter and a good year so far. So that's on the positive side worth calling out. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now return the call over to Daniel for any closing remarks. Daniel Erver: Thank you so much, and then thank you very much to all participating in this conference call. Thank you for listening in, and we wish you all a continued great day. Thank you from Stockholm. Operator: Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.
Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the KWS SAAT conference regarding the publication of the financial results '24-'25. [Operator Instructions] Let me now turn the floor over to Dr. Jorn Andreas. Jorn Andreas: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our analyst and investor call for the fiscal year '24-'25. I'm very pleased to share how KWS has delivered in a challenging agricultural environment with a robust operational performance and a number of deliberate strategic choices that set us up well for the future. Before we begin, as always, a brief reminder. Today's remarks include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and you will find the full disclaimer on this slide. And with that, let me take you through the year's highlights. Over the past year, we navigated a weaker agricultural market condition with resilience, and we delivered our full year targets in line with the latest guidance. Two signals stand out: a strong increase in free cash flow and a low net debt position, both underlying KWS earnings power and balance sheet strength. We also sharpened our focus. We streamlined the portfolio. We repositioned the corn segment as we also anticipated and communicated earlier and set a new financial framework designed to drive sustainable, profitable growth. As a leading seed specialist, this means targeted long-term investments in growth areas and in our innovation pipeline and continue to help to address the real challenges facing agriculture. At the same time, we want our shareholders to participate in the company's long-term success. We are aiming for a higher payout ratio, while maintaining a strong commitment on dividend continuity. And looking ahead to '25-'26, we are confident in the resilience and the trajectory of our market-leading businesses. So even if market headwinds unfortunately won't disappear overnight, we expect to stay on our growth path and create sustainable value for all our stakeholders. Let's now take a look at our key performance indicators for the last fiscal year. So the figures presented on that slide relate to the continuing operations of KWS following the sale of our South American corn and sorghum activities that we closed in the first quarter of the last fiscal year. Net sales of EUR 1.68 billion were at previous year's level, including a slight negative currency effect. On a comparable basis, so on a constant exchange rate basis and without portfolio effects, organic growth was plus 1%. So overall, I find this quite remarkable as an outcome, given the declining acreage that we've seen in our global ag markets, in particular, in our core European markets. EBITDA was EUR 351 million, down 13.4%. This reflects special items and operating developments. Keep in mind that previous year included a positive onetime effect of EUR 28 million from divestments of our Chinese corn business. We also had higher costs on the administrative side, increased R&D and also selling expenses. Net income declined to EUR 140 million, mainly due to lower EBIT and a higher tax rate. The financial result, however, improved significantly, driven by higher interest income after we materially reduced our net debt. A very nice result is our increased gross margin, which grew slightly to 63.1%, benefiting from positive [Technical Difficulty] sugarbeet. So this development clearly demonstrates our pricing power even in times of challenging commodity market and the premium innovation [Technical Difficulty]. Free cash flow from continuing operations improved substantially to EUR 123 million, mainly due to higher cash from operating activities and lower CapEx. As a consequence, our net debt fell significantly from EUR 385 million to EUR 62 million or 0.2x EBITDA. So all in all, this is a very solid picture against the industry backdrop. A quick walk-through of the sales bridge. We achieved a slight organic growth despite the continued headwinds and lower acreage, organic growth of plus 1%, mainly driven by sugarbeet and vegetables. With this, we slightly exceeded our latest sales outlook where we guided around 0% growth. On the other hand, FX effects had a negative effect of approximately 1% primarily related to the Turkish lira. Overall, this underscores our ability and our resilience to deliver stable sales under challenging conditions. Our 2 differentiators, the economic value of our [ varieties ] and the broad portfolio that balances opportunities and risks. To illustrate, in the last fiscal year '24-'25, we generated 2/3 of our sales with new varieties, which is a strong indicator of our innovation power and also a clear evidence of our R&D effectiveness. We also achieved a new record, 584 new varieties approved in the last year -- last reporting year. That's an increase of more than 4% versus the previous year, which means with this, we're also laying the foundation for future growth. Our income statement reflects both a robust underlying business performance, but also several one-off items. So let me walk you quickly through the special items that impacted our results. First, prior years included a positive onetime gain of EUR 28 million from the sale of our Chinese corn business. This year, we benefited from the reversal of a VAT provision amounting to EUR 7.7 million in our Sugarbeet segment. So this was established in the previous fiscal year related to a claim which we successfully fended off. Another one-off effect is the EUR 20.7 million write-down related to the divestment of our North American joint venture, AgReliant that we completed in June 2025. Despite these effects, we maintained a strong profitability of an adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.4%, while continuing our high level of R&D investments that are crucial for our long-term competitive advantage. Net income from continuing operations reached EUR 140 million or EUR 4.24 per share. And taking into account the extraordinary gain of EUR 96 million from the sale of our corn and sorghum business in South America, earnings per share increased sharply to EUR 7.16 per share. Let us now turn to our segments, and we are starting with Sugarbeet and Sugarbeet net sales rose to EUR 872 million on an organic basis, plus 2.2%, even though acreage declined by roughly 3%. The context matters here. So European producers reduced contracted areas from last season's very high base, moving essentially back toward normal levels. Growth was driven primarily by Northern, Western and Eastern Europe and also, but to a lesser extent from North America. Our sustainable product innovations, CONVISO SMART and CR+ continue to lead. Together, they account now for 61% of our segment sales, which is up from 56% last year. We also launched unique combination varieties, so a combination of CONVISO and CR+ across several European countries, which will also support the future growth. EBITDA increased 5%, including the EUR 7.7 million onetime provision reversal. EBITDA margin rose to 45.5% so overall profitability improved, supported by portfolio mix and sustained pricing power. Moving on to corn. I mentioned it earlier, corn saw a fundamental strategic change, which I address later. Market-wise, Europe moved lower with reduced acreage in our continuum corn operations, which includes the pro rata contribution of AgReliant, sales declined 2.7% to EUR 683 million. Adjusted again for FX and portfolio, the decline was minus 1.6%. So Europe held stable and the decline came mainly from North America, reflecting FX, but also volumes in a pretty competitive market. EBITDA was at EUR 53 million, below prior year's EUR 82 million, which had include, however, the EUR 28 million onetime gain that I mentioned. The EBITDA margin [Technical Difficulty] accordingly below last year. Let's now turn to Cereals. In Cereals, net sales declined as expected by about 4.6% to EUR 263 million, driven by weaker commodity markets and a declining business [ in Russia ] where we benefited from onetime sales in the previous fiscal year. Our largest crops, hybrid rye and oilseed rape were slightly down versus last year, while wheat was stable. EBITDA declined to EUR 43 million, reflecting the softer top line and continued high R&D investments, in particular with regards to our hybridization efforts in cereals. On the other hand, Vegetables continued to perform very well. It was our fastest-growing business unit in the last fiscal year, top line 16.2% to EUR 72 million. And this increase was primarily driven by spinach seeds, which accounts now for 2/3 of the segment sales. We added sales activities across key European markets. We improved our go-to-market, which supported the dynamic sales growth and also strengthened our global leadership in spinach seeds. The bean business was flat in a slightly softer market. So also here, we were able to gain market shares. EBITDA was at minus EUR 22 million below last year due to the planned step-up in expenses for breeding and sales expansion. These are, as you know, deliberate investments to build a significant long-term position in the vegetable seed market. Operating cash flow increased significantly to EUR 228 million, mainly because cash outflows for inventory and receivables were lower. Cash outflow from investing activities was at EUR 105 million, slightly above last year. However, last year included roughly EUR 40 million proceeds from the sale of our Chinese corn activities. So that is important for comparison purposes. Investments focused on production, R&D capacity, including the completion of our lead seed storage in Einbeck and the opening of an R&D center for vegetable seeds in the Netherlands. So overall, free cash flow improved substantially to EUR 123 million. As a consequence, our net debt position improved substantially from EUR 385 million to EUR 62 million or 0.2x EBITDA. In practice, that puts us close to a net debt-free position. Two main drivers. First, our annual EBITDA of EUR 350 million already covered a large share of the starting debt and our M&A proceeds of EUR 277 million from our divestments further debt. Net working capital did build through the year, but it remained significantly below the prior year period, supporting free cash flow. Our capital structure is now fundamentally stronger, giving us flexibility to invest in growth, advance our strategy and, of course, also selectively pursue M&A from a position of strength. I'm pleased to report that beyond the operational delivery, we reached key strategic milestones in our positioning. Most notably, we realigned our corn segment, streamlining the portfolio with divestments in North and South America and in the prior year in China, of course. The result, higher profitability and a much stronger financial position. Going forward, KWS will focus on the profitable European corn business, where we already today hold a market leadership position. So we are deliberately exiting sales outside Europe in exchange for higher margins, in exchange for reduced currency and market risks and also lower capital intensity. So by exiting the corn GMO markets, we've also reduced our dependence on external IP and can concentrate on our own proprietary breeding technologies. This focus supports our goal of sustainable profitable growth, it supports our goal of entrepreneurial independence and it also fits very well to the growth opportunities we see in Europe, in particular, in grain corn. With the portfolio adjustments behind us, we are now entering a new phase of corporate development, and that's why we have refreshed our strategic framework, and we set new medium-term financial targets. And our priorities rest on 3 pillars: First, expand our market leadership in established crops. We want to scale activities where we see additional value potential such as vegetable seeds. And of course, we want to continually push innovation in plant breeding. And these 3 drivers, lead, build, advance, they form a clear framework for our profitable and sustainable growth in the future. And over the next 3 years, so over the midterm period, we're targeting a 3% to 5% organic net sales growth and EBITDA margin of 19% to 21% alongside our 2030 sustainability ambition. And in this context, we have also updated our dividend policy. KWS values continuity, and we are committed to stable and increasing dividends. We are now aiming for a higher payout ratio of 25% to 30% of earnings after taxes adjusted for portfolio and other onetime effects. And for last fiscal year [ '24-'25 ], the Executive Board and Supervisory Board will propose a dividend of EUR 1.25 per share [indiscernible] year-over-year. So that implies a 26% payout ratio of adjusted earnings after taxes. And as always, we will balance dividends with investments, inorganic growth and potentially M&A. That balance is important to us. Let's now turn to the outlook for the current fiscal year. In line with our midterm ambitions, we expect a comparable net sales to grow by approximately 3% year-over-year in '25-'26 so despite a subdued -- still subdued agricultural backdrop and an expected decline in Russia due to import restrictions and localization of seeds. And I think that's a strong statement. We also expect an EBITDA margin of 19% to 21%, so consistent with our midterm target range. This excludes a positive special effect of around EUR 30 million from the sale of our license rights as part of the divestments of our North American corn activities that we will recognize in the first quarter '25-'26. Yes, with that, and before I close, I would like to warm you -- invite you to our Capital Markets Day on 18th of November 2025 in Einbeck. So my fellow Board colleagues and I will share deeper insights into our goals, into our growth ambitions. And while we offer [Technical Difficulty] participation, I would be delighted to see many of you in person. So you can really expect a full day of presentations, Q&A with deep dives on strategy, on business, on financials and also on pipeline and innovation plus on-site insights into our innovation capabilities. We talk about genome editing, we talk about hybridization. And of course, you will have a look also at our sugarbeet production backbone. So there will be ample of opportunities to have direct conversations, and I look forward to welcoming you on 18th November in Einbeck. That concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to the Q&A together with our Head of Investor Relations, Peter Vogt. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And first up is Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research. Oliver Schwarz: Congrats on the past results. I've got 2 questions here on the results. Firstly, I saw that earnings were boosted by a reversal of provisions to the amount of EUR 7.8 million. Could you elaborate on that one? Secondly, I saw that -- or realize that the outlook is now basically performed on -- when it comes to earnings on the EBITDA level, no longer on the EBIT level. But still, you tend to report the EBIT as the prime earnings figure in the segmental overview. Is that going to change in the future? And what's the rationale in regard to switching from an EBIT guidance to an EBITDA guidance? That would be my questions. Jorn Andreas: Oliver, thank you for your question. So yes, correct. So on the VAT provision, we basically refer to VAT provision in the amount of EUR 7.7 million that we took basically earlier -- in the previous fiscal year. It relates to a dispute [Technical Difficulty] in Russia with the applicability of a certain VAT rate, and we successfully tendered this off in front of the court. So that put us in a position to reverse this provision, and that had a positive onetime effect that we recognized in the Sugarbeet segment. On the EBITDA, correct, yes, so we are switching essentially from EBIT to EBITDA, and that is mainly driven by 2 factors. First is we had a longer discussion in the first half of this year, market perception study where we talked to many people in the financial community, and there was the preference and the rest also to be more comparable also to our peers in our industry. And that's why we switch from EBIT to EBITDA. And also internally, that provides us with a much cleaner view on our operating performance because it strips out accounting effects in particular with regards to the purchase price allocation also in our vegetables segment. So with that, we want to make sure that we are consistently also reporting internally and externally with a true view of our operating -- underlying operating performance. And this will be also the guidance going forward, both on the group level as well as on a business unit or segment level. Operator: The next question comes from Christian Faitz from Kepler Cheuvreux. Christian Faitz: I just have a question on your relatively cautious outlook for this current fiscal year. Is that because pharma profitability in your relevant markets continues to be low? Or what's the background to essentially a flat development minus obviously the 3% envisaged organic sales growth? Jorn Andreas: That's a good question. So exactly as you're saying, so we are still in a period of, I would say, subdued agriculture commodity prices. So when you look at the price development, then we are essentially on 2020 commodity price levels, which has, of course, an impact on the producer margin. So there is not so much, of course, an incentive of our customers to increase production, to increase acreage under these, let's say, price -- commodity price conditions, and that has also an effect on our guidance. We still believe that the 3%, we are actually making also a strong statement because the market will be more in the area of 1% to 2% growth for the current fiscal year. So we believe with this outlook, actually, we will be able to grow faster than the relevant markets. And of course, what we also took also into consideration in our outlook and I mentioned this is that we will have also [Technical Difficulty] also going forward based on the current activities to increase the localization of production and the reduction of the import quota. So that has an effect that has been built also in our guidance. But still, this is very much also with what we guide for the midterm. So we actually feel good with that. Operator: And next up is Michael Schaefer from ODDO BHF. Michael Schaefer: The first one is on your outlook statement on -- for sugarbeet. I mean, you're looking for a slight organic growth. This is, if I understand, despite what you're expecting maybe from Russia, maybe some clarification to what extent you expect the Russian business or how this to evolve in sugarbeet primarily? And then also related to the sugarbeet business, you are forecasting basically a lower margin in the Sugarbeet segment for the current fiscal year. This is on the back of the special effects, which -- to the VAT recovery basically, which you accounted for. However, if I strip this out, I'm getting to something like 44.6% margin for last year. So question is, how do you see basically this on a more comparable basis, the margin to evolve on sugarbeet? This would be my first question. The second one is on the vegetables side. [Technical Difficulty] correctly, you provided some undistorted sort of profitability target of -- or a number of around 20% margin for the vegetables business on that one. So if I strip this out compared to your reported negative number, so I'm getting to something like a EUR 36 million -- EUR 35 million of extra OpEx, which you are basically earmarking for investing into further growth. So I wonder how this number is evolving in the years to come on what's baked into the midterm guidance for the segment or for the group in general, how this is evolving. So this would be my 2 questions. Jorn Andreas: Very good, Michael. Very good questions. So as you rightfully said, so we believe that the market -- of course, the sugar market is still under pressure. I mentioned already a very weak commodity price situation still. Of course, as a seed producer, we are only indirectly affected by these commodity price movements. However, we believe on an acreage basis for sugarbeet in our relevant markets, it will be more stagnating in the current fiscal year. We initially had a more optimistic outlook, but I would say right now, what we see in front of us, it's rather stagnating. However, what we've also demonstrated in the past, and that's really important is that even under those conditions, we are to grow and we also increase our profitability, thanks to our innovative product portfolio. So the pricing power that we have, the portfolio effects [Technical Difficulty] innovative varieties CONVISO, CR+ and also our unique new combination varieties always puts us in a position to be able to grow and also to deliver value even under, let's say, adverse, I would say, market conditions. That means also that we are confident that we will be able to maintain also the profitability. You rightfully said we had in the last fiscal year, the reversal of a provision, which is a positive onetime effect. We will not, of course, have that in the current fiscal year [Technical Difficulty] a profitability well above 40%. So with that, I believe we are well positioned also to navigate also this more challenging environment that we see. I mentioned Russia. So for Russia, I would say our outlook is stable. So for us, sugarbeet remains a better business for us also in the current fiscal year. For the other crops, it's more an opportunistic business because here, the localization of the activities in Russia have already progressed quite a bit, and that's also baked into our guidance that in particular, when it comes to corn, for example, we have a much lower forecast for our business. And this is more on the opportunistic side. But so far, I would say the situation in Russia is neutral. It hasn't worsened. It hasn't improved, and that's also how we react to this market picture. Vegetables, yes. So we are really happy also with the operative profitability. You can imagine with the 16%, we are able to also turn this into a very nice operating leverage for our underlying business, so spinach and beans. So that's really on the positive side. But at the same time, we need to build our go-to-market structure. We need to build our breeding infrastructure. We are roughly halfway through, let's say, the innovation cycle of what we call our foody crops, so tomato, pepper, cucumber, melon and watermelon. So you will see also, I would say, until the 2020s, an additional buildup of expenses in order to build that structure, but our goal is over the midterm for the next 3 years to launch basically product launch varieties in each of the foody crops so that you see also now traction when it comes also [Technical Difficulty] years. So that's what you can expect. So further buildup of structure in the next years, but also a launch of key varieties that will be the driver of our future growth in the years to come. Michael Schaefer: Can I have a follow-up on vegetables, please? I mean you reported strong organic sales growth in the past fiscal 15% plus, but guiding for flat organic sales growth for the current -- for the ongoing fiscal year. So what's holding back? Jorn Andreas: Well, it's more a comparable topic. So of course, we are now comparing ourselves against [Technical Difficulty] 16%. It's a significant growth, and we've been able to capture very good market share, particularly Italy, other parts of Europe. We also saw nice growth also in North America. That's why we've been a bit on the cautious side and say, okay, based on that high comparable level, I think would be for us already a good result if you can sustain this also given, of course, the pressure that the consumers have when they choose these products. So I can -- from my side -- I mean, I would not be surprised if we can maybe put a little bit on top of that, but we said, okay, based on the very good, let's say, lending of last year, that is basically what we see in front of us. Operator: At the moment, there are no further questions. [Operator Instructions] There are no further questions. Jorn Andreas: All right. If there are no further questions, then again, thank you very much for your interest in KWS. And as I said earlier, please have a look at your Inbox to see the invitation to our Capital Markets Day. So we look forward to welcoming you Einbeck, continue the dialogue on site and of course, also over the coming weeks and months together with our Investor Relations team. So thank you and all the best until then.
Operator: Hello, and welcome to the H.B. Fuller Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. And if you would like to ask a question during this time, please press I would now like to turn the conference over to Scott Jensen, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin. Thank you, operator. Scott Jensen: Welcome to H.B. Fuller's Third Quarter 2025 Investor Conference Call. Presenting today are Celeste Mastin, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Corkrean, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will have a question and answer session. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that our comments today will include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures are supplemental to the results determined in accordance with GAAP. We believe that these measures are useful to investors in understanding our operating performance and to compare our performance with other companies. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP measure are included in our earnings release. Unless otherwise noted, comments about revenue refer to organic revenue, comments about EPS, EBITDA, and profit margins refer to adjusted non-GAAP measures. We will also be making forward-looking statements during this call. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from these expectations due to factors covered in our earnings release, comments made during this call, and the risk factors detailed in our filings with the SEC, all of which are available on our website at investors.hbfuller.com. I will now turn the call over to Celeste Mastin. Celeste? Celeste Mastin: Thank you, Scott, and welcome, everyone. We delivered a strong quarter evidenced by continued margin expansion and double-digit EPS growth despite the challenging operating environment. Our continued operational discipline, strong execution, and ongoing portfolio shift keep us on track to achieve our greater than 20% EBITDA margin target. Despite our strong performance, we remain cautious and have tightened our guidance range for the year to reflect a globally subdued economic backdrop. Looking forward, we expect volume growth to remain elusive and end market conditions to be challenging. However, we continue to actively focus on enhancing the composition of our portfolio, driving continued efficiencies, and structurally repositioning the company for growth and continued margin expansion consistent with our long-term strategy. Looking at our results in the third quarter, our organic sales were slightly negative, consistent with our expectations given economic headwinds. Organic sales decreased 0.9% with positive pricing of 1% offset by a volume decline of 1.9%. From a profitability perspective, we executed well and delivered strong results. We grew EBITDA 3% year on year to $171 million and expanded EBITDA margin to 19.1%, up 110 basis points year on year, including positive EBITDA growth and margin expansion in all three GBUs. The net impact of pricing and raw material cost actions, the contribution of acquisitions and divestitures, and targeted cost reduction efforts drove the increase in margin relative to the prior year. Now let me move on to review the performance in each of our segments in the third quarter. In HHC, organic revenue softened sequentially as we saw the effects of continued economic uncertainty impact consumption trends. Organic revenue decreased 3.1% as positive pricing actions were offset by weaker volume. Strength in medical and tissue and towel was offset by broad-based end market softness, particularly in some of our packaging-related market segments. EBITDA was up 2% year on year for HHC in the third quarter, and EBITDA margin increased 50 basis points year on year to 16.9%. Positive pricing and the impact from acquisitions were partially offset by negative volume leverage. In EA, organic revenue increased 2.2% in the third quarter, driven by both positive pricing and volumes. EA continues to lead the portfolio as positive organic growth was driven by ongoing strength in automotive and a bounce back in electronics. Solar continues to be a headwind as a result of regulatory changes, tariff-driven ambiguity, and the oversupplied global panel market. Excluding solar, EA organic growth was positive mid-single digits. We continue to see the benefits of our strategic growth focus in EA against a still difficult backdrop. Overall, more than half of the market segments in EA saw positive volume growth during the third quarter. EBITDA increased 14% in EA, and EBITDA margin expanded 190 basis points year on year to 23.3%. Positive volume leverage, the impact of net price and raw material cost management, and efficiency gains drove the increase in EBITDA margin year on year. Building adhesive solutions, organic sales were flat year on year as positive pricing actions were offset by modest volume declines. BAS performed as expected as the construction market-related slowdown we identified last quarter was partially mitigated by the team's strong execution. Although construction demand remains weak, we expect a declining interest rate environment will drive an improvement in building conditions and ultimately benefit BAS moving forward. EBITDA for BAS increased 3% versus the third quarter of last year to $41 million, and EBITDA margin expanded 10 basis points to 17.7%. Net price and raw material cost management drove the improvement in EBITDA margin year on year. Geographically, America's organic revenue was up 1% year on year in the third quarter. EA drove the increase for the region, achieving a high single-digit increase with positive organic growth across most market segments. BAS organic revenue was slightly positive versus the prior year, and HHC organic revenue was down modestly. In EIMEA, organic revenue declined 2% year on year, similar to the second quarter as continued weakness in Europe weighed down the region. EA was flat year on year, while HHC and BAS were both down modestly. In Asia Pacific, organic revenue decreased 4% year on year, driven by the significant volume decline in solar. Excluding solar, organic sales for Asia Pacific were approximately flat year on year, and organic revenue for EA in the region was up 7% year on year, driven by strong results in automotive and electronics. From our vantage point, which reflects a broad-based geographic and end market view, we have observed a widespread slowing economic environment. The manufacturing sector continues to be weak and has shown some signs of softening. Customer demand is appearing more uneven and less predictable, driven by global trade tensions and export-driven uncertainty. In general, customers are hesitant to make product changes and incremental investments given economic volatility and high interest rates. Therefore, looking forward, we expect a slow growth environment with a continuation of these themes. Now let me turn the call over to John Corkrean to review our third quarter results in more detail and our updated outlook for 2025. John Corkrean: Thank you, Celeste. I'll begin with some additional financial details on the third quarter. For the quarter, revenue was down 2.8% versus the same period last year. Currency had a positive impact of 1%, and the net impact of acquisitions and divestitures decreased revenue by 2.9%. Adjusting for those items, organic revenue was down 0.9%, pricing up 1%, and volume down 1.9% year on year in the quarter. Adjusted gross profit margin was 32.3%, up 190 basis points versus last year. The net impact of pricing and raw material cost actions, the benefit of acquisitions and divestitures, and targeted cost reduction efforts drove the year on year increase in adjusted gross profit margin. Adjusted selling, general, and administrative expense was up 3% year on year. Adjusting for M&A, FX, and variable comp, SG&A was flat year on year, reflecting diligent cost control. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter of $171 million was up 3% year on year, reflecting the positive net impact of pricing and raw material cost actions, which more than offset higher wage inflation and lower volume. The net impact of acquisitions and divestitures was neutral to EBITDA year on year. Adjusted earnings per share of $1.26 was up 12% versus 2024, driven by higher adjusted net income and lower shares outstanding. Third quarter operating cash flow was up 13% year on year, primarily driven by improved profitability. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA decreased from 3.4x at the end of the second quarter to 3.3x at the end of 2025. Solid cash flow from operations, growth in adjusted EBITDA, and our intentional slowdown in M&A activity drove the sequential decrease in our leverage ratio. With that, let me now turn to our guidance for the 2025 fiscal year. As a result of our year-to-date performance, the current macroeconomic conditions summarized by Celeste, are updating our previously communicated financial guidance for fiscal 2025 as follows. Net revenue is still expected to be down 2% to 3% year on year, now expect organic revenue to be flat to up 1% year on year, expect foreign exchange to adversely impact revenue by approximately 1% year on year. We are tightening our adjusted EBITDA range for the year to $615 million to $625 million, equating to growth of 4% to 5% year on year. This compares favorably to our initial 2025 full-year guidance of $600 million to $625 million. Now expect our 2025 core tax rate to be between 26% and 26.5% and expect full-year interest expense to be between $125 million and $130 million. Combined, these assumptions now result in full-year adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $4.10 to $4.25, equating to year on year growth of between 7% and 11%. We now expect full-year operating cash flow to be between $275 million and $300 million, reflecting slightly higher inventory levels in preparation for our manufacturing footprint optimization. Finally, we reduced our full-year capital spending target to approximately $140 million for the year. Now let me turn the call back over to Celeste to wrap us up. Celeste Mastin: Thank you, John. As we entered 2025, we anticipated a challenging macroeconomic environment where both volume growth and margin expansion would be difficult. This sentiment was further exacerbated by the upending of global trade relations and tariff-driven disruption. As a result of our expectation for a difficult year, we took early and proactive measures delivering strong execution on pricing and raw material management as well as cost controls while placing an emphasis on operational efficiency. These actions are clearly paying off as evidenced by our third quarter results. While we are not immune from an economic slowdown, we are diligently focused on the variables we can control. Starting with providing outstanding service and support to our customers. We are a demonstrated and critical partner to our customers as they grapple with potential changes to everything from the point of origin of the materials they buy to their manufacturing locations and processes. This is increasingly valuable in this time of material optionality and supply chain disruption. To wrap up, we are pleased with the progress we continue to make in improving our portfolio, streamlining our operations, and driving EBITDA margin expansion. While volume growth remains challenged, we have a clear and focused strategy and a highly experienced team that is well prepared to execute and drive operational success. We remain on track to deliver on our long-term EBITDA margin and growth targets. As a reminder, we look forward to seeing you at our Investor Day on October 20, where we will provide an update on our strategic plan, including our successful M&A strategy, transformational footprint optimization, and roadmap to our greater than 20% EBITDA margin goal. That concludes our prepared remarks for today. Operator, please open the line for questions. Operator: Thank you. You would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press 1 again. Please ensure that your phone is not on mute when called upon. Thank you. Your first question comes from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. David Begleiter: Good morning. This is Emily Fusco on for Dave Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Could you provide some more detail behind the reduction in cash flow guidance? Thanks. Celeste Mastin: Morning. Good morning, Emily. John, do you wanna cover cash flow? John Corkrean: Sure. It really comes down to working capital, specifically inventory, Emily. So as we've in preparation and we're actually kind of in process on a number of these footprint consolidation actions. We're trying to manage inventory a little differently to accommodate these, which requires us to keep higher inventory levels. That's driving the increase in working capital and the decrease in cash flow expectations for the year. And I would just add that they're temporary. Right? They're positioning us for these changes, and we would expect that we would reduce inventory to more normal levels in the future. Emily Fusco: Got it. Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Patrick Cunningham with Citi. Your line is open. Celeste Mastin: Morning, Patrick. Alex: Hi. This is actually Alex on Patrick's team. Thank you for taking my question. So for me, what kind of struck me as interesting was that in EA, autos and durables, you're kind of saying that things were okay. I'm just curious if did anything accelerate in the quarter, or was anything whether it's in the mix or any kind of accretion from acquisitions? What kind of LPA volumes there and margins there? Celeste Mastin: Right. Absolutely. So in the EA business, we had a great quarter, and a few things happened there that are notable. So in Q2, you might recall if you were on at that time, Alex, that we said that we were experiencing a temporary lull in the electronics market in Q2, as more and more product upgrades were coming out featuring our adhesive, in some wins there as we continue to take share. That was one thing that did happen during the quarter favorably. Our electronics business returned to globally double-digit organic growth. Also in the quarter, we saw great performance improvement in our US business. In Q2, we had seen that business operating at negative mid-single-digit organic growth, in Q3 in EA in the U.S. The business drove forward to positive mid-single-digit organic growth. A lot of that based on some share take and new customer wins, but also just really strong execution by our sales and technical service teams. So we're seeing some good momentum in the EA business. And we expect that to continue going forward. Alex: Great. Thank you very much. Operator: The next question comes from Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. Your line is open. Ghansham Panjabi: Hi. Good morning. It is actually good morning, Ghansham. Celeste Mastin: Good to hear you. Ghansham Panjabi: Likewise. So, Celeste, you know, just going back to your prepared comments and, you know, the caution you shared for obviously good reason, etcetera. But how would you explain the HHC decline in volumes versus EA in context of HHC, generally speaking, being, you know, considered a little bit more defensive versus EA, which has multiple dimensions of exposure, including to some of the cyclical end markets. How would you always think about that? Celeste Mastin: Yeah. The way I think about that, Ghansham, is our EA business today is performing much stronger than the market. I do think we're still seeing slowing in durable goods. However, that team, as I mentioned, as it relates to electronics, but also as it relates to automotive, has really been successfully growing their business, taking share, bringing unique solutions to the customer base, and that has facilitated their above-market growth. In the HHC business, we saw strong pricing performance around the globe in the third quarter. However, you know, volumes were really tough to come by, Ghansham. And you know, they really are a reflection of the consumer. And so in all major regions, The Americas, Europe, Asia, we saw mid-single-digit declines in HHC volume. And I just think that's a reflection of the eroding global economic consumer. Ghansham Panjabi: Got it. And then, you know, in past calls, you've given us some characterization in terms of your different GBUs and the number that are decelerating versus accelerating. Can you do that score on as well? Like, how did 3Q actually shape up as it relates to the different GBUs? Celeste Mastin: Yeah. So in the business in total, about eight of our market segments out of 30 were accelerating. And, you know, what we saw typically was in every GBU that the case for about half of them. So nothing really notable there. And I'm pleased that we were able to deliver a quarter that demonstrated EBITDA margin expansion and positive pricing in all GBUs. And maintained that sort of mid-level of acceleration. It didn't take all of our segments operating in concert positively to deliver that. Ghansham Panjabi: Okay. And then just one final one, as it relates to the outlook for fiscal year 2026, which isn't that far away. Is solar, will that fully have cycled through as it relates to the negative volumes by then, or will there be some sort of lingering flow through into fiscal year 2026? Celeste Mastin: Yeah. So let's talk about solar, just the solar strategy, solar technology, and then what you should expect from a revenue and an EBITDA margin perspective. So in the global solar industry, we operate, supplying three different product lines essentially to that space. Two of the three of those product lines are very specialized. And in fact, they are critical in enabling more efficient solar panels to be produced and introduced in the future upcoming years. So we're continuing to emphasize those product ranges. Now the third product range, which is more of a silicon sealant type of product, became, you know, really a challenging part of that market, particularly in China. As construction in China slowed down and those sealants were redirected into the solar industry. That's a part of the market where we're going to be deemphasizing our focus. And so with all of that as the technology backdrop and the market backdrop to what's going on, what you'll see in the P&L is that on the top line, there will continue to be headwinds as it relates to revenue as we continue to draw back away from the silicon sealant product line in particular regions. Now what you will also see, however, is a shoring up of EBITDA and EBITDA margin as we're exiting that lower margin space. Ghansham Panjabi: Okay. Very helpful. Thank you very much. Operator: The next question comes from Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open. Mike Harrison: Morning, Mike. Celeste Mastin: Hi. Good morning. Appreciate you taking my question. You've talked about this, I believe it was $55 million worth of kind of pricing versus raw material cost tailwind for the year. Was hoping that you could give us a sense of where we stand on that. Are you tracking above or below that number? How much of it is yet to be realized? And maybe give us a little bit of a sense of how you're seeing raw material costs trending as we start to think about price cost and some potential tailwind from that into fiscal 2026? Celeste Mastin: Sure. So that's correct. At the beginning of the year, we established that in order to achieve our guidance of $600 million to $625 million of EBITDA, we would be delivering $55 million of price and raw material cost action benefit. So it's less about how the market's trending, more about the action that we were taking on raw materials, in order to get there. And so if you look at our progress as of the first half, as I mentioned last quarter, we had achieved about $5 million of that. However, we also established that we have taken all of the actions that we needed to take in order to make both of those factors, price and raw material savings, come to fruition. What we realized over the course of this quarter is that the cadence for those savings is going to be slower than we anticipated given that we have more raw material inventory in preparation for this footprint optimization. So through the third quarter, we've generated about $15 million of the $55 million of price and cost action. We anticipate another $15 million benefit in Q4, and then the remainder will wrap around into the beginning of next year. You know, in the interim, in order to still achieve our guidance, we did take action to pull forward some of our footprint optimization savings. And so we still feel very confident. And as you see, we brought up the bottom end of our range last quarter and have just tightened it now to be able to achieve $615 million to $625 million of EBITDA this year. Mike Harrison: Alright. So it sounds like maybe $20 or $25 million yet to come in '26. Is that the way we should think about it? Celeste Mastin: Correct. Mike Harrison: Okay. Perfect. And then my other question for you is you guys have had a number of organic growth initiatives since you took over, Celeste. Also done a number of bolt-ons over the past couple of years. As you look at the cross-selling and geographic expansion opportunities, just curious if you can talk about how much faster than underlying markets you think you can grow in the next year or two? It sounds like you're really delivering on that potential in EA, but I'm just curious, can it accelerate in EA? What do you think about the other two segments? Celeste Mastin: Yes. It has accelerated in EA. In fact, I was really pleased just the other day to be talking to one of our leaders here in the U.S. and finding that we have adopted the Vibrotite product range from ND Industries into our HVAC product range. So, we are expanding the ND Industries products very quickly. In fact, you will see an expansion by the conclusion of the year of those in multiple additional geographies. Three new locations versus where that business was when we acquired it last year. The other thing I would say is, you know, we've been really pleased with the medical adhesive business. Again, it's a business where we're growing businesses that we acquired into new geographies. And in fact, if you look at the medical adhesive technology business, the EBITDA has doubled and revenues are up 60%, with EBITDA margins over 40% just this year. We're really excited. We're validated that our strategy is delivering in the manner that we originally anticipated, and you see that in the EBITDA expansion numbers. It's been a prime contributor. Mike Harrison: Alright. And any comment on BAS? I know that The Middle East, in particular, has been an expansion initiative. Celeste Mastin: The Middle East has been an expansion. You know, that business, I know organic growth was down 1% this quarter. But bear in mind, it held in there well on a very good comp from Q3 prior year. In fact, 2024, our roofing business, which is one of the bigger businesses in that GBU, was up 30% organic growth. So the business is performing well. We're seeing adoption of our 4SG insulated glass sealant. In fact, we just won a couple of projects in Japan, so we're seeing kind of geographical expansion of that business. And are pleased with its performance. Yes. The Middle East represents a great opportunity for us there. Mike Harrison: Alright. Thanks very much. Operator: The next question comes from Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is open. Matt Hetwer: Hi. This is Matt Hetwer on for Kevin McCarthy. Staying with BAS, you know, as the Fed presumably continues to cut interest rates moving forward, what kind of lag effects do you expect to see between the timing of lower interest rates and how they might feed through to stronger results in that business? And are there any specific, you know, underlying business lines in BAS, such as maybe glass or woodworking, you think might benefit from lower interest rates more than others? Celeste Mastin: Yes. So lower interest rates tend to impact our business, call it, fifteen to eighteen months later than we would see them in the architectural billing index. Now that said, there will be more immediate impacts of lower interest rates both on that business and at H.B. Fuller. I mean, just the mobility that lower interest rates create, the possibility for household formation or and moving households, helps bolster our business in many ways. The HHC business would benefit from that, in BAS. Specifically, the woodworking business, think furniture, would benefit from that. And so, ultimately, we don't have to see building as a consequence of interest rates to get the benefit. We will see indirect benefits in addition. Matt Hetwer: Great. Thank you. And then, yeah, I guess one more for BAS. You know, data centers have been a source of strength to you. I was wondering if you could just give us a sense for how large that business is. And, you know, I assume it's maybe on the smaller side, but is the high growth rate there relative to the size of the business, you know, is that strong enough for it to have a meaningful impact on segment results moving forward? Celeste Mastin: Yeah. So the data center business, just to speak more broadly, and then, John, maybe you can speak to it relative to H.B. Fuller. More broadly, the data center business grew this year at 40% as I understand it, and the outlook is for that business to continue to grow at a rate of, call it, 30%. Our BAS business has taken a very strategic approach to data center building. We've long been part of the specification for the roofing systems in data centers. And now that we have revised that GBU and have different market segments working together, we've been able to bring a package of adhesives to support different parts of the structure. And I think I mentioned last quarter I was pretty wild about the flooring adhesive we've introduced for panels and raised floors in data centers that dissipates electrostatic energy. So the team is approaching the business very strategically. John, do you wanna comment on how to contextualize that? Maybe dimensionalize the size. John Corkrean: You know, most of this activity resides in our roofing business, which is a 100% commercial focus. That business, you know, it's between 5% and 10% of total revenue. I'm gonna guess, you know, data centers are less than half of that, but they're growing quickly. So it's a true strategic focus area. It's high margin business, and the team's done a great job of winning new business to really drive both take advantage of both the underlying macro trends, but as win new business on top of that. Matt Hetwer: Great. Thank you. Operator: Star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Lydia Hoang with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Lydia Hoang: Hi, good morning. Could you give some color on the pricing trends for your segments in the fourth quarter? Thank you. Celeste Mastin: Sure. Just you probably noticed, Lydia, that the businesses, all three GBUs were positive price year on year in Q3. There's a very supportive pricing environment in the market, given so much inflation tariffs, etcetera. And in fact, speaking of the fourth quarter, I actually just was reading a survey that was done here in the U.S. by the Adhesives and Sealants Council. They had surveyed their members to understand amongst other things how they were responding to tariffs and price was one question related to that. And 84% of the respondents to that survey that are all adhesives and sealants companies responded that they were raising price. So again, it's a very supportive pricing environment, and I think you'll continue to see that throughout the fourth quarter. Lydia Hoang: Thank you. Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call to Celeste Mastin, CEO, for closing remarks. Celeste Mastin: Thank you very much for joining the call today. We look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Have a great day. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.
Yuki Nishio: [Foreign Language] Now I'd like to turn this call over to KK, Senior Vice President, Finance, JPAC and Japan CFO. S.Krishna Kumar: Thank you, Nishio-san. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Oracle Japan's First Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Earnings Conference Call. We had another excellent performance in this Q1 attributed to growth of cloud services, especially Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The demand is substantial for our cloud business, which has led to acceleration in revenue growth. In Software License business, we changed our list price in Q2 '25. Therefore, we anticipated that there would be a reactionary decrease due to rush demand in Q1 of last year. We announced the opening of Japan operations center to accelerate innovation in AI adoption by Japanese companies and organizations and to accelerate the adoption of sovereign cloud. This center supports Oracle Alloy partner companies by providing operational expertise and technical assistance, enabling them to deliver a broad range of cloud and AI services and expand their business. Regarding Oracle AI World in Las Vegas from October 13 to 16, starting this year, it will be called Oracle AI World. The new name emphasizes our commitment to help customers and partners take advantage of latest AI innovations to move faster, reduce costs, make more informed decisions and build smarter businesses. You can also participate online via streaming all live events. We continue to add a lot of customers in various industries like public sector manufacturing, financials and information technology. Let me give you a few examples. Number one, Kubota provides products and solutions developed and produced in over 120 countries and regions worldwide across the fields of food, water and environment. When advancing water environment projects across 3 Southeast Asian countries, information was previously managed in a decentralized manner using spreadsheet software and paper creating a risk of human error. Additionally, there was a need to strengthen internal controls and streamline redundant tasks. It was difficult to grasp information on profit and loss project performance in real time, posing challenges for rapid management decision-making. To solve these issues, Kubota selected NetSuite, a solution that could be implemented quickly and cost effectively while offering high adaptability to change. Number two, Yamato Contact Service, which handles Contact Center and BPO operations for the Yamato Group has streamlined its customer support operations by leveraging Oracle Cloud Infrastructure generative AI service and Oracle Database 23ai. Specifically in e-mail support operations, they have successfully increased the match rate for proposing FAQs to self resolvable inquiries to 85%, roughly double the previous rate. This has enabled Yamato to automatically process and reduce approximately 20% of e-mail inquiries relating to TA-Q-BIN delivery operations using AI. Number three, Toyo University. Looking ahead to its 150th anniversary in 2037, Toyo University is formulating a vision for its future as a comprehensive academic institution. To achieve this, a financial accounting system, enabling data-driven management decisions and financial operations was essential. While previously using a custom developed system, the university adopted Oracle Cloud ERP to reduce operational and maintenance burdens and transition to a sustainable, highly flexible system. Oracle Cloud ERP is valued for its extensive implementation track record at universities, both domestically and internationally and its ability to loosely integrate with university-specific peripheral systems via APIs and its flexibility to accommodate future expansion. Number four, AEON Housing Loan Service, AEON faced challenges in its traditional on-premise environment including end-of-life hardware maintenance, delays in applying security patches, difficulties in flexible resource allocation and the need to strengthen its disaster recovery configuration. Against this backdrop, following a feasibility study and POC for cloud migration using Oracle Cloud Lift Services, they decided to proceed with a full-scale migration to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. With support from Oracle Consulting Services, they achieved full cloud migration in a short time frame. This was made possible by high affinity between our on-premise Oracle database environment and Oracle autonomous database on OCI, coupled with a highly reliable project structure. This is just to give you a sense of the broad outreach in the market that we have with our different products and services and to underline Oracle's presence in most mission-critical systems, applications and industries. Let me move to the numbers. We have made some changes to the face of our income statement to better reflect how we manage the business so you understand our cloud business dynamics more directly. Total revenue was JPY 66,275 million, growing at 3.7% compared to previous year, driven by strong growth in our cloud revenue. Total cloud revenue was JPY 19,097 million, up 37.2% now represent 29% of the total company revenue. Infrastructure consumption revenues continue to have a strong momentum which includes autonomous database. Operating income was JPY 21,128 million, decreasing 4.8% and net income was JPY 14,805 million, down 3.7%. Total revenue again hit a record high for the first quarter. The profit categories were down mainly due to decline in high-margin software license business. We will maintain our guidance for revenue and EPS communicated at the start of this fiscal year. Thank you very much, and back to Nishio-san. Yuki Nishio: [Foreign Language] Unknown Executive: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] First question is from Kikuchi-san of SMBC Nikko. There are 2 questions, but we will go one by one. First question. This is about the revenue of cloud service in the first quarter. Year-on-year, it grew by 37% and Q-on-Q, it grew by 12%. It appears to have grown significantly Q-on-Q basis, but is there any onetime factor? S.Krishna Kumar: As I mentioned in my opening comments, our infrastructure revenues, especially infrastructure [Technical Difficulty] Hello. I'm back. Sorry, I think I got disconnected. Yuki Nishio: [Foreign Language] S.Krishna Kumar: So did you hear my answer to the question? Or should I start again? Yuki Nishio: You were cut off. Please start over again. S.Krishna Kumar: Okay. Let me talk about the cloud revenue. So I think we will -- we saw very strong momentum, as I said in my opening comments. This is across all product offerings, especially infrastructure and even SaaS revenue growth was strong. So -- and I think there is no one-off factor affecting this. So we should see strong momentum continuing into the fiscal year. Yuki Nishio: [Foreign Language] Unknown Executive: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] And second question from Kikuchi-san. This is about HR expense. The growth is quite significant. However, in terms of number of headcount, it is not increasing. So what are the reasons behind it? And if you could share with me the outlook for second quarter and onwards, that would be helpful. S.Krishna Kumar: Yes. Regarding the people expense, we -- there are a few factors that is affecting the increase. There was a salary increase last year that was provided. We are also constantly changing and churning our people. So new people come at higher costs, with the right skill set, and that's the whole intention of the organization. And we also had some restructuring expense that got into the P&L. And also a little bit of stock compensation expenses got affected because the stock price also climbed significantly. So these are some of the factors that are contributing to the personnel expense. The second question on the outlook for Q2 and beyond. As I said, for the full year, I am maintaining my guidance. We should see some bounce back in license. I would expect it to bounce back for the remainder of the year. And we'll continue to see some good momentum on our cloud revenues. So the year looks very strong for us. Yuki Nishio: [Foreign Language] Unknown Executive: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] We have questions from Noda-san of CLSA Securities. This is about Oracle Alloy, when will it start to contribute to the revenue of cloud service? S.Krishna Kumar: Sorry. Sorry, I was on mute. So all the alloys that we have booked, and we have more alloys in our pipeline that we are working on. Some of it will start showing in our numbers towards the end of this fiscal FY '26. But the consumption will really accelerate. The alloy consumption will really start accelerating more in FY '27. Yuki Nishio: [Foreign Language] Unknown Executive: [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Second question from Noda-san of CLSA Securities. OpenAI and Meta in the U.S. are starting to use OCI for their infrastructure to do inferencing. So -- and if these tech companies wishes to -- wish to expand their AI service in Japan. And if they start to use OCI in Tokyo region in order to ensure secure their local resources, will this become a potential upside from Oracle Japan? S.Krishna Kumar: So this is kind of a little -- I appreciate the question, but at this point in time, it's a little hypothetical for me. It all depends on how we contract it and what exactly the nature of work would be and whether it's an Oracle Japan contract or not. But having said that, what we have seen globally, and you -- if you have followed Oracle Corporation's earnings call, we -- a lot of the biggest training model -- or large language models do their training on by default on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. We also have enabled OCI to offer these large language models to our customers as a choice. For example, our customers can use our generative AI service and use any of these LLMs, whether it's OpenAI or Grok or Llama to further their AI capabilities for their organizations. So there will be some linkages. And of course, it's going to be beneficial for Oracle Japan also. But I don't think I can answer your specific -- I don't -- I have an answer to your question specifically on this one. Thank you. Yuki Nishio: [Foreign Language] Unknown Executive: [Foreign Language] [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Abby, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Costco Wholesale Corporation Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2025 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 a second time. And thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gary Millerchip, Chief Financial Officer. You may begin. Gary Millerchip: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Costco's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. I'd like to start by reminding you that these discussions will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results, and or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in today's call, as well as other risks identified from time to time in the company's public statements and reports filed with the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and the company does not undertake to update these statements except as required by law. Comparable sales and comparable sales excluding impact from changes in gasoline prices and foreign exchange are intended as supplemental information and are not a substitute for net sales presented in accordance with GAAP. Before we dive into our financial results, I am delighted to say that Ron Vachris is once again joining me for today's call. I'll now hand over to Ron for some opening comments. Ron Vachris: Thank you, Gary. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As we wrap up fiscal year 2025, I'll make a few brief comments on some of the highlights. In the fourth quarter, we opened 10 new warehouses including a relocation in Canada, our twentieth warehouse in Korea, our second warehouse in Sweden, and five net new locations in the US. For the fiscal year, we opened 27 new warehouses including three relocations for a total of 24 net new buildings. This brings our total warehouse count to 914 worldwide. We plan to open another 35 warehouses in fiscal year 2026, of which five are relocations. We continue to see significant opportunities for expansion both domestically and internationally across the markets where we currently operate. Gary will go into details about the quarter results, but a few highlights for the fiscal year: Net sales came in just under $270 billion, an increase of over 8% versus last year, and e-commerce sales exceeded $19.6 billion, increasing over 15%. We had a record year for gas volumes, which benefited from longer gas station hours, new gas stations, and expansions of existing gas stations as well. We also recently celebrated a few milestones including the fortieth anniversary of our $1.50 hot dog and soda combo. Fittingly, we've just completed the rollout of Coca-Cola, the original soda partner from the 1985 inception, of the iconic combo to all food courts worldwide. Our private label Kirkland Signature reached its thirtieth year anniversary this year. Kirkland Signature sales penetration continues to increase, bringing even more high-quality value to our members while offsetting potentially inflationary impacts from tariffs. As mentioned last quarter, we are continuing to look at opportunities to move more KS product sourcing into the countries and regions where the items are sold, and this is helping to lower costs as well as reduce emissions from transporting goods around the world. To increase value and convenience for our members, on June 30, we added executive member exclusive operating hours in the mornings, an additional hour on Saturday evenings for all members in our US warehouses. We estimate these incremental hours have added about 1% to weekly US sales since implementation. This has been very well received by our members. In addition to the early opening hours for executive members, we also introduced a $10 credit per month on Instacart purchases greater than $150. Since announcing these new executive benefits, we've seen a meaningful increase in upgrades from Gold Star members to Executive Membership. Another way we are improving the member experience is through the rollout of enhanced checkout technology in all US warehouses. This is speeding up the checkout process by allowing our employees to scan small and medium-sized transactions while the member is still in line. So upon reaching the cashier, nothing has to be removed from the cart. Only payment is needed. We also continue to make progress with our technology roadmap for digital and e-commerce. Enhancements this quarter included using data augmentation to improve search effectiveness, adding passwordless sign-in to our mobile app, and creating a waiting room for high-velocity items such as Pokémon cards. These waiting rooms reduce the traffic from bots, increase the opportunity for members to purchase high-demand items, while improving the speed and the stability of the site during peak traffic periods. Reflecting on fiscal year 2025 overall, our merchandising and operations team did a fantastic job delivering strong financial results while also investing in our employees and improving value and convenience for our members. Our merchants adjusted their plans to mitigate tariff impacts and source items that our members need while delivering the lowest price at the best value. Our operators quickly and efficiently adapted to pay raises in March '24, July '24, and, again, March '25, that brought our average hourly US wage to over $31 per hour. And most recently to the expansion of our operating hours. Their focus on efficiency and improving productivity allowed us to absorb these significant investments with minimal impact to our SG&A rate. As we look ahead to fiscal year 2026, despite the current macroeconomic uncertainty, we remain confident in our ability to grow market share by continuing to deliver exciting, high-quality items at the best value for our members. With that, I'll turn it back over to Gary to discuss the results for the quarter, and I'll jump back in during Q&A to fill some questions. Gary Millerchip: In today's press release, we reported operating results for the sixteen weeks ended August 31. As usual, we've published a slide deck under events and presentations on our investor website with supplemental information to support today's press release. Net income for the fourth quarter came in at $2.61 billion or $5.87 per diluted share, up 11% from $2.35 billion or $5.29 per diluted share in the fourth quarter last year. Last year's results included a non-recurring tax benefit of $63 million or $0.14 per diluted share. Excluding this tax item, net income and earnings per diluted share both grew 14%. Net sales for the fourth quarter were $84.43 billion, an increase of 8% from $78.18 billion in the fourth quarter last year. Comparable sales were 5.7% or 6.4% adjusted for gas deflation and FX. E-commerce comparable sales were 13.6%, or 13.5% adjusted for FX. Our segment breakout of comparable sales is disclosed in both our earnings release and the supplemental slide deck. In terms of Q4 comp sales metrics, FX positively impacted sales by approximately 0.2%, while gas price deflation negatively impacted sales by approximately 0.9%. Traffic or shopping frequency increased 3.7% worldwide. Our average transaction or ticket was up 1.9% worldwide. This includes the impacts from gas deflation and FX. Adjusted for those items, the ticket would have been up 2.6% worldwide. Moving down the income statement to membership fee income. We reported membership fee income of $1.72 billion, an increase of $212 million or 14% year over year. Adjusting for FX, the increase was 13.6%. Last September's US and Canada membership fee increase accounted for a little less than half of the membership fee income growth in the quarter. Excluding the membership fee increase and FX, membership income grew 7% year over year. This was driven by continued growth in our membership base and increased upgrades from Gold Star to Executive Membership. At Q4 end, we had 38.7 million paid executive memberships, up 9.3% versus last year. Executive members represented 47.7% of paid members, 74.2% of worldwide sales. As Ron mentioned earlier, we have recently seen a lift in upgrades in the US after we announced our executive member exclusive hours and other benefits. New member sign-ups continue to be strong, and we ended the fiscal year with 81 million total paid members, up 6.3% versus last year, and 145.2 million cardholders, up 6.1% year over year. In terms of renewal rates at Q4 end, our US and Canada renewal rate was 92.3%, and the worldwide rates came in at 89.8%. The decline in renewal rates was largely attributable to a higher number of online sign-ups entering the renewal rate. And this quarter included a large Groupon campaign in December 2023 entering the calculation. Overall, we view the growth in online sign-ups as a net positive. As they are helping to grow our overall membership base and membership revenue, and are also introducing younger members to Costco. Almost half of our new member sign-ups are now under the age of forty. As we previously shared, new online members renew at a slightly lower rate on average, and they have grown as a percentage of our sign-ups over recent years. We would therefore expect to continue to see a small decline in our renewal rate as this change in membership mix gets fully reflected in our renewal rate calculation. That being said, through a focus on auto renewal and targeted digital communications, our goal is to improve the renewal rate for this cohort of new members in the future. Turning to gross margin. Our reported rate in the fourth quarter was higher year over year by 13 basis points, coming in at 11.13% compared to 11% last year. Gross margin was up three basis points excluding gas deflation. Core was higher by 30 basis points, and higher by 22 basis points without gas deflation. In terms of core margins on their own sales, our core on core margins were higher by 29 basis points. This increase was broad-based with fresh, foods and sundries, and nonfoods all up year over year. Supply chain improvements and an increase in KS penetration benefited margins in all categories. While fresh further benefited from lower spoilage and labor efficiencies. Ancillary and other businesses' gross margin was lower by 11 basis points and 13 basis points without gas deflation. Gas was the main driver of the decrease. LIFO negatively impacted the gross margin rate by six basis points. We had a $43 million LIFO charge in Q4 this year, compared to an $8 million credit in Q4 last year. This charge was essentially in line with the estimate we provided last quarter as overall inflation remained consistent with Q3. On to SG&A. Our reported SG&A rate in the fourth quarter was higher or worse year over year by 17 basis points, coming in at 9.21% compared to last year's 9.04%. SG&A was higher or worse by nine basis points adjusted for gas deflation. The operations component of SG&A was higher or worse by 15 basis points and eight basis points without gas deflation. This increase was partly due to our investment in employee wages. As noted last quarter, the incremental year over year impact from this year's March employee agreement was mid-single-digit basis points. And the off-cycle wage increase in July 2024, which affected the year over year rate comparison for the first ten weeks of Q4, was mid to high single-digit basis points. An increase in general liability charges and reserves also negatively impacted SG&A this quarter by approximately five basis points. To partially offset these headwinds, our operators continue to do a great job leveraging strong top-line sales and improving labor productivity. Notably, following the change in warehouse hours on June 30, our operators were able to minimize any impact to the SG&A rate. Below the operating income line, interest expense was $46 million versus $49 million last year, and interest income was $169 million versus $138 million last year. FX and other was a $46 million gain in Q4 this year, versus an $18 million loss last year. In terms of income taxes, our Q4 tax rate was 25.6% compared to 24.4% last year. As a reminder, last year's tax rate included a non-benefit of $63 million related to a transfer pricing settlement and true-ups of tax reserves. Turning now to some key items of note in the quarter. Capital expenditure in Q4 was approximately $1.97 billion and for the full year was a little under $5.5 billion. We made some additional investments in Q4 to support accelerated warehouse growth, including the 35 planned openings in fiscal year 2026 that Ron mentioned earlier. Additionally, we increased our pace of spend on remodels to ensure that we continue to offer our members a best-in-class experience across all of our warehouses. Land purchases for future depot expansions and investments in our manufacturing facilities for expanded hot dog production and a new coffee roasting facility also contributed to the increased spend. A few fun sales facts as we wrap up our fiscal year. While our members love the treasure hunt items that they find in our warehouses and online, our everyday value items are also extremely important to them. Especially in times of economic uncertainty. There are no better examples of this than our hot dog combo, rotisserie chicken, and KS bath tissue. And in fiscal year 2025, we sold over 245 million hot dog combos, over 157 million rotisserie chickens, and enough bath tissue to reach the moon and back over 200 times. Now taking a look at core merchandising sales in the quarter. Fresh sales were up high single digits, led by double-digit growth in meat. We continue to see strong unit growth across the department due to the quality and value we offer on both premium and lower-cost proteins. Wagyu and grass-fed beef performed well in the quarter, and lower-cost proteins like poultry, pork, and ground beef also saw very strong unit growth. Nonfoods had comp sales in the high single digits. Our buyers continue to do an excellent job finding new and exciting items great values. Which are resonating well with members even as they remain very choice in their spending on discretionary items. In the quarter, gold and jewelry, gift cards, majors, toys, and men's apparel were all up double digits. While gold was less of a year over year tailwind than earlier in the year, as we have now started to lap sales from a year ago, it continues to perform well. Strength in gift cards was driven by Disney, Uber, and DoorDash. And majors were up high teens with consumer electronics leading the way. We also added a number of new high-quality national brand partnerships across a broad range of nonfood categories including Fabletics, True Classic, Aura, and La-Z-Boy. Food and sundries had mid to high single-digit comps. With cola and candy showing the strongest results. New Kirkland Signature offerings allow us to deliver greater value to members and our high-quality alternatives to some tariff-impacted goods. KS items typically offer members 15 to 20% value compared to national brand alternatives, with equal or better quality. In Q4, we launched over 30 new KS items, including grass-fed beef sticks, organic extra firm tofu, and various apparel items. In addition to our latest food court offering, the combo calzone. Within ancillary businesses, pharmacy, optical, and hearing aids all had strong quarters. And while gas volumes were positive low single digits in the quarter, gas comps were negative mid to high single digits due to a lower average price per gallon. Turning to inflation. Overall, inflation remained in the low to mid-single-digit range. Fresh, and food and sundries were relatively similar to last quarter, with higher inflation in key commodities like beef, coffee, sugar, and corn partially offset by lower inflation in produce, eggs, butter, and cocoa. In nonfoods, we saw inflation return for the second consecutive quarter, primarily driven by imported items. This inflation drove the $43 million LIFO charge for the quarter, which is calculated by comparing the net landed cost of inventory at the beginning of the fiscal year to the net landed cost of inventory on hand at the end of the fiscal year. We continue to work closely with our suppliers to find ways to mitigate the impact of tariffs, including moving the country of production where it makes sense, and consolidating our buying efforts globally to lower the cost of goods across all our markets. Additionally, we are changing item assortment where appropriate. This includes leaning into KS items, and increasing domestically sourced goods. Examples include an increased emphasis on items in health and beauty, live goods, tires, and mattresses. We believe our expertise in buying, and the flexibility afforded by our limited SKU count give us greater agility to navigate the current environment and minimize the impact of tariffs. Our ultimate goal is to increase our member values compared to the market. From a supply chain perspective, we haven't seen any major changes since last quarter. Overall, supply remains relatively stable. With no notable issues. Looking ahead to the holiday season, our merchants feel good about our inventory position, and while the product mix will look a little different from years past, we will have a strong assortment of high-quality items that bring meaningful value, seasonal themes, and exciting newness to our members. Turning now to digital. E-commerce site traffic was up 27%, and sales were led by gold and jewelry, housewares, apparel, tires, sporting goods, majors, small electrics, lawn and garden, and domestics. All of which grew double digits year over year. We continue to grow share in big and bulky items sold online, powered by our investments in Costco logistics. The combination of great values and the delivery experience that includes installation and haul away of old items resonating extremely well with members and resulted in a 13% increase in items delivered in the quarter. Q4 fiscal year 2025 marked the fifteenth consecutive quarter of improved member experience scores for Costco logistics deliveries. A key focus of our digital strategy is to deliver a seamless experience and more personalized and relevant communications to our members. This is a multiyear journey, and as we complete the foundation elements of our plan, we are able to launch new experiences for members. For example, during the fourth quarter, we launched more relevant messaging on the costco.com home page highlighting different offers depending on an individual's membership type and co-brand credit card status. Executive members are shown information about executive benefits, while Gold Star members are encouraged to upgrade their membership. And nonmembers are shown information about becoming members. Co-brand cardholders will be shown offers associated with ongoing spend campaigns, while noncardholders will be shown acquisition offers. These digital capabilities are also an enabler for retail media, as they allow us to target specific ads that deliver greater value for both members and suppliers, while always honoring the privacy choices of our members. As an example, we recently executed a series of targeted MVM amplification campaigns with Kimberly-Clark on third-party websites. This resulted in a strong return on ad spend of 14 to 1, drove a 22% increase in traffic to the product details pages, and a 45% increase in digital sales of the promoted items. As we continue to execute our digital and technology roadmap, we are excited about the opportunities this creates to further enhance the member experience, and drive top-line sales. Finally, in terms of upcoming releases, we will announce our September sales results for the five weeks ending Sunday, October 5, on Wednesday, October 8 after market close. Based on feedback received from investors, starting with our September sales release, we'll be changing our e-commerce comparable sales metric to now report digitally enabled comparable sales. This measure will incorporate all sales that originated online including our same-day delivery service fulfilled by Instacart, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Costco Travel, business center delivery, and a few other smaller direct-to-member businesses. We believe this change aligns our reporting more closely with how our retail peers disclose this metric. For fiscal year 2025, our digitally enabled sales totaled more than $27 billion. That concludes our prepared remarks. And we'll now open the line for questions. Operator: Thank you. And if you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your questions, simply press 1 a second time. If you're called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. To be able to take as many questions as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. Again, it is 1 if you would like to join the queue. And our first question comes from the line of Christopher Horvers with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Christopher Horvers: Thanks. Good evening. So my question has to do with the extended member hours. To what extent do you think that your members are actually aware of these extended hours? Was the June 30 the soft launch, and you made a harder launch as you came into the fall? And how do you think about that 1% comp lift in terms of it becoming much larger? Thanks very much. Ron Vachris: Well, I think the communication we have done a good job informing our members both with signing at the warehouse along with emails to our executive members. So we saw we really based that success based on the traffic we saw when we initially began these additional hours. 1% is after we've analyzed the business compared to the prior months and to see how much we've picked up both on the additional Saturday night hour along with the early morning hours as well. So we feel that the word is out there. We feel that we continue to communicate the executive member benefits as we continue to add to that suite of services that they get. And that is inclusive of the hours that they get as well. Gary Millerchip: Chris, I think as well, just to completely agree with Ron's comments, it's one of those things that obviously it's a little bit difficult to predict exactly how the change flows through in terms of impact of member shopping behavior. To Ron's point, we did a lot of communication. When we made changes before around some of our warehouses had longer hours before, it probably took a little bit longer than the first month or so for the full impact to show through in terms of member shopping behavior. But with that being said, I think because this was a national launch, we did get more visibility and more social media exposure to it as well. So I think we've been pleased with the response we've seen, but there's certainly probably more time to unfold to see exactly how it plays out. Christopher Horvers: Thanks very much. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Michael Lasser with UBS. Your line is open. Michael Lasser: Good evening. Thank you so much for taking my question. You mentioned that you would expect your renewal rate to continue to fall as some of the digital sign-ups accrete out of the base. How far do you expect to see the membership rate decline if we look back in the pre-COVID 2019, Costco regularly had a renewal rate worldwide renewal rate in the mid to high 80% range, is it realistic for it to go back to that? And if it did, what actions would Costco take in order to stabilize or improve that? And how might this all impact the financial performance of the company? Thank you very much. Gary Millerchip: Yeah. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate the question. You know, I think we take a little bit of a broader step back on the membership metrics because to your point, we certainly look at the renewal rate and it's an important measure for us and talk a little bit more about how we view the opportunity to improve that metric over time as well. But I do think, you know, when we look at our overall metrics for membership, we were pleased with how the quarter played out. I think you heard us say in the prepared remarks that we're seeing a continued increase in sign-ups, and that's also reflecting a growing number of younger members flowing into the base as well. We saw an acceleration in upgrades, particularly towards the end of the quarter after we announced the extended hours and the Instacash $10 benefit per month if you spend $150 on the basket. And we also saw overall household growth grow by greater than 6% and executive members up by over 9% because of the acceleration in upgrades. And then on membership fee income, actually, membership fee income was a little bit ahead of where we'd have budgeted at the start of the year. So looking at sort of the overall of the membership fee increase and the way that members were behaving overall, we're actually ahead of where we'd have budgeted based on everything we knew at that point. I think it's important just to take that bigger picture step back because overall, we think the membership base, the renewal rate is very strong overall, and the results that we're seeing in growth in our overall membership engagement is also very strong. Now with all that being said, as I mentioned a moment ago, we do view the membership renewal rate as an important measure and we've analyzed it very closely as you might imagine because it's something that we take pride in the overall level of membership renewal that we see. When we analyze it, it really is essentially the vast majority of it is attributable to this higher number of online sign-ups. And if you look at what's happened really since COVID, we've seen in the last three or four years, a significant growth in the number of members and the proportion of members that are signing up online. And that's bringing in newer members. It's helping to grow everything I just mentioned around membership fee income and an overall membership base. But they do renew at a slightly lower rate. And as you think about how our membership renewal rate works and how it lags the effect of some of those changes, we're really sort of flowing through the impact of that into a sort of changing mix, if you like, of the overall base. So as I mentioned in my prepared comments, we do think we'll see a few more quarters of a similar type of impact that we saw in this quarter with the 40 basis point decline. But that being said, as we learn more about how to engage with those newer digital members, we're really investing in the to improve the auto renewal with that member group, increase the amount of digital communication and more relevant communication for those members who are joining Costco starting online rather than starting in the warehouse. So we have to think about how we can help really get them to experience more of the great value that we offer in a broader relationship. So we think there's opportunities to improve that measure but overall, we like where we are with the membership metric in total because of the overall growth it's driving in our membership income. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett. Your line is open. Chuck Grom: Good afternoon. Can we dive into your core on core margins a little bit, up 29 basis points year over year, how that spans across categories? And then more broadly, curious any notable observations on price increases you've taken recently? And I guess what unit velocity you're observing in those product categories? And then just last question, just on the holiday you called out how the product mix might be different than your past. Can we just double click on that comment? I guess, what might be different in terms of particularly in the general merchandise part of the business? Thanks. Gary Millerchip: Yeah. Sure. Thanks for the question, Chuck. I'll cover the first couple of parts around margin and tariffs and then Ron will talk a little bit more about assortment for the holidays. On the gross margin rate, so, yeah, I talked a little bit about it in the prepared comments, but overall, you know, I think our focus was on the gross margin rate overall grew by three basis points excluding gas. And when we think about the job our buyers did and merchants did to navigate tariffs, and make sure we're still delivering tremendous value for our members, then we feel that was a really good outcome, and we were pleased with the way in which the team was able to manage staying true to who we are as a company and delivering value while also being able to deliver an overall slight improvement in the gross margin rate. The core on core margin was definitely the strength area. That was as I mentioned earlier, fairly well widespread across all three of our main categories. So fresh food and sundry and nonfoods all saw a slight improvement in core on core margin. It was really in our merchants and operators focusing on how can we offset some of the impacts that we're seeing in the business through tariffs. So a lot of the improvement came from supply chain efficiency with improvements by the operators in our depots and also gas prices helping with there as well. We also saw some mixed benefits with Kirkland Signature penetration improving. And then similar to last quarter, in fresh in particular, the teams did a great job of reducing spoilage or shrink as some retailers call it and improving our labor efficiency in the fresh departments. So those were all tailwinds in the quarter that helped us offset some of the headwinds that we saw in gas margins in particular during the quarter. Also the impact that we saw on the LIFO charge with the higher inflation in the back half of the year. I think, you know, in terms of about it for the future, I would say, really, we tend not to focus on individual quarters because our goal obviously is to manage the business for the long term. I should say, and manage the business holistically. And so I think it's probably more relevant to look at the performance over a number of years and how we've been able to continue to grow the business and seen a slight improvement in gross margin. And really, we look at the quarter, and as I mentioned earlier, how we're able to balance the impact of tariffs and supporting our members while also maintaining a steady gross margin rate as well. I'll maybe let Ron talk a little bit about the assortment and what we're seeing there with some of the changes. Ron Vachris: Thank you, Gary. And exactly. You know, it's not gonna be a marked change than what you'll see in a Costco. Our buyers, when we were booking for this holiday season, really had to evaluate all the discretionary items, the toys and the trim and the decorations and those kinds of things, and made decisions based on the necessities and what they felt they needed to be in Christmas trees, but we skinned that. We really thinned down that whole category. And we thinned down a lot of the additional seasonal areas as well. What that provided us was the opportunity to bring in categories that we don't traditionally carry during that time of year. And so we're seeing some of that already when we're bringing in backyard sheds in the fall, which are doing very, very well for us. We never had the ability to do that due to space constraints. We're bringing in saunas for your garage or your home who are also performing very well. High ticket goods that are very relevant to the time of year but not reflective of the traditional Costco set you'll see. You'll see some more furniture in the warehouses that we normally didn't do any furniture that time of year. But it says great opportunities for top-line sales. So I feel really good about the way the buyers have pivoted on the discretionary items and said, okay. How can we still be relevant in the time of year with some new categories that we had not done before due to space limitations. So I still see it as a very exciting holiday season. With some new goods that we haven't carried in prior years. Chuck Grom: Great. Thank you. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Jiang Ma with Bernstein. Your line is open. Jiang Ma: Great. Thank you. I wanted to on the membership fee side where you I think Gary mentioned it's 7% growth excluding the price increase and the FX. How sustainable do you think that trend is going to be especially in the US and Canada, where you're opening some of the fill-in stores? In markets where the penetration may already be fairly high. So is there a risk of the membership fee income growth slowing down from here? Thank you. Gary Millerchip: Yeah. Thanks for the question. You know, we still remain very excited about the opportunities for continued growth in the membership base. We're obviously opening new warehouses every year, and Ron talked about that earlier in terms of the opportunity that creates to create a broader coverage of the geographies that we're in and driving new membership engagement. You know, the positive and opportunity side of the comments we made earlier about membership renewal rate with that younger generation of members now also experiencing Costco, we think creates continued opportunity to drive new member engagement in a broader range of the potential member base than we've historically seen prior to COVID. If we look at the majority of our warehouses and some of the warehouses that have been opened in recent years, particularly in some of our international markets, generally speaking, we see continued growth in the number of members in those locations as those businesses and those warehouses mature over time as well. And, of course, we're adding new member benefits all the time with the extended opening hours that Ron mentioned in the earlier comments and the Instacart benefits and the 5% cash rewards on the credit card that we mentioned a couple of quarters ago. So you know, we generally don't talk about sort of future projections, but I think we feel positive about the opportunity to continue to grow the membership base. Operator: Thank you very much. And our next question comes from the line of Scott Ciccarelli with Truist. Your line is open. Scott Ciccarelli: Hi. Thank you. This is Sherman on for Scott. Kind of a piggyback on the memberships question. Was it growing 6% in the quarter is it possible that we're seeing the delayed benefits of people affected by the membership sharing like crackdowns and can we see an acceleration from here? And outside of the existing memberships, are you seeing the new executive membership benefits driving a more favorable mix for new and incoming members? Gary Millerchip: Yeah. I think, you know, to the first part of the question, there's nothing we would see in the data that would say there's anything sort of happening relative to the change you referred to. And, again, that was something that we found certainly during COVID. There was some change in behavior, and as we introduced the communication around the entry to the warehouse that helped make sure that our members were able to renew and update their memberships in an appropriate way, and that's been something that's really been flowing through now for some considerable time. So I wouldn't say there's anything that we'd point to in the volume of member sign-ups that we're seeing that we would believe is related to that particular activity that you mentioned. You know, I think we have been really encouraged and pleased with the member reaction to the continued value that we're adding to the membership, the extended opening hours, the Instacart benefits that we referenced earlier. And certainly, with the growth that we've seen in the executive membership profile. Typically, what we see over time is those members are more engaged and they shop more frequently, and our goal is always to demonstrate more value for the member and encourage them to keep upgrading and getting more value from the membership from the Costco membership. So in that regard, I think we're encouraged by what we're seeing, and it was part of the goal that we had when we introduced those benefits. Scott Ciccarelli: Alright. Thank you so much. That's very helpful. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Simeon Gutman: Hey, Ron. Hey, Gary. My question is on e-commerce and specifically grocery. So there was this announcement from Amazon in the quarter around increased fulfillment capabilities. Can you talk about if you've seen a spike in your Instacart driven traffic since then? I know you've added some benefits, so maybe it's hard to parse it out. And then can I ask if Costco has what you think is an optimal capability to meet what is increasing online grocery demand? Thanks. Ron Vachris: Yes. I mean, like you said, it's very tough to tell. The Instacart and Uber businesses continue to really do a very good business for us. It continues to grow at a good rate. And so we have seen the additional executive membership benefit be accretive to that. It's definitely helped it out quite a bit. We're very aware of new competition in this space, and we continue to watch that very closely. You know, it comes down to the Costco items that are being delivered as well too, which is a big driver from the consumer out there is that they want the goods that we have at their home. It may be a different way to deliver to them as opposed to coming into the warehouse, but there still is a desire for the fresh foods, which is a big driver for us in the food and sundry business that we have out there. So, very aware of it. We're very happy with the growth of the business there. And we are seeing some strong growth at the back half of the year. And it's hard to tell exactly what that's coming from. Gary Millerchip: And, Simeon, you may have heard me mention at the end of the prepared remarks that we are gonna include now those sales in our definition of e-commerce enabled digitally enabled sales. So going forward from next month's monthly sales, you'll see those numbers called out, but those numbers will be included within our overall growth in e-commerce and digital. Simeon Gutman: Yep. Thank you. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Peter Benedict with Baird. Your line is open. Peter Benedict: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. It comes on the unit growth the 30 for this year, 20 in the US. Just curious, the sustainability of that pace of growth. How long do you think you can kind of sustain that level of growth here? And where do you think you can get the international growth, unit growth to over the next few years? And kind of related to that, maybe a sense for what the CapEx plan is for next year. I apologize if we missed that. But curious kind of what the spend plan is for next year in terms of total CapEx. Thank you. Ron Vachris: As far as the future growth, I'll touch on that part. Yes, we do see some runway. We made an investment in our real estate group to make sure that we're looking at all the opportunities as our geographical footprint continues to broaden around the world. We want to make sure that we are indeed looking at these opportunities and, you know, for a few reasons, we feel very good. The right opportunities have come both in existing markets to increase capacity and where we feel we can better serve those markets, and we continue to still find in North America and internationally opportunities in new markets where we're doing very well. So we do see some runway as far as this 30 warehouses opening a year. We don't strive for a number. I mean, we're not gonna make any bad decisions on opening warehouses to get to any set number. So it could ebb and flow. And in some of the international countries, it takes a little bit longer. So you'll see some swings back and forth year to year when things come to fruition. Some projects could take us three years internationally where we have things that can turn much quicker in North America. So, overall, I think we do feel some good runway is out in front of us as far as growth goes. And we have people ready to expand the company, and our operators have done a very good job dealing with the cannibalization we've dealt with in the existing markets we're in. Gary Millerchip: And then maybe to answer the question on capital expenditure, I'll just maybe take a step back on that as well and provide a bit more context on what we saw in fiscal year 2025 and how we think about '26 as well for you. So I think, generally, when you look back at capital expenditure, over the last few years, we've seen it grow when you look at the compounded growth rate over the years. It's generally growing in line with sales, and we did see in 2025 when you look at the total capital expenditure for the year, we grew capital expenditure at a faster pace than sales for the first time actually for a while for us. And that was really for the areas that we mentioned earlier in the prepared remarks around the number of warehouses that we're looking to open in 2026, the remodel work that we're doing, the preparing the depots for the expansion in warehouse sales and also e-commerce and also some manufacturing opportunities to improve the value in Kirkland Signature. And I would say as we think about future growth in 2026, those areas we think are opportunities for us looking forward as well. We've already talked about the warehouse growth, but we do think with remodels, the opportunity to keep expanding our capacity in our warehouses, especially as the average warehouse now in the US some of our more mature markets is around twenty years old. There's an opportunity for us to refresh and to support continued best-in-class service in those warehouses. We think there's continued opportunities in manufacturing to support further growth in Kirkland Signature. We didn't really talk about it in the prepared comments, but technology is also an opportunity for us to be able to deliver more better member experiences and deliver growth in e-commerce and member engagement. So overall, we think those will continue to be good opportunities for growth. We feel confident the returns on the investments that we'll make will be very strong as well. So we'd expect 2026 to have capital expenditure that would grow over 2025 and probably a little bit higher than sales again for the same reasons in '26 or '25. We typically actually give the CapEx number, I think, in our Q1 release. So we'll give you a specific number in Q1 as we do every year, but I would expect it to be a growth again for the reasons I just mentioned. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Greg Melich with Evercore. Your line is open. Greg Melich: Hi. Thanks. A couple of questions. I do want to circle back on inflation. Gary, I think you mentioned it was low single digits, maybe 2%-ish last quarter. And now it's low to mid singles. Can you just describe, is it nonfood driving all that acceleration and sort of frame it magnitude-wise? Gary Millerchip: Sure. Yeah. Thanks for the question. Yeah. I think last quarter, actually, we said overall low to mid single digits, and we really kind of said the same. This quarter, the change was really in Q3. Q4 has generally been pretty consistent with Q3. And as we look at it and break it down by category, fresh and food and sundries are relatively consistent quarter over quarter in that sort of low to mid single-digit range. There are lots of sort of puts and takes in there. When you look at individual departments, we certainly see meat and deli largely because of meat and candy would be more inflationary. Whereas departments like produce and liquor would be either lower inflation or decelerating inflation or even deflation in certain items. And then on the commodities front, we see acceleration in inflation currently in commodities like beef and coffee, sugar, and corn. But then also that's partially offset by seeing some deceleration in produce in particular in berries and avocados. And then eggs and butter and cocoa are also slower inflation too. So there's lots of puts and takes in those food and sundries and fresh departments. The change in Q3 really was in nonfoods. But, again, I would say it's really low single-digit inflation overall within nonfoods, but the real change there was it had been deflationary for twelve months or so. So that was kind of what drove the change in Q3 and the reason that we updated our LIFO estimates because we saw a little we've seen continued inflation in food and fresh, but that was being offset by nonfoods. And now with some inflation in nonfoods, that's kind of changed the overall picture, but it's still in that low to mid single-digit overall, I would say. Greg Melich: Got it. And then my follow-up is we've just seen a lot of the credit card companies add perks and raise fees on their card. I'm just sort of curious what trends you're seeing there in terms of penetration any thought of ways to maybe enhance the member value on that front? Gary Millerchip: Yeah. Well, for our credit card, it's an incredibly successful program for us and we deliver a lot of incremental value to our members through the credit card with the rewards that we offer and some of the additional benefits around travel as well. We did recently make some changes to our credit card recognizing that we felt there was an opportunity to accelerate the value and also to continue to grow that program. And so we added an incremental benefit where the member can now receive 5% rewards on gas. We also updated and modernized the card itself as well. And we've been pleased so far with the response from members and the continued growth in that program. Greg Melich: That's great. Thanks, and good luck. Gary Millerchip: Thank you. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Edward Kelly: Yes. Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. I wanted to follow-up on tariffs and the outlook for the gross margin around that. I'm curious as to how you're thinking about the impact of tariffs over the next few quarters because it seems like there are retailers that are going to be taking more price. Is that something that you think you're gonna be doing as well? How you're thinking about the elasticity associated with that. And I'm curious, in terms of your, you know, competitive positioning, do you plan to be offensive around this? Is it something that could have some incremental margin pressure in the coming quarters? Just any color around that would be great. Thank you. Gary Millerchip: Thanks for the question, Ed. I think overall, first thing to say, of course, is that the environment with tariffs does still remain fluid. There could still be changes that we have to address as, you know, as the picture unfolds. But the tariffs that we've seen and we're sort of managing, if you like, as things stand today, our teams, I think, have done a fantastic job in navigating what has been a very fluid and changing environment. And I think the benefit of us having buyers who have really been in the business for many years and understand the business well. Are managing with the limited SKU count that we have a low number of items per buyer. So they really understand the individual items that we're buying and the way those products are costed and constructed. And we can also, as Ron mentioned earlier, we have the flexibility to change items where we believe if we don't see that the value would be there with the impact of tariffs that we can move our assortment to items that really will deliver that value that our members have come to expect. I think we've also had the benefit of being a global retailer. So with 30% of our business being international, it gives us the opportunity to work with our suppliers in offsetting some of these things by buying globally and also still supporting 30% of our, you know, of our warehouses that are international still, you know, are less impacted by some of those issues that we're working through. We've taken really a multipronged approach to it. There isn't a single answer to how we manage tariffs. You know, part of it is that we have absorbed costs ourselves and ourselves to offset those costs to protect the member by improving efficiency and lowering waste and spoilage and those kinds of things. We've also worked with suppliers to find offsets and efficiencies, and that includes buying more globally. And there are examples there where we've been able to save 30 to 40% on the cost of items by consolidating to a smaller number of buyers and bringing the cost down because of the volume that we can consolidate there. We've also looked at sourcing from different countries and local production, and you may recall last quarter we talked about with KS laundry detergent, we were able to save 40% in Asia by moving production for the items that we're producing for those markets to be in the region. And we've rotated items as Ron referred to earlier. So I think from what we know today, we feel like, you know, there wasn't like, a cliff for us. There was the impact was managed gradually by teams doing all the things that we've mentioned, and we largely feel like we've worked through the strategies that we needed to mitigate what we see in front of us today. So we feel like we know the teams have done a very good job to position us to make sure we have the right assortment at the right value and deliver even greater value for our members. The sort of caveat of everything I just said, of course, is that there may be changes still to come that we have to manage, and that's something that we'll have to be agile if that's the case. Ron Vachris: But I would add to what Gary said and I agree with everything he said. We're taking a very offensive approach to this. We're gonna do everything we can to mitigate tariff impacts. And the last effect would be we pass on price. And if we do that, we're gonna be the last one to go up and always the first one to go down on any opportunities we have out there. So it is all hands on deck, and we address this like we would any commodity increase. We use the different tools we have to try and mitigate any price increase for any reason. Thank you. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Kelly Bania with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open. Kelly Bania: Hi, Ron and Gary. Thanks for taking our questions. Just wanted to ask about membership growth and total membership households that continue to increase in that six to 7% range year over year. Just two questions about that. One, is the way to think about the components of that more like a low single-digit figure in the US and high single-digit internationally? And then as you think about the long-term US potential for household membership, what do you think or estimate that Costco has today in terms of percentage of US households that are members? And how high do you think you can take that over time? Gary Millerchip: Yeah. Thanks, Kelly. You know, I think it maybe comes back to a couple of the comments that I made earlier. We look at the growth that we've seen and certainly it's a good reflection I think of the focus of all of our team here to say how do we start every day thinking of how can we deliver more value for our members and how do we show that the membership decision is the best decision that our members have made because of the value that they get from the membership with Costco. And really our focus tends to be a little bit less on the way you phrase the question and more on how do we make sure that's always at the center of everything we do and continues to create new opportunities to grow our membership base. And I think because of the focus there and some of the things that we talked about on the call about how the team is navigating tariffs to make sure we stay true to that delivering the best value for the member. As we're adding more membership benefits like the extended hours as we continue to open new warehouses and start to reach new member geographies. But also as the maturity of those warehouses, you know, we as you know, we don't advertise as a company. And so we believe that word-of-mouth and our existing members extolling the value they see from their membership is how we grow our base. So an organic growth to our business because we're really focusing on ensuring how we deliver that continued value. So we still think there's opportunity to continue to grow that base. It would certainly be true that there's an opportunity in international markets to and we typically when we open in international markets, we see a larger number of membership new in those markets because there's less awareness of Costco, and typically, there's less sort of surrounding warehouses that could be impacted. On the other side of that, what we tend to see with warehouses in the US where we open and we're filling in markets we see tremendously quick growth in sales in those areas because it and not only in the new warehouses, but we replace the sales in the affected warehouses because we're freeing up the capacity for those members to shop more frequently in the warehouse as well. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer. Your line is open. Rupesh Parikh: Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. So a housekeeping question to start. So just on the incremental hours P&L impact sounds like it's going well. Good sales lift and you're seeing good upgrades to executive members. As you look towards this fiscal year, do you expect it to be a net benefit, you know, the benefits versus some of the expenses with the increase in employee hours? Gary Millerchip: Yeah. I think it's fair to say that, Rupesh. I mean, just kind of re-summarizing what we talked about earlier. As Ron mentioned, we've seen a positive impact in terms of overall sales in the US warehouses from the extended hours and our operators have done a great job managing the impact from an SG&A perspective. So have the typical sort of headwinds from the employee agreement that we need to manage and leverage our sales, but we wouldn't be calling out any sort of major headwind from the SG&A perspective based on what a great job our operators have done to manage the impact. Rupesh Parikh: Great. And then maybe just my follow-up question. I know, Gary, on alternative revenue streams, you guys have talked about successful media campaigns earlier this year. So just curious on any new efforts in on the alternative revenue stream as we look towards this upcoming year? Gary Millerchip: Yeah. It's still very much in the early stages. You know, when we talk about alternative revenue for us, I think that it's broader than media. Sure. Question earlier that was asked around financial services and credit card, we think that's continued strength in our business and an opportunity to continue to grow. We launched the buy now, pay later product with Affirm earlier in the year, which is doing well. We have a tremendously successful travel business that delivers significant value for members, and has strong growth in our overall model and delivering value for member and top-line growth in the company as well. And media then is another component of that. And I think, you know, our journey with media is that we're on a two-pronged journey, I would say. One is to build out the capabilities so that we can deliver more personalized relevant messaging to our members, and that includes a unified single data platform where we stitch all of our information and data together and then build out the tools that allow us to deliver more relevant messaging at scale to our members. And as we're doing that, which is also really important to media, we're really kind of proving out the concept with our suppliers of the value of media within Costco, and that's why we shared the example as we're sort of wanna make sure that we're demonstrating how we can create future value as we build those capabilities, and that'll be a continuation over the next twelve months or so, and we'll certainly share more updates as we continue to make progress on that journey. Rupesh Parikh: Great. Thank you. Best of luck. Gary Millerchip: Thanks, Rupesh. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel with Guggenheim. Your line is open. John Heinbockel: Hey, guys. Two strategic questions. For either one of you. You know, maybe, Ron, when you think about the B2B opportunity, how do you think about that, the size of that whether it's through business centers or online? I know when you do relos, some of those become business centers. You know, we're likely to see an acceleration in business centers. And then secondly, when you think about markets where you've it's just taken longer to get real estate, is there an opportunity to use the balance sheet to acquire chunks of real estate right, that you can then kind of develop over a period of time and maybe that speeds the process up a little bit? Ron Vachris: On the first question about business centers, yes. There's some tremendous capacity, especially we have now six in Canada and we're going to continuously really grow at a much quicker rate in Canada in the business centers. The US, we see great opportunities both in new markets as well as when we relocate a building to a larger facility. The old warehouses serve a great purpose for us as far as becoming a business center because they have the right size and parking is not an issue at that level because we deliver about 60% of the goods from our trucks out there as well. So we see a good runway for us both US and Canada and potential and international markets for the business centers as well. So that is it. As far as, you know, looking at the additional property that we need to, we did we will take that into account if we have got the get into the right market and then how we can create value for any outparcels or additional properties that are nearby us. That could open up opportunities for us to expand in the right place. So we are open to those opportunities as well. Gary Millerchip: Thank you. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Steven Zaccone with Citi. Your line is open. Steven Zaccone: Great. Good evening. Thanks very much for taking my question. Couple of follow-ups. First follow-up is you've talked about cannibalization to comps for the last couple of months. Do you expect that to be a headwind throughout 2026? And then just on some of the questions around the inflation outlook, on the nonfood side, based on what you're seeing in the business, do you expect nonfoods inflation kind of stay in this range for the next couple of quarters? Basically trying to understand, are we at some of the peak pressure or could it get a little bit higher from here? Thanks. Gary Millerchip: Sure. Yeah. Thanks for the questions. On cannibalization, it's really a reflection of our continued investment in filling warehouses to really make sure that we're continuing to grow our overall sales in those markets and relieve some of the pressure in some of our busier warehouses. And so I wouldn't see any reason why that would change dramatically in the future because that's working for us well in terms of continuing to grow our overall sales and grow our overall profitability in the markets in which we operate. And then from an inflation point of view, you know, I think as I mentioned earlier, we think that from everything we see today, on tariffs, we've been proactive in managing that. And so from everything that we're dealing with today, I think what you're hearing from us on inflation is how we see it at the moment. But the dilemma, as I mentioned earlier, is we can't really predict what might happen in the future around future tariffs or future pricing by other players in the market if you like. And so or events. So that's the it's obviously hard for us to predict. But I wouldn't say that we're seeing anything in our plans that would cause that to change significantly. Steven Zaccone: Okay. Understood. Thanks very much. Operator: And our final question comes from the line of Oliver Chen with TD Cowen. Your line is open. Oliver Chen: Hi, Gary and Ron. On the digital roadmap, there's been a lot of customer-centric innovation you've done. What's low-hanging fruit ahead that you're most excited about? And then on Kirkland Signature, which is iconic, what's next? Or is it just tweaks, or is it the similar strategy? Some of the language in this call, leaning into KS, that's probably a product of the environment, but was there anything different about how you'll continue to amplify that and maintain, you know, how great it is? Thanks a lot. Gary Millerchip: Yeah. Thanks, Oliver. On the first part of your question, you know, you're right, we spent a lot of time as a team focusing on how can we continue to invest in improving the digital experience and making it more convenient for members to shop and we've had some good progress in those areas. I think we continue to see opportunities to improve the member experience through the app and through the website and particularly in investing in capabilities that deliver more targeted and relevant personal messaging for members. That's definitely one of the highest priorities we're focused on, and you've heard us give a couple of examples of things that we're starting to do there. But we should certainly expect to see more of those opportunities going forward to drive visits into the warehouse or items in the basket or more engagement online with our members for e-commerce sales. And then Kirkland Signature, I think just briefly on that, you know, overall, our view on Kirkland Signature is that it's all about delivering quality, value, and innovation for members. And if we see examples where there are gaps for our members where we think there's items that we can deliver, that value and quality that doesn't exist today, then that's what we're doing and how we're innovating and delivering new products for our members. We don't have a specific target for Kirkland Signature. It really is about when does that value and that opportunity there with the member. And, of course, we love working with national brands as well to develop and grow those partnerships. But Kirkland Signature also provides a sort of healthy tension there to make sure that value and quality is there for our members. And so we'll continue to innovate and grow those items we think we can deliver that value for the member, and it's certainly over the last few years has continued to grow in penetration because of the great work our teams have done in building out those items and delivering that value for the member. Oliver Chen: Thanks a lot. Best regards. Gary Millerchip: Maybe you should go to twenty-four hours, by the way. Ron Vachris: We'll take that into consideration. Operator: And ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session and today's call. We thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.
Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to Concentrix Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. You will then hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your questions, simply press 11 again. Please note that this conference is being recorded. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Sara Buda. Please go ahead. Sara Buda: Great. Thank you, operator, and good evening. Welcome to the Concentrix Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. This call is the property of Concentrix and may not be recorded or rebroadcast without the written permission of Concentrix. This call contains forward-looking statements that address our expected future performance and that, by their nature, address matters that are uncertain. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future expectations, events, or developments. Please refer to today's earnings release and our most recent filings with the SEC for additional information regarding uncertainties that could affect our future financial results. This includes the risk factors provided in our annual report on Form 10-K and our other public filings with the SEC. Also during the call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted free cash flow, non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP operating margin, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP EPS, and constant currency revenue growth. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures is available in the news release and on the company's Investor Relations website under Financials. With me on the call today are Chris Caldwell, our President, and Andre Valentine, our Chief Financial Officer. Chris will provide a summary of our operating performance and growth, and Andre will cover our financial results and business outlook. Then we'll open the call up for your questions. And so now I'll turn the call over to Chris. Christopher A. Caldwell: Thank you very much, Sara. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our third quarter 2025 earnings call. In Q3, we exceeded our revenue guidance once again with solid year-on-year growth across the board. We are gaining share and securing new wins by combining AI, CX, and IT services into a powerful, tightly integrated solution. Our adjacent offerings continue to scale and complement our traditional business. And we believe our IX suite is giving us clear competitive differentiation in front of clients. Overall, I am pleased with our strong market position and our revenue momentum. Turning to profit, margins were below plan in the quarter, which Andre will provide more details in his comments. It is important to understand that we have line of sight to modest sequential quarterly margin improvement over the next few quarters even as we continue to lean into growth and believe we can drive further margin expansion from there. Now let's dive into the details of our demand environment and how we see our business evolving. The positive revenue momentum we've seen this year is a direct reflection of our commitment to establish Concentrix at the forefront of change happening in our industry. We believe we are becoming a leader in solutions that combine practical AI and human intelligence where applicable, at global scale. As a result, we are well-positioned to be a trusted strategic partner clients rely on to support their business in these times of change. In fact, almost 40% of our new wins this year include our AI technology platforms as part of the solution. This percentage only increases as we include our partner's technology. As a reminder, our IX AI technology suite addresses clients' needs for both fully automation of tasks that can be handled completely autonomously and for partial automation using AI and AgenTx to supercharge human advisers to make them more effective and efficient. Within a year of commercial availability, our IX suite of AI solutions is ramping and on track to be accretive as we exit this year. This achievement in its own right sets us apart from many of our pure AI players and from traditional CX players in the space. Clients recognize that they need partners to help them convert AI promises into reality. A recent study from MIT shows that only 33% of AI projects built internally are succeeding on plan. Conversely, the same study showed that externally sourced AI projects with strategic partners succeeded about 67% of the time, more than double the success rate. Our rate of success with our deployments is even higher. With early data showing that the vast majority of our use cases result in a documented positive outcome for the client through improved revenue, better CSAT, or process efficiency. This is reflective of our ability to deliver pragmatic AI solutions that are aligned with what clients need and what they value most. The strategic role of partners that can combine AI with CX and IT services has support of our own blind study of 450 global enterprises that stated by an overwhelming majority, clients plan to increase their outsourcing spend as they deploy AI. We absolutely are focused on capturing as much of this growth as we can, and I'm confident that we are in a strong position to make that happen. In summary, our strategy is paying off despite all the market speculation about the negative impacts of AI on our business, we have shown that AI is indeed a positive tailwind. We are growing our major accounts and securing new wins with our integrated offer. With a strong competitive position, we are leaning into growth delivering solutions that align with our clients' business needs, gaining share, and scaling our business. This gives us the foundation to support our progression towards a higher growth rate in coming years while generating strong cash flow. Lastly, I would like to thank our game changers across more than 70 countries for their commitment to client success and welcome our new team members from SA SAi Digital who joined us in September. I'm optimistic about our strategy as we capitalize on the opportunities we have in front of us today. Now let me turn it over to Andre for details of the quarter and our outlook. Andre S. Valentine: Thank you, Chris, and hello, everyone. I'll review the details of the third quarter and then discuss our outlook for the fourth quarter. We are in a positive position for revenue growth as we enter the final months of 2025. As we focus on improving margins, we are capturing the growth opportunities in the current environment, and our cash flow continues to increase. Importantly, we are winning the right kind of revenue that reflects the value of our differentiated offerings. Now let me get into some details on the quarter. We delivered revenue of approximately $2.48 billion, an increase of 2.6% year-on-year on a constant currency basis and 4% year-on-year as reported. We delivered revenue above our guidance range as we have done for the past several quarters. Looking at growth by vertical, our growth in the quarter was led by growth in banking, financial services, and insurance. Other verticals were solid as well, driven by continued demand for our integrated offerings and ongoing growth in our adjacent solutions. Specific constant currency revenue growth by vertical was as follows. Revenue from banking and financial services and insurance clients grew 8% year-on-year. Media and communications clients grew 7% year-on-year, largely driven by clients outside of the US and global entertainment/media companies. Revenue from retail, travel, and e-commerce clients grew 3%, largely driven by travel, which continues to be a strong vertical for us. And our technology and consumer electronics vertical and our healthcare vertical were both essentially flat. Turning to profitability, our non-GAAP operating income was $105 million, which was below the guidance range we provided on our last call. This was largely due to two factors. First, excess capacity. For context, when we set our guide for the quarter, we expected a faster return to stability with a handful of clients impacted by tariffs in the second quarter. And expected consolidation of additional client volume to occur more quickly to optimize the resources we were holding. We are doing the right thing for our clients long term, in quarter volumes didn't materialize, how the clients or we envisioned? This excess capacity accounted for the majority of the shortfall. A distant second factor for the margin variance was some decisions to accelerate transformation opportunities to help clients realize technology benefits more quickly. We are confident that we can deliver modest sequential quarter profitability improvement in the next few quarters as we resolve the capacity issue as committed volume migrates to us, or we remove the excess capacity proactively. On a year-on-year basis, our non-GAAP operating income was impacted by the factors I just mentioned as well as $8 million in additional investments in cybersecurity for generative AI, and a $4 million negative currency impact. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $359 million, a margin of 14.5%. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $2.78 per share, $0.02 below our guidance range as a lower effective tax rate partially offset the non-GAAP operating income variance. GAAP net income was $88 million for the quarter, and GAAP diluted earnings per share was $1.34 per share. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures are provided in today's earnings release. Adjusted free cash flow was $179 million in the quarter, an increase of about $44 million year-on-year. Year to date, our adjusted free cash flow increased $83 million. We returned approximately $64 million to shareholders in the quarter, which included repurchasing $42 million of common shares or approximately 800,000 shares at an average price of approximately $53 per share. The remaining $22 million in shareholder return was in the form of our quarterly dividend. I'm pleased to share that our Board has authorized an increase to our quarterly dividend to $0.36 per share. At the end of the third quarter, cash and cash equivalents were $350 million and total debt was $4.8 billion, bringing our net debt to $4.5 billion. We also reduced the amount of our off-balance sheet factored accounts receivable to approximately $127 million at the end of the quarter. To summarize, in Q3, we delivered strong revenue above. We are lessening our exposure to low complexity transactions and growing our higher complexity integrated solutions. We continue to be on our front foot with generative AI, using it to our advantage to secure highly strategic tech-enabled CX programs while scaling our adjacent services. Now I'll turn to our outlook. For Q4 and the full year 2025, we expect the following: Q4 revenue of $2.525 to $2.55 billion. Based on current exchange rates, these expectations assume a 160 basis point positive impact of foreign exchange rates in Q4 compared with the prior year period. This guidance implies constant currency revenue growth for the quarter ranging from 1.5% to 2.5%. As we've said, our goal is to be conservative in our revenue guidance. This leads to fiscal year 2025 revenue, of $9.798 to $9.823 billion based on current exchange rates, which assume an approximate 10 basis point positive impact of foreign exchange rates compared with the prior year. As such, we're increasing our guidance for the full year to 1.75% to 2% constant currency revenue growth. For Q4, we expect non-GAAP operating income of $320 to $330 million. This drives full year non-GAAP operating income to $1.25 to $1.26 billion. This translates into expected non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.85 to $2.96 for Q4, assuming approximately $67 million in non-GAAP interest expense, $62.4 million diluted common shares outstanding, and approximately 5.5% of net income attributable to participating securities. For fiscal year 2025, we expect full year non-GAAP EPS of $11.11 per share to $11.23 per share. Assuming non-GAAP interest expense, of $273 million, approximately 3.1 million diluted common shares outstanding, and approximately 5% of net income attributable to participating securities. The non-GAAP effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 25% for Q4, and 24% for the full year. And finally, we've modified our expectations for full year adjusted free cash flow to be between $585 million to $610 million, an increase of between $110 and $135 million year-on-year. This implies a continuation of our year-over-year improvement in adjusted free cash flow in the fourth quarter. Regarding capital allocation priorities, we are on track to meet our commitment to return over $240 million to shareholders this year, a combination of over $150 million in spending to repurchase our shares and approximately $90 million in dividends. And today, we repaid the €700 million seller's note related to the WebHelp combination through our previously committed new term loan borrowings that we discussed in our last earnings call. Looking to next year, we will prioritize debt repayment while supporting our dividend and our share repurchase program. In summary, our overall demand environment remains positive as we enter the last part of 2025. We had some margin headwinds in the quarter but see a path to modest sequential quarter improvement moving forward. We continue to drive strong cash flow growth year-on-year. And as Chris mentioned, we are in a strong competitive position to drive long-term outperformance. With all of this, we are feeling positive about 2026 and look forward to providing detailed guidance for 2026 on our next call. Now operator, please open the line for questions. Operator: Thank you so much. And as a reminder, to ask a question, simply press 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press 11 again. One moment for our first question. And it comes from the line of Luke Moore Morrison with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed. Luke Moore Morrison: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question here. So maybe we can start with the margin guide down. So you obviously highlighted excess capacity from tariffs, impacted clients as the main driver there. Along with some drag from those accelerating transformation programs. Can you just unpack that in a little more detail? Were there any additional tariff-related headwinds from the new round that went into effect in August? Or was this impact all carryover from last quarter's client pauses? And then on the excess capacity, how quickly do you expect that to normalize? Is this more of a one or two quarter issue or something that can linger? And then finally, on the transformation programs, can you just give us more color on what those were and whether they should be thought of as near-term margin headwinds or flip to revenue over time? Christopher A. Caldwell: Yeah. For sure, Luke. It's Chris. So if you remember what we talked about in Q3, we talked that we were under from a year-over-year profitability perspective when the tariffs were first announced with sort of excess capacity that we had. And our expectations were and what our clients were messaging us was that they thought that they would be no more normalized in Q3 and we talked about sort of being a little under in the first month of the quarter, kind of on par in the second month and over on the third month. And what happened was with some of the additional noise with tariffs within the third quarter, by the second month, we still seeing that uptick coming through from the clients. The clients weren't seeing that uptick either. We were also seeing that they were taking a little longer to move volume that they commit to consolidating to us just from ability to move it from other providers to us. That's already started. But it delayed us from getting that kickstart. And we had multiple conversations sort of with them on a daily basis saying, do you want us to remove capacity? Do you want us to keep capacity? And really, the overall belief was to keep capacity because these are highly trained individuals. And they're sort of in global roles and they're tightly integrated into the supply chain. And that they needed to balance this out. So from our perspective, we are seeing sort of the momentum we want. We do think it'll be a multi-quarter normalization. And as Andre pointed out, if we don't see and we're measuring this on a daily basis, we don't see sort of the expectations coming in. Our clients don't see the expectations, and then we'll start to rationalize the excess capacity through the quarter and into next quarter. There was a bit of additional noise before August on tariffs, frankly. The additional noise in August only slightly uptick, but really clients are looking at this more holistically about some of the new reality of where they're operating in. And so it didn't get worse by any stretch of imagination. It was it didn't get as better as either the clients that we expected. And, again, just to be very clear on this, there's a small group, a handful of clients, very defined clients that we're working through with this. On your second question sorry. That to your second question to get whether there would be a lingering impact. We don't we don't believe so. From a transformation perspective, we have some clients who were in the process of looking at different AI technology partners. We were able to present and put in our technology into the solution right away. The clients were excited about it and so they wanted kind of get it in in the quarter and we were able to achieve that. Similarly, what happens when we put that in and we're able to remove head counts, normally that would be a couple of quarter process and planning our guidance. What happened was we were able to put the technology in successfully. We had some overcapacity, which we're already in the process of dealing with. So to your point, we don't see it as impacting our margins going forward. You wouldn't normally notice it if we had made the decision pre-quarter. And they would have been sort of in line or accretive to our existing underlying business margins. Hopefully, a lot of color, but hopefully that explains where we're at. Luke Moore Morrison: Yeah. Super, super helpful. Thank you. And then maybe just a follow-up. I'd love to get a little more color on how your IX suite is ramping here. You know, what does pipeline and win rates look like here? What's the relative demand between Hello and Hero? And to what extent are those deployments being priced at discreetly versus being bundled into broader deals? Christopher A. Caldwell: Yeah. For sure, Luke. So a couple things. As we talk about, when we look across the course of the year, and you have to remember, we probably started at a smaller percentage when we first announced to where we are now. But literally 40% of our new wins have our technology our platforms integrated into the new wins. And it's a combination of both where discrete billing as well as where it's bundled in. The majority still of this point are where we're bundling it in and using it as a differentiated service. We see that inflection point coming relatively quickly where there'll be more discreet billing than from a bundled offering even though, you know, frankly, the client sees the value in it because they're giving us the business to do it. In terms of the two products, we're seeing far more traction with Hero than Hello. And I just wanna kind of explain this a little bit. Hello is the fully autonomous product where we're putting in a product which removes human interaction. So think of a multimodal bot that can be, you know, call out, can take calls coming in or chats or whatever the case may be. The commercial model for that product is evolving where it's much more gain share, where we're putting it in. And similarly, I think competitors are pure AI competitors are doing the same thing. It's more of a, you know, we'll take this out. We'll take a percentage of the transactions that we're saving you. Being fully autonomous, and we think that'll continue on with that revenue model. On the Hero product, we're seeing much stronger traction because clients see this product as being able to work immediately in their environment, drive significant benefits from a quality and automation perspective and proficiency perspective, meaning that they're able to sell more, be more efficient, take up more cost, drive CSAT, we have so many demonstratable cases of that. It's very, very, very, very compelling. And what we're happy about is that clients are now starting to see, hey, I can deploy this across my entire infrastructure, including my internal capabilities as well as other partner capabilities. And that is as a SaaS model, a SaaS model where we're charging per seat, and we'll continue that model based on what we're seeing with it. And our pipeline just continues to build and get stronger. And as I mentioned at the beginning, while 40% of new wins are that, you have to imagine that in the last quarter, it was a lot higher. And we're gonna continue to drive that forward. And as we talked about in the prepared remarks, expect to be, you know, mildly, modestly, we modifier you want, accretive. At the end of Q4. Luke Moore Morrison: Excellent. Thank you. Operator: Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Dave Cunning with WBIRD. Please go ahead. David Koning: Yeah. Hey, guys. Thank you. And I guess my first question, just kind of the bridge to margins and, you know, how we how we get back. You know, we I think we were at 13.4% or around there was your previous guidance. Now we're maybe at 12.8% margin guidance. Something in that ballpark. So we've come down 60 bps. Is it fair to say these sound pretty, like, one-off type things. Is it fair to say that 13.4% or somewhere around there, what your old guidance would be the baseline from which to grow next year, then as you weave some of the Gen AI projects on that should carry a higher margin, we could have a pretty outsized margin improvement next year as things normalize, or is some of the one-offs stuff really gonna kinda recur for a little bit? Christopher A. Caldwell: Yeah, Dave. So let me talk about the market environment. I'll let Andre do the bridge. These are one-off items. And as we as we talk about their pretty defined about where we're seeing them. And when we look at our business, clients outside of these impacted clients are providing and driving the margins that historically we see, and then also new wins that are coming in as they ramp and get to scale are providing the margins that we want to see and are driving. We do expect that the AI platforms will continue to help us as they become more accretive. Don't know how accretive they will be in the 2020 time frame. I just wanna temper that a little bit. What we're focused on doing is driving back to where historically we were as we talked about. And then we do see additional opportunity to grow our margins. That's a combination, though, of not only our tech solution, also the areas where we're winning new deals, and the solutions and transformation deals that we're winning, and some of the new auxiliary services that we've talked about. Are higher margin around AI enablement. Andre, I'll pass to you for the bridge. Andre S. Valentine: Yeah. You pretty much covered it. So yes, David. You know, I think it'll take a couple of quarters, as we've said. To kind of take care of these one-off items, which are at with just a handful of clients. So I don't know that I would say that they go away completely, and we're completely at run rate, as we enter 2026. There'll be a bit of a build there. From there, I think, though, I think the margin levers and the things that give us the confidence we can get margins moving back in the right direction are most of the things that Chris has just alluded to. We should see, we should see some contribution as software revenue ramps. We'll see, more contribution as we deploy more technology into our solutions. We're reducing the kind of low complex commoditized work, and replacing it with, faster growth. Higher margin work, including the work in some of the adjacent areas that we've talked about. Shore movement continues to be a driver for us with margin improvement. And then, you know, as we continue to move our growth rate up from where we'll exit this year, should be able to start seeing some leverage on our G and A. So all of those things have us confident that while we will work for a quarter or two here to get margins kinda back related to these onetime kind of one-off items on these handful of clients, once we get there, we can keep margins moving in the right direction. David Koning: Got you. And then maybe my follow-up you had really good sequential movement in your retail travel, ecom business, and then your communications and media. Those two segments had big sequential step ups. Anything to that? Any anything one-off, or is that sustainable? And, you know, are are those maybe some lower margin businesses and maybe created a little bit of a mix pressure? Andre S. Valentine: You're right. So we have seen, nice sequential step ups in those. Those are not one-off things. It's pretty broad-based across the vertical you've mentioned. And I talked a little bit commented a little bit on the drivers of the growth in BD and comms. Again, mostly clients outside of the US, as well as some, you know, media/entertainment, global media entertainment companies. And retail, travel, e-commerce, that has been a pretty broad base as well, spread between travel and e-commerce clients. So, and then from a margin profile perspective, you know, something we really wanna emphasize. The work that we're winning, we're winning at the right long-term margin. And so, while we maybe see some some constructs where there's a bit more upfront investment on our part to get to that run rate. The deals as they are are are as they are priced kind of when they get to full scale, are are at the right margins and should be accretive as we go forward. Christopher A. Caldwell: And then the only other comment I'll make is that, you know, when we look at adoption of some of our IX technology platforms, we're doing well in travel with them. We're doing well in e-commerce with them. We're doing well in consumer electronics with them because they tend to be faster at adopting sort of this new technology or making good inroads in BFSI with it, and that's actually driving some some wind. Those deployments are a little behind just because of the regulatory and compliance that you have to go through with with any winds within that space. David Koning: Gotcha. Well, thanks, guys. Andre S. Valentine: Sure. Operator: One moment for our next question. It comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research. Please proceed. Vincent Alexander Colicchio: Yeah, Chris. Curious if the consolidation situation remains robust. And if, we're still in the early innings there. Christopher A. Caldwell: Yeah, Vince. We do think that consolidation will continue to impact our industry and we see it as sort of a positive to be quite honest. And we continue to see it being primarily driven by clients who are looking for fewer partners and deeper relationships with those partners. And sort of a more robust offering from those for those partners. And so I think we're we're still in early innings, especially with sort of now as clients are procuring services across multiple different disciplines together. And do expect that to continue for the next, you know, frankly, 24, 36 months in probably a heightened fashion. Vincent Alexander Colicchio: And then, the overall sales pipeline, is that I assume it's at a healthy level. That broad-based, or, is it, the three segments that were strong this quarter? Will continue to be strong and some of the others will lag? Christopher A. Caldwell: No. We're really happy with our pipeline then. Like, there's a couple of things that we've been doing through the course of the year that are starting to pay off. We've really brought in a lot of deep domain expertise within a number of our verticals. Of talent both from a technical sales and sort consultation background that's really driving some nice pipeline both from a transformation perspective and an integrated offering perspective. And so that we're seeing the benefits of. And that's pretty broad-based across our strategic vertical. We're also seeing good momentum in all of our geos or sorry, all of our major regions like EMEA and The Americas and then Asia Pacific, seeing some very, very nice momentum from that perspective. And as Andre pointed out, not only the margin profile of these new deals, as well as our pipeline is where we want to see it, but the length of the contracts, the stickiness of the deals, and, frankly, the complexity of these deals are really where we are driving as a business. Vincent Alexander Colicchio: Good to hear. Thanks. Operator: Thank you so much. Our last question comes from Ruplu Bhattacharya with Bank of America. Please proceed. Ruplu Bhattacharya: Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I want to ask a question on risk management. So obviously, were lower from some clients this quarter. But the company decided to invest in some transformational items for other customers. So I'm just trying to understand. Can you talk about the decision criteria for doing such investments? Like what ROI are you expecting from those customers? And just when you like, in terms of making such investments, obviously, it hurts margins in the near term, but can you talk about what long-term benefit you expect to get? And I have a couple of follow-ups. Thank you. Christopher A. Caldwell: Yeah. For sure, Ruplu. That's a great question. A couple of things. When we look at our business as a whole, one thing that we're very focused on is driving more share gains within a client. And long, long-term relationships. If you look at our top 25, that's over a 17-year tenure. It kind of goes to we believe in these long-term relationships through thick and thin because they benefit us. And we've also talked about when we look at our top sort of 25 accounts, they're growing very well, frankly, a little higher than the rest of the client base. And these are very sort of sophisticated buyers. They're very complex buyers. They're very large buyers. And so when we look at making those investments, you can think that the clients that we do that with are clients who we've been with a long time, multiple different offerings in, really their key go-to-market partner, and we see a lot more opportunity to grow within that business. And as painful as it is to kind of deal with some of these things in period, we're really looking at longer term. And those clients want to reciprocate our investments are around either more volume, more opportunities, and consolidating out smaller partners, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So that's how we look at it. We don't do it on clients who wanna RP their business every quarter or are not sort of like-minded from a long-term partnership perspective. From the transformation clients, you know, the way we look at it is that if we do the right thing with the client, that they will reward us with more business over the longer term. And the clients that we kind of set up some transformation in quarter honestly, were focused on saying, we need to do this. Can we do this right away? And if we can, it would be a big benefit. And we could have, you know, said, well, we can start it next quarter or whatever the case may be. That also allows the competitor to come in and say, hey. We can do it sooner. And so from our perspective, wanna keep these clients focused on us. We want them on our technology and our platforms. And so we're willing to take the pain to get them across to our platforms from a relationship perspective. And time has shown us over 20 years in this industry, time has shown us when we do the right thing with our clients, we get rewarded over the longer term, and we're seeing that. Even with sort of the conversations about how to deal with this excess capacity right now, they are collaborative. They are engaged. And they're all focused about trying to make sure that we're both doing the right things for each other. Ruplu Bhattacharya: Okay. Thanks for the details there. Can I ask a similar on the IX suite of software that you're investing in? So you're investing $50 million incremental on the software versus the $50 million base level of CapEx that you typically have or investments that you typically have, do you still expect to get to breakeven in fiscal 4Q? And what level of investment should we expect going forward? And what's the criteria for you to either increase or decrease that spend? And I have a follow-up final for Andre. Christopher A. Caldwell: Yeah. So a couple things. We absolutely expect to be on track as we talked about in our prepared remarks to be breakeven, modest accretive at the end of Q4 as we exit on our IX suite of products. You are correct. You know, roughly it's about $50 million incremental spend that has popped up a little bit. It's gone down a little bit, but the reality is that it's in that ballpark. And so when you think of from an accretive nature, perspective, that's where we're at. Do expect that we're gonna need to continue to increase investments, but I wanna be very clear about this. It's in line with our revenue growth on the products that we're doing. As we install our Hello product, we absorb the cost for that as we put it in, and so more and more projects, there will be a cost to it, and then we get the revenue from the run rate perspective of the software. On the Hello product, we get sort of the license revenue kind of right out of the gate as we sign those deals. So it's a bit of different between the products, but the criteria is it becomes a scalable business. We're going to invest as we continue to drive scale in that business. But as you've seen us in the past, we wanna make an economic return on those investments, and so we'll do so as we go. Ruplu Bhattacharya: Okay. Thank you. And maybe the last question I have for Andre. Andre, it looks like, you know, you're taking down free cash flow guidance a little bit. How should we think about free cash flow going forward? And it looks like you also raised the dividend. So what was the rationale for doing that now? And how should we think about capital returns going forward? Thank you for all the details. Andre S. Valentine: Sure. Happy to do that. So as we think about free cash flow beyond 2025, we're still very optimistic that we can drive some increase to free cash flow in '26. Drivers there, you know, we're coming to the very end of integration activities. A lot of those spending is cash. So that should be a help to us as we go out to next year. Secondly, our cash interest should drop next year as we continue to pay down debt, maybe get some help from interest rates as well. So those things have us positive. We also think we'll continue to grow the top line and make progress with the margin. And that will help. The drop in our guidance for Q4 is being driven by the margin pressures that we've seen and drop in our profitability expectations for the full year. Capital allocation priorities as we go forward will remain balanced. So again, we're going to generate more free cash flow next year. And with that, we are going to prioritize repayment of debt while supporting our dividend and continuing our share repurchase program. I don't know that we'll see share repurchase dollars go up dramatically next year. I think we'll probably prioritize more taking some of the increase in cash flow and putting it towards our debt. But and then lastly, the dividend. Look. We have investors who are very appreciative of the dividend. They are appreciative of our cadence of annual increases. We're confident in our ability to generate strong free cash flow not only this year where we've driven a pretty sizable increase, but drive an increase in the next year as well. All of that is part of the decision to increase the dividend. Ruplu Bhattacharya: Thanks for all the details. Appreciate it. Andre S. Valentine: Sure. Thank you. Operator: And this concludes our Q&A session and conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the LightPath Technologies Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions. This conference is being recorded today, 09/25/2025, and the earnings press release accompanying this conference call was issued after the market closed today. I'd like to remind you that during the course of this call, the company will be making a number of forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and involve various risks and uncertainties as discussed in its periodic SEC filings. Although the company believes that the assumptions underlying these statements are reasonable, any of them can be proven to be inaccurate, and there could be no assurances that the projected results will be realized. In addition, references may be made to certain financial measures that are not in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. We refer to these as non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our SEC reports and certain of our press releases, which include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures and associated disclaimers. CEO Sam Rubin will begin today's call with a strategic overview of the business and recent developments for the company, while CFO Al Miranda will then review financial results for the quarter. Following the prepared remarks, there will be a formal question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to CEO Sam Rubin. Sam, the floor is yours. Sam Rubin: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to LightPath Technologies fiscal fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Pretty exciting times here at LightPath. Over the last few years, we've been working on the transformation of the company, and we're now beginning to see the tangible results of these efforts. Since we likely have many new shareholders and many new listeners on this call, I will take some time to describe where we've come from, which will help put in context the recent developments. Then I will talk about specific programs that are driving our record $90 million backlog, the investment from Ondas and Unusual Machines, and our next growth drivers. This will likely take up more time than usual and will come at the expense of some of the financial side. So, Al? So let's start with strategy. LightPath is a forty-year-old company that for thirty-five out of those forty years was a component manufacturer. The strategy of LightPath as an optical component company was strongly tied to the industry structure and worked well when the industry was small and highly technical. A component company like LightPath could create value with its fabrication technology and at times capture that value with high margins. However, as the industry grew and changed, the structure of the industry changed and led to commoditization of optical fabrication technologies and a change in customer characteristics and supplier-customer dynamics. LightPath unfortunately did not adapt its strategy to that and therefore relied on being a lowest-cost provider of components and focusing on manufacturing in China to achieve that. This resulted in eroding margins, increasing competition, and diminishing ability to capture the value its technologies created. This also resulted in an unhealthy reliance on both manufacturing and sales in China. By 2020, most of the company's manufacturing footprint was in China, and more than one-third of its revenue was from China. In late 2020, following a change in management, we developed and implemented a new strategic direction. Without going into great details, because honestly, I could spend the whole evening talking about this, I'll just say that we realigned the company to strategic directions that allow us to substantially grow and capture much more value from our technologies and capabilities. This is not about moving away from being a component company as much as it is about moving into a position that will allow us to grow, improve margins, and secure our position in the supply chain. In our specific industry, with the dynamics of the technology, supply chain, and geopolitics, this means that we can grow best and impact our bottom line best if we focus on subsystems and systems that are enabled by our technologies. More specifically, doing that in the field of infrared imaging, a growing market in which we have strong differentiators. To explain a bit more about what I mean, let's look at just one of our unique differentiators, our Black Diamond Glass. Unique materials, such as our proprietary Black Diamond Glass, which is licensed from US Naval Research Laboratories as an alternative to germanium in infrared optics, help create value by enabling customers to do in this case, could be smaller systems, more could be cheaper systems, or more could simply be something as trivial as just being able to guarantee delivery of your systems to the customers with production certainty without worrying about germanium supply restrictions from China. Some companies, when they have such technology, might say something like, well, these materials are valued by my customers, so I can charge more for my material, which is a valid point. Another company could say, let's take a step further, and with our unique materials, we can sell more components value-added. So we do that. For us, we found that the sweet spot was going into subsystems or small systems, which we often call engineered solutions. Those do not require a large infrastructure of service and field support much more of the value as full systems do, but still allow us to capture the combination of LightPath's materials and our optics, together with, for example, the recently acquired subsidiary of G5 Infrared, which is a leader in thermal imaging cameras. G5 is known as the industry leader in long-range infrared cameras. That was the case before we acquired them, not something we created. But like its competitors, G5 was facing supply chain challenges due to global geopolitics, and primarily germanium and gallium, which are critical materials in their optics. After acquiring G5 in February, in conjunction with their team, we began the effort to redesign their systems to use our materials. Recently, we announced the completion of the redesign of two of those cameras. By doing so, we are positioning ourselves not only as offering the best cameras now but also as the most reliable provider of cameras with supply chain resiliency that no one else can offer. The result of this is the massive growth we're seeing. Our backlog today is around $90 million. That is more than four times what the backlog was just a few months ago. And with more than two-thirds of this backlog in systems and subsystems, it is clear that the strategy is working. Our strategy is all about creating value and capturing value. You have core technologies that are unique and well-positioned, they clearly create value. It is up to the company to make the most of it by capturing as much of that value as possible. For LightPath, it means going up the food chain. With this background behind us, I would like to now dive into some of our most recent developments and events and add some color and background to the announcement we have recently made and the large backlog I just mentioned. First, let's talk about the two recent large orders. Over the last few weeks, we announced two large orders that are really one order split into two separate appeals. Those orders totaling over $40 million for deliveries of infrared cameras in calendar years 2026 and 2027. The customer is an existing customer that has been consistently doing business with G5 over the last few years, although not at levels anywhere near this. Applications for those cameras will be in border surveillance and counter UAVs, or CUAS as it is often called. Let's first talk about the border surveillance. So border surveillance program known as CTSE is something we had previously discussed. At the time, I think in our last call, we expected the entirety of the program to include installing about 300 new surveillance towers along the southern border, and the work to be divided between three primes, one of them was our customer. Then along came the big beautiful bill and more than tripled the funding to Border Patrol. To our understanding, this means the number of towers along the border go up to 1,000 towers. Some even speak about 1,200 towers. This includes not only an increase in the number of towers along the southern border but also the installation of towers in some places along the northern border. Now take the large increase in expected deployment, add to it supply chain constraints companies are facing, and you get a scramble to ensure supplies of cameras. Or in other words, for us, a perfect storm. The border contract is an IDIQ divided among three companies. Until recently, we've been supplying cameras to only one of those three. The $40 million in orders for calendar 2026-2027 we just discussed is for another one of the prime contractors. So this is going to be in addition to the existing work we have been expecting and spoke about for the border. Okay. Enough about the border, but there's a lot going on there, clearly. Let's go back to our $90 million backlog. Another part of our record $90 million backlog is systems for Counter UAS. More specifically, powerful zoom cameras that can passively detect, classify, and track drones. Drones that are as small as 10 inches in size, for example. These cameras not only integrate systems for detecting drones but also integrate onto almost any weapon system that is used to counter drones by disabling drones using different means. It could be systems named remote weapon systems, or vehicle-mounted kinetic systems, or pretty much any deployment of a counter UAS system, which as we all know is a rapidly growing industry not only in battlefields and frontlines but also in critical infrastructure such as airports, or public and private infrastructure. Currently, more than $10 million of our backlog is for cameras for counter UAS. This is separate from the $40 million of orders I just discussed. And those specific orders were announced and discussed earlier. We expect this to continue to grow as our cameras are integrated into more and more systems. Another area of growth that we expect to see is the Navy Sphere program, L3 Harris is a prime integrating this system, which is expected to be installed on all US naval surface vessels. The contract, we announced together with L3 Harris earlier this year, is expected to move into LRIP, LRIP is low rate initial production, in the coming months. It has also been publicly disclosed that they expect to see the first installation and full integration into a fire control system, of the first destroyer by 2027. For a system to be deployed by 2027, given all the slowdowns and processes, that timeline means that we will be working on our part very soon. This is a large program of record and a key program for the US Navy. So we expect this to be a meaningful source of revenue for many more years to come. All of those are systems that we've already qualified so all the development work is pretty much done. It's a matter of receiving and executing on the purchase. We feel very confident in our ability to deliver all of those especially in light of our unique position, utilizing our proprietary Black Diamond materials in the cameras instead of germanium, which traditionally is the element of use for many infrared cameras. This brings me to China's ongoing export restrictions, who late last year cut off the export of germanium, as well as other critical materials to the US defense industry. China produces substantially most of the germanium globally, making the Chinese ban effectively global. In response to those events, US defense contractors moved to stockpile germanium, but the ongoing ban to stop the stockpiles are running dangerously low. One executive noted in a Wall Street Journal last month that his firm is now down to safety stock. Some suppliers now hold only a few months of inventory, exposing even large firms to disruption. The result of this disruption has been a massive interest from defense customers to move away from germanium, to eliminate China-related supply chain risk. Inbound interest from defense contractors in LightPath's proprietary Black Diamond Glass, the replacement for germanium we licensed exclusively from NRL, has increased significantly. And while there's some lag from design to field deployment, the shift is happening and happening quickly and can be already seen in some of our numbers. So those programs are what is currently driving our large backlog and short-term growth. Now let's talk about additional programs and growth drivers in the pipeline. NGSRI is one of our most important programs, in which we are developing for Lockheed Martin a system that is a key technology in their version of next-generation Stinger portable ground-to-air. Lockheed is competing against Raytheon in this and is now in testing stages with the customer. While I do not have any specific updates to share, I will likely not be able to answer most questions about this. I would like to commend the teams at Lockheed Martin and Visomed Group in Texas in putting together a completely new missile system in a two-year time frame, something almost unheard of. The system is now in testing and we expect delivery or feedback from the customer anytime in the next few months. I know many are anxious to receive updates on this, as am I, to be honest. But because if we win this according to projections we received from the customer, this could be between $50 million to $100 million of recurring annual revenue for us while in full-rate production. The only related update I can share right now is that our tech group is in the process of moving to a larger facility that will be able to support the production for this system. For those that want to understand more about this system and why our camera is making such a big difference, I would suggest searching online for the term QuadStar and Lockheed Martin. Lockheed names the missile QuadStar. There is a long and detailed article that describes fairly well why Lockheed's solution can achieve better distance and overall performance due to LightPath's camera system integrated into the missile. Additionally, we also have programs such as the Apache program, which we delivered our subsystem recently and is now being integrated and tested by the customer. We have some programs related to Golden Doe, which are in the design phase. And we have another program which is really unnamed. And I mentioned in the last call is a key Black Diamond material program in which the customer is actually funding equipment dedicated to that program. I can't say much about it, unfortunately. What is common to all these programs is that we believe each and every one of them could reach over $10 million of recurring revenue a year. Some of them, like NGSRI, much more. All of those are specific programs or projects. But we also have our assemblies and optics product offering. The assemblies business includes standard and custom design of lens assemblies that customers integrate into their own cameras or systems. Part of this business is growing too. And especially assemblies that are designed to replace existing assemblies that utilize germanium and wanner wall lens. LightPath has a portfolio of lens assemblies designed so they can be used with other cameras. Those could be cameras made by FLIR, Seek Thermal, DRS, or pretty much any thermal camera manufacturer. In particular, we are seeing a growing demand for assemblies and also complete cameras for use in drones. A bit of background. Following the COVID pandemic, China emerged as a strong player in the market for low-cost thermal cameras used in applications such as drones. This is as a result of the significant state investment in technologies related to contactless temperature measurement, which are really the same technologies used in thermal imaging. While for a while after 2021 or so, it looked like Chinese vendors might become the main source for cameras for drones, geopolitics, however, has been changing that. Ukraine, for example, has decided a while ago that it will no longer use cameras or lens assemblies made in China in Zedgeville. US Europe and The US have followed shortly after with different initiatives for domestic drone and component manufacturing. LightPath designs and produces its lens assemblies in Orlando, and in recent months, we have made investments in those capabilities both in The US and our RECO operation, which is a certified defense manufacturer in Europe. Further supports a focus on disassembly on those assemblies and the drone market, we have done two things. First, we've recruited Doctor Steve Milky as VP of engineering. The engineering discipline, which focuses on the successful transition of new products from into manufacturing and high-volume manufacturing of these products is key to LightPath scaling in this business. Doctor Milky brings many years of experience in doing exactly that. We view his addition as instrumental in this effort to scale this manufacturing. Secondly, and pretty excitingly, to finance many of those efforts, we received a strategic investment from two leading companies in our industry, Ondas Holdings and Unusual Machines. These companies are not only key strategic customers to LightPath, they are also leading the charge in setting up manufacturing and the complete ecosystem for drones and all components and subsystems required for this in The US and The West. What LightPath is doing in bringing manufacturing of thermal imaging to The US, Ondas and UMAC are doing with drone motors, complete drones, and much more. We're excited to be working with them and take part in building the future drone infrastructure for The US and Europe. The $8 million investment received from Ondas and UMAC will go towards expanding these efforts. And I expect these efforts to be very fruitful for all three companies and the industry as a whole. I firmly believe LightPath is poised for great success in the coming years. The 41% quarter-over-quarter growth we just announced for Q4, and the $90 million backlog is only the beginning. There are many tailwinds supporting our growth, and the investments and efforts the team has made over the last five years. Many of which are just starting to show. Our future is very bright, and we're excited to be here and to see it all unfold. Now I've spoken enough, so I'll pass it on to our CFO, Al Miranda, to talk about fourth quarter and fiscal year-end results. Please go ahead. Al Miranda: Thank you, Sam. I will keep my review to a succinct highlight of the financials. As a reminder, much of the information we're discussing during this call was also included in our press release, issued earlier today and will be included in the 10-K for the period. I encourage you to visit our investor relations web page to access these documents. Revenue for 2025 increased 41.4% to $12.2 million as compared to $8.6 million in the same year-ago quarter. Sales of infrared components were $4.9 million or 40% of the company's consolidated revenue. Revenue from visible components was $2.8 million or 23.2% of consolidated revenue. Revenue from assemblies and modules were $4.2 million, or 34.1% of consolidated revenue. Revenue from engineering services was $300,000 or 2.1% of consolidated revenue. Gross profit increased 6.6% to $2.7 million or 22% of total revenues from 2025, as compared to $2.5 million or 29.2% of total revenues in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year. The difference in gross margin as a percentage of revenue was primarily due to an approximately $500,000 increase in inventory reserve charges recorded in 2025, primarily related to our visible component business. Operating expenses increased 52% to $7.2 million for 2025, as compared to $4.7 million in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year. This increase was due to the integration of G5 and infrared following its acquisition earlier, as well as increased sales and marketing spend to promote new products, an increase of material spend for internally funded new product development, and an increase in the fair value of the acquisition liabilities of $1.4 million. The earn-out liability for 2025 totaled $7.1 million or $0.16 per basic and diluted share as compared to $2.4 million or $0.06 per basic and diluted share in the same quarter of the prior fiscal year. The change in net loss was driven by an increase in certain non-cash non-operating expenses associated with the acquisition of G5 Infrared and the related financing of the acquisition. Adjusted EBITDA loss for 2025 was $1.9 million compared to a loss of $1.1 million for the same period of the prior fiscal year. Although not perfect, we believe that adjusted EBITDA is a better indicator of core operating performance by excluding non-core non-cash items. Cash and cash equivalents as of 06/30/2025 totaled $4.9 million, as compared to $3.5 million as of 06/30/2024. As of 06/30/2025, total debt stood at $5 million and backlog totaled $37.4 million. But as Sam noted, backlog has grown significantly since that time. I'd like to point out two significant activities we undertook during the fiscal year that we have not discussed. During the fiscal year and especially in the fourth quarter, we migrated our global IT infrastructure to a new provider to bolster and meet the defense industry's high-level security requirements. This was usually important. Without the right local and global IT infrastructure, we would severely limit our opportunities in the defense industry. Second, we successfully integrated G5 into LightPath in six months ahead of plan and below budget. I'd like to publicly acknowledge and thank the teams from both companies that worked together to make it happen. Everyone knows acquisitions live or die based on cultural fit and integration. So thanks again to the entire team. Looking forward, our focus for fiscal 2026 supports the business opportunities that Sam described. We have a detailed go-to-market strategy that we're funding to target revenues in key high-growth areas, some of which Sam mentioned. Our prior year investments in manufacturing are bearing fruit in terms of quality and on-time delivery. And in the next year, I expect to see margin expansion as a result. With all of the interesting accounting around acquisitions, we will continue to report and focus on adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year 2026 as a helpful measure of financial success. And then lastly, as Sam noted, subsequent to the quarter close, we announced an $8 million investment from Ondas Holdings and Unusual Machines. We are truly, truly fortunate with the quality of the existing investors in the company and Ondas and Unusual Machines are not only a continuation of quality investors, but in addition, they're a great strategic fit for us. With that, I'll turn the call back to Sam for some closing remarks. Thank you. Sam Rubin: So as we look forward, we remain very focused on the transformation of LightPath. As Al was pointing out, we've been focusing on top-line growth, and followed by that, we'll be focusing on margins and bottom line in coming quarters. Expect to see significant growth continuing and our investments in Black Diamond and other differentiators bearing fruit. Since I've spoken quite a bit before, I'll use the rest of the time for questions and answers. I'll pass it back to the operator, please. Operator: Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad. You may press 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. And the first question comes from the line of Jaeson Schmidt with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed. Jaeson Schmidt: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just looking at the June, how much did G5 contribute to in that quarter? And I assume it's a big chunk of that backlog just given the significant wins you have in the pipeline, but can you break that out as well? Al Miranda: So it was $4.2 million, Jaeson, was the G5 contribution to revenue. Jaeson Schmidt: Okay. Perfect. And how much does it comprise of that $90 million in backlog? Sam Rubin: I'd say two-thirds of the backlog altogether is cameras and assemblies. I'm not sure if we have it broken down now by G5 or LightPath or the rest of LightPath since I had. Jaeson Schmidt: Okay. And then just a follow-up, and I'll jump back into the queue. Looking at the border security opportunity, obviously, a big win with the second customer. Are you expecting to be sole sourced here? Sam Rubin: You know, I don't know what the third prime or third integrator is going to do, but we're definitely in a very, very unique position. I think I would not be surprised if we end up providing all the cameras for all the towers along this border. Jaeson Schmidt: Okay. Perfect. Jump back into the queue. Thanks a lot, guys. Al Miranda: Thank you. Thanks, Jaeson. Operator: The next question comes from the line of Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please proceed. Glenn Mattson: Hi. Thanks for taking the question, and congrats on the great transformation these companies have gone under. Thanks, Sam, for laying out kind of an outline of that. But one thing that stood out in your remarks that I'd wanted to just flesh out a little more was I think you said that you were rapidly expanding capacity in Visomed. And if I'm not mistaken, I think the kind of core technology that got you into the hunt for this Lockheed contract. Can you just go into what kind of signal you're sending with that? Or and is there some, you know, if you don't win the Lockheed, is there other work that you could tend to pump through that? Just some points on that would be great. Sam Rubin: Sure. Definitely. So Visomed, when we acquired them, was a small engineering firm. Right? Less than 10 people in a very small space, very confined space where they were doing development. That's not conducive for any expansion or manufacturing. I mean, they've been cramped already. We acquired them. In addition to NGSRI, we do all the development of our uncooled cameras at that location in Texas. So they're not moving into a massive plant, maybe 10,000 square feet or so. But it will be enough both for the NGSRI and for all the non-Lockheed uncooled product. So optical gas imaging camera, drone cameras that we come out with, some of the Mantis work and so on. So there's much more going on in that facility than just the NGSRI. Glenn Mattson: Okay. Great. Helpful. And then, Al, can you if you add back $500,000 you talked about in the inventory write-off, still gross margin will be down sequentially. So I guess I think that's related to mix a little bit, but maybe can you confirm that? And then is there any change to the margin within that mix within each category, like any significant changes? Al Miranda: No. In the quarter, we actually thought the mix was, let's say, typical. There's half a million I mentioned that because that's the single largest item. But there's a few other items. So if I kind of do the math you're asking, that puts us around 29.7% gross margin if I adjust for that half a million and a couple of other unusual one-time items. Glenn Mattson: That's helpful. And then on the OpEx, is this like, I may ask SG&A side, is this the normal run right now, or was there any, you know, I know you're investing in marketing and stuff because you have a lot of stuff to sell, but is this the normal level, or is there some? Al Miranda: No. It really isn't, Glenn. We had a lot of one-time expenses in the OpEx this quarter. G5 for the meantime. Yeah. So, I mean, to kind of ballpark it, G5 adds a million. Just, you know, for a full quarter in terms of their OpEx. And then, of course, we had M&A related expenses with lawyers. In order for us to level up in cybersecurity, we had significant IT costs. We spent a little bit on marketing. We'll do some more of that actually going forward. So there are quite a few items in there and in the quarter that are one-time. Glenn Mattson: Okay. Okay. Great. That's very helpful. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks again, guys. Sam Rubin: Thanks, Glenn. Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Richard Shannon with Craig Hallum. Please proceed. Richard Shannon: Well, great. Thanks, Sam and Al, for letting me take some questions, and congratulations on a really nice running start here with G5. I guess I want to ask the first question just to get a definition down here. In backlog, a lot of companies report it as of the end of the prior quarter end as well as usually reported on an outgoing out one year. It seems like that may not be the case here, so I'd love for you to clarify where is that measured and over what period that measures, please. Al Miranda: So great question. Backlog is a real order. It's a real order from a, you know, a real customer. There's no forecasting in there. You know? So real order 100%. In our case, we do accept orders that are multiple years. Right? So the $90 million Sam mentioned is more than one year. About 60% of that, 57% of that, so more in that neighborhood, is going to ship in fiscal year 2026. And then the balance of it is in fiscal year 2027. And maybe even a little bit might spill over to fiscal year 2028. Richard Shannon: So for us, that is a bit unique because in the history of LightPath, we've not had that long lead items. That we know that orders are coming, but it's also a bit of the nature of the defense business. Right? Richard Shannon: Yep. That makes sense, and thanks for clarifying that, Al. Now let's look forward here on the pipeline, and, Sam, you did a good job explaining some of the opportunities here. But maybe you can talk about big picture, what kind of how's the size of the pipeline here? As you've added the G5 here? Obviously, you've done a really good job converting a lot of it to backlog, but I wonder what the remaining pipeline looks like especially as you mentioned the big beautiful build that's offered some opportunities you've won. But also sitting out there from big beautiful bill and other places. And how would you quantify that if any? Sam Rubin: Yeah. I'd say it's, like, counter UAS, I think we're just beginning. So $10 million plus whatever part of that $40 million you know, that is really just starting. And because the deployment of those systems is just starting, I think every event like what happened in the airports in Europe over the last few days and things like that accelerates all of this. I'd say most of the $40 million that order of $40 million we weren't planning or budgeting for most of it. So it's all too much gravy on top of numbers we talked about in the past for the long term. So I'd say, you know, expecting still quite a bit of growth. Richard Shannon: Okay. Fair enough. Let me ask a question on gross margins and taking two comments from, I think, both prepared remarks and response to one of here to try to get a sense here. Sounds like from Al's comments, you're talking about maybe focusing on gross margins in a little bit of time, more focused on revenue growth today. But, also, I think if I heard you correctly, you think your gross margins excluding some unusual or more one-time dynamics could be close to 30% here. So what are the dynamics under which and time frame for which we see this gross margin improvement? And kind of what are your goals here, obviously, getting another quarter in your belt with G5 and then also expanding capacity and other like that. Where do we think we can go with this in the next couple of years? Al Miranda: So we can go I mean, right now, on an adjusted basis, as I just said, you know, last question, we're pretty close to 30. I think we can step up to 35. Pretty quickly in a quarter or two. And then in the longer run, as the product mix really does shift, to these larger finished infrared camera systems we're thinking 40% is where it would settle out in the midterm. Richard Shannon: Okay. Perfect. Actually, you know what? I'll ask one last quick question here, Sam. I know you didn't want to say you didn't want to talk much about Lockheed, but I will ask a question that since you put it in your press release last quarter about expecting a decision perhaps this year or early next, is that time frame no longer valid, or you're not making a comment? Sam Rubin: Wanna make sure about that one. Thank you. I can't comment beyond what we spoke about. So, formally, the program will be decided by next fall. Realistically, we get indication that it might be much sooner, you know, this year still, January, February, maybe, but we really don't know that much, and we've we need to be very cautious also on what we share. Richard Shannon: Certainly understood, and I appreciate the detail, guys. Thanks. That's all for me. Operator: The next question comes from the line of Scott Buck with H. C. Wainwright. Please proceed. Scott Buck: Hi, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Sam, I'm curious. You guys call out, you know, kind of the active redesign of some of G5's product line. What kind of lift is that, and what's the timeline look around that? Sam Rubin: So it can vary quite a bit. I mean, we expect another one or two cameras to be redesigned or move forward in the next two, three months probably. After that, it gets a bit more complicated. So really large ones, complex very long-range ones. Take obviously much, much more effort. Trying to flow more resources at it to accelerate it. We've taken equipment from production to dedicate it also for prototyping, so that we can quickly turn it in. It's not an acute thing because we have a G5 and LightPath enough materials and access to enough materials right now to deliver what we need. It is more that, you know, we understand how uniquely it positions us. And we're seeing an overwhelming positive response from customers for the first two that we announced that we understand that doing more will possibly drive much more business to us. Scott Buck: That's helpful. Now does it change the way you're able to sell some of these products in the near term? Sam Rubin: I don't know. What in what way do you mean? Scott Buck: Just in terms of if it's gonna take months. Right, to kind of redesign some of these new, you know, kind of take it out of the, you know, the quote product catalog here in the near term? Sam Rubin: No. No. We can still deliver the products, these are new versions, if you would, but we are seeing customers already placing orders for them before we produce even one of them. So just telling customers we're doing that and we will have a germanium-free version is driving some orders. Scott Buck: Okay. Perfect. That's helpful. And then the second question I had the 40 or so million that you've announced with the leading global technology customer, I'm curious. Was any revenue expectation from this customer within the initial kind of $55 million of annual revenue you laid out at the time of the acquisition? Al Miranda: So, when we did our due diligence, we thought this customer would be around $9 million on a run rate per year. So it's more than it's more than twice that now. Scott Buck: Okay. So there's incremental revenue in there and meaningful incremental revenue with Al Miranda: Yeah. And prior to that, that particular customer did about $4 million with G5 before we were in the picture. Scott Buck: Okay. Perfect. Well, I appreciate the added color, guys. Thanks a lot. Operator: The next question comes from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed. Brian Kinstlinger: Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions, and congrats on the recent wins. I take 60% of the $90 million backlog suggests you've already got about $54 million of revenue in hand roughly, plus or minus, for next year. I'm wondering, is the company adjusted EBITDA profitable on that? Is 5% a reasonable target, plus or minus? And then as you think about profit, is that more of a second-year half of the year event? Or do you think you're already at that run rate starting next year to generate profit? Al Miranda: So we would if I, Brian, if I look at the consensus, I would say that at this point, the consensus on revenue would have to be raised by about 10%. Right? So if you look back at where we were three months ago, you know, or four months ago when we had this discussion, from that, we do get some uplift. Obviously, we get uplift in gross margin, and we do get uplift in EBITDA. So I would expect that we would be positive on that higher level of revenue. Brian Kinstlinger: But I based on the gross margin comments, it's gonna take some quarters to get to thirty-five. Maybe that's the second half of the year event, not first. Al Miranda: Yep. That's exactly right. Yep. Brian Kinstlinger: Great. So that brings me into my second question. Because in the backlog, you said you didn't separate it out to one of the previous questions. By the companies. Remind us the first tranche of what you call the first twelve-month earn-out revenue and EBITDA target, I assume you'll eventually have to split it out. And then your thoughts on both EBITDA and revenue targets and ability to meet it. Obviously, revenue seems likely, but I'm curious about more on the EBITDA side. Al Miranda: Yes. So I thought the question was cameras and assemblies. We didn't break it out by product line. We know exactly what G5 backlog is, obviously. Right. Right? So and to refresh your memory, it was $21 million in revenue always with 20% EBITDA. So it's 21, 23, 25, and 27. Those are the earn-out targets for them. We're watching that pretty closely, obviously. The backlog, back order for them indicates they'll hit that first mark. So you know, we're actually pleased, I guess, you could say. That we're gonna end up giving them more earn-out than we expected to. But with the caveat that they've gotta deliver that 20% EBITDA as well to go with it. Right. Brian Kinstlinger: That seems to be the only uncertain piece is if that'll happen or not, it sounds like. Al Miranda: That's correct. Yeah. Brian Kinstlinger: Okay. Thanks so much. Sam Rubin: Thank you. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we have concluded our Q&A session. And I'd like to turn the call back to Sam Rubin for closing remarks. Sam Rubin: Thank you. We appreciate everyone's interest and patience as we've been going through this transformation. I can definitely say now with confidence that we're well at an inflection point and are very pleased with where we are. We expect to see this translate to gross margins and bottom line at least cash flow very soon. As well as continued growth from the top line. I look forward to reporting again in a few weeks for our first fiscal quarter and wish everyone a good day. Operator: Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And thank you for your participation.
Craig Baxter: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to EnQuest PLC's results for the first half of 2025. Throughout this webcast, you will have the opportunity to submit questions at any time, and we will look to answer as many of these as possible during the Q&A session at the end of the presentation. Without further ado, I will hand you over to our Chief Executive Officer, Amjad Bseisu. Amjad Bseisu: Thank you very much, Craig, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our 2025 half year results presentation. Thank you very much for the time joining us today. My name is Amjad Bseisu. I'm the CEO of EnQuest. Joining me today is our Chief Financial Officer, Jonathan Copus; and Steve Bowyer, our U.K. North Sea Managing Director. Craig Baxter is also joining us, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Steve and Jonathan lead the high-performing teams across our business, and our operational performance has remained very strong in the first half of the year, as you will see. Let's start with the backdrop of U.K. The U.K. North Sea remains one of the most challenging environments in oil and gas as evolving fiscal and regulatory pressure continue to undermine global competitiveness. With the sector losing 1,000 jobs every month according to our industry OEUK outfit, crucial that the government urgently reforms energy profit study, which now delivers a fraction of the originally projected revenue. Only a fair, more predictable tax environment can help companies like ours to invest and secure a U.K. energy supply that protects jobs in this critical energy transition environment and allows success of the business. The opportunity is there now and today to enact positive change in the upcoming autumn budget. We are poised to play a leading part in enhancing the U.K.'s energy security and protecting the jobs that are vital to our country and also the energy transition ambitions. So let's start by looking at our fundamentals, which have been strong and that underpin the business. For those who are less familiar with EnQuest, EnQuest is an independent energy company with operations focused on the U.K. North Sea and Southeast Asia. We are listed in 2010, and our foundations are based on acquiring mature underdeveloped assets and from the majors and developing those assets and producing more out of those assets. We've done that in 9 hubs and continue now with the new expansion in Southeast Asia to have 7 operating assets. We've built a strong expertise in mature asset management, driving efficiencies, optimizing operations to extend lives. Over the years, our capability mix has expanded also to maximize recovery of oil through top quartile drilling and major project execution. We are also now proud to be recognized as we've built a very strong sector-leading decommissioning business. Over the past 12 months, we've also expanded our Southeast Asia business significantly. We are now in 4 countries, building on a strong reputation that we have forged over 11 years of successful operations in Malaysia and having been chosen the Operator of the Year 2 years in a row in Malaysia, something I think is the first to have. With the recent acquisition of Harbour's Vietnam business, we now have 7 assets, as I mentioned, with material reserves and resources in place, and we operate nearly all of our assets, deploying our operating expertise to maximize our value, which is our big business proposition. We also operate the Sullom Voe Terminal in the Shetland Island in Scotland, which is a very critical asset for us, both upstream as well as for our new energy decarbonization and renewable business, which is [ varied ]. We've got a number of assets which have also moved into decommissioning over the last few years and have reached the end of their useful economic life. So we have had from taking the assets to decommission the assets, a full cycle of asset management. As we're all aware, the energy transition -- the energy landscape is in transition. And to ensure our long-term success, we recognize that the business must continue to show resilience, creativity and adaptability. The combination of the core capabilities set for EnQuest set us apart from any of our peers. We are able to take these assets and produce more out of these assets and have proven that over the last 15 years. By lowering cost, improving uptime, these assets last longer and run in the hands of us as a better operator. Since our inception, we've extended the useful life of all 9 assets that we've operated. Next slide. Our strategy is underpinned by us being established as a top quartile operating company, both in the U.K. and in Southeast Asia. This is demonstrable across the whole life cycle, as I mentioned, of the assets from the beginning through decommissioning. During the first half of 2025, our production efficiency was 89% and would have been 94%, excluding a third-party infrastructure outage in Magnus, which is certainly upper quartile and maybe even best-in-class. With 96% of our 2P reserves under our operatorship, we maintain control over our asset management, which is a key factor for our excellence over the years. The operational control has been pivotal in our ability to extend the lives of every asset that we've operated and also provide us with a line of sight of material organic opportunities around our assets for optimizing our core assets. We've done that in Magnus, Kraken, PM8/Seligi and our other assets. We can now proudly say that our expertise extends to the decommissioning performance, where we've executed 81 wells since 2022. And the activity has been mostly focused on Thistle and Heather, where we recently completed also the largest lift of topsides in the U.K. of 15,300 tonnes in 2025, the heaviest lift planned in 2025. We have now completed the Heather disembarkation and look forward disembarkation of Thistle in early 2026. And again, as I said, we're very proud to have now the ability to say we are sector leading in the decommissioning area also alongside the other areas like drilling, project execution and operations. This new capability is a key enabler for us, both to transact in the U.K. and to maximize the value of our assets. As you will see from Jonathan's presentation, we've had a significant continuing deleveraging path during which we've directed our free cash flow to repay around $1.6 billion of debt. We remain very much ready for our transformative growth and looking to utilize our tax assets. Our net debt, as mentioned, continues to go down and was $377 million on the 30th of June. And our liquidity has increased from $475 million at the end of last year to $578 million at the end of June. We've been clear on our strategic focus on executing transactions, which we have done in Southeast Asia and using our U.K. tax asset of $3.3 billion to execute another transaction in the U.K. It's a matter of public records that we were in discussions with Serica earlier this year about a combination, which didn't come to fruition, but we remain engaged in negotiations across several other U.K. growth opportunities, and everyone at EnQuest is motivated to complete a value-accretive U.K. deal in the coming months, similar to the deals that we've done in Southeast Asia. We also remain active outside of the U.K., adding scale to our business in Southeast Asia. Next slide, where conditions are conducive to investments across the life cycle. Over the past 12 months, we've executed 5 growth transactions across Southeast Asia, and we've stated that we see this as part of a business reaching 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent production by the end of the decade. We have visibility now on getting to our goal through the acquisitions that we've made. These transactions include a full corporate acquisition in Vietnam, which brings flowing barrels which have produced over 5,000 barrels in the first half of this year. Development of existing infrastructure to unlock significant gas volumes. That's done in PM8 Seligi, where we have signed a gas sales agreement, and we will be starting to produce 70 million scfs a day early next year for production into the system. New developments like DEWA in Sarawak as well as in Brunei with -- the joint venture with the government -- 50-50 joint venture, which we've announced recently, which will be gas weighed into gas sales agreement and into LNG plants and a significant exploration and appraisal opportunity in Indonesia with us being as operator and bp and the LNG Tangguh Alliance being our very strategically important partner because we have access to the infrastructure there. Our growth in the region sees EnQuest in these new areas, adding 3 new countries to our main hub of Vietnam and emphasizing the strong reputation we've built over 10 years operating in Malaysia. I was extremely proud to see EnQuest again named as Operator of the Year in Malaysia, the first of any operator to achieve this accolade. And this is clear that PETRONAS' recognition of our credentials has opened the doors for us in many other countries. We've also received the award for decommissioning excellence in Southeast Asia, of which I'm extremely proud. The Southeast Asia team continues to deliver against our strategic growth aims, and we intend to build on our recent deal momentum with further M&A activity. I'll hand over to Jonathan to cover the financial performance for the first half of the year. Jonathan Copus: Thanks, Amjad. So just moving to my first slide. I think the first thing to say here is that financially speaking, the foundation of everything we do is our capital structure, and we are committed to maintaining both a strong and flexible capital structure. Now to that end, in the last 12 months, we have taken steps to simplify our balance sheet as well as continue paying down or reducing our net debt. At the moment, we have -- well, now we have a structure that is built primarily around our flexible RBL and also our foundation of bonds as well. When we think about capital discipline, we are focused on a few things. First of all, fast payback investment. That is where we can see opportunity organically within the portfolio. And alongside that, of course, we're also focused on growth, diversification and internationalization. And Amjad spoke about our transactional activity in Vietnam, but also ambitions both in the North Sea and Southeast Asia. And of course, we also paid our maiden dividend in June of this year. If we move on to the income statement, Amjad mentioned that in the first half, we had disruption at the -- third-party disruption at the Ninian facility. And that meant that we lost about 3,500 barrels a day of production in the first half. Now that's equivalent to about one cargo deferred and the value of that at prevailing prices would have been something like $40 million to $50 million. We also saw a 14% year-on-year reduction in Brent. However, we have a strong commodity hedge position and gains on that hedge book mean that in the period, we reported revenue of $549 million, which was a strong delivery. Cost of sales totaled $389 million. And within that, we held operating costs flat year-on-year, and that was despite an 11% weakening in the U.S. dollar. So again, a strong performance here in terms of costs. On a unit basis, of course, the numbers are again impacted by the Magnus outage. And including hedging, our unit OpEx for the period was $26.4 per BOE. Our adjusted EBITDA was $235 million. And the other number that jumps out of the income statement is our tax charge, which is significantly distorted by the 2-year extension to EPL and the deferred tax impact that we see coming through the income statement. So within that $239 million tax charge, $50 million of it was current and $189 million was deferred, $124 million of that figure being this 2-year extension to EPL, which has impacted our numbers, and you would have seen that impact across the sector as well. However, if you move to free cash flow, we delivered free cash flow in the period of $33 million. And from that, we paid our $15 million dividend, and we reduced our net debt to $377 million. CapEx in the period was $83 million. We spent $31 million on decommissioning. And at the 30th of June, our cash and available facilities had increased to $578 million, which is about $100 million rise on the position at the end of 2024. Now driving that increase was a positive redetermination outcome on our RBL, which we detail on the next slide. So through our year-end redetermination, we saw a 34% uplift in terms of our capacity on the RBL. And that reflects the tangibility, but also the consistent delivery and high levels of uptime on our assets as well. As Amjad mentioned, you can see that in recent years, we have reduced our net debt position by $1.6 billion. And that has taken very significant focus and very significant discipline, and it's something we're proud of. We have no debt maturities before 2027. And of course, the other key asset that we have as well are our tax assets. And those at the 30th of June totaled $2 billion in the recognized category with a further $1.2 billion that are yet to be recognized. Finally, turning to our guidance. We are reiterating all of our guidance points today. These are given on a pro forma basis: production 40,000 to 45,000 BOE a day; operating expenditure, $450 million for the year; CapEx of $190 million; decommissioning of $60 million; and of course, as I said, we paid our maiden dividend of $15 million. Looking to 2026, organic growth is our focus in terms of the core portfolio, and we have projects such as the Kraken EOR project and the optimization of Magnus production. In terms of operating expenditure, we are consistently focused on maintenance and maximizing our asset uptime and continuing the excellent production efficiencies, which we continue to see across the portfolio, both in the North Sea and Southeast Asia. And in terms of CapEx, we remain very focused on low-cost, quick payback opportunities. And in terms of shareholder returns, these sit within our capital priorities, and we aim to deliver every year a sustainable capital allocation framework that builds value for our shareholders. So now just handing over to Steve, who will cover the operations. Steve Bowyer: Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Jonathan. I'm Steve Bowyer, U.K. Managing Director. I'm pleased to report on a very strong operational year for the business. Our operational performance has been exceptional across all facets of the energy transition, and I'll talk you through how we've managed to do that and through the first part of the year, with the only blip in the year being the third-party outage at NCP and what I'm pleased to report that we worked very well and collaboratively with CNRI, the holder and operator of the Ninian Central platform to resolve the minor [indiscernible] on NCP in short order and making sure we delivered an alarm solution and got production back on within 5 weeks. Just to talk through our operating performance, underpinning everything we do is delivering safe results. We continue to strive for continuous improvement on our health and safety performance. As Amjad mentioned already, we've received awards in Malaysia, not just for our operating performance, but also for our HSE excellence where it's been very strong, and I'll talk through that when we get to the Southeast Asia section. And we've delivered 3-plus years LTI-free on Kraken, and we're 19-plus years LTI-free on GPA. So very strong performance across the assets. Our operational excellence comes through very strongly in our production efficiencies. Production efficiency of 94% is best-in-class. That excludes the NCP outage. But if you look at what we're in control of as EnQuest as operator, a phenomenal performance by the teams. And that's focused on prioritizing the right operational activities, making sure we understand the asset fully, invest in integrity and making sure our assets run as well as they possibly can. And when you consider within that portfolio is Magnus, which is over 40 years old, that's a phenomenal performance. Production is right in line with guidance for the first half of the year despite the NCP outage. Obviously, if you exclude Vietnam, which is 5,000 BOEs a day, so we're right in the middle of the range if you exclude Vietnam. And Amjad already mentioned, we're very proud again to be awarded Malaysia Operator of the Year, which I believe is the first. And I think in the market we're in, we all know the North Sea is quite difficult at the moment with the continued application of EPL and obviously, commodity prices being lower than potentially we'd expected, our strong cost discipline comes to the fore. So we have a track record of extending field lives significantly of 10-plus years. We've used that cost discipline and work very closely with the teams and good collaboration across all teams from supply chain through operations to ensure that we maintain costs flat despite material inflationary pressures and material FX impacts across the business. So really good work by the teams in a particularly challenging market. We remain at the forefront of the energy transition, decarbonizing our existing oil and gas assets and also making good progress on our SVT projects to reduce emissions by 90%. And at Veri Energy, although the transition takes a little bit longer than anyone had anticipated, we're making good progress on onshore wind and continuing to study carbon storage and excited about the potential through e-fuels. And as Amjad mentioned, it's key to be good at decommissioning. If you're going to be active in the energy transition and it's a key part of any future acquisition we do, our performance has been exceptional in decommissioning. We've P&A'd over 81 wells and since 2022, and that's effectively more than 35% of the Northern and Central North Sea P&A across the basin, and we've done that at 35% below the basin average cost. Big achievements as well. So although our wells P&A team is exceptional, good decommissioning comes down to strong project management. And our team there, as you'll see, have safely disembarked the Heather platform, and I'll show you a video later, which highlights how strong our operational capability is as you'll see the Heather fast lift actually in action. And as I talk through each of the assets, we'll start with Kraken. So Kraken continued its exceptional performance from 2024 and 2025. You can see production efficiency. Kraken is up at 96%, which is 30% above the basin average for FPSOs, which is phenomenal. We continue to optimize our emissions through going direct to the marine market for sales. We've managed to take the Bressay Gas tieback and progress that through towards FID. We're not at FID yet, but we have submitted a draft FDP to the NSTA, and we're clearly working with our partner, Waldorf to ensure we can get to an FID point. That project is really important for the future of Kraken. Not only does it reduce our emissions on Kraken, also delivers a material cost saving by reducing our reliance on diesel. In terms of future investment on Kraken, we're working on EOR, as Jonathan has mentioned, to enhance oil recovery. We see good potential upside through that, and we're also continuing to study infill drilling. So the future for Kraken will be EOR or infill drilling or a combination of the 2, and it may well end up being a combination of the 2 that we work on. And just to focus on costs again, the FPSO lease costs reduced at the start of 2Q 2025, which is an $80 million per annum saving, which is clearly very helpful. So really strong performance on Kraken and thanks to Bumi Armada for working very collaboratively with the teams on that asset. Flipping to Magnus. Late-life management asset expertise in play. The asset is over 40 years old. And as I mentioned earlier, we're way up at 95% if you exclude the NCP outage in terms of our operating efficiency, which is phenomenal. And that comes down to the teams really understanding the asset, great collaboration from the offshore teams right through the onshore teams. And if you look at our production that we managed to deliver through the early part of this year, post the NCP outage, we were up at 19,000 BOEs a day. We've sustained production around that level since mid-July, and that's a peak 3-month oil rate that we've seen on Magnus since 2020. But further than that, we've actually managed to take the water cut of the field, which is a measure of how efficient you are in terms of your reservoir recovery. We've taken that back to 85%, which was at pre-acquisition levels. So that's been done by excellent performance on drilling where we've brought the drilling and the well interventions of the recent wells in at cost and on target and tremendous work by the subsurface team working with the operations team and the production teams to ensure that we fully maximize delivery from that asset. And as you look forward on Magnus, obviously buoyed by recent performance, we're planning a future infill drilling program, looking to reestablish drilling back on Magnus later in 2026 and looking at potentially up to 6 wells in that program. Oil production, as we say, has been at peak rates. There's no planned maintenance. So being as efficient as we are, we actually took the opportunity to complete any Magnus shutdown work that we needed to do in 2025 during the NCP outage. So there's no further maintenance outages planned until 2026. And as I've mentioned, our reservoir management strategy has been extremely successful, ensuring that we maximize water injection and throughput and get the water into the right places and sweep as many barrels as we can out of that Magnus reservoir. Flipping into Southeast Asia, where our operating efficiency and our capability has been very well transferred across, you can see production efficiency of the assets at 93%. We've also completed the 4 infill well campaign and well restoration program and well workovers, increasing production by around 10% versus the first half 2024 average. Important as well is the Seligi 1B gas agreement, which expands our gas footprint and expands our reserves and our production. We've managed to accelerate first gas of that project Q1 2026, which will add 6,000 BOEs a day of gas from that point, which is really good work by the teams in Southeast Asia. And just to mention the strong HSE performance, 3 years and over 6 million man hours LTI fees is a great performance by the team. Amjad mentioned how we're expanding our Southeast Asia footprint. So we've got the DEWA PLC now. We're at early stages of studying that opportunity, but it's up to 500 Bcf gas in place, which is a really exciting expansion opportunity for the company. And we've got 2 further gas infill wells planned to be drilled in 2026 in our Malaysian portfolio. So really good performance, not just in the North Sea, but across Southeast Asia. Flipping to Vietnam, which we successfully completed the acquisition of in early July. Pleased to say that the operators handed the asset over in good shape with above expectation production through the first half of the year. We'll now, as Jonathan has mentioned, take our EnQuest skills to bear around getting into fast payback opportunities. We've seen an opportunity and the Vietnam team have highlighted that to bring back some wells into production early on [indiscernible] phase of the asset. So we'll be active on that asset now in terms of getting after the fast quick win payback opportunities. The team have come across and are fully energized and pleased to be part of the EnQuest team. So we're looking forward to extending the life of that asset and making sure we exploit the asset fully. It's a very accretive asset, life of field asset breakeven is about $40 per BOE, and it's high-value crude at a 10% premium to Brent. Just moving on to SVT. So this is a great example for the U.K. government as to how the energy transition should work. And so we're in play at the moment with 2 key projects. We've got the new stabilization facility and the connection to the U.K. grid. They allow us to extend the life of SVT and extend the life of the oil and gas facility and oil and gas production as far as possible. As I mentioned, we're very focused on energy transition projects and new energy projects through Veri Energy. As we all understand in the market now, they'll take a little bit longer to bring to bear, although we are making good progress on onshore wind. So clearly, we need to maintain the life of oil and gas assets as long as we can. We're very focused on that SVT where we can see life going out into the 2050s and that allows more than sufficient time for the new energy projects to come through, hopefully in late 2020s into the 2030s and start to actually act on the energy transition in the way it should be done with a managed and effective transition. In terms of decommissioning, so very strong performance, good validation by our peers who are very impressed with our performance. As I think I mentioned last time I spoke, we were awarded additional P&A operatorship and well abandonment operatorship by one of our peers, which is very good. The Heather P&A was successfully completed by the teams. We also completed safely the disembarkation from the platform. And I'll show you in a minute the Heather top size lift, which was completed with a fast lift. It took about 14 seconds to lift the full topsize facility from the jacket, which is very impressive and done safely. And more impressively, we're looking at basically 95% recycling of that topside facility at the Maersk yard in Denmark. So great work by Heather, and I'll talk a bit more about that before we launch the video. On Thistle, we've now completed all of the platform P&A operations, which is great in terms of Phase 1, 2 and all the conductor recoveries that we needed to do from the platform. As Amjad mentioned, we're on target to disembark in early 2026. And again, very successful performance across that asset. Both projects have remained pretty close to budget within about 5% of the original budgets, and that's been done in a very high inflationary market. So really good performance by the team to control the [indiscernible] costs. And again, Southeast Asia, we transfer our skills across. So really good to see the abandonment excellence award being given to the teams from PETRONAS and the Emerald awards, and that's a good benchmark for the teams. We've also, as I've mentioned, completed the P&A of 81 wells since 2022. We've done that at 35% of the benchmark cost, and we're pleased to have signed up a contract with Well-Safe, which is a multiyear contract, which allows us to complete decommissioning. As always, with EnQuest, our decommissioning, we keep operated control but very low exposure to the decommissioning cost, which is really important from a business management perspective. And we'll commence with low equity but very well-executed decommissioning on the Magnus field with some subsea well P&A, which is due to commence in 2027. In terms of going forward, we keep 95% operatorship of our decom. We've got our decom plans carefully managed. We've got excellent teams in place, and we're very comfortable with the capability we've delivered, which I think is seen as best-in-class across the industry. And just to mention Heather. So Heather was an exemplar asset in its production phase. It went through production of 47 years. The asset is 47 years old now, and I'm pleased to say that it's been an exemplar through the decommissioning phase as well. It's been many workers' homes for a long time. I think one of the employees remained on the asset for the full 47 years. So clearly, it's quite sad to see people moving on and losing their jobs as we P&A assets. But we do it in the right way and we do it as an exemplar of how the decommissioning field should be done, then it's something to be proud of. And you'll see through the video that's just a way to play how strong our decommissioning capability is and how good we are at executing decommissioning with our key supply chain providers. And clearly, the Pioneering Spirit, which executed the work did a phenomenal job of the fast lift. [Presentation] Steve Bowyer: I'll now pass you back to Amjad to conclude the presentation. Amjad Bseisu: Thank you very much, Steve. And that's, I guess, just a great video showing examples of exceptional work where things are very complex, but for everything to fit in exactly at the right time in the right place and the right conditions and the right measurements is, again, just something that shows how we have tremendous attention to detail and the ability to execute these very complex projects. Next slide. So again, delivering organic growth is key. We'll continue to progress and execute opportunities, which provide these growth both organically now that we have a much wider business set, including the acquisitions in Asia that give us more organic opportunities in Malaysia, where we have signed for access to the gas in PM8/Seligi, have signed the first agreement there. We have over 2 Tcf of resource there in the PM8/Seligi fields that we're able to access given the new commercial framework. And we have a ready partner in PETRONAS that needs gas. So I think we're very excited about that. DEWA, transformative opportunity in Sarawak to try and develop gas resources, as Steve mentioned, 500 Bcf. Brunei, a significant opportunity also to develop a gas field and get LNG production there, too. And in the U.K., we're looking forward to the Bressay development that Steve mentioned which again is -- gives us production, but also reduces -- importantly, reduces our emissions in our path to net zero as we've talked about. So we continue also to focus on our relative tax advantage in the U.K. and reemphasizing the expectation that we will grow the North Sea business materially, enable us to release these tax assets, and I think that's one of our key and primary goals and remains our primary goals. We remain committed to growth, as you've seen, but not at any cost. We're focused on creating value for shareholders, and we'll continue to be very disciplined in our M&A, underpinned by a strategy to invest capital where we identify the most favorable terms and returns. This way, we can bring our wide skill sets to bear and continue our track record of extending the economic life of all assets under the execution and operatorship that we have. Of course, our decommissioning expertise now is increasingly important and has become another tenet of our enablers going forward, both in looking at assets and in M&A. In all our endeavors, we also look to diversify the portfolio to improve our overall carbon intensity. And as you've seen, we're shifting a lot more to gas in the future in the commodity mix. We have a clear path in place to add value accretive scale to our business, and I'm energized by the opportunities which are ahead of us. As you've seen, we've seen tremendous growth in Asia, almost 300% growth from last year to next year, and we are continuing to look at growth opportunities in the U.K. and in Southeast Asia. Next slide. In conclusion, you can see our operational strengths are well suited to very mature oil and gas basins and are able -- we are able to transfer for this across geographies. At our core, EnQuest is an agile independent energy company focused on asset-rich regions in the U.K. and Southeast Asia. Since our listing 15 years ago, we have a proven model, acquiring mature and underdeveloped assets from majors and have enabled us to drive operational efficiencies to extend asset lives, maximize value even in complex operating conditions. With our deleveraged balance sheet, enhanced liquidity and significant U.K. tax assets, our strong fundamentals see us very well positioned to deliver transformative continuing value-accretive growth opportunities to our shareholders. Thank you all for your attention. We'll now move to Q&A, and I'll hand over to Craig on the Q&A section. Thank you, everyone. Craig Baxter: Thank you very much, Amjad, and thank you, gentlemen, for the presentation. I'm pleased to say we have a number of questions that have been submitted through the presentation. I'm going to keep you busy for a little bit longer, if that's all right. And we'll start off, if I may, with Alejandra Magana from JPMorgan. And Jonathan, I'll maybe come to you first, and I'm sure Amjad will want to comment on the second part of this question. Alejandra has asked us with regard to transformational U.K. acquisitions to expand a little bit on the financial flexibility that we have today in terms of balance sheet strength, liquidity and the undrawn facilities we can access to act on opportunities as they arise. And maybe this is one more for Amjad. She's looking for a bit of a sense of what we're seeing in the current market and what the sort of bid-ask spreads are in terms of valuation? Jonathan Copus: Sure. Yes. Let me kick off. Yes. So a lot of -- the aim of our deleverage pathway has been to not just reduce our net debt, but to simplify our balance sheet as well, and we've been successful in doing that. We had net debt of $377 million at the 30th of June. And within that figure, our cash balances were $331 million. As I mentioned, we also had a positive redetermination on our RBL. And that meant that the cash and available facilities at the 30th of June was $578 million. Now that provides a great platform to use for transacting. But more to the point, because our debt and our capital structure are simplified, it means that we can also act simply in terms of structuring deals. And that is a great positive in terms of derisking the kind of transactional pathway. I think the other thing that I would point to is that a number of these deals also have quite a long period between the effective date and completion. And you can see this in Vietnam, where the consideration paid was $85 million. The final cash payment was $22 million. So another moving part in terms of financing these deals are those interim cash flow pathways as well. So we certainly have the capacity to transact from a balance sheet point of view. Everything in our ethos around it, not just financially, but in terms of positioning is about being simple and straightforward. And we believe that gives us the best pathway in terms of engagement, but also moving conversations through to completion as well. Amjad, just hand over to you for other comments. Amjad Bseisu: Yes. So the comment on what do we see in current environment on M&A. I mean I think we see a slightly slowed down environment in the U.K. because of the fiscal uncertainty. And so there's been more joint ventures, and that's been kind of the M&A transaction of choice. We've seen a few transactions there with Repsol, NEO and Equinor, Shell and indeed, even Eni is more of a JV there, too. So we've seen that in the past. But I do think we're still seeing opportunities. We're still seeing our asset as a very critical asset and tax asset to move forward, and we are still in discussions on several fronts. In Southeast Asia, as you note, we have had 4 opportunities that we closed: 1 production, 2 developments and 1 appraisal exploration opportunity. And we continue to look at opportunities there. And we have -- we are now in 4 countries in Southeast Asia. So our footprint is growing quite rapidly. I would say we're probably one of the leading independents now in Southeast Asia. We've also tripled our production there in the last -- between last year and next year, so in the last 2 years effectively. And that also is a great testament to ability to grow quickly when we have the balance sheet to do it, as Jonathan mentioned. Craig Baxter: Thanks, Amjad. That's actually a perfect segue into Alejandra's other question, which is around Southeast Asia. And she's looking for a bit of color from you on the sort of the relative cash and cash flow and economic attractiveness of the growth. We've mentioned today in Southeast Asia versus what we see in the U.K., particularly when you factor in fiscal regimes, reinvestment requirements, et cetera. And as a bolt-on to that question, we've talked a little bit about the upside opportunities now that we have our hands on the Vietnam asset, there's obviously some upside there, both with the current assets and across the field. So maybe if you could touch on some of those, that would be very helpful? Amjad Bseisu: Okay. So on the U.K. versus Asia, I mean, they are very different propositions in terms of investment. U.K. gives you full access to cash flow with tax being paid. There is no royalty being paid in the U.K., but it's very sensitive to oil price. And as we've seen this year, the cash flows are lower because the oil price is lower. In Southeast Asia, the opportunities are more production sharing contract types where the cost recovery takes a big load of the contractor, which would be ourselves. So it's less sensitive to oil price movements versus the U.K. So U.K. is very sensitive to oil price movement. And with a high tax rate in the U.K., the investment -- organic investment gets much more challenging because, again, it's the volatility to oil price is very high. So I mean, we're still investing in the U.K., but we would invest more and we would like to invest more if the U.K. fiscal conditions improve. We continue to look at Asia opportunities. I think in Vietnam, we took over in July, and we are looking now to have a full field model analysis and opportunity analysis. I'm confident in the next few months, we'll see a segue to a program. We're already starting a program with our first workover in Southeast Asia in Vietnam, but we will look at a drilling program in the future. And we are looking to expand the Malaysia gas [indiscernible] phase. Our first phase is 70 million standard cubic foot a day from PM8/Seligi. We're looking to expand that significantly. And as you've seen in our analysis -- our results analysis, we also have a contract -- first phase of the DEWA, the development contract; also the first phase of Brunei. These are development opportunities subject to final investment decisions. But we get great comfort that those resources have been certified. And again, we -- in our hands, it will be lower cost to develop them. And that's why they are in our hands because we'll have a much more efficient development approach to them. Craig Baxter: Thanks, Amjad. And staying with the new developments, a question from James Hosie at Shore Capital around the developments at DEWA and Block C in Brunei, whether EnQuest will be selling gas at a price linked to LNG spot prices and what you see the market is for those resources? And James' follow-up is also reverting back to Vietnam. It's around EnQuest's appetite to extend the license beyond the 2030 sunset that's currently in place. Amjad Bseisu: Yes. So on gas prices, in Malaysia, there's this Malaysian reference price. So as we've negotiated the first contract on PM8/Seligi, it's related -- the price would be related to Malaysian reference price, which is probably around $7 or $8 in Peninsular Malaysia. In Sarawak, it could be a multiple of that, but it's usually also relating to the Malaysian reference price. There is -- I mean, obviously, there's -- in Sarawak, there is an LNG plant and PETRONAS could buy the gas for the LNG, but the purchase is relating to the Malaysian reference price. In Brunei, the access is to LNG and the plan is to produce into the LNG plant in BSP, the Brunei LNG plant. So commercial discussions would be ongoing post the first phase of front-end engineering design and when we get to the CapEx and the economics of the project. So that would be the segue into that. And indeed, this is a very early phase in Indonesia, very, very early phase, but that would be the -- also access to the LNG plant in Tangguh is key for developing that resource -- the gas resources once those are in commercial quantities. So again, that would be an LNG development. Hence, the push for us to bring in the LNG partners -- Tangguh LNG partners. On the Vietnam extension, we are keen on looking to expand there, both our investment and extending the PSC. So I think we are -- we will get into discussions on that in the future once our investment program is crystallized. Craig Baxter: Thanks, Andrew. finishing up on Southeast Asia for the moment, unless other questions, of course, come in. Sam at Peel Hunt has asked a little bit about your thoughts on the CapEx required to sort of develop out these resources. And obviously, we haven't put any numbers out there publicly. But just your thoughts, Amjad, how you see the investment landscape between the U.K. and Southeast Asia going forward? Amjad Bseisu: Yes. So you've seen the cash flows from Malaysia and Vietnam. So I think we actually have assets there now that have significant cash flow. So as Jonathan mentioned, between first of '24 and middle of '25, there was over $50 million cash flow from Vietnam. And the numbers in Malaysia are also very robust. And they will -- with the increase in production and the gas sales agreement, they will become robust. So the first thing I want to outline is we have 15,000 barrels a day next year of production. And so our cash flows will have gone up by the same factor of production roughly. So I think we'll have significant cash flows generated in the region itself. And so that will go a long way to actually providing the CapEx. Indeed, our first phase development, the first phase that we've had for the gas development, the 70 million standard cubic feet a day, which was contractually around $100 million, that has been generated internally, and we did not call on resources from corporate or external debt. And so that will be in place for gas to start next year. Now it's too early to identify both DEWA where we're a 40% partner -- 43%, and Brunei we're a 50% partner. But I feel the cash flows will be reasonable, and it's fit for purpose for EnQuest. That's why we're in those developments. So I think we -- between our cash flow and our facilities, we will be able to finance our share of those. Craig Baxter: Thanks, Amjad. That's very clear. Switching to the U.K. now, we've got a number of questions, and some of them I kind of aggregate up because they're on similar themes. A question, I guess, for Steve and Amjad. So we've got a few questions on the scale of Kraken EOR. Obviously, you've talked about that a little bit over the last few months and certainly today. And Steve, I think touched on the combination of infill drilling and EOR. But it would be interesting and there's a number of people asking to get a bit more from you on EOR as a project and how that fits for the next phase of Kraken operations. Let me start with you, Steve. Steve Bowyer: Yes. So we've made good progress on Kraken EOR. We're currently studying polymers, testing polymers and we've been updating reservoir models. And the sweep efficiency of Kraken without EOR has been pretty good. So it's complex. There are new polymers coming on the market as well. So I think we previously mentioned we're progressing that towards a decision tail end of this year. We're still on track with that, but we may push that into early next year as we start to study further the polymers and optimize that fully, but we still see quite a bit of upside through Kraken EOR. There's still infill drilling opportunities on Kraken as well. You know we drill-ready infill opportunities previously. They still exist and are still strong. So I think EOR will either apply across the whole reservoir once we've selected the right polymer or it will be selective in certain areas of the reservoir where we'll instead go after infill drilling. So still excited by EOR. It's still a great potential opportunity for Kraken. It's just it's complex in terms of understanding the polymer, understand how it reacts within the reservoir and making sure we get the right optimized way forward. Craig Baxter: Thanks, Steve. Anything you want to add to that, Amjad? Amjad Bseisu: I just think the opportunities in U.K. organically are still very strong. I think we believe -- I mean, as you've seen from Steve's presentation, Magnus has had a great performance due to the wells drilled there and also to the increase in efficiencies that we've had. And in Kraken, as Steve mentioned, there were 2 drill-ready wells, which we had delayed because of our partner issues, but I think those will be coming in the future. And I think we're still excited about the EOR. The EOR is a material opportunity. The numbers are very significant. It has been tried elsewhere, and we're going to -- we're going to be focused on getting that, like Steve said, maybe in the early part of the next year. Craig Baxter: Thanks, Amjad. So sticking with the U.K., but switching from Kraken to Magnus. Both Charlie at Canaccord and Mark Wilson at Jefferies have asked about the 6 well program planned at Magnus. And talking a little bit -- there's a request to kind of give a feel of what that could generate for Magnus production and also just the sort of cost versus return trade-off with that obviously being a U.K. investment program. And maybe start again with Steve and Amjad, you can give your views if you wouldn't mind? Steve Bowyer: Yes. So we run an active well hopper across all of our assets. We've always got well opportunities there. Obviously, we've got some very successful well results. The 2 wells were above our expectations that we drilled this year, and that just shows the strength of the subsurface team we've got. We've focused on the LKCF, which is a less exploited part of the Magnus reservoir, which is a lower water cut. We've had some success in that. We've got water injection going in there. And we do still see plenty of Magnus opportunities, which we would look to drill. The wells we've drilled recently, they have paybacks within about 12 months. The future wells identified are very similar. And obviously, with those returns, we see healthy returns through our Magnus infill drilling program. When we go back, we tend to want to drill in the sequence and batch of wells. The team have already got a number of those opportunities matured, and we'll be working to mature up the opportunities with a return of drilling probably mid- to end 2026 on Magnus, where we'll mobilize and there will be a bit of time to get the rig back up and ready to run. But we're pretty confident we've got good opportunities already identified and more to mature on Magnus. So quite excited about the future of Magnus. And there'll be similar scale to the existing opportunities we drill where they're somewhere between about 1 million to 3 million barrel recovery wells, and those work out very well economically with our position in terms of our financial and fiscal position. So they are very robust in respect for VPL. Craig Baxter: Amjad, are you going to add? Amjad Bseisu: No, I'll just add that we're quite excited about the LKCF, which we've just drilled a recent well. The recovery factor there is relatively low. It's 24%. So a very rich opportunity for growth. It's almost 400 million barrels of stope there, and we're very excited about looking at that further as Steve mentioned. Craig Baxter: Thanks. Staying with Magnus, [indiscernible] from Sona has asked a question. Obviously, we've seen the third-party outage that's affected Magnus production in the first half of the year. So Steve, maybe coming to you. Do you have any sort of update on the future of the Ninian infrastructure, the time line to decommissioning and what EnQuest is doing to mitigate that and obviously secure future production of Magnus? Steve Bowyer: Yes. So I think it's understood in the market that Ninian Central is due to COP 2027. It may be later than that. We've clearly been progressing a bypass opportunity, which is a subsea -- basically a rerouting of the subsea pipe work. And we're progressing feed on that and we'll be well ahead. So we're ready to bypass the Ninian platform long before it gets to COP. So working very collaboratively with CNR and Total. Obviously, the all wind field comes through the same system, and we're very well progressed so far with our design around how we would bypass Ninian. So the future of Magnus is pretty much secured. We're still to FID the project, but it's a no-brainer in terms of FID. And so good progress by the teams in terms of being prepared for that. And obviously, that's a key facet of extending the life of SVT and the projects we're doing there. So we see a very strong life for Magnus going forward. The subsea operation is kind of routine, it's bypass pipe work. So it's basically a subsea rerouting of the pipe work where we've already got block and bleeds where we can tie into. So pretty solid and robust project that we're progressing forward. Craig Baxter: Thanks, Steve. Jonathan, coming to you, if I may, a couple of questions from Mr. Wilson at Jefferies. We've talked a little bit around -- and Steve touched on material cost inflation has been managed in the business. You yourself, Jonathan talked about the group managing to keep operating costs flat. Can you talk a little bit to EnQuest's kind of approach there and which areas have been the most pleasing for you in terms of that achievement? And also, Mark has asked just for you to give a quick summary and reminder for those listening around the way in which our GBP 3.2 billion U.K. tax asset is split up into the 2 component parts? Jonathan Copus: Sure. Yes. I mean, cost management is sort of absolutely core to what we do. We talk about it being in our sort of DNA, right? And operating in the basin we do and focus on extending the life of late-life assets or underdeveloped assets. A huge part of this is about delivering these things at optimal cost as well. Now in an inflationary environment, one way we can manage that is through activity in supply chain. And so certainly, across our sort of production operation business, but also our decommissioning business, we are good at securing equipment and securing equipment for extended pieces of work. Steve talked about the 6 wells grouping. We've also talked on this call about the Well-Safe contract, which has multiyear options. So that means that because we can give service providers visibility on extended periods of usage, it means we get good prices for that equipment. So I think the team does a great job in terms of all of that. I think the other thing though that goes hand-in-hand with cost management is also making sure that we manage costs in the right way. What we're not interested in doing is undermining the production uptime on the assets as well. So it's also really important to be on top of maintenance and things like that. And one thing that really helps us in this respect is the fact that we operate 96% of our 2P reserves. So that means that we're in very strong control of how we spend our time and also how we spend our money and that puts us in a good place in terms of managing costs. And just to sort of reiterate that point that I made, which is holding operating costs flat despite the weaker U.S. dollar. That's a combination of cost optimization. It's also a product of being proactive in terms of hedging out our dollar position as well. So I think both have kind of helped us in that respect. Turning to the tax assets. So these are very simply held. They sit within 2 entities. And that is a really important point because the value of these tax assets is not just their value sitting in our organization, it's their value deployed, so principally transaction. So Lion's share of that $3.2 billion tax loss sits within EnQuest Heather Limited and that is where all of our producing assets sit, and those tax assets are $2 billion that sit within that EHL entity. And these are what are called recognized tax losses, which means they sit on our balance sheet. So you can see that in our accounts and our notes. The other portion are what are called unrecognized tax losses, and they're only unrecognized because it's about the pathway to recovery, which means we don't recognize deferred tax assets alongside them. Now they total a further $1.2 billion, but they also are on a pathway to recognition, and we would expect to be bringing those into our recognized tax loss pool in the coming periods. So I think there's 2 really important things to focus on the tax losses. One is the size, but the second one is the simplicity of how they're held, which means that they can be deployed quickly and efficiently. And that, of course, is a big part of creating value around production in our portfolio and production that we can bring into the portfolio as well through transactions. Craig Baxter: Thanks for that, Jonathan. That was very, very clear. James, a question coming from [indiscernible], is around, James acknowledges we're not going to talk too much around other companies' processes, but he's asked whether we're seeing any issues arising from the parent Waldorf being in administration of agreement work programs, et cetera, and whether there's an opportunity here. I do understand we can't be too specific about this, but I think it's worth maybe reiterating the way in which the Kraken JV is moving forward. Amjad, do you want to take that one? Amjad Bseisu: Yes. So I mean, I think clearly, the administration process delayed our Kraken wells that we were planning to do. And obviously, we came into a settlement late '23, early '24. So we -- so we will continue looking at those prospects in the future. I would say the discussions on the Bressay Gas and the submission of the FTP, as mentioned by Steve, has been more constructive. And I think we've had a more constructive dialogue with the new management now that the new management has changed in Waldorf. So I think we see progress, but it's tough to say anything more than that at present. I do think that the Bressay Gas going into Kraken is strategically important, but also important from an emissions perspective and meeting emission standards in the U.K. So I think there's an impetus for that going forward. And I do feel that -- again, it's a question of time, but I do feel that the new approach that Waldorf is taking is more constructive. I don't know, Steve, do you want to add anything to that? Steve Bowyer: Yes, no. At a working level, I think relations are good, and we're making good progress on discussions around Bressay Gas. So as you say, the new management certainly improved things, and we're seeing good engagement from Waldorf. So on a day-to-day basis, which I think was the question, there's no real impact. And as you've mentioned, Amjad, Bressay Gas is really important to both companies in terms of the emissions reduction and obviously reducing cost for the asset and also for us, secures the Bressay license, which is important for future oil development once we're in a market where we can invest in large developments again. Craig Baxter: Thanks, gentlemen. I'll wrap up with a couple of wider questions that I'll put to you, please, Amjad. And these are based on a number of questions we've received today in the Q&A. So the first of which is -- and I guess you knew this one was probably coming, but it was around the U.K. fiscal system and our engagement with government and whether you see any positive moves on the horizon as we head towards the late November autumn statement. If you could give some thoughts, Amjad, I'm sure that would be appreciated by those joining. Amjad Bseisu: Yes. No. So I think we -- I'm part of the fiscal forum, the U.K. fiscal forum, which discusses the new tax system. Steve has also been very involved with the OEUK as well as being on the Board of the OEUK, but as well as with the government on these discussions and setting up these discussions, both from an industry perspective and from an individual company perspective. And I would say the government, it has been very constructive -- the discussions with the government have been very constructive. I think the government understands the needs of the business and has indeed come up with a framework that is very palatable to the business in terms of the new type of windfall tax, which we are very much supportive of as an industry, I think. So the question is how quickly that's put in place. And if we can get something put in place relatively quickly, I think we would kind of reduce the risks that are significant on the business. Obviously, the U.K. fiscal environment now is very difficult for the business, and it's one of the most challenging in the world. And I think a change of that fiscal regime is needed. The government, I think, framework for the future is that they've discussed would be palatable. And I think it needs to be put in place as quickly as possible to just reduce the challenges of this -- of our industry, where we're losing 1,000 jobs a month according to the OEUK analysis and our basin is declining. So I do feel that we are part of the transition. We have reduced our emissions by 40%. We're going to reduce them further by these projects in NSF that are very clear and critical. We -- with the new stabilization facility, we're reducing the footprint from 1.5 million barrels a day to 40,000 barrels a day. So we'll decrease the size of the facility significantly. And with the long-term power, we're taking out the gas turbines and removing and moving to wind power, both either on the terminal or supplied by the terminal for backup power. So we will reduce our emissions there by 90%. So we need the investments in the U.K. to be generated from our upstream business, so we can actually enact these very important reduction measures. But more importantly, we don't want to export jobs. I mean the U.K. will continue to use oil and gas for many, many decades to come. And instead of importing those resources and exporting our jobs, it's important that we produce those resources internally in the U.K. and keep our jobs in the U.K. Craig Baxter: Thank you, Amjad. Amjad, I'm going to ask you to close, please. And this is in response to a number of questions that have been raised today from long-standing holders that you know like [ David Larson ] and [indiscernible] you met at AGMs over the years and others. And it's around -- it's around shareholders. And obviously, we're trading at a discount to our valuation. So it's a bit of an outlook from you, Amjad, as to what our shareholders can look forward to in the future with EnQuest? Amjad Bseisu: Well, I mean, we, at EnQuest have a very unique proposition because we have proven that we can take assets that are underdeveloped and late life or mature life assets and extract value out of them. And you can see we've done that over and over again. We've done that in 9 operated assets that we've taken. We've now also proven that we can be the best decommissioning company for assets in our area, but also in Southeast Asia. I think we have done, as Steve mentioned, a tremendous job in the U.K., the largest decommissioning company in the Central and Northern North Sea by a long shot, 81 wells decommissioned, 35% below the NSTA standards. We've got the award in Southeast Asia for the best decommissioning company in Malaysia. And so I think the -- with us being the right shepherd of these assets, even in decommissioning cycle, which I think is important, but all through from their mid-life to the decommissioning, I think we have a unique set of skills. Our acquisition costs when we have the right assets are low. As you've seen in Vietnam, we can actually acquire assets for relatively low amount, similar to what we did in Malaysia and similar to what we've done in the U.K. with Greater Kittiwake and Thistle and Heather. So I think the impetus is on the government to make the basin actually investable. And I think we have the capability and expertise that is clearly world-class and clearly best-in-class in the U.K. to invest in these new opportunities. So I'm looking forward to the U.K. when we're prodding the government to make a change because, again, we've seen a handful of companies either fail or stop production, and there's no need for that. It's self-inflicted wounds. And we also see the platform in Southeast Asia now that we are in 4 countries and continue growing in those 4 countries. So I do see -- I'm very hopeful for the future. I think our financial position is strong, and it's clearly improved significantly from 5 years ago when our debt levels are high. And I mean, the impetus and the catalyst will be -- in the U.K. will be a change in the fiscal regime, which we're looking forward to. But in the meantime, we're redeploying our capital in Asia where the returns are attractive and the risk reward is high. Craig Baxter: Thank you, Amjad. That's very clear. Thanks for that. Thank you for all your time, gentlemen, through the Q&A. So I propose we close here. Thank you very much. Amjad Bseisu: Thank you, everyone. Steve Bowyer: Thank you. Jonathan Copus: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q3 2025 AGF Management Limited Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Tsang. You may begin. Ken Tsang: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'm Ken Tsang, Chief Financial Officer of AGF Management Limited. Today, we will be discussing the financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Slides supporting today's call and webcast can be found in the Investor Relations section of agf.com. Also speaking on the call today will be Judy Goldring, Chief Executive Officer. For the question-and-answer period following the presentation, Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners; and David Stonehouse, Interim Chief Investment Officer, will also be available to address questions. Slide 4 provides the agenda for today's call. After the prepared remarks, we will be happy to take questions. With that, I will now turn the call over to Judy. Judith Goldring: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. This was a strong quarter for AGF, but one also marked by profound loss with the sudden passing of Kevin McCreadie, our former CEO and CIO. Kevin was a tremendous leader and friend who is deeply missed by all of us. In the face of this tragedy, AGF's strong governance and well-established succession plan enabled us to respond with stability and continuity. In July, I announced updates to our senior leadership team. including naming Chris Jackson as President and COO; David Stonehouse as Interim CIO and Ash Lawrence as Executive Management team sponsor to the office of the CIO. A global search for a permanent CIO is underway. And in the interim, I am confident in the strength of our investment team under the leadership of David Stonehouse and the office of the CIO. As CEO of AGF and together with the executive management team, we are committed to continuing to execute on our strategic priorities. With the right people in place, a clear strategy and a strong balance sheet, we are well positioned to deliver consistent results and drive long-term success for the benefit of all of our stakeholders. Now moving on to our business updates. Global Markets were strong in Q3, overcoming the volatility experienced in the first half of 2025. With this macro backdrop, Q3 was another strong quarter for AGF. I'll begin with some highlights. AUM and fee-earning assets were $56.8 billion at the end of Q3, up 14% from a year ago. Compared to Q2, our average AUM was up 6%. AGF Investments retail mutual funds reported net sales of $262 million or 0.08% of mutual fund AUM in the quarter, outpacing the Canadian mutual fund industry. Our SMA and ETF AUM remained strong, which increased by 64% year-over-year to $3.5 billion. We reported adjusted diluted EPS of $0.46 in the quarter, up 18% from the previous quarter. In addition, we have $432 million in short- and long-term investments on our balance sheet. Net debt of $17 million with $186 million remaining on our credit facility. We have capital available and flexibility in our capital allocation strategy. Our European subsidiary was once again accepted as a signatory to the U.K. Stewardship Code, a best practice benchmark in investment stewardship. Finally, the Board declared a $0.125 per share dividend for Q3 2025. Starting on Slide 6, we will provide updates on our business performance. On this slide, we break down our total AUM and fee earning assets in the categories disclosed in our MD&A and show comparisons to the prior year. AGF Investments mutual fund AUM was $33 billion, up 17% year-over-year, outpacing the industry increase of 12%. The growth of our ETF and SMA AUM remains strong. I'll provide more color on our mutual fund sales and ETF and SMA AUM in a moment. Segregated accounts and sub-advisory AUM increased by 4% compared to the prior year. During the quarter, we received a redemption notice from one of our institutional clients for $500 million. The redemption was driven by the client's shift toward passive management to comply with regulatory requirements and is expected to occur in Q4 2025. The financial impact of the redemption is not material on our financial results, and we continue to see strong interest in our strategies in the institutional space. Our private wealth AUM increased by 10% compared to prior year to $9 billion, and our AGF Capital Partners AUM and fee-earning assets were $4.6 billion at the end of the quarter. As a reminder, New Holland Capital's AUM of $9 billion is not consolidated into AGF's total AUM and fee-earning assets at this time. Now turning to Slide 7. I'll provide some details on mutual fund sales. With volatility in equity markets subsiding, the Canadian mutual fund industry saw net positive sales in the quarter of $9 billion or 0.4% of AUM. AGF Investments retail mutual fund sales outpaced the industry and achieved $262 million of net sales in the quarter or 0.8% of our mutual fund AUM. The strength of our retail mutual fund sales reflects the successful execution of our distribution and marketing strategy, particularly in penetrating high-growth distribution channels supported by strong investment performance. Notably, all distribution channels delivered net positive sales this quarter, underscoring the broad-based momentum across our platform. Let me provide a brief update on our investment performance, which continues to be strong. AGF Investments measures mutual fund performance by comparing gross returns before fees relative to peers within the same category with the first percentile being the best possible performance. Our 1-year performance was in the 44th percentile. Our 3-year performance was in the 50th percentile and our 5-year performance is in the 41st percentile and approximately 58% of our strategies are outperforming our peers on a 3- and 5-year basis. Turning now to Slide 8. Slide 8 shows our ETF and SMA AUM. The AUM in this category is at $3.5 billion and has grown 62% on a compounded basis over the last 2 years. Included in this number are Canadian and U.S. listed ETFs and SMA platforms globally. We have seen consistent growth and momentum in our SMA AUMs across the U.S., Canada and Asia, where many of our strategies are available on leading wealth management platforms. I will now pass it over to Ken to discuss our financial results. Ken Tsang: Thanks, Judy. Slide 9 reflects a summary of our financial results with sequential quarter and year-over-year comparisons. The financial results in these periods are adjusted to exclude severance, corporate development and noncash acquisition-related expenses. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $46 million, which is $7 million higher than Q2 and $6 million higher compared to the prior year. The improvement was primarily driven by higher AUM levels. SG&A was $61 million, up $2 million from both the previous quarters and the same time last year. The increase from Q2 was mainly due to higher performance-based compensation, reflecting our strong business momentum. Adjusted net income attributable to equity owners for the current quarter was $31 million and adjusted diluted EPS was $0.46. Free cash flows for the quarter was $31 million, up $7 million from Q2, primarily due to higher net management fee revenues and distribution income in the current quarter. Slide 10 provides a further breakdown of our net revenues. Within our traditional asset and wealth management businesses, net management fees were $92 million for the quarter, which is $8 million higher than the prior quarter and $11 million higher than the prior year. This growth was primarily driven by higher AUM levels, as previously noted. Revenues from AGF Capital Partners business remained strong, reporting $16 million this quarter. The decrease from the prior year is mainly due to elevated recurring manager earnings and carried interest income in Q3 of 2024 as a result of the monetization of one of Kensington's investments. These monetizations can be lumpy from quarter-to-quarter. On Slide 11, we outline adjustments to our EBITDA. As you might recall, the AGF Capital Partners business gives rise to various LLTIP, contingent consideration and put option obligations. These liabilities are fair valued each quarter with the difference flowing through to the P&L. These accruals and fair value adjustments have no immediate cash impact and create noise quarterly, which is why we've adjusted for these items to facilitate easier comparison of quarterly results. This quarter, we have also adjusted for nonrecurring expenses related to the accelerated vesting of Kevin McCreadie's long-term incentive plan as a result of his passing. Adjusting for these items, along with severance and other expenses, our adjusted EBITDA for this quarter is $46 million. Turning to Slide 12, I will walk through the yield on our business in terms of basis points. This slide shows our average AUM, net management fees, adjusted SG&A and EBITDA as basis points on our average AUM in the current quarter, previous quarter and trailing 12 months. This view excludes AUM and related results from AGF Capital Partners as well as DSC revenues, other income and any other onetime adjustments. The EBITDA yield this quarter was 25 basis points, which is 1 basis point higher than the prior quarter and 2 basis points higher than the trailing 12 months. The increase was driven by lower SG&A relative to our AUM, highlighting the operating leverage of our business. Turning to Slide 13, I will discuss our free cash flows and capital uses. This slide represents the last 5 quarters of consolidated free cash flows on a trailing 12-month basis, as shown by the orange bars on the chart. The black line represents the percentage of free cash flows that was paid out as dividends. Our trailing 12-month free cash flow was $108 million, and our dividends paid as a percentage of free cash flows was 28%. In the same period, we returned $49 million to shareholders, consisting of $31 million in dividends and $18 million in share buybacks. During the quarter, we repurchased over 1 million shares under our NCIB for approximately $12 million. We ended the quarter with net debt of $17 million. We also have $432 million in short-term and long-term investments and have $186 million remaining on our credit facility, which provides credit to a maximum of $250 million. Our future capital allocation will be balanced and includes returning capital to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks as well as investing in areas of growth. Before I pass it back to Judy, let me take a minute on Slide 14 to look at our market valuation. AGF's current share price of $14, which, by the way, has increased by approximately 30% year-to-date, translates to an enterprise value of approximately $920 million. Taking our $432 million of short- and long-term investments into account, our remaining enterprise value is about $485 million. This implies a 3.7x enterprise value to EBITDA multiple on our trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA, excluding income from our long-term and short-term investments. Comparing this multiple to those of other traditional and alternative asset managers and recent acquisitions would suggest further potential upside to our valuation. I will now pass it back to Judy to close out our presentation. Judith Goldring: To wrap up this quarter, we've made significant strides in achieving our strategic goals. Our AUM and fee-earning assets continue to climb, reaching nearly $57 billion. Our investment performance remains solid. Our sales momentum remains strong and continue to outpace the industry. We remain disciplined in our expense management while investing for growth and the strength of our balance sheet and capital position will provide us with flexibility in our capital allocation strategy and the resilience to weather a challenging market environment. I would also like to take a moment to thank our AGF team for all that you've done and continue to do to support our organization. Your resilience, professionalism and unwavering commitment has been truly inspiring. Your dedication continues to be the foundation of our strength as we move forward together. We will now take your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Gary Ho of Desjardin Capital Markets. Gary Ho: First, just on your mutual fund net flows, $262 million, perhaps for Judy, fairly strong. Just wondering what strategies are you seeing the most success in? And with rates coming down, are you seeing perhaps greater flows into equity categories yet? And then perhaps if you can elaborate on whether that strong momentum has carried through so far in Q4? Judith Goldring: Yes. Thanks, Gary. Certainly, we did see in the industry flows, they had positive flows going into heavily weighted at least into the fixed income categories, but there was, of course, strong flows going into the balanced equities and some of the specialty categories. Similarly, at AGF, we do tilt more towards the equities. So we did see strong flows into our equity categories. But we did see flows into our Fixed Income Plus and Global Select European equity, which, as you know, is a 2-time Lipper award winner 5-star Morningstar fund. So it's been seeing some interesting flows. And then we launched recently our enhanced income fund, which -- Income Plus, which has actually seen some very strong flows in a very short period of time. So it's really demonstrating a broad breadth of our product lineup and seeing the flows across that. And then quarter-to-date, we're seeing $64 million or $65 million, I should say, as of last night, again, emphasizing continued strong flows. Gary Ho: Great. Okay. That's good to hear. Second question, maybe for Ken. As you plan out your budget for next year, just wondering any priorities that may require a higher cadence of SG&A. Historically, I think you've kind of guided to kind of cost of living type increases in the 3% to 4%. Just curious to hear if there are any other investments that you're looking at in the pipeline over the next year or so. Ken Tsang: Yes. Thanks, Gary. As you might know, we typically provide guidance on next year's SG&A in Q4. Having said that, of course, as you might be aware, we did make some earlier on investments in our sales force, which is clearly paying off now. But we continue to evaluate all investment opportunities going forward, and we'll provide more clarity in Q4 as to our SG&A guidance. Gary Ho: Okay. Great. And then maybe just last question, just spreading it out a bit for Ash. Wondering if you wouldn't mind giving an update on how New Holland is progressing. I believe there -- I think you mentioned around CAD 9 billion. Just maybe just remind us when you could potentially increase your stake in New Holland and your appetite for that? And how is the launch of the Tactical Alpha Fund in Canada? Ashley Lawrence: Yes, for sure. Thanks, Gary. So more broadly, just on New Holland Capital, they're having a pretty good year. on a few fronts, net inflows to a number of their strategies, including their multi-strat and some of their credit investments that they make as well and some positive feedback from market on the fundraising side for them. So it's been a pretty good year on that front. As it relates to our AGF run feeder fund here in Canada, that just launched earlier this year. And so most of our activity has really been on approvals getting on platforms. We have had good response from market as we've been touring around seeing advisers and investors with the New Holland team. So we do expect as we move into the latter half of this year and early next to start seeing some activity there, some more activity there. So that's been a positive. And then the last point of your question, as we've disclosed in February of next year 2026, we have the first of 2 options to both convert our position from debt to equity and increase our ownership to 51%. We are evaluating that now, and we'll make a decision as we go forward and that window opens. But at the present, based on the update I just gave you, we're feeling pretty positive about where we want to take our relationship with New Holland. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Graham Ryding of TD Securities. Graham Ryding: Can you hear me? Operator: Yes, we can hear you. Graham Ryding: Great. Just on the ETF SMA side, pretty solid growth there, collectively up 64% year-over-year. Is there any color you can provide in just sort of breaking out what the AUM is for SMA and ETFs in particular? And then maybe what the flows are like for those 2 different areas of your business in the quarter or year-to-date? Judith Goldring: We don't split out the actual ETF and SMA. In part, that's just due to the timing of getting the accurate AUM of the SMA in particular. But certainly, we've seen strong growth in the U.S., largely on the backs of us getting on to several different platforms. And so that growth has been quite impressive, hitting just over $2 billion for the ETFs and SMA. And then in Canada, we continue to penetrate different platforms as well. And we've just seen huge investor demand and adviser demand for that particular kind of product. Graham Ryding: Okay. And then on the Capital Partners side, is there any fundraising underway that you can flag either at the institutional level or maybe some color on traction or progress on selling capital partners products, be it Kensington or New Holland Capital into those retail channels. Ashley Lawrence: Yes, sure. It's Ash here. So we're relatively early days in terms of the build-out of the capital partners distribution team here in Canada. So what I can tell you is we are actively out there with a number of strategies, some of those being related to New Holland Capital that I gave a previous answer on. We're seeing good traction in terms of conversations and interest. It's probably a little bit early in terms of actual flows. Sales cycle for alternatives in the institutional world is relatively long. And a lot of the -- especially for New Holland introduction to Canadian investors is the first time they'll be seeing this strategy in that manager. But we're feeling pretty positive about the meetings and how that is going. As well on the -- what I'll call the evergreen side, we're starting to see some good activity on the private credit side. I think the competition has picked up in certain retail channels for that strategy, but our sort of consistent performance and now longer track record is helping us in that channel. On the private equity side, returns have been relatively muted across the whole industry for reasons that I think everyone probably has read about with the rapid rise in interest rates and then followed on by the tariff situation. So it's been pretty muted in that sector, especially when you have a mature fund that has been investing through the full cycle versus some of the competition that is relatively early in their inception. Graham Ryding: Okay. Understood. And sorry, did you say that New Holland Capital on its own, even though it's not consolidated in your results potentially just yet, but New Holland Capital is seeing solid organic growth onto itself? Ashley Lawrence: Yes, they've been positive fundraising over the course of the year this year. Again, given that most of their investor base or all of their investor base at present is institutional, it does tend to be a little bit chunky. Ken Tsang: I'll just -- Graham, it's Ken. Just a reminder, when we made the acquisition of New Holland, average assets under management was about USD 5 billion. And as of the end of August of this year, it's currently at around USD 6.7 billion. So certainly have seen some very strong momentum in that business. Operator: [Operator Instructions] I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'll now turn it back to Judy for closing remarks. Judith Goldring: Thank you very much for your questions and for attending today. Just to recap, this was another strong quarter for AGF at $0.46 EPS. Our investment performance remains strong, and our sales momentum continues to outpace the industry. Our strong balance sheet and strong cash flow positions us well to return capital to our shareholders while driving long-term growth. So thank you again for attending, and we look forward to our Q4 earnings call on January 27, 2026. Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q3 2025 AGF Management Limited Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Tsang. You may begin. Ken Tsang: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'm Ken Tsang, Chief Financial Officer of AGF Management Limited. Today, we will be discussing the financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2025. Slides supporting today's call and webcast can be found in the Investor Relations section of agf.com. Also speaking on the call today will be Judy Goldring, Chief Executive Officer. For the question-and-answer period following the presentation, Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners; and David Stonehouse, Interim Chief Investment Officer, will also be available to address questions. Slide 4 provides the agenda for today's call. After the prepared remarks, we will be happy to take questions. With that, I will now turn the call over to Judy. Judith Goldring: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. This was a strong quarter for AGF, but one also marked by profound loss with the sudden passing of Kevin McCreadie, our former CEO and CIO. Kevin was a tremendous leader and friend who is deeply missed by all of us. In the face of this tragedy, AGF's strong governance and well-established succession plan enabled us to respond with stability and continuity. In July, I announced updates to our senior leadership team. including naming Chris Jackson as President and COO; David Stonehouse as Interim CIO and Ash Lawrence as Executive Management team sponsor to the office of the CIO. A global search for a permanent CIO is underway. And in the interim, I am confident in the strength of our investment team under the leadership of David Stonehouse and the office of the CIO. As CEO of AGF and together with the executive management team, we are committed to continuing to execute on our strategic priorities. With the right people in place, a clear strategy and a strong balance sheet, we are well positioned to deliver consistent results and drive long-term success for the benefit of all of our stakeholders. Now moving on to our business updates. Global Markets were strong in Q3, overcoming the volatility experienced in the first half of 2025. With this macro backdrop, Q3 was another strong quarter for AGF. I'll begin with some highlights. AUM and fee-earning assets were $56.8 billion at the end of Q3, up 14% from a year ago. Compared to Q2, our average AUM was up 6%. AGF Investments retail mutual funds reported net sales of $262 million or 0.08% of mutual fund AUM in the quarter, outpacing the Canadian mutual fund industry. Our SMA and ETF AUM remained strong, which increased by 64% year-over-year to $3.5 billion. We reported adjusted diluted EPS of $0.46 in the quarter, up 18% from the previous quarter. In addition, we have $432 million in short- and long-term investments on our balance sheet. Net debt of $17 million with $186 million remaining on our credit facility. We have capital available and flexibility in our capital allocation strategy. Our European subsidiary was once again accepted as a signatory to the U.K. Stewardship Code, a best practice benchmark in investment stewardship. Finally, the Board declared a $0.125 per share dividend for Q3 2025. Starting on Slide 6, we will provide updates on our business performance. On this slide, we break down our total AUM and fee earning assets in the categories disclosed in our MD&A and show comparisons to the prior year. AGF Investments mutual fund AUM was $33 billion, up 17% year-over-year, outpacing the industry increase of 12%. The growth of our ETF and SMA AUM remains strong. I'll provide more color on our mutual fund sales and ETF and SMA AUM in a moment. Segregated accounts and sub-advisory AUM increased by 4% compared to the prior year. During the quarter, we received a redemption notice from one of our institutional clients for $500 million. The redemption was driven by the client's shift toward passive management to comply with regulatory requirements and is expected to occur in Q4 2025. The financial impact of the redemption is not material on our financial results, and we continue to see strong interest in our strategies in the institutional space. Our private wealth AUM increased by 10% compared to prior year to $9 billion, and our AGF Capital Partners AUM and fee-earning assets were $4.6 billion at the end of the quarter. As a reminder, New Holland Capital's AUM of $9 billion is not consolidated into AGF's total AUM and fee-earning assets at this time. Now turning to Slide 7. I'll provide some details on mutual fund sales. With volatility in equity markets subsiding, the Canadian mutual fund industry saw net positive sales in the quarter of $9 billion or 0.4% of AUM. AGF Investments retail mutual fund sales outpaced the industry and achieved $262 million of net sales in the quarter or 0.8% of our mutual fund AUM. The strength of our retail mutual fund sales reflects the successful execution of our distribution and marketing strategy, particularly in penetrating high-growth distribution channels supported by strong investment performance. Notably, all distribution channels delivered net positive sales this quarter, underscoring the broad-based momentum across our platform. Let me provide a brief update on our investment performance, which continues to be strong. AGF Investments measures mutual fund performance by comparing gross returns before fees relative to peers within the same category with the first percentile being the best possible performance. Our 1-year performance was in the 44th percentile. Our 3-year performance was in the 50th percentile and our 5-year performance is in the 41st percentile and approximately 58% of our strategies are outperforming our peers on a 3- and 5-year basis. Turning now to Slide 8. Slide 8 shows our ETF and SMA AUM. The AUM in this category is at $3.5 billion and has grown 62% on a compounded basis over the last 2 years. Included in this number are Canadian and U.S. listed ETFs and SMA platforms globally. We have seen consistent growth and momentum in our SMA AUMs across the U.S., Canada and Asia, where many of our strategies are available on leading wealth management platforms. I will now pass it over to Ken to discuss our financial results. Ken Tsang: Thanks, Judy. Slide 9 reflects a summary of our financial results with sequential quarter and year-over-year comparisons. The financial results in these periods are adjusted to exclude severance, corporate development and noncash acquisition-related expenses. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $46 million, which is $7 million higher than Q2 and $6 million higher compared to the prior year. The improvement was primarily driven by higher AUM levels. SG&A was $61 million, up $2 million from both the previous quarters and the same time last year. The increase from Q2 was mainly due to higher performance-based compensation, reflecting our strong business momentum. Adjusted net income attributable to equity owners for the current quarter was $31 million and adjusted diluted EPS was $0.46. Free cash flows for the quarter was $31 million, up $7 million from Q2, primarily due to higher net management fee revenues and distribution income in the current quarter. Slide 10 provides a further breakdown of our net revenues. Within our traditional asset and wealth management businesses, net management fees were $92 million for the quarter, which is $8 million higher than the prior quarter and $11 million higher than the prior year. This growth was primarily driven by higher AUM levels, as previously noted. Revenues from AGF Capital Partners business remained strong, reporting $16 million this quarter. The decrease from the prior year is mainly due to elevated recurring manager earnings and carried interest income in Q3 of 2024 as a result of the monetization of one of Kensington's investments. These monetizations can be lumpy from quarter-to-quarter. On Slide 11, we outline adjustments to our EBITDA. As you might recall, the AGF Capital Partners business gives rise to various LLTIP, contingent consideration and put option obligations. These liabilities are fair valued each quarter with the difference flowing through to the P&L. These accruals and fair value adjustments have no immediate cash impact and create noise quarterly, which is why we've adjusted for these items to facilitate easier comparison of quarterly results. This quarter, we have also adjusted for nonrecurring expenses related to the accelerated vesting of Kevin McCreadie's long-term incentive plan as a result of his passing. Adjusting for these items, along with severance and other expenses, our adjusted EBITDA for this quarter is $46 million. Turning to Slide 12, I will walk through the yield on our business in terms of basis points. This slide shows our average AUM, net management fees, adjusted SG&A and EBITDA as basis points on our average AUM in the current quarter, previous quarter and trailing 12 months. This view excludes AUM and related results from AGF Capital Partners as well as DSC revenues, other income and any other onetime adjustments. The EBITDA yield this quarter was 25 basis points, which is 1 basis point higher than the prior quarter and 2 basis points higher than the trailing 12 months. The increase was driven by lower SG&A relative to our AUM, highlighting the operating leverage of our business. Turning to Slide 13, I will discuss our free cash flows and capital uses. This slide represents the last 5 quarters of consolidated free cash flows on a trailing 12-month basis, as shown by the orange bars on the chart. The black line represents the percentage of free cash flows that was paid out as dividends. Our trailing 12-month free cash flow was $108 million, and our dividends paid as a percentage of free cash flows was 28%. In the same period, we returned $49 million to shareholders, consisting of $31 million in dividends and $18 million in share buybacks. During the quarter, we repurchased over 1 million shares under our NCIB for approximately $12 million. We ended the quarter with net debt of $17 million. We also have $432 million in short-term and long-term investments and have $186 million remaining on our credit facility, which provides credit to a maximum of $250 million. Our future capital allocation will be balanced and includes returning capital to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks as well as investing in areas of growth. Before I pass it back to Judy, let me take a minute on Slide 14 to look at our market valuation. AGF's current share price of $14, which, by the way, has increased by approximately 30% year-to-date, translates to an enterprise value of approximately $920 million. Taking our $432 million of short- and long-term investments into account, our remaining enterprise value is about $485 million. This implies a 3.7x enterprise value to EBITDA multiple on our trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA, excluding income from our long-term and short-term investments. Comparing this multiple to those of other traditional and alternative asset managers and recent acquisitions would suggest further potential upside to our valuation. I will now pass it back to Judy to close out our presentation. Judith Goldring: To wrap up this quarter, we've made significant strides in achieving our strategic goals. Our AUM and fee-earning assets continue to climb, reaching nearly $57 billion. Our investment performance remains solid. Our sales momentum remains strong and continue to outpace the industry. We remain disciplined in our expense management while investing for growth and the strength of our balance sheet and capital position will provide us with flexibility in our capital allocation strategy and the resilience to weather a challenging market environment. I would also like to take a moment to thank our AGF team for all that you've done and continue to do to support our organization. Your resilience, professionalism and unwavering commitment has been truly inspiring. Your dedication continues to be the foundation of our strength as we move forward together. We will now take your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Gary Ho of Desjardin Capital Markets. Gary Ho: First, just on your mutual fund net flows, $262 million, perhaps for Judy, fairly strong. Just wondering what strategies are you seeing the most success in? And with rates coming down, are you seeing perhaps greater flows into equity categories yet? And then perhaps if you can elaborate on whether that strong momentum has carried through so far in Q4? Judith Goldring: Yes. Thanks, Gary. Certainly, we did see in the industry flows, they had positive flows going into heavily weighted at least into the fixed income categories, but there was, of course, strong flows going into the balanced equities and some of the specialty categories. Similarly, at AGF, we do tilt more towards the equities. So we did see strong flows into our equity categories. But we did see flows into our Fixed Income Plus and Global Select European equity, which, as you know, is a 2-time Lipper award winner 5-star Morningstar fund. So it's been seeing some interesting flows. And then we launched recently our enhanced income fund, which -- Income Plus, which has actually seen some very strong flows in a very short period of time. So it's really demonstrating a broad breadth of our product lineup and seeing the flows across that. And then quarter-to-date, we're seeing $64 million or $65 million, I should say, as of last night, again, emphasizing continued strong flows. Gary Ho: Great. Okay. That's good to hear. Second question, maybe for Ken. As you plan out your budget for next year, just wondering any priorities that may require a higher cadence of SG&A. Historically, I think you've kind of guided to kind of cost of living type increases in the 3% to 4%. Just curious to hear if there are any other investments that you're looking at in the pipeline over the next year or so. Ken Tsang: Yes. Thanks, Gary. As you might know, we typically provide guidance on next year's SG&A in Q4. Having said that, of course, as you might be aware, we did make some earlier on investments in our sales force, which is clearly paying off now. But we continue to evaluate all investment opportunities going forward, and we'll provide more clarity in Q4 as to our SG&A guidance. Gary Ho: Okay. Great. And then maybe just last question, just spreading it out a bit for Ash. Wondering if you wouldn't mind giving an update on how New Holland is progressing. I believe there -- I think you mentioned around CAD 9 billion. Just maybe just remind us when you could potentially increase your stake in New Holland and your appetite for that? And how is the launch of the Tactical Alpha Fund in Canada? Ashley Lawrence: Yes, for sure. Thanks, Gary. So more broadly, just on New Holland Capital, they're having a pretty good year. on a few fronts, net inflows to a number of their strategies, including their multi-strat and some of their credit investments that they make as well and some positive feedback from market on the fundraising side for them. So it's been a pretty good year on that front. As it relates to our AGF run feeder fund here in Canada, that just launched earlier this year. And so most of our activity has really been on approvals getting on platforms. We have had good response from market as we've been touring around seeing advisers and investors with the New Holland team. So we do expect as we move into the latter half of this year and early next to start seeing some activity there, some more activity there. So that's been a positive. And then the last point of your question, as we've disclosed in February of next year 2026, we have the first of 2 options to both convert our position from debt to equity and increase our ownership to 51%. We are evaluating that now, and we'll make a decision as we go forward and that window opens. But at the present, based on the update I just gave you, we're feeling pretty positive about where we want to take our relationship with New Holland. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Graham Ryding of TD Securities. Graham Ryding: Can you hear me? Operator: Yes, we can hear you. Graham Ryding: Great. Just on the ETF SMA side, pretty solid growth there, collectively up 64% year-over-year. Is there any color you can provide in just sort of breaking out what the AUM is for SMA and ETFs in particular? And then maybe what the flows are like for those 2 different areas of your business in the quarter or year-to-date? Judith Goldring: We don't split out the actual ETF and SMA. In part, that's just due to the timing of getting the accurate AUM of the SMA in particular. But certainly, we've seen strong growth in the U.S., largely on the backs of us getting on to several different platforms. And so that growth has been quite impressive, hitting just over $2 billion for the ETFs and SMA. And then in Canada, we continue to penetrate different platforms as well. And we've just seen huge investor demand and adviser demand for that particular kind of product. Graham Ryding: Okay. And then on the Capital Partners side, is there any fundraising underway that you can flag either at the institutional level or maybe some color on traction or progress on selling capital partners products, be it Kensington or New Holland Capital into those retail channels. Ashley Lawrence: Yes, sure. It's Ash here. So we're relatively early days in terms of the build-out of the capital partners distribution team here in Canada. So what I can tell you is we are actively out there with a number of strategies, some of those being related to New Holland Capital that I gave a previous answer on. We're seeing good traction in terms of conversations and interest. It's probably a little bit early in terms of actual flows. Sales cycle for alternatives in the institutional world is relatively long. And a lot of the -- especially for New Holland introduction to Canadian investors is the first time they'll be seeing this strategy in that manager. But we're feeling pretty positive about the meetings and how that is going. As well on the -- what I'll call the evergreen side, we're starting to see some good activity on the private credit side. I think the competition has picked up in certain retail channels for that strategy, but our sort of consistent performance and now longer track record is helping us in that channel. On the private equity side, returns have been relatively muted across the whole industry for reasons that I think everyone probably has read about with the rapid rise in interest rates and then followed on by the tariff situation. So it's been pretty muted in that sector, especially when you have a mature fund that has been investing through the full cycle versus some of the competition that is relatively early in their inception. Graham Ryding: Okay. Understood. And sorry, did you say that New Holland Capital on its own, even though it's not consolidated in your results potentially just yet, but New Holland Capital is seeing solid organic growth onto itself? Ashley Lawrence: Yes, they've been positive fundraising over the course of the year this year. Again, given that most of their investor base or all of their investor base at present is institutional, it does tend to be a little bit chunky. Ken Tsang: I'll just -- Graham, it's Ken. Just a reminder, when we made the acquisition of New Holland, average assets under management was about USD 5 billion. And as of the end of August of this year, it's currently at around USD 6.7 billion. So certainly have seen some very strong momentum in that business. Operator: [Operator Instructions] I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'll now turn it back to Judy for closing remarks. Judith Goldring: Thank you very much for your questions and for attending today. Just to recap, this was another strong quarter for AGF at $0.46 EPS. Our investment performance remains strong, and our sales momentum continues to outpace the industry. Our strong balance sheet and strong cash flow positions us well to return capital to our shareholders while driving long-term growth. So thank you again for attending, and we look forward to our Q4 earnings call on January 27, 2026. Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Leon Devaney: Good morning. Our presentation today covers Central Petroleum's annual results for 2025. I'm Leon Devaney, CEO and Managing Director of Central Petroleum, and I am joined by our CFO, Damian Galvin. Throughout today's presentation, you are welcome to submit questions online, which we will address at the end. Please ensure you read the legal disclaimer that applies to this presentation. Last week, we released our 2025 annual report. Consistent with our quarterly reports, the company has achieved several key milestones that highlight strong operational and financial progress. A major success was the conclusion of a competitive gas marketing effort that resulted in a significant multiyear gas sales agreement that derisks and strengthens the company's future cash flows. Operationally, 2 new production wells were drilled and brought online at Mereenie. These wells were completed ahead of schedule, under budget and delivered production rates well above initial expectations, demonstrating effective project execution and strong asset performance. On the financial front, the company restructured its debt with a revised amortization schedule extending to 2030, eliminating refinancing risk and increasing our financial flexibility. As a result of these achievements, the company has the capacity to undertake a share buyback program, marking its first shareholder return event since listing nearly 20 years ago. I'll now hand over to Damian to go through our annual results in more detail. Damian Galvin: Thanks, Leon. FY 2025 has certainly proven to be a pivotal year for the company, and the results won't come as a surprise for those who have been following our quarterly results. Our bottom line statutory profit of $7.7 million is, I think, in many ways, more satisfying than the $12.4 million profit we posted last year, that's because last year's profit included $13.8 million profit from selling our interest in the Range [indiscernible] gas permit in Queensland. So when you strip out those one-off profits, you get a much better feel for how the business has turned around. So the underlying profit is $6.5 million this year compared with an underlying loss of $1.4 million the year before. So that's a significant turnaround. And more than 2/3 of that profit was recorded in the second half of this year as our new -- as those new gas sale contracts came into effect. Now the improvement in performance, it's evident across most of the metrics. You start with the revenues, $43.6 million. That's up 17% from last year, largely due to the increase in realized price, which was up 19% to $9.02 per gigajoule equivalent over the full year. And that flows through to the increased sales margins and the underlying EBITDAX, which was up 43% at $19.6 million. So some other items in there. The result also benefits from lower corporate and admin costs and reduced exploration activity this year. Higher interest rates have kept finance costs relatively steady, and we recognized a profit of $1.3 million on the sale of some surplus land near Alice Springs. So an excellent result for [indiscernible] have a closer look at some of the main drivers. The catalyst for the transformation lies with the new gas contracting strategy that we implemented early last year. And the impact from that on revenues was twofold. So firstly, the new contracts resulted in more reliable volumes. In the first half of the year, we had the benefit of those available contracts wholly within the Northern Territory, and they were mitigating the impact from the extended closure of the Northern Gas Pipeline. In the second half of the year, we had new contracts that also provided reliable offtake within the Northern Territory when we couldn't deliver gas to our customers due to pipeline closures. Secondly, those new contracts, which replaced the legacy contracts from 1 January this year, they're at higher prices. And the chart on the right shows the 27% jump in the second half average prices. And that flows through to the bottom line and cash flows. And I'll come back to margins shortly. Now the 17% increase in revenues was also boosted by record demand for gas from the Dingo field and the 2 new Mereenie wells, which were online from quarter 3, providing much needed additional volume. In terms of other revenue, we also recognized $1.3 million from the release of take-or-pay proceeds, and we're able to pass through some of the increased Northern Territory regulatory costs to some customers and we recovered $600,000. Coming back to volumes. The 2 new Mereenie wells were successfully drilled and commissioned. They're ahead of schedule, are under budget, and they've outperformed the pre-drill expectations. So it was a great result, and we're very happy with the outcome from those wells. Oil production at Mereenie was also higher. It was up 14%, and that was largely as a result of the flare gas compressor that we commissioned and installed late in the previous financial year. However, the oil offtake was partially constrained in the fourth quarter and that did have a knock-on effect on gas production, and we've implemented some solutions recently so that volume shouldn't be affected going forward. We do continue to see some seasonal demand fluctuations, particularly when the NGP is closed. And you can see on the chart, the lower volumes experienced in late winter, early spring, both last year, which is on the far left of the chart and also in the current quarter, which is on the far right. The difference this year is that we've protected our cash flows through take-or-pay arrangements in our recent gas supply agreements. So while we're expecting the September quarter gas volumes to be about 8% lower than the June quarter, cash flows will be less affected. The higher prices have flowed through to margins. So if you exclude depreciation, our gross margins increased by 26%. They're up from $3.65 per gigajoule equivalent last year up to $4.60 this year. Our cost of sales, they rose about 6% on a per unit basis. And some of that's due to the higher cost of our return to overlift gas, and the cost is linked to the sales price, so it's naturally higher. The improved margin that we saw was really just from 6 months of improved contract pricing. So we could expect a further improvement for the full year to June next year. And that's also going to benefit further once the overlifted gas is all returned in May next year. Our focus on cost control continues, though, and we do pride ourselves on being a low-cost operator. For example, the chart on the bottom left shows the progress that we've made in reducing our net corporate and administration costs. They are down 39% from last year and 60% lower over the last 2 years. The improved financial performance and cash flows has us in a much stronger financial position than previously. Cash at June 30 was $27.5 million and net cash, that is cash less debt was $3.9 million. That's our highest in over a decade. Our loan facility is in good shape. It's locked in until 2030. We don't have any mandatory principal repayments until March 2027, but we do have the ability to make earlier repayments if we choose to do so. So this stronger balance sheet has enabled us to commence our first program of shareholder returns through an on-market share buyback. We could buy back up to 10% of issued capital over the next 12 months, and this would cost a relatively modest $4 million at current prices or $2 million if we only bought back 5%. Now we've appointed Morgans to manage this process for us, although it should be noted that the total number of shares ultimately bought back over the 12-month period may be significantly less than the 10% cap. And our trading activity will be dependent on considering various factors, including, for example, the prevailing share price, market liquidity, regulatory requirements and trading constraints under the ASX listing rules, maturity of potential commercial transactions that could be material to the share price and other capital allocation opportunities, including growth opportunities and debt repayment. So although we haven't yet been able to start buying on market, consistent with that buyback strategy to reduce issued capital at the current market prices. We've cash settled some of the vested equity incentives, which would otherwise have converted to shares this month, and that's about 8 million shares that we've effectively taken off the market already. Now another achievement that might have gone unnoticed in the annual report was the reserves upgrade, and that arose from the outperformance of those 2 new Mereenie wells and also the continuing ongoing consistent performance of the Dingo field. So the upgrade of proved and probable as 2P gas and oil reserves means we effectively replaced 96% of our FY 2025 production. And so that's an indication of the ongoing reliability and producibility of these Amadeus Basin fields. Look, in summary, it's a satisfying result across the board. It's got us in a strong financial position. So with that, let's let FY 2025 fade away into the rearview mirror, and I'll hand you back to Leon. Leon Devaney: Thanks, Damian. While we were pleased with last year's performance, our focus remains on maintaining momentum and enhancing shareholder value, including improving the share price. With a cash balance exceeding $25 million and a strong portfolio of firm gas contracts, we are well positioned to pursue both growth and shareholder returns. In addition to the share buyback program, we are evaluating more substantial forms of shareholder returns such as sustainable dividends as part of a broader capital allocation strategy that balances near-term value with long-term growth. Our existing producing assets continue to be a vital avenue for increasing shareholder value with opportunities to rapidly boost production through the drilling of new wells. We have made significant progress in planning and securing approvals for future drilling programs at Palm Valley and Mereenie. These investments are obviously dependent on obtaining long-term gas contracts at acceptable margins, so we will persist in actively marketing these volumes to potential customers. Additionally, we are advancing efforts to restart exploration in our sub-salt permits with the initial activity likely to be an appraisal well at Mount Kitty, a discovery with high helium and hydrogen potential. Concurrently, we are progressing farm-out discussions for conventional exploration in the Western Amadeus Basin, focusing on EP115, which is on trend with our existing producing fields at Mereenie and Palm Valley. Beyond our current portfolio, we remain open to lower-risk, high-impact growth opportunities that align with our core strengths and support reserve expansion and revenue diversification. In conclusion, we are confident in our ability to sustain the momentum generated over the past year well into the future. We have significant opportunities for capital allocation, including further returns to shareholders. And as mentioned earlier, we are diligently working to deliver some of these growth opportunities over the coming months. I want to assure our shareholders that as we pursue growth, we will remain disciplined, ensuring that any transaction adds value and effectively leverages the strong financial foundations we have built. That's the end of the formal presentation, so we can now move on to questions and answers. Damian Galvin: Thanks, Leon. So we do have a few questions here this morning. So happy just jump straight into them. I guess the one we often come across probably a statement more than a question, shares which pay dividends are viewed favorably by investors, obviously. And I think as Leon mentioned in his list of capital allocations, it's one of the -- one of the option that's been very seriously considered at this time, but it is being considered in conjunction with those other alternative uses for capital. So certainly, we're keen to get to a dividend as soon as we can, and it's certainly under consideration. Leon Devaney: Yes. Just to add to that, I think Slides 9 and 10 list some of those capital allocation options that we are working through. We'd like to see how those play through over the next couple of months. But certainly, with the cash balance and the cash flows we have, dividends are on the radar and something we understand would be obviously well received by shareholders and certainly could have an opportunity to rerate the stock. So something we're very carefully considering at this point. Damian Galvin: Okay. Question about our helium prospects, [indiscernible]. When will exploration resume? Leon Devaney: Great question. We are very focused on getting that kicked off. Obviously, it's been stalled for a long time. There is some complexity with the joint venture and our operator in terms of getting that program going. We think we have a strategy and a plan in place to kick start that and get it going again in the near term. If we're successful in that, the target timing would be a Mount Kitty well by mid-2027. That's what we'd be shooting for. Again, there's quite a bit of work we need to do to put that in place and make that happen. But that is a focus, and we have been working very hard in the background to get that going and get a well drilled there. We think it's an exciting prospect, a significant upside for the company. So we're quite keen to get going on that permit and Mount Kitty in particular. Damian Galvin: Okay. Could you clarify what the expected boost in cash flow might be once gas overlift is all returned? So gas overlift, that should all be returned by May next year. So we're getting close now. I think we're returning at about 2 terajoules a day. So if you calculate her out and $9 or $10 gas price, I think we're up around in excess of $6 million a year in extra revenue. So we're certainly looking forward to that boost coming in June next year. In terms of other questions, what else we've got? Can you please give us some indication on timing of drilling new Palm Valley wells? Leon Devaney: We're -- as I mentioned, we're obviously progressing planning and approval. So we're doing a lot of the long lead stuff in terms of getting prepped and ready for a drill-ready positioning for that field. We see a lot of value in being able to quickly bring new production from Palm Valley into the market as a 50% interest holder in Palm Valley and with the production we've seen in the prior wells that we've drilled there, it is a very compelling case for us to invest and increase production and sell that gas. So one of the top priorities we do have is getting that drilling approved, prepared, and fit for it. Now the critical piece of that puzzle, obviously, is ensuring that we do have a market for it. The market, as I've mentioned consistently over the past couple of years has been in a state of change. That change is still continuing, both with production from the Blacktip field, but also appraisal activity at the Beetaloo. Notwithstanding that, we are in active discussions with potential customers, and we are trying very hard to put in place a gas supply agreement for the additional volumes from Palm Valley at acceptable margins that we think are in the best interest of shareholders. And once we're in a position to have that contract in place and underwrite those volumes, we'll be looking to drill those wells very quickly. That's certainly our intent at Central. Obviously, it needs shareholder or joint venture approval with our joint venture partners at Palm Valley. Damian Galvin: Okay. There was a question here. What is the situation with joint ventures? I'm not sure whether [indiscernible] production joint ventures or exploration ones. But is there any sort of clarity around -- I think we're all similarly minded at the moment. Leon Devaney: Yes. I think we've got great alignment with the joint ventures that we are working with on -- across our fields. They're like-minded with us. They're looking to extract value from the operating assets or looking for ways to grow and increase production and sell that into a market that we see as desperately needing firm gas supply. So we've got great alignment. They're contributing significantly to our efforts in the fields. So we couldn't be happier. We're quite pleased with the joint venture arrangements we do have. Obviously, in the sub-salt space, the joint venture has been more challenging in terms of progressing appraisal activity. That's something that we've been working very hard on. We do have a good working relationship with Santos, who is operator, and we think we're making progress on that front, as I've mentioned earlier. So hopefully, we'll have some good news coming in relation to that joint venture over the coming months as well. Damian Galvin: Okay. Could you elaborate on why Dingo production performed so strongly? Is there a possibility that further wells and contracting gas could be on the cards? Leon Devaney: Yes, it's really a market issue for Dingo. It's selling directly into a power station. That power station obviously has a gas requirement that is subject to the energy demands in the Alice Springs area. That demand has increased and their requirements for gas has increased. There are alternative supplies they do have. And so depending on how they adjust their portfolio, that will drive the demand that they require from the Dingo field. Having said that, we do have a very strong take-or-pay position at Dingo and you would see take-or-pay payments being made at the beginning of each calendar year that reflect any volumes that they haven't taken under contracts. So from our perspective, the cash flows from Dingo are very steady and reliable. And we're looking forward to continuing to meet the contract. And if there are opportunities to grow that field or expand that field and add more volume into that Alice Springs market, we're certainly open to it. And there have been conversations in that front with the NT government and PWC, and we'll certainly be exploring that going forward to see if there's opportunities out that are a win-win for both parties. Damian Galvin: Okay. Can you run us through longer-term contracts market that is 2028 onwards? Any changes there? Leon Devaney: No, as I've mentioned quite a few times in previous webinars, the longer-term gas market is probably where there's considerable uncertainty, particularly, as I mentioned, with respect to longer-term production from Blacktip, which has historically been a baseload gas supplier for the NT. That's a decline or appears to be in decline. And we've also got the Beetaloo, which is undertaking appraisal. We don't know what the results of those appraisal tests really are at this point. I think a lot more information is going to be coming out over the next 6 months. It is an uncertain market when you start moving out to 2028. Our focus has been ensuring that certainly in 2026, 2027, we've got ourselves in a very strong contracted position. We do have contracts extending out through to 2030, which does help. But we do have additional volumes that we are trying to contract from 2028 and beyond. Those are the Arafura contract volumes that we backed out of earlier this year. There is interest. It is a bit early. It's a couple of years away. So it is a bit early in terms of contracting those volumes with counterparties. We are also talking to projects in the NT that might require that gas or certainly are interested in that gas, including Arafura as a potential customer going forward. So it is a very active part of our marketing effort and strategy, but it is something that will obviously take time. We'll lock those in when we think the time is appropriate. And we think contracting gas at that point in time is in the best interest of shareholders. Damian Galvin: Okay. Thanks, Leon. Probably also, there was a question here around how the Beetaloo Basin was looking and progressing. So I think you probably covered that off. Leon Devaney: Yes, I didn't spend a lot of time on this particular webinar going into the market. There's not a lot to update. We did a webinar last month, I think it was. There hasn't been a whole lot of information in terms of flow rates coming out of either of the appraisal programs happening at the Beetaloo. And the Blacktip production, similar to what we experienced last month in terms of turndown from nominations due to reduced demand in the NT. It's very hard to understand Blacktip's production at a field level, given some of that could be a result of a turndown as well. So really, at this point, there's not a lot of additional information to be able to get more visibility. I think we'll need to continue to watch this space. And as I said, over the next 6 months, I think or so, getting some more information, and we'll see how it all plays out. . Damian Galvin: Okay. Question here around hydrogen. Are the JVs looking at directing any hydrogen finds into ammonia production? Leon Devaney: Well, obviously, we've got to find hydrogen and be able to demonstrate we can produce it at commercial rates. And I think that is the focus. That's certainly the focus of our sub-salt exploration activity, hydrogen and helium. Obviously, we have hydrocarbons, and we're very familiar with being able to commercialize that. We think that's going to form an important part of the business case for those prospects. But our first step is to get these appraisal wells in, particularly Mount Kitty, demonstrate we can have a commercial flow rate. And once we understand what that looks like and understand with more granularity the gas composition, we can then start to formulate a business strategy around how we commercialize and develop prospects. So it's certainly an area that we see as a potential revenue stream for the company going forward. But we have a period of time before we're actually in a position to say how or with any certainty what that will look like or how it will be developed. Damian Galvin: So I think there was a couple there just around share price and where we're at. I think one of them was why is Context Morningstar valuing the company at $0.06? I guess the short answer to that is I probably just run some AI bot on it that's taken the current share price. I would point you towards the analysis on our website from MST Access. They've got a full research paper there. I think they land at $0.20, which brings us to another question. I can't understand why the CTP share price has not progressed well north of $0.20 per share in the last 5 years or so. I realize all CSG producers are in a similar position, but I would have thought with your gas sale contracts and producing field it would be a little different. Leon Devaney: Yes. I'd go back to really what has been the theme, I think, of this presentation. We've had a great 2025. Our plan and our focus is to -- certainly one of the key objectives that we're quite focused on is to get the share price up. The ways we're going to do it, we've talked about in this presentation, that's to continue the momentum we've had in 2025, continue to deliver safe, strong performance at our operating fields, generate the kind of financial outcomes that we've seen in 2025 and hopefully improve on those, continue to strengthen our balance sheet, and obviously, with the GBA coming off in a few months, that will provide a fairly significant kick start to that as well. And then look at capital allocation options, including shareholder returns. There's opportunities there for us to demonstrate and actually in a concrete way, return more significantly capital to shareholders through sustainable dividends, for example, that could be a good catalyst for the share price. But we have a number of growth opportunities as well that we're looking at. We're very active in discussions with a broad range of things that we think are material and could be quite beneficial for the company and could have an impact on the share price going forward if we're able to complete those and get those across the line. So really, we're working quite hard on a basket of things and our focus is on creating shareholder value. But specifically, as part of that, we think that, that is the opportunity and a pathway to get that share price elevated and increasing to reflect the value of the company. Damian Galvin: Yes. I think probably we all share the frustration of shareholders around the share price and it probably reflected in our decision to allocate some capital towards share buyback at these prices is a good use of capital. So something we're working on across the board. Okay. A couple of other more questions here. What about the company Omega Oil and Gas in Surat Basin? Any comment on this development? Leon Devaney: Obviously, they've had some fantastic success and I understand they've done a fairly significant capital raise. I think what it does show is that despite the challenges in our sector, there's great opportunity for significant growth, significant value enhancement in smaller companies where you're able to successfully find resources and demonstrate that you can potentially commercialize that. And if it's of a substantial size, then clearly, that has a major impact on the valuation of companies. So I think success will be rewarded in this market. And that's one of the key things that we're looking to do at Central, whether it's through creating some visible tangible benefits to shareholders through shareholder returns to demonstrate the success we've been having with the operating assets that we do have in place, improving on those operating assets or in the growth opportunities that we have in front of us, picking and finding the right ones, being smart about it, being smart about how we structure it, how we approach it, finding success and essentially following a similar path where I think Central certainly has the opportunity to go and have a substantial increase in share price if we're successful. Damian Galvin: Question here. Could we see the FY '26 result being boosted by that gas overlift coming off that is like FY '25 being skewed towards a much better second half from the new gas contracts. I think the answer to that is probably won't see a big boost in FY '26 because that gas balancing agreement we expect all that gas to be returned by about May. So it's really only probably 1 month of upside that I'd expect to see on cash flow. So probably not for FY '26. Leon Devaney: Not substantially. But certainly, as we look forward to future financial results, that share buyback is a significant liability that will come off. As Dami mentioned, it's in the order of $6 million to $7 million at current portfolio pricing. That's in the order of a $0.01 per share type of thing. So it's a substantial number for the company. It's something that we have been paying off diligently over the past years, and we're looking forward to that being lifted, and it will have a big impact as we move forward into fiscal year 2027. Damian Galvin: Okay. In light of the Omega Gas comments, would Central bid on new Queensland acreage if it made strategic sense? Leon Devaney: Yes, we are open to opportunities that we think are lower risk, high impact. We're not restricted to opportunities just in the NT. Obviously, that's where we have a core skill set and our existing footprint. But we are casting a wider net and looking at opportunities up and down the East Coast and are in discussions for those. Obviously, there's a lot of opportunity in the market, particularly where you have transitions, whether it's gas market transitions or other events. We've been very disciplined in terms of filtering through those. There's no shortage of opportunities to throw money at, and we're in a great position with our cash balance and cash flow to have that kind of money. So obviously, we're of interest to parties that are trying to farm out or divest. But we do have a very, I think, clear understanding of what we think will add value to the company, what fits this company and where we can create value and what is in the best interest of shareholders. So we are very selective in what we look at and what we engage in, in terms of further investigation. But there are opportunities out there, and it could be in Queensland, it could be South Australia, it could be anywhere on the East Coast, and it could be further afield than that potentially. But our bread and butter, obviously, is, at this point, onshore and the East Coast is a familiar market to us. But having said that, we are open to good opportunities at the right price with the right risk profile, and it's something that we're working very hard to screen and see if we can uncover opportunities that are in the best interest of shareholders. We've had a good track record on that as well. If you look at what we've done with the Range project, we didn't put any capital into it. We had a $12 million profit from that. So that turned out actually quite positive for the company. It didn't go as quickly. We were hoping to get into development, but that was a positive investment for us. The Peak deal, obviously, that fell over. That was unfortunate, but it was really a lost opportunity as opposed to a loss for us. So we've certainly got to make sure going forward that the deals that we do enter into we cover off and really make sure that the credit risk and the ability of the counterparties is there to perform as we expect when we go into a joint venture or a farm-in opportunity. Damian Galvin: All right, I think that's all the questions for today. Leon Devaney: Great. Sounds good. Well, I appreciate everyone's attention and look forward to updating all of you as we go forward through the end of this year. I think it's going to be a very exciting next few months. And we're very confident that some good things will be happening and look forward to sharing that with you as we go forward. Damian Galvin: Thank you very much.
Eric Lakin: Good morning. I'd like to welcome everyone in the room and on the webcast to the TT Electronics 2025 Half Year Results Presentation. I'm delighted to be here today to present the results as Chief Executive of TT. This follows a permanent appointment decision by the Board of Directors last month, and I'm grateful for the trust placed in me by the Board and for their support. I'm also very happy to introduce you to Richard Webb, our Interim CFO, who joined us in May this year. It's been a remarkably busy 5 months since the 2024 results were announced in April, and we have made significant progress since then. In the first section today, I will cover the headlines for the half, including the key financials and an update on the actions taken to stabilize the business. Then Richard will take us through the results in more detail. In my second section, I will share more of my early impressions of TT's business. I'll also talk about the overall direction of travel and provide more color on the outlook for the remainder of the current year. We will then take Q&A. Before I start, however, I wish to recognize and thank all of my colleagues for their hard work, commitment and support during what has been a challenging time with significant change. Overall, TT has made solid progress over the past few months, including significant strides with the business improvement in North America, and we're on track to meet expectations for the full year. Our European region has once again performed well as momentum continues, benefiting from our strong long-term positions on several Aerospace & Defense programs. For the Asian region, business operating margins held up through our Lean business program in Suzhou despite being impacted by some order delays for certain customers. With regard to our North American business, there have clearly been a number of challenges to navigate over the past 12 to 18 months. In the first half of this year, we have taken prompt action to stabilize this North America region. In April, we announced that we were launching a strategic review of the underperforming components business. As a result of this ongoing review, we took the decision in June to close our loss-making Plano site in Texas, which lost around GBP 6 million last year. We also established a separate management team for components to focus and provide greater oversight. We stepped up action to turn around the loss-making Cleveland site. We deployed external consultants to undertake a full operational review of the business, which has now concluded, and the local management team is now at full strength. I feel confident that we have turned a corner with the performance of this business. More about that later. Our drive for inventory reduction continues to progress well, which contributed to an excellent cash conversion outcome of 135% in the half and leverage of 1.9x, which is within our target range of 1 to 2x and slightly ahead of our previous guidance. Richard will cover this in more detail. Overall, I would summarize the first half as a transitional period. While the performance in the half doesn't reflect many of the operational improvement actions taken, these actions do underpin both the second half improvement in profitability and future run rate profits. Importantly, we continue to expect full year adjusted operating profit to be in line with market expectations. So let's take a closer look at the operational turnaround projects in turn. Firstly, the Components' strategic review. The Components business has a different operating model and characteristics from the other TT businesses of Power Electronics and Manufacturing Services. We are, therefore, undertaking a strategic review that was started in the second quarter. Components is a more transactional higher-volume business with shorter lead times and therefore, has less future visibility than other parts of TT. The route to market is predominantly through distribution channels, which also tends to exacerbate the stocking and destocking trends. Consequently, I believe it is the right decision to give this business separate management focus within TT, and we are already seeing benefits from this new structure, including tailored initiatives for pricing, marketing and product development. This will ultimately drive improved performance through volume, margin and overhead recovery, especially when we see a positive turn in the industry cycle. We continue to monitor levels of our Components' product inventory held by distribution partners. And as you can see from this graph, encouragingly, the stock levels have been showing a consistent downward trend. Although we haven't yet seen a significant uplift in new order intake, it is encouraging to see a stabilization of order levels. A key action to improve the performance of the Components business was the decision to close the Plano site to stem the losses. Production is planned to discontinue by the end of this year. The factory is currently fulfilling demand from last time buy orders, which also helps underpin the second half improvement for the business. We are now expecting cash closure costs of around GBP 4 million, which is lower than originally anticipated and delivers a payback of less than 1 year. Now for an update regarding the ongoing activities to improve performance at the Cleveland, Ohio site. There has been a lot of activity at this site, and I'm pleased to share some recent data. In fact, Richard and I were there last week along with the Board, and we were heartened to see the significant progress being made. I'm glad to report we have turned the corner in Cleveland, having implemented a detailed improvement plan, which was developed with our local site team in collaboration with the external consultants. The plan incorporates multiple margin and cash flow initiatives, including pricing, production planning, inventory optimization, procurement and efficiency measures manufacturing processes at the site have become more efficient, supported by improved factory layout, process optimization and waste reduction. You can see the outcome of these initiatives in the two charts on this slide, which show encouraging trends. In the blue column chart, productivity, which is defined as standard hours earned divided by total labor hours paid, has been consistently improving during the year and has now reached our target level. June was an expected temporary dip due to a planned 1-week factory shutdown to improve the layout and flow. Productivity improvement has been delivered partly through a reduction in scrap and rework hours, which can be seen in the purple column chart. In addition, we have further reduced headcount at the site, which is down 17% since the beginning of the year. More efficient operations has led to improving service levels to our customers, including on-time delivery, which puts us in a better position to tighten our commercial terms for legacy low-margin contracts. The benefit of this work stream will be delivered over several months as existing contract terms come up for renewal. We have also completed a comprehensive balance sheet review, which has resulted in a largely noncash restructuring charge in the first half of GBP 5.7 million, predominantly related to aged and obsolete inventory. Now that the external consultants have completed their assignment, the improvement project work streams are owned by the Cleveland team. There is full commitment from this team to continue to deliver on the improvement plan, and it was very encouraging to hear updates from them last week. So hopefully, that gives you a good feel for the progress with our short-term priorities, especially as we focus on improving the operational performance in North America. Now I'd like to hand over to Richard to go through the first half numbers in more detail. Richard Webb: Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. This is my first set of results with TT having joined the group in May, and I'm really pleased to be part of the great TT team. It's been a busy few months, but I'm pleased with what has been achieved and the actions taken to stabilize the business. Clearly, it's been a mixed half with continued strong profit progression in Europe, offset by specific challenges at two North American sites and order delays for our Asia business. Now moving on to the group financial metrics. Throughout the presentation, I'll refer to organic performance. This reflects the performance on a constant currency basis and with the impact of last year's Project Albert divestment removed. Revenue was down by 6% organically. If we exclude the Plano site from both periods, we would have been down by 4.3% organically. As already communicated, Plano will be closed by the end of the year. Adjusted operating profit declined by 29.7% organically to GBP 13 million as strong operational gearing in Europe was more than offset by 2 loss-making North American sites. Adjusted operating margins dropped by 180 basis points on an organic basis to 5.5%. Adjusted EPS declined to 1.9p, reflecting the reduction in operating profit and the impact of a much higher effective tax rate in the current year as we cannot currently recognize a deferred tax asset for the U.S. We've taken the prudent decision to focus on strengthening the balance sheet and have decided to continue the pause on the dividend and will not be paying an interim dividend. Return on invested capital was flat at 10%. This metric benefited from a reduced denominator following the December 2024 impairments of North American goodwill on components assets. And just to flag, half 1 2024 has been restated, mirroring the restatement of the 2024 full year we highlighted in our announcement of the 10th of April. This all relates to North America. On this slide, we're showing the revenue bridge, which adjusts for the Albert divestment and FX and shows the makeup of the 6% organic revenue decline. Our positioning on long-term programs in the strong Aerospace & Defense end market has driven the growth in Europe, offset by the issues at two sites, Plano and Cleveland in North America and the order delays impacting our Asia business. Similarly, for adjusted operating profit, you can clearly see the strong drop-through on the European revenue growth. However, this was more than offset by circa GBP 3.5 million of losses at Plano and the Cleveland challenges, which Eric explored earlier. On a more positive note, we're really pleased with the strong cash conversion of 135% in the first half. Net debt, excluding leases, reduced further to GBP 73 million. This is a GBP 36 million reduction since the end of June last year, and we're very happy with the good progress on cash conversion and debt reduction. Free cash flow was GBP 6.4 million. Over the last 18 months, there's been a significant focus on reducing our inventory levels, and this initiative resulted in a GBP 5 million contribution to the half 1 cash flow, putting us well on track to delivering the commitments to a GBP 15 million reduction in inventory by the end of 2026. We closed the half with covenant leverage at 1.9x. As profits recover and cash generation continues, we expect to see a slight further reduction in leverage over the remainder of this year. Looking at the cash conversion in a bit more detail. Working capital movements were a net inflow of GBP 0.9 million in the half. This comprises the GBP 5 million of underlying inventory reduction mentioned just now, partially offset by a GBP 3 million creditor reduction and a GBP 1 million receivables increase. It's a much better picture than half 1 last year, where there was an GBP 18 million working capital outflow. We expect working capital movements in half 2 to remain broadly neutral. Before we move on to the performance of the regions, it's worth looking at end market revenue, which shows similar themes to 2024. Aerospace & Defense continues to grow strongly with the main benefit showing through in our European performance. Healthcare was down 6% organically, driven by the well-documented reduction in U.S. research grants and funding into the sector. Automation and Electrification declined by 14% organically, reflecting end market weakness for our customers. And finally, Distribution, which is where we have continued to experience our main challenges, with a 17% organic reduction. The biggest impact was in the North America region, particularly for our Plano site. As Eric mentioned earlier, we are now seeing distributor inventory levels stabilize. Now moving on to the regional performance. The European region continues to perform well, reflecting our long-term positioning with key customers in the A&D sector. We have built on a strong 2024 performance to deliver a 5% revenue increase on an organic basis and a 34% organic increase in adjusted operating profit. Operating margins have further improved, up 330 basis points, to 15.6%, benefiting from a favorable product mix in the half, good operational leverage on growth and further efficiency improvements coming through. Order cover for the region remains very strong, and we expect to deliver further organic revenue growth for the year as a whole. Clearly, North America has faced another difficult half given the slow components market and the execution challenges at our Cleveland site. However, as Eric has explained, action has been taken. And although not visible in the first half results, we expect to see evidence of these actions in our second half performance. Revenue was down 10% on an organic basis with some good growth in Kansas City, where a successful turnaround has been achieved from the challenges noted last September, more than offset by declines in Cleveland and in Components. If we exclude Plano from both periods, the organic revenue decline is 5.8%. The GBP 5 million loss in the region includes a circa GBP 3.5 million loss at the Plano site, which will be closed in the second half. In the half, we have booked restructuring costs taken below adjusted operating profit with GBP 6.7 million booked in relation to the Plano site closure and GBP 5.7 million for restructuring of Cleveland, which is mainly inventory related. As we look into the second half, a combination of higher revenue, management actions taken, such as the Plano closure and the Cleveland improvement plan means we expect the region to return to profitability in the second half, although the region is expected to be loss-making for the year as a whole. Finally, Asia, which has made another good contribution to the group despite lower levels of revenue, reflecting order delays due to geopolitical and related uncertainties. On an organic basis, revenue was down by 9%. Operating profit reduced by 14% organically, driven by the adverse impact of volume reductions. 2025 is a transition year for the region with the ongoing transfer of production for a major customer at their request from China to Malaysia. This is progressing to plan. The region is still delivering a strong margin performance with margins broadly maintained at 13.2%. Revenue in the second half is expected to be slightly lower as the order delays are expected to continue. The drop-through impact will result in half 2 margins being marginally lower than half 1. I wanted to highlight on this slide the ongoing balance sheet derisking. Inventory has reduced by GBP 22 million in total. GBP 5 million was a result of the sustained hard work on our ongoing inventory reduction initiatives, as I mentioned for the cash conversion slide earlier. These initiatives are expected to further reduce inventory in the second half, and we are on target for achieving the previously stated GBP 15 million reduction by the end of 2026. This is on top of the GBP 14 million reduction in inventory delivered in 2024. Separately, the Plano closure announcement has resulted in around GBP 5 million of inventory being written off below adjusted operating profit and the comprehensive balance sheet review at Cleveland also resulted in a circa GBP 5 million of inventory being written off, also below adjusted operating profit. As previously flagged, profit in 2025 is expected to be weighted to the second half. This slide gives some of the building blocks, not drawn to scale, to deliver the step-up in second half profitability. The Plano and Cleveland sites were significant drags on half 1 profitability. The decision to close the Plano facility and subsequent last time buy activity into the site in half 2 will provide a positive contribution. The Cleveland improvement plan will start to deliver improved performance. We have also factored in the impact of the ongoing order delays for our Asia business. We expect full year adjusted operating profit to be in line with market expectations. With that, I'll hand back to Eric. Eric Lakin: Thanks, Richard. So having spent much of the presentation so far looking back and reviewing the turnaround activities and progress, what's next? It is still early days in my tenure, which has been focused significantly on steadying the ship, but I do want to share with you some of my early take and direction of travel. TT has foundational capabilities, but there remain areas where we still need to improve our operational efficiency and leverage all of our assets across the business. We must continue to develop our people, products and market positioning to drive sustainable shareholder value in the long term. I'll shortly be covering examples of where we have been investing, technology, for future growth. In the meantime, our short-term priorities are clear. We must complete the fix of operational issues, complete the Components business strategic review, including performance improvement and restore confidence and deliver on our commitments to all stakeholders. I also want to mention that early on in post, I empowered the three regional heads by bringing them onto the executive team. This brought clear lines of responsibility and accountability and encourages collaboration across the organization. The executive team also now includes a leader for the Components business. Beyond our short-term focus, we also need to look further out strategically and drive top line growth. I've been impressed by many things that I've observed, getting to know our business and our employees over the last few months, which I think goes to the heart of the underlying investment case. TT is focused on structural growth end markets driven by megatrends and rising demands. While there have been some short-term softness related to geopolitical uncertainties, I believe ultimately that these are the right strategic markets to be in. Our engineering, manufacturing and sales teams have deep domain and application knowledge across these sectors. TT has particularly strong capabilities in Power Electronics, including Conditioning and Conversion and Electronic Manufacturing Services, known as EMS. TT offers high specification, highly customized electronics for mission-critical applications, which provide strategic advantage through differentiation. We collaborate with our blue-chip customers on long-term programs, and I believe there's a real opportunity to accelerate targeted investment in innovative technologies and products compatible with customer needs. A good representation of TT's strength is demonstrated by some significant recent customer wins, including a GBP 23 million contract this month with long-standing customer Kongsberg. Next, I want to remind you of the broad customer relationships we have across our end markets, which is so important for the business. We are proud to work with many blue-chip customers with whom we have long-term relationships. In fact, our top 10 customers have all been working with us for over a decade and many have been partners for 20 years or more. First, in Healthcare, Asia has secured some notable contract wins this year, reinforcing our regional strategy supporting life sciences OEMs with local production capabilities. In North America, our Minneapolis site is working with a medical equipment partner on next-generation surgical device development that use electromagnetic tracking technology. In Aerospace & Defense, we see continued growth opportunities with the NATO commitment to raise Defense spending targets from 2% of GDP to 5% by 2035. And we're also seeing momentum in civil aviation, driving demand for new aircraft and spares. For Automation and Electrification, we are well placed for growth through the cycle with strong brands across different specialist sectors, including semi equipment, power, security, rail and data centers. This chart may be familiar to you, but it illustrates our business model and customer spend patterns and how we seek to partner to support our customers from the concept stage through to full-scale production, leveraging our global footprint for engineering and manufacturing at each stage of the product life cycle. This development path varies by market and some programs can extend for many years with high barriers to entry in regulated markets, which provides visibility over long-term revenue streams. We have established a group-wide engineering and R&D function to leverage TT's expertise across all regions with product road maps for all sites. I've been greatly impressed with the technology and industry experts at our sites who help develop solutions for our customers' challenges. The image on the left shows how TT combine a fully integrated offering. For example, the use of our magnetics devices on our PCB assemblies, which along with our hybrid microelectronic devices can be designed into high-level assemblies. A core product of TT is our power units, which can incorporate our own PCBs as well as TT connectors and cable assemblies. On the right, it is an example of our customer-led approach to investment. Silver sintering is a key manufacturing capability that enables cutting-edge power modules for critical applications to be fabricated using the latest silicon carbide semiconductor devices. This represents the next-generation technology, enabling higher power with superior reliability and thermal performance within a smaller, lighter package, which are particularly valued by Aerospace customers. Another investment example is Altitude DC, our high-voltage direct current power system that was launched at the Farnborough Air Show last summer. We developed this in collaboration with the Aerospace Technology Institute as well as shared investment with them. This platform provides efficient and reliable power conversion solutions to enable longer duration flights at higher altitudes in civil aerospace, defense and air mobility vehicles. The modular design means reduced development time and costs and simplifies the qualification process. So that's just a couple of examples I wanted to share with you to illustrate our investment in the future. Let's finish with an outlook for the remainder of the year. We are clear on our short-term focus to deliver improvement in operational performance and margin and have taken decisions to accelerate this. This includes a component strategic review and the planned closure of Plano as well as the Cleveland turnaround project. Very important to me this year is -- and the future for TT is that North America is expected to show a step change in performance, leading to a return to profitability in the second half. Yes, it's still expected to be loss-making for the year as a whole, but it's good to have positive momentum in the region. This sequential improvement, together with further second half progress in Europe and a resilient contribution in Asia is expected to underpin a significant uplift in profitability in the second half of this year compared to H1. As stated earlier, we expect adjusted operating profit to be in line with market expectations. While our short-term priorities are clear, I plan to share further thoughts for the longer-term strategy in the new year. In conclusion, following my first few months in the business, I am convinced that we have a robust platform for growth with leading products and capabilities, deep customer partnerships in attractive end markets, and this makes me excited for TT's future. So now we're happy to open up to questions, initially from those in the room. There's also a facility for those on the webcast to submit questions, which we'll cover after those in the room. Thank you. Eric Lakin: Okay. First hand up. Mark Jones: I'm sure that's working. Mark Davies Jones from Stifel. Could I ask about the Asian business, please? Because clearly, the U.S. has been a priority and you're getting scripts with that, but delays seem to be drifting onwards in Asia. When does delay come -- become work that's not coming your way? And if you're relocating business from Suzhou to Malaysia, what does that mean in terms of ongoing capacity utilization at the China plant? Eric Lakin: Yes. Thanks, Mark. So overall for Asia, First, in terms of the production transfer, that's going very well and to plan. That was quite a significant transition for one customer in particular. It represented GBP 20 million or more of annual revenues. That will be complete this year. There was some safety stock that was purchased last year in the first half of this year. So that will contribute to some short-term softness as that safety stock is sold and consumed by the customer. I mean, overall, that does mean there is capacity for the Suzhou site. We have 4 SMT lines there and a very capable workforce. We have taken some modest adjustment to the headcount there to counter the transfer of business from Suzhou to Kuantan. But the underlying growth, if we look at the -- there's two large customers in particular, where we're seeing some softness in end customer demand patterns, partly due to the geopolitical uncertainty we've been talking about, specifically with the ongoing uncertainty around tariffs, it's difficult to know where they will be in 3, 6, 9 months' time. Some of the decisions made to agree the supply chain and location of fabrication has meant that there are some delays in those orders, which feeds into short-term softness in revenue. The good news is we're not losing business. We have a diverse portfolio with different geographies to provide offshore, both China and Malaysia, but also nearshore with Mexico, with the Mexicali EMS facility, but also indeed Cleveland. We're having increasing discussions with some of our key accounts and new accounts about onshoring production and EMS into the Cleveland site. So we're doubling down on our regional Asia for Asia projects. In fact, we're increasing our resource for business development headcount in Asia, including China, to grow our book of business with local customers in China. And we're having some good early traction with wins within the region so far. So I think I see it as temporary short-term softness in Asia, which we've not seen before due to specific end customer demand patterns and uncertainty. But over time, and as we go into certainly the second half of next year, we see a return to growth from our existing customers, but also as we see benefits for new business opportunities and new customers. Mark Jones: And maybe one for Richard. Lot of moving parts in the numbers. I wouldn't say I've read every page of the release yet from this morning. But in terms of setting the baseline for revenues, obviously, you restated the first half. Have we got full restatements on the same basis for the full year numbers? And how much of that revenue is Plano? So how much drops out next year from that? Richard Webb: So we're not going to give specific guidance on Plano specifically. But in terms of the restatement, so we've restated 2024 half 1 on a consistent basis with the 2024 full year restatement, which is about GBP 1.1 million of revenue that was taken out of the 2024 half 1. Vanessa Jeffriess: Vanessa Jeffriess from Jefferies. Just to start on a really positive note in Aerospace & Defense, obviously, seeing a lot of momentum there. Can we continue to expect double-digit growth over the next couple of years? And is the margin improvement in Europe all from operating leverage? Or is there more self-help to come through? Eric Lakin: Yes. So in terms of the first question, we're seeing continued growth momentum in Aerospace & Defense, as you'd expect, particularly on the Defense side. That's largely in Europe, but also increasingly in North America as well. We're getting defense contract wins in Kansas and Cleveland. I mean, this month, in particular, is a particularly strong month. We'll have -- this year will represent a record order intake for our Europe business. So certainly very strong demand and a lot of these contracts are multiple years. It gives us good visibility over the future years and particularly underpins a continued growth into next year. I couldn't -- I wouldn't comment on double-digit growth for the next 2 years because it's -- you're starting from a higher base, but we certainly expect continued growth over the next couple of years, if not beyond, which is very good from that tailwind. And ongoing discussions with customers, we expect to see more of that. I think in terms of the operational leverage, it's largely down to increased revenue and over a well-maintained cost base. There's some other initiatives as well in there, partly mix. We have some increase in some spares, which is higher margin, but also some other self-help initiatives, including some pricing reviews and changes, which helps the margin as well. Vanessa Jeffriess: And then on Asia -- obviously, you've just explained all the drivers behind the delays. But I think it's fair to say that your decline was maybe a little bit bigger than some of your peers. Coming into the business, do you think that you are as well set as peers to deal with the volatility that's arisen from tariffs? Richard Webb: Yes. It's -- I mean it's a fair observation. I'd say we've got specific large customers that have impacted the revenue for this year. And in particular, it's the extra stocking and safety stock from last year is partly contributing to that. And we're seeing, as I mentioned, some order delays. And some of these -- we're having live discussions with them right now. They're looking ahead and trying to understand, for example, U.S. import duty from Malaysia is currently 24%. Is it going to go down to 15%, 10% or less or stay where it is? So the -- we're set up, so we don't incur direct tariff costs through our Incoterms, it's a customer that bears those costs. So we don't see that, but our customers do. And it can be, in some cases, quite significant. So they are choosing to consider where to place business with us and whether that's Asia or Mexicali or Cleveland. So we are seeing that perhaps more acutely than the general market because of the nature of some of our customers. There is some also compounding that some specific end customer softness, particularly in healthcare, you've got some reduced R&D spend in North America, which is affecting some of the equipment devices that we sell into in OEMs. And for other specific reasons, some current softness in the automation electrification space. But we don't expect those conditions to prevail for the indefinite future and expect -- I think -- we expect certainly, by the middle of next year, return to growth for the Asia region. Vanessa Jeffriess: And then just finally, on North America, you said that for a while that there's been no customer losses. But maybe if you can talk about how your customers are responding to hearing the business under review, under separate management? Eric Lakin: For the Components business specifically? Vanessa Jeffriess: Yes. Eric Lakin: It's -- yes, I think the -- I mean, the immediate impact was quite acute in Plano. We've got some last time buys, which I mentioned at premium pricing, which is obviously contributing to the second half uplift. But more generally, what -- because it's quite a different business, as I've explained, it hasn't really had the focus to support our customers as it might have done in the past under the previous divisional structure. So by addressing that and having separate management and focus on individual customer conversations, both with the distributors, which is most of the -- mostly sold through indirect channels but also end customers. We have a lot of touch points with them on engineering, product design, pricing. We're already seeing the benefits of that anecdotally and more generally. And we've just had very little marketing, for example, in that business when you're competing with much larger competitors, Bourns, Vishay and so on. It's really important to keep getting the message out there of new products and the capabilities and the specifications of those products. So that's certainly helping. In terms of the fact that it's under strategic review, we're not -- I mean, it's not really impacting our day-to-day business. I mean my position on that is we're keeping options that -- the priority is to improve performance. And whatever we choose to do in the future, whether or not we decide with the best owners, it will only help that. Unknown Analyst: Just starting with capital allocation. Clearly, deleveraging has been a key aspect of that. I was just wondering if we could get any color on what -- whether there's kind of any key milestones we should look out for the resumption of the dividend? I'll just start with that one. Eric Lakin: Yes, fair question. Yes, so I'm not going to predict when we would resume the dividend at this point. But it's fair to say some of our investors really value the dividend, and it's a good discipline as well to distribute surplus cash. We will review it at the end of the year. And as Richard outlined, we expect to continue to deleverage at the end of the year, and we'll reflect on the -- I mean, the priority is to get balance sheet strength and support the lending banks and make sure that we got very good covenant headroom. But at the right time, we'll certainly look to reintroduce the dividend. Unknown Analyst: Perfect. And just one more, if I may. I mean, it feels like the business is stabilizing as you've kind of alluded to in your presentation. I guess I'm just keen to get more of a sense of how you're kind of managing the culture through what's been obviously a very turbulent time. And are you still able to kind of attract and retain the best talent? And what are you doing around that? Eric Lakin: Yes, that's an interesting question. Yes, it's really important for the organization because it often gets overlooked with a huge amount of change and disruption at the top management team within the organization, with the plant closure as well. I've made it a very high on the list to communicate a lot internally. We have regular meetings. We've reinstated pulse surveys around engagement and responding to those -- the most useful part about that is you get the sense of how people are feeling and what to do about it. And the [ heart ] of it, as you'd expect, is communicate, communicate. And we're doing lots of explaining what we're doing, why we're doing it and the benefits of what we're doing and making the business stronger. And that's really, I think, resonating. We're seeing improvement in the survey results that are coming through. And I make a point of having regular town halls, both all hands and the sites I go to. And I think what's the -- how does that manifest? The attrition rates we are seeing are higher than I'd like them to be generally. But if you look across the manufacturing sector as a whole globally, we are no worse, about -- better than the average. So it is a challenge, particularly some of the sites we're at. It's notoriously difficult to attract and retain people at all levels, including direct labor. But I think we're actually -- we're measuring up okay. There's room for improvement. But I'm feeling it's getting appropriate attention because it really matters, obviously, business is heart of it is our people. Harry Philips: It's Harry Philips, Peel Hunt. A couple of questions, please. The -- just thinking about tariffs in Asia and what have you and obviously, the relocation of some business into Malaysia. And I appreciate sort of -- it's directly outside your control, but do you envisage sort of going forward that there might be more sort of moves out of China by some of your customers and the need to follow? So I suppose the question is, how much sort of residual capacity have you got outside China to sort of facilitate that change? Eric Lakin: Yes. No, great question. We have -- I mean, specifically, that one customer move was largely triggered, not so much by tariffs, by the U.S. CHIPS Act and wanting to not have China in the supply chain and IP. So we've addressed that, and that's been well received by the customer. Not seeing any signs of other customers needing to do that in the other sectors we're in. So it really becomes -- and obviously, the quality, in particularly our Suzhou factory is best-in-class. So generally, the decisions being made are economic. And we're not seeing any -- expecting other known transfers from Suzhou. I think, in terms of capacity, we've deliberately made a point of investing in capacity to support changes. So we -- the SMT line in Kuantan is now being well utilized also in Mexicali, EMS, and we've got spare capacity in the PCB assembly for the Cleveland site. So we're well placed. I mean our issue fundamentally is we need more orders and grow the revenue and volume. And that's the most fundamental way of improving our operating profit margin, by getting the leverage up and covering our overheads. So we are not short of capacity. That's not a constraining factor. So one of the things I'm doing now is a reorganization of the sales and marketing team, and we're investing more in business development resource across all regions, in particular in Asia and North America, to fill the factories. So we're well placed for any further moves or increases in orders. Harry Philips: And then second question is just on working capital, so apologies in advance. Just -- I think your comment was that working capital will be broadly flat second half. And I'm just thinking, against the context of last time buy Plano, where clearly, by the year-end, you'd expect obviously cash in, if you like, against that last time buy, maybe it runs over a little bit into next year, but sort of -- and then also the rundown in the sort of safety stock. You were talking about in the context of the Asian switch, which doesn't sort of makes flat working capital sort of seem -- well, I would hope to expect maybe a reduction rather than just simply running at the same levels. Richard Webb: So we're not going to see sort of 135% of cash conversion for the full year as a whole, but we will see very strong cash conversion. So there will be a kind of positive contribution for the full year. We will be seeing kind of balance sheet delevering continue, and we'll be within the kind of range of 1.5 to 2x but will be a kind of decrease from where we are at, 1.9x. So there will be a kind of good strong full year cash conversion for the group. Eric Lakin: Yes. I mean specifically on second half working capital movement, I don't want to share -- go into the details. But I think there's certainly, the last time buy opportunity you referenced, and that is very much back-end year loaded. So a lot of the receivables we picked up in the second half of the year. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a growth in receivables at the end of the year. But it's -- we continue to drive down all parts of working capital where we can. And there's more to go with inventory reduction over time as well. Okay. Any other questions in the room? Otherwise, Kate, have you got any on the webcast? Kate Moy: Yes. A question from Joel at Investec, and we touched on it a little bit. But can you talk a little more about the weakness in the automation segment? And to what extent is that an end market customer issue as opposed to a TT-specific issue? Eric Lakin: Yes. So I mean, it's -- I would say, broadly, it is specific end customer demand softness. If I look at the -- in effect automated electrification is a lot of specialty industrial sectors that includes semiconductor equipment, in particular, rail, power, also bespoke postal equipment, smart card readers, ePassport. And we've got -- there's a handful of customers that they've just got current reduction in their end customer demand for different reasons. It's not -- certainly not a TT issue. We haven't had any issues in terms of production, supply, quality, on-time delivery. And so we are delivering to the customers' demand, requirements and production plan. And -- but ultimately, as I said, that sector should be growing. We're seeing -- I mean, it's probably without exaggerating the point, the semiconductor equipment market, some parts of the semi sector are going extremely well, as you'd expect, given the demand for increased amount of semi chips and AI and so on. Within that, though, the second order of the growth in the semiconductor equipment does vary by customer. And the U.S. CHIPS Act whilst offering significant opportunity, I think the last number was around $100 billion investment, there's so much uncertainty around that, and it takes time and a lot of planning to build up new fabs in the U.S. It has caused a pause in demand for a couple of our customers. So that's a contributing factor. So again, we expect long-term trends to improve, but short-term softness. So that's it from the webcast. Any final questions in the room? In which case, thank you all very much for coming. It's great to see a full turnout. That's heartening. Thanks for the questions, and I look forward to chatting to you later on. Okay. See you next time. Richard Webb: Thanks, everyone. Eric Lakin: Thanks.
Operator: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Pharos Energy plc investor presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Katherine Roe, CEO. Good morning. Katherine Roe: Thank you, Lillian. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking the time to join our presentation today, busy time with results. So we appreciate you taking the time. We will be running through a short presentation to deliver some of the key things that we've been working on, the catalysts for moving forward, what shareholders and investors have to look forward to as well as the performance for the first half of this year. So good afternoon, and welcome again. I'd like to start with a bit of an overview. We've said here a year of strategic operational and financial delivery. Obviously, first and foremost, this is a first half interim results presentation. But I joined as CEO last year and presented my first set of interim results this time last year, and we are here today as my second set. So I thought it might just be helpful to start off with a recap on what we've achieved in that time frame. I think for those of you that joined last year, we were very clear about the near-term priorities and focus for our business in terms of what we needed to achieve with the existing assets. So on the left-hand side here, we just recap on those. We have 2 jurisdictions with producing assets in both Vietnam and Egypt. We have exploration potential in both of those jurisdictions as well. Vietnam is the producer of the majority of our production is the core part of our business. And it was really critical that we secured those license extensions for our 2 producing fields, and those were achieved in December last year. What's really important about that is the unlocking of the significant work program that we are about to commence in the coming weeks in Vietnam, not just to arrest the natural decline of these assets but also to try to deliver incremental production volumes and growth from next year onwards. We'll come on a little bit more later in the presentation on that drilling campaign. In Vietnam, we also have a high-impact frontier exploration. Some of you may be aware of this that we've discussed before in Blocks 125, 126. This is deepwater offshore frontier exploration. And we also achieved a 2-year license extension, which gives us until the end of 2027. Why is that important? Because we really need to seek a farm-in partner in order to give us the ability to drill our first prospect, which we would ideally like to do next year. We put ourselves in the best possible position to do that. We've started a new structured formal process, partially to feed in some of the historic bilateral conversations, but also to attract some fresh interest. And we have also managed to secure long lead items and that 2-year extension to provide maximum optionality to find a partner. So that was also achieved. That extension was granted to us in June of this year. Just announced yesterday, we have successfully agreed new fiscal terms for our existing licenses in Egypt. We have far better economics, far better improved terms and importantly, additional time on those licenses by consolidating into one new fresh agreement. You'll see here that's given us an immediate uplift in value. We have a 25% uplift in 2P, largely a function of that additional time on the licenses. And again, importantly, going forward, it means a very healthy and attractive financial framework for further reinvestment, which we haven't been doing so far this year. We're -- also important to us to achieve the strength in our balance sheet after many years of having to service that legacy RBL facility. That was repaid last year. We remain debt-free and building cash on the balance sheet, as Sue will come on to. Again, flexible financial and strategic optionality. We have fully funded capital investment programs from our internally generated free cash flow and obviously not having to service debt allows us even more flexibility. It also means we have a clean balance sheet, which provides further flexibility going forward if we needed to leverage. Very important to us that we maintain the shareholder dividend. This has been part of our policy for some years, and we are now trying to strike the right balance between continuing that return to shareholders through the dividend whilst also trying to achieve a capital return by reinvesting back into our assets. We also achieved a strengthening in the Board. We appointed a new Chairman to the Board in June. That's received alignment with our major shareholders and is working well with the rest of the Board. And there's alignment in terms of strategic progress of our business, what next. And that leads quite nicely into the right-hand side here of what is next, what do we have to look forward to? Where does the growth in our business come from. So really, really important in this 6-well drilling campaign in Vietnam. It's the largest investment campaign that we've had into our existing assets since the original development. So really, really important. We believe it's capable of extracting and delivering additional value through those increased production from next year and beyond. We'll talk a little bit more about that. And as I mentioned, we also have this formal process ongoing for the exploration, which is, again, a new fresh look at how best to find a partner to deliver hopefully, a drilling campaign next year. Egypt, more noncore part of the business, but still equally valuably. Those new terms make a huge difference in terms of our economics and provide that attractive framework. We're now going to work with our partner in country to put together the near-term drilling program. And again, all designed to increase production from the existing volumes that we see today. It does remain an absolute priority for us at Pharos to see a material recovery in our existing receivables balance. And Sue will talk a little bit about our current receivables position. And we are in discussions with EGPC, our government stakeholder about seeing that materially reduced, giving us the confidence and the ability to reinvest, but only in a very disciplined and self-funded framework. I think having said all of that, we do still recognize that we need to add scale to our business. We're in very good shape. We've got lots to look forward to with organic growth, but we would also like to add to that. And we're now in the fortunate position that we're operationally and financially strong enough to look at additional opportunities that fit the strategy and can build additional scale. And that's very much a priority as we move forward. So I just wanted to set the scene with where we are. I'll hand over to Sue on some of the interim results and then come back. Thank you. Sue Rivett: Thanks, Katherine. So just in terms of the first half -- just some highlights there from the first half. So revenue, we were able to maintain our position there of just over $65 million for the first half, which compares very similar with 2024. That was actually despite a sort of $12 reduction in Brent price in the period. And really, that revenue has been maintained because we were able to bring in some of our inventory that we held at the year-end. So that inventory supporting the revenue number there. In terms of the net cash, again, a good build from first half '24 to $22.6 million as we left the half year. Cash flow from operations, $16.1 million. That's down quite a bit from the '24 number. If you recall, in March '24, we received a one-off dollar payment, $10 million from EGPC. We didn't receive that in the first half this year. We are very much after that in the second half. And we've just come back from Egypt, Katherine, myself and our new Chair, and we believe, hopefully, there is something coming very shortly into the second half there. So hopefully, we'll prop up that in the second half. In terms of the hedging, despite having got rid of the -- or paid down the RBL, we still have a 26% hedging position there for the second half, just supporting us with a floor of $60. So again, very helpful to have in our portfolio. In terms of the Egyptian receivables, $33.5 million as we finished the half year. That's down since then as we've managed to collect a bit more receivables in this third quarter. So as I say, $5.6 million in this quarter that we've just received, but we are hopeful that we will get a reasonable dollar amount in the coming month or 2. And just to say, in terms of the production guidance, we've narrowed the guidance from 5 to -- it was originally 5,000, we brought that up and it was originally 6,000, then we brought that down. So just narrowing that guidance as we know more as we get towards the year-end. And if we can move to the next slide. Thank you. So in terms of the cash flow itself, so $34 million in there from inflow from operations, of course, taxes to governments and which gets you down to the $16.1 million, which you mentioned of the OCF. A modest capital program in the first half, $8.2 million. Essentially, the big capital program comes in the second half as we start that drilling campaign, that 6-well drilling campaign in Vietnam, which Katherine will pick up later. In terms of where we finished for free cash flow, so $7.5 million. We have had $0.7 million in from contingent consideration from our partner. There is a further $2.5 million due from them, which should come into the second half. So something to bring into the second half there. And if we can move to -- in terms of shareholder returns, as you know, we're committed to a sustainable dividend for our shareholders there. We have announced a 10% increase in prior year dividend, so just under 0.4 per share, which will be paid in January. And just to say that the buyback, which we've been running for some time, completed in January, and we haven't renewed that at this point. And with that, I'll hand back to Katherine. Katherine Roe: Thank you, Sue. So we've just got a couple of slides here just on activity for the second half, looking forward into what are we doing with our assets and how do we maximize value to drive those -- that production growth that I talked about at the beginning. Just here on Vietnam, you can see on the left-hand side to start with our first half production comfortably within our annual guidance range, and it's very steady, stable production, very low breakeven. So even in this challenging macro environment that we find ourselves in with sort of fluctuating Brent price, we are continuing with healthy production and healthy free cash generation. We expect that production to remain stable throughout the rest of this year. But of course, where do we see next year and beyond for these producing fields, can we achieve more growth? Yes, we think we can, but it requires this capital program to do so. So just taking TGT first there, our first field. You can see the existing production from those green blobs, the callout boxes are our infill wells that are part of our program and the yellow are the appraisal wells. So we have a 4-well program in TGT. We will most likely start with an infill well in the next few weeks. We have 2 rigs. They're on their way. We have all of the drilling preparations underway. This has been going on for this year in order to get prepared, and we're expecting to spud our first well of this program, as I say, in early to mid-October. What's really important here is that bottom left corner of the field. And again, the yellow call-out boxes, 18X is our first identified appraisal well, which we're likely to spud this year. If that's successful, we are looking to unlock that to date undeveloped part of the field. They are challenging wells. There is risk to this. And obviously, we need to see how we get on with that appraisal well. If we are successful, it potentially opens up that additional development that you see there in the white call-out boxes, and that will really drive incremental volumes and production. We're likely to know the outcome of this drilling campaign in Q1, Q2 next year because they are challenging wells, does take time. So whilst a lot of the activity will happen this side of Christmas, we'll be sharing the outcome in the first half of next year. Similar story in CNV, the next field there. We have one committed appraisal well, and we expect to do one infill well again in Q4 of this year, hopefully, again, successful to unlock further potential. I did mention Blocks 125 and 126. I think it is worth saying, again, that we have deliberately put a structured framework around this process. We do believe that there are some new interested parties partly helped by the macro environment being a little bit more conducive to high-risk exploration, again, frontier exploration. There are very few frontier basins left to explore, and that certainly attracted a bit more interest than might have done a few years ago. So we have got some encouraging discussions. We've been guiding that we would like to be able to give an update on that process before the end of the year. But we've done everything we can to put ourselves in the best possible position. We've secured those -- that 2-year license extension to give us time. We've committed to the long lead items. We have all of the data information. We have a full physical data room. So we have everything that we can do to ensure we have the best possible chance of finding a suitable partner and seeing the drilling of that first prospect, hopefully next year. So lots to look forward to in Vietnam, very exciting. We have excellent alignment with our joint operating company, which is ourselves and our partners. Our partner includes PetroVietnam, the government. So again, hopefully, the delivery of the license extension just helps to tangibly show the strength of that relationship with the government. It's absolutely critical to how we do business. And that, again, is coming through and strong alignment on this drilling campaign, and we're all excited to see the outcome. So that's Vietnam. Just moving on to Egypt. As I mentioned, we announced yesterday that we have improved fiscal terms agreed with the government. Again, really important that stakeholder relationship with EGPC, our government entity in Egypt, very collaborative approach to ensure that we have terms that work for us, and they have a committed developed -- a committed work program that allows us to -- incentivizes us to put further reinvestment back into our existing assets. We have been given an extension of time, as you can see there, and that's really helped drive that immediate uplift in value. So on the back of our announcement yesterday, we have a 25% uplift in 2P reserves from the end of last year, and that's really based on that long extra time on the licenses, but also very much on the improved fiscal terms. We've put on the right-hand side here just a bit of the time line. It is a long process. There are peers that you might have seen that have gone through a similar process. It is very iterative and requires a lot of discussion and collaboration with the government. So it's not easy to get to where we've got to, and we're really pleased that we have. Really also importantly is that we have managed to agree a retroactive effective date. And what this means is that we do not need to wait for formal parliamentary ratification before those new terms apply. So those new terms can take effect from formal Board approval, which we're expecting in the next week and equally helps to start our planning for that reinvestment program. So it works for us and it also works for the government. We have shared the exact terms of that agreement in our announcement yesterday, if you want to see the detail of that. But we put the key points here, increase in cost oil, significantly higher profit oil share and that signature bonus has been agreed from a relatively different place from where we started. But ultimately, it can be offset against our receivables. So it's a noncash commitment. So I think what does that mean for capital allocation? So just take you on to this slide. We've presented this before about our capital allocation for this year. We do take capital allocation very seriously. We have to be disciplined, and we have to ensure we have enough financial flexibility to run the business and weather any shocks that we might see, particularly in our sector and given the global challenges that we all face. So we balance that with a sensible careful reinvestment back into the existing assets. And then also the other piece is the shareholder return through the sustainable dividend, which is really important to us. Majority of the capital this year is going into that Vietnam campaign. Again, really important to note that, that's the largest investment campaign we've had since the initial development. So we really think that we will see some value coming out of that. And we're fortunate that we're able to fully fund our investment program from internally generated cash flow. So it's a fully funded program without needing any dilution or additional leverage. What we're just showing here in the pie chart is where that just sits in terms of this year and next year. It's a '25 program, but some of the actual expense will fall into 2026. That's just a function of timing as we move through and start drilling and incurring the cost of that program. We've just put on the bottom half here what that program looks like and what that CapEx relates to, but we've just covered that. So hopefully, that's clear. I think just on the outlook, again, for those of you less familiar, really worth reinforcing the low breakeven position we have in Vietnam. We're very fortunate when there's challenges to the oil price, we not only get a premium to Brent in Vietnam, but we have that low breakeven. So oil price has to fall a long way before Vietnam becomes economic, and that's clearly not something that we're concerned with. And that license extension that we achieved just before the end of last year allows us to have healthy economics on that capital reinvestment program. Egypt has been a low CapEx first half, and we have seen relatively underwhelming production volumes. We are a little bit lower than expected, and that partly contributes to that narrowed guidance for the year that Sue referenced earlier. And that's partly deliberate because we needed to see those improved fiscal terms, improved economics and also very, very key reduction in the receivables balance before we can justify and defend further reinvestment. We're making really good progress, new terms into effect yesterday. And as Sue mentioned, we're in live discussions with our partner, the government partner in terms of reducing that receivables balance. It is a constant risk in Egypt, but we do understand that there will be liquidity coming into Egypt, particularly for the oil and gas sector. So we hope to benefit from that, and we'll obviously be sharing that with the market when we can. So I think that wraps things up from us. We do have a brief outlook here, which just summarizes what we're trying to do. We call it protected growth because we have a very robust protected platform, but also the ability to grow additional volumes from our existing assets organically, but also starting to look at how we can add to the portfolio to build that scale that we mentioned. We are very fortunate that we've got good quality assets that are capable of delivering that free cash flow. We just need to build on that. And that's very much the priority going forward. So supported our downside, lots to look forward to on the growth. And hopefully, we've demonstrated that we do that in a disciplined way and remain focused on delivery and execution and ensuring that we can deliver on the things that we say we can. So thank you for listening. We appreciate the support of all our shareholders and those that are looking at investing in Pharos. We do believe we are differentiated from a lot of our peers. And we're obviously here to take any of your questions. So thank you again for listening, and I think we'll hand over to the Q&A. Operator: [Operator Instructions] I'd like to remind you that recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And Minh-Anh, if I could hand back to you to share the Q&A, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's great. Thank you, Lilly, and thank you, Katherine and Sue. I will now go through some of the questions that were pre-submitted to the company. Starting off with Vietnam. We were hoping that the license extensions in Vietnam may have led to a more aggressive development drilling campaign. Why has the development drilling campaign been timid? It hasn't been anything more than what we've seen on average over the past number of years, i.e., 2 to 4 wells. Katherine Roe: Thanks, Minh-Anh. I can probably take that. I think it's really important, again, to note that you need the right economic framework in order to reinvest so that you have a return on your invested capital. And we needed the license extensions in Vietnam to justify and support reinvesting back into the asset with significant drilling. These are complex wells. It's not straightforward drilling. We do have a lot of expertise and experience having been producing in Vietnam for 20 years, but we do still need to be very careful about the investment program and the return on capital. So what I would say is that the license extensions achieved just before Christmas allowed us that leeway, that runway of time to recover costs, but also to have sufficient economics. And we've driven very hard. The license extensions were approved in December. By early January, we were already in the planning stages. And this is the earliest that we can drill in October given the weather window and the long lead items. So there's been a very, very big push, I would say, between ourselves, PetroVietnam and our partner to drill as quickly as possible. And so I do think it's aggressive. I think it's aggressive and it's exciting, and it's the first time in many years that we've done a campaign of this scale in nature. And as I say, you really needed the right economics and environment to justify deploying that capital. So I think the outcome of this 6-well program will be really interesting for us. Minh-Anh Nguyen: Thank you, Katherine. When is Block 125 going to be drilled? Katherine Roe: Well, I think I partly answered that in the presentation. We do have an identified prospect. So we would really like to be in a position to drill next year. Again, there's certain planning required and we do need a partner, which is what we're in the process of trying to secure at the moment. We do have the license until the end of '27. So we could drill this year or drill next year or 2027. Obviously, we'd rather sooner if we can have everything lined up. But what we have done is put ourselves in the best possible place we can. We are dependent on rig availability and that farm-in partner being appropriate and agreeing appropriate terms. So that's what we're hoping for. But we've just given ourselves optionality. We can't control everything, but we can put ourselves in the best possible position and give ourselves maximum optionality, and we feel we've done that at this point. Minh-Anh Nguyen: Thank you. On the same topic, if blocks 125, 126 are as good as the company has been saying, why has industry uptake been so poor? We've been trying to farm them out for nearly half a decade. Katherine Roe: I can take that as well. I'm not sure it's been half a decade. I know it has been several years. I would say it's difficult to attract interest in a frontier basin, deepwater. This is an expensive risky drilling campaign. I think exploration for frontier basins has been challenging for the macro environment. A lot of the majors have not been focused on this over the last few years. And where they have, there have been other parts, maybe West Africa, for example, where a lot of that capital has been allocated. There is a discrete amount of capital for deepwater offshore exploration drilling. But I think what we're seeing now is a change in that macro environment. Exploration is very much back on the agenda for a lot of the majors. And that's a new bit of interest that we're seeing coming through. And there just aren't very many frontier basins, undiscovered frontier basins left in the world. So it's a lot about timing. and a lot about sort of getting the right person at the right time, and that feels like a bit of a shift. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's great. Thank you. The next question is, given where the share price language at the moment, surely the most value-accretive acquisition the company could make is buying itself. What are the Board's latest thoughts on reinstating the share buyback or better still enacting a tender offer to buy out the persistent seller? Katherine Roe: Yes. I mean share buyback is always -- it's always part of our Board discussions. It's there as an agenda item all the time, particularly in relation to capital allocation. So when we discuss best use of capital. We have, as you probably know, or for those of you don't, we had a share buyback program for many years. When we were not in this position to reinvest in the assets because of the economic environment, we also had less financial flexibility and our own liquidity due to the legacy debt. So now we're in a position where we're in the right framework ourselves financially, but also the economics in Vietnam and Egypt, where we can reinvest back into those assets. And we believe that will drive more growth. Share buybacks are -- there are pros and cons. We have low liquidity. There's only an element of how much you can actually buy back. And at this point, we do want to put our capital to work. We think that capital can work harder by reinvesting back into the existing assets. That obviously doesn't mean that we're not very conscious of shareholder returns, which is why we also ensure that we sustain the dividend. And if at any given point, we calculate that the share buyback provides a better return to shareholders, then that's what we would do. We would reinstate that. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's great. Thank you, Katherine. Moving on to the financials. On a previous webinar, you stated that the best time to secure debt is when you don't need it. It was also mentioned that different types of debt instruments were being discussed and considered. Can you please give an idea of the progress made in this regard? And when do you think the company may be in a position to give us a detailed update on this? Sue Rivett: Yes. I mean it is one thing that we've been looking at, obviously, after getting rid of the -- or paying down the RBL last year. And clearly something in our toolkit, if you like, with a balance sheet that hasn't got any debt in it, a great opportunity for the potential M&A activity. So yes, we have been looking out in the market. Clearly, there is interest in the market. And I think once we identify some good opportunities, then I think we should be able to get that to come home, if you like. I don't know if you want to say anything else. Katherine Roe: No, I agree, Sue. I think we -- the exercise that we've been through demonstrates there's access to capital for us at the right time and for the right transaction. And that obviously helps support some of the conversations, having robust production and an unlevered balance sheet gives us that toolkit, as you say. Sue Rivett: I mean we'd only do it for the right opportunity. I think that's the key. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's great. Thank you, Sue. The next question is, Capricorn Energy has informed the market that EGPC communicated to them that it intends to make payments of approximately $130 million through the remainder of 2025, which is approximately 90% of their 2024 revenues and more than double the amount they received in 2024 from EGPC. Have you received similar assurances from EGPC? Katherine Roe: The short answer is yes. It's a conversation that we have with EGPC as do all of our peers. We do -- as I said before, we do understand that liquidity is coming into Egypt, particularly for our sector. And ourselves, Capricorn and all of the international oil and gas companies are in the same position. So we do expect a material reduction in our receivables in the near term. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's very helpful. Along the same line, are there any levers that can be pulled to expedite the receipts of the Egyptian receivables other than choosing to continue to hibernate? Katherine Roe: Well, I think having agreed these new fiscal terms on the consolidation, having that, clearly, the idea from the government's perspective is that comes with a committed work program. It is phased, and we have deliberately agreed a relatively modest program that we not only hope to meet but also exceed. But it depends on recovery of receivables. And certainly, the timing of that investment will be dependent on that recovery of receivables. So that's the leverage, if you like. Yes. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's very helpful. Thank you, Katherine. The next question is, have you had further discussions with the activist investor who attempted to vote at the majority of the Board of Directors? What are his concerns? What strategic shifts is he looking for? Activism by unknown activists who hasn't communicated via an open letter with the wider investor base is very concerning to private investors. Katherine Roe: Thank you. And I would say that we talk regularly with all of our shareholders, including our largest shareholder. We don't hide away from communication. We do try to be as accessible as a management team and Board as possible. So yes, we have active dialogue. I think it's really, really important. At the end of the day, we're here to run the business on behalf of shareholders. It's really important to us that we listen, understand shareholder concerns, frustrations, ambitions, et cetera. We did have a change in our Chairman, and he has, again, settled very well and been well received by our major shareholders. So we feel that we have stability and there's been no concern at this stage at the Board level regarding that shareholder. We have a resilient, strong and stable Board, which importantly is aligned about the future for our business. Minh-Anh Nguyen: Thank you, Katherine. Is the key jurisdiction for any potential inorganic growth, Southeast Asia? Katherine Roe: I think the answer to that is we need to leverage what we're good at. If we sit back and think what are we good at Pharos, we've been in country in Vietnam for 20-plus years, and we have a very strong stakeholder relationship with PetroVietnam. We're well regarded in country. We can clearly see the support that we get with the license extension. So we'd like to do more, leverage that relationship. That does expand into Southeast Asia as well because it's a high-growth region, lots of opportunities. It's where we're seeing that GDP growth in the Southeast Asian economies, and they all, again, are seeing that need for increased energy. So there are lots of opportunities in Southeast Asia, and that is more of a priority at this stage. But again, it all comes down to the type of transaction and the return that it can deliver. And we're very focused on that. And I think that's what we try to get across when we say disciplined and focused. Minh-Anh Nguyen: Wonderful. Thank you, Katherine. I will now move on to read out some of the questions that were submitted live to the company during the presentation. First question is from Sam S. Can you please provide the key differences between the new structured formal process versus what was carried out previously? Katherine Roe: Sure. Yes. Previously, with the farm-out of 125, 126, I think there's been a consistent message throughout Pharos' history that a partner is required. Again, it's a real challenge for a small business to drill that well, sole risk that well just from a cost and a risk reward perspective. So we've always been trying to find a partner. The difference is historically, it's been done on a bilateral basis, which means that conversations have been happening between Pharos and parties at any given time. And what's new here is that we've tried to put a formal structure around. We have a third-party adviser running the process for us. That creates a bit of competitive tension. It creates some time frames. It creates structure in terms of the steps between entering into a CA, a confidentiality agreement to receiving data to visiting the physical data room, et cetera. So it just creates a little bit more of a formal process. And I think what it's achieved for us is a wider and deeper testing of the market and accessing people that we wouldn't necessarily have been able to access on our own. So that's what's different. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's great. Thank you, Katherine. The next question from Peter. Can you give us an idea of the scale of the upside in TGT and CNV that could be unlocked with the appraisal wells? Katherine Roe: Yes. I mean it's hard to put a number on that, which is why we haven't to date. But as I say, we think it could be materially beyond arresting the decline of current production. So what does that mean? You'll see we're sort of relatively stable at the 4,000, 5,000. We want to see that growing. So we want to be seeing 6, 7-plus thousand barrels a day from those fields if we have appraisal success. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's great. Thank you. A few questions from Keith about 125. What are the parameters you seek in terms of number of wells committed, et cetera? What are the target expectations for the well of the identified in 125? Katherine Roe: I think all of this depends on the negotiation with the partner at the time. It depends who the partner is. If there's an ability for a couple of the majors, they have a different budget and they can commit to not only just the exploration program, but possibly a development program in a success case. We have a 1-well commitment. So that is obviously the priority to cover the first initial exploration well. But when we look at and show potential partners our detail and our work, we have a couple of different prospects. So it really depends, and we're not quite at the stage that we can share that detail. Minh-Anh Nguyen: That's helpful, Katherine. Switching on to financials. Why are you still carrying a hedging position? The company was unhedged prior to the RBL. Sue Rivett: Yes. No, it's a good question and obviously one that we ask ourselves internally. I think the key for hedging is it supports your underbelly. So when you're stress testing at very different oil prices, we've seen crashes in the oil price before, et cetera. I think it's an important tool to make sure that you're supporting, as I say, your underbelly, as I call it. But I think you want to keep quite a bit in the top side for clearly, if share prices pop up not share price. But if Brent price pops up, you want to see that ability to take some of that. So this is really about supporting the underside. Katherine Roe: Yes. Protecting without reducing our exposure. Sue Rivett: Yes. Absolutely. Minh-Anh Nguyen: The next question is, what is more risky about the 6-well program this time? Katherine Roe: The risk is really around the appraisal wells. So of the 6 well program, 4 of those infills, they're relatively well understood and low risk. So the risk is really around the appraisal because it's looking at a different part of the field that is previously not producing. So where that appraisal well, for example, in TGT 18X, that is not currently a producing part of the field. So that's where the risk lies. And likewise, in CNV, which CNV is even more of a complex well. It's complex geologically, but also operationally. So there's some risk there. But I would say the infill wells are relatively straightforward. We've got a lot of experience of having done those. So I hope that answers that question. Minh-Anh Nguyen: Thank you, Katherine. I believe that is all the time we have for today. So I will now hand it back to the Investor Meet Company team. Operator: Katherine, Sue thank you for answering all those questions you can from investors. And of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Katherine, could I please ask you for a few closing comments? Katherine Roe: Thank you. And I just want to say thank you again to everybody for taking the time to listen. We do appreciate it, and we look forward to updating the market and shareholders with new news as we move forward. It's a really important half for us as we move towards the end of the year. So we look forward to further updates, and thank you again for your time. Operator: Katherine, Sue thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of Pharos Energy plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.
Andrew Higginson: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the JD Sports Half Year Results. I'm delighted to say that it's a set of results where we're on track for the year as we stand here today. And I just really wanted to make a couple of introductory remarks before I hand over to the team. It's been a tough couple of years really in lots of ways. There's been a lot of challenges we're facing too. The markets have not been great. Consumer markets have been uncertain. I think we all know about the political and economic background in our major markets. And of course, the cost base here in the U.K., in particular, with the national insurance rises and various other things have been very challenging. We've also internally, of course, had governance challenges that we've had to sort of face into as well, which have required investment and turnaround. And I really just wanted to start by commending the team really. The strategy is very much on track at the moment. I think they've shown great resilience in the face of a lot of those challenges. And of course, we're making great progress. The governance, in particular, I think commend Dominic and his team for the work they've done around the financial controls in the business and all led by Régis, of course. And of course, the integration of things like the supply chain, the progress we've made on governance, the good work that we've done around the integration of the acquisitions we've made and, of course, the great work we've done on our brands. And if you need an example of that, go and see the Trafford Centre and see how that's moved JD on here and it's probably its most mature market. I think all of that is very commendable. So you're seeing here today some of the results of that hard work and with more to come. But I just wanted to say thank you to all of the team in JD for the hard work that's gone on. It's never easy when markets are difficult, but I think they're doing great stuff. So thank you very much, and I'll hand over now to Régis. Regis Schultz: Thank you, Andy. Thank you for your kind words. So good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us. I'm Régis Schultz, CEO of JD Group, and we are here joined by Dominic Platt, our CFO; and Mike Armstrong, our JD Global Managing Director. I will start with our key message and highlights from the first half. I will then hand over to Dominic to go through the financials. And finally, I will take you through the key business update. As a reminder, at our April strategy update, we set out some clear priority for the short and medium term. First, to deliver the vision to be the leading sport fashion powerhouse. Second, to build the infrastructure and the governance you will expect from a company of our size and a world leader. And third, to focus on cash generation and shareholder return. So I'm pleased to say that our first half results reflect our priority and demonstrate our operating and financial discipline against what was a tough trading environment. We are building a track record of focus and consistent execution against our strategic objective. As a result, we are gaining market share in North America, in Europe and building on the very significant opportunity we see in both regions to develop JD brand and leverage our complementary concept businesses. To finish our key message, we said we will provide you an update on the U.S. tariff impact. Dominic will go into more details on this, but you will be pleased to know that we see limited impact in the current reporting year. Let me now hand over to Dominic to run through the first half financial results with you. Thank you. Dominic Platt: Good morning, everybody, and thank you, Régis and Andy. So let's start with our summary financials for the group here on Slide 6. At constant FX rates, total sales were 20% higher year-on-year, reflecting a full half of sales from Hibbett and Courir, who were acquired in July and November, respectively, last year. Stripping these businesses out, organic sales growth was 2.7%, comprising 2.5% lower like-for-like sales and 5.2% growth from net new space. Against a tough backdrop in all our markets, we maintained our trading disciplines. Gross margin was 48%, 60 basis points behind the prior year. Excluding Hibbett and Courir, which are slightly lower-margin businesses, gross margin was 40 basis points lower year-on-year. This was driven by controlled price investments, particularly in our online offer to increase customer engagement and conversion. Turning to operating profit. As a reminder, earlier this year, we updated our definition of operating profit to include IFRS 16 lease interest, as we believe including all property-related costs gives a truer picture of the operating margin of each part of the business. On this basis, operating profit of GBP 369 million was 6.3% lower at constant FX rates. Excluding Hibbett and Courir, operating costs were 4.7% higher at constant FX rates, and this was driven entirely by new stores. Through structural cost reductions and flexing the staffing levels and discretionary spend, we managed to fully offset the impact of higher labor rates and technology costs as well as noncash mark-to-market charge of GBP 14 million in H1. More on that later. Overall, the group's operating margin was 6.2%, 170 basis points lower versus the prior year at constant FX rates. Profit before tax and adjusting items was GBP 351 million, 11.8% lower at constant FX rates and in line with our profit phasing guidance. Included in this is a GBP 22 million increase in net finance expense, excluding lease interest, which was driven by lower cash balances and debt financing related to acquisitions. Our adjusted earnings per share were 8.5% lower year-on-year at constant FX rates. For completeness, the statutory PBT was GBP 138 million, 9.5% higher year-on-year. This reflects lower adjusting items or exceptional items as we all used to know them. These are essentially limited to noncash revaluation of our Genesis put option together with the amortization of acquired intangibles. The Board has declared an interim dividend of 0.33p per share, consistent with the prior year. In line with our dividend policy, this represents 1/3 of the final dividend for FY '25. And last but certainly not least, we delivered a 5% increase in operating cash flow to GBP 546 million, demonstrating yet again the highly cash-generative nature of our business. Turning now to our revenue bridge from last half year to this. The left-hand side rebases H1 '25 for FX headwinds of 2 percentage points as well as some small disposals from last year. As I mentioned earlier, like-for-like sales were 2.5% lower and new stores contributed 5.2 percentage points to sales. This includes annualizations from stores opened last year and also the fact that we opened 4 flagship stores in the period, including the Trafford Centre in Manchester, which is strongly outperforming against its plan. So overall, organic sales growth was 2.7% at constant FX rates. We believe this is faster than the growth of our addressable markets, driven by market share gains in North America and Europe. Finally, Hibbett and Courir added GBP 869 million of sales for overall sales growth of 20%. As you can see from this slide, the JD Group is a very well-balanced and diversified global business. 71% of our sales come from North America and Europe, our key growth markets. Following the Hibbett acquisition, North America is our largest market, representing 39% of group sales. Our channel and category mix varies by region, which provides us with opportunities for growth. For example, our largest region for online sales penetration is the U.K. at around 25%, with other regions overall in the mid-teens. We're building a fully flexible omnichannel proposition in all our regions, offering customers a seamless service for purchasing, delivery and return, whether they choose to use our stores or online channels or as we are increasingly seeing a combination of the 2. Within our omnichannel proposition, organic store sales grew by 3.6%, reflecting the continued resilience of our full-price business model and our store opening program. Online sales were 1.6% lower with good growth in North America and Europe, offset by a weaker online performance in the U.K. While U.K. store sales were positive year-on-year, the U.K. online market as a whole was slightly more promotional during the period, especially in the second quarter, driven by short-term discounting to clear inventory. To maintain our competitiveness, we made some controlled investments in our prices and have seen an improvement in customer engagement online in recent weeks. Turning to category. Our agile and multi-brand model really comes into play across our combined footwear and apparel proposition. When we exclude Hibbett and Courir, which are more footwear-centric fascias, apparel participation increased to 31%, with footwear decreasing to 58% of sales. In footwear, we continue to see a fundamental shift in the global footwear product cycle, given the transition between newer franchises and some significant end-of-cycle product lines. Notwithstanding this, we saw strong growth across brands more in the middle of the cycle, which reflects the strength of our multi-brand model. The early signals of new product franchises in terms of both launches and pipeline are encouraging, albeit they are a small part of sales today. Overall, organic footwear sales were 1% lower year-on-year. The apparel product cycle is very different compared to footwear. Our apparel proposition is in excellent shape, supported by innovation and our own brands, and we believe there is significant scope to leverage this for growth, particularly in North America, where our apparel mix is low compared to other regions. Despite tough comparatives from replica shirt sales in the U.K. and Europe, due to the Euro 24 football tournament last year, organic apparel sales were 6% higher year-on-year. Our other category, which includes outdoor living equipment and gym memberships, maintained its share at 4% of sales mix. Turning now to our geographic regions. As a reminder, we have 2 different lenses on how we look at the JD Group. First, as you know, segmentation by fascia JD, our Complementary Concepts, our Sporting Goods and Outdoor fascias. This is our primary lens because it aligns to our strategy. And most importantly, it's how our customers and brand partners engage with the JD Group. The geographic split that you see on this slide helps to focus internally on creating the most efficient operating model to support our range of fascias in each region and, in the process, maximizing the returns we make on our investments. So starting with sales by region. As reported in our trading update in August, like-for-like sales in H1 were resilient in Europe, supported by our JD and Sporting Goods fascias. We are encouraged by improved like-for-like trends quarter-on-quarter in both North America and Asia Pacific. In the U.K., we see organic sales as a better KPI than LFL, given the ongoing evolution of our store footprint with bigger and better stores. Régis will cover this in his slides later. U.K. organic sales were 1.7% lower in H1, affected by tough prior year comparatives due to the Euro 24 football tournament. Turning to margins. The group operating margin of 6.2% reflects the H2 weighted nature of our annual sales. By region, the North American margin was 340 basis points lower year-on-year. This was influenced by 2 significant but short-term factors. First, the ongoing wind down of the Finish Line fascia. During the first half, Finish Line invested in price within its online offering to maintain competitiveness. It also closed 15 stores and transferred a further 22 to JD in the period. Those conversions continue to see significant uplifts in performance and profitability as the JD concept continues to resonate with North American customers. The remaining 220 Finish Line stores will be wound down over time, but will weigh on the North American margin in the short term. And second, the impact of Hibbett year-on-year. Last year, having completed the Hibbett acquisition on the 25th of July, the business recorded a spectacular first week due to back-to-school demand, making a significant proportion of its annual profit under our ownership in that 7-day window. Aside from these factors, as I mentioned earlier, Hibbett is a slightly lower margin business than the other North American fascias. The integration of the business is progressing well, and it's a key component in our multiyear program to create an integrated platform for the nationwide growth of all our fascias in North America with an efficient supply chain and back office. We're on track to deliver annualized cost synergies of $25 million with half to 2/3 of this, so about GBP 10 million to GBP 12 million expected in H2. In Europe, we saw a decline in the operating margin of 40 basis points. The main factor to call out here were our controlled price investments, particularly in the online offer, which saw good results in terms of customer traffic and conversion. As our supply chain investments in Europe come to an end in FY '27, we will see the operating margin in this region start to step forward towards the higher single-digit levels we have elsewhere. To remind you of our broader medium-term guidance for the group, we expect to see over GBP 20 million of cost benefits related to technology and supply chain double running costs across FY '27 and FY '28. And finally, the U.K. margin was lower by 130 basis points. This reflects the tough trading conditions, as highlighted, as well as higher technology, labor and costs related to new stores. We have and continue to make strong progress on our plans to enhance sales productivity and cost efficiency in the U.K., and Régis will touch on that more later. So on to the group profit bridge. Starting from the left-hand side, lower like-for-like sales at a constant gross margin contributed GBP 33 million to the decline, and that's net of GBP 27 million of attributable variable OpEx savings. We then have a further GBP 25 million from the like-for-like gross margin rate reduction. The next bar shows a GBP 10 million net OpEx increase, which includes the higher salary and national insurance rates as well as technology investments that we flagged back in May. It's a net number because we've also included structural OpEx reductions in the year. Alongside the higher mark-to-market charge of GBP 13 million, we offset these increases in full with our variable cost reductions, as you can see with the arrows on this slide. For the year as a whole, as we stated in our FY '25 results in May, we expect incremental OpEx of over GBP 50 million, including higher labor and national insurance costs and tech spend. And we're on track with our guidance of partly offsetting this through GBP 30 million of structural cost reductions and U.S. integration synergies of around GBP 10 million to GBP 12 million. I would also highlight that we expect part of the mark-to-market charge to unwind in the second half. The contribution from new stores and annualizations of GBP 24 million in H1, Hibbett and Courir added GBP 32 million. And finally, we saw a GBP 22 million increase in net finance expense, excluding lease interest. As I mentioned earlier, this was largely due to the interest on debt component of our acquisition financing, which anniversaries in the second half. On this slide, we set out our summary cash flows for the period. Depreciation and amortization was GBP 467 million, up GBP 120 million from the prior year. This increase was driven primarily by Hibbett and Courir, together with the impact of new stores and our supply chain investments. Lease repayments were GBP 230 million. As a result, the group's operating cash flow was GBP 546 million, up 5% versus the prior year. The change in working capital resulted in a net outflow of GBP 312 million. This was due to an increase in inventory of GBP 314 million, reflecting the rebuild of stock following the seasonally low year-end balance sheet position. Gross capital expenditure in the period was GBP 216 million, down GBP 29 million on the prior year, reflecting the tapering off of our supply chain investment phase. Tax, interest and other cash payments were GBP 86 million, leading to an overall free cash flow of minus GBP 68 million, and that's an improvement of GBP 35 million on last year. To reiterate, given the seasonality of our business, we expect to generate significant free cash flow in the second half. Dividend payments related to last year's final dividend were GBP 34 million, and our first share buyback program of GBP 100 million completed in July. Overall, we saw a reduction in net cash of GBP 177 million, leading to net debt before lease liabilities on the balance sheet of GBP 125 million. Turning to Slide 12 and to reiterate the continued strength of our balance sheet and cash generation. We continue to manage our inventory effectively and in a disciplined manner. Net inventory increased by 14% year-on-year. This mainly reflects the acquisition of Courir, but also proactive stock management ahead of our distribution center transitions and City Gear store conversions. Régis will provide more detail on this later. Overall, we're well positioned on inventory heading into our peak trading period. Turning now to net debt. With cash of GBP 502 million and borrowings of GBP 627 million, our net debt at period end was GBP 125 million before lease liabilities. We expect to move to a net cash position by the end of the financial year. Factoring in IFRS 16 lease liabilities, our net debt was just over GBP 3 billion, representing net leverage of 1.7x. And taking into account the Genesis buyout option in FY '30 and FY '31, pro forma net leverage remains around investment-grade levels. In July this year, we completed a comprehensive debt refinancing. So including our new undrawn RCFs, our total liquidity at period end was just under GBP 1.4 billion. Finally, on shareholder returns. In April, we updated on our strategy and our capital allocation priorities. And with this, a commitment to enhance shareholder returns. In accordance with these priorities and reflecting our expectation of strong free cash flow generation, we announced a second GBP 100 million share buyback program in August. We expect the program to commence in the coming days. And at current share price levels, we believe buybacks represent a compelling return on equity for shareholders. And finally, for completeness, the Board has also declared an interim dividend of 0.33p per share. So now let me take a moment to address the impact of U.S. tariffs on our business, which we said we'd provide an update on today. The overall message here is that we see limited financial impact in FY '26, though unsurprisingly, uncertainty remains going forward. First, a reminder of our direct exposure. This is the impact on our sourcing of own brands and licensed products as well as store fixtures and fittings. Our own brand accounts for less than 10% of our U.S. sales, and we've already taken effective steps to diversify the sourcing base. As a result, the direct impact to JD of higher U.S. tariffs is not material, estimated at less than $10 million on an annualized basis. Turning now to our indirect exposure. We spent several months closely monitoring the actions our brand partners are taking to mitigate tariff impacts and any shifts in U.S. consumer behavior. From a brand partner perspective, with a significant proportion of their sourcing concentrated in Southeast Asia, we're seeing them taking proactive steps across the supply chain to mitigate cost pressures and maintain competitive pricing. And where retail price increases have occurred, they've generally been targeted with a broadly neutral reaction from customers so far. So based on what we've seen to date, we therefore anticipate a limited financial impact from U.S. tariffs in the current financial year. This is supported in part by inventory purchased prior to the implementation of tariffs. Looking beyond FY '26, uncertainty remains over broader tariff as well as over U.S. consumer sentiment, as you might expect. We will, of course, provide updates as and when the landscape evolves further. So finally, on our outlook and guidance, we expect our full year profit before tax and adjusted items to be in line with current market expectations. Our H1 results demonstrate our operating and financial discipline against a tough market backdrop. You can expect more of the same in H2 with continued effective management of our costs and cash. We remain cautious on the trading environment, reflecting continued pressures on consumer finances, elevated unemployment risk and the ongoing footwear product cycle transition. Now as a reminder, as we settle into our new reporting pattern, there's no update on current trading today, and we'll report our Q3 numbers on the 20th of November. Finally, as I highlighted on the previous slide, we anticipate the financial impact from U.S. tariffs to be limited in this financial year. So with my review concluded, let me hand back to Régis, who will provide the business update. Regis Schultz: Thank you, Dominic. Let's move now to the business update. First, a quick reminder of our investment case. So JD Group operates on a large and global scale with footprint in over 50 countries. Our market, sports fashion, will continue to grow over time, benefiting from ongoing casualization and active lifestyle trend. JD Group is a leading player in all key geographies we operate and is targeting further market share gain, particularly in North America and Europe, where we see significant organic growth opportunity. JD Group has a strong and agile multi-brand model, allowing us to propose the best products to our customer and to navigate trends and brand it seamlessly. JD Group is an omnichannel retailer, leveraging the best of the online and off-line world for our customer. JD Group is building the infrastructure and the governance needed for a group of our size and scale. In the last 3 years, we have invested significantly in our supply chain, in our technology as well as strengthening our system control and talent. We will, therefore, unlock operational efficiency across the group. This puts us in a position to deliver profit growth ahead of sales over the medium term. JD Group is a highly cash-generative business with a powerful balance sheet. With disciplined capital allocation, we have headroom to invest for growth while delivering enhanced return to our shareholders that translates to a GBP 200 million share buyback program for this year. Everything we do, everything JD does, starts with the consumer, the JD customer, the young customer, the 16 to 24 years old customer. JD's greatest strength is our ability to see the world through the mindset of our customers. Our close relationship with the young customer gives us a strong partnership with the brands we sell. This unique brand partnership provides us the ability to offer the latest and the greatest product to our customer. Our concept, the JD Theater, is modern, vibrant, multi-brand, premium, mixing sport fashion and music. We leverage the magic within our store to bring our proposition to life in an environment that elevate our brand partner stories and delight our customer. Before you ask me the question, how is our customer feeling right now? I would say that the current level of uncertainty is impacting customer confidence across our different markets. But more importantly for us, as we have said previously, unemployment is a key factor for our young customer. And we are starting to see early negative signs on it, especially Europe, U.K. Something for us to monitor in the coming months. Meanwhile, when we are delivering new exciting product, we see our customer coming into our store. Talking about product, let's turn to a very familiar slide, which demonstrates the power of our multi-brand model and our agility to navigate trends and brand it. Looking at the mix of our sales in footwear on the left and apparel on the right. First, you will see that we are not building our range per brand. We are doing it by style, by category to focus on customer need. If you take footwear, we have 4 key categories. It's a simplified version of what we do internally. You have running, performance and retro basketball, skate, we have included Terrace in this, classic or tennis and other. And you can see the movement between the category. For example, retro basketball went from 20% of our sales in financial year '20 to almost 40% of our sales 2 years ago, before slipping back in the last 18 months. On the other hand, running has moved back above the 50% mark where it was in financial year '20, especially with the development of performance running with On, Hoka, Salomon, adidas EVO, and the new Nike running product, Vomero 18 and Pegasus. Thanks to our agility, to our flexible merchandising, to our buying excellence, we are navigating, anticipating the product cycle, the change of trend and the evolution of branding it. And this is critical in the current challenging product cycle. As we always say, we will win with the winner. Turning to apparel. You can see how we have pivoted our offer towards performance apparel and street fashion. Performance apparel, mostly exclusive product designed by us, designed for us with the brand, show our agility to capture and create growth by extending our reach and leveraging our brand relationship with a big player and with emerging brands. This has been done very quickly as we have more than doubled our sales in performance every year in the last 3 years and grew over 5x over the last 5 years. Our growth in street fashion is another example of our agility to extend to new category by developing our own brands to respond to customer trends. As you have seen from Dominic in our H1 results, our focus on apparel gives us a unique competitive advantage, and our investment in space, resources and talent is clearly paying off. Our apparel strategy is a key differentiator, a key competitive advantage in every market we operate, and it brings to life our unique lifestyle proposition. In the first half of our financial year, we have made strong progress against our key mid- and long-term priorities. In North America, our focus is to develop the JD brand, to leverage our complementary fascia, and to deliver the back-office synergy following the acquisition of Hibbett. In Europe, we are leveraging our multi-fascia strategy to gain profitable market share with JD to address a young customer, Courir to reach more female, older customer, and Sprinter and Cosmos to a more family sport customer. We focus on key country, France, Iberia, Italy, Benelux, Greece and Poland, where we have a leading market position to drive efficiency and profitability. We are building a more efficient supply chain with the automation of our JD European DC in Ireland. In the U.K., our focus is to have fewer, bigger and better stores, to be more productive and to optimize our central overheads. We have made a lot of progress in the first half of the year, which I will now take you through in more details. In U.S., we are developing the JD brand, gaining again market share in H1 and increasing the awareness of our brand. Our #1 brand awareness action is to open stores. In H1, we have opened a net of 52 stores in the U.S. This includes 22 conversions from Finish Line to JD Fashion, delivering on average more than 20% uplift in sales. Second priority is to target key markets in the U.S. with community marketing activation, local advertising like billboards, buses, local sponsorship and ambassador. Third priority is about national influencer targeting digital media, performance, search and shopping. Mike will provide and can provide more color on the program during the Q&A session. As a result, as you can see on the slide, we are delivering a significant increase in national aid brand awareness from 34% 2 years ago to 59%. And this is even more marked in our key battleground markets such as New York. More impressively and impactful, 26% of the consumer are purchasing JD, almost triple versus 3 years ago. North America is the largest market in the world, and it is now our largest market, accounting for almost 40% of group sales in H1. Our different fascias provide us with a full reach of the American customer from coast to coast with DTLR on the East Coast to Shoe Palace on the West Coast, from top mall key trading part with JD to local community with Hibbett from all ethnicity and all gender. The acquisition of Hibbett has been transformative as it gives us an extensive geographic and democratic reach in U.S., creating scale for our strategic partner, the large and emerging sportswear brand. We see great opportunity in North America for the development of both the JD brand and our complementary fascias. As part of Hibbett acquisition, we acquired City Gear stores, a chain of 200 city specialist stores situated in the Southeast with a similar customer base than DTLR. As explained in the details in April, we will convert all the City Gear stores, the 198 stores, to DTLR, giving us an opportunity to improve our sales and profit. City Gear has a return of USD 250 per square foot, whilst DTLR average more than double at around USD 500. So a lot of value to harvest for us. We have already transferred the City Gear operation to DTLR back in June, and the system cut over on time, on budget and with no issue, another demonstration of our operational excellence. At the same time, we are starting the conversion program with an initial 6-store conversion trial. As of last week, that shows a strong uplift in sales around the plus 60%. Second priority is synergies and leveraging our scale in the U.S. As mentioned by Dominic, we are on track in terms of action and the planned synergies. On back office and system change, our U.S. businesses are moving quickly with the ongoing implementation of Workday for finance and HR, leveraging our Hibbett expertise. With our new scales in North America, we are starting to see significant benefit in areas such as transport, logistics, insurance, and we are bringing learning from JD to develop Hibbett range and merchandising. Hibbett delivered a positive Q2 like-for-like, the first for some time. Another source of synergy, the supply chain of the distribution center. We are converting our U.S. DC to become multi-fascia to deliver significant cost savings in the future as well as a quicker replenishment for our store by covering the country from East to West. Our first multi-fascia DC will be live beginning of next financial year with a new West Coast DC in Morgan Hill, near San Jose, and to be followed quickly by Alabaster, the historical DC of Hibbett in Alabama. Turning to the development in Europe. We are leveraging our multi-fascia strategy to gain profitable market share. We have refined our plan and focus on key countries: France, Iberia, Italy, Benelux, Greece, Poland, where we have a leading market position to drive scale, efficiency and profitability. As mentioned in April, Germany, the Nordics have been more challenging due to high cost to operate and less appetite from the consumer for sports fashion. So we have taken this learning and are directing future investment on the market where we see more room for profitable growth. In H1, we have focused JD store opening program in Spain, Italy, France and Portugal with a net increase of 35 stores. Overall, I'm pleased to report that we gained market share in the first 6 months. The integration of Courir is proceeding according to plan. Courir operates 307 stores across 6 European countries, including its own market in France, where a majority of the stores are located, as well as 33 franchise stores across 9 further countries. We see the potential to develop Courir in Europe by leveraging our existing infrastructure. We have successfully entered Italy in the first half with 3 stores opening, and we are preparing to reenter Portugal. We also have our European sporting goods fascia in Iberia, Greece and Cyprus. Those business provide us with scale, infrastructure and a different customer. In H1, they saw sales growth of plus 1.2% and 6 net new store openings, taking the total store number to almost 400. And finally, an update on our European supply chain project, a long project around Heerlen DC in the Netherlands continue to ramp up, and it will launch automation in the coming days. In fact, on Monday, we will start the automation. Initially, this will be for store replenishment with online to follow in the first half of next year. To give you an idea of the scale of the operation, the target is a throughput of 100 million units a year. Automation will unlock significant efficiency within Europe, including faster fulfillment, better stock availability and a reduction in the fulfillment cost per unit. It will eliminate our current dual running cost in Europe and the unnecessary cost and duty of shipping to Europe from the U.K. To minimize the risk of disruption during our upcoming peak trading period, we will maintain our dual running with our site in Belgium until beginning of next year. And then as Dominic said earlier, we are on track to deliver over GBP 20 million of cost benefits relating to the supply chain double running costs across financial year '27 and '28. Before we turn to look at the U.K., I want to give you a behind the scene tour of the build of what is our biggest JD store in the world in Manchester's iconic Trafford Centre. We believe it is also on track to become one of the world's largest sports fashion store by sales with a triple figure turnover in U.S. dollar. This destination store opened in June and set a new benchmark in innovation and merchandising for JD worldwide. It will bring to life the JD Theater, as mentioned earlier, and this small video gives you just a taste. Enjoy it. [Presentation] Regis Schultz: It is a 4,000 square meter store. It means that we could play with a lot of new brands, new products. Trafford Centre has 19 customer engagement areas. This includes customization, sneaker refurbishment, social media recording studio, even a barber, not for me. And I'm looking forward to host you and to see you in JD Theater of Dream in Manchester. As you know, U.K. is our most established market. As a result, our primary focus is on enhanced productivity, larger through fewer, bigger, better store, optimizing the store footprint in the best location and reinvesting in the best location and in our current estate to make sure that our store continues to be the best in town. In line with our strategy in H1, we saw a net reduction in U.K. store numbers of 13, but an overall increase in selling space. Productivity is also about driving operational efficiency and cost savings. So to highlight just a few for you. With our DC, we are now seeing the benefit of closing Derby last year and reviewing our transport costs, bringing in further savings and driving more efficiency in Kingsway. Then we have some of our tech infrastructure key projects starting to land. Our new HR system, Dayforce, has launched in the U.K., which will start to bring scheduling benefit in store as well as overhead saving in our head office. We are also using technology to support both colleagues and customers. We are, as we speak, implementing RFID in all our stores to facilitate click and collect, ship from store transaction, and making replenishment much more efficient for our people, saving critical minutes in store tax. This is alongside the self-service checkout and mobile point-of-sales terminals that we are starting to roll out. And I will add one that Dominic is particularly proud of, reducing our audit fees, having enhanced our process and system in finance. As a final update, we see loyalty as a key driver of our sales. Our now established global loyalty program, JD STATUS is progressing well. And in the U.K. alone, it's capturing more than 25% of our turnover. STATUS serves as a foundation for developing a more targeted and personalized relationship with our customers. In H1, we ran test of personalized offer during campaign period, which resulted in significant incremental sales. This gives us a strong indication regarding the scope and the potential for future development. As a conclusion, in a tough trading environment, we are staying focused on our strategic priorities, our operating and financial discipline. This is demonstrated by our market share gain in H1 and our operating cash flow up. We are cautious about the trading environment in the second half of the year. We expect full year profit before tax and adjusted items to be in line with current market expectation. We are focused on delivering a strong free cash flow, and we have confidence in the medium-term growth prospect of our industry. We are reaffirming our commitment to enhance shareholder return, and we will soon start our second GBP 100 million share buyback program. Before I hand over for our Q&A session, I'd like to thank all my colleagues for their hard work and dedication. Their commitment and their agility are moving us forever forward. Thank you. Mike, over to you. Unknown Executive: All right. Thank you very much, Régis. We're going to start the Q&A now. I'll wait for my colleagues with the microphones. So Lorraine, could you start with Grace, please? Grace Smalley: It's Grace Smalley from Morgan Stanley. My first question would just be on apparel. You mentioned there the improved product assortment after a period of weakness. I'd just be interested to hear more details on what exactly has changed in the apparel assortment? What's making you more optimistic on that category? And Régis, I think in the past, you've spoken about a more competitive environment in apparel, just how you see that competitive landscape today? And then my second question would be on the footwear side. I love the new slide with the different categories. If you could just talk about, based on your consumer insights, what you're seeing from the brand's product pipeline into next year? How you see those trends evolving? Do you expect running to continue to take market share? What you're seeing in basketball, terrace and skate as well would be very interesting. Andrew Higginson: I think the best to answer is Michael Armstrong. Michael Armstrong: Yes. I think, apparel -- I mean, if you remember right, 12 months ago, we were sitting telling you the apparel market was really challenging. And I think what we find is because there was a bit of a shift in the market a couple of years ago and particularly with the bigger brands, we work on generally about an 18-month time line. So there's a lag between when the market shifts for us to be able to capitalize on that shift to get at the market, the shift in the market with the bigger brands. We've just seen the brands catch up with the consumer. That's really all it is. We had a really strong -- we still have a really strong business in the performance categories, as you can see on the slides. And we've had some new entrants come in, in that space, which have worked extremely well for us like Trailberg, Able, Montirex still continues to be amazing. We've got a really good business with Under Armour. And on the fashion, more lifestyle side of things, that's where we're seeing the real upside. Adidas is looking really good on apparel. We introduced a new own brand called Unlike Humans. So there's just a lot going on. It's just quite an exciting place right now. And on footwear, as Régis mentioned, we're still just managing out of this period where we had 3 really big items dominating the footwear business to a marketplace where consumers want to try and test new products. There's a lot of new -- not new brands, but brands that are reestablishing themselves in the marketplace. Again, because of the supply chain time lines, we're not necessarily fully able to get at everything that we would want to get at today, because there's a 12-, 18-month lag on everything. Over time, we'll start to catch up on that stuff. But what we're seeing right now is still the market is very fluid. You can see the backdrop is generally pretty challenging, the appetite isn't necessarily the same as it was during the COVID years. So getting those newer models and brands up to speed as quickly as the big franchises that they claim is still a challenge for us. I think the other thing worth mentioning is, obviously, we went through a bit of a honeymoon period with women's footwear. She was consuming a lot of product, and that softened. So that has had a bit of an impact on us as well. Unknown Executive: Okay. Let's move to Jonathan at Peel Hunt. Jonathan Pritchard: Jonathan Pritchard at Peel Hunt. Just on the brand awareness point, obviously, you've outlined to a degree what you're doing. But what really has changed, because those numbers are pretty impressive that you've gone from, I think, 34% to 59%. What has been the golden bullet as it were for that? Michael Armstrong: Again, I think we just mentioned store openings. We've got a good footprint in all the best malls, now in the majority of the best malls. We've opened a few new flagship stores, Las Vegas as an example. But I think a lot of the great work the team have been doing over the last 2 years has started -- we started to benefit from that, particularly in the communities. The brand awareness, aided brand awareness in the key markets for us, New York, Texas, Miami is significantly higher than that. And a lot of that is around the work we do in the communities, it's local sponsorships, activations, partnerships. We're just starting to benefit from that now. Jonathan Pritchard: Again, just to follow on from Grace's question, and it does follow on a little bit from what you've just said. But apparel, the mindset of the U.S. consumer for you and apparel, obviously, it's pretty much half and half of sales in the U.K., getting there in Europe, but quite a bit behind that in the States. Do people still -- have people started to genuinely think of JD as an apparel retailer? Or is it still a work in progress? Michael Armstrong: The category in the U.S. is still very much dominated by footwear, but we are building momentum. The apparel business has been the growth driver for us this year in the U.S. with the backdrop of the challenges that we have in footwear being the same in Europe as they are in the U.S. So we think we are starting to make really good progress. Regis Schultz: I think in U.S., it's linked to the market leader, which is only footwear. So I think that the more people know JD, the more they understand the fact that we are not a footwear and we are full lifestyle. So the awareness is helping the apparel business, too. So the two work together. Unknown Executive: We go to Richard Chamberlain from RBC. Richard Chamberlain: Richard Chamberlain, RBC. Three for me, please. I wondered if you can say how Europe online performed in the period. I appreciate you've obviously got the automation benefit still to come through. And then again, on Europe, Régis, what are the plans for the Courir store estate going forward? How do you see that shaping? And then third, I was intrigued by your comment in the U.S. about sort of neutral reaction from consumers to price increases or tariff-induced price increases there. Do you think we're going through a sort of temporary window where consumers just haven't reacted yet, so those price increases, or is there something else behind that, like an improving product pipeline or something that's actually still stimulating demand and having to offset those price increases? Regis Schultz: So European online is doing well, I think, but we are starting from a low base. So I think that we are -- we have implemented in the last 18 months much more ship from store and that's created a big difference, because in the past we were shipping a lot of things from U.K. So we were not competitive in terms of time to get to the consumer. So we've seen a growth in terms of our online business in Europe thanks to a better service. And the thing that is coming with Heerlen now coming to first half will become to fulfill online order. We'll continue to do that. So we are just playing catch-up. But we're starting from a low base, but growing. In terms of store estate for Courir, I think what we see is that Courir will continue to develop out of France. So France, we maxed out in terms of number of stores. So we covered all, except the one that we had to divest because of the antitrust. So now we are re-coming to the same part, which it's stupid things around that, but that's life, that's the way it works. And we will expand in Italy and Portugal. So Portugal, it's to be back in Portugal; and Italy, it's a growth country for us. For JD, it's a key country. And I think that we see the benefit of expanding our offer a little bit to offer the same as we offer in France, in Spain, in Portugal, with Courir and JD. So that's the plan. In terms of the price impact, so as you know, what has happened in the U.S., it's a targeted price increase. When the product is good, price is not the issue. So I think what is still to be seen is what will impact when, because at the end, everything will translate into price. For the moment, it has been targeted on products that everyone feels that it will support a price increase. What will happen when a lot of other price will start to come to the system? That's another question, because for the moment -- and it's more not an industry question, it's more an economic question. I think that a lot of U.S. companies have really swallowed the tariff at one point of time, this will come to the consumer, what will impact at that time. But what we know, and that's the last 3 years' experience, that the U.S. consumer is the most resilient in the world. They just keep buying. So hopefully, it will continue. Unknown Executive: Let's go to Ashton Olds. Ashton Olds: A couple of questions from me. I guess the first one, just on the European margin. I think you mentioned that you get around a 20 million benefit from Heerlen. I guess what's the road map towards high single-digit margins beyond that? Is it cost out? Or is it sales led? The second question I have is just on sort of the online approach. You mentioned that gross margin at the group level was down 40 basis points from investment in price. Online sales were down slightly. I appreciate the market is not really helping. But just could you elaborate on your approach to online and whether there's more that you can do there? And then I think Dominic, you mentioned with regards to tariffs that you helped by purchasing ahead of tariffs. I'm not sure if I got that right. But I suppose as we look into FY '27, when you are purchasing at more normal rates, what should we think of the moving parts there? Is it gross margin down? Or is it more pricing to come? Regis Schultz: So I think Dominic will take the first and the third, and I will take the online at the end. Dominic Platt: Okay. So I mean in terms of European margin, it's a multifaceted story. We obviously saw the half 1 margin there. Overall, it's around 4%, 5% operating margin. There are a number of things we're doing, which give us confidence. We can see that improving over time. I think the first is sales led. As we grow scale in the market, we're taking market share, we'll start to see more sales on a fixed cost base, so that flows through in part. Second is efficiency, and that comes in things like supply chain. So at the moment, we are bearing significant costs by having 3 warehouses in Europe for JD, plus shipping stuff from the U.K. as we bring Heerlen online over the next -- before peak for stores next year for online delivery. We start then to step away from the double running costs and distribution in the U.K. will always remain a little bit, but in the grand scheme of things, not very much. That will play through to a better cost base and a more efficient cost base, but also better service to customers. As Régis said, at the moment, in some cases, if you buy something in Lisbon, you may have to wait 6 days for it to get to you from Rochdale, which isn't a great service. As we do more of that through Heerlen, that will improve the customer piece. And then the final piece is picking up on what Régis said around being more targeted in the markets where we invest in. As we learn more about where our concept resonates better with customers, we can tailor our investment to make sure we're getting the best returns on our investment and taking action to improve performance where it's slightly weaker. So a combination of those things over a period of time should see us having the European margin moving closer to that sort of higher single digit that we see in some of our other markets. Should I do tariffs as well? Regis Schultz: Yes. Dominic Platt: So just on the tariff point, there's always a lead time when you buy goods. So when you're buying for Q3, a lot of that was bought well before even the tariffs were announced. So that means we do get the benefit of that. And I think it's the same in many industries, you get the benefit of that in this financial year for us. Looking through to FY '27, I think it's too early to tell. And I think as we go through and look at what our buys are going to be, look at what our terms and conditions with our brand partners are going to be, we'll have a better feel. So we'll provide an update on that in the new year. Regis Schultz: Concerning online, I think that it's mainly -- so as I said before, I think online in U.S. and Europe is doing well. I think in U.K., it has been more challenging. And I think that especially in terms of traffic and conversion, and that's where we have been investing more in price in order to make sure that we are competitive in a very promotional market. So that's the thing. And as it is weighted -- the U.K. weight is much higher, that has an impact on the online margin. Unknown Executive: Okay. Let's move to the side, please. Dom, let's go to Will in the middle, and then Kate Calvert in front. William Woods: William Woods from Bernstein. Two questions. The first one is just on the ongoing shift in the footwear product cycle. You mentioned women's footwear softening. Do you think there's anything more fundamental going on in that cycle? Or do you think it's just the classic brand and style cycle happening? And I suppose when you look at the apparel business, do you think that cycle still applies there. So we'll go through the same with sports fashion and performance, that you've grown quite well, in the next couple of years? And then the second one is, obviously, you've done a lot of work on U.K. productivity through few bigger stores, customization and loyalty, et cetera. Are you applying any of those learnings to the U.S. and Europe? And I suppose I'm particularly thinking about the new stores that you're opening. Are you changing what you're doing because of what you've learned from the U.K. at this stage? Regis Schultz: Mike, I would... Michael Armstrong: Yes. I mean I think with reference to women's, I mean, women generally compared to men have a lot more choice, and they like to change the mind more. And as I said, they're consuming a lot of sports shoes and she's finding other things to buy right now. That's just the nature of women's fashion, right? We'll have another up-cycle sometime soon, but we don't know when. We'll just take it when it comes. I think when it comes to apparel cycle, all I can say is we've got a very adaptable business model. We've got a wide range of brands that we can access. We have the ability to build what we need to build from a product point of view with pretty much every brand. We have complete flexibility in that respect, which again, none of our competitors have that. So we're very agile. And we have our own brand portfolio and licensed brand portfolio as well that chip in and help us deliver good things like speed to market and sort of a pricing architecture as well. Regis Schultz: And second question around the learning from U.K. Michael Armstrong: Yes, the stores -- I mean, I think specifically to the U.K., how consumers are shopping is clearly changing. And I think especially when you look at JD as a business, and we have seen some fairly significant price increases in our world over the last 3 or 4 years. So I think the expectations of the consumer now have changed slightly when they are buying a pair of shoes, which is GBP 150, they want a great experience. And we're also seeing, in particular, the traffic declines primarily are coming from high street locations, and we are seeing a big shift. We're not seeing the same declines, we're not necessarily seeing a big shift into the retail parks and the mega malls, and it's really the retail parks that have grown the most within our store estate over the last 2 or 3 years, which has grown the space significantly. The learning from Trafford Centre for us is that it's the same point, consumers just want a great experience. And what we have found is the impact of creating that fabulous store has been far greater than what we expected, outwards of like 30-mile catchment area. So there's a lot of learnings in that for the future in terms of how we look at the store estate generally. William Woods: I suppose, does that change the U.S. and European strategy? Or do you think you're just experiencing slightly different trends in the market? Michael Armstrong: It doesn't change, it influences and helps us maybe make some different decisions in the future. Kate Calvert: Kate Calvert from Investec. A couple from me. First one, sorry to return to inflation and tariffs, but what sort of level of inflation are the brands putting through at the moment in the U.S.? And do you think it's enough to have offset the sort of the initial 10% increase? So we're kind of yet to see the August increases. And what sort of inflation is going through in Europe and the U.K. at the moment? And in terms of my second question is just on gross margin. Gross margin ex acquisitions was down 40 bps. I suppose the question is really on direction in terms of the trend of the gross margin because obviously, apparel has been much stronger, and you have gone through quite a few years of good full price sales. So do you think we're kind of back to a more normalized gross margin post-COVID? Regis Schultz: I will do the first one and you do the second one. So I think on inflation, I think that, as we said before, roughly what happened with tariff is 1/3 has been swallowed by the manufacturer, 1/3 has been through the supply chain and the manufacturer, and 1/3 to the consumer. That's roughly what has happened. So the part which has been -- and in total, the tariff impact for our industry is on average a sort of 10% if you put everything to the consumer. So what has been passed to the consumer is around 2% to 3% if you take that on total. So that's type of magnitude. But that has been done on some products, not all, and with a very targeted view and has no impact in terms of volume. The question will be, the 70%, which has not been passed to the consumer, at one point of time will be in the system, when you go to new products and those. But that is what will impact at that moment. And I think we are more -- we are not so nervous about our industry. I'm more nervous about the global impact in terms of what happens to the U.S. consumer when they discover that everything goes up in terms of price, because that will happen over time. It's not happening now, but it's going to happen. That's a key question that we don't have the answer. But for our industry, I think the way it has been managed, I think it has been well managed, and I think that we've seen no impact for the time being. Dominic Platt: So on the margin point, Kate, I think in the first half, the 40 basis points really reflects more tactical moves than something structural. And if you look at where it happened, it's sort of online in Europe, where we just need to be more -- chose to be more competitive in a more promotional market. And in the U.S., something we talked about at the year-end, I think, around Finish Line, which is as it winds down, is less differentiated. So price plays more of a role than would be the case in JD and some of our other fascias. I think you hinted that, but maybe didn't mean that with more apparel, is that lower margin. Actually, apparel and footwear, similar margins for us. And apparel is supported by having a higher proportion of own label. And as Mike said earlier on, they play a really crucial role in the overall offering we bring to customers, unlike humans and others. So that itself isn't the driver. Actually, the main driver is really the product cycle. In a cycle where people want the product, we're a full price retailer, we get the margins and we get the price. Where it's slightly softer, you just have to be -- you have to respond to that a little bit at the margins, and that's what we're seeing. So I don't think there's a structural shift. I think it is just reflecting where we are at this point in time on some of our products. Kate Calvert: Can I just come back on the gross margin question just in terms of the full price sales. So I mean as you came out of COVID, because there's a lot of stock shortage, you had very high full price sales. I know you're being tactical at the moment, but do you think the underlying has got back to a more normalized level just generally in the industry and everything? Michael Armstrong: Yes. I think -- I mean, the position that we're in just now, there is a shift slightly back towards apparel in the mix, which will be beneficial. We don't know how long that's going to -- that run is going to maintain itself, obviously. But I'll just reiterate what Dominic said, it really does just come down to the product cycle and the appetite for that product at full price. What we're seeing right now is the good stuff is really good. The stuff in the middle is slightly more challenging to sell at full price. We would like to assume that if the market can course correct and, along with our brand partners, we can drive that demand into new franchises, that will see a higher level of full price sell-through. There's no question. It does come down to the brands and the ability to create energy in the marketplace as much as anything. Regis Schultz: And to be precise, on your question, which is around COVID, I think it's already done. So it's no more the COVID where we were at one point. So I think it has been going down slightly, but surely. So I think we are in a stable, yes. Unknown Executive: Let's move to Warwick behind you. Alexander Richard Okines: I'm Warwick Okines, BNP Paribas. One question for Dominic actually. Could you talk a bit more about the H2 profit expectations? First half PBT down about GBP 50 million, second half implied about plus GBP 10 million. What drives this swing? You talked about a few items like mark-to-market finance charges and Hibbett synergies. But maybe you could just flesh out that swing, please. Dominic Platt: Good question, Warwick. So look, I mean, if you look at the first half and the profit bridge helps there and some of the things that you saw, the headwinds there. We'll still get a benefit from acquisitions, slightly less in the second half. Obviously, we've got Courir coming in for a few months. Interest was a drag in the first half. Actually, as we anniversary the acquisitions, that could become a slight positive in the second half. So half-on-half, quite a big swing. Mark-to-market, we expect some of that to unwind in the second half. So again, half-on-half, quite a big swing. And then new space with Trafford and others coming online, we've had a lot of sort of preopening costs related to that in the first half. We should see that stepping up a bit into the second half. And I think the phasing of our OpEx synergies is weighted towards the second half rather than the first half. Although as you saw on the slide, I think we've done a very good job in the first half in terms of neutralizing some of those headwinds. So taking all of those things together, actually, you see a step forward in those points, in some cases, mechanical, offsetting -- more than offsetting the ongoing pressure from like-for-like and margin through the second half. Unknown Executive: Just before we go to Anne next to you, Warwick, a quick question on the lines from Richard Taylor at Barclays. A question for Dominic is that can you explain why the Genesis option has been revalued upwards by GBP 160 million? Dominic Platt: Yes, I can. At the full year, we explained that as a result of the change in the payment dates, we've moved it out from '25, '26, starting in '25 to '30, '31, that would result in about a GBP 250 million increase that was in the annual report. The actual increase at the first half is GBP 163 million. So we've got the GBP 250 million uplift, but then there's a currency impact on the overall option, bringing that down to GBP 163 million for the first half. So broadly in line with what we explained. Regis Schultz: I think you have been clear. So just for everyone because it's -- we have the option to buy back the 20% that is owned by the Mersho family. And the initial agreement was to do that in 4 years, from this year to 2028. Dominic Platt: '29. Regis Schultz: '29. We just moved back to 2 years between 2030 and '31. That's correct. So that's what Dominic was referring to. And we did that in order to manage our cash flow and to manage the best way to do that. Dominic Platt: That's the context. Anne Critchlow: It's Anne Critchlow from Berenberg. A question on tech infrastructure. So I appreciate you're in a catch-up mode at the moment on infrastructure. But just wondering what the potential might be to invest in, say, systems for pricing and promotions or allocation of product by store, various AI systems we're hearing about from other retailers. And also whether there's any time line for an RFID rollout from the U.K. to the rest of the world, and any implications in CapEx for that? Regis Schultz: Yes. So I think on tech, we've done a lot. And I think that unfortunately, it is mostly OpEx than CapEx. So we have done -- the big one was our HR system in the U.K., which is done, which is Dayforce. We are looking at finance system and HR system in U.S., which is Workday. So that's as we speak. In terms of our merchandising tool, we are looking at the implementation of o9, which will include AI tools to do that. We are not so keen on pricing and all that stuff for the time being, because I think we -- we believe that with our buyer, we are doing the job and a fantastic job around that. And RFID is that the rollout is in U.K., but will go to the rest of the world just after. So it's just that we start everything in U.K. So we are pretty advanced. There will be the self-checkout, the same. Most of that is OpEx. So that's why our OpEx has been inflated by around GBP 20 million in the last 2 years around system and all that stuff. So it's not a big impact on CapEx, but a significant impact in terms of our OpEx. Unknown Executive: And please can you pass to Alison. Alison Lygo: Alison Lygo from Deutsche Numis. So just a couple of mine left. Can I ask on the working capital, please, just in terms of the stock build we saw in the first half. Could you talk a bit about where that's gone in terms of the stock? And I suppose what you're thinking about in terms of requirement for H2, particularly in terms of anything further required for investing or pivoting the range in the new acquisitions? And then the second one, just on City Gear and that change into DTLR. So interest as to how much you're kind of changing in that proposition. Are we talking here about -- like you're talking about some relatively large uplifts. Are you really changing the range? What are you doing in terms of store fit out? Yes, and I guess what the kind of potential CapEx behind that might look like? Regis Schultz: Yes, I will do the City Gear and you do the stock one. So City Gear, so what we are doing with City Gear. So we have done a test of 6 stores where we have done a full conversion with new merchandising, new refurbishment, in fact, and that sort of costs around GBP 200,000 per store. And that is with the full rebranding and merchandising. What we have done for all the estate is to put that under the management of the DTLR team. So that implies the fact that we are slowly but surely changing the range, but we do that in a very -- when the product gets out of stock, we bring new products. So that is what we're doing. And there is a limit around that, and that's why we will have a program beginning of next year to refurbish a significant part of the estate and doing what we have done with the 6 tech stores. But we didn't want to rush too quickly. We just wanted to make sure that we do the system, the management and all that stuff in order to put the basis before doing a conversion. We learned a lot from the Finish Line program. And what we are applying there is what has been very successfully applied by JD team when we move from Finish Line to JD. We do the same recipe and with the same potential, because you have a double turnover per square foot. So there is no reason. And the level of investment is lower because DTLR concept is much less sophisticated than the JD one. So if you want to model it, it's USD 250,000 to invest in a store and with an uplift, which for the moment is around 50%, 60%. Dominic Platt: On the stock point, yes, I mean, stock was up 14% in the first half. A large part of that was Courir, which we didn't have in the numbers last year. But we also were carrying more stock as we went into the first half. We've got quite a bit of distribution center changes coming. So we want to make sure we're well set up for those, and that does sometimes result in a sort of slightly elevated position. And just picking up on the City Gear piece, as we start to range those stores more with what DTLR and Shoe Palace use versus what they had, you end up with a slight sort of overlap. But that's manageable, and it's something we've done in the past. I think heading towards peak, there's no material shift in pivoting in terms of stock we're bringing in. We're actually coming to the biggest part of our year now. And as we go into that, we feel comfortable overall with the quality of the stock that we have. And the real position to look at our stock is at the year-end once we've been through peak. Unknown Executive: Okay. We've got time for 2 more. So we'll go with Wendy, first of all. M. Liu: Wendy Liu from JPMorgan. I have two, please. One is a follow-up on the footwear cycle. You mentioned about there's a couple of promising smaller franchises. I was wondering if you can expand on that. Are you talking about specific brands? Or are you talking about particular categories? Is it running? Is it more lifestyle? So this is question number one. Number two, I understand you don't comment on current trading, but I was wondering if you can share a few observations about what you're seeing in different markets in terms of customer behavior. You mentioned about early signs of unemployment in the U.K. and the U.S., if I hear that correctly. I was wondering if you can expand on that. And I guess, broadly, what are you seeing in the various markets from what you can see today? Regis Schultz: Yes, I will start for the current -- yes, as you say, we don't update on current trading. I think what we said around customer, we see the level of uncertainty is high and which is never good for consumption. And we know that the key KPI we are looking at is unemployment, because our young customer is the first one to be impacted by that. And for the time being, nothing has happened, but we see the signs are more negative than positive. That's what we are at. So for the time being, it has not been -- nothing has happened on this side, but we're really looking at that, and that will be a negative for us if that happened. So that's what we flagged. I think that at the same moment, and we are in an industry where it's about fashion, it's about new products. So if the new product is good, consumers find the money to buy it. So that's what I will say. I think on the footwear, I think that... Michael Armstrong: Yes. I think you mentioned a lot of the things that are happening in the market already. We're seeing the market shift back to where it was around 2019, 2020, running back to being the dominant category. The brands that play in that space are -- we know who they are. You've got a few of the smaller brands gaining about momentum just now, Saucony, Salomon, those guys. But really, it's On running, ASICS, New Balance, Adidas are doing some really good stuff in the performance categories. And we've seen some new product from Nike that's hit the ground running. Unknown Executive: Wendy, could you pass to David right behind you? David Hughes: David Hughes from Shore Capital. Just on the U.S. and obviously, the margin drop, you talked about a part of that being driven by the Finish Line conversions. Could you just touch on what part of the conversion is driving that margin drop, and how long you kind of expect that to carry on since you're still going through with quite a lot of conversions left to do? And also with the City Gear conversions, would we accept similar margin pressure in the U.S. as a result? Regis Schultz: No, what we are seeing is not the conversion that is driving the margin. Finish Line is our biggest online business in the U.S. so far. It's no more. It was still 3 months ago, now it's JD, but it has been -- so on this Finish Line online business, that's where -- because the brand doesn't have any more resonance with the consumer less store. This is where we have been more aggressive promotionally to drive sales. That's what we were referring. So it's not about the conversion. It's more that the brand City Gear website doesn't exist anymore. So we will not have this issue. But our biggest online business for a long time has been Finish Line in the U.S. And this is where we see being more challenging for us, because we have no more store presence, or the store presence is reducing. So the appetite for the consumer for the Finish Line brand is reducing. So in order to drive volume, we need to be more aggressive on promotions. That's what we're referring to. So it's not about -- but the good news is that JD now website in the U.S. is bigger than Finish Line, which is a great achievement of the team. Unknown Executive: Any final questions still from the from the floor. There's nothing on the lines either. So in that case, we will close the meeting there. So thanks very much for joining us, everyone. I appreciate your support. Thank you. Regis Schultz: Thank you. Dominic Platt: Thank you.
Andrew Higginson: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the JD Sports Half Year Results. I'm delighted to say that it's a set of results where we're on track for the year as we stand here today. And I just really wanted to make a couple of introductory remarks before I hand over to the team. It's been a tough couple of years really in lots of ways. There's been a lot of challenges we're facing too. The markets have not been great. Consumer markets have been uncertain. I think we all know about the political and economic background in our major markets. And of course, the cost base here in the U.K., in particular, with the national insurance rises and various other things have been very challenging. We've also internally, of course, had governance challenges that we've had to sort of face into as well, which have required investment and turnaround. And I really just wanted to start by commending the team really. The strategy is very much on track at the moment. I think they've shown great resilience in the face of a lot of those challenges. And of course, we're making great progress. The governance, in particular, I think commend Dominic and his team for the work they've done around the financial controls in the business and all led by Régis, of course. And of course, the integration of things like the supply chain, the progress we've made on governance, the good work that we've done around the integration of the acquisitions we've made and, of course, the great work we've done on our brands. And if you need an example of that, go and see the Trafford Centre and see how that's moved JD on here and it's probably its most mature market. I think all of that is very commendable. So you're seeing here today some of the results of that hard work and with more to come. But I just wanted to say thank you to all of the team in JD for the hard work that's gone on. It's never easy when markets are difficult, but I think they're doing great stuff. So thank you very much, and I'll hand over now to Régis. Regis Schultz: Thank you, Andy. Thank you for your kind words. So good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us. I'm Régis Schultz, CEO of JD Group, and we are here joined by Dominic Platt, our CFO; and Mike Armstrong, our JD Global Managing Director. I will start with our key message and highlights from the first half. I will then hand over to Dominic to go through the financials. And finally, I will take you through the key business update. As a reminder, at our April strategy update, we set out some clear priority for the short and medium term. First, to deliver the vision to be the leading sport fashion powerhouse. Second, to build the infrastructure and the governance you will expect from a company of our size and a world leader. And third, to focus on cash generation and shareholder return. So I'm pleased to say that our first half results reflect our priority and demonstrate our operating and financial discipline against what was a tough trading environment. We are building a track record of focus and consistent execution against our strategic objective. As a result, we are gaining market share in North America, in Europe and building on the very significant opportunity we see in both regions to develop JD brand and leverage our complementary concept businesses. To finish our key message, we said we will provide you an update on the U.S. tariff impact. Dominic will go into more details on this, but you will be pleased to know that we see limited impact in the current reporting year. Let me now hand over to Dominic to run through the first half financial results with you. Thank you. Dominic Platt: Good morning, everybody, and thank you, Régis and Andy. So let's start with our summary financials for the group here on Slide 6. At constant FX rates, total sales were 20% higher year-on-year, reflecting a full half of sales from Hibbett and Courir, who were acquired in July and November, respectively, last year. Stripping these businesses out, organic sales growth was 2.7%, comprising 2.5% lower like-for-like sales and 5.2% growth from net new space. Against a tough backdrop in all our markets, we maintained our trading disciplines. Gross margin was 48%, 60 basis points behind the prior year. Excluding Hibbett and Courir, which are slightly lower-margin businesses, gross margin was 40 basis points lower year-on-year. This was driven by controlled price investments, particularly in our online offer to increase customer engagement and conversion. Turning to operating profit. As a reminder, earlier this year, we updated our definition of operating profit to include IFRS 16 lease interest, as we believe including all property-related costs gives a truer picture of the operating margin of each part of the business. On this basis, operating profit of GBP 369 million was 6.3% lower at constant FX rates. Excluding Hibbett and Courir, operating costs were 4.7% higher at constant FX rates, and this was driven entirely by new stores. Through structural cost reductions and flexing the staffing levels and discretionary spend, we managed to fully offset the impact of higher labor rates and technology costs as well as noncash mark-to-market charge of GBP 14 million in H1. More on that later. Overall, the group's operating margin was 6.2%, 170 basis points lower versus the prior year at constant FX rates. Profit before tax and adjusting items was GBP 351 million, 11.8% lower at constant FX rates and in line with our profit phasing guidance. Included in this is a GBP 22 million increase in net finance expense, excluding lease interest, which was driven by lower cash balances and debt financing related to acquisitions. Our adjusted earnings per share were 8.5% lower year-on-year at constant FX rates. For completeness, the statutory PBT was GBP 138 million, 9.5% higher year-on-year. This reflects lower adjusting items or exceptional items as we all used to know them. These are essentially limited to noncash revaluation of our Genesis put option together with the amortization of acquired intangibles. The Board has declared an interim dividend of 0.33p per share, consistent with the prior year. In line with our dividend policy, this represents 1/3 of the final dividend for FY '25. And last but certainly not least, we delivered a 5% increase in operating cash flow to GBP 546 million, demonstrating yet again the highly cash-generative nature of our business. Turning now to our revenue bridge from last half year to this. The left-hand side rebases H1 '25 for FX headwinds of 2 percentage points as well as some small disposals from last year. As I mentioned earlier, like-for-like sales were 2.5% lower and new stores contributed 5.2 percentage points to sales. This includes annualizations from stores opened last year and also the fact that we opened 4 flagship stores in the period, including the Trafford Centre in Manchester, which is strongly outperforming against its plan. So overall, organic sales growth was 2.7% at constant FX rates. We believe this is faster than the growth of our addressable markets, driven by market share gains in North America and Europe. Finally, Hibbett and Courir added GBP 869 million of sales for overall sales growth of 20%. As you can see from this slide, the JD Group is a very well-balanced and diversified global business. 71% of our sales come from North America and Europe, our key growth markets. Following the Hibbett acquisition, North America is our largest market, representing 39% of group sales. Our channel and category mix varies by region, which provides us with opportunities for growth. For example, our largest region for online sales penetration is the U.K. at around 25%, with other regions overall in the mid-teens. We're building a fully flexible omnichannel proposition in all our regions, offering customers a seamless service for purchasing, delivery and return, whether they choose to use our stores or online channels or as we are increasingly seeing a combination of the 2. Within our omnichannel proposition, organic store sales grew by 3.6%, reflecting the continued resilience of our full-price business model and our store opening program. Online sales were 1.6% lower with good growth in North America and Europe, offset by a weaker online performance in the U.K. While U.K. store sales were positive year-on-year, the U.K. online market as a whole was slightly more promotional during the period, especially in the second quarter, driven by short-term discounting to clear inventory. To maintain our competitiveness, we made some controlled investments in our prices and have seen an improvement in customer engagement online in recent weeks. Turning to category. Our agile and multi-brand model really comes into play across our combined footwear and apparel proposition. When we exclude Hibbett and Courir, which are more footwear-centric fascias, apparel participation increased to 31%, with footwear decreasing to 58% of sales. In footwear, we continue to see a fundamental shift in the global footwear product cycle, given the transition between newer franchises and some significant end-of-cycle product lines. Notwithstanding this, we saw strong growth across brands more in the middle of the cycle, which reflects the strength of our multi-brand model. The early signals of new product franchises in terms of both launches and pipeline are encouraging, albeit they are a small part of sales today. Overall, organic footwear sales were 1% lower year-on-year. The apparel product cycle is very different compared to footwear. Our apparel proposition is in excellent shape, supported by innovation and our own brands, and we believe there is significant scope to leverage this for growth, particularly in North America, where our apparel mix is low compared to other regions. Despite tough comparatives from replica shirt sales in the U.K. and Europe, due to the Euro 24 football tournament last year, organic apparel sales were 6% higher year-on-year. Our other category, which includes outdoor living equipment and gym memberships, maintained its share at 4% of sales mix. Turning now to our geographic regions. As a reminder, we have 2 different lenses on how we look at the JD Group. First, as you know, segmentation by fascia JD, our Complementary Concepts, our Sporting Goods and Outdoor fascias. This is our primary lens because it aligns to our strategy. And most importantly, it's how our customers and brand partners engage with the JD Group. The geographic split that you see on this slide helps to focus internally on creating the most efficient operating model to support our range of fascias in each region and, in the process, maximizing the returns we make on our investments. So starting with sales by region. As reported in our trading update in August, like-for-like sales in H1 were resilient in Europe, supported by our JD and Sporting Goods fascias. We are encouraged by improved like-for-like trends quarter-on-quarter in both North America and Asia Pacific. In the U.K., we see organic sales as a better KPI than LFL, given the ongoing evolution of our store footprint with bigger and better stores. Régis will cover this in his slides later. U.K. organic sales were 1.7% lower in H1, affected by tough prior year comparatives due to the Euro 24 football tournament. Turning to margins. The group operating margin of 6.2% reflects the H2 weighted nature of our annual sales. By region, the North American margin was 340 basis points lower year-on-year. This was influenced by 2 significant but short-term factors. First, the ongoing wind down of the Finish Line fascia. During the first half, Finish Line invested in price within its online offering to maintain competitiveness. It also closed 15 stores and transferred a further 22 to JD in the period. Those conversions continue to see significant uplifts in performance and profitability as the JD concept continues to resonate with North American customers. The remaining 220 Finish Line stores will be wound down over time, but will weigh on the North American margin in the short term. And second, the impact of Hibbett year-on-year. Last year, having completed the Hibbett acquisition on the 25th of July, the business recorded a spectacular first week due to back-to-school demand, making a significant proportion of its annual profit under our ownership in that 7-day window. Aside from these factors, as I mentioned earlier, Hibbett is a slightly lower margin business than the other North American fascias. The integration of the business is progressing well, and it's a key component in our multiyear program to create an integrated platform for the nationwide growth of all our fascias in North America with an efficient supply chain and back office. We're on track to deliver annualized cost synergies of $25 million with half to 2/3 of this, so about GBP 10 million to GBP 12 million expected in H2. In Europe, we saw a decline in the operating margin of 40 basis points. The main factor to call out here were our controlled price investments, particularly in the online offer, which saw good results in terms of customer traffic and conversion. As our supply chain investments in Europe come to an end in FY '27, we will see the operating margin in this region start to step forward towards the higher single-digit levels we have elsewhere. To remind you of our broader medium-term guidance for the group, we expect to see over GBP 20 million of cost benefits related to technology and supply chain double running costs across FY '27 and FY '28. And finally, the U.K. margin was lower by 130 basis points. This reflects the tough trading conditions, as highlighted, as well as higher technology, labor and costs related to new stores. We have and continue to make strong progress on our plans to enhance sales productivity and cost efficiency in the U.K., and Régis will touch on that more later. So on to the group profit bridge. Starting from the left-hand side, lower like-for-like sales at a constant gross margin contributed GBP 33 million to the decline, and that's net of GBP 27 million of attributable variable OpEx savings. We then have a further GBP 25 million from the like-for-like gross margin rate reduction. The next bar shows a GBP 10 million net OpEx increase, which includes the higher salary and national insurance rates as well as technology investments that we flagged back in May. It's a net number because we've also included structural OpEx reductions in the year. Alongside the higher mark-to-market charge of GBP 13 million, we offset these increases in full with our variable cost reductions, as you can see with the arrows on this slide. For the year as a whole, as we stated in our FY '25 results in May, we expect incremental OpEx of over GBP 50 million, including higher labor and national insurance costs and tech spend. And we're on track with our guidance of partly offsetting this through GBP 30 million of structural cost reductions and U.S. integration synergies of around GBP 10 million to GBP 12 million. I would also highlight that we expect part of the mark-to-market charge to unwind in the second half. The contribution from new stores and annualizations of GBP 24 million in H1, Hibbett and Courir added GBP 32 million. And finally, we saw a GBP 22 million increase in net finance expense, excluding lease interest. As I mentioned earlier, this was largely due to the interest on debt component of our acquisition financing, which anniversaries in the second half. On this slide, we set out our summary cash flows for the period. Depreciation and amortization was GBP 467 million, up GBP 120 million from the prior year. This increase was driven primarily by Hibbett and Courir, together with the impact of new stores and our supply chain investments. Lease repayments were GBP 230 million. As a result, the group's operating cash flow was GBP 546 million, up 5% versus the prior year. The change in working capital resulted in a net outflow of GBP 312 million. This was due to an increase in inventory of GBP 314 million, reflecting the rebuild of stock following the seasonally low year-end balance sheet position. Gross capital expenditure in the period was GBP 216 million, down GBP 29 million on the prior year, reflecting the tapering off of our supply chain investment phase. Tax, interest and other cash payments were GBP 86 million, leading to an overall free cash flow of minus GBP 68 million, and that's an improvement of GBP 35 million on last year. To reiterate, given the seasonality of our business, we expect to generate significant free cash flow in the second half. Dividend payments related to last year's final dividend were GBP 34 million, and our first share buyback program of GBP 100 million completed in July. Overall, we saw a reduction in net cash of GBP 177 million, leading to net debt before lease liabilities on the balance sheet of GBP 125 million. Turning to Slide 12 and to reiterate the continued strength of our balance sheet and cash generation. We continue to manage our inventory effectively and in a disciplined manner. Net inventory increased by 14% year-on-year. This mainly reflects the acquisition of Courir, but also proactive stock management ahead of our distribution center transitions and City Gear store conversions. Régis will provide more detail on this later. Overall, we're well positioned on inventory heading into our peak trading period. Turning now to net debt. With cash of GBP 502 million and borrowings of GBP 627 million, our net debt at period end was GBP 125 million before lease liabilities. We expect to move to a net cash position by the end of the financial year. Factoring in IFRS 16 lease liabilities, our net debt was just over GBP 3 billion, representing net leverage of 1.7x. And taking into account the Genesis buyout option in FY '30 and FY '31, pro forma net leverage remains around investment-grade levels. In July this year, we completed a comprehensive debt refinancing. So including our new undrawn RCFs, our total liquidity at period end was just under GBP 1.4 billion. Finally, on shareholder returns. In April, we updated on our strategy and our capital allocation priorities. And with this, a commitment to enhance shareholder returns. In accordance with these priorities and reflecting our expectation of strong free cash flow generation, we announced a second GBP 100 million share buyback program in August. We expect the program to commence in the coming days. And at current share price levels, we believe buybacks represent a compelling return on equity for shareholders. And finally, for completeness, the Board has also declared an interim dividend of 0.33p per share. So now let me take a moment to address the impact of U.S. tariffs on our business, which we said we'd provide an update on today. The overall message here is that we see limited financial impact in FY '26, though unsurprisingly, uncertainty remains going forward. First, a reminder of our direct exposure. This is the impact on our sourcing of own brands and licensed products as well as store fixtures and fittings. Our own brand accounts for less than 10% of our U.S. sales, and we've already taken effective steps to diversify the sourcing base. As a result, the direct impact to JD of higher U.S. tariffs is not material, estimated at less than $10 million on an annualized basis. Turning now to our indirect exposure. We spent several months closely monitoring the actions our brand partners are taking to mitigate tariff impacts and any shifts in U.S. consumer behavior. From a brand partner perspective, with a significant proportion of their sourcing concentrated in Southeast Asia, we're seeing them taking proactive steps across the supply chain to mitigate cost pressures and maintain competitive pricing. And where retail price increases have occurred, they've generally been targeted with a broadly neutral reaction from customers so far. So based on what we've seen to date, we therefore anticipate a limited financial impact from U.S. tariffs in the current financial year. This is supported in part by inventory purchased prior to the implementation of tariffs. Looking beyond FY '26, uncertainty remains over broader tariff as well as over U.S. consumer sentiment, as you might expect. We will, of course, provide updates as and when the landscape evolves further. So finally, on our outlook and guidance, we expect our full year profit before tax and adjusted items to be in line with current market expectations. Our H1 results demonstrate our operating and financial discipline against a tough market backdrop. You can expect more of the same in H2 with continued effective management of our costs and cash. We remain cautious on the trading environment, reflecting continued pressures on consumer finances, elevated unemployment risk and the ongoing footwear product cycle transition. Now as a reminder, as we settle into our new reporting pattern, there's no update on current trading today, and we'll report our Q3 numbers on the 20th of November. Finally, as I highlighted on the previous slide, we anticipate the financial impact from U.S. tariffs to be limited in this financial year. So with my review concluded, let me hand back to Régis, who will provide the business update. Regis Schultz: Thank you, Dominic. Let's move now to the business update. First, a quick reminder of our investment case. So JD Group operates on a large and global scale with footprint in over 50 countries. Our market, sports fashion, will continue to grow over time, benefiting from ongoing casualization and active lifestyle trend. JD Group is a leading player in all key geographies we operate and is targeting further market share gain, particularly in North America and Europe, where we see significant organic growth opportunity. JD Group has a strong and agile multi-brand model, allowing us to propose the best products to our customer and to navigate trends and brand it seamlessly. JD Group is an omnichannel retailer, leveraging the best of the online and off-line world for our customer. JD Group is building the infrastructure and the governance needed for a group of our size and scale. In the last 3 years, we have invested significantly in our supply chain, in our technology as well as strengthening our system control and talent. We will, therefore, unlock operational efficiency across the group. This puts us in a position to deliver profit growth ahead of sales over the medium term. JD Group is a highly cash-generative business with a powerful balance sheet. With disciplined capital allocation, we have headroom to invest for growth while delivering enhanced return to our shareholders that translates to a GBP 200 million share buyback program for this year. Everything we do, everything JD does, starts with the consumer, the JD customer, the young customer, the 16 to 24 years old customer. JD's greatest strength is our ability to see the world through the mindset of our customers. Our close relationship with the young customer gives us a strong partnership with the brands we sell. This unique brand partnership provides us the ability to offer the latest and the greatest product to our customer. Our concept, the JD Theater, is modern, vibrant, multi-brand, premium, mixing sport fashion and music. We leverage the magic within our store to bring our proposition to life in an environment that elevate our brand partner stories and delight our customer. Before you ask me the question, how is our customer feeling right now? I would say that the current level of uncertainty is impacting customer confidence across our different markets. But more importantly for us, as we have said previously, unemployment is a key factor for our young customer. And we are starting to see early negative signs on it, especially Europe, U.K. Something for us to monitor in the coming months. Meanwhile, when we are delivering new exciting product, we see our customer coming into our store. Talking about product, let's turn to a very familiar slide, which demonstrates the power of our multi-brand model and our agility to navigate trends and brand it. Looking at the mix of our sales in footwear on the left and apparel on the right. First, you will see that we are not building our range per brand. We are doing it by style, by category to focus on customer need. If you take footwear, we have 4 key categories. It's a simplified version of what we do internally. You have running, performance and retro basketball, skate, we have included Terrace in this, classic or tennis and other. And you can see the movement between the category. For example, retro basketball went from 20% of our sales in financial year '20 to almost 40% of our sales 2 years ago, before slipping back in the last 18 months. On the other hand, running has moved back above the 50% mark where it was in financial year '20, especially with the development of performance running with On, Hoka, Salomon, adidas EVO, and the new Nike running product, Vomero 18 and Pegasus. Thanks to our agility, to our flexible merchandising, to our buying excellence, we are navigating, anticipating the product cycle, the change of trend and the evolution of branding it. And this is critical in the current challenging product cycle. As we always say, we will win with the winner. Turning to apparel. You can see how we have pivoted our offer towards performance apparel and street fashion. Performance apparel, mostly exclusive product designed by us, designed for us with the brand, show our agility to capture and create growth by extending our reach and leveraging our brand relationship with a big player and with emerging brands. This has been done very quickly as we have more than doubled our sales in performance every year in the last 3 years and grew over 5x over the last 5 years. Our growth in street fashion is another example of our agility to extend to new category by developing our own brands to respond to customer trends. As you have seen from Dominic in our H1 results, our focus on apparel gives us a unique competitive advantage, and our investment in space, resources and talent is clearly paying off. Our apparel strategy is a key differentiator, a key competitive advantage in every market we operate, and it brings to life our unique lifestyle proposition. In the first half of our financial year, we have made strong progress against our key mid- and long-term priorities. In North America, our focus is to develop the JD brand, to leverage our complementary fascia, and to deliver the back-office synergy following the acquisition of Hibbett. In Europe, we are leveraging our multi-fascia strategy to gain profitable market share with JD to address a young customer, Courir to reach more female, older customer, and Sprinter and Cosmos to a more family sport customer. We focus on key country, France, Iberia, Italy, Benelux, Greece and Poland, where we have a leading market position to drive efficiency and profitability. We are building a more efficient supply chain with the automation of our JD European DC in Ireland. In the U.K., our focus is to have fewer, bigger and better stores, to be more productive and to optimize our central overheads. We have made a lot of progress in the first half of the year, which I will now take you through in more details. In U.S., we are developing the JD brand, gaining again market share in H1 and increasing the awareness of our brand. Our #1 brand awareness action is to open stores. In H1, we have opened a net of 52 stores in the U.S. This includes 22 conversions from Finish Line to JD Fashion, delivering on average more than 20% uplift in sales. Second priority is to target key markets in the U.S. with community marketing activation, local advertising like billboards, buses, local sponsorship and ambassador. Third priority is about national influencer targeting digital media, performance, search and shopping. Mike will provide and can provide more color on the program during the Q&A session. As a result, as you can see on the slide, we are delivering a significant increase in national aid brand awareness from 34% 2 years ago to 59%. And this is even more marked in our key battleground markets such as New York. More impressively and impactful, 26% of the consumer are purchasing JD, almost triple versus 3 years ago. North America is the largest market in the world, and it is now our largest market, accounting for almost 40% of group sales in H1. Our different fascias provide us with a full reach of the American customer from coast to coast with DTLR on the East Coast to Shoe Palace on the West Coast, from top mall key trading part with JD to local community with Hibbett from all ethnicity and all gender. The acquisition of Hibbett has been transformative as it gives us an extensive geographic and democratic reach in U.S., creating scale for our strategic partner, the large and emerging sportswear brand. We see great opportunity in North America for the development of both the JD brand and our complementary fascias. As part of Hibbett acquisition, we acquired City Gear stores, a chain of 200 city specialist stores situated in the Southeast with a similar customer base than DTLR. As explained in the details in April, we will convert all the City Gear stores, the 198 stores, to DTLR, giving us an opportunity to improve our sales and profit. City Gear has a return of USD 250 per square foot, whilst DTLR average more than double at around USD 500. So a lot of value to harvest for us. We have already transferred the City Gear operation to DTLR back in June, and the system cut over on time, on budget and with no issue, another demonstration of our operational excellence. At the same time, we are starting the conversion program with an initial 6-store conversion trial. As of last week, that shows a strong uplift in sales around the plus 60%. Second priority is synergies and leveraging our scale in the U.S. As mentioned by Dominic, we are on track in terms of action and the planned synergies. On back office and system change, our U.S. businesses are moving quickly with the ongoing implementation of Workday for finance and HR, leveraging our Hibbett expertise. With our new scales in North America, we are starting to see significant benefit in areas such as transport, logistics, insurance, and we are bringing learning from JD to develop Hibbett range and merchandising. Hibbett delivered a positive Q2 like-for-like, the first for some time. Another source of synergy, the supply chain of the distribution center. We are converting our U.S. DC to become multi-fascia to deliver significant cost savings in the future as well as a quicker replenishment for our store by covering the country from East to West. Our first multi-fascia DC will be live beginning of next financial year with a new West Coast DC in Morgan Hill, near San Jose, and to be followed quickly by Alabaster, the historical DC of Hibbett in Alabama. Turning to the development in Europe. We are leveraging our multi-fascia strategy to gain profitable market share. We have refined our plan and focus on key countries: France, Iberia, Italy, Benelux, Greece, Poland, where we have a leading market position to drive scale, efficiency and profitability. As mentioned in April, Germany, the Nordics have been more challenging due to high cost to operate and less appetite from the consumer for sports fashion. So we have taken this learning and are directing future investment on the market where we see more room for profitable growth. In H1, we have focused JD store opening program in Spain, Italy, France and Portugal with a net increase of 35 stores. Overall, I'm pleased to report that we gained market share in the first 6 months. The integration of Courir is proceeding according to plan. Courir operates 307 stores across 6 European countries, including its own market in France, where a majority of the stores are located, as well as 33 franchise stores across 9 further countries. We see the potential to develop Courir in Europe by leveraging our existing infrastructure. We have successfully entered Italy in the first half with 3 stores opening, and we are preparing to reenter Portugal. We also have our European sporting goods fascia in Iberia, Greece and Cyprus. Those business provide us with scale, infrastructure and a different customer. In H1, they saw sales growth of plus 1.2% and 6 net new store openings, taking the total store number to almost 400. And finally, an update on our European supply chain project, a long project around Heerlen DC in the Netherlands continue to ramp up, and it will launch automation in the coming days. In fact, on Monday, we will start the automation. Initially, this will be for store replenishment with online to follow in the first half of next year. To give you an idea of the scale of the operation, the target is a throughput of 100 million units a year. Automation will unlock significant efficiency within Europe, including faster fulfillment, better stock availability and a reduction in the fulfillment cost per unit. It will eliminate our current dual running cost in Europe and the unnecessary cost and duty of shipping to Europe from the U.K. To minimize the risk of disruption during our upcoming peak trading period, we will maintain our dual running with our site in Belgium until beginning of next year. And then as Dominic said earlier, we are on track to deliver over GBP 20 million of cost benefits relating to the supply chain double running costs across financial year '27 and '28. Before we turn to look at the U.K., I want to give you a behind the scene tour of the build of what is our biggest JD store in the world in Manchester's iconic Trafford Centre. We believe it is also on track to become one of the world's largest sports fashion store by sales with a triple figure turnover in U.S. dollar. This destination store opened in June and set a new benchmark in innovation and merchandising for JD worldwide. It will bring to life the JD Theater, as mentioned earlier, and this small video gives you just a taste. Enjoy it. [Presentation] Regis Schultz: It is a 4,000 square meter store. It means that we could play with a lot of new brands, new products. Trafford Centre has 19 customer engagement areas. This includes customization, sneaker refurbishment, social media recording studio, even a barber, not for me. And I'm looking forward to host you and to see you in JD Theater of Dream in Manchester. As you know, U.K. is our most established market. As a result, our primary focus is on enhanced productivity, larger through fewer, bigger, better store, optimizing the store footprint in the best location and reinvesting in the best location and in our current estate to make sure that our store continues to be the best in town. In line with our strategy in H1, we saw a net reduction in U.K. store numbers of 13, but an overall increase in selling space. Productivity is also about driving operational efficiency and cost savings. So to highlight just a few for you. With our DC, we are now seeing the benefit of closing Derby last year and reviewing our transport costs, bringing in further savings and driving more efficiency in Kingsway. Then we have some of our tech infrastructure key projects starting to land. Our new HR system, Dayforce, has launched in the U.K., which will start to bring scheduling benefit in store as well as overhead saving in our head office. We are also using technology to support both colleagues and customers. We are, as we speak, implementing RFID in all our stores to facilitate click and collect, ship from store transaction, and making replenishment much more efficient for our people, saving critical minutes in store tax. This is alongside the self-service checkout and mobile point-of-sales terminals that we are starting to roll out. And I will add one that Dominic is particularly proud of, reducing our audit fees, having enhanced our process and system in finance. As a final update, we see loyalty as a key driver of our sales. Our now established global loyalty program, JD STATUS is progressing well. And in the U.K. alone, it's capturing more than 25% of our turnover. STATUS serves as a foundation for developing a more targeted and personalized relationship with our customers. In H1, we ran test of personalized offer during campaign period, which resulted in significant incremental sales. This gives us a strong indication regarding the scope and the potential for future development. As a conclusion, in a tough trading environment, we are staying focused on our strategic priorities, our operating and financial discipline. This is demonstrated by our market share gain in H1 and our operating cash flow up. We are cautious about the trading environment in the second half of the year. We expect full year profit before tax and adjusted items to be in line with current market expectation. We are focused on delivering a strong free cash flow, and we have confidence in the medium-term growth prospect of our industry. We are reaffirming our commitment to enhance shareholder return, and we will soon start our second GBP 100 million share buyback program. Before I hand over for our Q&A session, I'd like to thank all my colleagues for their hard work and dedication. Their commitment and their agility are moving us forever forward. Thank you. Mike, over to you. Unknown Executive: All right. Thank you very much, Régis. We're going to start the Q&A now. I'll wait for my colleagues with the microphones. So Lorraine, could you start with Grace, please? Grace Smalley: It's Grace Smalley from Morgan Stanley. My first question would just be on apparel. You mentioned there the improved product assortment after a period of weakness. I'd just be interested to hear more details on what exactly has changed in the apparel assortment? What's making you more optimistic on that category? And Régis, I think in the past, you've spoken about a more competitive environment in apparel, just how you see that competitive landscape today? And then my second question would be on the footwear side. I love the new slide with the different categories. If you could just talk about, based on your consumer insights, what you're seeing from the brand's product pipeline into next year? How you see those trends evolving? Do you expect running to continue to take market share? What you're seeing in basketball, terrace and skate as well would be very interesting. Andrew Higginson: I think the best to answer is Michael Armstrong. Michael Armstrong: Yes. I think, apparel -- I mean, if you remember right, 12 months ago, we were sitting telling you the apparel market was really challenging. And I think what we find is because there was a bit of a shift in the market a couple of years ago and particularly with the bigger brands, we work on generally about an 18-month time line. So there's a lag between when the market shifts for us to be able to capitalize on that shift to get at the market, the shift in the market with the bigger brands. We've just seen the brands catch up with the consumer. That's really all it is. We had a really strong -- we still have a really strong business in the performance categories, as you can see on the slides. And we've had some new entrants come in, in that space, which have worked extremely well for us like Trailberg, Able, Montirex still continues to be amazing. We've got a really good business with Under Armour. And on the fashion, more lifestyle side of things, that's where we're seeing the real upside. Adidas is looking really good on apparel. We introduced a new own brand called Unlike Humans. So there's just a lot going on. It's just quite an exciting place right now. And on footwear, as Régis mentioned, we're still just managing out of this period where we had 3 really big items dominating the footwear business to a marketplace where consumers want to try and test new products. There's a lot of new -- not new brands, but brands that are reestablishing themselves in the marketplace. Again, because of the supply chain time lines, we're not necessarily fully able to get at everything that we would want to get at today, because there's a 12-, 18-month lag on everything. Over time, we'll start to catch up on that stuff. But what we're seeing right now is still the market is very fluid. You can see the backdrop is generally pretty challenging, the appetite isn't necessarily the same as it was during the COVID years. So getting those newer models and brands up to speed as quickly as the big franchises that they claim is still a challenge for us. I think the other thing worth mentioning is, obviously, we went through a bit of a honeymoon period with women's footwear. She was consuming a lot of product, and that softened. So that has had a bit of an impact on us as well. Unknown Executive: Okay. Let's move to Jonathan at Peel Hunt. Jonathan Pritchard: Jonathan Pritchard at Peel Hunt. Just on the brand awareness point, obviously, you've outlined to a degree what you're doing. But what really has changed, because those numbers are pretty impressive that you've gone from, I think, 34% to 59%. What has been the golden bullet as it were for that? Michael Armstrong: Again, I think we just mentioned store openings. We've got a good footprint in all the best malls, now in the majority of the best malls. We've opened a few new flagship stores, Las Vegas as an example. But I think a lot of the great work the team have been doing over the last 2 years has started -- we started to benefit from that, particularly in the communities. The brand awareness, aided brand awareness in the key markets for us, New York, Texas, Miami is significantly higher than that. And a lot of that is around the work we do in the communities, it's local sponsorships, activations, partnerships. We're just starting to benefit from that now. Jonathan Pritchard: Again, just to follow on from Grace's question, and it does follow on a little bit from what you've just said. But apparel, the mindset of the U.S. consumer for you and apparel, obviously, it's pretty much half and half of sales in the U.K., getting there in Europe, but quite a bit behind that in the States. Do people still -- have people started to genuinely think of JD as an apparel retailer? Or is it still a work in progress? Michael Armstrong: The category in the U.S. is still very much dominated by footwear, but we are building momentum. The apparel business has been the growth driver for us this year in the U.S. with the backdrop of the challenges that we have in footwear being the same in Europe as they are in the U.S. So we think we are starting to make really good progress. Regis Schultz: I think in U.S., it's linked to the market leader, which is only footwear. So I think that the more people know JD, the more they understand the fact that we are not a footwear and we are full lifestyle. So the awareness is helping the apparel business, too. So the two work together. Unknown Executive: We go to Richard Chamberlain from RBC. Richard Chamberlain: Richard Chamberlain, RBC. Three for me, please. I wondered if you can say how Europe online performed in the period. I appreciate you've obviously got the automation benefit still to come through. And then again, on Europe, Régis, what are the plans for the Courir store estate going forward? How do you see that shaping? And then third, I was intrigued by your comment in the U.S. about sort of neutral reaction from consumers to price increases or tariff-induced price increases there. Do you think we're going through a sort of temporary window where consumers just haven't reacted yet, so those price increases, or is there something else behind that, like an improving product pipeline or something that's actually still stimulating demand and having to offset those price increases? Regis Schultz: So European online is doing well, I think, but we are starting from a low base. So I think that we are -- we have implemented in the last 18 months much more ship from store and that's created a big difference, because in the past we were shipping a lot of things from U.K. So we were not competitive in terms of time to get to the consumer. So we've seen a growth in terms of our online business in Europe thanks to a better service. And the thing that is coming with Heerlen now coming to first half will become to fulfill online order. We'll continue to do that. So we are just playing catch-up. But we're starting from a low base, but growing. In terms of store estate for Courir, I think what we see is that Courir will continue to develop out of France. So France, we maxed out in terms of number of stores. So we covered all, except the one that we had to divest because of the antitrust. So now we are re-coming to the same part, which it's stupid things around that, but that's life, that's the way it works. And we will expand in Italy and Portugal. So Portugal, it's to be back in Portugal; and Italy, it's a growth country for us. For JD, it's a key country. And I think that we see the benefit of expanding our offer a little bit to offer the same as we offer in France, in Spain, in Portugal, with Courir and JD. So that's the plan. In terms of the price impact, so as you know, what has happened in the U.S., it's a targeted price increase. When the product is good, price is not the issue. So I think what is still to be seen is what will impact when, because at the end, everything will translate into price. For the moment, it has been targeted on products that everyone feels that it will support a price increase. What will happen when a lot of other price will start to come to the system? That's another question, because for the moment -- and it's more not an industry question, it's more an economic question. I think that a lot of U.S. companies have really swallowed the tariff at one point of time, this will come to the consumer, what will impact at that time. But what we know, and that's the last 3 years' experience, that the U.S. consumer is the most resilient in the world. They just keep buying. So hopefully, it will continue. Unknown Executive: Let's go to Ashton Olds. Ashton Olds: A couple of questions from me. I guess the first one, just on the European margin. I think you mentioned that you get around a 20 million benefit from Heerlen. I guess what's the road map towards high single-digit margins beyond that? Is it cost out? Or is it sales led? The second question I have is just on sort of the online approach. You mentioned that gross margin at the group level was down 40 basis points from investment in price. Online sales were down slightly. I appreciate the market is not really helping. But just could you elaborate on your approach to online and whether there's more that you can do there? And then I think Dominic, you mentioned with regards to tariffs that you helped by purchasing ahead of tariffs. I'm not sure if I got that right. But I suppose as we look into FY '27, when you are purchasing at more normal rates, what should we think of the moving parts there? Is it gross margin down? Or is it more pricing to come? Regis Schultz: So I think Dominic will take the first and the third, and I will take the online at the end. Dominic Platt: Okay. So I mean in terms of European margin, it's a multifaceted story. We obviously saw the half 1 margin there. Overall, it's around 4%, 5% operating margin. There are a number of things we're doing, which give us confidence. We can see that improving over time. I think the first is sales led. As we grow scale in the market, we're taking market share, we'll start to see more sales on a fixed cost base, so that flows through in part. Second is efficiency, and that comes in things like supply chain. So at the moment, we are bearing significant costs by having 3 warehouses in Europe for JD, plus shipping stuff from the U.K. as we bring Heerlen online over the next -- before peak for stores next year for online delivery. We start then to step away from the double running costs and distribution in the U.K. will always remain a little bit, but in the grand scheme of things, not very much. That will play through to a better cost base and a more efficient cost base, but also better service to customers. As Régis said, at the moment, in some cases, if you buy something in Lisbon, you may have to wait 6 days for it to get to you from Rochdale, which isn't a great service. As we do more of that through Heerlen, that will improve the customer piece. And then the final piece is picking up on what Régis said around being more targeted in the markets where we invest in. As we learn more about where our concept resonates better with customers, we can tailor our investment to make sure we're getting the best returns on our investment and taking action to improve performance where it's slightly weaker. So a combination of those things over a period of time should see us having the European margin moving closer to that sort of higher single digit that we see in some of our other markets. Should I do tariffs as well? Regis Schultz: Yes. Dominic Platt: So just on the tariff point, there's always a lead time when you buy goods. So when you're buying for Q3, a lot of that was bought well before even the tariffs were announced. So that means we do get the benefit of that. And I think it's the same in many industries, you get the benefit of that in this financial year for us. Looking through to FY '27, I think it's too early to tell. And I think as we go through and look at what our buys are going to be, look at what our terms and conditions with our brand partners are going to be, we'll have a better feel. So we'll provide an update on that in the new year. Regis Schultz: Concerning online, I think that it's mainly -- so as I said before, I think online in U.S. and Europe is doing well. I think in U.K., it has been more challenging. And I think that especially in terms of traffic and conversion, and that's where we have been investing more in price in order to make sure that we are competitive in a very promotional market. So that's the thing. And as it is weighted -- the U.K. weight is much higher, that has an impact on the online margin. Unknown Executive: Okay. Let's move to the side, please. Dom, let's go to Will in the middle, and then Kate Calvert in front. William Woods: William Woods from Bernstein. Two questions. The first one is just on the ongoing shift in the footwear product cycle. You mentioned women's footwear softening. Do you think there's anything more fundamental going on in that cycle? Or do you think it's just the classic brand and style cycle happening? And I suppose when you look at the apparel business, do you think that cycle still applies there. So we'll go through the same with sports fashion and performance, that you've grown quite well, in the next couple of years? And then the second one is, obviously, you've done a lot of work on U.K. productivity through few bigger stores, customization and loyalty, et cetera. Are you applying any of those learnings to the U.S. and Europe? And I suppose I'm particularly thinking about the new stores that you're opening. Are you changing what you're doing because of what you've learned from the U.K. at this stage? Regis Schultz: Mike, I would... Michael Armstrong: Yes. I mean I think with reference to women's, I mean, women generally compared to men have a lot more choice, and they like to change the mind more. And as I said, they're consuming a lot of sports shoes and she's finding other things to buy right now. That's just the nature of women's fashion, right? We'll have another up-cycle sometime soon, but we don't know when. We'll just take it when it comes. I think when it comes to apparel cycle, all I can say is we've got a very adaptable business model. We've got a wide range of brands that we can access. We have the ability to build what we need to build from a product point of view with pretty much every brand. We have complete flexibility in that respect, which again, none of our competitors have that. So we're very agile. And we have our own brand portfolio and licensed brand portfolio as well that chip in and help us deliver good things like speed to market and sort of a pricing architecture as well. Regis Schultz: And second question around the learning from U.K. Michael Armstrong: Yes, the stores -- I mean, I think specifically to the U.K., how consumers are shopping is clearly changing. And I think especially when you look at JD as a business, and we have seen some fairly significant price increases in our world over the last 3 or 4 years. So I think the expectations of the consumer now have changed slightly when they are buying a pair of shoes, which is GBP 150, they want a great experience. And we're also seeing, in particular, the traffic declines primarily are coming from high street locations, and we are seeing a big shift. We're not seeing the same declines, we're not necessarily seeing a big shift into the retail parks and the mega malls, and it's really the retail parks that have grown the most within our store estate over the last 2 or 3 years, which has grown the space significantly. The learning from Trafford Centre for us is that it's the same point, consumers just want a great experience. And what we have found is the impact of creating that fabulous store has been far greater than what we expected, outwards of like 30-mile catchment area. So there's a lot of learnings in that for the future in terms of how we look at the store estate generally. William Woods: I suppose, does that change the U.S. and European strategy? Or do you think you're just experiencing slightly different trends in the market? Michael Armstrong: It doesn't change, it influences and helps us maybe make some different decisions in the future. Kate Calvert: Kate Calvert from Investec. A couple from me. First one, sorry to return to inflation and tariffs, but what sort of level of inflation are the brands putting through at the moment in the U.S.? And do you think it's enough to have offset the sort of the initial 10% increase? So we're kind of yet to see the August increases. And what sort of inflation is going through in Europe and the U.K. at the moment? And in terms of my second question is just on gross margin. Gross margin ex acquisitions was down 40 bps. I suppose the question is really on direction in terms of the trend of the gross margin because obviously, apparel has been much stronger, and you have gone through quite a few years of good full price sales. So do you think we're kind of back to a more normalized gross margin post-COVID? Regis Schultz: I will do the first one and you do the second one. So I think on inflation, I think that, as we said before, roughly what happened with tariff is 1/3 has been swallowed by the manufacturer, 1/3 has been through the supply chain and the manufacturer, and 1/3 to the consumer. That's roughly what has happened. So the part which has been -- and in total, the tariff impact for our industry is on average a sort of 10% if you put everything to the consumer. So what has been passed to the consumer is around 2% to 3% if you take that on total. So that's type of magnitude. But that has been done on some products, not all, and with a very targeted view and has no impact in terms of volume. The question will be, the 70%, which has not been passed to the consumer, at one point of time will be in the system, when you go to new products and those. But that is what will impact at that moment. And I think we are more -- we are not so nervous about our industry. I'm more nervous about the global impact in terms of what happens to the U.S. consumer when they discover that everything goes up in terms of price, because that will happen over time. It's not happening now, but it's going to happen. That's a key question that we don't have the answer. But for our industry, I think the way it has been managed, I think it has been well managed, and I think that we've seen no impact for the time being. Dominic Platt: So on the margin point, Kate, I think in the first half, the 40 basis points really reflects more tactical moves than something structural. And if you look at where it happened, it's sort of online in Europe, where we just need to be more -- chose to be more competitive in a more promotional market. And in the U.S., something we talked about at the year-end, I think, around Finish Line, which is as it winds down, is less differentiated. So price plays more of a role than would be the case in JD and some of our other fascias. I think you hinted that, but maybe didn't mean that with more apparel, is that lower margin. Actually, apparel and footwear, similar margins for us. And apparel is supported by having a higher proportion of own label. And as Mike said earlier on, they play a really crucial role in the overall offering we bring to customers, unlike humans and others. So that itself isn't the driver. Actually, the main driver is really the product cycle. In a cycle where people want the product, we're a full price retailer, we get the margins and we get the price. Where it's slightly softer, you just have to be -- you have to respond to that a little bit at the margins, and that's what we're seeing. So I don't think there's a structural shift. I think it is just reflecting where we are at this point in time on some of our products. Kate Calvert: Can I just come back on the gross margin question just in terms of the full price sales. So I mean as you came out of COVID, because there's a lot of stock shortage, you had very high full price sales. I know you're being tactical at the moment, but do you think the underlying has got back to a more normalized level just generally in the industry and everything? Michael Armstrong: Yes. I think -- I mean, the position that we're in just now, there is a shift slightly back towards apparel in the mix, which will be beneficial. We don't know how long that's going to -- that run is going to maintain itself, obviously. But I'll just reiterate what Dominic said, it really does just come down to the product cycle and the appetite for that product at full price. What we're seeing right now is the good stuff is really good. The stuff in the middle is slightly more challenging to sell at full price. We would like to assume that if the market can course correct and, along with our brand partners, we can drive that demand into new franchises, that will see a higher level of full price sell-through. There's no question. It does come down to the brands and the ability to create energy in the marketplace as much as anything. Regis Schultz: And to be precise, on your question, which is around COVID, I think it's already done. So it's no more the COVID where we were at one point. So I think it has been going down slightly, but surely. So I think we are in a stable, yes. Unknown Executive: Let's move to Warwick behind you. Alexander Richard Okines: I'm Warwick Okines, BNP Paribas. One question for Dominic actually. Could you talk a bit more about the H2 profit expectations? First half PBT down about GBP 50 million, second half implied about plus GBP 10 million. What drives this swing? You talked about a few items like mark-to-market finance charges and Hibbett synergies. But maybe you could just flesh out that swing, please. Dominic Platt: Good question, Warwick. So look, I mean, if you look at the first half and the profit bridge helps there and some of the things that you saw, the headwinds there. We'll still get a benefit from acquisitions, slightly less in the second half. Obviously, we've got Courir coming in for a few months. Interest was a drag in the first half. Actually, as we anniversary the acquisitions, that could become a slight positive in the second half. So half-on-half, quite a big swing. Mark-to-market, we expect some of that to unwind in the second half. So again, half-on-half, quite a big swing. And then new space with Trafford and others coming online, we've had a lot of sort of preopening costs related to that in the first half. We should see that stepping up a bit into the second half. And I think the phasing of our OpEx synergies is weighted towards the second half rather than the first half. Although as you saw on the slide, I think we've done a very good job in the first half in terms of neutralizing some of those headwinds. So taking all of those things together, actually, you see a step forward in those points, in some cases, mechanical, offsetting -- more than offsetting the ongoing pressure from like-for-like and margin through the second half. Unknown Executive: Just before we go to Anne next to you, Warwick, a quick question on the lines from Richard Taylor at Barclays. A question for Dominic is that can you explain why the Genesis option has been revalued upwards by GBP 160 million? Dominic Platt: Yes, I can. At the full year, we explained that as a result of the change in the payment dates, we've moved it out from '25, '26, starting in '25 to '30, '31, that would result in about a GBP 250 million increase that was in the annual report. The actual increase at the first half is GBP 163 million. So we've got the GBP 250 million uplift, but then there's a currency impact on the overall option, bringing that down to GBP 163 million for the first half. So broadly in line with what we explained. Regis Schultz: I think you have been clear. So just for everyone because it's -- we have the option to buy back the 20% that is owned by the Mersho family. And the initial agreement was to do that in 4 years, from this year to 2028. Dominic Platt: '29. Regis Schultz: '29. We just moved back to 2 years between 2030 and '31. That's correct. So that's what Dominic was referring to. And we did that in order to manage our cash flow and to manage the best way to do that. Dominic Platt: That's the context. Anne Critchlow: It's Anne Critchlow from Berenberg. A question on tech infrastructure. So I appreciate you're in a catch-up mode at the moment on infrastructure. But just wondering what the potential might be to invest in, say, systems for pricing and promotions or allocation of product by store, various AI systems we're hearing about from other retailers. And also whether there's any time line for an RFID rollout from the U.K. to the rest of the world, and any implications in CapEx for that? Regis Schultz: Yes. So I think on tech, we've done a lot. And I think that unfortunately, it is mostly OpEx than CapEx. So we have done -- the big one was our HR system in the U.K., which is done, which is Dayforce. We are looking at finance system and HR system in U.S., which is Workday. So that's as we speak. In terms of our merchandising tool, we are looking at the implementation of o9, which will include AI tools to do that. We are not so keen on pricing and all that stuff for the time being, because I think we -- we believe that with our buyer, we are doing the job and a fantastic job around that. And RFID is that the rollout is in U.K., but will go to the rest of the world just after. So it's just that we start everything in U.K. So we are pretty advanced. There will be the self-checkout, the same. Most of that is OpEx. So that's why our OpEx has been inflated by around GBP 20 million in the last 2 years around system and all that stuff. So it's not a big impact on CapEx, but a significant impact in terms of our OpEx. Unknown Executive: And please can you pass to Alison. Alison Lygo: Alison Lygo from Deutsche Numis. So just a couple of mine left. Can I ask on the working capital, please, just in terms of the stock build we saw in the first half. Could you talk a bit about where that's gone in terms of the stock? And I suppose what you're thinking about in terms of requirement for H2, particularly in terms of anything further required for investing or pivoting the range in the new acquisitions? And then the second one, just on City Gear and that change into DTLR. So interest as to how much you're kind of changing in that proposition. Are we talking here about -- like you're talking about some relatively large uplifts. Are you really changing the range? What are you doing in terms of store fit out? Yes, and I guess what the kind of potential CapEx behind that might look like? Regis Schultz: Yes, I will do the City Gear and you do the stock one. So City Gear, so what we are doing with City Gear. So we have done a test of 6 stores where we have done a full conversion with new merchandising, new refurbishment, in fact, and that sort of costs around GBP 200,000 per store. And that is with the full rebranding and merchandising. What we have done for all the estate is to put that under the management of the DTLR team. So that implies the fact that we are slowly but surely changing the range, but we do that in a very -- when the product gets out of stock, we bring new products. So that is what we're doing. And there is a limit around that, and that's why we will have a program beginning of next year to refurbish a significant part of the estate and doing what we have done with the 6 tech stores. But we didn't want to rush too quickly. We just wanted to make sure that we do the system, the management and all that stuff in order to put the basis before doing a conversion. We learned a lot from the Finish Line program. And what we are applying there is what has been very successfully applied by JD team when we move from Finish Line to JD. We do the same recipe and with the same potential, because you have a double turnover per square foot. So there is no reason. And the level of investment is lower because DTLR concept is much less sophisticated than the JD one. So if you want to model it, it's USD 250,000 to invest in a store and with an uplift, which for the moment is around 50%, 60%. Dominic Platt: On the stock point, yes, I mean, stock was up 14% in the first half. A large part of that was Courir, which we didn't have in the numbers last year. But we also were carrying more stock as we went into the first half. We've got quite a bit of distribution center changes coming. So we want to make sure we're well set up for those, and that does sometimes result in a sort of slightly elevated position. And just picking up on the City Gear piece, as we start to range those stores more with what DTLR and Shoe Palace use versus what they had, you end up with a slight sort of overlap. But that's manageable, and it's something we've done in the past. I think heading towards peak, there's no material shift in pivoting in terms of stock we're bringing in. We're actually coming to the biggest part of our year now. And as we go into that, we feel comfortable overall with the quality of the stock that we have. And the real position to look at our stock is at the year-end once we've been through peak. Unknown Executive: Okay. We've got time for 2 more. So we'll go with Wendy, first of all. M. Liu: Wendy Liu from JPMorgan. I have two, please. One is a follow-up on the footwear cycle. You mentioned about there's a couple of promising smaller franchises. I was wondering if you can expand on that. Are you talking about specific brands? Or are you talking about particular categories? Is it running? Is it more lifestyle? So this is question number one. Number two, I understand you don't comment on current trading, but I was wondering if you can share a few observations about what you're seeing in different markets in terms of customer behavior. You mentioned about early signs of unemployment in the U.K. and the U.S., if I hear that correctly. I was wondering if you can expand on that. And I guess, broadly, what are you seeing in the various markets from what you can see today? Regis Schultz: Yes, I will start for the current -- yes, as you say, we don't update on current trading. I think what we said around customer, we see the level of uncertainty is high and which is never good for consumption. And we know that the key KPI we are looking at is unemployment, because our young customer is the first one to be impacted by that. And for the time being, nothing has happened, but we see the signs are more negative than positive. That's what we are at. So for the time being, it has not been -- nothing has happened on this side, but we're really looking at that, and that will be a negative for us if that happened. So that's what we flagged. I think that at the same moment, and we are in an industry where it's about fashion, it's about new products. So if the new product is good, consumers find the money to buy it. So that's what I will say. I think on the footwear, I think that... Michael Armstrong: Yes. I think you mentioned a lot of the things that are happening in the market already. We're seeing the market shift back to where it was around 2019, 2020, running back to being the dominant category. The brands that play in that space are -- we know who they are. You've got a few of the smaller brands gaining about momentum just now, Saucony, Salomon, those guys. But really, it's On running, ASICS, New Balance, Adidas are doing some really good stuff in the performance categories. And we've seen some new product from Nike that's hit the ground running. Unknown Executive: Wendy, could you pass to David right behind you? David Hughes: David Hughes from Shore Capital. Just on the U.S. and obviously, the margin drop, you talked about a part of that being driven by the Finish Line conversions. Could you just touch on what part of the conversion is driving that margin drop, and how long you kind of expect that to carry on since you're still going through with quite a lot of conversions left to do? And also with the City Gear conversions, would we accept similar margin pressure in the U.S. as a result? Regis Schultz: No, what we are seeing is not the conversion that is driving the margin. Finish Line is our biggest online business in the U.S. so far. It's no more. It was still 3 months ago, now it's JD, but it has been -- so on this Finish Line online business, that's where -- because the brand doesn't have any more resonance with the consumer less store. This is where we have been more aggressive promotionally to drive sales. That's what we were referring. So it's not about the conversion. It's more that the brand City Gear website doesn't exist anymore. So we will not have this issue. But our biggest online business for a long time has been Finish Line in the U.S. And this is where we see being more challenging for us, because we have no more store presence, or the store presence is reducing. So the appetite for the consumer for the Finish Line brand is reducing. So in order to drive volume, we need to be more aggressive on promotions. That's what we're referring to. So it's not about -- but the good news is that JD now website in the U.S. is bigger than Finish Line, which is a great achievement of the team. Unknown Executive: Any final questions still from the from the floor. There's nothing on the lines either. So in that case, we will close the meeting there. So thanks very much for joining us, everyone. I appreciate your support. Thank you. Regis Schultz: Thank you. Dominic Platt: Thank you.
Leon Devaney: Good morning. Our presentation today covers Central Petroleum's annual results for 2025. I'm Leon Devaney, CEO and Managing Director of Central Petroleum, and I am joined by our CFO, Damian Galvin. Throughout today's presentation, you are welcome to submit questions online, which we will address at the end. Please ensure you read the legal disclaimer that applies to this presentation. Last week, we released our 2025 annual report. Consistent with our quarterly reports, the company has achieved several key milestones that highlight strong operational and financial progress. A major success was the conclusion of a competitive gas marketing effort that resulted in a significant multiyear gas sales agreement that derisks and strengthens the company's future cash flows. Operationally, 2 new production wells were drilled and brought online at Mereenie. These wells were completed ahead of schedule, under budget and delivered production rates well above initial expectations, demonstrating effective project execution and strong asset performance. On the financial front, the company restructured its debt with a revised amortization schedule extending to 2030, eliminating refinancing risk and increasing our financial flexibility. As a result of these achievements, the company has the capacity to undertake a share buyback program, marking its first shareholder return event since listing nearly 20 years ago. I'll now hand over to Damian to go through our annual results in more detail. Damian Galvin: Thanks, Leon. FY 2025 has certainly proven to be a pivotal year for the company, and the results won't come as a surprise for those who have been following our quarterly results. Our bottom line statutory profit of $7.7 million is, I think, in many ways, more satisfying than the $12.4 million profit we posted last year, that's because last year's profit included $13.8 million profit from selling our interest in the Range [indiscernible] gas permit in Queensland. So when you strip out those one-off profits, you get a much better feel for how the business has turned around. So the underlying profit is $6.5 million this year compared with an underlying loss of $1.4 million the year before. So that's a significant turnaround. And more than 2/3 of that profit was recorded in the second half of this year as our new -- as those new gas sale contracts came into effect. Now the improvement in performance, it's evident across most of the metrics. You start with the revenues, $43.6 million. That's up 17% from last year, largely due to the increase in realized price, which was up 19% to $9.02 per gigajoule equivalent over the full year. And that flows through to the increased sales margins and the underlying EBITDAX, which was up 43% at $19.6 million. So some other items in there. The result also benefits from lower corporate and admin costs and reduced exploration activity this year. Higher interest rates have kept finance costs relatively steady, and we recognized a profit of $1.3 million on the sale of some surplus land near Alice Springs. So an excellent result for [indiscernible] have a closer look at some of the main drivers. The catalyst for the transformation lies with the new gas contracting strategy that we implemented early last year. And the impact from that on revenues was twofold. So firstly, the new contracts resulted in more reliable volumes. In the first half of the year, we had the benefit of those available contracts wholly within the Northern Territory, and they were mitigating the impact from the extended closure of the Northern Gas Pipeline. In the second half of the year, we had new contracts that also provided reliable offtake within the Northern Territory when we couldn't deliver gas to our customers due to pipeline closures. Secondly, those new contracts, which replaced the legacy contracts from 1 January this year, they're at higher prices. And the chart on the right shows the 27% jump in the second half average prices. And that flows through to the bottom line and cash flows. And I'll come back to margins shortly. Now the 17% increase in revenues was also boosted by record demand for gas from the Dingo field and the 2 new Mereenie wells, which were online from quarter 3, providing much needed additional volume. In terms of other revenue, we also recognized $1.3 million from the release of take-or-pay proceeds, and we're able to pass through some of the increased Northern Territory regulatory costs to some customers and we recovered $600,000. Coming back to volumes. The 2 new Mereenie wells were successfully drilled and commissioned. They're ahead of schedule, are under budget, and they've outperformed the pre-drill expectations. So it was a great result, and we're very happy with the outcome from those wells. Oil production at Mereenie was also higher. It was up 14%, and that was largely as a result of the flare gas compressor that we commissioned and installed late in the previous financial year. However, the oil offtake was partially constrained in the fourth quarter and that did have a knock-on effect on gas production, and we've implemented some solutions recently so that volume shouldn't be affected going forward. We do continue to see some seasonal demand fluctuations, particularly when the NGP is closed. And you can see on the chart, the lower volumes experienced in late winter, early spring, both last year, which is on the far left of the chart and also in the current quarter, which is on the far right. The difference this year is that we've protected our cash flows through take-or-pay arrangements in our recent gas supply agreements. So while we're expecting the September quarter gas volumes to be about 8% lower than the June quarter, cash flows will be less affected. The higher prices have flowed through to margins. So if you exclude depreciation, our gross margins increased by 26%. They're up from $3.65 per gigajoule equivalent last year up to $4.60 this year. Our cost of sales, they rose about 6% on a per unit basis. And some of that's due to the higher cost of our return to overlift gas, and the cost is linked to the sales price, so it's naturally higher. The improved margin that we saw was really just from 6 months of improved contract pricing. So we could expect a further improvement for the full year to June next year. And that's also going to benefit further once the overlifted gas is all returned in May next year. Our focus on cost control continues, though, and we do pride ourselves on being a low-cost operator. For example, the chart on the bottom left shows the progress that we've made in reducing our net corporate and administration costs. They are down 39% from last year and 60% lower over the last 2 years. The improved financial performance and cash flows has us in a much stronger financial position than previously. Cash at June 30 was $27.5 million and net cash, that is cash less debt was $3.9 million. That's our highest in over a decade. Our loan facility is in good shape. It's locked in until 2030. We don't have any mandatory principal repayments until March 2027, but we do have the ability to make earlier repayments if we choose to do so. So this stronger balance sheet has enabled us to commence our first program of shareholder returns through an on-market share buyback. We could buy back up to 10% of issued capital over the next 12 months, and this would cost a relatively modest $4 million at current prices or $2 million if we only bought back 5%. Now we've appointed Morgans to manage this process for us, although it should be noted that the total number of shares ultimately bought back over the 12-month period may be significantly less than the 10% cap. And our trading activity will be dependent on considering various factors, including, for example, the prevailing share price, market liquidity, regulatory requirements and trading constraints under the ASX listing rules, maturity of potential commercial transactions that could be material to the share price and other capital allocation opportunities, including growth opportunities and debt repayment. So although we haven't yet been able to start buying on market, consistent with that buyback strategy to reduce issued capital at the current market prices. We've cash settled some of the vested equity incentives, which would otherwise have converted to shares this month, and that's about 8 million shares that we've effectively taken off the market already. Now another achievement that might have gone unnoticed in the annual report was the reserves upgrade, and that arose from the outperformance of those 2 new Mereenie wells and also the continuing ongoing consistent performance of the Dingo field. So the upgrade of proved and probable as 2P gas and oil reserves means we effectively replaced 96% of our FY 2025 production. And so that's an indication of the ongoing reliability and producibility of these Amadeus Basin fields. Look, in summary, it's a satisfying result across the board. It's got us in a strong financial position. So with that, let's let FY 2025 fade away into the rearview mirror, and I'll hand you back to Leon. Leon Devaney: Thanks, Damian. While we were pleased with last year's performance, our focus remains on maintaining momentum and enhancing shareholder value, including improving the share price. With a cash balance exceeding $25 million and a strong portfolio of firm gas contracts, we are well positioned to pursue both growth and shareholder returns. In addition to the share buyback program, we are evaluating more substantial forms of shareholder returns such as sustainable dividends as part of a broader capital allocation strategy that balances near-term value with long-term growth. Our existing producing assets continue to be a vital avenue for increasing shareholder value with opportunities to rapidly boost production through the drilling of new wells. We have made significant progress in planning and securing approvals for future drilling programs at Palm Valley and Mereenie. These investments are obviously dependent on obtaining long-term gas contracts at acceptable margins, so we will persist in actively marketing these volumes to potential customers. Additionally, we are advancing efforts to restart exploration in our sub-salt permits with the initial activity likely to be an appraisal well at Mount Kitty, a discovery with high helium and hydrogen potential. Concurrently, we are progressing farm-out discussions for conventional exploration in the Western Amadeus Basin, focusing on EP115, which is on trend with our existing producing fields at Mereenie and Palm Valley. Beyond our current portfolio, we remain open to lower-risk, high-impact growth opportunities that align with our core strengths and support reserve expansion and revenue diversification. In conclusion, we are confident in our ability to sustain the momentum generated over the past year well into the future. We have significant opportunities for capital allocation, including further returns to shareholders. And as mentioned earlier, we are diligently working to deliver some of these growth opportunities over the coming months. I want to assure our shareholders that as we pursue growth, we will remain disciplined, ensuring that any transaction adds value and effectively leverages the strong financial foundations we have built. That's the end of the formal presentation, so we can now move on to questions and answers. Damian Galvin: Thanks, Leon. So we do have a few questions here this morning. So happy just jump straight into them. I guess the one we often come across probably a statement more than a question, shares which pay dividends are viewed favorably by investors, obviously. And I think as Leon mentioned in his list of capital allocations, it's one of the -- one of the option that's been very seriously considered at this time, but it is being considered in conjunction with those other alternative uses for capital. So certainly, we're keen to get to a dividend as soon as we can, and it's certainly under consideration. Leon Devaney: Yes. Just to add to that, I think Slides 9 and 10 list some of those capital allocation options that we are working through. We'd like to see how those play through over the next couple of months. But certainly, with the cash balance and the cash flows we have, dividends are on the radar and something we understand would be obviously well received by shareholders and certainly could have an opportunity to rerate the stock. So something we're very carefully considering at this point. Damian Galvin: Okay. Question about our helium prospects, [indiscernible]. When will exploration resume? Leon Devaney: Great question. We are very focused on getting that kicked off. Obviously, it's been stalled for a long time. There is some complexity with the joint venture and our operator in terms of getting that program going. We think we have a strategy and a plan in place to kick start that and get it going again in the near term. If we're successful in that, the target timing would be a Mount Kitty well by mid-2027. That's what we'd be shooting for. Again, there's quite a bit of work we need to do to put that in place and make that happen. But that is a focus, and we have been working very hard in the background to get that going and get a well drilled there. We think it's an exciting prospect, a significant upside for the company. So we're quite keen to get going on that permit and Mount Kitty in particular. Damian Galvin: Okay. Could you clarify what the expected boost in cash flow might be once gas overlift is all returned? So gas overlift, that should all be returned by May next year. So we're getting close now. I think we're returning at about 2 terajoules a day. So if you calculate her out and $9 or $10 gas price, I think we're up around in excess of $6 million a year in extra revenue. So we're certainly looking forward to that boost coming in June next year. In terms of other questions, what else we've got? Can you please give us some indication on timing of drilling new Palm Valley wells? Leon Devaney: We're -- as I mentioned, we're obviously progressing planning and approval. So we're doing a lot of the long lead stuff in terms of getting prepped and ready for a drill-ready positioning for that field. We see a lot of value in being able to quickly bring new production from Palm Valley into the market as a 50% interest holder in Palm Valley and with the production we've seen in the prior wells that we've drilled there, it is a very compelling case for us to invest and increase production and sell that gas. So one of the top priorities we do have is getting that drilling approved, prepared, and fit for it. Now the critical piece of that puzzle, obviously, is ensuring that we do have a market for it. The market, as I've mentioned consistently over the past couple of years has been in a state of change. That change is still continuing, both with production from the Blacktip field, but also appraisal activity at the Beetaloo. Notwithstanding that, we are in active discussions with potential customers, and we are trying very hard to put in place a gas supply agreement for the additional volumes from Palm Valley at acceptable margins that we think are in the best interest of shareholders. And once we're in a position to have that contract in place and underwrite those volumes, we'll be looking to drill those wells very quickly. That's certainly our intent at Central. Obviously, it needs shareholder or joint venture approval with our joint venture partners at Palm Valley. Damian Galvin: Okay. There was a question here. What is the situation with joint ventures? I'm not sure whether [indiscernible] production joint ventures or exploration ones. But is there any sort of clarity around -- I think we're all similarly minded at the moment. Leon Devaney: Yes. I think we've got great alignment with the joint ventures that we are working with on -- across our fields. They're like-minded with us. They're looking to extract value from the operating assets or looking for ways to grow and increase production and sell that into a market that we see as desperately needing firm gas supply. So we've got great alignment. They're contributing significantly to our efforts in the fields. So we couldn't be happier. We're quite pleased with the joint venture arrangements we do have. Obviously, in the sub-salt space, the joint venture has been more challenging in terms of progressing appraisal activity. That's something that we've been working very hard on. We do have a good working relationship with Santos, who is operator, and we think we're making progress on that front, as I've mentioned earlier. So hopefully, we'll have some good news coming in relation to that joint venture over the coming months as well. Damian Galvin: Okay. Could you elaborate on why Dingo production performed so strongly? Is there a possibility that further wells and contracting gas could be on the cards? Leon Devaney: Yes, it's really a market issue for Dingo. It's selling directly into a power station. That power station obviously has a gas requirement that is subject to the energy demands in the Alice Springs area. That demand has increased and their requirements for gas has increased. There are alternative supplies they do have. And so depending on how they adjust their portfolio, that will drive the demand that they require from the Dingo field. Having said that, we do have a very strong take-or-pay position at Dingo and you would see take-or-pay payments being made at the beginning of each calendar year that reflect any volumes that they haven't taken under contracts. So from our perspective, the cash flows from Dingo are very steady and reliable. And we're looking forward to continuing to meet the contract. And if there are opportunities to grow that field or expand that field and add more volume into that Alice Springs market, we're certainly open to it. And there have been conversations in that front with the NT government and PWC, and we'll certainly be exploring that going forward to see if there's opportunities out that are a win-win for both parties. Damian Galvin: Okay. Can you run us through longer-term contracts market that is 2028 onwards? Any changes there? Leon Devaney: No, as I've mentioned quite a few times in previous webinars, the longer-term gas market is probably where there's considerable uncertainty, particularly, as I mentioned, with respect to longer-term production from Blacktip, which has historically been a baseload gas supplier for the NT. That's a decline or appears to be in decline. And we've also got the Beetaloo, which is undertaking appraisal. We don't know what the results of those appraisal tests really are at this point. I think a lot more information is going to be coming out over the next 6 months. It is an uncertain market when you start moving out to 2028. Our focus has been ensuring that certainly in 2026, 2027, we've got ourselves in a very strong contracted position. We do have contracts extending out through to 2030, which does help. But we do have additional volumes that we are trying to contract from 2028 and beyond. Those are the Arafura contract volumes that we backed out of earlier this year. There is interest. It is a bit early. It's a couple of years away. So it is a bit early in terms of contracting those volumes with counterparties. We are also talking to projects in the NT that might require that gas or certainly are interested in that gas, including Arafura as a potential customer going forward. So it is a very active part of our marketing effort and strategy, but it is something that will obviously take time. We'll lock those in when we think the time is appropriate. And we think contracting gas at that point in time is in the best interest of shareholders. Damian Galvin: Okay. Thanks, Leon. Probably also, there was a question here around how the Beetaloo Basin was looking and progressing. So I think you probably covered that off. Leon Devaney: Yes, I didn't spend a lot of time on this particular webinar going into the market. There's not a lot to update. We did a webinar last month, I think it was. There hasn't been a whole lot of information in terms of flow rates coming out of either of the appraisal programs happening at the Beetaloo. And the Blacktip production, similar to what we experienced last month in terms of turndown from nominations due to reduced demand in the NT. It's very hard to understand Blacktip's production at a field level, given some of that could be a result of a turndown as well. So really, at this point, there's not a lot of additional information to be able to get more visibility. I think we'll need to continue to watch this space. And as I said, over the next 6 months, I think or so, getting some more information, and we'll see how it all plays out. . Damian Galvin: Okay. Question here around hydrogen. Are the JVs looking at directing any hydrogen finds into ammonia production? Leon Devaney: Well, obviously, we've got to find hydrogen and be able to demonstrate we can produce it at commercial rates. And I think that is the focus. That's certainly the focus of our sub-salt exploration activity, hydrogen and helium. Obviously, we have hydrocarbons, and we're very familiar with being able to commercialize that. We think that's going to form an important part of the business case for those prospects. But our first step is to get these appraisal wells in, particularly Mount Kitty, demonstrate we can have a commercial flow rate. And once we understand what that looks like and understand with more granularity the gas composition, we can then start to formulate a business strategy around how we commercialize and develop prospects. So it's certainly an area that we see as a potential revenue stream for the company going forward. But we have a period of time before we're actually in a position to say how or with any certainty what that will look like or how it will be developed. Damian Galvin: So I think there was a couple there just around share price and where we're at. I think one of them was why is Context Morningstar valuing the company at $0.06? I guess the short answer to that is I probably just run some AI bot on it that's taken the current share price. I would point you towards the analysis on our website from MST Access. They've got a full research paper there. I think they land at $0.20, which brings us to another question. I can't understand why the CTP share price has not progressed well north of $0.20 per share in the last 5 years or so. I realize all CSG producers are in a similar position, but I would have thought with your gas sale contracts and producing field it would be a little different. Leon Devaney: Yes. I'd go back to really what has been the theme, I think, of this presentation. We've had a great 2025. Our plan and our focus is to -- certainly one of the key objectives that we're quite focused on is to get the share price up. The ways we're going to do it, we've talked about in this presentation, that's to continue the momentum we've had in 2025, continue to deliver safe, strong performance at our operating fields, generate the kind of financial outcomes that we've seen in 2025 and hopefully improve on those, continue to strengthen our balance sheet, and obviously, with the GBA coming off in a few months, that will provide a fairly significant kick start to that as well. And then look at capital allocation options, including shareholder returns. There's opportunities there for us to demonstrate and actually in a concrete way, return more significantly capital to shareholders through sustainable dividends, for example, that could be a good catalyst for the share price. But we have a number of growth opportunities as well that we're looking at. We're very active in discussions with a broad range of things that we think are material and could be quite beneficial for the company and could have an impact on the share price going forward if we're able to complete those and get those across the line. So really, we're working quite hard on a basket of things and our focus is on creating shareholder value. But specifically, as part of that, we think that, that is the opportunity and a pathway to get that share price elevated and increasing to reflect the value of the company. Damian Galvin: Yes. I think probably we all share the frustration of shareholders around the share price and it probably reflected in our decision to allocate some capital towards share buyback at these prices is a good use of capital. So something we're working on across the board. Okay. A couple of other more questions here. What about the company Omega Oil and Gas in Surat Basin? Any comment on this development? Leon Devaney: Obviously, they've had some fantastic success and I understand they've done a fairly significant capital raise. I think what it does show is that despite the challenges in our sector, there's great opportunity for significant growth, significant value enhancement in smaller companies where you're able to successfully find resources and demonstrate that you can potentially commercialize that. And if it's of a substantial size, then clearly, that has a major impact on the valuation of companies. So I think success will be rewarded in this market. And that's one of the key things that we're looking to do at Central, whether it's through creating some visible tangible benefits to shareholders through shareholder returns to demonstrate the success we've been having with the operating assets that we do have in place, improving on those operating assets or in the growth opportunities that we have in front of us, picking and finding the right ones, being smart about it, being smart about how we structure it, how we approach it, finding success and essentially following a similar path where I think Central certainly has the opportunity to go and have a substantial increase in share price if we're successful. Damian Galvin: Question here. Could we see the FY '26 result being boosted by that gas overlift coming off that is like FY '25 being skewed towards a much better second half from the new gas contracts. I think the answer to that is probably won't see a big boost in FY '26 because that gas balancing agreement we expect all that gas to be returned by about May. So it's really only probably 1 month of upside that I'd expect to see on cash flow. So probably not for FY '26. Leon Devaney: Not substantially. But certainly, as we look forward to future financial results, that share buyback is a significant liability that will come off. As Dami mentioned, it's in the order of $6 million to $7 million at current portfolio pricing. That's in the order of a $0.01 per share type of thing. So it's a substantial number for the company. It's something that we have been paying off diligently over the past years, and we're looking forward to that being lifted, and it will have a big impact as we move forward into fiscal year 2027. Damian Galvin: Okay. In light of the Omega Gas comments, would Central bid on new Queensland acreage if it made strategic sense? Leon Devaney: Yes, we are open to opportunities that we think are lower risk, high impact. We're not restricted to opportunities just in the NT. Obviously, that's where we have a core skill set and our existing footprint. But we are casting a wider net and looking at opportunities up and down the East Coast and are in discussions for those. Obviously, there's a lot of opportunity in the market, particularly where you have transitions, whether it's gas market transitions or other events. We've been very disciplined in terms of filtering through those. There's no shortage of opportunities to throw money at, and we're in a great position with our cash balance and cash flow to have that kind of money. So obviously, we're of interest to parties that are trying to farm out or divest. But we do have a very, I think, clear understanding of what we think will add value to the company, what fits this company and where we can create value and what is in the best interest of shareholders. So we are very selective in what we look at and what we engage in, in terms of further investigation. But there are opportunities out there, and it could be in Queensland, it could be South Australia, it could be anywhere on the East Coast, and it could be further afield than that potentially. But our bread and butter, obviously, is, at this point, onshore and the East Coast is a familiar market to us. But having said that, we are open to good opportunities at the right price with the right risk profile, and it's something that we're working very hard to screen and see if we can uncover opportunities that are in the best interest of shareholders. We've had a good track record on that as well. If you look at what we've done with the Range project, we didn't put any capital into it. We had a $12 million profit from that. So that turned out actually quite positive for the company. It didn't go as quickly. We were hoping to get into development, but that was a positive investment for us. The Peak deal, obviously, that fell over. That was unfortunate, but it was really a lost opportunity as opposed to a loss for us. So we've certainly got to make sure going forward that the deals that we do enter into we cover off and really make sure that the credit risk and the ability of the counterparties is there to perform as we expect when we go into a joint venture or a farm-in opportunity. Damian Galvin: All right, I think that's all the questions for today. Leon Devaney: Great. Sounds good. Well, I appreciate everyone's attention and look forward to updating all of you as we go forward through the end of this year. I think it's going to be a very exciting next few months. And we're very confident that some good things will be happening and look forward to sharing that with you as we go forward. Damian Galvin: Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Stitch Fix Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Cherryl Valenzuela, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Cherryl Valenzuela: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for the Stitch Fix Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Call. With me on the call are Matt Baer, Chief Executive Officer; and David Aufderhaar, Chief Financial Officer. We have posted complete fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2025 financial results in a press release on the quarterly results section of our website, investors.stitchfix.com. A link to the webcast of today's conference call can also be found on our site. We would like to remind everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements on this call, which involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those contemplated by our forward-looking statements. Reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Please review our filings with the SEC for a discussion of the factors that could cause the results to differ. In particular, our press release issued and filed today as well as our annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, which we expect to file later this week. Also note that the forward-looking statements on this call are based on information available to us as of today's date. We disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Please note that fiscal 2024 was a 53-week year due to an extra week in the fourth quarter. As such, the adjusted revenue growth rates we referenced on this call remove the impact of that extra week to provide a comparison that we believe more accurately reflect our performance. During this call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in the press release on our Investor Relations website. These non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for our GAAP results. Finally, this call in its entirety is being webcast on our Investor Relations website, and a replay of this call will be available on the website shortly. And now let me turn the call over to Matt. Matt Baer: Thank you, Cherryl, and good afternoon, everyone. Over the last 2 years, we've been relentlessly executing our transformation strategy to deliver the most client-centric and personalized shopping experience. I'm incredibly proud of the significant progress we've made. We've fundamentally reshaped how we operate by strengthening the foundation of our business and embedding retail best practices. We've also made significant strides in reimagining our client experience. Our transformation is driving tangible results. We closed out fiscal '25 with a strong Q4, delivering 4.4% adjusted revenue growth. Revenue of $311.2 million exceeded our guidance and marked our second consecutive quarter of revenue growth. We once again gained market share in the U.S. apparel market this quarter according to Circana data. Adjusted EBITDA was $8.7 million or 2.8% of revenue. which also came in ahead of guidance. Our strong top line performance was the direct result of the improvements we've made to our client experience and assortment. Fix average order value grew 12% year-over-year, our eighth consecutive quarter of AOV growth. AOV growth was driven by higher items per Fix due to greater penetration of our larger fixed offering. AOV growth was also driven by fixed AUR that was up 7.6% year-over-year, as we continue to benefit from the newness and trend-right styles we brought to our merchandise assortment. Both our women's and men's lines of business accelerated revenue growth in Q4. Expansion into non-apparel categories and a greater infusion of established brands were the primary drivers. I'm especially proud of the continued strength of our men's business that delivered double-digit revenue growth in Q4 and a positive full year performance. Our core Fix channel continues to perform with Q4 revenue growth that outpaced our total growth. This is due in part to the encouraging initial results we're seeing from our new feature that allows clients to build a Fix around a freestyle item. This is a strategic move that blends the best of both channels to create a more seamless experience for our clients. As a result of the changes to our client experience and our thoughtful client acquisition strategy, we are encouraged by the trends we're seeing with new client acquisition, engagement of former clients and retention of our current clients. These shifts have led to improvements in year-over-year active client growth rates for 5 consecutive quarters. Bringing in the right clients to our service remains a key priority, and this is an area where we continue to see strength with 90-day new client LTVs at 3-year highs. Our recurring Fix shipments enrollment also remains up year-over-year, reflecting the resonance of our client experience improvements. FY '25 was a milestone year for Stitch Fix, where our consistent execution set us on a path to sustainable, profitable growth. In the last fiscal year, we achieved our highest contribution margin in the last decade. We expanded our adjusted EBITDA margin by 170 basis points and we completed another year with positive free cash flow and no debt. Now firmly in the growth phase of our transformation will continue in fiscal year '26 and to enhance our client experience, including through investments in generative AI and remain focused on 4 areas: creating more dynamic ways for our clients to engage with us, deepening our client stylist relationships, introducing increased Fix flexibility and strengthening our assortment. In line with these priorities, we recently began to roll out a new suite of innovations. These enhancements will further our efforts to deliver industry-leading personalization and convenience. First, we are leveraging generative AI to offer even greater personalization as well as new engagement opportunities. As a result of our services continuous feedback loop, we have billions of insights on our clients fit and style preferences. And we are using these insights coupled with the latest in GenAI technology to serve them in ways only we can. Our clients have shared with us that one of their biggest challenges is expressing what they want to their stylists. To address this, we recently began to roll out an AI style assistant which chats with clients while they develop their Fix request note. Using GenAI imagery as well as leading questions to help them articulate what they are looking for. Through the feedback we secure from the AI style assistant as well as our sophisticated algorithms and the expertise of our human stylists, we are now able to be much more precise with meeting each client's individual needs. In addition to launching our AI style assistant, we are also beginning to roll out a style visualization feature called [ Vision ] that provides clients with personalized GenAI imagery of their likeness in a variety of shoppable outfit recommendations incorporating the latest styles and trends. Second, we're further deepening client stylist relationships. I often think back to the golden age of retail when sales associates knew their customers by name, remember their preferences and could anticipate their needs. Those personal relationships have all but disappeared from shopping today. However, at Stitch Fix, they are alive and well. Our stylists serve as trusted partners to our clients. And now we're creating opportunities for clients and stylists to collaborate like never before through a new platform called Stylist Connect. Through the beta rollout of Stylist Connect to let clients can communicate with their stylists whenever they need assistance, whether to ask a question about Fix, get tips on the latest trends or work together on their next Fix. Client feedback on this feature has been incredibly positive, and we are also seeing higher order values from clients who have been part of the early rollout. Third, we're giving clients even more flexibility. One of the main reasons clients come to us is for the convenience and time savings we offer. We recently launched Family Accounts, which enable clients to shop for their partner or anyone else in their household all from 1 account. This helps families save hundreds of hours a year. Family Accounts join other ways we've embedded flexibility into the experience, including larger Fixes, themed Fixes and the ability for clients to build a Fix around a freestyle item. Lastly, we're further strengthening our assortment by leveraging GenAI in our private brand design process and adding new styles and brands. By integrating GenAI and private brand development, we are responding to trend signals more quickly and accelerating how we bring relevant styles to the market. We are uniquely positioned to do this because of the depth and quality of our data from the continuous direct and indirect feedback our clients provide. While we are enhancing our private brand development process, we're also expanding our portfolio of emerging and established brands. Since the start of FY '25, we've added more than 50 new brands, including Varley, Favorite Daughter, Alex Mill, [ Grown Women ], Pendleton, Madewell Men, Birkenstock, Gola, Abercrombie Kids and my kid's favorite, GOAT USA, with additional brands launching in the coming months. Building off the momentum of FY '25, we are operating from a position of strength, and our FY '26 guidance anticipates a return to full year revenue growth. We also expect active client year-over-year growth rates to continue to improve through the year, including a quarter-over-quarter increase in net adds. We will accomplish this while staying disciplined with our growth investments as we navigate an increasingly dynamic and complex environment. 2 years ago, when I stepped into the CEO role, I recognize that Stitch Fix offered a powerful and differentiated alternative to traditional retail whose potential had yet to be fully realized. I'm incredibly proud of the work the Stitch Fix team has done since then to further unlock that potential. At Stitch Fix, we know that the best retail experience is one that serves clients at a truly individual level, one where you know your clients so well that you don't just meet, but anticipate and ultimately exceed their needs and expectations. That's the level of service we aspire to provide every day harnessing the power of AI, almost 15 years of proprietary data are algorithms that get smarter with every interaction our assortment of leading brands and the human connection of our stylists who know each of their clients personally. With this competitive edge, we're well positioned to be the retailer of choice for apparel and accessories and to continue to grow faster than the overall U.S. apparel market. In closing, I want to thank our team for their incredible work and our clients, partners and long-term shareholders for their support. And with that, I'll turn it over to David for our financial results and outlook. David Aufderhaar: Thanks, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. Our financial results in the fourth quarter and for the full year are a direct reflection of the strategic plan Matt outlined. We made disciplined choices to operate more efficiently, and that rigor enabled us to return to revenue growth earlier than expected, while driving significant leverage in our business. AOV growth was a highlight in FY '25. This was a main factor in our return to growth, but was only one of many clear signals of a healthier business overall. We're seeing encouraging trends in many areas, including more consistently bringing in highly engaged clients, retaining those clients for longer and selling them more items. This progress confirms that our strategic focus on the fundamentals from improving our inventory to enhancing the client experience, is the right path to drive sustainable, profitable growth. At the same time, we continue to deliver strong improvements to our cost structure. Over the last 3 years, we have removed a total of almost $500 million in SG&A spend, going from 53.1% of sales to 47.5%. Rationalizing our cost structure has become ingrained in our company culture. We achieved these operational efficiencies through a combination of large strategic initiatives and everyday expense management. We optimized our warehouse network and stylist workforce. We restructured our corporate head count to eliminate redundancies and flatten our organizational hierarchies. We focused our marketing spend on the most effective channels for growth and we reduced the remainder of our Fix cost structure. In FY '26, we will continue to identify additional savings opportunities that will allow us to reinvest in growth. Now let's turn to the numbers. FY '25 net revenue was $1.27 billion. On an adjusted basis, this was down 3.7% year-over-year, with revenue for the second half of the year, growing 2.5%. We drove further leverage in our business in FY '25. Gross margin was 44.4%, up 10 basis points year-over-year and our highest annual gross margin since FY '21. The increase was primarily driven by transportation leverage due to improvements in carrier mix and rate negotiations with key carriers. We also captured additional efficiencies across our operations and styling teams. This resulted in our highest full year contribution margin in the last decade. We reduced our overall SG&A spend by $124 million in FY '25. The decrease was primarily driven by lower compensation and benefits expense, including lower stock-based compensation expense and lower facilities costs. These actions allowed us to deliver adjusted EBITDA for the year of $49.1 million or 3.9% margin, up 170 basis points compared to FY '24. We generated $9.3 million of free cash flow in FY '25 and ended the year with $242.7 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments and no debt. Turning to our Q4 results. Q4 net revenue was $311.2 million. Revenue was up 4.4% year-over-year on an adjusted basis and down 4.2% quarter-over-quarter. As Matt mentioned, growth was largely driven by strength in AOV due to the increased penetration of our larger Fix offerings and our focus on trend and style right assortment. We ended Q4 with active clients of $2.3 million, down 7.9% year-over-year and down 1.9% quarter-over-quarter. As expected, sequential active client net losses increased this quarter due to seasonality, though the year-over-year comp improved for the fifth consecutive quarter. Revenue per active client was up 3% year-over-year to $549. This was the sixth quarter in a row, we have seen a year-over-year increase in RPAC, demonstrating that the clients we are acquiring and retaining are highly engaged. Gross margin for the quarter came in at 43.6%, down 100 basis points year-over-year and down 60 basis points quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year change was driven primarily by higher transportation costs due to general rate increases from carriers such as USPS. Gross margin was also impacted by a mix shift towards non-apparel categories. Advertising came in at 9.5% of revenue in Q4, up 50 basis points year-over-year but down 70 basis points quarter-over-quarter as part of our broader reinvestment in revenue and active client growth. We'll remain thoughtful and disciplined in how we invest in this area. We ended Q4 with net inventory of $118.4 million, up 20.9% year-over-year and up 3.5% quarter-over-quarter as we expanded merchandise to support larger Fixes. Q4 adjusted EBITDA was $8.7 million or 2.8% margin, down 20 basis points year-over-year and down 60 basis points quarter-over-quarter. It exceeded our guidance largely due to flow-through from our stronger-than-expected top line performance. Turning to our outlook for Q1 and FY '26. For full year FY '26, we expect total revenue to be between $1.28 billion and $1.33 billion. We expect total adjusted EBITDA for the year to be between $30 million and $45 million, and we expect to be free cash flow positive for the full year. And for Q1, we expect total revenue to be between $333 million and $338 million. We expect Q1 adjusted EBITDA to be between $8 million and $11 million. I'd like to offer a few additional thoughts on our guidance. First, with respect to revenue, we are projecting full year revenue growth for the first time since FY '21 and in a macro environment that is pointing to a more challenging environment as we enter the holiday season. For active clients, we believe our methodical approach to rebuilding our client base is working. We expect to deliver a quarter-over-quarter increase in net adds in Q3 FY '26. We are projecting FY '26 gross margin to be between 43% and 44%. This reflects higher transportation costs and ongoing strategic investments in our client experience and assortment. Our teams have done an excellent job managing the impacts of tariffs by negotiating with suppliers and diversifying our sourcing, resulting in only a small impact to gross margins attributable directly to tariffs. We expect full year advertising cost to be between 9% and 10% of revenue as we continue to be opportunistic in this area, given the success we've had in acquiring healthier clients with higher LTVs. And finally, we plan to further shift more of our compensation mix from equity to cash. This will have an impact on adjusted EBITDA with a positive trade-off on net income. In closing, we are encouraged by the momentum in our business. While cognizant of the difficulties in the current macro environment, how we plan and execute is in our hands, and that is where our focus continues to be. We're operating at scale with a strong financial foundation and a uniquely agile business model anchored by a debt-free balance sheet, proprietary data science and AI and the ability to quickly adapt our marketing, merchandising and pricing levers. These give us the confidence to not only navigate the current environment but to see strategic opportunities and accelerate our path to long-term profitable and sustainable growth. With that, operator, we can open the line for Q&A. Operator: Certainly. And our first question for today comes from the line of Dana Telsey from Telsey Advisory Group. Dana Telsey: And nice to see the progress, Matt. As you think about the changes in the business, particularly on the top line and the additional brands that you've added lately, where are you seeing the most growth from? And how are tariffs impacting the AOV? And then I have another question after that for a follow-up. Matt Baer: Dana, I appreciate the question and the recognition for the continued growth. And I think to answer your question in 2 parts, the first in terms of what we're seeing from our assortment and then the second, the impact that we're seeing from tariffs, particularly any impact for AOV. As we noted in the prepared remarks, both our women's and our men's business accelerated their year-over-year revenue growth on an adjusted basis in the fourth quarter. And that was driven by expansion into non-apparel categories as well as the greater infusion of established brands we've added to our assortment. If you drill down into our women's business, we saw increased demand for footwear and that grew over 35%. We also saw significantly improved demand for denim especially wide leg denim. We also saw improved demand for skirts that would include miniskirts, maxi skirts and fleeted skirt styles. And we also continue to see strength in our athleisure business. If you drill down into our men's business, first, just to point out again that we had double-digit growth in Q4 within our men's business and a full year of positive revenue comp in fiscal '25 for our men's business. In the quarter, and similar to our women's business, we saw a very high demand for footwear and athleisure. And we also saw a strong performance from national brands like Travis Matthew, Adidas, Marine Layer and Tommy Bahama, just to name a few. I'll speak to the tariff piece a little bit and let David add any additional context. In the fourth quarter, none of the improvement in AUR, the 7.6% year-over-year growth or the growth in AOV of 12%, which was our eighth consecutive quarter of growth is attributable to tariffs. That's in large part due to the great work that our tariff task force did in order to mitigate any potential impacts in the fourth quarter of fiscal '25. Dana Telsey: Got it. And then the -- go on. David Aufderhaar: No, go ahead. Dana Telsey: And then on the uptick in the sales, where do you see you're taking the share from? And given the volatile outlook for holiday, how do you think about planning for holiday or its timing, whether it is what you're seeing from your customers? How do you see that? Matt Baer: Yes. I appreciate the question again. We're very proud of the fact that we continue to gain market share. and that coincides with our growth in the fourth quarter, growing 4.4% on an adjusted basis, considerably outperformed the overall market, something that we are very proud of. And to me, that indicates the fact just that our superior service is very clearly resonating with our clients. I'm very proud of the trends we're seeing in our active client growth rates the fact that those have improved for 5 consecutive quarters. I'm also really proud of the fact that for the new clients that we brought in, we see 90-day LTVs continue to be at 3-year highs. With regards to who we are taking market share from, at Stitch Fix, we're very much focused on delivering the most client-centric and personalized shopping experience. And in doing so, we're picking up share from all of the retailers that are letting consumers down. It's our superior service that is enabling us to take share from a wide variety of retailers who don't and actually cannot deliver on the personalization consumers want and expect and that is core to our business. In terms of what we're doing for holiday, we talked about this last year, we really leaned into holiday more meaningfully than we ever had before, and we plan to build on that success in our holiday this year. I believe we're better positioned this year compared to last, given the changes we've made to our experience. A few of those of note is the continued flexibility we brought into our experience. That's what themed fixes, larger fixes, the ability to build a Fix around the freestyle item, and one that I'm particularly excited about is the introduction of family accounts. One of the critical components of family accounts is that really unlocks gifting opportunities for us. We've also, as I noted before, continue to improve our assortment across private brands, emerging brands and well-known brands. so that we can ensure that we have the right assortment to drive promotions at healthy margins as well as ensure that we have the right assortment to serve our clients for all of the occasions that they might attend over the holiday time period. And also the new features like Vision and Stylist Connect that I mentioned, those will continue to provide clients with new ways to engage with us throughout the holiday season. We've also talked at times about the investments we've made into our promotional and CRM capabilities. Those will also help us remain competitive during this time. And ultimately, it comes down to the differentiation of our business model that just continues to give us a competitive edge and we're confident that we will continue to gain market share throughout the holiday time period. David Aufderhaar: And then, Dana, just to add one additional point to Matt's point, especially around active clients and how that might be part of the underlying growth from a revenue perspective. to his point, we're really encouraged by the continued improvement that we're seeing from a year-over-year comp standpoint. And when you play that trajectory forward for the client cohorts that we talked about, the new client adds, reengaging clients that have gone dormant and retaining our existing clients, there is that natural inflection point in clients. And that's one of the reasons why I called out earlier in our remarks that we see a quarter-over-quarter inflection in active clients in Q3. One of the other things we're seeing, I tend to give color on the most recent quarter. For Q1, we expect quarter-over-quarter active clients to be roughly sort of flat quarter-over-quarter to down approximately 0.5%. And so definitely just really encouraged with those trends. And again, this is part of that methodical approach that has worked really well for us of just focusing on deepening relationships with our clients and bringing in clients where this service really resonates with. And that's -- you also see that in some of the metrics where it's the eighth quarter in a row that we saw year-over-year growth in new client LTVs. And so just really encouraged with what we're seeing there as well, and that's one of the things we'll continue to focus on. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Sole Jay from UBS. Sole, you might have your phone on mute. We're still not hearing you. [Operator Instructions] And this does conclude the question-and-answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Matt Baer, CEO, for any further remarks. Matt Baer: Appreciate that. To close, I'll just reiterate how proud I am of the results the team delivered this year and how confident I am in the future of Stitch Fix. The momentum that we have, it proves that we have the right strategy, it proves that we have the right team and it proves our ability to execute at the highest level. It's my fundamental belief that you gained market share by playing offense. At Stitch Fix, we continue to innovate. We continue to strive to exceed our clients' expectations, and we continue to face external headwinds head on. We know our clients intimately, and we serve them individually. We build enduring relationships, which give us a competitive advantage relative to the transactional relationship consumers have with other retailers. Our differentiated business model of expert stylist paired with our proprietary data and algorithms as well as our leading assortment and generative AI innovations position Stitch Fix to uniquely serve clients. In doing so, I believe that we'll continue to take share from those that struggle to deliver the level of personalization and convenience consumers desperately want and deserve. Everything we do at Stitch Fix is in service of the client and to deliver sustainable, profitable growth. We are judicious, methodical and unrelenting in that pursuit. We remain focused and committed to accelerating growth and becoming the retailer of choice for apparel and accessories. I believe this is an exciting time to be in retail. I also believe it's an even more exciting time to be at Stitch Fix, where we are writing the future of what retail will look like. We are operating from a position of strength and a solid financial foundation. I'm more confident than ever in our future. Appreciate your interest in our business, and I look forward to sharing our continued progress. Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.
Michael Hazell: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Saga's results for the 6 months ended 31st of July 2025. My name is Mike Hazell, and I'm the group CEO, and I'm joined today by our Group CFO, Mark Watkins. I'll kick off with an overview of our first half performance. And then Mark will take you through the financials in detail. Finally, I'll provide a brief update on our strategy before we open for questions at the end. I'm pleased to report we've had a strong first half with a performance ahead of our expectations. We've seen first half revenues increase, profits perform ahead of our expectations and a significant reduction in net debt. Underpinning this performance was the continued momentum we are seeing in travel. Alongside a strong trading performance, we've also continued to deliver the strategic actions that we previously laid out. We completed our refinancing in February, putting in place a new 2031 corporate debt facility and repaying our 2026 bond maturity and the Roger De Haan loan facility. To support the delivery of our next phase of our strategy, we have reorganized our management team. The new leadership team in place across insurance and travel now in place. In July, we successfully completed the sale of our underwriting business with cash proceeds GBP 17 million ahead of our forecast, and we're making good progress on the preparations for the launches of both our Ageas and NatWest Boxed partnerships later this year. In doing so, we're making rapid progress towards a less complex, lower-risk business model with more predictable earnings that will allow us to focus on our core strengths of customer insight, marketing and data in support of our medium-term growth plans, particularly in travel. To that end, we were delighted to launch the latest addition to our river fleet earlier this year, responding to the demand we are seeing for our boutique cruising offer. I was on board the Spirit of the Moselle last month, and she's an amazing ship. Taken together, as we go through this morning, you will see clear progress being made on both underlying trading performance and our strategic execution plans. This gives me even greater confidence with regard to the GBP 100 million profit target we laid out in April. On this slide, I've highlighted some of our key trading metrics. I'm not going to speak to every line, but you can see even at a glance, the strength of our trading performance across travel and insurance and the foundations we have put in place for money, all of which set us up well for future growth. I'll now hand to Mark to go through our financial results in more detail. Mark Watkins: Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here today. I'll spend the next few minutes covering the detail of the financial results before covering the outlook for the remainder of the year. Saga had a really good start to the year, delivering a strong financial performance in the first half, largely driven by our travel businesses and insurance broking. Underlying revenue, which excludes some accounting adjustments and one-off items, increased by 7% from the prior period. Underlying PBT from continuing operations of GBP 23.5 million is marginally behind the prior period, but importantly, is ahead of our expectations. This was largely driven by the continued growth in our travel businesses and an improved performance in insurance broking, offset by higher finance costs. This was expected due to the successful refinancing at the beginning of the year. The group continued to be highly cash generative in the first half with available operating cash flow of GBP 89.4 million in the period, a 64% increase. This does reflect some seasonal strength, which I'll touch on again in a moment. Net debt reduction continued, and the position at the 31st of July was GBP 515.1 million, GBP 102.1 million lower than 31st of July '24 and GBP 77.7 million lower than at the year-end. Alongside strong trading EBITDA growth, which grew 8%, this supported further deleveraging with a total leverage ratio now at 4.3x compared with 4.8x at the same point in the prior year. I'll now focus on the headline underlying profit contribution from each of our business units. Our Travel businesses continued to generate strong customer demand, delivering GBP 41.6 million of underlying PBT in the first half, a 33% increase on the year before. Our Insurance Broking business performed well in the first half. Despite the anticipated decline in earnings, performance was ahead of our expectations. The standout performance of this business is that after a number of years of decline, policy volumes for motor, travel and our private medical insurance have returned to growth. Other businesses and central costs marginally increased due to lower investment income as the group now holds a lower level of cash than it previously did. The result of this is that underlying profit before tax increased from GBP 27.2 million in the prior year to GBP 38.7 million. Insurance underwriting is now classified as discontinued, but the strong performance in the first half supported our ability to capture an additional GBP 17 million of cash from the sale, which completed on the 1st of July. I'll now spend some time covering each of our core businesses in a bit more detail, and I'll start with ocean cruise. Our Ocean Cruise business had an exceptional start to the year, growing underlying PBT by 23% and continuing to show extremely strong forward bookings. Revenue grew 8%, supported by an increased load factor and per diems. The load factor in the first 6 months of the year was 94%, which compares with 90% last year, and the per diems worth GBP 391, 8% higher than the year before. Underlying PBT of GBP 34.5 million was 23% higher than the prior period supported by cost discipline and lower finance costs. The lower finance costs reflect the continued repayment of the cruise facilities. This has now reduced to GBP 55.6 million per year due to the repayment of the first COVID deferral loan. Looking ahead to the full year, the booked load factor and per diems are very strong, currently 2 percentage points and 10% ahead of the same time in the prior year, respectively. For the '26-'27 season, the booked load factor is 3 percentage points ahead with the same time last year with the per diems continuing to increase at 13% ahead. Now turning to our River Cruise. In the first half, we successfully launched the Spirit of the Moselle, our third Spirit Class rivership. The timing of this launch meant we operated with marginally lower capacity in the period, driving revenue to be flat against the prior period. The 93% load factor in the first half was 7 percentage points higher than the last year and the per diem of GBP 364 was 7% higher, reflecting the strong demand for our river cruises. This supported growth in underlying PBT of 34% from GBP 2.9 million in the prior year to GBP 3.9 million. Bookings for the full year are strong and currently reflect a load factor of 87%. The per diems of GBP 351 is ahead of the same time last year, albeit lower than H1, reflecting expected seasonality. Bookings for next year are also in a good position with strong load factors maintained alongside growing per diems. Turning now to our holidays business. Revenue grew 14% against the prior year, supported by a 13% increase in the number of passengers traveling with us. Underlying profitability was also strongly ahead at GBP 3.2 million against only GBP 0.3 million in the prior period. This serves to validate our step-up in the level of marketing to support bookings. As you'll see from this slide, revenue growth is set to continue into the second half of the year, with current full year booked revenue 14% ahead of the prior year, with passengers 12% ahead. The team are now focusing their attention on driving demand for next year's bookings. Insurance Broking also showed an improved performance in the first half, generating underlying PBT of GBP 8.9 million. This performance supported an increased investment in policy growth ahead of the Ageas partnership with 3 of our 4 main products, after many years of decline, returning to growth. Motor grew by 26,000 policies and the combination of PMI and travel grew by 5,000. This investment is expected to continue into the second half, further driving policy volumes ahead of the go-live date with Ageas. The graph on the left-hand side shows the material drivers of the movements in underlying PBT. The motor contribution before overheads decreased by GBP 0.6 million, driven by higher renewal margins, particularly for 3-year fixed-price policies as market-wide net rates reduced, offset by higher investment into volumes. Home is the most significant driver of the overall decline with a GBP 6.2 million lower contribution as net rate inflation, which was more pronounced within our panel, led to a reduced competitiveness and 19% fewer policy sales. Private Medical Insurance benefited from lower net rate inflation together with the GBP 2.6 million profit share from the Bupa partnership. Travel insurance remained broadly flat with policy volumes growing in the period. Our insurance underwriting business, AICL, was sold to Ageas on the 1st of July and therefore is treated as discontinued throughout these results. As you can see, AICL performed strongly prior to disposal generating an underlying PBT of GBP 15.6 million. This supported our ability to generate an additional GBP 17 million of net cash from the disposal with AICL paying a GBP 10 million pre-completion dividend and there being a GBP 7 million positive adjustment through the completion mechanism. We received GBP 57.9 million on the completion date, representing 90% of the proceeds, with the remaining 10% due in October. There remains a further GBP 2.5 million payable on the go-live of the partnership. Debt reduction is a clear strategic priority for Saga, and I'm pleased with the progress made in the period. During the first half of the year, net debt reduced by GBP 77.7 million to GBP 515.1 million, with a leverage ratio of 4.3x also below the year-end level of 4.4x. Available operating cash flow for the first 6 months was GBP 89.4 million, 64.3% higher than the last year. This was driven by a step forward in cash generation from all of our businesses together with the GBP 10 million dividend paid by underwriting. Debt service costs have increased due to the HBS refinancing, which was drawn in February this year and restructuring costs have increased due to the AICL disposal and the Ageas partnership. While the cash generation is strong in the first half, it does include some positive seasonality from both the Ocean Cruise and Insurance Broking business. These are benefiting from positive working capital positions with Ocean holding a high level of customer advance receipts and policy growth in Insurance Broking also benefiting cash. So let's now turn our attention to the full year. Bookings for the full year in cruise are strong. We do, however, expect profitability in the second half to be marginally lower than the first, purely due to the normal seasonality within that business. The peak trading months for our Holidays business are typically August to October. And as a result, we expect the underlying profitability will be materially higher in H2 as we benefit from economies of scale and operational leverage. In Insurance Broking, we expect the trends that we saw towards the end of the first half of the year to continue for the second half, but a step-up in investment in the second half means that profitability will be lower than the first. What this all means for the group is that the momentum we have seen in the first half gives us confidence to move our guidance for the full year. We now expect the full year underlying PBT to be in line with the prior year and importantly, our net debt leverage ratio to be below that of the prior year. And with that, I'll hand back to Mike for an update on strategic progress. Michael Hazell: Thanks, Mark. Now I'm going to take you through more detail on the delivery of our strategic priorities and our growing confidence that we are paving the way for long-term sustainable growth. Underpinning everything we do is our brand and customer insight, so it's worth a moment to remind you how that makes us different. Saga is one of the best-known and most trusted brands in the U.K. This is built on our deep understanding of our target customer and our extensive customer database, which together provide us with a competitive advantage that sets us apart from our competitors. Nobody understands older people better than us. And we have more than 70 years of experience designing products and services exclusively for them. We know who they are, we know what they like and we know how best to communicate directly with them. This means that in the growing attractive and affluent market for people aged over 50, we are ideally placed to succeed. Our businesses leverage these advantages through a series of consistent principles that I have shown on the screen. With the customer at the heart of our strategy, we will deliver quality and value through a suite of differentiated unique products uniquely tailored for our customer group using the insight we have developed over decades of experience, all supported by our powerful marketing and publishing channels that drive deep customer engagement. Since joining Saga, I've redoubled our focus on these principles, all of which are now central to our growth. In April, we laid out our medium-term profit target of GBP 100 million and a leverage ratio of less than 2x by January 2030. A strong first half performance gives us even greater confidence in these targets and our time line to achieve them. Our four strategic priorities laid out the routes by which we would deliver these targets, and we continue to make good progress on each of them, progress that will be obvious as I now touch on each business. Travel is now the largest contributor to Saga's profits. In March, we announced that we had combined the leadership and operations of our previously separate Cruise and Holidays businesses under the leadership of Nigel Blanks, previously CEO of our Cruise division. No longer operating in silos, a single management team ensures consistent, excellent customer experience and a coherent marketing strategy across both Cruise and all of our Holidays. Best practice is shared across the different product lines and customers are more easily introduced to a wider range of holiday options for their next experience. Saga has been taking older people on holiday since 1951, and we are the experts in catering for their needs. Our customers are time rich and have money to spend. They like to travel outside of peak season, enjoying quieter destinations, sometimes though quite adventurous ones. What unites them all is that they know Saga can offer, when needed, a little more support than our peers to ensure they can really make the most of their holiday. We take our customers to places they might not otherwise go, tailoring the experience to meet their needs. We open the world to them and allow them to enjoy traveling for longer. By understanding these needs, we create holidays exclusively designed for this age group catering for them in a way that the mass market can't. By playing to our strengths, we separate ourselves from our competitors and all of our travel businesses are now growing as a result. Ocean Cruise remains at the heart of Saga's travel offer with its enduring popularity only getting stronger. Forward bookings remain strong and repeat bookings are consistently high. This performance is down to the quality of our product and our relentless focus on our guests. Tailor-made for our customers, built on decades of cruising experience, our customer satisfaction and TMPS scores are market-leading. Our 2 ships provide a tailored luxury experience within a boutique cruise environment, setting us apart from the mainstream providers or the mega ships, which constitute the wider market. Smaller and easier to navigate, our specialty designed ships provide a tailored experience for our customers' holiday from our nationwide chauffeur car pickup service at the start of their holiday to the number of single cabins we have catering for solo travelers, to the quality of service and hospitality onboard. We continually look to improve and refresh our proposition across dining, trips and entertainment. You can see on the screen a picture of our newly launched French restaurant, aboard the Spirit of Discovery. Refined but contemporary, it offers a fantastic dining experience and is proving extremely popular with our guests. We aim to do things differently catering for our distinct customer base. And in doing so, we generate strong demand for our product and loyalty to our brand. That demand is driving high load factors, more early bookings and increased per diems, the amount of customers pay per day, as our need to discount reduces. But importantly, our customers still recognize the great value for money they are getting. This is a trend we are confident will continue as we carry on giving customers what only Saga knows how to do. River cruise holidays are perfect for our customers, sitting between our active land-based touring options and our no-fly hassle-free ocean cruise experiences, River cruising offers a gentle river-based touring option without the need for lengthy coach journeys and multiple changes in hotel. Customers wake up each day at an exciting new destination. We moved our River Cruise business under the leadership of the Ocean Cruise team earlier this year -- sorry, several years ago and have been aligning the service experience across the 2 propositions. As you can see from the page, the results have been very successful, with load factors, per diems and customer satisfaction all performing very well. Building on this success, we're adding more ships. And this summer, launched our newest vessel, the Spirit of the Moselle. This is an outstanding contemporary ship, especially designed by us for our customers. Its sleek exteriors and modern interior design is already proving incredibly popular with our customers, demonstrating the opportunity we have to scale up our river cruise business. Our next river ship is already in development and due to launch in summer 2027 as part of our ongoing growth ambition for this part of our business. Our cruise performance has somewhat out-shown our holidays business in recent years, but we've been making great progress there, too. And there are clear opportunities to build on this under our new leadership structure. At Saga, we offer holiday options that meet customers' needs whatever their age. We tend to find a younger, more active customer attracted to our land-based touring holidays, often as a gateway to a more relaxed river cruise in the future. Other customers look to enjoy a hotel stay at an interesting destination through one of our specially selected hotel stays, complete with Saga host on site to make sure they get the most out of their holiday. Whatever their choice, we understand that older customers are drawn to different aspects of travel to those generally catered for by the mass market. With more time available to them, older customers will typically choose to stay a little longer to more deeply experience the destination they are visiting. They're interested in understanding the language, enjoying local cuisine and visiting culturally significant sites. Beaches and swimming pools are nice, but our customers would typically prefer a nice meal overlooking amazing scenery without the sound of children splashing around behind them. Our holidays offer had over time become a little too generic, missing this opportunity to fully play to the differing demands of our customers, something that our cruise businesses have been doing brilliantly. Now under the leadership of Nigel Blanks, previously CEO of our Cruise division, we are bringing the focus more squarely back on our customers and differentiated experiences tailored for them. Recognizing the type of holidays our customers want, we are expanding our range of special interest holidays, think bird watching, food and wine, history, archeology and so on. It's early days. But as you can see, this refocus, which will take a while to fully flow through to our program, has already started to work. Revenues and profits are continuing to grow from an already strong performance last year and satisfaction levels have materially improved. Customers tell us they love our nationwide chauffeur car service and so from April, our chauffeur service will be included in all Saga Holidays as standard, meaning that whatever their holiday choice, the Saga experience starts from the moment they leave their house. Our insurance business is in a transitional year, as we prepare for our Ageas partnership. Nonetheless, we've made significant steps forward towards our new simplified lower-risk operating model and traded well in the meantime. Under the new leadership team we put in place earlier this year, led by Lloyd East. We've been investing in price and marketing to support long-term growth and prepare us for the Ageas partnership. And the results have been strong. Three out of our 4 policy lines are now growing after several years of decline and our customer satisfaction scores reflect the refocus on customer that Lloyd and his team are bringing. Much credit goes to our insurance colleagues for Saga's Insurance business being ranked in the top 50 organizations for customer satisfaction by the Institute of Customer Service, only 1 of 2 insurers to be named in that group. Preparations for our Ageas partnership have continued at pace, as we work towards a significantly simplified lower risk insurance business model. We completed the sale of our underwriting business in July, meaning that Saga is no longer exposed to underwriting risk, and we will transition a large part of our broking operations to Ageas later this year as we go live with that home and motor partnership. I'm particularly excited about how new products and services can drive future growth. In particular, we are focused on creating more ways to engage on a deeper level with our customers more frequently. Take our money business, for example, the partnership we signed with NatWest earlier this year is exciting in its own right, given that we are expanding our suite of differentiated products. But more than this, it's symbolic of how we could pursue additional innovative partnerships across different business lines in the future. Elsewhere, we've already been deepening our customer relationships with lesser-known products within the Saga portfolio. For example, our Saga wine club, Vintage by Saga, with more than 10,000 customers regularly buying wine from us. Similarly, our Saga Connections introductions service for older people engages with 13,000 subscribers checking their connections on the website multiple times a week, significantly increasing their exposure to Saga and our wider product set. These are great ways for us to remain front of mind with customers beyond their annual holiday or insurance renewal. While our primary focus remains on our core travel and insurance propositions, you can see the obvious crossover from those businesses to these types of additional service. So there are undoubtedly opportunities to cross-pollinate and build on areas like this that amplify our customers' engagement with Saga. Our publishing business lies at the heart of our customer engagement strategy. Celebrating the lifestyles of older people, it provides deep and regular engagement with our target customer group and in a digital world is increasingly a powerful source of insight into what is on their minds and what attracts their interest. As you can see from this page, comprising our award-winning magazine, newsletters, website and online articles, it's a fantastic aspirational communication channel, positively portraying the lifestyles and interests of older people. This month's magazine encapsulates that perfectly. You will have seen coverage of our interview with Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren right across the mainstream press. And in every instance, crediting Saga Magazine in the reporting. And we have a real opportunity to build on this amazing content, given the early success we are seeing across our digital channels and platforms. Our print magazine is already the largest paid subscription magazine in the U.K. By servicing this content on our website and refreshing it regularly, we're now driving highly engaged customers into the heart of our business, where they spend more time and come back again to see what else we've got to say. They sign up for more content, allowing us to then communicate with them more broadly. We're now seeing 1.3 million monthly visits to our magazine website, 37% of which are new to Saga and these numbers are growing every month. Building on this brilliant content, we're sending around 10 million newsletters each month, covering anything from lifestyle tips to personal finance matters and seeing opening rates of up to 49%, a clear indication of the quality and relevance of that content. By refreshing our website, both our Saga homepage and the magazine side, we are driving traffic into the Saga environment, exposing customers to individual businesses and the messaging while they browse. You should recognize this slide from April where Mark and I laid out our medium-term targets. So I wanted to update you on our progress. We previously guided that UPBT for '25-'26 would be lower than that of '24-'25, largely due to the increase in finance costs. You will have seen from Mark's slide that as a result of our strong first half performance, we now expect UPBT to be in line with '24-'25. Trading EBITDA is now expected to be ahead of '24-'25 demonstrating the strong trading momentum that we've seen. And with leverage falling, we now expect year-end to be below that of '24-'25. So while it's too early to update any medium-term projections, we have clearly made a strong start and are ahead of where we expected to be this year giving us even greater confidence as to the level and timing of those medium-term targets. Finally to wrap up before we move to questions: We've made significant progress in the first 6 months of this year. We've delivered a strong financial performance, particularly in travel, and we have significantly reduced our debt. Alongside this, we've achieved some significant strategic milestones toward our more customer-focused, simplified business model going forward. That puts us in a great position as we head towards the full year. Looking ahead, we expect to go-live with our Ageas partnership in Q4 2025, beckoning the start of a significantly less complex and lower-risk insurance model for us next year. We will continue to build on the momentum we are seeing across our travel businesses, leveraging the benefits we are now seeing from the combined operations that we've put in place. And we'll go-live with our NatWest Box partnership at the end of this year, which will start us down the path of engaging customers in more differentiated products and services beyond our travel and insurance offerings. In short, we'll keep delivering on what we said we would do. We'll now go to Q&A, taking questions in the room before moving online. Timothy Barrett: Tim Barrett from Deutsche Numis. I had a couple of things, please. A question on Ocean Cruise. Could you give us an idea on how we should benchmark your performance there? And specifically, GBP 437 on the forward book looks really impressive, just wondering how you would encourage us to think about next year as a whole? And then interested in what you said about the database. Could you talk about scaling that and what size it is? I guess, how the database is growing? That would be great. Michael Hazell: Sure. So taking the ocean point first. So what we're seeing on ocean is really strong load factor growth and performance. Clearly, that's been growing year after year. We're getting to the point now where we're well into the 90%. What that translates into is a very powerful performance in per diems. The per diem growth is coming from a combination of the demand and people competing to get on to their favorite ship and their favorite cabin and their favorite holiday. But we're also seeing that translating into earlier bookings which means we then didn't need to discount less to drive that demand. So that, together with improving the itineraries, improving the onboard experience, improving the onshore excursions, all of those things add greater value, which drives that per diem growth. So as we now get to the point where it's pretty clear that there's only so far you can take a load factor growth, it will continue to grow a bit. But actually, the growth opportunity from here is continuing to add more value, discount less and drive that per diem growth. So very confident that now we've got the load factors in that sweet spot that per diem growth will now continue through a combination of demand management, less discounting and adding more value as the proposition improves year after year after year. So that's the way to think about per diems. In terms of our database, we've got the largest database for older people in the country, we've got 9.7 million people on that database. It's a really powerful insight tool. We've got contact details and can communicate to 7.7 million of those customers. So you can think of it, first and foremost, in 2 aspects. The power of that database to enable us to understand older people and curate our product proposition for those customers, whether it be on holidays, insurance or anything else, that is a really powerful tool for us, made even more powerful by our publishing business, whereby we can talk to them post articles, if you want to know who might be interested in pet products, send out a newsletter with a pet article and see who opens it. You'll then very quickly understand what resonates with those customer groups. You'll then understand who's got a dog. But we're actually getting even cleverer. With the benefit of AI now what we've been able to do is back, what's the word I'm looking for, tag all of our historic articles to get a better understanding of what type of article works for what type of customers. So it's not just about was it an article about dogs or was it an article about cats and so on. But actually, some customers respond better to a top 10 list of X, other like an interview style article. So what we can do is both, understand more about the customers and what they're engaging with in that publishing business and then curate and tailor our articles going forward to make sense of that. All with a view of a virtuous circle us communicating with our customers and then learning more about those customers in the process. Obviously, the other side of that is, it's a very powerful marketing tool off the back of that. So we've got the insight on the one hand, but we've got 7.7 million customers that we can communicate with about the products that we offer. So it is something that we're driving hard. What we have done more recently, and I touched in my presentation is, we're starting to make our Saga homepage a destination for customers online, putting brilliant publishing content on there, so that customers are seeing the content somewhere in the web, in the newsletter or simply because they've come to Saga. They see the brilliant content and then they come back the next day or even later in the day to see what else we might be saying because it talks to older people in a way that other people don't. Clearly, in surfacing, both on the homepage and then those articles, what we're able to do is flash up relevant product content alongside it to then drive those customers into our business units. So when I say we're bringing publishing to the heart of the business, it's not in an off-line way, it really is as an introduction into our business with that insight powering the products that we offer and the services we deliver alongside them. Sahill Shan: Sahill here from Singer Capital Markets. Three questions from me, if that's okay. On the money side of the business, I appreciate it's relatively small at the moment. But you made progress in terms of partnerships. How should we be thinking about how that's likely to play out or you're planning to play out over the next few years or so? Just help me understand, I think there was a waterfall chart. And within them, was quite a decent chunk in terms of contribution going forward, the building blocks to actually get that kind of profitability going forward. So that's on the money side of things. Secondly, just more generically, clearly, you're doing fantastically well on the cruise business at the moment. Can you just help us understand and just give us an overview of the state of play of the cruise market at this moment in time, particularly the area that you're focusing on? And are there any competitive threats that we need to be thinking about? And finally, just ahead of the launch of the relationship with Ageas in Q4, how is that going in terms of the lead up to that particular launch? That would be really helpful. Michael Hazell: Sure. So if I take the money business, and thanks for raising that because I think that's a really exciting opportunity for us. But you're right to call out the bar in that building block. It's there quite deliberately because we can see the opportunity that is a medium-term opportunity. The NatWest partnership goes live later this year. We've got around 180,000 customers engaging with our money products even today. But in the short term, it's not about driving profitability. It's about scaling up, driving engagement, talking to customers regularly for that wider Saga environment. But clearly, as we build that proposition over time, then the focus shifts from the early scaling up to then converting that into more profits and returns on that investment. So I'd encourage you to think about that as a long-term opportunity with a short-term scale up. In terms of the cruise market, look, I think it's dangerous right the way across our holidays proposition to think about the market rather than understanding that we do something different to the market, and that's what I'd encourage you to think about. Nobody is doing what we do. We've got 2 ships, and I said it in my presentation, that are tailored uniquely for older people, and we tailor our entire proposition for that market. When you look at the wider market, they are either in a mass market, larger scale cruising environment or they're operating outside of the ex U.K., i.e., you've got to fly cruise. Nobody is offering that, no fly boutique cruise experience to U.K. customers exclusive for people over 50 in the way that we do. So when we talk about what's the wider market? Actually, the wider market will have its own sort of ebbs and flows. What we are seeing for our customers is consistent and growing demand year after year for what we do brilliantly. In terms of competitive threats, I think that therein lies the answer. We do something different right the way across our holidays proposition, whether it be cruise, ocean crews, river or holidays. We win by being Saga, understanding older people better than anybody else and then curating products and services in a way that nobody else actually wants to because they're catering for a mass market, and you'll see that as we move into this new phase for Saga, where we've moved away from fixing the business, which we've been focused on for the last couple of years. This point around we do what Saga does, we understand older people better than anybody else and right the way through all of our product propositions and indeed anything new that we offer, you're going to see us, first and foremost, thinking about the customer how their needs are different and then playing that out. And therefore, when you think about that competitive advantage that brings, it's not so much about what the wider market is doing about what we can bring that is different to that wider market. And Ageas. So just to remind you on the Ageas for those that won't be close to it, really exciting opportunity, will transform our insurance business model. So it's a home and motor partnership where Ageas will bring the operations and the insurance infrastructure scale and investment as a first-class insurer in the U.K. After their acquisition of they will be in the top 3 U.K. insurers. They do that brilliantly. What we do brilliantly is understand older people market in a way that other people can't using our database and our experience of marketing to older people and help Ageas design products and services for those older customers. Put that together, you've got the perfect combination of Saga doing what it does brilliantly and Ageas is doing what it does brilliantly as a first-class insurer. So really exciting opportunity, but not just because of the overall opportunity to grow but also because it frees us up to focus on what we do best and allows Ageas to focus on what they do best. So in striking this partnership, we will and are rapidly implementing a much more simple and lower risk business model, whereby we no longer take underwriting risk. We completed the sale of our underwriter in July. And by the end of the year, we'll be live with the Ageas partnership, whereby they run the policy administrations, they run the back end, they run the infrastructure and so on and they have all the regulatory complexities that come with that, we will become a customer-focused marketing driver of that business and, therefore, be able to focus on what we do well. So as well as the growth opportunities, that simplification objective that frees us up to focus on what we do best is a really powerful aspect of that. So underwriting completed end of July, the wider partnership due to go live at the end of the year, and everything is on track. Any other questions in the room before we move to online? Any questions online, Chantel? Unknown Attendee: Yes, a couple. Under holidays, how are the Saga and Titan brands being developed differently? And also, how is the destination mix changing under holidays? Michael Hazell: Okay. Thank you for that question, whoever that came from. So yes, really, really important point. So we have the opportunity to win twice in holidays because we've got a brilliant Titan brand, which is an open-age holiday business, touring business, that's got great heritage in touring and then we have the wider Saga proposition that both does touring, holidays and obviously, our cruising business. But it's really important that we recognize those are two different businesses. And therefore, what we have been developing over the last couple of years and will continue to develop is differentiation across those two propositions because actually, in the past, we've been dangerously close to offering the same or similar experiences on Titan tour as you would a Saga tour. And going forward, we definitely want to separate the two out so that you get something different as a different type of customer for Saga as you would from Titan. So where you see Saga on the badge, you'll see all of the things that we curate for that older customer base that comes through in with the Saga customer. And then likewise, those customers that are looking for a complementary proposition that may be slightly younger and more active will engage with the Titan brand potentially as a feeder to engaging with Saga at a later stage when they see what the wider service and product proposition we can offer under the Saga banner looks like. So great opportunity. It's a complementary product set between the two. And in terms of destinations, look, we'll talk more about product development and proposition in the future as Nigel and the team get their feet under the desk. Our immediate focus on proposition has been to really double down on what our customers look for from a business that offers something different for older people. And that starts with special interest holidays. So as I said in my speech, older customers go on holiday for something different. They're not typically looking to go and lie on a beach or lie by a swimming pool. They're looking for something that engages their brain, maybe participate in their hobbies and just have a great experience beyond simply the pool side. So special interest is always something that we've offered, but we are increasing the range of special interest holidays and seeing increased demand for our special interest holidays. So we're seeing more people engaging with our special interest holidays quite a mouthful, but I'll keep saying it. And as we add in more special interest opportunities going forward or experiences going forward, then we're seeing increased demand as a result of that. So we're seeing more demand for what we've got, and we're driving more growth in that demand by adding in more. Unknown Attendee: Okay. I've got a couple more. That's from Peel Hunt, from Ivon Jones. Say ocean cruise, how are the dry dock timings managed? And were the cruises impacted by the Middle East over the summer and what was the financial impact? Michael Hazell: Okay. Taking the latter easily. We're not impacted by the Middle East disruption. The way to think about our ocean cruise is, it's a floating hotel, and therefore, we float wherever that we want to in any given year. So Middle East is not a big part of our itinerary. And therefore, we flex that itinerary every year to make sense of what we're seeing in the demand, but also the geopolitical environment. So actually a really flexible market for us. And despite all of the disruption in recent years, you've seen that we've gone from strength to shrink without any disruption there. In terms of dry dock timing. We had a dry dock in the first half of this year and we had the other ship, and I forget which way around it is, but the other ship had a dry dock in the second half of last year. And you'll see that just having a slight impact on the load factors in any given year. So that therefore, effectively, the dry docks are now out of the way, and I'm going to look at Nigel, this is why I bring the team here. The cycle for dry docks are every... Nigel Blanks: It's effectively every -- we do 2 docking every 5 years, a wet dock and a dry dock. Wet dock clearly ships those in water, dry dock comes fully out, so that's what we do, our statutory and compliance work. Michael Hazell: So it's a 5-year cycle. Was that the 2 questions? Great. Any other questions online? Unknown Attendee: One more from Ivor. Travel marketing, how are they being deployed and how is that changing? Michael Hazell: So there's a few things on travel marketing. Firstly, by combining the two travel businesses, cruise and holidays, we get much bigger bang for our buck because we're able to optimize our marketing right the way across our travel proposition rather than focusing on cruise marketing overhead or holidays marketing over here. So that is increasing the penetration of our marketing spend right the way across the business. The profile of marketing is slightly different this year to previous years. We focused our marketing in the current year on driving our current year bookings, and you'll see that passenger numbers in here are 13% ahead of the strong year that we had last year. What that means is as we go into the second half of this year, we'll shift our focus into marketing next year, but it does mean that the year-on-year booking profile is slightly different, which is why you're seeing that next year bookings are slightly behind where we were this time last year for the year ahead, not concerned about that. That's simply because we've rightly focused on driving this year, driving the growth into this year, which will then mean that translates into repeat business for next year and then we drive the next year's bookings in the second half of the year. So very confident in the outlook, and that's a business that's growing very well. Outside of the sort of coherent marketing approach right the way across travel, what we are also now doing is really driving up our holiday marketing, more tailored for our customers, again, by looking at all of what works and what doesn't work right the way across our holiday propositions, we can take learnings from one part of the business into the others. So I would say that in our holidays business, we've probably been a little overexposed to digital marketing and a little underexposed to analog marketing. That means that if you recognize our customer base, they tend to respond more to the white male catalog marketing than they will do to digital marketing. There's room for both, but our cruise business has got brilliant experience in doing that. The Marketing Director that was sitting across cruise is now sitting across the whole of our Travel business, bringing those learnings into the Holidays business. So we're rebalancing the spend between digital and analog, importantly. But we're also out on radio. You'll notice that insurance is now actively marketing on TV as well, that brings us a halo effect. So right the way across the board, you'll see Saga present not just in travel, but more generally, putting your head above the parapet, which I think is a real sign of where the business now is. We're coming out, we've got a strong footing, we've got our funding in place, we've got our growth trajectory ahead of us, and we're now trading the business hard and investing in that growth, and clearly, it's working. Any other questions online or should I say from Ivor? Good. All right. Any other questions in the room? Doesn't sound like there's any more online. Okay. Just to wrap up then, thank you for joining today. Look, I think we've made really good progress. You can see that we're trading well, which sets us up really well for the trajectory we're on. But really importantly, that's going to be underpinned by the delivery of our strategic actions, and we're getting on with that stuff as well, which means when we talk about those medium-term targets that we set out in April, we're even more confident here today that we'll deliver on those targets, GBP 100 million profit and less than 2x leverage by January 2030. So great fun, and we're getting it done. Thank you, everybody.