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Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to DAVIDsTEA's Second Quarter Results Webcast for fiscal 2025. Today's webcast is being recorded [Operator Instructions] Before we get started, I would like to remind you of the company's safe harbor language. This webcast includes forward-looking statements about expectations for the performance of the business in the coming quarter and year. Each forward-looking statement contained in this webcast is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in such statements. Additional information regarding these factors appears under the heading Risk Factors and Uncertainties in the Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, the MD&A, which was filed with Canadian regulatory authorities and is available on www.sedarplus.ca. The forward-looking statements in this discussion speak only as of today's date, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. If any non-IFRS financial measure is used during this webcast, a reconciliation to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measure will be detailed in the MD&A. As a reminder, all dollar amounts referred to are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. Now I would like to turn the call over to Sarah Segal, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Brand Officer of DAVIDsTEA. Sarah Segal: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. DAVIDsTEA stayed the course with its omnichannel growth strategy in the second quarter of 2025, supported by retail stores and wholesale channel sales increases of 9.1% and 2.5% year-over-year, respectively. Overall, we reported a net loss of $1.6 million on sales of $11.1 million in the second quarter, which is typical of our seasonally driven business. While our online sales have not grown to target, we are encouraged by the halo effect of our retail locations, which continue to drive brand awareness and customer engagement. As we expand our store footprint, we are intensifying our community and brand marketing efforts across both digital and physical media to ensure we remain top of mind with consumers heading into our peak selling season. If you recall, we generate more than 60% of our annual sales volume in the third and fourth quarters. For example, we have invested in online advertising, billboard ads, wellness influencers, affiliate programs and promotional events to raise brand awareness with consumers as they seek to buy gifts for themselves and their friends during the upcoming holiday period. We expect these initiatives to generate a strong return on investment and contribute to profitable growth. Against this backdrop, our business continues to operate in a challenging environment characterized by the imposition of tariffs in the U.S., higher unemployment and inflationary pressure, but our brand has demonstrated remarkable resiliency against these macroeconomic headwinds. Looking ahead, we fully intend to make retail stores the focal point of our omnichannel growth strategy. After all, the best advertising for DAVIDsTEA is a new store, which continues to provide a superior personal experience through our knowledgeable tea guides. We believe this positive in-store consumer experience in turn, will continue to convert non-tea drinkers or casual tea drinkers into devoted tea lovers. Accordingly, we are currently renovating our flagship store in Montreal South Shore and remain on track to reopen in mid-November. This represents an exciting first step in our renewed retail expansion strategy. We have also signed a second lease agreement in Quebec City. The opening of a store at Laurier in Quebec City's provincial capital will supplement our current offering at Les Galeries de la Capitale. In addition, we are planning to unveil a third store at the Square One Mall in Mississauga, one of the premier shopping centers in Canada come July 2026. This store will be based on a new concept that is more open, including an accessible tea bar that enables consumers to sample a wide variety of premium teas and blends with curated signature drinks that change seasonally. So notwithstanding these 3 store openings over the next 12 months, we are currently negotiating with high-end mall owners across Canada to introduce additional new stores within our portfolio and be well on our way to significantly increasing our store footprint over the next 3 years. In summary, DAVIDsTEA stayed the course with its omnichannel growth strategy in the second quarter of 2025. We reported as expected financial results in what can best be described as a stable quarter with preparations to conclude the year on target. More importantly, we are firmly on a path to increasing our store footprint over the next 12 months while also increasing our marketing efforts in new and exciting demographics with a focus on experiential marketing to ensure that DAVIDsTEA brand is top of mind with consumers. Ultimately, with these actions, we have our sights set on delivering sustained and profitable growth in the periods ahead. I will now turn the webcast over to Frank Zitella, President, Chief Financial and Operating Officer of DAVIDsTEA. Frank Zitella: Thank you, Sarah, and good morning, everyone. Consolidated sales improved 0.5% to $11.1 million in the second quarter of 2025. This slight year-over-year increase can be attributed to higher brick-and-mortar and wholesale channel sales, partially offset by lower online revenues. On a channel basis, brick-and-mortar sales grew by $0.4 million or 9.1% to $4.6 million in Q2 of 2025, driven by the contributions of 2 additional stores in the Montreal area and positive comparable store sales growth of 0.6%. Wholesale channel sales, meanwhile, rose by $0.1 million or 2.5% to $1.5 million in the second quarter as we restocked grocery stores, pharmacy chains and big box stores with our core products. For their part, online sales decreased by $0.4 million year-over-year or 6.7% to $5.1 million as macroeconomic headwinds and noise surrounding tariffs were a drag on e-commerce revenues. Geographically, Canada represented 90% of total sales in the second quarter of 2025, while the U.S. accounted for 10%. Revenue south of the border decreased by $0.3 million year-over-year. Gross profit remained stable at $5.3 million or 47.2% of sales in the second quarter of 2025 as a slight decline in product margin was offset by lower freight, shipping and fulfillment cost per unit. Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased by $0.1 million or 1.9% to $6.6 million in the second quarter of 2025. The slight year-over-year improvement was driven by improved IT expenses, resulting from the successful conversion of our full technology stack to a lower cost operating system. During the quarter, we also reversed previously incurred IT expenses. In addition, we reported an impairment charge on property, equipment and intangible assets in Q2 of 2024 that did not reoccur in the most recent quarter. These savings were mostly offset by increased marketing expenses in the second quarter of 2025, which Sarah referred to in her prepared remarks, along with higher wages and employee benefits. In terms of profitability, net loss remained stable at $1.6 million in the second quarter, while adjusted EBITDA amounted to negative $0.2 million compared to negative $0.3 million in the same period last year. Moving on to liquidity and capital resources. DAVIDsTEA's cash position improved to $7.6 million in the second quarter of 2025 from $6.7 million in the second quarter of 2024. On a sequential basis, our cash declined from $10.4 million in the first quarter of 2025 due to the seasonality of our business. Cash flow used from operations, meanwhile, amounted to $1.5 million in the second quarter of 2025 compared to $1 million in the same period of 2024. The year-over-year increase in cash used was mainly due to higher inventories in preparation in the upcoming selling season, partially offset by greater trade and other payables compared to the prior year quarter. In closing, the entire DAVIDsTEA team is brimming with excitement for the upcoming selling season with brand-new collections and innovative gifts prepared for our loyal customers. Behind the relentless push to elevate the wellness of tea drinking across our brick-and-mortar online and wholesale channel sales, we remain focused on delivering profitability on a sustainable basis. Consequently, all investments undertaken, including those to raise brand awareness and to be top of mind with consumers are judiciously scrutinized to deliver significant ROI over time. Finally, we announced that Ernst & Young LLP, Chartered Professional Accountants, resigned as auditors of DAVIDsTEA at the company's request and that the Board of Directors appointed Richter LLP Chartered Professional Accountants as the company's new auditors. DAVIDsTEA thanks Ernst & Young for its service as auditors since fiscal 2011. This concludes our review of second quarter results for fiscal 2025. We encourage investors wishing to obtain additional color about DAVIDsTEA to contact Investor Relations to coordinate access to management. Thank you for joining us today.
Operator: Hello, and welcome to the JTC PLC Interim Results Presentation. My name is David, and I'll be your host for today's event. Please note that the event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Before we proceed, as you will have seen, JTC is currently in an offer period under the U.K. Takeover Code. As summarized in the company's RNS of 12th of September regarding possible offers, the Board received three preliminary nonbinding proposals from Permira in August, which were considered by the company and its advisers and unanimously rejected by the Board. The Board received a fourth revised proposal on the 9th of September and is in early stage discussions with Permira in relation to the possible offer. The Board also received two preliminary and nonbinding proposals from Warburg Pincus in early September, which were considered and unanimously rejected. A further proposal has been received and the Board is currently in early-stage discussions with Warburg Pincus in relation to the possible offer. In respect of these approaches, you will appreciate that management are very restricted in the comments they make only commentating on information already in the public domain, and we therefore prefer that most of the questions this morning are focused on the business. Thank you. I will now hand you over to the presenters for today. Nigel Le Quesne: Good morning. Welcome to the presentation of JTC PLC's interim results for the period ended 30th of June 2025. I'm Nigel Le Quesne, the Group CEO, and presenting with me today is Martin Fotheringham, our Group CFO. Let's move to Slide 1 and the agenda. We will begin with my CEO highlights for the period, after which Martin will run through the financial review. Following this, I'll take a deeper look at the group and the divisions and then go on to discuss how the rise in popularity of alternative assets positively impacts JTC's long-term growth potential and explain how we act as a key enabler of capital flows in these asset classes through both divisions. I'll also give a brief progress report on the integration of Citi Trust into our wider business post completion and we'll provide color on our focus areas for the medium to long term. Finally, I will summarize our key takeaways and my expectations for the group for the rest of the year. We will then open the forum up for questions. 2025 is the second year of our Cosmos era business plan, in which we aim to double the size of the business by no later than 2027 and for the third time since our IPO in 2018. The group has delivered a strong performance in the first half of 2025 with strong organic growth of 11%, record new business wins achieved through high win rates in what has been a more challenging macro environment. The results underline the benefits of having access to both institutional and private capital bases and continues to demonstrate the sustainable and evergreen nature of the JTC business model. As we approach the end of our 38th consecutive year of revenue and profit growth since inception, our unique shared ownership culture, diversified professional services business model and continued focus on client service excellence, all lead to our being well positioned to succeed and continue growing in any economic environment. In H1 2025, our group revenue was up 17.3% and EBITDA was up 15.1%, delivered at an underlying EBITDA margin of 32.8%. Our net organic growth was 11%, ahead of our guidance for the Cosmos era with growth at 14.6% and client attrition at 3.6%, an improvement on last year's 4.8%. We also achieved another record for new business wins in the period of GBP 19.5 million. As a result of our performance in H1, coupled with the benefit of our two most recent acquisitions, Citi Trust and Kleinwort Hambros Trust, we remain confident that we will achieve our Cosmos era goals ahead of schedule. The PCS division has performed particularly well in the period with outstanding net organic growth of 14.5%, continuing a strong trend. It is now established as the leading independent global trust company business and is the largest independent provider by some distance in the important U.S. market, which continues to be an opportunity-rich environment for the group. It is pleasing to report the completion of our acquisition of Citi Trust on the 1st of July, and we've made good progress to accelerate the integration and harmonize the business model. I will return to this later. Building on this, post period end, we were delighted to announce the proposed acquisition of Kleinwort Hambros Trust Company or KHT. The KHT deal is further evidence of the reputation JTC has established as the offtaker of choice for banks as they seek lighter operating models and retrench to their core capabilities. KHT is highly complementary to JTC's existing offering and brings us a U.K. trust presence for the first time. The deal was executed at an attractive price of circa 6x EBITDA, and we expect to complete in Q4 2025 and for it to be earnings accretive in 2026. The ICS division delivered net organic growth of 9.2%. This is a strong result in a market where macroeconomic headwinds have led to a period of volatility and uncertainty leading to prolonged sales cycles. Nevertheless, our pipeline has remained healthy, and we achieved robust win rates of over 50% and onboarded some significant clients in the period. At a group operations level, there's been heightened project activity in the period. In the process of implementing a global billing platform to enhance consistency and standardization across the group in support of our proprietary frameworks performance management tool. We are also enhancing our global risk and compliance framework, including a review and harmonization of policies and procedures underpinned by the implementation of an enhanced new RegTech solution [ CAMS ] . In addition we're using the Citi acquisition as a catalyst to accelerate the planned upgrade to [ Quantios Core ], our group-wide primary administration system. These important projects, together with our recently implemented group HR platform and our development of the ChatJTC AI tool, our infrastructure investments, which allow us to future-proof our global platform and capture the strong growth opportunities we see, both in the current Cosmos era and into the Genesis era that will follow. Although temporarily margin dilutive, these investments are all designed to improve commercial performance and enhance the platform for growth in the medium term. As always, I will wrap up my highlights by thanking the top-quality team we have at JTC. In July, we were delighted to award the second tranche of warehouse shares from our employee benefit trust to our global workforce for their individual and collective achievements in the Galaxy era between 2021 and 2023. We continue to believe that the power of our shared ownership culture is the foundation of JTC's 37-year track record of uninterrupted revenue and profit growth. Having 2,300 owners rather than employees makes an enormous difference to our working environment and the organization's culture, which is reflected in our industry-leading staff retention figures, which are currently 96%. This enables us to ensure that the team are happy, valued and empowered and highly motivated to improve our business and client experience every day. So now let's turn to Slide 4 and the financial highlights. Our revenues have grown to GBP 172.6 million and underlying EBITDA was GBP 56.5 million, delivered an underlying group EBITDA margin of 32.8%. As previously highlighted, our group net organic growth was an excellent 11%. New business wins were a period record of GBP 19.5 million as the group continues to benefit from excellent win rates of greater than 50% across both divisions. Now a consistent performance metric achieved in a competitive market. The new business pipeline remains strong and increased from GBP 49.8 million at year-end to circa GBP 60 million at the end of H1, indicating the probability of good momentum in the second half of the year. The Lifetime Value of work Won was another record at circa GBP 267 million based upon the 14.2-year average lifespan of our client book. This gives us visibility of over GBP 2.4 billion of forward revenues from our existing client book, i.e., what the business would generate without the addition of any new mandates from this point forward. This metric continues to demonstrate the long-term and compounding value of the group. And finally, on to the interim dividend, which has been proposed at 5p per share, up 16.3% from 4.3p. Now over to Martin for a deeper look at the financials. Martin Fotheringham: Thank you, Nigel. We've delivered a strong set of results that are in line with our expectations, where we've continued to focus on delivering growth. Organic growth was 11%, the sixth successive reporting period where net organic growth has exceeded 10%. The financial highlights slide shows that our overall revenue growth was 17.3%. We're performing well, led by net organic growth. It's pleasing to see the momentum we built in 2024 carry into 2025. Our underlying EBITDA margin dropped by 0.6 percentage points from H1 '24 and was 32.8%, and there's more on this later. Earnings per share increased by 7.1%. Cash conversion was 86% and is in line with our guidance range of 85% to 90% annual cash conversion. This is lower than our normal H1 performance, and I'll explain why later. Net debt increased by GBP 43 million, and this was driven by drawdowns for earn-outs. It was a busy year in 2024 for M&A with 5 deals completed, which we've continued to integrate throughout 2025. The Citi Trust acquisition also completed on the 1st of July, and we have the KHT deal, which will complete later this year. At the period end, our reported underlying leverage was 2.06x. On a pro forma basis, our underlying leverage was below 2x underlying EBITDA. And finally, our return on invested capital for the last 12 months was 13%, an improvement from the 12.6% we reported at the end of 2024. Moving on a slide, we'll start with revenue and our revenue bridge. On a constant currency basis, our revenue growth was 18.4%. This was above our reported growth of 17.3%, where we were again impacted by the weaker U.S. dollar during the last 12 months. As our U.S. presence has increased, so has our exposure to the U.S. dollar. Gross new revenue was GBP 36.8 million, a decrease from GBP 38.3 million in H1 '24. The prior period continued to enjoy the benefit of the immediate impact from the launch of our banking and treasury service. Gross attrition was GBP 9.1 million, which is 3.6% of annual revenues and is down from the 4.8% reported in the prior year. GBP 6.2 million of this attrition was end of life, and therefore, 98.8% of non-end-of-life revenue was retained. This is the highest retained revenue result we've posted since IPO. Revenue recognized on new business wins in the year was 54% compared to 51% recorded in H1 '24. Our new business pipeline at the period end was a best ever GBP 60.4 million, which is a GBP 10.6 million increase from the end of 2024. Let's move on to Slide 9 and take a look at the first of our key metrics, net organic growth. As I've already said, we delivered organic growth of 11% in the last 12 months with our 3-year average now standing at 14.8%. We've posted net organic growth in excess of 10% for 3 successive years. ICS recorded net organic growth of 9.2%, which was commendable when considering external factors where the continuing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty has generally stalled fund launches and slowed down activity levels. The U.S. has continued to deliver good growth for our ICS business. PCS has excelled with 14.5% net organic growth with the U.S. and Cayman the key drivers. Pricing growth remained strong at 5.1%, demonstrating our ability to recover increased costs of doing business. To conclude on revenue, let's look at the geographical profile on Slide 10. All regions once again supported revenue growth in the period. The U.S. continues to deliver impressive levels of organic growth and has established itself as a leading growth region. At IPO, the region represented 4% of our global revenue, and this now stands at 31%. Taking into account the Citi acquisition, we expect the U.S. will represent approximately 35% of our global revenues. The rest of the world also recorded impressive growth of 74.3%, and this was driven by the inorganic growth of the FFP acquisition and the continued growth of our own Cayman business. We now move on to the EBITDA margin on Slide 11. The underlying margin was 32.8%, a drop from the 33.4% recorded in H1 '24. I said previously, there are many moving parts in our margin story. On the one hand, we've improved our margin over recent years through the introduction of higher-margin banking and treasury business. Typically, we also have a small operational gearing uplift each year of approximately 1%. As you know, we're committed to the future success of the business, and it's our strategy to invest in areas where we believe will ultimately benefit the business, whilst delivering an acceptable margin. This includes start-up services in new jurisdictions, current examples of which are our private office, ESG service and Irish Funds business, which we calculate drag our margin today by 0.6%. We also see margin dilution from investment in growth jurisdictions. These are jurisdictions where organic growth exceeds 15% or where the current infrastructure is disproportionate to the revenue generated. We currently have just over 10 jurisdictions that fall into this grouping. Gross margins from this cohort averaged 51% compared to mature jurisdictions where the average is 69%. Four years ago, 33% of our revenues came from these growth jurisdictions, whereas today, it's over 50%. Finally, on margins, I've previously noted our higher spend on risk and compliance. Notwithstanding the hard to quantify amount of chargeable time we spend dealing with regulatory obligations, we also continue to invest into our group capability. Over time, that alone has impacted margins by 50 basis points. Now focusing on cash conversion on Slide 12. Cash conversion was 86%, a decrease from 104% recorded last year. Our normal cash collection cycle is that we have strong collections in H1 that were above 100%. So this is a significant drop, albeit it remains within our guidance range. The drivers for the drop are temporary and do not impact our ability to meet our annual target. Adjusting for these temporary impacts, would have seen us delivering cash conversion of approximately 102%. The drivers for the decrease, as shown in the bottom graph, were as follows: 4 percentage points for temporary timing differences. These include cash outflows that we paid in H1 this year that we would normally pay out in H2. 4 percentage points for a change in billing cycles for one of our business segments, where we've moved to a biannual billing cycle for fees that were previously billed on an annual basis at the beginning of each year. These fees were collected in July. A 2 percentage point impact due to FX in the period. This can fluctuate and has been adjusted to show a constant currency position. The 6 percentage points is due to the impact of recent acquisitions, primarily FFP and SDTC, where the businesses do not follow our usual H1 seasonality and our cash inflows are not weighted to the first half of the year. As you can see, adjusting for these, our underlying performance in H1 was strong. We maintain our medium-term guidance range for annual cash conversion of 85% to 90%. Now let's look at net debt and leverage on Slide 13. At the end of 2024, our reported net debt was GBP 182.3 million. And by the 30th of June, it stood at GBP 225.1 million, an increase of GBP 42.8 million. This was driven in the main by the net outflows for acquisitions of GBP 47.8 million, where material outflows included the payout in full for the FFP earn-out of GBP 24.9 million, the SDTC earn-out of GBP 19.1 million and a total of GBP 3.8 million covering Hanway, perfORM and Buck earn-outs. Our reported leverage was 2.06x underlying EBITDA. However, annualizing recent acquisitions to achieve a pro forma leverage shows that we would be within our guidance range. With the Citi and KHT acquisitions, leverage will be above 2x at the year-end, but below our absolute peak of 2.5x. We expect to rapidly delever through 2026. As anticipated at the year-end, we completed on a U.S. private placement facility in the first half of 2025 for $100 million. As at 30th of June 2025, the group had total undrawn funds available from banking facilities of GBP 123 million. And finally, our return on invested capital. We delivered a return on investment of 13% in the last 12 months. This was an improvement of 40 basis points from the position at the end of 2024, and this continues to be significantly above our cost of capital. I'm really pleased with this improvement in a period of ongoing acquisition activity. The lifetime value of clients, which represents the revenue that our client relationships will generate in the absence of new business, increased by 4.3% from 2024 to GBP 2.4 billion. Since IPO, we've reported over a 700% increase from GBP 0.3 billion in 2018 to GBP 2.4 billion today. To conclude, we continue to deliver a solid and resilient set of financials in the second year of our Cosmos era. And on that note, I'll hand back to Nigel. Nigel Le Quesne: Thank you, Martin. As I've mentioned earlier, next, we will cover the macro environment, its effect on the M&A market and take a deeper look at the 2 divisions. Following which I will discuss 2 key topics. Firstly, how the growth of capital allocation to alternative assets acts as a tailwind for the group; then secondly, detailing the positive progress of the Citi Trust integration and how our ability to solve for banking institutions seeking lighter operating models provides JTC with a competitive advantage. In the wider M&A market, global deal volumes were down 13% in the first half of 2025 when compared with the previous year. This was largely due to the macro environment, including trade uncertainty, geopolitical instability and a difficult funding environment. The sentiment has definitely improved in H2 as the financing markets improve. Buyer appetite remains strong as firms face mounting pressure to deploy capital, demonstrated to some degree by the recent interest in JTC. Advisers have backlogs of deals creating a buoyant market. In our sector alone, we're aware of close to 10 deals of a good size attracting strong market interest. Given our current financial leverage and recent acquisition activity, we will concentrate on maximizing the opportunities presented by Citi Trust and KHT in the short term. But we will keep a close eye on the developments in the wider market, where we continue to be viewed as a good counterparty and long-term home for businesses by sellers and advisers alike. The regulatory regimes continue to prove challenging, as I've commented on previously. The propensity to look to impose regulatory fines on organizations for specific client matters, which are often minor in nature rather than systemic issues has been unhelpful. At JTC, this current environment has led to increased costs in the risk and compliance teams, created a need for greater technology spend and a disproportionate amount of time being demanded on the divisional fee earners. The number of regulatory interactions we've been required to engage with across our growing global platform continues to increase period-on-period, reflecting the trend of increased scrutiny across the sector as a whole. Regulation can, of course, also act as a tailwind to our industry, however, creating additional demand for our services and providing M&A opportunities as businesses consolidate to share the cost of the regulatory burden. As I mentioned earlier, the divisions have both performed well, although have been faced with slightly different challenges. In PCS, we have had opportunity of pre-completion work ahead of the delivery of Citi Trust, our largest acquisition to date. As mentioned, we have also been successful in our bid for the KHT business and are now following a similar but less complex integration process and expect to complete the transaction following regulatory consents in Q4. Alongside this, division has benefited from excellent net organic growth of 14.5% and continues to lead its market. In ICS, we have not had the benefit of M&A activity in the period. And as a result, it has been a consolidation phase. We have taken the opportunity to refresh our go-to-market strategy and implement operational and technological enhancements. As indicated earlier, the macro environment has been more challenging. As a result, we were pleased with organic growth performance of 9.2%. This has included the addition of some substantial clients, which will continue to grow and flourish on our watch. Overall, as we look across the group, what is crystal clear is that we have an abundance of opportunities to explore in the second half of the year and beyond. I mentioned earlier that our industry has developed to deal with greater complexity over time, leading to a several market participants leaving the sector. In part, this has been due to increased burden of regulation and internationalization, which in turn has led to sector consolidation. This has then been accelerated by the attractive nature of the business model to investors. However, in our view, the core underlying tailwind has been the growth and increase in popularity of alternative assets. This is particularly evident by the retrenchment of banks from the market where bankable assets alone do not provide the breadth of holistic solutions demanded by ultra-high net worth individuals and families. Similarly, on the institutional side, with the growth of alternatives came the need for new and innovative corporate and fund structure solutions to manage those assets, creating a powerful driver for the industry in the process. As a result, we are operating in a market which has undergone profound structural change. It has expanded, consolidated and become increasingly multifaceted, driving demand for sophisticated administration, advisory and governance solutions, all of which are core strengths of JTC. According to the data provider, Preqin, today, there's around $16 trillion in global capital allocated to alternatives across private equity, real estate, infrastructure, renewables, private debt and hedge strategies. This figure is projected to nearly double to $30 trillion by 2030, growing at 9.5% compound annual growth rate. The growth is driven by both institutional allocators, for example, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and endowments, all of which are supported by JTC's diversified model and by private capital from ultra-high net worth individuals and family offices, many of whom have a scale and sophistication that means they operate at a quasi-institutional level. JTC facilitates this capital deployment by providing administration for funds, companies and trusts. This places JTC at the intersection of two major flows, institutional capital seeking exposure to higher return illiquid strategies and private capital pursuing diversification and intergenerational wealth preservation. From an analysis of our own book of clients, we estimate that around 80% of our revenues are linked to structures that are designed for or contain alternative assets. This underscores the group's strategic focus and exposure to these long-term growth trends. As global allocation shift further towards alternatives, demand for sophisticated and scalable administration services like those provided by JTC can be expected to rise significantly. JTC is, therefore, not merely a professional service provider, we are an enabler of capital allocation in the fast-growing alternatives market. With strong exposure to both institutional and private capital flows, we are positioned to benefit from multiyear tailwinds. We have recently decided to update the names of the divisions to Institutional Capital Services and Private Capital Services, respectively, to better reflect both what we do and this important value driver that is common to both divisions and the vast majority of client types. The alignment between our service offering and expansion of the alternatives ecosystem across both institutional and private capital provides a clear, durable and scalable growth trajectory for the business. Now on to the progress of the Citi Trust integration. This deal has already had a significant positive impact on our profile and in particular, increased the awareness of the JTC brand in the United States and opened up greater access to very important markets in the Middle East and Asia. The Citi credentials have been particularly important in this regard, and we've experienced excellent collaboration from the bank with a sense of a true partnership, including the introduction to both potential and established clients, providing new distribution channels for JTC. We are already able to report that we have a clear route to improve the operating model, bringing an accelerated margin enhancement from our previous estimates made at the time of the acquisition was announced. As we indicated in July trading update, we are now confident the margin of the business will be 30% plus by the end of 2026. And this acquisition continues to look to be one of our most exciting deals to date. More generally, we have proved ourselves as a reliable counterparty for bank carve-out deals by concentrating on the priorities of the banks, which are focused on protecting their reputation and the client experience. We now have a track record that places us as the offtaker of choice for deals of this nature as a lighter operating model is sought as most recently demonstrated by the subsequent KHT deal. Finally, on to the key takeaways. We have delivered sector-leading performance with strong organic growth and stable margins that reflect our ongoing investment in the global platform. We are established as the leading independent provider of trust company services globally and the additions of Citi Trust and KHT are highly complementary to JTC's existing offering. The growth in capital allocation to alternative assets is a major structural tailwind for the group, and JTC is positioned at the intersection of those capital flows ready to capture significant growth opportunity for both divisions. We are progressing well towards achieving our Cosmos era goal of doubling the business from January 2024 and are highly confident we'll be able to do this ahead of schedule before the end of 2027. Looking at the second half of the year, we have a strong new business pipeline and consistent high win rates, giving us good momentum for organic growth in H2. While we will focus on the ongoing integration of Citi and early stages of KHT, we continue to track good opportunities to our M&A pipeline across both divisions and our key target markets. Return on invested capital is expected to continue to strengthen in 2025 with further improvement anticipated in 2026 as we realize the full year contributions from the Citi Trust and KHT acquisitions, both of which have been acquired at excellent multiples. As always, we will continue to invest the growth, ensuring that our global platform is always scalable and fit for purpose. Ultimately, we continue to concentrate on being the best service provider and less on being the biggest. Once again, we maintain our guidance metrics that define what sustainable success looks like for a business of our nature. So thank you for listening and for your ongoing support. We will now be happy to take your questions. Operator: Thank you to Nigel and Martin for the presentation. They're now unmuted. So we'll be happy to take questions. [Operator Instructions] I think the first one was Michael Donnelly. So Michael, we will come to you and unmute first. Michael Donnelly: Three from me. Could we take them in turn, please? First one, Nigel, you said the 20% new business pipeline growth from December to June suggested it was the effect of strong growth in the second half or good growth or something like that. Can you just confirm, should we interpret that growth in the second half as being in line with the 10% or 10% plus organic growth in that period? Nigel Le Quesne: I think, Michael, the signs are good, right? So it's the fullest pipe we've ever had. I think we've seen slower delivery, in particular, in the institutional market in terms of bringing clients through to a successful launch and into fee-earning territory. But the signs are really good, and it's a very strong pipe. So we're expecting, I think, to be keeping above our 10% plus organic growth metric. Michael Donnelly: That's great. Secondly, the 14.5% organic in private capital services, can you tell us how much of that you think came from U.K. Channel Islands? You may not have the exact number, but just a feel for was it the -- was it a major contributor? Or was it just in line with everything else? Nigel Le Quesne: I don't think -- the question is around the exposure to or migration from one to other. We're not really that exposed to the U.K. market to a large degree. So what I can tell you is the Jersey is probably the biggest single jurisdiction for wins in that period. And then we've had some really good wins in Cayman, Singapore and Dubai as well. So -- but not necessarily as a result of sort of driven by tax or other considerations. We're just not exposed to that market particularly. Michael Donnelly: Understood. And then finally, on Kleinwort and Citi, both trust businesses, do you think that once they're both completed and embedded in, the number of -- the amount of revenues exposed to assets under management will be very different from the sort of 15% that I think historically we've been used to that are AUM exposed? Nigel Le Quesne: No. The KHT book is actually a time and materials book in any event. So that doesn't change the mix at all. The Citi book, on the other hand, has got AUM elements associated or primarily as AUM. And the way we're dealing with that is we will use this year's fees to create, if you like, the minimum for future fees. So we create a floor and then we'll run the clock alongside the work we do for these clients and top up accordingly if we believe that's what it is. So in effect, we'll make it -- how can I put it, measured by time and materials. Operator: Thanks, Michael. It was great. Appreciate your questions. Next, could we unmute Vivek Raja, please. Vivek Raja: Thank you for your presentations. I found your results presentation very comprehensive. I don't have any questions. So apologies, I'm going to ask you about the bid situation. Just a simple question. You've set different PUSU dates for Permira and Warburg Pincus. I was just curious about why you've done that? Nigel Le Quesne: No, we didn't set separate different PUSU dates. It's really driven by when the bids were received. So they were just received on different days, and therefore, the dates are different. Unknown Analyst: Nigel, would help if I jumped in. It's [ Stuart ] from Deutsche. The PUSU dates are set by the date of the leak announcement. It's as simple as that, and there's sort of 2 different leak announcements. That's what sets those 28 days. Vivek Raja: Okay. I mean is that process -- how are you going to sort of align that process given you've got competing bids then? Unknown Analyst: There is no obligation to align it. Operator: Can we go to James Clark, next please. James Clark: My first is just on the wider industry and sector. There's obviously, as you know, right now, a lot of PE interest in all sorts of assets, both bolt-on and sort of larger platforms. I guess I just wondered from your perspective, when you take part in these bids and you see PE either out compete on price or maybe you outcompete them. I guess I just wondered what you are able to offer to some of these larger businesses privately that's drives their interest specifically, i.e., things like are they able to accelerate the margin profile because of greater automation or great use of AI? Are there any other areas that they're able to really explore that perhaps publicly as a publicly listed company, it's a bit harder. So I guess what really drives their specific interest? Obviously, it's a highly consolidating industry and there's lots of M&A potential. But what are they able to deliver, do you think privately that perhaps is harder publicly? I have a second question as well, which is more on the margin profile, but I'll wait for the answer. Nigel Le Quesne: I think -- well, can I just answer it from our perspective? Look, we like and have liked being a listed business. So -- but our industry is dominated by private equity, as you probably -- as you're alluding to, and it's at various levels. So if I look at it from our perspective, currently, it's fair to say that the ability to -- we have got balance sheet constraints in a consolidating market. So that is a challenge for us to work through as a listed business. And I think occasionally, it's meant that we couldn't compete for good assets over time. But we work it through and we find and we always have found very good deals to be done sort of away from and outside of perhaps the normal processes that you go through. But clearly, there wouldn't be the same balance sheet constraints in the business as a whole. In terms of what they can do that we couldn't do ourselves, I think it's debatable. I think there is a little bit of -- there can be a sense that we're in sort of period-to-period sprints as a listed business, which you may not be in quite the same place with a longer-term view that may be taken by a private equity house, particularly to, if you like, just we take time to sort of pit stop for a little bit and work out what it is you want to be doing in particular areas, technology you alluded to could be one of those. So there's obviously pros and cons with both, but there's definitely advantages for us for being the only listed business in our space, but occasionally works as a disadvantage for us as well. So I hope that answers the question. James Clark: That does. That's very helpful. And then my second question is just on the additional costs to do with compliance and risk management sort of spending centrally and the regulatory cost headwind. I think you flagged it was 50 bps headwind in the first half. Should we expect that heightened level of spending to kind of continue? And I guess, is it accelerating today versus a year ago? And then sort of follow-up to that would be the upper end of your margin limits being 38%. Is that now not really achievable because you've got this sort of, I guess, headwind structurally to your margin? And then I think -- so that's a big question here, but you also flagged that you can manage that margin headwind through scale. So I'd be interested to know how you sort of do that and why you wouldn't pass it on through price? Nigel Le Quesne: Happy to pick that up. I think it's too early to say whether the risk and compliance or risk and regulation environment we work in is necessarily always going to be a drag on margin to the degree it is today. But just to answer your question about sort of regulatory interactions, which we track, we've gone from 46 in 2022, 58 in 2023, 76 in 2024, expecting 90-plus this year. So that gives you an idea of -- now in fairness, we will have -- we're probably regulated in more ways, in more places than we were initially. But just gives you an idea of the burden and that is permanently some sort of regulatory interaction required. More generally, I think we were quite pleased with the Moneyval visits to Jersey and Guernsey, which obviously quite big jurisdictions for us that seem to go reasonably well. And we had a very good meeting with the group of international finance centers. I think we met 5 or 6 of them together in a forum around the beginning of the year. So having said that, we've seen a little bit more interest in the regulatory environment from both the Netherlands and Luxembourg in the last sort of 6 months or so. So it's there's sort of one area you feel is feeling -- is going quite well and then you'll get interest from another area. So -- but I wouldn't necessarily say that it will -- it means that 38% isn't doable. I just think there are different ingredients in different times, and there's other things we're doing all the time. I mean the margin is quite complicated. I'm sure as you know, growth can affect your margin, tech investment can affect your margin in the short term with a view to being long term. But I wouldn't say it's impossible for us to get to 38%, but it's probably a little bit more difficult than it was when we set the 33% to 38%. And then in terms of how we might address that, I think there's discipline, efficiency are all things I'm thinking of. Scale is part of it, technology is part of it. And frankly, pricing could be part of it as well. So I hope that's helpful. Operator: Thanks, James. We don't have any further hands up. So unless anyone wants to jump in quickly, I think we are through most of our time anyway. Great. Well, thank you very much to Nigel and Martin and all who have attended today. I hope you enjoyed the presentation, and the presentation will be on our website later today also. Many thanks. Goodbye.
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to Else Nutrition Second Quarter Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Alexandra Schilt. Thank you. You may begin. Alexandra Schilt: Good morning, and thank you for joining Else Nutrition's 2025 Second Quarter Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call. On the call with us today is Hamutal Yitzhak, Chief Executive Officer of Else Nutrition. The company issued a press release today containing its 2025 2nd quarter financial results, which is also posted on the company's website. If you have any questions after the call or would like any additional information about the company, please contact Crescendo Communications at (212) 671-1020. The company's management will now provide prepared remarks reviewing the financial and operational results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2025. Before we get started, we would like to remind everyone that today's call will contain forward-looking statements that are based on current assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements, except as required by law. Information about these risks and uncertainties are included in the company's filings as well as periodic filings with regulators in Canada and the United States, which you can find on SEDAR and Else Nutrition's website. With that, we will now turn the call over to Hamutal Yitzhak, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Hamutal. Hamutal Yitzhak: Thank you, Alexandra, and good morning, everyone. The second quarter of 2025 marked steady progress in our transformation journey. Despite continued macroeconomic pressure and funding constraints. We advanced on several critical fronts, including streamlining our operations and our retail distribution, gaining regulatory momentum and building our pipeline for future cost-efficient sustainable growth. Before diving deeper, I want to acknowledge the reporting delays. Finally, accurate reporting is central to building investor trust. And while delays were driven by technical and external factors, it does not meet the high standards we set for ourselves. Despite operating with a very lean and understaffed financial team, we have managed to catch up with the time lines of the financial statements, and we expect to file on time for Q3. We are taking steps to ensure our reporting processes are fully aligned with regulatory time lines going forward. We remain committed to compliance and transparency for our shareholders. We began 2025 with a clear mandate to operate more efficiently, conserve cash and position the company for long-term sustainability. In Q2, we continued to implement purposeful initiatives to simplify our organization, reduce overhead and increase operational agility. These changes are not only lowering costs, but also helping us to focus on the areas of our business that deliver the most value. One of the most impactful initiatives underway is our planned transition to European-based powder production. By moving key manufacturing closer to our international supply chain, we expect to reduce production costs, expand margins and mitigate tariffs and logistics risks. We believe this strategic shift is essential to scaling efficiently and effectively. On the commercial front, our kids ready-to-drink products continue to expand within Walmart, where we are now available in approximately 1,000 stores. Importantly, our products are resonating with consumers seeking healthier plant-based alternatives for their families. On the regulatory front, we continue to be actively involved and encouraged by the developing legislation around modernizing infant formula standards in the United States. The momentum we saw earlier this year from operations Stork Speed has carried forward with the financial year 2026 Agriculture Appropriations bill, both reinforcing the need to innovation and resilience in the U.S. instant formula market. In addition, the recommendations from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and medicine, particularly around phasing outdated PR testing in favor of more scientifically robust instant growth studies are especially encouraging for Else. These developments give us increased confidence that a regulatory pathway is opening for our plant-based infant formula, and we are preparing accordingly to advance clinical trials as soon as practicable. Beyond the U.S., we are seeing encouraging momentum internationally. Our Toddler Signature products manufactured in Europe continues to perform well online and is generating growing interest from distributors in key global markets. On the adult ready-to-drink line while cash flow constraints have required us to delay the full commercial rollout, retailer engagement has been strong. We are confident that when resources allow this product will represent a meaningful growth lever, particularly in North America and select international markets. At the same time, we are actively engaging in partnership discussions with several large companies that have international operations. These conversations stand both commercial distribution opportunities and strategic R&D collaboration. While no agreements are final, we view these discussions as highly encouraging as they validate Else brand strength, its unique intellectual property and the global demand for plant-based infant nutrition. Before reviewing the financial results of Q2, I want to address the revenue decline compared with Q1 25 and discuss some key factors that contributed to this. First, inventory constraints. We lost more than $300,000 in sales due to out-of-stock situations, primarily in serial, which typically contribute 15% to 20% of our online and retail revenue. given cash priorities, we were unable to replenish in time, but production is now underway and expected to restore availability this month. Second, normal fluctuations of retail sales U.S. retail sales were strong in Q1. Q2 reflects a normalization against that peak, a seasonal pattern, we also observed last year. We anticipate retail sales to strengthen again in the coming months. And lastly, Canadian market. Out-of-stock conditions across our Canadian product portfolio, again, tied to cash priorities reduced revenue from Canada. We are actively restructuring Canadian operations to build a more profitable and sustainable distribution model in parallel to avoid out-of-stock situations. Now let me briefly walk you through our financial performance for the second quarter, which is reported in Canadian dollars. Total revenues for the quarter were $1.5 million compared to $2.6 million in the second quarter of 2024, reflecting softer sales in our core categories, mainly due to inventory constraints. On a half year basis, revenues totaled $3.6 million, down from $4.8 million in the prior year period. Gross profit for the quarter was a loss of $55,000 a compared to the positive $263,000 in Q2 2024. This translates into a negative gross margin of minus 3.7% and versus a positive margin of 10% in the prior year. Importantly, a large portion of the revenue decline was caused by late 2024 U.S. and Canada deductions totaling CAD 270,000 recorded in Q2, which reduced revenue and gross profit that we believe are not reflective of Q2's performance. Importantly, we made significant progress on cost discipline. Operating expenses were reduced by almost 60% year-over-year, falling to $1.3 million from $3.4 million in Q2 2024. Notably, wages came down from $1.1 million in Q1 '14 and to $871,000 in Q1 2025 and to $573,000 in Q2 2025, a 50% reduction. In consulting fees, we cut costs by 90% and office and miscellaneous expenses by close to 60%. These efforts contributed to a narrowing of the operating loss which improved by 55% to $1.4 million from $3.1 million in Q2 '24. At the bottom line, nonoperating items, including the revaluation of warrants convertible impacts and foreign exchange losses weighed on the results. Net loss for the quarter was $1.4 million compared to $2.5 million in Q2 an improvement of roughly 43% year-over-year. We will continue to operate with a lean team structure through 2026 and remain committed to achieving cash flow positivity by late '26 or early '27. Looking ahead, we remain focused on balancing near-term financial discipline with long-term strategic growth. Our priorities for the next several quarters include: growing our online business, where we continue to see strong engagement from health-conscious families Accelerating international expansion with particular focus on Europe and select high potential markets, progressing regulatory discussions to bring our infant formula to market and create a new category in plant-based infant nutrition; improving margins through continued supply chain optimization and sourcing efficiencies and broadening our product portfolio with innovations tailored to both children and adults. At this point, I'd like to address questions that's coming from investors, Alexandra, please lead the Q&A session. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you, Hamutal. Our first question is, can you elaborate on your regulatory strategy and time line? Hamutal Yitzhak: Certainly, we see meaningful progress at both the legislative and scientific levels. operations store speed in the financial year 2026 Agriculture appropriations bill are key milestones that support broader access to alternative formulas. Meanwhile, the National Academy's recommendations to replace outdated testing methods, give us confidence in the FDA's willingness to modernize. We believe these developments will enable us to advance clinical trials in the near future, a critical step in bringing our infant formula to market. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you. Are you exploring M&A or partnerships to accelerate growth? Hamutal Yitzhak: Yes. We continue to evaluate opportunities for strategic collaboration that could expand distribution, enhance our R&D capabilities and accelerate regulatory approvals. While we remain selective, we are open to partnerships that align with our mission and deliver value to shareholders. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you. Our next question, gross margins turned negative in Q2. What drove this? And how will you improve them? Hamutal Yitzhak: The negative gross margin of minus 3.7% in Q2 was driven by a combination of lower sales volumes, higher per unit production costs that were based on when for production costs as the inventory sold was produced in '24 and on the late QS and Canadian reductions that drove revenue down by an additional $270,000. Additionally, some extraordinary cost items in supply chain and distribution weighed on results. Going forward, we are negotiating better supplier terms, improving logistics efficiency and managing inventory more tightly. We expect margins to recover to positive territory in the quarters ahead. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you. When do you expect to achieve positive cash flow? Hamutal Yitzhak: Based on our current trajectory and operational plans, we expect to achieve cash flow breakeven between late '26 and early '27. This time line reflects both the ramp-up in revenue as new distribution channel scale and ongoing cost optimization. Importantly, every quarter between now and then should show progress towards narrowing losses and improving gross margin. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you. With the cease trade order still in effect, how are you addressing regulatory challenges? Hamutal Yitzhak: Upon filing the Q2 '25 financials, the BCSC British Columbia Securities Commission has lifted the cease trade order on the closing date at trade of September 12, 2025. And we are currently awaiting the Toronto Stock Exchange approval. Alexandra Schilt: Thank you, Hamutal. That does conclude our Q&A session. At this point, I'll turn it back over to you for closing remarks. Hamutal Yitzhak: Thank you, Alexandra. In closing, the second quarter reflects the continued progress we are making in transforming else into a leaner, stronger and more focused business. We have stabilized revenues, improved gross margins and significantly reduce our operating losses, all while positioning ourselves for future growth. We remain deeply grateful to our investors partners and customers for their continued confidence and support. We are excited about the road ahead and look forward to sharing further progress in the coming quarters. Thank you for joining today's call. Operator: This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.
Robert Bishop: Good morning, everyone, and apologies for the slight delay. Thank you for joining us for today's presentation. I'm Rob Bishop, Chief Executive Officer for New Hope Group. On my left, I'm joined by Rebecca Rinaldi, our CFO; and Dominic O'Brien on my right, who is our Executive General Manager and Company Secretary. This morning, we released our full year results for the 2025 financial year. Hopefully, you've had a chance to go through the presentation. But in any case, I'll step you through our key highlights for the year before we open up the line for a Q&A session. Despite a softening coal price and a challenging operating environment, 2025 was a strong year for New Hope, where we delivered another considerable increase in saleable coal production as we continue to execute our organic growth plans. Pleasingly, we've seen a significant improvement in safety this year with our 12-month moving average TRIFR decreasing by 35% to 3.22. It's positive to see these metrics improving, and we'll continue to focus on this area as we move into 2026. During the year, we navigated significant wet weather and logistics constraints at our operations in both Queensland and New South Wales. Despite these uncontrollable factors, the group delivered run-of-mine coal production of 16.4 million tonnes, up 33%; saleable coal production of 10.7 million tonnes, up 18% and coal sales of 10.5 million tonnes, up 21%. In terms of our financial highlights, we delivered an underlying EBITDA of $766 million and a statutory net profit after tax of $439 million. Both earnings results were largely impacted by lower realized pricing with the Newcastle export coal price hitting a 4-year low during the 2025 financial year. This year, our business generated $571 million in cash flow from operating activities, which funded investment in our organic growth pipeline and has enabled us to continue to deliver returns to our shareholders. On that note, I'm pleased to announce the Board has declared a fully franked final dividend of $0.15 per share. This brings total dividend for FY '25 to $0.34 per share, all of which are fully franked. Turning to safety. The safety of our people is a key priority, and we are focused on ensuring our people operate in an environment where they are unharmed. As I mentioned earlier, we have seen an improvement in our TRIFR and our All Injury Frequency Rate since we reported to the market last year. Pleasingly, our TRIFR now sits below the 5-year industry average for New South Wales open-cut coal mines. While there's still opportunity for improvement, it's pleasing to see the safety programs we put in place during the year have had a positive impact across our sites. Turning to our operational performance. This year, our Bengalla mine in New South Wales faced notable operational challenges due to significant weather events and logistics constraints across the Hunter Valley. These disruptions led to elevated shipping queues, increased rail cancellations and stock management challenges at site. Despite these headwinds, Bengalla mine delivered a solid performance, producing 7.9 million tonnes of saleable coal, just 2% lower than the previous year's output. Despite lower-than-expected production, Bengalla mine achieved an FOB cash cost, excluding royalties and trade coal, of $76.50 per sales tonne, within guidance range, and a 2% improvement from the previous period. The ramp-up of our New Acland mine progressed throughout the 2025 financial year, supported by commencement of night shift operations in the prep plant and increased workforce intake. As a result, the mine delivered 2.8 million tonnes of salable coal and continues to ramp up towards its target of becoming a 5 million tonnes per annum operation. Overall, strong operational performance at both sites contributed to an 18% increase in group saleable coal production, reaching 10.7 million tonnes. Group FOB cash costs improved by 8% to $82.40 per sales tonne. In terms of our financial performance, the group achieved an average sales price, including hedging, of $161 per tonne and an underlying margin of $64 per tonne. During the year, the thermal coal market was impacted by oversupply, economic uncertainty and a mild winter in Asia, resulting in a softening in coal price. Despite these market conditions, the group's low-cost assets remain resilient and continue to generate solid margins through the cycle. Our business generated $571 million in cash flows from operating activities, enabled continued investment in our assets, allowing us to return $347 million to our shareholders by way of fully franked dividends. This represents $0.41 per share paid during the period, which equates to a gross dividend yield of 12%. Our approach to capital management is underpinned by a disciplined focus on delivering sustainable returns to shareholders. Our two forms of capital returns are fully franked dividends and on-market share buyback. As at the end of 2025, the pace of the share buyback has slowed in conjunction with increase in the company's share price. As previously mentioned, our Board has declared a fully franked dividend of $0.15 per share. New Hope has a significant franking account balance, and we continue to utilize this value for our shareholders. Today and in conjunction with our results release, we announced the introduction of a Dividend Reinvestment Plan, providing shareholders with the option to reinvest their dividends. The DRP is in operation for the 2025 final dividend. Our group strategy is to safely, responsibly and efficiently operate our low-cost, long-life assets with a focus on disciplined capital management, providing valuable returns to our shareholders. We believe our investment proposition is underpinned by these six key areas, which I'll briefly touch on in the following slides. The outlook for our industry is strong. Our strategy is underpinned by the belief that demand for thermal coal produced from Australian operations will continue to play a vital role in providing reliable and secure energy supply to the world. Whilst we expect coal's share of global power generation to reduce over time, the sheer increase in global power demand will continue to support seaborne thermal coal exports into the future. In addition, the aging of existing thermal coal assets, combined with underinvestment in new projects suggest a potential supply shortfall and attractive pricing outlook for the industry. Regardless of pricing dynamics, our low-cost assets produce high-quality coal, providing resilience in cyclical environment and ensuring continued margin generation. In a year where the coal price has touched multiyear lows, our assets were still able to generate margins of circa 40%, which showcases our low-cost nature as well as the significant upside potential available to New Hope and ultimately, our shareholders. New Hope holds a key focus on delivering returns to shareholders. In the last year -- in the last 4 years, fully franked dividends have totaled $1.9 billion, which equates to nearly 55% of the company's market capitalization as at 31 July 2025. In addition, New Hope's share price has outperformed the ASX All Ordinaries by nearly 8x since its initial public offering in 2003. At New Hope, we take pride in our people and the communities in which we operate. We aim to effectively manage our economic, social and environmental impact to ensure the resilience of our business so that we can continue to create stakeholder value. Key aspect of being a responsible operator is rehabilitation. At our Bengalla and New Acland mines, we have disturbed approximately 3,000 hectares of land for mining operations and rehabilitated 36% of that disturbance. In addition, the majority of our land is used for agricultural operations once successfully rehabilitated. Looking ahead, we remain focused on the organic growth of our business throughout the continued ramp-up of New Acland mine, the sustained production at Bengalla mine and the development of Malabar's Maxwell Underground mine, all of which are low unit cost assets. Our pipeline targets a significant increase in coal production over the next 3 years, which represents low-risk, cost-effective growth. Looking ahead to the 2026 financial year, we are focused on remaining resilient, low-cost coal producer while executing our organic growth plans, which will enable us to continue to deliver shareholder value. Thank you very much. I'll now hand over to the operator to start the Q&A session. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question is a phone question from Rob Stein from Macquarie. Robert Stein: Just looking at Slide 14 of your presentation, you've outlined the growth program or a growth profile. Just sort of chipping into it a little bit more, I noticed the Maxwell mine progressive ramp-up and the long-term rate there providing an indication of absolute volumes. Just wondering if you could comment on that as to how you see the ramp-up potential of the mine. And then similarly, just looking at the constant sustained basis for Bengalla, just thinking through the long-term CapEx requirements there. Robert Bishop: Sure. So I guess with our organic ramp-up, we're looking to double our production from -- I think your first question was in relation to Maxwell mine, Malabar's mine. That is already in ramp up. Bord and pillar pit is fully operational. And really, the increase in -- material increase in tonnes will come from the longwall pit or the Woodlands Hill pit when we should see first longwall coal first quarter calendar year 2026. So from that projection, and you can see the uplift on that chart, that should get up to around sort of 6 million to 7 million product tonnes from that operation around about sort of FY '29 onwards. So -- and then I guess, with regards to Bengalla, growth project there has been very successful. Both the prep plant and the pit has achieved targeted production from that growth project albeit hampered by uncontrollable events offside. So you would have seen in the report, we touched on weather events and resulting logistics impact. So that's hampered us in the final quarter of the FY '25 year, and it continued to hamper us into the beginning of this year, and we'll be putting out guidance for this year, I think, in mid-November. Robert Stein: So just as a brief follow-up, in Maxwell, you've got 6 -- sort of ramping up to the 6 million tonne rate there. That's what we should be looking at modeling and taking forward in terms of a view on the mine's potential? Robert Bishop: Yes, I think somewhere in the 6 million to 7 million is what the expectation is. I guess where that asset is at the moment, it's developing up the first longwall panel. So obviously, when you get into a longwall pit, despite all the exploration you can do, you don't really get to understand geological conditions until you're down there. So that's progressing well. And like I said, we're expecting to get the first year of the longwall in first quarter of next year. So assuming everything goes to plan, that should get up to sort of that circa 6 million to 7 million product per annum. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We'll now move to our webcast questions while we wait for any other phone questions to register. Your first webcast question reads, with thermal coal now having retraced back to $102 per tonne, what are your views on the state of the market. Anything we could look out for into the second half other than typical seasonality in coal demand in industrial production and renewable energy generation? Robert Bishop: Yes, that's quite right. And I think we've almost dipped under $100 for the Newcastle index. So pricing is certainly challenging at the moment. We've seen good, consistent supply across the globe of thermal coal. And we've also seen the impact of low coking coal prices affecting thermal coal with some semi-soft products being pushed into the thermal coal market. So if you overlay a fairly soft demand for this calendar year, that's obviously put downward pressure on pricing. As to what that's going to do moving forward, it's a good question. I think there could be some restocking as we go into the Northern Hemisphere winter, which is those typical cyclical changes which you mentioned. But I think our view is we don't see a significant increase in coal prices in sort of the next 6 months or so. I think that oversupply, which I talked about, that really needs to push itself out of the market, and we'll see what this Northern Hemisphere winter brings. Operator: Your next webcast question asks, during the new year, New Hope Group increased its equity interest in Malabar Resources Limited by 3% to 22.98%. Is the business looking to increase its equity interest in Malabar again this year? Robert Bishop: So I guess overarching, our key focus is our organic growth, which we've touched on at both Bengalla and Acland. Yes, we did take an additional 3% in the financial year just gone, and that was really off the back of an approach from another major shareholder. I guess with all M&A, we consider acquisitions as a put forward. But obviously, any acquisition we do would need to meet stringent returns, et cetera. And obviously, with the soft market at the moment, we'd need to take that into account. Operator: Your next webcast question asks, your final dividend is much higher compared to what your peers have announced. Are you able to sustain this level of dividend in the current coal price environment? Robert Bishop: Yes, that's a good question. And as always, we like to reward our shareholders with dividends. And I think the $0.15 fully franked, which we announced today, has been well received. I guess our underlying assets really put us in the position to reward shareholders, the low strip ratio and as a result, low cost, we put a lot of focus on cost control. And as a result, we continue to make a strong margin even in the cyclical lows, which we're seeing right now. So we're confident that's going to continue, and we'll see what this year lies ahead for us. Operator: There are no further webcast or phone questions at this time. I'll now hand back for any closing remarks. Robert Bishop: Well, thank you for joining. And again, apologies for the delay in our start, a few technical issues, but it's been a pleasure delivering this result, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Gavin Jones, CEO. Good morning, sir. Gavin Jones: Good morning. Thank you. And just to reiterate, that's EKF Diagnostics, and this is our interim results for 2025. Thank you all for joining us today. I really appreciate it. I think I'll start with describing the team. Hopefully, by now, you know who I am. Joining me in the room is Stephen Young, our CFO; and slightly off camera is our Executive Chair, Julian Baines. You may hear him chip in every now and then, he can't help himself. But getting to the meat of the bones today, I think it's important to say what we're going to be talking about is a fairly simple but significant update for the business. If you look at the revenues for the first half, we're at GBP 25.2 million, which is very much in line with the same period last year. So you could say that it looks flat. But if you look at it on a constant currency basis, we're closer to GBP 26 million. If you also consider the fact that we've taken out some of the lower-margin products that were causing us some challenges previously. Then actually, it is -- we are delivering significant growth in the first half and will continue to do so into H2. You can see the impact of the reduction of those lower-margin products by the improvement in gross profit and the gross margin now to 50% from 48% in the previous period. In terms of increased EBITDA, we're up 7.4% to GBP 5.8 million versus GBP 5.4 million in the same period. Profit is also up 16.1% and the cash continues to grow, GBP 16.6 million at the end of this period, but has continued to grow and is certainly looking a lot better, and we will be on target to hit the numbers that we previously talked about somewhere in the region of GBP 20 million by the end of the year. I think last time we spoke, I talked a lot about implementing the strategy that we had for the business. And I think it's important to keep coming back to that and communicate that, that has now been implemented right throughout the business. I personally have gone around to every site and spoken to everyone and made sure that they understood what the strategy is, how it's going to work so that we have that clarity and vision and focus right throughout the business. We continue to look at our production capacity, as you'll see a little bit later on. I'll talk about the number of analyzers we put out into the market. So it's important that we do continue to support that improvement in production capacity for our point-of-care products. We have improved the output in that area, but we look to continue investment in that space to get to a 30% increase. Our hematology analyzer production is up 60% versus the same period last year, and we anticipate that, that will deliver significant consumable growth in H2 2025 going into full year 2026 and beyond. Most of you would have seen the announcement that went out earlier on this year where we talked about signing 3 new contracts in some of the strategic growth areas that we have been targeting, specifically in Africa and Latin America. And that will continue to deliver that growth over the next 12 to 24 months. If you look at one of our other areas, Beta-Hydroxybutyrate, that's up 12% or 16% on a consistent currency basis. That is always a really good measure for how EKF Diagnostics is performing and has a big influence on our gross margin. Certainly, a lot of the reason for that is the increased focus with the splitting of the sales team to focus entirely on BHB or Point-of-Care depending on which area they find themselves in and also some of the development of our key partners within the U.S. market. Each time I do this, I will come back to what the Board expectations are, I think it's important to give an update on what the Board is expecting to see and how we're delivering on that. So the first thing they wanted to see was some capital deployment to deliver sustainable growth and unlock unrealized potential. First part of that was really to invest in operational excellence to increase production capacity, improve efficiency and implement new technologies. So that has been initiated, and you've seen some of the benefits of that by the fact that we've been able to get so many analyzers out in the first half. This will continue to run into 2026 and beyond. This is an ongoing program and something that we will continue to invest in. It's -- where we really focus at the moment is developing the analyzer production to be able to be more efficient by looking at subassemblies, but also be able to really get more analyzers out there and make sure that they are going out at a lower cost to the business. Second phase of that will be to look at the consumable production, and that's currently ongoing. We have two projects in that space to deliver at the end of the year, which will give us a better idea of what we need to invest moving forward and how we will do that. We also wanted to make sure that we had a commercial team that was able to respond to the growth that we anticipate, certainly in the focus areas of hematology, Beta-Hydroxybutyrate and fermentation. That's still ongoing. It does take time when you're restructuring your sales team, but we have put in new people within the marketing side and also within the sales side, certainly within the U.S. market, which has been a key focus for us. Some of that will continue into the rest of this year, but we do anticipate that we will have a complete expanded commercial team by the end of 2025. In terms of our new product development, that is specifically aligned to our growth strategy. We are on track there. We are looking to work within Beta-Hydroxybutyrate area and also hematology and the projects that we have in that space are ongoing and look to be on track to continue according to schedules that have already been set down. In terms of our second point, we implement the share buyback to improve earnings per share. We have utilized some of our cash reserves to implement a share buyback. I know that a lot of people have been asking whether we would be reimplementing the dividend, and that's not something we're currently looking at the moment. We feel that this is a much more controllable way to use our cash reserves and to improve the earnings per share. So far, we bought 4.6 million shares, which I think is probably went a little bit slower than we want and some of that's down to the liquidity that we have in the market. We're a very stable share. There aren't as many shares to buy out there as we might like. But we have continued with that share buyback, and we will continue with that share buyback for as long as we need to. So we're certainly continuing into H2 2025 with that process. So from the 5-year strategy, again, I think it's important to be consistent with our messaging and make sure that we come back to that 5-year strategy and keep talking about it. So for the 2029 target where we're looking at increasing revenue and EBITDA, revenue target for 2025 looks to be in line with expectations. We have had high volumes of low-margin analyzer build in the first half. Obviously, that does have an impact on our profits and our EBITDA. So I think we'll wait and see where we get to with EBITDA, but we are looking like we are in a good position. For the Point-Of-Care hemoglobin business, evaluations are ongoing in U.S. blood banks. They've been established and are still -- we have to get results in each of those spaces. This is a long-term investment. This is a conservative market, but it's the most highest value part of the business for us and certainly something that we are looking to grow. We have won new tenders in both Africa, and we've now seen Peru come back online, which is an important partner for us. For the #1 in ketone testing in BHB for lab and Point-of Care, as you know, we are already #1 for the lab testing, but we are developing our lab tests further to make sure that we can secure and extend that business even more. We will also be launching the Point-of-Care products in this area and the development program for that is ongoing and on track and looking to be in good shape. So in terms of where we are with the 5-year strategy from a geography point of view, I think it's important to note that we shouldn't focus too much on the APAC negatives where we've seen a drop of 26%. That does seem to be a lot, but we're really talking about a much smaller part of the business. And a lot of that business was really focused on the discontinued products, so the clinical chemistry. And that's one of the reasons why we chose to take those products out. They weren't really contributing to the business in terms of margin. So it made sense to realign the business, focus on the Point-of-Care side of things. And that's really what you're seeing now is a realignment and refocus in the APAC region. By the same rationale, you can see that the Americas has grown by 3%, driven by continued BHB expansion in the U.S. and hematology coming back online in Peru. EMEA has also grown with opening new markets. We certainly signed a new contract in Africa, stabilized the Russian business, and we're looking to deliver extensive growth in that area in H2. Obviously, there's been a lot of analyzer build, and that's something I'll talk about in a second. But what that does mean is that we exceeded those markets and now we anticipate to see much higher consumable usage within H2 2025. So in terms of that analyzer build, I think it's important to really reiterate just how much we've seen going out the door versus the previous period. So 125% growth in our hematology analyzer build, which is pretty substantial, most of that going into Peru, Brazil, U.S.A. and Italy. HemoControl is obviously one of the key products in our hemoglobin range, but it's also partnered there with Diaspect, which has previously seen huge analyzer growth. That's not quite as big as what is looking HemoControl, we're only looking at 40%, but that's still a huge jump up in where we anticipate to be. A lot of that's going into blood banks. And we certainly new business that we have in India and Uganda leading to that 40% uplift. Overall, we're seeing a total 60% hematology analyzer increase in terms of the demand. That obviously then means that there's a bit of a reduction in HematatSTAT and Ultracrit. Those are somewhat legacy products. There is still a market for them certainly in the U.S., and we are still serving that market, but the focus is without a doubt on our HemoControl and Diaspect product ranges. In terms of our Life Sciences business, I think it's important to keep making sure that we give a good strong update here. It's challenging because we can't always talk about some of the partners we're working with. They would rather remain anonymous for certainly business and commercial reasons, and that's perfectly acceptable to us. It would help if we could talk a little bit more about them. But unfortunately, what I can do is talk about the size of the pipeline. So we've got a $1.5 million pipeline on new business currently coming through, one of which is due to deliver anytime soon. I wish I could have said something different, but we do have a significant contract in the final stages of agreement. It's just going through the signing process. Again, I won't be able to announce this to the market, but we will try to give you regular updates on new customers and new contracts as they do come through. As you can see, there's a various number of different sized opportunities in the pipeline. I think it's important to say that some of these would be simple tech transfer, which is great. That's exactly what we want. Some of them, like the one big opportunity we have here, which is worth nearly $0.5 million in terms of dollars will take a little bit more effort. There's a little bit more development in that, and that one is going to be an 18-month project. Hopefully, we will be able to announce that when that comes through. But as you can see, there is a pipeline. It is relatively significant. And this is all new business and new customers. So it's important to make sure that people understand that we are bringing in more customers than we ever have done before. We've got more people coming on to site to do audits, more people looking at our capacity and really being attracted by what we have to offer in Life Sciences. And I think this is a significant turnaround from where we were previously. We were seeing customers before, but we weren't seeing the level of interest that we've got now. And a lot of that's down to the sales team and what they're bringing in, but also the new site management that we brought in our life science facility and how they're running that operation. So for the rest of 2025, it's certainly important that we make sure that we continue to deliver on that broader pipeline of new life science opportunities. I said that we will deliver on that one significant partnership. I'm hoping that we can add to that. Whether we can announce that, we'll see. But yes, we will definitely deliver on one new customer, and it will be significant in the Life Sciences side of things. We will focus on the pull-through of consumables and that aligning with our record hematology analyzer production achieved in H1 2025. It's key to our strategy is to really get those consumables out there and make sure that the analyzers that we've used to see the market are being utilized in the right way. And then we'll continue to support the strategy development by boosting supply of our hematology products into new markets. whilst developing existing markets further. We've got a long history in this space. We do have a lot of well-established customers, but we are looking to add to that and redevelop some of those markets as we move forward. Like I said, I thought it would be a simple update today just to tell you where we are, but also very positive. Thank you very much. I think we'll go to questions. Operator: Stephen and Gavin, thank you very much for your presentation. [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 by our investor dashboard. As you can see, we received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. Can I please ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Stephen Young: Okay. I think there's a first couple of questions, which we can see relate to CapEx. Julian Baines: Read them out... Stephen Young: The first two are linked to. Julian Baines: Can you quantify CapEx Point-of-Care capacity expansion? Is the Fermentation CapEx done? What's the total CapEx budget for '25, '26, which is similar to with production capacity expansion plans underway, what capital investment is required. So they're pretty much the same and what's the effect on short-term margins? Gavin Jones: Go ahead. No Stephen go ahead. Stephen Young: In terms of capital expenditure for -- it's mainly Point-of-Care. The Fermentation CapEx is done in the U.S. There will always be some small pieces of equipment that we continue to buy each year just to enhance our service offering, but no any other level of the money was already spent. So in terms of the split of this particular year for 2025, our budget Point-of-Care is probably GBP 2.5 million and GBP 1 million -- GBP 2.5 million spent on the German facility, which is all Point-of-Care and then a mixture of about GBP 1 million being spent in the U.S., which is the Point-of-Care BHB and Fermentation. So we're looking to spend around that level, maybe a little bit less than that this year in terms of the actual amount, but that will be a follow over then into next year. We were expecting probably to spend again probably another GBP 3.5 million to GBP 4 million on CapEx next year, mainly in relation to Point-of-Care capacity. And we don't really see that having a major impact on the margins in the short term. Gavin Jones: Okay. And in terms of which production capacity expansion plans are underway, it's a question from George. So we've done some work in terms of subassemblies, so rather than produce everything in-house, we have outsourced some of our subassembly work that's allowed us to basically put more out there. That has been implemented, and that's been successful. So we've had a few months of that now, and we're looking to expand that further. We do have an external project ongoing, which is due to deliver two stages to that, one delivers in October, the other delivers in November. And that will -- that's very much more focused on our consumable side of things. The point of that project is to really review where we are right now, look at what improvements can be made to our consumable lines, especially in the hematology area and then also to produce a plan for how we can extend that completely. So really redeveloping our consumable lines from scratch. But there will be an interim period where we look to improve the efficiency and capacity on those lines. So that project is ongoing, delivering in H2 2025, but they will continue into 2026 and beyond. Go ahead. Julian Baines: Next question. Yes. Tim has asked, first of all, very encouraging set of results and congratulations to you and the team -- can you talk a little bit more about the Life Sciences plant in South Peru and put this in context on ROI on return on investment and the facilities there? Gavin Jones: Yes, sure. I think in terms of where we are with the Life Sciences pipeline, it's going well. I think it's something that takes time. I think we said that a lot, but we need to be patient with it. In terms of return on investment, at the time when we did make the investments in Life Sciences, we had the cash available. We needed to make an investment in that area no matter what, just to be able to serve our existing business and that existing business that exists and it still really underpins everything that we do there. So that would have probably been in the region of anywhere between GBP 5 million to GBP 6 million, GBP 7 million. So yes, we have added to that, but we are looking for -- this is a long-term investment here to be able to build a business that really is something different than anything we've ever done before. So I think it's challenging to say when we'll hit that return on investment. I don't want to make any promises there. But really, what we do need -- we always needed to make that investment or some level of investment. We may have gone a little bit higher than what we needed to originally, but that has given us the opportunity to grow that business, something that we wouldn't have had if we've made that investment. Stephen Young: And that particular site does manufacture the BHB site. Gavin Jones: Exactly. Stephen Young: And as Gavin was explaining, that investment needed to be made to a certain level to protect that BHB business. Julian Baines: That's growing year-on-year I think it's important to mention, as you've already mentioned, there's a lot of visitors coming to that site. It's becoming very clear that strategically, we've chosen now making sure we do tech transfer contracts and people are coming and saying that there's very little capacity globally. And so seeing our new site coming to it, we're starting to feel a little more comfortable that we've taken our time. We've got our strategy right. We've got the right salespeople, and we're targeting the right customers. And we're seeing encouraging signs this year where we didn't particularly previously. Gavin Jones: Yes. I think that goes some way to answering in line with [indiscernible] question as well, which is how are you progressing with increasing utilization at the South Peru facility. Yes, very well. I think as Julian alluded to, we've got a lot of customers coming to us now. And one of the things that they're interested in is the fact that we do have capacity I think we wouldn't be seeing so many customers if we didn't have that capacity. One of the things that they do tell us is that they have been to see other partners, potential partners, and they've not been able to serve them. So you've either got the very, very big kind of food production facilities that the type of customers we're talking to, it wouldn't suit their purposes or then you have other sites who maybe are closer to our site, but they don't have any available capacity. So it is helping with bringing in new customers, and we are moving towards filling that site. We're nowhere near it yet. We're still at around maybe 10%, 15%. We can certainly take on more and will take on more. But yes, we will update the market as and when we can. We may not be able to tell you exactly who we're working with, but we'll be able to tell you what we're doing. Julian Baines: Next question. Does such a strong increase in analyzer volumes and thus revenues mean that consumables were down in H1? Gavin Jones: Not necessarily. No. I mean, I think one of the things that's important to know is every time we sell analyzers, it does come with consumable sales. I mean the normal business is still going on. It's just that when we win tenders, we do have a very big influx of analyzers at the front end of that tender. You can't work in that tender until someone has an analyzer to work with. They also -- when they do take those analyzers, they also take a percentage of consumables as well. But once you've done that initial outlay, you then have nothing but consumables for the period of that tender. So no, I'd say consumables were not down, but I just say they were not down. It's just that the focus has been very heavily on putting analyzers out there in the field because you need to see that market. Julian Baines: We would expect to see significant consumable growth on those? Gavin Jones: Absolutely. I mean we've talked about this before where it takes -- it can take anywhere from 3 to 4 months to start seeing the consumable pull through. So we're already in that phase, but we'll see that continue into H2 2025 and beyond because a lot of these tenders aren't just a single year, they're 2-, 3-year tenders. Julian Baines: From George, given consolidation in the diagnostics space, do you see EKF as a consolidator or a potential target over the next few years? That's an open question in E-mail? Gavin Jones: I think it depends on who you ask. I mean, we'd never say no to the right type of opportunity if the right opportunity came about. But at the same time, yes, I mean, we certainly could be a target for the right type of partner, and we certainly take anything serious into consideration. Julian Baines: And then Tim has said again, because I think you were a politician the last time [indiscernible] expected time line, say, 3 to 5 years from making sufficient target return on this investment. If I say, I think it's part of that 5-year plan, we expected to get by the end of the 5-year plan full ROI on that facility by 2029. Gavin Jones: Yes, absolutely. Julian Baines: Hopefully sooner. Depend on the pipeline, but it's developing well. Gavin Jones: Yes. And I think, yes, you're right, it was a politician answer. But the reason being is I think we needed to rebase that business and relook at it. And promises were made previously that we haven't followed through on, and we accept and understand that. I don't want to make those mistakes myself. So I've got to be careful to make sure they don't overpromise. But yes, certainly, within that 5-year plan, Life Sciences is a significant part of that and we should be hitting the levels that we need to in that space within that time. Any more questions that... Operator: Julian, Steve and Gavin, thank you for answering all those questions you have 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 is particularly important to the company, Gavin, could I please just ask you for a few closing comments? Julian Baines: Should we answer the last question. Gavin Jones: We did just have one last question from Tim. Tim you've been very busy this morning. So lastly, for the share buyback, would you consider embedding this policy as part of your ongoing positive free cash flow generation and having, say, a monthly rolling program? I can say quite simply, yes. That would be something... Julian Baines: It's not even a monthly rolling program, Tim, it is continuous. Always on and problem when we're inside, obviously, we couldn't do it for the last 4 weeks. But then we reinstated it again this morning, and we certainly intend to carry on indefinitely just having the buyback in place. And we slightly increased the price of the buyback as well. So we think that there's a very positive future for EKF. We think that Gavin's 5-year strategy plan is implemented and this team is very, very strong. Also to answer the -- would we be a target for some people. I think that there's a real strength in EKF at the moment of being on our own because actually, we are finding that very valuable that people are coming to us more and more because we have better customer service, better delivery times, better response. And so at the moment, EKF is in a very good place to deliver this 5-year plan, and that's what we're totally focused on. So we will continue to buy back in that. Gavin Jones: Yes. So just to wrap up, I'd like to say thank you for everyone joining us today for this simple yet significant update on the strategy on where we are as a company and how we're choosing to deliver sustainable growth within the market, and we will continue on that route and continue to update you as we move forward. Operator: Julian, Steve and Gavin, 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 will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of EKF Diagnostic Holdings plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you.