Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Beacon Lighting Half 1 FY 2024 Results C all. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to the Beacon Lighting Executive Chairman, Ian Robinson. Please go ahead. Thank you very much, and, good morning, shareholders. I extend a warm welcome to you today to review the financial performance of Beacon Lighting Group for the first half, financial year 2024. My name is Ian Robinson. I'm the Executive Chairman of the Beacon Lighting Group, and joining me today on this teleconference is the Chief Executive Officer, Glen Robinson, and our Chief Financial Officer, David Speirs. Despite facing challenges such as softening consumer confidence in the Australian market on a backdrop of rising interest rates and cost-of-living pressures, the Beacon Group has remained committed to building relationships with our trade customers. This dedication has proven instrumental in driving group sales to a record first half. Our concerted efforts in understanding the needs of our trade customers have led to a cultural shift within our organization. Every facet of the business has been evolving to enhance the interactions with the growing customer base. Witnessing the progress across various areas of the operation is truly exciting and sets a robust background for the future success. While our focus on trade remains paramount and will persist for the years ahead, we also continue our exciting journey with expanding our footprint with the launch of several new stores. This year's store rollout program boasts one of the largest expansions in quite some years, with these new showrooms strategically positioned to cater for our retail, design, and trade customers alike. Our Beacon Lighting International business, despite having flat sales for the first half, still provides so many opportunities for the group to grow internationally in the years ahead. I want to take a moment to express our appreciation to our teams, whose expertise and unwavering commitment have consistently delivered positive experience to our customers. Additionally, I extend thanks to our valued customers for the continued support and our evolving product range, proudly crafted and developed here in Australia. Today's agenda, as detailed on page two, will commence with our CEO, Glen Robinson, providing an overview of the results, followed by our CFO, David Speirs, who will present the financial performance. Glen then will outline our growth strategy and future outlook, after which we'll open the floor for question-and-answer session. Without further delay, I hand over to Glen to provide an overview of the results. Thank you, Ian, and warm welcome to all attendees. Let's begin by moving to page four, where we'll present the key financial highlights for the year. The group achieved record sales for the first half of financial year 2024, with sales of AUD 164.9 million, an increase of just 0.1% over the previous year. Despite the tough conditions in the Australian market, we were very pleased to achieve this record sales result. EBITDA was a solid AUD 46.4 million, which was a slight reduction of 3.7% on the last year's strong result. The half finished with a net profit after-tax result of AUD 18.1 million and a strong profit margin of 10.9% of sales. Gross profit margin was well managed despite increases in trade sales and movements in the foreign currency exchange rates. Gross profit margin was strong at 69.4%, up from 68% last year. Our cash position strengthened throughout the half, with a balance of AUD 36.4 million at the end of the half. We also effectively managed our inventory as supply chains and factory capacity continued to improve, strategically reducing inventory levels from the full-year results while still meeting the inventory requirements of our customers. Moving to page five, we can review the operational highlights for the first half. Beacon Trade continues to be the group's number one priority, and good trade momentum continued throughout the half. With a trade sales increase in stores of 25.9%, demonstrating our strategies and our team's ability to build relationships is assisting us to build market share in this very important trade market. The group has opened new stores in four exciting locations at Mount Barker in South Australia, Mildura in Victoria, Devonport in Tasmania, and Warrawong in New South Wales. During the half, we also relocated our Cranbourne store in Victoria to a more prominent location. In what would be considered a relatively tough market for retail and trade businesses, the group was very pleased with the store's performance, being able to achieve a small comparative sales increase throughout the half. During the half, the group opened our new support center in Nunawading, a collaborative workspace designed as a hub to support all areas of the Beacon Group, built above our flagship store in Nunawading. Also, a worthy mention on the operational highlights, and as much as Ian wouldn't want me to mention it, our Executive Chairman and Founder of Beacon Lighting, Ian Robinson, was awarded with an Order of Australia Medal on Australia Day in January 2024 for his services to the retail sector and professional associations, a great recognition for Ian and for the Beacon Group. Moving to page six, let's explore our financial performance for the half year 2024 in a little further detail. Despite a shifting Australian economy marked by rising interest rates, inflation across many expense lines, and low unemployment, the group was able to advance its sales beyond the record set last half by a small but important 0.1%. Sales for the half finished at AUD 164.9 million. The first two months of the half started out with negative comparative results. However, the remaining four months saw consistent performance and positive comparative sales. Gross margins improved on the back of a more settled supply chain, good management of prices for manufacturing, and a reduction in the inbound freight costs. Operating expenses grew by 6.2%, representing a 41.5% of sales compared to 39.1% last year, a reasonable result given the inflationary environment. EBITDA reached AUD 46.4 million, down at 3.7% from the previous year. EBITDA margin was strong at 28.1% of sales versus 29.2% last year, and net profit after-tax was AUD 18.1 million, marking a 14.3% decline from last year's result. Despite not being able to grow the EBITDA result, to achieve what the business has been able to achieve, particularly growing sales and gross profit margin during the half, is very pleasing and sets us up for a solid full-year result. Thank you, and now I'll hand over to David to review some further funding details. Thank you, Glen. Sales on page eight, it's pleasing to see that Beacon Lighting was able to achieve a sales increase to AUD 164.9 million. In what was a challenging six months for our retail customers, it was very pleasing to see that company stores achieved a comparative sales increase of 0.1%. Store sales were below last year for the months of July and August, but stores were able to achieve a comparative sales increase for the months of September to December 2023. Western Australia and New South Wales were the best-performed states from a comparative sales perspective. Underpinning the Beacon Lighting sales result has been Beacon Trade. Trade sales in stores, inclusive of direct trade sales and referral trade sales, increased by 25.9%. Beacon Commercial, which is also part of trade to total trade sales, achieved a record sales result for the half year. After a decline in online sales last year, online sales recovered and increased by 17.6% and now represent 11.6% of store sales. Our trade customers are increasingly using our trade website, where online sales increased by 51%. Gross profit on page nine. The Beacon Lighting Group has increased the gross profit dollars to AUD 114.3 million, or 69.4% of sales. Having a vertically integrated supply chain from factory to customer, Beacon Lighting has intimate insight into our changing cost base. Carefully managing all aspects of the supply chain has helped Beacon Lighting achieve our gross profit results while still ensuring our trade and retail customers continue to receive outstanding value. With the introduction of 190 new energy-efficient lighting, fan, and electrical accessories products, Beacon Lighting continues to inspire and excite our retail and trade customers and support our gross profit margins. Operating expenses on page 10. Like many other businesses, Beacon Lighting has experienced inflationary cost pressures with a number of our expenses. During half one financial year 2024, there was a noticeable increase in property outgoings, power costs, IT costs, and other government expenses. Beacon Lighting has continued to invest in marketing and, in particular, trade in order to support that strategic pillar of growth. Total marketing expenses have increased by 5%. Selling and distribution expenses have increased by 6.3% due to increases in the underlying expenses and the cost of opening new stores. General administration expenses have increased by 6.9%. Depreciation has increased by 10.5%, reflecting the lease costs for new stores, exercised options, and new leases plus other business investments. The increase in finance costs is primarily the result of lease costs for new stores, exercised options, and new leases. Overall operating expenses for the half year increased by 6.2% to AUD 68.4 million, or 41.5% of sales. Cash flow on page 11. Beacon Lighting has improved our cash position, which has been supported by trading results of the group and the reduced investment in inventory. There's been continued investment in the future of the business with CapEx of AUD 5.2 million. Beacon Lighting made a dividend payment of AUD 6.6 million after the dividend reinvestment. With the improving interest rates on term deposits, Beacon Lighting made a short-term investment of AUD 10 million, which is represented in the cash flow as payments for financial assets. Reflecting these investments, Beacon Lighting had a cash flow increase of AUD 5.7 million. The balance sheet on page 12. Inclusive of the new term deposits, Beacon Lighting has finished with a cash balance of AUD 36.4 million. The increase in receivables to AUD 12.5 million is a reflection of the growing importance of trade. Inventory is off the peaks of December 2022 and has decreased to AUD 97.2 million, which is an appropriate investment for a vertically integrated business like Beacon Lighting. The balances in the right-of-use assets and lease liabilities have all increased, reflecting leases for new stores, exercised options, and new leases. Payables have reduced to AUD 22 million, and borrowings have reduced to AUD 27 million. With a change in the balance sheet, Beacon Lighting has been able to improve our net cash position. Dividends on page 13. The dividend reinvestment plan remains in place, and new shares will be issued at a 5% discount to the market. The directors have declared a fully franked dividend of AUD 0.041 per share for half one financial year 2024, compared to AUD 0.043, which was declared last year. The half one 2024 dividend has a record date of the 1st of March and a payment date of the 15th of March. Going forward, the annual dividend payout ratio is expected to remain between 50% and 60% of the net profit after tax. Thank you, and I'll pass you back to Glen. Thanks, David. Let's move to page 14, where we'll outline our key strategic pillars for our growth. Our four growth pillars remain our steadfast guide driving our efforts this year and beyond. Our commitment revolves around four key areas within the business. Starting with stores, we continue to evolve our retail customer experience, solidifying our market standing by offering exciting products and lighting design in our industry-leading showrooms, with a significant store rollout potential providing future growth into the years ahead. Trade, our goal is to nurture supportive relationships with electricians, builders, and interior designers and reinvent how they purchase and specify their lighting, ceiling fans, and electrical accessories for the Australian home. E-commerce needs to continue to evolve to be a seamless experience for our customers across Beacon Lighting and Beacon Trade, in-store or online, however and wherever our customers want to engage with us. New businesses and international opportunities, we're exploring growth prospects that align with our strengths and values and leverage the products that are designed and developed here in Australia and sold worldwide. These pillars remain the foundation of our strategy, anchoring us in delivering customer-centric results. Turning our attention to page 15, let's provide an update on the first growth pillar, which is our core store operations. Beacon Lighting occupies a unique position in the specialty lighting, ceiling fan, globes, and electrical accessories category. With now 123 stores spanning all states and territories, bolstered by robust logistics infrastructure and a vertically integrated supply chain encompassing design, development, manufacturing, marketing, and sales, we maintain a leading role within our category. Our commitment to delivering value to our store customers is epitomized by the engaging in-store experience we offer, industry-leading products, the expertise in our service, as well as the convenience of click-and-collect and online shopping. During the first half, we had a substantial new store opening program with four new stores and the relocation of the Cranbourne store. These new stores opened the Beacon Lighting business into new markets where there was little exposure in the past, therefore not having a negative impact on the existing network. Company store comparative sales increased by 0.1% in first half 2024, which was a solid result in the current environment and builds a good position on the strong 6.4% comparative sales gain we achieved in the corresponding first half last year. Creating bespoke lighting designs through Beacon Design Studios for our customers is core to our service offering. We're pleased to offer this service across 34 of our sites, with AUD 8.4 million in lighting designs being completed for the first half. Innovation and the evolution of the product range offered at Beacon is one of our keys to our success. During the half, the group released 190 new products designed and developed here in Australia. During the half, the group grew our VIP Club to over 1 million customers, which was a great milestone to achieve, but more importantly, allowed us to tailor specific product offerings and services for the benefit of our valued VIP customers. In March 2023, we refreshed our store network plan, identifying the potential for an expansive 195 stores across Australia, signifying a remarkable 58% store expansion opportunity. On page 16, we'll provide you with an update on our trade growth pillar. Our top priority for growth remains Beacon Trade. We continue to innovate the way we interact with our trade, slowly chipping away at becoming a more and more important supplier to the trade channel. Throughout the half, we refined a formal process to ensure our operations are consistent across all stores when working with trade customers. This is a set of disciplines which are measurable and works across most of the touchpoints with our trade customers. Since its introduction, we have seen consistent improvement in trade sales. Trade sales during the half in stores increased by 25.9%, and total trade sales increased in the business by 22.7%. Total trade sales have grown to now represent 35% of the total relevant sales, with our target of 50% trade-to-retail ratio still our focus to be achieved by financial year 2028. We continue to drive increased sales from our existing trade base but also enjoy welcoming many new trade customers throughout the half. For the first time during the half, we saw an increased uptake of the Beacon Cash Rewards benefits used by our trade customers, which signifies that our trade customers are understanding and enjoying the Beacon Cash Rewards program. Our marketing efforts across TV, radio, and sports continue to be our main brand-building and awareness initiatives for Beacon Trade, and we're very happy with the effectiveness of those so far. On page 17, we'll focus on our e-commerce growth pillar. Beacon Lighting now operates 16 websites catering to various brands and sales channels within the group. Our primary websites are beaconlighting.com.au and beacontrade.com.au. Online sales through the half had a good sales increase of 17.6% as customers normalized their online spending post-COVID period and now represents an important 11.6% of company store sales. This is a similar ratio to what we were experiencing pre-COVID and also shows to us that lighting is a complicated purchase process, and bricks-and-mortar stores are an important piece in the journey for our customers. Our Beacon Trade website experienced strong growth with a 40.5% increase in visitation and a 51% surge in sales, which is a remarkable result given that the trade website is a locked website only for our trade customers to access. Yet, 13% of all trade sales were conducted online, saving time versus visiting the store. We believe this is a significant opportunity for the Beacon Trade website as we have the inventory and the store network to support fast delivery, and we can see that our trade customers want to do things faster and smarter than the traditional ways of buying their required products to finish the job. We maintain a focus on personalization across our website to enhance the online customer experience. Additionally, we upheld our three-hour customer delivery in major metro markets and one-hour click-and-collect for both retail and trade customers. Crucially, we remain committed to investing in our online channels, ensuring a seamless customer experience both in-store and online. Moving to page 18, we now turn our attention to our final strategic growth pillar being our new businesses. Our new businesses offer exciting opportunities for diversification beyond retail, trade, and e-commerce core. These emerging ventures allow us to invest, learn, and develop, and foster growth for the future. The Beacon International business had flat sales in the first half of the year. This is not the typical performance that we have come to expect out of Beacon International business, as it has shown great growth in many prior years. However, with the general slowdown in spending in many international markets and an overstock position with many of our customers, a slowdown is somewhat expected. We were pleased to still achieve the flat sales result that we did achieve, and it was good to see that the U.S. business was in a small positive sales position. We believe that as we come through these tighter economic times and as the higher inventory levels from our customers sell through, we will once again see Beacon International business in a better growth position. After a four-year break from exhibiting at the Hong Kong Lighting Fair, it was pleasing to once again exhibit the latest ceiling fans at the Hong Kong Fair. It was terrific to touch base with our important customers once again and discuss opportunities for further sales. The Custom Lighting, Masson For Light, Light Source Solutions, and Connected Light Solutions businesses are performing as we would expect, and we continue to support these brands as they differentiate and sell through a different channel to what we typically offer through the Beacon brand. The group currently also holds a 50% stake in seven retail property sites within Australia, aligning with our strategy to enhance our ownership of operational sites. Sustainability on page 19. The Beacon Lighting Group firmly believes that every business can have a positive impact on the environment. As Australia's leading lighting supplier, we've dedicated the past decade to implementing operational measures aimed to minimize our environmental footprint while also helping our customers to convert to more energy-efficient lighting and ceiling fans. This commitment is evident in our utilization of solar power. We've equipped 65 of our stores and all distribution centers with large solar systems, harnessing renewable energy to directly power our operations. Throughout the half, we've discontinued the use of bubble wrap and polystyrene fill in all deliveries from our warehouses to stores. This is just one further step in so many steps taken around making sustainable improvements in our packaging. We now offer recycling of all Beacon Lighting packaging to our trade customers, taking away the burden and sustainability issues of our trade customers throwing our packaging into recycle bins and making sure the recycled packaging ends up in the right place. At the core of our mission is a commitment to innovation, efficiency, longevity, quality materials, and thoughtful design. Our aim is to provide customers with products that not only save electricity but also offer years of dependable lighting and ceiling fan use. It was also terrific to be recognized for the work we do in product design, especially those products which have a positive, sustainable impact on our customers' lives. The Senso Evo 1 product was awarded the 2023 Gold Good Design Award for the best domestic appliance, a category that has plenty of strong competitors, and to come away with the win was very satisfying for the business and our innovative designers. On page 21, we can review the half two financial year 2024 outlook for the Beacon Lighting Group. Company store comparative sales have remained consistent with the first half financial year 2024 results. Our commitment to enhancing the lives and businesses of our trade customers remains Beacon Lighting's top priority. Beacon Trade's positive sales momentum has continued into half two financial year 2024. The group looks forward to opening a further four new stores, bringing the total to eight new stores and one relocation from the full financial year. These stores will open in Melton, Victoria, Auburn, New South Wales, Gregory Hills, New South Wales, and Busselton, WA. We will open a new flagship store and our New South Wales support office in Auburn, New South Wales, through the Large Format Property Fund. The Beacon International team will exhibit for the first time at the Frankfurt Lighting Fair, which is the largest lighting fair for the year. They will also continue to exhibit at the Dallas Lighting Fair, building exposure for our products in these two significant markets. Our product development team looks forward to introducing the latest technology, fashion, and energy-efficient products to our valued customers in Australia, staying at the forefront of lighting, ceiling fans, and electrical accessories. Our focus on store expansion, Beacon Trade, e-commerce, and the Beacon International product range positions us to deliver the most advanced lighting, ceiling fans, and electrical accessories underscored by expertise in our category. Thank you for your time. I'll now hand you back to Ian Robinson to address any questions. Thank you, Glen and David, for your presentations. I'm now able to take questions. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Alexander Mees from Morgans. Please go ahead. Oh, good morning, gents. Congratulations on the result, and congratulations, Ian, on the Order of Australia. It's great. First question just around the slide 16. I just wanted a clarification on the comment, the fourth bullet point, the total trade sales increased to 35% of all relevant trade sales. I didn't quite understand what that meant. Could you explain it for me, please? Yes, total trade sales revenue includes same-store sales through our stores, trade sales through our stores, a commercial business, Masson for Light, and Custom Lighting, which both businesses specialize in servicing interior designers and architects. So it's trade sales as a percentage of all those sales together. Okay. And so in terms of the percentage of group sales that generated by trade, what approximately is that ratio? It'll be a bit less than the 35% we've got there. So the parts that aren't classed in those sales are Beacon International, Connected Light Solutions, so they're not in there. And Light Source Solutions. Which is level to the other one. Yep. Yep. Okay. So somewhere between 30 and 35 is a fair estimate. Yep. Lower than. Great. Yeah. Cool. And then, just secondly, another clarification point with regard to the comparative, the comparable store growth of 0.1%. And congratulations for achieving a positive result. But I'm just trying to work out what the offset is. If you've had a slight increase in like-for-likes for and positive online growth and new stores opening, what's the offset that group sales are flat? Yeah. We have some specialist businesses in just comps though. So the offset is, yeah, we've had good trade growth. Is that what you're talking about, Alex, that you've got 0.1% comps growth? And you've had all these other divisions that are growing quite well like trade and online, and they're all feeding into the store sales. That to us obviously means that there is one category within the stores that is down, and that's not hard to probably figure out that the retail consumer sales could be down compared to those other ones. I think like most retailers, we're finding that, you know, the retail market is a little bit challenging, but the exciting part is that the trade is expanding, you know, as we expected, very strongly. We expect that sometime in the future, the retail environment will improve, and we'll get the lift up in the overall sales, as retail starts to come back in the future. Yeah. Great. And then just finally on the gross margin, a really strong outcome in the gross margin. I'm just assuming that given that there's been a shift in the sales mix with more trade as a proportion of group sales, that the trade is lower margin. So that works against the gross margin, yet we still have 140 basis points improvement. So I'm just wondering, is that freight? Is it lower factory costs, and to what extent can we consider this to be a sustainable margin for the second half and beyond? Yeah, we definitely had a freight benefit coming through compared to where we had freight costs in the previous year, so that has definitely helped. That's probably unlikely to continue to provide that benefit. It would still remain low, as a percentage of our imports. Yeah, there might be a few little fluctuations here and there, but the freight costs don't look like they're heading back to where they were during those COVID times. So that was a benefit. And then on the other side is the supply side. So, you know, there are a lot of factories that we work with that are, you know, have increased capacity, and therefore they're reducing their prices as well. So I, I still see that the prices out of Asia are probably going to continue to be, you know, either flat or reducing, for the year ahead. I think they're still a little fierce pressure up there, and they're looking to be able to boost their volumes by reducing prices. So I think we'll still continue to get that benefit. But you're right. As we continue to sell more and more trade products, we'll expect that to put a little bit of pressure on the gross profit margins. Great. Thanks so much, and congratulations again. Thanks, Alex. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Kseniya Chadeyeva from Jarden. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking the question, and good morning, team. Well done with the result. I would like to ask, if you can please talk on trade momentum trends. It built double digits this half. Was marketing- driven was it marketing-driven or you had some strong product pipeline going on? Anything else that supports momentum going forward for trade? Yeah. Good question, and thank you. So, look, the trade momentum was fairly consistent throughout the first half. And I think when we have a look at our average sale price for trade customers, they're not massive projects that we're talking about. We're talking about, you know, mostly working with the smaller electrician that does work in domestic houses. So it doesn't get quite as skewed as some other businesses or industries where you see big projects coming through. There are just a lot of small projects going through, which is, you know, quite comforting for us to work in that market. I think the progression that we've seen in trade has been, you know, multi-factor. You know, obviously, trade marketing helps, but that's just one element. You know, we've got to get the right product. We've got to work closely with our trade customers to build those relationships, help them understand the trade program, the trade loyalty program that we have, and the benefits that we provide to them. And as we get more and more of that understanding and awareness across the business, we expect that to continue to grow because we are still a relatively small player in the trade market. It's becoming, obviously, quite a, important part of Beacon Lighting, being 35% of our, relevant trade sales, relevant sales in our trade. So it is a very important part to us, but we are still a relatively small player and still plenty of opportunity for us to grow. Thank you. And also on your gross margin, can you explain how was your Black Friday event? Did you promote less this year? Or also I just want to understand the driver of the margin. Was it the new product releases you promoted less, or it's the supply chain that you described? Because also on the freight side, it seems like it's increasing. I'm not sure if it'll be negative inputs for you because of Red Sea issues. So if you can just please describe more drivers of gross margin, that would help. Yeah. We are starting to see some slight increases in freight costs, because of the issues in freight at the moment, but it's nowhere near as significant as what we have previously seen. So, and then from a gross profit margin point of view, you know, we are, as I mentioned, still seeing price reductions coming out of Asia, which is beneficial. Yeah. So I think, you know, there will be a balance of margin, and we seem to be able to balance that margin reasonably well throughout the year, and we'll continue to try to do that. Thank you. Thanks, Kseniya. Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. Your next question comes from Aryan Norozi from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. Hi, team. Thank you all. Just first one for me. On the retail sales, just backing up, like, your Australian sales excluding trade, that fell about 8% year-on-year. And if I look at that, that sort of dollar sales number, it's only up like 10% in the last four years, so there hasn't been a lot of total growth in trade. Should I read that as a positive in that once your macro recovers, that segment of the business will rip higher, or is there something else that's driven it lower, like cannibalization, for example, from trade returns? Like, how do I think about the both? I think we're just reflecting where the market is. I think most of the retailers in large format, you know, are experiencing tighter retail conditions. So I think we're probably doing it better than most, but that's still a difficult environment for homemaker purchases. Yeah, I mean, we would expect that if the consumer was maybe a bit more confident with their spending, then we will also receive the benefit of that. You know, I don't think there's many retailers, pure retailers out there that are enjoying fantastic times in sales at the moment. It has been relatively tough, really, for probably two years, with rising interest rates and constant living pressures. So we would expect, you know, if the confidence starts to build in the market once interest rates start to stabilize, that we'll also receive the benefit. Yeah, we're pleased with the sales result, the overall sales result, because we've been supported by the trade. There definitely hasn't been a lot of support there from the general consumer, so we look forward to having both of those. Yeah. From past experience, we've always had the strength with consumer confidence. When consumer confidence is strong, that used to drive our retail sales. If you look at where consumer confidence has been over the last 12 months, it's probably hasn't been in the doldrums as much as it has in the last six to 12 months. So that confidence will turn, and once that turns, you'll find that retail sales will increase as well. Yeah. And the other one that, yeah, we quite often look at, Ari, is the housing churn rate, you know, where we start to see a bit more churn happening. And that really, you know, hasn't been overly exciting for quite some time. And I don't think, yeah, renovation activity is also an important part for us, but it'd be good to see some more renovation activity happening as well. Perfect. Then just on the like the comps into, or comparative stores into second half 2024 to date, to what Ian said, sounds like it's about sort of flat or up slightly. Should we expect that to turn positive or more positive throughout the course of the year? Because if I recall, like, March, April last year onwards is when the consumer really got weak, particularly for your business. Is that a fair narrative? That's what we'll be trying to target. Some positive sales in the second half is where we'll be targeting, but, you know, it's, there's a lot of parts that have to come together for that to occur. We're certainly cycling softer comps in this second half than what we were in the first half. So we'd expect to be able to beat those comps, but, yeah, you still have to deliver on that. So, yeah, the consumer things are moving quickly for the consumer at the moment. I don't think, yeah, there's, you know, there's a lot of commentators on interest rates, but it doesn't look like we're going to have much reprieve in this financial year for the consumer, in interest rates. So, you know, it's still relatively tough out there for that customer group. Cool. And the gross margin, I recall in August last year, you were talking to sort of 67%-68%, GM's being considered a sustainable number in the short to medium term or short term at least. You're always at 69%. Is the new range more like 68%-69% now or 69%-70%? Can you just give us an idea around how we should think about that? It sounds like the majority of the benefits in GM this half is sustainable, but just for sort of the next six to 12 months, how do we think about the gross margin, please? I think the big variable is the $A. You know, that managing the fluctuations in the AUD is no easy task. And at the moment, it looks like the $A is under a fair amount of pressure, so it's likely to be a slight negative on gross margin apart from where we go with the trade. Great. Just two clarifications. Your like-for-like comparative store number, that includes online sales, trade sales, and your retail sales, right? Yes. Because we flow all that through the stores, so yes, it includes all those. So back to the first question, like, you grew your total Australian sales, excluding international, was roughly flat year-on-year. And your comps are roughly flat year-on-year, but you've grew your store count. And so the trade sales would have been reflected in all those buckets and online and stores. So what, what's the missing element? Is it just that the stores have taken longer to ramp up and we should expect a bit of a catch-up in the second half? The sector that's declining our stores is our retail customer. So the sales to our retail customers have declined and probably not dissimilar to what we've seen other pure retailers sales decline in the half year. But obviously, that's been offset that decline's been offset by increases in trade and increasing online sales. Yeah. And in past reports, we've had fairly good support from our emerging businesses, and we didn't have the growth in the emerging businesses in this half. So, you know, they have supported us in previous periods, but they weren't supportive of, you know, much in the way of increased sales during this half. Perfect. And then cost growth in second half 2024, like, your first half grew 6%. There's obviously more stores now ramping up because there's 8 stores that you're annualizing now. Like, how do I think about the cost growth? Does that pick up from the 6% to just reflect that store opening profile? Well, I think the 6% did include the opening of four new stores. I think we're opening a similar number of stores in the second half, so, you know, maybe the latest information's the best information to go forward with. Yeah. But you closed two last year as well, last second half. Does that impact the cost growth? Because it, there was sort of a store closure. Some of the latest cost we have to do make good and things like that in a store, which is, yeah, it costs a bit, which costs a little bit. There's a whole lot of moving parts to our expense base as well. Yeah. Okay. Beyond stores. Okay. Perfect. And maybe if I can take another one, just sort of cadence of store openings moving forward. Like, you know you got your store capacity. You've done eight this year. Is sort of the historic four to five new stores the proper run rate you want to get to in FY 2025 members? Yeah. I mean, if property was easy, then we'd just keep on doing, you know, between four and six. But, there's nothing easy about property at the moment, trying to get, you know, exciting sites. We're I think we're very fortunate to get these 8 done. Mind you, we've been working on most of those for quite a number of years. So, yeah, we'll look forward to opening up around that four and six each year as long as the sites are available. We do. Great. Thanks, sir. We've high expectations on the sites too. We don't just roll out a site because there is an opportunity. It's got to be, you know, a prominent site, that we feel will excite our customers, so. At the right. We could receive at the right price. At the right rent. Yeah. It is the challenge. Great. Thanks, sir. Thanks, Aryan. Thank you. Your next question comes from Kieran Harris from Evans & Partners. Please go ahead. Hello. Good morning, team. Thanks for taking the question. So just on trade, do you mind giving a bit of color just on the composition of the growth that you're seeing? So I, I guess just some color around growth from new members as opposed to, I suppose, expansion from existing accounts. Yeah. I looked at both important and both two categories that we're working hard to try to obviously recruit new trade customers in, and trying to build with our current trade customer base. And they're both improving, you know, and we can pull different levers to just bring on further sales either through both of those two different categories. So, both important, both improving, and we'll continue to be that way, but we've yeah. And just in terms of the membership base, you noted it did expand again. Can we take or can we assume that the magnitude was similar to past half around that 4,000 mark? Yeah. Your assumption would be about right there. Yeah. Sure. And, how's net pricing comparing to previous periods? So I guess once you factor in promos and take up of the Beacon Cash program, etc. as in competitive pricing or pricing over? No, no. Just, just net, net pricing to the end customer. So, average, you're talking unit price cost increase? Yeah. Yeah. More or less. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Look, it's we've certainly experienced some reasonable growth over prior years, but this year was probably, you know, we had a little bit of price growth, but not a hell of a lot. So it wasn't all driven through price growth for our trade and for retail customers. You know, I think it was a relatively stable year for pricing. Sure. And is the price growth broadly equivalent across retail and trade? Yeah, pretty well. Yes. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Similar margins for retail and trade compared to last year, but this year. Yeah. Okay. Sure. And just in terms of seasonal sales, so you've mentioned before how fan sales in the first half are quite meaningful. Did they more or less meet expectations with the milder weather that we saw in certain states? And on that, as well as seasonal inventory largely held in check? It was certainly a strange season. I think everyone was expecting a very hot summer, and that's what a lot of commentators were talking about at the start of the summer season. I think that helped us probably a little bit during that sort of September, October period. But the reality was, yeah, there was some states that were very hot. Obviously, Queensland was hot and wet, and WA has been very hot. But really, you know, Victoria's been quite mild, particularly through December, January period. So it wasn't quite the hot summer that we were expecting. Ceiling fans, as you mentioned, is an important category and continues to be an important category all the way through February and March as well. Yeah, probably not the highs that we were really hoping for, but still a solid year. I think, you know, on par probably, or probably a bit better than what we had last year from a ceiling fan sales perspective. I think David mentioned, you know, your top performing states were New South Wales, Queensland, and WA. That's reflective of where the hot weather was. Yeah. Sure. That's helpful color. And just the final one, just touching on the gross margin again. I, I guess in the past, you've talked about an eight to nine months tail on the inventory. So I suppose could we assume from that that we'll start to see some FX headwinds play a factor on, on gross profits in this in this period? Yeah. I think the FX base has certainly settled in recent months, so I think it's probably going to be neutral unless it falls from here. Yeah. I'll probably agree. You know, it really started to move probably around September, October of 2022, is where we started to get down to those sort of 67s, 68s. So, yeah, we're a little bit below that, obviously, at the moment, but it's probably relatively stable, and we've, you know, in most cases, reset pricing to suit that. Great. Thanks a lot. Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Aryan Norozi from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. Sorry, guys. Just on the cash flow and inventory balance, is inventory dollar value of AUD 97, is that the right number? Because I think you were a bit heavy in the second half of 2023. And tying into that, like, your inventory days is now sort of 350 versus sort of 270 days pre-COVID. So is that just the new setting because of the trade profile of the business, please? Yeah. I think that's right too. Yeah. And in terms of our emerging businesses, we have to seed stock in there probably at a greater level than sometimes the sales we'd like for wholesale businesses, but I think it's a level that we're probably comfortable with. I think it's a good number. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Robinson for closing remarks. Well, thank you very much, shareholders, for your interest, and we look forward to talking to you again at the AGM, or the next update. Thank you. Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.