Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Endeavour Group's FY 2022 third quarter trading update. All participants are in a listen-only mode. Endeavour CEO Steve Donohue will provide some opening remarks, followed by a question- and- answer session. All participants will need to press star one to ask a question. Only one question per person will be permitted. However, if time permits, participants are welcome to rejoin the question queue. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Steve Donohue, CEO. Please go ahead. Thanks, Noah, and thank you everyone for joining us this morning. I'm joined here today by our Deputy CFO, Kate Beattie, as our CFO, Shane Gannon, is currently recovering from some minor surgery. My plan today is to make some quick opening comment before opening up to questions, but before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we're conducting this call today, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and future. I might add that it's fantastic to be in South Australia. Now turning to our trading update. During the third quarter, the group delivered our sales results when adjusted for the timing of Easter. That was broadly consistent with the prior year and with an improved hotels performance up 2.5%, reflecting the easing of COVID restrictions. Slightly lower retail sales, down 0.71%, similarly reflecting the reopening of on-premise venues. Our retail performance included a 16.8% increase in online sales to AUD 222 million, which equates to a 9.6% of retail sales. Pleasingly, we've now reached annualized online sales of over AUD 1 billion at the end of March. That solid group sales outcome was achieved despite COVID-19 continuing to impact our business, and this was particularly evident at the beginning of the quarter when consumer hesitancy significantly reduced patronage in our hotels. Operating conditions were also impacted by the floods and adverse weather conditions across many parts of New South Wales and Queensland. Unfortunately, the flood events caused serious personal hardship for a number of our team members, which we responded to by offering various forms of support and further extended that support to their families and the communities that they're part of. We also incurred extensive damage to a number of our stores and hotels in the quarter. Our Dan Murphy's Lismore store was almost completely submerged in the flooding in the first week of March, and 10 of our BWS stores, as well as the iconic Breakfast Creek Hotel in Brisbane and the Westower Tavern in Ballina were both significantly impacted. As a group, we've suffered about AUD 9 million in damages in Q3, which reduced our EBIT for the period. We're working through the insurance claim process, but have not yet recognized an insurance recovery, and that's pending the outcome of that process. We had reopened the majority of our impacted sites by April, but five stores and one hotel were fully or partially closed at the end of Q3, and right now we still have those same four BWSs and one Dan Murphy's closed and those two hotels partially impacted. In light of all of those challenges, I think it's really encouraging to see the continued improvement in our customer engagement metrics, actually, and the sustained strength of our sales performance across the period. I'd like to take the opportunity to again thank all of the team members that we've got across the Endeavour Group for what were amazing efforts again in the quarter and a real standout example of their dedication through what was a really tough period of volatility and disruption. Thank you for that, and I'd now like to open up to any questions. Your first question comes from David Errington from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Morning, Steve. Steve, can I ask a question on your hotels business? It looks to have been particularly strong. Why I say that is I call out your Woolworths third quarter 2019 pre-COVID sales are 402, today's sales are 405. I know it's probably a bit of Easter adjustments and whatnot, but at the end of the day, your hotels' performance is at pre-COVID levels despite what you call out, you know, floods and reduced patronage because Omicron. My question is, are hotels being particularly strong this quarter. I'm assuming that's the gaming room because I imagine that, you know, people, as you say, they're not quite going out yet. You know, still 1 million people in isolation. Can you give us a bit of sugar, if you wouldn't mind, as to how strong the gaming performance is. I know it's a sales call, but you know, obviously if gaming is very strong, that's the high margin part of the business. You know, that's particularly bullish from this announcement, I would take. That's my question. If you wouldn't mind answering, that'd be fantastic. Sure, David. Thanks for the question. I hope you've been a contributor at the Eltham Hotel. It needs a bit of work, Steve, the Eltham Hotel, it needs a bit of work. She's looking a bit tired, but anyway, that's a question for another day. You challenged me to raise it. Yeah, look, your observations, your broad observations about hotel performance is spot on in terms of the top line performance. It did swing obviously out of the start of the quarter where, as I say, we still had that hesitancy as well as I've always said, that direct correlation between mandated COVID restrictions, so access for unvaccinated patrons and restrictions related to drinking, sitting down, and so on and so forth. As those restrictions have eased, it's absolutely led to an improved performance. You're again spot on in terms of it being back now at where it was pre-COVID. Also to your point, there has been some mix shift. Probably food has been one of the slower areas to reemerge. Actually, the fastest improvement area was accommodation, and maybe for obvious reasons, because the base was sort of removed entirely. We're really pleased actually with the progress that the accommodation team's made in hotels, and customers are doing a lot of domestic travel obviously. That's led to some really positive outcomes for us there. I think on the gaming side of things, you know, the gaming market performance is very widely available. It's in the public domain, so anybody can access that. It's fair to say that there has been some growth in the gaming sector. It's not our lead growth sector in the hotel right now, but it is performing well. It's a positive for us. You're right. That's my general answer. It's good to see hotels back where they were overall, and it's great to see people back in them, enjoying themselves in the way that they'd like to with the freedoms that you've got in a pub. What we're keen to do is start bringing back some more of that live music and entertainment that's such an important part of the hotel experience for our patrons. You know, historically, we've been the largest booker of live entertainment in Australia and we'd like to maintain that position and continue to support artists throughout the country. Thanks, Steve. Very pleasing result. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Michael Simotas from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. In the retail business, have you seen any signs of changing consumer behavior in terms of premiumization or down trading as cost of living pressures begin to bite and consumer sentiment has fallen? Thanks, Michael. Yeah, we haven't seen a material shift yet, but we are very conscious of cost of living pressures for customers. I think the biggest shift, the thematics that we talked about at the half year have continued to play forward in terms of indulgence and immediacy. Customers wanting the best they can get and getting it quite quickly. I think the other dynamic to be conscious of, and again, like we talked about this at the half, was the impact of new products. Given the nature of the drinks category being very much like a fashion type sector, we're seeing more and more new products becoming more and more successful. Perhaps the biggest surprise, and maybe it shouldn't have surprised us, but it's been a standout in terms of performance has been the Better Beer brand, which has launched into the market only in recent times. It has accelerated to a very high level in terms of its demand from customers. It's come to market through a non-traditional route of being supported by The Inspired Unemployed as some very significant Insta influencers in Australia and also a great product in and of itself that, you know, priced well. There's continued changing nature of the drinks category that has accelerated and that acceleration continued through this quarter, is what I'd say. Great. That's good to hear. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Shaun Cousins from UBS. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning, Steve. Just a question regarding the insurance proceeds. Sorry, pardon me. The AUD 9 million flood impact and then the insurance to come. How are you seeing that AUD 9 million, I guess, split across divisions? Is there a prospect that more of that cost is incurred in the fourth quarter? How are you thinking, again, at this early stage around recovery? Is it all of it? Is it some of it? Just curious around it. If you could provide us a bit more color on the new information there on the AUD 9 million EBIT impact for the quarter, please. Yep. Thank you, Shaun. I'll let Kate add a bit to this if I miss anything. Great. It's in effect. Yeah, we've taken it up in the quarter. That's the extent of the impact. The question will be to what extent do we get any insurance back and at what time? It's probably gonna fall into next year, but there's certainly an impact on our EBIT line this year. You know, it's obviously a sales call, so we sort of avoid the discussion about profit. This is a topic that we felt that we needed to update everyone on. Kate? Yeah. Thanks, Shaun. It's Kate here. In terms of segment splits, about 40% in hotels and about 60% in retail. The majority of the impact is physical assets write-offs and cost write-down. There's a small amount of lost profits, and we will continue to incur a small amount of lost profits to the extent that venues and stores remain closed, but it's not a material component of the loss. It's sort of been soaked up, no pun intended, by the other parts of the business that are operating in those areas. Unfortunately, customers are having to travel for those, of course, but yeah, it's necessary, but not too big. Fantastic. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Kate. Thank you, Shaun. Thank you. Your next question is from Bryan Raymond from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Good morning. Just on online in retail, still very elevated, up almost 17% underlying. Did it moderate throughout the quarter? Should we think about January as being particularly strong with Omicron and then February and March, sort of that online penetration starting to step down? Or was it pretty consistent throughout the quarter? Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Bryan. I think it's a really good question because the answer is in broad terms, yes. You know, when people were hesitant to leave their homes or required to isolate, we obviously saw heightened online demand. What we've got, though, is a mild deceleration. I'm expecting it to continue at sort of levels that we've got right now and progressively get back to incremental growth like we were experiencing pre-COVID. We've had this ratcheting up effect, little bit of moderation. Off the back of the continued investments we'll make in the platforms and the customer experience, particularly as it relates to delivery, we're confident that that'll be at least maintained and certainly growing into the future. You're right, you know, when people couldn't leave home or didn't wanna leave home, it had a bump. Okay, great. Tha nks, Steve. Thank you. Your next question comes from Phillip Kimber from E&P Capital. Please go ahead. Hey, guys. My question was just around the retail business. The momentum, you gave us the sales for the first six weeks, so it looks like things have accelerated in the back part of the quarter. Is that base effect or is there something else going on? Because if anything, I would've thought it was a bit more challenging as things opened up, people returned to on-premise consumption, would actually hurt that business, but it seems to have gone the other way. So I just wanted to see if A, that was correct, that momentum accelerated across the quarter, and what do you think was driving that? Yeah, thanks, Phillip. Yeah, well, of course, we updated the market on the first six weeks, which for retail was negative two. We got it back into positive growth actually, obviously in the last seven weeks. It's a moderately positive number. There was definitely a swing. I think what we were experiencing in that first six weeks were quite extreme impacts on customers related to Omicron. We were still having the challenges off the back of everything that had happened in December. I think everyone went off and obviously had Christmas, but it was really tough in January, in truth, and that did feed into a bit of the first couple of weeks of February. At the time that we announced our first half result and updated on that six weeks, it was definitely turning a corner. It's got a lot more consistency to our sales pattern at the moment. We'll obviously come back in due course and update on the quarter that we're in at the moment. We saw that through Easter as well, so that's been positive, notwithstanding the movement of Easter out of three and into four. It's been what we expected and hoped for, and it's had a degree of consistency to it. Great. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Your next question comes from Grant Saligari from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good morning. Maybe just following on from Phil's question on retail, maybe we could just turn to market share. It would look like retail did lose market share through the quarter just based on the January and February ABS retail sales. Maybe you could comment on whether that's true, whether there was any difference in pattern in the first part of the quarter versus the second part of the quarter as you discussed previously, and sort of whether you're sort of happy with that sort of market share trend, whether you think that's something that's maybe needs addressing in terms of the promotional program or other initiatives within the business, please. Yeah, thanks, Grant. We look at the ABS data as a very broad reference point for what's happening in the market. I generally don't try and correlate our performance back into that. They're measured in very different manners and it is hard to draw a connection. Not saying it's not relevant, it's just difficult to look at that on a quarter-by-quarter basis and sort of draw a conclusion. We did say at the half, you'll recall, that our focus had been on profitable growth and, you know, in particular in our e-commerce environments, we avoid you know promoting products that are going to be very expensive to deliver and so on, particularly commercial beer factors prominently in that space. Nothing's changed for us in terms of the approach that we're taking there. As far as the way the retail market is operating, it's had a degree of consistency to it. I think we would anticipate that our organic market share has remained pretty static and that our opportunities come from that network expansion that we've talked about before. Noting of course, that as things like international travel start to fire up again, we're going to see some leakage from categories like spirits in particular through the reemergence of travel retail sales. I think you're gonna see a bit of a shift in the shape and nature of markets as things get back to pre-COVID normality. We feel that there's real consistency, I suppose, in the way we've been performing relative to what we see our competitors doing in the quarter. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Grant. Thank you. Your next question comes from Ross Curran from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Hi, team. I might just ask about the hotel refresh that you've done in the period. You've renewed eight hotels over the period and acquired two new ones. Are you seeing an immediate bang for buck on those renewals? If so, does it give you any confidence to maybe increase the investment in the hotels over the next year or two? Yeah. Thanks, Ross. The short answer is yes, but not every renewal is equal, if you like. There's a bit of light and shade in their performance generally speaking. I think what our strategy has led us to do in hotels is to focus on the highest returning elements first and then build out from that. You know that we've been talking for some time now about reducing the average age of our machines. We also focus our efforts on the environment of the gaming room. We've spent a lot of capital getting our gaming rooms up to a COVID-safe standard and creating an environment that players are going to find comfortable and enjoy. We've also put efforts into the adjacent areas, and if you get to Sunnybank, you're gonna see an amazing sports bar that's adjacent to the best performing gaming room in that area at the moment. That's the approach we've taken. Again, not all of them do as well as the other. What I think we'll do is come back in May at our Investor Day and provide the market with a bit more color on the way we're approaching it, the learnings we're taking from other parts of the business that we're applying to the renewals that we're doing in hotels. Yeah, thank you for the question. I think we can provide some more color in due course. Thanks. Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Gilbert from Jarden. Please go ahead. Morning, Steve and Kate. Just on interest from Pinnacle Drinks, and maybe I'll see if I can speak to in here. Just one, how are you seeing the current vintage and how are you thinking about that? Secondly, could you give us any idea around penetration and how you're seeing your penetration of Pinnacle Drinks into both retail and hotels? Please. Thanks, Ben. Yeah, I really appreciate the vintage report question and we've just got just about all of the grapes off everywhere, and as I said, it's great to be in South Australia. We saw the last stuff going down our Barossa Winery only yesterday. In South Australia, generally speaking, it's been a great vintage actually. It has been good volumes and great quality, so that's been really positive for us 'cause we've got a pretty high exposure there. And as you know, and the market knows, there's a degree of movement in pricing there, given demand globally and the things that have been going on with China. I think net-net, it should be pretty good for everybody, growers and producers and retailers alike in the South Australian context for the premium gear. Victoria's been a bit light, to be honest. Whilst the quality's been very high, we didn't quite get off as much, and I don't think anyone's got quite off as much as they'd perhaps hoped. There has been a bit of contraction and availability, which will probably lead to higher prices, you would expect. We'll see that play through. There has been continuing challenges, I think, for folks in irrigated areas, particularly with red wine. You know, I think there's been some commentary on the fact that there will probably be some fruit has been left on vines and so on, which I think is a shame. That's red, of course, white still remaining in really high demand, which links back into what's going on with Marlborough and Sauvignon Blanc, which is continuing to grow in prominence in the North American market. Having been there recently myself, I saw that continuing to play out, that the Kiwi Sauvignon phenomenon is gathering momentum in the U.S., which is great for all of us who are highly exposed to New Zealand, but it will put a bit of pressure back into white wine prices domestically. That's the kind of rough flyover. In terms of our Pinnacle performances, you know, we've always tried to focus our explanations on the way people are perceiving the products and the accolades they're receiving, and we were pleased to have received further accolades in the quarter, and some of them, you know, on a global stage. A further testament to the quality of the winemaking teams and the growers that we work with and the viticulturists that run our own vineyards. We're really pleased with that. Hopefully you continue to see them prominently offered in our stores by people that are passionate about the quality and value that they offer. In line with the comments I've made in other areas, we've got a degree of consistency there. I think I've talked about the scale of the overall Pinnacle business being in the vicinity of AUD 1.3 billion of revenue on an annualized basis, and that's, you know, pretty well the same answer I can give you today. It's really helpful. Thanks, Steve. Thanks. Thank you. Your next question is from Lisa Deng from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hi, Steve and Kate. Just one question on the hotels. Following up on, not the renewals, but actually the acquisitions. How are we thinking about, you know, hotel acquisitions in terms of market availability, valuation and, you know, the potential returns or growth that it could generate for us, over the next year or two? Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Lisa, for the question. I think, you know, of note is the fact that the two acquisitions that we made in the quarter were both in South Australia, one of them regional, the other metro being Empire and the Grand Tasman in Port Lincoln. You know, different pubs, but really great opportunities for us in terms of the fit with our profile. I think when you look out across the Australian, total Australian landscape for hotels, it continues to be a very buoyant market and you know, we're the beneficiaries of owning a hotel in Casula ourselves, and you'll note that there's been very high prices paid for hotels in that area in recent times. Not that we're selling, but it is of note. We're obviously pleased with our exposure in the sector, and we're gonna continue to try and grow it in a way that's right for us, and you see that, I suppose, reflected in what we've done in the quarter. You know, whether two's enough is probably the question, and that's related to the availability of stock that meets our needs, and we're gonna maintain our, I think now proven track record of being disciplined in our approach. We have been under bidder. I'll add to at least one or two of the reported properties that have transacted in the market. I don't mind missing out on one or two when we can pick up one or two that are right for us. I think what you should expect, Lisa, is to see that continued buoyancy in this part of the market. People are really pleased to be getting back to pubs and we're gonna continue to work really hard with the opportunities that come up. It's great to be able to pick up a couple more in South Australia. We'd be keen to do more again in places like that, where they've got a degree more accessibility and a better return for us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Richard Barwick from CLSA. Please go ahead. Thanks, Steve. Moving on, not from pubs, but the retail side. Can you give us a view on what we should be expecting around store numbers or, you know, additions to store numbers coming into this final quarter? Well, you might have me, Richard, on the quarter specifically, but we don't resile from the direction we've given in terms of the total for the year, which is sort of Kate's gonna go and look up the precise number, but it's in the vicinity of 30. We're on track, I think, is the broad position. Perhaps what is worth sort of talking about is the way we're approaching format and you know, I appreciate the fact that Shaun dropped into our store in Lane Cove. I'm sure many others have. That's probably an indicator of the way we're trying to think about evolving formats, using existing assets and thinking about how we might bring new assets into the portfolio where we can apply a different format to them. We will continue to expand at a similar rate to that which we have historically in an inorganic way, but our organic opportunities and our format opportunities are as material in many respects as our inorganic opportunities. That's a very early stages example of how we're thinking about it. Okay. Main point, nothing has slowed you down. That's really where I was going. No, no. It is, you know, it's not. They don't fall in your lap, put it that way. It's one of, I think, the strengths of our team, our property team and our licensing team, that we can expand the network the way we have for quite a long period of time. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Tom Kierath from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead. Morning, guys. Just a question on the retail business in that improvement in February and March. As I understand it, the excise increases go through first of February, which is usually when suppliers put through price rises. Could you just talk through the rate or the magnitude of price rises that suppliers put through and whether that was one of the tailwinds that you had into, I guess, drive that improvement in February and March? Yeah. Thanks, Tom. I think it's a really good question, and it's only one in context of the conversation that's rightly going on in the market about inflation. It's worth noting that, you know, there's been this mandate for inflation built into at least two of the key categories in our sector in beer and spirits for as long as I can remember, at least. The price movements that come through every six months have continued. We didn't see a material shift out of the historical sorts of increases that we've seen with CPI movements in the past, i.e., we didn't see considerable manufacturers' increases flowing through out of sort of step with perhaps what we've seen historically. Pleasingly, I think there's been a capacity for those higher prices to be passed on to consumers. Again, there's a really consistent track record in our categories of that happening, at least in the beer and spirits space. It's instructive for us as we think about what the inflationary impacts are going to be for our brands and other people's brands as we move forward. The wine category is a bit different, as you know, because there's a lot of product in it, and customers tend to have quite large repertoires. You get people moving through the range rather than out of it. There's profitability built in at all levels there, and it doesn't have the same upward price pressure in many respects, and I've talked about things before. Yeah, it's been, again, a consistency thing. That doesn't mean that we're not being thoughtful about what the bigger impact might be for us and our suppliers as we come into the next round of changes. I think that'll be the perhaps more telling moment is when we get to the next one. Yeah. Okay. Do you think suppliers are kind of wearing the increased costs of, you know, freight, logistics, input costs, all these kind of things? They're not passing it through? It just seems a bit at odds with what's happening in the food side. Well, you know, I'm not in the food business like I used to be. Yeah. We've got a small food business in our hotels. We've had to pass on, unfortunately, not immaterial price increases in red meat. We've had to put up our steak prices by AUD 1-AUD 2 in most places, which we don't like doing. We do have an exposure to that sort of things. They're very different structural impacts, I suppose, when you consider the nature of inflation. Certainly for us and for some of our suppliers, it differs by product type. If you're importing a low value item, that's the type of product that has the highest impact because of the international freight cost, and on a unit basis, it flows through a bit quicker. There are certain products, absolutely, where there has been some price pressure. Um. Right. On a general overall basis, we're not seeing big swings, which is analogous with the packaged food side of things, I think more so than the fresh food side of things. Okay. Thanks for that. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Craig Woolford from MST Marquee. Please go ahead. Morning, Steve. I just want to explore. I know this topic has been asked on the call, but just wanted to explore, you know, what you see as the normalization path for sales on the retail side. Maybe the question is, you know, for, you know, the periods of time you had during that third quarter, is there any indication you can see about, you know, a shift back towards on-premise impacting sales? Will it come through as a reduction in the average basket size or transaction numbers? You know, how do you see that playing out? Yeah. Thanks, Craig. Look, it is a tough one to predict. It's a bit of a crystal ball, but we obviously have the benefit of seeing both sides of the coin. We've got a much lower exposure to the on-trade than we do the off-trade. The thing that we're seeing, I suppose, is not a big change, but we're still anticipating a degree of change, you know. More occasions where drinks are consumed on premise will result in fewer purchases in retail outlets. I think the nature of that shift is happening quite slowly and gradually because that's related to the nature of customer habit. You know, people have become. Particularly, we think our younger customers have become more accustomed to off-premise occasions rather than on-premise occasions. But over time, that'll shift. You know, like I said before, we're quite keen and we love the fact that we're a big player in the live entertainment sector, and we're really keen to support its reinvigoration. In so doing, we'll see more young people coming back into our pubs. They love that, and we love that. I think, you know, it's gonna take a little bit of time, but it has started and it's gonna continue in that vein. I mentioned before the travel retail side of things. That'll be another thing that impacts. The net-net, you are going to see that overall reduction in the retail market, but a commensurate expansion in the others and that sort of shifting of the plate across the whole drinks business nationally. I mean, just to follow up on that, because it does seem if I look at Easter adjusted sales for that third quarter, and obviously you know during that quarter a lot of disruption early on with Omicron and then floods. But you're seeing a good rebound in hotels, but not much of a fall away in retail. You know that's I guess it's hard to reconcile because you'd think there'd be almost a one for one as people shift back to on-premise. Yeah. It's just hard to draw the lines between all of these things. As I said, our biggest growth sector in hotels is accommodation, and that's great. Then, you know, gaming's come thereafter and food's been a bit tougher and drinks too. You know, people coming back to pubs, whether they're doing exactly the same things in pubs and staying in pubs for as long as they did historically isn't true just yet. That's why, again, you know, the whole hotel experience, which people are craving, you know. It's great to see people back in pubs. They're loving it. We're loving it. Whether they're spending, whether the frequency is as it was in the past, I think is the question, you know. Whether people are doing as much socialization in public places is the habit shift that I think we need to continue to monitor. Whether they're traveling internationally and buying their drinks on the way out or the way in are again the things that we need to monitor for. It'll change slowly. Katie, you wanna add something? Yeah. Craig, it's Kate. I just might add as well, I think it's not, obviously, sort of, not widely reported anymore in the news, but, I think we're also still experiencing people at home locked down. You know, there's still a lot of people periodically going in and out of isolation, both individually and as family groups, which will no doubt be continuing the retail. Mm. Sales momentum. Even the changes you're seeing happening this week with that is going to, again, impact. Exactly. That, both that shift. Yeah. Exactly. Makes sense. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Kate. Thanks, guys. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Donohue, for your closing remarks. Well, just a brief thank you to everybody for your questions and your attendance. We do appreciate your interest in the business and we also appreciate the fact that you visit our stores and our pubs and our wineries, and we hope you enjoy the products and experiences we continue to offer there. Look forward to catching up again before too long. Cheers. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.