Sir, from Lynch Group, I'll get them to introduce themselves in a moment, Hugh Flower and Steve Wood. Just for your information, as we go through and we get close to the end of the presentation, we'll move to Q&A, and at the bottom of your screen, if I could get you to enter any questions you may have, and we'll work through all of those at the end of the presentation. Without any further ado, let me hand over to Hugh Flower. Thank you. Good morning to everyone on the call, and thank you for your time. Hugh Flower. I'm the Chief Executive of Lynch Group. I'm joined Steve Wood, who's our Chief Financial Officer, who'll cover the financials as part of the briefing. I'll move straight to the results presentation released to the ASX this morning and start with the H1 FY 2023 group highlights section on slide five. Our H1 results reflect challenging operating environments in both key geographies. Australian margin recovery was impeded by order declines with a major customer and general cost inflation. In China, by escalating COVID restrictions across the half, followed by the impact of the first wave of infection during reopening in December. Group revenue finished 5% ahead year-on-year, 3% when adjusted for an additional week of trading in our Australian segment. EBITDA declined year-on-year, reflecting the delayed recovery in Australian margins and due to COVID restrictions impacting demand in China, leading to price declines, particularly over the December quarter. Due to the decline in performance across the half, we will not declare an interim dividend for the half. We expect to resume dividends as profitability and cash flow improve across the H2. We continue to progress sustainability projects across the group and will release the group's first sustainability report with our full year results. I will cover off H2 outlook later in the presentation. I will note that we are delivering significantly improved trading results in both geographies across January and February. Turning now to the Australian summary on slide six. H1 revenue finished 4% up year-on-year, including the additional week of trading. This reflects material core store order declines with a major customer tied to the implementation of a new ordering system. We estimate the impact of these order declines to Australian revenue growth across the half at approximately 3%. Underlying consumer demand remains strong, indicated by the performance of our broader customer base and via our Sale Return network where we control order volumes. Our H1 events across spring and Christmas were delivered in full with strong sell-through rates. International freight rates moderated over the half, with rates on key supply routes from Kenya and Colombia reducing for both forward freight agreements and spot pricing. Local floral pricing also moved lower in line with the landed cost of imports and due to greater availability, meaning our overall floral buying rates moved closer to target over the December quarter. Broader cost inflation across local transport and labor effectively delayed our margin recovery efforts, with inflation on these lines surpassing customer price increases and margin management activity within our product ranges. Construction of the New South Wales Ingleburn facility was completed during the half, and operations commenced on site from mid-November. The site increases our operating footprint by 80% to 11,400 sq m. Significantly upgrades our temperature control infrastructure, translating to better quality outcomes. Upgrades our processing lines to drive greater productivity and efficiency, and allows us to harvest and utilize rainwater, better manage waste, and efficiently manage energy usage. The site is now a blueprint for future upgrades for our Victoria and West Australian facilities. Moving now to China on slide eight. China H1 revenue finished 9% higher than last year. Our farms delivered strong production volume growth, which was offset by significant year-on-year declines in pricing, particularly across November and December. Tightening COVID regulations and control over much of the half impacted customer demand and pricing, with large scale and lengthy lockdowns leading to declines in consumer confidence. Across the half, we experienced periods of disruption to our farm operations and in logistics. Through good planning, we were able to limit any material impact to production, waste, and cost. Community and business restrictions reached a peak before zero-COVID was abandoned in early December. Disruptions shifted to workforce, supplier, and customer issues as the country dealt with a deep and widespread first wave. The business experienced our sharpest year-on-year declines across this period. On slide nine, we've included domestic China rose volume and pricing across calendar year 2022 to highlight key trends in our business. Volume is presented on an LTM basis, demonstrating strong and consistent year-on-year growth in line with our plans. Pricing is presented on a monthly actual average basis across all domestic rose grades for a year-on-year comparison. Across the H1, the sharpest year-on-year declines occurred across November and December, where we experienced the back end of the tightest COVID-related restrictions, which then moved into the exit wave period across December. Post balance date, across January and February month-to-date, we've seen pricing rebound and trend very close to prior year levels, reflecting renewed strength in customer demand across all channels. I'll now hand over to Steve Wood, who will take us through the half year financials. Good morning, everyone. Our half-year revenue of AUD 180 million includes growth in both segments over the prior- year. Underlying demand for floral product remains strong, with volume growth driving increased year-on-year revenue in China. Underlying profitability has been impacted by slower supply chain cost recovery in Australia, in particular, international freight and its flow-on effect to local pricing and flowers, as well as labor availability and freight costs. In China, significant COVID disruption impacted customer demand and pricing. Group EBITDA was AUD 13 million, which is at the low end of the range advised at the AGM in November. Cash conversion of 37% is impacted by the EBITDA decline, with H1 working capital running at a similar level to the previous year. We're expecting substantial unwind of that cash conversion in the H2, and I'll talk more about that in a minute. Due to the decline in EBITDA across the half and our objective to manage capital as prudently as possible, we have not declared a dividend for the half. We do expect to resume dividends in the H2 as EBITDA and cash improve. Looking at the Australian segment now. Revenue is AUD 156 million, which is a 4% increase on the prior year, driven by strong underlying consumer demand. The current period does include an additional week due to the retail accounting calendar the Australian segment operates on. On a like-for-like basis, excluding this additional week, revenue would have been AUD 152 million, which is 2% up on the prior year. This is below the longer term CAGR of 11%, which you can see on the left-hand chart there, with the current period impacted by order declines relating to new system implementation from a major customer and higher waste. Hugh Flower mentioned, based on internal targets, we estimate the impact of this for the half is around 3% in Australian revenue. The Australia EBITDA of AUD 7.7 million sits in the middle of the AGM range of AUD 7 million-AUD 8 million. EBITDA performance is in line with the previous half, but remains below historical levels with elevated freight rates and local buying costs persisting during the half. International rates on some routes, Africa and South America, have started to trend down, with more reductions expected into the H2, with relief on our key China routes expected shortly post the reopening of Australia-China travel in early 2023. The unrecovered impact of elevated international freight costs and associated local buying added around AUD 1.5 million in costs compared to the prior period. We do believe the peak of these costs have now passed and expect reductions moving forwards. Labor availability remained challenging throughout the period, with shortages leading to additional overtime, especially during event periods. This led to incremental costs compared to the previous period of around AUD 1.5 Million. Cost inflation, as seen in the wider economy, is also a factor in our H1 result, particularly in domestic freight, with fuel surcharges and rate increases adding around AUD 1 million compared to the previous period. These combined effects of those factors exceeded the positive impacts from customer price increases and range modifications achieved during the half. Moving on to China. The China segment has maintained revenue growth despite significant economic headwinds during the half. Revenue is AUD 39 million, up 9% on the previous period, delivered on the back of volume growth. Domestic rose volumes were a third up on the last twelve-month basis as a result of yields from newly developed areas, but also from the ramp-up maturity profile of areas previously developed. Considered in light of the COVID restrictions, which became most pronounced in November and December, the operational execution across the 79 hectares of farm areas delivered a really strong volume result for us. COVID lockdowns throughout the period and the exit wave of infections in December especially impacted price, with the average domestic rose selling price down 30% for the half. This decline had an impact of around AUD 7 million in revenue. Normalizing for the price impact would have delivered revenue of around AUD 46 million for the half or 28% up on the previous period. Following the lifting of COVID restrictions, pricing into January and February has improved significantly. The China EBITDA of AUD 5.4 million sits just outside the AGM range of AUD 6 million-AUD 7 million as a result of lower pricing during December, where the China economy suffered the widespread lockdowns. In addition to the pricing impact, which flowed straight through to EBITDA, the China segment cost base reflects the 18 hectares increased greenhouse space now in production, with overall costs broadly in line with internal targets. On a rate basis, energy costs associated with heating greenhouses have increased. Our heating program across November and December was carefully managed to balance profitability and product quality and to ensure adequate supply of product as we move into the H2. The full year P&L shows an EBITDA margin of around 7%, a decrease on the previous half of around 4%, which can be largely attributed to the price decline in China. Operating expenses have performed in line with internal targets. Below EBITDA, depreciation and amortization reflect the capital expansions in China. Financing costs have increased also as a result of higher interest payable on the group's debt facility. Based on RBA guidance, as well as the timing of rate increases in the H1, we would expect financing costs to increase further in the H2. NPATA of AUD 1.4 sits slightly below the AGM range of AUD 1.5-AUD 2 as a result of China performance in December. Onto slide 15 in cash. Cash conversion is 37% for the half, impacted by the EBITDA decline and working capital. The working capital impact of around AUD 8 million is reflective of seasonal increases in winter tulip bulbs and biological assets, which is an agricultural accounting standard similar to work in progress in China. Importantly, this will substantially unwind in the H2 as the tulip season progresses and wraps up. Indeed, a large chunk of that has already unwound as we've moved into the H2. Growth CapEx is AUD 5 million for the half, which is around AUD 8 million less than the previous two periods, and reflects the temporary pause on land expansion in China. The makegood payment there reflects payments made under lease obligations on the exit of the group's legacy New South Wales site in November. CapEx spend of AUD 7.7 million reflects the temporary pause on expansion in China. The growth CapEx of AUD 5 includes a component of fit-out costs for the New South Wales site relocation, some investment in Australian farms, and installment payments on prior year expansion in China. Maintenance CapEx of AUD 2.7 includes some one-off investment in Australian farms, as well as ongoing WHS and IT infrastructure costs. We've noted that the full year FY 2023 capital is forecast to be between AUD 17 million-AUD 19 million, with the expansion program in China to recommence in the H2. The group's statement of financial position has material impacts from the capitalization of the New South Wales site in right of use assets and lease liabilities. The lease arrangement entered into to increase production capacity has a lease term of 15 years and a capitalized value of around AUD 20 million. This increase, combined with a decline in EBITDA, has a material impact on the group's net debt to EBITDA ratio, which has increased to 2.5 x from 1.1 in June. As we've noted on the bottom of that slide, normalizing for AASB 16, net debt to EBITDA is 1.4 x compared to June of 0.6 x, a result of the decline in EBITDA and cash. Noting cash includes some of those seasonal working capital impacts which we expect to unwind in the H2. Elsewhere, the increase in inventories reflects the winter bulb program in China and associated biological assets, which will reduce as the inventory sell through in the H2. The decline in intangibles reflects amortization and foreign exchange translation in China. As usual, we have provided segment and key operating metrics in the supplementary pages at the back of the pack. Thanks, Steve Wood. Now moving to slide 19. Our strategic priorities remain consistent. For Australia, this means delivering a higher scale and more efficient merchandising platform, leveraging the capabilities of our newly rolled out merchandising technology to drive like-for-like sales growth and improve store profitability. Driving sales growth by continuing to work with our customers to grow the Sale or Return network and increasing merchandising coverage to more core stores. Also further developing our wholesaler and florist channel through our markets operation, and building further scale and productivity improvements across the group by replicating the New South Wales site upgrade into other state operations. For China, strengthening our domestic team's capabilities in product development and scaled value-added production to support growth with our retail customers, who are certainly looking for more growth after a period of lockdown. Continuing our farm production footprint expansion, as Steve Wood's noted, and securing a lease for a long-term commitment to a fifth farm over time. Also by building further distribution capabilities for the supply of broadened range offerings from both Kunming and within our other major metropolitan areas that we service. Moving to slide 20. We continue to implement initiatives to underpin growth and improve margin performance across the H2. In Australia, you know, we are progressing a further round of price increases with our major customers to reflect recent cost inflation. We're working closely with our major customer to address the H1 order declines by managing order volumes to both deliver profitable growth and minimize week-to-week volatility. We're further progressing productivity gains across our merchandising network to optimize store stock allocations, minimize waste, and drive cost efficiencies across labor and transport spend. In China, following a period of significant disruption, we have refreshed our capital planning for our existing farm base for short-term recommencement of development. We've re-engaged with government for securing an additional farm for development from CY 2024, after a period where government's predominant focus has been managing the zero-COVID policy. Pleasingly, we've recommenced travel into China, which means we can provide more support to our team on the ground. Turning now to slide 21, which goes to current regional trade settings. In Australia, customer demand for floral product has remained strong over recent weeks. We delivered particularly pleasing results across January, reflecting strength in demand across our entire customer network and also cycling the weak Omicron period last year. Valentine's Day was executed well at both the top line and operationally, delivering improved results year on year, despite cycling higher floral and charter freight costs in the prior period. The event was a sellout for our major customers. We continue to see reductions in spot international air freight rates for our major supply routes from Africa and South America. The first round of China air freight reductions in almost three years commenced this month. Refrigerated sea freight rates are also improving for South American and Vietnamese routes. Challenges in sourcing casual labor are also abating, with increased availability evident over the last two months, particularly across peak requirements during the lead up to Valentine's Day. In China, domestic activity levels rebounded strongly in January after very difficult trading conditions across November and December. The speed and depth of the exit wave post-reopening in China meant that some consumers were able to move back to normal activity very rapidly from January. Pricing across January and February has trended very close to prior year levels, with strong demand across Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day. We expect these demand trends to remain in place during the major festival windows across the H2. Our operational performance across the farms continues to see production volumes exceed our targets. Moving finally to slide 22 for the group's overall outlook. H2 Australian revenue growth is expected to continue at the current trend rate of greater than 7%. We expect EBITDA to finish in the range of AUD 11 million-AUD 13 million with steady margin improvement across the half. In China, we expect pricing to track closer to prior year levels on increased production volumes and EBITDA to finish in the range of CNY 12 million-CNY 14 million. We'll provide a further update on trading after this year's Mother's Day event in May. Look, this wraps up the formal presentation materials. I'll hand back to Adrian Mulcahy, who will moderate questions that have come through online over the course of the call. Hugh Flower. Just a reminder to those on the call to ask your questions, just to type them into the Q&A section on your Hugh Flower, we've got a bunch of questions here, let me just step through. First one, and you've made comments on this already through your presentation, but just to reiterate, are you expecting price increases to be possible in the H2 of 2023? Yes, absolutely. Look, we've submitted price increase requests with all our majors over the last few weeks. They're in progress and I think certainly with the cost inflation across the economy and a lot of our competitors and other suppliers into these networks pursuing, you know, similar claims, I think we're pretty comfortable that we'll be successful. Hugh Flower. Next question. On the key events in Australia and heading into the H2, can you comment on, you know, labor shortages and freight costs? Yes. Look, in terms of shortages, they were still evident across much of the H1, right through till Christmas. Moving into Valentine's Day this year, we've certainly seen more availability, people answering phones and, you know, strong numbers turning up. Clearly absentees and, you know, from the moment we're dealing with our provide significant across the Valentine's Day, [audio distortion] Yeah. I mean, we've been up there in terms of 2023. I think CapEx, that depends the scale of the new. The conversations around that have just started up, and we'll put some notes around that guidance as well. Depending on where they land, we'll determine the level of CapEx and the timing of that CapEx as well, in terms of how quick we can roll that out. Yeah, fair question. I think we would wanna provide more guidance on that once we knew the scale of the fifth farm. Thanks, Steve Wood. This next question, it looks like we're turning to China. Can you discuss what you are seeing by channel in China with respect to supermarkets versus wholesale markets? Are you progressing with your large supermarket customers or has that slowed given the lockdowns and other issues? Yeah. It depends on which month you ask me a little bit at the moment. I think fair to say that there was a slowdown in retail trade across the December quarter. Store closures and also, you know, consumers' ability to visit stores was obviously impeded. Less so for our online sort of grocery customers. Very strong rebound in their demand, you know, from January onwards. Clearly the events are a good driver of foot traffic and demand for these customers. We've seen very strong uptake, you know, from retail over the last eight weeks or so. Order volumes for everything from International Women's Day right through to Mother's Day and Qixi will be good. Hugh Flower. Just sticking with China, can you give some color on your relationship with the key retailers in China and what their view on flower category when China reopens now? Look, the attitude is still good in that the, the volume growth and the performance of the category for them in terms of, you know, margin capture, et cetera, has been good. The disappointing part really has been, I suppose, impeded by COVID is the pushing to broader range offerings. That's, that's the next cab off the rank for us, is to broaden out what we do with them, to move from, you know, more basic straight products into more value-added lines across bouquets and arrangements akin to what we do down here. That's been slower than what we'd expected, but I think that's the next push for us. Hugh Flower. A couple coming back to Australia. Where do you think the SOR network can grow to from 25% in Australia, given the outperformance of them against other stores? Yeah. Look, we've not put a target or a ceiling on it. It's a constant process that we run, which is to look at high-performing stores that are in our core network for conversion to store return. Of direct store delivery and increased merchandising it brings with it. There's a bit of an efficient frontier to make sure that we get the right economics out of a conversion. If we find that we have good demographics, good foot traffic, and sales opportunity, you know, the limit is well north of where we currently sit at 25%. Hugh Flower. Sticking with Australia, are you seeing a recovery in florists within Australia? You've been top-lined and strong despite customer issues. Are you holding the share gains in this channel again over COVID? look, I think our wholesale share has trended up. You know, we've obviously taken on that Queensland business a bit over 12 months ago. In terms of florist activity, it's always hard to sort of, talk about what's going on in their backyard. I think higher price points, a sustained period where floral costs have been high, and operating costs for labor and rent, et cetera, have meant that it's been a pretty tough time for florists. My suggestion is that the, you know, the florist trade is more difficult than it has been for quite some time. Hugh Flower. Back to China. Previously, you disclosed the yield per sq m on Chinese farms. Is there any color on this in the H1 2023? Revenue per square meter, I think, yeah, we've disclosed. Down. Look, yeah, the key point there is pricing. I think in terms of, you know, what goes into that calculation is obviously our hectare count, you know, at commencement and conclusion of each period. Two is obviously pricing, and three is volume. Hectare count's been obviously consistent across the H1. 2 is obviously we've seen pricing declines, you know, for our rose business, steep declines across the half. You know, we've seen good volume growth. They're the mechanics of what go into that figure. I think the key outlier is pricing. Hugh Flower. next one's on gardens. Looking for a little bit more color. Can you talk to your confidence in gardens for Australia and China? The comment here, lots of moving parts, but can you descent, you know, these buckets of costs and assumptions within that? Yeah. Look, I'd say we've got a lot of confidence in what we've put out there. That's a live forecast, obviously, you know, prepared with a lot of diligence. In terms of key drivers in Australia, I think in terms of operating cost metrics that we obviously watch week to week, and rate variances on key lines across production, labor, buying, local freight, et cetera, the trends are all heading in the right direction. We've had a lot more stability in margin performance in our Australian business over the last couple of months. In terms of, you know, range out there and the growth rate that drives that range, at the top line, we've got a lot of confidence that both, the demand will be there, and we'll be able to generate that sort of high- single-digit growth rate for revenue across the half. In terms of the tailwinds on freight reduction for landed cost of product, so international freight, and also work we're doing to reduce absolute cost of our domestic freight, and the removal of fuel surcharges, et cetera, mean that the, you know, the margin impact of those gains, you know, we're very confident on how that spits out. In China, I think our view is that, you know, we, you know, the band-aid came off early December. That was good news. The second piece of good news is that our first wave was pretty condensed, across that three-week, you know, period, you know, through to the end of December. We moved from, you know, what was our most difficult month of December and our most difficult week of that month, you know, last week of December, into a very robust trading period from the first of January. You know, we're really pleased that first wave is behind us, that consumers are back in business. Our customers are recording good sell-through to their florist customers and retail chains. They're reordering more rapidly. In terms of the new normal, and a new reset in China for pricing and demand, I'm really pleased with where we've landed over the last eight weeks or so. In terms of, the key determinants of, you know, where China heads to, we've got, obviously got a very good handle on our operating costs. We've got a stable hectare count that will be operating across this half. We've got a strong view that pricing will be tracking pretty close to last year levels, which it already is. Three, that volumes will continue to hit our targets. I think, we've got a lot of confidence in the China numbers as well. Thanks Hugh Flower. A couple more on China. Are you able to provide any color on how much of Lynch's Chinese produce is being brought to Australia percentage-wise? Look, you can get a bit of a line of sight in terms of the revenue consolidation between the two countries. There's a bit of noise in that number because we do bring a lot of allied lines in as well. The sort of overall percentage for Australia has declined because our absolute volume in China has increased. Steady volume into Australia over the last couple of years. The percentage of this volume coming off our farms heading towards Australia is typically tracking 7% or 8%. Hugh Flower. looks like I'm onto the last one here, and it's on China as well. How should we think about China EBITDA margins once the business conditions normalize in FY 2024? Well, clearly, you know, across a financial year where we have stable and predictable pricing which moves, you know, in similar trends that we achieved across 2021 and 2022, you'll obviously see margin improvement across, you know, financial year 2024. We'll obviously have a better half in the H1. I think the answer is that you're moving back towards a 2022 margin level. Again, we'll obviously provide some comments on that when we report, right, later in the year, you know, with outlook for 2024. Hugh Flower. Looks like we've exhausted the group, so I'll just come back to you for any closing remarks. Look, thanks for your time on the call today, everyone, and thanks for your questions. That, that wraps it up from our end. Thanks, everybody, and good morning. This ends the webinar.