Good morning, and thank you for joining Michael Hill International's FY 2023 first half year results update. I'm Daniel Bracken, CEO, and I'm here today with Andrew Lowe, our CFO. Today, we will be taking you through a review of our FY 2023 H1 results, provide you with an outlook on performance and a strategy update, and close, as usual, with a Q&A session. I'm absolutely delighted by our outstanding results, delivering record sales, gross profit, and comparable EBIT for the first half. This is a testament to all facets of the business aligning to produce these results, demonstrating the traction of our strategic growth initiatives and reaffirming the success of our brand elevation journey. I'm particularly pleased that we have managed to maintain elevated gross margins considering the external pressures on product costs, coupled with market-wide increases in promotional activity in the second quarter. This performance has been underpinned by the high standards of in-store execution, enhanced product offering, further evolution of our loyalty program, and yet another beautifully executed Christmas campaign that truly resonated with our customers. With the impacts from COVID behind us, significant productivity gains on the pre-pandemic trade have been delivered across an optimized store network in all markets. This is best evidenced by the 19% increase in productivity over the last three years. At the heart of this transition to growth has been the success of Brilliance by Michael Hill, the loyalty program, with membership increasing 70% to over 1.7 million members, and members driving higher average transaction value and frequency of visits. In August, we successfully relocated to a new global headquarters, which houses our upgraded artisanal manufacturing workshop and support functions. These new premises further enhance employee engagement and our ability to attract and retain high caliber talent. The head office is also home to new state-of-the-art distribution technology, which delivers greater supply chain accuracy and efficiency for our Australian and New Zealand operations. Across the key Christmas trade period, this facility supported flawless store and e-commerce fulfillment. Execution of new growth initiatives continues to gather pace, particularly across our digital ecosystem with a number of new revenue streams. I will elaborate on these in the strategy section of this presentation. I'm particularly proud of our people and the culture that we continue to build at Michael Hill, a highly engaged and resilient team with an energy and passion that's driving our strategic growth initiatives through to successful execution. Now I will hand over to our CFO, Andrew Lowe, to update you on our financial results. Thank you, Daniel Bracken. Turning now to slide five, FY 2023 H1 group results. The group reported a record comparable EBIT of AUD 54.5 million for the half year ended one January 2023, against AUD 51.6 million, an increase of AUD 3 million or 6% year-on-year, driven by a combination of strong sales growth and continued elevated margin. For the half, the company delivered record revenue of AUD 363 million, up AUD 30 million on the previous best first half in FY 2020, with 22 fewer stores. The group year-on-year FY 2023 H1 revenue growth of 11% was off the back of particularly strong performances from Australia and New Zealand. Strategic initiatives supported elevated group gross margins in line with prior year despite higher input costs. This resulted in a record half one gross profit of AUD 237 million, up AUD 24 million on last year. In order to support the continued evolution of the brand, further strategic lift in ATV and record sales for the half, the company made considered investments in inventory. This investment strategy followed supply chain disruption in the prior year and was focused on core ongoing product ranges. Stock holdings closed for the half at AUD 198 million. Having invested in core inventory and deployed cash to support capital management activities, including higher dividends and the share buyback program, the company delivered a healthy closing cash position of AUD 79 million and nil debt. Taking into consideration the company's performance and strength of the balance sheet, the board has decided to declare an increased interim dividend of AUD 0.04 per share against AUD 0.035 per share for the prior interim dividend. This AUD 0.04 per share dividend will be unfranked, fully imputed with conduit foreign income. The record date for the dividend will be Friday, March 10th, 2023, with payment on Friday, March 24th, 2023. During the half, the company opened three new stores, two in Australia, one in Canada, and closed one underperforming store in Australia, resulting in 282 stores at half year-end. In terms of key performance insights, I note that both revenue and gross margin have lifted significantly through and beyond the COVID-disrupted trading period. It's pleasing for the business to have delivered not only sales, but also margin growth through this period. This also sees the H one comparable EBIT at record levels. As shown on the bottom of the slide, pleasingly, the strong lift in both revenue and EBIT has been underpinned by increased store productivity, which is borne out by the lifted average revenue per store and gross profit per store. Moving on now to our segment results from slide seven. In Australia, retail segment revenue increased by 80% to AUD 191 million for the half, delivering record half one sales and comparable EBIT. For a more meaningful comparison, due to store closures in the prior year, revenue was up 9% on FY 2021 half one. As well as a strong sales performance, the segment maintained an elevated gross margin for the half of 64.4% at 450 basis points growth on pre-pandemic levels. ATV continues to lift, further validating the success of the aspirational brand journey in the Australian market and supporting a 21% lift in productivity. During the half, two new stores opened, one underperforming store closed, resulting in 148 stores at the end of the half. In New Zealand, retail segment revenue increased by 14% to NZD 76 million for the half. For a more meaningful comparison, due to store closures in the prior year, revenue was up 10% on FY 2021 H1. Gross margin for the half was 62.6%, with 380 basis point growth on pre-pandemic levels, and again, with the highest ATV out of all the segments, supporting a productivity lift of 18%. Given the uplift in security incidents experienced across our Auckland store network through the half, additional investment, both OpEx and CapEx, in security was required to protect our team and stores. These investments had a direct impact on earnings. At half year-end, there were 48 New Zealand stores. In Canada, for the half, retail segment revenue was CAD 92 million, flat on last year and up 22% on FY 2021 half one. This result is a credit to the segment, considering last year was a record performance, driven by significant pent-up demand following seven months of store closures across eastern Canada. In addition to the strong sales performance, the segment maintained an elevated gross margin for the half of 64.3%, with an impressive 610 basis points growth on pre-pandemic levels, validating the strategic changes made are driving the results. During the half, one new store was opened, resulting in 86 stores at the end of the half. Moving on to slide 10, outlook. Before addressing outlook, we wish to take a moment to recognize those impacted by the sustained and severe weather events across the North Island of New Zealand over the past few weeks. Our thoughts are with the impacted people and communities. Our teams are deeply connected into the communities in which we operate, as we did in Australia last year, we have provided a financial contribution to the New Zealanders most impacted by these events. Now turning to outlook, putting aside New Zealand's significant and sustained weather events over the last few weeks, FY 2023 half-year sales to date are in line with our expectations. On the basis that retail trading conditions do not materially deteriorate, the company anticipates full-year comparable EBIT will be ahead of the prior year. I will now hand back to Daniel Bracken to provide an update on our strategic growth initiatives and new revenue streams. Thank you, Andrew Lowe, for your insights on the first half financial results and FY 2023 outlook. The company's strategic transformation and further elevation of the brand have continued with an overarching emphasis on sales and margin growth. The strategic framework underpins the future growth of the business, is customer-led, and continually evolving and adapting to meet consumer demands. The strategic framework encompasses a number of new growth initiatives covering both short- and long-term horizons. The strategy to elevate and modernize the Michael Hill brand underpins the overarching vision for the business as we strive to build emotional, long-term customer relationships with an emphasis on craftsmanship, quality, and sustainability. Our focus is on marking the moments that create the story of our lives and helping our customers recognize these recurring and significant moments that matter through elevated, modern, and accessible product with diamonds at our core. The success of our aspirational brand journey is best demonstrated by the continued expansion of average transaction value, up 28% over the last four years. I'm particularly proud of our emotive brand-led campaigns, best evidenced by Christmas 2022. After the success of Christmas 2021, we decided to create a sequel. Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love. Can you hear me? Came back only yesterday. I'm moving farther away. Want you near me. All I needed was the love you gave. All I needed for another day. All I ever knew, only you. Gives me tingles all over every time I watch it. The Brilliance by Michael Hill loyalty program is proving to be a key lever of growth and customer engagement, with new programs and events for members launched in the half. As a reminder, loyalty members are significantly more valuable, with ATV for members a staggering 122% higher than for non-members. The loyalty program has increased by 70% to over 1.7 million members, with Brilliance members now representing 82% of company sales. Our focus has shifted from an initial period of membership acquisition now to activation, with the deployment of advanced data insights and tailored communications, together with an increased focus on customer segmentation and personalization. Retail productivity and performance metrics remain a key focus. Productivity for the group has lifted 19% since FY 2020 and is up in all markets. Elevated visual merchandising excellence has resulted in increased shop front conversion, while a focus on in-store experience has delivered heightened customer engagement and an increase in ATV across all segments. Advances in dynamic rostering have also driven more productive labor outcomes. The store network is benefiting from significant investment with more than 40 stores refreshed across all three countries with more to follow, ensuring alignment of the store experience with the brand journey. Throughout COVID, we saw an increase in customers embracing our digital channels and delivering significant growth. The company has taken the opportunity to expand its core direct-to-consumer channels. Our omni-channel offerings are now embedded into stores, with customers embracing the aspirational brand journey. This is best demonstrated by omni-sales contributing a growing proportion of total digital sales and online ATV lifting significantly. Further progress was made on international digital strategy, including the launch of international shipping and further leveraging of our third-party marketplace partnerships in all three countries. Early insights from The Bay Marketplace in Canada validates Quebec as a genuine growth opportunity, given that almost 30% of all Canadian retail sales are in this currently untapped territory. We are now also exploring marketplaces in new geographies, as well as international shipping supported by SEM in select markets. Separately, our new digital pure play brand, Medley, delivered 53% growth as it continues to progress through its start-up phase. As part of our broader ESG strategy, I'm so excited to announce that the company is launching a new circular economy offering, Re:cycle. At this stage, Re:cycle encompasses the launching of a digitally enabled gold recycling platform that will drive incremental sales in store, the launching of a diamond upgrade program, providing customers the ability to bring back products and trade up to something bigger or better, and a complete reimagination and expansion of our jewelry repair business. We have commenced development of and will soon be launching to market a new digitally led bespoke diamond jewelry brand that sits at the top of our brand pyramid and engages us with a whole new customer segment. We have commenced a trial introducing third-party jewelry insurance and replacement solutions for our customers. These are new and exciting organic revenue opportunities that will develop over time and support continued growth of the core Michael Hill brand. The company's recently refreshed capital management framework is progressing well. The declaration of an increased interim dividend of AUD 0.04 per share is an increase of 14% on the last interim dividend. The on-market share buyback, which commenced during the half, saw the company acquire 8.6 million shares at a cost of a little over AUD 10 million, representing 2.2% of share capital, and the board retains the discretion to resume the buyback. In addition, the company retains sufficient balance sheet strength and cash reserves for deployment into new earnings accretive growth initiatives. These cash reserves and an undrawn debt facility reaffirm the company's ability to pursue acquisition opportunities in the fine jewelry sector in our existing markets, which meet our strategic and investment criteria. I'm also excited by the pipeline of brand and growth initiatives that will be progressively delivered to market in the coming months. That brings us to the end of our presentation. Before we move into Q&A, I'd like to acknowledge the amazing team we have at Michael Hill. Without the people and the belief, these results would not be possible. I would now like to thank you again for your continued interest in Michael Hill, and we are happy to now take any questions. Our first question is from Sam Teeger from Citi. Please go ahead with your question after the beep. Hi, Daniel Bracken. Hi, Andrew Lowe. Hope you guys are doing well. Good morning, Sam Teeger. Yes, we're very well. Thank you. How are you? Yeah, very good. Thank you. In terms of the guidance that EBIT will be ahead of prior year, what are you assuming for sales for the rest of this half? Noting they've been flat in the half to date. Sorry. Say the second half of the question again. I couldn't quite hear you, Sam Teeger. Yeah. The guidance, right? You're assuming to have comparable EBIT to be ahead of prior year, right? I'm just wondering within that guidance, what's the assumption around sales for the remainder of this half, given for the first eight weeks, they're in line with your expectations? Well, I don't think we wanna get into, you know, on a group call details around our sales forecast, Sam. I mean, I think what we're indicating with the announcement is, we're comfortable with where sales are for the first eight weeks of the half. Should that performance continue without some major disruption due to an external factor, we're confident that the sales number will be at a level that will deliver a comparable EBIT above last year. Got it. When you say in line with expectations, we can take that to mean positive, right? Well, we don't ever expect our business to go backwards. That's for sure. For sure. Excellent. Okay. Just to clarify the outlook comments about the New Zealand weather events. Look, you know, first, we hope all your team members in the stores are okay there. Can you help us understand the magnitude of the disruption to date? Well, yeah, and I will, and I will talk about this 'cause it's something I feel passionately about 'cause it's gone, in my opinion, relatively unreported or poorly reported in Australia. You know, when Brisbane got flooded last year, my mom knew within three hours, and she lives in the U.K. Whereas, you know, these have been quite catastrophic impacts to the New Zealand community. Three particular stores in Napier, Hastings and Gisborne, those towns and those communities have been absolutely decimated by the weather events. We have had those stores and a couple of others in outlying areas of Auckland closed for best part of a week. We are now reopened in all of them, but the towns themselves are gonna be slow to recover. Now they are what we would call three regional stores, so they're not the mega stores of Auckland that are impacted. You know, the whole of Auckland had severe flooding. Even on Friday, they had another 350 millimeters of rain and communities were cut off on the outskirts of Auckland. It has been quite significant. You know, the amazingly resilient business we have there that, you know, sort of three weeks on from when it really started, we're already sort of back to relatively what I'd say, Andrew, normalized trading performance. Y eah. Okay. You know, throughout the last month, there's been a bunch of retailers that have kinda suggested in Australia, February's been a bit softer than January. Others have said, you know, no real change, things remain very strong. You know, which camp does Michael Hill sit in at this point? Look, I think each market's different. I think if it wasn't for the New Zealand number, you know, we probably have given more clarity on that performance. It's, you know, it's misleading. That's why we've said what we said. Look, February is important for us 'cause it's gotta keep one of our key three campaigns of the year with Valentine's Day in it. You know, again, re-emphasizing our focus is celebrating the moments that matter, and Valentine's Day is one of those. I would say January, February, quite similar. If you put New Zealand to one side. All right. Excellent. Thank you very much. Thanks, Sam Teeger. I think we're chatting to you later in the week. Okay. Our next question is from Kieran Carling from Craigs Investment Partners. Kieran Carling, please go ahead and ask your question after the beep. Hi, Daniel Bracken and Andrew Lowe. Congratulations on your first strong half result. First question from me. Just looking at the comparable EBIT margins across the group. You know, Australia held up reasonably well, but New Zealand and Canada saw quite significant declines. Would you mind just stepping us through the key drivers of those declines and perhaps just, you know, for New Zealand in particular, you know, give a bit of an indication of what the incremental security cost was during the half, and whether we should be thinking about that as a one-off cost or something that will be ongoing. Let's start with the latter question first. Andrew Lowe, do you wanna comment on the New Zealand security costs? Don, you know, at this moment in time, Kieran Carling, I don't think we can categorically say, neither the CapEx or the OpEx are necessarily one-time events. Andrew. Yes. I think, Kieran Carling, just for context, we've been working very closely with New Zealand Police in relation to the, I guess, the security events across retail in New Zealand, but for Michael Hill in particular, because we have been directly impacted. We'll be a little bit guarded on exactly what we say publicly, that's the police's strong preference. I guess what we would say is there has been a significant investment for the half from an OpEx point of view, probably circa AUD 2 million to date. From a CapEx point of view, we have invested heavily in securing the infrastructure of our stores. [Audio distortion], which receive some publicity and the like, that capital investment has been circa, call it AUD 1 million. I guess from an OpEx point of view, that investment to protect stores and teams, in protecting them, that has flowed to the bottom line and has directly impacted EBIT. With all that investment that we've made, I think it is pleasing to suggest that it would seem those incidents are now probably under control. We've gone for some period now without any incidents. We would like to think we've addressed, well, and as best we can at the moment, that profile. I think that's probably the New Zealand situation is that. Now, there will be some ongoing expenditure there, but again, as we signaled in our outlook, we'd like to think that we can still deliver a comparable EBIT above last year. I think, Kieran Carling, I'd just add to that as Andrew Lowe says, it has got better. We're still very much on high alert over further incidents occurring. Crime rates continue to be, as you all know, are very high profile and regular in New Zealand, particularly Auckland. While our particular situation has improved, I think it's fair to say we're remaining on high alert. We're still continuing to invest in security measures to protect our teams across Auckland and particularly across our core. Auckland and Hamilton actually affect our teams. It's not a one-off that's behind us in the first half. Those investments continue across the second half. The board has not yet made a decision as to what the long-term strategy will be. The short term is protect our people and our stores. On the first question around lower, I think you were asking lower EBIT percent to sales in Canada and New Zealand. New Zealand is principally, as we've outlined, the cost of security that's incremental. In Canada, you know, it's been a journey. If we'd had FY 2019 on the chart in the pack, that would look like we're trying to go back too many years in my view, you'd have seen an even greater improvement over the four-year period than we have over the three. I think it's fair to say in FY 2021 we had every single wind that you could ask for in our sales. You know, we came out of seven months of closures of our entire Eastern Canada network. More than half the network had been closed for seven months. We had this period in the first half last year of enormous pent-up demand. We were also still at that time operating on shorter hours post-COVID. Centers were not demanding full operational hours. We had incentives flowing through the occupancy line. It's a very different market that we were facing this year. That's why we're really happy with that performance. You know, I compare the 20% EBIT to sales for back what it was, you know, three years ago at less than 10. That shows that we've actually got this business completely back on track. We're thrilled with how it's performing. Great. That was a very comprehensive answer, thank you. Just on the commentary around deploying cash to support higher dividends, can you provide any insight on how the board may be looking to approach dividend payments going forward? You know, particularly if we do come into a situation where consumer sentiment starts to pull back and perhaps earnings follow. Do you anticipate that the board would support a dividend at the current level that we're seeing now? Look, we reissued our dividend policy, I'm gonna say 12 months ago. You know, I think that was considered a policy that was suitable for the good times and tougher times. Andrew, do you wanna just outline your perspective? Yes, I think that new dividend policy that Daniel referenced had a target range for a dividend payout ratio of 50%-75%. Last year we hit 67%, so at the upper end of that range. The board has suggested its preference to stay at that upper end of that range. Now, of course, the board can and will be mindful of the economic conditions and the like. Also that policy reflected on the seasonality of our business. Last year we paid an interim dividend of AUD 0.035 at a final of AUD 0.04. This year we have paid an interim of AUD 0.04. That leaves the board the flexibility to sit back and reflect on full year performance and understand what that right balance would be between managing cash and hitting that target dividend policy ratio. I think it's just a watching brief here and on second half, but with an intent, if we can, to sit at that upper end and have that regular reliable pattern of dividends. Bill, thank you. I guess just getting into, you know, some of the expansion and growth strategy, are you able to provide a little bit, you know, a bit more insight on maybe your expectations around the diamond upgrade program and bespoke jewelry offering? I guess if we think about, you know, the proportion of Michael Hill's sales, you know, and assume that sort of bridal and gift-related sales make up about 65%-70% of sales, how strong do you expect that diamond upgrade program to be given a lot of, you know, your sales are gift-driven? I'll give you an example. The diamond upgrade program is actually something that exists in our business today, but in a completely customer-driven, one-off, sort of almost bespoke type conversation where a customer will come back in and say, "When my husband proposed to me, you know, we didn't have funds that we have today. We weren't earning what we're earning today," this might be five years, 10 years on from when they originally proposed, "and we'd like to upgrade to a bigger diamond now." That's a very manual one-off discussion between someone in our store, then comes back to our manufacturing division. We need to understand where the previous diamond came from, what its value is today and what they're looking to purchase. We get a lot of these requests, and we don't even advertise that we potentially can offer that service and that service proposition and that program. As a result of that, and sitting under our ESG drive to create a greater circular economy, we see this as a really exciting opportunity both for our customers and for us from a revenue perspective. Too early for us to say what it's worth, Kieran, but, you know, let it be said that we wouldn't be going down this path if we didn't see some level of exciting growth opportunity coming from it. You then jump to our bespoke new bespoke brand. Before you do that, I am gonna just take you back to our gold recycling platform, because that's actually the first cab off the rank. That's gonna be going live in some test markets here in Australia within about four to six weeks. We're really excited by this. Again, this has been driven by customers asking us, "Do you offer this service?" We've seen in other parts of the world brands offering this type of service, but again, in a pretty funky way. We've built a very cool, sophisticated digital platform where customers can engage with us on, you know, whether it's old jewelry that they inherited from their grandmother and they never wear, whether it's jewelry they bought for themselves and they decide it's out of fashion, whether it's broken jewelry or damaged jewelry, we're creating this opportunity for you to effectively send us your product. We'll give you a valuation based on current spot rate. It'll be that exact. We've got an X-ray machine, believe it or not, that measures the product, comes in, tells us what grade of gold it is. Firstly, that it's definitely gold because people could believe plated product isn't gold or is gold, and we can validate that. We will then go back to them with a valuation of that product within 24 hours of receipt. If the customer says yes, this is really simple steps to do this through an online digital dialogue, they will then be receiving that same day a digital gift card to 90% of the value of the gold that they will then be able to redeem in a Michael Hill store. Again, this is something we get regular. Our stores often tell me we have two to three people every day coming in saying, "Can we recycle our gold with you?" Again, we're not gonna quantify it, but until we've got something up and running, but we're really excited. Again, we've invested in a digital platform because we believe this is another great growth opportunity for us. Thirdly, your question about our bespoke diamond jewelry brand. That is, I'm gonna say, the third cab off the rank, so that's slightly further down the track, but we'll launch later this year. It's about creating a really usefully augmented premium experience through a digital platform. Of different golds and platinum options, and then through a choice of somewhere between initially 25,000 and 30,000 diamonds that we're gonna populate and offer on that website. Something very, very sophisticated. They'll be able to build the ring as they go. They'll be able to pop the diamond in and see what it looks like. They'll be able to access the GIA report for that diamond. They'll be able to see 360 views of that diamond, and they'll get instantaneous costings and pricing on that product. Again, we've done a lot of customer research on this, and we think this is a game changer for us at the top of the pyramid of jewelry in this market. It's all pretty exciting. You can tell by my, hopefully, my enthusiasm for it, Kieran. Absolutely. Absolutely. Just on that bespoke offering, are there, you know, competitors that you know of that are offering, you know, something similar? Do you think this has sort of opened you up to increased competition or is it quite unique? Yeah. Locally, we don't think there's anyone that's got any significant business in this space. Internationally, there are some big players, particularly in the U.S., but there's big players in the U.K. as well. Those brands don't offer a particularly good proposition in our markets. Customers actually wanna be able to work with a local operator, and we see that as a great opportunity. Plus, I'm gonna call it out here that what we're building will be a much better customer experience than the other products that are already in the market internationally. Great. Thank you. Just final question from me. In the trading update that you issued in January, you commented that, you know, gross margins are holding up despite a more promotionally driven sales environment. Can you just talk a little bit more about that and, you know, just highlight, you know, is promotional activity up compared to pre-COVID levels or, you know, what's driving that? Firstly, the promotional activity as we've talked to it is in the wider market. It's not within Michael Hill. Just for clarity, if that's what you were considering. Look, we don't monitor every retailer every week of the year, but we certainly have a good sense of activity in the market. We've also noted that a number of other retailers have had margin pressure in their first half results, which is often generally generated for incremental promotional activity. I think the point we're making is, a year ago, you know, a lot of retailers did not have to use promotional levers to drive sales because there was this pent-up demand post-COVID. I think it's probably returned, would you say, Andrew Lowe, to more pre-pandemic normal levels? I think would be a fair thing not to say it's worse than pre-pandemic, probably returning more to sort of pre-pandemic levels of promotion. And yet at Michael Hill, because we've been on this elevated brand journey and a much more intimate emotional relationship with our customers, we have not had to play as hard and deep as we may have historically. I think would be probably the best way to think about it. Great. No, that was good, [audio distortion]. Thank you. That's all from me. Thanks, Kieran Carling. Our next question is from Andrew Ott from Ott Family Office. Andrew Ott, please go ahead with your question after the beep. Good afternoon. Can you hear me okay? Yep, we can hear you fine, Andrew Ott. Thank you. Lovely. Thank you. I was gonna ask about the renew program, but you've just expanded on that very nicely previously, and I'd like to congratulate you on that. That sounds like a very good development. Just a couple of questions, if I may. First of all, you talk about the productivity, and I was just wondering how do you actually measure the productivity that you're talking about? Productivity is a measure of Well, two ways retailers measure productivity, typically. In this case, we're talking about sales per square meter, or in Canada, sales per square foot. Because they still use feet and inches for their retail space. It's the dollars of sales effectively divided by your real estate commitment. At some other retailers, but most retailers use sales per square meter. The other productivity metric is sales per hour. It's a metric of your labor investment. This is retail productivity per square meter. Thank you. My other question is about, you know, with interest rates having risen and mortgages becoming more expensive for people, are you able to provide any sort of sense as to how that might be impacting on your customer base? Obviously, that would probably vary according to your different types of customers, whether they're highly mortgaged or debt-free. I'm just wondering whether you are able to offer any insights as to what you're seeing. I might have Andrew Lowe comment on that. I'll start. That's my Andrew Lowe. I'll start, Andrew Ott by saying that, t wo things that we've said when previously asked similar questions. One is our journey to elevate the brand has us talking to more aspirational customers than we might have been doing four or five years ago. arguably, a customer segment or a cohort that's discretionary spend might not be as impacted as the lower end of the market. I think our aspirational brand journey is allowing us to talk to customers that may still choose to trade down, but they may now trade down from a luxury brand to a premium brand that's Michael Hill. we see that as an opportunity for us in tougher times. I think secondly, you know, the, the notion that significant proportions of what we sell, in fact, the majority of what we sell is really to what we say mark the moments that matter in people's lives. This is celebrating engagements, weddings, anniversaries, having children, 16th, 18th, 21st birthdays. Everyone's Christmas and Valentine's Day, Mother's Day. It's a very emotive category that we operate in. While we are ultimately within the discretionary spend sector, I've always argued our category is probably less discretionary than others. You know, if you have an intention to get married, you're still gonna wanna propose with an engagement ring, even if it's a recession. We think those two things combined, certainly at its highest level, have given us insulation and opportunity through COVID, and the results demonstrate that. We believe they will continue to give us some level of insurance in a more challenging retail environment. I'm not saying it guarantees sales. It certainly gives us more protection than maybe other retailers operating in other categories and other segments. Andrew Lowe, do you wanna specifically comment on the mortgage side of things? Yeah, I think. Thanks, Daniel Bracken. I think there's a couple of aspects there. I mean, quite simplistically, we look at the market in terms of mortgages. You know, a third of people may have paid off their mortgage, so lifting interest rates is actually not a problem. It's actually an advantage for deriving interest revenue. A third of the market might be renters, so they're not exposed directly to the mortgage market. There's the people who have a mortgage. I guess the way we look at that is to what extent are people rolling off their fixed term mortgages into variable. Just remembering that so many people had their household savings boosted through COVID, whether it was with government support or not traveling and substituting one type of spend for another. I think it's easy to fall into the trap of expecting that everybody's impacted by interest rate rises when not everybody is. You know, looking forward at forecasts, there's already talk that interest rates may start coming off at the end of the year, which will provide some relief to households. We've also taken the opportunity to look back on how, as a business, we've been around for over 40 years, how has our business traversed previous economic downturns? Certainly through the most recent downturn with the GFC, we saw sales hold up quite well. Jewelry is a thing that is seen to hold value and retain its worth. There was probably some margin pressure there as people perhaps discounted to try and stand out against their competitors. I think, as Daniel Bracken alluded to, we have a confidence that while a consumer discretionary business, there's an element of returning trade and returning events that are recognized. Hence the importance of our loyalty program. Yep. More now than ever, Andrew. Thank you for that question, [audio distortion]. Thank you very much. If I can just throw back at you a comment that my father gave me some years ago. Told me that during the Great Depression here in New Zealand, jewelers still were in business. That's very reassuring. Thank you for that. Our next question is from Alexander Mees from Morgans. Alexander Mees, please go ahead with your question after the beep. Thank you. Good morning, Daniel Bracken, Andrew Lowe. Just on gross margins, held up really well. I suppose if we look at diamond prices, they do appear to be moderating, although perhaps there's a diversion between the price of natural and lab grown happening at the moment. I just wonder what your outlook for COGS is in the months ahead, and I suppose by extrapolation, gross margin. I mean, I think obviously. Well, obviously our COGS are principally driven by two commodity prices 'cause of what we sell, gold and diamonds. Both of which have experienced, certainly in the last 12 months. Well, I'm not gonna say gold's experienced unusual, an unusual peak 'cause it's been there or thereabouts for the last three years. It certainly peaked at the start of COVID. It peaked again when Mr. Putin went into the Ukraine, and it peaked again in early January. But it's been, let's say, an unpleasantly high price for gold for the last three years. That has flowed through our business during that time. We have expanded margin and through that period. I guess we've shown our ability to be resilient on one of the raw materials that we use principally. Diamonds did come off in price at the beginning of COVID. Absolutely recovered and went to highs I've certainly not experienced in my 40 years here at Michael Hill in the last 12 months. There was massive demand out of the U.S., which is the largest part of buying our goods. We are hearing. And we've managed that through the last 12 months and continued to deliver a sustained margin. We were always clear at previous updates we weren't looking to deliver margin expansion. We were gonna focus on hanging on to what we had because of those input costs, and we're thrilled that we've been able to do that. I think the other thing I'll comment on margin is that we have also made a deliberate play to, if you like, trap some of that margin in our corporate cost center over the last six months. Which is why you can see the group number actually looks better than some of the segment numbers, because we made that deliberate decision as there was some volatility in pricing. The final comment I'd make is we are hearing, it's not, it's not fact, it's the grapevine of retail globally, that demand in the U.S. was a little softer at Christmas, and a lot of the big diamond buying organizations over there may well be sitting on a bit more inventory than they'd imagined. That could, through the course of this year, translate to a dip in demand and potentially, supply staying where it is, potentially some repricing, back down of diamonds. Which we will eagerly, accept, and not necessarily pass on in our retail pricing. We've reestablished the price point of an item, we would not necessarily see a need to drop that price, particularly with the elevated rent duty. We see that potentially as some margin insulation, so for the next, say, 12 to 18 months. Thanks. That really speaks to my next question, which was around the ATV, which has grown incredibly strongly over the past four years. I suppose, as you say, you have rebased pricing. So my question is, can you see a situation in which you take further ATV in the years to come? Or do you think we're there or thereabout for these? No, we definitely see ATV continuing to expand in the businesses. Absolutely, as we continue to move, if you like, up the pyramid of brand positioning, there's absolutely more opportunities to grow ATV. Yeah. That's very positive. Thank you. Just finally with regards to marketplaces, looks like you're getting good traction so far. I'm just wondering, you talk about looking for more partners. How many more partners do you think you might want to attain? I guess what are you looking for in a, in a marketplace partner? Yeah. I think the one thing we've said all along about marketplace, our marketplace strategy, it was never about one particular partner. It was about a portfolio of partners that collectively could add up to a few stores, represent a few stores of sales for the business. As we select partners, we are quite careful about their positioning in their relevant market. We certainly don't anticipate having multiple partners in any given one market. It could be that we have a couple of partners like we do in Australia. We're actually on Iconic and Westfield Direct in Australia. We do see opportunity to have one, maybe two partners per country that we wanna operate in. Our focus right now is we're not looking for incremental partners within Australia, New Zealand and Canada. We're happy with the arrangements we've got. Our focus now is, are there new markets internationally? We've already identified one, and we're in pretty final conversations with that one, to go into a new market and introduce our brand through their platform, talking to their customers, where we don't have to then go and invest heavily in digital marketing to create brand awareness. We can sit on their platform with the traffic that's already there, to generate brand awareness. That's I think the next phase of this is how many countries and how many different markets could we identify a marketplace partner in to deploy our brand. That's the journey we're on. Could we have 10 markets in three years from now? Absolutely. That's great. Thank you, very much, Daniel Bracken, and well done. Terrific result. Thank you very much. Our next question is from Chris Steptoe from DMX Asset Management. Chris Steptoe, please go ahead with your question after the beep. Hi, Daniel Bracken, Andrew Lowe. I just had a quick question. The other income of AUD 4.9 million on the year now. I'm going to- What was it? I'm going to hand for Andrew Lowe for that. Thank you. A few things in there, Chris Steptoe. Daniel Bracken did just reference that we book tactical or strategic steps to capture some more of the margin centrally in the group rather than pushing it out to the individual segment. Part of that is that tactical move. We also have our warehousing and manufacturing business that sits here centrally. They're non-profit centers. They're non-profit centers, that's right, in their own right. There's refining of gold and income in there, that sits centrally. We have some FX outcomes as well that sit centrally. There's other general sort of revenue streams in there. Last year there were subs- Is that recurring, most of it? Yep. If we look back over time, we have other income sitting in there each year, and certainly with the re-emphasis or the refocus on manufacturing and DC, in our new building, those revenue streams are a recurring item. Okay. Is that in your operational EBIT? Sorry, could you just ask that again? When you do your comparable EBIT, is it included in that? Y es, Yep, sits there. We have a headline corporate cost that sit here for the office with our labor and external costs and the like, and those revenue streams sit in there centrally as part of that as well. I'll give you a simple example to think about. We when we moved into our new building, relocated our offices, but also our manufacturing division, what I usually refer to as our artisanal workshop, into a new facility. In moving that to a new facility here, we've invested in better equipment, a larger team. We've launched an apprenticeship program, and that facility is now producing a higher level of product than it was in our old building. We make a margin on that product, and in fact, we. That's one of the places where we've tracked more margin, is we've allowed our manufacturing division, to make more profit margin, and that's a group profit contribution that then flows through to the group results, and the comparable EBIT. That's just one example, but I think that helps make it easier to understand. Yeah. That's great. Thank you. Thank you very much. There are no further audio questions. Thank you for joining us today. That concludes the webcast. You may now exit the platform.