Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Pacific Smiles Group full year presentation. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Andrew Vidler, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead. Thank you very much, Carl. Good morning. I'm Andrew Vidler, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Pacific Smiles, and I'm joined today by Matthew Cordingley, our Chief Financial Officer. It's nice to be with you again. It has been a busy period at Pacific Smiles since we last presented. But as you no doubt have already seen in the results, the core business has not been distracted by the external interest in acquiring Pacific Smiles. And the board, Matthew, and I are very proud of the relentless and enthusiastic efforts of the entire team and the practitioners who we are grateful continue to choose Pacific Smiles to serve their patients. I know many of you will naturally want to ask questions and talk about the proposed scheme. It did not proceed, and as we communicated last week, the scheme implementation deed with NDC BidCo is now terminated. While Genesis Capital remains a significant shareholder of Pacific Smiles, there is no guarantee that they will put forward a change of control proposal or that any new transaction proposal will be approved by shareholders. Accordingly, we are very focused on the ongoing operations and daily performance of the business. I'll now turn to our agenda on slide three, if you're following along on the deck. This morning, Matt and I will be taking you through the presentation that we posted on the ASX earlier, detailing the company's results for the financial year 2024, as well as providing an update on financial year 2025 trading. Throughout FY 2024, the increase in patient attendance, along with our efforts to maximize operational efficiency, has driven significantly improved operating and financial performance. This year, Pacific Smiles saw a 7.9% increase in patient fees versus the previous years. Combined with improvements to operational efficiency, specifically labor productivity incentives, this facilitated a 16.9% increase in underlying EBITDA in FY 2024. Board renewal has been a constant theme at Pacific Smiles in recent years. This has continued over the last month. We welcome and congratulate Giselle Collins on her appointment to the chairman role of the company, and we take the opportunity to thank Zita Peach for her many years of hard work on behalf of all shareholders. Zita has been on the Pacific Smiles board for seven years and as chair since 2020. Zita's retirement from the board is effective at close of trading today. On behalf of Pacific Smiles, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks for her leadership and dedication. Her counsel will be missed. Her guidance and commitment have been invaluable to our organization, and her contribution will be remembered with great appreciation. I also acknowledge the significant contribution of Mark Bloom, a long-standing non-executive director who resigned last month. Mark commenced on the Pacific Smiles board in twenty nineteen and helped navigate some very challenging periods, including the pandemic. I personally found Mark's insight and counsel invaluable, and he will be missed. Simon Rutherford also retired from the Pacific Smiles board in November 2023. We would like to extend our gratitude to Simon for his service to our company for the past 20 years. Moving into the presentation now, I'll provide a general business overview and highlights of our results for the 12 months ending 30 June 2024. Matt will then discuss the financial results in more detail, and then I'll come back with an update on the business into FY 2025 and some key focus areas and opportunities for the business in the year ahead. Matt and I will be very happy to take questions at the end of the presentation. Turning to slide five. Today's results can be seen through the lens of five key interrelated metrics that have combined to demonstrate the strong business model of Pacific Smiles. These are, firstly, top-line growth, with patient fees of AUD 291.8 million, which was a 7.9% increase year- on- year, underpinned by a 3.5% increase in the number of appointments. Importantly, growth was observed across all center cohorts and achieved despite the well understood economic headwinds and cost of living pressures. Secondly, strong operating KPIs, including cancellation rates declining, the result of real operational focus on seamless patient communications, and increasing the number of appointment confirmations, which we know correlates to lowering appointment non-attendance. The business' labor efficiency has also materially improved in FY 2024. Thirdly, rising utilization continues to improve across all cohorts, bar one, in particular, the newer cohorts. And fourthly, expanded profitability. Underlying EBITDA for the year grew to AUD 28.2 million. This is near a 17% improvement on last year, and it also translates to margin expansion over the prior year of 110 basis points. This flowed down to a material increase in underlying net profit after tax of AUD 8.9 million, nearly doubling the prior year's result. And fifthly, increased earnings has translated into strong operating cash flow, and Pacific Smiles is now debt-free with a net cash position of AUD 17.7 million at year-end. This provides us with significant flexibility in making capital allocation decisions going forward. We have declared a fully franked final dividend of AUD 0.0325 per share. These five elements together leave us well-positioned to grow and self-fund future growth. Turning now to slide six. This is a pleasing set of results across virtually all of our key financial metrics. We've delivered strong earnings and cash flow despite some headwinds over the past 12 months, relating to the state of the broader economy and the inflationary and cost of living pressures that have impacted Australian spending habits. Also, the cost increases in wages and occupancy we have experienced in our business. We've invested resources and management focus to drive growth and utilization, especially in centers with embedded capacity that are continuing to mature. Growth was driven through a combination of growing practitioner hours and attracting new patients. Marketing initiatives to drive new patient acquisitions were implemented, including above-the-line campaigns aimed at stimulating increased awareness and demand for our dental services. I am particularly proud of these results, given the substantial distraction caused by the multiple change of control proposals received during the second half, which required management to divert significant time and attention towards. Pacific Smiles has a deep bench of capable people that really stood up during the last six months and ensured that the business continued to run smoothly and efficiently. This also ensured that we provided the best service and care to dentists and their patients. A regular narrative on this industry is the pressure on margins, and Matt will talk to our margin improvement outcome shortly. We are a business that is now debt-free, with strong cash flows that provide significant financial flexibility going forward. Future decisions around growth, capital allocation, and network optimization are in the process of being reviewed by management and the board now that the scheme meeting is behind us. Turning to slide seven, I'll now detail the operational highlights for the year. The FY 24 results reflect the company's approach of leveraging the significant investments in prior periods to drive operational efficiencies and growth in patient, appointment, and practitioner hours. There were no new centers built in FY 2024, and capital expenditure was moderated. The business did, however, undertake center consolidations with the mergers of NIB Newcastle and Pacific Smiles Newcastle in New South Wales, and NIB Woden and Pacific Smiles Woden in the ACT. Some center refurbishments and equipment upgrades were also completed. We now have 128 dental centers, plus 8 HBF dental centers, 543 dental chairs in Pacific Smiles centers and 38 dental chairs in HBF centers, and over 800 active practitioners. While we originally targeted opening five new centers in the second half of FY 2024, this was ultimately not possible due to restrictions under the scheme implementation deed with NDC. There was continued focus on delivering operational efficiency enhancements aimed at improving service levels and outcomes for both patients and practitioners. These were primarily targeted at improving patient experience with increased use of online booking, seamless appointment confirmation processes, and rebooking of appointments. All these metrics improved during the year. The improving employee turnover result, stable practitioner base, and high patient net promoter score are all testament to the proposition we offer to our practitioners, patients, and employees. The staff-to-practitioner ratio is the ratio of total staff hours worked within our dental centers to dentist hours worked. As such, it provides a useful metric for operating efficiency and is now at a level that balances financial efficiency and operational effectiveness in supporting dentists and their patients. Turning to slide eight. There's plenty to cover on this slide. As can be seen in the top chart, patient fees increased 7.9% year-on-year to AUD 291.8 million, with same-center patient fees rising 7.3% year-on-year. The increase in patient fees was driven by both increased appointment volumes as the business continues to grow and scale, as well as modestly higher prices, driven by small increases in our health fund arrangements. Utilization rates and appointment volumes increased in all but one of our age-based cohorts, with higher growth rates achieved in recent or more immature centers, predominantly those established in FY 2020 or later. Total practitioner hours increased 3.9% in FY 2024 to approximately 717,000 hours, and the total number of appointments attended increased 3.5% to just on 1,050,000. Average patient visitation in financial year 2024 remained consistent at 1.95 visits per annum, driven by strong patient loyalty, practitioner relationships, and high rebooking and appointment confirmation rates. The underlying EBITDA of AUD 28.2 million on higher revenue and improved operational efficiency, in particular during the second half of the year, as seen with the improved staff-to-practitioner ratio and other labor rostering improvements. The EBITDA result is also satisfying, given the challenging cost environment, driven by the Fair Work Commission's determination of a 5.75% wage increase in FY 2024, which affected the cost base for the majority of the company's employees. While labor efficiency levels across the broader business are at a sustainable level, there is further scope for improvement in labor efficiency as new centers mature. This happens, as you would expect, as the centers mature and grow. Furthermore, we continue to invest in streamlining of in-center operations, training, and onboarding. Turning now to the successful continuation and expansion of our partnership with HBF under a managed services agreement to build and run dental centers for HBF in Western Australia. As a reminder, our contract with HBF is to build and operate HBF Dental Centers on their behalf. HBF put up the capital, and Pacific Smiles runs the centers. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement for both organizations. The HBF dental network in FY 2024 continued with the eight existing centers. Excitingly, a further two centers are now approved for FY 2025. This is actually a very compelling slide. With no change to the number of dental centers, a small increase in dental chairs, and a small increase in active dentists, we've achieved for HBF a massive increase in attended appointments and utilization. There has logically also been a continued uplift in practitioner hours to support this. Attended appointments were up an impressive 52% on last year, and the patient net promoter score achieved of 86 is also up on the prior year. We are very privileged to have this relationship with HBF. Our Western Australia team and support office team here in New South Wales are proud of the business. The teams at HBF and Pacific Smiles work closely together. The business model is working, practitioners and patients are responding, and as noted, we're very much looking forward to establishing two more HBF Dental Centers in FY 2025. Turning to slide 10. This slide provides a breakdown of our center cohorts, grouped by the period in which they opened. We have discussed the narrative many times with our shareholders of the cohort semantics. Essentially, the greenfield model of Pacific Smiles is facilitated by the ongoing growth, increasing practitioner engagement, team development, and building patient preference to Pacific Smiles Dental Centers. Simply, the cohort analysis is helpful because as the centers mature, as people develop, the business improves. Key metrics we monitor closely are average patient fees per center and per chair, and average utilization of those assets. In terms of average patient fees per center, overall performance continues to improve across every single cohort. Average patient fees rose year-on-year across all cohorts during the year, especially newer cohorts, as the business continues to fill capacity by attracting new patients while increasing practitioner hours worked. Utilization of existing chairs continues to improve through increased dentist hours, seeing more patient appointments. Utilization increased in all but one of the cohorts. Our 15 to 17 cohort. Pleasingly, with higher growth rates achieved in newer centers established in FY 2020 and later. We continue to review the opportunity to increase capacity to expand utilization with limited investment through placing new chairs in available surgeries. I will also advise that since year-end, the board has supported a management recommendation to close the center in the 15 to 17 cohort, which is not performing, and once actioned, will contribute to an improved future result for this group. Last year, we made the point that an additional 19 chairs were added to our two most mature cohorts during FY 2021 on the back of the strong rebound from the initial pandemic after lockdowns ending. This investment is paying off as we saw utilization in both these cohorts increase in FY 24. It's highly accretive, given the modest CapEx required to add this capacity. Okay, I'll now hand over to Matt, who will take you through some more detail within the financial results. Andrew, good morning, everyone. On slide 12, we can see the summary of the income statement. As usual, I'll just remind everyone that these results are expressed on an underlying basis, which excludes the impact of AASB 16 lease accounting standards. Full reconciliation between statutory reported and underlying financials can be found in the appendix of the presentation. The key points to highlight on this slide are that revenue increased 8.7% to AUD 179.8 million on improved patient and practitioner volumes. The reasons underpinning this increase have been well covered by Andrew already. Our corporate overhead margin, as a percentage of patient fees, fell to 6.4%, with strong focus on prudent support office cost management, given the moderation of new center growth. Underlying EBITDA increased 16.9% to AUD 28.2 million on this revenue growth, and improved operational efficiency, underpinned by continued staff-to-practitioner ratio improvements, as Andrew pointed out. EBITDA margins at a center level, on a whole of business basis, which are presented in detail in the appendix of the presentation, increased in FY 2024 despite the challenging cost environment. This mainly centered around the Fair Work Commission's determination for FY 2024, increasing wages under modern awards by 5.75%, and generally higher inflation running through some of our other cost categories. Depreciation and amortization fell by 1.8%, reflecting the lower capital expenditure cycle the business has been in. It should be noted that notwithstanding the pause in the building of new centers, the business continues to invest in its underlying systems and infrastructure. However, much of this expenditure is expensed directly through the P&L under the AASB accounting rules. Net interest costs decreased to AUD 0.1 million from AUD 0.8 million in the prior year. Reduced interest paid on the debt facility was driven by the progressive repayment of that debt facility, combined with improved interest rates associated with higher rates. Pacific Smiles is currently debt-free. We made an underlying net profit after tax of AUD 8.9 million for the year, nearly doubling last year's result, which has underpinned a final, fully franked dividend of AUD 0.0325 per share, which is at the top end of the board-approved policy range, which is 70% to 100% of underlying net profit after tax. We'll jump onto slide 13 and the earnings bridge. So this depicts the underlying reasons for the increase in the underlying EBITDA from FY 2023 to FY 2024. EBITDA in our dental centers before corporate overhead increased by AUD 4.1 million in FY 2024, resulting in an expansion of our overall EBITDA to patient fees margin from 8.9% to 9.7%. An increase in revenue of AUD 11.5 million and other income was offset by the unavoidable increase in labor costs. I called that a minute ago. And as previously said, the business is focused on labor efficiency by improving our rostering practices while preserving the level of service to dentists and patients. Thus, a substantial portion of the increased cost of labor was offset by efficiency improvement. The impact of CPI on inflation leases resulted in an additional AUD 1.3 million spent. The majority of PSG leases, though, are not inflation-linked. We also invested more in marketing this year, which included an above-the-line marketing campaign aimed at increasing our brand recognition and proposition with existing and prospective patients. Corporate overhead was flat on the previous year, but lower as a proportion of our top-line fee growth. This is notwithstanding increased investment in software that supports the growth of our business and engagement with our people. To that end, we have upgraded our marketing cloud infrastructure that we believe will provide additional opportunity to increase appointment volumes with enhanced patient journeys. We've also invested in a new, modern, and scalable practitioner CRM system, which will enable continued business growth and enhanced practitioner experience. Other costs have been carefully managed, and as we've made a note of previously, somewhat reflects the pullback in new center investment. However, I should point out that as growth is re-enlivened, this may require modest investment in additional resources in the support office going forward. Turning now to our cash flow on slide 14. The conversion of our reported EBITDA to operating cash flow of AUD 18.8 million was strong in FY 2024. It's worth noting, though, there were some key differences between the comparable period to last year, where we received a AUD 5.8 million tax refund for carryback tax losses due to losses incurred during the pandemic. In FY 2024, we've also moved into a tax-paying position, stemming from the increase in pre-tax profitability and the absence of any carryforward tax losses. Investing cash flow was materially lower in FY 2024, given we did not open any new centers for reasons we've touched on earlier, and I'll come back to other CapEx shortly. Increased financing cash outflows of AUD 16 million speaks for itself. We repaid all outstanding term debt during the year and paid AUD 7 million in dividends. It's appropriate that when we pause investment in new centers and generate good profits, that shareholders receive a return on their investment at the higher end of the board's approved dividend range. Importantly, though, given our strong cash position and no debt, this does not inhibit our ability to invest in growth going forward. We are in a strong financial position with substantial capital allocation flexibility. Jumping to 15, this provides some further color on the cash flow splits across the last two financial years, but largely tells the same story of robust operating cash flow and de-leveraging of the balance sheet. Operating cash flow was lower than the prior period, primarily due to the AUD 5.8 million tax refund I just called out, the higher labor costs I touched on, and us moving into that tax payable position. Overall, the liquidity of the balance sheet has improved materially, positioning us positively. Turning to CapEx on slide 16 now. Capital expenditure was materially lower in FY 2024, as new center growth was deliberately moderated following the large investment in new centers in the preceding two financial years. Two to three financial years, in fact. We had planned to invest in five new centers in the second half of FY 2024. However, we were restricted from doing this due to the scheme implementation date entered into with NDC, pursuant to their change of control proposal. And as Andrew pointed out, those restrictions have now fallen away. Lower CapEx on relocations, expansions, refurbishments, and other new chair uplifts is primarily a reflection of the cyclical nature of the need to invest in these areas. It was not a conscious decision to withhold investment. We've actually commenced several refurbishments of some of our more mature centers that will be completed in the first half of FY 2025. The replacement of center surgical equipment was higher in FY 2024, as we purchased 30 new dental chairs during the year. This was an advanced bulk order to take advantage of some attractive pricing. These chairs will be deployed to fill spare capacity in the network over time, as well as replacing aging chairs that are due for replacement. Of the remaining CapEx, AUD 9.3 million was spent on IT-related investment. But as I pointed out earlier, that technology CapEx does not reflect the full amount of investment in our technology and software infrastructure as it's expensed through the P&L. Finally, now, onto the balance sheet. Not too much has changed here, to be honest, except for the reduction in borrowings. Property, plant, and equipment declined by AUD 10.5 million, reflecting the reduction in CapEx and ordinary course depreciation cycling through our assets. Our assets aren't capital intensive and benefit from regular scheduled maintenance. Payables and liabilities increased, chiefly due to an increase in the provision for income tax now that we're paying tax again. Back to you, Andrew. Thanks, Matt. Okay, turning now to slide 19, and finally, an update on our performance post-year-end. As I called out during the scheme meeting, early trading this year has been strong. As of close of trading yesterday, Pacific Smiles has generated patient fees of AUD 50.8 million, a 10.9% increase year- on- year. To be completely transparent, we have benefited this year from the calendar, and this trading performance includes two additional weekdays of trading. However, normalized for that, the result is still a pleasing 8.4% above last year. This level of growth is very robust, especially against the backdrop of the broader economic environment. I again want to thank the Pacific Smiles Support Office team, the dental center teams, and all the practitioners. July was a record month for the business by some considerable margin. During the month that management were the most preoccupied with scheme matters, they universally did not miss a beat. We asked them to stay focused, and they did. I thank them all. In terms of new centers, Pacific Smiles will update investors on capital allocation, thinking, strategy, and new center growth in coming months. Other than the two new HBF-owned clinics, it is unlikely we will open any new centers in the first half of this financial year. However, we do have many refurbishments underway, one full relocation, inclusive of a large expansion, and one major upgrade, inclusive of an expansion underway at the moment. We are not providing FY 2025 formal guidance at this time. It's early in the year, and economic conditions remain unpredictable. Although the vast majority of our patients hold private health insurance, they are not immune to the cost of living, high interest rates, and other economic factors that may impact on their future demand for dental services. An update on first quarter trading will be provided at the AGM to be held on the 20th of November. My final comment is to extend a very big thank you to all of the practitioners who continue to choose Pacific Smiles. We value the trust you place in us by choosing to operate in our network. We thank you for all your ongoing efforts, your patient care, and professional competency. I will now hand back to the operator to moderate some questions. Thank you. Thank you. And if you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you are on a speaker phone, please pick up your handset to ask your question. And our first question today will come from Craig Wong-Pan with RBC. Please go ahead. Good morning. Just in the presentation, you talked about falling cancellation rates. Could you just maybe give some context of how they now compare to pre-COVID or, or, to some other kind of base level? Yeah. Hi, Craig. It's Matt here. Thanks for the question. Yeah, cancellation rates have continued to improve, so they obviously peaked during COVID, well into the double-digit territory. Pre-COVID, I would say they were high single digits, the vicinity of 8% to 9%. On any given day now, we're seeing cancellation rates between, I would say, 7.5%-8.5%. So that is a function of two things. I would say normalization post-COVID, people starting to respect their appointments a bit more. But secondly, we've been pretty focused on appointment confirmations. The field's done a terrific job in uplifting patient journeys and communicating with them prior to an appointment. What we do know is if someone confirms an appointment, the likelihood of them turning up to that appointment is very, very high. It approaches 100%. If they don't confirm the appointment, it's fifty-fifty. So as we push to do more and more confirmations, you'll see a natural reduction in people who fail to attend. Okay. Thank you. And then second question on slide 10. Thanks for putting on the average fee per chair in that, the top chart. I was just wondering, with that kind of like, you know, the more recent cohorts, is there the ability to move that average fee per chair sort of back towards that AUD 600,000-AUD 700,000 mark? Or is there any reason why these kind of newer centers might have a lower average fee per chair? There's a couple of reasons for that. The mature cohorts have been around a long time, Craig, so they've got very, very good dentists, very efficient dentists. Dentists who tend to do more higher value work. You've got a very mature patient base, which come back, and you tend to find more problems in your teeth as you come back. So the stickier you are, you know, it's a more valuable service for the organization that we're providing. In the less mature cohorts, you'll see a natural progression or increase in fees per chair. As dentists mature and patients come back, and you find more problems in their mouth, so you'll see a natural progression in that as well. And obviously, we're gonna be focused on providing dentists all the support we can to so that they can do a higher value services. But maybe, Andrew, do you wanna touch on that? Oh, look, one thing I noticed, Craig. We did some analysis a few months ago on the years that practitioners have been working with Pacific Smiles, and then correlated that against their fees per hour, and it's almost a perfect correlation. The longer a practitioner has been working, obviously the more efficient they are at their work, and the billings flow. So, and it was an unbelievable insight, just how I reckon the R squared on that correlation was probably in the 90s. It was quite impressive. Okay. And then you mentioned, excuse me, you mentioned, Andrew, that there'll be a closure of a center in the 15 to 17 cohort, just the- Yeah. I'm not gonna name the center. I was expecting- Yeah. I just wanted to understand more like the financial benefit. Like, is there much sort of financial benefit from that closure? Yeah, it's lost money for several years, and for various reasons, we've been unable to improve that. It's now at the end of the lease, so there's very little write-off value. I think we've got a small make good and we're also very confident that the practitioners that work there and the staff, we can redeploy to adjacent centers. Okay. And then just last question, you know, on EBITDA margins. Good to see that profitability improve into FY 2024. Could you provide any color for, for how we should think about margin going from here? Like, are we at a new norm now, or do you think there's further scope for that improving? Margin is a well-discussed topic in this industry, as you know, and it's a multi-variant thing. So, firstly, you would see in our early cohorts, you know, I think our center base margins in those cohorts is, you know, well in line with, you know, best industry benchmarks. So, you know, I'm very confident that the business model gets there. But what we know is that volume. It's not just about the fees we get per service, less the cost of providing those. Margin. We have a high fixed cost base in many of our centers, particularly where you've got to man the centers at the early stage of their maturity, and you don't yet have the patient volume. So volume drives margin, is very beneficial. The services mix drives it. So as I talked about a minute ago, the practitioners' skill set, their longevity drives it, the nature of the services, the higher value procedures that they do drives it. So that maturity thing absolutely drives margin. Also, the operational efficiencies that come from maturing, particularly then when we can start to manage the variable cost, labor, which is difficult to do when volumes are quite low. And then as the business matures, generally, managing our support office costs and our consumable costs and our occupancy costs, I think we do that well, but there's always room to continue to improve. You add all that up, and you start to see margin improvement over time, and we saw a bit of that this year, which is really pleasing. Okay, thank you. That's all my questions. Thanks. Our next question will come from Shane Storey with Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone. Andrew, I'm gonna ask you to talk a little bit more about the volume growth that you're seeing. I'm trying to reconcile, I guess, the weakness you sort of called out in May, June, and then now suddenly, July is a record month. So I guess the question is, do you think the eight point four, sort of like for like, that you've seen so far is still grappling a bit and might otherwise be higher or do you sense that something just, you know, just sort of changed in July? Thanks. Oh, it's a great question, and part of the reason we haven't called out any formal guidance is because predicting what's gonna happen for the remainder of the year remains an art form, perhaps. That, you know, we're not yet as confident as we'd like to be about it. What we saw post-COVID is everything changed. The usual cycles of this business changed, and I think what we're coming back to now is a more normal cycle within the business, where school holidays drive volume, you know, the season, you know, influences volume. And so we're starting to be able to map something that's more reliable. But I absolutely saw in, particularly the early part of the last quarter, last year, it got very soft, and we thought, "Wow, what's going on there?" And then in July, it's bounced back very strongly. It did coincide with school holidays, but it is volatile. So I don't have a precise answer for you, but I'm comfortable that our proposition is appealing to people. I think some of our new arrangements, particularly say with NIB, has been beneficial and I think our, you know, I think customers are responding to our proposition. That's, that's helpful. The second one, I appreciate that it's too early perhaps to draw you out on strategy and capital. You You said you'll update us on that soon. But, on the refurbishments and other sort of activities that you have penciled in there, can we expect any sort of immediate, say, additions or say, backfilling of chairs into some of the existing network over the first half? Yeah. So, of those thirty chairs that Matt talked about, we've already deployed, I think, Matt, about half of those? Yeah, most of those are replacements. It's been replacements. Yeah. There's one relocation we're doing at the moment, which is not just a relocation, it's also a very significant expansion, so the number of surgeries will grow. We've just approved, in the last month, another refurbishment and expansion in Sydney. Plus, typically refurbishments, you know, they give the team good energy, they give patients good energy. You know, we would like to see, you know, some uplift every time we spend money on a center. Even if you go into an NIB center in Sydney now, just new lighting and new seats in the waiting area, just you know, I think it's an attractive place to work and visit. My last question. Thank you for that. My last question is really about the staff to practitioner ratio. Have you done any benchmarking to help us understand where your numbers, say just above two, sort of compares with the rest of the industry, and whether you sense there's room for that to come down again? 'Cause I imagine it's something that you have to be quite careful with, 'cause you could probably only reduce it to a certain amount before you start to threaten the dentist productivity. So just any extra color you can provide on that? Sure. Metric. I'm gonna ask Matt to give his answer on that one. Short answer is no, Shane. Pretty hard. No other publicly listed CSOs out there. So it's challenging trying to find data on that sort of information. If you look at our employee expense ratios against other sort of multi-site healthcare businesses, I find it a bit misleading, because you know, the way we staff our centers is different to how other adjacent healthcare businesses staff their centers. You know, we have to have one person chair-side. What I would say is that I don't think there's huge scope to bring that down too much more, to be honest. You know, we ask a lot of our people, and we're expected to provide a good service to our dentists and to our patients. What we have to do in terms of efficiency is not reduce the number of people, but just get more effective with our rostering practices so that we make sure that the staff are there when the dentists are there. And that's just about, you know, being vigilant around rostering and understanding when the patients-- when the dentist books are open, and how we staff accordingly. So look, I'd be loathe to say we're gonna bring that down too much more. I think I made the comment in the presentation that we've got it sort of well balanced now, I think. We'll always try and do better, but I wouldn't expect that to come down too much more. Thanks, team. That's all, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And our next question will come from Rita Fung with RBC. Please go ahead. Good morning. Congratulations on a really strong result. Thank you. My first question is, are you able to break down that patient fee growth of 7.9% for FY 2024 into price, mix, and volume? We called that out, didn't we? Yeah. It's well, it's 3.5% volume growth, and called a balanced price, and embedded in price is mix. Mix and balance. It's mix and fee increases, if you like. So the fee increases are always modest from the health funds. They're very low single-digit, well below the prevailing rate of inflation. So without being too precise, 3.5% volume growth, call it 1% to 2% in price, and the rest would be in mix. Okay, great. Thanks. And, with that volume number, so I'm assuming that 3.5% is net of cancellations? Yes. They're attended appointments. Okay, great. Thanks and do you see any changes to this composition between price, mix, and volume in that August year to date growth rate of 8.4%? No, not really. The first couple of weeks of July were kid-heavy, if I can call it that, because it comes out of- Volume. With volume. Yeah, it was school holidays, so we had lots of families cycling through the business, as we do. School holidays are helpful for our business. So, what you do get, I would say there was probably a bit more restorative work done in the second half of July, and probably the beginning of August. And that's not unusual as well, because post the EOFY period, where we get a lot of people coming in, to use up their health fund, they'll come in for a clean and check, and maybe there's some work to be done. So that generally gets sort of scheduled for four to six weeks after their appointment in June. So there might be a bit of that in there as well, but nothing unusual. Perfect. Thank you. And with the volume growth of 3.5%, are you expecting that to continue into FY 2025? Yeah, well, I won't guide you on growth to a number, but we expect- Yeah ... volume of growth, into FY 2025, definitely. Okay, great. Thanks. And one last question from me. You mentioned that you guys had plans to roll out two new centers in the second half, 2024. Has that now been pushed into FY 2025? And are we expecting? Yeah, Rita, I'll just correct you. The two new centers this year relate to HBF. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah, so there's two new centers that are planned for HBF Dental. What Andrew mentioned earlier is we won't open any new centers this half for PSD of Pacific Smiles Dental Centers. And we'll come back to the market around what our plans are for the second half. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cheers. And once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. Our next question will come from James Bales with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Oh, hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I want to ask about the July seasonality as well. I mean, in the past, you guys have made comments about dentists going on holidays to the Northern Hemisphere at this time of year. The school holidays have always been roughly the same timing. Should we expect that you can make record months in July going forward, or is this a bit abnormal in terms of behavior that you expect to then revert? I wish I had an answer. Yeah, we have some hypothesis, James. So, you know, one of the things that helps drive it is also practitioner availability and the hours that practitioners have worked. So we've definitely seen in these results a lift in the number of practitioner hours worked. Hours, yeah. I think, you know, there's a hypothesis, and that's all this is. I have no data that just like the rest of us, the cost of living issues- Mm. affect practitioners, and we're seeing more of them making themselves available to do more hours. And as a result, we're able to schedule more patients. There's a sort of symbiotic relationship there. Because we also see the other side, when practitioners schedule more hours, if we can't fill all of those hours, we can see an increase in our spare appointments, and we have noticed a little bit of that. So I think it's driven, I think, a lot by how the practitioners are behaving. I also think that people probably, when interest rates started going up earlier in the year, they delayed some dental treatments, but it's good practice not to delay it too long, and when the kids were on holidays, they sort of caught up. Okay, so should I take it then that if you can encourage your dentists to make themselves available for more hours, that's just as powerful in terms of driving volume growth as, you know, marketing to consumers? One called relatively- Not just as powerful. Yeah. It's a contributor. It's a contributor. Probably should have called this out earlier. One of the tailwinds we're seeing at the moment is the practitioner hours and appointment volumes on weekends. Obviously, we're in shopping centers, so it's important to try and grow patient attendance and practitioner hours on weekends, and that's increased materially in the past. I would say six-to-nine months. It was. So it's running ahead of probably our expectations at the moment, and I think that probably talks to what Andrew was just mentioning around, you know, people's propensity to work at the moment. Yeah To try and earn more income. Got it. Okay, thanks, guys. Appreciate the call. Thanks, James. Cheers. Our next question will come from Weimin Xie with MX Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Weimin. Great. Good result. Just trying to understand the NIB agreement. How does it actually work financially? Well, we, NIB are a major private health fund. They, like, all the health funds, want to provide benefits to their members on a sort of convenient basis. We had a long-standing arrangement with NIB, that we were the exclusive provider of no-gap coverage to their members, given the kind of history of Newcastle and that grew into Sydney and, you know, Melbourne and location in Brisbane, but there were only 11 of those locations. And NIB came to us, even though the agreement was still in place for a few more years, and asked if we would consider expanding that arrangement, 'cause they wanted to be able to offer a no-gap preventative dental treatment to their members across a much broader geography. Obviously, NIB has grown their membership base in recent years, and their competitors have quite a large range of locations where their members can go. So we worked with NIB to reach a modification to the agreement, whereby every Pacific Smiles dental location can now offer NIB members a no-gap treatment. In the process of doing that, we also agreed with NIB that those areas where we do not trade, for instance, Tasmania and South Australia, that NIB could put in place a similar arrangement with another dental provider. The benefit to us now is that we're able to communicate with NIB members that there is a no-gap offer, both at NIB centers that we own and operate, and at Pacific Smiles centers. So that sort of increases, we hope, the propensity for NIB members to choose us. And also, many of our Pacific Smiles locations were already offering a no-gap offer to NIB members, but we were funding that no gap. We now don't have to fund that. So there's a benefit to our business because we're not discounting effectively, the services to those members. Is that- Just to clarify- Yeah. So that's a good point. And you, you say, so NIB is funding the gap, basically? Correct. On the preventive service items. That's right. Right. So they give you more volume and also they funded that for you, so you have higher price and higher volume? Correct. All right, that's cool arrangement. And, when you say exclusive, it doesn't mean that, like, all other insurance can't do a similar no-gap arrangement at Pacific Smiles now? No, no. No, it's exclusive the other way. So, NIB, Right. Can't do a no-gap offer with dental providers other than what's provided for now in the changed agreement. All right. And just follow up on this then. Those eleven centers that had the arrangement with them, I know the history was that they were kind of different, but what portion would be the nib patients account for, for those eleven centers compared to the rest of the group? I actually don't know off the top of my head, but it's obviously been a very significant part of our business for a long time. You know, for instance, NIB in Sydney is one of our largest dental centers in our whole group, and people will, you know, historically, they'll take a trip into town and get their teeth done. So it was quite a, you know, it had quite a large catchment area, but I don't have that data at hand. I'm sorry. Right. And but does this actually mean that the rate for the actual dentist now lock in, they can't... Because they're funding a gap, can the actual dentist put up the rate another 3% and so on? Let's just try to understand how it works? Yeah. Well, you would also understand that our dentists are independent practitioners, so any dentist can choose to participate in the arrangement or not. But, if they wanna charge their own fees, that's fine. Typically, that doesn't happen, but the funding model for that would just be a normal, proportion that the health fund covers under a normal sort of, you know, PPA with the dentist. Right. Okay. So when you roll out to all the centers, it's still up to the actual dentist to opt in individually? That's correct. Right. But typically, we find that our dentists do. Okay. So, in that case, the dentist actually funding the gap in some way because they're accepting a lower fee than NIB again? Yes. A very important part of our business model is that we're supporting the dentist and, they have price sovereignty, and that's right. If they were not charging a gap, then that had an impact on their income, but also flowed through to our business. Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much. That's all. Thank you. This will conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Vidler for any closing remarks. Thank you very much, Cole, and for everybody dialing in, thank you for your interest in our business. Again, I thank the broader team and all the practitioners, and I look forward to talking with you all again soon. Bye-bye. The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect your lines at this time.