I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Clinton Cahn, CEO and CFO. Please go ahead. Thank you, Ashley. Good morning, everyone. I'm Clinton Cahn, The Reject Shop CEO and CFO, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our 2024 half year results conference call. Joining me on the call is Amy Eshuys, our Chief Operating Officer, who will join me in answering questions during the Q&A section of this call. I'll start by walking you through the company's first half 2024 results, which are summarized on slides three and four. We have again presented our financial results on both a pre and post AASB 16 basis, which will assist you in comparing the result with historical performance. Our results include sales of AUD 458.3 million, which are up 4.2% on the prior period and 2.3% on a comp store basis. Then, on a pre-AASB 16 basis, gross profit was AUD 185.1 million, which was up 3.6%. The cost of doing business margin was 34.8% of sales, compared to 34% in the prior period. EBIT was AUD 19.4 million, which was down 16.1%. NPAT was AUD 14.3 million, which was down 12.5%, and for completeness, statutory NPAT was AUD 14.5 million, which was down 11.1% on the prior period. We are pleased to have again finished the year with a strong balance sheet. At the end of the half, we had cash of AUD 80.7 million and no drawn debt. In terms of dividends, the board has determined to pay a fully franked interim dividend of AUD 0.10 per share. I'll touch on capital management in a bit more detail shortly. Turning to slide five. The first half of FY 2024 was the first period during which the new merchandise strategy was meaningfully in place, and it has shown positive early signs, with comp sales growth during the half, driven by an increase in customer transactions and units per basket. This translated to overall sales for the half being up 4.2%, while comp store sales were up 2.3%. Customers continued to gravitate towards low-priced branded consumable products that represent great value, given cost of living pressures remain elevated. This strong customer demand is expected to continue throughout FY 2024 and into FY 2025. General merchandise sales were down in the prior period, with planned lower average selling prices largely offset by strong unit volume growth. During the half, we introduced new and improved general merchandise and seasonal ranges, and the customer response to this newness has been positive. In particular, the new and expanded Halloween and Christmas ranges were well received by customers and generated strong sales growth driven by unit growth. Given the challenging economic environment, we had a strong focus on lowering the average selling prices on seasonal products to ensure that as many Australians as possible could afford to celebrate these events. Moving on to gross profit on slide six. Gross profit was AUD 185.1 million on a pre-AASB 16 basis, which was up 3.6%. Gross margin percentage of 40.4% was effectively flat, excluding the one-off non-recurring income from insurance claims in the prior period. This was below our expectations, with higher than anticipated shrinkage and product mix shift being the key drivers to the missing expectations. Let's touch on shrinkage for a moment. We're currently conducting our annual stock take, which is expected to conclude on around the first of March. Like many retailers, the company is experiencing higher rates of shrinkage. The preliminary results from the stock takes conducted to date indicate that shrinkage has negatively impacted gross margin percentage by approximately 75 basis points compared to the prior period. This has been incorporated into the gross margin result for the half. Separately, during the half, customers continued to gravitate towards lower margin consumables, which resulted in a higher-than-anticipated shift in sales mix that adversely impacted gross margin. Finally, supply chain costs had a mixed impact on gross margin, with the benefit from a reduction in international shipping costs partially offset by increased domestic supply chain costs. We will focus on improving gross margin percentage to offset this unanticipated increase in shrinkage, and over time, we expect the product mix to shift favorably as the general merchandise and seasonal offerings continue to improve and gain traction with customers. Turning to slide seven. Consistent with many retailers, the company is facing a number of inflationary pressures. The cost of doing business, which comprises store expenses and admin expenses, increased to 34.8% of sales. This was in line with expectations and compares to 34% in the prior period and 37.2% back in the first half of FY 2020. Store expenses increased to 30.3% of sales, compared to 29% in the prior period and 32% in first half 2020, while admin expenses improved to 4.6% of sales, compared to 4.8% in the prior period and 5% in first half 2020. In terms of store expenses, store labor increased from 12.9% in the prior period to 14% of sales this half, while store occupancy costs as a percentage of sales remained flat at 12.3%. Store expenses also include the operating costs associated with opening and closing stores. These costs totaled approximately AUD 1 million during the half, which is up from AUD 0.7 million in the prior period. For context, this half includes the cost associated with opening seven new stores compared to eight in the prior period, the cost of reopening one f lood-affected store, and the cost associated with closing four stores compared to one in the prior period. Finally, depreciation was AUD 6.1 million, which was a slight improvement on the prior period. This resulted in pre-AASB 16 EBIT for the half of AUD 19.4 million. It is worth noting that EBIT would have been approximately AUD 23 million, had shrinkages as a percentage of sales been in line with the prior period. This compares to EBIT in the prior period of AUD 22.3 million, excluding the non-recurring income from insurance claims. On to slide eight. We continue to make good progress in expanding our store network, having opened seven new stores during the half. We continue to look for new locations where we can conveniently serve more Australians, and are targeting to open approximately eight new stores during the second half. There were four stores that closed during the half, and we expect to close a further four stores during FY 2024. We also expect to relocate two stores during the second half. At December 2023, The Reject Shop's national store network included 383 stores. This compares to 354 stores in June 2020, which was around the time when we began to more meaningfully expand our store network. Turning to slide nine, the company's balance sheet remains strong, with a cash balance of AUD 80.7 million and no drawn debt at the end of December 2023. This compares to a net cash position of AUD 77.3 million at the end of FY 2023, and AUD 83.9 million at the end of December 2022. Inventory closed at AUD 138.2 million, which was up from AUD 135.6 million at the end of FY 2023, and down from AUD 140.3 million at the end of the first half of 2023. Turning to slide 10. In terms of capital management, and as you already know, the company previously announced an on-market share buyback of up to AUD 10 million, which commenced in September 2023. During the half, we purchased and canceled approximately 25,000 shares at a cost of around AUD 1.4 million. This buyback is expected to continue during the second half. I'm also pleased to announce that the board is determined to pay a fully franked interim dividend of AUD 0.10 per share, and the dividend is expected to be paid to shareholders in early May. On to slide 11. The new merchandise strategy continues to generate solid results, with positive sales momentum continuing into the second half. Comp growth during the first seven weeks of the second half was up 3.2%, and total sales growth, including net new stores, was up 4.8%. This sales growth continues to be driven by increased customer transactions and units per basket, while average selling price remains lower than the prior period. We are encouraged that customers continue to respond positively to the ongoing newness and improvement in our general merchandise range, and continue to visit The Reject Shop to save money on branded, everyday, essential items. We are excited to introduce customers to our new and expanded Easter range, which is on the shelves right now, and remain focused on continuing to open new stores, as well as managing profit margins in a challenging operating and economic environment. Turning to slide 12. Our priorities for FY 2024 are simple and are a continuation of our current strategy. Our number one priority is to continue to evolve our merchandise offer by further enhancing our low price position and continuing to differentiate our offer through more special buys, newness, and variety. This will in turn drive comp sales growth through bigger baskets and more frequent visits. I invite you to refer to slides 13 to 18 of our presentation, which includes some images of our exciting new general merchandise and seasonal products, as well as our branded, low-price, everyday consumables range. Amy and I are extremely proud of what's displayed on these pages. We'll continue to expand our national store network with a focus on providing customers with even more convenient locations throughout Australia, where they can shop and save. We will continue to focus on improving gross profit margin and managing the cost of doing business in a high inflation environment. And finally, we'll continue to explore and invest in strategic projects across the business, which minimize risks and enable efficiencies and growth, particularly in supply chain and technology. To conclude, our customers continue to respond positively to our new and improved merchandise offering. I'm pleased to share that during the half, the company generated over 1.2 million more customer transactions than it did in the prior period. It reported record first half sales. It recorded positive comp sales growth in a challenging economic and trading environment. We announced an interim dividend of AUD 0.10 per share, which is the first interim dividend since February 2019. All of this would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of each and every one of our committed team members. I'd like to thank all of our team members across stores, DCs, and store support center for their contribution and efforts during the half. Like many Australian retailers, we're currently facing a number of macro and inflationary pressures, which have had an adverse impact on near-term profitability. We will continue to work hard to improve gross profit margin and manage the cost of doing business, having regard to the challenges associated with the rising cost environment that presently exists. The macroeconomic and consumer environment is uncertain, and so we are pleased that our strong balance sheet positions us well to navigate through any potential volatility in trading. We're also very aware that The Reject Shop plays a critical role in supporting Australians who are currently faced with significant cost of living pressures. We do this by helping our customers save money on branded, everyday, essential items, such as cleaning products, toiletries, personal hygiene products, kids' lunchbox snacks, and pet products. In addition, our team worked hard during the first half to lower the prices of our exciting general merchandise and seasonal ranges. We are focused on offering products that bring joy to our customers during challenging economic times, while also making it more affordable for Australians to celebrate holidays with their family and friends. As Australia's largest discount variety retailer, and with a track record of helping customers save money for over forty years, we are committed to ensuring that every visit to The Reject Shop brings joy and savings to our customers. That is the end of our prepared presentation. I'll now hand back to Ashley to open the call up for questions. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Ben Gilbert with Jarden. Please go ahead. Morning, Clinton. Just first question, just around the mix, in terms of your sort of consumables, versus your sort of discretionary or general merch. Can you just give us a bit of color around how that's performing in terms of—I think obviously you said sort of your general merch is negative, but your consumables, I think, must have been tracking pretty strongly, but it does seem like your comps have moderated a little bit into December or into the December quarter based on your last trading update. You just talked about trends through the period. Do you think there's sort of general market slowing? Do you think you gave up a share? Did you have to put a bit more into price? Just how that plays. Yeah, I'll give you some – firstly, hi, Ben. Thanks for the question. I'll give you some stats and then I'll answer the question more specifically. So in the first half, consumables represented about 46% of sales. The previous period was 42%, and the period before that was 38%. So there's a material opportunity as we swing back towards that 40%, which is where we'd expect to be kind of on a long-term basis. Consumables during the half had double-digit growth. That was predominantly driven by ASP and some unit growth. I think what was pleasing on the GM side is it was really low single-digit decline, and it had improved year-on-year, and we had double-digit unit growth. So there was material ASP growth, ASP decline in Christmas and Halloween that drove very strong unit growth in general merchandise. So we're seeing some really good signs there. And we've also improved the margin, the product margin, in each of those, each of those departments, consumables and general, general merchandise. You're right. So in the first quarter, our comps were up 3.2%. In the second quarter, they're up 1.6%. I think what's pleasing is second half to date, we're up 3.2%. It's a difficult one to explain. There was a little bit of disruption towards the end of the second quarter around weather at a critical trading point for us. Black Friday is kind of interesting for us. We don't really play in that space, and we saw our stores in large centers really benefit from the traffic, whereas our strips were kind of stripped of traffic during that period. Then naturally, there's been a lot of change in our business over this year, particularly following Halloween and Christmas, which was so much bigger than previous periods. And so while I think we executed that really well, there's naturally lots of opportunities to improve around product availability and product allocation, not only in those seasonal categories, but also in our kind of essential items range. So I think there's opportunities for us to improve that. What's pleasing is we've gone into the second half with really across all areas, including general merchandise. James Bales with Morgan Stanley, please go ahead. Oh, hi, guys. I guess firstly, can you talk maybe about the strategy that you have to address shrinkage, which seemed to be a pretty major issue for margins in the first half, and then maybe your thoughts on the second half gross margin outlook? Hi, James. I think probably just to give you some context on shrink. This is kind of late news. I think we knew shrink was going to be elevated. It's late news in the sense that we commenced our stock takes late January, and we're in the middle of them. We've actually completed three out of five weeks, and there's two weeks to go, but we've counted about 80%-85% of the stores, so we've got a pretty good look on the result. We've actually taken a number of steps over the last 12 months to improve shrink, or to try and mitigate shrink, I should say. It's clear we need to take further steps. I think in the immediate term, we're gonna treat this as a further cost of doing business. This is not answering your question around strategy, but we're gonna treat this as a further cost of doing business, and we're gonna look at our product margins where appropriate. So we've done this before around international shipping, as an example, where we kind of get a late expected headwind in gross profit margin. So we'll make the appropriate adjustments to mitigate shrink from a financial perspective. In terms of strategy, we're gonna look at the products. So there are certain products that potentially need to be eliminated from the range, as an example, that are high shrink. But we are seeing that popular products can include everyday essential items, which should be no surprise. I think there's opportunities to enhance securities in stores. We've been in discussions with landlords about what they're doing from a security perspective. There's technology solutions. It's working with police. So there's a number of different items, and it's gonna be a high priority for us during the half. To link that to your question around gross profit margin, our expectation for the second half is for gross profit margins to be in the range of 38.5%-39%. Which means for the full year, the previous guidance we gave was 40%-40.5%. I think we're more likely this year to sit in the 39.5%-40% range. I really want to say this business in the near term, the gross profit margin should be sitting in the 40%-41% range. And then longer term, we've seen how this business can be in the 42%-44%, even above 44% range. Now, I'm not making any commitments around that long-term historical gross profit margin, but as we continue to improve the product, as we shift the mix back into general merchandise, as we settle the merchandise strategy and have the opportunity to improve our margins, there's no reason why we shouldn't be in the 40%-41% range in the near term, and then start looking to expand that further. So it's, we see it as a momentary blip. Okay, got it. Then maybe, just on, there's a few moving parts here with general merch strategy, obviously getting a fair bit of traction with consumers, but at the same time, consumables have never been stronger. Can you maybe just help us understand how you think that translates to the second half seasonality in terms of group profitability? I think maybe I'll in terms of group profitability, I think I'd say what we're expecting in the second half is for consumables to remain strong. But for GM, and we're seeing this, we're seeing early signs of this in February in particular, and January, too, we are starting to see GM pick up. Easter is obviously a very strong period for both general merchandise and consumables in Easter chocolate. Our margin assumption assumes we arrest the mix decline and hopefully start to improve it towards the end, and if we're gonna get to that upper end of that margin range, it assumes we start shifting the mix. So I think it'll be an easier one to kind of discuss at the end of the half. But, there's a lot of work that's happened in the general merchandise space. I think that just the fact we're serving more and more customers each week, and it's trying to get them to come back, and the ongoing newness in general merchandise is hopefully a catalyst for customers returning and starting to shift that mix back to general merchandise. Got it. And then in terms of the step up in store costs, that, that seemed to sort of be quite elevated versus history. Have you got any intention to try to moderate that in the second half? It was absolutely in line with expectations, so we knew cost of doing business was gonna go up this year, and it was, as a percentage of sales, bang on with what we expected. There was a bit of a change in mix within the cost of doing business. So, labor, we probably thought would be in the mid-13% and came out of 14. We've made a lot of change in the first half from a merchandise perspective and a product perspective. We had double-digit, high double-digit unit growth in Christmas. We had triple-digit unit growth in Halloween. We had very strong growth in consumables. We relaid, you know, six or seven departments, so totally changed the range of six or seven departments. So there's a lot of activity. Now we plan for that additional activity, but naturally, there, there's always gonna be little changes you make. So I think there's a lot we've learned around the way we've used labor in the first half, and I think there'll be improvements next year. That's not to say there'll be a cost saving, it's just we'll be more efficient and more optimized. I'll probably just come back to our guidance on the cost of doing business. So starting with labor, we did say 14% of sales for the full year. I think that will be closer to 14.6%, and that's really because of that additional spend in the first half. I think the second half, we expect to be in line with the expectations we had at the start of the year. Rents came out at 13.2%. We're expecting to come out at 13.2% for the full year, which is consistent with our prior guidance of 13.2%. Other store expenses, I think we've guided to about AUD 36 million previously. We've controlled those well. We're expecting AUD 34.5 million for the full year. Open and closing costs, we guided to about AUD 2 million. It's gonna be about AUD 2.5 million, so that's just the cost of closures or asset write-offs within closures. Depreciation, we guided to about AUD 12.1 million. I think it's gonna come out at AUD 12.3 million. And then administrative costs, we've guided to about AUD 50 million. We've controlled that well. That will be more closer to AUD 45 million, we think, for the full year. So there's a fair bit of work going on around cost control. We're not gonna... You know, I think we've been pretty firm. We said this at August last year, that we want to continue to invest in labor to make sure, we present well to the customer. We're there's a lot of effort in changing the product and improving the product, and we wanna make sure that presents well. Awesome. That's really great color. Thanks, Clinton. Thanks, James. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Ben Gilbert with Jarden. Please go ahead. Hey, Clinton, another one. Just, you obviously talked some pretty amazing volume numbers. Where do you guys think you're at in terms of leveraging your scale? Because if I look at the business, you're obviously starting to resonate with customers, and the range is working, which is great. You're getting traffic, you're getting volume, but you're still at a massive scale disadvantage. Like, you look at Anko, which I know is not directly comparable, it's an AUD 8.5 billion-dollar brand now. You look at the supermarkets and Chem Warehouse and Pet barn, et cetera, how much are you starting to lean on your suppliers and try to concentrate that to drive scale? And then, so the second part is-... There's obviously some speculation in the press a while ago about some of the offshore dollar stores looking at you, but is there an opportunity, would there be to partner with one of those guys on the sourcing side or to try and drive some improved scale? Because that still seems to be your biggest impediment at the moment, now you're starting to get the front end right. Hi, Ben, I'll answer that. So I think, you know, a lot of work over the last year has been done with our supplier base in trying to make sure that we really work with the best suppliers, with the most skilled suppliers in each product category so that we can get more scale. I think that, from the work the team have done around that, we are really seeing improvements to our cost of products. We have, as you've seen, as you can tell, we've done a lot of investment in our ASP, but as we move forward, I think to your question, we will still have upside in sourcing and scale by working closely, again, with more vendors in doing this. And so we will actually see some improved margins based on that work that we're doing. I think, around partnering with someone, overseas or of a larger scale, you know, I think that there's always those partnerships that do occur. It can be challenging to get it off the ground, but we are open to learning from, any other retailer that's an expert in sourcing. And we do have, we often engage with, with sourcing teams in China that obviously source for major retailers, so we're always looking to what they're actually doing around the world, because we do think it's important to learn from that. So probably just to answer your question, there's more to do around scale and sourcing. We are, happy with what we've done so far, but there is absolutely more potential. And are you using many third party or many agents to source product, or are you largely going direct now, and is there an opportunity to go more direct and consolidate into more factories? I appreciate you've got a pretty broad range, it's very seasonal. No, we've gone to a lot more direct factories in the last year. That has been our focus. So some of what you're seeing in the home categories, in our kitchen categories, that are doing exceptionally well for us, is because we've gone direct to factories that are specialists in ceramics and tableware and et cetera. So we're absolutely seeing the benefit of direct relationships, and we will continue to look for direct relationships. But there is always a place for a third party or a trader, and so we really do balance out what is, what is the best for product quality and pricing in this moment. So where, where would you be direct now, and, and where do you think you could get to? 'Cause like I'm just thinking, I don't know, again, a different scale, I'm just thinking about Kmart, what they did when they expanded from Target and just went direct and drove some pretty material scale and concentrated it. Is, is there, like, are you 30% now and you can go to 80, or how do you see that? I think I'm probably not gonna talk to percentages, but I would say that a year ago we had very little direct relationships, and I would say between this year to next year, we should expect at least sort of 30%-40% being direct relationships. Fantastic. It's really helpful. Thanks. Your next question comes from James Casey with Ords. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Clinton, can you just clarify the shrinkage rate? What is that currently as a percentage of sales, and what has it averaged over the last few years? We have, we haven't explicitly reported it, but I think you could probably back it out from our announcement. It's historically been around just over 2% of sales, and I guess we've called out it's half on half, it's currently up 75 basis points. Now, I don't really wanna go into too much detail on this, but naturally there's some time between a stocktake and the end of last financial year, so there's an element of true up in this result for last financial year. And so looking forward into the second half, the impact shouldn't be as large to margin. But I think we can talk about that more in August. But it was 75 basis points worse than the roughly 2% it's been historically. Given your stocktake hasn't finished, is it possible there could be a variation on that number? It is possible. It's substantially completed, and there's been somewhat of a consistent trend, so we're not expecting it to deteriorate or improve, but it very well may. If it does, it won't be material to the result. Yeah. For the second half, it should be lower, you're thinking, is that? Well, because the stocktake last year was conducted post the first half result. Mm-hmm. there was a provision in the first half result and the actual in the second. So it means the shrink result in the second half will be flattish or slightly down on last year. I mean, to be explicit about it, at an overall gross profit margin, our expectation is 39.5%-40% for the full year, which implies 38.5%-39% for the second half. Yep. Okay. All right, that's all I have. Thank you. Thanks, James. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Cahn for closing remarks. Thank you, thank you, Ashley, and thank you for your questions and for joining us today. We look forward to updating you again at our full year results in August. Have a good day! Thanks, everyone. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.