Good morning everyone, and welcome to the Universal Store first-half FY 2024 results call. My name's Sam Wells from NWR, and joining me from the company today is Managing Director and CEO Alice Barbery, as well as CFO Renee Jones. Following a summary of the results released to the ASX this morning, investors and research analysts will have the opportunity to ask questions of the management team. There'll be a choice of two options. First, analysts can raise your hands via the Zoom function should you wish to ask a verbal question of the management team, or please feel free to submit written questions via the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. We will endeavor to get to all questions asked, in some cases combining questions on a similar or identical topic. For analysts asking verbal questions, please just limit your initial questions to two live questions. Thank you, and over to you, Alice. Thank you, Sam. Good morning all, and welcome to the first-half results presentation for Universal Store FY 2024. As Sam mentioned, joining me today is Renee Jones, CFO. Now, as we're all aware, the youth apparel market encountered notable challenges this year, characterized by successive interest rate hikes, intensified rental shortages, and rising living costs. These factors have impacted the disposable income of the youth demographic, resulting in a subdued customer spending environment. Despite these macroeconomic challenges, the group performed strongly this half. We were not derailed from purpose. We executed our plan with skill, and our growth ambitions remain firm. We're well-positioned to take advantage of improving headwinds and continue to do so while we move into the second half. Before we get to Outlook, let's look at the half. Moving to slide four, which we will attempt to do. There we go. Thank you all. Moving to slide four. As this slide outlines, our underlying EBIT for the first half was AUD 30.8 million, up 8.1% versus last year, and our group gross margin grew 80 basis points despite increased discounting from peers. While Universal Store like-for-like sales growth was -5.4% during the first half, we have observed this improving as we've progressed through the first and second quarter, largely demonstrated by stronger performance in November and December. As Renee will touch upon, we maintain a strong balance sheet with a closing net cash balance of over AUD 27 million and declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.165, which is up from the prior year. Perfect Stranger retail format has now expanded to 11 stores with strong contribution margins. Our Thrills business also continues to perform well with ongoing progress and improvements in refining and expanding the direct-to-customer proposition. We've also been focused on building team, systems, and processes to foster long-term growth within the business. Lastly, we've remained consistent around our company-wide focus on disciplined cost control, driving sustainable systems improvements, store growth, and enhancing customer service during the half. More on this will be shared as we progress through the deck. This slide outlines several of our key financial highlights, many of which Renee will speak to in greater detail in subsequent slides. However, I'd like to take this time to reiterate how proud I am of our team. They continue to demonstrate resilience and ability to remain focused on our customer and skillfully manage our business as macroeconomic conditions fluctuate. This includes taking advantage of positive opportunities as well as ensuring we quantify stock wisely to avoid excessive markdowns. As you can see from the numbers on this slide, our team has successfully managed margins and operating costs to deliver earnings growth. At slide six, looking at half-one trends over the past five years, Uni Group continues to be a growth business. Over the past five years, we've continued to achieve solid results despite the changing conditions experienced. We delivered half-one sales CAGR of 13.4% and Universal Store five-year like-for-like sales growth of 6.3%. Historically, we have opened five to 10 stores per annum, and this half we opened three Perfect Stranger stores, two Universal stores, and one Thrills store. We also closed one of the suboptimal Thrills stores, and that brings the total bricks-and-mortar stores to 100 stores. Uni generated a half-one underlying EBIT CAGR of 13%. Slide seven, as we continue to look at historical trends, Uni Group's sales performance is up 65% versus FY 2020, and we can see the growing contribution of our in-house brand, Perfect Stranger. The acquisition of CTC, importantly showing a full six-month contribution of the period, delivered underlying sales growth of 4.2% during the half, supported by the continued growth of the emerging Worship brand. I'll now hand over to Renee to share some of the financials. Thanks, Alice. Just looking at the Uni Group P&L, as mentioned, our Uni Group sales were AUD 158 million, up 8.5% on last year. Universal Store sales were slightly down on last year, with US like-for-like growth at -5.4%. It's important to note that while US like-for-like sales ended the year at -5.4%, our growth was mostly impacted in Q1, with solid progressive recovery made each quarter, improving from -7.7% in Q1 to -3.7% in Q2. We have seen this trend continue into our half two, with comps now consistently positive. Perfect Stranger sales are now at AUD 6.6 million, up 59.7% versus the PCP. CTC delivered sales of AUD 25.3 million, excluding intercompany sales, with the pro forma growth of 4.2%. Our gross margins improved by 80 basis points, supported by the incremental margins associated with the CTC brands, which is a great result given the inflationary environment and the heightened discounting across the market. Increased markdowns were taken, especially during Q1, to navigate the challenges of slower sales growth emerging. However, we remain disciplined in our promotional discounting approach and are very comfortable with our inventory position. Our cost-of-doing business percentage increased by 60 basis points, driven by the inclusion of CTC for the full half. CTC added AUD 4.9 million in group costs, largely associated with the annualizing of employee costs post-acquisition. The group remains focused on managing its cost-of-doing business through a series of initiatives to optimize labor and productivity. Our group underlying EBIT was AUD 30.8 million, an 8% increase from the prior year. I'm very pleased that we held our underlying EBIT margin at 19.5% in line with the prior year, despite the more subdued customer spending environment. Our statutory net profit was AUD 20.7 million, a 16.7% increase on half-one FY 2023. Moving on to slide 10. As mentioned, our gross margins have continued to grow, now at 59.7% for the half, up 2.7 percentage points from half one FY 2020. Private brand penetration moved slightly from 45%- 43% in the half, driven by an overall mix shift from women's wear to menswear, where private brand penetration is lower. We have seen some outstanding contributions from our various third-party brands. Perfect Stranger remains the top brand at Universal Store. Performance of our Common Need and Neovision brands were very strong, now at 9% of total sales. Our CTC brands also continue to perform very well in the US store format and online, especially the Worship brand. US and Perfect Stranger direct sourcing from private brands grew 73%, up from 70% in FY 2023. The benefits we saw are in inbound freight, more than offset increases in the domestic outbound freight to stores. Just looking at slide 11, our cost-of-doing business, as mentioned, it increased, driven by the inclusion of CTC for the full six months. However, a key highlight for this half has been our cost management. Given the subdued customer spending and inflationary pressures, it was important that we executed on our cost-saving initiatives. Overall, I am pleased with these initiatives and how we've driven these across stores, support office, and the distribution centers, which has resulted in a net employee cost saving of AUD 0.4 million, despite a 6.3% increase in the retail award rates, including a super contribution increase. Specifically, the Universal Store business successfully manages underlying cost-of-doing business percentage in line with sales, with AUD 1.3 million cost out achieved across stores and distribution center and a further AUD 900,000 saving across all other cost centres in the half. The occupancy costs in this slide primarily represent more stores in holdover as we negotiate renewals, resulting in a AUD 1.1 million growth from the prior period. Moving to the balance sheet, we have delivered a strong net cash position of AUD 27.4 million, a substantial increase from AUD 6.6 million in June 2023. Inventory of AUD 24.6 million has decreased by AUD 1.4 million versus June 2023, aligning to customer demand. Our inventory quantity and freshness remain in a healthy position as we head into the second half of FY 2024. Intangible assets include AUD 47.4 million, predominantly associated with the Thrills brand name and the CTC Goodwill. We also have a residual provision for future CTC deferred variable consideration of AUD 8.3 million, which represents the present value of our future forecast payments to the CTC vendors. Slide 13, cash flow. The group delivered an EBITDA of AUD 45.7 million, up AUD 6.5 million on last year. As mentioned, our net cash position built strongly in the half, comfortably covering the first EBC payment of AUD 3 million relating to the CTC acquisition and the payment of our full-year FY 2023 dividend of AUD 6.1 million. Net CapEx decreased by AUD 3.1 million versus last year, predominantly due to the investment into our new support office in DC, which occurred last year. So this year's capital spend primarily relates to our new store investments. Net cash at 31 December was AUD 27.4 million, providing us flexibility to respond to opportunities and challenges should they arise. In recognition of the group's financial strength, the board of directors have declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.165 per share, which will be fully franked and payable on the 28th of March. Thanks, and I'll hand back to Alice. Thanks very much, Renee. Again, many of you who will have seen this slide previously are noting some of the continued work we do towards ensuring a sustainable future, encompassing product excellence, supplier partnerships, as well as community impact. These are very important targets for us, and the entire team remains focused on developing robust plans in order to achieve the targets outlined. For the next portion of this presentation, we'll look at the performance across each of our key retail formats: Universal Store, Perfect Stranger, and CTC. Firstly, within our core Universal Store business, we achieved AUD 133.2 million in first-half sales across 79 stores as of 31 December, representing a decline in sales of 1.4% given the trading environment. Despite this, we achieved our goal of keeping gross profit margins in line with last year. In terms of store rollout, we opened two new Universal Store sites during the half, with a further one to three planned for the second half. We will explore slightly larger footprint stores and updated fixturing in overtrading locations, which will allow us to trial expanded ranges in selected areas. We continue to focus on the needs of our customer, responding to their reasons for purchase and their occasions for wear, with targeted and proactive branch and range creation strategies. We have implemented value-driven, not discounted product initiatives to meet a variety of customer needs. Equally, we continue to enhance our digital and e-commerce capacity while focused on enhanced analytics within our customer data platform development. In relation to productivity, we have further refined the warehouse management system to drive added productivity, and we're pleasingly on track to deliver over AUD 1.2 million of annual savings in FY 2024. We've also completed the rollout of Right Team, Right Time to drive labor productivity and to lift store conversion rates. Next are Perfect Stranger format, whereby pleasing performance continues with the first-half sales of AUD 6.6 million, up nearly 60% versus last year, with all stores operating profitably. Perfect Stranger Online is also performing well, growing sales over 96%, with the focus remaining on scaling and building this brand awareness. As you'd likely be aware, we've only recently expanded into New South Wales, where we now have five stores in addition to our six in Queensland. We plan to open four to eight new stores in the half. As anticipated, the operation of Perfect Stranger continues to be heavily integrated to the operations of Universal Store. However, we continue to see encouraging results, and we are committed to making selective investment in dedicated Perfect Stranger resources for the medium term. But Perfect Stranger will continue to operate as a brand and store format within Universal Store, utilizing shared resources and infrastructure. On slide 18, we look at CTC. Our first-half results showed robust sell-through and consistent demand from key wholesale counts, including Universal Store. During the first half, CTC delivered AUD 25.3 million in gross sales. The Thrills brand maintains strong customer appeal, with a decline in sales mainly associated with the challenges being felt in small independent retail accounts. The emerging Worship brand has surpassed expectations, resonating with both male and female customers. Focus remains on enhancing the product offering and trialing the store of the future in high-traffic locations and largest store footprints of around 100-130 sq m. This also extends to closing or relocating any suboptimal-sized stores. Looking at our trading update, to conclude the formal part of the presentation, we wanted to share our trading update for the early part of the second half. Specifically, sales performance during the first seven weeks to February 18 revealed the following: Universal Store sales are up 4.5%, with like-for-like growth up 1%, cycling a positive 8.4% last year. Perfect Stranger sales are up 56.5%, with like-for-like sales growth up 10.3%, cycling a positive 23% growth last year. CTC sales in the direct-to-customer channels are down 0.5%, with like-for-likes down 0.3%. But that is cycling a positive 54.5% last year. And it's certainly my contention, and I'm sure you will agree, that like-for-like sales in these emerging brands is not as meaningful a metric as it will become with maturity. We continue to gradually improve gross margins through proactive measures to keep stock consistently fresh, appealing to our customers, and increasing direct sourcing of private brands. Of course, we continue to take a disciplined approach to cost-of-doing business, which remains in the front of mind for everyone to deliver savings. Lastly, the team is continuing to work as a cohesive unit to introduce exciting brands and products that captivate and delight our customers in order to grow market share. With that, I'll pass back to Sam and respond to Q&A. Thank you. Thanks, Alice, and thanks, Renee. As a reminder to the audience, you may ask a question either raising your hand via the Q&A function for research analysts, and you can submit written submitted questions via the Q&A function at the bottom of the screen. We do have a few questions coming through from the analysts. First is Alex Mees at Morgans. Alex, please go ahead. Thank you, Sam. Good morning, Alice, Renee. I will restrict myself to two questions, although I can't promise they won't be compound. The first one, we hear a lot about cost-of-living pressures really affecting younger consumers more than any other cohort. Your sales have been resilient. How would you describe the mood of your core customer at the moment? It's a great question, Alex. I would say that the mood is definitely improved. I think what we're absolutely observing is people are kind of right-sizing their expectations of what they can and can't do. I know that apparel for the youth customer is a high need, and they are prioritising getting the right outfit for the right occasion. But are they being discerning? Absolutely. So we have to be on our game. We have to make sure we've curated the collection appropriately. We've added some value proposition products, so some really great keenly priced product that still gives that sense of pride and enthusiasm about buying it, as opposed to trawling through a really messy sale rack where you kind of find something that you feel like you've sort of had to accept purchasing. So if we can keep it fresh, we can keep it full price, it can still give that sense of value. We're finding customers responding really well to that product. But I would say their mood is stabilized. Kids are resilient. It was a bit of shock and awe in the beginning, and I think that they're starting to stabilize and make some really smart choices. They're certainly going to Taylor Swift. They're certainly going to Pink. They're going to the Laneway. They're heading to lots of concerts. They're traveling. I think they're just right-sizing their expectations on what the priorities are. And the restaurants all seem to be quite busy as well. Thank you. And then my second one, just with regard to the larger promotional environment. Again, we hear a lot about this, how it is highly promotional at the moment, and the customer is really only responding to discounts and big value offerings. So my compound question is, how do you operate in this environment? What's your strategy? And the second part of the compound question is, are you seeing that your pattern of sales are being shifted into those promotional periods? So you're seeing more people participate in Black Friday and Boxing Day, and perhaps less between those events? Yeah, you go. I mean, I've got my answer for you, please. Yeah, in terms of that last question, not particularly. I mean, we've never been a business that focuses on promotion. So for us, after payday, for example, it's going to be four days. We will still do our one day, and we just benefit from traffic. So Black Friday was big, did pull some of maybe Boxing Day, potentially, but it's hard to know. But the net result was still very, very positive. So I don't necessarily see that for Universal Store, but we aren't necessarily a place to go for discounts and a lot of promotional. Yeah, we have to think about how we want to trade two years from now. And if we follow everyone down that slippery slope, we know that really important to our consumer is a sense of pride that they bought a beautiful brand at Universal Store. It was an experience. They feel good about themselves. And so we're much better off having value-driven products. So we've engineered good gross margin, private label, good, gorgeous product that kids are really resonating with, as opposed to getting something that was expensive or seemed expensive, and it's on sale with broken sizes. But look, kids still love a sale. We're not backing away from our normal promotional activity. We tend to go on sale at school holidays. We're sticking to that. And so far, that's actually played out very well. I love your approach. Thanks, Alice, Renee. Thanks, Alex. Next question coming from Jarrod Chisholm at UBS. Jared, please go ahead. Thanks, guys. Yeah, morning, Alice and Renee. Thanks, Sam. Just interested just on the back of the question just then. You appear to be shifting, I guess, from more of a brand aggregator to more of a brand incubator and growing your host of brands, which are going pretty well. How should we think about the growth priorities for the broader business now, noting that you said it's broadly unchanged, but just in terms of whether you can rank Universal Store rollout versus Perfect Stranger rollout versus Thrills wholesale and DTC growth? Well, let me start with the brand aggregator incubator. I think we're running both really well. And so yes, we want to incubate new brands because there actually haven't been that many great new brands coming on the market, which I think is a bit of a hangover from COVID. They're starting to emerge again. We are adding new products, and they're always driven by customer demand. So I mean, if you would have asked me five years ago, would we have Jibbitz and Crocs to the degree that we do? I would have said, "Don't be silly. That's not going to happen." Luckily, my product team's wiser than I am about the youth market and what they're going to be chasing down. So we're definitely seeing third-party brands emerging. We're adding new brands all the time. So that strategy, it remains unchanged. But we are definitely making an addition, I suppose, of growing our private label. Who has a second half to that question? Ranking the priority? Yeah, yeah, just ramping up the priority in terms of rollout across the banners and then wholesale growth as well. Thanks. Yeah, I think it's interesting. Obviously, Universal Store is a bigger footprint, bigger sales, and therefore bigger profits. However, Universal Store is also more mature, and we're very particular about the size of the site. And we've got a lot of opportunities on the go. So we see that continuing to rollout. Perfect Stranger, however, being just in its early stages, the growth is absolutely huge. So we can open a lot more stores, both online as well. The growth in that business will surpass US. But they're both really, really important. And CTC is just starting. So early days. It's just easier to open Perfect Stranger stores. It's easier to find the locations. The size is easier. We're not in a lot of markets. So that's much easier and faster for us to do. But we're still committed to growing Universal Store to 100+ stores, and we will get there. That's great. Thanks. And then just my second question on Thrills. At the FY 2023 result, you noted that the wholesale order book was indicating sort of double-digit growth for the wholesale channel in the first half of 2024. Kind of what changed in the half to only print 4.1% growth? Christmas orders cancelled. And then, yeah, just interested in what your expectations are for the second half. Thanks. Yeah, the wholesale business started very, very strong. And then we saw some movement in the late quarter two, which resulted in some slowdown in orders. However, we're seeing Q1. But everyone's pulling forward orders now. Yeah, exactly. So it's a bit of including U.S. So we all. Yeah, I think retailers took a cautious approach to stocking stores with any wholesale brand or third-party brand. It was just the way that the first quarter was really tough on most apparel retailers. And as things started to improve, we're starting to see that increase, particularly for Thrills, who was a big supporter and wants to continue to be a big supporter of independent retailers in cool, salty areas. A lot of those independents felt the pinch. So there was some subdued activity there. On the positive side, I'll say that we are definitely in good negotiation with some new partners. And there's some exciting opportunities for growth, or at least to return back to that growth with some new retail partners. That's great. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Jared. Next question coming from Tom Camilleri at Wilsons. Tom, please go ahead. Tom. Morning, Alice and Renee. Quick question from me. Can you speak to, I guess, that driver in the mix shift towards menswear in the period? Is that demand-led, or is that a function of just the brands that are doing well and being brought to market, as well as the CTC percentage of group sales? There's definitely some interesting trends that have come through for menswear. The jorts trend, in case you don't know about the jean shorts, which I think are very interesting apparel choice, but very, very popular with the young guys. That was a real reason for guys to get out and purchase. It was a real driver for particularly young men to get out and update a wardrobe. And then, of course, with that comes, "I need a couple of new tops, and I need an outfit, and I need new shoes." So we saw that mix shift go quite strong. I would say that we were a little lean on ladies' wear if I were to fault us. I think that we probably pulled back a little more than we should have when the macroeconomic climate started to look a bit concerning, which we've rebounded with and with strength. So those are probably the two factors. We've seen a couple of our third-party brands and trends really pick up. That's why you've seen that mix shift. You're still short. Womenswear in that top line could have been better, is what you're telling us. We indicated that back at Q1. So a few of our initiatives around the value proposition was delayed. That is now rectified. And hence, our sales and our comps are continuing to go strong since that kind of Q1 period. So that is rectified. Great. Thanks, guys. And then the opportunity so you're moving to a larger format Universal Store or exploring that idea. Can you just talk about the thinking there? Yeah, look, that is literally early infancy stages, but worth looking at because we do have quite a few renewals coming up. I would say Christmas, and our top-performing stores is we're looking to grow and continue to get growth out of this 250 sq m bucket. There are some stores where that is still perfectly fine. In others, we've gone if we want to expand the range, we want to expand brands, and we want to expand categories, it's getting quite tight, particularly at peak time. So we're just looking at opportunities to refine fixturing. Can we get more product that still looks good on a different style of fixture? Where there's opportunity to expand and I'm not talking about doubling size or super Universal Store kind of size thing, but just if there's an extra percentage of square meter to enhance stockroom efficiencies, make sure we remain safe in those stockrooms, expand a little bit further to be able to add a new category. For instance, there are half a dozen categories that I would love to see us trial and test more, but it's finding the floor space to do it. So I don't think that it's going to and these would only be in overtrading locations already. So it's not going to have a negative impact. But if anything, it'll help us grow sales. Great. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Tom. Next question coming from Chami Ratnapala at Bell Potter. Chami, please go ahead. Yeah, thanks, Sam. Morning, Alice and Renee. Congratulations on the result. Sorry if this question was asked before. I was on another call as well. Just the new store growth looks quite strong versus previously expected, but you sort of communicated in November. Are you getting better locations with better deals now? And also, what are the key drivers here? Is that for Perfect Stranger? Sorry, Chami? In total. In total. In total. Yeah, November versus now? No, I think it's the whole fleet, really. We've been progressively improving. We have, obviously, Right Team, Right Time, making sure we've got our team members in the right spot and focused on sales conversion, especially on the back of Q1. The product team have been working really hard to get the offerings right, get stock in where required. So I think it's a combination of lots of things that have supported that continued growth. Are you talking about store openings, though, Chami? Yes, Alice. Yeah, sorry, Renee. I should correct myself. Store openings. Yeah. No, that's okay. So what we're looking at is opportunities. So opportunities are coming up. We're taking advantage of them. Sometimes these negotiations take a long time to filter through and to discuss. And then all of a sudden, it's like, "Okay, we're ready to go," because we're very particular on site selection. And a number of really great sites have opened up for us for consideration. So I think that that's a factor of some of our competitors potentially not having a great time. And there's some sites that have come up that are affordable in the right locations. And we are always poised to move as swiftly as possible when the conditions show up and they have. Perfect. Thanks for that. And then secondly, just on Perfect Stranger, now that you've had both the standalones and the range within your stores, are there any differences between the probably some of the trends within Universal Stores versus the standalone stores? Yeah, absolutely. It's a very different customer. They're shops in the two locations. And that's why we haven't seen cannibalization. Every Tuesday, when we're going through product reviews, we kind of have a giggle that we'll drop a new item, and it might fly at Perfect Stranger but not do much at Universal Store, or vice versa. It might do very well at Universal Store and hasn't really picked up at Perfect Stranger. So we're still in that understanding who that customer is. Is that product under the right brand? Should that have been Perfect Stranger? And that's why also we're motivated to put a little bit more investment into Perfect Stranger to ensure that we have a very clear single perspective on the brand. So it's been managed along with Universal Store. I want to add a couple more heads to the team so that there's a brand manager, for instance, that we're looking to place that someone can actually own it as their full-time day job only and not as an adjunct to something else that they're doing because we are learning a lot about the person who shops there. We're consistently making better choices because of it. Yeah, perfect. Thanks for that. And then the last question would be that value range, after having launched in November, how has that performed? And are you expecting to expand it here? Renee, more for you. Yeah, thank you. It's performing really well. I mean, if anything, we had it in earlier. But top-line sales might have been even stronger. The team are continuing to evolve. But it's very well-liked at the moment by our customers. Yeah, and I'll just add one of the reasons that we were disappointed but comfortable with delaying that is we refined it. We had a test, and we made it better. And so sometimes that takes a little bit of time to be able to do. But right now, it is a quality product at a keen price point that delivers margin. And so I hate the better late than never, but it is an excellent product. Perfect. Thank you very much. Congratulations again, and thanks for taking my questions. Thanks, Chami. Thanks, Chami. Next question from Ed Woodgate at Jarden. Ed, please go ahead. Hi, Team. Can you hear me okay? Absolutely. Oh, great. I've been having some issues with my microphone. So great result. And I just wanted to ask—sorry, apologies if it's been asked and answered. But are you seeing any benefit from factory price deflation? I've just seen some comments from some peers that there is some excess capacity in China in particular. Is that in Apparel, Ed? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we don't necessarily see that. We don't buy enough volume from one particular supplier. In particular, Universal Store, they always go for first margin, the best first margin, and speed. So we're always comfortable that we're getting a great price versus the quality. CTC, obviously being wholesale, they buy and have a little bit more volume upfront well in advance. And they're seeing more of the FX and just the delay from when the original purchase price is set versus what happens down the track. So we're managing that. We are starting a bigger review across the group on the supply chain side just to see what other opportunities are there. But at this stage, there's not an amount that I would call that as being a positive benefit from factory price savings. Okay. I mean, that's great then. Sounds like it's just been strong core operational performance. Just in relation to and I'm sure you've touched on this already, but the improvement in comps from the first quarter to the second quarter and then into the trading update, I think you called out the value range. And then I think when we talked previously, you talked about just staff getting better at converting in a tougher environment. Could you talk through the KPIs in January? Has it been full traffic-driven? Has it been basket size or price-driven? How do you think about the makeup of the 1% LFLs? Because it was a really tough comp, so it's pretty impressive. Yeah, it is literally. It's not a one week, two week thing. We've been working on how do we increase conversion? How do we grow sales? How do we make sure we have people in the right spot? How do we make sure we've got product where the customer needs it to be? So it's been a good 6 months in the making. So it's progressively been getting better and better. And I'm sure someone will ask, as we progress, our comps actually do get a little easier. So it is going to be upside given where we're tracking at the moment. But definitely, it is conversion. It is making sure that we're asking the right questions at the change room and progressively managing bottom quarter. We're focused on that. Yeah. I mean, we've got, I guess, the stock on a buy because of the comps, other reasons because the comps get easier. And we've been doing some numbers to back it out. I guess, could you call out specifically what the comps are for the remainder of the period? Or is that too specific? I think that's too specific. Obviously, we haven't shared that. And yeah, I don't think we can do that. But if we go back to our trading update, April, May is when we came out to market to say, "Hey, you've got a little tougher." So that's the period that it was probably the most challenging. But as you say, in January, we're cycling still strong numbers even into February, and then it starts to get a little softer. Okay. Well, great result. Thanks for taking the questions. Yeah, keep on it. Thanks, Ed. We'll plan on it. Thanks, Ed. Next question is submitted from Aryan Norozi at Barrenjoey. Given you start cycling weaker comp from March, April this year, is it fair to assume stronger like-for-like growth for that period if the current trends continue? Yes, absolutely. Great. That was an easy one. Second question from Ari. You held first-half cost of doing business flat at Universal Store. Do you think that's possible to do the same thing in second half? And then just second to that, as we think about future margins, if the like-for-like growth continues, how do we think about margins into FY 2025? Two things. So if sales continue and we have been working on cost of doing business or taking real cost out but also working with our stores on when to invest so if sales go up, when to put the additional resource in to backfill stock or to service customers, that will continue to refine. But aligning sales and costs is the thing that we've been working with stores on. We're still on the journey, so it will get better. But if we continue to do and make progress as we've done in the first half, we should see that cost of doing business improve still, especially if sales are growing at a faster rate. So that's positive. In terms of your second question, Sam, that was around just remind me. Margins, assuming. Margins. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously, as Perfect Stranger rolls out, we get margin improvement from two places. Obviously, it's a higher margin. And we also get the direct sourcing benefit. So those two things will continue. As CTC brands, Worship, and Thrills on consolidation, they effectively are treated as a private label from a margin perspective. So both of those things will help us continue to drive margin. But at the same time, investing into new brands. And if the trend, like it has this half, we've seen a contribution decline in private label towards some third-party and some men's brands. We are customer-led, so that can absolutely happen as well. But typically, we see growth continuing as we expand the Perfect Stranger rollout and the Worship and Thrills brands consolidations. Great. Thank you. Next question is from [audio distortion] at [audio distortion]. Mika, please go ahead. Hi there. Just interested in the comment around cannibalization between Worship and Thrills. They are slightly different brands from what I can tell, but certainly a similar demographic. Just wondering why you're sort of going with two brands as opposed to one under that. They really do speak to a different customer. The nuance of youth fashion is often. I think the [audio distortion] and rarity. Sorry. Yeah, thanks. I think that the nuance of youth fashion is very apparent to young customers, right? So they see the big difference between all the brands in our store. And Worship definitely is an exciting new emerging brand that people are getting behind and getting excited about. I don't want anyone to walk away thinking that Thrills is on the decline. It's not. There's some very cool on-trend product coming out of Worship, particularly the Big Dawg jorts, which makes me laugh to say out loud, but that's what's driving a lot of enthusiasm. And that brand will continue to hook on to really interesting trends for that customer. Your Thrills customer is still a robust people love the brand. It's got great customer appeal. It's still doing very well. It may flex a little bit older than Worship, but they are distinctly different brands to the youth customer. Maybe not to me sometimes, but yes to them. Great. Thanks, Mika. Next question is from [audio distortion] at Evans & Partners. Nick, please go ahead. Hi, Renee and Alice. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Yes. Well done on the solid result today. I was just wondering, could you give us an update on how the Perfect Stranger consumer is behaving? As a bloke, you get some pretty weird looks walking around the store. So I don't really, yeah, know how the customer is behaving. Yeah, just maybe a refresh on who that customer is and what their trends have been like. One of the things that's been fascinating to me about the Perfect Stranger customer, which is very different to the Universal Store customer, is it's less seasonally led. It's more individual personal occasions. So I'm going to a 21st. I'm going to a wedding. I'm going to a fancy lunch. I'm going on a weekend away. I'm going overseas. It's more about where that individual person is going and getting a sense as opposed to a particularly big festival that might be in town. We'll see less of a spike from Perfect Stranger than we will at Universal Store. So it's more of a consistent performer. And the female customer that shops at Perfect Stranger is definitely looking for a feminized experience. She doesn't want to be served by a 16-year-old boy in a change room with a guy next to her who's maybe 28 trying on a pair of jeans. She wants a beautifully backlit mirror being served by a female who's talking to her about what the outfit she's trying to achieve. It's definitely a more feminized experience. So there are people who are shopping at Perfect Stranger, have never heard of the brand, don't go to Universal Store. It's fantastic. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, as soon as I see them last time, I want a 28-year-old high school analyst buddy snooping around. So that's all good. Thanks very much. We'll walk you through some of that. Yeah, sure. Thanks. Thanks, Nick. Next written submitted question. Are you seeing any trends in the use of buy now, pay later platforms across your stores? No, it's been very stable. It has been for years, really, as a percentage of total. Obviously, it's a lot larger online. Stores, it's quite a small percentage in terms of payment time. Great. Thanks. The last question for the session. The new wholesale partner opportunities you are in discussions with at Thrills, are these located in Australia? Any discussions with overseas partners? Yeah, they are located in Australia. It doesn't mean that we're not interested in overseas opportunities, but there are still some great opportunities within Australia. So yeah, definitely. Great. Thank you. I think that's all the questions we have today. If there are any follow-up questions, please feel free to email me, Sam, at NWR. I'll pass it back to Alice for closing comments. Thank you very much. Just to close, big thanks to Renee. These decks don't pull themselves together. Renee's fantastic. Her whole team has just been outstanding, as has the whole Universal Store team. It's a joy and an awesome place to work, I have to say. People have really pulled together. The adaptability and the focus of this team continues to be the biggest strength in the organization. Yeah, we're continuing to be committed to growing market share. Thanks very much for joining today's Universal first-half results call. Thank you, and goodbye. Thank you. Thanks.