Thank you all for coming this morning, to this review of ABF's annual results for the 52 weeks ending 16 September 2023. Let me start by just saying that, we are thrilled with where this year has ended up. Roll the clock back a year, and we thought that we were gonna be in a very different, very different place indeed. We've also delivered these results in a year which has been characterized by a lot of headwinds, and a significant number of shocks across our businesses, and we think that we've managed our way through both, really, really well. So the strong performance in demanding times, there's real momentum, as we come into this year across our retail. The revenues were well ahead in the year, supported by selective pricing, well-received ranges. There was a method to the pricing. We knew that the margin was gonna come down. We've opened another 27 stores, so the rollout continues. And then, we're all really pleased with the consequences and the developments in the digital capability in Primark. Turning on to food, there was significant growth in Ingredients. I will come back to that, of course. A good growth in Grocery, led by international brands, but also, the U.S.-focused businesses delivered very well for us. Sugar sales were well ahead. Profitability was somewhat ahead, but there were shocks in supply chains and crops in that part of the business. Agriculture had a tougher year. It was a difficult year in the agricultural sector. We invested just GBP 1.2 billion back into the business. And some of that investment was around our ESG priorities, and I will talk about those later. We completed. Well, we've completed since the year end, the GBP 500 million share buyback. We've announced today another GBP 500 million program of share buybacks and also a special dividend on top of the normal dividend. We will be returning something like GBP 600 million to shareholders this year on top of a CapEx program that's gonna be even larger than the one we completed this year. With that, Eoin, over to you. Thank you, George. And first of all, just to say I'm delighted to be here to present my first set of full year results for ABF. As George said, it was a strong year in the circumstances. I'm gonna cover these financial highlights in the following slides. But as you can see, we made progress on pretty much all of our financial KPIs, with strong growth in revenue, good growth in adjusted operating profit and adjusted earnings per share. Free cash inflow, despite the step up in investment that George mentioned, and a significant increase in the total dividend. So I'm gonna take you through the detail of these different indicators. So I'm gonna start with the summary of the performance by business, which George is gonna obviously go through in a little bit more detail. So just on a top-line basis, you can see that revenue was ahead in each of our food businesses: Grocery, Sugar, Agriculture and Ingredients. The increase in revenue was largely due to price increases across our businesses to mitigate the high levels of inflation. Grocery revenues were well ahead of last year and good progress on profit. Our Ingredients businesses had a very good year with revenues and profits significantly ahead, particularly in our AB Mauri division. Agriculture had a more challenging year with declines in compound feed markets in the U.K. and China. And Sugar had a good year, considering the impacts of challenging weather in both Europe and in Africa. Full year revenues of retail rose significantly, actually increased by 15% on a constant currency basis. Adjusted Operating Profit for the division was resilient, actually, despite the high levels of inflation that we saw in the year. As expected, if you take it from a group perspective, the Adjusted Operating Profit margin for the group declined from 8.4% last year to 7.7% this year as a result of the overall inflation. Performance by geography actually is just set out in an appendix in your presentation, and I've noted the increase in Adjusted Operating Profit in North America, which is driven by the success of both our Ingredients businesses and our Grocery businesses there. So then let me just walk you from adjusted operating profit of GBP 1,513 million to adjusted earnings per share. As a reminder, adjusted operating profit rose 5% on an actual basis. This includes a translation gain of about GBP 17 million, primarily driven by the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, particularly in the first half of the year. Finance income and other financial income both increased as a result of higher interest rates and a higher surplus in the group's U.K. defined benefit pension scheme respectively. Lease interest increased as the increased number of Primark stores with the rollout. And as a result, on an adjusted basis, profit before tax was up just over 8%. The tax rate was up. I'm gonna come back to tax in a separate page. But Adjusted Earnings Per Share, however, it still increased by 8% to a record GBP 1.418 per share, benefiting from the reduction in the weighted average number of shares from the buyback. So now comparing that to basic earnings per share, overall profit before tax was up 24.5%, benefiting from a lower level of exceptional items in 2023 of GBP 109 million, versus the GBP 206 million charged last year. The exceptional items this year include a non-cash exceptional item of charge of GBP 41 million in our grocery division in for our Don business in Australia, which has been impacted by a number of different headwinds. A GBP 15 million impairment for our China sugar business and a GBP 35 million impairment in sugar in Mozambique for write down, following the damage done from the severe flooding earlier in the year. In retail, we also recognize exceptional impairment charges of GBP 18 million relating to the German stores that were impaired last year, or I'm sorry, in the previous year. Profit on the sale of non-current assets includes the disposal of one of our previous grocery sites in the U.K.. Total tax charge for the year was GBP 272 million. It's much reduced from the prior year. As we discussed at the half year, this includes a GBP 58 million tax credit, non-cash tax credit relating to Primark Germany. So earnings attributable to equity shareholders was therefore significantly higher, and basic earnings per share were up 52% at GBP 1.342. So look, I'm going to just cover tax and pensions in a little bit more detail. Firstly, tax. This year's adjusted effective tax rate increased to 23.5% from 22.2% last year. This was largely driven by the increase in the U.K. corporation tax rate from 19%-25%, enacted in April 2023. The tax rate also benefited from the resolution of some previous U.K. tax audits as well. This is actually reflected in the significant reduction in the provision for uncertain tax provisions at the year end. Looking ahead, we expect the group's effective tax rate in FY 2024 to be broadly in line with FY 2023 at this stage. This includes the full year effect of the increase in the U.K. corporation tax rate. At this stage, the group's not projecting the same level of one-off benefits from the resolution of tax positions. However, given our profit outlook, which George will talk to, we do expect to benefit from the mix of profits by jurisdiction. Cash tax increased in the year just gone largely in line with profit before tax, with the increase in profit before tax. However, we expect a much reduced level of cash tax in 2024 due to overpayments from prior years and the full CapEx expensing claims. So on pensions, I mean, it's really a very good news story. From an accounting perspective, the aggregate surplus increased by 5%. The story for the primary U.K. defined benefit pension scheme is very positive. As you may recall, it saw a significant increase in the surplus in the prior year, driven by the increase in bond yields, which reduced the liability valuations. The most recent triennial actuarial valuation of the scheme was then carried out in April this year, and therefore showed a substantial funding surplus of actually just over GBP 1 billion. So as a result, we've agreed with the pension trustees an abatement of our U.K. employer pension contributions on both the defined benefit and the defined contribution schemes. Accordingly, the group will receive a cash benefit of approximately GBP 70 million per year, which has taken effect at the beginning of this financial year. So let me go into cash flow in a little bit more detail. As you'll see, we're now using a new simple measure of free cash flow. Pleasingly, there was a cash inflow in the year totaling GBP 269 million. Let me go through the key components driving this. Obviously, the higher profit we've already discussed. Let me zero in on working capital next. The two main factors driving the increase in working capital in the year were one, the impact of inflation across all our food businesses, and two, higher inventories, particularly in our Sugar and Primark businesses. As a reminder, Primark inventories increased as a result of the demand volatility and uncertainty in logistics and supply chain seen last year. So we now expect a working capital inflow in 2024 as Primark inventory levels normalize. You see the step up in capital investments that we mentioned earlier. I'll cover the detail of the gross investment by segment in the next slide. As already mentioned, cash tax increased in the year, driven by the increase in profit before tax, and all of this adds up to the net free cash inflow. Below free cash flow, there was, of course, the cash outflow of GBP 448 million relating to the share buyback. So as we discussed, this is a new slide, gross investment stepped up GBP 1.2 billion in the financial year. The increase of the investment in the food business is primarily related to projects to build capacity, and these include the building of a new sugar factory in Tanzania, completion of a new animal feed mill in Western Australia, the initiation of an investment in a production facility in Nigeria for Ovaltine to serve markets across West Africa, and the build of a new powder packing line for AB Enzymes in Finland. In Primark, the increase reflects, of course, the acceleration of our new store program and expenditure to extend our capabilities in both warehouse automation and in technology. We've made a small number of acquisitions for a total amount of GBP 94 million. That's predominantly in the agriculture segment to expand the strength and breadth of our offer to the dairy sector. Overall, for the group, we do expect this higher level of gross investment to increase a little over the medium term. So finally, to the group's capital structure and its strong balance sheet position. As mentioned, during the financial year, we executed GBP 445 million of the GBP 500 million pound share buyback program, and with the remaining amount completed recently. We ended the year with cash of just under GBP 1.4 billion pounds, with so very strong levels of liquidity, particularly when added to our GBP 1.5 billion undrawn revolving credit facility. The board has proposed a final dividend of GBP 0.331 per share, which along with the interim dividend of GBP 0.142 results in total ordinary dividend, dividends of GBP 0.473 per share for the year. So as a reminder, our capital allocation policy is for the group's financial leverage, expresses the ratio of net debt, total net debt to adjusted EBITDA, to be well under 1.5x. While when financial leverage is consistently below 1x, that may indicate a surplus capital position. So at the end of the financial year, we had financial leverage of just under 1x. So the group continues to prioritize investments in its businesses, and as I've said, we expect to increase the spend in each of the next few years, slightly above last year's level. Nevertheless, the board has decided to return an additional GBP 600 million of capital to shareholders, firstly through the continuation of a share buyback program, targeting an amount of GBP 500 million in the next 12 months, and secondly, to the payment of a special dividend of GBP 0.127 per share. This is as per the capital allocation policy, but it also reflects the outlook for the group, the strength of the balance sheet, and the underlying cash generation of the business. So okay, with that, I'll hand you back to George, who's gonna go through the business performance in a bit more detail. And let me start with grocery, which, the companies in which, did a very good job of recovering cash costs and inflation through the year, particularly in the second half. We lagged costs, in the first half and then caught up, in the second. International brands, and I'll put a slide on them in just a moment, traded well. The U.S.-focused brands had a particularly good year, and then Allied Bakeries improved considerably, particularly, again, in the second half of the year. Just focusing on the international brands within the portfolio then. Twinings, strong sales, in U.K., U.S., Australia, and France, and good growth in fruit and herb infusions, which is where the growth, in the hot beverages category, is coming from. Sales there are nearly as large as black teas now across Twinings. We did three or four important marketing trials of advertising in the course of the year. That has led or is leading to more significant marketing spends in Twinings this year, based on the feedback and the learning that we got from those trials. Ovaltine next then, strength in Brazil, Switzerland, and Nigeria. Tougher time in Thailand, China, and then Myanmar. And as Eoin mentioned, building, w e're beginning to build the, it will be an important plant in Nigeria to supply West Africa. The brand still has historic resonance up and down the coast of West Africa, and we think that there is good growth there for us. Patak's, half its sales are now outside the U.K.. That's why it's on this list. Blue Dragon is growing well outside the U.K., in particular, and United States, most notably. And then Mazzetti, nearly half of its sales, that's balsamic vinegar, are now outside Europe. These international brands obviously just have access to bigger markets, more markets, and more growth. Turning then onto the U.S.-focused businesses. Mazola is now firmly established as the leading brand in the U.S. edible oils category. It had a good year of both margin growth and also sales growth. We were previously constrained in our volumes. We've got a new production capability in Chicago, and there is more available corn oil in the U.S. market than there had been previously. Fleischmann's Yeast, part of the bakery, one of the bakery ingredients that we've got in the States, again, very good year. It's regained the share it lost during COVID when it couldn't supply the very elevated demand. But demand remains strong, so some of the new home bakers who acquired the habits during lockdown are still baking with us. And we think that we're now seeing into this year, home baking strength caused by people choosing to bake at home as a cheaper form of entertainment, for families, I think, than going out to movies or whatever else. Stratas Joint Venture had another year of trading exceptionally well, improved sales, good oil procurement. It's a very profitable business and has been for a while, for us. Back to the U.K., performance trajectory in Allied Bakeries continues to improve. We won some more volume, we secured good pricing, pricing, and the operational performance of the business was good through the year. Obviously, more to do, but good progress there. Ryvita is now back on TV, and there is lots of exciting new product development in Ryvita, which you will be seeing in the next few months. Positive early results from the advertising and lots of enthusiasm around the new product. After the period end, we bought quite a small business called Capsicana. It's a business that specializes in Latin American and Central American products. We're going to include it in the World Foods portfolio, and so the good, important broadening of the cuisines of the world that we now offer from World Foods. I'm sure it'll go international in time. Australia, Tip Top did a good job recovering cost inflation, and the construction of the Western Australian Bakery is well underway, and that's gonna be an important asset for us. Don was held back by a number of factors. It had to replace its distributor at very short notice when its existing distributor, Scott's, folded with very little notice. It's also managed to find labor to reduce the labor shortage in Castlemaine, where the factory is. Labor shortages in Australia are not quite as bad as they are in Australia, but they're a whole lot worse than anywhere else where we have businesses. Onto ingredients. So large increase in raw material costs, very large increases in raw material and other input costs, but the pricing in this part of ABF, the pricing actions we took, were, I think, the best of anywhere in the group, and volumes were most important, held up, even as we pushed prices up significantly. Significant investment in capacity, capability, and in Mauri, in particular, water treatment, which I'll go on to in a moment. So Mauri, good increases in revenues, good increases in profits. The performance in the States was very strong indeed. Yeast, both for industry and retail, the sales there held up well all around the world, as I say, despite the pricing actions that we took. We put our assets in China into a joint venture with Wilmar to get better distribution coverage in that market. The work to complete that joint venture was completed during the year. And then heavy investment in Mauri. We've completed the new specialty yeast plant at Hull. We are underway with capacity expansion in Brazil, and there are two big water treatment plants investments, again, underway, one in Brazil and one in Mexico. Once they're done, the bulk of the cost of improving the water quality in Mauri will be globally will be completed. A little bit left to go, but the back of it will have been broken. ABFI, there's been some softness in the specialty ingredients sector. We've seen it in enzymes. We haven't seen it in the yeast extracts in Ohly, where we've had robust demand, good demand from both food and also bio-nutrient customers. There's an important reconstruction of a good part of the of the Hamburg site going on there, the fermentation end and also product drying. We're investing in that at the moment. SPI, better manufacturing efficiency helped improve, improve the profits there. Fytexia, the business we bought in phytonutrients 18 months or so ago, is on its acquisition case. Still, we're obviously very pleased with that, and we're pleased with the visibility that we've got of future growth. And then enzymes, the powder packing line is costing us some GBP 30 million, so it's no small investment. Sales have been flat in the one part of the ingredients portfolio, which has always given us growth in the past. We still believe it's destocking in our customers, and it'll come to an end, probably later on this calendar year or maybe in the new year. Agriculture, it was a challenging year to be supplying pigs and chickens anywhere with flocks and herd sizes down. Frontier, though, that joint venture continued to perform very well in the U.K. market. And then, we've made, I think it's three, acquisitions in the dairy sector. We think the dairy sector is an interesting subsector of agriculture. There's growth both in the U.K. to come and also globally. We are going after the opportunity, which we think exists, to create an integrated sort of full-service supplier to the dairy sector. Sugar, w e saw higher sales prices, and that offset a number of ills in the business. We saw exceptionally low, particularly European sugar production, that was climate-related, but very strong co-products performance, significant improvement in Illovo, and then start-up losses in Vivergo, which were greater than we had hoped they would be, although they improved significantly in the second half. Turning to sugar operations, we've seen, I think, two offsets that give us confidence in the stability of our sugar businesses. Yes, the crop was down, but prices were higher. Yes, energy gas prices were higher in the U.K., but the co-product electricity just about offset all the extra gas prices we were seeing. So net net across British Sugar, in a year that looked like it could have been calamitous, was just a very small reduction in profitability because we've got these, I think, imperfect, though they may be hedges, in that business. Azucarera, higher prices offset lower volumes again. So the profitability in Azucarera was slightly up. And then in China, we've taken a one-off, non-exceptional charge to recognize the lack of profitability in that business. So in Illovo then, apologies for repeating what I've said in the past, but essentially, we're building a lovely branded retail products business. We saw good growth in pre-packed branded sugar in the year in Malawi, in Tanzania, and in Zambia. Strong pricing, and then across the piece in Illovo, higher sugar production are driven by a recovery in Eswatini, where there was a strike the previous year, and then good production levels in Malawi and good efficiency improvements in South Africa as well. There was severe flooding in Mozambique. Essentially, we lost the cane estate. The factory's fine, but the cane estate has been flooded. It won't open this year, and we've taken that exceptional charge to recognize the damage that's been done to that business. And then after, I think, so a slowish start, the construction of the new sugar factory in Tanzania, another one of our growth retail markets, that project is hitting its straps and developing well. Vivergo, and so we saw significant losses in the first half. We opened this factory just as Russian tanks drove across Ukraine, sending wheat, which is the input product that we use, input raw material, up through the roof, and then also energy prices up through the roof. To make matters worse, the ethanol price then dropped as Europe found itself, I think, long on ethanol. All those situations resolved. The second half, losses were much reduced. We made money in the final period, and we've continued to turn a profit so far this year. We really do think the hard times in Vivergo are in the past. Okay, carbon reduction at sugar. Something like 80% of the whole of ABF's greenhouse gas emissions come out of British Sugar in the U.K.. We must, if we're going to make significant inroads into our carbon footprint, start off with start off with British Sugar. It's the gorilla amongst all our operations. And that's why we have undertaken 17 or completed 17 projects across various sugar processors in the U.K., in the year just gone. Just about all of them have good financial paybacks. I don't want you to think that decarbonizing sugar is going to come with a huge capital cost. It comes with a capital cost, but one which brings a return with it. Projects include replacing coal with natural gas in the dryers at Bury Sugar Factory, improvements to the gas turbine at Wissington, elimination of the use of heavy fuel oil at Cantley, and then the installation of more efficient slicers in again, in the Bury factory. Our carbon footprint in British Sugar is 24% lower than it was in the baseline year of 2017, 2018. And we've published, it's in the recent TCFD report, the carbon transition plan out to 2030 for British Sugar. Right, moving to retail. So very good like-for-like sales growth across our markets, some of which undoubtedly was, of course, pricing. But actually demonstrating that after nine years of not taking pricing, that we could, and our customers would come back to us, was hugely reassuring for us. Our strategy from the beginning was only to partially mitigate inflation. Some of the inflationary costs that we were seeing were clearly temporary. So freight rates being one, cotton prices being another. We didn't want to take prices up to recover all that and then find that, six months later, 12 months later, all those prices have come back down again. So we absorbed the bubble costs. We extended the product ranges, I think, really effectively with premium essentials. The collaborations go from strength to strength, and licensing is great. The new stores performed exceptionally well, higher sales densities in the new stores than in the existing estate. On the roadmap stores, 27 new stores, eight in the States. I'll show them to you later. So, over 1 million sq ft. And then the digital investment, I've got to talk a bit more about that, continues and quite frankly, earns its keep. Looking through by market to begin with, the U.S. performance, sales increased 11% against the prior year, 10% like-for-like growth. Market share increased. This is of the whole market, online and off. Kantar data 6.4% to 6.7%. We did have unhelpful weather in the third and fourth quarters. And, as has been reported, the beginning of this year, so period one, we saw these very hot weather periods. Since then, sales have come back very well indeed. We've now got 192 stores in the U.K.. Yeah, U.K., really good performance. Across Europe, sales increased 18% against the prior year, 8% like-for-like growth. All countries delivered like-for-like growth. We opened 17 new stores with strong customer demand, really in all of those stores, and good resulting footfall. Two new markets, Romania and Slovakia. Again, we've been very well received there. Where we have the data, we've seen good market share growth in both France and Spain. Big markets for us, important markets for us. The German restructuring is on track. Shoppers are coming back to high streets in Europe just as they are in the U.K.. We saw some interesting survey results the other day about people's intentions about shopping in the run-up to Christmas, and I think 44% of people said that they would shop more on high streets than online this year. So I think there's further to go on increasing participation in high streets. U.S. performance, then total sales increased 24%. We opened eight new stores, mainly in the, in the Northeast. We're actually opening two new stores this week, so we'll be at 23 stores in the U.S. by the end of this week, and approaching 1 million sq ft at that point. The new store trading has been good. And we are also expanding our regional footprint. We've signed two leases in Texas. These are stores which will open, I think, in 2025. I think Texas is going to be a good market for us. The expansion of the product offer is an important success of the business this year. Now, there are, h aving said that, I'll come back to it in a moment, there are lots of strong performances from the existing ranges. I don't want you to think that we're sort of running away from failure elsewhere in the range. We're really not. But this is extra for the Primark offer. So, starting from the top left, The Edit, which is the premium essentials ranges, we're increasing the number of items in the range. We're increasing the number of stores that carry it, and we're seeing how the online trial goes with Edit products. Sorry, the click-and-collect trial goes with Edit products. And then, the expansion of our collaborations, particularly, of course, Rita Ora. She's our first genuinely global collaboration. She's also very, very authentically a Primark shopper. She grew up next to Hammersmith Store, which used to be our flagship in the old days when she was, when she was young, and she said very, very openly that that's where a lot of her, her fashion experimentation, started, was in ranges out of Hammersmith Primark. Licensing continues to grow really well. Barbie was fantastic. We ordered far more stock than we thought was wise and wish we'd ordered 3x as much. It sold for up to sort of 5x what we were selling it for, on eBay, and we felt slightly sore about that. But anyway, licensing, very strong, important licenses in the States, NBA licenses, and Disney and others, Netflix, all going well. And then bottom right, this is an important part of the business. It's also quite a large part of the business for us. So accessible and affordable products to support women at all stages in their lives. And quite frankly, some of the products that we carry in this range are ones where women have been asked to pay a huge amount in the past, and we don't think they should. We're getting well known for these ranges. Margin then. We decided, as I say, not to fully recover inflation. I'm sure it was the right thing to do, but it did bring down our margin from 9.8% the year before to 8.2%. In the first half, higher costs of bought-in goods, freight rates, labor rates, energy costs, just about everything in the first half. Then the second half, bought-in goods went up again, particularly on the back of strong dollar strength. This was when we got the pound down to about $1.07. But freight rates starts to come off in the second half, particularly in quarter four. Obviously, some costs will stick, labor costs in particular. We've increased wages in this country, shop wages by 24% over two years. But there is a lot, big following wind in some of the other big categories, particularly freight, but also cotton, artificial fabrics, and, to some extent, just construction, fabrication costs, in sourcing markets where we're benefiting, I think, from demand being subdued. Hardship stock loss, t his has been much reported. I'm glad that there is good coordinated action in this country, in particular, now, underway. It's targeting, in particular, the gangs, who I think have been responsible for a fair amount of the stock loss that we've seen, over the last year. Turning to digital then, we're transforming the digital capability of Primark. It'll be as good as anyone's, I think, by the time we're done. Obviously, we've got the enhanced website in all 16 countries now and the stock checker. It's undoubtedly driving sales, as it was always intended to do. But digital is about so much more than simply the stock checker and the website. It's about driving traffic to our website, Primark.com, through organic search, through CRM, selected performance marketing trials. We've been running all of those in the year. We've had some good results from the marketing trials as well. We also think that there's opportunity to leverage the power of that social media engagement that we have, which we're really just in the foothills of that work, but it's a good, i t's good. It's got so much potential for us. Click and Collect trial is going well. It's fine, but I think the biggest story here is the digital roadmap that we have. We're still to decide whether Click and Collect is a commercial opportunity for us or not. It's going well so far. Other investments, self-checkout technology is well received by our customers. We got it in 22 stores. There's a big program of installing self-checkouts in other stores this year. So for instance, I think we've got 50 refits in the year, and it'll go into all 50 of those. And Click and Collect, 57 stores now within the U.K., and we've got womenswear in it as well. The rollout, 27 new stores in the period, eight in the U.S., six in Central and Eastern Europe, with three in Poland, two in Romania, and the first store in Slovakia, and then four stores in each of Italy and France, all very well received, three in Spain, and one in the U.K. We have very little doubt that we will get to our 530 stores by the end of 2026. We have very little doubt that we'll keep on going after that as well. We're beginning to get visibility for footprint expansion beyond 2026, and I'm sure we'll have more to say about that in due course. The states that we've announced in America include Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Michigan, so all the way from the Northeast. Primark Cares. So 55% of all the clothing units we sell, or we sold this year, contain recycled or more sustainably sourced material. That's up from 45%. 46% of all our cotton clothing, so nearly half, contains cotton that's organic, recycled, or sourced from the Primark Sustainable Cotton Program, which won a major award at the recent Reuters Sustainability Awards. It's a phenomenal program. We're now up over 300,000 farmers trained. The results of that training are reduction in use of agricultural inputs, reduction in water, increase in sales prices to the farmer, increases in farmer income, increase in biodiversity on the farm. It's a remarkable, remarkable program. So we've adopted science-based targets to around carbon emissions for Primark. Scope 3 emissions actually increased this year as we expected them to do, as we increased the volumes. We expect that number to start coming down, I think sooner rather than later. I was in Bangladesh recently, and you can see the work that's going on in the supply chain to tackle carbon intensity. I have my name attached also to two effluent treatment plants just outside Dhaka, which I proudly cut the ribbon on there. So the work is going on in the sourcing countries. It's going to take time. In the meanwhile, we're doing a super job on Scope 1 and 2 emissions. 70% of our stores are now powered by renewable or low carbon intensity electricity, and 141 stores have switched to energy lighting efficiency. Again, that installation of low-energy light bulbs is a very profitable investment for us, along with cutting store usage by about 30%, store electricity usage. The rollout of the low-energy light bulbs continues this year as well. Okay, group outlook. Let me start by going back to my first comments. I really am pleased with how we managed our way through 2023. They're good results, and they were made in the face of significant headwinds, significant disruptions. It feels like those disruptions are, if not completely over, much reduced. Much reduced. The fact that we've been talking about weather events, bad trading weather, makes a happy change from talking about perhaps the loss of the Chinese supply chain through Omicron last Christmas, or being unable to get stock into the Spanish depot the Christmas before, or of course, all the COVID closures. It feels like we're stable again, and when we're stable, I think we can do great things. We're expecting a year, this year, on the back of that stability of meaningful progress. It's gonna come from sugar, the British Sugar. The U.K. sugar crop at the moment is looking very good. And we've got to get it off the ground, but that usually happens a lot better than we were last year. And then the removal of those losses from Vivergo will make, will give us, decent growth in its own right. And then in Primark, we'll see sales growth, we'll see space in, expansion. Modest like-for-like, growth is in our forecast, underpinned by, by the value we offer, product relevance and stretch, and then the digital pro-program, platform, and in the first half, limited pricing, as well. We'll see that strong recovery in gross margin, and, on the back of reducing costs, and, the operating profit margin for the year, we expect to be above 10%. There's further improvement possible from that number, depending on sales levels. Strong cash generation. Obviously, we start the year with a strong balance sheet. We know that there's a working capital unwind to come this year. We've got the benefit of the tax prepayment. We've got the benefit, and it'll last longer than a single year, of the pensions payment holiday. There's lots going on. There's lots of investment. I think it's all based now on much firmer, more stable footings than it's been for a while. So, I think we're gonna have a good year. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Yeah. Okay, I got the mics. Get the mics? Yes. Oops. Okay, great. Who wants to go first? Morning, yes, Richard Chamberlain from RBC. Can I maybe then just start with a couple on Primark? George, you talk about sort of modest like-for-like outlook for the coming year, but it does sound like you've had a good start to Q1. Probably gonna get more benefits from the enhanced website still to come, and so on. So what should we read into that? Is that just a function of sort of price normalization through the course of the year, and maybe, I guess, tougher comps, why you're only guiding to modest? And then h ow are you seeing the overall sort of costing environment, particularly in Asia? I think there's been some recent disruption in Bangladesh, factories shut and so on. You, You said, I think you were recently just over there, but how are you seeing the overall costing run? We are seeing minimum wage rates going up quite a lot in various sourcing markets. Just interested in your thoughts on that. Thanks. Yeah, there are, I think particularly in the period up to Christmas, there are tougher comps this year than there were last year. That's one of the reasons to hold back the like-for-like forecast into the year. And then the second reason is just caution around consumer spending. I think Germany is probably in recession. Whether we get there or not, I don't know, but we'll be close. So I think it would be ambitious to forecast like-for-likes at too heady a level, but we think we'll get some. Can I just add? Yes, sir. You get the benefit of pricing in the first half of the year. So that is one benefit. You won't get that in the second half of the year. On the flip side, arguably, you should have softer comps in the second half of the year. So that's, there are kind of moving parts on the overall modest guidance. And then the costs, well, we've built in an assumption of high wage rate inflation in Bangladesh into our costing models. I hope that what we're seeing at the moment is it's just the sort of febrile end of a long wage negotiation. But of course, that wage negotiation then goes into an election campaign, which in Bangladesh always creates a degree of disruption. We've seen both before in Bangladesh, and the supply chain has never really suffered more than very temporarily. So I think we're so cautiously okay. I'm feeling a whole lot less worried about this one than I was about Omicron a year ago in China. But. Bangladesh anyway, basics, it's sort of stuff you don't. Yeah, it's becoming more sophisticated. It's a very important market for us. So I don't take anything for granted there. But whereas Bangladesh has got its problems, I think the China supply chains are working very well. Which is the first time I can say that in three years. So net-net across the supply chains into Primark, it's fine. It was some of that disruption in supply chains and uncertainty that led us to the stock higher stock levels than we might have wanted last year, and which is coming out of the system this year. Okay, great. Thank you. Anne Critchlow from Société Générale. Could I ask about the sugar margin, please, and the outlook for that, both this year with the close out of the Vivergo loss, but also, for the medium term? I think previously you referenced the FY 2017 margin, which I think was 12%. Just wondering if you think you can get back there? Look, there are two sources of volatility in sugar. One is market volatility, and the other one is sort of crop related. We'll never get rid of the crop related one because it's just sort of what happens. But the market one, I think, in Europe in particular, has been dampened down, in the years since the regime reform shock, which was back in 2017, which is why we used that as a reference year. I think that there is sort of more market discipline across Europe than there has been for a few years. So I think that's, I think that's a good thing. Quite frankly, also, we benefited from uncertainty that Brexit causes. So it's tougher to get sugar into this country from France and Holland and Belgium than it might have been in the past. So I think that supports our position. The world sugar price, I think, will remain elevated for a little while, but high prices tend to fix high prices. So that's not, t hat we're not gonna be seeing $0.26 sugar in three years time, two years time. But I think through this year, this crop year, I think those higher world market prices will remain, are likely to remain in place. After that, I don't know. All right. Thank you. All right. Sorry, Warwick? Morning, Warwick Okines from BNP Paribas, and I've got two questions, please. The first on Primark. Could you just say a little bit about your supply chain investment? You've talked in the past about automation and maybe depot investment in the U.S.. And the second question is, you've got a couple of either loss-making or close to loss-making businesses. Just be helpful to get a bit of quantum or movement year on year. I'm talking about Allied Bakeries, Primark Germany, and Vivergo as well. Thank you. Which bits of that do you want to do? I'll do the second one. You wanna do the first one. The supply chain investment. Look, both because depot labor is hard to come by, but also because there's financial opportunity in automating. We are going through a multi-year program of automating both our depots, beginning in Europe, and it's both pallet handling and also case handling. We've done the pallet handling in Holland. We've done actually case handling in the Czech Republic. We're doing both at the same time in Ireland. We're doubling back to Roosendaal in Holland for more pallet handling. So actually, and then we're going to spend, so I think we've probably got, yeah, less than 10 years, more than five worth of investment in warehouses in Europe. In the States, I think we need to be more cautious about putting a lot of capital into a depot structure, which might not be the right footprint for the long run. So I'd rather leave a higher depot cost in place there than put tens and tens of millions into a warehouse that turns out to be in the wrong place. Yeah. And Jacksonville is, in some ways, a relatively lowish cost approach to serving the southern part of the U.S., s o. But Jacksonville will be fine for Texas to begin with, but won't be in the long run. So, you know, is Jacksonville actually the right place in the longer run? It might be. Depends on growth in the Southeast of the States. Just on your second question, yeah, I mean, obviously we're making good progress in all of the, as you call it, the loss-making businesses. I mean, Germany isn't loss-making, so it's not really a, it's not really the, it doesn't have as much of a drag. So I'll kind of say that will, you know, move on next year in the same direction as all of the Primark businesses, 'cause they'll, it'll obviously benefit from gross margin benefits in the same way as all the Primark locations. Allied Bakeries, I mean, we don't give quite the quantums here, but it is a meaningful impact year on year. I would kind of say, in terms of overall grocery, the reason why we're kind of saying grocery is sort of flattish is that there are sort of ups and downs. You know, we have tough comps in our U.S. grocery businesses, for example, which offset some of the full year benefit effect of Allied Bakeries, for example. And then in Vivergo, you know, Vivergo was a substantial loss this year, like sort of to use a previous tens of millions, and will be, we'd hope it'll be flattish this year, for Vivergo. So, I mean, it is good that we don't have the drags, and but we obviously have to work on all of them, all those three we've just mentioned. He's got the microphone. Morning, Nick Coulter from Citi. Three, if I may. Firstly, with slightly higher levels of CapEx, should we expect that to be reflected in slightly higher levels of medium-term growth? I guess that's another way of asking about your paybacks as CapEx creeps up. Then I guess allied to that, could you talk about the white space in Primark? It sounds like post-2026 is coming into view, but how do you think about maturity or and opportunity in your different country markets? You just gave some insights on the U.S. in your last comments. Then lastly, if I may, can I ask about the rationale for the split special and buyback? That's probably quite unusual in markets practice. Thank you. Let me do some of the growth CapExes. So most of the food product, food projects, I think with the exception of the water treatment plant in Mauri, and these are the last two big ones in that division, are growth, are predicated on growth. So the Western Australian feed mill, which is done, will help grow volumes in that, in that lovely market. Actually, the bakery in WA is replacement of is more replacement of very old capacity, so 60 years old. But Tanzania is, is about, is all about growth. The yeast, the fermentation end of Ohly is all about debottlenecking of that growth business. What other ones? Tanzania. So Tanzania, I've, I've, I've mentioned. Specialty ingredients, yeah. Ingredients. Yeah. The packing plant in enzymes we just have to do. Yeah, because it's an allergen. I would say probably 2/3 of the spend has got a sort of above 15% payback associated with it, kind of, give or take. Where do we go from there? Oh, the yeah. And obviously the same, sorry, the same as Primark. Primark, you know, I mean, we've got pretty kind of. Well, we've got pretty disciplined paybacks and return hurdles across all the business, but that obviously applies to Primark as well. And so we look at that very tightly. Then white space in Primark, do you know? Yeah. I think there is, we're thinking about white space in two areas. I mean, clearly, some of these lovely markets like Italy and France, there's just quite a lot of space. So I think in France, we're up to about 40 stores or so. Also, in Italy, we're closer to 20. I don't think we'll ever get to the same sort of store density per population that we've got in the U.K., so I don't think France is gonna get up to 190, but I would hope it wouldn't be far off 75. Italy, probably something similar. So just fill in the big trading areas, and then the States is a whole new opportunity of white space. We also wonder whether there are more fill-in opportunities in smaller trading locations. So in Spain and now Portugal, we're opening smaller stores, 20,000 sq ft stores, in smaller trading areas, and they're working very, very well for us. So again, and maybe not in the U.K., where we've got already got 190, but in some of the other markets where we might think that 75 in Italy will be enough, actually, maybe there's an opportunity for smaller stores beyond the way we've looked at stores in the past. So I think there is plenty of opportunity for space expansion for a while yet. And then, s orry, Poland, we've only got what? four stores. And then in the decision around the split, well, look, I mean, first of all, I'll bring it back to the capital allocation policy. So, you know, obviously, we determined we had GBP 600 million of excess to look to return. The share buyback has been effective and an efficient way of returning capital to shareholders. Obviously, we took quite a bit of advice on it, on this. It's, as you might know, there's as much art as there is science to this whole topic. But we felt that the buyback worked, and GBP 500 million is about right in terms of the scale of that in 12 months. And so we topped it up with a special dividend. We also were thoughtful of all of our shareholders when we think of special dividends, particularly smaller shareholders. So that was, that was factored into our thinking as well. Just because I'm sort of not exactly obsessed by fairness, but fairness is an important thing for us. The special dividend and the share buyback are about the same size this year? No, sorry. The total dividend and the share buyback are both around sort of GBP 500 million. A couple of questions on Primark and one on a cash flow, please. I guess first one is the more than 10% margin this year, to what extent is it dependent on the modest like-for-like you've talked to? It feels like it isn't gross margin driven and all that. And the second one, can you perhaps paint a medium-term picture for Primark margins? How do we get to sort of lower double digits? What might be the drivers from here on? Is it operating leverage or some of these losses that we talked about earlier, Germany, etc.. And a third one, just a really technical one on cash flow, if you don't mind. Working capital, cash tax, and pension benefits this year, in terms of cash flow, to what extent some of these will persist into next year, particularly cash, tax, and pension, if you could talk through those. Thank you. Uh, right. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, the above 10% margin is set on we think these with modest ambitions for like-for- like growth. I think there's probably more upside from, on growth than there is downside from sales, but I wouldn't rule out having a disastrous season somewhere. So, I think that post 10% has, you know, flows off that, but only to an extent. Medium term. In the medium term, I think there are two things I'd point to. Firstly, I think the competitive dynamics that Primark faces into in its markets and its supply chain haven't changed dramatically since before COVID. So I'm not sure which of Mr. Porter's five forces has changed to change the underlying profitability of this business. I think this is a double-digit margin business, was in the past. I don't think that anything significant has changed, so I think we're okay. There is also, though, the specific that we may not be seeing much of it now because we're putting quite a lot of cost into things like digital, but there is volume leverage on margin available to us. Yeah. I still think there's quite a bit of operating leverage still available in Primark, not just from the space expansion, although that's a big driver of that. Obviously, it gives you more scale in terms of how you deal with suppliers, and also, as we leverage investments, as we see, and we've still got automation benefits in supply chain. So I still think there's quite a bit of operating leverage to go after in the business as the business grows, which suggests that double-digit margins are sustainable. So, a nd, you know, obviously, we'll continue, the model is to continue to invest in price to make sure that we're the lowest cost price operator. So that I think that model works. On the cash flow items, the cash tax is pretty much a one-off in the year, we believe. You almost need to think of it, cash tax would have been lower when you think of all the super deductions that came out of the COVID. It should have been lower the year just gone on this year, but it's all really falling into next year. It's kind of the most simplest way to describe it, but it should normalize into FY 2025. Pensions is ongoing, that benefit is, with the surplus that we have there, we would expect that to be, for quite a long time. Working capital, I do expect it to be a decent inflow this year, as particularly in Primark normalization. You know, I think there's pockets of places to keep on going on working capital, but I think it'll be more of a one-off next year, and I'd hope a little bit of improvement in years to come, but it's probably a little bit early for me to say that. So for now, I would suggest it's more of a one-off into next year. It's, well, sorry, it is connected to triennial, but given the level of surplus, it's very hard to imagine a scenario. It's a pretty de-risked scheme now, so it's pretty hard to imagine a scenario where that would have to to restart. William Woods from Bernstein. Just building on the question on margins, obviously, you've talked about gross margin a lot. How much do you think midterm there's an opportunity for both OpEx and labor efficiencies and also the geographical mix to help on margins? And then on digital, two questions: Why don't you sell licensed product online? And secondly, how comfortable are you with the in-store pick and pack model at the moment, and should we expect in the midterm for you to move to a dedicated fulfillment site for Click and Collect orders? Thanks. Look, what I hope Click and Collect offers us is range expansion. It's not primarily a service offering, so quite frankly, if we've got it on the shelf in a store, I'd prefer the customer pick it themselves, rather than we put that work into doing it for them. So, pick in store, no, it's not what we're about. It's about giving people in smaller stores and then in all stores small stores access to a bigger part of the range that they might be able to get if they went to our big stores, and everyone to have access to new product that we don't, quite frankly, have space for, even in the big store. License, well, we'll see where we get to with the, y ou know, we're in a trial of two things to see whether this is an incremental opportunity for us. We do a bit of licensed products. We do some, s ome of his work is licensed. We will, if we prove our point, then we will expand the proportion of the offer or the categories where we have Click and Collect as an option. But we've got to prove the point first. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of a similar answer to the question before in terms of, places to go. I mean, you know, yeah, I'd like to think there are still some pockets of individual markets where the margin is below the average, where we can bring it up. I think the bigger issue, sorry, the bigger opportunity is really leverage on investment. I mean, I think the U.S. is a good example, right? We've obviously put a lot of investment into the U.S., and it's in growth phase, so obviously as you grow, you will leverage that investment. So I think that's probably the bigger opportunity in terms of OpEx. But look, you know, clearly, if there's places to improve, we've talked about Germany, as well. It's Adam Cochrane at Deutsche Bank. A couple of questions, please. When you sort of read all of the news about weight loss drugs, GLP and things- what proportion of your food businesses do you think that might have a potential impact on it? And in terms of your long, longer term strategic thinking, when you're looking at M&A and acquisitions and things, is going down a more healthy route, as sort of an option that you might look forward to, as we go forward? And then secondly, you talked about what's structurally changed or nothing has structurally changed within the market. You've always had a very low price point, where you're very proud of that. How do you think your price point would compare to the likes of Shein or Temu? Are you prepared to match their prices, even if their product is of a lower, potentially lower quality than your own? Thanks. On that last one first, we match like-for-like prices. So there is a job to do to make sure that you're comparing similar product. But yeah, our business strategy is to be the lowest price, that is what it is. I don't think inherently that they have a lower cost model, particularly if some of the freight subsidies are removed, some of the tax subsidies are removed. I think that they've got a lot of cost to be introduced into their businesses. GLP. GLP, yeah. Firstly, let me say, I think these, these drugs are completely fantastic. I have, I'm married into the medical profession. I have friends who've spent their whole lives trying to get weight off people who are pre-diabetic and failing, and for the first time in their careers, they actually have something that works. Whether that changes some of the focus of the obesity debate, I don't know. If you can target weight loss from the people that really need it, maybe some of the general dialogue around healthy eating changes into kind of healthy eating, rather than trying to get people to eat less, which has been something we've been trying for 60 years and failing to do. So I think societally, it's great. Look, we've been observing for some while that population growth isn't really happening in most of our markets. So, trying to sell more calories hasn't been part of our ambitions for a long time. I'd also point out that in the U.K., in our grocery products in the U.K., something over 80% don't get caught up by the HFSS rules, so we're already in a very healthy part of the market. You know, in parts of our grocery business, like hot beverages, we're trying to premiumize. We're trying to premiumize in [inaudible]. That's much more what our business is about in grocery. So no, I don't feel any concern at all about calorie consumption being reduced by people that really should be reducing their calorie consumption. I mean, on M&A, I think, yes, it would feature into how we think about M&A. Like, you always look at growth, long-term growth potentials of businesses. So it, any health, not concerns or any health sort of headwinds, et c., and so on, yeah, it would be a feature of what you would look at when you look at a brand in M&A. The only part of the portfolio where we're encouraged by population growth trends is Africa, where our sugar businesses should benefit from rising populations and by rising wealth. They obviously are a long way away from having an obesity problem. Yeah. Hi, it's Anubhav Malhotra from Liberum. I've got a couple of questions. Firstly, on Click and Collect in womenswear. I don't know if you already discussed this, and I may have missed it, but how has the performance has been so far for Click and Collect in womenswear? And then secondly, on the thinking behind opening smaller stores, and you seem to be a lot more open to it now. Is the fact that you are rolling out a Click and Collect option online, is that a factor in the thinking behind opening smaller stores? Because you can offer a greater range to the customers through the online Click and Collect option, or do you think you'll open them if they are generating sufficient returns, even without the Click and Collect offer? Yeah, I think at this level of where we are in our Click and Collect journey, you've got to look at stores in their own right, because we don't know whether we're still gonna be doing Click and Collect in a year's time. So no, it's about the experience most immediately that we've been having in these smaller stores in Spain, in particular, the profitability of them. And then that pulls us back to our, I suppose, our knowledge that we've always had, but hadn't really thought about too much, about the success of many smaller stores in Ireland. You know, we've got stores that trade profitably at 7,000 sq ft. Now, I don't think we'll go there, but we can trade stores in the right circumstances on quite small footages, and we're seeing in Spain. On Click and Collect, womenswear, what I can tell you is that the basket sizes are good. The attachment baskets are good. The percentage of people attaching is okay, and the return rates on womenswear are okay. What we don't know, and why we need more stores—Sorry, why we need to go to the bigger store, is what the cannibalization effect on other stores who are not in Click and Collect is. So how much are you simply substituting people across into a less profitable channel? That's where, why we need a good amount of data. Yeah, and kidswear, kidswear has benefited from womenswear being added. Yeah. So, the, it's, we're still gathering, is the main point. And particularly to drive that incrementality equation, that's the focus. Gary Martin here from Davy. Just a couple of questions, just on Primark, just to start with. Just to begin with, I think you'd mentioned previously that you had done some selective price reductions across the children's range. Has this had any incremental benefit? And if so, do you expect to roll out further, kind of spot and targeted, pricing reductions? And then just secondly, just on the FY 2024, Primark margin. I think you'd mentioned previously, given the kind of pervasive and persistent nature of stock losses, that you had baked in some negative impact into FY 2024. What sounds like this actually this, this seems to be moving in the right direction, and there seems to be a heavy crackdown on this. If this does subside, do you expect it to have a benefit to FY 2024 Primark margin? Thanks. It's I mean, on stock loss. I'll just deal with stock loss quickly. I mean, we've largely assumed a continuation of it. I mean, just a modest improvement. You know, we don't wanna be completely defeatist on stock loss, but it does feel a very tough battle to fight. We're obviously throwing quite a lot of resources at it, but I think at this point in time, given where society to a certain extent is, I think assuming a level of continuation is probably kind of the prudent, right thing to do. But you know, obviously, as I say, we're gonna try our best to counteract it. I don't think it's gonna be a big feature of the margin dynamics into FY 2024, would be my view. Selective price reductions, yeah, I mean, we think it's benefited kidswear to an extent. To- Yeah. I'd go to a slightly different place, which is that, well, we exist to give the best value. We, you know, we've talked a lot about collaborations with Rita Ora and all sorts of things. I think to reinforce our price leadership message and invest in price is absolutely the right thing to be doing, particularly for sort of less affluent families with kids, who I think are probably the hardest off. I think it's really important that we just signal to them that we are for them. Morning. It's James Grzinic from Jefferies. Two quick ones. First one, have you considered increasing the payout rate? It just feels as if it's almost like a legacy of a margin profile and the volatility in the business, that it simply doesn't have that anymore. And secondly, the 8.5% like-for-like in the past year for Primark, can you please split that into price, like-for-like price and mix impacts, and how you think about those two drivers within that modest like-for-like for the year ahead? So let me answer partially or introduce what Eoin's going to say. We've had a bit of a clear out at the office recently, and someone handed me remarks that my father made in 1977. It was actually at the AGM. And he started off by refusing to apologize for a payout ratio, which was 4.5 x, and I can only imagine him rolling in his grave that we've got to 3. We look at all aspects of capital returns and came to the conclusion that this was the wisest one, and maybe we're too early on in this kind of cash position to change payout ratios. My view, you may have different views on. Yeah, look, we did review it, and we keep all these things under review. I think our capital allocation policy largely works actually, to be honest with you. I don't see it being a problem. I think, you know, our dividend payout is well understood, and it's healthy. So, but yeah, it's a good point. Look, I don't think it's wise to be forecasting. You know, we're willing to tell you what next year's gonna bring. To get in the world of speculation beyond that, I don't think is a particularly valuable thing for us to be doing. Yeah, who knows what's gonna change? There's a lot of uncertainty. I mean, price volume- mix, I mean, small amount of volume, most of it was priced in the 8.5%. Just as a small amount of mix. I think it was kind of mixed, kind of sort of netted itself out in the end, actually, for the year. So, predominantly, it's pricing, and just a small amount of volume. Most of that was in the first half of the year. Second half of the year was less volume, and it was more price. As we roll forward into this year, as I think I said before, we kind of expect about 1 percentage point on price for the full year. And then, you know, obviously, we're hoping for the rest of the volume to drive the modest like-for-like, not expecting a huge amount on mix. Yeah. Sorry, he also said in the, in the forecast, it would be futile to give a forecast, so he wasn't going to. He didn't. Hi, Paul Rossington at HSBC. Can you just give some kind of quantum of what you actually expect Primark inventories to come down by over the course of the full year? And then any just guidance, any guidance on the split of store openings in this year, H1 versus H2? Thank you. Ooh, H1, H2. The Primark inventories should, I mean, it should come down by at least GBP 200 million. So, in terms of working capital inflow. You know, that's what I'd be hoping for. I think we'll have to get back to you on the store openings. On H1, H2. I don't think it's relatively even across the year, but I'd have to just double-check. Yeah. Nine stores in H1. Oh, okay. There you go. So it's, yeah, relatively even across the year. I think we're probably running towards the end here. Have we any questions on the web or no? No. All right. We can wrap it up. Great. Thank you. Thanks very much, indeed. Thank you. Do you want to say anything about just sort of, a bout reporting? Yeah, just one point to make in the appendix, page something. There is just a note on. We're just modifying our financial calendar just a little bit, in terms of how we're reporting next year, for primary updates, January trading update, obviously interims and final, and then a September pre-close. So that's the rhythm for next year. Thanks very much, indeed. Thank you. Thank you.