Right, I think we've got everybody here. Welcome, everybody. Just a few points of admin to start with. This webinar is being recorded, so if you miss anything, don't worry, it'll be up on the websites later on. The slide deck that the gentlemen are gonna present to is also on the Cohort website, so you can follow up on that. Should you wish to submit questions, please use the Q&A button that you can see at the bottom of your Zoom guide, and we will deal with those later on. And I'm delighted to welcome back to talk about the interim results announced this morning both the CEO, Andy Thomis, and the Finance Director, Simon Walther. So without further ado, over to you, Andy. Good afternoon. As Andy said, I'm Andrew Thomis. I'm the Chief Executive of Cohort plc, and I'm here with Simon Walther, Cohort's Finance Director, to take you through our results for the six-month period ending thirty-first October this year. So I'm gonna start by giving you the highlights, and then Simon will provide some more detail, including a divisional breakdown. Then I'm gonna come back with some comments about the demand picture and about our future prospects. Our summary is that it's been a good first half, much better than the last years. Revenue and operating profits are up strongly. And once again, we've got a new record with quarters order book. Prospects look good. We expect to continue our growth in the full year and beyond. You can see the numbers now. As I say, revenue and profit both up strongly. Revenue up 22% to GBP 94.3 million. Adjusted operating profit up 20%, GBP 6 million. Adjusted EPS is also up, not by quite as much, for reasons that Simon will explain in a moment. It was another very good period for new orders, and of course, that's the best leading indicator of future growth. Now, the order intake of just over GBP 119 million significantly exceeded the revenue that we recognized. So the total order grew to over GBP 350 million at the year end. That order book covers 95% of the consensus forecast of our revenue for the year. That order winning run has continued after the period end. And in early December, the orders have grown to something like GBP 365 million, and that gave us even higher order cover for the year. Finally, operating cash flow is also good. It exceeded profit, and that helps us to maintain a positive cash net position of GBP 13.3 million. And against that background, the board was very pleased indeed to be able to recommend an interim dividend of 4.7% per share, and that represents an increase of 10% on the dividends at this time last year. If you can have the next slide, Simon will give a more detailed breakdown of the performance of our two divisions, but this slide shows the main factors behind the group's performance improvement. The Communications and Intelligence division delivered a marked increase in both revenue and profit, and that was driven by a record first half performance of our subsidiary, Marlborough Communications, MCL. And that was a result of its unusually high opening order book at the beginning of the year. EID also saw some improvement, but MASS was slightly behind its first half performance last year, as some of its higher margin work slipped into the second half. In our other division, Sensors and Effectors, revenue also grew, but profit performance was slightly lower than the same period last year. Both Chess and SEA performed well. The profitability of ELAC was affected by the high proportion of low margin rev on the development work for the new Italian submarine sale. And we're recognizing margin very prudently on what is a very complex technical program at the moment. But we expect a much improved performance from Sensors and Effectors in the second half. So let me hand over to Simon, who's going to take you through those results in a bit more detail. Thank you, Andy, and good afternoon to everybody. As Andy has already said, and I reiterate, a record first half revenue and trading profit performance for the group. Gross margins have been generally maintained. The increase in overhead includes around GBP 1.5 million of investment, including property refurbishment at SEA's, preparing to deliver the expanded order books we've seen. Business development spend was also higher, particularly the biennial DSEI show in September in London. The higher overhead also reflects the headcount increase that we've seen, rising from 1,075 last October to 1,243 employees this October. Much of this increase is actually in direct staff, particularly engineering, but it comes obviously with associated costs of recruitment, bringing people on board and particularly getting their utilization up as we bring them through processes and training. However, overall, we do expect the net margin for the group to improve in the second half and to deliver somewhere close to the same level as last year. Turning to net funds, it was a good first half performance. Historically, we've usually seen a larger decline in H1, as we saw in 2022, due to the build of working capital for the second half. This year has seen larger customer advances, particularly in Sensors and Effectors, which will unwind during the second half and into 2024, 2025. This, combined with higher CapEx spend, as we commence work on the building for the ELAC facility, will lead to a net cash outflow in H2. And I am still guiding closing net funds being around GBP 8-10 million at the year end. As usual, though, the nature of some of our receipts particularly, can be, difficult to predict, and being several million sometimes in size, can make any prediction a little fraught with difficulty. Turning to earnings per share, as Andy said, this, at 2%, was somewhat lower than the adjusted operating profit growth of 20%, and there were two primary drivers. One was the higher tax rate in the U.K. Our overall tax for this year, we estimate at around 20%, compared with 17% last year, and that reflects the acute higher U.K. tax rates and higher net interest costs, obviously with higher interest rates. We did pay down GBP 3 million of our sterling loan in the last six months, and we'll continue to review our gross cash and debt positions. Although we currently expect the U.K. tax, our overall tax rate, to be around 20% for the year, we do have opportunities to achieve a lower rate coming year end. Turning to the divisions. Communications and intelligence had a strong operating performance, with revenue and trading profit up by 32% and 15% respectively. The improvement has come from a very strong MCL performance, driven by U.K. MOD demand, carrying on from last year into the first half of this year, especially for hearing protection and drones. EID's loss for the first half was lower than last year's equivalent, but still disappointing, with continued delay to large naval orders from Portugal. These now are expected to be secured in the second half of this financial year. We've already seen the main ship build contract for a multi-role vessel signed in late November, and we expect to be on contract for development and delivery of our latest communication system for this ship soon. We expect the EID to improve in H2 and progress further in the new financial year. The weaker net margin for this division was a change in mix at MASS, with higher margin EWOS work now expected to be delivered in H2. Order cover for this division is around 80% at the end of October, which is typically lower than our other divisions, Sensors and Effectors, with the short-term nature of some of the work at MASS and particularly at MCL. As we indicated back in July, we expect a relatively flat trading performance for this division. Turning to the second division, Sensors and Effectors. Bit of a mixed operating performance here, with revenue up 15%, but trading profit is slightly down by 8%. We saw an improved performance at Chess, which delivered stronger profit, largely on similar revenue, as we continue to see improved operational efficiency. At ELAC, as Andy's touched on, we continue to work our way through the design stage of the Italian sonar contract, and therefore continue to trade margin brilliantly. We expect, we expect to enter production on the first boats build during the coming financial year, 2024, 2025. Lastly, also benefited from the last payment from the seller of ELAC, Wärtsilä, which was around GBP 500,000. If you exclude this item, actually, the underlying operating performance was up around 15%, so in line with the revenue increase we've seen from this division in the first half. SEA, as expected, delivered more revenue, but its mix was weaker, with much greater subcontractor efforts, especially for delivery to an overseas customer. As I hinted at earlier, the order cover for this division is much higher. It's around 97%, and with the recent Boat Three order for the Italian Navy, that increases that cover and gives us confidence around the design for the new Italian submarines. We expect this division to grow in the second half and drive the overall group forwards, forward in the rest of this year and into future years. Our new facility at ELAC is progressing, and we expect the build of the facility to commence around March, April 2024, and complete in June 2025. The overall investment is expected to be around GBP 18 million, and this will. We do not expect this to impact our ability to invest in M&A and R&D. The facility itself, and if we move to the next slide, here you will see the site. This is the new site. It's actually near Kiel Airport. It's north of the Kiel Canal, a few miles from the ELAC's current facility, which is actually south of the canal. As you can see, apart from the wintry conditions, the very large hole you'll see on the picture is the start. Find a way through digging the test tank that will be part of the facility. That will be finished first, and then they will start to build the building. Overall, I reiterate a strong first half and H2 well underpinned to deliver to our expectations. I'm going to hand back to Andy. Simon, thank you very much. So in this section, I'm going to talk about the outlook, and about the factors driving demands for our products and services. I'll illustrate that with some examples of major contracts that we've won in the last six months. And then I'll talk about some of the investments that we're making in new products and technology. I'll show you how our existing order book runs out over the rest of this year and beyond, and then I'll round up with a, with a summary of the, of the points that we've been making. So the two main driving forces for demand, in defense, equipment remained in place, and those are the continuing conflicts in Ukraine and the influence of growing Chinese assertiveness from the Indian Ocean, down to Australasia. Now, adding to that mix since October, has been the developing violent conflicts in Gaza as well. I'll start with the impact of those factors on our export markets. So the conflict in Central Europe is primarily, although not exclusively, land-based, and it's driven demand in two ways... both directly, as the NATO countries seek to help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion, and it's also, indirectly, it's made NATO and other countries think again about the balance of their defense forces and the equipment that they need. Now, some aspects of that rethink don't really have an impact on us. We don't, we don't make 155-millimeter ammunition, and we're not about to start doing that. But other lessons that have been, for instance, the importance of electronic warfare, the need to counter drones of all kinds, and the need for accurate and timely battlefield intelligence, have all had a positive impact on both orders and prospects for us. In Asia, Chinese assertiveness has not yet manifested itself in a violent way, but the clear threat certainly is there. Most notably, Chinese behavior has driven the creation of the tripartite AUKUS alliance between the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. We fully expect to make contributions to the new AUKUS submarines in due course. But there are also many opportunities in what is termed Pillar Two of AUKUS, and that's focused on developing new technologies for defense, including for underwater detection and countering hypersonic missiles, which I'll say a little bit more later. Of course, Taiwan is at risk from China, but aggressive behavior and maritime claims in the South China Sea are also having a major influence on defense postures and equipment spending really throughout the region and that's had an impact on order intake and opportunities for us in, for instance, Thailand, Indonesia, and Philippines. Japan remains committed to a doubling of its national security spend as a share of GDP by 2027, and it's also joined the Anglo-Italian next generation combat aircraft project, forging closer links with Europe, where traditionally, its closest defense link has been with the United States. I witnessed a very excited Japanese delegation closely examining SEA's KraitArray at a large international exhibition in Rishwa. The conflict in Gaza doesn't have the same direct impact on our demand as the other factors, but it's the emergent tip of an iceberg which is the wider tensions in the region, primarily and ultimately between Iran and Saudi Arabia and its allies. And that tension is likely to drive further regional demand for defense spending in what remains one of our most important markets. Our domestic markets have seen similar effects. The U.K. Defense Command Paper announced initiatives to make U.K. a science and technology defense superpower, and to develop a new and more strategic relationship with industry. That complements the refreshed Integrated Review earlier in the year, that confirm the need to invest in responding to challenges from both Russia and China. In Germany, we can see the impact of the step change in defense spending that has taken place there. Our German business is already supplying specialist hydroacoustic equipment to new German surface ships and submarines. And in Portugal, the long list of domestic opportunities that EID is finally gathering momentum, with bids being invited for several major programs and a new military procurement law approved by the Portuguese parliament. We have a slight problem here. We seem to have lost our screen. I'm not sure if the rest of the webinar audience is able to hear what I'm saying, but we'll try and get it sorted out as soon as possible. And if you can't, we soon will be able to. We can still see you loud and clear, and hear you loud and clear. If you can carry on, Andy, that would be great. We've lost our screen. Okay, we're back. We're back. Apologies for that, and I hope you can hear it now. Yes, I was talking about the gathering momentum for the set of opportunities that our business, EID, is looking for in Portugal, because a few weeks ago, I attended the signing ceremony for the acquisition of a new multipurpose vessel by the Portuguese Navy. And this was a pretty big event. The vessel will be a mothership for both air and sea drones, and be a new concept of vessel. The first new vessel that the Portuguese Navy has acquired for quite some time. Not only was the head of the navy there, but also the Prime Minister came along and gave a speech, and that, in my mind, signifies that there's some real momentum behind acquiring these important new vessels. Finally, in the session, I want to emphasize that we're interested in growing profit, not just revenue. Now, I'm happy to say that the more extreme effects of COVID on our supply chain and recruitment costs are now fading, and that has helped us to keep our costs under control. We've also taken action to improve margins, for instance, at Chess, by improving pricing and by bearing down on some of their problem projects. We expect margins to improve sharply at ELAC when we get through the challenging development stage of the Italian submarine program, which is its, its largest project. For the group as a whole, and especially at SEA and EID, we'll keep control of overhead so that margin will improve as revenue grows. Now, the group operating margin is currently hovering at around 10%, and our aim is to drive that up to the mid-teens in the next few years. And again, taken together, with the growth that's going to be driven by the demand that I've described, that offers a period of really considerable opportunity I think for Cohort. So, I want to highlight some recent contract wins to demonstrate the real impact of these geopolitical events on our day-to-day operations. And I've got a focus in doing that on the maritime area. So taking a few of these examples, in August, we announced that SEA had received a GBP 17 million contract from the U.K. Ministry of Defense, to provide the communication system for the new Dreadnought ballistic missile submarines. Now, that's a clear vote of confidence in SEA, which has provided similar systems for the U.K.'s Trafalgar class, the Astute class, and Vanguard class submarines in the past. And as well as being incredibly valuable in its own right, it puts us in a really good position, to do the same thing for the next, and the largest ever, class of nuclear submarines to be produced in the U.K., the AUKUS class, for the U.K. and Australia. Next, earlier this month, it was confirmed that ELAC had been contracted to supply a third submarine sonar suite to the Italian Navy with a value of EUR 60 million. Now, that provides confirmation, that we are providing a world-class system for a NATO navy, that has access to the best technology available anywhere, and we're very proud of that. Back in May, SEA won a GBP 26 million contract to upgrade the communications on board two of the Royal New Zealand Navy's frigates. Now, that's a clear sign of how regional tension is influencing even relatively low defense spenders, like New Zealand, to enhance their naval capacity. Also in May, SEA won a GBP 7 million contract to provide its KraitSense submarine detection system to two ships of the Southeast Asian Navy. Now, that's a first win for the new KraitSense system, which is based on a relatively new product, the KraitArray towed array sonar, which has been produced and designed by SEA. And that purchase is a perfect illustration of how navies in the Southeast Asian region are equipping themselves to counter the growing Chinese submarine threat. Moving on, Chess has won a GBP 5 million contract to supply its Orcus and Selt cameras to BAE, to the Type 26 frigate for the Royal Navy. Now, that's a precursor to what we expect will be a much larger contract for Chess to incorporate this into its stabilized fire control systems for their ships. And finally, ELAC's underwater communication systems are widely used, and they've sold to many, many customers, recently, including Japan, Germany, and Italy. I think in one particular order here, which is, which was EUR 4 million, is a particularly substantial one, but there are many more I could mention, and that product is on the way to becoming something like a worldwide standard. Now, of course, there's many other contracts as well, but I think that these give a good illustration of the importance customers place on their maritime capability, and the capability and competitiveness of our offerings as well. Looking forward, the pipeline of opportunities is as strong as ever. Now, against that encouraging background, we are maintaining our spend on technology and product development to meet the evolving needs of our customers. Many of the products that we invest in are very sensitive, but I can share some of these examples with you. To deal with what is perceived to be an ever-increasing drone threat, Chess has developed the Multi-Sensor Unit, or MSU, which is able to detect and track small airborne targets. Now, that MSU has been integrated with a medium caliber weapon from Oerlikon, which is a Swiss defense company, part of the Rheinmetall group, to create what is one of the world's most potent counter-drone weapon systems. And it was announced just yesterday, the twelfth of December, that 28 of those systems have been ordered by Austria. A few months earlier, they were also ordered by Denmark. The seriousness of the drone threat, which has been so well illustrated by events in Ukraine, is likely to result in many more orders for this system in the coming months and years, for Oerlikon and for Chess as well. Now, moving on. From Asia Pacific right through to the Atlantic, one of the greatest security challenges is driven by the need to detect and deter hostile submarines. The best way, of course, to detect and track a submarine is to use another submarine. ELAC has developed a new digital submarine sonar suite that allows more accurate detection and location than ever before. But perhaps the most advanced element to the suite is the Flank Array, which should be visible to you on the drawing of the submarine that you can see there, based along the side of the submarine. That's made of panels of sensors and electronics attached to the sides of the submarine. Now, I can't show a picture of the actual panels, because the German security authorities have said that we mustn't. But I can tell you that each panel weighs several hundred kilos and it measures about 2 meters by 1 meter. A fit of one submarine could include over 100 of those panels. Now, ELAC is currently contracted to provide 3 submarine sets, so that gives you an idea of the scale of the task that they're embarked on, and just how big that new facility is going to be. Now, finally, a key technology for Orcus philosophy, and a vital capability for anyone facing Russian or Chinese forces at sea, is gonna be the ability to counter hypersonic missiles. The essential technique of dealing with anti-ship missiles is to launch decoys at just the right place to seduce and confuse the missile. Now, in the past, that has relied on the ship maneuvering to be head on to the attack, with fixed launchers to dispense the decoys in exactly the right direction. And that works fine as subsonic or just supersonic missiles, perhaps approaching the speed of 600 miles an hour. When a missile is approaching at something like a mile a second, that simply isn't feasible to make such a maneuver. And with support from Chess, SEA has developed a system called Ancilia, that can train and launch the decoys at precisely the right angle and elevation in a matter of seconds. Now, this product has already generated a significant amount of interest, and we believe that many nations will see this as an essential upgrade, as well as an essential fit for new ships. Now, to demonstrate that this is more than just a PowerPoint presentation, I'm gonna show you a short video, I hope, on the next slide, showing the Ancilia prototype in action. I don't think we've got the video live on this one, Andy, if you want to carry on. Well, I'm very sorry about that. So you missed out. I promise you, we do have a video, and we do have a prototype, which moves very rapidly and convincingly. To give you an idea of the scale of the system, it's about two meters tall and fully loaded, it's gonna weigh about two tons. And the very fast slew and elevation it can do will allow ships to counter multiple simultaneous attacks from different directions, which frighteningly is a likely planned scenario that they'll have to face. So radical selective investments are no less importantly. We maintain our strategy of seeking and investing in value-adding acquisitions. We're very selective about those, and we won't acquire a business unless we are convinced that it will add value and growth in the long term. But we do have an experienced acquisition team, and we have no shortage of opportunities to review, that's for sure. So I've talked so far in broad terms about markets and capabilities and demand. This slide shows the tangible results of the demand picture that I've described. And at over GBP 350 million, Cohort's period-end order book is stronger than ever before. It includes a very substantial element that will directly feed into revenue this year and next. You can see over GBP 90 million for the second half of the year, and over GBP 117 million already on order for next year. But it also includes over GBP 145 million of order cover to 2025, 2026, and beyond, guaranteeing a solid flow of revenue for a decade. As I mentioned earlier, since the end of October, the order book has continued to grow, and it's now over 365, and that is just over 9.5% complete. Looking at the colors, you can see that the larger part of the order book now sits with Sensors and Effectors. SEA makes a very substantial contribution to this number. It's received a further boost to its order book in the period, as you've seen. It has more opportunities to win new, large, long-term orders in the months ahead. ELAC and Chess also add significantly to our total. In Communications and Intelligence, well, MCL tends to operate naturally on very short-term order books, so its contribution to the total is quite modest. MASS's order book, though, is substantial, but it only increases significantly in years when its large, long-term service contracts are in the nuclear parts. EID's order book is relatively poor at the moment, but there are some very important and attractive opportunities with its domestic naval and military customers. With, as I've explained, the Portuguese may be gathering some momentum on its new ship purchases, I think there is some real opportunities on that front. If you can move to the next slide, I will show you the first column of that chart in number form together with a comparison against the same position last year. You can see that total growth in order book from GBP 304 million - GBP 354 million, which is 16%. That's a very strong indicator of potential future revenue growth. The two shaded columns show the revenue already on order for the second half of the year, and that's compared then, to the same position in 2022. In Communications and Intelligence, we can see that the underpinning is a little behind where it was last year. MCL's ability to win and deliver new business in the year will have a big impact on the division's eventual performance, which we expect to be broadly in line with its performance last year. By comparison, in Sensors and Effectors, the underpinning for the year has risen from GBP 43 million to over GBP 60 million, which is an increase of 41%. That positions us very well to meet external expectations for the year. Now, that brings me almost to the end of our presentation, and to a summary of the points that I wanted to make. It's been another pleasing year in terms of our performance. We're not resting on our laurels, but we're very pleased indeed to be growing the size and strength of our group. Maybe more importantly, we've achieved another record order book, and we see an excellent pipeline of opportunities ahead. And our order book, as I mentioned, now over GBP 365 million as at December. And achieving order intake for the period of a third higher than revenue is a very strong leading indicator of future growth. It clearly shows that there is strong demand and that our products are competitive in what is a market of very capable international players. Our strong balance sheet enables us to invest in the products and capabilities that our customers will need as they look to keep themselves safe in what is becoming a more challenging global security environment, and I've shown you some examples. If we can, we'll accelerate our progress through targeted acquisitions of good businesses. We continue to expect to grow this year, and I've tried to explain a bit of what's behind that view, in our presentation this afternoon. And beyond that, based on our order book and based on the prospects that we can see, we expect that growth to accelerate. As a result of our performance and our prospects, the board has felt confident to increase the dividend once more by 10%. We've grown the dividend every year since our IPO back in 2006. In closing, I want to take the opportunity to thank our management teams and employees for all of their hard work in the first half of the year, and the success that they've delivered. If we can switch to the final slide, let me leave you with this as a snapshot of how we see ourselves developing in future years. We've made considerable progress towards this vision since our earliest days in the market back in 2006. Our strategy continues to be to generate growth organically and where possible, through acquisitions, while paying a dividend that reflects our successful financial performance. We believe this offers the best long-term returns for investors, while creating high value employment and enhancing the security of the U.K., that's without. That's all we wanted to say. Thank you very much for your attention. If you have questions, we'll try and deal with them. That's great, gentlemen. Very, very clear, transparent. Thank you very much. As a reminder to the audience, do use the Q&A button to submit any questions they have. We have plenty already, so let's dive in. Simon, two or three questions I'll try to roll together into recruitment, so I hope you can remember them all. Firstly, you've taken on a lot of people in the period. Is there any one or two or three particular subsidiaries that have been taking up the bulk of that intake? Secondly, if you're going after technicians or quality engineers, have they been easy and expensive to find? And then the last one, sorry for three is: Do you expect this pace of recruitment to extend into the second half or even further? Okay, let's take the first one. The increased headcount has primarily come in the Sensors and Effectors division, and has been across all three businesses of Chess, ELAC, and SEA. Not surprising when you see the growth in their order book. And these obviously are people we've been investing in. In terms of getting a hold of them, what we found is that obviously, the shrinking services, we're taking less and less people from ex-service backgrounds now, and more and more investment into graduates and apprentices, and obviously, at times, we have to acquire more experienced people. But in a way, that partly explains why the overhead is higher, because we have taken on more graduates and more apprentices, which means we have to spend time training them and bringing them up to, you know, to the level where they can actually contribute. in a way, once we've got through this, I certainly expect to see no, particularly no further increases at Chess now, I think they're pretty much fully manned. ELAC is probably okay as well in Germany, although again, if another large order turns up, there will be more people. SEA probably needs to add a few more tens of people, but I don't see. You know, we've grown from just under 1,100 to about 1,250 in the last year. I don't see that rate of growth carrying on for the next 6 to 12 months, but, you know, if the order book grows at the rate we've seen for the last couple of years, then we may well have to. But, you know, one of the points Andrew touched on earlier is, you know, one of the ways you've got to improve the profitability of the business, and not just go after revenue, is that we've got to make our engineers and, you know, people who deliver, more efficient. And that ultimately is we've been investing in people, we now look to get the return from them so that we can get more productive work out of them, and not have to train, support, and mentor them as much as we probably had to in the last year. So I hope that answers all three points. I think it does, and there's never any harm in investing for the future. Certainly. Andy, M&A. Again, rolling a couple of questions together. You know, the group has completed successful acquisitions in the past. One question, are there particular regional areas, or are you likely to look at products, add-ons, if the opportunity is right? And second question is, it is, I suppose, unfortunately, for the rest of us, but good for defense companies, a difficult geopolitical background at the moment. Is that affecting prices of businesses that you might be looking at? And related to that, how do you, the two of you, look at the financial criteria to apply to an acquisition? Sure. Well, starting off with, what kind of acquisitions, excuse me, are we interested in? Fundamentally, it's businesses operating in the defense space, that have good growth potential, that are, that are agile and innovative, so a, a good cultural fit with the group, and that have got some kind of sustainable competitive advantage. So aren't just completely on price with a lot of other companies doing exactly the same thing. And that tends to bring us towards certain, areas, of, of the defense space, which of course is very wide. And we've attempted to try and find, if you like, slightly unfashionable areas to invest in, because there's plenty of evidence that suggests that fashionable areas tend to attract very high prices for acquisitions, which then are rarely justified in the performance of the acquisition. I would cite as an example of that, the large boom in cybersecurity businesses, which were selling for a multiple of revenue, and they had to, because they weren't actually making a profit, and then subsequently disappointing their new owners. ... So we've tried to avoid that kind of pitfall. Examples are the sort of thing that you're aware of, really. So acquiring businesses like Chess, which is a bit below the radar of most defense businesses, but is actually really crucial towards the now vitally important war against drones, and businesses like ELAC, which, you know, submarine sonars aren't perhaps the most fashionable thing about this, but when we see the huge investment that China's making into its submarine fleet, then we see the real need to mark that kind of thing. So it's trying to find those little less fashionable, but more cost-effective areas. Now, you highlighted the increasing demand for defense equipment globally, and the situation that's created that I talked about this morning. That is certainly, I think, driving up multiples, I mean, especially on the main market. You've only got to look at and see how companies like BAE have done in recent years to see that. It's also interestingly bringing about quite a lot of small businesses thinking that this might be a good moment to sell. So quite a lot of opportunities are coming past our desks at the moment. Sadly, not one that so far we have judged to be worth really pursuing hard. You know, in many cases, perhaps, ambitions have outstripped evidence of performance, I would say. Nonetheless, we are continuing to look at, and I mean, we're seeing plenty of opportunities to invest, so. In terms of valuation, it's very much, and this is one of our advantages, relatively small business, where the senior managements are always deeply involved in acquisitions. We are, we're not, you know, we don't have a sort of book of multiples that we pay for different kinds of business. We look individually at the risks and the growth opportunities of particular businesses, how much, how much work is built in, and how much is still to be won, how much requires our effort to deliver. And we price on that basis. Also taking into account the size of the company as well. And don't forget, we're looking at businesses that typically with revenue in the range of GBP 10 million-GBP 50 million, a few hundred people, so we're not talking about large businesses. Simon, anything you'd want to add to that? No, not really. We've actually done a few times. Okay. You're not getting away that lightly, Simon, I'm afraid because you- Yeah. A possibly related question is paying for it. I think an interesting question on working capital, and there are quite significant movements through previous years, and you've just detailed the successful on-budget investments in Kiel and the assets there. But the question is, within those pieces and drops, how do the two of you look at assessing the capital required for R&D, as well as what that leads you in terms of the scale of M&A opportunity? Yeah. I mean, working capital, I mean, we're not a heavy CapEx business. Kiel is an unusual investment for us. It has to be done because they've got to exit their own facility by the end of 2025, because the owner wants to develop it. Now, we've not yet made a decision on whether once it's built, whether we leave it on our balance sheet or, you know, do some form of sale and lease back and free up some cash. We'll make that decision at an appropriate time in the future. But at the moment, that is that big investment. Most of our CapEx is what I would call replacement CapEx, you know, mostly in IT, occasional machinery, but not a great deal. Working capital is a big movement for us. I mean, we have, you know, like I said earlier, on top of our net funds, we can have large invoice receipts of, you know, some millions GBP, as individuals. We have, obviously, some reasonably large supplier, demands, you know, things like radars that fit onto some of Chess's equipment can be as much as sort of touching GBP 1 million each. So we obviously, what we do to deal with that is, we tend to structure our contracts such that as much as possible, the customer pays for most of our working capital as far as we can. And we have some businesses, like MCL, which virtually work on nil working capital. MASS is a very low working capital business because it's people, and its main customers pay very quickly. That is one good thing about defense. But others, like our Sensors and Effects division, is a bit more demanding on working capital. In terms of the R&D, how we do that is each business, basically, each, you know, has a three-year plan, with a budget done every year, and they set their R&D targets. And what we do is sort of... So they have a framework within which, you know, obviously, we have expectations of their operating performance and what we'd like to see at the bottom line, and the, and the cash flow spun out of that. But basically, they will come to us and put forward their R&D proposal. In fact, in some cases, I think Andy and I have to challenge them to try and move up their R&D spend, but some tend to be a little bit honest. But what I'm always aware of is that I've been in defense for over 25 years now, but one area you've got to be careful of is that R&D sometimes will become what engineers who are not busy will spend their time on. That is not what we want to be doing. We want to actually be developing R&D that is actually like a project, as any other project in the businesses, very much focused on our product portfolio, and that has been a focus for us very much over the last three to five years, particularly in our product businesses of SEA, ELAC, and Chess, where, you know, it just don't go off and develop whatever you think is a good idea. Let's look at what we strategically want to be in. We've got management teams now that are very much focused on that. So no, I'm helpful. Then really, in terms of the M&A firepower, well, we obviously have our paper if we need it, but that really is where the debt facility is. I mean, if you look at our current debt, not ballooning over 17 years, we've never used our overdraft facility in 17 years, and so our debt is very much structural debt for M&A. We're funding the ELAC build by our own cash flow. So my funds, my debt facility is very much there for buying businesses, not for funding the business day-to-day. Very important point. And, probably the last question related to M&A, more of a judgment call for the two of you looking ahead, on that sort of three to five year period you've just mentioned, Simon. Is it— The question from a shareholder is: Is it reasonable to assume, you know, strong organic growth is the main plank in that period, and that you would hope to find suitable M&A to accelerate that growth if it comes along, but if it doesn't, you're still very happy with the process? Yeah, I would say that would be a conservative assumption. Mm-hmm. If you look back, you'll see we've done an acquisition in recent years, about once every two years. We've had a little bit of a hiatus since 2020 because of the obvious thing that happened. But you know, we're certainly keen to find another one, and we think that that will enable us to accelerate our revenue and profit growth. Okay. Yeah, just a little bit on current and prospective clients. We've got a question, and you quite rightly majored on the, you know, strong position that you have with members of NATO and now the AUKUS group. Question is: Is that an exclusive group for exporting to? And related to that, are you confident or hopeful that the members of AUKUS will grow over time, given the tensions in the region that you've alluded to? Well, that's an interesting question. I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer that second. But, I mean, there clearly is some interest being expressed in certain capitals about this alliance and whether it might be open to additional parties. But I would say, in answer to the first question, no, most certainly not. I mean, we are a very wide exporter. We export strongly to the Middle East and to Southeast Asia, two very important regions for us. To a lesser extent, but still important, to South America as well. And to some extent, into North America, too, Canada. And we do a bit in the U.S., although, as you know, it's a pretty difficult market to break into, it's expensive. So we're a worldwide exporter. Although the U.K. is our largest customer, we're a very strong exporter. Yeah, and it's probably fair to say that, topical matter, but, you know, growth in the numbers of members of NATO is, you know, a distinct possibility as well. I would say it is. Well, I mean, it's a very strong possibility that Sweden is going to join NATO. In fact, it's nearly there. Finland already has. Those are two countries where we have, Sweden particularly, a very good relationship, where they are both a market for us and a supplier of certain equipment, too. Very good defenses for Sweden. Yeah. Good, and then just, you know, perhaps the last one you featured, maritime order flow, and the recent events have certainly raised the awareness of the importance of assets such as undersea cables and pipelines for strategic reasons. The question is, you're already seeing order flow. Yeah, how do you see the time lag or response from governments who suddenly become aware of vulnerability? How many months, or does it still take years for significant spending patterns to emerge? I think when the government sees stark risks which are being thrown up by the Ukraine conflict, the response can be very fast indeed, and that's been manifested in the order intake that we've seen. In times where risk is less obvious and less stark, then things tend indeed to slow down a little bit, and the emphasis becomes off the long-term strategic decisions rather than responding to the immediate threat. But we've seen how governments, not only in the U.K., but elsewhere, can respond to a rapidly changing situation, and that is pretty impressive. And, you know, it's been our mission to respond just as fast as the requirements. Very good. Very last one for you, Simon. We've got a comment here that I echo. "It's very nice to go through a presentation without hearing about logistics and supply chain problems." You obviously seem to be in control of the situation. Is it fair to say there are no material residual problems? Obviously, in COVID, we saw lengthening of supply chains and obviously then followed by the inflationary impacts. What I would say is it's got no worse, and in fact, in some areas, it's now started to improve again. But there are some components of ours that are still on longer timeframes than we would like. But clearly, that's now worked its way through the system, and the customer now understands that if they want this product, the lead times are X, not Y, because of those delays. We've seen probably the legacy, I would say, is probably still more in Portugal than anywhere else, and that may be a reflection more of the size of the Portuguese market as a whole. Germany has certainly seen an easing, and the U.K. has. We're not, you know—I'd say two years ago, Andy and I would be regularly talking to managing directors and finance directors, and they'd be bringing these issues up. I've not heard it come across my desk now for at least, well, probably a year. It's very much winding down. I'd say defense is such that it's, in a way, almost like everything. If you know something's gonna take two weeks to turn up, you tell everyone it's gonna take two weeks, and that's what it takes. And, you know, it's just it—what was bad was when you didn't have a clue, you know? You phone up and say, "When's it coming?" "Well, I don't know." You know, but all that's now pretty much gone. We're not seeing that anymore. So no, I'm quite, quite pleased with all that. You're not even crossing your fingers under the table, so we'll take that as a vote of confidence. Great! Excellent. Well, you know, thanks very much to our audience for a wide range of interesting questions. A quick reminder that not only this deck, but ultimately, the recording and a recent research report out from Mike Tyrrell at Equity Development is available on our site, will be available on our site and on the Cohort website soon. Thank you very much to our presenters, and we wish you all the best for the H2 and the many years where you have forward visibility of orders. May it all turn into cash. Thank you, Andy. Thank you.