Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Elementis 2022 interim results presentation. My name is Nadia, and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Paul Waterman, CEO of Elementis, to begin. Paul, please go ahead. Good morning and welcome to the Elementis 2022 interim results call. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. In terms of the agenda, I'll start with highlights and business segment performance. Ralph will review the group financials, and then I'll take you through the outlook and priorities. Following this, we will take your questions. On slide five, the key messages for this morning are straightforward. Overall, our financial performance was much improved, driven by strong performance in Coatings and Personal Care. As we expected, performance was weak in Talc, with underlying strategic progress more than offset by challenging market conditions. Cost inflation is a big challenge, but we have responded quickly with successful pricing actions that reflect the quality of our business. Our performance improvement has driven a reduction in leverage from 3.0x to 2.4x net debt to EBITDA, and we're focused on making further progress in the second half. Looking forward, while we are mindful of the developing macroeconomic environment, we see our full year performance coming in towards the top end of market expectations. Finally, you should anticipate an update on our Chromium strategic review around year-end. I'll start with safety on slide six. At Elementis, we're absolutely focused on putting the health and safety of our employees first. In the first half, there were four recordable injuries, two lost time accidents, and no reportable spills. This was an improvement versus prior year, but not the zero injuries goal that we are targeting. That said, we reached some notable milestones in the first half. 83% of our sites work safely with no recordable injuries, and our new plant in India reached over 1 million worker hours of injury-free construction, a great achievement. To drive further improvement, we'll continue to invest in training our people and maintaining our assets. Recent initiatives included our second Global Safety Week campaign involving all Elementis staff, focused on promoting safety awareness to strengthen our safety culture and support our path to zero injuries. Turning to our headline financial performance. In the first half, we saw a strong performance despite a challenging backdrop. Sales rose 6% to $478 million, driven by new business success, improved mix, and pricing actions. Operating profit increased 21% to $66 million, with underlying revenue growth more than offsetting cost inflation, driving a margin improvement from 12.0% to 13.7%. Earnings per share rose 29% to $0.071 per share. Leverage reduced from 3.0x to 2.4x, driven by higher earnings and a $22 million reduction in net debt. Turning to the supply side on slide eight, there are three key challenges in the first half. First, raw material and energy supplies continue to be interrupted and often more expensive, resulting in significant cost increases. In response, we found alternative suppliers rapidly qualifying more than 10 in the first half. We've also implemented hedging strategies and, where necessary, implemented price increases. Second, due to port congestion and limited container availability, and of course, higher fuel costs, freight rates continue to increase, and moving raw materials and products has been more complex than usual. We responded by using air and overland transportation where possible, booking shipping far in advance, and implementing surcharges. Third, tight labor markets and continued lockdowns in China have challenged our global supply chain. Productivity investments to automate our plants, the use of temporary labor, and the flexible use of our production assets have optimized our operational performance. Overall, our global supply chain responded well, and I'm pleased with the reliability of supply we have been able to provide customers. Nonetheless, these challenges are not going away, and we will need to stay focused on overcoming them. Turning to slide nine. We have continued to implement our innovation, growth, and efficiency strategy. On innovation, we launched 10 new products in areas such as Industrial Coatings and skincare. New products accounted for 14% of sales in the first half, compared to 13% in the prior year. We're on track to reach our target of 17% by 2025. Our technical service team has also been key to ensure continuity of supply to our customers, rapidly qualifying alternative raw materials and supporting multiple production process changes. In addition, we've continued our open innovation efforts, launching several products with our partner, Next Level. In terms of growth, we closed $36 million of new business driven by wins across Coatings, Talc, and Personal Care, and putting us well on track for over $50 million of new business this year. Overall, our Coatings business delivered record operating margins of 21% that supported 37% earnings growth. This performance was driven by innovation-led market share gains in Decorative Coatings, where our customers have particularly valued our product performance. We grew 32% in this space. Personal care revenue was up 23%, with strong growth across all major categories and geographies, along with encouraging momentum in our strategic focus areas of Asia and skincare. On efficiency, we continued to make progress. The ramp-up of our new AP Actives plant in India remains on schedule. This, combined with further progress from our continuous improvement team, mean we are on track for $10 million of cost savings by 2023. Finally, while we've built some short-term inventory to ensure security of supply and to support our growth, we're making good progress on our ambition for $10 million of working capital savings by 2023. Now let's look at the performance of our businesses by segment. Starting with Personal Care on slide 11, revenue rose 23%, driven by strong growth in Cosmetics and AP Actives as consumer activity normalized and we executed well on our strategic priorities. Adjusted operating profit rose 42% to $26 million, with higher volumes and improved product mix driving margins to just under 25%. Looking at Personal Care market demand in more detail on slide 12. COVID-19 had a significant impact on our business as people work from home, traveled less, and had more limited social interactions. In the first half of 2022, I'm pleased to report activity continues to normalize. In Europe, one of our key regions, accounting for approximately 40% of revenue, retail sales of Cosmetics and antiperspirant deodorants are pretty much back to pre-COVID levels. However, as you can see from the graph, when pricing is excluded, market volumes are still slightly below 2019 levels, so there's some recovery left. Turning to slide 13, we've continued to make strategic progress. In skincare, our goal is to deliver $10 million of incremental sales over the medium term. In the first half, revenue grew 23%, driven by recent new product launches. Our new business pipeline is very healthy at $15 million. In India, the ramp-up of our new AP Actives plant is progressing as planned, with full production expected towards the end of Q3. Once complete, this will create the most advantaged and resilient AP Actives supply chain in the world, while also offering better access to faster-growing Asian markets. On innovation, recent new product launches supporting critical performance attributes are gaining traction. In Asia, we grew revenue 18% in the first half, a good result considering that China was in lockdown for an extended period. To continue to drive growth, we've invested in our capabilities. New hectorite gels that comply with JSQI regulations in Japan open a significant market for our business. We've made further investment in our sales teams with several hires in India. Our technical sales and marketing headcount of 15 in the region is nearly 3 x the level of 2020 and will continue to further increase over time. To expand a little on skincare, as many of you know, the traditional focus of our Personal Care business has been oil-based Colour Cosmetics, such as lipstick, mascara, and foundations. Hectorite clay, our key raw material, is also well suited for use in water-based applications such as skincare. To grow our presence in skincare, we've launched eight new products since 2019 across two ranges, BENTONE HYDROCLAY and BENTONE LUXE. These clay-based products are the highest quality and purity. Their uniqueness lies in their ability not only to thicken water, but in the texture they impart during and after application. Being cold processable, they significantly reduce our customers' energy costs, and they offer high levels of formulation flexibility. Finally, they are natural or naturally derived, which is a very important advantage. These market-leading attributes mean that since 2019, and despite customer innovation slowing during the pandemic, we've rapidly grown our skincare presence and are making very good progress against our medium-term target of $10 million of incremental sales. Turning to Coatings on slide 15, sales increased 9% on a constant currency basis to $209 million, with volume weakness in China offset by $17 million of new business wins, successful pricing actions, and an improved product mix. Coatings adjusted operating profit rose 37% to $44 million, with margins reaching a record level of 21% as revenue growth more than offset input cost inflation. On slide 16, some additional detail on our performance. By region, performance was strongest in North America, which rose 47%, linked to notable new business success for our premium decorative rheology modifiers. In Decorative Coatings, we grew 32%, clearly outpacing the market, supported by our differentiated innovation-led product offering and reliability of supplies to customers. This innovation focus and reliability of supply also drove 45% growth at our global key accounts. I'll come back to this in a minute. While we grew strongly in the Americas and Europe, Asia declined 27%. China, which accounts for approximately 70% of our sales in the region, was the primary weak spot due to COVID-19 lockdowns and weak industrial activity. Outside of China, we saw good progress in markets such as Vietnam, India, and Thailand. Taking a step back and looking at performance since 2019, the Coatings team have made great progress improving the business, driven by several factors. First, we've accelerated innovation and improved product quality. In the first half of 2022, we launched four new products across key focus areas of waterborne industrial additives and high-performance adhesives and sealants. This is a continuation of a multi-year effort. Since 2019, we've launched 27 new Coatings products. Second, new business momentum continued to build. We generated $17 million in the first half, driven by our high margin growth platforms, which grew 23%. Since 2019, we've generated $70 million of new business. Third, we're investing to support future growth. In the first half, we tripled our low temperature organic THIXATROL production capacity in Taiwan. We've debottlenecked NiSAT production at our new Martinsville facility, increasing capacity by 30%. In addition, by year-end, we will have doubled NiSAT capacity at our Livingston, Scotland facility. These actions will support further Decorative Coatings growth. Finally, our global key account management program is another crucial building block of our success. Established in early 2017, this structure enables Elementis to drive innovation and strengthen relationships at our most important customers. Today, we have 15 joint development projects running, roughly 3 x the level of 2019. This partnership mentality and innovation focus, combined with our reliability of supply, enables us to grow faster with the biggest coatings companies in the world. In the first half, we grew revenue 45%. Very encouraging first half progress in Coatings, driven by steady ongoing strategic progress, and there's more to come. Moving on to Talc on slide 19. While sales declined by $4 million to $73 million, on a constant currency basis, sales rose 4% with successful pricing actions and $8 million of new business wins, offsetting expected market volume related weakness in automotive and paper applications. While pricing actions offset variable cost inflation, adjusted operating profit declined from $8 million to $3 million, with margins impacted by lower volumes. On slide 20, looking at Talc performance in more detail, there were demand challenges in the first half for this predominantly European business. First, as a result of semiconductor shortages and in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, European automotive production declined around 12%. This takes the total decline in unit auto production to approximately 30% since 2018. For Talc, automotive represents approximately 30% of total sales, so this was a tough backdrop. Second, paper represents 8% of sales, and in the first half, volumes were down 48% due to a strike at our main customer in Finland. Finally, on energy. Talc is a European-based business with processing facilities in Finland and the Netherlands that use mainly electricity. While we've responded with price increases that offset variable cost inflation, electricity inflation will continue to be a significant challenge for the business. For the second half, we see an improved level of margins and earnings. While we do not expect European auto to recover this year, we will benefit from the restart of production at our key paper customer, the timing of technical ceramics orders, an additional $8 million of new business wins, and the positive impact of implemented price increases. Taking a step back, the core fundamentals of the Talc business remain strong. We're the number two player in a global niche market with only three players of scale. We have a fully integrated value chain with global reach, starting with long life Talc deposits in Finland through to unique processing and formulation capabilities, supported by quality and technical service that's highly valued by our customers. Talc follows the performance additive logic. It represents a small percentage of formulation cost, but adds critical performance attributes and is value priced by segment, which in combination with high service levels, generates strong customer loyalty. Looking forward, the growth opportunities for the business are unchanged. There remains significant opportunity to grow in both Asia and the Americas, which currently represent under 20% of revenue. We also expect to continue growing market share in high-value industrial applications such as Coatings, long life plastics, technical ceramics, and the emerging barrier coatings segment for recyclable paper packaging. We're on track to exceed our target of $20 million-$25 million of revenue synergies by 2023, with $21 million of synergies already delivered across Talc and Coatings. Moving to Chromium on slide 22. Revenue rose 1% to $91 million, with strong pricing momentum largely offset by reduced production volumes linked to unplanned maintenance required at our Castle Hayne site. As a result, operating margins were 4.6%, modestly down in the prior year period. Finally, with regard to the strategic review we announced in April, we expect to provide you with an update around the year-end. Before moving on, it's worth expanding a bit on the business dynamics. First, while underlying demand in the market remains strong, particularly as high margin areas such as aerospace start to recover, our production volumes were impacted by the unplanned maintenance. Since June, production rates have recovered, so we anticipate an improved performance in the second half. Higher market demand, combined with supply chain challenges at several of our customers, has pushed global utilization levels up from 85% in 2021 to around 90% at present. As a result, market prices have continued to sequentially increase and the market fundamentals are encouraging. However, a word of caution on raw materials. Key raw material costs on chrome ore and sulfuric acid continued to increase. While we are pricing accordingly, this is a dynamic situation, and given the contract structure of a material percentage of our business, there will be some time lag impact. I'll now hand over to Ralph to cover the financials. Thanks very much, Paul, and good morning, everyone. Turning to group revenue on slide 25, revenue rose 6% on a reported basis. Excluding the impact of currency headwinds as a result of the strength of the dollar versus the euro and RMB, constant currency growth was 9%. While volumes declined 11%, this was focused on a few key areas. Over half the volume decline was due to Coatings China, while the Talc business saw volumes hit by weak European auto production and the shutdown of a major customer in paper. Paul's just been speaking of the issues in Chromium supply. These factors were partially offset by $36 million of new business wins. Revenue grew 15% due to pricing, as we successfully responded to managing surging unit cost inflation. Mix rose 5% due to the impact of recent new product launches and growth in the highest quality parts of our product portfolio. Looking at group adjusted operating profit on slide 26, this rose by 21% on a reported basis and 25% on an underlying basis, with input cost increases more than offset by pricing actions. Let's take a look at cost and pricing in a bit more detail. In 2022, prices have continued to move up across every major input cost, from packaging to energy and raw materials. As a result, we're seeing approximately 20% unit cost inflation across our circa $400 million annual spend on raw materials, energy, and logistics. To manage this, we took several steps. Across disrupted supply chains, we rapidly qualified alternative suppliers. This typically takes some time, given we provide customers with very specific product formulations. However, where it has been possible, our process engineers and technical teams have acted with speed. Second, we've increased prices. Such significant price increases are crucial for our performance, and importantly, they've been accepted without any material business losses. Moving into the second half, we will keep pricing under review, and if warranted, we'll take further action. Although we are seeing some deep pockets of inflation, we continue to make progress towards our $10 million of savings targeted for 2023. The new AP Actives plant in India is a key pillar of these savings and is on track for full start up in late Q3 this year. This plant will help to create a lower fixed cost base and optimized tariffs on key raw materials. Our team of global process engineers are also driving our continuous improvement program. In the first half, they completed 45 projects, including the debottlenecking of production in our new Martinsville plant and installation of enhanced water sensors in Talc. The team have another 75 projects in the pipeline over the next 12 months, and these activities are anticipated to deliver $3 million of savings in 2022. Finally, in Procurement, we increased our strategic purchasing, better leveraging our scope and scale, and revisited pockets of spend where it's cheaper to make than buy. Turning to cash flow, there are a few points to highlight. On working capital, we saw an outflow in line with our typical seasonality and also revenue growth. The size of the outflow of $49 million is also reflective of our decision to secure several key raw materials and ensure continuity of supply to our customers. In the second half, we anticipate a more normalized working capital profile. Capital expenditure was $22 million, and our guidance for the full year remains $50 million-$55 million. Tax-related payments declined on the prior period from $24 million to $11 million. Last year saw the $20 million impact of the EU state aid case. U.K. lost its appeal to the EU in June this year, but has subsequently stated it will appeal. Bottom line, while we're still confident of getting the $20 million back, we don't think it will happen anytime soon. Net cash flow in the period was $8 million, resulting in a net debt of $393 million and a leverage ratio of 2.4x. Taking a step back on leverage, we've made some significant progress on debt reduction since 2019, taking it from $509 million to $393 million today. We remain committed and focused on moving further and faster and getting to our medium-term target of 1.5x. Fundamentally, Elementis is a strongly cash generative business, and we expect further debt reduction in the second half, driven by earnings delivery and working capital improvement. On the topic of debt, I also want to flag on slide 31 the recent successful refinancing of our term loan, with maturity extended from 2023 to 2026, plus an additional further year extension if needed. Our $375 million revolving credit facility is unchanged, and our blended cash cost of interest remains around 4%. Finally, a word to reaffirm our capital allocation priorities. First, we will invest organically to grow our business. Capital expenditure will be approximately 6% of sales, and we're focused on growth and productivity opportunities. Second, debt reduction continues to be a major priority. We see a clear path to get to under 1.5x leverage while simultaneously investing in growth. Third, on shareholder returns, we suspended dividend payments during 2020, given the COVID related demand uncertainties. We recognize the value of dividends to our shareholders and intend to reinstate payments when further progress has been made on reducing financial leverage from its current position. I will now hand back to Paul to wrap up. Thanks, Ralph. I'll finish with a few comments on strategic priorities before turning to our 2022 outlook. First, as you can see on the slide, there's tremendous self-help that comes with delivering on our innovation, growth, and efficiency strategy. Our aim is to launch 20 new products annually, staying focused on helping to overcome our customers biggest performance challenges. This level of innovation will support further growth at our global key accounts and support our ambition of 17% of revenue coming from new products by 2025. On growth, our aim is to secure $50 million of new business each year across our strategic growth areas in Coatings, Personal Care, and Talc. This progress will be supported by capacity expansion of high value products, accelerating distribution in Asia, and the globalization of our Talc business. Finally, we want to ensure our organization continues to become more efficient and more agile. Our key focus areas are completing the ramp up of our new India plant, further leveraging our continuous improvement capability for incremental costs and working capital savings, and strengthening and simplifying our digital footprint. Turning to our outlook for the rest of 2022. First, in an unpredictable, fast changing world, it's incredibly important that we continue to remain laser focused on the quality of our execution. What we refer to as controlling what we can control. Second, we expect the global supply chain environment will remain challenging and that higher levels of inflation will continue beyond 2022. As we've demonstrated in the first half, we'll continue to be flexible, to be focused on cost management, and to take timely pricing actions to defend our margins. Finally, while we're mindful of emerging global economic risks, we're confident that with steady demand, our full year performance will be towards the top end of consensus expectations, and we will make further progress reducing debt and leverage. With that said, Ralph and I'd be happy to take your questions. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you choose to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from Nicola Tang of BNP Paribas Exane. Nicola, please go ahead. Your line is open. Hi. Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. The first was on the Coating side. It looks like you've had very strong performance in terms of margins, record high margins, it looks like when I look at that, you know, sequential annual chart. Could you talk a little bit about how sustainable you think this is? It sounds like, you know, some of those drivers are initiatives you've been putting in place for the next few years. But could you perhaps talk about how we should think about the second half and then beyond? The second question was on pricing more generally. When I look at that 15% pricing, you mentioned also that you were being proactive in implementing surcharges in areas like logistics. Could you just sort of clarify, I guess, how much of that pricing might be linked to sort of surcharges? If, or when we see eventually a normalization in terms of the raw material costs or input costs, how much of this price do you expect to hold on to going forward? Thanks. Thanks, Nicola. I think I'll take a shot at first question, Ralph, maybe you can talk to the second, and maybe we could compete for the third. I think in terms of how sustainable the 21% Coatings margins are, I mean, look, as we tried to say in the presentation, you know, where we've come to is a function of a whole lot of work that's been going on over the past three years. You know, high grading the product portfolio, great focus on higher margin new business, against our growth platforms and getting cost efficiency, you know, running the business smarter. I would say though that that's probably a bit of a high watermark in the first half of 21%. I think in the second half, you know, we see some seasonality. The business generally splits somewhat weaker in the second half. Obviously, in our minds, there's some questions around how demand will develop, you know, certainly Americas and Europe, but also China is really an uncertainty that's only grown over time. We think probably high teens% in the second half. I think looking forward 2023 into the intermediate term, you know, the strategy's working very well. We're not gonna slow down. You know, the new products keep coming, the new business keeps coming. You know, right now our growth platforms are 33% of our revenues in Coatings and, you know, we expect in the next 4-5 years, they'll exceed 40%. The margin structure, I think of the Coatings business continues to improve. Obviously we'll, you'll continue to be driving efficiency, et cetera. To be around 20% in Coatings is our ambition, frankly, whatever the weather, I think that's where we'd wanna go. Ralph, you want to talk the pricing question? Hi, Nicola. I mean, most of the 15% price increases were actually price increases. They do include some surcharges, but the vast majority were price increases, which we do expect to stay. On surcharges, quite a bit of that was in the Talc business, where we have about 40% of our costs are in energy and logistics, and they've seen very sharp upticks. We've taken price rises in Talc in the fourth quarter of last year, the first quarter this year and the second quarter this year. That's a blend of both price rises and surcharges. You know, the large part of the price increase data you see there is really straightforward price increases. Yeah. I think on the third question around ability to hold price increases. I mean, if you look at our portfolio, you have to sort of put Chromium to the side. It always has quite a bit more pricing volatility. But the specialty businesses, you know, these are highly customized products. You know, small percentage of cost, very important to product performance, and generally get formulated in over quite a good period of time. That gives us, I think, more leverage on ability to hold pricing. The more innovative your portfolio is, obviously the better leverage you have. I think the only slight caveat is when there are substantial cost changes that happen in a really short amount of time, you're in a little bit of a different conversation than, you know, if costs come off over, you know, 2, 3 years, that kind of thing, so. Overall, I feel, you know, reasonably optimistic in our ability to hold pricing. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Sebastian Bray of Berenberg. Sebastian, please go ahead. Your line is open. Hello, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Could I just start with a few technical ones? Given the refinancing of the capital structure undertaken with the term loan, what is the change in the annual interest rate guidance, annual interest cost guidance, I should say? Does it go up by about $3 million-$4 million? Are we talking now somewhere in the mid thirties? I'll pause there. Yeah. Hi, Sebastian. I mean, I think our guidance remains at the moment sort of $20 million-$25 million of interest expense. But just a word on the refinancing. Just to be clear that the RCF stays exactly the same. The term loan that we've gone for $300 million, we've got some hedging in place on that in terms of interest expense, both in terms of the euro component of it and the US dollar component. We've got some optionality on enhancing that interest cover next year as well, given some of the uncertainties around the balance sheet. I think we're reasonably confident that the cash cost of interest expense will be $20-$25. We do have some other interest expense or finance cost items, about $3 million, which are to do with things like provision unwind on environmental provisions. That's understood. Thank you. Can I ask, where do we stand at the moment in terms of profitability of the deodorant business? How do we compare relative to the time when the business was acquired in 2018? Yeah, Sebastian. I mean, it's a highly integrated business these days. I mean, in the sense that, you know, our top customers are pretty much all the same. AP Actives has significantly increased our leverage, frankly, in selling traditional hectorite into this application as well as in Cosmetics. We don't really break it out. I would say we're pretty happy with the profitability at this point. The recovery of the whole deodorants category has been quite nice actually this year. There's a tremendous amount of innovation that we're bringing to the category, and that's manifesting itself in an awful lot of new product sales to top customers. The other thing that we have going, obviously, is as I talked, we talked about in the presentation, the India plant coming online truly creates massive leverage for us in terms of lowest cost producer in the world and obviously ability to grow. We're very pleased actually with how it's performing. That's great. The split between price and mix and Personal Care, am I right in saying that most of the 23% growth was price or? Ralph, if you can pull the number. I would say from a volumetric standpoint, we were up, you know, mid-single digits%. There certainly was pricing actions that had to be taken. You know, we kind of look at the amount of new products we're launching. We did $8 million of new business. I think as I pointed out in the presentation, I mean, the growth, the key strategic areas of skincare in Asia, you know, are continuing to progress really, really well. The quality of the Personal Care business gets better and better over time. That's understood. Sorry, last one. Why not turn on the Talc machine? Why write it off of the bioleaching facility? Yeah, Ralph? Yeah. Sebastian, we currently do produce nickel concentrate as a by-product of Talc. The previous owners, they installed some nickel bioleaching equipment to try and get some more nickel, but it never really got started up. We certainly didn't pay top dollar for that asset. It had about $23 million of book value. Look, when we were reviewing this asset in detail in the first half, we decided that compared to the other opportunities we've got, it just didn't clear the bar in terms of sort of safety and operational risks and also in terms of the resources required to keep the asset going well in the location it was in Finland. It would be a, you know, significant diversion of resources versus the opportunities to go elsewhere. On that basis, we decided not to sort of operate the plant and the kit and to write off the book value of it. Okay. That's great. Thank you for taking my questions. Thanks, Sebastian. Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Scott of UBS. Andrew, please go ahead. Your line is open. Yeah. Morning, Paul, morning, Ralph. Couple questions, please. Good morning, Andrew. First one was on Personal Care. What's your thinking on second half cost base for the business? I'm trying to understand whether the India ramp temporarily is an increase in costs, as you bring that depreciation, et cetera, onto the P&L or whether it's fairly neutral overall. Also, any comment on raw material costs for that business as well for the second half? That's the first question. Second one is on Chromium, on the process. Obviously you said you expect an update by the calendar year end. Is there anything else you can say at this juncture? You know, the options are, I guess, a sale or no sale, but is there anything you can say regarding levels of interest? Thank you. Yeah. Hey, Andrew. To the questions, I guess starting with Personal Care. You know, we don't see any big costs to bringing India online, as they impact second half. You know, there's a bit of money to get it up, but that's been kind of in the P&L for a while. We've been working on this plan for a couple years. We don't see any huge changes in the cost base expected. In terms of, I think the other part of the question was around raw material. I think it was AP Actives, right? That's what I heard, and anyway, we're pretty much on top of our raw material inputs. We haven't seen big changes, for example, in aluminum costs. You know, we don't feel like there's any issues. That's a very specific answer, though. As you back away and you look at inflation across the board, you know, labor and logistics and everything else, you know, we think we're gonna continue to experience inflation for sure. On aluminum, that's pretty well managed. As far as the Chromium strategic review, I mean, what I could say is we're, you know, we're hard at work, doing everything that we need to do to progress this, you know, as quickly as we can. You know, I feel confident in saying we'll be able to give an update, near the end of the year. You know, beyond that, not a lot more I could say really. Okay, great. Thank you, both. Thanks, Andrew. Thank you. Our next question comes from Chetan Udeshi of JP Morgan. Chetan, please go ahead. Your line is open. Yeah. Hi. Thanks. Morning. A few questions. First, if I look at Chromium earnings, I'm curious, just to get a sense of, the run rate there, because I would have thought out of the $4 million, all of that $4 million earnings starting Q2 given, the production, outage was in Q1. Is it fair to assume $4 million per quarter, even slightly more as a good sort of run rate as we think about the normalized earnings of this business, in this environment? The second question was on Coatings. We've seen, significant shortages, across the Coating space, and I'm curious if Elementis has actually, benefited from that in terms of maybe better availability versus, the competing products. If that's the case, is there a risk that if the availability of the other products also start to improve some of the business that you might have won start to get transferred again to other players? Thanks, Chetan. I'll start on one and pass to Ralph. I mean, I think the thing that I just wanna make clear in that question, though, is we didn't have an outage. You weren't down 100%. What we were producing at rates about 75%-80% of what we could fully produce. Obviously, volumetrically that really held us back. Obviously getting back to normal rates, you know, going into second half, it should be a positive. Ralph, I'll have you weigh in on this. I mean, clearly we have this, you know, volume hit as a result of the sort of 80% utilization in the first half, you know, about 13% sort of volume impact. You know, counterbalanced by some pricing improvements, which has meant that the net result is pretty similar. Looking ahead to the second half, I think the pricing is clearly a positive as industry utilization improves and has probably got a kickback. So that's a plus. One thing I would point out, though, as well, Chetan, is that you know, inflationary levels in terms of our input costs, chrome ore is up something like 30% since the start of 2022. That's our biggest raw material. Soda ash has also been up because it's more volatile. Our energy costs in the U.S., even though globally very competitive energy costs in for Chromium versus other players, you know, those costs are up very significantly as well. We're managing with price, but we have got these headwinds on input costs as well. That said, I think the dynamics overall in Chromium are in positive sort of season at the moment. Yeah. Chetan, on the Coatings question, you know, have we benefited from competitor outages? I mean, you know, we've been scrambling ourselves, frankly, to make sure that we can keep our customers, you know, in product. You know, overall, I think we've done a pretty good job. I do think there are a couple of instances where we have gained business because competitors didn't do a good job, and we're gonna keep that business. We feel pretty confident about that. Ability to supply is really important for sure, but also, you know, the performance of the products, frankly, you know, and the level of innovation that's coming through. It's never just one variable. The other thing about this question that's actually really interesting is, you know, in 2019, before the pandemic, if you wanted to talk to customers about resiliency of supply, you know, it's like yawns. Today, they're incredibly interested. The fact that we, you know, can make Coatings products, you know, in multiple plants across three regions. The fact that we'll be the only AP Actives producer very soon with two great locations in the world. These things matter an awful lot to customers today, and it is a good leverage point. This notion that you have one plant that supplies the world, I think is pretty terrifying to a lot of customers today. I'm sorry about that. We're in a bit of a loud board room. Other questions? Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads now. Our last question at the moment comes from Kevin Fogarty of Numis. Kevin, please go ahead. Your line is open. Hey, Kevin. Hi. Thank you very much. Hi. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. If I could have two, please. One, clearly, you know, it's been a very sort of inflationary environment and just in terms of what you sort of said about inflation continuing into sort of next year, I just sort of flipping that around, are there any areas where you think kind of inflation, raw material inflation might be peaking at all? You know, is there any sort of benefit there, and what's the implications the overall inflation environment might have for pricing in H2? And just secondly, you provided a bit of a, I guess, outlook for Chromium and the backdrop there in the second half of the year. I guess in Coatings and Personal Care, could you sort of share anything you're seeing there in terms of, you know, customer behavior, likely demand levels, et cetera? Just keeping in mind, I guess, there might have been some element of restocking in H1 of this year. Is there any further granularity you can provide on those two points would be great. Yeah. Thanks, Kevin. I'll start on one and, Ralph, you can weigh in. You know, obviously there are some elements of inflation that, you know, don't seem to be peaking. You know, the labor costs, for example, that we see, when we talk about supply chain challenges, you know, raw material availability. I think when you logistics, these energy costs, it's very difficult for us to imagine that this is gonna all get back to where it was, you know, the sort of 2%, 2.5% a year kind of timeframe. It just doesn't feel, you know what I mean, like a smart assumption. Mm-hmm. Kevin, the truth is, there's many areas where we don't know. We see different price changes for different reasons. We try to do a really good job of frankly tracking what's going on, you know, by business across every one of our elements, and then taking timely decisions about, you know, about pricing actions when we need to. It has really been a thrill ride, actually, in the first half in terms of, you know, the kind of inflation that we've seen. We're just gonna have to continue to monitor it. Mm-hmm One could argue a really good recession can do a lot to alleviate inflation, but I'm no economist, so I you know, I really don't know. Ralph, anything you wanna add to that? No. I made my comment about second half, Kevin. I mean, in Coatings, we did achieve some really very strong results in North America in Coatings, up 4 7%. Th at was a combination of, you know, really quite a favorable market, but also some really good developments with our key accounts, new business wins there. I think, you know, with the market potentially softening a little bit in North America, I think particularly construction led, we still should have some momentum from the new business that we've won there. I think in Europe, you know, there are some early signs, looking at, you know, the forward sort of sales patterns, that some of the weakness in European Deco and Construction adhesives is having an impact. I would also say that it's not really a cliff edge at the moment. We've seen a fairly consistent pattern of sales, but we're sort of perhaps seeing some signs of weakness overall. China is a harder one to call. You know, very significant impact from COVID in China in the first half. You know, around about 30% of our business comes from Asia, which is predominantly China. Right We'll just wait and see how that develops. Great. That's really helpful, and that's great. Any comments on Personal Care? You know, obviously very strong kind of H1, just in terms of that sort of element of kind of perhaps kind of restocking and outlook into the second half. Yeah. Yeah, Kevin. You know, as we said a little earlier, there is certainly some seasonality, and second half tends to be somewhat weaker. In the Personal Care business, we definitely saw some restocking in the first half, you know, to the tune of $3 million-$4 million of revenue, you know, that we don't think will come back. You know, look, depending upon the health of the consumer, you know, and what they're willing to spend, I think that we have to kinda keep our eyes on that. I agree with everything Ralph said on Coatings. I have to say, we are watching China kind of closely. Are they going to move out of this pandemic posture they're in? The other story that I think is really we're keeping an eye on is housing. Housing is really important in China, and it just feels like it's a little sick. You know, that influences how we think about second half as well in COVID. Got it. it. Great. Really helpful. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Kevin. Thank you. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads now. We have a follow-up from Andrew Scott of UBS. Andrew, please go ahead. Your line is open. Yeah, very quick follow-up. On electricity prices in Europe, the exposure for you is mainly Talc. Is that correct, or are there other operations to think about? Andrew, the exposure is mainly Talc in Europe. Between electricity and gas, this year we're spending about $20 million. It is predominantly electricity. We've, you know, we're able to do some hedging against 2022 cost inputs for most of it. We're kind of watching 2023 and, you know, it's continuing to go north. You know, it's kinda pretty dynamic situation. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. Thank you. We currently have no further questions, so I'll hand the call back over to James Curran for any closing remarks. Super. Thanks a lot to everyone for joining the interim results call this morning. If you have any further questions or follow up, please do reach out via the usual channels. Thanks a lot.