Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to the Empiric Student Property PLC Half Year Results 2020. My name is Maxine, and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Duncan Garrood, Chief Executive Officer, to begin. Duncan, please go ahead when you're ready. Good morning, thank you for joining us today for our interim results presentation. I'm here this morning with our CFO and COO, Lynne Fennah. Our agenda, shown on slide three, is as follows. I'll give a short introduction. Lynne will take you through the financial performance. After that, I'll talk in more detail about the broader progress at Empiric. We'll open up for questions. Let me start with the headlines on slide four. Academic year 2021 has been one of significant challenge. We started the year with occupancy of 70%, which benchmarked well against our peers but is below normal levels. Despite some fluctuations, it's remained at around 65% over the year. Throughout the pandemic, we've taken a supportive approach to our student situation, granting later check-ins, deferments, cost-free cancellations, and refunds. Online reviews suggest that this has helped enhance our brand reputation and drive future customer acquisition. With occupancy below normal levels, we've worked hard to manage costs, cash, and liquidity. Despite the challenges presented by COVID, we're also making good progress on our key priorities. In particular, we've made our first asset disposals and begun a pilot refurbishment program. We've completed our leadership team with the addition of a new sales and marketing director, who started in June, and we're now working on refreshing our brand proposition. Our new revenue management system is in place and is working well. We've made good progress on our ESG roadmap. We'll share more details on this with you today. Finally, we're pleased to announce that we plan to resume dividend payments in the fourth quarter with a payment of GBP 0.025. This comprises the PID distribution requirement of GBP 0.01 per share for 2019 and GBP 0.015 per share for 2020. Lynne will give you more detail on dividends later. Before I hand over to Lynne, I'd like to talk about our expectations on occupancy for academic year 2021-2022. Slide five, shows the latest data from UCAS as of the 30th of June. Student applications for academic year 2021-2022 have grown 4%, and university offers have increased 3% year-on-year. UCAS predicts that these increases will see a record number of students starting university in the autumn. It's encouraging to see applications from the U.K. up 7% and non-EU international students up 14%. The Education Secretary has recently announced the end of restrictions on face-to-face teaching, and almost all universities are now planning a blended approach to learning with a mix of face-to-face teaching and online lectures. In other words, they expect students to attend in person next term, which is encouraging. Slide six, shows the up-to-date situation on our revenue occupancy, which we measure as a% of gross annual revenue. Today, we are 70% booked for the forthcoming academic year 2021-2022, shown here in orange, which compares to 85% at the same time for 2019-2020 pre-pandemic, the black line, and benchmarks favorably with similar businesses. In a nutshell, the booking pattern is similar to academic year 2019-2020, the last fully booked year, but several weeks later, a pattern that is reported throughout the sector. The lateness in bookings is mostly caused by some international students not yet committing to their plans. As a result, we currently have a greater proportion of U.K. students in our mix. They now represent 47% of bookings, compared to about one-third pre-pandemic. The remainder are international students, split equally between Chinese and other nationalities. In recent weeks, an increasing number of bookings have come from international students currently outside the U.K. who typically rent our highest quality stock. The government has indicated it will treat them in the same way as domestic residents, which means all students should be able to travel to the U.K. regardless of country of origin, although relevant quarantine procedures will still apply. We have put in place a comprehensive quarantine package for students coming from other countries and those on the amber list, offering two free weeks of accommodation, as well as providing food, laundry services, and making arrangements for testing so that they're able to self-isolate without any difficulties. In short, all the current indications give us cautious optimism that occupancy levels will grow in the coming weeks. With that, I'd now like to hand over to Lynne to take us through the financial performance. Thank you, Duncan, and good morning, everyone. As you'd expect, our performance continues to be impacted by COVID-19. However, we remain encouraged by the resilience of the business, which is underpinned by the operational transformation we've undergone over the past three years. Let's start with the headlines on slide eight. Despite occupancy rates to the lower than normal, the business continues to be cash generative, and we are reporting revenue today of GBP 25.9 million, with a gross margin of 58%, and administration costs of GBP 5.3 million, in line with guidance. Adjusted earnings decreased to GBP 3.5 million, which translates into adjusted basic earnings per share of GBP 0.6p. Our portfolio valuation has remained stable since last year on a like-for-like basis. EPRA net tangible asset value per share was up 1% to GBP 106.2p. Total accounting return, the sum of income and capital growth, was 1.1% due to the impact of the pandemic on both revenue and valuation. Turning now to the income statement on slide nine. Revenue decreased to GBP 25.9 million, as occupancy for the first half was 65% compared to 84% for the same period in 2020. Like-for-like rental growth for academic year 2021 was 1.3%, down from 1.8% reported in March, as we prioritize occupancy levels over rental growth. Property expenses were up 3%, mainly driven by having to pay council tax on empty rooms as a result of lower occupancy levels. Gross margin decreased from 69% to 58% as a result of a GBP 8.1 million fall in revenue. During the period, we sold four assets with a net gain on disposal of GBP 1.7 million. I'll talk more about this later on. The net profit from a change in the fair value of investment properties was GBP 1.8 million. Net finance expense was GBP 6.2 million, slightly less than last year due to maintaining the RCF at a lower level and continued low interest rates. Taking all of this together, we are reporting a profit of GBP 7 million with basic earnings per share of GBP 0.012. Slide 10 shows a breakdown of the movement in our portfolio valuation since the end of 2020. Since the year-end, we have sold four assets for GBP 18.1 million above the book value shown here of GBP 16.4 million. After that disposal, the portfolio was valued at GBP 988.7 million. We spent just over GBP 2 million on capital expenditure and GBP 1.7 million on development expenditure during the year. In March, we reported a COVID-related reduction in the year-end portfolio valuation of GBP 21.4 million, mainly due to CBRE's assumption of 60% occupancy for the following nine months. At the end of June, there was a GBP 1.4 million move in our favor as CBRE reduced their COVID deduction to GBP 20 million. This includes, first, a deduction for the remaining three months of the academic year 2021, covering July to September, being the difference between a normal year's expected income and predicted income for this period. Second, a deduction for academic year 2021-2022, reflecting their assumption of lower levels of international students and income reductions ranging from 5%-30% for each building in our portfolio. The value of developments fell by GBP half a million in the first half, and positive movements include our operational assets, which increased in value by GBP 600,000, driven by improved rental growth amongst Super Prime assets and partially offset by a reduction in secondary assets. Our commercial portfolio, which comprises convenience stores and restaurants within our site, went up by GBP 400,000. Overall, net initial yield has slightly improved from 5.61% to 5.59% since the year-end. Turning now to look at the balance sheet on slide 11. As you've seen, the portfolio was valued at GBP 994 million. The cash holding was GBP 32 million compared to GBP 34 million at the prior year-end. Debt now stands at GBP 370 million after deducting loan arrangement fees down from GBP 385 million, and net asset value of the group was GBP 640 million compared to GBP 633 million. Looking at our debt position in more detail on slide 12. At the end of June, before deduction of loan arrangement fees, the group had committed investment debt facilities of GBP 420 million, of which GBP 375 million were drawn down. GBP 277 million of this debt is fixed and GBP 98 million is floating. The aggregate cost of debt was 2.9% with a weighted average term of 5.4 years, and the loan to value of the group was 34.5%, broadly in line with our 35% long-term target. As of the 31st of July, we had GBP 74.5 million of undrawn facilities and cash, and we currently have around GBP 45 million of unencumbered assets. As we have no refinancing requirements since November 2022 and have taken protective measures to preserve liquidity, we are well-placed to trade through until occupancy levels return to normal. I'd like to move on now to talk about progress on our continuous improvement initiatives on slide 13. I'll start with revenue management. Having brought facilities management in-house and put all our assets onto our own operating platform, the final part of our business transformation is to complete our new revenue management system. You'll recall that we started selling on our new platform for the academic year 2021, 2022 in November last year. The process for the collection of receivables is the final element currently being brought in-house. This will be completed by September and will become a centralized function within the finance team once our contract expires with a third-party provider in October. This system gives us direct control of our revenue management, enabling us to make price changes more efficiently and swiftly. It allows us to manage the relationship with our customers directly end to end. It makes debt collection easier and will maximize our treasury position, as there's no longer a delay receiving funds from the third-party provider. Last but not least, we're expected to deliver annualized cost savings of about GBP 1.5 million from September onwards. Having delivered the operational transformation, we now have direct control of our assets and are increasingly focused on sustainability, as we told you in March. Last November, we appointed an external ESG consultant to help us develop an ESG roadmap. We have also established an ESG committee at board level and set up three internal working groups to deliver ESG initiatives. Since we spoke in March, we have completed a benchmarking exercise and conducted interviews across a wide range of stakeholders, including investors, analysts, board members, customers, employees, suppliers, industry associations, and regulatory bodies. These interviews enabled us to validate four key themes we intend to focus on: health and safety, mental health and wellbeing, energy efficiency, and sustainable buildings. I'll talk about each one in turn on slide 14. Starting with health and safety. We have already delivered significant improvements in our approach to health and safety in recent years, and this continues to be our top priority. We aim to maintain our internal health and safety compliance ratings of more than 98% and our top quartile health and safety ranking in the annual National Student Housing Survey. Moving on to mental health and wellbeing. We have already put in place an emphasis on mental wellbeing during the pandemic, and we intend to build on this for the benefit of both our students and our colleagues. We plan to develop a sector-leading mental health training program for employees and to achieve the gold We Invest in Wellbeing accreditation. On energy and efficiency consumption, we are working on a roadmap to achieve net zero emissions, which will include reductions in energy and water consumption. To give you some idea of what we've already done in this area, our electricity costs have reduced as a result of renegotiating all of our supplier contracts. This year, all of our electricity contracts are renewable, including the use of solar, wind turbines, and biomass plants. Energy consumption is closely aligned with our fourth area of focus, sustainable properties. Here, we want to engage with our residents on initiatives to reduce energy consumption and waste at all of our sites. We also plan to increase on-site energy production by installing ground and air source heat pumps and solar panels. We intend to align all of our initiatives with an industry reporting standard, and in that process, we'll establish clear metrics by which our progress can be measured. We'll communicate these once they've been finalized. Let me move on now to the investments we are making in the business on slide 15. As we set out in March, we are now managing our portfolio more actively, and as we manage our properties in-house now, we are turning our focus to maintaining these assets in a sustainable way. With that in mind, I want to give you a high-level indication of our capital expenditure plans over the next five years. This breaks down into three categories. First, we will invest an estimated GBP 44 million on refurbishing our properties. We are targeting an IRR of 9%-11% for this refurbishment investment, which will only take place on a disciplined financial basis. Second, we are spending about GBP 4 million on green initiatives, which will reduce energy consumption costs. Third, we expect to spend approximately GBP 30 million on work to ensure our buildings comply with forthcoming changes in fire and safety legislation. The phasing of this expenditure will be in line with cash generated from our disposal program. We also expect to maintain our ongoing maintenance capital expenditure of about GBP 4 million per annum. Based on our portfolio management initiatives and the impact of the pandemic, we have updated our five-year plan and set out revised targets on slide 16. Our aim is to return to full occupancy as soon as it's possible to do so. Once we achieve occupancy levels in line with those before the pandemic, we expect total return to be in the range of 7%-9% and gross margin to be above 70%. On the dividend, as Duncan has said, we intend to reinstate payments in Q4 with a payment of GBP 0.025 to cover 2019 and 2020. In 2022, we plan to start paying a minimum of GBP 0.015 per annum, with a view to increasing this as occupancy levels normalize. Our policy will be progressive whilst also ensuring that dividends are paid on a fully covered basis. Turning now to look at the outlook for 2021 on slide 17. Trading conditions have been challenging, but we are starting to improve, and in the meantime, we continue to do all we can to maximize revenue and minimize operating costs. Current bookings for the academic year 2021, 2022 are 70% lower than in pre-COVID cycles, although we've seen a good uplift in sales more recently as restrictions have been lifted and universities have started to commit to in-person teaching next term. The vaccination program for those over the age of 18 is now advancing, and this gives us cautious optimism about a return to increasingly normal levels of occupancy, with demand supported by buoyant application levels for the forthcoming academic year. Depending on the status of international travel, we expect occupancy at the start of the academic year to be within the range of 75%-85%. However, the sales cycle is still likely to be significantly back-ended. On administration costs, we continue to expect these to be around GBP 11 million in FY 2021. We're pleased to resume dividend payments and intend to pay two and a half pence in Q4 this year, which includes the PID distribution requirement of GBP 0.01 per share for 2019 and one and a half pence per share for 2020. Thank you very much. I'll now hand back to Duncan. Thank you, Lynne. At our full year results presentation, I highlighted five key priorities for the business, shown here on slide 19. We've made progress on each of these, which I'll take you through, but today I will focus mainly on the first three. Slide 20 shows the portfolio segmentation we presented in March. Clearly, the number of assets in each segment will change as we continue to actively manage our portfolio, so these segments will fluctuate in size and value and indeed have already started to do so. Let me just remind you of the breakdown here. Segment A comprises properties we regard as core Hello Student sites. They're in good condition, properly configured in rooms and communal facilities, yielding our best results. We plan to grow this segment through refurbishment, standing asset acquisitions or developments, and to increase the density of clustered buildings. Segment B consists of sites which fundamentally meet the Hello Student criteria, but need investment in refurbishment or modest reconfiguration to command an improved rental yield. We're going to invest in these sites, assuming attractive Hello Student criteria, but need investment in refurbishment or modest reconfiguration to command an improved rental yield. We're going to invest in these sites, assuming attractive IRRs, on a site-by-site basis. Segments C are not core Hello Student sites, yet they have good commercial characteristics. There are two subcategories in this segment. The first sub-segment covers sites that are ideal for mature graduates or postgraduates who often look for accommodation in quieter locations or perhaps something more suitable for couples. The second consists of properties ideally suited to first-year U.K. students because of their proximity to campus and cluster room configurations. These are typically managed through nomination agreements. If we do not renew an agreement, we will consider moving the property to Segment D for disposal. We've already taken one such decision and will continue. Segment D comprises assets that no longer remain core, and we're working on a disposal program. To date, we have sold four sites in this Segment for a total consideration of GBP 18.1 million, which was above book value. We're at various stages of discussions with potential acquirers of our remaining sites, and there has been interest shown in all the properties within this Segment. Slide 21 shows our current portfolio following the completed disposals. Before the disposals, we had 9,027 operating beds. Having disposed of one site in Exeter and three in Portsmouth, we now have 8,775. We're in the process of completing our development in St Mary's, Bristol, which will be ready for academic year 2022, 2023 and will add another 130 beds. We will take decisions on our remaining development opportunities once we have greater clarity on occupancy rates and cash flow in academic year 2021/2022. I'd now like to move on to talk about our refurbishment program on slide 22. As Lynne has outlined, we expect to invest in the region of GBP 44 million to refurbish our properties. This CapEx would be deployed on a site-by-site basis, and only if there is an attractive IRR. We've already started on two pilots in Bristol and Leeds, and we are carrying out the work while students are in residence. We're refurbishing one floor in each building and continuing to trade, very much as hotels do. Learning from this will help us refurbish the rest of the buildings whilst retaining income streams. We are initially investing GBP 1.5 million in these two sites with an expected IRR of 10%. The pace at which we refurbish will be determined by our disposal of assets, which will free up capital to reinvest. I'll now move on to strengthening our brand proposition on slide 23. Our Hello Student brand already has strong awareness and a good reputation, but we are refining our proposition through further customer insights. We've carried out extensive qualitative and quantitative customer research and identified the most important things to our customers, which are highlighted on the slide. We asked 1,750 existing students who live in various types of student accommodation the most important factors where they choose somewhere to live, apart from the location and price. The top priorities were very clear. Having their own space with some privacy, somewhere they feel safe, and somewhere that feels like home, where they can study yet be sociable when they want. In addition, we have received detailed feedback on the amenities and specifications expected of premium accommodation. This makes it clear, for example, that a good quality and properly sized gym is a high priority, which gives us clear guidance for our refurbishment program. Our customer proposition, shown on slide 24, is endorsed by this research and confirms that homes, not halls, is compelling. Safety, security, quality service provided within a convenient distance of campus are all critical elements, and as you can see, are embedded in our proposition. These findings also validate our recent change of working patterns to introduce 24-hour cover. Our reception desks are now manned around the clock, not just 9:00-5:00, ensuring that our residents feel safe and secure at all times. With our in-house revenue management systems now operational, slide 25 shows how we are refining and systemizing our approach to pricing and marketing with the help of external experts. We're also hiring data analysts to give us a detailed understanding of pricing, conversion rates, and the effectiveness of our marketing so we can optimize merchandising, marketing spend, and room pricing. As an example, we recently undertook an in-depth analysis of a cluster of sites in a slow-to-fill city. This showed that across the cluster, we had 27 room types and prices, which was causing confusion for customers. Cluster of sites in a slow-to-fill city. This showed that across the cluster, we had 27 room types and prices, which was causing confusion for customers and a drop-off at the point of booking, so conversion was particularly low. Our fragmented offering also led to suboptimal search engine optimization. We've now reduced the choice to six room types, realigned pricing against matched local competitors, and invested in targeted pay-per-click to drive more traffic to our website. As a result, our search position is now in the top three, and bookings grew 20% within the first two weeks of launching our revised offer. Let's turn now to customer service on slide 26. Our research shows that providing social facilities and events in the past year, through a period of lockdown and extended online learning, has been key to driving wellbeing and customer satisfaction. During this time, we've held mental health awareness programs, exercise and yoga classes, quiz and music nights, communal dinners when possible, and cookery classes. We've also given all our team mental first aid training to help them spot early signs of issues that students may be experiencing. We've introduced an external counseling service free of charge. The number of positive reviews we receive has increased significantly in recent months, which helps to build brand reputation and word-of-mouth recommendations. Our Net Promoter Score has increased from 21 to 27 during the first half. Moving on now to our people on slide 27. Our senior leadership and operations teams are now complete, and we have the breadth and experience in place to execute our strategy. We have redefined our values from the grassroots up, as illustrated on the slide. These have landed well and form the bedrock of our service culture. We've also introduced a sharesave scheme for the first time for all our employees, aligning rewards with shareholder interests. I told you in March that our colleague engagement of 81% compared very favorably to the national average of 68%. We've recently conducted a further survey where this level was maintained, which is especially pleasing given the challenges of the past year during lockdown. In summary, on slide 28, our plans are focused on delivering attractive, sustainable shareholder returns. Whilst of course we've been impacted by the pandemic, our underlying business outlook remains positive. The number of students we target is set for continued growth, and we are optimistic that a commitment to face-to-face teaching in most universities will result in occupancy within the range of 75%-85% for academic year 2021, 2022. We're actively managing the portfolio for capital recycling and are encouraged by progress on disposals. We've also started a refurbishment program in order to generate higher returns. Our new revenue management system is working well and will allow us to reduce costs from September onwards, as well as improve revenue and customer acquisition. Our new ESG roadmap will further enhance our already strong brand reputation. Finally, we're pleased to announce that we're resuming dividend payments in quarter four this year, albeit at a modest level. In 2022, we'll start with a minimum payment of GBP 0.015, with a view to increasing this progressively as occupancy grows. We're now targeting gross margin above 70%, and with the resumption of dividend payments, we expect a total return of 7%-9% when occupancy returns to normal levels. Thank you very much, and we'll now be happy to take your questions. Our first question comes from Kieran Lee from Berenberg. Your line is now open. Thank you. Good morning, thank you for the presentation. Just a single question from me. You talked to prioritizing occupancy over rates for this year and a higher proportion of domestic students for the upcoming year. Has that impacted rates for the sort of 70% bookings that you've received to date? How should we think about that? Thank you for the question, Kieran. Our position is very clear. At a time like this, focusing on revenue is our main task, and through that, driving up occupancy, certainly during the early parts of this late booking cycle, has been incredibly important. We're very pleased that our booking rates so far seem to compare very well with others in the sector. As I pointed out in the presentation, that means that we have had a greater proportion of U.K. students who do tend to take the lower priced rooms. Therefore, at this stage, we have 47% of domestic students booking, which is higher than we'd normally expect. What we are now seeing is those international students coming in, looking to the higher priced accommodation. What we hope, of course, is that as that booking rate increases, that amount of stock will decrease and therefore drive up our revenue higher. We don't yet have a view on how that's going to settle out, which is why we've given such a wide range of occupancy. Nonetheless, we're certainly confident that through selling the higher priced rooms now, we'll continue to drive a better position on revenue as the next few weeks progress. Perfect. Sorry, just a follow-up. If we look at the sort of like-for-like rate that you're getting on the rooms that have been reserved, should we think flat? Should we think growth? How should we think about that side of it? Kieran, I think because of the mix that we have at this time, which is a little unusual compared to in pre-COVID cycles, we're not going to give guidance at this time for next year. As we've said during this cycle, we have, I believe, smartly taken the opportunity or thought it wise to sacrifice like-for-like growth in terms of filling rooms, and I think that's a sensible strategy. I think we will start to see better like-for-like growth moving forward, but we're not giving guidance at this point. No problem. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Kieran. We have a question registered via the webcast from Petro Nichols. Nichols. Duncan, Lynne, thank you for the update. A strong set of results in what has been a challenging 18 months. Two quick questions. What was the sale price/fair price per bed for the divestment? Category C assets, what percent of the overall portfolio do you expect to have nomination agreements, and will these with the universities versus private sector education providers? Okay. I'll talk to the category C ones, then Lynne'll just cover on the price. The percentage of nomination agreements we have in our portfolio is very low. It's always been in low single digits and continues to be so. It has been stable this year, apart from one site that we have decided to move into category D for disposal. The rest remain stable. As far as the sales price is concerned, we achieved the sale price for the four properties that we've disposed of, GBP 18.1 million. We sold Petro above book. We haven't disclosed the sales price per bed. It wouldn't be very difficult to calculate from the public information available. I can help with that following the call if that's of help to you. I don't have it to hand with me right now. Thank you. Thank you. The second question from Michael Prew. Can you please update us on bed sales post-30th of June with A-level results now published and clearing underway? Is the corporate target still 10,000 beds or could it go higher? What is the preferred number of beds per city cluster/mix of nominations versus direct lets? Thanks for the question, Mike. Let me start with the number of beds. Clearly, as we go through the disposal program, you will see the number of beds in a small decline. As we pointed out, I think, at our annual results, the properties in category D are typically amongst our smaller sites, and therefore, whilst the number of sites may be larger, the number of beds involved will be smaller as the effect on our overall portfolio is that these are no more than 10% by value of our total estate. What we will be doing, and as I mentioned in the presentation, is of course completing developments. We have some areas coming on which will deliver an additional 130 beds. We have other developments that we will be looking to take decisions on in the not-too-distant future. As we look to utilizing the proceeds of disposal, we will clearly be looking to build our portfolio focused around clusters of our successful cities, where we are looking to increase the density of beds within those successful cities. We don't have a particular target number in mind for the density of those cities. The most important thing is that they are clustered closely together so they can be run in the highest level of operational efficiency under one management team. We clearly understand that being able to manage beds within a travelable distance of each other is the most important thing as we look for that operational efficiency. Our next question is from John. Thank you. Sorry. Please continue. I was just reminded that I didn't answer Mike's question on the reservations post-June. As you can see, as we went through on the graph on slide six, we've seen an acceleration in the rates of reservations since 30th of June. We're very encouraged both by the number of applications to U.K. universities, up as we mentioned overall for our core markets, 14% for international and 7% for U.K. domestic, which is very encouraging, but also the quality and scale of A-level results that were delivered earlier this week, leading to what we believe will be record numbers of applications to U.K. universities. All of that, I think, gives us encouragement that we will see a continuing uplift in the level of bookings. Indeed, if you look at the graph on slide six, you'll see that has taken place over the last couple of weeks in particular. Sorry, apologies I didn't give that answer before. Thank you. Next question. The next question from John Cahill. Good morning. Thanks for a very clear presentation. Two questions from me. First, with regard to the GBP 30 million CapEx regarding fire safety, that's quite a big number. Do you have any buildings that have been found to be non-compliant with fire regulations in the wake of Grenfell? Is this more of a proactive investment by the company? Second, great to see the dividend restarting with a return of normal occupancy. I suspect you could pay more. Can you guide on an expected payout ratio, maybe 80%+? Let me cover the issue on the investment on fire safety. This is not a big number in comparison to the GBP 1 billion portfolio that we have. Certainly, when we look at every property company that is taking the forthcoming fire and safety regulations into account that the government has yet to introduce, we think that this is a modest level in comparison to perhaps others. To confirm that we are fully compliant at the moment with all regulatory requirements and safety, and that what we are doing is looking forward to the requirements under the new regulations to make sure that we will be compliant with those when they come into play. I'll take the dividend question. Thank you, John. I think it's fair to say that our dividend policy that we're coming backwards to start with is conservative. If you look at slide six, which shows the graph at the moment of the trajectory, we still don't know exactly what occupancy is going to look like, that is what's really driving a high dividend payment. We feel that we wanted to come back with a dividend level that was sustainable, that we wouldn't have given any situation, particularly would have to retract from, we hope to grow it as soon as possible from that low base. We are extremely conscious that how important dividend is, particularly having been suspended now for over a year. We're very aligned with shareholders in terms of the importance of that and getting back to a higher level of dividend just as soon as it's possible to do so. Thank you for the question. Thanks, John. The next question from James Carswell. The 75%-85% occupancy guidance for the upcoming year looks relatively cautious against the 70% bookings to date. Does this incorporate any delay to the academic year or take into account a proportion of international students deciding not to attend? Thanks for the question, James. Yes, let me clarify. As we've mentioned, the rate of bookings at the moment is very encouraging. The piece that none of us know yet is what the impact of travel arrangements will be for students looking to arrive in September and October. Therefore, we've taken a cautious view that some students may be affected by travel arrangements at a time when we cannot yet predict which countries are going to be on the red list, for example. Of course, if all of the travel arrangements go smoothly and there is no further impact of other variants in the virus and so on, then we would expect to be at the upper end of our guidance. We have given that wide range of guidance simply because none of us yet are certain what those travel arrangements and their impact is going to be. Hope that answers the question. The next question from Andrew Gill. You have had some good success on disposals. Could you please add some color around demand for ESP's asset lot sizes? Is there a range of buyers you're seeing inquiries from? Thanks, Andrew. Yes, we are seeing the market being very open and enthusiastic about the disposal of these assets. While what we are classifying as our category D may be non-compliant for the Hello Student brand, they are still very attractive for other operators in the sector, and we have seen, for example, interest from the original purchasers of our four properties shown in buying further properties. So the market is certainly showing levels of encouragement at this moment in time, and the prices, as we mentioned, are certainly attractive for us. Therefore, we certainly feel that we are taking these to market at a constructive time for ourselves. Hope that answers the question, Andrew. We feel that we are taking these to market at a constructive time for ourselves. Hope that answers the question, Andrew. Thank you. Next question. The next question from Richard Philbin. Thanks for the update. Much appreciated. What is the optimal unit size, i.e., bedrooms for accommodations, i.e., students wanting homes, not halls, and how do you fit with this? Thanks for the question, Richard. We don't have a size in terms of square footage, but what we do understand is what the majority of our students want in terms of specification. What sets us apart from many other operators is that most of our studio apartments are self-contained. They have both study areas, obviously sleeping areas, kitchens, en suite bathroom facilities, and in addition to that, provide communal social facilities that students can use when they wish to use them, but they can live a more self-contained life when they want to. This is particularly attractive to international students. What we are seeing in this COVID world is that configuration gives a greater degree of safety and also provides a place where people can study on their own, but also commune together when they wish to do so. In terms of the amenities and so provided in the rooms and the specifications, that's something we're continuing to learn through our extensive research, and we will continue to develop that as we open new stock and refurbish our buildings. Hope that answers the question. As another reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one. Alternatively, you can type your questions via the webcast. Our next question comes from Luke. What cities or locations are you seeing the most demand for accommodation? Are there any that are particularly lagging behind? Thank you for the question, Luke. We've been particularly encouraged that all cities have seen a good level of demand, particularly in recent weeks. Inevitably, as universities started to confirm their teaching arrangements, those universities where face-to-face teaching has been confirmed, saw bookings take place earlier. Part of the reason for the growth in the curve that you've seen on slide six, and it's accelerating, is because now all universities have declared their teaching methods. We've seen good demand coming now across the board. Hope that answers that one. We have no further questions, so I'll hand it back to you. Thank you very much for joining everybody. We have no further questions, so I'll hand it back to you. Thank you very much for joining everybody. We really do appreciate your time and we wish you a very good day. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.