Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our Q&A session this morning, and for having spent time looking at our webcast and results. We've got a hybrid event today, so it's a warm welcome to those of you in the room, particularly on a morning like this. And it's great actually to be having our first in-person Q&A session. We've also got some people joining us on the web, so we're gonna have a few instructions in a moment as to how that's going to be handled. But I'm Stephen Wilson. I'm the retiring Chief Executive, as you can see, but I'd warmly like to welcome and introduce Jørgen, our new Chief Executive. Thank you very much, Stephen. And, Alison, our CFO. Hello, everyone. Scott, do you want to just say a few words on procedures, and then we can get going? Of course. Thank you for that, Stephen. Today, we'll be taking questions from the room and then from the webinar. For those on the webinar who would like to ask a question, please use the Raise Hand question- Right. We will come to you from that. But we will now take our first question from the room. So if you'd like to raise a hand for the question, Verity will hand around the microphone. Thank you. Charles Hall from Peel Hunt. Can we kick off by maybe talking about customer wins? Because, quite notable in the presentation was a number of customers where you're either totally new or you're gaining share. What's driving those customer wins? And I know it's a whole load of different things, but is there a feeling that you're gathering momentum on customer wins, and that's the rate of genetic progress that you've been achieving that's really delivering that? Yeah. Look, I think, great question. Happy to, happy to respond. I think, you know, we have seen some really good momentum and share gains across many of our markets in both businesses, in porcine and ABS. And we highlighted in the presentation, you know, strong share gains in the ABS business, for example, in the US, in Brazil, despite it being a down market, in China, France. In the porcine business, you know, I think wherever you look really in the world, we're seeing share gains. And what drives it, I think it's really a combination of factors, and we try to highlight that on our chart when we talk about the strategic platforms for growth, is the combination of genetics, having really good genetics, the strong supply capability, so the supply chain is really important. The technology that underpins it, the way we approach the market and focus on large customers who are progressive in their thinking and are willing to enter into long-term arrangements. And then really, the key ingredient then, on top of all of that, is great team. And this is a business where it, it's a classic B2B relationship sell. It takes time. We, you know, we engage with customers over a long period of time, and the quality of the team you have is absolutely fundamental. What's really notable is that a number of end markets were particularly challenging over the course of the last year, whether that's European pork or Latin American beef, but actually the business performed pretty well during that, and you seem to have built a lot more resilience into the model. I guess China is obviously the one area where there's still a lot of volatility. Do you want to just comment on how you build resilience into that part of the business? Yeah. I think on China... I think you're right. The business is always actually, if you look over time, the business has managed to grow through many ups and downs in the agricultural cycle. You know, China has, in porcine, has been a challenging market. It was certainly challenging, particularly in the second half of last year. But I think a fundamental drive that we must do is continue to really push on growing our royalty base in China. We've done that, pretty successfully over the last several years. We started from basically zero royalty in China back in about 2019, and we're now at about, 60%, roughly, 55%-60% of our business in China on royalty. We've had compound growth of 50% in royalty over that time period, but we need to double down and just go even faster. I don't know, Jørgen, you're new into the business. Any observations you'd make on what struck, what drives customer wins? You've been visiting a number of customers. Yeah, I mean, one of my observations would be that, Genus is very well respected by its customers, very strong relations. The people at Genus are very much appreciated by customers, and customers also very much recognize that Genus has been making investments, investments in technology. It's clearly a leader. I think, the PRRS-resistant pig is a case in point, on the porcine side, but on the bovine side, it's a sexing technology. And as a customer, you want to partner with vendors, with suppliers that invest for the future and that bring new technology to the market so that you have early access to those technologies. But it's not only about technology, it's also about the supply chain, which I would say is absolutely world-class. Both on the bovine side, I was blown away by just, the facilities in Wisconsin, for example. You know, Genus puts animal welfare very high on the priority list and is a leader in that regard, and customers see that, and they appreciate that, and they want to partner with a supplier like that. Specifically on China, obviously the pork price in China has picked up a little bit recently, but, given the depth of the market over the last 18 months or so, I guess Chinese producers are going to be pretty wary about starting to order genetics in the short term. I think we should expect that the Chinese market is, you know, gonna continue to have ups and downs and be volatile. There's a lot of capacity that has been put in place since ASF originally hit. And, you know, producers, I think will, you know, have to learn to operate in an environment where you have to be really, really efficient to make money. And that should be an environment that, you know, as producers get accustomed to that, they have to realize that you've got to optimize every part of your business, and that includes the genetics. And we highlight in the presentation how our genetics are performing in China, and it's really good. And that is opening up new conversations for us. So I think we're encouraged by the conversations we're having, and the wins that we've had in China. But we need to do that on a royalty basis, and as you're well aware, those royalty revenues build over time. Those customer opportunities are coming from players that have integrated supply chains rather than having to supplant a competitor? I'm not quite sure I understand the question. They have their own breeding operations. Yeah. Yes, they're from producers. Some of those producers also have slaughtering capacity, so they're fully integrated. Others, you know, don't. It's Max Herrmann from Stifel. So just first question again on, on China and, in terms of the guidance that you're, you're giving for FY 2024, I think previously you'd said you'd expected a recovery in China. Now you're talking, very much about, you know, volatile markets in China remaining. I mean, they, they have been volatile over a long period of time now. I guess, why, why the change now? Is it more of just a history that is now... Or do you, do you feel, that something has changed in the market since you last updated? That would be the first kind of question. Yeah, I think we recognize that the extreme movement in the market post ASF was a one-time event. We're unlikely to see that degree of change in the market, either to the positive or the negative, depending on which part of the cycle you're talking about. As Stephen said, there is lots of capacity in the market, and also the Chinese economy is not in great shape. So consumer demand for pork is, we believe, also being impacted. But we can't control those things. What we can control and focus on is how well we serve our customers. And as Stephen said, that's about providing the best genetics and growing through the royalty model, which has proven to be a superb model everywhere else in the world. There's no reason why that can't be the model for China. But it takes time to achieve that. And so the, you know, the growth that we're expecting in FY 2024, we're assuming it will be modest. And then just onto the PRRS opportunity. Obviously, you've now filed with the FDA. I think you said previously about a six-month review period, which I guess brings us into the first half of next, next year. How do you see the rollout of the PRRS pig in, in the U.S., and then what's the timing in China? And how does that also, just on PRRS, I know, I know we, we talked earlier about how that impacts, the investment in R&D, because obviously R&D is up hugely, in FY 2023. How do you see that progressing as well as part of that coming to fruition? Yeah. Do you wanna comment on PRRS- Yeah. And I'll comment on the cost? Yes. Yeah. So, firstly, I think we're really encouraged by the progress. I think it's a massive achievement on the part of our R&D and PIC teams to have completed all of the submissions to the FDA. All of those have been pre-reviewed by the agency, so, you know, we've had their initial comments, we've responded to those. There's now a six-month period for them to give us, you know, final determination on it. So we're very confident in all of the data that we've submitted. So I think we can look forward to the FDA approval with a good degree of confidence. In terms of, you know, how we will move forward in the rollout of the product and commercializing it, of course, we also are working on regulatory pathways in a number of other countries. Pork is a globally traded commodity, so it's important that we deal with a number of other jurisdictions. We've given information on how we're doing that. And then, I'd highlight that there's a capital markets day event scheduled now for the first of November- First of November, yeah. When there's going to be, you know, opportunity for a much more detailed discussion to take place around our commercialization plans. Trina? Yeah. In terms of R&D and gene editing as part of that spend, as you're seeing, we spent about GBP 14 million on gene editing costs in FY 2023, and expect to spend a similar amount in FY 2024. In terms of R&D as a total spend, we've, as you know, significantly increased our spend in the last few years. Going forward, I would expect that to stabilize... so the growth overall to be modest, and slower than the growth in revenue. Great. Thank you. Hi there, Damian McNeela from Numis. I think, I can't remember what chart, what chart number it is, but you show the sort of the improvement in, the sort of, your genetics, in terms of the index. It looks like the improvement has slowed in the last year. I sort of, I'm not diminishing the efforts that you're putting in to sort of, that sort of, genetic improvement, but can you sort of explain to us what, perhaps what's in that slowing rate of improvement, how we should interpret that graph? Is the first question? I think the way you should interpret it is that we had a record level of improvement that we were able to achieve in our nucleus, will be delivered to producers over the next two or three years. So our customers are going to see fantastic performance coming from PIC genetics. Remember, what you're looking at here is the dollar improvement in economics for a producer over the prior year. So, you know, and if you think about what is the cost of a pig, what is the profit margin of a producer on average? These numbers are extraordinary. We're looking here at over a 3-year period, a cumulative gain of about $11. So, genetic improvement is delivering incredible value to our customers, and it, and it's going at a, at a very rapid clip. So, I think you should feel very satisfied by that. Our customers are seeing the benefit of that. I think it's what is helping us to win in the marketplace. Don't forget, the calculation is relating to the profitability that the customer is achieving, which is related to pig prices. So that can move. Yeah. Just on PRRS, I know that there's a capital markets day in November, but just in terms of where you are, I think you've previously commented about the fact that you're talking with the sort of the wider supply chain in terms of making sure people understand the benefits of your product. Have you got any comments you can add at that stage on how those conversations are going? There's a lot of interest. A lot of interest, yeah. Okay. We'll say more on November the 1st. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anything you want to add on that? No, I think, you know, I think the philosophy that we have is the quadruple bottom line. So working with all of the players, you know, throughout the whole chain. So that is the producers, it's the packers, so the branded manufacturers, it's the retailers, and it's the consumer, and articulating what the benefits are to all of those players in the chain. Very thoughtful and comprehensive approach, which, you know, we can share more on November 1st. I think there's a question on the webcast there, so is that right? Thank you for that, Steve. Yes, we have got Seb Jantet from Liberum, who is going to be asking a question on the webcast today. Seb, please go ahead. Hi there. Thank you for taking my question. Just checking you can hear me all right? We can hear and see you, Seb. Excellent. Right, so just two questions, if I may. One, just on China and the royalty. I think I picked up from the pre-recorded session, that you were looking to make some changes to your royalty model in China, and I was wondering if you could just kind of give us a little bit more detail on those changes. Yeah. So, yeah, we've really been thinking about how we can adapt the royalty model that we've been pursuing in China to the, to the growth of the industry there. There's a, I think there's always been a variety of ways in which we, in which we frame the royalty. Do you do it on a sow usage? Do you do it on a wean pig? Do you do it on a slaughter pig? There's a whole variety of ways in which we've, we've constructed those prices, and then, you know, how, how do you frame those for different, scales of operation? So we've taken a thorough look at that. Our intent is to really drive penetration of royalty in the marketplace. And so we're launching over the autumn some refreshed approaches there, which we think will be very compelling and attractive for producers in China. I guess you're not going to give us any detail then on what those might actually be? You know, I think it's a complex subject, so, you know, you could spend a lot of time going into that. I think the key point is that our royalties in China are at levels which are comparable with the rest of the world. And, you know, we intend to maintain and grow on that basis in China. Second question then was just around ABS. So, you know, obviously, one of the longer term investment stories has been around the margin growth in the ABS business, and that felt like it was probably a little bit slow this year. I was wondering if you could give me a sense of kind of some of the levers that you think you can pull in that business to move the margins forward. Sure, Seb. Yeah, there were some factors which impacted ABS's margin in FY 2023. We did have a one-time impact of around GBP 1 million in the first half, which related to the cyber incident we had a year ago, so that's not repeating. And, you know, LatAm's didn't grow, and that had an impact as well. But, going forward, we still believe that there's margin improvement that we can drive in the business. A lot of good work going on in looking at our go-to-market strategy, and segmenting our customers in far more detail than we've done before. And really looking at how we approach them, underpinned by, in the main, long-term contracts. That's the direction that we're going, and we do talk, or Stephen talks in the presentation about that. We believe that that's key. And I think, you know, there are further efficiencies also that we should be able to drive in the business as well. So, you know, we've, we've talked in the past about the aspirational goal of 20% margin, and we still have that. Jørgen, do you want to comment? Yeah, um- Opportunities you see in ABS? Yeah, I would say that, if I think about the priorities for the business, clearly we spoke about the PRRS commercialization, which is very important. We already covered China, right? How do we build a predictable, profitable, growing franchise, model in, for business model in China? You know, and then you go to ABS, and you say, "Look, ABS, we need to drive more value from ABS." So how do you do that? Clearly, we're reviewing our go-to-market, you know, approach, and so kind of homing in on this theme of commercial excellence, right? Which is around how do you segment your customers? You know, which are the customers that, you know, we should give a lot of service? Maybe others don't appreciate that service as much, so it's a little bit more of a transactional sale. You know, how do you price, right? How do you keep set the right guardrails for your, for your sales organizations? How do you think about that? You know, and then there's the efficiencies also that Alison highlighted. So, you know, for me, kind of coming in, clearly driving the margins in in ABS and driving the profitability of ABS features among my, let's say, top four, five priorities. Great. Thank you, guys. Okay. Thank you. For a question from the room now. Yeah, yeah. Diana Russo from HSBC. Coming back to profitability, my questions on ABS has been already just answered, but on PIC, there was an improvement in profitability in the year for, by about 200 basis points, if I'm not wrong, reaching a pretty much an overall high. So what is the driver of that improvement? Is it royalty, or is there anything else? And, I mean, have we peaked, or do you think there is further scope for improvement moving forward? It's a great business to leverage. So, you know, a comparatively fixed cost base. And you know, with the kind of growth that they're achieving, we will achieve margin expansion, and I expect them to continue to do that. It was, it was only positive leverage, or was it also driven by the increase in royalties? Just so I understand. It's positive leverage, leveraging higher volumes. Okay. Could you talk a little bit about the maturity of your royalty contracts across the different businesses in PIC geographically, and if there is anything to say on ABS as well? Yeah, and PIC is very progressed in having penetration of royalty contracts across the globe. We have in the appendix of the presentation the degree of that penetration. You can see each year it's just getting higher. The U.S. is at 97%, North America, I mean. ABS is still quite a way to go. In EMEA, quite high penetration, about 25-30%. Rest of the world, lower than that. So a long way to go, compared to where we are with PIC. I think that's Max, raising his hand here. Yeah, Max Herrmann again from Stifel. Just, maybe a question for Jørgen, actually, on the new era, opportunity here. I know you wanted to get some more pull. I know one of the issues when we had the visits to North Wales, one of the issues was trying to get people to distinguish between two black cows, one being new era, and therefore, having better, meat cuts, compared with potentially another cow. And trying to get people like Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, and other, customers to appreciate the value that that offers. I don't know whether from your background, that there are any things that you can see that can help, Genus achieve that kind of objective. Yeah, well, I think it's clearly a very important point, you know, within our ABS, is to leverage the beef on dairy technology and also our beef on beef genetics. You know, we this pull-through, so working with retailers or other, you know, other partners further down the chain to create a pull for our genetics is going very well. You highlighted Sainsbury's. I mean, there is a test going on in the north of England, where I believe our new era-based beef is in, you know, in about 150 stores for a test. And, you know, I think- A clear benefit that we can offer is in the area of sustainability, and so we're completing an LCA, a life cycle analysis, to further quantify that, and reduce the environmental footprint for our customers. And so that's another value proposition that we can bring to the chain. But when you start- Maybe you want to add, yeah. Yeah, when you started your question on new era, I wondered if you were talking about the CEO, NuEra. It's beef genetics. But, you know, we didn't actually highlight very much in the presentation this time around to put the theme on pull-through. But actually, the progress we're seeing is really encouraging. And, that's true whether you're looking in the UK market, the North American market. Actually have started some new dedicated supply chains and programs in Spain, in the Netherlands, in some of the Scandinavian areas. So actually, there's growing momentum. It takes time to build because you have to create those supply chains. And of course, beef animals, how long does it take to get a beef animal to market? You have to create the calf, that's a year. So these things build over time, but I think we're encouraged by the momentum. Thank you. Yeah, I think, Scott, you had- So we've got another question from the webinar, which is from Jens Lindqvist, from Investec. Jens, if you could please just accept the invitation, then unmute yourself and then turn on your camera, that would be great. Just as a reminder to people on the webinar, if you'd like to ask a question, please, could you raise your hand at the bottom of the webcast? So Jens, if you just turn on your camera, that'd be great. I am trying. Here we go. And- But- Please go ahead with your question. Yeah, yeah, thank you for taking my question. Following on from, from Charles's question earlier, I think with regards to the share gains in PIC across, you know, all of the major geographies, really. May I just ask who, in general, you are taking share from? I mean, is it, is it the likes of Topigs and within the premium segment, or is it more from regional players? And then secondly, I was wondering if you could share any detail, please, of the, for the planned changes on the, of the PIC royalty model in China. And then finally, with regards to the gene-edited pigs that will be imported into China, will they be housed in BCA's facilities or in, or in yours? Is it still the case that the development will be exclusively funded by BCA as per the original agreement? Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so quite a few questions there. Let me take them in reverse order and see if we remember them. So, in terms of the PRRS pigs in China, yes, those will be housed in BCA facilities, and yes, BCA is funding and progressing that work on gaining regulatory approval in China. And we're actively working very closely with them, as you can imagine, to support them in that process. So that's that was a question around BCA. In terms of the China royalty model, I don't... We already had a question on that, I think. I don't have a lot further to add on that at this point. Just to reiterate that, you know, our royalty pricing in China, it is, you know, very much at similar levels to the rest of the world. And then your third, your first question, I guess, answering them in reverse order, was around who we're gaining share from. Mm. I think it does vary around the world. And, so, you know, you have, I think you have a whole variety of things going on. Internal programs, right, would be one of the places that we're gaining against. So, you know, think of what we did with Smithfield, with Olymel. So that would be one theme. The growth of the sire line in North America, the PIC800, being super competitive and growing our sire line share, that will be very much actually against DNA, which previously was the distributor of DanBred Genetics in North America. If you were looking in Europe, I think it would be a, you know, broad base. There's, there's quite a few cooperatives operating in Europe, and, you know, smaller regional players, and so those would typically be the people that we would be, that we, we would be winning against there. So, so it's, it's quite a, a broad-based picture. I, I think we, you know, we're happy to compete with, against anyone, anywhere in the world. That's great. Thank you. Thanks so much. We'll take next question from the room, maybe Charles, or from Johan. Just getting back to ABS, can you just talk a little bit more about the progress in Sexcel, how the market's operating, how the competitive environment for that product is, maybe in terms of pricing in different regions, and maybe specifically on India, and whether you're getting any more intelligent contracts? Yeah. Do you want to talk about it? Yeah, yeah, look, we're achieving strong growth in Sexcel. You would have seen that, 18% and, you know, even, even the markets which we would classify as more mature, still achieving strong growth. North America, for example, 25%. And, you know, it's a very competitive environment, but, ABS had real success in increasing prices, actually across all product groups. So, competitive environment, but I think ABS is competing well, and gaining share. I think specifically on that pricing point, historically, ABS wasn't very good at getting pricing. Yes. There's a change of mood as a result, over the last year or so. Yes. Is that now sort of part of the culture, is to be going for price and effectively collecting on the genetic improvement that you're actually providing? It's definitely, definitely changed. You know, I think the confidence of the business to be able to push on price, having had the success that they've had. And yes, they're, you know, they're seeking to achieve more value, definitely. So, you know, we expect that they will achieve further price increases, but they've got to grow volume as well. So it's a fine balance between the two. And yeah, we'd like them to push on volume just as much as they're pushing on price. You also raised India as a point there, and I think we're encouraged by the progress in India. The government of India contract has... that we were successful in winning a good share of that business during the course of the year. I'd say like all of these things which are government-initiated, sort of sticky to get the ball rolling. But I think, you know, we were pleased overall with the progress we made there, and we think that there's plenty of growth opportunities still there in India. Anything you want to add on pricing in ABS? Yeah. I mean, that is something that we're studying very carefully, where, you know, we're putting additional resources into that. And we're clearly looking, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of the service levels, and focused on making sure that we get compensated adequately for the very high added value services that we offer. And I think there's just, you know, with many businesses, I think around the world in this inflationary environment, the need to do so, I think, has increased. And as a result of that, I think we have learned at ABS, and so that will continue to be a focal area going forward. Thank you. We've got no further questions from the webinar at the moment, so if there's no further questions in the room, then we'll go back to Stephen for his closing remarks. Let's just check to see if, No? Okay. Very good. Well, thank you all very much for coming. It's been great actually to have some face-to-face and also nice to see we're able to work with the remote webinar as well. We're looking forward to visiting with investors and others over the coming days. Thank you for your support here, and look forward to continuing the conversation. Thank you.