Welcome to the IG Design Group Interim Results webinar. First, we're going to play a pre-recorded presentation, and after this, Paul Bal, CEO, and Rohan Cummings, CFO, who are with us, will answer your questions. This webinar is being recorded. We'll now play the presentation. Hello everyone. Today we provide you with an update on our performance and results for the six months to 30 September 2024, being the first half of our year ending 31 March 2025. Also with me today is Rohan Cummings, our Group CFO. In overall summary, in slide two, we are operating in a period of ongoing difficult trading conditions in some markets, particularly in our biggest division, DG Americas, servicing the U.S. market. Group revenue was down 11%. As we communicated in our recent trading updates in September and October, the tough retail environment that I referred to when we reported in June stays with us. Underlying this is subdued consumer sentiment, suffering from the successive hits of higher inflation, interest rates, and taxes. Cost inflation has also weighed on our results, especially in manufacturing and freight, be it sea or road. This, combined with lower revenue, resulted in the 62% drop in Adjusted Operating Profit. To counter this and make the group more resilient for the future, we continue to make the group's operating model more efficient, especially in DG Americas and DG UK. This will improve profitability in the second half of this financial year, which traditionally has been a loss-making period given the seasonality of our sales. Seasonality or timing in our sales has also continued to move toward more balance between the two halves of the year, and so continuing to reduce the first half weighting seen in the past two years. Our focus on cash management has continued, keeping us cash positive through the entire period. This is a significant strengthening of our balance sheet, a key step in making the business more resilient in these uncertain times. While we won some new business in the period, especially in DG Americas, this has not been enough to offset the overall decline and losses from competitive tenders, so we continue to work to make ourselves more efficient and more effective, and through this, more competitive. As previously announced, we ceased manufacturing in China, and that closure process progresses well. Our Smart Wrap, shrink-free wrap solution, is a great innovation and success, giving us clear competitive advantage, adding value to the consumer while providing a more sustainable solution. It has been rolled out from DG Europe, where it was developed, now into the U.K. market, and is undergoing market testing and introduction in the U.S. market. Similarly, I'm pleased to say that we are now able to offer more sustainable in-house bag manufacturing in DG Europe, and we continue to develop our supplier base and relationships across a wider geographic base focused on Mexico and India, but other countries too. The economic backdrop remains subdued, which impacts consumer sentiment and therefore our categories, especially so in the U.S. and the U.K., and especially as we enter the all-important Christmas season. As we experienced last year, if the sentiment does not lift, that poor seasonal retail sales could impact customer ordering into the next year. So we proceed with the self-help initiatives underway and explore more opportunities to offset this drag and drive profitability in the second half of this financial year. And so we remain confident that we will deliver year-on-year margin and absolute profit growth over the full year, even if sales will be lower than last year. As we have repeatedly said, our first-stage strategic aspiration is to restore margins to at least where they were before the disruption caused by COVID-19 by the end of March 2025. That was 4.5%, and we remain on track to deliver that. So onto a summary of the financials on slide three. The group's reported 11% top-line decline was mainly driven by lower customer ordering, reflecting the uncertain consumer sentiment in a number of our markets. This was especially felt in the U.S. market across both everyday as well as seasonal ordering. Consequently, some retail players see declining sales, and we have had to be cautious in trading with them. There has also been continued rephasing of sales to the second half, as supply chains were generally stable, albeit more expensive due to issues in the Red Sea and the Panama Canal early on in the period. With our focus on a more profitable business mix, we also experienced net losses in competitive tenders in the low end of the U.S. market. But we are making progress, winning more and losing less than last year. Turning to profitability, the combination of the lower sales and higher input costs, especially in freight, led to a decline in both the Adjusted operating margin and profit. Our continuing self-help measures only partially offset the drop, and this is mirrored in the lower Adjusted EBITDA delivery and Adjusted profit before tax. Continued strong cash management, coupled with a strong balance sheet, resulted in the group being cash positive throughout the entire period, a significant step forward in making our business model more resilient. Let's now get into more detail on our sales, looking at our performance across our categories on slide four, starting on the left side table. The mix across the categories has been relatively stable over the period, indicating that the softer demand has been broad-based. Gift packaging remains our core category, but as expected, a more discretionary spend category such as party saw greater decline. Slight weakness in stationery was offset by a rise in craft and homeware, which is principally picture frames in Continental Europe. Looking at the same performance through the lens of seasonality, the mix between seasonal and everyday sales is also stable, meaning the market softness is general. Moving on to slide five and looking at the DG Americas division, I've already referred to the key drivers behind the revenue dynamics, and they all impacted DG Americas' sales. Rohan will provide more granularity. Suffice to say, a general downturn in consumer sentiment impacted across our product categories, as well as the retail customer base, as they responded by ordering less from us. What is yet unknown is to what extent this reduction in footfall over recent months was influenced by uncertainty in the run-up to the recent presidential elections. Time will tell. Unsurprisingly, this tough, more competitive retail market has put pressure on some of our customers. Beyond the challenges in brick-and-mortar retail, we have made good progress on the e-commerce front, with group sales up 30% in that channel, albeit from a low base. Much of this growth has been through DG Americas' craft business and patterns especially. Beyond online commerce, through our refreshed sites such as Simplicity.com, we have also collaborated with independent designers and influencers to generate more interest. We have continued to secure catch-up pricing to recover margins lost in previous years, and mix has also improved. With our new strategy that emphasizes strengthening our commercial capabilities, during the period we reorganized our commercial team, that leaner organization is now more closely aligned to our strategic categories and channels. We are now building closer alignment between this team and the manufacturing and sourcing teams when it comes to planning, ways of working, and standards. As previously announced, the divisional CEO left the business in late July. Since then, the divisional top team has reported directly to me, and I have been regularly visiting our teams, sites, and customers across the U.S. The search for a new divisional CEO is nearing the end, and I have been pleased with the quality of candidates that we have seen. The initiatives embarked upon in DG Americas to bring about a more simple, efficient, and resilient model with stronger margins continue. The key initiative in the period was further warehouse consolidation, and due to these efforts, we are now actively marketing two vacant freehold sites in Pennsylvania. Inventory and SKU numbers continue to fall as we focus our assortment, which is helping drive the cash performance. However, the cost savings from these initiatives were offset by input cost inflation across raw materials, manufacturing, or freight. Freight costs rose markedly in the period, whether sea or road. Some of this was inflation, but some also reflected changing mix with smaller drop sizes. While some of this we were able to pass on, some of this was borne given the tough retail market. More work is also being passed to our contract manufacturing partners and suppliers in Mexico, as some of our customers request nearshoring alternatives to better manage their supply chain risks. We are building a sourcing team to cover India's sizable sourcing potential, and we continue to look at sourcing opportunities in other South Asian countries. Our innovative shrink-free gift wrap solution, Smart Wrap, which is proving successful in DG International markets, is being market tested by some U.S. customers and has already been embraced by one. This could provide us with competitive advantage in our biggest core capability category. Finally, while there has been much speculation on the subject of international trade tariffs in recent weeks and months, we await concrete plans from the incoming administration. We are a U.S. domestic manufacturer, and a more level playing field would be welcome and beneficial. However, this should be balanced against the disruption that higher inflation and trade disruption could bring. It's too early to say more, and we look to developments over the weeks after January's inauguration. Onto slide six and our international businesses. Again, I've covered the revenue dynamics already, and Rohan will shortly go into more detail. Some sales have been delayed into the second half of the year, but the trend back to a more traditional half-half sales split has continued. So far, we're not seeing across Continental Europe the softening in consumer sentiment that we have experienced in the U.K. and Australia. Our resilience in Continental Europe reflects our customer mix, which is well-suited for the tough economic environment still facing consumers. But it's not surprising that more discretionary product categories such as party have felt more decline, and these dynamics have played out in almost all channels. Looking across channels, the DG UK team has identified white space in the retail environment and has focused attention on independent retailers and how to service them better within our business model. Unlike our experience in DG Americas, pricing has not been a lever available to us, coming under pressure. There has been much interest amongst customers for Smart Wrap, and it has helped maintain our strong position in the traditional gift wrap category. In these challenging times, we are investing more in our commercial capacity, strengthening the commercial teams across Continental Europe and the U.K. Fresh insights will complement our existing teams to develop the product ranges of the future. And to enable this, we have rolled out a group-wide platform for better IP and knowledge collaboration. On the operational side, the big focus has been the pivot to installing the Smart Wrap capability in our gift wrap production facilities in the Netherlands and the U.K. This has enabled elimination of 29 tons of plastic. That is a lot of plastic, trust me. The bag making line in DG Europe is operational, responding to requests from our customers to nearshore supply as they de-risk their supply chains and look for more sustainable and reliable solutions. Earlier in the period, we announced closure of our Chinese manufacturing facility. I'm pleased to say that process is well advanced, with operations ceasing in the period. This restructuring will deliver cost savings in the second half of the year, given the seasonality associated with that plant. We have also seen cost benefits from improved raw material sourcing, and in order to achieve similar efficiency and effectiveness in finished goods sourcing, we have consolidated the DG UK and DG Americas sourcing teams in Asia. This division has seen a more significant rise in freight costs, both sea and road. Issues in the Red Sea raised sea freight rates for much of the period. Like in DG Americas, we continue to reduce our SKU complexity. Our previous restructuring of DG UK has resulted in a vacant freehold site that is being marketed in Wales, and finally, in order to meet forthcoming product reporting requirements in a number of markets, as well as support our customers with meeting their requirements, we have initiated a project to develop a group-wide product information management system platform. That's the commercial update, and I'm now handing over to Rohan to take us through the financials. Thank you, Paul, and hello everyone. Our focus on return to revenue growth remains steadfast, with the strategy of winning with the winning customers and reducing the complexity across our business. We remain on track to return margins to pre-pandemic levels, and although the broader conditions have perhaps become more difficult, ambition has not abated. We have a strong balance sheet, and we ended the period with a very pleasing net cash position of $7.4 million. The strong balance sheet ensures the group has the ability to deliver on its strategic priorities. I will start today's presentation by focusing on group revenue. Slide seven bridges the main drivers behind the group's revenue performance for the period, which decreased 11% to $393 million. If we start with the DG Americas division, which represents nearly 62% of the group revenue, we experienced a 14% decline to $241.8 million. This was primarily driven by three key factors. Firstly, reduced demand of $22.6 million across both seasonal and everyday categories, as our retail customers ordered more cautiously in light of the economic backdrop and in line with the subdued customer sentiment we have been reporting for a while. Secondly, while we actively pitch and re-tender for business, the market has become more competitive, and we experienced a net loss of business versus what we gained of $10.5 million. And thirdly, prudent trading decisions have been made in the U.S. market when working with our customers that posed increased credit risk. The DG International division revenue declined 6% to $151 million for the period, with the majority of the decline being timing related. Overall volume and pricing has declined 2%, which reflects a continuation of trends seen last year, with growth from key customers in Continental Europe helping to offset ongoing softness in U.K. and Australian markets. The single largest impact on DG International revenue is $10 million, which was a timing shift as orders have moved into the second half. Foreign exchange had a positive impact on the year, driven by strengthening of the GBP and euro to the U.S. dollar. Turning to operating profit on slide eight, we will bridge the main movements for the year. Group operating profit decreased 62% year on year to $14.7 million. The reduction in revenue, as well as rising manufacturing and freight costs, put pressure on profitability. While we successfully reduced overheads, these savings were not enough to offset the combined impact of lower sales and cost headwinds in the period. If we look at the bridge in more detail, the first bar is the impact of the timing-related sales that will shift into the second half. The second red bar of this bridge is the combined margin impact of the revenue decline covered in the previous revenue slide, which accounted for $18.5 million. Furthermore, the lower production volumes through China, following the strategic decision to exit in-house manufacturing, impacted profits. This will yield benefits in the second half of the year, with no further costs expected to be incurred. Freight rates increased during the period, and $8.7 million is net of recoveries from customers. Offsetting this is DG Americas, who have been focusing on a turnaround of the business to drive simplification and deliver improved operational efficiency. Through this work, they unlocked a further cost savings of $9.4 million. Overall, the margin in the period decreased 490 basis points to 3.7%. Looking ahead, operational improvements are underway, which will deliver further benefits and margin improvements in the second half of the year, with key strategic initiatives such as ceasing in-house manufacturing in China and restructuring in DG Americas beginning to take effect. The second half of the year should also see some softening of freight rates. Let's now move to the detailed financial review and start by looking at the key P&L lines on slide nine. The reported decline of - 11% in revenue was driven by both DG Americas at - 14% and DG International - 6%. This decrease in revenue, coupled with increased sourcing, manufacturing, and freight costs, resulted in an adjusted operating profit decline of 62% to $14.7 million. In DG Americas, the loss of revenue resulted in profit falling to $1.7 million in the period. Rising sourcing, manufacturing, and freight costs put pressure on profitability, as they could not be fully recovered through pricing given the market environment. While we successfully reduced overheads, these savings were not enough to offset the combined impact of lower sales and cost headwinds in the period. There are, however, further business optimization benefits that will materialize in the second half of the year. For DG International, adjusted operating profit for the period was $16.9 million, down 33% on the prior year. The adjusted operating margin of 11.2% was 450 basis points lower, primarily due to higher cost headwinds, particularly in freight, which could not be fully offset through sales price recovery. Notwithstanding the tougher retail environment, our international division has made operational improvements, including restructuring shift patterns and better utilizing and releasing surplus warehousing space. These initiatives have helped mitigate some of the pressures from rising costs. Finance costs for the first half were $1.4 million and are lower than the prior year, driven by the higher average cash for the period. The tax charge for the half year was $1.3 million, with an effective tax rate of 23.3%. Diluted adjusted earnings per share was $0.11. If we now turn to the cash flow on slide 10, the group ended the period with its net cash balance at $7.4 million. The year-on-year cash balance improved as a result of a stronger opening cash position. Working capital levels of the group increased steadily in the first half of the year, as manufacturing of seasonal product builds ahead of distribution. The second half of the year then sees an increase in cash position as Christmas-related receivables are collected. The working capital outflow in the period was $96.2 million, with a continued focus on working capital management across the group. During the period, there was a $4.7 million cash outflow in relation to adjusting items. These cash outflows mainly relate to the closure of the manufacturing site in China, as well as staff redundancy costs in DG Americas. Capital expenditure in the period was lower than the prior year at $3.1 million, with strategic investments in the innovative Smart Wrap solution being the most notable expenditure in the period. Capital expenditure in the second half of the year is expected to be higher, with further investment in Smart Wrap, as well as continued ERP investment and the relocation to a new warehouse in our DG Australia operations. Pleasingly, the strong cash management has resulted in higher average net cash for the period, and this had a positive impact on our interest charge. I will now hand back to Paul to cover our strategy as well as the outlook for the year ahead. Thanks, Rohan. Slide 11 is a reminder of the strategy we introduced in June 2023. I have said before that this is effectively a checklist of what we aspire to when providing our customers with the best products and service possible in a competitive setting, to be a partner of choice that then wins together with our customers. Slide 12 encapsulates on the page the strategic activities underway during the period. I won't read the slide. It is very ambitious, and it's about being more focused on where we can win and seeking new opportunities, servicing all channels and customers, even our smaller ones, better, using all possible tools and levers to add value to our product categories, innovating to appeal to the next generation of consumers, nearshoring and reducing supply chain dependencies, providing sustainable solutions for our customers and consumers, ensuring we have the talent to win, being flexible and remaining relevant in our manufacturing capabilities, collaborating better within the group to better leverage our capabilities, continuing to grow our talent to retain it and support them winning, putting in place systems to underpin our processes and controls, leveraging the considerable expertise in our units for the benefit of all. As I said, there is a lot going on. So finally, in summary on slide 13, we are operating in some difficult circumstances in a number of our markets, in particular the important U.S. market. The trends driving these conditions have persisted for some time, and we have reported on them for a few reporting cycles. At the heart of all this are hard-pressed consumers. This is resulting in very competitive retail markets, where some of our customers are winning, but others are not. Our revenues are correspondingly down. Besides the revenue decline, our start to the 2025 financial year has also been impacted by higher costs, especially freight. This has weighed on our profit and margin delivery over this period. As I have said, we are responding through continuing and new self-help initiatives to offset these headwinds. We are also investing in our commercial teams so that we can return to winning more business than we lose, as well as putting more value back into our product categories so they regain their appeal with consumers, whether household finances are tight or improving. Sustained focus on cash management has made us cash positive over this period, an important element of a more resilient business model. Unfortunately, our top line remains under pressure as we see the tough consumer environment across a number of markets continuing for now, but our customer relationships remain mostly intact and highly collaborative, and so we must double down on continued and new self-help initiatives to mitigate the drag from the market conditions. Some of these initiatives will lead to improved profitability in the second half of the financial year, traditionally when the seasonality of our business has resulted in losses that partially offset the first half's profits. On the issue of trade tariffs, as a domestic manufacturer of some of our categories, this may provide us with new opportunities. However, this strategy may also trigger increased inflation that may further impact consumer demand. It is simply too early to comment further, so we wait on pronouncements following January's inauguration, and we will respond accordingly. In our recent trading updates, we revise our expectations for the financial year and those following. In line with that revision, we still expect to grow profits and margins year on year, even though sales will be lower. Two years ago, we set an aspiration to have restored the historic pro forma operating profit margin of 4.5% by the end of March 2025. Despite the continuing challenges of the uncertain consumer environment, we still expect to deliver that result in a step towards building a more resilient business for the long term. We thank you for listening. We will now take your questions. Now, Paul and Rohan will take questions. To ask your question, click on the Q&A button and type your question. We've got lots of people who have done that. Paul and Rohan, given the market reaction today, many don't believe that you'll hit market forecasts as this will require turning last year's $8.9 million in half two to a profit of almost $20 million. What gives you confidence that this sort of turnaround is the most likely outcome? Thanks, thanks, Tamsin. That's a good question. I'm going to pass over to Rohan to step through what gives us the confidence that we'll be able to achieve that. Yeah, I mean, thanks, Tamsin. And as Paul said, really good question. And if we look at it between the two divisions. And I think if we start with DG International, we clearly had some timing impacts in H1 that have impacted and will not revert or impact profitability positively in H2. And if you look at the adjusted operating profit chart, we've called those out in particular. And that's the timing impact of sales that have moved into H2 and the profit impact of that is $3.1 million. And also the Group's strategic initiatives, which is the timing that we've taken on the impact of closing our China operations. Now, last year, we didn't have a loss in H1, and we did have a loss of $4.5 million in H1 this year. And last year, we had the loss in H2, and we're not going to have that loss in H2. So in DG International, we have a $7.6 million swing of profit into the second half. So I think that gives us confidence, together with a very strong order book that we've seen in H2, that, you know, DG International will swing into that profitability that we're expecting in the second half. The next one, if we take DG Americas, where we've delivered a $1.7 million profit versus $16 million in the prior year for H1. And that's where DG Americas had a big loss in the second half last year, delivering a profit of $7 million in the full half. We're expecting close to double digits or into double digit profit this year. What we've really done there is have a lot of initiatives that we've done. Again, on the adjusted operating profit chart, we've got DG Americas initiatives that we've done through cost reduction, consolidating sites, simplifying the operation that have delivered $9.4 million in the first half. We're expecting those to continue into the second half, as well as a second wave of redundancies we initiated in the second half, which we are expecting to, you know, deliver additional profit into the second half. On top of that, it's important to realize the context that we were trading in in the last quarter last year, where we traded very, very cautiously with a few customers who we knew had the possibility of going into Chapter 11 and credit issues. Therefore, we reduced our buying significantly in the last quarter of last year. That really did impact our profitability last year. We're not expecting that to also repeat as we're going through. Again, you see, on top of the Q4 savings, the initiation, I mean, the sales, the strategic initiatives we've implemented, we're pretty confident that that will turn, you know, the profitability in the second half in DG Americas. Yeah. Clear, I mean, there's a number of moving parts here across both divisions. You know, when we talk about these moving parts, you know, we do believe that there is a profitability shift, a bit like the sales shift that we're seeing. You know, if we look over the last two years, we've seen a trend back towards a more balancing of our seasonality in sales. That also is continuing into, you know, this year. The combination of, you know, the big self-help stuff, plus the sales shift that's happening between the two halves, should give us a profitable H2. Great. Thank you very much indeed. The company is trading at about half tangible book value, largely representing the company's large inventory position. Given the lost business during half one, what gives you confidence that this inventory is accurately valued on the balance sheet and that these assets can generate an acceptable return on assets in the future? Yeah, well, also a really good question. The company has a, you know, a cash flow cycle. I mean, if we look at the cash flow slide on slide 10, you clearly see the cycle of cash that we sort of use during the year. That's where we start the year cash positive and then consume working capital during the year in order to convert that into products that we'll then sell into retail specifically for the seasonal product and then get down to sort of the highest working capital position by mid-year, as well as the lowest cash position by mid-year. Then as we go into the second half of the year, obviously, we collect those receivables and then go into a positive cash position again. When we report a half-year announcement, it's probably the peak of the working capital period, which you can see on this cash flow. We consumed $99.5 million of working capital last year versus $96 million this year. We're pretty confident that as we have been simplifying the business, reducing complexity in our business, last year alone, we reduced 10,000 SKUs. Again, this year, we continue to reduce our number of SKUs. We've seen our working capital reduce quite significantly over the last couple of years, and I think one of the things we said is we're quite comfortable with the level of working capital we're now getting to. And some of the guidance and things we've been asked is, as the business grows into the future, will we consume a lot more working capital? And what we're sort of saying is we're at the optimum level of working capital that as we grow by 1% or 2%, you can expect working capital to grow by 1% or 2%, but I think overall, we're comfortable with where we are. We're comfortable, and we obviously still got opportunities to simplify the business and move it forward and do that. But we're pretty comfortable with where we are on the inventory balance and think we've done a lot of work in the last while to release cash from the inventory in particular. Yeah. No, thanks, Rohan. Look, I mean, I think there's two things to remember here. You know, one, you know, when you're looking at our September balance sheet, you know, we're at peak inventory, obviously, ahead of the, you know, the big season, which is Christmas. So obviously, from then, the inventory begins to tail down. And then secondly, remember, you know, a lot, you know, the bulk of what we produce is produced to order to specific customer requirements. So again, you know, typically, the, you know, the risk to us of being left with sort of redundant inventory is actually pretty low. Great. Thank you very much. So on the cash flow, can we expect the net cash monthly path to be similar to full year 2024 or full year 2023, where the lowest point was in October or November? Another one for you. Yes, yes, we can. So those are our working capital cycles across the group. And this year, we're following a very similar trend to the prior year, obviously starting with a much higher cash position. So we're expecting to end the year, you know, very, very strong. And yes, November, October, November becomes our worst, but only slightly dipping into negative territory. But then I think average cash positive will be the highest average cash positive we've been, you know, for the year when we look at cash. And that's obviously had a very, very positive impact on our interest charge. Great. Thank you very much. There were large exceptional costs in half one due to the China factory closure and warehouse consolidations. Are these changes now complete, or should we expect more exceptional costs in half two? Largely complete. So yes, the China facility is largely complete, and we've taken all the exceptional costs with regard to redundancies and asset write-downs or whatever else we've needed to. And again, within DG Americas, that's where the second half come through has been redundancy costs primarily. And those are also complete. And yeah, and I suppose the one thing we have got that we say on the cash flow at the bottom is we're actively marketing three freehold sites that have been released, two in DG Americas, one in the U.K. And should those, you know, generate a sale, we'll have the full cash benefit, which we're expecting to be north of $10 million with a lowish book value on those products, on those properties. So therefore, you know, there'd be a positive exceptional item should those, you know, get a sale on those properties. Great. Thank you very much. And as a domestic manufacturer in the U.S., we assume tariffs will be positive for you. Absolutely right. We are a domestic manufacturer in the U.S. It's not just the gift wrap that we produce in Mississippi. It's also the poly ribbon and bows that we produce up in Pennsylvania, narrow weave ribbon that we produce in Maryland and in the Carolinas. So quite a bit of domestic production across a number of product categories. Yes, you know, we believe that the imposition of tariffs, new tariffs, because, you know, we do already have tariffs that provide some protection, although we can talk about how effective the enforcement of those is. Yes, tariffs would help create a level playing field against, you know, the competition that we have seen, you know, in recent years coming from the Far East. Yes, you know, there may be some disruption that also comes with the tariffs, but, you know, I think it's too early to speculate how things will play out. You know, there's been a lot of sort of commentary and a lot coming from the incoming administration. I think really we're going to have to wait until January, once the inauguration has happened, to sort of see what's actually going to come through the statute books. Great. Thank you very much. And what are you seeing on freight costs? Are they coming down? And what can you do to mitigate them? Yeah, I mean, we clearly had an impact from freight costs in the first half of the year. But what we have done is within our DG Americas operation in particular, we've been very effective at reducing the number of containers, moving a lot of our orders to FOB. And actually, the impact we've seen in DG Americas has actually been relatively small in the first half of the year. It's mainly been caused by freight out that we've seen inflation within freight out. Where we've seen large freight increases in this first half of the year has actually been into Continental Europe and impacting our business. And there again, we are, you know, we've got the net impact that we see in the first half of $8.4 million. I mean, looking forward, we are expecting freight rates to be quite a bit softer than they were in the first half. But we also have, once we understand the impact of the freight rates, we are having active discussions with our customers in order to try and recover those. And there has been a small recovery on some of those that we are negotiating into the second half of the year. So I think one of the things we always can look at is, you know, forward cover protecting ourselves, which we do have. But we always do find that the freight agents, you know, always put on tariffs and various other things that come onto them. And therefore, you're never fully protected when you're looking forward with these. But we have really been concentrating on simplifying our business, using less, which I think we've been really effective in DG Americas. We've seen it coming through now in DG Europe, and we are trying to, you know, impact that. But we expect the second half of the year to be a lot less than we've seen in the first half. Yeah. No, I mean, look, it's clear that, you know, freight has had an impact on our results, you know, that we've just reported. But, you know, I think a lot of learnings have been taken from the experience from three years ago. And also, obviously, our margins are in a better place also to bear some of this because you'll never be able to fully insulate yourself, you know, from that environment. But certainly, you know, we've taken a lot of steps since then, both in terms of smart usage of freight, but also in terms of our ability to go back to our customers and have those difficult conversations and recoup, you know, some of that additional cost. Great. Thank you very much. And on revenue for full year 25, are you still confident that it'll be about 5% below full year 24 revenue? Short answer is yes. You know, if we look at sort of our performance last year and the second half of last year, I was very watchful of our performance in the Americas division. And, you know, we were beginning to sort of, you know, even out in terms of the second half performance. I've got no reason to believe that actually, you know, we should be seeing something similar over this year. Great. Thank you very much. With all the cash on the balance sheet and the depressed share price, have you thought about share buybacks? Yeah. Look, I mean, the cash performance has been fantastic. And, you know, it's a result of, you know, a lot of hard work has gone into it. Yes. Look, the, you know, the subject of, you know, cash allocation, capital allocation, whether it's dividends or share buybacks, you know, is something that the board looks at from time to time. I mean, I've been very clear that, you know, for me, there were two requisites that, you know, we needed to sort of take into account before we, you know, entertained either buybacks or dividends. That was really, you know, the return to a more resilient model. The proxy for that, of course, was, you know, achieving the 4.5% operating profit margin. Secondly, it was about the stabilization of the sales in the U.S. business. You know, and both of those, you know, to me, are still important because they talk to a sustainability because it's, you know, obviously one thing in terms of sort of doing buybacks or instituting a dividend, but then being able to sustain it. These are all considerations that sort of come into play as we sort of our level of confidence grows on achieving the margin, as we look to start stabilizing the U.S. business and its top line. Yes, you know, the conversation around distributions of some form or another are increasingly frequent at the board. And of course, the other factor in all this, as Rohan mentioned, are the three freehold properties which we are actively marketing and hope to be able to sell. So those would all obviously sort of improve the cash situation as well and provide another trigger for further consideration. Great. Thank you very much. And three related questions. Why do you think seasonality is changing and do you envisage this continuing? And when are Christmas orders usually fulfilled by? Yeah, sure. So if you look back over the history of the group, the group was very dependent on Christmas. And that began to balance out as a number of acquisitions were undertaken in the U.S. starting in 2016, then 2018 and 2020. And really with the completion of that last transaction, part of the strategy of our predecessors was to look to sort of balance out the seasonality of the business. And, you know, on a pro forma basis, it looked as though, you know, that had been achieved. And certainly, if you look at the sales balance in the years of 2020 and 2021, it's pretty 50/50. Things got distorted after that, post-COVID, if you remember the supply chain disruption in the summer of 2021. And that affected behavior in the following year where customers sought to obtain their inventory earlier in the cycle so as to avoid any potential risk of supply chain disruption. And that distorted sales in favor of H1, certainly for fiscal 2023 and into fiscal 2024. But since then, we've seen a sort of a move back towards a more even seasonality in sales. And this year has been no different. And, you know, we expect next year that trend to continue as we level up at around 50/50. In terms of the sort of timing around Christmas, the short answer to that is any day now, really. It varies, obviously, unit to unit, which reflects our different customers and our routes to market and distribution strategies. But really, I mean, any day now, we will be ceasing production. And then usually within sort of two weeks or so, we have most of the product out into the market. Obviously, there are some customers that will sort of hold back and sort of want things a little bit more piecemeal in the run-up to Christmas. But it's really done by the end of this month, November. Tremendous. Thank you very much. And have you had any thoughts on giving a January or February update, given that there's quite a large gap until the May trading update? Yes, very much so. We actually did receive feedback at the last AGM, you know, which raised the issue of the gap. And that's certainly something that the board has undertaken to look at. And I think this year in particular, with the election result and the new government coming into the U.S. as well, I think, you know, it would be appropriate for us to make some comment if you know, at minimum, in terms of sort of what has transpired in respect of international trade tariffs and potentially also talk about the post-Christmas experience as well at retail. Yes, Tamsin, you know, very much so. I think, you know, we're looking at providing an update at an appropriate time in that first calendar quarter of the year. Great. Thank you very much. What will the impact of the introduction of Digital Product Passports in the EU be? When will this come into play? Yeah. The regulations in the EU start applying to us from around 2028, which seems like a long way off, but actually there's quite a bit of work involved to get there. And also, it's a rolling program. So some of our customers, our retail customers, will have to comply before that. So, of course, that then accelerates the requirement on us. I think the advantage that the regulation brings is a lot more transparency in terms of provenance of product. I think it also allows us to underpin some of the claims that are made in respect of sustainability in terms of ethical compliance. So I think it provides a lot more transparency and rich information to consumers and to customers in terms of being able to make, you know, appropriate choices when it comes to, you know, which products they buy. Great. Thank you very much. And that's the end of questions. I have to say thank you for answering all of them. Paul, do you have any closing remarks? Yeah. Thank you, Tamsin. Look, without a doubt, it's been a tough first half of the year. And, you know, we, you know, are leaning into a very tough environment at the retail space in, you know, three of our markets in the U.K., the U.S., and Australia. And that's, you know, 80% of our sales. But, you know, as we said, you know, at the heart of this is a consumer which has been under a lot of pressure for quite some time, whether it's initially from inflation or whether it's been from higher interest rates or whether, you know, obviously taxation in some countries. And really that's, you know, what's driving the top line dynamic, you know, largely. You know, it will pass. You know, these things do pass. But, you know, what stands, you know, in terms of into the future is the strength of our relationships, our continuing relationships with all of the major retailers in every market we work in. And as we said, yes, some of those retailers are struggling in the current environment, but, you know, a lot of them are winning. There is some movement in, you know, who's winning and who isn't. And, you know, what's pleasing to see is that we've retained our relationships with all of our customers. And in fact, some of the customers that, you know, had walked away from us in recent years have come back. And I think, you know, that coupled with the potential opportunity of obviously the tariff situation, you know, sets us up well for the future. Excellent. Many thanks, Paul and Rohan. And to all listeners, you'll now be taken to a web page to give feedback on the presentation. If you can't complete it now, you'll get a follow-up email. Paul and Rohan would be really grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete. Many thanks for joining. This is the end of the webinar.