Good day and thank you for standing by. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Welcome to the 3i Group plc Action Capital Markets Seminar. After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session via the conference call, and instructions will follow at that time. Participants can also submit questions through the webcast page using the Ask a Question button. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand over to the CEO of 3i Group plc, Simon Borrows, to open the presentation. Please go ahead. Good morning and welcome to 3i's Capital Markets Seminar for Action's 2025 results. My name is Simon Borrows. I'm the CEO of 3i and Chairman of Action. Also on the call is James Hatchley, CFO of 3i, as well as Hajir Hajji, CEO of Action, and Joost Sliepenbeek, CFO of Action. We plan to take you through a presentation of Action's results and strategy, which has been put on our website this morning. Action's excellent track record has continued into 2025, with very good growth in stores, sales and profits, as well as another strong year of operating cash flow. Action has again delivered very significant transaction growth based on its very low prices and flexible format. The group's combination of significant cross-border store growth and sector-leading like-for-like growth sets it apart from its peer group. 2025 was another year of very strong growth across the business, as you will see from today's presentation. We've updated our compounding slide for Action to the 31st of December, 2025. Action has made stellar progress since the acquisition in 2011. It is now one of Europe's largest non-food retail groups. It is a highly cash generative business, even as it opens hundreds of new stores, and its growing scale underpins its increasing competitive advantage. Okay, let me hand over to the Action team. Hajir, over to you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your introduction, Simon. I would like to start by sharing an update on our 2025 performance, followed by an overview of our strategy. 2025 was a great expansion year. Net sales increased by 16% to EUR 16 billion, driven by our ongoing store expansion and like-for-like sales growth. Our like-for-like sales growth was 4.9%. This is a very good outcome, especially compared to most European retailers, and should be seen on top of the 56% compounded like-for-like growth we delivered between 2021 and 2024. What is very pleasing is that we continue to see a growing number of customers shop at Action across all countries. Our operating EBITDA increased by 14% to EUR 2.367 billion, and last year was also another record year for our expansion. We added 384 stores in one year, more than one store a day on average. We continued to invest ahead of our growth in our supply chain backbone and in our systems to enable increasing volumes. In summary, our underlying sales growth remained strong, highlighting the resilience of our formula and our relevance to millions of customers. Before talking about 2025 highlights, it is helpful to add a bit more context. First of all, consumer sentiment and behaviors were mixed last year: strong in the south and east of Europe, solid in our home market, the Netherlands and in Germany, but weaker in France, mainly in the second part of the year. Competition was also intense across markets and mostly in France. With all this market noise, it is sometimes easy to forget that despite all of this, Action continues to grow in all of its markets. We attract a growing number of customers to our stores, selling everyday necessities and general merchandise, which performed strongly in 2025. With this context in mind, there are five key points that I would like to highlight. First, as mentioned, we added a record number of stores and distribution centers to support them. In Germany, Poland, and Italy, we added more than 60 stores each. France and Spain followed not far behind with more than 50 and more than 40 stores. A special highlight was the opening of our 3,000th store last summer. Second, for the first time in our history, we opened two new markets in a single year, including Switzerland as a non-EU country. The welcome from our customers in both Switzerland as well as Romania was very promising and exceeded our expectations. It is a great encouragement to see that our formula works so well in two countries that have very different levels of disposable income. Third, in the Netherlands, our most mature market, we delivered an above-average like-for-like performance, proving the strength and relevance of our formula also in an established market. Fourth, our southern European markets delivered strong double-digit like-for-like sales growth. Finally, I strongly believe that none of this would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our colleagues. Over the years, we have experienced consistent improvements in the engagement and commitment of our teams. Our colleagues are the foundation of our success, and we consider maintaining their engagement a key priority. Needless to say, we also had our share of challenges. Our like-for-like sales growth was below our expectations, mainly due to challenging conditions in France, our largest market. Our growth in France slowed down after the summer, resulting in like-for-like growth of 1.3% for the full year. If we exclude France, Action's like-for-like sales growth was 7.2%. The majority of the challenges in France resulted from softer consumer sentiment, which led to more careful consumer spending. Our French like-for-like stores still grew 2.5% in transactions, but customers spent less per visit, with fewer articles per ticket in the week leading up to paychecks. This spread across most weeks after the summer as the economic situation weakened. In this softer consumer environment, with shoppers spending less, more retailers struggled. Supermarkets were increasingly using promotions and competing on price, also impacting us, giving our large size in the French market. I will talk more about this later. We remain focused on offering our customers good quality products for the lowest price and taking the right commercial actions. We believe that this challenging period and the lessons we have learned will work in our favor in the long term, as our formula gives us the flexibility to adjust our assortment quickly, although it will take some time for adjustments to fully translate into results. A last challenge I need to point out is the unplanned increase of our supply chain cost as a percentage of sales, mainly caused by the higher handling cost for direct sourcing. Joost will elaborate on this. Despite these challenges, we remain confident in our formula because we believe this is a very strong foundation. At the time when consumers are facing rising costs and economic uncertainty, our customers rely on us for the good quality products they need for the prices they can afford, and others simply choose us because they do not want to spend more than necessary. Both of these are clearly reflected in our strong customer growth. We welcome 21.6 million customers per week on average, up from 18.7 million in 2024. The appreciation from our customers is reflected in the many awards we won across Europe. They highlight the strong brand awareness we enjoy and the trust we have earned from our customers across all our markets. Let me highlight two examples that I'm very proud of. In the Netherlands, the country where Action once started, we were awarded Retailer of the Year 2025. In France, we have grown into a leading retailer in just over 13 years. We were named Favorite Brand of the French for the third year in a row, and we are the only foreign retailer to date to have won the title. Customer awards do not only reflect the trust and loyalty of our customers, but also the dedication of the Action teams that serve our customers every single day. I'm very proud of this, and I would like to thank all our colleagues for their commitment. The excitement of our customers for our formula remains remarkable. Let me show you a few examples: the opening of our 100th store in Spain and a store opening in France last Saturday. We see the same effect at many of our store openings across countries. What did change from earlier market entries is that our brand awareness is now already high before we open our first store. It is impressive how quickly customers find their way to our stores in our newest markets and welcome the Action formula. A good proof point for this is Southern Europe, where Action is performing very well. Our stores in Spain, Italy, and Portugal are delivering our highest like-for-like growth. I often say everyone deserves an Action. Living up to this promise, we entered two new markets in a single year for the first time in our history. Our entries in Switzerland and Romania were very successful, and we closed the year with eight stores in Switzerland and six in Romania. Our success in these two countries shows how scalable our formula is and confirms our confidence for further expansion to newer markets. We are enjoying strong performance in two very different markets, Switzerland, the country with the highest disposable income in Europe, and Romania, a country with one of the lowest. Switzerland delivered the highest first week sales of any new store in our history. We also saw a very strong opening week in Romania, a country with 19 million inhabitants and a strong potential. Both Switzerland and Romania strongly exceeded expectations. That's why we plan to grow our store network quickly and build a distribution center in Romania to support this fast expansion. The foundation of our formula, and a key reason why so many customers choose Action, is that we offer good quality products at the lowest price. To live up to this promise, we monitor our price position versus a large set of online and offline competitors in all our markets across all our product categories. This is a dynamic process. Assortment and prices change week by week, and sometimes daily, which is why we track prices all the time. If the price gap between comparable products becomes too small, our buying team takes action. This graph shows our price positioning in Q4 of 2025 compared with Q4 2024. This comparison includes offline competitors as well as local online players. If you included global online players, the chart would not show material differences. The index does not include promotions. However, we do monitor those as well. In each country, we compare around 2,000 products, benchmarking them against the lowest price comparable product. As you can see, we continue to maintain a strong relative price position. Let me zoom in on France for a moment. Despite our strong position, we have always stayed true to our principle of being the lowest price retailer. Drawing on our past experience in a soft consumer environment and with more intense price competition, mainly from supermarkets and especially in FMCG, we decided to implement further price reductions in Q4 to reinforce and further strengthen our competitive position. As we go into 2026, we continue to lower prices where needed and focus more on lowest price items. Despite this challenging environment, customer traffic in our stores continues to increase, and we expect this positive trend to continue. I believe that everyone can offer low prices. That's not what it's all about. What is just as important as having the lowest price is keeping up investments in product quality without passing our investments on to customers in the form of higher prices. We believe that our customers will only come back if we offer the lowest price and deliver good quality. A clear sign that our customers appreciate our price quality ratio is the fact that our private label products again won several awards last year. I will take you through two examples. First, customers voted Action's Teddy Care baby wipes Best Product of the Year in the Netherlands. This product is a great example of responsible innovation. The renewed Teddy Care line is made from plant-based fibers, free from microplastic, and comes in 100% recyclable packaging. Second, our Palazzo coffee capsules were named Best Buy in Belgium. This recognition highlights exactly what Action is standing for. Good quality doesn't have to be expensive. We continuously test and improve our private label products. For Palazzo, an independent panel benchmarked the taste of our cups against leading A-brands. This test showed that Palazzo was rated better than the A-brands. This Best Buy recognition clearly confirms this. In both examples, quality went up while prices stayed exactly the same and the lowest in the market. 2025 was a year with many milestones. We added a record number of stores, more than one store a day on average. For the first time in our history, we entered two new countries and opened three DCs in a single year. Our store expansion was strong in all our markets. All new stores contribute to overall performance and deliver attractive payback times, including in France. Joost will provide more detail on this. Supporting this strong expansion, we expanded our supply chain with three new distribution centers in Germany, Poland, and Italy. In addition, we opened a hub in the Netherlands to support our growth in direct sourcing. We now manage a network of 18 DCs to ensure good product availability and an on-time delivery to our stores. Our focus is not only on growing our store network, but also on keeping our existing stores up to date. I will elaborate on this later in the presentation. We believe that sustainability and discount retail can go hand in hand. Because of our scale, the impact of every action we take is even more meaningful. We established the Action Sustainability Program several years ago. The four pillars of the program, People, Planet, Product, and Partnership, were inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Let me share some of our key achievements from last year. Action is committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain. We reduced our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 11% compared to 2024. Versus our base year, 2021, we have now delivered a 56% reduction, and we are well on track to reach 75% reduction by 2030. For Scope 3, we are engaging with our suppliers to set up science-based targets as well. At the end of the first year of our engagement program, 15% of our suppliers by emissions has validated targets in place. A good start for our objective of 80% by 2029. On product, we continue to improve the environmental and social impact of our products. We have invested in certified sustainable sourcing. More than 99% of the timber, cotton, cocoa, coffee, and palm oil used in our private and white label products are sustainably sourced, underpinned by relevant certifications like Better Cotton or Fairtrade. We met all our sustainable packaging commitments. We reduced the overall weight of packaging by 29% for products in scope, exceeding our 25% reduction target. Next to that, we work with our suppliers to turn waste from our daily operations into good new products. A recent example is a bin bag. We collect the plastic wrap from the roll cages in our stores, recycle it, and produce a fully circular bin bag. On partnership, Action wants to contribute to the communities where we operate. We focus on children as they are the future, and we believe children deserve a safe and healthy start in life. By focusing our partnership on a limited number of initiatives, we are creating a bigger impact. Let me highlight the key achievement of two of our partnerships. Through our partnership with SOS Children's Villages, we supported around 70,500 children last year, helping them grow up in a safe and stable environment. Action and the Cruyff Foundation motivate children to get active. We are financing the construction of safe sport courts, giving the children of the neighborhood near several of our stores a place to exercise and start moving. Last year, we opened our first sport court in Paris. In 2025, we also welcomed two new partners, Máxima, the foundation dedicated to cure childhood cancer, and our support will go to Máxima partners across all Action markets that provide treatment, care, or research into this disease. Fairtrade, because we now support a living income for our cocoa farmers. Our chocolate has been Fairtrade since 2022. Last year, we extended this collaboration to commit to an additional living income premium that allows the farmers who produce our cocoa to earn a living income without increasing consumer prices. We are the first international retailer to have committed to this in all our markets. Last but not least, people. Action is a significant employer. By year-end 2025, we offered over 84,000 colleagues working in our stores, DCs, and offices stable jobs and income. During the year, we created more than 4,500 new jobs. Our colleagues represent 166 different nationalities, mirroring the communities in which we operate, as most colleagues live in the neighborhoods where we are located. As a growing company, we want to offer our colleagues opportunities to develop with us. That's why we put a lot of effort in creating real career opportunities. We have a target of promoting at least one colleague for each Action store per year, retaining talent, deep Action expertise, and giving colleagues a chance to develop themselves. Last year, we exceeded this target as more than 3,700 colleagues received a promotion to a higher job level. We also continued to invest in training and development opportunities. In 2025, our colleagues received an average of 4.2 training hours, up from 3.7 hours the year before. Finally, I'm also proud of our trainee programs, which enable young colleagues to grow in our organization. This was recognized in France as we won an award for this. My own Action career now spans 29 years, and I can honestly say that I strongly believe that in addition to the Action formula, our unique culture and our colleagues are foundational to our success. Our strong can-do culture revolves around our customers, how we can fulfill their needs, and put a smile on their faces. This is what drives us every single day. Retaining the engagement of our almost 85,000 colleagues is crucial. That is why we find it very important to listen to our colleagues. Every two years, we ask their opinion as part of an employee survey and provide them with the time to respond, resulting in a response rate of 97%. Our engagement score increased to an Action record of 78%, well beyond retail and logistics benchmarks. The engagement score reflects three important engagement drivers: work satisfaction, motivation, and fitting in. A large majority of our colleagues tell us that they are satisfied with their jobs, are motivated to perform, and feel they belong at Action. The strong 2025 results show that our continued focus on listening to the feedback of our colleagues is successful. What I especially like from these results is that we see strong scores and upward trend across our company, in all countries, across all departments. Our strong culture is also recognized externally. Last year, we received awards for being an attractive employer in Germany and in Poland, as well as other HR awards in Italy, the Netherlands, and Austria. This confirms that our culture and colleagues are the strong foundation of our success, and I truly believe that our focus on our people is crucial, and it will always remain a top priority for me. This brings me to the end of my business performance update, and as I wrap up, I would like to present a short video that highlights our key achievements from last year. In this section, I would like to focus on our strategy update. Before I start, I want to touch upon the potential impact of the conflict in the Middle East. As it is still early days, for now we see limited impact, mainly related to fuel costs. However, it is too soon to determine the full impact. At the same time, we have proven that our operations are strong and highly flexible, allowing us to manage significant challenge like this in the right way, as we have shown during COVID and previous sea freight challenges. However, this remains an evolving situation which we are monitoring closely, and Joost will say more about this. Moving on to our strategy. You may have seen this slide before, as our strategy has remained consistent over the past five years, centered around our customers. The components of our strategy reinforce each other and have driven our success. Through the five components of our strategy, we aim to strengthen our customer proposition, the basis of everything we do. Drive international growth to capture the strong customer demand for our formula, maintain a simple, efficient, and scalable operating model, supporting our consistent, unified, and disciplined way of working, make sustainability accessible, reinforcing our conviction that discount retail and sustainability go hand in hand, and treasure our people and values because our culture and colleagues drive Action forward. Our strategy is the foundation of our long-term success and enable us to grow in a disciplined and sustainable way. Not only our strategy is consistent, also our operations are consistent. Action is the same wherever we operate. We have one brand, one store type, one way of working. We deliver a similar formula across all our markets. More than 90% of our assortment is the same everywhere, and we only differentiate if needed, for example, to meet local regulations. Our strategy sets our direction. Our formula captures the heart of our customers. It is based on offering good quality products for the lowest price. We ask ourselves, "What would be a good price for this product?" Looking at the entire value chain, being cost-conscious in everything we do, arriving at the lowest price in the market. Our assortment consists of a limited number of stock-keeping units, and it is the same everywhere. We sell basics and not a wide range of products that allow us to source large volumes, creating economies of scale in production and supply chain. Our way of working is similar across countries with a focus on low overhead costs. Because our customers are our biggest promoters, we can keep our marketing spend relatively low. We continue to invest in technology to ensure efficiency and scalability. Last year, the migration to our new ERP system. This year we are starting to roll out our new POS system and workforce management system across all our stores. In addition, we leverage technology like AI to support the way of working within departments, for instance, optimizing our forecasting and HR processes. Putting customers first in everything we do is a cornerstone of our success. Our stores offer a pleasant shopping experience and for our employees, a nice working environment. Finally, I cannot repeat this enough, our lowest prices go hand in hand with our continuous investments in product quality and sustainability, because only this combination ensures that customers return for repeat purchases. We attract customers from all walks of life and backgrounds, with tight budgets or those who do not want to spend more than necessary. We see a similar distribution across all our markets, giving us confidence in our proposition and our potential to grow. Action offers 6,000 products across 14 categories. Our assortment consists of everyday necessities such as cleaning products and products that enrich daily life, such as home decoration. 1/3 of our assortment is fixed and always in store, like Teddy Care baby wipes, and 2/3 is flexible, changing frequently, like our current Easter assortment. We introduce 150 new products every week. This keeps our assortment relevant and surprising, and allow us to respond quickly to changing customer habits or trends. Because of our lowest price offer, our products are accessible to everyone. In fact, 2/3 of our sold products are priced below EUR 2. We delivered like-for-like sales growth across all product categories. Last year, we adjusted the store blueprint, reducing shelf space for category 14. If corrected for this blueprint change, category 14 would show positive like-for-like growth. General merchandise performed above average, and FMCG showed solid growth, both with double-digit two-year average growth. Seasonal categories such as summer toys and summer garden delivered strong sales results in the first half of the year. Although Christmas seasonal started later than usual, the performance was strong at the end of the period. Our priorities for next year remain the key elements of our formula, price, quality, and newness. As I explained earlier, every buying decision starts with the sale price we want to offer in mind. We look at the entire value chain and find suppliers and partners based on our criteria. This ensures that we are able to maintain a clear price gap, delivering a healthy and stable margin. At Action, price and quality go hand in hand. This means we keep investing in improving the quality and sustainability of our products, and we also intend to keep surprising our customers with newness. Consumer awareness of Action is growing as our market penetration increases, both in more mature as well as in newer markets. In some of our newest markets, Spain, Slovakia, Portugal, and Switzerland, we are gaining traction faster than ever. We also experience strong customer engagement across our digital channels. Every week, the Action app, our website, and two country web shops attract an average of 17.5 million visits. Our Action app is available in every country where we operate, and the number of followers on our different social channels also grew by more than 25% last year. We are able to deliver our Action formula because of our sourcing model. We have four sourcing types that each play a clear role. Let me start with our importers and wholesalers. We see them as an extension of our buying team. They offer great speed to market, flexibility, and access to trendy and surprising products. On direct sourcing, it offer us the ability to control product quality and sustainability more strongly, but also to continue to invest in even lower prices for our customers. Our aim is to reach 20% of cost of sales. Last year, we ended at 17.6%, growing by 2.4 percentage points. In 2025, we saw lower sourcing appetite from the U.S. in the Far East, which resulted in a more favorable buying environment for us. This led to better buying prices that we are passing on to customers through lower prices or by reinvesting in product quality. Joost will elaborate on the financial implications of direct sourcing. We also source well-known A-brands. Consumers trust A-brands product quality and know their prices. Seeing them at an Action price underlines the experience that we offer good quality products at the lowest price. Finally, we consider stock lots a small but important element of our sourcing mix. They allow us to surprise our customers with unique one-off products. We value long-term supplier relationships. Most of our suppliers have been there already for many years, and at the same time, we are growing our supplier base and diversifying on sourcing origins. I've already introduced the Action sustainability program. We continue to drive progress across our four pillars and have ambitious targets. Let me give you one example. 2026 will be the first full year of our supplier engagement program. The majority of our retailer's emissions are in the product domain. That's why we collaborate with our suppliers to set their own near-term science-based targets, targeting 80% of our suppliers' emissions by 2029. As I mentioned earlier, we do not only focus on new stores, we also invest in our existing store portfolio. To preserve an enjoyable shopping experience for customers and a pleasant working environment for our colleagues, we have a structured store upgrade cycle in place. We have a young store base. We perform day-to-day maintenance for every store, and in addition, we perform basic store updates when needed. We also have a more targeted proactive process. When we see an opportunity, we will enlarge or relocate a store to capture commercial opportunities. Our refurbishment program takes several factors into account, such as the store age and condition, as well as how intensively the store is used. A refurbishment brings the store up to the latest format with, for example, a new floor, new tiles, updated wall colors, and improved lighting. The second component of our strategy is driving international growth. Over the years, we have developed a successful process for opening new stores. Entering a new market, we start with a conservative estimate of the full potential. Over time, our local teams refine this estimate based on learnings. The white space potential is defined at catchment area level, considering factors such as population, the performance of nearby stores, and potential cannibalization. Assessing cannibalization is important. In some cases, we promote cannibalization to reduce pressure on very busy stores, as it is important to maintain a pleasant shopping experience for our customers. This is the case in some of our more mature markets, mainly in urban areas. As a next step, local teams come up with detailed store investment proposals for each specific location, reviewing all relevant elements such as site quality, expected customers, supply chain, floor space, and housing costs. After that, each proposal is reviewed for approval by our real estate committee led by Joost and myself. Store locations are selected based on local knowledge, while our central governance ensures that we maintain a disciplined and consistent approach that will deliver the right store quality. Once a store has been opened, we review its performance against the original investment proposal. The learnings feed back into our local plans, creating a continuous improvement cycle. We consider this approach one of the cornerstones of our success. The quality of our stores is key. Our process is careful and considered, valuing quality over speed. It is one of the reasons why every Action store is profitable. Looking at our store potential across Europe, we have identified around 200 additional white spaces in our existing countries compared to last year. The increase is driven by a better understanding of each market as our penetration grows. Our two market entries last year in Switzerland and Romania have given us much more detailed understanding of our long-term potential in those two markets. Together with additional insights in Poland and Germany, this accounts for the majority of the extra 200 stores. Taking into account the 384 stores added last year, we now project that our total white space store potential is around 4,000-4,650 stores. Putting the additional white space numbers into perspective, this figure is lower than last year when we identified around 500 new white spaces. This is because last year we expanded our in-scope countries which this year remained unchanged. We remain confident that there is a significant room to grow all our markets, including our largest market, France, where we see very strong returns from our new stores. You may notice that the total population figure for countries not currently in scope has increased from 102 to 108 this year. This is because we added additional countries to this group. In time, and depending on the outcome of our market studies, some of these countries could become in scope for our expansion. Our expansion in Europe will continue. In 2026, we will add at least 400 stores, again accelerating our expansion, adding the most stores in Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, and France. We are opening two new markets this year, Croatia and Slovenia. Looking ahead to 2027, Bulgaria will be the next market we intend to enter. We continue to invest in a strong supply chain and plan to open distribution centers in Italy, France, and Spain this year. New DCs allow us to enter new catchment areas. A good example is Sicily. Sicily has 5 million inhabitants and will become within reach of our expansion in Italy. I'm happy to announce that we have already opened two stores in Croatia this month to great success. Here we again experience strong awareness, customers waiting in line, and Croatian colleagues happy to start working at Action. That's why we are looking forward to our first store opening in Slovenia, planned for September. Last year, I mentioned we would continue our market study into the United States. Today, I can share that we have decided to prepare for entering the U.S. in addition to our continuing expansion in Europe. Let me explain why we have come to that decision. As mentioned before, we have executed an in-depth market study of the U.S., taking into account the attractiveness of the Action formula, the competitive landscape, sourcing aspects, and operations. From this research, we concluded there is a clear potential for the Action formula of low prices and good quality products in the U.S. We have a long history of opening stores and successfully entering different markets. We recognize the U.S. market is different, and we are aware of other European retailers having entered the U.S., some with more success than others. We have assessed the lessons learned and decided that our organization is now strong and sizable enough to execute a U.S. entry while keeping full focus on our European expansion. Our approach to the U.S. will be in the same disciplined step-by-step way that serves us well in Europe. At the same time, we will differentiate where needed and take a flexible approach. Let me take you through some of the practicalities of this decision. We aim to open our first store in the U.S. by the end of 2027 or early 2028. We plan to start with around 20 Action stores across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. We selected these states because this is one of the fastest-growing regions. They have a diverse population which allow us to test with different customer groups, and they also have many medium and large regional towns. Our ambition is to grow to around 100 stores by the end of 2030. We will maintain the core principles of our formula. We will offer a selected number of daily necessities and products that enrich life across 14 categories, a flexible assortment, good quality, and the lowest price. At the same time, we want our assortment to be relevant for the U.S. consumer. Right now, we are establishing a dedicated U.S. organization, combining experienced Action leaders who know Action and our culture inside out, and U.S. colleagues that have a deep knowledge of the local retail market. What is different compared to Europe is that we will set up a local buying team. Looking at our plans for the U.S., we estimate the total investment over the period 2026 to 2030 will amount to EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million. This investment includes store locations, stock, setting up our organization, and developing the supply chain. This investment is larger than our usual European market entries, but fitting given the size of the market. We will manage this in a disciplined way, guided by our success with U.S. customers and investment returns. I'm excited that in addition to our ongoing expansion in Europe, we have now decided to enter the U.S. As Action grows, our business model becomes stronger. We have a solid foundation that consists of our formula and our culture and colleagues. Even in periods with softer consumer sentiment, such as in France, we see how the strength of our formula attracts more and more customers. By working together with almost 85,000 colleagues as one Action team with one formula, one brand, and one store format, we have built a business model that works across very different markets. As a result, we deliver a consistent performance. As we reinvest increasing margins driven by our scale in good quality products at the lowest price that surprise our customers, we have developed a cycle that keeps Action unique, resilient, and strong, supporting further growth in Europe, and in the not so distant future, also in the United States. With that, I would like to hand over to Joost. Thank you, Hajir. Good morning, everybody. In this section, I'm going to present and explain our financial performance in 2025. After that, I would like to provide you with a brief update on our current trading, along with how we today look at the rest of the year. Before I start, however, I want to note that in our presentation today, we're using alternative performance measures. You can find the definition of these measures, plus a reconciliation of these measures to the nearest IFRS measure in the appendix to this presentation. I start with a slide that I've used as the opening slide in all my presentations since I joined Action as CFO in 2018. I suspect that most of you have seen it before, so I will not dwell on it. The point I want to make by using it as my first slide also today is that just like our strategy, our financial model remains consistent and unchanged. In the rest of my presentation, I will demonstrate the strengths of our model and show how our 2025 performance continues to validate every element of it. Our financial performance in 2025 was strong. Versus the guidance that I gave at last year's 3i Capital Markets Day, we outperformed on the stores added, but were lower on the like-for-like sales growth and on EBITDA margin. I will explain the reasons for that outcome further in the presentation. Nevertheless, our underlying performance drivers remain unchanged. As a reminder, let me briefly walk you through these drivers. First, we do not only have a consistent strategy, but also financial consistency across countries because we have one single and successful format across all countries. Second, the successful openings of two completely different countries, Switzerland and Romania, confirms once again that our format travels well across borders. Third, we have a proven and optimized approach for opening new stores. This includes finding and negotiating locations, executing the store build process, and finally, opening the store with first-class opening teams. Lastly, the accuracy level for our full potential estimates increases as we get local teams in place and build more knowledge of the country. In our current and new markets across Europe, we still see significant white space opportunity. This all results in extremely attractive economics. I will go into more detail later in the presentation, but in short, the payback of our stores is attractive at less than one year, every store contributes positively, our store expansion is self-funding, and our double-digit sales growth creates operating leverage. All in all, our ongoing store expansion is an important long-term driver of value, delivering not only top-line growth, but also growth in EBITDA and overall value. In 2025, we realized a 16.1% increase in net sales and a 14% increase in operating EBITDA. Our EBITDA margin was 14.8%, 30 basis points lower than in 2024. This performance falls short of the outlook statement that I gave in March last year, which was a margin expansion of 10 to 20 basis points. The main drivers were a lower like-for-like sales growth than anticipated, higher supply chain costs as a percentage of sales, and higher margin adjustments. I will explain all three in more detail in the following slides. Our like-for-like sales growth in 2025 was 4.9%. That growth was largely driven by growth in transactions. We saw 4.6% growth in transactions, which accounted for 94% of the like-for-like sales growth. This reflects both new customers as well as higher frequency from existing customers. The remaining portion of our like-for-like sales growth was driven by an increase of 0.3% in the average ticket amount. We saw like-for-like sales growth across all our markets. The challenges that we faced in France resulted in a soft like-for-like sales growth there at 1.3%. However, also in France, the like-for-like sales growth was driven by growth in transactions at 2.5%. Given the relative size of France, which is roughly 1/3 of our total sales, this had a significant impact on our overall like-for-like sales growth. All other countries in the aggregate delivered a strong performance with like-for-like sales growth in 2025 at 7.2%, driven by 5.7% growth in transactions. This is the development of our like-for-like sales growth over the quarters. Like-for-like sales growth in the first quarter was a good 6.2%, in spite of the fact that in the first weeks of 2025, we had lower availability due to the ripple effects of the implementation of a new ERP system. In the second quarter, we saw strong performance of our seasonal summer assortment and had a strong like-for-like sales growth of 7.4%. In quarter three, especially after the summer holidays, we experienced a slowdown in performance, most notably in our largest market, France, where a significant decrease in consumer confidence and increase in the savings rate impacted overall consumer spending. Nevertheless, with other countries in the aggregate continuing to perform in line, we had an overall like-for-like sales growth of 5.3%. The final quarter of 2025 was our toughest trading period. The warmer weather had a negative impact on our autumn seasonal sales, and the Christmas season started later than usual. Once the Christmas season began, demand was strong. France had mid-single digit negative like-for-like sales growth in October and November and recovered to a flat performance in December. This gave an overall like-for-like sales growth for quarter four of 1.9%. On this slide, we present the absolute sales growth in the years 2024 and 2025, and in all cases, compared to 2023, and only for stores that were opened before 2023. In other words, a comparable group of stores. Portugal, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Romania are not included in this analysis, as the first stores in these countries were opened in or after 2023. As you can see, Action delivered continued strong sales growth across the countries. The markets are shown from left to right in sequence of their entry, and zooming in on the individual countries reveals the following. In our oldest market, the Netherlands, we performed strongly and above the average for mature markets with 11.9% growth compared to 2023. Belgium and Luxembourg was slightly lower than the Netherlands at 8% growth, but nevertheless, satisfactorily for established markets. In Germany, we continued to gain momentum with 15.1% growth compared to 2023. A strong performance in France in 2024, with 9.7% growth, was followed by the softer growth in 2025, leading to a total of 10.9% compared to 2023. We had two successive strong years in Austria with in total 22.7% growth. In the previous years, our strongest growth was observed in Poland. While Poland continues to perform well above average, delivering 37.3% growth compared to 2023, our newer Southern European markets, Italy and Spain, showed the fastest growth at 56.4% and 38.5%, respectively, compared to 2023. We had another record year of expansion with 386 store openings. This growth was driven by our newer markets, Italy and Spain, but also by our more mature markets, Germany, Poland, and France. We also had to close two stores in Germany, not because of performance, but one because of fire damage and the other one because we were unable to reach an agreement on the terms for extending the lease. In total, we added 384 stores, bringing our total number of stores to 3,302 at year-end. 2025 was also the year we entered two new markets, Switzerland and Romania. Both are off to a strong start and performing ahead of our expectations. Today, we have nine stores in Switzerland and 11 stores in Romania. As shared by Hajir earlier, our ambition for 2026 is to add at least 400 stores. The main growth countries will be Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, and France. We're also entering two new countries in 2026, Croatia and Slovenia. On 11 March, we opened our first store in Croatia, our 15th market, where we today have two stores. An important driver of our financial performance is our margin management. A key asset of our model is the flexibility of our formula. 2/3 of our assortment is variable and changes over time. Besides surprising our customers on an ongoing basis and remaining relevant, this allows us to have consistent gross margins across categories and over time. Not on the slide, but if you were to make this chart for the price buckets, so a bucket with articles priced up to EUR 2, a second bucket with articles priced between EUR 2 and EUR 5, and a third bucket with prices above EUR 5, the gross margin percentages for these buckets are also comparable. In terms of gross profit, i.e., the euro amounts, in 2025, circa 2/3 of total gross profit came from the first two buckets. The up to EUR 2 and the between EUR 2 and EUR 5 buckets, while the remaining 1/3 came from the above EUR 5 bucket. As a rule, we pass on changes in our buying prices to customers. That means that the overall gross margin doesn't change as a consequence of changes in the buying prices, nor do we want it to increase autonomously. This is what a true discounter does. I can add that in 2025, our prices for comparable products decreased by circa 1.5% because we were able to pass on lower buying prices. Nevertheless, you have seen increases in our gross margin over the recent years. Again, in 2025, gross margin increased by 40 basis points to 40.8%. There are two reasons for these increases. First, an increase in the share of direct sourcing in our sourcing mix. As Hajir has explained, in our sourcing mix, we combine domestic suppliers for flexibility and newness, and direct sourcing for cost advantage to support lower prices and better quality or both. We do the latter by using roughly 2/3 of the lower cost of goods sold from direct sourcing to strengthen our customer proposition in the form of lower prices, better quality, or both. The other 1/3 we need because we have higher operating expenses and extra risks with direct sourcing. This part explains why direct sourcing has a higher gross margin. The second reason for margin increases is mix effects, mostly country mix and to a lesser extent, category mix. Because of cost differences between countries, we also have price and margin differences between countries. That means that a change in the sales mix over the countries can also lead to changes in the overall gross margin. In recent years, this has been an explanation for a part of the margin increase. The increase in 2025 of 40 basis points is mostly explained by a higher share of direct sourcing. On this slide, you see the contribution margin of our stores, first indicating on the left Y-axis by the contribution margin per store in euros in the blue bars, second indicated on the right Y-axis by the contribution margin as a percentage of net sales indicated by the orange dots. The graph includes all stores opened before the first of January of 2024. That means the vintages that are open more than a full year. The graph shows that all these stores contribute positively. We do not have any loss-making stores. In fact, contribution margins are very consistent across the portfolio, regardless of the country, and also for all vintages, which reflects that we are maintaining all our stores well. Importantly, we've never had to close a store due to underperformance. Even when we include supply chain costs in this calculation, which are 5.3% of sales, the conclusion remains the same. All these stores are profitable. Here you see the same store level contribution margin as on the previous slide, but now grouped by country. We show 10 countries here, as Belgium and Luxembourg are combined, and only stores opened before 2024 are included. This means that Portugal, Switzerland, and Romania are not part of this overview, but these countries are already showing an above average store contribution in 2025. As you can see, the average store contribution margin is 24.7%, and margins are consistently well above 20% in every country. Overall, this once again highlights the strengths and consistency of our economic model. On this slide, you see the attractive payback period that we achieve for new stores. The slide shows the average performance of stores opened during the 2022 until 2024 period. The visual shows the average investment, net sales, and store contribution for all stores opened in this period. Last year, we presented these figures over a four-year period. We've now updated this to a three-year period, which we believe is more meaningful. It reflects the more recent vintages, aligns with our three-year maturity assumption, and removes any COVID-related effects that we still had in 2021. This three-year view will be our standard going forward. Having said that, if we had included 2021, that would not have substantially changed the outcome. Just as we saw last year, we continued to achieve an average payback period of significantly less than one year. In our more mature markets, the opening of new stores can also lead to cannibalization of one or more existing stores. This is always included in our analysis and decision-making, whether it is in the white space potential that Hajir has shown or in the decisions of the real estate committee about new stores. To illustrate this further, if we take the calculation of the payback period of new stores for our biggest country, France, where we continue to open a significant number of stores, and we allocate the negative sales impact of cannibalization to the new store, we still achieve a payback period of approximately one year. Capital intensity per store remains low. For stores opened between 2022 and 2024, we spent circa EUR 600,000 on average per store. As a reminder, we rent all stores, and we pay relatively low rents because we choose not to be in high street locations. This investment figure includes our capital expenditures, but also pre-opening expenses, such as training for new employees and pre-opening rent. In last year's analysis, we showed an upfront investment of around EUR 0.5 million per store. The higher figure in this 2022 until 2024 period reflects inflation and the use of a more recent timeframe, which includes a higher share of stores opened in countries with higher construction costs. In 2025, we realized a net sales per Action store of EUR 4.8 million. We continue to see new stores ramp up quickly in terms of sales in the first year and grow to maturity after three years. In fact, already in the first year, stores reach around 80%-85% of their pro forma mature state sales level. After that, vintages develop in line with the like-for-like sales growth, with all vintages delivering positive like-for-like sales growth in 2025, including our earliest. The upfront investment shown on this slide does not include working capital. If we factored in working capital, the payback period for new stores would even be shorter because we operate with a negative working capital. As Hajir explained, direct sourcing remains a key pillar of our sourcing strategy as it strengthens Action's customer proposition. For that reason, we've increased the share of direct sourcing over recent years and aim to continue this with a strategic target of 20% of sales. Direct sourcing allows us to source products with a lower cost of goods sold, compared to sourcing from wholesalers, with more control over product quality and sustainability. As a rule, we use roughly 2/3 of the lower cost of goods sold to reinvest in our customer proposition in the form of lower prices, better quality, or a combination. The other 1/3 we need, because we also have higher operating expenses for direct sourcing. This relates to activities that would otherwise be performed by the wholesalers. Some of these are in our overhead. For instance, the people that we have in East Asia and the direct sourcing team at our international headquarters. The biggest part is in our supply chain, where we have the cost of inventory handling. You've seen that over the years, we've added four hubs in total to our supply chain network. These hubs receive and store direct sourcing volumes that are not sent directly to our distribution centers. Direct sourcing and sourcing from wholesalers also works through differently in certain respects in our balance sheet. Our way of working with wholesalers is that we agree contracts that are then, in most cases, held in stock by the wholesalers until ordered by us when needed. Only the goods that we have received based on these orders are therefore included in our trade inventory. However, we report the remaining purchase commitments in our financial statements as a contingent liability. Also, for direct sourcing, we have commitments when we agree contracts. However, in this case, our payment terms are Free on Board. This means that our inventories of trade goods for direct sourcing also includes goods in transit or our sailing stock, as we refer to it. Also, the order quantities are typically higher, mostly because of the economics of volume buying directly from producers and from sea freight. Therefore, relative to when we source from wholesalers, direct sourcing has a higher share of inventory versus purchase commitments. When looking at the numbers on the slide, it's also important to note that these are balance sheet positions that reflect, on the one hand, the trends of our growth and changes in the share of direct sourcing, but are also impacted by events like, for instance, the timing of Chinese New Year. The increase in inventories and commitments in 2024 was mainly driven by direct sourcing. During the period following COVID, the larger supply chain experienced disruptions causing frequent delays in deliveries and sometimes resulting in out of stocks. In response, we brought forward purchases in 2024, leading to longer lead times and higher ending positions of inventories and commitments. In 2025, most of these disruptions were resolved, which resulted in normalized positions in inventories and commitments. At last year's 3i Capital Markets Seminar, I guided towards a 10-20 basis points expansion in 2025 versus the 15.1% EBITDA margin realized in 2024. Instead, our EBITDA margin decreased by 30 basis points to 14.8%. Let me explain the reasons behind this lower outcome. First, my guidance was based on an also higher guidance for our like-for-like sales growth of at least 6.1%. The difference with the lower 4.9% realized meant that we had less operational leverage than we would have otherwise had, which more or less would have given a flat EBITDA margin. On the slide you can see how you get from the 15.1% in 2024 to the 14.8% in 2025. First, our gross margin. I've already explained the main driver behind the 40 basis points increase being a higher share of direct sourcing. We calculate our gross margin as sales minus cost of goods sold. But after that, we also deduct margin adjustments to get to a gross margin after margin adjustments. These margin adjustments are margin components that are not in cost of goods sold, but that we allocate along with its two biggest components, duties and charges and stock losses. Duties and charges are product levies that vary by country. They include packaging tax, taxes on batteries, sugar, and waste from electrical and electronic equipment. Over recent years, they have increased both in number as well as in rates, with a further significant increase in 2025. In most cases, it's possible to pass these through to customers. As they are different per country, they are then an element of the country mix that is increasing growth margin. Stock losses is what other retailers often refer to as shrink or shrinkage. This has been fairly stable over recent years, but in 2025 we did see an increase of circa 10 basis points. In euro terms, this is clearly a significant amount and an issue that we are addressing. Unfortunately, this is not an Action specific problem. In this context, our aim is to avoid further increases rather than to achieve a reduction. All in all, the increases in margin adjustments offset the 40 basis points increase in gross margin, meaning that gross margin after margin adjustments was more or less flat. Our EBITDA margin benefited by 30 basis points from operating leverage. This is lower than in 2024 and 2023, where it was 80 and 170 basis points respectively, both years with exceptionally high like-for-like sales growth. Finally, operating expenses reduced the EBITDA margin by 50 basis points. This is in spite of the fact that we have been able to offset cost inflation in a lot of lines with productivity improvements. There are two clear reasons for this increase. First, higher supply chain costs. As a percentage of sales, these increased from 5%-5.3%. This was for a large part driven by higher costs for direct sourcing. As I have explained, to the extent that this is as a consequence of a higher share of direct sourcing, this is offset by an increase in gross margin. However, in 2025, a significant part of the higher supply chain costs were caused by an increase in the period that we held direct sourcing products in inventory, leading to higher than normal costs for product handling and inventory, mostly in our hubs. As there was no offset for these higher costs in gross margin, this led to a reduction of our EBITDA margin. This doesn't change the long-term attractiveness of direct sourcing. In other words, we have an opportunity in improving our planning processes and systems. However, a part of these higher handling and inventory costs have carried over to 2026. Second, we celebrated the opening of our 3,000th store in June 2025, with among other things, a one-off net payment of up to EUR 300 for all eligible employees at a total cost of circa EUR 26 million or 20 basis points. This payment will not be repeated in 2026. Our high sales density is another element of our financial model. Compared to other non-food retailers, Action historically has high sales per square meter. In 2025, we added a record 384 stores with relatively more stores in the last quarter. That explains the difference between our like-for-like sales growth of 4.9% and the 2.6% increase in sales per square meter. Historically, this increase has been higher, reflecting the exceptionally high like-for-like sales growth in the 2022 until 2024 period. Last year, operating EBITDA per square meter also bears the effect of the 30 basis points lower EBITDA margin. In 2025, our capital expenditures increased by EUR 10 million, or 2.7% to EUR 379 million. As a percentage of sales, CapEx was 2.4%, down from 2.7% in 2024. Over the past seven years, we've seen a clear downward trend in CapEx as a percentage of sales reflecting our scale efficiencies. In the allocation of total CapEx to the categories, compared to the presentation of last year for 2024, we've moved circa EUR 10 million from store expansion because it's actually related to refurbishments, enlargements, and relocations, which are part of the store maintenance category. It's also important to note that average store CapEx cannot be calculated by simply dividing total store CapEx by the number of stores opened in a given year, because expenditures for stores opening in the last periods of the year are usually capitalized after all invoices are settled early in the following year. In 2025, average CapEx per store was around EUR 550,000. This number is relatively stable over the last two years, with upward pressure from inflation and country mix offset by cost reduction efforts. CapEx for new DCs was EUR 36 million in 2025. This increase reflects the opening of three new distribution centers. Our investments in technology in 2025 decreased compared to 2024, mainly because 2024 included circa EUR 25 million of ERP costs, versus EUR 16 million in 2023, and circa EUR 6 million in 2025. The migration was successfully completed at the start of 2025, and over the 2022 until 2025 period involved a total CapEx of almost EUR 50 million. Our technology CapEx also includes other significant projects, some of them also multi-year. In 2025, we are, for instance, changing our POS system, and we're also migrating to a new workforce management system. What is also included in technology CapEx are changes and additions to our website and app. Digital communication with our customers is an important area of investment for us. Finally, technology CapEx includes licenses that we acquire for existing applications related to our growth in stores, distribution centers, and employees. As mentioned by Hajir, we also maintain and modernize our stores through basic updates, refurbishments, enlargements, and relocations. In 2025, we invested EUR 41 million in store maintenance and R&Rs. This is circa EUR 10 million lower compared to 2024, which can mainly be explained by the limited opportunities for relocations and enlargements in 2025. Another element of our financial model is excellent cash generation. This translates into a consistently high cash conversion. In 2025, cash conversion was 83%, in line with our historic levels, where 2023 was exceptionally high at 104% due to very strong sales in the last quarter, resulting in an exceptionally low year-end inventory level. Our excellent cash generation is also reflected in our operating cash flow of 12.3% of net sales, gradually increasing from 7.3% in 2019. Last year, we completed three financing transactions. First, in March, a debt repricing transaction, repricing EUR 3.5 billion, delivering annual recurring interest savings of EUR 19 million. In October, a cross-border EUR 1.6 billion debt raise split between a $1.3 billion tranche and a EUR 490 million tranche. We again hedged the U.S. dollar exposure fully back to the euro, and we hedged 100% of the interest rate risk on this U.S. dollar tranche, resulting in an all-in euro fixed rate of under 4.6% on this portion. As part of this transaction, S&P upgraded our public credit rating to BB+ with a stable outlook, while Moody's reconfirmed its Ba1 stable rating, which they had upgraded earlier in the year from Ba2 positive. The proceeds of this transaction, together with EUR 150 million surplus cash from our balance sheet, were used to fund a EUR 1.74 billion share redemption that was completed later in October. Finally, also in October, we completed a leverage neutral repricing and extension transaction, pushing out the maturity of EUR 580 million of our senior term debt by four years to 2032, and repricing a total of EUR 3.125 billion of our debt, generating annual recurring interest savings of EUR 40 million. We've de-geared since the October transaction, reducing our net leverage from 3.4x to 3x by the end of 2025, driven by our continued EBITDA growth and cash flow generation, and including a dividend payment of EUR 450 million in December. This slide summarizes our operating performance over the past three years. The results highlight the strengths of our financial model with net sales up 16%, operating EBITDA up 14%, and a record number of 384 net new stores added, which is an increase of 13% compared to our base end of 2024. Finally, I would like to update you on our trading performance so far in 2026 and share our outlook for the remainder of the year. Today, we are in week 13. As a reminder, Action operates a 52-week and 12-period reporting calendar with quarters each of three periods with four, and five weeks. That means that we are today in week five of our period three, which is the last week of our first quarter. The information on this slide covers year to date until last week, being week 12. As you can see, our overall sales growth for these 12 weeks was strong at 14.5%. Like-for-like sales growth was 4%. The like-for-like sales growth year to date was mainly driven by a 2.7% growth in transactions. This 4% like-for-like sales growth is slightly below where we expect it to be with our performance in January, but slightly below expectations in February and March period to date. If I compare to quarter four last year, we see a clear step up. Although this is also true for France, with positive 0.9% year to date versus negative 2.7% in quarter four, 2025, this is where we are behind versus our expectations. The challenging consumer environment in France continues. We see that the actions that we've taken by lowering prices, increasing promotions, and making changes to our assortment are working. We still have more to come, and it's also true that some simply need more time to take full effect. All other countries in the aggregate are performing slightly above our expectations. Last year, we ended with 302 stores. Our store openings in 2026 are on track. Up to and including week 12, we opened 24 stores. By the end of this week, we'll have opened nine more stores, bringing our total store count to 3,335. Last Sunday, our cash and cash equivalents stood at EUR 900 million. In line with our practice of recent years, we're planning to pay another dividend. Given the current geopolitical and economic uncertainty, we will do this once we have reached a level of cash and cash equivalents of circa EUR 1 billion, which should be early May. In terms of outlook for the year, let me start by stating the obvious. The ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East will increasingly influence global supply chains, will most likely lead to higher inflation, and will certainly impact consumer confidence and spending power. This makes it difficult to provide a robust outlook at this stage. With that proviso, I can still say the following. First, if I look at the number of stores for 2026, our ambition is to add at least 400 stores. This year, Italy will have the most store openings, followed by Germany, Poland, France, and Spain. We'll have two new countries, Croatia and Slovenia. Today, compared to last year at the same moment, year to date, we're actually 18 stores lower. That is because the spread in our planning this year has, relative to 2025, more stores in the second quarter. I can say that we are on track to realize this ambition. Second, we expect like-for-like sales growth to continue at the current level in the first half of the year and slightly higher in the second half. This reflects the lead time for some of the changes that we've made and continue to make to prices, promotions, and assortment, in particular in France. It also reflects last year's development over the quarters in like-for-like sales growth performance. For the year, that means that I expect to come in at around 4%-5% like-for-like sales growth. Finally, our EBITDA margin. Last year's EBITDA margin was 14.8%. If I look at the current year, the continued investment in prices and promotions will lead to a slightly lower growth margin, more in line with 2024. Also, with the expansion in like-for-like sales growth, as I expect, we will have the benefit of operating leverage, but there will also be inflation in our OpEx lines. If I add that all together, I expect that we'll be able to keep our EBITDA margin stable at 14.8%. That brings me back to the uncertainty of the here and now. There is, of course, a downside risk from possible scenarios as these events in the Middle East unfold in the form of higher costs. While we are hedged on electricity costs, we are seeing higher diesel for transport, and there may be knock-on effects on sea freight pricing. At the same time, we know that our format is resilient, and we have seen that our performance is robust over economic cycles. Our format and operating model also provide the flexibility to adapt, as we have shown during the COVID crisis and the ensuing supply chain disruptions. With that, I hand back to our chairman, Simon Borrows. Thank you, Joost. In a very short period of time, Action has become a significant market participant in over a dozen markets in Europe, including those that many other retailers have failed to crack, such as Germany. There's been plenty said about France today, and this is not the first time we have had challenging trading conditions in that country. When you stand back, Action's achievements in France over 13 years have been pretty remarkable. They've built a national chain with some EUR 5.6 billion of sales, together with highly profitable store contribution margins and significant operating cash flows. The French business is also still growing strongly and taking share in a very tough market. The French consumers consistently show their appreciation and come to Action stores in increasing numbers each year. What Action has done in France is also the template for the expansion being executed in the other scale markets in Europe, namely Germany, Poland, Italy and Iberia, each of which are growing fast and will become significantly more important in the sales mix in Europe in years to come. Given Action's growth and its success across a variety of markets in Europe, the team began studying a possible U.S. entry over two years ago. There have been many who have tried and failed with the U.S., and quite a lot of them have been British. Those who have succeeded have been able to build very large and profitable operations which have become a significant weighting in their overall organizations. We in the Action team have studied the precedents in detail, good and bad, and the learnings from this work have been factored into the choices Action has made on the entry strategy in the U.S. We have a good level of confidence that Action's low price format can be successful in the U.S. and Action's team has more than earned the right to tackle this market. My nickname at the 3i investment committee is Mr. No. In this case, I believe that over time, the U.S. will become a very significant growth opportunity for Action to sit alongside its already considerable Pan-European growth opportunity. Let me close with our usual slide, which neatly illustrates the compounding growth of Action and how the sales growth is developing relative to some giants of the retail sector. 90% of our attention at 3i remains on the long-term compounding benefits of Action's growth machine rather than a preoccupation with short-term like-for-like. With that, I'll now hand back to the moderator before commencing the Q&A session. Thank you. We will now conduct the question and answer session. To ask a question via the conference call, you need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. Once again, it's star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. As a reminder, participants can also submit questions through the webcast page by using the Ask a Question button. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The question comes from the line of William Woods from Bernstein. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Good morning. The first question is just on the U.S. proposition. I suppose, can you be any more specific on where you see a gap in terms of assortment or customer in the U.S. market? What do you see as the parameters to success here? Is it that you look towards 2030 as the, kind of, we'll give it two or three years and see how it goes? The second question is on the store maturity curves that you're experiencing. There's been a lot of worries out there about Action store maturity declining or store maturity curve declining. If you looked at the like-for-likes that you presented in page 45 versus the, kind of, 2019 or 2022 cohorts, would you still see positive like-for-likes in your more mature stores in your older cohorts? Thanks. Thanks, Will. Hajir, do you wanna tackle the U.S. and maybe, Joost, you pick up on the maturity curve point? Yeah. On the U.S., as we said before, we have done an extensive study for a long period, and I think where we really believe that we can differentiate ourselves is coming up with our unique concept of offering 14 categories and really offering the lowest price and a good quality assortment. I think it's quite comparable to what we're seeing in Europe actually, if you just look to what we're offering. Because of our speed and changes in assortment, it's never the same, and 2/3 is changing, and I think that's also where we see the opportunity in the U.S. Very much on price and a good quality. If we then look to what I said in my presentation, we will start with the first 20 stores, and of course, we will review that, but we have clear. A clear business plan also for the U.S., which we're also gonna monitor closely, based on the performance in the U.S. If I look at like-for-likes, and considering your question, so how does that compare for the various vintages? Let me first repeat what I had in the presentation saying that in the Netherlands, which is our oldest market, where we only opened three stores last year, our like-for-like for the country was actually above the average for Action in 2025. What I haven't shown you on the slides, but I have made a remark about it, is if you look at like-for-like across the vintages, I'm seeing positive like-for-likes across all vintages, and also the older vintages are performing in line with the more recent mature vintages. These are the more recent vintages after this three-year period that I've mentioned to reach maturity. Okay, thanks, Joost. Excellent. Thank you. We are now going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Gregory Simpson from BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. Two from my end. Firstly, given the current kind of macro uncertainty, could you remind us of the rough mix of more essential versus more discretionary items in terms of sales today? Secondly, can you maybe talk a bit more about what you're thinking or budgeting for in terms of CapEx per store in the U.S. and payback kind of thinking just to kind of contrast with Europe. Thank you. Do you want to take this? Across our 14 categories, we bring everyday daily necessities. We define the level of daily necessities based on the customer needs. Next to that, we're bringing newness in the form of seasonality and in certain categories. If I look at the financial model that we've made for the U.S., let me first say that I've emphasized the fact that we have very consistent financials across our markets in Europe. It's also true that there are nevertheless differences per country, and they are sometimes explained by cost levels, for instance, in construction, but could also be in certain P&L lines. Usually that is then also reflected in pricing as well as in income levels. Just as two examples, Hajir mentioned them, we've entered Switzerland and Romania this year, and the two countries are obviously different, and that reflects in our financial model as well. Having said that, we've made a model for the U.S. that needs to be refined, and it will be refined based on the results that we're going to have in the first stores. The model works. I'm not going to give a lot of detail about these differences. I can say that the CapEx per store that we expect is on the high end of what we have seen so far in Europe. It's fair to say in Switzerland that you've seen much higher CapEx, and you've not moved very far away from your payback periods. Okay, thanks, Gregory. We are now going to take our next question. The question's come from the line of Haley Tam, UBS. Your line is open. Morning. Thank you for the detailed presentation and for taking my questions. If I could ask a few, to start with the U.S. as well. Thank you for the clear framework on the cost, over 2026-2030 in the store rollout. Can I just confirm, is this a gross cost we're talking about here or a total P&L loss? And is there any guide you can give us in terms of the phasing, over the four years and when you might expect the U.S. to be profitable? Second question, just in terms of the EBITDA margin for Joost. Thank you for all the detail on the moving parts. There's lots for us to think through. Can I take away that maybe 4%-5% like-for-like we're expecting this year is a good enough level to support at least a stable EBITDA margin, as you said this year on an ongoing basis? The final question, if I may, just on like-for-like growth being stable in H1 and then to improve as your actions start to have benefit, particularly in France. Can you give us an indication of what you're planning for or expecting in terms of the intensity of competitive pricing? Is it to stay at the current level or perhaps to normalize from here? Thank you so much. Joost, why don't you take the first bunch, the gross cost point over four years, the U.S. profitability, et cetera, and the EBITDA margin, then maybe you could talk about the pricing in France. The amount that Hajir has given for the total investment in your terms, as I understand your question, Haley, I would say that that is a gross amount. It does include inventory. It does not include accounts payable. In that respect, I would say it is gross. I'm going to be careful about saying something on your question of when will you reach profitability in the U.S. Hajir has explained that we're building a team there. She's also mentioned the fact that we'll have a buying group in the U.S., which is different from how we expand in Europe. That means that, looking at the store base, we will have a relatively higher costs for the country office. That will also mean that we will reach profitability at least later than when you compare to our European expansion. In respect of your question about EBITDA margin, is a 4%-5% level of like-for-like sales growth enough? To give a stable margin, the answer is yes. In fact, last year, I mentioned that at this level, we should even be able to have a slight increase. The reason that is not the case or that in the guidance that I gave that is not the case, I've also explained, and that is the fact that we're investing in lower prices and promotions this year, which means that we expect a lower gross margin. Do you want to talk about the French pricing, et cetera? Yeah. As an indication, consumer sentiment in France is not gonna change overnight, and we also do not expect that it's gonna change in the coming period. Having said that, we have been able to lower prices in Q4 around 450, and we also have continued to lower prices in Q1. Joost talked about the performance in the first quarter versus the last quarter of the year where you already see an improvement. On the competition and the prices, that is very difficult to indicate because I think if we now see energy prices going up, normally, you also see that the pressure on price competition is also coming down. This is really something which we monitor closely, where we're on top of it, and if needed, we will continue to lower prices. That's very clear. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes from the line of Andrew Lowe, Citi. Your line is open. Hi. Thanks. I've got a couple. The first one is for Simon. 3i Group shares are now close to 20% discount to NAV. Arguably makes more financial sense for you to use the Action cash flows to buy back your own shares rather than direct stakes in Action. The question is, what authorizations are required in order to do this, and how quickly could you potentially launch a buyback? It was mentioned that Action is expected to pay a dividend in May. Is it possible to do it before this or full year results be feasible? The second question is on the white space figures that you've given helpfully on page 34. When you update the assumptions each year, do you update the assumptions for all of your markets? You mentioned which markets drove the 200 increase. Italy and Spain didn't feature in there, but you've clearly got very good momentum in those markets. I'm curious why those white space assumptions haven't gone higher. Thanks. Do you wanna pick that one up, and then I'll come back on the buyback question? Yeah. On the first part around the assumption, white space figures assumption for all the markets was the question, yeah? Yeah. Do you look at all markets or did you? What we normally do is maybe to clarify the process. Once per year, we have all the local teams together with the central team looking into the white space potential, the learnings of last year and see how we can adjust and improve that per country. That's being covered for all the countries which we're having in place. If we look to Italy and Spain, they were driving a big part of last year, so that exercise has been done extensively. If I said the majority of the 200 is coming out of the four countries which we have mentioned, Italy and Spain is adding up to a couple of stores, but not significant anymore compared to the exercise which we have done in the past. Okay. On the buybacks, we take regular authority to do this at the AGM. We have authority in place and we will refresh that in June when we have our AGM for this year. We're sort of very alive to the pros and cons of this, and we obviously monitor it against other priorities for our cash. We don't have any gearing. The balance sheet is very strong. I think if the discount was sustained, then we would very actively consider this. I can't say more than that at the moment. Thanks. That's really helpful. We are now going to take our next question. The question comes from the line of Manjari Dhar from RBC. Your line is open. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I also have two, if I may. My first question is on the U.S. as well. I was just wondering how are you thinking about growing brand awareness in the U.S., versus in Europe, where you're already quite established? Should we expect some higher marketing spending in the U.S. in the early days? My second question is just on gross margin. I appreciate you commented on gross margin for this year. Over the medium term, should we expect gross margin to increase further as direct sourcing increases? What timeline are you looking at for that 20% direct sourcing target? Thank you. Yeah, maybe to start with the U.S., we expect in our assumptions that in the first phase that we will invest more on marketing than what we have done in the European countries. Having said that, if you just look to the Action concept and the customers' reactions in Europe, we also expect that over time that will be in line with what we're having here in Europe. For the first period, we absolutely expect that it will be higher. Joost, do you wanna talk about the gross margin? Yes. Hajir mentioned the fact that last year, 2025, the share of direct sourcing was 17.6%. We've also said that our longer term strategic objective aim is to get to a level of 20%. Having said that, it's not a straight line. Buyers can make choices, and these choices can also mean that they allocate volumes differently also depending on, let's say, the circumstances in the broader supply chain. The reason I'm saying that is obviously that last time that we had disruptions in that area, we also saw that percentage actually slightly decreasing for a period of time before it started to increase again. As I've said, I don't know how this is going to develop, but it could be the case that in certain scenarios there will also be different choices impacting this percentage. Having said that, if the percentage increases, as I have explained, that will mean a higher gross margin because of the reasons that I've explained. The fact that we need that because we also have higher costs. Yeah. The plan is to get to 20% at some point, but whether this is the year, let's see. Okay. I think that's fine, Manjari. We will now proceed with the next question. The question comes from the line of Jeremy Kincaid from VLK. Your line is open. Good morning. Three questions from me. First, just picking up on the direct sourcing point again. So just so I understand it correctly, there will be obviously some cost savings, but then you pass 2/3 of that on to the customer, and then 1/3 is to absorb costs. But then on top of that, there's also a working capital drag due to the nature of the accounting and the goods being on boats and being transported. So does that mean your cash conversion will deteriorate as you do more direct sourcing? Or is that working capital effect calculated in that 1/3 absorb cost bucket? My second question is on France. Obviously, in March, there was a tax, a EUR 2 tax put on small parcels which were being imported, which obviously could impact some of your competitors. I was wondering if there was a noticeable impact on your sales arising from that. Finally, on the POS and workforce management system, I'm just wondering if we should estimate or expect any margin upside in the future from those investments. Do you want to take these? Your question about working capital impact from a higher share of direct sourcing. If you look at the payment terms that we have for Europe, this is 60 days and 30 days for small and medium enterprises. For direct sourcing coming from East Asia, it is 120 days. That kind of offsets, if you like, what I've explained about the fact that it's earlier in our inventory. Migrating POS and workforce management, I do not expect an improvement in EBITDA margin coming out of these. POS is very much driven by end of life of our previous product and migrating to a more modern. In terms of functionality, at the beginning, it's offering more or less the same. The same is true for the workforce management system. I think the only other question is in relation to the EUR 2 tax, small parcels. Any impact? No, I think that we see tax increases across different countries, and we just take that into account so that it's not impacting in a different way. Okay. Thank you. We will now take our next question, and the question comes from the line of Jon Pérez, Kepler Cheuvreux. Please ask your question. Jon Pérez, your line is open. Hello. Yeah. Can you hear me? We can hear you, yeah. Yeah. Great, thanks. Thank you for the presentation. You've mentioned repeatedly that new store openings are receiving a very warm welcome. I'm keen to hear if you are seeing that those new stores are reaching a mature level of productivity or of sales faster than in the past? That's the first question. On the U.S., to what extent do you expect to use a similar or different sourcing model approach as in Europe? Thank you. Do you want to take the first, Joost, and Hajir take the second? If I understand the first question correctly, you're saying because we have a higher awareness in some of the newer markets from day one, does it also mean that the stores reach maturity faster? It could be the case for some of the very early stores, but if I look at the newer countries overall, that is not really the case. We're still seeing comparable ramp-ups versus the market of a couple of years ago. We of course are planning to use our own supplier base. We of course are also using our supplier base in Asia. Next to that we also will make sure that we have teams in place to source locally. That's gonna be kind of the mix of how we're gonna approach it in the U.S. Okay, thank you. I am showing no further questions, so I will now hand over to Silvia Santoro, 3i's Group Investor Relations Director, to address the written questions submitted via the webcast page. The first question is on the U.S., and how much overlap do you expect between the European and U.S. assortment? Our assumption now in this stage is that around 40% will be quite similar and 60% will be different in the U.S. We've had a lot of questions on the current risks driven by geopolitical uncertainty and specifically also about energy cost increases. What is the management team doing to mitigate some of these risks? How I'm looking now to the situation and everything what's happening around us in terms of energy prices going up, well, as Joost was explaining, we see it now in the fuel cost, which is still very limited if you look to the total cost. If this is gonna take longer, it of course can have a potential risk on sourcing. But having said that, it is fair to say that we have a healthy stock level already in terms of everything what we are sourcing from the Far East, and that has also to do with the early Chinese New Year. We have shipped a lot of our products already, last year and early this year. For this year, it's not really a risk. At the same time, I think we had similar situations and challenges around the COVID period and the war in Ukraine, where we also really were benefiting the flexibility of the format, also using our different sourcing approaches, including our wholesalers in Europe. I think this is also coming back to the point of Joost referring to the direct sourcing or target. I think that the flexibility in the format really allow us to make different choices as we are continuing. Following up from that, can you give a bit more granularity as to what percentage of the sourcing mix is China, India and Europe? Around 50% is China. I would say 47% Europe and, like, 3% India. Okay. Moving on, we've had a lot of question on the competitive situation across Europe, and they have different tags. Some are talking broadly about Pan-European competition from Temu. Some are asking specifically about France, and whether it's still driven by Leclerc. Could you comment on the French situation and the Pan-European situation more broadly? As I also explained during my presentation, price and having the lowest price is, for us, really a key element. We are monitoring all the competitors across all the markets all the time. As I said in my presentation, this is a dynamic process, so prices are changing every day. That means that you could find the lower prices at a competitor, but at the same time, we're always acting. Online or offline players, that doesn't matter for us. Also promotion is something which we really are following very strict, and we're very much on top of that. If we look to France, and this is something which is not new if you look to the 33 years that Action is existing, sometimes supermarkets in a country start competing on price. Of course, that is also something which we then take into account and where we're acting on. This is very much on promotion and in FMCG, so very short period, but we're really on top of it. That is also what we have shown in France. We have reduced more than 450 prices at the end of the year. Also in 2026, we have continued in France to reduce more than 100 prices. At the same time, we also have done that across the other markets. Can we just pick up on Temu and general merchandise? 'Cause general merchandise actually performed well last year across the piece. Temu has, of course, an offer in ranges which we are also offering very much in general merchandise. I think general merchandise over the last two years is still performing very strong at Action. Next to that, I think that we also have a lot of daily necessities which are not comparable. Just a quick follow-up question on competition, whether newcomers like NORMA you think present particular threats? I think NORMA is, for us, one of the competitors. There, I just need to explain that Action is quite unique in offering 14 categories and changing assortment continuously. Normal is one of the competitors, which we of course also take into account in all our price measurements every day. This is very much FMCG personal care related, so it is only related to one of our categories, where of course like just all the other competitors in all the other categories, we are following up and acting on. The next question is on France, whether what you're seeing in France would make you change the mix of new openings. Would it make sense to increase other regions relative to France because of the weakness of the consumer there? No. I think our strategy is really to continue doing where we are very well at, and that is France has, at this moment, a low consumer sentiment, but we still really see the number of customers going up. We see that we have won the French prize for the third time in a year. For me, it is really making sure that we're focusing on lowering prices and offering the lowest price. I really believe that also in France, over time, we will see that sentiment changing. We still see a lot of potential in France, and at the same time, we're also opening stores in those countries where we see more positive trends. I mean, we had a couple of little videos on the presentation, one of which was an opening in Marseille last weekend or something, and you saw what was going on. It was mayhem. Absolutely. We now have some financial questions. Can you guide on the impact of weather on the Q1 like-for-like, and what the underlying performance excluding that is? I can say directionally that the weather hasn't helped, especially in period two or February. I cannot put a concrete number on that. The next question on financials is that you have a gross margin range of 30%-50% roughly, depending on category. Can you elaborate on what that might be on an SKU level? So within a different category, is there a big range at an SKU level? Yeah. What we are doing all the time is setting the prices in the market, making sure that we are the lowest everywhere. In some of the markets, the competition on certain SKUs is bigger than other markets, and that means that you need to accept a lower margin. What is important to mention is that on all the items, we're making a healthy margin. There is not one loss-making item in our store, and that is also not needed if you look to the flexibility of what we are offering. Of course, if you look to the margins, it differs per SKU based on your competitive landscape. Sort of following on from that, it's a slight nuance on the question: Would you be willing to accept the lower gross and EBITDA margins if this were to drive higher like-for-like sales growth? I personally believe that if you just look to what we're doing, and also this year again, we're investing continuously in terms of offering the lowest price. Next to that, we again this year are investing extra margin to make sure that we can cope with all the challenges which we have faced at the end of the year. I do not see any reason to change that whole approach. I mean, just to recount, in every country except for France, we're achieving good like-for-likes. In France, as Hajir has indicated, we've taken down quite a lot of prices, so we are using that flexibility that we have to tackle the situation in that given market. We're seeing some follow-ups on the guidance and drilling down a bit. What level of like-for-like sales growth in 2026 is needed to, one, maintain EBITDA margins and to expand EBITDA margin? If like-for-likes were similar to 2025, should we expect the EBITDA margins to decline again? Just to start with that last part. Last year's like-for-like came in at 4.9%. I've guided now between 4% and 5%. And between 4% and 5% in combination with stable EBITDA margin. I mean, directionally, a higher like-for-like gives more operating leverage and obviously helps EBITDA margin and the other way around. But I can't give a concrete formula for that. A little bit of a challenging question on last year's EBITDA margin guidance. The question is, surely you know when you're investing into price and promotions or changing the share of direct sourcing, and so why was this not in the EBITDA margin guidance when you gave it last year? Expecting a buffer because you're a respected and conservative team, and can we assume you have factored this in for 2026? I mean, to start with the last question, yes, we have factored everything that we know today in our guidance. Maybe I wasn't clear in my explanation about especially direct sourcing and the way it impacts our bottom line. A normal situation is that that is neutral. The reason it was negative last year is because we had the product longer in inventory and therefore had the higher handling and inventory costs, which I've phrased that as an opportunity, but it does mean that our planning hasn't been well enough. If the point is that that wasn't included in the guidance, I can confirm that. That's also why I said that that is an opportunity for the future. The next question is, does the EBITDA margin guidance include any expenses related to the U.S., and if so, how much? Everything that we spent on preparing is included in our P&L. That was also true, by the way, last year, and it is also true this year, and therefore it's also included in the guidance. I can't give a specific number. A question on proximity sourcing, and what that means in terms of fuel burden. How would the increase in proximity sourcing impact your costs? Well, I think Joost has explained the overall impact of sourcing via wholesalers versus our direct import and the financial impact. It could be that the coming period we will make some different choices. I think in terms of cost, it's only related to not having the stock in your DCs earlier. Can we check that the lower margin in FY 2026 versus the underlying 2025 margin isn't a reflection of lower operating leverage expectations over the medium term? Do you still see margins expanding through the cycle? The same question for like-for-like. Do you still expect mid-single to high single digit like-for-like over the medium term or is a lower like-for-like the sustainable level? To start with the second question. Indeed, we have given this mid- to high-single-digit guidance for a multi-year period. If I remember correctly, this was 2024 until 2026. 2023 until 2026. 2023-2026. We also always said that the difference between mid and high is also related to the level of inflation. As we see it today, the guidance that I gave, 4%-5%, is at the current level of inflation. When it comes to operating leverage, I will repeat my answer on one of the questions a moment ago. In the guidance of this year is a positive from operating leverage, but there's also the impact of lowering prices and more promotions, which is a negative on the gross margin. Whether this will be repeating in later years, I think that is something that we will consider when looking at next year. Some questions on the U.S. Given the longer payback profile of the U.S. business, do you plan to disclose its investments and results separately to help investors better understand the near-term drag versus the longer-term opportunity? At a certain point, but that's not going to be early. Obviously, we will provide segment reporting, but that's certainly not going to be the case in the early years. Again, a question on the U.S. Looking at the cost per store, in the U.S. of 100 stores for EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million, compared to the cost of opening a new European store, can you just explain why you believe this is a better use of capital than just accelerated the European rollout? Yeah. The amount I gave in my update around the U.S. is not only related to stores. This is gonna be the full investment between 2026 and 2030 in building up the organization in the U.S., which in a different continent is gonna require a different approach. That means that we're talking about stores, we're talking about the organization, we're talking about building up your stock in a different way, and also putting a DC in place. You cannot just take that full amount and then calculate it back to 100 stores. I think there's a very interesting comparison with Switzerland, where expenses are much higher across the board in Switzerland. Disposable income is much higher across the board in Switzerland, and it's similar to the U.S. in that regard. You have both sides. You have benefit on one side and a negative on the other. The equation looks very attractive, as long as we get traction on our stores. This is a question about the current uncertainty. In a scenario where recent events in the Middle East drive a renewed inflationary backdrop in Europe, what would be the right framework for thinking about the impact on the consumer, particularly versus the experience that Action had in 2022 and 2023 during the Ukraine-driven inflation shock? Isn't it fair to say that most retailers like a bit of inflation? Well, if we just look historically to higher inflation periods, we always have benefited from those periods, so that is fair to say. I would say that based on the experience, we know that our format is resilient, and we can operate under different economic circumstances. Generally speaking, if a customer has less to spend, that is, a negative for everybody if they spend less. But it's also a positive for us because of customers looking for better value alternatives. As I say, if you look at past experience, that has always worked out positive for our results. Again, another question on the U.S. Could you talk a little more about the competitive set and landscape in the states you will open in the U.S., North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia? Can I talk more about? The competitive situation, the competitive landscape. Well, we of course also have a look at the competitive landscape, but I do not want to talk too much about it, as the market study really indicated that the Action concept is quite unique in terms of what we're offering. We really believe that we're bringing something different with our 14 categories, our changing assortment, our low-priced items, but also our good quality products. We had another question on whether you will always focus on organic growth or also open to M&A. Until now, if you just look to what Action has done in the past and the potential we still have, then I think it is very much focusing on organic growth. We have a question on valuation. What would be the factors that would cause you to review the valuation formula for Action? It has been 18.5x for a number of years. If like-for-like growth remains lower than in recent past, would that be a driver? Yeah. I think on valuation, you know, we have a tried and tested valuation policy at 3i Group. You've heard about Action's absolute performance. We look at that against the competition. We assess the relative performance, and we look at the valuations in the marketplace. Our independent valuation committee will go through its usual process, and that'll be part of our 3i annual results in May. I think this is probably all we have time for. Do you wanna do one last question, or is that it? That's it. Yeah. Okay. Let me just say thank you, everyone. That concludes the Action Capital Markets Seminar for the day. We appreciate your attention. Have a good day. Bye-bye.