Good morning to all of you over here in the room, and also, so a warm welcome from my side to our fiscal 2023 results presentation. Thank you, especially for all of you joining us here in the room in London, but I also want to say hello to the people who will watch us online today. As usual, I will draw the attention to the disclaimer before I introduce you to the rest of the team and the agenda. Now, on the team, you will know all Lukas Paravicini, our Chief Financial Officer, and I'm sure you all know Peter Durman, our Head of Investor Relations. Yeah. What I will do today is first, I will highlight to you the key achievements of, from today's results. Lukas will then outline our financial delivery in the year, and we will also give you an outlook for the next 12 months. Then I will come back and update you on the broader range and transformation of the company to build a business that delivers sustainable growth. Finally, the two of us are very much looking forward to answer any questions that you might have. Now, I am pleased to report that these results are further evidence of the strong progress we're making in our 5-year strategic plan. The key headlines are, as you see over here: First, our target investments are driving further aggregate market share gains in our priority combustible markets. Second, we have delivered strong pricing and grown margin despite high inflation and squeezed consumer wallets. And thirdly, in Next Generation Products, our challenger approach to innovation and the disciplined execution are accelerating revenue growth. And fourth, while once again, delivering on our annual plans, we're also making very good progress on our long-term transformation. Now, as I will discuss in more detail later, we are patiently building a new culture, new capabilities, and new ways of working. And these results are further evidence that we are becoming a more resilient business, delivering stronger returns to you, our shareholders. At the same time, we're also playing a more active role in the industry's transition towards a healthier, more sustainable business model. Now, we manage this business using a balanced dashboard of operational and financial measures. For the third year in a row, this dashboard is a sea of green, with all arrows pointing in the right direction. The one that jumps out at me is obviously the 3.9% increase in profitability, demonstrating to you the acceleration in profit growth we promised you this year. Now, you know our industry is highly competitive and characterized by shrinking volumes in our core product, so to deliver these results with this quality and consistency is not easy. Therefore, at this point, I want to say a big thank you to the 25,000 colleagues across the world, because every extra basis point of market share we show here, and every GBP of additional revenue is a result of the strategic focus of the company and the hard work of our teams. What is also pleasing about this dashboard is the way it highlights how operational success in Combustibles and NGP is translating directly into financial progress, and then into growing capital returns for shareholders. On top of the 10% increase in our ongoing share buyback program that we announced last month, we are today announcing a 4% increase in the average interim. Now, this is all hard evidence that our strategy is working. Now, when I return, I will try to bring this strategy to life in a little more detail. But now I wanted to hand over to Lukas, who will take you through the financial results. Over to you, Lukas. Thank you very much, Stefan. A very good morning to all of you. It's been another year of strong financial delivery. After the first two years of foundation building, we are now seeing an acceleration of our returns. The business has delivered in line with our expectation against key financial metrics. Tobacco and NGP net revenue is up 1.4% on a like-for-like basis, driven by broad share gains and strong pricing. In NGP, new products and targeted market launches helped drive faster net revenue growth, particularly in Europe. In line with our strategy, we delivered an acceleration in adjusted operating profit growth, which supported growth in EPS. This strong performance means we can again meet our capital allocation priorities. Leverage was 1.9 x, and we expect to hold around 2 x. Cash remains strong, with GBP 2.4 billion of free cash flow. We returned around GBP 2.3 billion to you last year, combining ordinary dividends and the GBP 1 billion share buyback. We remain committed to our multi-year capital returns program, and our GBP 1.1 billion buyback for next year is well on the way. Tobacco volume, price, and mix is similar to the half year. Strong pricing gains, here showing in orange, have continued to offset volume headlines, shown here in blue. If we start on the left side with the U.S., pricing increased 10%, driven by our cigarettes portfolio. With volume, it's important to differentiate between our cigarette portfolio and our mass-market cigars. Cigarette volumes held up well, declining just by 2% compared to the industry declines of more than 8%. May I have your attention, please? May I have your attention, please? Fire has been reported in the building. Please leave the building immediately by the nearest exit. Do not use the lifts. Please use the nearest stairway. A lot of things happened, not this one, to me before. May I have your attention, please? May I have your attention, please? Fire has been reported in the building. Please leave the building immedi- Hello. So thank you for your patience. We're now going to restart the presentation. We're going to start it from the beginning of Lukas's section. So just bear with us while we do that, and then we'll run through and obviously take your Qs and As just as usual. So thanks very much. Cheers. Hand over. Thank you for sticking with us. Yeah. You know, you will always remember this one. Buy it. That's right. Exactly. You can hear it twice. Yeah. Exactly. Great. Thanks, Lukas. We good to go? Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being back with us here. It's been another strong year of financial delivery. After the first two years of foundation building, we are now seeing acceleration of our returns. The business has delivered in line with our expectations and against key financial metrics. Tobacco and NGP net revenue is up 1.4% on a like-for-like basis, driven by broad share gains and strong pricing. In NGP, new products and targeted market launches helped drive faster net revenue growth, particularly in Europe. In line with our strategy, we delivered an acceleration in adjusted operating profit growth, which supported growth in EPS. This strong performance means we can again meet our capital allocation priorities. Leverage was 1.9 x, and we expect to hold around 2x. Cash remained strong with GBP 2.4 billion of free cash flow, and we returned around GBP 2.3 billion to you last year, combining ordinary dividends and the 1 billion share buyback. We remain committed to our multi-year capital returns program, and our GBP 1.1 billion share buyback for next year is well on the way. Tobacco volume, price, and mix is similar to the half year. Strong pricing gains here shown on the orange color have continued to offset volume headwinds, shown here in blue. If we start with the Americas on the left side, with the U.S., pricing increased 10%, driven by our cigarette portfolio. With volumes, it's important to differentiate between our cigarette portfolio and our mass market cigars. Cigarette volumes held up well, declining by just 2%, compared to the industry declines of more than 8%. But just like the first half, cigars account for the majority of the 6% decrease in total U.S. volumes. Our cigar performance has been affected by the wholesaler inventory movements caused by Hurricane Ian in September last year. We are also seeing a rebalancing of market size and share post-COVID. This decline in cigar volumes also drove the majority of the negative mix of 9%. This is because our cigars are relatively high value and low volume products, with a net revenue per stick 2.5 x that of a cigarette. So any movement in our cigar business, up or down, has an outsized impact on overall product mix. In a moment, Stefan will talk more about the dynamics of our U.S. business and the positive outlook for our cigars. Moving to Europe and AAA, we've seen exceptionally strong pricing of 11%, and this has more than offset volume declines, resulting in strong revenues and an improved gross margin. At the group level, excluding Russia, volumes declined 7% against a strong comparator, down just 1.2%. Turning to operating profit, excluding Russia, adjusted operating profit grew by 3.9% at a constant currency. As you can see here, this growth was largely driven by improved performance in tobacco and at Logista. As I've said, profitability in tobacco benefited from strong pricing, and we grew operating margins by 150 basis points. In line with our plan to invest in new products at markets, NGP losses increased by GBP 42 million, and we remain on course to break even by the end of our five-year plan. Logista's positive contribution was driven by robust underlying performance, helped by pricing and targeted acquisition. This M&A was an important step in Logista's diversification strategy, which we support. It also means that less than half of their sales now come from tobacco. Like other businesses, we make certain adjustments to our IFRS numbers to help performance comparisons over time. When I joined Imperial, I made a commitment to be transparent with you about these adjustments, and I'll continue to do so. The first item of GBP 4 million was driven by a write-down of assets in Ukraine and our exit from certain Central Asian markets following our exit from Russia. The second is our usual amortization of acquired intangibles, very much in line with last year. Third is the fair value adjustment to financial assets, including group's investment in cannabis. We incurred GBP 85 million of charges relating to provisions for some legacy legal disputes, which are all one-offs. Finally, I want to highlight there were no adjustments for restructuring costs. On the contrary, our adjusted numbers absorbed some GBP 30 million of factory closure costs, which we have funded by the profit on sales of some former sites. This is a pragmatic approach to optimizing our factories. Turning to EPS. Our EPS benefited from improved profit growth and the share buyback. Of course, the averaging effect of the share buyback through the year contributed only 2.6%, and this will be compounded into next year. These benefits, as we said at half year, have been partially offset by higher interest, minorities, and tax costs. Interest costs have increased with higher interest rates and new bonds. However, we've mitigated the impact of rising interest by fixing around 85% of our debt. Looking ahead, we expect interest costs to increase this year to around GBP 460 million. Our adjusted effective tax rate is the same as last year. However, we expect next year's rate to be around 23%. Central to our strategy is strong cash generation and disciplined capital allocation. Operational cash conversion was, the conversion for the period, was 92%, against a strong comparator of 102%, which had been helped by the timing of duty payments at Logista. The business continues to generate significant free cash flow to support our four capital allocation priorities. Our first priority is to invest in the business, and this year we invested in organic growth and target acquisitions in NGP and Logista. Second, it is about having a strong and efficient balance sheet. Our year-end leverage was marginally below our 2x target, helped by FX. We are recommending an annual dividend growth of 4% in line with our progressive dividend policy. Finally, we continue with our multi-year share buyback program, increasing it by 10% to GBP 1.1 billion for this coming year. This currently equates to 37% of share capital. We will continue to manage these priorities responsibly, to deliver growing returns, while keeping some headroom for uncertainties. This was the first in the next phase of our strategy, and we have delivered the acceleration in profit growth that we promised. In the coming year, we expect to grow net revenue at low single digits, and we expect a further improvement in profit growth, growing close to the middle of our mid-single-digit range. This will be driven by pricing and operational gearing, reducing our NGP losses, improved geographic mix from priority market focus, and cost savings. Performance will be weighted to the second half due to the phasing of our pricing in the prior year and NGP investments front-loaded to the first half. As a result, the first-half adjusted operating profit is expected to be low single digits. Foreign exchange translation is currently at 0%-1% headwind to the P&L. Our improving profit growth and the full year effect of share buyback will drive EPS. As usual, there's more guidance in the appendices. Whilst macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges remain, our strategy and investment has strengthened the business, which underpins our confidence for the year ahead. We remain very well placed to generate long-term value for our shareholders. Thank you very much, and I'll hand back to Stefan. W ell, thank you, Lukas. And now, for me, thank you. What's hard to believe, this is now the fourth set of Imperial full year results that I'm presenting to you, and it's always the opportunity to reflect. So back in November 2020, we could only meet virtually. The new executive team was just forming, and candidly, we were still exploring the business opportunities and considering our options. By November 2021, we had planted the first acorns. Now, the basic framework you see on the screen here now, our strategy, our purpose, and our behaviors had been set then. Now, our teams were mobilized around the distinctive vision that united all these priorities. The time was right, we believed, for a strong challenger business in our sector, and we thought that strong challenger should be us. This time last year, we were reporting the first green shoots. We were seeing encouraging signs of stability in our core combustible business after many years, where we have been the industry's number one share donor. We had begun to reboot NGP, and there was positive feedback from our pilot markets. Now, today, we can say that our tree has grown its first branches and its first leaves. In Combustibles, we now have a three-year track record of share stability and strong pricing. In NGP, with credible offerings in all key categories, and there has been a step change in financial performance and a step change in capital returns to you as shareholders. Now, while this growth is encouraging, we know we're still a long way from becoming a fully grown, mighty oak, and that's what's so exciting for us about at Imperial right now. We've made great progress so far, but we can clearly see the upsides to come, and we know we can get there as long as we stay focused on the plan that we have, and we stick to that plan. Now, when I look at the chart, which I've shown you many times in the past, what I'm excited about is how well it has aged. Sure, there are things that have happened over the last three years which we didn't fully anticipate. I mean, for example, I think all of us here would have been surprised by the dynamism that we've seen in the vaping market with the sudden emergence of disposables. But on the whole, what we've been doing is systematically working through the detailed plans, which support each of the six segments in our strategy wheel: the three enablers and the three priorities. We've also been embedding those five behaviors you see at the bottom of the chart in a really structured way. As we advance our NGP business and broader ESG priorities, we're making progress towards the healthier future, which is at the heart of our purpose as a company. Now, as our transformation progresses, we are now able to show you the hard work of the teams, as well as some equally hard numbers. We've highlighted to you in June, at our event in New York, how we committed to placing the consumer at the center of the business. In insights, not only have we improved the quality, for example, through the demand spaces work we previously showcased to you, but we've also increased the quantity. Over the past year, for example, we've expanded our consumer tracker to cover 120,000 participants in 35 countries, a 20% increase over last year. We're also scaling our distinctive partnership approach to innovation, with three new hubs now open in Liverpool, Hamburg, and Shenzhen, and this is translating into a step change in the pace of new product launches. Our investments in the new performance culture is also leading to clear, measurable returns. Over the past year, 300 leaders took part in an intensive course, lasting seven working days, designed to improve their management and coaching skills. And activities like this have supported a 10.8-point increase in the engagement scores among global business leader cohorts. Company-wide, all employees, we've maintained a benchmark-beating 74% engagement score, and we have achieved a participation rate in excess of 90%, with 50,000 verbatim comments received through the survey. Now, to put this into context, this means more than two verbatims for every person who has responded. Now, while there's always room for improvement, this is a positive sign we're making, bringing our people with us on that transformation journey, and we continue to work through the legacy of this company's acquisitive history, creating simpler, more efficient ways of working and investing in data and our systems. The savings we promised you when we launched our strategy in 2021 has been delivered... and it is important to note, however, that the full upside potential of our major investments in our single ERP platform that we talked before about, will take time to emerge. This future benefit is one of the reasons why, so we are pleased with the achievements over the past three years, we are equally excited about the prospects for further progress in the years to come. Now, in ESG, as part of our wider business strategy, we set out some challenging long-term objectives across eight priorities, and we're now making material progress towards those objectives with reduction in carbon emissions, waste, and lost time accidents. Delivery of these outcomes is supported by a more structured approach to ESG governance. A cross-functional ESG committee, which I chair, includes all of the executive leadership team. This provides the oversight and the direction to our ESG agenda and underpins our more rigorous, more performance-focused approach. I look forward to sharing with you progress at future meetings. Now, let me turn now to how we are delivering against our three strategic priorities, starting with our focus on our top five combustible markets. As I said earlier, this is the third consecutive year where we have reported stable or growing weighted market share. At the same time, as we've discussed, we've maintained strong pricing discipline. Remember that our medium-term objective is stable share at a portfolio level, so we do not expect to grow share in all five markets in any given year. This year, we've grown share in three of the top five markets: US, Spain, and Australia, and lost share in U.K. and Germany. During fiscal year 2024, our planning assumption is that we will hold our full year share flat on last year. Now let me provide you with a deeper dive on our priority markets, starting with our largest, the U.S. As Lukas mentioned, this year has been a strong cigarette performance, offset by challenges in cigars. Cigarette market share was up 65 basis points, coupled with strong revenue growth. We've again held or gained share in every one of the three price segments where we focus and achieved strong, broad-based pricing. Brand investments and retail initiatives behind Winston and Kool enabled us to hold our share in the highly competitive premium value segment. We also grew share in the traditional discount segment with a strong performance from Maverick, and we gained further share in the fast-growing, deep discount price segment, where Sonoma and Crowns continued to grow volume and revenue. And all of this was achieved against a challenging market dynamic, with volumes down more than 8% in the market year-on-year. In cigars, we have experienced a transition year. However, the outlook now is more positive, and the three factors that affected our performance in fiscal year 2023 are now largely behind us. The first, and most significantly, we've normalized the wholesaler inventory changes caused by Hurricane Ian in September last year. Second, we were affected by the wider COVID unwind, which has now annualized. Third, we lost share as competitors resolved earlier supply chain issues during COVID, and we experienced some pressure from consumers down trading. Also, the share trends have improved in the second half with the support of some of the innovations that we've put in place. Looking ahead, our cigar brands like Backwoods continue to be very well positioned within a category with attractive long-term characteristics. Now, in the other four priority markets, we've made some very deliberate choices around balancing market share with the delivery of pricing and value. In the U.K., we increased prices early in the fiscal year. We anticipated a short-term impact on share, but was the right decision for long-term value creation. In the second half of the year, our share stabilized, thanks to the focus with which we managed our portfolio of Local Jewels. We ended the year with both revenue and profit growth in the U.K. Now, this was a great achievement, given the sharp decline in market size, driven, A, by the COVID Unwind, and B, by the high inflation-linked excise increase. As you know, the U.K. Prime Minister recently announced an intention to introduce a generational ban on tobacco. There is a consultation process underway, so some of the details are still unclear. However, the earliest that this regulation would come into force is in January 2027. Now, moving to Spain, we raised prices for the second year after a long period of price stability. At the same time, we achieved further share gains, driven again by our Local Jewels brand initiatives. This has been led by the relaunch of the Noble brand in 2022, with new packaging and line extensions, which have resonated very well with Spanish consumers. In Australia, a refresh of our portfolio and pricing strategy, a good pricing strategy, enabled us to both grow share and value. In Germany, after more than a decade of share losses, we saw a further decline over the year. But we're patiently investing in building brand equity and sales force effectiveness. However, as we've said before, it will take some time for us to stabilize market share in Germany. In a similar way to how we focus investments in our five priority markets, we have an equally rigorous approach for our broader market portfolio. So we've created ways of working to help teams in all markets maximize their contributions through the pooling of insights, expertise, and services. Now we're applying the same principles that we use in our five priority markets. So go-to-market strategies and are successfully deployed elsewhere in the group, and we have repeated them across a wider market portfolio. Greater consumer and customer engagement has guided our investments with brand innovations and supporting specific price increases. Our African cluster, that accounts for 8% of operating profit, and here, strong price increases were combined with Revenue Growth Management measures and other tools developed alongside our global consumer office team. We've used our unique portfolio of Local Jewels and international brands to meet local consumer preferences. Now, also, for instance, in the Middle East, international brands like Davidoff resonate very well with consumers, particularly in Kuwait. It brings this focus and discipline, combined with our new consumer skills, is enabling us to continue to drive value from our broader market portfolio. Turning to NGP, I want to start with an overview where we have got to and what's next. Over three years, this business has been rebuilt almost from scratch. First, we reset our investment priorities, exiting some markets such as Heated Tobacco in Japan. Then we took a consumer-led approach of test and learn to understand how best to position our products and our brands. And this consumer evaluation was a critical point before we invested in further market rollouts. At the same time, our new partnership approach to innovation has led to a complete refresh of our offering in the three major NGP categories: vaping, Heated Tobacco, and modern oral. As a result, we now have new propositions in all these categories, which are credible. Of course, nowhere are we perfect. We're up and running in most of the markets where we feel we have a right to succeed. The next 12-24 months will be a period of consolidation, building scale in the existing market that matter with some further innovation and targeted market launches. I expect the regulatory environment innovation will remain highly dynamic. We'll continue to adjust our offering. Also, it is early days, and we're still very much coming from behind. You can see that all these efforts are starting to translate into an acceleration in revenue growth in NGP. We have a disciplined challenger approach to market entries. We have launched products only in markets where the category is a big proportion of overall nicotine consumption and where we have strong existing route to market. As you can see from the chart, in some markets, NGP is on the way towards overtaking Combustibles as the largest source of revenue. Looking ahead, the big challenge and the big opportunity is to replicate this relative success in markets like Italy, Greece, and Austria, in our large European markets such as the U.K., Spain, and France. Now, the three markets I just mentioned are all growing vaping markets, and in this category, we're now up and running in a total of 11 European countries, a step change compared to a year ago. We have a refreshed product lineup with blu bar disposables and the blu 2.0 pod system, and we expect to see more innovation in the coming year. As you will have seen, a number of European governments are developing new regulations designed to curb use, access, and drive out rogue operators selling illegal products. We are supportive of these new rules, provided they're both effective and proportionate, and we are engaging closely with the policymakers. In Heated Tobacco, consumer feedback supported the development and launch of Pulze 2.0, our newest device. With its all-in-one design and 25 or more sessions from a single charge, this device appeals to consumers who appreciate the convenience of not having to recharge. Now, following 5 new market launches, the Pulze proposition, alongside our iD sticks, is now available in seven European markets. This means we're now present in more than 60% of the addressable market in Europe. Now, these are still early days, and we take nothing for granted. Competitors are, of course, innovating with new propositions on their own. But continuing with our inside product innovation, inside-driven product innovation, this month, we launched iSenzia, a new range of non-tobacco, tea-based nicotine sticks in a variety of flavors. These will be rolled out in our Heated Tobacco markets during fiscal year 2024 as we continue to refresh our overall offer. In modern oral nicotine, we delivered a step up in net revenue growth through launches of new flavors, supported by improved brand positioning. The footprint of Zone X is focused on the Nordics and other European markets with a heritage of Snus tobacco. Here, we are building a distinctive proposition with innovative flavors designed to attract and retain adult consumers, migrating from traditional Snus and other tobacco products. Our agile challenger approach enabled us to be the first entrant into Finland, following a government decision to allow modern oral products. During the year, we continued to perform very well in modern oral in the Nordics, especially Norway, through the growth in the Skruf Super White format, and we're the fastest growing modern oral player in the important Norwegian market. In 2024, we will enter the world's largest modern oral market with the launch of a new U.S. brand, using the range of pouches we acquired earlier this year. The past year has been the first big test for our new strategy. We faced high inflation and a squeeze on consumer wallets. Internally, the fast pace of our transformation continued, and amid all of this, we delivered growing share, strong pricing, and an acceleration in NGP growth. We delivered a step up in financial performance and shareholder returns. Looking ahead, there will be no doubt be more challenges. The macroeconomic scenario clearly is uncertain. The regulatory environment will be dynamic, and we have a healthy respect for our competitors and their own ability to innovate. We are building a track record that gives us more confidence that we are now a more resilient, more agile business than we were in the past. As we look at our pipeline of transformation initiatives, there's more upside to come. This future upside is an important part of our investment case. We are building a stronger tobacco business, with a sustainable and growing NGP business, and we are embracing further self-help opportunities through new ways of working and changing our culture. All of these support our medium-term financial delivery and our growing shareholder returns, with a 4% increase announced... in the dividend announced today, and a 10% increase in our share buyback announced last month. Taken together, our dividend buybacks represent around 15% of our current valuation, and we're just partway through our transformation, with more to go after. So to conclude, Imperial represents a very attractive opportunity to invest in a global consumer goods business, which is committed to making a difference by forging a path to a healthy future. Thank you to all of you to join us today, and Lukas and me would be more than delighted to take any questions from you here in the room or online. Great. Thank you, Stefan. I'll now run through the process of how we're going to run the Q&A. We'll take questions from the room first, and then we'll take questions for those of you who have joined us by telephone. If you wish to ask a question remotely, you'll need to register to receive the dial-in details. The link to register is available on the webcast page. At the top right, it says Phone Details, and it's also available in today's press release as well. If you want to ask a question on the telephone, please press star and 1 1 on your keypad. Great. We'll now take the first question from the room, if that's okay. Please wait for the microphone and state your name and organization before posing your question. So anyone who wants to ask a question in the room? Here we go, at the back there, Jon. Hi, Jon Lancaster, Société Générale. A couple of questions, please. First one, obviously on the price mix, you noted quite significant price, price mix or mix decline, I should say. And some of that is obviously mass market cigars. But do you think on the FMC side, that will continue to get, get worse, particularly as the majors are now beginning to promote a lot more? And do you think the rest of the world is gonna see a sort of mixed decline to offset pricing? And secondly, on the expansion or the getting NGP to sort of break even, I mean, what sort of, if- does that. You seem to imply there's not gonna be many, too many market launches. What sort of growth of sales are you expecting to actually get that business to sort of break even in a couple of years time? Sure. Thank you, Jon, for the two questions. Lukas will answer the first one, and I will answer the second one. So on your question of price mix, I think, let's be very clear, we had a very strong year of pricing in a very big context, which actually also led to an increase in gross margin. Now, the mix is really only in the U.S. You can see from the rest of the world, there is hardly any mix, and we don't expect that to change going forward. Now, in the U.S., as you properly pointed out, Jon, there are two effects here, the FMC and the MMC. Now, it's very clear that the FMC, we actually beat the market, and that's really important. Our volumes decreased much less than the average in the market. Our pricing was very strong, and the mix that you see there is really the deep discount volume that has grown while keeping our Kool and Winston brands at the same level. So, you know, that did not come at the expense of that. So that was the mix effect there. And we have, you know, a lot, a lot of confidence for the next year in terms of FMC. MMC was a transition year. You know, Stefan pointed out that it was the destocking, it was the effect of post-COVID, the rebalancing of volumes, if you look back a few years. And so this is a real rebalancing, and we'll see the headwinds reduce in 2024. Okay, so that's on the U.S., and there's really no mix effect on the rest of the world, as I pointed out to you before. Jon, to answer your second question, I think on NGP, I think what is for me, I think, truly exciting, what you see in the fiscal year 2023 results, we have really stepped up our performance. 27% growth worldwide, with the focus region of Europe being up 40%, should give you the confidence we are now a serious player in NGP. As we look forward, what hasn't changed is that kind of point that we put in the ground 3 years ago, which saying about this business will be break-even at the end of fiscal year 2025, which is 2 years away from today. I think one thing which is important, as you picked up, about we see fiscal year 2024. Fiscal year 2023, saw us entering quite a number of markets in the NGP category. When we look ahead, we are gonna enter the oral nicotine market in the U.S., which is a very significant investment for the company. But at the same time, we wanted to signal to you, we are now in the right portfolio of markets with our NGP portfolio, so the focus will be to build out our position set. At the same time, I think when you look at the comment I made earlier about disposables, the NGP market continues to be a highly dynamic market. That's why I'm a bit hesitant to say what markets will, we go into, not go into, build out, because I think it's, it's difficult to forecast which are gonna be the most attractive markets in two years' time. I think what you should take away, we're now really in the game, in the market that matter, with our challenger mindset, with a business that actually is on track to deliver what we promised three years ago. Take a question from Rashad. So thank you. Hey, guys. Thank you very much. Rashad Kawan from Morgan Stanley. A couple of questions for me. First, on the U.S., impressive share gains again this year, but as you look into next year, what gives you the confidence that, that you can hold on to, the share gains that you've had, to the extent that the environment normalizes there, with inflation kind of coming down, consumption patterns potentially coming back to more normalized levels? And then the second question, just overall, in terms of kind of your revenue growth for next year, do you expect kind of, you know, given the strong pricing that we've seen this year, do you expect the balance to be a little bit more, you know, less in terms of pricing, a little bit less kind of volume headwinds? Is that kind of the right way to think about it? Yeah. Thank you for the question. I mean, nobody can ever make you a commitment about what the market share will be a year down, but I think what, what you should take away from today's presentation, it's very clear, as we referred in the presentation, we're either gaining share or holding share in every single segment. Yeah. And I think as we enter the US, I feel very strongly about the prospect of our US FMC business specifically, because we have better offers in every single place in the marketplace versus where we were three years ago, which is a reflection of a massive investment we've done in sales force capabilities and coverage that will also help benefit us in fiscal year 2024. We also invested very significantly in the brand equities of our brands. Yeah? So as. I think we're very well prepared, whatever direction the U.S. consumer will take in fiscal year 2024 to have an Imperial offer for them. Great. Any more from the room? Good morning. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, it's always difficult to comment on pricing. I think the reality is, look, we are. It's a highly competitive marketplace. We're now proven three years in a row that we get the balance right between pricing and volume. You see it in the reflection of our market share development in our top five. So we'll play that mix in the right way going forward. So we'll see what happens in the marketplace, but you're very right to point out that probably less pricing overall would mean a better volume performance for the market. But I think you hopefully take away, we do now have the skill set, not just in the U.S., but globally, to play that in the right way. Great. I think we'll, we'll pause on questions in the room, if that's okay, because we do have some questions online. So I'm just gonna hand over to Sharon, the operator, to, to take, start taking questions from the phone line. Thank you. We will go to the first phone question. One moment, please. Your first phone question comes from the line of Gaurav Jain from Barclays. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Three questions from me. So the first one, Stefan, you know, if I look at Imperial over the last few years, you know, and your guidance for next year, which is 4.5-5% EBIT growth, you know, Imperial haven't done that in years. And if I look at the mix of markets, so U.S. overall market is down 9% cigarette volumes, U.K. market is down mid-teens, Australia is down mid-teens. Germany is better, but you are losing share. So with that sort of a backdrop, you know, what gives us the confidence that your EBIT growth will accelerate next year? Sure. Absolutely. Gaurav, on the, on this question, I mean, I think one thing which is important to remind ourselves in, this fiscal year 2023, the year we just finished, had some very significant headwinds in the volume outlook. I mean, we refer to it at 7%, 7.1%. What we shouldn't forget, the year before, the volume decline was 1.2%. So if you add the two years together, you're looking at a roughly a 4.1% decline. That's very similar to what we had in the years pre-COVID, which was funny enough at 4%. Yeah? So I think what is, as some of the headwinds, specifically of the COVID unwind in some important markets like the UK, are coming behind us, we are forecasting, from what we can see, a slightly better volume performance. But I think what's also very clear, with very strong operational plans across all our top markets, that will allow us to deliver the performance that we kind of promised with our guidance today. So I feel very confident in our delivery in the year, and you've seen about a lot of the operational levers that we are pulling at this point in time. And I think I come back to the point, the question asked before, about one of the benefits we have as Imperial is that we have a brand at every single price point in the marketplace, in every one of our top five markets. So we are in a position to serve our consumers at every single price point, and I think that is a differentiated competitive advantage in today's world. If I may, just add a further point. You mentioned a couple of markets there, particularly the U.K. and Australia, where there were heightened volume declines for very good reasons. COVID unwind, higher inflationary excise increases. But actually, in both of those, we still managed to grow revenue and profit in spite of those higher volume declines. So hopefully, that as well, gives you some confidence of the kind of value focus we have in terms of generating value from this portfolio, in even some of those more challenging markets. Sure. The second question I have is on this flavored Heated Tobacco ban, which has happened in Europe last month or three weeks ago. And you know, what has been any impact, if you have seen, on your flavored Heated Tobacco products? Sure. Gaurav, the one thing you're absolutely right, the European directive said as of last month, flavored Heated Tobacco sticks have to come off, but the European directive has to be translated in locally independent state laws. So what you will see is a truly staggered approach ranging from last month over to in a year's time. So it's too... I mean, the only real market that it has come off the market is the Czech Republic, that implemented early. Where we've launched iSenzia, the product I referred to earlier, which is a tea-based product. So to date, it's far too early to see what is the impact of it, but I think what you should take away, and I think the team is quite happy about this, we have become the challenger. We are virtually on the day the flavor ban arrived in the Czech Republic. Imperial offered for its Pulze users in the marketplace a product that actually allowed them to continue to enjoy the product in the right way. Yeah. So too early to tell, but I think the exciting thing is that we do have an offer for our consumers that are in the Pulze system. Sure. Just to confirm, so the ban has only come in Czech Republic, and in the rest of E.U., it will happen in the next few months? Good. Absolutely. It goes country by country, depending on how the individual country turns that EU directive into local law. Sure. My last question is on NGPs, and you know, you have said that, you know, the losses will come off, and then you have also said that you will have a U.S. modern oral launch next year. Now, when you know, some of your larger competitors launch the competitor brand to Zyn, I mean, they spent, you know, a few tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars just discounting, getting shelf space to get on the market. How should one think of potential investments behind Zone as you build it out in the U.S.? Sure. To be clear, I think one of the things, as you rightly refer to, we spent more than a year studying that US market, and in the spirit of the challenger company, we looked how can we bring a differentiated offer to our consumers? Now, we can't talk about the product specifically, what it look like, what the branding and so on, but the reality is, we are quite confident that what we will bring to the marketplace is a differentiated product and a differentiated brand. Yeah. And we see fiscal year 2024, and this is within the financial guidance, as the investment year to get the brand on the ground with US consumers. We are in the process of presenting our proposal to our US customers, our retail partners. They're quite excited about what we have to show them. More to follow on this one, but see it as a sign of confidence that we are now entering this important market with something that we believe is something that brings something new to U.S. consumers. Stefan, that's probably, well, good to point out that, you know, any investment that we consider, which will be very much in the challenger mindset that we have done in the past, is in the wrapper of the guidance that we have given. So that's all covered in that guidance. Thank you so much. Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question via the telephone, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. We will now go to your next question. Your next question comes from the line of Alicia Forry from Investec. Please go ahead. H i, thank you for taking the question. My first one, I wonder if I could just build on your previous answer, regarding the Modern Oral rollout in the U.S. Appreciate you don't want to talk about the product ahead of its launch, but perhaps if you could talk a little bit about what particular strengths you think will benefit you in rolling that product out. And then, perhaps also any findings in terms of the, you know, the fact that you've been studying that product in that market for some time. What gives you confidence that it is, you know, an attractive opportunity? Yeah. That would be the first question. And then the second question, if I may, just on the cannabis impairments, just wondering if you could update us on how you're thinking about the cannabis opportunity longer term. Thank you. Sure. Very happy to answer to your question. On the entry into modern oral nicotine, I mean, as you rightly say, we've studied this market for now quite a while, and at the same time, we have looked at all our competitors, and we have done a lot of consumer research in the last 12 months to really understand what is missing in the marketplace, what is the offer, the opportunity we have. So as I say, it's... I don't logically want to go into the detail of it. We do, have done a lot of consumer testing in the US in the last 12 months, and we feel quite confident what we're bringing to the US market is a differentiated product. It will take time to get in the right traction in the U.S., and we'll take a phased approach of the rollout, but we feel very good about what we have to offer is differentiated in the U.S. marketplace. And that's done a lot of testing, not just on the product, but also on the brand and all the elements. So I think what is exciting about it will showcase the skill set we've built now in Imperial, the marketing capabilities that we now have invested in, in the last three years inside the company. So that's where we are. Yeah. And the second question, just remind me. Cannabis. Was on cannabis. Yes, sorry. On cannabis, reality is, our position on cannabis remains the same. In simple terms, there's always a watching brief, but the reality is, as we are companies that will only look at legal cannabis markets, nothing has really moved in reality on this market. So we maintain a watching brief, but at this point in time, there's no change of our strategy on cannabis. Thank you. Thank you. There are currently no further phone questions. I will hand the call back to Peter. Great. Thanks very much. Obviously, if anyone does want to ask a question on the phone, we'll still take them. Press star and one, one, if you want to ask a question. And otherwise, we'll go now, take questions in the room. We'll take a further question from Jon at the back there. Hi, just a couple of follow-up ones. Thanks. Just to confirm, on the iSenzia launch, I wasn't quite sure on... in regards to your previous answer, are those, I mean, clearly they're non-tobacco and flavored, but are, are they allowed to be sort of non-tobacco flavored or under current, under current rules, or is that- is it just a sort of tobacco flavored product? And secondly, what guidance, if any, have you got in terms of regulation and taxation for these products, as a non-tobacco product? Would be the first question. Sure. On iSenzia, Jon, absolutely, just to reassure you, clearly, this product absolutely complies with any regulation in place in the markets that we're launching it. Yeah. So as you rightly say, today, these are non-tobacco containing products. Yeah, they contain nicotine, but they're not tobacco containing. So they absolutely are products that are... We're launching in the marketplace to meet the needs of our base of consumers that we've built in our Heated Tobacco business. And reality is, as with any other product in NGP or in our core business, as regulation changes, we'll adopt our offer to it. But I think what's... I want to come back to this broader point. I think what it should give you the confidence is that from virtually having no Heated Tobacco business in Europe about a year ago, apart from our two pilot markets, as regulation changes in Europe with the removal of tobacco flavors in the Heated Tobacco range, from day one, our consumers in the market impacted are having an offer from us, and I think that's, for us, the exciting piece. And we'll adapt this offer as regulation changes potentially in the future. Sorry, just to be specific, though, I mean, at this stage, are they, are they even taxable if they're not a tobacco product? Secondly, under current EU regulations, which is my ignorance, are they allowed to produce flavors which are non-tobacco, if it's a non-tobacco product, or- Sure. It's still fall under the, sort of, ban of non-tobacco? Jon, I think the important piece is very simple. It depends on the local regulation in the country you're launching into. So together with our corporate affairs team, our legal team, every product that we as Imperial would launch in the product, will meet the absolute local standards in that market. Okay. And secondly, on the legal challenge to the FDA, in my view, obviously, you got a positive result in August. Have you decided to bring that forward to the Supreme Court or an En Banc Federal Court, or is that still being decided? No, it's I think on this one, a simple answer. With the court decision, the Marketing Denial Order has been overturned. Yeah, the FDA has not appealed that decision. So I think what is really exciting, as we shared with you in the past, that we felt very confident and we felt very convinced that the case we had was a very strong case, and the court that did rule on it did vote unanimously in our favor. So in principle, the Marketing Denial Order has been removed. That means the product is now has always been in the market, as you will know. It gives us the chance to drive distribution more into the marketplace. So that's what we're excited about, and we can now resubmit the documents into the process. Yeah. Which brings us back to exactly where the majority of the market is today, is in the market where you can sell the product while your application is being considered. So we do not have to appeal to the Supreme Court or anything else. It has been decided by the lower courts. Great. Any further questions from the room? If not, I'll hand back to Stefan- Yeah ... to conclude. I mean, thank you for your question, and I think for me, hopefully, today, what we showed you in the presentation and also in the question answers, give you some further evidence of the strong operational progress that we're making as a company and the transformation journey that we're on. Yeah, and I think you can also see how that is translating in profit growth in the company. This was year three as a strategy. This was a step-up year of our strategy, and we've delivered on that. And I think what is exciting, and we might not have spoken a lot about it today, but I think what you also see is that sustainability of the cash flows of the companies that will allow us to deliver and give us that ability for growing returns to our shareholders, which is something we're very excited and very committed to. Thank you very much!