I'm the New Chair of JD Sports, so very nice to meet you. Some of you I know of old, but nice to meet new people. I wanna just make a few opening remarks if I could and talk a little bit about the business as I've sort of found it, if you like. I think the first and most important thing to say is what a strong business it is. You know, I feel very blessed to come in and be given the honor of chairing a business like JD. The business is in great position strategically, whether it's in the UK where it's obviously very strong or in new markets. You know, we've got a great position in places like the States, which we can build on. You know, it's well set for growth in the future. I think, obviously, we announced yesterday the agreement with Peter, and I think that was an important step. I don't think anybody wanted Peter's tenure at the business to end in the way it did. The board didn't and he didn't, but it is what it is, and I'm glad we've been able to go back and come to a more amicable settlement with the settled things going forward. Peter was a very big character in this business. You know, under his leadership, the business grew enormously from 2004 to today. You can't really underestimate how important his contribution was. He had a style of management that I think we were trying to count it up, but there's north of 26 direct reports. As a consequence of that, the team around him is a very strong team because they got relatively light touch, relatively small interactions with Peter. We've got Neil here, Mike and Sheryl, and they're very good examples of the very strong individuals within the business that we've been very fortunate to inherit. I'm glad we've come to that settlement with Peter. I mean, Peter obviously would have wanted to retire in a couple of years anyway, but this way, hopefully we get the benefit of his experience, the benefit of his advice and so on. We keep him off the pitch with competitors. But then we also get, of course, Régis, who is here with us today and is brand new, just started on the first of September. You know, he has a chance to come in and work with that very strong team that's in place and hopefully take it on to the next stage. From a board point of view, the board have done. We've got Helen here today, who chairs the audit committee. We've done a fantastic start to the need to sort of bring more formal controls within the business. Like many businesses that grow at the pace that JD has done, sometimes the infrastructure hasn't quite caught up with the brilliance of the traders. There's some work to be done in terms of it. It comes under the headline of governance. In essence, it's more mature systems and more controls. The trick is to do that without killing the entrepreneurial spirit of the business. Hopefully we'll be able to get that balance right. You know, it took two of us to replace Peter, but you know, between the two of us, we bring a degree of heft and experience. You know, Régis is vastly experienced in international businesses and retail and so on. I've got a bit too. We put the two together, and hopefully we'll be a good combination and take that forward. You know, as well as the team, we also have strong partnerships around the world. Régis has been traveling around meeting our partners, you know, whether it's the Cigarras in Spain, the Mershos in North America and so on. That's also an important part of developing going forward and continuing to evolve those relationships. As I say, really, Régis is here really today just so you can say hello. It's not fair to put him on his feet at this point after, what, two weeks in the business or something. He's learning the business fast. He brings all that experience to bear. I think what we'd like to do is probably in a couple of months' time, come back to you with his strategic vision. He will lead on all that with the team. The choices he wants the business to make going forward. Some are self-evident. You know, some of the geography we've got is attractive and exciting. Some would be around perhaps product areas and new areas for growth and some of the existing businesses we have, which are more nascent. You know, fashion and outdoors and these kind of businesses, gyms and so on are in a more nascent situation than JD as a brand. He'll come back with all of that, when he's had time to really get his thoughts in order and work with the team to develop that strategy, really. Hopefully we have a, you know, a great business. You'll see from the numbers, the business hasn't missed a beat. A great business that is performing well in an attractive market with good geographical coverage and opportunities ahead. I think, you know, I'm very humbled to have been given this opportunity. It's a very exciting business, and I think we hopefully will keep it that way with lots of growth opportunities to come. Meanwhile, let's look back at the first six months. I think you're gonna start, Neil, aren't you, with the numbers? I think we're gonna go on to Mike and Sheryl then to talk a little bit about some of the exciting trends and things that are going on in the business today. Yeah. Thanks, Andy. We are pretty pleased with the first half. It has played out pretty much exactly as we expected it to. The final result is at the top end of the expectations that we had internally. Yes, the profit is lower than last year, but you can't really compare it to last year, I suppose, for two main reasons. One is obviously last year benefited hugely from the stimulus that the federal government put in place in the U.S. That created a bit of a super profit situation because a lot of that stimulus benefit came through, the extra volume came through in stores. Given, you know, the largely fixed cost store base that you know, that you have in stores then, you know, there was a real strong flow through to profit. You know, we estimated that last year at around GBP 100 million. Secondly, obviously last year there was various pieces of government support. Say for example, we didn't need to pay rates for the first five months last year, and that was worth GBP 25 million. You know, that has had to go in this year. If we look at the five-year history, I suppose the positive thing for this year is it's the first time in three years that we've actually had the stores open for, you know, for all the periods. What that does mean is that from a comparison perspective, you know, the most comparable period is back in the first half of 2019. If you look at the profit margin that we've had this year, which is about, you know, 8.7% I think, something like that. The same period three years ago, so pre-COVID, was 5.8%. Hopefully that gives you a fair illustration of the, you know, of the progress that we've made over the last three years. You know, another measure of that progress that I would use is just in terms of the, you know, the growth in like-for-like sales that we've seen. You know, like-for-like is meaningless over a one-year basis. If you look back over three years then the like-for-like over that three-year period, so comparing same stores, you know the usual like-for-like measure then that growth has been 25% or 8% compound. Again, that's been you know pretty solid growth. As usual, you know, if we just move on to Sports Fashion, this is, you know, this is one of the key slides that I know people are interested in, so we'll spend some time on this. You know, the overall story we say within Sports Fashion is, you know, another period of decent performance overall. You know, if you look, UK and Ireland solid, although as I mentioned to you know, just a minute or so ago, you know, we have had to pay full rates this year that we didn't have to do last year. You know, there's been, you know, a good strong recovery in Europe, you know, showing the benefit of, again, having, you know, say all the stores open throughout the period plus, you know, we're seeing the benefits coming through of the, you know, the investments that we're making in, you know, logistics in Europe as well. U.S., as I said, was, yes, there was a reduction in profitability. Stimulus obviously had an impact, but then that was also the geography where, you know, given its strength in Nike footwear, you know, that was the geography that was most impacted by, you know, by the supply chain challenges that, you know, that Nike in particular suffered through the first half. That availability of product was at its worst in the first quarter. It did improve progressively through the second quarter, and that improvement in supply has continued through you know through the second half to date. You know, the U.S. businesses you know have been trading you know positively again since you know since the half year. You know, again, you know shows what happens when you have a normalized supply. The other thing I would just say, you know, just with regards to, you know, to North America is that it's, you know, say the supply chain challenges, you know, it's still delivered, you know, an operating return, you know, close on 10% and, you know, if you compare that to the pre-COVID position, North America was only making 5%, you know. So again, you know, that's a measure of the progress that we've made. I should also mention Asia as well. You know, good solid performance in Asia. We always mention Australia, you know, cause it's a great business for us. But the other one I should probably mention is Malaysia as well. You know that market suffered, you know, quite deeply through the last three years of COVID, but it's seen a really good recovery since. Just a bit more granularity then in terms of North America. You know, the trends are actually quite similar across each of the businesses. So, they all were all impacted by the supply chain challenges and it's. You know, that's just a function of the fact that footwear in North America probably represents, what, 80% plus of sales, which is the biggest of any of our markets. You know, apparel development probably remains the biggest opportunity that we have, you know, within North America. You know, apparel's still only in the teens in terms of share. You know, just to give you some context to that, you know, apparel is more than 50% now in the UK, and it's approaching 40% in Europe. You know, there is still that opportunity there. As I said, supply chain challenges in North America have definitely been easing, you know, and the performance is positive in the second half to date. The other thing I would just remark on is just the gross profit, the margin, which, you know, has remained pretty constant. You know, it's close to 50%, you know, which is the kind of level we'd expect it to be. You know, you'll recall that market was very promotional. You know, certainly Finish Line was before we acquired it, you know, three to four years ago, whenever it was. You know, the fact that we've been able to retain margins is, you know, really encouraging, you know, in terms of the longer-term development. Just in terms of outdoor, I suppose it's been a bit of an odd period for outdoor, in many ways, cause we've seen good growth in revenues, but the categories where we've seen the growth have been those that are higher ticket items but lower margins, so things like camping and cycles, et cetera. Unfortunately, you know, the very warm and dry weather that we had during the summer has then negatively impacted sales of lower ticket but higher GP percent products such as, you know, textiles and, you know, particularly waterproofs. You know, you kind of combine those together and, you know, whatever the weather, we've actually got, you know, a really good business now that obviously consumers trust and, you know, are happy to go into and, you know, for whatever their outdoor needs may be. Balance sheet, I mean, there isn't too much really to call out on the balance sheet. I suppose the only thing you want to mention is perhaps the stocks number, and I've got a slide on this shortly. Yes, the stock is higher than it was at January, but it always is. That's just the natural flow of how the stock cycle works. You'll also see that there's been, you know, a restocking of the inventories in North America in particular just as the product flows have say normalized through the second quarter. That investment in stock and normalization of stock is reflected in the cash flow there, where you'll see, you know, cash outflow on stocks of GBP 400 million. You know, so that's just the normalization of flows and, you know, our cash generation, you know, from, you know, our normal activities, you know, our operating activities remain strong. I would just also call out the investment on CapEx, where we've, you know, GBP 156 million, so that's nearly double what it was last year. I got a slide again on this shortly, but you know, significant investment, you know, in our retail businesses, you know, and in our infrastructure as well. Not a huge amount to talk about on acquisitions really in the period. That's just a timing thing really. The only acquisition of note has been the acquisition of the swim business that was set up by former Olympic swimmers Steve Parry, Becky Adlington and Adrian Turner. That business is, say, the first multi-site operator of swim schools, you know, learn to swim centers that there is in the UK. It's a good complementing business to our active, you know, our gym sector. In terms of what we've done subsequently, so since the period end, we've purchased the other 50% of our business in Korea. That was the important step for us and will give us the opportunity to make the changes that we need to in that country and in that business. You know, whilst it may have been a quieter period for M&A, you know, that doesn't mean that we don't have the appetite for significant M&A. It's just a function of timing as to what is actually completed, you know, in the period. Just a bit of granularity on stocks. As I say, the first half is always a period when you have an outflow, say, cause January is just about the lowest point within, you know, the stock cycle. Yes, the cash outflow is perhaps a bit higher than it normally would be in this period, but that's just the reinvestment of stocks, and you'll see, you know, North America in particular, you know, where there's been significant investment there. You've got to really look at stock in cover terms, really. If you look at, say, the JD business across Europe, cause that's one buy, then, you know, the cover at half year last year was 12 weeks. The cover at the half year this year is 12 weeks, so you know, no issues. Last year, North America was nine weeks, and this year is 13 weeks. It is last year that's the odd one. 13 weeks is pretty much where you know where we'd expect that business to be. You know, our disciplines on stock and markdown management you know remain absolutely as strong as ever they were. You know, you see that just in terms of the you know, the gross margin that we've delivered. Again, bit of granularity on CapEx for you and just some guidance as to where we think we'll finish for the year. You know, we've you know, we're looking at spending somewhere between GBP 325 million and GBP 375 million over the year. Significant investments, you know, in our retail estate. Spend on stores, you know, probably represents around 50% of all spend, you know, as we continue to evolve our retail estate. We've done new flagship store in Metrocentre in the first half. We've got a new flagship store in Chicago opening shortly. We're on the. I think Sherilyn covers it shortly, you know. I think we're on the fourth generation now in terms of our new store design, and you know, we are rolling out high quality fits into all our estate. There're also significant investments in logistics infrastructure. You know, we've got the works progressing in both Derby and Heanor, and our Shoe Palace business is also now fully settled into their new facility in San Jose in California. This is a new slide that we've just done just to give you some indication of the value of the put options which people perhaps struggle to understand. The put options are the minority interests where those minorities can effectively put on us at some stage in the future. You know, the total liability, you know, the fair value of those is, you know, around GDP 800 million, biggest of which is in North America. Genesis Topco is our holding company in the US that holds all of our US interests. The former Mersho brothers who used to own Shoe Palace, they own 20% of Genesis Topco, and so that twenty percent is the representation there, the GDP 500 million. In terms of, you know, how you actually calculate that liability, and then there's effectively three variables. You've got the future forecast, performance, you've got the period, you know, until they can exercise, and then if it's international, then you've also got exchange rates as well. In terms of when the Mershos can begin to exercise, then the earliest they can do that is in four tranches, and that starts in MJanuary after the January 2025 results. That will be on the balance sheet for some time yet. Then finally for me, just a bit in terms of outturn. We've said, you know, we expect to maintain profitability this year. You know, we've reiterated that statement today. You know, so we're still guiding people towards GBP 950 million, and that just gives you some indication of our view on shape of that profitability. You know, the broad kind of headlines are yes, North America will be down compared to last year, but that's just because of the first half and you know, North America we'd expect to recover through the second half. That'll be offset by you know, a strong recovery in Europe and you know, with a continued robust performance in the UK. Then overall, you know, we're probably looking at revenues of somewhere between GBP 9 billion and GBP 9.5 billion, something like that. I'll now pass you over to Sherilyn, and she can talk to you about some of our developments in retail. Cheers, everyone. I'm the group merchandising director, and my pleasure to show you a few slides today in terms of where we're going with stores. I think most of you know that our store transformation journey really has been continuous. We don't stop. It's always aspiring to elevate and match really our product proposition. We try and enhance the consumer journey while maximizing the profitability for the group. As Neil mentioned, JD store transformation is actually on its fourth evolution. The current iteration of this concept was delivered in Stratford in 2021. Most of you have probably seen that. We opened Metro. It's probably got the biggest frontage in the whole of the UK, so it does dominate the site, and we're really proud of that. Chicago should open in the next couple of weeks, which will be great as a new statement, coming out of kind of COVID years and kind of cements us as being global. I think that's really important that whether it be our product proposition, that me and Michael do or stock or the store concept, that globally we are consistent, for our consumer and keep moving it forward. The teams are kind of gearing up to roll out the concept in 2023. We're working really closely with our digital partners, the marketing partners, to make sure it's a real holistic view of what JD is. I think, especially for our Gen Z customers, it's particularly important, that we get the touch points through every single angle. We're working really hard to make it consistent. Clearly, with Régis on board as well, we're gonna move fast in terms of that transformation. It's worth noticing that we are a group, so the kind of ethics around store development are not just in JD, but also our fashion division. We've got a new, for example, concept store in Tessuti, one of our premium fashion fascias. Liverpool, 122,000 sq ft across two floors. The result is bold. We've also moved forward into some more strategic areas such as Birmingham for Tessuti. Some of the consolidation of our group, we're really strong. I think also worth noticing Size? Size? is a smaller fascia, but really successful. Michael's talked before about kind of Seed to Scale in terms of our sports fascia, so it's really important that we keep moving Size? forward as well. We then began the retail design evolution in terms of Glasgow for Size? in 2019. We've taken the approach of what's local to the town, what's local to the city. We've now kind of had design iterations of this from Newcastle, Brighton, Toronto, Stockholm and Vancouver. We're on site in Harrods and in Liverpool. We're just gonna keep moving more further strategic locations across the globe with Size?. It just gives us that edge, likewise, Footpatrol at the very top tier. I think I'm kind of really proud. I think we've got a picture of Go Outdoors as well. As Neil mentioned, the exciting thing for me is not to use the mouse, but in terms of this year, the lifestyle activities have worked really well in Go Outdoors, and they really kind of have synergy with gyms and swim. We are kind of broadening our aspects there. I've now got a video to show you some of the highlights of our fascias and then our world-class gyms and some disco music for those of you that are in the seventies. Let's go. Okay. Okay. My pleasure to hand you over to Michael. Morning, everyone. Mike Armstrong, the buying director. I am gonna quickly take you through some of the brand and marketplace dynamics we're currently experiencing and that we're able to respond to which, you know, is clear evidence that the consumer-facing proposition that we have is, you know, it's robust and effective. You know, clearly there are some challenges out there. Before I talk about the specifics, I'm just gonna run you back through and reiterate our strategy and the principles behind the product offensive that we have that we believe stands us in good stead to be able to weather any of the storms that we're facing. I think we showed you this last time. This is our global strategy framework. The key component of this, for us is the connection that we have to our consumers. Really, it's, you know, it's the obsession that we have as a business. We provide the latest and greatest sports and fashion footwear and apparel to our young and fast consumers via our elevated retail experiences that you've just seen a few examples of. This is tailored to our consumers' needs in the malls, neighborhoods, towns, cities, and obviously the mobile devices and mainly the phones. The brand delivery is, it's digitally driven, we're membership enabled, and the brand comes to life in an authentic way by using the power of relevant ambassadors that reflect our consumers' lifestyles and aspirations. King of Trainers, Undisputed, King of the Streets, Always the Leader. These are all taglines that we've used and will continue to use, moving forward that underpin and reinforce the leadership, the position that we have. We continue to access new consumers through acquisition and expansion. As Neil's already highlighted, we continue to invest in digital and supply chain capabilities that complement and connect to our retail stores. You know, pivotal to our connections, capabilities and overall strategies that we are differentiated. You know, we operate in a crowded and competitive marketplace. We believe that the diversity of the category mix coupled with our brand bandwidth, which is key to the product offering that we have, continues to separate us from our competitors. This differentiation also manifests itself through our unique brand experiences, in perspective, the majority of the product that we sell, our store experiences, and our digital leadership. In our experience, there's really no retailer like JD anywhere else in the world. Our partnerships with the biggest and best and most authentic brands are built upon the elevated retail experiences that we offer as they act as a showcase for the best products. Combined with the direct relationship we have with our shared consumers, we are awarded a wide range of privileges that are unparalleled in our sector of the market. We are widely regarded as the premier partner for sports and lifestyle brands globally, and we believe this will, you know, continue to stand us in good stead. What all this brings us is, you know, the continued confidence in our proposition and strategy, but we have seen the marketplace evolve post-COVID as consumer spending capabilities, their habits and lifestyles have changed. Our bandwidth, desirability, and market intelligence allows us to be able to tap into these shifts seamlessly, as well as being able to introduce and evolve extremely successful own brand and licensed brands into the market to capitalize on opportunities that maybe the global brands or the highly differentiated brands have been unable to fill. I've really broken down these brands into four distinct areas for you. The first one up is new and emerging brands. You know, the fact that we are the destination for the young and fast consumer allows us to access a wide range of new and emerging brands that are experiencing great momentum and massive gains in brand awareness. On Running first up, the premium Swiss running brand is a phenomenon really. You know, you'll be able to see it in the street for yourselves. We are their key partner in our channel of distribution. Castore, based in the northwest of England, is gaining traction through partnerships with some of the world's biggest and best sports teams and federations. In August, JD was the launch partner for the first meaningful shift into high street distribution, which has been pretty successful for us. Hoodrich is a Birmingham-based streetwear brand whose mantra is from nothing to something, and it's built upon the aspirational story of a young man called Jay Williams, who launched it in his bedroom with a GDP 200 startup. This brand's giving global brands a run for its money due to the close relationship that they have with our shared consumers through the lens of the urban music scene. Next up, brands that had previously slipped into obscurity or irrelevance but have come back stronger than ever. First up, Crocs. They have a phenomenally strong collaboration and incubation program. Along with the ability to kinda leverage this, top-end partner. These top-end partnerships that they have to gain commercial traction has taken, you know, it's really taken the UK footwear market by storm again, and we're starting to see traction across Europe as well. The VF-owned Napapijri brand fuses outdoor DNA with sports fashion, which creates a real kind of perfect blend of what our male consumers are looking for currently. And for her, Juicy Couture has gone back to the roots of its iconic silhouettes, but it's made them relevant for the new generation by using the power of social media and, you know, obviously the positioning of the brand as well. Global brands. These are kinda staple components of the business and have been for decades, but they're experiencing a new wave of growth. They have a growing momentum and appreciation for our consumers, which many of which will never have experienced them before, but are able to now via a JD store. You can see the Jordan brand, which has really never looked back from the airing of the Michael Jordan Netflix documentary series. New Balance are now best in class when it comes to the tried and tested Seed to Scale model, we've used effectively over the years with our banner ecosystem of the banners of, as Sherilyn mentioned, Size? Footpatrol, JD. You have New Era there as well, and due to their network of U.S. sports licenses, they're able to capitalize on the Americana trend that we're seeing in the market. Pivotal to this is the NBA license as the sport and basketball culture in general continues to boom in popularity with our core audience. The last area of the business I wanna touch on is our own label and license brands capability. You know, the offer is the ability to pivot quickly, meeting a rapidly changing retail landscape. Our team is, you know, extremely proficient and we are embracing our responsibilities with regards to the environment and the, you know, the ethical standards of our suppliers. Our relationship with FILA is key to our footwear business. We offer great products at consumer-friendly prices or, you know, we like to call it maximum style at stream value. Our recently signed Reebok license will clearly offer us a level of profitability that we are unable to achieve with the other global brands we have partnerships with. Lastly, McKenzie is the most important component of our own brand offer. Hitting competitive price points with the quality of the major brands. It continues to flourish and adds a point of difference to the offer that we have. It's firmly established itself in its top five brands for us now for probably the last 20 years. Yeah. Yeah Yeah I would guess. Last up, introduction of Technicals has been massively successful for us. This is an own brand. It's got its roots in our outdoor division, and it's used as a vehicle for technical equipment. But we've appropriated it into JD by providing our consumers with a brand that merges outdoor athletics with sports style, and it taps into a look that our existing stable of performance brands have not been able to capitalize on. Yeah, so there we go. You know, the ability to have the best brands and products is essential in the marketplace of today, where you know, we are facing an environment that is unstable and competitive, but we do know that, you know, for our consumer in particular, the best of the best still resonates the most. You know, we've got total confidence in the strategy and, you know, and as a consequence, the connection that we have with our consumers, and we have an unparalleled relationship with our branded partners. The bandwidth, diversity, exclusivity and strength of the product position will continue to, you know, differentiate us from our competitors and also allow us to maintain the leadership position that we have. That's it from me. Thank you, and I'll pass back over to Andy, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. Really just move into Q&A now, really. Sorry. Introduction. My appetite. Ready. I missed the most important. No. I fluffed my lines. Just some quick words and just to say that how excited I am to be here. I think it reminds me of the RTD days because it was here that we were doing this, the different interaction with you. I think JD is a fantastic business. I think that it's a unique customer proposition. I think Mike expressed it in a much better way than I will do, but I think that you have something which is unique. We invent a new market what we have done, and I think that this creates for us a blue ocean in fact. I think that we have a great economic model as you have seen. I think it's a world-class execution in store. I think a lot of our people have been with us from 16 years old to today. I think that a lot of experience. When I meet the team, I always give my number of days in order to match the number of years. I can. That's the only way I can match. I think it's a great business, great relationship and partnership with the brand. You know, the first email I had in my JD box was an email from the CEO of Nike welcoming me. The second one was from Peter. I think it shows that people care and Peter care about the business and care about the future of the business. I think that makes us having something where we need to give this experience, this brand for more people. I think that we only have a double-digit market share in three countries in the world, which is U.K., Australia and Ireland. I think that there is plenty of country to conquer. I think U.S. is where we have the base to do that. We bought three businesses. We now need to leverage those three businesses in order to get to the same position that one we have in the U.K. This is in itself double the size of the group because this is a GDP 200 billion market, which is the biggest. After that, we need access to all the customers in the world because we have something which is unique, and we have something to propose to them which is unique. So I'm really excited. I think there is a super team. I have really been astonished by the level of experience and the level of expertise, and I'm really enjoying every day. Thank you. Well done. Thanks. Okay. We start with Kate. Thanks so much. Kate Calvert from Investec. A couple from me. Could you confirm how many new stores you expect to open in Europe and the US by the end of the year? And also, just in terms of the Badge Phillips three sites that you're doing for Finish Line to JD. And also could you give some early comment on how the pipeline is looking for FY 2024 in terms of openings? And my second question is, can you give a little more color on the recovery in Europe and which markets stand out and which ones are probably lagging a little? You are looking at me. Where do we start? I don't know. It's numbers. Everything's numbers. Look, Europe is our ambition remains the same. If you're looking in Western Europe, we're probably still looking to do one store a week on average. You know, and then we've got Eastern Europe and Greece on top. I think. Is Greece this week, the first one? Athens? Yeah. I think it might be tomorrow. You know, with those on top. In terms of the U.S., so U.S. development is now more about relocations rather than conversions. Do you know when we got planned for the second half? No, I don't. We'll go. Well, I think we've got 101 JDs in just the U.S. at the period end, 170 if you include Canada. I think from memory, we should have around 130 or so by the end of the year. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Moving into next year, very similar levels. In terms of CapEx, I'd expect a broadly similar amount, similar number of store openings. You know, there'll be further growth in the UK. You know, we're still investing in UK space, you know, largely by taking more space. You know, you've seen how the apparel's performing in stores. You know, it's more than 50% of the mix now. You know, we have got that capability to do bigger stores in the UK, so we'll do that. I think one of your questions, sorry for interrupting you there, Neil. It's gone. As you asked where the markets are doing well. Yeah. I think this is what's quite exciting. There's very few markets that are struggling. We've been pleased. I mean, the cost of living crisis is not hitting us as hard in Europe. We've had a formula for several years now that we always do better in bigger stores. The company's backed us in terms of having that extra space. Italy is particularly strong, and we've got some really exciting openings in 2023 in Italy, which actually we'll be able to sort of showcase our brand proposition to the greatest kind of extent we've had. That's a particularly exciting kind of area of good performance now and heading into next year. In terms of Italy, that's always been the market where we've perhaps struggled to get new stores. There just hasn't been the availability of space. We have agreed a process where we'll be taking. It's about 20 stores. Yeah From a business that's not in our sector, it's in another sector. We'll be taking 20 stores from them through the course of 2023. You know, that'll take us from what we have, about 45 stores, I think, in Italy at the moment. In terms of space, it virtually doubles- Yeah. It doubles our space. You know, it's Doubles your space. It'll be transformational for us. Italy is a key market for us cause trends and you know, consumer appetite is very similar to the UK. To answer which markets in Europe are we you know have we been pleased about, and it's our biggest markets, you know so France, Spain and Italy are probably the ones that you know have been the standout performers in the first half. There's, I think, success in routine that we got into. Last year we changed a lot of the Chausport fascias into JDs, and they're actually now really much more profitable, much more successful. Obviously they were quite a challenging format for us because they're quite small. We've probably, it'd be fair to say we've been really pleased with the traction of those, not particularly in a turnover perspective, but more of a profitability point of view. Stores in general have come back really strong in Europe. We've obviously had better facilities because we've invested into warehousing, both retail and online now in 2022. Heerlen is all going to plan, and that will be quite transformative for us 2023, 2024. You got the mic? You're in as well. Right. Simon Owen from Credit Suisse. Can I just follow on from what Kate was saying, and bearing in mind what you were saying, Régis, about the U.S. and that opportunity? How do you fill that opportunity? Is it can you open enough stores realistically to meet that opportunity, or do you see that predominantly as being another market for M&A? And you, Neil, you talked about, you know, M&A, you know, not being particularly big at the focus at the moment. It is that because everyone wants a multiple of last year's profit, and therefore, naturally, you would just do fewer deals, you know, at the back end of a cycle as we are now? Do you think the opportunities are out there for you to grab? Just a second one. Can you just talk a bit about pricing, in terms of what you've seen, or what you're expecting to see for autumn/winter, and then into next year as well? In terms of the U.S. market, I think, as you know, there is quite a lot of property available. I think that, you know, the great thing about us coming in the market is that we come with a new concept at a time where the U.S. market has been underinvested by a lot of the operators. We have the chance to have the best concept and plus the newest. It's a double impact on the market, especially compared to our biggest competitor, which is Foot Locker. We come with a new proposition, larger store, better store, a better proposition, better mix, and at a time where landlords are looking to give space to someone. I think that's for us, and we have with Finish Line a lot of space to transform. We are just taking the time to make sure that when we transform, we have more space in order to have the full offer, and we do that at the right time in terms of lease renewal to avoid that, to get the best deal possible with our landlords. I think that it's a perfect timing for us in the U.S. I don't think we need more acquisition if there will be, but there is less and less regional player. I think it's a concentration has happened, and I think that if there will be opportunity, we'll take them, but I think it's more about conversion of the Finish Line store. Pricing? So- I mean, this season now we're in, this is when we experience the biggest increases. Obviously, the UK has been most impacted because we had the double whammy of Brexit and then inflation. The price increases have been much more aggressive in the UK. Than we've seen across Europe, but this is now the period where we're seeing the big lifts from the brands. I think broadly speaking for us, the best product's the best product. There's still an appetite for it. You know, there are still some challenges with supply chain in terms of timings, not so much volumes. It's just getting the product from Asia to Europe. But by and large, when we can get the right product, it's selling. There's no major concerns around the price increases that we've seen. Yeah. I also think that from a consumer angle, we're talking single digits. It's not like food where it's going 20%-30% up. It's not a significant you know, increase. I think the other part for us as well is that I think Michael tipped into on our proposition, we do offer everything from FILA to Nike, so McKenzie to Nike. If you can't actually afford you know, some of our demographic, the Nike piece or a household which may be under stress, the idea really is that you can come into JD, you can get the JD carry bag, and maybe that you might have to combine. I think that's the JD has the essence of we create enough ranges, that the consumer can come in and buy and access. As Michael said, at the top end, you know, the hot stuff will be the hot stuff, and the kids will pay for it. I'm sure most of you know that, given your own teenagers. Yeah. Hi. Edouard Aubin from Morgan Stanley. Two questions for me. One general question about the sporting goods market. As mentioned by Neil, I think we are transitioning from a pull market to a push market. The good news is you're getting more supply from the brands, but so are your competitors. We had record high, you know, full price sales at the industry level. You know, are you seeing any change in terms of the discounting activity? Do you have any view in terms of the inventory position at your competitors? Did that increase significantly? The second question is on the U.S., and again, sorry to come back on Foot Locker, but you know, the company has been a market share donor for a number of years, I mean, to your benefit. You know, they have a great new CEO as well, just been announced, with a strong track record. To what extent, you know, could that be an issue? What's the customer overlap you have with them? Or do you think the market is just so fragmented in the U.S. that, you know, even if they were to be successful, it wouldn't be an issue for you? Thank you. Do you wanna answer that on the North America? Yeah. Is that what? On the US, I think that for sure, Foot Locker will come back. I think that we have a slightly different proposition. They are mostly footwear, 90% or a very large part. We have a better mix in terms of apparel and footwear. I think we have our store are all almost new with JD. So really when you visit more, and I was in the US last week, you see a big difference in terms of that. So it will take time to you know. They have 1,300 stores. We have 100 stores, and we have 400 stores to convert. So it's a different story and different proposition. I think for sure there is a customer overlap, but at the same moment, I think our proposition is much more diverse, much more street, and I think we are much better placed. I think, on the broader question that you asked around supply, obviously this is home. I think that there is some excess supply in the general market. I think, if I take a pure play like ASOS, clearly that's evident from some of the promotional activity that's going on currently. I think what's important for us and our consumers. From a consumer point of view, they trust us with the brand choices we have. We're really diligent about our stock management and always have been. I don't see that. That's a managed situation. From a relationship point of view with our brands, we have probably the best relationship in terms of operational initiatives which aren't sexy, but they obviously clearly assist us through global pandemics and all kind of supply issues. You know, we've got really good partnerships there. I'm quite confident that we won't see any GP erosion. We'll keep to our own methods that we always have done, regardless of the activity that goes on outside. I think for us, because we've got a wide real estate from out of towns to shopping centers to high street, we have seen different patterns in the last three years, you know, excluding Covid. We're in a really good position to kind of meet the needs of where the consumers want to flex. I think that's probably shown in like how robust we've been. Footfall for us now versus 2021 is in a good place and is improving week-on-week. We've seen people come back to the high street in general. We know that we're kind of heading above most of our sectors. One of the great things, for example, in terms of trust, we go as a. What's the word? A talisman gift cards for. Not particularly material to the bottom line, but people are buying into more gift cards because they trust us. Whereas if they don't trust you as a consumer, that you're gonna be around in a year's time, they don't access them. I think we're in a pretty good place to your question. Over this side. No, go over here. Thank you very much. Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to just clarify, Neil, the comment you made around capital expenditure and the plans into next year and also the evolution of your logistics footprint. Can you just firstly explain why has the capital expenditure guidance increased this year? Is it pulled forward or, you know, are things costing more or is it FX, et cetera? What is the early thoughts about next year? Cause there was also an allusion to obviously the newer store format and whether, you know, are you gonna be accelerating refits, for example. Then on the CapEx side of things, how much more incremental benefit is still to come through, you know, as you shift to, you know, continental European stocking, particularly to the online business for example? In terms of CapEx, why is CapEx higher? Some of it is just because we're able to do work now that we weren't able to do last year. A lot of markets, you know, there were either restrictions placed on construction activity or, you know, some other kind of, you know, action, you know, that delayed, you know, projects in, you know, last year. Some of it is catch up from COVID. Some of it is, you know, within the 100 and. You know, if we're gonna spend, what, say GBP 350 million to keep the math easy, so we'll do GBP 175 million in retail. You know, we are investing in all markets. You know, we've got the new markets, Greece, Poland, well, not just Poland, all of Eastern Europe. We're in Poland, Hungary, Romania. Lithuania. You know, we've got all those markets. You know, we're in thirty-odd markets now with JD. It's just as we're getting bigger, then we're investing more in the estate. You know, a big chunk of that is coming in the U.S. You know, we see, you know, when we've been doing the conversions, you know, we've seen sales uplift of, you know, the figure I've always given out is around 20%, you know? Okay. That makes it worthwhile to do those. You know, you say we're at 100 stores now for JD in the US. We've still got another 400, I think or something like that to go after. CapEx will remain significant for a period of time. Then as I said, we've got the two new warehouses, Derby and Heerlen. They're both in terms of our fit outs and not the build. The build's done for us, and then we take a rental on that. The fit out on both of those is I think about GBP 100 million each, you know, which is over the course of this year, next year, and in the case of Heerlen, the year after as well. Yeah. Sorry, the benefits, cost saving benefits. It's more about consumer proposition, particularly online. Because what you find when goods go over to Europe, you know, random wagons do get selected for inspection by customs authorities, but you don't know which one they are. We have to elongate our service promises to the consumer for online, which makes us less competitive. Having that local fulfillment available means that, you know, we can offer, you know, instead of I think our SLA is at five days at the moment, we say. You know, we should be able to do that, say, in two days, and that just makes you more competitive. It's more about the proposition. It's the consumer. Yeah, consumer proposition. Getting it there, getting it quicker. The current facilities can't do everything that we wanna do. Obviously, with store growth, it's important to kind of sustain it. I think the consumer is getting more demanding. The new facility in Europe is a bit of a game changer. Today we are. Particularly with online. We're not competitive. Yeah, today we are not in the market on. No. We are at five days, 10 days. It's just out of the market. Definitely. My experience is that every time you gain one day, you gain 20% of sales. It's just, we are so far away in terms of the customer proposition. So that give us the tool in order to really come back to a proposition which is in line with what the customer is expecting. I think I've been astonished by the return on our investment. You know, we are talking about payback less than two years when we invest in store. UK is quicker than that. Yeah. Same, same. I was trying to- Yes For that reason. To protect you. Yeah. We are looking at a That and the European. At a very quick return. Yeah. You know, for a retail proposition, I've not seen such a quick return in my past experience. The Derby DC, UK DC is an online specialist DC. It's to meet the kind of true needs of like whatever the consumer wants now and whatever the consumer is gonna demand in three to five years time. It's consumer facing. Yes. Hello. It's Anne Critchlow from Berenberg. I just wanted to talk a little bit about your core customer profile, perhaps the split by income demographic, but also how many of your customers are teenagers that aren't responsible for household bills. Because there's obviously a lot of well-publicized pressure on the consumer, but based on your H1 results and your current trading, it looks like your consumer is pretty much immune from what's going on at the moment. I wondered if there was something within the profile of your consumer that means they're more resilient than perhaps others. The second question was just on the UK margin. UK margins in the first half were down year-on-year. Although I know there's some additional cost with logistics, but given that you had a lot of eCom growth in the first half of last year, I would have thought the channel mix would have been a benefit for you this year, and you would have driven a bit more operating leverage from your stores. I just wondered what the moving parts were in UK margin and how we should think about that developing from here. I mean, I'll take the UK margin one. As I said to you last night, a lot of that is just down to digital performance. You know, we've invested a lot, you know, to deliver, you know, further digital growth. That hasn't really come through in the course of this year. You know, the digital sales growth has been there. You know, you've had to chase it hard with marketing spend. You know, there's been, you know, increased investment in technology costs essentially to drive future growth, and it's that. I think the UK will come back. I'd expect the UK broadly to say to be around the 15% mark this year, you know, rather than maybe the historic 16%, and it might take us another year to get back, say, to those 16% levels. It's already in a nice place. As I said, you're a taskmaster and a half, you. Do you want to answer that question? I think that on A lot of businesses would love to have that. I think I will let Mike, but I think an important point you need to understand is that the unemployment rate is very low, and that give us our customer extra revenue because they are the one that was the most impacted by COVID because all the small job were disappeared during COVID. All the part-time, all this job has just stopped during COVID. Job are now first, they are available, and they are better paid than they were by a lot and this is our customer base, they get more revenue. Okay, they get more cost of living, but if they get more revenue, it's going in the right way. I think your point around the fact that most of them stay with mom and pops, so they don't pay the energy bill. I will let Mike. Yeah, no, that's it in a nutshell. I think, you know, we've been through periods of recession or downturns in the past, and generally what we've seen is our consumer because they are younger, you know, as that 16- 24-year-old, they are more resilient to it. I think this season now was probably slightly more of a concern because it was looking like there was gonna be a downturn with a significant increase in pricing. As we've said, the good stuff's the good stuff. The appetite is still there, so as long as we're kinda tightening our belts and investing in the right places and offering that bandwidth of product that we, you know, as I say, it's really key to us. Yeah, we're not overly concerned. You know, we're being sensible, but we're not. Yeah. We're not panicking at all. I think you said, Mike, in the past, you know, it's never more important to be better buying than when you get to these sort of economically hard times. Yeah. Because the sort of looseness that can come, you know, you don't get any reward for that and when times are hard, people Exactly. People want the good stuff and. Jonathan. Hiya. Jonathan Pritchard at Peel Hunt if I may. One for Régis. Your CV's got lots of stories of retailers where digitalization has really improved. Could you just give us a couple points? I know you mentioned delivery times, but just a couple of early things that you think that the digital side can improve at JD. Then secondly, on gyms, just not necessarily something that moves the dial just yet but could do, what's the size of the opportunity there? Is that something you could perhaps shoehorn stores into? Is it actually an overseas opportunity as well? On digital, I think that JD is today multi-channel. I think there is expertise in the digital side. There is lot of expertise in the store side, but they are not working together. I think that's what I think it's the main focus, and I think that we have been working on it. I think to take the best of the two worlds, and I think that that's really what today we are not good at. I think that there is plenty of things we need to do differently and to improve the customer proposition and really to move the store and the web together as one proposition and not two propositions. I think that click and collect is a perfect example. Today, we do click and collect in six or 10 days, which I was doing in two hours. We can do it. It's just because the digital team just work on their silo, and they didn't look after the store, and the store were not getting the benefit of having the click and collect in the store because the sales was not going to them. This is as simple as that. You know when your recognition is not linked to what you do, it doesn't work. I think this is part of the things we can fix very quickly, and I think we'll improve the proposition to the customer. On the gym, I think for me it's too early days, so I will not be able to answer your question. Thank you. Morning. Richard Chamberlain, RBC. Couple from me please. Go back to the energy costs. What do you expect the incremental headwind to be this year and next on energy now? Then on the European side of the business, where has the apparel percentage got to know? What is it in the newer stores? I guess how does that sort of shape you're thinking about the longer-term margin potential in Europe? Thank you. In terms of the energy costs, we're actually, as you will do domestically, you know, we've been looking at fixed rates. We actually fixed our rates last year and so we're actually our rates are pretty fixed for another 18 months or so we're actually buying at less than the cap that the government put in place yesterday. That cap doesn't give us any benefit. There's no noticeable impact, you know, say for this year or for next year from energy. Mike, for the mix, I think. And I'll- Say, for mix, apparel's just under about 40%. Yeah Now within European stores. The newer stores is bigger, but that's just because the newer stores that we're doing here are bigger. More space. Have more space. You know, so the more space you do, the more apparel you can, you know, put in there. There's no rule to it. It can There's no rule to it. It can be 50% depending on the store estate. You know, how that's grown is really pleasing, you know, cause it started off pretty low. We made a few mistakes, early doors. You know, it's well received. Hi, David Roff from Bank of America. Thanks for taking my questions and well done on the results. I've got two questions. The first one's for Michael and then a numbers question for Neil. Michael, with your major brand partners, as supply chain sort of issues have normalized, are you seeing allocation from your major brand partners kind of returning to normal? Or do you think that they've perhaps used the supply crisis to hold on to a bit of volume for their own D2C channels? And then one for Neil. Just in terms of the current trading, Neil, that 8% like-for-like number, I think that's 30% on a three-year basis, if I'm not mistaken, which is an acceleration from the first half. Could you perhaps just touch on how that compares across the regions, for sports retail? Okay, I'll go first. I mean, as far as allocations are concerned, broadly speaking, the position is improving. There is still a hangover from the Vietnam factory closures. There's, you know, a few models in particular and a few product categories that market specialized in, and with it we're not 100% fully up to speed with yet. Whether, you know, speculating whether or not Nike are keeping it for themselves or not, I'm not gonna go there. By and large, we're pretty happy with what we are getting moving forward. Mm-hmm. Could it have been better in the first six months? Certainly. Obviously, the numbers speak for themselves. There is an upside if we can get in what we have bought for the next six months, there's definitely an upside. Yeah. Just in terms of your second question, the like-for-like over the three-year basis. In the second half of the year, it's actually remarkably constant for each region. It's all around the 30% mark, you know, in terms of that three-year like-for-like. Thank you. Thank you. Winding down now. Thank you very much for coming. We look forward to seeing you later in the year. Régis's settling in, and we'll come back to you then, perhaps with a sort of analyst day or something to talk a little bit about the future when Régis's ready. Thank you very much indeed. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.