Good morning, everyone, welcome to the Lookers 2022 full year results presentation. I'm Mark Raban, CEO. I'm joined this morning by Oliver Laird, our CFO, Duncan McPhee, our Chief Operating Officer. Can I start by saying what a great pleasure it is to have so many of you in person in the room this morning. Thank you for joining. If you're joining us online as well, 'cause we are live streaming, a very warm welcome to you too. With the delivery of an excellent performance in 2022, tangible progress against our strategic priorities and a much-strengthened balance sheet, we remain completely focused on our mission to become the U.K.'s leading automotive retail and services group. Our agenda is self-explanatory. I will give an overview of the key highlights, followed by an update on our strategic priorities. Oliver will lead the financial review. Duncan will take us through the COO's review, then we'll be happy to summarize and take your questions. Standing back in terms of where we are, I think it's firstly and very importantly to say that we've got a continued excellent performance. As you can see, we've delivered a PBT of GBP 82.7 million. Although that is down on last year, when adjusted for GBP 9.8 million of COVID support recognized in 2021, it represents another strong year for the group of growth. This performance was delivered against some strong headwinds. We've had supply restrictions, we've had logistics disruption and of course, significant inflationary pressure and rising interest rates, all of which have had a pretty material impact on the business. Now, I did wanna mention aftersales. In many ways, aftersales is the backbone of our business, and continued focus in this area saw us drive revenue growth of almost 7%, a very robust performance, and Duncan will touch on this a bit later. We continued to exercise strong margin controls against some really unprecedented prior year comparatives, particularly in the used vehicle arena, where you remember margins were particularly strong in the second half last year. We were very pleased to be able to maintain our gross margin at 12.8%. Material and sustained cost pressures were a key feature, obviously this year as inflation went into double-digit territory. In order to offset the impact of that, we focused heavily on efficiency and productivity initiatives across the business. In this regard, we were pleased to limit our overall expense growth to 7.5%. In line with our progressive dividend policy, we're very pleased to be declaring a final dividend of 2p, which brings the full year to 3p. That's up on last year by 20%. Now I'm particularly pleased to report that the strong momentum that we enjoyed last year has continued into Q1 this year, underpinned by used car and aftersales revenue growth, a stable margin environment and working capital and cost disciplines, all resulting in PBT in Q1 being ahead of last year. This combined with a strong order bank, some easing supply restrictions and better visibility of cost pressures means that the board outlook for the full year has now increased. I just wanted to step you through this profit track here. As you can see looking at the second bar, when you take out GBP 9.8 million of COVID support recognized in last year's numbers, the underlying number for last year was GBP 80.3 million. If I step through the key components of gross profit, which is up GBP 33.6 million, you can see that new cars have added GBP 10.2 million, sorry, have added GBP 32.3 million of GP, with volume decline being offset by increased gross profit per unit. Used GP went back GBP 10.2 million. That was volume and slight pressure on average GPs. I was very pleased to see our aftersales and our leasing gross profit go forward by GBP 11.5 million overall. I touched on the cost areas early, earlier. GBP 30.8 million of additional costs there, you can see the key components of it. Staff costs being nearly GBP 14 million up, where we did a lot of work to look at sales plans for communities across the business. I think that leads us to, you know, a strong position in what is a rapidly evolving market. We have real strategic clarity now. We unveiled our strategic priorities this time last year, and they've really provided a sharp focal point for the entire organization. Important to say that we're continuing to focus on self-help optimization, which you'll hear in a moment we're making really good progress on. We continue to cultivate excellent OEM relationships with our existing partners, as ever, they are grounded in strong performance and shared investment aspirations. I'm also very pleased that we were able to bring on a number of new OEMs last year, and I'll talk about that in a second. We've got a very well-balanced portfolio. You know, we've got a balanced mix of premium and volume brands, which give us excellent coverage across the UK new car market. Importantly, we have a significant headroom to grow. Our strong balance sheet has really improved over recent years. Oliver will touch on this, but we've now got property and cash equivalent to GBP 0.92 per share. At the end of Q1, we had a cash balance in excess of GBP 90 million. Just worth mentioning EVs as well. We think we're very, very well-placed to capitalize on the growth in EVs, which we think is going to be one of the biggest changes in the sector in a generation, and we continue to over-index against the current EV penetration of the market, which is great news. Looking at our strategic priorities then. This time last year, as I said, we launched our 6 strategic priorities, there they are by way of a reminder. I'm not going to step through every one, but I think the one point I did want to make was that it's clear from where we stand in terms of our ongoing strategic analysis that efficiency, productivity and cost control is going to become increasingly important to deliver long-term returns as the OEMs and their partners seek to reduce overall distribution costs over the medium to long term. For these reasons, operational optimization remains the absolute cornerstone of our strategy. Looking at what we've been able to achieve, I'm really pleased that we are gathering momentum on all fronts. If I deal with operational optimization first, we remain well on track to deliver on our GBP 15 million potential PBT impact over the medium term. We've continued to focus on improving our lead conversion, very important, and increasing the penetration of ancillary products, such as service plans, warranties and finance and insurance products. In terms of the working capital dimension, I'm absolutely delighted that we managed to liberate GBP 32 million worth of working capital and turn that to cash. In terms of digitization and technology, our key priority there remains the harmonization of our Dealer Management System. Now, over three-quarters of our group operates on a standardized DMS, which is really important for us. The balance of that will be concluded during 2023, but it's important because it gives us greater level of control and central oversight and performance management. We're also continuing on track with our sales transformation program, which is absolutely key in supporting our omnichannel sales proposition, and we're on track there to launch something in Q4 of this year, which is great news. In terms of our OEM relationships, I mentioned that earlier, I'm deeply proud of the relationships that we have with all our brand partners. I am particularly pleased to be able to welcome the new ones to our portfolio, BYD, Lotus, MG, ORA, and we have an extended relationship with Polestar, which is great news. It was also a great pleasure to work in close cooperation with Mercedes-Benz to launch their new UK agency model in January this year. In terms of used cars and increasing our penetration of this market, we are now ready to launch our new Lookers Car Hub proposition, which we think is very important as the market converges on this omni-channel offering. The Lookers Car Hub concept is now developed, and we'll roll that out to its first trial location in Middlesbrough from an existing site in Q4 this year, and you can see that that will involve CapEx of about GBP 6 million. In terms of developing our after-sales revenues, we remain absolutely on track with this. One of the things that we're trying very hard to roll out is our cosmetic repair proposition. You can see that we intend to have, by the end of this year, 30 mobile solutions in place and 49 fixed sites, which is very important. It's very important for 2 reasons. One, we refurbish about 80,000 used cars a year, so we'll be able to do all that work ourselves, and then we'll be able to move on and develop the proposition into the B2C market. Lastly, we continue to believe that the corporate leasing and fleet market is a very, very important market for us to operate in, offering long-term sustainable growth opportunities. In this regard, we've now consolidated our leasing activities under a single Lookers Vehicle Solutions umbrella. As well as delivering synergistic benefits which that has, it gives us, most importantly, a coordinated approach to our corporate customers, allowing us to present a number of different products into our corporate customers, which is great. I'm really pleased that we've added Fourways Vehicle Solutions to the portfolio. That enables us to offer another product, which is B2B short-term rental. Again, we will be using that product in our core retail business where we have rental requirements, which is very important. I just wanted to conclude my review with a brief summary reminder of the Lookers portfolio and where we currently stand. A bit of a busy slide, so apologies. If you focus on the right-hand side of that slide and the total at the bottom, you'll see that there are 3,490 U.K. dealer points across the U.K. Lookers holds 132 of those, which gives us a 4% share of the UK dealer network. The other AM Top 5 groups in the U.K. take another 18%, which leaves the remainder of 78% in the hands of smaller mid-size groups and the independent operators. When you look up and down that slide by brand, I think there's 3 key things that jump out to me. Firstly, we enjoy a well-balanced portfolio of volume and premium brands representing most of the U.K. new car market. That's really important, because it provides us both additional opportunities, but also shield against the cyclical nature of brands and individual model life cycles. Secondly, you can see, in terms of our share that we have significant headroom for further growth with all our OEM partners. Even with our most scaled partnerships and relationships, you can see that we're only just touching double digits there. The last thing I think to say, with that remaining market at 78% in the hands of the independents, I think the trend to consolidation within our marketplace looks set to continue, as some OEMs seek to rationalize and streamline their UK networks, especially with the transformation and transition to the agency model. For these reasons, following a couple of years of rationalization within the group and balance sheet, repair, we remain very well-placed, obviously subject to our strict capital allocation framework, to participate in further sector consolidation. That concludes my review. I'll now pass to Oliver. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Welcome everyone. In Mark's overview of the year, he has highlighted the key areas that have led to the delivery of underlying PBT of GBP 82.7 million, which I definitely agree is an excellent result in a challenging year. I would now like to pull out just a few more things that I think are worthy of note with regards to results for the financial year. First, I would like to say how pleasing it is to see a balanced performance across the portfolio, where we see revenues strengthening in the bedrock areas of the business of new and used vehicle sales and aftersales. This diversity gives wide opportunity for future growth and provides a solid mitigant against the risk of any future downturns in the retail cycle. In terms of expenses, Mark has spoken of the impact of salaries, utilities, and business rates on our cost base. In addition, we have seen rises in maintenance costs as we improve our estate for colleagues and customers, IT costs as our sales transformation program builds momentum, and broad inflationary pressures across the estate. Whilst these were partially offset by gains on disposals of a number of field properties during the year, we continue to be mindful of such pressures and have taken actions to mitigate these where possible. I'd like to once again highlight the excellent improvement in the net funds position. Whilst the sale and leaseback of our Volkswagen Battersea site has supported the rise, it is our trading performance underpinned by operational optimization and strong working capital management that has driven the majority of the improvement. The rise in interest rates will put our finance costs under pressure. However, we will seek to counter these through careful stock management and the use of internal cash resources when appropriate. Moving on to the balance sheet, we can see how our trading performance is driving improvements in the capital position of our business. While we can see the inventory levels increased by GBP 153 million, this had little impact on working capital as it was largely offset by an increase in our consignment vehicle creditors. Stocking loans totaled circa GBP 247 million, which is roughly 79% of our goods for resale. We added new funding facilities for use in our fleet and leasing businesses to provide us with a solid platform for strategic growth in Lookers Vehicle Solutions. Our pension deficit shrank by GBP 20 million due to continued deficit contributions made by the group and increases in corporate bond yields. The extreme volatility in the long-dated gilts market following the government's mini budget last year resulted in some pension schemes suffering liquidity shortfalls. However, Lookers was not materially affected as we maintained a strong collateral buffer. All of this has supported the rise in the equity value of our company that we see here. Last year, we introduced our capital allocation framework and discussed how the board is focused on maximizing long-term shareholder returns. How are we doing against that framework? In terms of leverage, we are inside our optimal range of ±0.5 x EBITDA at +0.4 x EBITDA. It is a similar story with regards to capital expenditure. Our maintenance spend was at the lower end of the range as we chose to supplement this with spend on improving existing dealerships and building new ones. In 2022, we recommenced paying a dividend as part of our capital allocation policy and set out our medium-term dividend coverage ratio target at 3.5x-4.5x earnings per share. As we progressively grow the dividend over the years and the automotive sector starts to normalize, we will steadily move towards our medium-term dividend cover target from the position of circa 6x EPS that we are at today. Whilst we have grown the dividend materially in 2022, we will always keep improvements in shareholder returns under constant review. The ongoing GBP 15 million share buyback is an example of this. In summary, things are going to plan, and shareholder capital will continue to be deployed in a disciplined manner. Finally, I'd like to talk a little bit about how our disciplined approach to capital management over the last year has built some excellent foundations with which we can grasp opportunities of the future. We have a very supportive banking group that provided a sizable, currently unused credit facility, which is highly flexible in terms of its options for usage. Our solid approach to working capital management and a strong start to the trading year has seen our cash position enhanced even further since the year-end and sits at approximately GBP 93 million as at the end of March. When we combine these two things, it is clear that we are now in an excellent position with which to invest in the automotive market. We will also use our financial strength for focused acceleration in the delivery of our strategic priorities. However, we will always do so in a way that is based on delivering the maximum return for our shareholders over the long term. This means a disciplined approach to making sure everything we do is at the right value or cost and is earnings accretive. Thank you. Now I'd like to hand over to Duncan for his operational review. Thanks, Oliver. Good morning, everybody. My name is Duncan McPhee, COO here at Lookers. I'm going to take you through the operational review. I just want to highlight the strong momentum from 2022, which has carried through into this year to give us an uplift in expectations and confidence in growth in the future. If I start with new vehicle sales. In the new market and new vehicle sales, and the supply versus demand imbalance, it continued throughout 2022, which was good news really because we saw an increase in the average selling price, which led to an increase or improved gross margin. Lookers continued to outperform the total car market. Fleet sales were down 4.1% year-on-year, this was mainly driven by our focus on more profitable channels, i.e. the retail channel. Battery electric vehicles became the UK's second most popular powertrain with 16.6% share of new car registrations. The group outperformed that market, taking 19.8% share of the market. That puts us in a really good place because BEV is going to be a key channel for future profitability. You know, when you look at the OEMs, they've really progressed our EV product offensive, but to varying degrees. Given that we represent 34 different brands, this rich and diverse brand portfolio is a real key strength for the group. With the addition of BYD, ORA, Lotus, and MG added during the year and ongoing conversations, we're really well placed for future developments. In the used car market, overall volumes were down for the group by 4.9%, and that was mainly due to some stock shortages. However, this was ahead of the market, which was down 8.5%. Most of the backward movement happened in H1, where we were down 8.3%. We recovered well in H2, which was broadly flat year-over-year. That momentum continues into Q1, with volumes up 10% to the end of March. Unlike new cars, average selling prices increased in used vehicles by 16.3%. Although there was some normalization in used vehicle values, our gross profit remained really strong at GBP 2,151 per unit. That's compared to GBP 2,168 per unit in 2021, a year where the industry referred to margin as super margin. In aftersales is one of the areas where our strategic priorities have really made a difference. We've driven revenues through two of our strategic pillars, one being operational optimization and the other being developing aftersales revenues. As Mark Raban said earlier, the group achieved a 6.8% growth in aftersales revenues, with gross profit up by 5.8%. Demand for skilled labor continues, which is adding further pressure on the cost base. We're really focused on driving greater efficiency through the aftersales business with further investment in digitizing the aftersales side of things. The latest action is a rollout of digital job cards, which drives great efficiency through the department. Part sales increased 6.7%, which was driven through increased sales in the retail channel and also in our trade parts operations. Really pleasingly, revenues were up 21% in cosmetic repair and body shop. That's very much driven by the rollout of our cosmetic repair solution, another of the strategic priorities. Takes me on to aftersales moving forward. You know, with continued momentum, we've dubbed 2023 as the year of aftersales in Lookers. Clearly, you know, with a reduced market over the past three years, we've lost around 2 million registrations from the new car market, and that will ultimately lead to a greater mix of older vehicles on the road. In fact, there will be 31 fewer cars in segment 1. This is the 0-3-year vehicle part. When comparing 2023 with 2019. We know that the increased adoption of electric vehicles will change the dynamic of aftersales moving forward. The graph below demonstrates how the EV part will grow and how segments 1 and 2 will shrink over the next 10 years. However, although those are negative points, we see a massive opportunity for the group to increase customer retention in all vehicle age segments, especially in the older vehicles. The bar chart on the right demonstrates the group's performance in customer retention. As you'll see, our retention of customers with older vehicles isn't particularly good. If I told you that every 1% increase in customer retention is worth around GBP 1 million in gross profit to the group, we believe a conservative target of 7% increase is achievable in 2023. How are we gonna achieve this? You know, it's all about excellent, consistent and personal customer experience delivered right across the group consistently. It's one of the key areas of operational optimization. You know, making more out of what we have, and we've made big strides forward already. You know, the first one there, retention, that's a real key focus area for the group. You know, when customers do visit us, we want them to keep coming back. We want to keep them happy, keep them coming back, and that's why we're focused on increasing sales of retention products, being service plans and used vehicle warranties. As Mark said earlier, you know, we've now got 163,000 live service plan policies, and we've tripled our used warranty sales, which means far more customers are tied into Lookers. We also want to increase the number of customer visits, and we've rolled out an intelligent predictive marketing solution to help us do exactly that. This is all about contacting customers at the right time with the right message. To make our process more rigorous and consistent but still very personal, we've invested in call centers, upgrading them to centers of excellence. That's been done to create a real first-class experience for our customers. We want to make sure that when we capture every opportunity, we add value when customers visit us. Part of this enhanced vehicle health check is to identify more areas for additional works. Part of it is suggesting things over and above what the car was booked in for originally, such as cosmetic repairs. You've heard me say already that cosmetic repairs were up 21% last year, and this is a real area of expansion for the group. We now offer our customers flexible online payment options, which means they can pay for the additional works and spread those costs over 12 months rather than taking the cost up front. As I said, although, you know, the aftersales story is a very positive one, there's a whole lot more to go at. Finally, just, I wanted to update you on progress we've made on our ESG credentials as I have done previously. We continue to work with Inspired to develop our net zero targets and transition plans. We're currently recruiting a new head of ESG who will report directly into Mark. We now have sustainability objectives that form part of the executive reward plan. We've continued to roll out our carbon literacy program training. That's all about increasing awareness and taking action. We've had a few initiatives over the past year, but one big one was the big switch off, and that's seen us save GBP 600,000 in utility costs, and we've prevented over 1,400 tons in CO2 emissions. Lastly, we've heavily invested in the apprenticeship program with enhanced reward scheme, launched in 2022, and we're looking to take on over 200 apprentices in 2023. In overall terms, you know, we're very, very happy with our performance for 2022 and very, very excited about the future. Listen, thanks very much for your time, and I'll pass back to Mark. Thank you, Duncan. Before we take questions, I'm just gonna quickly summarize. Listen, we've had a really, really good 2022. An excellent financial performance, which we're really pleased about. I hope I've been able to demonstrate that our strategic clarity remains absolutely intact. We have our six priorities, and we are gathering momentum and demonstrable progress on execution. We've got excellent OEM relationships across the board built on, you know, trust and performance and the things I mentioned, and we have headroom, as I demonstrated, to grow with those partners. We have the financial firepower and the balance sheet to support all our growth aspirations, both organic and acquisitive moving forward. We've had a really good start to 2023, PBT being ahead of last year, and we have visibility and confidence now to upgrade, as we have done today, our full year expectations. That really concludes the formal part of our presentation. I'd like to move on to Q&A if I can. Now, I have some strict instructions on Q&A. If it's okay with everyone, we'll take some questions from the room. If I could ask you to just have a microphone, not because I need to hear you, well, I do need to hear you, but because we want everyone online to be able to hear you. Who wants to start the questions? Mike? Sure. Yeah. We'll just grab you the mic, Mike. Yeah. Boom, boom. Thank you. Hi, it's Mike Allen from Zeus Capital. Two from me if I may. First, just probably one for Oliver on working capital and, you know, as you grow into fleet and commercial on the right terms for you, what gives you the confidence that you can, you know, continue to deliver positive working capital trends on a consistent basis? We know from the past, you know, stock management in that part of the market can be quite lumpy, so it's quite difficult. First one for Oliver. On the second one, just in terms of M&A and kind of priorities, you've done a couple of nice small acquisitions related to ancillary services, but does that take priority over buying more dealerships? 'Cause as you've demonstrated, there's a lot of room for growth. Sure. Okay. Thanks, Mike. All right. Well, Oliver, do you want to pick up on the working capital point? Absolutely. Thanks for the question, Mike. You know, we're very proud of what we achieved in 2022 with regards to the working capital. You know, GBP 32 million improvement, and we know it'll be challenging to keep that up going forward. We are absolutely running the business for positive working capital movements year-over-year. That's solid. That's through things like strong debtor control, strong stock management control, et cetera, and we're getting better and better at that each year, and I thank Duncan and the team very sincerely for all the work they're doing with regards to that. As we run the leasing business, we also have appropriate funding, you know, taking place. As I mentioned, we've got. If you look at our funding facilities for last year, the most funding facilities we brought on were in relation to that business. We've got the capacity to bring those businesses on and fund them straight away. Regarding stock management in that area, I'll leave Duncan up to this, but we've really strengthened the team in terms of the skill set, knowledge, et cetera in there. There's a lot of good things we are doing through operational optimization. There's a lot of good things we're doing, admin-wise in the background, and therefore it gives us a fair amount of confidence by doing those basic things that, you know, small and sensible levels of positive working capital management, sorry, inflows will be achievable in the future while maintaining, and we'll go on to the next bit now, our capital spend and other potential opportunities. Yeah. Thanks, Oliver. I think, Mike, on the M&A front, I mean, you know, we've done a complete analysis of our brand portfolio. As you've seen, it's pretty well-balanced anyway. We do have a number of priority OEMs in terms of our growth aspirations that we'd like to expand more quickly with. We do have aspirations right across our brand portfolio because we think we've got the headroom to do it. I do think scale, you know, in the new world where we're all chasing productivity and efficiency is going to be important. We will be prioritizing our retail acquisitions. We've got a clear brand priority within that. I do feel, you know, in terms of where the balance sheet is, I'm not saying we can do it all, but we can do a lot. Yeah. A lot with what we have, and we're, you know, we're very excited about that. Does that? I think- Oh, sorry. No, I was just gonna say, and I think it's fair to say, you know, we've done a huge amount of work over the past few years just to get the business on a really solid foundation. Now we're in a really good place to actually move forward with acquisitions, so. Okay. Is that okay, Mike? Yeah. It's good. Sanjay. Thank you. Thank you. Morning. Sanjay Vidyarthi at Liberum. A few from me. First on aftersales, I completely take the point that you can grow retention in the older used car categories. Presumably the decline in warranty work in nought to three is pretty significant. Do you think you can actually outweigh that with the work you're doing on retention? Shall I kick off? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I think yes, we do. I mean, you're absolutely right, and as Duncan highlighted, the segment one cars are... We've lost 2 million cars out of the new car market. Those, those young cars, 0 to 3, are, you know, are well down in terms of the car park. We have, you know, material opportunities to expand into those older cars. OEMs are starting to support that now, looking at, you know, how we might subsidize and fund cheaper parts. We've got payment plans, as Duncan said, to enable us to spread payments for customers. There's just a load of stuff that we don't do. I mean, there's opportunities in cosmetic repairs. There's opportunities in tires. Of course, the other thing to overlay, Sanjay, is the electrification impact. You know, electrification is often viewed as sort of being negative towards aftersales. I think there's a lot, actually, when you look at the makeup of the car, there are some areas that are gonna fall away, like braking, for example, brake discs and pads. There's loads of other opportunities, like tires and suspension and steering, which is much heavier in an electric vehicle. It's a massive car park, and we think it's entirely realistic to continue to grow our aftersales revenues in that arena. Sorry, Duncan, I- No, no. I didn't mean to- No. You've pretty much said what I was gonna say. I think it's, you know, as well as it being retention, it's also about increasing the number of visits and making more of that opportunity. When we look at, you know, our EVHC conversion, so when we identify red work, so work that absolutely needs done, you know, we're achieving under 50%. Well, that's not good enough. We can definitely improve there as well. I think retaining more customers, increasing more visits, making more of the opportunity, and then you go into cosmetic repair. You know, I think from an aftersales perspective, I think it's fair to say our focus has been very much sales-led, getting our stocks under control, getting all those disciplines really embedded. As I say, that's why we've kind of dubbed 2023 the year of aftersales, because we think the opportunity is absolutely gargantuan. Thanks. The second question is on multi-brand franchising. How big do you think the opportunity is? Presumably, there's an opportunity there, just to increase returns from your dealerships, quite significantly over time. Yeah. Again, shall we double-lick this one? Yeah. I mean, I think there is a, you know, big opportunity, and that is happening now. I mean, we're introducing, you know, new Chinese brands, as you've heard. We are, you know, co-merchandising that product alongside, you know, some of our very, very well-established, premium OEM partners. They are happy to roll with that because they know that as the landscape is changing with agency and, you know, the merchandising and bringing the product to market is changing, we need to, you know, to get more from the space that we have. It is part of this drive to productivity and efficiency and reducing these overall distribution costs that, on average, as you know, Sanjay, are 25%-30%, you know, of the value of the car, which is very difficult to sustain over the long term. I think we're gonna see a lot more of that. The new brands entering the U.K. are proving very flexible in terms of their thinking and their aspirations. Slightly easier when you don't have the aftersales to cope with. You know, just look, for example, at Polestar in terms of how they've entered the U.K. market. We're a big part of that. Just what they've achieved out of, I think, what? 6.7 sites. 6.7, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Six points across the U.K. I think we will see definitely more of that, Sanjay. Duncan, I don't know, to you. Yeah, I mean, I think I would just add that, you know, OEMs are now much more open to sharing premises and using the facilities in a, in a different way, much more open to spread that cost. I think that's an opportunity for us. I think also, you know, the existing brand relationships that we've got are very, very strong, and they want us to grow with them. I think because of how we perform for them and because of how we operate with them, and work with them, then it puts us in a real good position for us to grow with. I think just one other thing to add, which Oliver's kindly reminded me of, is our freehold property portfolio, Sanjay. It It puts us in a really good place because we've got flexibility. We have control, complete control over 80% of our estate, that's enabling us to act, you know, quite quickly and strongly and with flexibility. All right. Thanks. Last one for me is just if you provide a bit more color on new car performance in March, in terms of volumes. I can see that obviously the order book is strong, but was it still a bit difficult in terms of supply constraints impacting the actual volume performance in March? Well, I think. Yeah. I mean, great question. I mean, I think This is moving real time, 'cause I think, I think the SMMT announced the numbers this morning. And I think the number they put out there is a 17% increase in registrations. You know, our performance in March has been strong, which is, you know, is part of the reason that's enabled us to upgrade our numbers for the full, for the full year. As I said, pockets of supply are freeing up, and with these large order banks that we have, that should bode well. Thanks, Sanjay. Hi. Ruben from Peel Hunt. Two from me. With gross profit per unit for new cars are a lot higher, to what extent will this normalize over time? For used cars, what proportion of this improvement in the last two years comes from finance penetration and warranty attach rates? Duncan, do you? Yeah kick off on GP? Yes. I mean, I think, with new car margins, you know, they have been very, very strong, and I think they'll continue to be strong because if you, if you remember, a lot of our order bank, you know, these were orders taken last year. We'll see that carry on certainly for the majority of this year. You know, as normalization happens, I think ultimately it depends to what extent it happens and how much the supply and demand imbalance changes. That will impact. You know, if it goes the wrong way and there's too much supply, not enough demand, then ultimately it will come to more aggressive action needed to move the volume. But to what extent, I'm not sure. Certainly for the remainder of this year, I think we can be pretty confident. In terms of the used GP, I'll pick that up. I mean, I think if you would've looked at our, you know, average used GP, you know, 5, 4, 5 years ago, you'd have seen it down at around GBP 1,300, GBP 1,400 a unit. A lot lower than where we are today. I think, to be fair, we were under-optimizing our position, you know, at that level. A lot of the work that Duncan and his team have done, and Oliver touched on in terms of, you know, this increasing stock turn, right first time pricing, and focusing on, you know, a 10 + stock turn has really helped us. That's been a permanent shift for us. Okay? Also, you are absolutely right. You know, some of this has come out of our ancillary products. I mean, our finance penetration on used has grown from sort of late 30s to, you know, mid-50s, pushing 60. That has to help. I think it's an important point because when people talk about, oh, you know, the outlook for the used car market, they're often just thinking about the vehicle itself and the value, the residual value and how that will move and impact. There's a lot of other levers in that equation, as you've rightly put, alluded to, that help us maintain margins. Yeah. Also, just to add, you know, if you look back to previous, you know, pre-COVID, we would have had, you know, 35%-40% of our stock that was over 60 days, so aging stock. We would have had probably about 25%-30% too much stock. Now, you know, the stock's really run tight. You know, we've got less than 9% of our stock over 60 days currently, and we're spinning it much, much quicker. That's through all the disciplines of the preparation process, speed to web, consistent pricing across the group, so quicker to sell, and that's all having a massive impact. Yeah. Okay, cool. Thank you. Just another one as well. How is the Mercedes-Benz agency model playing out, and will other OEMs come as well? Yeah, sure. Okay. Well, I'll start and chip in. Mercedes-Benz, I mean, as I said, we, you know, we're delighted to have been awarded, you know, two market areas which operate under the new agency arrangements. It's been, you know, a great pleasure to work in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz to bring this to the market. It's a little bit early to, you know, it's only been going a couple of months, so it's quite early to draw too many conclusions, because there's been a lot of work on systems, and clearly, you know, all the teams need to, you know, get used to the new processes. There's been quite a lot of changes made in flight to the model. Okay. Because as we learn, we change things, which is the right thing to do. I mean, I think it's, I think it's gonna be good news for us, good news for the industry, and we're looking forward to continuing to grow that business. I think it's fair to say the transition from a franchise model to an agency model is not gonna come without a few bumps along the road. You know, those bumps are happening. You know, if you look at the latest month, our order take in March was actually up year-on-year, which is a positive sign. You know, I think there's a long way to go with it and a lot to learn, but, you know, certainly Mercedes-Benz have acted quite quickly to change in January and February, and that's had some real kind of positive impact in March. Just to wind the point around the whole agency piece. I mean, it's a big topic, you know, it's the first topic, it's a headline item, and everyone's there always talking about it. I think, and maybe this is the accountant in me saying the cool head is, you know, there are a number of OEMs that aren't moving to agency, and this is where the balance in the portfolio comes through. There are a number of the OEMs who are moving to agency, but are moving so in a sensible, cautious fashion, i.e., they're moving their electric vehicles first of all. They're allowing for transition periods. This isn't something though that anyone should be particularly worried about. It's just a changing pattern, but it's not an all or nothing. It's a gradual move. Some are, some aren't, you know, and as we go through, we adjust our business model to work alongside that. Therefore, you know, when we look at some of the, sort of analysts, you know, who are looking at the future and thinking, sort of, "Oh, what's gonna happen to margin for agency?" I think that that balanced view has to be taken into account. It's not everybody, it's not the whole, it's not them, the whole market and everyone looking at it, and there will be a move and transition in the model across the piece. Thank you. Okay. I think just last, the last thing to add on it, sorry, is the factories are making these cars, the, you know, the U.K. is a very, very important market, so the cars are coming, and we have to sell them. You know, between us and our partnership, we'll do exactly that. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Ruben. Oh, Georgios. Yep. Gosh, we're doing well on questions this morning. Morning. Georgios Pilakoutas from Numis. First one, on demand, just kind of interested in lead indicators, how are consumers kind of dealing with rising interest rates? What is there to read from the relative strength of fleet over retail? Okay. I mean, on the demand front, I mean, I'm always amazed by the resilience of the UK consumer and the UK's consumer demand for vehicles. I mean, we've seen over the last couple of years, we've seen, you know, obviously the pandemic, which made people go for their cars. We've now seen rail strikes, which made people go to their cars. Sure, we've got rising, you know, rising interest rates, but again, with, you know, the financial products, you know, which spread that over a 3-4-year period, you know, demand is, it looks to me like it's holding up. Remember also that the big asset that individuals have sat on, which is their used car currently, is worth considerably more than it was this point last year. Even with the market normalizing a little bit. Customers have got a very, very healthy, often bigger than they thought deposit to put towards their next car, which I think, you know, shows the sort of strength of the model. If we're looking for kind of trends and indicators, you know, if you're looking back to November last year, our retail order take on new retail was quite a bit down year-on-year. Because of the kind of longer lead time, you kind of need to look at order take rather than the kind of deliveries month in, month out. From November all the way through to March, that's been a really improving trend. In March, actually, the group was up in retail order take overall. If anything, that's showing signs of improvement, which is good. If you look at used car sales, you know, we're 10% up in Q1 year-on-year. If you're looking for an indicator to give positivity, then that's got to be one. Great. Thanks. Then on the inorganic opportunity. I guess, firstly kind of starting with the market. What, what do you think has changed that is kind of driving the consolidation? Is it kind of the OEM's attitude, kind of multi-site? What was kind of the biggest factor there? Then with Lookers, I guess Lookers has kind of done quite a lot of M&A in the past, paused, and is now back ready doing it again. What, what in terms of the platform that Lookers has is it that gives you the confidence that future M&A, kind of, you've got a bit more visibility in how it's integrated, the processes, the systems? What, what has changed versus, say, a business that was acquired five, six years ago? Then also, where do you see kind of the most notable infill opportunities? You've kind of given us this brand breakdown. I guess Lookers is slightly more premium than volume. Is it kind of actually now with multi-brand, we can put a volume brand in with infill, and that's perhaps where you should be looking, where we should expect you to be looking? Lastly linked to all this is just what you're seeing in the market at the moment in terms of are businesses up for sale? How competitive are they? Sure. Listen, I think, yeah, all great questions. I think, you know, I don't. When you look at the slide around, you know, the number of dealer points, that's been consolidating for some time, okay, as we all know. You know, 4 or 5 years ago, that would've been 5.5, 6,000. It's been coming down, as OEMs have reorganized their networks, and scale has become more important. You know, we need to give enough pie to go around to everyone. I don't think there's anything new in that perspective, George. I think that will absolutely continue and has been happening for, you know, 2 to 3 years. I think the thing for us, you know, we're very clear about our, you know, strategic priorities, particularly organic operational optimization. We're not saying that we're, you know, we're leaving that behind. That's very much a focus. We are, you know, squeezing that. It's the right point for us now to look at bringing more businesses into our portfolio. We're particularly keen, you know, to, you know, to grow with all brand partners. We have, as I said to Mike, got a preferred list. In terms of your point around the platform, because I think you're absolutely right to raise that because, you know, we've learned from the past that we don't wanna bring, you know, dealerships and acquisitions into a platform that isn't strong enough. As you'll all be aware, over the last 3 to 4 years, we've made significant progress in terms of our governance, our control, our systems. I talked about digitization earlier and nearly being there with a single DMS platform. I think the platform is now strong enough. I think as well in terms of those independents, some of the independents that are looking and the smaller groups looking at the market ahead and thinking, we've had 2 or 3 really good years behind us, which should be filtered through into the valuation. We've got this agency change and we're not really sure we're up for it. I think in the eyes of many independents and small groups now represents a good point in the market for them to, you know, to recognize their asset value. I think- Go on. Some others on the platform piece. Actually, two things. Following on from Mark's point there around what we're seeing in the market, I think that's right. We're seeing more realistic, I think, expectations in terms of pricing. Still probably maybe not as realistic as they should be, but we are seeing some more realistic in terms of pricing and businesses are up for sale. You've all seen the stuff that's been in public always in recent months. If you're back to platform, I think absolutely having the dealer management system, you know, we're nearly there in terms of across the estate is excellent for us. Not only that, we've also launched and hopefully will soon be having a singular after sales platform and that. Paul might wanna talk about that in the core service process. The other part of the platform is having the money to do it. You know, I think what we've been trying to talk about here this morning is having that financial power to do it. We're in a position where we feel we can do the things we want to do in our strategic priorities, return things to our shareholders. I mean, that's really important, you know, doing that in a disciplined way. Then it's a case of also thinking to ourselves, "Well, how do we get, you know, accretive, you know, earnings for our shareholders?" Therefore, as part of that, we have to look at inorganic growth. By combining all those things together, that's the platform that says now is the right time to look at this. Mm-hmm. The last one for me is on the pension fund, there was a triennial valuation that recently completed. I guess it looks like for 2023 there's kind of an inflation link, there's a slightly higher cash outflow for the year coming up. It must mean that deficit is moving towards a surplus. Just interested in... I don't know if it's kind of anything you can share from the triennial valuation or kind of is there anything on a 2, 3-year basis that could see that cash outflow potentially reduce? I can answer that one. Thank you. The triennial is ongoing. The review point, you're quite correct, has stopped, and then we have 6 months before you agree the funding plan with the trustee and then go to the regulator. We're in the final stages of doing that. We've had a incredibly supportive trustee over the years, and they continue to be so. A lot of thanks to them. You're absolutely right. There was an inflation-linked element that has led to an increase. Historically there've been circa GBP 12 million. There will be going forward it's circa about GBP 13 million. We're comfortable with that. Obviously it helps reduce the deficit even quicker. You're quite right though. The valuation point that we hope from this triennial, because of the movement in bond yields, et cetera, and also, we're hoping for a very supportive the trustee in terms of the investment strategy should lead to that deficit coming down. The trial hasn't finished yet, but the signs are positive. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Oliver. Just conscious of time, we're sort of moving towards the hour. Can we see if there's any questions online that we need to pick up that haven't already been covered? Just as a reminder, to ask a question over the telephone, please signal by pressing star one. Star one for telephone questions. We're also waiting there now on the webcast at the moment. Good. We've obviously done such a good job. I currently have no telephone questions. Fantastic. Any further questions from the room at all? Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a real pleasure to showcase what we've been up to over the last year and share some of our plans for the future. Hopefully you've got a sense, as we have, of the exciting times that we have ahead. Thanks very much for joining us. Sorry, just one thing, Mark, before we forget... Yeah ... can we just do is, just to say, look, obviously it's great being sat up here, the three of us, but, we'll just say great thanks to our colleagues as well. For sure. Yeah. ... who delivered this, with us, as part of this journey. We, we did say we've got to remember to say thank you to them. Yes. It's a big thank you to them, to be honest as well. Yeah. Spot on. Okay. Lovely. Well, thank you so much and, we'll obviously take some questions afterwards for those that are here if you want to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.