Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Midwich Group interim results presentation. For people watching online, if you have questions when we finish the presentation, if you'd like to use the Q&A tab. So the first half of 2025, we've seen a continuation of the challenging market conditions that we saw in 2024. The mainstream market has been particularly difficult with further price erosion and soft demand. Most of our businesses were stable or growing, but we've seen some significant softness in the German business, and margin issues in France and Canada have impacted the overall group result. Our strategy of focusing on higher margin technical products has helped, but not compensated fully for this softness in the mainstream market. Our approach this year has been to assume that the market won't improve in the short term, to look very closely at our cost base and ensure it's suitable for the market as it is now. In this respect, we've reduced our headcounts by over 5% across the period. We've looked to maximize the rollout of suitable vendor relationships. We've actually launched over 300 new relationships in the first half of the year. We've put a focus on customer service in order to maintain strong relations with our existing customers. And we've been hunting for new business, ramping up this more across the year, looking both at the share of wallet in our current customer base and winning and retaining new customers. Finally, we've been developing some digital tools to help us to grow and operate efficiently. Our cash generation has been good, and our leverage at the end of the first half was 2.5 times adjusted EBITDA. We reviewed our dividend policy and settled on four times full-year cover, which should release further cash for investment in the business. The second half of the year started positively. It's normally quiet over the summer months, and the next three months will be key for determining our overall result for the year. Looking at our financial performance, our revenue of GBP 620 million was down 2.7% on a constant currency basis compared to last year and 3.5% on an organic basis. Our sales of technical products are down marginally by 1%, and mainstream product sales down by 7%. The gross margin of 17.7% was down slightly on H1 2024. Adjusted operating profit of GBP 16.6 million was 23.4% below last year, but cash conversion of 60% was quite strong for the first half of the year. As I mentioned, ongoing challenging economic conditions are continuing to impact our markets. In the U.K. and Ireland, we've returned to growth with sales up 5%, gross margins up 0.8%, and operating profits up 35%. Although some of the improvements in the U.K. and Ireland results are due to the M&A we undertook in 2024, much of the improvement was down to our own efforts to win market share and take on new brands, as the market has remained subdued in this territory. Our German business historically has been very strong in education, but this market has been very subdued. That said, we expect this segment to improve given the German government's approval of a EUR 500 billion additional investment program. We're continuing to wait for expected post-COVID corporate investment refresh cycle. In terms of M&A, we have no deals currently underway, but we have a desire to recommence these shortly as we can see the benefits they bring to the wider group. Despite operating in challenging market conditions, our purpose and key differentials remain. We're here to help our customers to win and then deliver successful projects and our manufacturers to reach a broad market. To do this, we have deep vendor relationships. They're broad, long, close, and symbiotic. We have portfolio management expertise both in terms of products, technologies, and geographies. We have an unrivaled depth of specialist knowledge to help support our customers to win and deliver great projects. And consistently high service is critical for the business. Our team's responsive, knowledgeable, understanding, and effective operators. On the next slide, we look at some market data. The graph on the left shows the overall IT and AV market trend as provided by Context. After a relatively flat 2024, a decent level of growth is expected this year. However, the main drivers for this growth are in IT, software, and services. On the right, a graph showing volume and value of displays market in Europe. This category, bless you, accounts for 22% of group sales. This shows a significant price erosion that's been seen in 2024 is not expected to reverse, but should be a little bit less in 2025. However, volumes are still expected to be lower this year, and finally, at the bottom left, we've extracted some data from AVIXA for our regions and sales categories. Although the five-year growth trend is expected to be slightly lower than it was expected last year, it's still predicted to be 3.9% a year for the next five years to 2030. Thank you. Turning to the group here now, as Stephen said, we delivered a robust revenue and gross profit performance in the first half of the year against a challenging market backdrop. Revenue was 2.7% below the same period last year on a constant currency basis with organic revenue, which excludes the full year effect of the small tuck-in acquisitions completed last year, 3.5% below the first half of 2024. Currency headwinds in the first half reduced reported revenue by 1.6%. After record gross profit margins in 2024, there was a small dip, 17.7% in the first half, with a positive shift in mix towards technical products offset by slightly lower margins in displays. Clearly, in a people-based business, we've seen the impact of negative operating leverage on operating profit, but we've continued to focus on overhead management across the group with further targeted reductions made in the period. These generate annualized savings of around GBP five million, and overheads in the period reduced by about GBP two million versus H1 last year, despite the impact of prior year acquisitions, inflation, and ongoing investments in digital tools and in the Middle East. Net interest costs of GBP 6.1 million in the period were in the first half and are expected to be about GBP 12 to GBP 12.5 million for the full year. The additional charge in net finance expenses relates to FX derivative valuation changes. Our adjusted effective tax rate was consistent with the prior year at 26%, and adjusted EPS at 6.91p declined by 38%, reflecting the overall change in adjusted profit after tax, with some upside from no longer having any significant minority interests. We're declaring an interim dividend of 1.75p, which we paid on the 17th of October. I'll cover our capital allocation policy in a few slides' time. Looking to the second half, the group is expected to improve net margins as we benefit from normal seasonal demand peaks, the impact of increased market share, new vendor expansion, and the overhead savings delivered over the last 12 months. Turning to the balance sheet, our temporary pause in M&A activity resulted in non-current assets being broadly in line with the prior year, whilst working capital was well managed in the period. Overall working capital at 12.8% of annualized sales was ahead of my expectations and reflected a tight focus on inventory and vendor terms. Debtor days was also marginally better than in June 2024, and we continue to focus very carefully on customer credit. As I've mentioned previously, the combination of a broad customer base and credit insurance for most of the group companies helps mitigate the risk from wider economic softness. The impact of working capital management results in operating cash conversion of 60%, which is well ahead of our normal seasonal trends that we've seen in prior first halves. And I expect full year cash conversion to be in the 70%-80% range. Adjusted net debt is a GBP 148.2 million increase by GBP 17.6 million compared to the end of December, with about half of this increase related to deferred acquisition payments and the balance Capex and working capital. While leverage at 2.5 times adjusted EBITDA remains above our targeted long-term range of one and a half to two times, we do expect it to come down to 2.2-2.3 times by year-end and to continue to fall in the coming years. We've now largely settled our deferred acquisition payments with about GBP 8 million now remaining to be paid over the next 12 months, of which 2.8 will be paid in the second half of this year, and then there's less than GBP 2 million beyond 2026. We continue to have a strong working relationship with our banking partners, and the group's RCF runs until the middle of 2028. As usual, I've added some further analysis and modeling considerations in the appendix. Just turning to the regional view, we'll start with the U.K. and Ireland. We're really pleased to achieve a return to growth in the U.K. and Ireland in the first half, with revenue up by 2.8% on an organic basis. We have our highest market share in this region, and as noted in March's full year update, we've actively focused on increasing our share of wallet, adding new vendors, and carefully managing our cost base. This has positively impacted the region, where we've been able to increase market share, strengthen our vendor and customer relationships, and take on new categories such as commercial drones. Whilst the U.K. and Ireland market backdrop remains challenging, we deliver growth in both mainstream and technical product categories and remain well positioned for when demand levels return to normal. Outside of displays, which continue to be impacted by oversupply, gross margins held up very well. The overall change in margin in the region is largely attributable to mix. The increase in revenue results in gross profit increasing by almost GBP 4 million, of which 75% or so fell through to adjusted profit, despite headwinds from the impacts of the prior acquisitions on overheads and ongoing inflationary pressures. This reflects the benefits of the cost actions taken in the region over the last 12 months. We also expect the U.K. and Ireland to be the first region to benefit from our digital and AI initiatives that start to roll out from 2026. Just turning to EMEA, which represents about 40% of group revenue, there's a mixed performance in the first half. Outside of Germany, the region grew by about 3%, reflecting continued demand for live event solutions and other technical products and the benefit of new brands launched across the region. We've also fully recovered from the fire in Dubai in December 2024, with a new warehouse now fully operational. The insurance market in Dubai has been painful, and we are making good progress with our claim there, but we expect to receive the cash now in the second half of the year. In Germany, which represents about a third of EMEA revenue, there's a significant reduction, as Stephen said, in sales related to corporate and education end-user markets. This reflects both softer corporate demand, which is largely due to wider macro issues, and a pause in education spend ahead of the new government stimulus package. We expect small improvements in Germany and H2 related to both self-help action on sales and also some improved tax relief in the economy that incentivizes investments, but we now think the economic stimulus activity will kick off more from 2026. EMEA gross margins have held up well, although we saw some dilution in our French business as a result of the disruption following the ERP deployment in 2024, which, when combined with the softer market in France, has impacted overall margins. We expect these to start to recover later this year. The board has decided to review our ERP program as it's become clear that many of the benefits that we were seeking can now be achieved faster through the use of AI and digital tools instead of waiting for a full complex rollout. We've currently engaged specialists to evaluate a lighter ERP deployment to run in parallel with our digital tools. We expect this work to be sufficiently advanced to determine the future ERP direction by the end of the year. It should be noted we have about GBP 30 million of investment to date in ERP programs. In the event that there is any write-off or write-down in the latter half of the year, it will clearly be a non-cash exceptional item. Despite good overhead control in EMEA in the first half, the fall in revenue and gross margins have an impact on adjusted operating profit. We do expect EMEA profit to improve significantly in the second half, reflecting a seasonal uplift in demand, the benefits of cost actions we've already talked about, and also our targeted sales program. Coming to North America, whilst North America remains the single biggest strategic opportunity for the group, the performance in the first half was a small setback, with revenue down 8.5% in local currency. The biggest impact here was related to the planned phasing transition away from a high-margin large vendor in Canada, which started in the second half of last year, with new vendors launched in, I think they launched in April, with revenue commencing towards the very end of Q2, so while significant in the short term, these changes position the Canadian business well to return to growth over the medium term. Demand in the US, as with many businesses, was impacted in the period by market uncertainty linked to the introduction of tariffs. Our vendor partners have reacted differently to the tariffs, with some accelerating shipments and others delaying or even suspending them. This disruption in the supply chain, together with the negative impact on end-user sentiment, has subdued demand. Regional gross margins have, as a result of these, softened, particularly due to the Canadian portfolio change, but remain above the group average. We've delivered overhead savings, which offset about half of the reduction in gross profit. As the new vendor relationships in Canada scale and trade negotiations are finalized in the US, we're well positioned to return to both revenue and profit growth. This is the largest global AV market, and we continue to target significant market share gains over time. To cover APAC briefly, APAC is our smallest region at about 3.5% of global revenue. This continues to have a higher proportion of mainstream revenue than group average and has such a slightly lower gross margins. In recent years, we've enhanced the management team at APAC and also simplified our operating model. There's more to do, but we saw return to revenue growth in the first half, and also overhead savings supported the small improvement in the net operating loss. We've increased our support for this region for both the U.K. and the Middle East management teams and expect returns to profitability over time. Finally, just turning to capital allocation, the board remains disciplined in its approach to capital allocation and believes the group can deliver superior long-term returns for Midwich shareholders by continuing to invest in growth. The group continues to see both organic and acquisition-related investment opportunities that are fully aligned to strategic growth plans, and we plan to return to M&A investment as soon as practicable. To facilitate the increased level of investment, we've decided to retain more capital for future investments, and that's reflected in the dividend change that Stephen touched on, which is modeled now on a 25% payout ratio of adjusted EPS, i.e., four times covered by adjusted EPS on a full year basis. While revised payout ratio provides a sustainable framework, the board's approach to capital allocation will continue to prioritize growth and reinvestment opportunities to drive future returns. We will also continue to allocate any excess capital to shareholders via dividends or share buybacks as appropriate in the future. In line with this, we've declared an interim dividend of 1.75p per share, which, as I mentioned earlier, we paid on the 17th of October. Thank you. Although we don't have any M&A transactions currently underway, they have been and will be an important part of our long-term strategy. They help us to access new geographical markets and then address new niches in those markets. Many of the acquisitions we've made have helped us to also build expertise and business in other geographical markets. Our team is actively working on our pipeline, and we hope to re-engage targets fairly soon. In addition to traditional M&A activity, we've also been investing small amounts of money in Midwich Ignite, our corporate venture capital arm. This has been very exciting, helping us understand where the market is going, getting in early to new technologies, and indeed, we've already seen some commercial trading benefits from these relationships. Our investment case remains strong. We have a leading market position, which I believe will become stronger over the next year or two, as some competitors increasingly struggle. I believe our strategy is strong and consistent, but we need to ensure that we continue to adapt the business to changing market needs. After a long period of sustained growth, the last 18 months has been more challenging. However, the business remains in a strong financial position and is well placed for the future. Finally, I believe we have a positive culture led by an experienced management team. So, in summary, our market has continued to be challenging this year, but I'm confident we're still growing share. Unusually, we've seen some evidence of competitors being under financial stress with some business failures. Our long-term value-add technical strategy has helped, but is not completely compensated for a tough market. It has been important for us to try to be masters of our own destiny. We've had to make some difficult decisions, particularly in terms of the team. However, we've also looked at what we do in different ways, either in terms of processes or in our go-to-market strategy. We have some very interesting activities in play and will be even better placed to capitalize on an uptick in the market. Our outlook for the full year remains unchanged. Thank you. Any questions? Robert, James Bailey from Peel Hunt, just two from me. On the ERP, can you remind us how long that GBP 30 million investment has been spread over at this point? And then to get to the assumed full rollout, what was left in the first position? Year three started basically after COVID, so 2021, I think, is when that process started. We went live in France last year. The system is working. It's doing its job, but it's very complicated because a lot of what we built into the system uses an ERP to solve for unstructured data, particularly around our sales processes. And it's increasingly clear that the ERP is great at the accounting side, but on the unstructured side, there are ways of achieving that faster using AI tools. We're in the process of hopefully getting some of those piloted in the next few months, and that should let us determine if we can go faster with the ERP in a lighter fashion going forward. But I think we'll probably be trying to do that over the next three years or so. Do you have a sense of how much? No. Probably in March. And then just on the competitive landscape and the supply universe, how are you seeing suppliers react to, I guess, you see competitors and signs of stress? Is there incentive for them to move up the value chain to larger more established players like yourself? Or is there a risk that they actually go and try to make a go of this themselves and get it direct? And the kind of changes in value. But I mean, manufacturers going direct has been a feature of our industry for a long time. I wouldn't say there's a particular drift towards more of them going direct. There have been one or two that have changed strategy in the last year, but equally, there have been one or two who have gone away from a direct model or indeed gone direct and then gone through the channel. Where we have competitors struggling, and we've seen a couple go under in different markets, then the manufacturers will look to replace that distribution through somebody else, such as ourselves. So it can actually be quite a good opportunity for us to pick up some more business, but we have to make sure it's on the right commercial terms for us. As sometimes people don't, they struggle because they can't get the right commercial terms and make a viable business. So it can be quite helpful. I think after the financial crisis, I think three of the businesses we bought were just in there after the financial crisis, and they've turned into very good businesses. So there are some opportunities for us, but we'll have to be very careful what we buy and how we do it. Stephen, the 3.9% CAGR you were talking about, the addressable base, I think at the back of the packet are about five to six billion on the global market. Can you just remind us about the bit that you're not in, that sort of reconciles between those two numbers, and how you think about the situation now, next few years? Should you perhaps be in them to capture that potential macro? Yeah. I mean, there are parts of the market that we won't be in because that's what our customers deal with, some of the services that we provide to end users. In terms of geographies, the markets that have performed quite strongly in the last few years, I think, expected to are markets such as China and India and one or two others. I think the Indian market is of interest to us. Chinese markets, not currently. I don't think that would be right for us to look at. They're a big part of the sort of overall market growth, and they tend to be, I think they're forecasted to grow at faster rates than the markets that we're in. It's interesting. I've talked about India for quite a long time. We sort of looked at it. So I know some of our big customers are doing quite well in the Indian market, and it does seem to be growing. But there are obviously challenges in that market, and we just need to make sure if we do go into there, we've got the right way of addressing that. Do they sell directly to India, or do they use local distributors? Manufacturers. It's a mixture. Yeah, it's a mixture. It's the same with other markets. I think distribution is quite common out there. The market's often quite hybrid, so you'll have a reseller acting as a distributor as well, which obviously isn't our model. But some good growth in that market. It's just one. Could I also ask the tariff hit you spoke about on your U.S. P&L? It looks just to the revenue numbers. There's about a GBP 10 million drop just on tariffs. How do you think about that? Is that deferred revenue that will come? Obviously, time unknown. But do you think that has to come back at some point, or do you think that that's sort of lost revenue that's not going to be recovered? I would think that where you get a hiccup in the market, it generally catches up with itself in the future. So COVID, obviously, demand dropped, came back with quite a surge afterwards, and then settled back down again. So I would expect that would be the case unless there's some big structural change in the U.S. economy, I guess. I mean, if you think about where our products go, I don't think the fundamental demand for those will have changed. We just need to see things settling down a bit more, don't we? Yeah. Thank you. No more questions. Okay. So no more questions. Thank you, everybody. See you in March.