Good afternoon, and welcome to the M.P. Evans Group PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press Send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it is appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Peter Hadsley-Chaplin. Good afternoon, sir. Hello, Lily. Thank you very much. Good afternoon to everybody. Thank you so much. This presentation follows the release of our 2023 full year results, which were released to the market yesterday. We will, during the course of the presentation, give you some background on the company, but the primary reason for this is to present our results for the year. If we can move to the first slide. Many of you will be familiar with our story, but we've been around a long time, no less than 150 years. And indeed, we celebrated that historic milestone last year, which I no doubt some of you here today will have attended. So it was very good to see those of you who did. We are a plantation company, but for the last 20 years or so, we've been focusing on the production of sustainable Indonesian palm oil. That is our business. That is what we do, and we have been growing to the extent that we now employ over 12,500 people, 7 of them in the U.K. and the rest in Indonesia. We have an absolutely fantastic team. We're very proud of our team at every level, and we believe that is the reason we produce such excellent results, because we really do have a brilliant team. And we've been growing not just in terms of employee numbers, but also in terms of our planted hectare. Last year, we were successful in adding another 10,000 hectares. We acquired another 10,000 hectares to our portfolio of group-owned and group-managed oil palm areas. A significant increase to our areas. You can see that our various projects are spread between Sumatra and East Kalimantan, where we have our plantations and indeed our six crude palm oil mills. The blue dots represent our associates, a small joint venture, palm oil interest, in Sumatra, and the remnants of the property company, which is now in its very mature stages of development in Malaysia, near Penang, which has been around for 30-odd years, which is a former Malaysian estate owned by ourselves, in which we are joint venture partners, which has been developed into housing, shops and indeed, a new township, but it's in the closing stages of that project. And we are extremely proud of our environmental, our sustainability credentials, of which Matthew will speak a little bit more a bit later. So perhaps we can now move to the next slide. These are our four, if you like, principal strategic pillars, if you like, our core values, responsibility, excellence, growth, and yield. And yield, in a sense of yield, returns back to shareholders. The primary, most important one of all is the responsibility we have towards all our stakeholders. We have been members of the RSPO, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, since the early 2000s, when the RSPO was formed. Clearly, we do not engage in deforestation. We clearly have a policy of zero burning. We have an excellent zero waste policy. We provide excellent housing and other community facilities, which helps towards retention of staff and managers. All six of our mills are up and running and are producing certified sustainable output. That's palm oil and palm kernels. We have recently published our reports on TCFD, Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, and ESG, Environmental, Social, and Governance. We are indeed on track with our net zero targets. Excellence is something we strive for. We invest for the long term. We invest both in people and in our assets, and this helps us to deliver increasingly higher yields and OER, that's crude palm oil extraction rates from our mills. The most recent mill was opened in 2023 at the Musi Rawas project in South Sumatra, and we strive to continue to improve our extraction rates and our yields per hectare. We have strength and depth across the company, where we see successful transition of senior management roles-... Our President Director of our Indonesian operations, who's one of our directors, Chandra Sekaran, passed the baton on to Pak Ravichandran, known as Ravi, who is doing an excellent job. Chandra is still working with us as a consultant as well as his non-executive role. But we've made a—there's been an excellent transition there and in a number of other senior management roles. So, as I say, strength and depth across the organization. Growth comes from three primary sources. The crops grow as the palms get older, as they continue to mature. We're still relatively young in terms of our average age. and also, as with better and better agronomic practices, our yields improve, and also, as we acquire new areas of land, of course, we have increased crop growth as well. So from those three sources, three different ways in which we are able to continue to grow. and indeed, this was evidenced in our record crop and crude palm oil production during the course of last year. And as I mentioned earlier, we added 10,000 hectares to our group portfolio. and we are continuing to plant more oil palms sustainably at our a project in South Sumatra at Musi Rawas. And coming to shareholder returns, we have delivered and continue to deliver improving returns to shareholders. We have a, an ambition, a program, of further improvement and growth, and the strategy is to deliver further increases of shareholder returns. As Luke will speak more about, we generated over GBP 100 million, GBP 107 million in operating cash last year, and we were able to increase our dividend, our total dividend for the year, by 2.5p from 2.5 pence, from 42.5 to 45p, of which the final dividend, payable in June, has been increased from 30p to 32.5p. And not to be forgotten either, is the earnings per share is enhanced by our ongoing program of share buybacks. We believe that buying back our own shares is an excellent investment at what we believe to be undervalued pricing by the market. I mean, the market does what it does, but we believe this represents a good opportunity to buy a significant value in what we know to be excellent quality plantation land. Next slide. Just a snapshot or a few snapshots of last year's celebrations marking our 150-year anniversary both in the U.K., Mansion House, where we had our AGM, followed by a lunch, and indeed in Jakarta and in other parts of Indonesia. What was great was to see 15 or more of our Indonesian colleagues come over to the U.K. Normally they host us, but for once, it was our chance to host a visit from them, and it was great for them to see what happens over here in the sort of HQ. It was all altogether a great success. I think morale, you know, a great morale booster all around, and it was great to have shareholders meet some of the Indonesian team as well. So if I may, at this point, pass across to Matthew, who's initially going to talk about the palm oil and the wider vegetable oil market. Great. Thank you, Peter. So, before we get on to talking about our own operations, I think it's helpful just to set the scene and put it in context in terms of, as Peter says, first of all, the wider vegetable oil market. And I think really, the chart on the left-hand side of this slide really does illustrate how much things have changed, over the last few decades. The chart goes all the way back to 1990 and looks at what the world's vegetable oil market looked like then. And you can see that the total world market at that point accounted for approximately 50 million tons, just over 50 million tons. You can see the steady increase over several years since then, and how the world market has increased all the way through to the last full year, to 2023, where the world market for vegetable oil is now over 200 million tons, around 220 million tons. And importantly, the various elements of each of the bars represents the various vegetable oils. But the first part, the bottom part, is in dark green, is palm, and you can see how palm has been taking steadily an increasing share of that increasing market over time. and when we sort of explode out the most recent year on the right-hand side of the chart to look at it in a bit more detail, and you can see that by the time you get to 2023, palm is actually taking 40% of the world vegetable oil market, certainly when you include the two, the two key products that come from the one crop, 'cause palm obviously produces crude palm oil, but it also produces palm kernel oil, the two parts coming from the same crop. And between them, they account for 40%... of the world's contribution to the main vegetable oils, so a substantial part of the world's vegetable oil market. And if we then focus in a bit more on palm oil in detail and look on the next slide, I think the key thing I would take, if we could just move on to the next slide. The key thing I would take from this next slide is just how productive palm is when we compare to the other major vegetable oils. The key thing that sets palm apart from the other major vegetable oils is that palm is a permanent tree crop. All of the other major vegetable oils are annual crops, and palm is substantially more efficient in its use of land compared to the others. And when we talk about that 40% of world production of vegetable oils, that 40% of world production is achieved from only 8% of the land area that's given over to vegetable oil production, which I think is really quite a remarkable statistic. And if you look at the right-hand chart on this page, this really brings this point home. The other major vegetable oils will generally do less than a single ton of oil per hectare of land given over to cultivation. And if you look at palm, on average, if you think about all of the hectare given over to palm oil cultivation, obviously, the majority of which is in Indonesia and Malaysia. If you look at the overall average from the entire area given over to cultivation, then palm does a little bit more than 3 tons per hectare. But if you think about what we're able to achieve at M.P. Evans, for every hectare that we cultivate, that we manage, that we harvest, then we're able to achieve more than 5 tons of oil per hectare cultivated. So a substantial improvement on the average, because of the agronomic practices that we deploy, because of the efficiency of the mills that we have within our group. And, you know, we're not happy with that. We're not satisfied. We want to keep working hard to improve that even further. We're committed to working towards pushing that up to 6 and beyond, and we think we can do that with the excellent quality of the hectare that we have, and the investment that we've made in our milling facilities. So that just gives you a bit of a sense of vegetable oil and indeed, palm oil in particular. It's extremely important for us then to focus on sustainable palm oil. As I said on the previous slide, only 20% of the world's palm oil production qualifies as certified sustainable production. Now, of course, that doesn't mean the other 80% is not sustainably produced, but it's about certified sustainable production. Everything that we do is done on the basis of sustainable production and sustainable cultivation, and this has been an area of absolute focus for us. Of course, opening another mill enables us to push forward in this area, and we're very, very pleased to be able to report that by the end of 2023, all of our mills are now certified to produce sustainable output. That will help us in our continual journey of driving up the proportion of our output that qualifies as certified sustainable output. As Peter mentioned earlier, it's been very important to us to increase the amount of reporting that we do, to enable all of our stakeholders, our shareholders, and our other important stakeholders to understand what we're doing in this area. So over the last 12 months, we've published a TCFD report. Last month, we published a new E&S ESG report, and there's a huge amount of detail in both of those reports around the area of sustainability in its broadest possible context. And, this is obviously designed to be a financial update for you, so I'll try very hard not to go on about this area for too long, but I do highly commend both of those reports to you as very valuable insights onto the work that we're doing in both of these areas. One point I can't but help mention is around our journey on carbon reduction. When we first published in this area, we set 2021 as our baseline year for measuring our, what's called our carbon balance sheet, so our total carbon emissions as a group, and we've obviously then moved forward. And in the annual report we published yesterday, we give detail on our 2023 position on total carbon emissions. And we've already having really focused in on this area achieved a 19% reduction in our total carbon emissions. A lot of that comes from the fact that we've been busy investing in efficient mills of our own and increasing the proportion of our crop that goes through our own efficient mills. More of that in a moment on terms of operational impacts, but that has a big impact for us in terms of our sustainability credentials and our ability to drive down carbon emissions that make a big difference for us. So as I say, I'll try very hard not to talk for too long on this area, but I do recommend both of our recent reports to you for further reading in this area.... If we turn to the next slide and really start to focus in on operational metrics, this slide really tells the story of 2023, and in particular, again, the benefit of now having those six mills operational throughout the year. Over the course of 2023, we harvested 1.2 million tons of crop from the areas that we manage, those areas that we own directly, and the areas that we manage on behalf of our associated scheme smallholders. And 95% of that crop was then taken to our own milling facilities to be processed, only 5% sent to outside mills, and we're extremely proud of that statistic. We're very nearly at the position where we're processing all of our own harvest, which operationally and financially is fantastic for us. Now that we have six mills, we have capacity to bring in crop from outside suppliers as well, and so that's how you get from the 1.2 million of harvested crop to the total of 1.6 million total processed crop. Then you can also see on this slide, the fact that from that combination of 1.6 million tons of crop processed, we achieved an average of 23.4% oil extraction rate in the year, which again is a figure we're extremely proud of. That was up on the previous year, and given that combination crop, given that a quarter of our input is coming from outside suppliers, where the crop quality is inevitably not quite as good as the crop that we harvest for ourselves, delivering that 23.4% average extraction rate is something we're extremely pleased with. And similarly, ending up with production of over 360,000 tons coming out of our own group mills, again, is a big deal for us this year. That's up more than 20% on the production coming out of group mills in the previous year. So real operational progress in terms of what we've been able to deliver this year. So at that point, we should move on and look at some more of the detail and some of the financial consequences of all of that. And at that point, I will pass over to Luke. Oh, thanks, Matthew. So just starting at the top row here, and Matthew's just touched on the group processed 1.6 million tons of crop in the year, so that's up 7% compared to 2022. And as a result, we increased our production from 2022, up by 11%. As well as that increased crop being processed, there's also a benefit there in relation to the opening of our new mill at Musi Rawas, and also, as Matthew's already touched on, an improvement in the extraction rate. 2022 was a phenomenal year from a pricing perspective, so it was almost inevitable that 2023 was gonna see some softening in that price environment. The average price per ton for CPO that we received in 2022 was $854, and that reduced in 2023 down to $729. So somewhat inevitable, but I think it's important to stress that at that level of $729 per ton, that still is a very good price, and certainly by historical standards as well. So with that resulting price drop, the revenue did decrease. There was an increase in volume, but that couldn't quite offset that price reduction. So we saw revenue drop from $327 million, down to $307 million, and then that flowed through down to our operating profit. So that price differential dropped down to operating profit, and we did still see a little bit of heightened fertilizer costs in 2023. And they are moving in the right direction, and we saw that through 2023. However, there was still a little bit of residual inflationary pressure on fertilizer costs in the P&L in the second half of the year. And that kind of nicely leads into the cost management. So yes, we have seen an increase in our cost per ton, but driven, as I say, by really that fertilizer increase. And we try and control what we can, that's within management's control, so managing our labor costs and also offsetting that, any inflationary pressure there, hopefully with some better efficiencies to really manage that cost per ton level. So with that lower profit, again, on earnings per share, was down, from 108p last year to 78.1p this year. But we're delighted, as Peter's already touched on, to be increasing our dividends for 2023, up from 42.5p to 45p, and as Peter's mentioned, an increase in that final dividend, of the year, 2.5p. And I think then also just to touch on finally, sort of how 2024 has started, we saw a relatively soft start to 2022 from a crop as, there was some seasonality in our crop trends. But in the beginning of 2023, we've seen a really strong start, crop up 16% compared to 2022, and we're also seeing our own crop growing at a higher rate than 16% increase, which is good, which means we have to buy less independent fruit, which is of benefit to our margins, as we look forward. So I think whilst some of these areas here are focused really on the P&L, I think it's also important to call out that, again, almost inevitably, some of those P&L metrics were going to fall. But actually, when you look at the cash generation of the group through 2023, the group has continued to be incredibly cash generative. So I'll just sort of walk you through this graphic here. So on the top line, the sources line, that really just shows the sort of cash that we had available to us in 2023. So we came in with a large chunk of cash on the balance sheet, and if we rewind twelve months ago, we were sat here saying that the reason for that was because we had quite a few irons in the fire in terms of acquisitions, and having cash on our balance sheet and having cash readily available for acquisitions in Indonesia is a real selling point. So we had a big chunk of cash coming into the year. We then generated over $100 million from operations, $107 million of cash from operations in 2023, and that is 142% cash conversion. That's where if you take operating profit to operating cash, that's 142%, which is fantastic, and that's up on the 127% that we saw in 2022. And then finally, on the end of that top bar, we did acquire some new borrowings through our acquisition in the back half of 2023, and we've just kind of grossed up the numbers here to sort of make the math work. So then if you look at that second line, the middle line, that's the usage line. That's what we did with that cash that we had available to us in 2023. And the first few bars are unfortunately some things that we can't avoid. So that's paying tax and also repaying the debt that we have, including interest payments. So those first three green blocks we're kind of locked in for. But then you take the next step section, the red section, and this is where we have a choice in terms of allocating our capital. And what we've tried to do, as a management team, is balance that allocation between focusing on getting it right today through improving our operational excellence. So that includes, in CapEx terms, building the right housing, building the right roads, continuing with planting. Then we look to the long-term investments, so using some of our capital to make some acquisitions, which we're delighted to have done in 2023, that really then gives us additional hectarage for future returns. And then, not least, we want to give back to our shareholders. So we focused in 2023 on increasing the dividend again, and also, as Peter's already mentioned, continuing with our share buyback program. It might seem modest in terms of the amount that we're putting there, but again, we are chipping away at that quarter- by- quarter, and we announced yesterday that we're continuing that for another quarter, which will take us up to the AGM in June. And then finally, that blue box on the end, we ended the year with a gross cash number of just over GBP 39 million. And again, we're just keeping a little bit of cash on the balance sheet because we continue to assess opportunities for future growth in Indonesia, and having that cash readily available is something that we think is of benefit. We did finish the year with a small net debt position due to that new borrowing we took on and our existing borrowing that we had already in the balance sheet. So a very modest 3% net gearing and a net debt number at the end of the year of GBP 14.8 million. So in terms of some of those shareholder returns, just focusing on this slide, this is our track record on normal dividends, and this is something that the group is very proud of. And as we've touched on, again, we've increased the dividend for 2023 to 45p in the year. This is a track record now over 30 years of maintaining or increasing the dividend. And to say that's something we're very proud of and something that the board takes very seriously moving as we look forward as well. I think also it's sort of even more remarkable, considering it's a commodity business, to be able to have that stability, as well. We touched on that enhancement of EPS. That share buyback program, as it continues, will continue to do very much that, enhance that earnings per share number. So that's an overview of some of the financial items, and I'll pass back to Matthew for a little bit of a view on the outlook. Fantastic. Thank you, Luke. So I think, Luke's already mentioned that we've made a very positive start to 2024, and we've reported on where we are in the first two months of the year, so crop up in comparison to the same couple of months in 2023. As we look further into the future, we remain extremely positive. Obviously, our new acquisitions that we made in 2023 form a good basis for continuing crop growth, as do the continuing increases in yields from our existing areas. And you get a very strong and clear picture of that from the chart that we've put on the slide to illustrate that exact position. And of course, having made those acquisitions in 2023, while they are a significant increase in our planted hectarage, that doesn't mean that we're not interested in looking for further opportunities to increase our planted area, and to continue that story of ongoing growth for the group. And there are a number of areas that we're currently looking at right now. We're continuing to obtain certifications for our mills, and particularly the mill that we opened last year secured its RSPO. It already had one certification, but it secured its RSPO certification last month, which is fantastic. And then from a pricing perspective, we started the year seeing prices in the sort of mid-$700s, but it's very pleasing to be able to report that just in the course of March, we've seen some tenders go above $800 per ton. So both from an output and a pricing perspective, then we see, you know, very positive signs as we sit here talking to you today. So we're extremely enthusiastic as we report to you today in terms of both crop production and price, and indeed, as you can get a sense from there, the longer term prospects. So that concludes our presentation for today. I'll pass back just now to the IMC team before we then move on to questions. Peter, Matthew, Luke, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab situated on the top right-hand corner of your screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via Investor Dashboard. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. Can I ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you very much, Lily. I should have mentioned, or I should have introduced ourselves at the beginning. Many of you will be familiar with us, but if you haven't already worked it out, I'm the Chairman, and Matthew is our Chief Executive, and Luke is our CFO. But I also perhaps should touch on what was said in the announcement about my own role changing, which is a shift from an Executive Chair role to that of Non-Executive Chair. My role as Executive Chair has been increasingly waning, which I'm delighted to be able to have happen. I have huge confidence in the management team, both here in the head office, and indeed in Indonesia. And I'm looking forward to stepping back a little bit, but continuing in my role as chair in a non-executive capacity. And I'm not sure whether prompted by that part of the announcement, there was a question regarding my own, like, family interest. I'm perfectly happy to answer that as to whether I'm looking to sell it, and I can say categorically, no, I'm not. You know, whether as chair or indeed, more appropriately, as a shareholder, I have huge confidence in the company, in its future, and I can genuinely think of no better investment in terms of the opportunity for increased growth, and indeed for increased earnings and shareholder returns. I may be biased, but I genuinely believe that to be the case. Let me now scroll down, and we can, between us, perhaps, address the various questions, which, thank you so much for submitting. A gentleman who says he's proud to be a shareholder, thank you very much. Can you claim carbon credits for your plantations? Perhaps one for Matthew. Yes, absolutely. So the situation at the moment is, as I said, we've been working very hard to establish what the position is with, with our carbon balance sheet, and this is a continuing and evolving exercise. The next step for us in, in establishing, the requirements and the disclosures around carbon balance sheets is, is to look more closely at, a significant area that we have of unplanted conservation land. Interestingly, what we've done is we've followed the guidance set out in, in the TCFD's requirements for, for recording, our carbon balance sheet, and that whole concept of, carbon sequestration in unplanted land kind of doesn't get covered. So this would be something we'd be recording and measuring and capturing over and above what the TCFD expects you to do, but it's something we are looking at, at right now. What that would do would give us a sort of offset of sorts, albeit it's fairly outside of the TCFD's expectations, so that's what we're doing at the moment. In terms of claiming carbon credits, I think more for us, we see it as the potential to be a, if you like, a credit line on our carbon balance sheet, rather than a sort of a carbon credit, and perhaps the way you're thinking about. Thank you, Matthew. Perhaps you could take the next one as well. Excluding the latest acquisitions, what percentage of our plantations will require replanting during the next three years? Yes, absolutely. I mean, the simple answer to that is a very small part. If you look at our plantations around Indonesia as a whole, the substantial majority of them are still very much within their first generation and won't require any noticeable replanting within the next three years. The exception to that is that our plantations in North Sumatra, our mature plantations that we've had in the group for some time in northern Sumatra, which between them account for about 10,000 hectares. There is an ongoing program of replanting those, and you would expect that there may be over the next three years something like 5%, 5, you know, 5, maybe a bit more than 5% of those might become due for replanting. So that might be about sort of 500 hectares or something like that. But guess that gives you a flavor of the amount of routine replanting that might be expected. Thanks, Matthew. Perhaps this one for Luke. Apart from the buybacks and the strengthening of the year-end sterling rate against the U.S. dollar, is there any other reason why net assets increased less than profits after tax? Yes. So I don't necessarily want to give an accounting lesson, so I'll try and keep it simple. But, so our balance sheet is in dollars, and our currency is USD. In terms of there, there are a number of moving parts that will move net assets, not just the profits after tax. Obviously, we use those profits after tax to fund other things which will move other line items in the balance sheet. So I think I'll just leave it there, on that one. Was there a second part, Peter, you said? I mean, may I just add one comment? Yes. I mean, the big part of the reason is that, I mean, if you look at our statement of changes in equity in the accounts, it's opening net assets, plus profit, minus dividends, minus share buybacks, equals... You know, there are other things, but fundamentally, you've got to knock off the dividends and the share buybacks. Thanks. We are now trading not just below fair value, but also book value. Is the market wrong, or are our shares an absolute bargain? Do you want to attempt that one as well, Luke? Do you have a view on that? I mean, I think, you know, the market, it is what it is. And I think, you know, we've been quite open, previously with the fact that we feel that the market at the moment is undervaluing what we believe to have. We've touched on in the past about our net asset value as well, that we put in the annual report. And we continue to buy back our own shares as we feel that there is an element of value in them at the moment. So, the market will do what the market will do, but certainly our view is that absolute value, but certainly there's value in the share price at the moment. Another question: Is there anything to be gained by changing the company's place of incorporation, for example, to Jersey or Bermuda? We don't believe so. We've got no plans to do that. There has sometimes been the question as to whether we should shift altogether to the likes of, Jakarta, Singapore, KL. But we're very, if you like, lean and mean in Tunbridge Wells, with the excellent communications with our Jakarta office. We believe that, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We've got an extremely good structure, in place, a very regular communication with our, with our Indonesian office. I don't know whether you specifically, Matthew, want to comment on any part of that question as well. I'll vote for Bermuda. But otherwise, no. No, no. Fine. Let's just move to... This is a little bit of more of the same. There are a couple more questions on: We have been making modest share buybacks for some time. Is the extent of buyback hampered by the illiquidity of shares? Would a tender offer result in a buyback of shares in greater depth if this is our ultimate goal? And there's another question, I won't read it out, but it's also similarly about whether we might step up our level of share buybacks. I might perhaps attempt this one. My colleagues might want to add anything to it, but essentially, we have a certain amount of capital that we can deploy, and that is used towards certainly shareholder returns, whether by way of dividends, share buybacks, and of course, general capital spending. We still have significant CapEx in terms of ongoing capital expenditure commitments. Although we've now completed our six mills, we have commitments regarding the areas which need to be improved on those plantations we recently acquired. And indeed, we continue to plant more on our existing areas, and we remain open to the prospect of acquiring more hectare, and we also like to keep our powder dry with some cash. So I mean, some shareholders, you know, believe we should be stepping up our share buybacks, others aren't so keen on it. We tend to, I think, just quietly nibbling away at it bit by bit. If we can, you know, buy back even 1% per year, then over time, that is not insignificant in terms of its impact on EPS. Well, there are no current plans to make a larger share buyback by way of tender or any other means, but we wouldn't discount that in the future. We do certainly agree that our shares are undervalued at these levels, but we also want to expand. So there are different balls that we need to juggle. In terms of what we're permitted to do, we are permitted under the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) to buy back no more than 25% of the average daily volume traded over the last 20 days, but we could apply for dispensation of that. But as things currently stand, we operate within those MAR guidelines. Anything else to add, Luke? Let us move on. Matthew, is the industry winning the narrative regarding the important role that palm oil plays versus alternatives? Whether you could say winning the narrative, I'm not entirely sure, but I think the message is finding it finding some more traction, shall we say, within a number of channels. So I think that we would like, you know, we absolutely have a keen ear for these things, inevitably. But I think there is a sense that people are becoming, you know, more aware of the arguments and don't see things in quite such a black and white way, if you like. So our view is that, you know, the whole kind of ESG sustainability question becomes at the heart and center of so many things within public discourse, that people are actually becoming a little bit more interested in exploring arguments rather than seeing things in such a binary way. And as a result of that, then actually people will be a little bit more able to interested and willing to engage in a discussion, and therefore see that sustainably produced palm oil absolutely has a part to play within, you know, going back to what we were saying earlier, within a vegetable oil market in the world. Thank you. This also brings in the question of share buybacks, but it also mentions the latest. Could you kindly advise the latest NAV estimate, which is based on an independent valuation, and this question highlights there's a vast difference between the share price and the NAV. Luke, do you want to comment on that NAV estimate? Yeah, the first bit. Yeah. So, again, we every year, we do publish, at the back of our annual report, page 100, a view on that sort of NAV value. And this year it was GBP 14.59. That's actually down from last year's GBP 14.98, but a large, in fact, most of that downward pressure and movement is actually in relation to exchange rate variances, converting the dollar assets back into pounds. As per the previous question, we saw a bit of strengthening in the, sterling towards the end of the year, that effectively resulted in a lower value in sterling of those assets. But, still, a big gap to, as we've touched on, the share price that we are currently seeing. Matthew, please, could you expand on any further operational improvements you are looking at implementing in the near term? Yes, absolutely. And I think what I would highlight there, in particular, is the work that we're doing on the areas that we acquired during the course of 2023, and bringing in 10,000 hectares to the group, as we say, is a 20% increase in our planted hectareage. And what we've done, of course, is we've focused very, very significantly on ensuring that we then transplant in some of our experienced leaders and our experienced management team into those areas to make sure that we can then bring in some of those group practices to the areas that we've acquired. And work very hard to bring the quality and the yield, and the output, and the benefits of all the things that our teams do from our existing areas to the areas that we acquired. That's, you know, one of the main reasons we were very, very keen to acquire them, is to grab hold of the opportunity to add value to those areas that we brought into the group. That's one of our areas of absolute priority over the course of the next year, 18 months, to improve the outputs that we're getting from the areas that we've brought into the group. That's Matthew again: What is your assessment as to the likely effects of climate change on production and palm oil pricing over the next decade? Well, that's a very difficult question, but it's one that we're absolutely focused on at the moment. I mean, you'll have seen, if you get into the detail of our annual report, that we call that out as one of our, one of our areas that we're very much focused on monitoring. I mean, at the moment, if we talk about, you know, very specifically climate change, you know, we would say that there hasn't been any significant impact on outputs, on yields, on our ability to continue what we're doing on all of our estates at the current time, but it is something that we keep a very careful watch over. What we would say is that, you know, oil palm fundamentally, we've seen this through many, you know, weather variations, not necessarily climate change variations, but certainly weather variations, that oil palm is an extremely hardy crop, an extremely hardy plant, and we believe that that stands us in very good stead, certainly in the short to medium term. And in the longer term, then that's something that we will have to keep a very careful watch on as we move further forward. And obviously, yeah, pricing and production will move together. Of course, they will. But again, that's something we continue to monitor. A question from someone who identifies themselves as a newer shareholder, who expresses his gratitude. Thank you very much. What level of net cash would the board consider adequate to support further M&A opportunities? I might kick off with a response to that. I mean, clearly, we have now a very, as we always have done, an extremely healthy balance sheet with just very, very modest net gearing. We do, though, have cash currently of approximately- GBP 40 million. GBP 40 million or so. Yeah. Oh, we seem to have lost our... Are we, are we still on? Yeah. Okay, fine. We have found that having cash to hand is extremely valuable in opportunities that arise in terms of acquiring new acreage. And therefore, we don't always seek to reduce our borrowings to the bare minimum, because inevitably, it then takes a while to raise that debt level again. We have to be conscious of you know, higher interest rates, but nonetheless, to have the sort of cash that we have at the moment is helpful in terms of prospects, which we're continuing to explore with regard to acquiring new areas around our existing area, our existing mills, which will be fantastically helpful, as Matthew has already touched on, in terms of increasing the utilization of our existing milling capacity. So to have some surplus cash of that sort of order, it is kept under review against the backdrop of interest rates. But as of now, that is an amount that I think we feel comfortable with. Yeah, I mean, I think also maybe part of the question is, you know, we wouldn't necessarily be adverse to taking on some more debt- Sure. should the right opportunity Exactly. - be in front of us. So we don't have a set level of net cash that we're sort of monitoring to, to prevent us from any of those opportunities. We will take a look at what's in front of us, and if it's the right opportunity, and that does require us to borrow, a little bit more, notwithstanding, making sure that we're comfortable with the strength of our balance sheet, we, we may consider doing that. Should shareholders be concerned about attempts to make palm oil-like oils, I guess, synthetic oils, in the lab? Do you want to answer that, Matthew? I'd be very happy to. Yes. I mean, obviously, we've kept a close watch on reports around developments in this area, around synthetic oils and as you say, oils that are made in a lab, rather than based upon crops that are harvested in the field. And indeed, we've been in touch with one or two of the companies directly to understand the processes in a bit more detail. I think I'd make a couple of comments, really. One goes back to the chart we looked at towards the beginning about the fact that there is a continual increase in the demand for vegetable oils and indeed, vegetable-like substances around the world, and that's certainly we've set in that context. And with that in mind, really, the second comment, that all of the indications are at the moment, given the sorts of facilities you need to develop to scale up any of these kind of operations, our understanding is that a lot of these things are very much at a conceptual stage at the moment, and even when they do if, if they can scale up, then the ambition is to deal with operations that start to produce maybe tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of tons of the equivalent products per annum. And as I say, that's within a context of the vegetable oil market, which is 200+ million tons per annum. So while this may have a small part to play within a growing market, I don't think we're feeling unduly under threat as things stand. Thank you, Matthew. We might make this our last question. What is your relationship with your major shareholder, bearing in mind they also operate palm oil plantations? So that's a reference to our major shareholder, KLK, Kuala Lumpur Kepong. We have an excellent relationship with them. They're extremely supportive of what we're doing, of our strategy going forward. I think they enjoy the dividends, but it's extremely useful, as you, I think, allude to, the fact that they are also in the plantation world, and we happily compare notes with one another. Their representative on the board, Yuan, is an extremely useful and helpful, and sympathetic contributor to board discussions. We've very much benefited from having him serve alongside us on the board, so it's an extremely positive and good relationship. So we might wrap up at that point, but I'll pass back to IMC before making any final comments. Peter, Matthew, Luke, thank you for answering all those questions you can from investors, and of course, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to the company, Peter, can I please just ask you for a few closing comments? Yes. Well, thank you, Lily, thank you to IMC again for hosting this for us. We do find this an extremely useful forum for being able to speak to shareholders and would-be shareholders, and thank you all very much for tuning in, and indeed, for so many questions, which we've enjoyed the variety of them, which we've enjoyed addressing, and we hope we did so reasonably adequately. But feel free to be in touch further if they weren't adequately addressed. And amongst the shareholders amongst you, we very much hope to see you at our annual general meeting. Our annual report is incidentally on our website, and in it, you will find details of our AGM, which is sadly not at Mansion House this year. That was a special occasion last year, but nonetheless, back at the Tallow Chandlers' Hall, where we've had our AGMs for many years. It's at 12:00 noon on Friday, fourteenth of June, so we very much hope we will see those shareholders among you there. And thank you again for joining us today. Peter, Matthew, Luke, thank you for updating investors today. Can I please ask investors not to close this session, and you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, and I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of M.P. Evans Group PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.