Hello, and welcome to the PZ Cussons Q3 trading update live Q&A session. My name is Alex. I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to ask a question at the end of the presentation, you can press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press star two. I'll now hand over to your host, Jonathan Myers, CEO, to begin. Please go ahead. Thanks, Alex. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining Sarah and me on the PZ Cussons call today. You should all have seen this morning's short Q3 trading statement. I will simply give you a brief overview of the announcement and the continued progress we have made against our strategy. It'll be over to you and Sarah and I will be more than happy to take your questions. I'm pleased to say that we continue to make good progress in Q3, delivering a sixth consecutive quarter of revenue growth. With that performance underpinned by the strength and depth of our portfolio. At the same time, we continue to make good operational progress, delivering against our stated strategy. Looking at revenue performance, like-for-like growth of 6.2% was driven primarily by price mix improvements. Reported revenue growth of 13.5% benefited from the full period contribution of Childs Farm and favorable exchange rate movements. In terms of the key takeaways, there are three things I would point to. First, as anticipated when we last provided an update, our Europe and Americas region has returned to strong revenue growth and with a significantly improved margin performance. This was driven by our continued focus on innovation and activation, with a particularly strong performance from St. Tropez in the U.S. Secondly, we have made further progress on our Must Win Brands, which are central to our strategy. Highlights include taking Morning Fresh, Australia's number one washing up liquid brand, into the larger and faster-growing auto-dishwash category, and in the U.K., launching SlumberTime, a new range of Childs Farm products to aid the sleep of babies and their sleep-deprived parents. In both instances, we're capitalizing on existing brand strength, moving into new adjacencies or benefit areas backed by strong consumer insights and innovation. Watch this space for further expansion of our brands into either new categories or new geographies in due course. Looking at Childs Farm in a little more detail, it is just over a year since we acquired the business, we are delighted with the progress made since then. The business continues to perform well, we remain on track for double-digit revenue growth in the full year. You'll have seen in the announcement this morning that we will host a Childs Farm analyst event on the 4th of July, we'll talk more about the business then. A quick word on the outlook. While we are of course alert to the ongoing external volatility in our markets, we are confident in the strength of our brands and the work we have done over the past few years to make PZ Cussons a stronger and more resilient business. Against that backdrop, we expect full year adjusted profit before tax to be at least in line with current market expectations. With that, I'll hand back to the operator and it's over to you for your questions. Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you can press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, you may press star followed by two. Please ensure you're unmuted locally when asking your question. Our first question for today comes from Siobhan Lynch from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi, Jonathan. Hi, Sarah. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I've got two if possible. My first one, can you give us any more details on the price mix dynamics in, I guess, what was a pretty solid 9.9% like-for-like in Europe and Americas? I guess I'm just trying to establish how much is kind of pure price offsetting cost inflation and how much is kind of the benefit of the stronger St. Tropez brands and rebranding of Imperial Leather, et cetera, that you've been doing. My second question is on Nigeria. In the last few weeks, Unilever, I think, confirmed that it's exiting a number of its HPC brands from Nigeria, some of which I believe are direct competitors to you. I guess two sides to my question. First, is this a positive for you in Nigeria in terms of market share and competition? Also maybe slightly more pessimistically, what does it tell us about the difficulty of operating profitably there? Maybe any comments you have on why your business is, you know, better positioned to do well. Thank you. Siobhan, why don't I do the first one and then perhaps I'll leave Sarah to pick up Nigeria and we can cover off if there's anything either one of us misses. As we work through our quarters, though, there's no doubt it's less and less straight pricing and more and more mix management and slightly more refined revenue growth management as we bring innovations to market successfully. As you can imagine, you know, nine to 12 months ago, particularly in our developing markets, we were focusing on executing straight price increases on a reasonable frequency. It was always more difficult in developed markets, where it required working more collaboratively with our retail partners to ensure we could still provide great value to their shoppers. As we move through now, some of those low-hanging fruit opportunities have begun to morph into actually the need for us to execute more holistically all the levers of revenue growth management, which is more likely to be promotional optimization, pack price architecture, and ideally innovation, which gives us a justification for where we want to charge a premium and can justify the premium because we're offering a cracking benefit in a consumer area that we know that we have a real edge based on our insight and understanding, then we can successfully launch those. SlumberTime on Childs Farm will be a good example. Luxe Serum on St. Tropez will be a good example. I'm sure we'll come on to talk a bit more about those. As we look forward, there's no doubt the window for straight price increases is closing, has closed, but we will continue to look for the right opportunities to deliver great value for consumers, but still trying to ensure that we are mitigating any pressures on our margins as we go. Sarah, do you wanna talk about Nigeria? Yeah. Siobhan, thanks for the question. You're absolutely right to be citing that Unilever announced its planned withdrawal from effectively its home and personal care categories in Nigeria. I think for us, the key takeaway was that it absolutely represents a net opportunity. Actually, Unilever were relatively small in those categories and not winning versus us having market leading positions and having successfully taken share and price and improved margin over the last two years. I think it's a testament to our strength in our core categories there. It may also be an opportunity to, I don't know, attract some new talent into the business. We're always looking at, you know, do we have our A team? What's the future for Africa? If we can attract some talent from Unilever, that's something that we would look to do. We are, of course, ever mindful to the risks of operating in Nigeria, which is why you saw us very deliberately three years ago, talk about a self-help strategy. We have been, if you like, peeling back the peripheral layers of the onion to make sure we are a simpler, leaner, and more agile business there. You've seen that come through both in terms of overhead reduction, gross margin improvements, and a significantly better bottom line. We won't rest on our laurels. We think it's a net opportunity. We remain mindful of the risks. Really helpful. Thank you very much, both. Thanks, Siobhan. Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Webb of Investec. Matthew, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. I was just wanting to understand a bit better what is driving this improvement in performance in Europe and the Americas. Obviously, you know, you've called out some of your brands, St. Tropez, Imperial Leather, Cussons Creations. I was just wondering if you could talk a bit, in a bit more detail about what's been going on with those brands to have driven that improved performance, please. Matthew, morning. Why don't I set the overall context in terms of, if you like, the more mathematical drivers behind both the strong revenue growth and the margin improvement, and maybe then Jonathan can embellish a little bit more on some of the brand drivers. There are effectively three key factors at play. One in the first half that has now much improved in Q3, and we see improving going forward are our two highest margin brands in the Europe and Americas. One is Carex and one is St. Tropez in the U.S. St. Tropez in the U.S., that's a strong double-digit growth in the second half of the year and absolutely in Q3, coming with some significant margin benefits for the region and the group. Jonathan can elaborate on, you know, the marketing drivers behind that. Carex is a little more nuanced. Carex did decline again in Q3, but we see some green shoots of stabilization. If you think about the U.K. hand hygiene category, contraction post-COVID, if you like, now bleeding into the cost of living challenges for a U.K. consumer, we exited Q3 in growth on the Carex brand, and we see a path to low single-digit growth in the balance of this year and into FY2024. What is probably even more notable is we took pricing partway through the first half of the year. We're seeing a full second half benefit of that pricing in FY2023. Actually, Carex in the second half of the year and in Q3, significantly higher margin than the first. That's the first theme. One is an improvement in both Carex and St. Tropez. If you recall, more broadly, we talked about the cost environment. More benign across the group in the second half of the year and in Q3, and that's absolutely materializing as we expected. Plus, us having caught up on pricing in the U.K., and we're now benefiting from that, having already been fast in terms of price mix improvements across the group elsewhere. More than covering costs through price and mix in the second half of the year, actually with volumes holding up well. The third, particularly for Europe, Americas, was the brand investment phasing. If you remember both Sanctuary Spa and Imperial Leather, we restaged in the first half of the year and clearly put some serious marketing money behind both of those restages. For both of those brands, a level of sufficient investment is now represented by lower absolute spend. Also helping to improve margins while still driving those brands for future growth. Effectively, Carex and St. Tropez, a more benign cost environment and us getting on the front sort of pricing and marketing, if you like, marketing investment normalizing. Jonathan, do you want to talk a little bit more about the brands? Let me just pick up a couple of things. One of the phrases that I've used to typify the year to date, not just the quarter, Matthew, has been honestly, our job is a combination of strategy and street fighting, and nowhere has that been more true than in Europe and Americas. A lot of that's been the blocking and tackling of getting pricing over the line, then adopting more sophisticated revenue growth management approaches to help us mitigate the cost pressures we've been experiencing. It's also getting smart about how we use our portfolios. The Imperial Leather Cussons Creations introduction has helped us grow those combined businesses versus just the core Imperial Leather we had before. Cussons Creations is seeing distribution increases in the last quarter of around 30%, increased distribution points versus the first half, which is a great sign of support from our retail partners. What we've also been able to do is really crank up the brand-building machine with innovation at its heart, where we're able to add innovation at the top of our brands, which then gives a halo across the rest of the brands. SlumberTime, which enters into a new area, benefit area of sleep with premium pricing, as an example on Childs Farm, and Luxe Serum, which adds skincare benefits, premium skincare benefits to the self-tan core proposition and sells for as much as $48 a time. It's been an opportunity on St. Tropez for us to reunite with Ashley Graham and use a digital-first activation approach in the U.S. That's helping us drive a reappraisal of both of those brands amongst all of the existing user bases. A good example where the PZ Cussons Growth Wheel begins to kick in for us to build our brands. Hopefully that helps paint a picture. Yeah, absolutely. Very comprehensive. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you can press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Ines Franco from JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. I have two if I can, please. Firstly, on the pricing and volume dynamics. Compared to H1, where 3 percentage points of volume declines were explained by Carex in the electrical business, I believe, what would that look like in Q3? Are you happy with the levels of volume elasticities you're seeing, or are you looking to adjust your pricing accordingly? Secondly, on the more strategic side of things. You launched Morning Fresh into an adjacent category in Australia. Is that something you are also considering for other regions or other brands? If so, what are the criterias that you look at and the rationale for expanding in new categories? Thank you. Morning, Ines. Why don't I take the price mix one and then Jonathan take the second one? You're absolutely right to say that our headline level of volume decline in the first half was 5%, of which 2 percentage points was the normalization of Carex in the U.K. and a very conscious and deliberate choice to keep driving the electricals business in Nigeria for profit margin, knowing we would forgo some volume. Actually, for the second half of the year, that dynamic largely holds. As you might expect, given the promotional intensity of some of our developed market categories, there is some monthly and some quarterly phasing. Overall, for the second half of the year, that headline level of volume decline is looking at around about 5% again, with actually us having nudged up the price mix growth by 1 or 2 percentage points. That's the macro picture. In terms of by region and by brand, let me call a few out. Price mix and volume actually is holding well in U.K. and Americas. We're seeing that the Carex brand has been able to withstand a higher level of pricing in the second half for a lower level of volume decline. Imperial Leather and Cussons Creations together, the relaunch that Jonathan talked about, in aggregate, those two brands were flat in the first half in terms of overall revenue growth. In the second half of the year, they're looking like growing high single digits. Where we do see the volume slightly softer across the portfolio in the second half of the year is actually far more linked to broader category dynamics than it is where our brands have been unable to withstand pricing. That is the baby category in Indonesia, which we can talk a little bit more about, and as you will have read in the press, some destabilization in Nigeria in February through the elections. That's since normalized. We actually see the exit momentum into FY2024 being favorable across the piece. If I pick up on your question about us entering into adjacent categories and the obviously the overt reference here is to Morning Fresh entering into the auto dish category. Not only do we wanna own the sink where we have a 50% market share of washing up liquid, we're now trying to go beyond the sink and into the dishwasher, and we'll come back and report on that in the future. You were asking a little bit about, well, how do we think about this? Well, the first thing we think about is making sure before we go beyond the core, that we're really sustainably growing the core. The good news is, after two to three years of focus on core categories and Must Win Brands, we're seeing progress. Our core categories of hygiene, baby and beauty grew at 6% in revenue in the first half. They grew at 8% in the third quarter. If you look at the subset of those categories which we have put our significant investment and focus behind, the brands that we call our Must Win Brands, they grew at 2% in the first half, and they grew at 6% in our third quarter. That's even with some of the headwinds we've got on Carex and Cussons Baby and excludes Childs Farm, which we've obviously added incrementally versus the base period. Once we're increasingly confident that in the right places we are sufficient to continue to grow the core and we have resilience in our core business, then we're ready and willing to go beyond the core. We've done quite a lot of work to identify the opportunities of where we should grow beyond the core. That could either be into adjacent categories, just like with Morning Fresh, or it could be into new geographies with a proven brand from our core. We are making sure that we are using a disciplined approach to identify the right consumer insights, consumer appeal from any of the brands, whether we've got a proven model, whether we have a good route to market through whatever the trade structure is in that geography, if it's a new geography. That we are making sure we're managing the, if you like, the risk profile of how many battlefronts we're opening up so that we're not starving investment in the core, and that we're making sure that we're sufficient in the core, and that we're incrementally investing behind growth beyond the core. We look forward to coming back in the future and reporting progress, not only of the moves we've already made, but of other moves we will make. Thank you very much. Thanks, Ines. Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Siobhan Lynch of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you, sir. Just a quick follow-up. Sir, I think you kind of briefly touched on the baby category in Indonesia. I think for a couple of quarters now that the broader category has been weaker. Could you maybe just go into the details on that in terms of, you know, is this a kind of longer term trend that you're expecting? Or I think cost inflation, particularly in things like palm oil, is now coming down. Could you maybe talk about the dynamics of that category there? Thank you. Okay. Let me pick that one up, Siobhan. Thank you for your patience. We have reconnected with the speaker team. Our next question is from Siobhan. Siobhan, please could you repeat your question? Hi, Siobhan. Jonathan here. Did you get any of the answer before we cut out? My apologies. We don't currently have Siobhan connected at the moment. Just as a reminder, if you do like to ask a question, you can press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Perhaps if I just try and pick up. Siobhan had asked a question about Indonesia and what were we seeing. She was asking, you know, was there a dynamic of palm oil playing out? Actually it was much more a reaction in the category where we're seeing the baby category in decline by about 10%. We're holding our market share of that declining category, which is a good source of confidence. The team are managing, as they've always done in recent years, to do a good job of protecting the bottom line delivery. Obviously what we have been seeing for the last four to six months as other consumer goods manufacturers in the market have reported, that not only has there been a slowdown in consumer demand, but you then get a slowdown in distributor demand as there's an inventory correction which works its way through the distributors and the wholesalers who go from the cities to the towns to the villages. We're obviously working hard to make sure we are responding to the cost of living pressures on consumers as government subsidies have come off. The best example of that has been the rapid distribution increase of our 50 mil Cussons Baby sizes, which are therefore selling at a very low and accessible price point for the cash-strapped shopper. Actually, as we look to the long term, we remain totally committed to Cussons Baby in Indonesia. It's the most populous Muslim country in the world. They are having something like 4 million-5 million babies a year. There is a lot of upside for us in the future. We're determined to make sure that Cussons Baby is positioning itself to be a leading brand for all those new babies that are born and their parents. Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Matthew Webb of Investec. Matthew, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks very much. I don't know what level of detail you're gonna want to get into here, 'cause I appreciate this is just a trading statement. I just wonder, when you talk about a significantly improved margin in Europe and the Americas in Q3, I mean, are we talking about, you know, a sort of partial recovery versus, you know, previous levels of, you know, more or less full recovery? Can you give any sort of broad guidance of, you know, what you mean by that? Sorry if that's asking too much detail on a, on a trading update. Matthew, no problem. You gave me an immediate out, but actually I don't need to utilize it because I can give you the same level of detail as we shared back in the interims, which was we would expect the second half for Europe and Americas this year to be in line with the full year last year, which would imply a high teens margin. Now that will imply therefore FY2023 on FY2022, a maybe three or four percentage point margin contraction, partly due to the drag that Carex still represents, partly because we were a little late in pricing in the U.K., but we have now more than made up for that and have successfully put that into the market and seen volumes holding up, but primarily because of the high brand investment behind those two brand relaunches that we talked about. That's to give a little color about what we mean by significant, and also we see some positive momentum into 2024. Fantastic. That is very helpful indeed. Thank you. Thank you. Currently, we have no further questions, so I'll hand back to Jonathan Myers for any further remarks. Thanks, Alex. Why don't I wrap up there? Thank you for joining this morning. Sorry for the slight technical glitch, but I appreciate your patience, and bearing with us. We look forward to updating you again after our May year-end, which we will do. If you want to help improve those numbers, then as you try and find a shower fit for a king, you might want to nip into Tesco to buy your bottle of Cussons Creations, A Right Royal Wash, right? It's coming to a shelf near you. A shameless plug, but we're trying to make sure that we're street fighting all the way to the end of our year. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.