Good morning, everyone, and a really warm welcome to the Restaurant Group 2022 half-year results presentation. I'll take you through an introduction covering the key highlights from HY 2022, an update on current trading, and some key themes that we'd like to get across to you today. Kirk will then walk you through the financials, and I'll then return to give you a more detailed business review. Of course, we'll wrap up as usual with the Q&A. Just for absolute clarity, obviously the timing of delayed results is unusual given changes currently going on within the government, and for clarity, all the materials that Kirk and I present today ignore the impact of any potential government intervention. Slide three provides a simple overview of the key operational and financial highlights from the first half of the year. We've delivered a strong market sales outperformance across our Wagamama, pubs, and concessions divisions, and I'll talk you through this in more detail on the following two slides. Our customer ratings remain very strong with continued improvement in our customer offer across our brand range. We've made good progress in developing our organic growth pipeline in Wagamama and pubs and enhanced our portfolio of well-known brands through the acquisition of Barburrito. Kirk will provide more details on the financials in his section, but we're pleased to announce a robust recovery in EBITDA up to GBP 42 million and PBT of GBP 10 million. We had strong cash generation in H1 with net debt reducing to GBP 158 million. Given the difficult market backdrop, I really do think all our team members should be justifiably proud of these results. Slide four provides a simple overview of our trading performance in the year to date versus the market, as measured by the Coffer Peach. The slide shows our like-for-like performance versus 2019, covering the 33 weeks to August the 21st. Wagamama delivered like-for-like sales growth of 11%, a strong outperformance of 6% versus the Coffer Peach index, continuing our track record of several years of outperformance for this market-leading brand. Our pubs division delivered another strong performance with like-for-like sales growth of 9%, which is an impressive 11% ahead of Coffer Peach comparatives. This follows last year's similar double-digit outperformance, illustrating the real strength of the Brunning & Price proposition. Our leisure division delivered like-for-like sales growth of 2%, 3% behind the market. Given the inevitable pressure on the budgets of the average UK family, I would expect our leisure division to continue to trade broadly in line or slightly behind the market. Our airport concessions business traded approximately 9% ahead of passenger volumes with like-for-like sales decline of 17%. We've seen a really pleasing significant recovery in concession sales run rates through the course of the year. I'll provide more context behind the divisional performance later in the presentation, but for now, just to say I'm particularly pleased with the performance of our portfolio of brands in a genuinely challenging marketplace. Slide five provides an update on our most recent trading since our AGM trading update back in May. Starting with the first column on the left, which simply repeats the like-for-like sales figures by division that we reported on the back of our AGM statement, which covered the initial 19 weeks of the financial year. The middle column of the slide restates those like-for-like sales figures to exclude the benefit from the lower rates of VAT in the first quarter of the year. As you know, we've always tried to show you our trading data both with and without VAT benefit. This column is most useful when comparing performance against our recent trading. The final column on the right-hand side shows our most recent trading, covering the 14 weeks to the August 21st. Our current trading illustrates further good momentum across the portfolio, even despite the fact that recent trading has been impacted by three very specific factors. Both Wagamama and Leisure's delivery sales have moderated slightly in line with the wider market. In Wagamama and Leisure, our sales were also adversely impacted by the heatwaves in July and August. In contrast, our pubs business actually benefited from the heatwaves. Finally, while concession sales continue to recover really well, the recovery profile would have been even stronger if passenger volumes had not been impacted by airlines reducing planned summer flight schedules. In summary, our like-for-like sales have continued to outperform the market despite a number of exceptional events over the summer months. Slide six provides an overview of the well-documented challenges facing the whole sector, and far more importantly, our decisive management actions to tackle those challenges. Firstly, to help the consumer, we'll remain firmly focused on delivering value for money to customers across all our brands, while continuing to develop our menus through ongoing product innovation. Secondly, we've acted decisively to face into the inflationary cost pressures facing the whole sector. We'll cover our mitigating actions in far more detail later, but they include fully hedging 100% of our utilities volume for FY 2022, FY 2023, and FY 2024. Finally, we've also acted decisively in the face of climbing interest rates. Through the purchase of GBP 125 million of interest rate caps and the early repayment of GBP 89 million of our term loan facilities, we've managed to mitigate much of the potential impact of further likely rises in base rates. Of course, we're not immune from all the pressures facing the sector. However, I am confident that by acting decisively to mitigate these risks, we are well equipped to navigate through the challenges of the next two years. While we remain firmly challenged on mitigating these short-term risks, it's of course absolutely imperative that we also keep building our franchise for the long term. Slide seven provides an overview of the group's key four strategic priorities, as outlined at our full year results in March. I'll come back later in the presentation to give further details on our progress against these strategic aims. Now over to Kirk to talk you through the financials. Thank you, Andy, and good morning all. Before I talk you through the results, a few words of context. Clearly, the 2022 interim results benefited from a period where trading across the hospitality sector, with the exception of our concessions business, was relatively unrestricted compared to 2021, with government support ending in April, with VAT reverting to 20%. For the avoidance of doubt, as Andy has already said this morning, our update this morning does not include the effect of any potential government intervention. As Andy has highlighted, our group has delivered robust current trading with Wagamama, pubs and concessions all outperforming their respective benchmarks. In the next few slides, I will seek to pull out the key elements of our financial performance, starting with the group income summary. Slide nine shows both IFRS 16, i.e., on an IAS 17 accounting standard, and IFRS 16 data. Our commentary will be focused on pre-IFRS 16 data as this drives our business decisions internally. Group total revenue in the period was up 95% to GBP 423 million. Given the strong like-for-like sales outperformance across the businesses, good focus on cost control and the Q1 benefit of reduced VAT, we are pleased to have generated adjusted EBITDA of GBP 42 million compared to GBP 11 million a year ago. We made a profit before tax and exceptional items of GBP 10 million or GBP 14 million under IFRS 16. Overall, we are pleased with the business's continued like-for-like sales outperformance versus the market and delivering adjusted EBITDA of GBP 42 million in the first half of the year. Slide 10 shows the key inflationary threat themes for FY 2022, which remain broadly in line with our previous guidance provided back in May. Firstly, labor, which we expect to be at 6%+ due to low unemployment, coupled with the increases in National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage that took effect back in April. Secondly, on food and drink supplies, our current outlook for the current year remains at between 9%-10%. We continue to work with our long-term supply partners to ensure good product availability and to reduce the impact of inflation due to the scale of our business. Finally, on utilities, as Andy has already mentioned, we've hedged 100% of our electricity and gas volume for this year at an incremental cost of between GBP 8 million-GBP 9 million when compared to the 2021 cost base. This is GBP 2 million higher than we guided back in May, and this increase is due to landlord build sites at shopping centers and concession units, as well as the new sites we've opened in the year. Slide 11. It is too early to provide a precise cost outlook for 2023. However, we have sought to provide an early indication of the potential inflationary outlook. Firstly, on labor costs, we see that this will increase again by at least 6% due to the challenges of a tight labor market and the current cost of living crisis. Secondly, on food and drink input costs, we believe the increase there will be at 10%+ due to the ongoing challenges in the commodity and utility markets. We will continue to work with our long-term supply partners while adapting our menus and putting through selective price increases to mitigate inflation. Finally, given the extreme uncertainty in the utilities markets, we have now hedged 100% of our volume for both 2023 and 2024 to gain certainty over that element of our cost base. Moving to slide 12. Slide 12 summarizes the decisive actions we have taken to proactively hedge our utility volumes for 2023 and 2024 and what the costs could have been if we had not done so. As a reminder, in November 2021, we hedged 50% of our volume and a further 20% back in March 2022. Over the summer, we fixed out 100% of our utilities. In addition to that, we have also hedged 80% of our utility volume for quarter one to quarter three of 2025. In 2023, costs increased by around GBP 12 million versus 2022, and in 2024 we will see costs fall by around GBP 7 million when compared to 2023. If TRG had not hedged its entire volume and instead had sought to purchase in the spot market today, 2023 costs would have been a further GBP 25 million-GBP 40 million higher than our current fixed contracts, and 2024 costs would have been a further GBP 15 million-GBP 30 million higher than our fixed contracts. For clarity, all of the commentary to our volumes relate to the sites that we purchase direct and excludes landlord build and new site openings. Our action means that we now have certainty over our costs for both 2023 and 2024, and in turn assists our ability to plan accordingly. Slide 13 shows our cash flow bridge and the key movements in the year. The group's net debt on an IAS 17 basis reduced to GBP 158 million. In the period, we spent GBP 22 million on CapEx, with the focus being on maintenance and refurbishment spend and selective site openings within our Wagamama and pub businesses. We also saw a recovery in our working capital position due to there being no restrictions on trading and with VAT reverting back to 20%. The usual detailed cash flow statement is in the appendices for your information. Finally from me, some selected guidance on cash flow for 2023. On CapEx, we have refined our investment plans to a spend between GBP 45 million-GBP 50 million. We will focus on maintenance expenditure across our businesses and selective refurbishment and new opening expenditure, predominantly within our Wagamama and pubs businesses. Cash interest costs will reduce by around GBP 3 million next year, and given the successful exit of some closed sites, I expect that there will be a lower cost on onerous leases as well. Our cash headroom of over GBP 180 million at the balance sheet date gives significant liquidity and flexibility as we navigate these near-term challenges. I will now hand back to Andy, who will update you on the business. Thanks very much, Kirk. I'll start with some of the key trends we're seeing in the marketplace before moving on to updates from each of the divisions. Slide 16 covers three main trends and themes which are evolving in the market currently. Starting with the chart on the left-hand side. This chart shows like-for-like sales versus 2019 for both the casual dining sector, shown by the green line, and the pub restaurant sector, shown by the black line. The casual dining market is showing very marginal nominal sales growth versus 2019. Of course, when you take into account three years of menu price inflation and growth in the delivery markets, it's clear that the dine-in market as a whole is still showing double-digit volume decline. Moving to the chart in the middle, which shows the percentage of delivery sales as a share of the total casual dining market. There's been approximately a 5% shift in mix since the beginning of the year, away from delivery and back into dine-in. I said back in March that I thought the post-COVID growth in delivery volumes had peaked, and this has proven to be the case, although it's important to point out that volumes are still significantly higher than back in 2019. Finally, the chart on the right-hand side shows the capacity reduction among competitors in the catchments where we currently trade. As you can see from the chart, capacity is down by approximately 20% in both independents and casual dining chains since the onset of COVID in March 2020. I take no pleasure, and indeed it's very sad, to say that I would expect to see further capacity reduction over the next 12 months. Clearly, the market will continue to undergo fundamental change over the next two years, but I'm really confident that TRG can continue to outperform regardless of this precise backdrop. Now moving on to updates from each of our divisions, beginning with Wagamama on slide 17. The top left table shows that Wagamama has delivered a strong outperformance with like-for-like sales growth of 11%, representing an outperformance versus the market of 6% throughout the 30-week period. The top right chart shows how, in line with the wider market, delivery and takeout share of sales have moderated in 2022 versus 2021. Delivery does still remain in significant growth versus 2019. Our customer ratings have strengthened yet further during the year, as shown by the bottom left-hand side chart. With the June 2020 external NPS scores, as measured by BrandVue, positioning Wagamama is currently the number one brand amongst the top casual dining chains in the U.K., albeit closely matched with our friendly rivals over at Nando's. This continued strong performance has been driven by an obsessional focus on a whole range of activities, including Wagamama's focus on menu innovation in anticipation of future food trends, our unique colleague culture and ethos, and a focus on purpose-led marketing designed to appeal to the Millennial and Gen Z generations. In summary, Wagamama's performance remains very encouraging with consistently strong outperformance versus the market. Turning to slide 18 and the performance of our pubs business. Our Brunning & Price business has a consistent track record of outperforming the market. As shown on the top left-hand side of the slide, the like-for-like sales figures of 9% is a full 11% ahead of the Peach Tracker group for pub restaurants, illustrating the real strength of the Brunning & Price proposition. The right-hand chart shows that customer sentiment remains really strong with social media scores, a consolidation of Google, Facebook, and Tripadvisor averaging 4.5 out of five, maintaining our consistently strong rating over the past five years. This consistent outperformance is underpinned by a number of factors, including good customer demographics with limited competition nearby, expansive buildings and grounds providing multiple ancillary trading opportunities, continuous evolution of food and drink menus with local flexibility, and last but by no means least, our pubs business benefits from secure asset backing with a freehold estate valued at approximately GBP 160 million. All in all, the consistently strong performance of our pubs business continues to be very pleasing and illustrates the long-term potential of the Brunning & Price brand. Moving on to slide 19 and the Leisure division's trading performance. The business has achieved like-for-like sales growth of +2%, just behind the market as you can see on the top left table. As with Wagamama, we have also seen a slight moderation in delivery sales in 2022 when compared to 2021. Although overall penetration of delivery channels is still in significant growth versus 2019, currently at 14%-15% penetration versus 4% in the corresponding period of 2019. Encouragingly, we continue to see an improving trend of customer ratings as shown on the bottom left of the slide. Key upcoming activity for the leisure business includes our winter menu launch, where we will reduce our menu by a further 15%-20% to support continuous improvement in dish execution. Our leisure division will of course be impacted by increasing cost of living pressures being experienced by the average British family. I'm really confident the combination of our reduced restaurant footprint and a strong focus on operational excellence will help us withstand much of these pressures. Turning now to our concessions business. The chart shows the like-for-like performance of our concessions business versus airport passenger volumes since October 2021. Omicron, of course, caused a significant decline in passenger volumes in late 2021 and early 2022. Since the spring, sales have benefited from a stronger than anticipated recovery in passenger volumes, as well as higher average spend per customer. Our teams have performed heroically against a tough recruitment backdrop to reopen our sites and to get ready for the summer period. While we really are pleased with progress, it's only fair to point out that our concession sales recovery would actually have been even stronger over the summer were it not for certain airlines announcing reduced peak summer flight schedules. I'm therefore really hopeful that our concessions sales recovery will be even stronger in 2023, assuming that those all those flight issues become resolved. All in all, our concessions team are really well positioned to maintain momentum as passenger volumes continue to improve through 2023 and 2024. Moving now to our planned CapEx program on slide 21. Given the near-term market dynamics outlined earlier, we're adapting our capital investment plans for 2023. The table lays out the number of new site openings in 2023 versus 2022, along with the average CapEx investment per site. We expect to again open between six and eight Wagamama restaurants in 2023, as long as we continue to secure strong commercial terms. In contrast, we've ceased the rollout of our Wagamama delivery kitchens in light of the delivery market softening and more importantly, our ability to serve the vast majority of attractive delivery catchments from existing restaurants. Even though our pubs business continues to trade very strongly, we're marginally capping our openings for 2023 in light of the current high valuations for quality U.K. pub assets. We can, and of course will, return to more active opening program when asset prices eventually moderate. Finally, we are planning to roll out three to four new Barburrito, given the continued strong current trading performance since acquisition and the relatively low per unit capital requirements. Put simply, we're flexing our CapEx plans in the short term to recognize shifts in market conditions. Turning to the longer term, while there are many well-publicized near-term sector challenges to navigate, we remain firmly focused on longer term trends and opportunities for sustainable growth that we're confident we can deliver. The table on this slide illustrates the opportunity to grow our business and deliver good shareholder returns over the next five years. We expect to end the year with 154 Wagamama U.K. restaurants, and we have the ambition to grow this by another approximately 35 restaurants over the next five years. The strong average returns of 40% and average EBITDA of GBP 500,000 per new restaurant explains why the majority of our development CapEx will continue to be allocated to Wagamama. As already mentioned, in the short term, we will be more disciplined with the rollout of our pubs division until we see a meaningful change in the freehold real estate market. However, we still see really good potential to add at least 10 new quality sites by 2027. The purchase of Barburrito presents the group with another growth opportunity, given the growth potential of the QSR market and the low per unit CapEx requirements. We would expect to be trading around 30 Barburrito sites by 2027. With regards to our US JV, we expect four new Wagamama openings in 2022 in Atlanta, Tampa, Dallas and Arlington. Clearly, Kirk and I need to see how these four new sites perform, but assuming we see strong returns generated from the new openings, then I have real confidence that the 2027 target of approximately 30 Wagamama sites in the U.S. is achievable. Finally, and encouragingly, we've seen pleasing momentum in our international franchise business. We expect to open eight new franchise sites this year, predominantly in Italy and the Middle East. Of course, we have no CapEx requirements for these franchise sites, and therefore I would expect to see a consistent pipeline of new franchised openings over the next five years in Europe. Turning now to our ESG agenda. Slide 23 summarizes some key updates in this space. Having made excellent progress in the last two years in reducing our scope one and scope two emissions, we've now turned our attention firmly to scope three. With the help of a specialist sustainability company, ENGIE Impact, we've identified a scope three roadmap and decarbonization levers very specific to our business. We've developed a new packaging solution for Wagamama, which will eliminate up to 330 tons of virgin plastic per year. We are rolling this out quickly across the Wagamama business, and at present, just over 50% of the restaurant estate have received the new packaging. On the social side, our role to support our colleagues and communities and to create a representative, diverse and inclusive culture has never been more critical. In a challenging recruiting environment for the sector, we're on track to increase the number of apprentices this year to around 450, an increase of 200 versus 2021. Apprenticeships make huge sense for TRG in the current climate, both from an ethical perspective and from a financial perspective. To wrap up and turning to slide 24. Despite the well-documented pressures facing the sector, TRG is confident in our ability to continue to strongly outperform and deliver long-term sustainable growth. We have a strong portfolio of brands which are consistently outperforming the market. We've taken decisive action to mitigate the sector-wide cost pressures, including hedging 100% of our utility costs and reducing our interest rate exposure. Last, but by no means least, we benefit from a strong balance sheet with substantial liquidity. Thank you very much for listening, and now let's open it up for Q&A. It would be really helpful for those people who are dialing in if when we take questions from within the room, if you say who you are and then give the question, and obviously the call operator will handle the questions coming in online. Thank you very much. Should we start with questions in the room? Morning, it's Leo from Citi. Hi, Leo. Could I ask, firstly on the drivers of the outperformance, through the year and in the most recent period, can you talk about what's volume and what's price? Are there any regional factors at work, i.e., are you just in the best locations, or is it purely by catchment, your outperformance is visible too? Then in terms of your concessions business in the airports, for July and August, can you walk us through how the well-publicized disruption has impacted passenger numbers down, dwell times up, and how that's impacting the spend per passenger, please? Yeah. three, three, two very good questions. On the outperformance, volume versus price, it obviously varies a little bit by brand, but the one thing I think we've been very disciplined on is we have not passed on all of the cost pressures to customers. While clearly there have been price increases as you would expect in this environment, when you look at the scale of utility cost increases and food input cost increases, we have. I would be extremely surprised. You can never prove it 100%, but I would be 99% certain that the outperformance has been more volume driven than price driven versus the competition. 'Cause obviously we gauge very carefully where competitors have moved their prices and, I think on average, we have moved in line or slightly less than the market as a whole. I do believe it has been strongly volume driven. On regional factors, it's really interesting, in that you have to differentiate here between looking versus 2019 and versus 2021. Versus 2019, London is still weaker than the rest of the country. That is the case in all of our businesses, and you see it most clearly in Wagamama where we have a pretty large scale Central London estate and provincial sales remain very strong in comparison to 2019. However, when you look versus last year, versus 2021, the picture is rather different because London has shown some proper recovery versus last year. I think that's really important to bear that context in mind 'cause next year, touching every bit of wood, we will all be talking about normal year-on-year like-for-likes. I think what you will then see is actually less regional disparity, whereas at the moment when you're looking versus 2019, there's clearly still a Central London drag versus the rest of the country. On concessions, I'm gonna hand to Kirk, but I'm just gonna make one generic point which I think our chart did show really clearly actually, and that's what happened is passenger volumes recovered very strongly throughout January to May with going from sort of over -50% to running in the mid-teens negative, sort of mid- to high-teens negative, and then it's flatlined. It's not that the passenger volumes have got worse through the summer period, in all the airports in which we operate, it's just the further growth in summer flight schedules didn't actually materialize. Basically airlines, on the back of it, capped those flight numbers. We saw a very consistent trend through the summer. Yeah. It's hard to be completely precise, but if you see that 9% differential between passenger volumes and spend, effectively probably half of that is around pricing compared to where we would have been in 2019, and the other half is around that extra dwell time as we all rushed to the airport to spend three hours there, not two, then we spent a little bit more in bars and restaurants. Yeah, I think that's the key thing. Had the disruption not have had, that's the $64,000 question, we may have seen another 5% or 10% of volume growth based on the trajectory we saw coming in through May and June, but that's a real unknown. Thank you. Hi, Tim. Yes, Tim. Thank you. Tim Barrett from Numis. I had one short-term thing and then one longer-term. To start on that, can you talk a bit about estate churn? I saw there was an asset write-down in there. Is that a prelude to some closures? And then also as to, I think you mentioned a lower cash impact of onerous leases. Could you run us through that? And the second topic was just momentum really in sales 'cause slide five is really useful, taking us up to mid-August, but just wondered if you had any thoughts around, you know, almost weekly trends, at the moment. Thank you. I'll let Kirk take the first two, and then I'll come in. Yeah. By all means. Yeah. By all means. Yeah. I mean, naturally as part of our business forecasting, we've looked at what could the next two years look like absent of any government support. Clearly given we've been specific on some utility cost headwinds, if you flow that through, and maybe with the assumption that in a cost of living crisis, the top line might soften from where we are today, what that does mean is when you look on a site by site basis, the value in use of some of our sites aren't what they would have been back in December last year when we did that same assessment. Effectively, what you have seen is an impairment of around GBP 40 million in the estate. 60% of that is specifically related to the leisure division and really plays to what Andy said earlier on around the fact that that customer may feel a bit more of a pinch going forward, again, depending on what the government may say or not to support both U.K. households and U.K. business. It's a prudent view on what might happen over the next two years with a crystal ball. In terms of the onerous lease cash cost, that's far more specific. We provided for onerous leases specifically. The property team have done a good job over the course of the last six months to exit certain sites, and therefore, we do expect the cash cost next year to be in the region of GBP 6 million-GBP 7 million rather than the GBP 9 million-GBP 10 million we see this year. Around about a GBP 3 million cash saving next year. Regarding momentum, Tim, obviously it's a $1 million question that the whole industry would like to know exactly how the consumer's likely to feel over the next six to 12 months. What I would say, using the chart that you referred to, on page six, which shows the trading since the AGM and pre-AGM, I would say around half of the softening that people might say is a minor softening in Wagamama and Leisure was down to the heat wave. We've seen quite quickly, as soon as that exceptional weather stopped, that's starting to come back again. I don't think you can read from what's happened in the industry. The second thing I'd like to say is obviously we've carried on outperforming through this period, so, you know, this is an industry-wide trend that has happened on the back of the heat wave. Our pubs business, in contrast, actually benefited from the heat wave. I think when you look at the next six to 12 months, it, a huge amount will depend on what consumer discretionary spend, just how far that squeeze happens. Obviously, what's done on energy prices could make a big difference to that, 'cause that is the single biggest item that could affect the U.K. consumer. I think you will see probably a continued marginal switch, but I think the main switch has happened away from delivery back to dine-in. I don't expect there to be a further significant switch away from delivery, but I think if anything, if you were to look for a marginal way forward for mix change in the next six to 12 months, I think you may see slightly further move back towards dine-in. Thank you. Yeah, front row. Morning, Ali. Hi, Ali. Morning. Ali Naqvi from HSBC. Just looking at your CapEx plans for next year and obviously the reduced policy, does that also mean that you'll be less inclined to look at potential bolt-ons or opportunities that come into the market? Then also with the context of higher energy costs, how does that make you think about the site returns on a site-by-site basis, and could you further reduce your new site openings? Finally, on energy again, I think you said shopping centers and concessions don't have hedging, so what is your sort of exposure there in terms of cost? Thank you. I'll pass the last to Kirk. I'll just take the bit on the plans for next year and then pass the piece on hedging to Kirk. On our plans for next year, you shouldn't see it as a radical change. What I think you see from our plans is really quite clear that we're continuing with our six to eight new openings in Wagamama. To be clear, in the expected returns table that we give you, we have factored in the new utility costs. Those two charts, which I hope you find helpful, that give long-term returns, expected returns. We have factored in not only the new utility costs, which we obviously know now 'cause we're fully hedged, so there is no uncertainty on that. We've also factored in the labor cost inflation and the food input inflation that Kirk talked about as our current best estimates for 2023. I actually take a slightly reverse view of this being seen as an. I actually see it as a very resilient opening program to still be opening six to eight where, when our returns calculation is fully swallowing that change in cost climate. That does show, frankly, the fantastic sales densities that we are generally getting from new Wagamama openings. Those Wagamama openings will tend to be less, almost entirely concentrated outside of London. We may have one opening in London next year, which is a very specific site. But in general, they will be provincial. If you look at what we've done, some of the most pleasing openings we've done this year, they've been in maybe the Stoke, the Southend, places that maybe 10 years ago you wouldn't have considered to be classic metropolitan Wagamama catchments, and we've traded very, very well and having opened there. The one area where we said we are pulling back a little bit is pubs, and that is specifically because the business is trading so well. We could not ask for more in terms of our sales performance, but you try trying to buy good value pub freeholds at the moment. It is very, very difficult, and we are just disciplined. We will get back in the market when prices. We think two new openings for pubs next year, both of them are really quality new openings, we've already secured them, will still work. On bolt-on acquisitions, I mean, I'll never rule it out. It is not our core focus. Our core focus is growing Wagamama, growing pubs, and our US JV in Wagamama, and benefiting from the concessions recovery. All of those we need to make sure we absolutely do. If a small brand like Barburrito comes up where we know we can provide the capital to grow it very profitably, then I wouldn't rule it out, but it's not our core focus. Yeah. In terms of landlord billed sites, it's around 60 sites in the estate which are either in shopping centers or concessions. It's around 15% of the volume on utilities, so we have certainty on the 340 or so sites that we procure for. Now, what I don't know is what the hedging policy is of a variety of airport operators or landlords. I think we've got reasonably strong coverage, but obviously there is an element of risk on that 15% of our utility bills. It will inevitably vary by site, as Kirk says. I know some of the airports have hedged, some probably haven't. The key point is we have total certainty on all of our own managed estate and, you know, we're planning for the landlord build. Hi, Jason Molins from Goodbody. Please. In terms of the food inflation that you've articulated, can you maybe just drill into some of the food costs? I know you've called out some proteins in the past where you've had some hedging exposure, so maybe just a bit of an update there. Just on the energy and the utility hedging that you've put in place, I appreciate it's speculation what the government might do, but if there's business support, then how does that impact perhaps some of the hedges that you've put in? Yeah. Thanks. Well, I'll cover off both. In terms of food inflation, I'd love to be able to say that it was covering three or four categories specifically, and when we did our budget in December of last year and we guided the market at 5%, it was specific categories like red meat, chicken, Asian grocery. What you've seen through the course of this year is actually the inflationary pressures is broad based. Utilities is hitting throughout the supply chain, as is fertilizer, as is wheat, et cetera. So it really is a basket of goods this year is rising by 9%-10% on average, and again, the view today is that will be 10%+ looking into next year. Clearly, whatever government action can be taken may also impact the future view on inflation as well, and we will update our guidance as and when. In terms of what the government may do in terms of support, I think there's three things that have been rumored to varying degrees. Clearly, VAT is fairly straightforward to calculate, and we could provide guidance on that relatively easily, or in the instance of business rates, which we have done previously. The one which is unknown in terms of utility is what could a cap look like. My working assumption today, but it may be horribly wrong, is that if you take U.K. households being fixed at GBP 2,500, which seems to be the measure out there, versus GBP 1,000 a year ago, it's effectively a 150% increase. If you look at our utility bills, utilities used to trade at GBP 50 a MWh. A comparable, and I don't want to give the number, but you can do the math, is GBP 125. We have hedged above that level over the course of the rest of this year and the next two years. I'm assuming the government would act fairly for businesses that are either hedged or not hedged, and you'd have a rebate scheme like you have a CJRS scheme on employment. All of this is theory and supposition, but I would imagine we should still benefit with our hedges in place and not be penalized. I think we need to wait to see what the government says. What we will naturally do is, once we're clear on what the government intervention is, provide our best estimate to you on what we think that means for both this year and next year. We may know a bit more at midday according to you. We may even know before the meeting's over. Greg. Good morning, Greg from Shore Capital. Just a couple of questions. One, can you maybe talk about how the U.S. is performing given the potential for 30 sites there out of 27 sites? Secondly, sort of interesting comments around the value of freehold pubs. Given you've got GBP 160 million of assets on the balance sheet, have you explored the potential to maybe let a few go? Let me take those. The U.S. I mentioned the four new sites we're opening this year, and it is really early days 'cause only one has currently been opened. The other three will be opened by the end of the calendar year. At the moment, Greg, the only sort of run rate we've got is the three legacy sites in New York and the three legacy sites in Boston. What we've seen is a good recovery in Boston, a slower recovery in New York, but that is the case. Everyone you speak to in the U.S. from any sort of leisure or retail is saying the same. I am really hopeful, and I'm a natural skeptic on international expansion until you prove formulas. I'm really hopeful that in going to these catchments, you know, places like Atlanta, places like Dallas with huge populations but much lower both operating cost structures and property cost structures in the U.S. and that we should see some really good uptake of the Wagamama proposition and therefore decent returns. Obviously the proof of the eating will be in the pudding. I think what you can assume is the new openings will continue to be concentrated in what I call big but provincial metropolitan catchment. You know, the type of places that we've talked about today, the Atlantas, the Tampas, places like that. On the value of freehold pubs, look, it is a massive plus for us in every way to have a scale freehold estate. It obviously is hugely helpful from a credit point of view. It's obviously hugely helpful in terms of 'cause over half our pubs are freehold. The EBITDA conversion is also better in the freehold pubs. Intrinsically, I would not want to hand over shareholder value by getting rid of assets at a for a short-term benefit, and we definitely want to be growing and not shrinking the Brunning & Price business. You could do some financial engineering around freeholds, and it is clear that the market is very high for it at the moment. In general, I would favor us concentrating on trading and on I hope you've seen with both our utilities strategy and our interest rate cap that we have acted decisively on aspects that basically are within our control in trying to manage our balance sheet, and I think in general, we would like to hold the assets of our strong freeholds. Thank you very much. Anna Barnfather from Liberum. Two questions, please. Firstly, you've given the expansion outlook for the growth areas. Could you maybe give us an update on the leisure and when leases run off or how you'd look to exit some of those leases? Then another sort of higher level sort of question overview. With that contraction in supply in the industry and volumes of still trading businesses also down, is there a real change in customer activity and behavior? 'Cause if you think the market's contracted by 20% and it's still down with those that are trading, it's disappeared demand. So what do you think is happening there? Thank you. Let me take the second question, and I'll touch briefly on the leisure leases, and then Kirk can take the detail on it. Just in brief on the leisure leases, as you know, we did do a very radical restructuring. I mean, just remembering the fact that we closed over 60% of the leisure estate on the back of the CVA. Actually, the number of sites that as we look at the future, we think would be liable for closure is pretty low. I mean, Kirk talked about the impairment earlier and the way we've calculated, we've been very conservative in the way we look at it. Whilst of course there are some sites that we could come under pressure, it is not a major lie-awake-at-night issue like it clearly was for the business for prior to the restructuring. In terms of the contraction, it's a really good question, Anna, and I wish I had an answer because if you stand back from all the detail, what's happened so far is since COVID struck, about 20% of independents and casual dining chains have shut. Dine-in volume has also fallen by probably mid-teens. So far I don't think there has been a complete mismatch between supply and volume demand. We fortunately have massively outperformed that demand trend. The key question for the next two years is might supply actually fall quicker than demand? It might. You know, it gives me no pleasure to say that, but 'cause obviously the cost structures that people are facing now are very, very different to 2.5 Years ago. Yeah. A little bit more on the leisure estate. As Andy says, we've got huge flexibility today. Post the restructure, we have 125 sites. They are in the strongest locations across the U.K., so they are where you'd want to trade. The flexibility on average, the lease length is three years on average, and obviously lies, and damn statistics, so there's a range within that three-year average. We have a lot of flexibility. What I would expect over the next three to five years is some BAU estate churn, but this is BAU, and that's based on what we can see today. Yeah, good business, good cash generation, but clearly the near term for that customer base could be a bit more challenged. It's worth reminding ourselves that three-year figure was 6.7 years going back three years. That is a fundamental shift in terms of the length of the, Yeah. Lease length. Length of the leases. Thanks. Yeah, yeah Sure. There's no sort of step up, step back up in the rents? The two-year for the CVA finished at the end of June, and at the end of that stage there was the landlord effectively had three choices in discussion with us. One was to either stay on the CVA terms. Number two, move to 90% of what the turnover rent was paid during that period, or you can go back to a market rent review. That has all played out. What we see today is that we still benefit from materially better lease terms than we had pre-COVID. Any further questions? Yes, on the right. Morning, Nigel. Morning, Kirk. Nigel Parson from finnCap. Being slightly croaky today. Talking about rents and rent outlook is conspicuous by its absence today. I just wondered if you could also talk around other property costs. I wondered if you were trading above your threshold rents in concessions and therefore you are. Yeah. You might see a recovery, but you've got a disproportionate profit opportunity in there. Yeah. Finally, could you talk about the market in terms of leasehold opportunity? I suspect the opportunities are as good as you've ever seen them. Yeah, let's take those in turn. Concessions first. Through the pandemic, we took the opportunity to put greater flexibility in the vast majority of our concessions with the airports at which we trade, which effectively means rather than having an MGR rent, which was fixed at a certain level, it moved to be a pence per passenger minimum guaranteed rent. If passengers are 20% lower than they were pre-pandemic, effectively, the MGR is 20% lower. That built in nice flexibility there. For the vast majority of the sites that we've been trading, and we've now got all 43 sites open, we are trading ahead of what that equivalent MGR pence per passenger would be. There is no doubt within a handful of sites, as the recovery takes hold, that there is a soft rental benefit there within it. In terms of leasehold opportunities, I think in part this was covered off well in Andy's slide on Wagamama. We are seeing stronger rental terms for the tenant on the new leases we are signing going forward. Rent as a percent to sales on new leases are lower than we would have historically signed off in. Given the capacity available in the marketplace, we see that continuing through in the next couple of years. More broadly on other property costs, we eagerly await what will happen with business rates as that change kicks in in April next year. The valuations have already been redone, but we don't know yet what the outcome is. Early indications are that, the rates valuations will have fallen by around 20% compared to the previous listing. We don't know what the government may do with taper relief on the other side of the coin and/or anything they may plan to do in terms of current intervention for business. Overall, relatively benign when you compare it to the likes of utility or input cost inflation. The other encouraging thing, as Kirk said, on the Wagamama sites, is that not only are we cautiously pleased with the rental percentages we're paying, but the terms are also very sensible in terms of flexibility, in terms of break clauses. It does feel like, particularly given the fact that our new opening program is now almost entirely concentrated outside of London, that the three to four-year outlook there is really encouraging. In contrast, what's really odd in the pub market is quality leasehold pubs are also still very inflated, you know, for really good leasehold buildings. You know, sites that we would love and we know we would trade them really well. We know, you know, the Brunning & Price proposition, we're going there and trade it really well. We've just got to be disciplined in terms of you know, in terms of making sure we only take things that we can... Yeah. Really get good terms on. The final thing on leases would be that actually landlord incentives by way of capital contribution to enter schemes are the strongest I've seen, which is no bad thing as they look to let their space. Any final questions? Is there anything we've not covered? Is it? Yes. Looking at the back, is there a question? Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question over the phone line, you can do so now by pressing star one on your telephones. That's star one if you'd like to ask a question. We just- We will now take a question from Owen Shirley from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. It's Owen Shirley from Berenberg. Just one from me, please. The info you gave on energy was really helpful, Kirk. I just wondered whether, based on the sort of assumptions you outlined, of what the government could be about to do, how would that change your projections on energy costs for the next couple of years? Thanks. Yeah. Well, we're quite clear we've now fixed out our utilities cost for 85% of our volume, so the cost is the cost. What we'll need to see is what the government intervention may or may not be, and Umar or I will share with all of the analysts and the market what that benefit is. It's a wait and see. On the basis it was the same as your kind of math and you did indeed get the rebate, how, what's the delta between where you've assumed that rebate could be versus what you're currently paying? I'm sorry. I have no foresight on what Liz Truss may say today. It's a complete unknown. What we've provided today is the known knowns. I think you should update for all of that in your models. As soon as the unknown becomes a known, we will clearly communicate with you what that will mean. Unless Owen, you know something we don't, so please tell us if that's the case. If you also know the 2:30. No, no. It's all right. The 2:30 at Cheltenham on Saturday, that would be helpful. Any final questions? Uh, I- Sorry, Owen. Did you have another one? Thank you. No, no more from me, thanks. Great. Thanks. We will now take our final question from Mark Irvine-Fortescue from Stifel. Please go ahead. Oh, thanks. Morning, everyone. Just a couple of quick ones if that's all right. One on delivery, one on concessions. Delivery, you talked a bit about, you know, the normalization of delivery dine-in mix for quite some time. So just wondering about your decision to stop adding delivery kitchens now. Is that, you know, the mix has normalized quicker than you expected, or is it partly to do with the higher CapEx costs of new kitchens that you flagged? Just on concessions, you said in May, I think, that you expected to do over GBP 100 million sales this year. Is that still realistic given the airport slots capped and 40 sites? Is that really sufficient scale do you think to get the best returns from the concessions portfolio? Would you consider divesting that business at the right price? Thank you. Let me take the delivery kitchen and I'll make a couple of background comments on concessions and pass to Kirk. On delivery kitchens, it's the real decision to stop the rollout of delivery kitchens and to concentrate on doing delivery from actual restaurants. I think it's amazingly positive because we're at a position now that with the size of the Wagamama estate and the pleasing growth in catchments which Deliveroo have put into place over the last four years, that we can now serve a very significant percentage of the delivery requirements for Wagamama in the U.K. from our restaurants as opposed to needing specific delivery kitchens to satisfy that demand. Secondly, let's be honest, if you wanted one single reason that Wagamama has continued to outperform so strongly, it's because I know I'm biased, but we recruit the best chefs and we keep the best chefs. It is so much easier to recruit and keep the best chefs in a restaurant where they're part of a team, they enjoy working there, and they are cooking food that is going to both dine-in customers and delivery. I do not believe the quality casual dining operations in the long term are best run from separate delivery kitchen locations where those chefs are not part of a team, because recruiting, retaining those show chefs is the number one importance. On concessions, look, I'm never gonna get drawn into saying whether we would divest any part of our business, and you're never equally gonna hear me as a FTSE CEO saying I won't divest a part of our business. What I would say is it is of sufficient scale, and if you want proof it's of sufficient scale, when TRG bought Wagamama, what you saw very quickly is a very strong brand like Wagamama had done very decent deals with airports to get concessions. What matters in a concessions business is, one, have you got good brands to offer your airport partners? And secondly, do you have a good team that have got really good established relationships with those airports and can work closely with them to get the best term? Whether you have 40 sites or 60 sites is not the end of the world. What you need is enough sites in each of the airports in which you operate, and most importantly, the brands need to be strong enough that you get really strong sales densities. Because as the question earlier quite rightly said, the gearing in getting sales above your minimum guarantees is very important. I think it is a really good business, and it's a business that should continue to recover as soon as some of these constructions on flights can be removed. Yeah. A couple of things quickly to add on the numbers. Just as a reminder, even though we did restructure that estate from 72 sites down to 40 sites, we retained over 80% of the sales and the EBITDA, which was delivered in 2019. That is a very high quality estate across U.K. concessions. I'm still very confident in our previous guidance of at least GBP 100 million worth of sales for this year. We've just missed out on what could have been some good upside given the challenges in UK airports through July and August. Thank you very, very much indeed. Thank you. That's been. It's so good to have had so many people in the room and to be doing this under more normal circumstances again. Thanks very much. Kirk and myself will be around afterwards if any of you got any urgent follow-up questions. Thanks very much indeed.