Good morning. Thank you for joining myself, Miles Roberts, and our Group Finance Director, Adrian Marsh, to run through the results for the six months to the end of October 2022. We have a short presentation after which we're very happy to take any questions you may have. Well, firstly, during the last six months, we've seen high levels of economic volatility, but everyone who works in DS Smith has been focused on delivering for our customers. We have responded to our customers' changing needs with pace and expertise and with high levels of service and product quality, and by working together to mitigate as much as possible the rising cost that we've experienced. The innovation platform that we have built continues to receive strong take-up, and this is being supported by our enhanced capital investment program. We're therefore pleased with the development of our relationships with our customers and the value we're able to add. This has supported a significant rise in our profitability and improvement in our financial ratios, such as the return on average capital employed and leverage over the last 6 months. Looking forward, we expect the macroeconomic environment to remain challenging. The current momentum in the business, together with our strengthened relationships and our investment plans, give us the confidence to expect the performance for the current full year to be ahead of our previous expectations, with the second half performing in line with the first half of this year. I would now like to hand over to Adrian, who will take us through the detail of the financial results. Thank you. Thank you, Miles. Good morning, everyone. By way of my normal reminder, I'll describe the performance of the business on a constant currency basis. Here are our financial highlights. Revenue is up 26% despite a small reduction in box volumes, reflecting higher sales prices across the whole business, which themselves reflect the rising input costs we've seen over the last two years. Price increases in the half more than offset significant cost increases of nearly GBP 800 million compared with last year alone, with operating profit up 49%. return on sales increased 150 basis points, which is quite evidently a very strong performance within a highly inflationary environment. As a reminder, in addition to selling packaging, we also buy and sell a large amount of paper, OCC, and energy, the prices of which, as you're well aware, have increased dramatically. This increase is both revenues and costs on a gross basis with limited impact on profit, hence is dilutive to reported margin. As last time, I give the breakdowns to calculate underlying margin absent these gross ups. Profit growth has flowed strongly through to EPS and cash. I'll talk more about our continued net debt and leverage reduction shortly. The increased profitability has also allowed for a material increase in our interim dividend. We've also taken the decision to bring forward the date which will pay our interim dividend by about 3 months, which we trust will be appreciated by our small shareholders during these difficult financial times. Our key metric of ROACE, which of course does not have the same nuance as for margins, has improved by 400 basis points to well within our target range. This is a 12-month measure, so the run rate is clearly significantly higher. I'll now go through the main moving parts with the usual bridges. We've broken out the packaging revenue from the totals and also the price mix to help you understand the impact of the pass-through of external sales of paper recycler and energy on underlying margin. The box volume decline had a slight negative impact on revenues. Other volumes was a mix of increased volumes of recycling offset by less external paper sales as we used more internally. For last year, the major increase is clearly the sales price increase. Just over GBP 650 million of the GBP 950 million is packaging pricing, representing average prices of around 25% higher versus the comparative period. The balance made up of external paper, energy, and recycled sales. Turning to EBITA, as with revenue, there's a small negative contribution from the volume decline and a similar story for other volumes with less external paper being sold, although there is a corresponding benefit on the cost side as less is being purchased. I think we've consistently proved the strength of our business model in that we've been able to more than offset the very significant cost headwinds, as well as managing our cost base through our proactive risk management and procurement processes whilst ensuring security of supply at all times for ourselves and, as importantly, our customers. On the cost side, the largest contributing factors were raw materials with external paper purchasing, OCC, and other raw materials such as starch, together making up roughly half, with other costs such as labor distribution together with energy making up the other half. As a note, the combination of our energy risk management and our energy sales to local grids across Europe has significantly negated the impact of extremely volatile energy prices in this period. As previously guided, we still expect on a full year basis around a GBP 100 million increase in our net energy costs compared to last year. Overall group margin has increased significantly, albeit, as I noted before, this is despite the inflationary environment. Regionally, there'll always be short-term variations depending on the level of our own paper production. Clearly, we've seen some big moves in paper pricing and profitability in the last year, and that has an impact before prices are fully reflected in packaging. Eastern Europe is the area where we're shortest paper, and until the pass-through to packaging completes, the effect on margin is therefore greatest in that region. Although profits were nevertheless up a very healthy 27%. Northern Europe has been our toughest region, with volume reductions being more than the group average, partly reflecting high comparatives in the prior period, but also the general economic environment, not least in the U.K., together with greater cost inflation than other regions. Despite this, profits were flat, while revenues increased, impacted by a greater proportion of recycling and energy sales, hence the margin decline. On the positive side in this region, we've also the largest proportion of index contracts, which only recently reflected previous paper price rises already recovered in other regions. On the other hand, Southern Europe has clearly been the standout performer as profits more than doubled, with the clear benefits from the Europac acquisition being demonstrated by very strong performance within both packaging and paper, particularly in our Portuguese kraftliner mill. North America remains a high margin business despite a challenging overall environment at the moment, and we continue to make good progress with our multinational packaging customers as we replicate the offering they receive in Europe. Disappointingly, the availability of manual labor remains a drag on our performance. Of course, margin is an important metric, but as you know, our principal KPI is ROACE. Whilst not surprising, it's very pleasing to see our returns back to the levels prior to our 2 significant acquisitions in 2017 and 2019. Our 13.2% is calculated on a 12-month basis, clearly the current run rate is higher and towards the top of our medium-term target range of 12%-15%, and we expect to remain in this target range going forward. Returns and profitability have also converted well into cash. Clearly, the main driver is the improved profitability, it's also been a decent performance on working capital despite the inflationary environment. Within working capital, you may remember at the full year, I described an inflow of GBP 109 million from the risk management of our energy hedges, which I said would reverse. That has happened. As part of that continued counterparty risk management process, we had a net inflow of GBP 197 million from additional margin calls during the period. As I've set out in our technical guidance and absent further margin calls in the second half, I'm expecting around half of this to be an outflow in the second half of the year and the other half in the first half of next year. Just to note, invoice discounting has remained constant at GBP 380 million despite the significantly increased selling prices. Overall, a very strong free cash flow, which we can see on the next slide, has been a key driver in reducing our debt and leverage. Moving to the cash flow bridge, net debt has reduced by GBP 337 million since April. The picture in the half is relatively straightforward, with the improvement driven principally by the strong free cash flow I've just described. Clearly, one of the highlights of the results is that net debt over EBITDA is now significantly below our target ratio of 2 times, driven by both an increasing EBITDA and reducing absolute debt level. I'll talk more about that on the next slide. Just for modeling purposes, you should note the Interstate put option of just over GBP 100 million will go out shortly. If I adjust for this and also ignore the cash received from the hedging collateral, then I'd calculate our leverage to be closer to 1.3 times. Just building on the strong cash flow and deleveraging performance in the first half, despite the many challenges of the last few years, not least COVID, I think it's worth highlighting the consistently strong cash flow from the business, which is a feature not only of our management, but also the strong fundamentals of the business we operate in. We've generated GBP 2.2 billion of free cash flow since 2019, while continuing to invest in the business well ahead of depreciation. Net debt has roughly halved, with our leverage ratio comfortably below our medium-term target. We have an undoubtedly strong balance sheet and remain well-placed to continue to deliver excellent results in a highly volatile environment. Our financial strength is clearly extremely important as it provides the capital to fund both future growth and returns to shareholders. As a reminder, I've reset our priorities for our financial metrics and capital allocation. We talked at the full year about the opportunities to invest to support growth with our customers, and principally, we expect that to be via organic investment in our business, investing in projects that give a return on capital over 15%. We've also maintained a progressive dividend, as can be seen from our announced increase. Considering we've built a strong platform over the last 10 years, which will be extremely difficult to replicate, any M&A now will most likely be bolt-on in nature, continuing to meet our criteria for strong financial returns. In an uncertain environment, we want to retain financial strength and flexibility, investing to support further growth with our customers while retaining the flexibility to return any surplus cash to shareholders. Finally, my technical guidance. These are the usual line items you've come to expect. There's very little change since our guidance in June. Amortization now reflects the end of the SCA acquired intangibles. Within working capital and absent any further risk management, I'd expect the reversal of half the cash benefit of margin calls on energy hedges that I talked about earlier. If all our input costs remain at prices as of today, there'll be a further negative pressure, particularly on creditors, leaving working capital as a small outflow in the full year. We also expect to pay out just over GBP 100 million for the final element of the Interstate put. As I mentioned earlier, the guidance I gave at the full year of a year-on-year net energy headwind still remains at around GBP 100 million. As a reminder, approximately 85% of our revenue is non-UK, so 1% move in sterling equals around GBP 7 million on operating profit. Finally, as of today, other than the small amount associated with the non-cash final unwind of the Interstate put discount, I again do not foresee any exceptional or adjusting items at all this year. I will now hand back to Miles. Thank you, Adrian. Thank you for taking us through such a strong set of results. Turning to our business model, a differentiated business model that's really driving ongoing success with our customers. What are those differentiators? You know, our business model is very clear, consistent, and robust. It allows us to be successful with our customers and earn ongoing, attractive financial returns. Firstly, we have a strong, well-invested asset base of real scale throughout Europe and across the East Coast of the U.S. It's a solely fibre-based business with no plastics or other formats. It's focused on the stable, profitable, and evolving FMCG sector, where we have exciting state-of-the-art ongoing investments, making good incremental financial returns. Winning with our customers. We all know that the general economic environment during H1 was worse than we thought it was going to be at the start of the period. This led to a reduction in our market size by at least 4%. Despite increasing our share, our volumes consequently fell by 3% on a like-for-like basis. You can see from the graph that the sectors for food and beverage, for non-food consumer goods have really been very resilient. These are sectors where we are overweight, whilst the industrial sector has been more adversely affected by some of the economic headwinds. Regionally, the U.K. has been poor due to the general economic, manufacturing environment in the U.K. Also along with Germany, where the gas situation really has particularly affected some of the industrial sector. As elsewhere in countries like Italy, Iberia, Eastern Europe, have fared much better than the group average. Our market share gain is partly due to our ongoing relentless focus on our customers, responding really rapidly to their changing requirements, ensuring the highest levels of service, security of supply, and of course, our innovation pipeline that continues to solve their problems. Our innovation plan was performing well. For example, in sustainability, we've seen an increasing rate of progress in the replacement of plastic format with corrugated. We've now replaced over 500 million pieces of plastic packaging since 2020, and this rate of replacement is accelerating, and we expect that to continue into the second half. You may also be aware of the recently proposed EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive. This inherently recognizes that the value of our closed-loop model that's operated by the corrugated packaging industry and really does support ongoing further growth of corrugated packaging against other product formats. Looking ahead, you know, we're pleased with our position, our investment pipeline, and consumer relationships. Although the general economic environment is likely to remain difficult, our expectations are currently that in the second half of the year, we'll show an improvement of like-for-like volume performance over that achieved in the first half. In the context of plastic replacement, I show here just a couple of examples. Firstly, the Vanish e-commerce pack. This is about the washing tablets in an iconic, well-known brand. Here we've been able to replace virtually all of the plastic that was used in its previous format. Secondly, our EcoCarrier. This is currently being rolled out at scale across Europe by one of the world's largest soft drink companies. As I said, these are just two examples of the pipeline coming out of our innovation facilities. We've continued to invest in our business, not only in new capital solutions, but also in new products and services. All of these are in support of our customers. We've created, you know, an enhanced groupwide innovation function to take advantage of many of the ongoing opportunities to extend and develop corrugated packaging. This function has a new state-of-the-art development facility, as well as the recruitment of over 30 new product and service developers. We've seen a meaningful take-up of our new products and services, some of which we've already spoken about. Also include the Circular Design Metrics that continue to receive strong take up from many of our customers. Our enhanced capital investment program continues to build new capacity and capability. This is now delivering. The new packaging plants in Italy and Poland that we previously discussed are now delivering ahead of the original budget. We're also significantly now upgrading some of our largest packaging facilities in Germany, as well as investing behind new lightweight paper capacity in Italy. Of course, our environmental performance. Our program to meet our net zero target by 2050, with an interim target in 2030. This is not only about decarbonizing, but it's also about coming away from fossil fuels to drive our longer term competitiveness. Examples of these investments include a new biomass facility in France and also in Portugal, but also waste-to-energy plant in Germany. It's great to see our overall achievements in ESG being recognized by many of the external agencies. We're very pleased to see S&P Global increasing our score to 73, putting us in the top decile of all companies and also with MSCI maintaining our double A rating. To finish, our outlook. While we're pleased with the progress to date, we have been and remain utterly focused on meeting our customers' rapidly changing requirements. Our cost mitigation and pricing processes have been and remain very effective. With the new investments backed by our customers with those attractive returns, places us in a great position to continue to gain market share. Consequently, we're raising our expectations for the current year, where we now expect the second half to continue at the same level of performance as the first half. Thank you very much. Myself and Adrian are now happy to take any questions you may have. Good morning. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please signal by pressing star one. Our first question comes from James Twyman from Prescient. Please go ahead. Yes. Thank you very much. I've got two questions. The first one is, given the volatility in gas prices, what is your view on the outlook for paper prices now, and, you know, how important is that gas price move? Sort of aligned to that, your energy hedging is clearly very high. Given that it's been going on for a year or so now, what's your judgment on how other companies are hedged and therefore placed in the current situation? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, James. If I just lead on with the, with the first part, and Adrian can. Yeah. Come on the second, on the hedging. Just in terms of volatility, you're absolutely right. The gas price of gas, you look at TTF Gas, it is very, it remains volatile. You know, we've seen paper prices really respond to that. I think in terms of future paper prices, I've no doubt that this ongoing volatility or at the moment, this increasing price of gas will ultimately feed into those price into the price of paper. Exactly when and how obviously is always more difficult to know. You know, we, the high rate of gas, we expect to feed through to those prices. I mean, on the second question, it's obviously quite hard to answer what other companies are doing, so maybe it's easier to talk about what we do, which is, you know, we have a three-year program. You know, it's rolling, so we're always looking forward three years. I think gas prices came off a bit recently. They seem to be up again now as winter starts to bite. Really, you know, if I was looking forward, it's less about this winter that I think the concern is. It's what about next winter, and where gas supplies and where pricing is going to be then. Again, we're sort of very well managed against that. It's difficult for me to say what other companies do. I've no idea, but we've always had our three-year program. By constantly looking out 3 years, we're always exploiting that 3-year forward curve, which is obviously materially different from where spot prices are. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Cole Hathorn from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Good morning. I've got three my side. I'll take them one by one, if you don't mind. Just the first one's on capital allocation. It's a bit of a longer question, but I'd like to understand how you're thinking about this now, because Miles, you talked about, you know, your CapEx projects, you continue to invest ahead of depreciation there. Your dividend, it's a good 5% yield. It's a sustainable level. You know, M&A, you talked about bolt-ons. When I look at your net debt to EBITDA, at 1.3 times, debt is fixed. You know, are we starting to think about Buyback is potentially moving up the agenda because I do understand in a cautious macro environment, maybe it's no longer below 2 times net debt to EBITDA, maybe it's below 1.5 times net debt to EBITDA. Just wanting to understand how you're thinking about, you know, cash deployment with a strong balance sheet, is the first question, and then I'll come back to the other two. Yeah. I mean, I can answer that, Cole, to some extent, I'm sure Miles will chip in if I miss anything. In terms of the priority, I mean, it's been a priority for me since we made the big acquisitions to get our leverage down, to restore our balance sheet and to give us optionality going forward. Obviously someone else will be coming in the summer and can take, you know, have their views going forward. My priority has always been about getting us through that de-leveraging to give us the optionality looking forward. Anything we do on in terms of returning capital, clearly it's a board decision, taken in context with looking at our three-year plans, what it is we're looking to invest in organic growth and if there are any inorganic opportunities. In the current climate, obviously the weight of feeling is much more around the, you know, a cautious approach, at least again, over the next six months. You're right, I mean, going forward, you know, we set out our framework, and it's quite clear that so absent anything else, then we do start to look at how we return capital, for sure. I mean, absolutely. It's, you know, it'd be wrong of me not to suggest that the board don't regularly discuss that. Okay. You had a second question, Cole. Thank you. Maybe coming back to your guidance. You talked about volumes sequentially better. Should we be thinking about this just a function of you are relatively more food and FMCG, so you should be more resilient versus some other players? Also easier comparatives versus last year and the fact that you're benefiting from the ramp-up of 2 new box plants Just wanting to understand that sequential guidance in the second half. The 3rd question is on energy. You know, you are well hedged to 80% at what's likely to be attractive levels versus the current forward price into 2023. How are you thinking about that hedging further out? Do you have flexibility to pull back on your hedging? Cause, you know, I imagine in your position, you don't wanna hedge at the wrong rate into the following year. Cause at the moment you are, I imagine, a very good net winner. I mean, look, just on the volumes, you're absolutely right, Cole, in everything that you said, about our being overweight in the FMCG. We can see the resilience of that. I mean, it's, it continues to give us a real, you know, very solid platform. You're right about the comparatives, you're right about the new investments. What I would add is we're also very pleased with where we are with our customers and about some of our ongoing contract and market share gains that we've seen coming through in the half year, particularly with the volatility and the and issues with supply chains. We've demonstrated how we can continue to support our customers, and that has resulted in some further awards. That's the only thing I'd add to what, to the issues that you said. Adrian on the, on the hedging. Yeah. On the hedging, just to be super clear, we look at it entirely as risk management. We have a 3-year program. It allows us to maintain a constant dialogue with our customers around a relatively secure cost base, despite other, you know, inflation, you know, volatile, inflationary costs at the moment. We haven't had to go back and discuss energy surcharges. We haven't had to go back and discuss anything to do with production impacts. We've been able to manage the business stably through, and that's what we do the risk management for. As we look forward the 3 years, it's less about, you know, do we think is there's gonna be any opportunistic benefits or not? It's really what does that do in terms of giving us stability over our cost base, removing a level of volatility and how we can manage it. I mean, for what it's worth, the three-year forward on energy at the moment, I think is around about EUR 50 a megawatt hour. I think something like that compared to peaks in the highest part of the volatility we saw over the summer of EUR 300. Even if you locked out everything three years forward, you're then locking that against a long-term average of around about EUR 25, but it's still materially lower than where you are today. We don't look at it in terms of how opportunistic we can be. We look at it in terms of what it does, in terms of the stability of our cost base and the conversations you need to then have with customers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from David Lin from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Morning, guys, and well done. Just very quickly, firstly on the volumes. You got it obviously sequentially higher up, half on half. Just in terms of the industrial focus, obviously that's collapsed quite a bit, seemingly in the last couple of months. Do you expect that to bottom a little bit? Have you seen any improvement more recently in the last, I don't know, couple weeks or so? Secondly, just on your full year guidance, of roughly call it GBP 840, if I read it quite simplistically. Just if you could highlight, you know, your level of confidence around that. I mean, you do have box pricing relatively locked in, energy costs relatively locked in. Volumes could be maybe a risk, but that seems higher. Yeah, just your thoughts on that, please. Yeah, just on the volume. The industrial was weaker. What we saw in that peaking of the energy costs, particularly during the summer, you know, when you look at the gas curves, you can see it sort of shooting up in the summer and then coming right back down again. Whilst we were very much protected there, we did see some of the big industrial clients ceasing, curtailing production in the light of those very high costs, and also the request really across the EU about conserving about conserving gas for the winter. We have seen those gas prices come off. We have seen storage rates and perhaps confidence about the availability of gas over the winter returning. We have seen some recent stability in that market. Now, it is very difficult to forecast forwards, but at the moment, it is much more stable than it was a few months ago. That's and that's partly behind our sort of H1, H2 being greater than H1 and on. On the full year, I mean, you're right. Yeah. Adrian. I mean, I was just gonna say I mean, put it this way, in my 10 years, this is the first time we've given firm, half year guidance for full year. Yeah. You can read into that the level of confidence we've got. Absolutely right. We wouldn't be saying that unless we're feeling very confident about that. Thank you. Thank you. I will now take our next question from Lars Kjellberg from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Thank you. A couple of questions from me as well. You know, the first one, I just wanted to understand exactly what you're saying. In terms of the volume component, is that sequential, or is it year-on-year we're talking? Because to me, it doesn't necessarily feel like the levels of activity will be up in the second half versus what you've seen in H1, given the sort of sequential contraction of volumes as we go from kind of the Q2 into Q3 and Q4. Just to get a clarification on what the comparable is. The other component I guess, you know, we are starting to see some material contraction on the, on the paper side, and obviously the normal dynamics would suggest that's gonna be leading to some sort of box price contraction going forward. Just your thoughts on G... Well, at the same time, as costs are coming down, of course, right? You called out energy in the full year hundreds versus the GBP 158, OCC is of course off and your net short paper. There's a number of cost items that are coming down. How, how should we think about price over cost in the second half of the current year? Again, just a clarification on the volume component point. Thank you. You know, what is the real number? Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you, Lars. We're saying that, whilst volumes fell on H1 against the previous H1 by 3%, in the second half, compared to the second half of last year, we're expecting the volume performance on that like-for-like basis to be better than we saw in the first half. Therefore, for the full year, we're expecting on a like-for-like basis to be better than the minus 3 that we saw in the first half. Again, for the reasons that we've outlined previously. On the box side, we are. The price of paper, as you're right, has come off a little bit recently. Where we have our index deals, typically we have a paper component and we have a non-paper component in our pricing. At the moment, our prices generally are still rising despite the lower paper price. Clearly, there gets a point, if paper then falls heavily, when does that start to at where? We just don't know. We can see how, and we are seeing our box prices still rise. In terms of paper, we've seen energy costs come off from the summer highs, going up a little bit. We've seen OCC coming down. As always, you know, the price of paper remains volatile. I do feel it's linked much more to the underlying costs. If those costs come off, then I think we'll see some paper weakness. If they increase, then I think we'll see the price of paper respond. As a company, as you all know, we have extensive paper facilities, but we try to limit our exposure to the German market. We have much less of our own capacity there simply because it's so oversupplied. The costs of OCC are generally higher there. They've got the gas situation. As a company, if the prices are moving down there and out of line with the cost, then clearly we don't face that exposure. That goes into some way as to the confidence that we have in the second half of this year, despite that volatility in paper prices. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Jones from UBS. Please go ahead. Hi, gents, and congrats on the good results. I've got a few. I'll start with the first one, which is a big picture one. On, on this EU, you know, reuse and recycling directive, I'm wondering how it changes your views on the overall market growth over the long term. We've generally sort of thought about this market as potentially that keg, you know, increasing as a result of plastic to paper substitution. If this is obviously also aimed at lowering overall use of new packaging through the whole reuse dynamic, clearly that probably, you know, reduces that overall growth in packaging. How do you see that impacting corrugated? I mean, do you have any expectations for what the long-term growth rate should be in that market? I'll come back for my other things. The EU have recently had their draft a directive for the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive. It's out there. It has to be implemented nationally and, you know, clearly there are a few rounds of it. It does broadly follow our sort of expectations, and that is about the inherent value of the closed loop solution operated by corrugated against other formats, principally, but not only, but principally on plastics. In the secondary packaging sector where we operate, it's been largely left out. We're not subject to these requirements that the packaging you make will have to be actually reused. I return by the recipient, the packager, of the package back to the producer of the packaging. We're exempt from that. I think the important thing is it really does recognize the value of the recycling model that corrugated uses. What we have seen from our customers is an increasing take up of corrugated against packaging, against plastic. We can see we're moving into a number of areas that whereas before, where plastic has enjoyed just a cost benefit, simply because it wasn't recycled, it ended up in landfill, et cetera, that it's no longer able to exploit. Whilst total packaging use in the future, I think will come down because of this requirement to reuse, I think the corrugated will ultimately benefit from that and continue to grow and develop into areas that plastic's there. We can see it today. You know, we can see it with the rate of replacement. We can see it with the take up of our new products. Yeah, thank you. Just to clarify that, I mean, do you think that the substitution effect is greater than the loss of overall packaging volume effect? I mean, do you have any feeling for a number in terms of what sort of keg we could expect? If it was sort of, you know, 2%-3% growth in the past. Yeah. Is that still sustainable in the future, or could it be higher or lower? I can really talk about corrugated. We think that this is a driver of growth for corrugated. What it does to other formats is really up to them. No surprise, I think broadly it'll mean a reduction. For corrugated, I think it'll be a growth. Previously, we've talked about this at previous capital markets stage, we concluded that our growth will be greater going forward than it has been in the past. Typically, in the past, we've grown between 2%-3% per annum, we've estimated that we should be at least 1% ahead of that on a sort of an ongoing basis, not in any sort of one six-month period. You know, as the environmental debate in packaging continues to develop. We're not surprised by this legislation at all. We think in terms of taxation and other things, there should be further support for our for the effectively for the corrugated and the fiber-based businesses. Understood. Just, another question on the energy costs. I mean, you've said recently that you were 80% hedged for the following fiscal year. On that 80% of volume, could you give us an idea of the energy cost headwind that you've actually sort of locked in so far? Clearly, you can't guide on the other 20%, but can you give us some idea? We'll guide at the full year. Okay. Okay, thank you. Just one point of clarity. You said the working capital, you should see a small build for this year. Previously, I think you were talking about just over a GBP 100 million build because of the, you know, reverse of an item from last year. We're talking just, you know, that expectation is just that it's gonna be a much smaller build than you were previously expecting. Is that fair? I think you have to strip out the reversal of the margin calls on the energy derivatives, which is just a timing difference. You get the cash in before the cost impact in the following period. It's a timing difference, and that reverses as such. On overall working capital, absent that, I expect there to be pressure to the negative this year, particularly if paper prices come off a bit, that has an impact on our creditor levels. We're still increasing, as Miles said, pricing, so on revenue and receivables, that will be, you know, it will still be a negative on net, i.e., those balances will be getting slightly bigger. We'll probably get a small benefit on inventory as with the paper price reduction. All of which, as of prices today, and that's all I can really go on, I would expect a small working capital outflow on the underlying business, absent the reversal of the energy margin calls. Understood. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Fogarty from Numis. Please go ahead. The first one is really on pricing. In terms of box pricing, do you think at this stage you'll have all your full sort of box price increase sort of implemented by the end of this financial year, i.e., nothing rolling into the next financial year? Just sort of following on from that, could you help us think, you know, how should we think about how the metrics now included in index contracts might be different compared to previous cycles? Appreciate, you know, there may be elements of sort of gas pricing, et cetera, in there, but just how should we think about sort of those dynamics of the drivers of pricing as we go into 2024? Just secondly, in terms of M&A thoughts now, you flagged in the presentation that your thinking is more around bolt-ons. I just wondered sort of the profile of assets that might be attractive to the group now and how much does the kind of sustainability initiative drive your thinking on that? Thank you. No, thank you. On the pricing, we've seen, during H1, we saw a quite significant increase in prices compared to H2 of last financial year and of course, H1 of the previous financial year. What we're seeing in H2, we expect prices to increase again, but not of the rate that they increased in H1. This reflects a moderation in paper prices. As I said, our indices, our indexes aren't only on paper, they're on non-paper inflation as well, which of course we're still seeing coming through. As the balance of that is why we expect H2 price to be better than H1. Therefore, when you look into the following financial year, everything else staying the same, which clearly won't happen, but if it was to, you would see the full year effect of the higher prices therefore coming into the following year, 'cause that rate of increase during this year. I said that does depend on paper pricing and lots of other things, but everything else staying the same, that's how we see that. We've been very pleased with our progress on pricing. On the M&A side, there are a number of opportunities out there. As Adrian said, there are bolt-ons. It's nothing heroic at all. It's where it really gives us a particular sort of capacity, building our market share, particular sort of assets that we want. It's in Europe, U.S., it's paper, packaging. It was all in our core business, nothing outside of that. What we have found is that the quality of assets that we are looking for, if they're available on bolt-ons, then we're happy to look at them. We have found that the solutions that we are developing in terms of new capital working with our supply base, we can create assets that frankly just aren't out there in the marketplace today. Those two new builds that we have, two new packaging plants we've recently opened, it's just way ahead of anything else out there. These new expansions that we are investing in and part of our capital, again, it's using technology that just isn't out there. You know, much more efficient, lower energy usage, higher labor productivity, the quality control. That's giving us, I think, a real competitive advantage in the market, and we expect that to continue. We'll now take our next question from Brian Morgan, from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Thanks very much for the call. Just following on from this paper price, questioning. Can I just. During the containerboard price upcycle, you were looking to shorten the lags between the containerboard price increases and the paper price increases. Presumably now you'd be looking to lengthen those lags. Can you chat on that a little bit? I mean, half our customer base is index and half is freely negotiated. I think we've really demonstrated over the last couple of years where we've had a lot of inflation, how we've been able to really effectively manage that in mitigation and pass through to our customers. Now, going forward, I think with our service, you know, our quality, you know, we're very happy with the relationships that we have. You know, where in terms of our sort of, our pricing, you know, we're feeling that we're in a very good position, supported by the types of contract that we have. In the index contracts, it's not just paper, it's also non-paper as well. We're feeling, you know, we're feeling in a good position. Yeah. Particularly on the unindexed contracts, it's very much looking at, you know, what the overall inflation environment is as well. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone's expecting anything to fall off a cliff. Clearly, when you get into a deflationary environment, if that happens, then there's pressure on the down on price. There's no two ways about it. We're not expecting anything significant in the medium term. We're not expecting a deflation environment in the in the medium term. No. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now take our next question from David O'Brien from Goodbody. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Three, if that's okay, please. Firstly, just on energy again. If we step away from FY 2023 as a whole, what will energy hedges have saved you for the full year? Secondly, inability and again, up to the 520 million pieces of plastics replaced. Can you give us a feel for what that equates to as a percentage of your total volumes? Maybe talk around what the experience has been in converting those customers, you know, if there are differences in contract duration, what they're willing to pay for product or anything interesting that's kind of transpired. Finally, on the guidance, look, maybe a little bit unfair, but I'm just trying to piece together everything you're saying. Box volumes in the second half could be better sequentially. Pricing, box pricing continues to rise. Paper prices are down ever so slightly, but it is a little bit of a saving. OCC is down. Would it not be fair to say that H2 is really well underpinned, actually, but calling it consistent with the first half, but actually there's quite a bit of upside to maybe to that number? What should I be thinking to offset that optimism? Yeah, I'll take the first. You can pick up the rest, if it makes sense. Absolutely. I mean, in terms of the first question, it's genuinely impossible to say, and it's not something we'd look at. In order to say, you know, we don't look at it in those terms anyway. We look at it at the risk that's being managed. If you were to make an assumption, you would only ever buy at the highest market price, then clearly, being managed against that, there's been a good benefit. That's never the case. We've also got energy sales. As I said, we supply electricity where the markets are sensible across Europe to local grids. We only ever look at things in the round. I go back to at the year end, we said our cost base would have a headwind of around about GBP 100 million due to energy. That's what's happened. Anything else is really impossible for me to say. On the plastic replacement, I mean, it's representing around about 2%-3% over that period of our annual volumes. In terms of revenue, the plastic replacement is actually quite a bit better. It's attracting the innovation in there, it's attracting a premium, it's a new product, et cetera. It is accelerating. That the numbers we've given actually doesn't include, you know, some of the very latest obviously products that are out there. We talked about the EcoCarrier for the soft drinks industry. I mean, that is looking like a very significant development. Also in things like laundry liquids, et cetera. Now you're starting to see a number of replacement, all those plastic tubs and, you know, we're very pleased the developments there. These are all around products that packaging of inside, you know, ultimately there's sort of liquids in there. The way our barrier technology in, you know, in products in packaging that can be, you know, sort of in a high humidity environment. You know, we're really pleased with the development there, the number of units, but more importantly, the margin. I think in terms of our, you know, guidance for the full year, all I can say is we wouldn't have been so explicit this year unless we were feeling, you know, unless we were feeling very confident about that. I should stress, you know, that is not dependent on any big move forward in volumes or anything like that. This is about the value added in our products, about our service, the overall added value we're able to give to our customers. You know, and the margins we're able to earn on that gives us really gives us that underpin on the confidence. Obviously, we'll come back during the year as things develop, but sitting here today, we feel in a good position with our customers. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Sean Anderer from Chronicle Research. Please go ahead. Good morning, and thanks for the time, guys. Just, I don't know if you could maybe comment or provide any insights into the OCC. I mean, it's spot OCC around 20 years a ton. I think it's obviously great from margins. I don't know, maybe you can comment whether the team has reached a floor or perhaps where you're going from here. Sort of linked to this, as you mentioned earlier, there's been some light pressure on containerboard pressures. Just looking again, you know, like on your comments around medium term, not expecting medium term deflation, because it seems like we'll see a kind of sharp correction in H1. Just thirdly, around the pressures in Germany and U.K. Could you maybe comment if this has stabilized up or if there's more downside, it was raising the sound like there's more downside in your H2 outlook? Thanks very much. Yeah. Look, thank you. In terms of the price of OCC, it has come down quite significantly. We've seen the export markets really sort of dry up for this. We've seen consumption of paper production of paper fall as well in Europe, that's led to a significant reduction in price of OCC. I think it's currently running about sort of 11, 12 days of stock across the industry, which historically, that's a very high figure. Seems to be sort of at the moment, it seems to be reasonably stable where it is, you know, it is a volatile market. In terms of paper, we've seen a lot of downtime there. That's partly why the OCC has gone up, the stocks have gone up. Been a lot of downtime there. Industry stocks seem to be pretty stable at the moment. The price, the fall in the price of paper, I think, you know, going back to what I said earlier, it probably has more to do with the change in the underlying, you know, cost base. You know, our expectation, but, you know, this is a volatile market. Our expectation is if gas prices go up, I think you'll see some strengthening of the paper price. If they come down, maybe it causes some weakness. It's very difficult to call. I do think it's responding to the costs rather than anything else. I do note the considerable downtime that has been taken across the industry. Yeah. I mean, that's made a huge difference. Yeah. Therefore, the stocks have been, on paper, relatively stable. No, thanks. I think we'll take one last question and just conscious of time. No? Great. Well, look, thank you very much everybody for your time today. As I said at the start, we're very pleased with the start of the year, the first 6 months, and we're feeling good about our market position and the prospects for the remainder of the year. Thank you for your time and, yeah. Look forward to the next update. Thank you, everybody.