Hi, I'm Alan Foy. I'm the Chief Executive Officer. I'm joined today by Tim Mortlock, our Chief Operating Officer, and Gavin Urwin, our Chief Financial Officer. It's been a while since our last market update, and given the turbulence in the energy supply sector, we thought it would be helpful, just to highlight a few points from Friday's trading update that we've done, and then answer a few questions that you may have. Our statement on Friday reported that during 2021, our key KPI, the long-term index linked recurring revenues or our ILRR, grew over 11% to GBP 85.9 million. Despite the impact of COVID-19, particularly during the first half of the year, we added a net approximately 320,000 domestic smart meters during the full- year and increased our portfolio to 1.7 million meters, generating more than GBP 50 million of ILRR. The data asset portfolio benefited from the acquisition of GBP 2 million of data service contracts as part of the industrial and commercial half-hourly metering portfolio acquisition. The significant jump in our industrial and commercial metering ILRR was again due to the acquisition of the industrial and commercial half-hourly metering portfolio. The traditional domestic meters and the third party ILRR are largely made up of traditional meters, and as anticipated, we expect this to come down over the next few years as traditional meters are replaced with smart meters. During the year, we announced three new meter contract wins, adding a total of 900,000 meters to our contracted smart meter order pipeline. We also announced a four-year extension to the exclusivity agreement with Shell, and this agreement will now run until December 2025. Net of meters installed in 2021, our contracted smart meter order pipeline increased to 2.55 million meters. That's from 2 million meters at the end of 2020. With energy prices at record highs, the U.K. energy market has been experiencing considerable turbulence since the final quarter of 2021. This has resulted in the failure of a number of energy suppliers and implementation of both the U.K.'s Supplier of Last Resort mechanism and Special Administration Regime. While the failure of some energy suppliers has resulted in movement in our customers' metering portfolios, the net impact on the group's pipeline has been negligible. We've also benefited from strengthening in our customer base as some portfolios have consolidated into larger SMS customers through the Supplier of Last Resort process. The board remains comfortable with the level of the previously guided contracted smart meter order pipeline, which at 31st December 2021 stood at 2.55 million meters. During the year, the meter installation run rate averaged 30,000 meters per month since June 2021, a strong recovery following the disruption caused by COVID-19. The group expects continued progressive improvement in this run rate into the final year, 2022, and thereafter. During 2021, we made considerable progress in further developing our pipeline of grid-scale battery storage assets. The total pipeline increased to 620 MW as at 31st December 2021, compared to 267 MW at 31st December 2020. Of the total 620 MW pipeline, 290 MW has been fully secured with the remaining 330 MW under exclusivity. The group is also pleased to report that the first 50 MW battery site is now operational. Of the remaining 240 MW secure pipeline, 140 MW is currently under construction. Despite the challenges presented by COVID-19 pandemic and the turbulence in the energy supply markets, we've again demonstrated the resilience of our business model by delivering strong financial results. Our full- year 2021 underlying PBT is expected to be marginally ahead of consensus, having already been upgraded in September 2021. We ended the year with a net cash position of GBP 118 million, reflecting the internal cash generation and the net proceeds of the GBP 175 million equity placing. We also remain confident of achieving the current market consensus expectations for 2022. Finally, we expect a dividend of GBP 0.3025 for 2022, which reflects our stated annual 10% increase in dividend to 2024. To fund this growth, we're really pleased to have successfully raised GBP 175 million equity and also extend our debt facilities in September of last year. This, coupled with the internal cash generated, provides us with the necessary firepower to deliver our existing pipeline of meters and grid-scale batteries, and more than double our EBITDA. The index linked recurring revenues we generate from these meter assets are highly visible and provides protection against an inflationary environment. This provides us with a strong foundation to withstand economic shocks, as has been evidenced through our financial and operational performance over the last two years. Finally, for SMS, ESG has always been and remains at the heart of our culture, operations, and ethos. We continue to make strong progress in our journey, and we're immensely proud to have achieved the highest rating for governance by MSCI. Thank you. One of the things that we never mentioned in the update is that I myself, I'm going to step down from the first of March. You know, I'm delighted to Tim. We're where our business has been about for over 20 years. We've got tremendously strong management team. I hope we emphasized that at our Capital Markets Day last year. Tim has been at the forefront of our business and been Chief Operating Officer and been with the business for over 20 years. I'm delighted that Tim will move forward as Chief Executive. He'll continue to be supported by that very strong management team in addition to Gavin as the Chief Financial Officer. You know, for me, I'm it's a hard one for me. I've had some things going on that I've had to make a step back, but I think it was natural that Tim was going to come through and be the Chief Executive Officer. I'm very proud actually of what SMS is going to become. They've got a fantastic opportunity to go forward. They've got tremendous order book as you can see, financially sound and really at the heart of the energy transition. I think SMS is gonna be an exceptional business going forward. I would really like to thank everyone that's supported us in recent years and indeed since we listed back in 2011. I think for me, I would just. If I can hand back to our moderator here and open for questions and answers. Alan, thank you very much indeed. If you would like to ask a question, then please click the Raise Hand icon and we'll come to each of you in turn. Alternatively, if you prefer, then you can type a question into the Q&A box, and we will read your question out on your behalf. Finally, for those of you dialing in on the phone, it's star nine to raise your hand. The first question has been written in, submitted, so let me read that out on their behalf. Great to see the consolidation of the alternative energy supply sector has not impacted your meter order book. However, does the reduced number of solvent customers mean they have more bargaining power or present more risk to you if they want to switch supplier? I think probably the first thing to say there is that our contracted order book is contracted, so the terms of it are contracted. In that sense that, you know, that there won't be any change there. I think there is already a competitive environment for the services we provide. We've won our work over the years in that competitive environment. I don't really see that changing going forward, albeit you know as we seek to try and extend that order book, you know, with other opportunities in the future, really, to be perfectly honest. I think it also demonstrates that we're one of the few, if not the only, that does the full end-to-end service proposition. When a customer has decided, and they have gone through a process and that they have decided to go with SMS, then they are linked with SMS through our IT platforms. We talk to their customers directly about appointments. They can see visibly in their call centers every time that we've spoken to one of their customers. They can make appointments with our engineers and see where our engineers are live on our IT platforms. To move away from that full integration, firstly, it's quite a decision to make. Once they make it, trial test it, and, you know, the next stages for us is getting minimum contracted order books under contract and now into exclusivity, where our customers are actually wanting to lock us in as their service provider in the long- term. Thank you, Alan. Just a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, then please just use the Raise Hand icon that's at the bottom of your screen on Zoom, and we will come to each of you in turn. Alternatively, if you prefer to type a question in, just type it into the Q&A box, and we will read it out on your behalf. The next question comes from John Musk. John, if you would like to unmute your microphone, and then ask a question. Hi there. Hopefully you can hear me. Afternoon, everyone. Yeah, two questions from me. Firstly, just wanted to go back to one of the comments you said, about the funding of the existing pipeline of both meters and batteries. I think you said it's all covered. I just wanted to sort of understand what that means in terms of where the balance sheet may move to over the next five years in terms of the rollout of the smart meters. Secondly, on inflation, which is a hot topic in the market, can you remind us how inflation timing feeds through into your revenues and any offsets we may have to think about in terms of costs? Hey, John, I'll maybe take both of those. The funding of the pipeline. If you remember back to our capital markets day and the strategy at that point, it was the same meter pipeline, so no change in that. The only change is because we fitted meters between that time, the half- year and the full- year. Obviously the battery pipeline has increased from 470 to 620. Now, with the guided price per megawatt, GBP 380,000 per megawatt, that's an extra GBP 57 million. If you remember at that time, you know, we rolling out the smart meters and the 470 pipeline, we said we would probably get up to around about 3x net debt to EBITDA. There was always a little bit of room to nudge that up if we got more pipeline. Although we've added 150 MW, that's about GBP 57 million at those rates. You know, from our point of view, we still probably stick to the same guidance that we've given on that, is that we can largely fit those pipelines with the funding that we've generated over the past six months. On the inflation, the way that that works, John, inflation is applied from 1 April each year based on the average RPI from 4 months of the previous year, from June to September. That's standard each year and will be what it is. On offsetting costs, I mean, the main thing for us probably, like anyone else, might be facing some pressure on our underlying employee and labor costs. We may too, but that's the same as any year, and we'll navigate through that. There's nothing material that we'd want to raise or no issues that we're having at this stage. Thank you. Thank you, John. The next question has been submitted. Are you able to start putting some numbers to the grid scale battery opportunity? You have 50 MW operational. What does this look like in revenue generation and hence margin? Also, are the costs for construction in line with budget, or are you seeing an increase in cost of raw materials? Just in reverse order on those then. From the cost perspective, the initial projects and all of the initial projects under construction have been delivered and we expect to be delivered within sort of the cost expectations that we've outlined to the market previously, that we have previously also provided guidance to the market in terms of the financial and revenue expectations from those assets. We provided an 11%-14% EBITDA yield expectation with a 75% EBITDA margin from a GBP 380,000 per megawatt construction cost. Now, if you back solve that sort of guidance effectively implies around just over a GBP 55,000 per megawatt revenue from operational grid battery assets. Now, if you look at assets that are in the market, we can see that assets, though, in the market are generating north of that from a revenue perspective. We would expect to also sort of share in that sort of benefit over long- term, but particularly by providing frequency response services to the grid. Really these are long-term assets, and we're providing what we consider to be long-term sustainable forecasts. Over the longer- term, that's really what we would guide towards and therefore stick towards the sort of guidance that we've provided at this time. Thank you, Tim. The next question is regarding electric vehicles. Could you shine a light on the EV charging opportunity? Yeah, well, look, clearly the EV charging infrastructure requirement is very significant when you look at the sort of government mandates for everybody to stop using combustion engines accordingly. We set out in very high-level terms, you know, that market opportunity being part of what we called our developing CaRe assets in a Capital Markets Day last year. That is clearly therefore an area that we're working on. It's very closely aligned to our existing skills, to our existing technology platforms, to our existing infrastructure and engineering capabilities. As we sort of continue to develop those commercial models, and we've been doing pilots, you know, for example, through the Virgin Media Park & Charge project for on-street parking infrastructure. As we continue to do that, we will sort of update the market in due course more and have you on the commercial model and the pipeline and the revenue opportunities for us from that market segment. Just as we did when we brought the grid battery sort of product to the market over the course of the last sort of 12-18 months. There's clearly a very significant market opportunity there. It's very closely aligned to our skills and to our expertise and to our technology platforms. We'll sort of update the market on our plans on that in due course. Thanks again, Tim. The next question is regarding the current disruption among suppliers. Do you think we're near the end of this current disruption? How likely is it there will be further disruption which may affect your pipeline either positively or indeed negatively? In terms of whether we're near the end of that disruption, I'd probably be a brave person to say absolutely sort of no to that. What I can say is that we are very confident that our pipeline is in place as we've described. That as we've said, you know, a lot of the end consumer points have been consolidated into larger suppliers, you know, who are our customers. If anything, therefore, that pipeline has strengthened in terms of the counterparties to whom we're contracted to deliver it. I think our pipeline is a very strong one and will remain so regardless of any further market disruption going forward. If anything, we see opportunities on top of that pipeline that might be driven from some of that disruption. Thanks again, Tim. Alan, a couple of questions here or really statements here, of people expressing their very best wishes to you and thanks for all the work that you've done for SMS, which, knowing you, I know you'll hate that statement, but anyway. Also just though, just people are asking for a little bit of, I guess, comfort for shareholders if I express it exactly as it's written. Are you able to say what you can with regard to whether you're stepping back entirely or whether you're going to a different venture? I'm stepping back entirely. SMS has been pretty much my working life. I can't imagine working for anyone other than SMS. I'll step back entirely. I need to take time out, as maybe I've alluded to. I'll help SMS if they want help in any way, shape or form. I'm always at the end of the phone. No, I'm stepping back entirely. Very good. Thank you very much. Moving on to the grid-scale battery story. Could you give a bit more detail about the in-house grid-scale battery management expertise versus the complexity of revenue generation opportunities? Are the economics likely to be stable and predictable? Well, look, we've been operating in that energy sort of supplying marketplace, you know, for example, procuring energy contracts in the flexible markets on behalf of large industrial commercial energy customers for 20-odd years. It's an area that we know very, very well, and the underlying requirement for grid batteries is very stable, secure, and well-established and well forecastable. You know, the need for load shifting to be able to integrate, particularly with increasing volatility on the markets, with increasing amount of intermittent renewable generation coming on, increasing peak demand. The requirement from the sort of wholesale market and the Balancing Mechanism to be able to balance the grid is very well established. We've had, you know, things like pumped hydro and fossil fuel short-term gas type generation used to support the balancing of the grid for many, many years. With that increasing amount of intermittent renewable generation, then that requirement is increasing. Again, it is very, very well-known, very well- established, and therefore very forecastable and very certain in my view. In terms of our internal capability, as I said, you know, this is a part of the market that we've been very well- exposed to and understood for 20 years. We've clearly supplemented some of that experience with further expertise over the last couple of years. We've got very strong internal team to support both the construction but also the operation and the revenue generation from these assets as well. Thanks, Tim, and a slight extension to that question. Are the economics likely to remain stable and predictable even as industry battery supply increases over the coming years? Well, National Grid forecast a very significant increase in requirement for these assets, up to, I think, about 33 GW by 2050, and about 11 GW by 2030, and that requirement keeps increasing. If you look at all of the challenges that are coming onto the grid over coming years, that requirement, you know, clearly is gonna remain there. Yeah, I absolutely think that, you know, the need is there. There is right now, if you look at assets that are on the market and operational, at what I would call, you know, quite high revenue generation coming from them, and I think some of that will settle down over time, but that's why we've been quite prudent and conservative in the guidance that we provided. You know, there might be short-term sort of, you know, revenue increases, and you can see that if you look at some of the operational assets and you know there are listed firms in the market with operational assets. There's some visibility about that already, particularly around short-term sort of Dynamic Containment and frequency response services to National Grid. That long-term balancing requirement for the grid is not gonna go away and provides a very certain forecastable revenue stream accordingly. Thank you very much. The next question comes from Paul Goodhind. Paul, if you would like to unmute your microphone, and please go ahead with your question. Great. Thank you and thanks, Alan, again from me and best of luck for the future and welcome, Tim. I'm sure you'll step into Alan's shoes extremely smoothly. Two questions from me. Another sort of angle on the CaRe assets. I mean, you've got two asset classes that are capable of deploying capital at scale in the hundreds of millions of GBP, you know, the smart meters and the grid-scale batteries. The CaRe assets on paper look to be big, but we all know, I think, they're quite operationally complex and less scalable probably than the other two that I've mentioned. Now you're sort of investigating them, you're doing R&D, you're doing pilots. Based on your current sort of view, are any of those gonna be scalable assets in the hundreds of millions GBP? I think which is what is interesting from a shareholder perspective. Maybe the answer's no, but I'm keen to get your take on that. The second question is on, I think, funding. I think how you fund your assets is as important as what return you make on them. In the past, you funded them, you know, by selling some of the meters, and then you've done an equity issue most recently. As a shareholder, an equity issue is probably my least favorite way of funding your assets because it's dilutive and there are probably other parties that have a lower cost of capital than you. You can probably fund them more efficiently. Going forward, you know, any insights, maybe from Tim in particular, on how you would prefer to fund your growth in what is a capital-intensive business? Thanks. Yeah. No, thank you. The first question first. We are only addressing markets. Certainly, if you look at all of those developing CaRe assets that we sort of referred to over the course of last year, we're only addressing markets where we think there is significant scale and significant market opportunity to be able to address them, just as you sort of described really, you know, where a 10% market share would be a very significant opportunity for our business indeed. If you look at things like EV charging infrastructure, as a case in point or behind the meter solutions where we're putting solar and storage into social housing properties across the country, those are very significant requirements with higher CapEx per unit, if you like, than metering, for example, but with a very large volume accordingly. Yeah, all of the markets we're operating in are ones that we think that we can scale. I think from a funding perspective, I sort of take the point about the sort of your least favorite route and look, some of those solutions were not necessarily things, so the behind the meter solutions, for example, with social housing, which wouldn't necessarily be the right thing for us to sit on our balance sheet. Look, I think we will consider the appropriate funding route for each of those assets on its merits in turn. Some of them it may be that it's absolutely the right thing to put our balance sheet and our own funding into them, either initially to get them off the ground or longer- term, or it may be the case that it's best done through third-party infrastructure asset type funding, not on our balance sheet. We'll make the appropriate decision for each individual case. Look, clearly as you'd expect me to say, we'll have our shareholders' interests at the very forefront of that decision-making process. Great. Thanks, Tim. Thank you, Paul. The next question is regarding AI. Is SMS providing the tech to know when best to charge and discharge batteries, or is that managed separately? Some other companies are applying various AI capabilities to maximize value for grid batteries and see this as a major value generator. Does this approach fall into the SMS purview? Some of you might recall that in late 2019 we acquired a business called Solo Energy, which has a platform called FlexiGrid, which includes sort of artificial intelligence to be able to aggregate together lots of different distributed assets, batteries and so on, to be able to make decisions. It's essentially a decision-making engine as to what to do with, to charge, to discharge, to support the grid at different points in time. We supplemented that with sort of third-party trading access sort of platforms to support things like the grid batteries. Yeah, that absolutely therefore comes within that sort of Solo and FlexiGrid technology platform within the business. Turning to M&A, are there any smart meter platforms or indeed CaRe assets in the market that SMS might consider acquiring and consolidating into the business? There's nothing immediately that we're sort of looking at if you like. You know, we set out in that capital markets day last year the strength of the business, the capabilities of the business to be able to develop and grow. Look, that's a sort of a never say never one probably, as well, to be perfectly honest. Nothing immediately that I'd point towards. The next question here I think is related to the current trends in the wider industries about recruitment. To what extent are engineers a bottleneck to growth? How does SMS recruit and retain engineering talent? Yeah. Look, engineers are a bottleneck to growth, and that's why we've very deliberately over the years made sure we've got training academies within the business that allow us to bring engineering resource right from sort of new entrants to the industry, through sort of skilled engineers into our business, accordingly. We've got over sort of 500 engineers at the moment between a mixture of about 60-40 sort of direct labor to subcontract. We will continue to sort of develop that resource accordingly. You know, we need to incrementally grow that and add some further capacity to get the run rates up further, and we are investing in our resource to do that. Absolutely. Thank you, Tim, and that is the last of the questions we have currently. Just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you can either raise your hand to ask it in person. Alternatively, you can type it into the Q&A box, but you'll need to be quick. We'll just pause for a second to see if there are any further questions. There is one. Can you add a bit of color to the speed with which the installation rate of domestic smart meters will accelerate this year? I guess this is in line with the recent announcement regarding the wider industry targets. Yeah. Well, look, we've I think guided the market that we will expect to install over 450,000 meters this year. You know, in the context, we installed just under 350,000 last year. That perhaps gives some guidance in terms of where we expect to see that heading through this year and that's where we expect to be. Thank you, Tim. That appears to be the final question. Thank you very much all for submitting your questions, and I will just hand back to the panel before we finish. Thank you all very much for your time this afternoon. As I say, I'm very proud of what SMS is gonna become under Tim's leadership. To reemphasize, you know, I'm stepping down completely. You know, I'll continue with my mobile number. People know me as that, so I'm always contactable. I won't be taking any positions with any other company. I wish Tim and Gavin, you know, and Ellie. I'll see her later on as well, but they'll do fantastically well. It's a tremendous management team and a solid foundation for growth that SMS has got. I'm very proud to be associated with. Thank you. Thank you all very much indeed. Thank you.