Hello, and welcome to the Watches of Switzerland's Q1 FY23 trading update. My name is Lauren, and I will be coordinating your call today. There'll be an opportunity for questions at the end of the presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand you over to your host, Brian Duffy, CEO, to begin. Brian, please go ahead. Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call. I'll add some background to our trading performance that we have posted this morning, and then Bill Floydd, our CFO, will comment on our outlook. We'll then be happy to take your questions. Q1 FY23 saw strong trading for our group throughout our geographies, brand and product mix and sales channels, resulting in a 25% growth at constant foreign exchange and 31% in reported sales. Our U.S. business delivered 76% growth in constant FX and 58% if we exclude the acquisitions made in FY22 and FY23. Including the benefits of the strong dollar to pound foreign exchange rate, the U.S. growth rounded to a very significant 100%. Managing this level of growth is obviously challenging, and David Hurley, President of our North American division and the U.S. team are doing an excellent job of managing our day-to-day business, integrating new businesses and researching and negotiating new opportunities. Market conditions remain strong in the U.S., and we see continued expansion of this underdeveloped and fragmented luxury watch market. Additionally, through the application of our proven investment-based modern business model, we are growing market share. In the U.K., our sales grew 8% despite very tough prior year comps of strong growth last year, resulting from the reopening of retail, and the favorable impact in Q1 last year of selling down stock, which we corrected in Q2. Business was strong across all brand and product portfolios. We're pleased also with our first business in the EU in Stockholm, where our new colleagues have hit the ground running and initial business is in line with expectations. The e-commerce division had a very strong quarter at +14%. We've effectively fully consolidated the exceptional e-commerce growth that we had in FY22 and first quarter this year compared to FY20, we have a growth in e-commerce of 140%. Luxury jewelry was again strong at +36% as we expand our presence in this growing market. I'm delighted to announce a new London Rolex flagship boutique, which will be opening in 2023. This will be a spectacular showroom commensurate with the global status of Bond Street as a luxury destination and the importance of London, where Rolex was founded in the early 1900s. Our Xenia program of elevated client experience based on the high standard of the hospitality industry is in full flow and is undoubtedly benefiting our sales and market status. Our showroom colleagues have embraced the program and applied their usual enthusiasm and positivity. In the quarter, we increased our total colleagues' count by 120 overall, and our HR teams are doing an amazing job of recruiting, inducting, and training new colleagues despite the challenges of the labor market dynamics. We published our annual report and for FY22 on the 27th of July, and well done and thanks to all involved in what was a monumental task. The Watches of Switzerland Group Foundation is now fully registered and active in the U.S. In total, we have now pledged GBP 2 million of the GBP 4.5 million paid to the foundation by the group in fiscal year 2022. Looking ahead, we are assuming tougher market conditions impacting the second half of fiscal year 2023. We remain very confident in the underlying strength of the watch and jewelry markets and our ability to gain market share. We're therefore very confident to confirm and reiterate our guidance previously issued. The luxury watch and jewelry markets are strong and we believe underdeveloped. Watches demand continues to outpace supply, and we are expanding our lists of registrations of interest. There is now a momentum of investment in products, marketing, retail, and infrastructure, both from the brands and the retail sector that will maintain positive momentum. We will, as always, remain diligent and focused on short-term performance and market trends while strategically planning our longer-term goals. At this stage, we are ahead of our long-range plan presented in July 2021, and we are scheduled to update our LRP in the spring/summer of 2023. I now hand over to Bill. Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Needless to say, we're very pleased with the strong start we've had to the financial year. Our guidance for the full year, as a reminder, reflects our visibility of supply of key brands and confirms showroom refurbishments, openings, and closures and excludes any uncommitted capital projects and acquisitions. We're reiterating our guidance today that we gave previously, and this is on an organic pre-IFRS 16 basis, and we are anticipating potentially more challenging trading in the second half of the financial year. The revenue range remains at GBP 1.45 billion-GBP 1.5 billion and adjusted EBIT of GBP 157 million-GBP 169 million. We've also given you today some more color on foreign exchange and how that impacts the numbers, so hopefully that will help you with your modeling. Lauren, back to you for Q&A. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your phone is unmuted locally. As a reminder, to ask a question, that is star followed by one. Our first question comes from Eleonora Dani from Shore Capital. Eleonora, please go ahead. Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three. First of all, could you please break down the volume/price components within the integrals? Secondly, I appreciate that industry reports do not include the brand's own stores, but they are showing that U.K. retail sales are declining. Does it mean that you are gaining market share? Lastly, will the company expect it to be in a net cash position this year? Is there a possibility of a change in dividend policy ahead? Thank you. I'll take your middle question, Eleonora, and then Bill can take the question on the volume/price and cash. We are getting market share. We know that we're doing that, but we don't have totally reliable statistics in either the U.K. and even less so in the U.S. What we do track as much as we can is overall brand sales from the individual brands and then our growth levels, and we can see that we're exceeding overall growth levels generally for most brands, U.K. and U.S. We're undoubtedly gaining share in the market, honestly, as we have done since we went through our transformation several years ago. Bill, on volume/price and Yeah. Eleonora, on volume and price. U.K. growth is 8% as reported. We have obviously got the tough comps compared to the restocking. You know, my view is that you could probably add mid-single digits if you made that really like-for-like. We've previously said pricing benefit this year is 4%-5%, and that's kind of where we are through first quarter. Then the balance is a mix of volume and mix, so you know, increasing spec and increasing price point and higher value products. I'm not gonna give exact numbers, but we've got good growth in volume and good growth in average sales price. On cash, yes, we're in a good cash position at the moment. We remain focused on executing the long range plan, which is both refurbishment and expansion of the store network and M&A. We remain active on M&A, and as we've said previously, we'll let you know on those as they land. We obviously maintain a view of our long-term cash position. We review the structure of the balance sheet regularly as and when the board decides that they wanna make a change on how we might do things, then we'll let you know. Thank you. That's really helpful. Thank you. Our next question comes from Richard Taylor from Barclays. Richard, please go ahead. Yeah. Morning, team. It's obviously a strong quarter overall, but can you give us a bit more color on area, any areas of relative strength or weakness? In particular, have you seen any softness at this stage in areas such as the non-supply constrained brands, or is it fairly similar across the board? Thank you. Thanks, Richard. I think the great thing, as said in the remarks, is that the strength is very broad based overall in terms of brands, product categories, watches, jewelry, geographies. Obviously we have the very, you know, strong growth in the U.S., but we're equally as pleased with what we've delivered in the U.K. Honestly, it is across the board, and as you know, we regularly answer, we have not detected at this point at all any change in demand as we've said. Our waiting lists continue to expand. We're actually adding more than we're able to take off of the waiting list by supplying happy customers. You know, no change. We, as we said, when we come out of a strong fiscal year 2022, we carried strong momentum into the first quarter. We feel exactly the same way about the momentum that we're carrying into Q2. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from Flavio Cereda from Jefferies. Flavio, please go ahead. Hey, morning, guys. Brian, was wondering, with the luxury watches still accounting for 87% of sales, right? We know across the supply constrained brands, that's not the volume. The volume is not a driver there, rather. Can you- Yeah. Are there any particular brands that you would call out? I know that some of them are wait-listed again, but if there's any particular names that you would like to call out that you're thinking are doing particularly well at this time? The other question I had was on this rather remarkable increase in size of the Rolex presence in the Bond Street area, which basically implies more availability, more and more product at a time when we know there's the issue of duty free in the U.K., which hopefully will be reversed. Do you have a sense that there will be a net additions, additional deliveries of Rolex in the London market, or is that likely to come at the expense of, perhaps some of your weaker competitors at the moment? Thank you. Thanks, Flavio. You know, I think as you know, we clearly have great partnerships and relationship with Rolex and Patek and Audemars and pretty much those brands. We are, they're not selling from waiting lists overall, but we've equally had great partnerships with fabulous global brands like OMEGA, Cartier, Breitling, Tudor, all of which have grown very well for us, both in the U.K. market and the U.S. We've undoubtedly gained share on them both, but equally, they have significantly grown in the markets and particularly very evident in the U.S. There's great dynamism behind each of those brands individually and, you know, collectively even more, and in addition, obviously, investment coming from us and other retailers. I think great momentum. We have waiting lists on OMEGA. We'd love to get more. Snoopy's, we'd love to get more of the new products. We'd even love to get more of the Bond watches that are still selling although the movie was a year ago. We'd love to get more Santos de Cartier. We'd love to get more Tudor across. Tudor is very strong. Across the board, we'd love more Tudor and Breitling. Similarly, new products, good success. At Navitimer in particular, we would love to get more of. Superocean off to a great start as well with the new product. Just, I think, great examples of dynamism that's in the category that we're benefiting from and very much partnering on. You know, the smaller niche brands are making a real contribution. It seems wrong even to call Girard-Perregaux a niche brand. It's a wonderful brand, but the Laureato collection, we can't get enough of. We can't get enough Zenith Chronomasters. We just opened MB&F in London for the first time last month, and pretty much all the product we have is sold. There's real strength overall across the market. The second question was on Bond Street. Yes, I mean, as we've said before, we make significant investments with our biggest and oldest partner, Rolex, alongside, you know, discussion on volume and supply to make those investments make sense. Totally confident on what will be a very successful store in Bond Street. It will be the only store in Bond Street where you can buy a Rolex. As things work their way through, it'll be a spectacular store. It'll be a destination, and I think very much recognizing the importance of London and the history of Rolex and the importance of Mayfair and Bond Street to luxury retailing. You know, our view is that at some point the duty-free situation will change, but for Rolex business, we honestly it's supply-driven, as we know, and there really won't be any impact overall from that. We do think that at some point in the future, across the luxury retailing situation, that the duty-free current situation will change. Very confident about this store and very, very pleased that we've got this deal done and, can't wait to open. It'll be spectacular. Great. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask any further questions, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Jon Cox from Kepler Cheuvreux. John, please go ahead. Good morning. Jon Cox with Kepler Cheuvreux here. Just a couple of questions, really on the commentary about H2 and maybe preparing for a bit more softness. You know, given your statements, at least looking into Q2 being quite positive, just wondering why. Maybe you can talk through that. Is it comparables or anything like that at all? Just on the way the quarter went, I'm particularly interested in July, U.K. like for likes. I wonder if there's any sort of slowdown there? I know a lot of your business is to do with the lists and stuff. Just a last question. It looks like the secondary market for many of the brands has rolled over. You're seeing declining prices in many cases. I'm surprised this is not having an impact on your waiting lists as such, as maybe people, you know, would go back to the secondary market rather than wait for so long if those prices look a bit more attractive, and just what your thoughts may be on that? Thank you. Yeah. We have incorporated, you know, an assumption that there'll be tougher trading conditions, you know, for Christmas in Q4. Overall, I think along with the rest of the world, it's cautionary on our part. We are reiterating our guidance, incorporating the fact that there could be some more challenging retail conditions, you know, impacting consumer confidence overall. It will only impact the minority of our business if it happens. Somewhere around 25% of our business is kind of traffic dependent. It's cautionary on our part. You know, we're early in the year. There's instability obviously in the country at the moment in terms of leadership and management of the economy. We're just being, I think, pragmatic and, as I've said, cautiously on it. We'll see. It's not a worry overall, but something that we have to do. We think it's the right thing to do. We don't give the monthly numbers out at all, but we just reiterate what I said in answer to Flavio. We really aren't seeing any impact. Overall business continues to be predictable and strong. It's across the board. Overall, you know, any slight variations we get when we're on top of our numbers 4x a day, so it's very micro. But any variations we get up or down we investigate, and they're inevitably about, you know, brand deliveries or something specific of that nature. You know, we haven't ascribed anything at this point to any kind of changing consumer sentiment. Business stays very strong, and we're carrying good momentum into Q2. As I've said already, just being a bit more cautionary about the second half. The secondary market is raised often. You know, we're actually pleased to see some of the excessive, you know, pricing that was there that seemed really irrational being adjusted. You're still looking at huge premium at the end of the day. It's not really a market that we're in. It tends to be a market that's, you know, from these trading sites, your Chrono24 and whatever. We are in the pre-owned market. We're growing very well in the pre-owned market. Analog:Shift in the U.S. doing a great job. We've rebranded and done new websites and, you know, new brand material. We've supported them with procuring product and they're growing very nicely. Not seeing any impact or challenges on pricing or on margin overall. We're also growing our business here in the U.K. on pre-owned and adding to our resource again on the procurement side. That's growing very well. Our challenge in that business in terms of growth is just getting access to more product and then you know building our resource in terms of watchmakers to handle refurbishment and so on. In terms of what you know I'd say the more genuine pre-owned market if we call it that the one that we are very active in it stays very strong and there's been no impact or challenge on pricing. Thanks, Brian, and congratulations with the figures. Thanks, Jon. Thank you. Our next question comes from Erwan Rambourg from HSBC. Erwan, please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, good morning, and congratulations from my side as well. Two questions if I can. Two on price points. So if you look at your waiting list, and the fact that you have more people on the list, I'm wondering if there's a disproportionate amount that's on more elevated price points versus more accessible price points? Then linked to that question, when you talk about a potentially more challenging H2, should we also consider that the risk is more at the entry level than at the higher end? So that's the two questions on price points. The third question I have is on the U.S. I think you said an 18% contribution from acquisition, 58% constant currency growth, on the rest. If I look at that 58%, presumably you had a few openings, that contributed as well. I'm wondering, I think you don't give same store sales growth, but could you give us an idea of what the growth would have been, with a stable, perimeter, i.e. in your existing stores that have been open for more than a year, what type of growth did you see in the U.S.? Thank you. On that last point, first of all, Erwan, not significantly different I think is the answer on the 58%. The openings that we had were mono-brand. We're partway through the year. So honestly, not significant. They're viewing the 58% as, you know, as pretty much organic. We obviously had the benefit of some refurbishments that were done in Mayors in particular. But, you know, if you wanna knock a point or two off of that and then call it like for like, you wouldn't be far wrong. Overall, I'm unaware of any change. What we're experiencing on pricing is increased average selling price at each brand level and, you know, overall and mix. I'm unaware of any pricing dynamics specifically on waiting list. I am therefore, you know, kinda looking ahead to your question. Would it be the lower price points are impacted? Logically, yes, but it's entirely contradictory to what we're experiencing at the moment 'cause we're experiencing an increase in the average selling price that our consumers are happy and willing to pay. I think it reflects the attraction and dynamism of the industry. There's a lot more going into product. It does therefore, you know, manifest itself in terms of pricing, but consumers are appreciating and wanting and desiring the product and prices are going up. Yeah, logically, if there was a, you know, an impact in consumer confidence, you would argue that it would impact lower level product more, overall. Again, repeating myself, it's not what we're experiencing. Okay. Okay, excellent. Thank you. Thanks, Erwan. Thank you. As a final reminder, to ask any further questions, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Okay. We currently have no further questions registered, so I'll now hand you back over to Brian Duffy for closing remarks. Thanks, Lauren. Thanks everybody for your questions and, you know, particular thanks to our teams delivering what I think are very commendable results for the quarter. You know, I think we've discussed with your questions and the remarks that we've given, you know, the overall headlines, which are that, you know, business remains very good. We're not seeing an impact on consumer demand. We are being cautionary in saying, you know, that, with the uncertainty that's ahead, let's build some of that into our thinking. Even having done so, we are, you know, very confident about the guidance that we gave, that we're happy to reiterate now. So all good. Thanks for joining us, and we'll look forward to speaking to you again when we do our half year results. Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.