Hello, and welcome to the Dalata Hotel Group PLC half-year results call. Throughout the call, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. Today, I am pleased to present Pat McCann, Dermot Crowley, and Carol Phelan. Please begin your meeting. Good morning, everybody. Pat McCann here. As Mark told you there, I'm joined by Dermot Crowley and Carol Phelan on the call. For a change, I'm going to say very little at these meetings. I've been restricted by my two colleagues here, who want to say a lot more, which is right, that they should. My objective is to get the whole presentation done on the first page. I jest as usual. Good morning again, everybody. Delighted to be here. I suppose every day that goes by, the news gets better and stronger and the announcement last night by the Irish government in particular, is very encouraging for our business for the back end of the year. We'll talk a lot more about that. I suppose, really looking at the first half of the year, our performance, I suppose was good given the circumstances. Therefore, the fact that obviously we had an EBITDA of EUR 1.4 million, is a credit to the team and the people and all our colleagues right around the company. Of course, I have to mention that the government supports both from Ireland and the U.K. were also of great help. Despite all of the issues that we had to deal with, our balance sheet remains in a very strong position, with fantastic assets at EUR 1.2 billion. I suppose the other key issue for us was liquidity, and that has remained strong and robust. The vaccine rollout, both in Ireland and the U.K., is probably the best in Europe, if not the best probably worldwide. We're already seeing the benefits of that in Ireland and the U.K. with, I suppose, a lot of our people taking up the vaccine. We have very low resistance to taking the vaccine in both Ireland and the U.K. one of the decisions that Dermot and I and Stephen McNally made back in March of 2020 was to retain our core teams. That has been hugely beneficial as we reopen up for business, in the U.K. in May and in Ireland in June. Having the teams in place meant we hit the ground running. We are not in the space where a lot of other hotel companies are, where they are struggling to now recruit teams and get people back and get their businesses opened. That is not the issue. While we do have some challenges in terms of recruiting certain tasks, but essentially we're in a very good space on that. The really encouraging thing for me was the recovery since we reopened in June in particular, where we started to see the rebuild. Then in July and August, really strong rebuild. I'll be quite honest with you, we were more than pleasantly surprised with the levels of business we had right across the group, including the two cities, both London and Dublin, where performance was better than we expected. This is simply based on the fact that we were relying on domestic economies in both centers. Our marketing and sales programs that we introduced really have delivered. It is very encouraging to see what can be done even when you have a limited market space. I suppose, again, it shows the strength and the depth of Dalata. I mentioned cash outflow for the first half. We were able to control that, which is great, which meant that our cash and undrawn facilities of EUR 270 million at the end of the half-year puts us in a really strong position. The other issue that is getting a lot of attention, and rightly so, is the whole area of ESG. There's a lot of things going on in Dalata around this space and Dermot and Carol will take you through some of the things that we've been doing over the recent years, actually, because a lot of this we have been doing well in advance of ESG becoming the issue and the topic that it is. We have a lot of good stuff going on there. In the midst of all this, we opened our first Scottish hotel, our new Maldron Hotel in Glasgow. I visited there a number of weeks ago, and I am absolutely thrilled with the way the hotel has started. Again, it's the strength of Dalata that the team that we have in place grew up internally in Dalata, and it meant that I was there a week after we opened, and it felt that the hotel had been in existence for a year. It really had bedded in the culture, all of the way we do things, really to the full. Of course, we have other hotels coming through the system between now and the first quarter of 2021. Again, we have all the teams lined up for those openings, which again, will mean a seamless operation, and embedded into the Dalata culture. The other thing I should say is that my colleague and friend, Stephen McNally, who has been my deputy for the last 14 years and one of the founders of Dalata with me, has decided to retire. I knew this was going on in his head for a number of months and probably even longer. He has decided to retire. I'm also delighted to tell you that he will be replaced internally. If you think of the fact that Dermot was replaced internally by Carol Phelan, as she moved up, she's been replaced internally. It shows the depth of the teams that we have in Dalata. It's not just the few people at the top. There's a real depth to our people, and the quality of our people means we do not have to go out for any senior hires in the company. With that, I am now going to hand over to Dermot to let him take the reins, and it's all yours, Dermot. Thank you very much, Pat. Good morning, everyone. I suppose first touching on Stephen's announcement of his retirement. Just want to recognize the huge contributions he's made to Dalata since it was founded in 2007. He started off with Pat back at that time. Myself and Stephen have worked together for the last nine years in Dalata and before that in Jurys Doyle Hotel Group, and that's been a very enjoyable period. As Pat mentioned, there's a very strong operational team within Dalata that Pat and Stephen have nurtured over the last number of years. As a result of that, it's great that we'll be able to run a process that will be for his replacement, that will be looking at internal candidates only. I just want to take this opportunity to wish Stephen the best for the future as well. Now looking, moving on to page five of the presentation. I suppose the first thing is to say that it is a positive outlook for Ireland and the U.K. as we look forward. We obviously always have the concerns about variants and what might happen with COVID, but I think we can only look at what's in front of us, and a lot of positive things there. As Pat mentioned, the vaccine programs in both Ireland and the U.K. have been extraordinarily successful with very strong uptake in both countries. You can see there, and it's not sometimes realized, I think, outside of Ireland, that we've had 67% of the total population now are fully vaccinated and 63% in the U.K. Why is this important? Well, I think in time people will start looking at where it's safe to visit, either for corporate or for leisure. I think it's countries with higher vaccination levels as opposed to, let's say, case numbers, will become more relevant. I think that's why we think it's very positive for both countries as we move into the autumn and the next phase of COVID. If we look at the economic forecasts for both countries, again, we've put some stats down there, very positive. We always keep a very close eye on the FDI presence in Ireland because those companies are some of our biggest customers. You'll see there that since 2014, when Dalata floated, the number of jobs are up 46%, and they're even up 20% since the end of 2016, when the Brexit vote took place. On an overall basis, we think the outlook for both Ireland and the U.K. is very positive at the moment. Moving to the next slide, we always give a lot of information on the Dublin market because obviously it's a key market for us. We've updated some of the numbers that we've shared over the last number of investor presentations. One of the key messages we always try and get across is that Dublin has a very low number of budget hotels. When we look at the new supply coming into Dublin, a substantial amount of supply, a lot of that is in the budget sector. On the first graph there, you can see there's only 6% of the rooms in Dublin would be classified as budget. In some provincial U.K. cities, that could be as high as 40%. Dublin does have a lot of 2 and 3-star hotels, and we've estimated 60% of those are over 40 years old, which actually equates to 4,000 rooms. We think they're probably the ones that will face the stiffest competition from the new competition or from the new hotels coming in. We've updated the graph in terms of new supply. We've got Savills to do that for us. You'll see what's really happened is a lot of the hotels that were meant to open in 2020 will now open towards the end of 2021. Quite a number of hotels due to open either at the end of this year or the start of next year. You can see in 2023, the graph starts dropping quite rapidly, and we expect that supply after 2023 will slow down significantly because of the impact of COVID on financing, on demand, and everything else really. We've also given a breakdown there of the new supply coming in. As you can see, nearly half of it is in the budget sector, as I said previously. Airbnb, the new Housing for All policy, which is due to be released in Ireland in the next couple of weeks. The minister has flagged that there will be further restrictions and regulations expected on any short-term lettings of residential apartments, which again should control the impact of Airbnb on Dublin. As I said previously, supply likely to slow due to COVID, and we have seen a number of hotels, not a huge amount yet, but a number of hotels either close or something like in the case of Citywest, used by the HSE. All the rooms are not back into the market in Dublin as of now. On the next slide, on slide seven, we try to give you an idea as to what the last eight or nine months have looked like. The first quarter, as you can see, the graphs kind of reflect the mood we were all in in January and February and March in Ireland. Particularly difficult month. Low occupancies, hotels closed to the general public, and we made an adjusted EBITDA loss of EUR 3.6 million. We moved into the second quarter, and you can see the hotels started reopening in the U.K., in England on the 17th of May, in Northern Ireland on the 24th of May, and on the 2nd of June in the Republic of Ireland. When I say reopening, it's important to point out we kept all the hotels open really since the end of the first lockdown, but they were only open for essential business and project-type corporate business. It was important that we did that, and we retained as many of our people as possible. The impact of June reopening was hugely positive immediately, and you can see we had a EUR 5 million positive adjusted EBITDA in Q2. The real story, I think, when you're looking forward, is the level of pent-up demand that came through in July and August. If you think, when you look at the occupancies we achieved in July and August, this was on the back purely of domestic demand. There really has been practically no international business in the U.K. or Ireland. You can see the graph in terms of where the occupancies lifted up to, I'll touch on August in a minute. You can also see that we produced a positive adjusted EBITDA of approximately EUR 24 million in July and August. It is quite an extraordinary turnaround. Also, if you look at the dotted lines, is how occupancies behaved last year. You can see a very significant improvement in places like Dublin and the U.K. especially, and even in regional Ireland, which was reasonably positive last year. That gives you an idea of the level of pent-up demand that's there when the various sectors are allowed reopen. In terms of August, we just thought this would give you a more in-depth view of how the recovery has looked. You can see in occupancy levels, Dublin at 59%, compared to 34% last year. A much bigger bounce as people got more confident as the vaccinations took hold. Regional Ireland is a really positive story for us. If you think about it, our regional Ireland RevPARs are actually up over 5% versus 2019. Right. What we managed to do here was, as demand grew, and it grew very significantly, we started yielding. We're quite often asked by investors, "When do you think average room rates will return to 2019 levels?" What we've always said, "Well, that depends on demand." We will be well able to yield as occupancies grow. You can see there in regional Ireland, we grew our occupancy from 114 in 2019 up to 138 in 2021. That's hugely positive. Then if I look into regional U.K., again, that market for us is up 4.5% on 2019, and it's exactly the same story again. As occupancies grew and demand grew, there was very little resistance to increased rates as well. We were able to yield very strongly in terms of average room rates. Dublin and London have been much more positive than last year, and much more positive than we would've thought when we reopened in late May, early June. Clearly they do need international travel to recover to get back to the heights that they were in 2019. We've also put in some stats there in terms of food and beverage revenue. It's one thing I want more focus on within Dalata, and we've actually performed really well during the summer months. The introduction of our new food and beverage system, Simphony, throughout what is now practically the entirety of the portfolio, has allowed our hotels to manage our food and beverage business much more efficiently than they were able to do before. I think August has been a very successful month for us. What I will caution you is that Dublin, despite that, is still 50% down in rooms revenue where it was 2019. There's a lot left in this recovery. You can see that as a negative, or you can see it as I do, as an opportunity going forward. Keeping on the positive note, we opened our first Glasgow hotel in August. To get this hotel open and to get some of Shane's development team manage this project over the last 18 months, has been an achievement in itself. It is an ideal location in the center of Glasgow. Brand-new purpose-built hotel, built to a very good standard in terms of BREEAM. There's been a big focus on sustainability as there is in all our new developments, going forward. It's a long-term lease commitment, typical to what we normally enter into, where we look to get a 1.85 rental cover in the third year of operation. Probably the key thing for me, and Pat mentioned it, over half of our management team are internally developed. That helps us all sleep much easier when we know the people running the hotels. As Pat said, the minute you walk in there, it feels like a Dalata hotel. The Dalata culture will be quickly established and ingrained in there. In terms of numbers, 36% occupancy in the first month of opening, which considering the environment, is an extraordinary result. A very positive opening for us in Glasgow. I've mentioned that we have increased our focus on ESG. The great thing about ESG and Dalata is the culture that we've built up and Pat has led over the last number of years is very suitable to ESG because if ESG didn't exist, we still want to deal with our stakeholders. We actually do care about the environment. We do care about our people. I suppose what we're focusing on now is reporting what we do better and measuring what we do better. We're certainly focused, and we've taken on an ESG advisory firm to launch a strategy in the first quarter of next year, which will allow us to set out clear targets, which we will report to the market in the first quarter of next year. We've mentioned previously there's an ESG board committee established, and we're really seeing the impact of that over the last five or six months at board level. We've mentioned we adopted the U.K. Corporate Governance Code long before we needed to do it, such is our commitment to governance. We're always in active engagement with our stakeholders on ESG. We deal with our suppliers. We have a code of conduct with our suppliers. We've another meeting with suppliers this month. We talk to our customers through their RFP process and what they're looking for in terms of their demands, in terms of sustainability. We're always in contact with our employees on all matters related, not just to their employment, but they've driven at hotel level, the results which I'll touch on in a second in terms of Green Tourism, and there's a huge interest at hotel level in sustainability. We're talking to our shareholders, and we will increase the manner in which we report on ESG to our shareholders over the next 12 months. As I said, we're looking to aim for reporting alignment with global best practice framework. I'm not going to go through all those various acronyms because I'll only confuse myself. But one I will mention is that we do plan to set climate targets with the TCFD as part of that strategy. Moving on to slide 11, just to give you a few snapshot on a few of the more practical things we've been doing. We're delighted to say that we've now got 36 gold and 8 silver awards from Green Tourism, which is a huge improvement on where we were in 2019, and that's driven by the teams out of the hotels. What that does actually is drive an awareness of sustainability at our hotels, and that really is an important first step, in what will be a long journey for us all in terms of sustainability. Very good BREEAM standard, as I said, is target for all our new builds and is something that we achieved in our Maldron in Glasgow. We've had a continued improvement in our CDP scores year-on-year, and hopefully that will continue into the future. Looking at our, in terms of social side, over 44,000 Dalata online courses taken during the first half of the year. We've a significant expansion of our graduate program, with 53 graduates joining that this year. In terms of diversity and inclusion, there's over 90 different nationalities in Dalata, which is something we really are proud of and delighted that is the case. 49% of our senior team who participate in our LTIP scheme are female. Good gender balance within the company as well. A lot happening on the ESG side. Moving on to the growth story which is also positive. Just moving on to slide 13. We continue to focus primarily on London and regional U.K. for growth opportunities, and I'm delighted to report that Shane's development team and acquisitions team are back on the road, and have been traveling over the last couple of weeks. We expect activity and discussions in this whole area to increase as people get back into the officers in September. We're starting to see that in London, which is obviously one of the key places where a lot of these transactions get first discussed. We're also looking at potential opportunities or unlocking potential opportunities in Europe and leveraging the very strong relationships we have with our fixed income partners such as Deka, Union, Aberdeen Standard and M&G and others. The advantage we have now as those growth opportunities hopefully emerge, is we've a very strong balance sheet with a very experienced and skilled acquisitions and development team. We've proven with operational expertise through a decentralized model, which may I emphasize, we will remain decentralized, as I take over as CEO, it's hugely successful, and that will remain in place. We have a very strong, excellent relationship with those fixed income investors, with developers and agents. We deliver what we say we're going to do. Obviously Maldron and Clayton are highly respected brands within the industry. Looking at the pipeline itself, that sets it out by each year what we expect to open. If I can move on to page 15 and just look at what that pipeline does to the portfolio and generally. The first point there, it does give us further business diversification. By the time the current pipeline is built out, the U.K. is getting close to 50% of our rooms. We're also moving, in terms of leased, more towards leased because that's a more capital efficient way for us to grow. By the time this pipeline is built out, we do 43% leased and 57% owned. Don't underestimate our determination to retain always a strong balance sheet asset-backed. To give you some numbers, if we were to add a further 2,000 leased rooms to our portfolio, we would still be at 50% owned, and 50% leased. We can still take on a lot of more leased rooms and still have a very strong asset-backed balance sheet. The average age of our hotels would fall. In the group from 17-16 and in the U.K. from 11-9. In the U.K. perspective, to have your average age of hotels at nine years is hugely advantageous as we enter into an era where there's a huge focus on sustainability. In terms of numbers, we expect significant earnings contributions from this pipeline post rent, about EUR 30 million, in terms of cash flow. On the next page, we've put in some nice pictures of the new hotels. I would say this pipeline is really exciting. I luckily got to visit the two hotels in Manchester and the hotel in Bristol on my first visit back to the U.K. a few months ago. They're all going to be really super products. The Clayton Hotel Manchester City Centre will have spectacular public areas in terms of restaurants, bars, and meeting rooms. The general manager there will be Filiz, who's transferred from our Clayton Hotel Manchester Airport. Maldron Hotel, Manchester City will be the first kind of evolution of our new Maldron public areas. Again, a really exciting project for a great location. Carol will be our general manager there, and he's worked in a number of hotels and most recently as the deputy general manager in Clayton Crown Hotel. The Clayton Hotel in Bristol is a very unique project in that you can see the front of the hotel there, listed buildings, and then there's an old office building attached to it. What our designers have come up with is a really exciting combination of new and old, and a very exciting lobby area as well. That when it opens at the start of next year, Alison will be the general manager there, and Alison's previously general manager of hotel or Clayton Hotel in Cardiff and has worked for us for a number of years. The Samuel Hotel in Dublin will open in the early part of next year. Mixed-use development with a spectacular headquarters building for Salesforce in the middle of the financial service center in Dublin. Really excellent location. Our general manager there will be Tom, who previously managed the Clayton Hotel Chiswick for us in London. The Maldron Hotel in Merrion Road, which was where we knocked the Tara Towers Hotel, mixed-use development where we’ve pre-sold the residential to I-RES. A spectacular new building with a great view of Dublin Bay. Our general manager there will be Bruno, who, again, is previously general manager of Ballsbridge Hotel and has worked with us for a number of years. Finally, the Clayton Hotel Glasgow, which is really going to be spectacular. I said that about them all, this takes the old Customs House building, which looks out onto the river in Glasgow. We convert the Customs House and add a new bedroom block onto the hotel. It could be something quite similar, for those of you who know it, to the Clayton Charlemont. There will be an internal appointment there, but that hasn't been formally announced yet as well. A really exciting portfolio of new hotels opening up within the next six or seven months. I'm going to take a break now and hand over to Carol Phelan, who's going to take us through the financial review. Good morning, everyone, thanks, Pat and Dermot. I think you've gone through most of the things, hopefully there's a few bits left to say. I suppose, first of all, we touched on our liquidity position on slide 19. We're very pleased with how that's gone over the first 6 months of 2021. We've maintained the same disciplines that we have since the start of the pandemic in 2020. I suppose we've kept our eye also on our long-term growth. How we have done that, I suppose, is that we've limited the losses in the business, and that's the operational teams all across the business doing that and working together on that. We've reduced our CapEx to just non-essential and uncommitted CapEx. Our net cash outflow has been EUR 24 million in the first half of the year, which is an excellent result. Of that, EUR 23 million has been paying our rent and our interest, and is really focused on protecting our long-term relationships with our banks, our institutional landlords, and making sure we are well-positioned for the growth and opportunities into the future. Our gearing also remains very conservative. We have 27% net debt to value with, obviously, the strength of assets on our balance sheet and our drawn debt, our net debt of about EUR 300 million at the end of June 2021. In a very good, strong position despite the ongoing disruption from the pandemic through the first half of the year. As we move on to the income statement on page 20, again, the numbers reflect the impact of the limited trading due to the restrictions for most of the first half of the year. Through the careful cost management that, I suppose, went into place at the very start of the pandemic and the utilization of the government support, particularly to protect employment during that period, we've maintained or retained that adjusted EBITDA to a positive EUR 1.4 million, which we're very pleased with. It's also a reflection of the fact that our teams, as both Dermot and Pat alluded to earlier on, were kept in place. Our core teams were kept in place throughout the pandemic, and that has allowed us to continue to pick up essential business through that period where we were closed to the wider public the first half of the year. It's meant we've hit the ground running since full reopening in May and into June. We've seen some very strong figures, obviously, since then. We've had a small positive movement through the profit loss from the valuation movements. There's been minimal valuation movements, I suppose, in 2021. A lot of the impact that we would've seen due to COVID was taken through the 2020 financial year. We'll move on now to slide 21, which has a snapshot of our Dublin performance. Again, the figures show the impact of the business being shut to all of our essential business for the majority of the first half of the year, with occupancy of 19%, and that compared to occupancy of 86.3% for the same period in 2019. The impact, though, to the bottom line has been mitigated, as I've just said, through that careful cost management and the utilization of government supports. In Ireland, the wage subsidies, in particular, have been very beneficial, as they allow us to bring back in our teams and continue to receive those subsidies. Unlike U.K., which has a slightly different structure. We are particularly pleased with the strength in Dublin. I think that has come out through both what Dermot and Pat have said. Since the full reopening at the start of June, with the occupancies hitting 50% and 59% in July and August respectively, which has been a very pleasant surprise. They're both up significantly on last year, which really demonstrates that large pent-up demand and the willingness of people to travel with the current levels of vaccinations. We do await, obviously, though, the meaningful return of international travel and events, hopefully yesterday evening's announcement from the Irish government points towards that resumption. As typically, 50% of the rooms were sold to the international market in a normal year. Turning to the next slide, which touches on our regional Ireland business on page 22. Again, see the impact of the restrictions on the first half numbers. We have included there the occupancies in July and August, which has shown, again, the strength of the demand following reopening. There is greater exposure, obviously, to the domestic market in our regional Ireland hotels. Typically, we would see 70% of rooms sold in a normal year to the domestic market, and that has seen an exceptionally strong recovery since reopening in the staycations, with occupancies hitting just circa 80% in both July and August. Which has allowed us that opportunity to yield on rate that Dermot touched on early on, which has been very encouraging. Our revenue teams obviously being in place and staying in place throughout the pandemic has been hugely beneficial. Turning to the U.K. The U.K. obviously reopened slightly earlier than Ireland, and the restrictions have been lifted more quickly. The cost reduction government support in the form of rate waivers and grants principally there have mitigated the impact on the bottom line. Unlike Ireland, furlough has paid employees who have not returned to work in the U.K. That doesn't have the same impact, obviously, on the EBITDAR numbers there. The London hotels, we have given some of those occupancy numbers on the previous slide that Dermot referred for August, have seen a very encouraging recovery, in occupancy to about 60% in August, despite the limited international travel. Typically in the London market, 50% of rooms sold are sold to international visitors. That's a particularly strong recovery again since reopening and mirrors some of the numbers we see in our Dublin markets and the willingness of people to return to cities, particularly with the vaccination level backdrop that we do see in both jurisdictions. Our regional U.K. hotels have also seen very strong occupancies, largely from staycations and the domestic market, with a 73% occupancy in August. Typically they would have about 85% of rooms sold to the domestic market in normal times. I suppose all of that has translated into the very strong pent-up demand that we've seen in both regional U.K. and our Northern Irish hotels through July and August. Finally, turning to slide 24, we touch here on our balance sheet. We're particularly happy with our balance sheet. It remains in a very strong, healthy position despite the ongoing impact in H1 2021. We have had limited movement in valuations, as I just mentioned, and we continue to have that EUR 1.2 billion of hotel assets in prime locations, meaning that our net debt value is 27%, which obviously gives huge comfort to both ourselves and our banks and our institutional landlords. One thing I will draw your attention to here is the contract fulfillment cost assets, which is there at EUR 27.2 million at the end of June 2021, has been reclassified to current from non-current. We expect to complete the sale of the Merrion Road development of residential units to I-RES in Q1 2022, which will see a cash inflow of approximately EUR 42 million at that point. We are very pleased, I suppose, with the shape of this balance sheet. It does provide us with a significant level of protection, which has served us through the pandemic. It gives us flexibility and optionality to do different things, and it will provide that engine for growth as we move into the future and out of this period. I suppose I'll pass back to Dermot on that point as we look forward to the coming months and into the coming year. Thank you, Carol. Just moving to slide 26 on the outlook. I think we've covered the July and August performance. We're really very, very happy with it as domestic-driven occupancy is back up to 68% in August. Really strong in regional U.K. and regional Ireland, and very strong in terms of cash. We're projecting our EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, for the two-month period to be about EUR 24 million. Obviously, we need to pay rent and interest out of that, and our cash and undrawn facilities have increased to EUR 293 million at the end of August. We are at the start of the recovery. I said previously, there's still a long way to go, still lots of opportunity to capture. We've very low visibility at the moment in terms of in near term. Bookings do remain short term and late, but the pickup during the month has been very strong, and we're hoping that will continue into September. International travel is key, and although it has resumed in both Ireland and in the U.K., in terms of inbound visitors to both countries, it hasn't taken off in any substantial manner yet. We are hopeful that will start happening during September, and especially as people return to the offices. Previously said, the rollout of the vaccines in both countries is hugely positive, and we do believe that's going to be very positive as we move forward. The domestic recovery in August really does show the strength of the pent-up leisure demand that exists out there. We've been saying that for the last 12 months, and I think July and August has proven us to be correct on that. We will still continue to protect our people, our cash, and our business. One of the key things is that we need to remain agile and alert to any further changes or impacts from COVID, and we will do that. We've outlined to the positive economic forecast for both countries, the importance of international travel. The announcement yesterday from the Irish government, for those who may not have picked up on it, is that as the restrictions further ease, that'll be very positive for our industry. If you think people are returning to the offices in September 20th, that's going to bring more life back into city centers. We do believe as people come back into the offices, the decisions to travel will be made easier as well. We hope that does trigger corporate travel and international corporate travel starting again. The return of events is hugely positive for us, and that's happening over the next five or six weeks as well. The recent matches in Croke Park generated significant additional demand for us in Dublin. The returns of concerts and larger events is very welcomed by us. The lifting of restrictions on indoor gatherings will allow weddings and meetings and conference and banqueting to resume as we get towards the end of the year. We welcome hugely that announcement last night. The last thing to mention really is just to say, last two things to mention is, I just want to thank all the teams again. I did this in March. It has been a difficult period for everyone, but our strategy of keeping our core teams in place and using subsidies and government supports to protect as much employment as possible has really served us well. Everyone out in the hotels and at the center has really enabled a very safe and smooth reopening since the start of June. With that, those teams in place, I'm very confident for the future. Before I hand over to Pat, because in case I get emotional, this is the last presentation we'll do together. I want to thank him for all his guidance, his friendship, the slagging, and the good times we've had over the last, God, nearly 20 years at this stage. I said on the radio this morning, we live close together. I'm sure he won't be short of advice. I'll hand back to Pat now. Thanks, Dermot, and thanks, Carol. As Dermot has said there, we've announced this morning that I will step down a little bit earlier towards the end of October. That decision is driven by the fact that normally in Dalata, November and December are the months where we plan for the following year. We both felt that it was very important that Dermot would actually be the CEO for that event, and it is important that he does take control of that. I really don't want to be hanging around and be in the way. I'm delighted that we have come to this conclusion. I suppose I leave behind a company that is, despite everything, in really good shape. The good shape of the company is made by the people. It is as simple as that. We have some truly excellent hotels in our portfolio. What we really have is depth and quality in our teams of people. I know somebody mentioned about Alex Ferguson this morning, about that they're trying to do a comparison. The difference between myself and Alex Ferguson or Arsène Wenger, whatever you want to call it, is that they had no succession plan. They didn't leave anybody behind to keep the organization going. They say the mark of a good chief executive is that if he leaves somebody better behind him. I'm absolutely convinced that that's the case. I'm delighted to be handing over to Dermot and the great team of people that he has, and the culture that's so embedded in Dalata. I suppose, as Dermot said, this will be my last investor presentation, and I want to thank you as investors for all the support. Over almost 25 years, I've known many of you. It has been fantastic to have engaged with you and to have your support over all those periods of time. A big thank you from me. The other thing I would say is all the analysts and all the brokers that have supported us and written about us, again, it's been great. We always haven't agreed, but sure, that's the joy of the cut and thrust of business. As I said, as I bow out, I leave a company that's in excellent shape, despite everything that's been thrown at us. I will now hand over to our moderator to handle any questions that may come our way. Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please dial zero-one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. If you find your question has been answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial zero-two to cancel. Once again, that's zero-one to ask a question or zero-two if you need to cancel. There'll be a brief pause now whilst we register your questions. Our first question comes from the line of Colin Grant at Davy. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Great. Good morning, everybody, and well done, Pat, on a great career at Dalata, and best of luck to the succession plan team going forward. A couple of questions, if I could. Just firstly on the room rates, which as you've highlighted, have been exceptionally strong, particularly regional Ireland and regional U.K. I'm just wondering if you can give us a little bit of a color on your thoughts, Dermot or whoever, going forward in terms of how you see those room rates evolving once international travel reopens. Do you expect to see maybe a pullback back to maybe 2019 levels in those, but maybe maintaining occupancy levels and then that being offset by a recovery in Dublin, London, or how you see that evolving? Maybe just start with that question, if that's okay. Hi, Colin. Good morning. The story is different with every region, right? In regional Ireland and regional U.K., they've been helped hugely by the fact that the domestic demand is just so strong. Normally in all our markets, we would have a lot of base business, we'd have coach tour business, we'd have a degree of corporate business even during July and August. They'd be at lower rates, right? They would help the occupancy, which you can see is still back on 2019, but they would bring the rate down. That's the right thing to do because they give you occupancy right throughout the year. As we get back to normal, there certainly will be a bit of downward pressure in those two markets in terms of average room rate. That'll be more than compensated by the upside in Dublin and London. In reality, in July and August or in any period, they're 2 very high occupancy cities, and as demand increases there, that gives you the opportunity to yield. I suppose what we have seen in the markets, where we have reached high occupancy, is that you still have the ability to yield, and there isn't, in the transient leisure market, a very strong resistance to increasing rate. I think whenever we do get back to normal and whenever international business does start again, I think you will see a very strong recovery in Dublin and London over time. Great. Thanks, Dermot. Just the second question would be to do with the F&B, where you gave some details on revenues there in August in each division and prior comparisons, and they're recovering very fast. I notice they're recovering faster than what you're seeing in terms of your recovery rates and occupancy levels. I'm just wondering, is that reflective of just the level of pent-up demand in terms of customers spending money, or are there specific actions you're taking now in terms of managing your F&B part of the business that are driving that? Maybe a bit of both. Yeah, there's a few factors there. Don't forget our F&B doesn't include any conference or banqueting at the moment, because that's effectively been closed, right? That's a further improvement on top of that. When we reopened the hotels at the start, in Ireland, other hospitality wasn't open, right? Basically people were eating in hotels, partially because there was nowhere else to eat. Right, okay. Even since the indoor hospitality has reopened in Ireland, we've still retained a very strong food and beverage business. I think we've just put an increased focus on it. We've got confidence from the time we were very busy when other hospitality wasn't opened. We are using the technology to understand what people are looking for when they come into us. We're trying to sell them an additional drink, be it a cocktail before dinner, encourage them to have something after dinner, or even if they're not having dinner with us, encourage them to come back to us, having a drink with us. We understand both on our food side and our beverage side what people are looking for. We can adjust our menus accordingly, and we are making big efforts to retain people in the hotel to dine. On top of that, the lifting of restrictions hopefully will be very positive as we get towards the end of the year in terms of conference and banqueting. Great. Thanks, Dermot. I'll hand it over to others to ask away. Many thanks. Thanks, Colin. Thank you. Just as a reminder to participants, if you do have any further questions, please dial 01 on your telephone keypad now. The next person in the queue is Owen Shirley at Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions and good luck to Pat for the future and best wishes for everything. My questions were just, firstly, I know events are obviously important for the Dublin market in particular. What does the events calendar look like for next year? Is it less than 2019? Are we back to about the same, or is there any element of kind of more events than usual because they've been delayed? The second question was, with regards to, obviously, trading over the last couple of months has been a lot better. Where does your confidence sit now around investing in, let's say, buying a hotel that's underperforming or anything like that? Thanks. Good morning, Owen. Thanks for the questions. In terms of the events calendar for next year, large conventions are down and there's a lead time into those, right? Okay. We do believe there will be a backlog, and there could be some late bookings because there'll be plenty of availability, but there is a longer lead time into those. As regards other events like sporting events and concerts, the calendar isn't there yet because there was no certainty as to when restrictions would be lifted. We would strongly expect, given what's happened in the U.K., that events would come back really strong because there's a huge demand for events amongst the consumer and actually amongst performers and artists. They need to get back out there earning money as well. All the sporting organizations need to get as many people into stadia as quickly as possible as well. We think outside of your kind of large conventions, the outlook for next year is very strong on events as long as these restrictions continue to be eased as they are in both countries. In terms of trading over the last couple of months, does it change our conference levels as regards investments? It just reassures what we thought would happen. We've said the whole time, we thought there was very strong pent-up leisure demand. It was probably stronger than what we thought would happen. We remain very confident about our expansion plans in the U.K., in London and regional U.K. primarily, and any opportunities that might arise in Europe as well. Our industry has been extraordinarily resilient in terms of recovery. As we get to understand more and more about COVID and the science improves, our industry will bounce back very strongly, and therefore, we're very interested in growing within that industry. Thanks, Dermot. Could I just ask a quick follow-up on that last one, which is just, have you seen any meaningful change over the last few months in the number of opportunities you're seeing coming across your desks? No, not really in the last couple of months. What we would hope is as people now start meeting in London, have the cups of coffees, and they start meeting, I'm a great believer in face-to-face meetings. As they start happening and Shane and his team get back out on the road over the next few months, we should see more activity or hear of more opportunities, and that whole area will pick up. July and August, to be honest, should be two quieter months in terms of development in any case. I think from September onwards, hope we see a significant pickup. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, if there are any further questions on the phones, please dial 01 on your telephone keypads now. Okay, we have another question coming through. That is from the line of Paul Ruddy at Goodbody. Please go ahead, your line is open. Hi, good morning, everyone. Sorry, I got an echo on the line. I'll try and kill it here. Morning, everyone. Just a couple of quick questions, if that's okay. Firstly, just on labor, widely reported across the U.K. and Ireland, just on inflationary pressures and recruitment pressures. Are you seeing much at the moment? Is there anything impacting occupancies? Maybe just a question, if you could contextualize what you may have expected for labor inflation for this year or next year, previously versus now, if you're seeing anything meaningful that we need to think about. Second question, if that's okay, is just on the pipeline again and the European opportunity you called out. Just any further color on that, how you think about it. Would you go for a single hotel in a single city, or would you need to look at a country with a number of hotels to make the model work? The final one is, I think you just gave some more detail there on that debt to EBITDA covenants in June 2021. Just technically, is that on a pre-IFRS 16 basis on both sides? Just how do you feel you're tracking in relation to those covenants at this point in time? Good morning, Paul. I'll take the first two questions and I'll let Carol answer the third. In terms of labor shortages, it's a different story between the U.K. and Ireland. In the U.K., there is certainly significant labor shortages. The combination of COVID and Brexit has had an impact on the industry. Now, we haven't suffered to the same degree as some of our competition because we've really focused on taking care of people during the crisis. We offer development programs. We offer good terms and conditions. We're probably seen as a safer, secure employer. We have seen some pressure, but not as much as what we hear our competition are facing. In Ireland, again, because of what we've done over the last 18 months has left us in a stronger position. When I look at our core teams, our management teams, we're broadly intact. We've had obviously one or two departures as you do, but we're broadly intact and we're in a very good position there. Where the pressure is in the lower paid levels where you've got housekeepers and food and beverage assistants. There is some payroll rate pressure there. Now, it's not clear in Ireland really how long that will last to a certain extent because there's a few things at play there. There's been less immigration in terms of foreign nationals. If that does return, that will ease things to a degree. You also have the impact of the PUP, which is still in place. The industry has lost people to other industries, such as retail, but certainly, the industry would hope that we can attract those people back into hospitality. As regards trying to predict future payroll inflation, I wouldn't even try it at the moment, to be honest, Paul. You're back two or three months, it's summertime. The PUP, it needs to settle down. Occupancies in the region of Ireland were particularly high. We just need to see that settle back down. As regards the pipeline and looking at Europe, yeah, you know us, we're always flexible. Would a single hotel work in a single c ity? It absolutely would. The key thing for us when we look at any location is that the location of the hotel or hotels is central, that it's got a strong combination of corporate and leisure, and we don't tend to compromise on those. We'll look at individual cities that suit the criteria and match the cities that we've performed well in the past. I don't want to give an expectation that there's going to be a big expansion into Europe over the next six to 12 months or anything like that. We're using this current time to understand and educate ourselves better so that if and when an opportunity comes up, we can react quickly to it the same way as we do in the U.K. If that's okay, I'll hand you over to Carol and for the final question on the covenants. Good morning, Paul. I suppose just to answer the first question, which I think is sort of a technical point. Yes, our net debt to EBITDAR on a pre-IFRS 16 basis under our facilities agreement and continue to be calculated like that. I suppose, obviously, as we've set out in today's presentation, we are off to a flying start on those trailing 12-month EBITDA numbers in our July and August. Forecasting of the near term does remain difficult in the current environment and means we have to remain agile. In our financial statements, we've obviously called out that we don't currently project any issue with those covenants. Reasonable scenarios could show an issue potentially at June 2022. However, to be honest, we would draw attention to what we've done before. That would be before any mitigating actions. The things we've done through 2020, how we protected cash on an ongoing basis since the start of the pandemic, we would point to those things. We would also point to the fact, as I called out when we went through the balance sheet, we have very low net debt to value ratios with very strong relationships with our banks. There are plenty of things that we could do long before, I suppose, we get to any point where we would have an issue with covenants. Okay. That's really clear across the board. Thanks very much, everyone. Thank you. Okay. There seem to be no further questions from the phone, so I'll hand back to our speakers for the closing comments. Thank you very much for your time. Pat caught me by surprise. I'm so used to Pat wrapping up. Hopefully, we will see a lot of you over the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, virtually. I really am looking forward to visiting a number of you in your offices at some point. We're always open for requests for meetings and that, and keeping an open dialogue. Thank you for your time, and hopefully we'll see a lot of you over the next couple of weeks. This now concludes the conference. Thank you all very much for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.