Good evening and welcome to the Safilo Group First Half 2022 Results. This call may contain forward-looking statements related to future events and operating economic and financial results for the Safilo Group. Such forecasts, due to their nature, imply a component of risk and uncertainty due to the fact that they depend on the occurrence of certain future events and developments. The actual results may therefore vary even significantly to those announced and related to a multitude of factors. Today's participants are Angelo Trocchia, Chief Executive Officer, Gerd Graehsler, Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Barbara Ferrante, Director of Investor Relations. I will now hand the call over to Mr. Angelo Trocchia, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Trocchia, you may begin, sir. Thanks. Thanks very much and good evening. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for attending today's conference call on the Safilo Group first half results 2022, including a trading update on the second quarter. We are pleased with the development of our business in the second quarter. Our strategic objective to build a Safilo with a strong and balanced portfolio of brands, geographies, products, and channels is progressing well, supporting us in sizing opportunities where they arise. Given the complex environment which we continue to operate and the company's specific headwinds we still had to face this year, we are certainly pleased with our top line growth, very solid at both the reported and organic level, with some clear growth engines which have well overcome some soft areas. More than anything, we are today pleased with the market growth of our profits and the margin expansion which has come along with it. In quarter two, our total net sales grew 11.2% at current rates as Forex became an even bigger tailwind on the top line, adding almost EUR 90 million and by 4% at constant exchange rate. While our organic growth, which is still to be considered our most meaningful KPI of revenue, was very solidly at +9.8% to be noticed after the 14.3% we posted in quarter one. This performance resulted in our H1 sales being up +11.8% at current rate after adding a total around EUR 28 million of positive foreign impact, but also at 6.2% at constant currency and an important +12% at the organic constant currencies level. It is worth remembering that in H1 2021, our business had already exceeded pre-pandemic level, reporting a growth of 7.7% at constant exchange rates compared to the H1 2019. It is an interesting data point that our H1 2022 is up around 15% versus H1 2019 at constant currencies, with the organic performance always calculated on a constant brand perimeter up around 25%. In the second quarter, our gross margin increased to 56.5% of sales, which we consider a significant milestone on the path towards our goal to structurally improve the group's overall margin profile. This enables a virtuous circle to improve profitability, while at the same time reinvesting in marketing and advertising activities to further fuel the growth of our brand as we did also in the second quarter. This has brought our H1 adjusted EBITDA to 11% of sales, 130 basis points higher than in H1 2021, and 207 basis points higher than the 8.3% margin recorded in H1 2019. This semester is also a record period for our group, reaching an adjusted net profit of EUR 33.7 million, the highest net result in Safilo's recent history in the first semester. This is for us, an important confirmation of the direction of the work we are taking to build a more and more profitable business at bottom line level. Let's see how our key business driver played out in these first six months, affecting our organic sales. This year, Europe, our second largest region, has bounced back strongly, driven by the reopening of the economies and the return of local international tourists, thus becoming the group's key revenue growth driver. Our organic business instead remained substantially in line with last year in North America, where this year the pace of consumption has been without doubt, more moderate behind the tougher economic environment in the United States. The market where our sales were facing an even more demanding comparison versus quarter two 2021, when we had posted a double-digit organic growth versus the pre-pandemic level of 2019. In quarter two, we also benefited from the strength of our business in emerging markets, in particular Brazil, Mexico, and Middle East, which continued to deliver solid sales growth, while China remained impacted by the COVID-related lockdowns. In terms of products and channels, in quarter two, we saw a continuation of the key organic trends we recorded in the first quarter, with the sales of sunglasses and the business of goggles and helmets for winter and summer sport activities remaining our key engine of growth, prescription frames confirming their natural resiliency, posting another quarter-on-quarter mid-single digit growth. At the organic level, sunglasses grew around 14% in the first semester, goggles and helmets +34%, while prescription frames increased by 5%. If we look from a channel perspective, we continue to benefit from the evolution of our multi-channel business model on one hand, fully seizing the opportunities provided in the period by the strong recovery of physical retail. On the other side, we continue to develop our online sales, consisting of our direct to consumer business and the group sales via internet to players, which together grew by 6% at constant exchange rates also in quarter two, confirming the share of our total revenue at a solid 14.4% in H1. We continue to leverage on our diversified distribution network by also progressing with the development of our B2B platforms, including You&Safilo in Europe. Wholesale altogether grew by 12% in the first half of the year. Let me give you some color on our brands on how our brands performed in these first six months, and how we are making them stronger and even more relevant for our clients and consumers. Let's start with Carrera and Polaroid, both confirming nice double-digit growth rates also in quarter two, with Polaroid, which closed the semester back to the growth also versus 2019. Thanks to its strong, colorful sunglasses collection and to a new wave of well-orchestrated marketing and product placement activities, which are conveying Polaroid's strong brand equity in its core market. Polaroid was certainly the brand most hit by the COVID induced decline of the sunglasses market during the last season, and it was conversely the first one to benefit from the rebound of the product category in Europe, but also in Latin America, India, and Middle East, where the brand is developing fast. I'm sure some of you may have bumped into our new colorful Polaroid pop-up store in the train station in Rome, one of the busiest in the world, with almost 500,000 passengers a day. Polaroid is there with its wide range of colorful eyewear for the entire summer season, and so far the project has had quite amazing results, both in terms of visibility, brand awareness, and sales opportunity for the Italian market. Another very interesting project we recently launched with Polaroid was in Spain, where our brand was the sponsor of the Mad Cool in Madrid, one of the most important music festivals in Europe. With more than 40 international influencers who post stories and content under the slogan hashtag The Sound of Color, reaching, along with live coverage of the official Polaroid account, more than 7.5 billion users. The music is a relevant platform for the Polaroid strategy, even moving forward. Let me say that while Polaroid is coming back with big time this year after a still complex 2021 for the sun business, on the other hand, Carrera is having its second consecutive growth year, further accelerating on its very positive 2021 performance and growing around 30% over its 2019 business. The recipe is quite simple for Carrera. Strong sun and optical collection. Carrera is certainly becoming one of our core assets in the prescription frames business, very focused and appealing marketing advertising investment currently developed around the brand's notorious payoff, Drive Your Story. Among Carrera's projects this year, I would like to mention its arrival in the MotoGP as official partner of Ducati team, launching an amazing 2022 limited edition collection to mark the start of the multi-year global licensing agreement for the development distribution of Carrera Ducati co-branded optical eyewear and sunglasses. Let's go to Smith. Smith, another quarter of outstanding performance on this portfolio of sport and outdoor-focused products. In its traditional sports stores, but more and more in its direct to consumer channel. As you know, Smith is today our biggest brand, market leader in its reference product categories, and still with the huge potential to grow by geography and product segments to strategic areas on which, as you know, we are working relentlessly. Smith's current business has more than doubled compared to 2019, so we are indeed very happy about this success and how the great team behind it is today working more and more with Blenders on the cross-fertilization project. Coming now to Blenders. The brand had a flattish start of the year, which was then followed by a soft quarter two, as the business context in North America has become progressively more challenging for pure e-tailers. On Blenders, which is clearly running again its past two years of exponential growth rate, we are working on different levers. On the brand core D2C business, a key topic we are tackling in the U.S. is the diversification of the performance media mix. Historically, mainly Facebook oriented to other digital channels like, for instance, TikTok, with great success, connected TV, plus its international expansion in the English-speaking country first. A project which today is to be running especially for Canada and Australia. As previously discussed, Blenders is today also evolving its multi-channel business model by entering selected wholesale clients as well as by opening its first dedicated stores. There are four of them today, with the objective to reach up to six by the end of the year. Coming to our licensed brands, also in quarter two, Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, David Beckham, Under Armour, ISABEL MARANT, were outperformers, all posting excellent double-digit growth rates. With regard to our new launches, we are particularly proud of the strong demand for Carolina Herrera's collection, possibly one of the Safilo best launch ever, a brand which is very meaningful for the Iberian market in Latin America, but progressing fast also in the United States, in line with the fashion house's core strategy. This year, Carolina Herrera, together with the promising start of Chiara Ferragni and DSQUARED2, has given a valuable contribution to our strategy for a more diversified and balanced licensed portfolio. I stop here and hand over to Gerd for additional details on our economic and financial performances. Thank you, Angelo, and good evening to all of you. Adding as usual, some color to the main drivers already highlighted, I'll start from our net sales performance by geography, our reported performance, and more importantly, commenting on our organic trends, which represents the performance of the brands fully comparable as present in both periods. That said, by market, starting with our key growth driver, Europe, 41.5% of our business at the end of the semester grew 14.1% on a reported basis and constant forex, 22.7% organic, after another significant bounce back in the second quarter, respectively, +12.1% reported and +20.7% organic, as the business context remained very dynamic, also driven by a significant return of local and international tourists, mainly from the United States and the Middle East. Sunglasses were the leading product category, rebounding by a strong double-digit growth rate in all key European markets, in particular in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, with Polaroid and Carrera being our stars, together with Tommy Hilfiger, David Beckham, ISABEL MARANT, and the new business of Carolina Herrera, as Angelo was saying, playing a significant role. Among the other markets, I would also mention Germany, which remained well supported by the good performance of the main internet pure players, as well as the quite meaningful sales increase we recorded in Turkey and Poland, where in the latter, we opened a brand-new subsidiary at the beginning of this year and a special focus on the development of our own core brands. It is worth noting that the European prescription frames business remained very solid, up by a high single-digit rate in the quarter, with the region representing, together with Latin America and the Middle East, the key growth driver of the product category. Business in North America, 45.3% of our total revenue in the first half, was up overall +7.7% at current forex, driven by the significant revaluation of the U.S. dollar against the euro. It was down -2.2% at a constant forex. On an organic basis, North America remained in the semester in positive territory, up 2.4%, reflecting the mid-single-digit progress recorded in Q1 and the substantial stability just highlighted by Angelo in the second quarter at -0.6%. We tend to consider this a reasonable performance given the double challenge the region faced on one side with the demanding Q2 2021, when we recorded an organic growth of around 15% compared to Q2 2019 at the time. On the other, with a slower consumption pace in the United States behind the tougher economic environment. Smith was our strongest assets in its core categories of goggles and helmets, followed by sound performance of Carrera, Boss and Hugo, Under Armour, and David Beckham. On the other hand, as already highlighted, the second quarter was soft for Blenders and for some of our other local brands, which suffered the slowdown in consumption more. In H1, emerging markets represented the remaining 13.1% of the total business. Net sales in Asia Pacific were down 8.9% with constant forex in the semester, -8.5% in the second quarter, with the business in Greater China remaining the main drag of the reported performance due to the month of April and May having been heavily impacted by COVID-related lockdowns. In Q2, sales momentum was instead dynamic in a number of South, Southeast Asian markets, in Australia and in Japan, thanks to our ongoing expansions of brands such as Carrera, Smith, Boss, Kate Spade, and Levi's, which supported the whole region to record a positive organic performance of +5.9% in the quarter and +4.1% in the first half. As highlighted before, Latin America, India and the Middle Eastern countries, representing together the so-called rest of the world region and 8.7% of total group revenue, were our growth engine over the entire H1, with the second quarter sales up a reported +24.9% at constant forex, +26.4% organic. Positive sales momentum continued into the second quarter in Brazil, Mexico, and other smaller Latin American markets, driven in particular by the strength of the key brands of the region, namely Tommy Hilfiger, Carrera, Polaroid, Boss, and Hugo. Similarly, our focused sales plans continued to be favored by a dynamic trading environment in the Middle East and in India, two markets where sales were again very positive, thanks to the significant progress of our core own and licensed brands. Moving to our economic results in the second quarter and in the first half of the year. The solid pace of profit recovery we achieved in these last quarters is quite noticeable, with our growth and operating results growing at two to three times the rate of sales growth. In the second quarter, we hit a positive milestone in Safilo's recent history, certainly at the gross profit and margin level, as our sales growth continued to be driven by an increase of volume, a positive price mix effect provided by a richer brand assortment, largely absent of phase-out sales, and on the opposite, our new products and brands which lifted our price mix, plus the selected adjustments taken last year to start countering increasing input costs. These key top-line dynamics, together with additional structural cost of goods sold savings for around EUR 6 million in the first half, allowed us to more than offset inflationary pressures as well as the ongoing Forex headwind, which diluted the gross margin by over 100 basis points in the second quarter. We closed the second quarter with the gross margin up to a meaningful 56.5% of sales, 420 basis points higher than Q2 of 2021, with the underlying improvement compared to last year adjusted gross margin having been of 280 basis points. In the first half of the year, our gross margin reached 55.8%, respectively 450 basis points and 280 basis points higher than last year on a reported and adjusted basis. Below the gross profit, we delivered a robust economic performance also at the operating level, notwithstanding the increase as occurred in the first quarter of selling general and administrative expenses by 13% in the second quarter and by 13.9% in the first half of the year, mainly driven by our now higher investments in marketing and advertising activities following the business peak season and the positive momentum of our key brands. The second quarter and the semester also continued to record higher EDP expenses following the impact in the P&L of software-as-a-service investment projects under the new IFRIC agenda, the equivalent of which in Q2 and in H1 of last year was still being capitalized. The IFRIC SaaS impact accounted for EUR 1.8 million in the second quarter and a total of EUR 3.7 million in the first half of the year and reflects the ongoing investment in Safilo's digital transformation. At the adjusted level, we closed the second quarter with an EBITDA of EUR 30.6 million, up 28.5%, while the adjusted EBITDA margin rose by 140 basis points from 9.2%- 10.6% of sales, or 11.2% if we exclude the IFRIC SaaS impact. This resulted in EUR 62.6 million of adjusted EBITDA in the first six months of the year, taking our adjusted EBITDA margin to 11.1% of sales or 11.6% excluding the above described IFRIC impact. 130 basis points or 190 ex-IFRIC higher than last year. In H1, our adjusted EBIT stood at EUR 39.2 million. The margin grew to 6.9% from 4.8% in H1 2021. We ended the first semester with a record adjusted group net profit of EUR 83.7 million, which represents an exponential increase compared to the EUR 4.4 million recorded last year. Below the operating profit line, we recorded three positive dynamics. First of all, a significant reduction of net financial charges from EUR 11.6 million- EUR 2.7 million this year, thanks to the share capital increase undertaken last year, which more than halved group net debt, plus a net positive impact of EUR 3.4 million from exchange rate differences compared to a net negative of EUR 0.9 million last year. Second, in the semester, we had a gain of EUR 8.7 million for lower liabilities for put and call options on non-controlling interests, mainly due to the increase which occurred in January of this year of our controlling stake in Privé Revaux from 64.2%- 82.8%. Third, our effective tax rate was this year of 26.7%. Moving to our cash flow and financial performance, at the end of June, our free cash flow equaled a cash absorption of EUR 14.5 million compared to the absorption of EUR 4.8 million recorded in H1 of last year. The cash flow from operating activities was slightly negative by EUR 3.6 million, reflecting on one side the significant improvement of our economic performance. We had, in fact, a positive EUR 52 million of positive cash flow from operations before the change in working capital. On the other, the absorption from net working capital, which was driven entirely by a strong and seasonal increase of trade receivables, while the dynamics recorded by the other key components of working capital, a slight increase of trade payables and of inventories offset one another. It is worth remembering that while cash collection remained strong and healthy during the entire semester, the activity of the period could not count on around EUR 10 million due to some anticipated payments from customers at the end of 2021. In terms of CapEx, the semester saw a cash flow from investments of EUR 6.2 million, while the cash payments for the principal portion of lease liabilities IFRS 16 equaled EUR 4.7 million. Concluding with the group's net debt at the end of June, this stood at EUR 105.6 million or EUR 63.5 million pre-IFRS 16, slightly better than the EUR 109.1 million recorded at the end of March and around EUR 11 million higher than the EUR 94 million recorded at the end of December last year. Very briefly on the key component of the net position, gross debt equaled EUR 184.2 million, of which around EUR 42.1 million was the IFRS 16 impact, EUR 107.6 million, the term loan facility guaranteed by SACE, and EUR 34.5 million, the term loan facility signed in 2018. We closed the semester with a cash position of EUR 78.7 million. I stop here, and I hand over to Angelo for his further remarks on the business evolution and further actions. Thanks, thanks, Gerd. Our first half of the year was solid on the top line with some clear growth engines, and even more so on the bottom line, where we were able to offset notable headwinds, well surpassing last year's results when we had, as a matter of fact, already exceeded 2019. These results, coupled with our visibility in the current quarter, which is still suggesting top line growth driven by Europe and the emerging market just discussed, and North America remaining stable at the organic level, give us confidence to confirm that already in 2022, we will reach the economic targets set forth in the 2024 business plan, which envisage around EUR 1 billion of sales at an adjusted EBITDA margin between 9% and 11% in 2024. Under the assumption of a reasonably stable economic and business environment for the rest of the year compared to the current scenario, where numerous macro headwinds persist, including strong inflectionary pressures and their related impact on consumption, COVID-related restriction, and the conflict in Ukraine, we now expect full-year 2022 net sales to grow mid-single-digit at constant exchange rates compared to 2021. The adjusted EBITDA margin around 10%, up from the 8.4% recorded in 2021. Our aim is to provide an update of our medium-term economic and financial targets in the fourth quarter. Before concluding our presentation, I would like to say that we are proud to have just joined the Fashion Pact, a global coalition of companies in the fashion and textile industry, including their suppliers and distributors, all committed to a common core of key environmental goals in three areas, stopping global warming, restoring biodiversity, and protecting the ocean. Becoming a signatory of the Fashion Pact is part of our purpose-led strategy based on three sustainability pillars, planet, product, and people. It represents a further step confirming the group's commitment to develop projects and initiatives that address the global challenges of tomorrow in the areas of climate, oceans, and biodiversity, as per the Fashion Pact mission and priority. This is another meaningful step forward in our sustainable journey, which takes the bar higher, giving us an additional opportunity to make the difference for our planet in collaboration with many outstanding companies, as you can see in the slide showing the other signatures of the Fashion Pact. Last week, we further asserted our business commitment and effort to bring more recycled material to the eyewear industry, announcing the introduction of Eastman Tenite Renew in our sunglasses and prescription collections, becoming the first player in the market to use all Eastman Renew materials for eyewear across all types of application and production processes. This concludes our presentation, and we are now ready to take your questions. Excuse me, this is the conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove your question, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. We will pause momentarily while participants join the queue. The first question is from Tom Nass of Cowen and Company. Hi, Tom on for Oliver Chen with Cowen and Company. Congrats on a strong first half. Two questions for you. First would be, should we enter into a sustained global recession, how would you highlight your promotional strategy going into the second half and maybe color across regions and brands? Okay. I mean, I think that, do you want us to answer right now, or do you want to ask the second question you had? You can go ahead and answer now, and I'll follow up with the second question. Okay. I mean, I think the way that we are looking at this is really through the lens of a well-diversified portfolio. We have a brand portfolio that goes across, you know, all the segments and all the various price value positionings in the market. We have a very broad portfolio in terms of geographies, as you may have seen, along with, I think, also an interesting channel portfolio. We believe that with this diversified portfolio, we should be able to invest in a way and in places where, you know, we can have the best response from the consumers. Looking at the H2, we see Europe performing very strong in the third quarter, and we do expect that this will continue also throughout the rest of the year. We see the same in Latin America and in IMEA, while we are hoping that in China, especially in the second half, we may also have a rebound of the consumption. These are certainly places where we will continue to invest. When I say invest, to invest in the marketing and advertising of our brands. In North America, I think we're seeing a little bit more tough economic environment, but the dynamic there is that the more upper part of our brand portfolio is doing well. We're seeing good results on brands like, Hugo Boss and Carrera, on, Marc Jacobs and so forth. We will continue to invest there, but we will be ready to shift in case the American consumer over time perhaps may be more enticed by the more value end of our brand proposition. I think we're gonna invest in a very targeted way, depending on which brand country channel combinations are the most promising. Maybe I should say that we do expect, especially on Smith, which is our sport channel proposition, both in the sports channel trade, but also on the e-comm, which represents more than 20% of Smith's sales. We see a very good consumer reaction at the moment, and that's another brand that we'll keep on investing for the rest of the year and for the key winter season. Yeah. Just like, if I can add to stress what Gerd was saying. I think today the good thing is, first of all, we have a very, very tight control on what we try to read the signals from the different markets. I think one of the big advantage we have, which is in both in terms of brands, we can really cover different consumer need and compete different price position, which give us the flexibility to really understand what is happening and react. We also cover in a more balanced way, different geographies. In reality, you know, last year we had a huge rebound in U.S., Europe was a little bit behind. This year, we have a rebound in U.S., and we have a little bit of slowdown in North America, and still China next year can be positive. I think today the big advantage of Safilo is to have a broad portfolio of brands which cover different price position, means also different consumer need. On the other side, we can play on the geographies according to what we see the dynamic is going to be. I think this is a big advantage of the Safilo of today and on how also we are running the business within a clear framework, but with quite a flexibility to turn the investment and the priority, then the focus according to the dynamic, which is going to be different country by country, or at least region by region. Great, thank you for that additional color. My follow-up question would be, regarding the decision to join the Fashion Pact. Are you able to add some additional highlights here on what this could mean for financials? Say, how should we think about relating this ESG strategy to COGS or gross margin? Well, I would say, I mean, the Fashion Pact is an important further step on the way. We've been obviously engaging in sustainability reporting for a number of years now. This year, 2022 focus for us is to really establish the comprehensive data set that we need to meaningfully improve, let me say, our ESG footprint going forward. We're working hard on establishing Scope 3 emission tracking, and we're working hard on establishing a proper life cycle assessment for our portfolio of brands so that we have a good baseline to then based on the Fashion Pact, which is obviously then a science-based target initiative. Which will then also set goals that the Fashion Pact members would sign up to over the coming years. Having that, you know, let's say that set of data, we can then also formulate a coherent strategies. As Angelo was saying, we're working more and more to bring sustainable materials into our portfolio. We have already today, as a Safilo, more than 400 models that are made based on recycling or recycled or sustainable materials, partnering a lot with companies like Eastman, as we were saying. I think that is something that we're going to expand on. I can't quantify today what will be the exact impact on the gross margin or on the OpEx going forward, other than that we are putting focus there, and we're putting capabilities to expand it, and eventually clearly expecting that also the consumer will appreciate those kind of things. Yeah. I don't think that we can translate immediately, I mean, what we are doing on sustainability with the gross margin. For sure, more we will be serious around sustainability, which is a journey, it's not something that you do in one year. More we will get close to a part of the consumer, which are becoming more and more sensitive to this kind of topic. I don't think it's so much an issue of gross margin. It's more an issue to say, to get more relevant, become more relevant for some of our consumer, and then make our brand stronger and stronger. I mean, the fact that we have already today 400 SKU on some brands based on recycled or sustainable material is going to be an advantage. It's going to translate into a short term gross margin difference, not at all, but for sure it's going to position our brand. It's going to position Safilo in the eyes of the consumer in a strong way. In the medium term, for sure, we will have a return on these activities. I'm sure about that. You know, Polaroid, we have a sustainable collection. It works well. We have a lot of positive feedback from the consumer, especially in some regions. In Europe, for example, you know, we get huge traction from the Nordic countries, where this kind of topics are more strong. Yes. I mean, the measure for me is not the gross margin as such, but for sure we have customers which are calling us. There are customers which prefer to put our collection on the shelf compared to some of the collection of the competitors. In the medium term, it will translate in stronger brand and then strong positioning and then again, strong business and profitability. The next question is from Oriana Cardani of Intesa Sanpaolo. Yes, thank you. Good evening. I've got two questions. The first one is on prices. Can you tell us the actions done in pricing this year? What are you planning for next year? How long do you expect to be able to sustain the price increase without seeing a drop in demand? The second question is on M&A. What kind of deal should make sense for Safilo now? Do you see now opportunities considering the current market condition and also the price tag in recent deals? Thank you. Let me take the first question on the pricing. Let me say that what is always important for us is that we are seeing the price mix effect to come on top of a positive volume effect. We have been able to see that both in the first quarter and in the second quarter so far of this year, which means that we are not only benefiting from a higher price mix, we are also transacting more in the market. What has helped us this year, as we were saying, is clearly that we have a richer brand mix. I mean, we don't have exit business anymore as we had last year. We have launched new collections on new licenses that are coming in accretive. We are seeing upswing on some brands like Polaroid that have accretive gross margins. I mean, we have taken pricing interventions in the second half of last year, which are clearly benefiting us in the first half of this year as well. We're always focused on trying to bring pricing together with value so that we are also giving a richer brand proposition, if you wish, to the consumer in our industry. The good thing is that there's a very high rate of innovation, so there's a lot of new styles, a lot of new models that are coming out with the new collection, so that we can use also this innovation type of pricing in order to bring new products to the market. We will remain vigilant on cost and input inflation. We are clearly seeing logistics costs to remain quite high. We are seeing, let me say, starting to see some moderate impacts from energy costs. We're going to keep monitoring those dynamics and if it is necessary, we will then consider potential future implementations or adjustments. At this moment, I think we are satisfied with where we are at with the actions taken. On the M&A, I mean, right now, let's say we are certainly actively looking at the market. There's nothing that today would be, let me say, of discussion grade in terms of specificity, but we are actively looking at the market. In principle, yes, it's true that when there are downturns, sometimes new opportunities crystallize themselves out. I think we're quite looking at objects that would give us a meaningful complementarity, a meaningful, you know, yeah, a meaningful fit to bolt on to our company rather than, you know, big transformational things. We are more looking into that direction. We don't have anything right now to share further. I don't know, Angelo, if you want to. No, I think it's on the M&A. Obviously, it's an important stream of all our work. We know in quite a detailed way what is happening there, what are the potential targets. Let's see what is happening with the new economic cycle. I think we have clear priority, which is brands which are going to add on our Smith, Blenders, Carrera, Polaroid, and Privé Revaux. We know which kind of brands we are looking for. On the other side, to be honest, we are also not ready to crazily overpay. We are very focused on M&A, but we're not ready to overpay because that should not be healthy for our P&L. We are very ready for that, but, let's see what is going to happen in the next month. We are very clear here which kind of target we feel can reinforce the Safilo portfolio. Okay, thank you. The next question is from Cédric Rossi of Bryan Garnier. Yes, thank you. Good evening, Angelo, Gerd, and Barbara. I have two questions. The first one is coming back on the North American performance. So I heard your explanations and the cautious outlook you have. Could you also give a view on the outlook by channel between independent opticians and chains and digital? I was curious to have your view on that for the second half of the year. The second question on North America is also. I know that you are not in the retailing activity, or at least it's very small. Do you have an estimate of the percentage of your business that is covered by insurances? Because we see that it could be also a resilient business for the second half of the year. My second question is on the sports products or an amazing performance in H1. I was curious to have your view on what are the main drivers behind this strong growth. Is it the category enlargement you alluded to in the past that is now working? My third question is on Carrera. I know that in the past it was a structural issue to increase the share of the prescription business. It seems that now you are really surfing on that trend. I was also curious to have your insight on what have you changed in the go-to-market strategy or in the way you communicate on Carrera to drive this prescription business? Thank you. Yeah. Okay. I start with the first two. I think in terms of North America, there are two dimensions I think that are relevant. One is looking through the lens of the portfolio, as I was also alluding to previously. We do see that the premium part of our portfolio is holding up quite better than the value part. What I mean by quite better, it's growing, of course. I think this is encouraging. This we see across the channels, let me say. Perhaps it's a bit of a reflection of what is going on in the market right now also. Reading a bit the commentary that other players have been discussing in the previous days and weeks. I think there's a portfolio driver within the eyewear. From a channel perspective, what is doing extremely well is everything related to sport, and I think Angelo will comment a bit later on Smith. Smith is booming and gaining market share, be it in the wholesale of Smith, so the sports trade as well as in the direct to consumer. That piece of the D2C is doing very well. While in the other areas of the market, we are seeing the slowdown in the independent opticians, in the second and third tier retailers and as well, in the department stores. We are feeling it there. I think at the moment is more a portfolio and brand positioning topic rather than the channel-specific topic. On the coverage by insurance, I mean, I don't think that Safilo would differ very much from the overall market, let me say. Probably somewhere between 50% and 60% of the business would be somehow impacted by the insurance, which is in principle a good thing. I think we have Smith. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, we have been looking to this angle already three years ago when we've been looking to the market, looking to different kind of lenses, you know, optical sun. We've been also looking to women, and we've been looking with sport outdoor. We've been trying to look to the market with different kind of lenses and then understand, you know, how our portfolio could have been placed, which kind of role our brand could have been playing there. If we park for one second women and we go to sport outdoor, obviously Smith was a brand already placed correctly there, but historically was a brand which was mainly snow. One of the strategic shift was to say there was a trend there which is still here, obviously cannot keep growing at the rate that is growing because then it will be impossible, which is cycling. We've been really saying, okay, sport outdoor is for sure a great market. Let's open up. It's not only snow, it's also bike. We really went into bike heavily, and snow, bike and a little bit of leisure is where these are the reasons behind the growth of Smith. This was the first point. Second point was more looking at the channel. I think that we've been able or we are able, obviously there's always area to great improvement, but to balance and let work the two channel wholesale and D2C, because I think that the new reality is that wholesalers and D2C should not be seen like one in conflict with the other, is the opposite. You know, I think that if you do a great job on D2C, the wholesale will gain. If you do a good job in wholesale, D2C gains. We have changed completely the organization. Before was a very channel vertical organization to really an organization which is running and managing wholesale and D2C as one powerful way how to grow it. Behind Smith, two things. Get out, get on top of snow and bike, and really managing the two channels, not as one in conflict to the other, but one as the accelerator of the other. Smith is in a perfect position to catch this position, to keep surfing the growth. Obviously, in the future, we cannot think that that market. I think that market will keep for sure growing, obviously cannot keep growing at the pace which has been growing in the last two years, but for sure is a great business opportunity. Going back to Carrera. I think Carrera is a difficult brand, but on the other side, I think can be a huge brand. It can sound a contradiction what I'm saying. It's a. Why I'm saying it's a difficult brand? It's a brand which has a strong heritage on the sport dimension in Europe, less in North America, and it's a brand which has two kinds of nature. One is sport, one is fashion. I think with the work we are doing now, cleaning up the portfolio, cleaning up the strategic framework, we try to manage these two dimensions that we call active and fashion in a specific way according to the country. We are very clear that there is a strategic direction for Carrera which is working. We see that it's working. We retune this strategy according to the country. Just to give an example, in some country is more relevant the fashion dimension. Take an example, France or in some other country is more relevant the active dimension, take Spain and Latin. I think that Carrera is a difficult brand to manage, but looks like we found the right platform and can be a huge opportunity also because it's a brand which is now really balanced, which can sound strange between sun and prescription. This gives even an additional opportunity to the growth opportunity of Carrera. Carrera difficult to manage. It has to be managed very careful. I think we are now catching the right platform, and I'm sure that we will keep seeing the growth behind Carrera because the potentiality of Carrera, you know, the competitive arena of Carrera can be really huge. We have hired new marketing team. We are building strong marketing team, both behind Carrera and Polaroid. We are pushing on having a little bit different kind of communication. I think consistency, focus, and clear marketing strategy, this is what is behind the number of Carrera. I think honestly, we are just at the beginning on Carrera. It can be a huge brand. Very clear. Thank you. The next question is from Domenico Ghilotti of Equita. Good afternoon. A few questions on first half or second quarter results. First on the price and volumes contributions. Can you give us a sense of how much was, let's say, price mix driven, and how much volumes? The second you are mentioning is the premium versus value on the North American markets clearly having different performance. Do you see a similar situation in Europe or not? Last, there's a couple of questions additionally on the results. How much today is the contribution of the house brands? Because you are mentioning really big brands, big house brands have been performing very strong. I wonder what is the level that has been reached so far in terms of sales. Last, on the FX, did you have any relevant contribution on margins from FX? On gross profit or EBITDA, any impact from the FX? My very last question maybe so would be I will follow up with a broader question later. I take the first one. On the price and mix, we can say that in the first semester, we had more or less half of our organic growth was volume, and the other half was currency. We had as with volume, and the other one half was price mix. Sorry. More or less equal contributions. On the house brand contribution to in terms of percent of total sales, slightly above 40% in the semester. On the foreign exchange, in terms of relevant contribution to the margin, we commented that we had about just over 100 basis points negative on the gross margin level, and we've seen you know, a dimensionally similar slight dilution also at the EBITDA level. It's not been a positive contribution, but a slightly negative contribution. At least to answer on the. Yeah. I answer on the premium versus value. Now, in this moment, we see a different dynamic between North America and Europe, to be honest. We see this divergence more in North America, so the premium working well, the lower bit suffering. We don't see this effect in Europe where, to be honest, our brand portfolio is performing well, both on the premium side and on the lower bit. So currently, the dynamic between North America and Europe in terms of price position or price segmentation is quite different. To be honest, the dynamic in North America, we don't see neither in the other part of the world. So it's specific for North America in this moment. Okay. My follow-up question is, say, broader early stage consideration on 2023, in the sense that clearly you have more flat issues in North America on tough comps, and you have Europe this year recovering a lot, so regaining performance in a tough macro, so tougher macro both for Europe and North America. We are entering 2023, in which basically we'll have, say, more normalized base also for the European region and the macro and the cost inflation will probably remain quite tough. I wonder if you see, say, what are the levers to growth also in 2023 when the macro is tougher for both regions and the comparison is, say, less easy in Europe? I believe is a topic. I mean, obviously there are two dimensions. One is custom, one is consumer. I think I believe we should keep investing behind our brand because at the end is that, which is the winner is going to be the brand, which is going to be more relevant toward the consumer. I think I was mentioning before, I believe that our portfolio has this big advantage today that we can really cover different price position and different consumer need. For me is keep investing behind our brands. More we have stronger brands, more we will be stronger in the eye of the consumer. As I said, both in North America and in Europe, I think now our consumer can answer to the different dynamic, which, to be honest, today, we don't know exactly what the dynamic are going to be. I think, you know, we will manage, keep investing behind four or five crucial brands that we have which tackle different consumer and different price positions. That is for me, the way how to get out. On the other side of the customer, I think, you know, thanks to all the work that we are doing with the customer. I believe is going to be even more crucial than in the past, is a little bit likely during the COVID time, you know, to be very, very tight, to be hand in hand with our customer. That our customer, I imagine they will get a bit nervous, so more we will work close together, more we can take shelf space. I think that we will apply what we have applied during COVID, be very, very close to the customer, now even more than in the past, and be very, very focused on investing on a couple of brands which can answer to different dynamic on the consumer behavior. Then, you know, I think no one knows or really knows what's going to happen, but I think we are very clear what are the levers that we need to be playing. I believe that already the quarter one will tell us something on, you know, what is going to happen in North America, what is going to happen in Europe. The trick will be to react very fast to what we see as a dynamic. The fact that in this year, we'll be now becoming more sophisticated only on data. We have now a full visibility, constant visibility, daily visibility by minute on what is happening by brand, by customer, by sub-region, mainly in Europe. That can give us a huge tool or huge advantage, you know, to react fast on what we are going to see. I believe it will be crucial, the quarter one, you know, to see how the customer is going to react to the new environment and how eventually the consumer is going to adapt his consumer behavior. Okay. Thank you. How much are you investing, for example, in the first semester in marketing compared to last year? We have invested about 25% more, but this includes the currency effect. So I think on a constant currency basis, we're talking about 1.5 points of net sales in terms of incremental marketing investment. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. The next question is from Alex Apostolides of [Beren]. Yeah. Just two questions regarding inflation. I think you had guided about 200 basis points of gross profit margin pressure that you're seeing. Can you maybe give us a sense of what that will look like for the full year, if it's gotten worse or better? The second question related is, can you give us a sense of what sort of price increases you passed through last year? My understanding is you haven't passed any more this year because those are sufficient, but can you maybe give a sense of the magnitude of that? That's all I have. Thank you. I think in terms of gross margin pressure, we expect that in the second half year, we will continue to see logistics costs representing a headwind. We are seeing it ease a little bit in the last months, but clearly it depends a bit on the overall market situation. I think that we should continue to see pressure. We should continue to see some pressure there. I don't think it will necessarily get worse. On the other hand, I think that we may see a little bit more negative effect from the energy cost side. Again, we haven't seen a material effect, but I think we're all curiously or nervously awaiting what will happen with the gas and the heating in the coming months. I think that these input costs, they are going to remain headwinds. Less so for us, the labor cost, honestly, because we have so much of our sourcing from Asia and the inflation is less, much less of a phenomenon in Asia than we see it in Europe and in North America. I think these headwinds, they will stay there. We have taken price adjustments, you know, be it through list or through innovation in the second part of last year, which are clearly helping us so far, and we will continue to do that. I don't want to give specific numbers, but let me say they will have been reasonable and in terms of being absorbed by the consumer. This is why we're also not seeing a negative elasticity so far. Thank you. Ms. Ferrante, gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. Okay. Thanks very much for all of you, and thanks for the question. Have a nice summertime. Thanks very much indeed. Thank you.