Good afternoon, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the TOD'S presentation of the first half, 2023 consolidated results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Emilio Macellari, CFO of TOD'S. Please go ahead, sir. Hi, good evening to everybody. As usual, before commenting H1 results, I remind you that analyzing quarterly figures is not fully meaningful due to the discrepancies in the flow of industrial revenues on a monthly basis. In the first six months of 2023, the consolidated turnover of the Tod's Group amounts to EUR 569.1 million, up 21.7% from H1 2022. The impact of currencies was negative by EUR 5 million. At constant exchange rates, I mean by using the same average exchange rates as of the first six months of 2022, including the effects of hedging, the group's revenues would amount to EUR 574 million, up 22.8% compared to H1 2022. All group brands registered a solid double-digit revenue growth in the first half of 2023. The specific trend of each brand obviously reflects its geographical and channel sales mix. TOD'S and Roger Vivier achieved outstanding results across all product categories, confirming the strong appreciation by customers for the quality, craftsmanship, and desirability of their products. All product categories posted a solid double-digit growth. Outstanding results were registered by the revenues of leather goods and accessories, driven by the excellent feedback from customers from all over the world. The domestic and European markets confirmed the dynamism of demand already highlighted in recent months in terms of both local consumption and purchases by tourists, especially from American, intra-European, and Middle Eastern clients. The American market reflects also the shift abroad of a large part of the purchases of the American cluster. The Chinese market, after some weakness in the first days of the year, experienced a sudden recovery after the easing of the tough COVID-19 restrictions and registered a solid double-digit growth in the semester, also thanks to the widespread network of stores. Hong Kong and Macau were even stronger than mainland China, China. The rest of the world area remained very strong, even after the normalization of the growth rate, due to the more demanding comparison basis of 2022. Japan performed particularly well. Both distribution channels reported solid double-digit sales growth. The retail channel, which represents more than 75% of the group's turnover, recorded a faster slight acceleration in growth at constant exchange rates compared to the first few months of the year. The e-commerce channel is also doing well, consolidating the results of the important investments made by the group in the digital world. As of June 30th, 2023, the group's distribution network consisted of 336 DOS and 93 franchise stores, compared to 318 DOS and 85 franchise stores as of June 30th, 2022. Also, revenues of the wholesale channel grew double digits in the semester. As repeatedly reminded, it is not significant to analyze the trend of the individual quarters of this channel, which is hugely influenced by the different timing of shipments in the various years. In H1 2023, the gross margin improved significantly versus H1 2022, driven by the progressive acceleration of revenues and by the, their more favorable mix by product, region, and channel. Part of the improvement was offset by higher costs generated by the higher competition in the industry, by the inflationary environment, and by higher investment in communication necessary to support the brand's development. Costs for the use of third-party assets was broadly flat. On the other end, the percentage rate of personnel costs decreased significantly, despite the increase of the group's headcount. In the first half of 2023, EBITDA amounted to EUR 138.8 million, with an incidence on revenues of 24.4%, which is 500 basis points higher than the 19.4% posted in H1 2022. The amount of the regular depreciation decrease was broadly stable and totaled approximately EUR 21 million. In addition, the group registered the amortization for Rights of Use Assets for EUR 56.9 million. The group's EBIT was EUR 60.3 million, with a 10.6% margin on sales, which is more than three times higher than in H1 2022. After a negative financial result of EUR 13.9 million, which includes EUR 9.2 million of interest calculated on these liabilities in compliance with IFRS 16, compared to EUR 6.2 million in H1 2022. Result before taxes was positive for EUR 46.4 million, which compares with the result of EUR 8.1 million in H1 2022. Net of the impact of current and deferred taxes, the Group's net result was positive for EUR 30.9 million, which compares with a positive result of EUR 0.8 million in H1 2022. The operating working capital totaled EUR 347.4 million as of June 2023, which compares with a balance of EUR 284.7 million of June 2022. The increase is mainly due to the return to normality of production activity and to higher efficiencies in the supply chain, which allowed to anticipate the production of the fall/winter 2023 collections. The most of these inventories has already been shipped to wholesale customers and stores in July and in August. In the first half of 2023, CapEx totaled EUR 21.3 million, compared to EUR 17 million in the first six months of 2022. As usual, the majority of these investments were devoted to the widening and update of the U.S. network, while the remaining were referred to the continuous renewal at industrial and corporate level, with particular focus on digital. In compliance with IFRS 16, as of June 30th, 2023, the group accounted for lease liabilities of EUR 498.7 million, compared to EUR 489.4 million as of June 30th, 2022. Net of lease liabilities, the net financial debt was EUR 94 million as of June 30th, 2023, which compares with a net debt of EUR 85 million as of the end of June, 2022. As of June 2023, the group's equity was EUR 1,077.3 million, which compares to EUR 1,007.2 million at, as of June 2022. In H1 2023, net cash flow from operating activities shows a positive balance of EUR 44 million, aligned with the balance of EUR 44.8 million of H1 2022. As far as my introduction as a sort of initial presentation, that's it. Now I leave the floor to your questions. Thank you. This is the Chorus Call 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 yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Chiara Battistini with JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Hello. Hi, good evening. Thank you very much for taking my questions. So firstly, if I could ask a question on the current trading and the trends you've seen in July and August, and possibly if you could comment by nationality and notably indeed, the U.S., the Europeans and the Chinese. Second question on your gross margin. It was extremely solid in H1, so I was wondering if, one, you could share more details on the drivers behind that, and two, how to think about the outlook for that in H2 for the H2 and full year? And finally, if you could update us, if you have any update, on the succession for Walter Chiapponi post the fashion show in September, please? Thank you. You're welcome. Let's start from the first question. You asked about July and August trend. Let's say that, as far as I can tell you now, I can mention the fact that the growth rate in July and August continued to be, quote, unquote, normalized compared with a more aggressive growth rate of the previous months. However, it has been good as a performance, and July was particularly positive. August, a bit less, because also some issues with the weather conditions and with, say, less traffic into the stores. This is true for Italy and Europe. As far as the Chinese market, the Chinese market, even in that case, we assisted to a sort of normalization of the growth rate. What I mean is that the market continued to grow, but at a lower growth rate than in the previous months. Probably even because of some worries generated by the macroeconomic situation of the country and the situation of the real estate market in that region of the world. However, these worries, these difficulties, in my opinion, affected much more say lower level kind of market, rather than the real fashion or luxury kind of market, where the consumers have a power of spending that is let's say above the possible difficulties generated by these macro trend. Asia Pacific remained very strong even in the summer months with a good performance of all the market. Particularly strong remained the Japanese market, where the growth rate was the highest among all the markets, even if, even in that case, there has been a, let's say, less important growth rate than in the previous months, but again, absolutely outperforming. The weakest market in Far East remained Korea, where there is some, let's say, uncertainty on the market and some difficulties with slowdown in consumptions. Then, the last market to mention is U.S. The U.S. market has been, let's say, not particularly brilliant according to our performances. Even if this is true if referred to the geographic market of the U.S., but it is less true if we look at the performance of the American cluster, American clients, let's say, cluster, meaning that the Americans preferred to buy products while they were traveling, and so they fueled somehow the performances of our stores outside of the U.S. So the U.S. nationality is still continuing to grow in terms of performance as a whole. Then you commented the goodness of the performance of our gross margin. You are, you are right. The drivers who fueled this kind of performance have to be found into the more favorable mix in terms of geography, channel distribution, and product mix. In other words, the, let's say the channel of distribution, the product category, and the geography where the growth was stronger, are the richer ones among the various possibilities. In other words, most of the factors were, going in the same direction, and where all of them were accretive to, the company's, profitability in terms of gross margin. You mentioned in your question also, the expectations that we can have for the, full year, I suppose in terms of not only of gross margin, but also in terms of, in general, sales and profitability. Let's say that, starting with a very positive, at least in our opinion, a very positive first half of the year, when we reported sales slightly above the market expectations, and profitability significantly above market expectations, let's say that we start with a good advantage, with a sort of tailwind that can help the full year result. It has to be reminded that in the second half of the year, we forecasted, and we already anticipated months ago, that we are going to sustain more important cost for communication in order to sustain and develop the brand awareness and communication costs will be a bit higher. However, According to the current situation and the results we reported, we believe that the current consensus of the analysts can be met and can be achieved. We believe that the amount, the turnover amount can be in line with consensus, but honestly, we should have also some room for a better performance than that, both in terms of the sales and EBIT margin, even if we have to consider the current environment. You analysts are explaining to the market that the situation of the luxury industry in Q3 can be a bit tougher than in H1, so some uncertainty can be there. However, we are starting with a good, let's say, a good starting base, with a good solid first semester. I don't see a particular reason why we shouldn't see a final result of the year below what is the consensus that the market is expressing. Honestly, if markets will not further deteriorate, I can imagine that we can do something better than expected by the market. Finally, you asked a question related to the succession of Walter Chiapponi. As you know, as we reported with a devoted press release, the collaboration with Walter was terminated at the end of the contract due to personal reasons of the designer, something that has to be really, really understood. We already started with his how can I, how can I say, comprehension and authorization. We already started to look for the succession. We already have selected some potential names. We have still time because Walter will remain at his, well, with his role, within his role until the end of September, after the fashion shows. Then when the next collection has to be... We have to start to prepare the next collection, we consider to have already found the substitution for Walter. He did a very good job with us. He led our internal design team that has been coordinated by him and contributed to the launch of new projects or new family of products, new bags and all the good things we have done in the last couple of seasons. We are confident that in terms of the offer, we will be in the position to have a valid future for our style department. Thank you. Thank you very much for all your answers. Can I just follow up maybe on your initial comments on the clusters? And, because you mentioned the American cluster, when you look at it as a cluster rather than the U.S. juices. I was wondering if you could maybe give us an indication of what kind of growth you're seeing with the American cluster, if you're still seeing growth. And similar question for the Chinese cluster, maybe against 2021, what kind of growth and kind of recovery you're experiencing at the moment, please? Well, you know, the macro figure I can give you is that the American cluster is growing high single digits. It is not a double-digit growth rate, so it is below the group's average. But the good news is that the group's average is particularly high. In terms of the total growth rate, if you compare our performances with the performances of the rest of the industry, not in absolute terms, but as a percentage, our performance is, let me say, on the podium of the best performers. Absolutely. This makes tougher the comparison, you know what I mean? Indeed. Perfect. Thank you. Good. Thanks a lot. The next question is from Oriana Cardani with Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I've got two questions. The first one regards the Capital Market Day. So can you confirm the intention to schedule it by the end of the year? And the second question regards the leather goods segment. It has outperformed the footwear and the products. So what kind of commercial initiatives supported this outperformance? Do you think it was spread across the regions, and what will be the next initiative? Thank you. I'm not sure to have well understood your second question. Maybe I will start to answer, and if I will not give you the kind of answer you were waiting for, please ask it again. Let me go back to the first question, the Capital Market Day. You're right, we anticipated our intention to organize a Capital Market Day to explain our strategy to share with the market our intentions after the tender offer of last year that didn't succeed. And since we shared with the market the intention to continue the plans as it was, as it achieved its goal, this is something that we continue to wish as an initiative to share with the market. Honestly, we are waiting to see, how can I say, a less troubled kind of international environment, a more stable situation. Also, because we can also have the need to react to these kind of, let's say, unforeseen circumstances. In other words, we want to adjust according to what can happen in the near future before sharing with the market our goals and intentions. This means that very, let me say, unlikely this can happen before the year end. I am more in favor of a Capital Market Day that can be, say, presenting the full year results in 2024. When I say full year, I mean full year 2023 results. So very likely, let me say, at the end of the first quarter next year, hopefully having in front of us a less entertaining kind of scenario. Then the second question was related to our leather goods division and performances. What I can tell you is that this product category performed in a very, in, let's say, positive, with a very positive kind of results that were more or less homogeneous in the different markets of the world. There is not a particular region or a particular area where leather goods, bags in particular, were having better performances than elsewhere. So basically, it is a good success given to the products to... by our clients, not with a particular geography or, in a particular market. We do not provide the market with a sort of matrix, of, say, information, so we are not used to share with the market, by product category and market. So the only qualitative indication I can give you is that, you can imagine that the performance of the, product category is, as I said before, homogeneous in the various, markets, all around the world. We continue to believe that leather goods can be a good, move in terms of, say, profitability and results for the company. As you perfectly know, leather goods have an average ticket that is at least three times the kind of ticket for shoes, and these can clearly help the performances of the store. So, to generate the same turnover, we just need to see 1/3 in terms of quantity of the products if we sell bags rather than shoes. If we can sell together shoes and bags, obviously it is much better. This is the reason why we continue to invest in, not only in communication and making clients more, say, aware about our collections of leather goods, but also investing into collections. Meaning, with more activity for the creation of new models, new kind of, say, families. This is true for all the brands of the company. In particular, this is true and valid, in particular for Tod's and Roger Vivier, where we believe that this product category can be much, much important. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. The next question is from Chris Huang with UBS. Please go ahead. Hello, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions, and congratulations on the results. I have three questions, please. My first question is on margins. So in H1, you saw a margin expansion of around 680 basis points... and reaching for the first time a double digit level since 2017. So my question is that if firstly, are there any basic impact that we should be aware of? And if given that H2 usually has a higher margin than H1, can you confirm that this basically imply a return to double digit margin level on a full year basis? So that's my first question on margin. Secondly, just a clarification on trends by consumer nationality, particularly on the Chinese. So if you can comment, hopefully quantitatively, how the Chinese consumers did on a two-year stack for both Q2 and Q1. And also, can you comment on the European locals? We understand that Europe as a region has been benefiting from American tourists, but if you can focus on the European locals, that'd be very helpful. My third question, my last question is on pricing. Do you have any plans to increase prices for any of the brands in the group's portfolio? Because it seems like inflation is here to stay for a longer period of time. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Let's start from the first question you asked, margins. In this year, we reported, as you, as you recognized, significantly good first half with a very visible improvement compared to the same, the corresponding period of the previous year, and with an increase, an improvement of more than 150 basis points compared to last year. You mentioned the fact that usually H2 can be considered a richer semester than H1, and in theory, you are right. The fall/winter season is usually a richer season than spring/summer, and both turnover and margins usually are a bit higher. However, I do not expect this year to have this kind of extra profitability of H2 compared to H1, for the reason, the main reason I explained, I already mentioned, before. That is, a sort of timing in some cost and expenses, and in particular, as far as communication costs. In H2, we planned some very expensive initiatives in terms of communication, and these will for sure affect the second half regular profitability. That's why I said I see some room for improving the performance compared to what the current level of consensus is indicating, to be sure that we are speaking the same language. As of today, as far as I know, consensus says that sales for the full year should be EUR 1,147 million of sales, with EBITDA at EUR 244 million and EBIT at EUR 85 million. What I'm saying is that this 85 can be even say a bit more than that, but I do not imagine so to speak a triple digit of profitability for the... If it should be, if the second half could be say stronger than the first half. The reason is very clear. We anticipated to the market that we were investing for the company of the future. We were investing for, say, improving the worth of brands and as a consequence of the company, but we need our time, and we need to invest today and to get the results in a later period. So, all in all, a very positive year, in particular, if compared with the last couple of years. Not yet the best year of our story, but, for sure, a positive year. This is what we imagine for 2023. I am not sure to have well understood your second question, because I understood that you wanted to know much more about the Chinese cluster of clients and the performance of that market in a two-year stack. This is a data I do not have by heart, and now I cannot provide you with that information. What I can tell you is, I can ask Cinzia, that is here with me, to make this kind of calculation, and later on, she can try to help you with this information. In terms of pricing, that was, say, the content of your third question. We anticipated that in the second half of last year, we applied a price increase close to 10% to the entire collection. The same has been done as far as the first semester of this year is concerned, and this is also one of the reasons why the first half of this year can be considered stronger than the second half of the year. Because in the second half, we didn't apply a similar price increase. Frankly speaking, we believe that we can have some possibility to apply a faster price increase without changing too much our price positioning inside, let's say, the market, and our positioning in comparison with our competitors or with our peers. But we wanted to avoid to, how can I say, affect the clients with a too high increase after two seasons with price increases, we didn't want to do a faster increase for the third season in a row. So, let me say that we have some reserve for a faster price increase, but this is something that we are considering for the next spring/summer season, and not for sure for the next fall/winter, I mean, the season that will be into the stores in the next days. Also, in terms of visibility, as far as the real results of the year can be, the month of September can give us some higher level of visibility of what can happen on the market. As of today, I confirm our optimism as far as the results of the year is concerned. Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. Just a small follow-up, if I may. On your answer on the EBIT margin, can you just maybe help us understand how much was communication spend as percentage of sales in H1 this year, and how much was last year? Just to have an indication. Thank you. This is a sort of precise information we do not provide you with. However, I can tell you that we have between H1 and H2 this year, a difference of about 200 basis points of incidence of cost for communication. The average of the expense at the year-end will be in the region of 10%. You can elaborate a bit what kind of dimension I'm speaking about. You can consider the... Let's say that in the second half, we can have some EUR 10 million-EUR 15 million expenses on top of what we spent in the first half. Thank you. You're welcome. The next question is from, Charles-Louis Scotti with Kepler. Please go ahead. Hello, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions, and thank you for your comments on current trading. You used to provide some details on order book in your latest press release. Is there any chance you can share with us some details today to help us fine-tune our estimate for the rest of the year and early 2024? On the leather goods business, my second questions, is it fair to say that most of your leather goods revenues are made through the retail channel? And, how many stores today at Tod's are offering leather goods, and do you have any plan to roll out your leather goods offering in more stores going forward? And third questions, still on the leather goods. In terms of contribution to growth, do you consider today that you have some carryover iconic bags which provide you with a solid basis from which you can continue to grow your leather goods business? Or is it too early to say that your leather goods diversification is a success? Thank you. Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I hear you well. Good. Good. Good. Thank you. You were, you wanted to know something about our order backlog for the fall/winter season. Let's say that the fall/winter season grew, say double-digit compared to the equivalent order book of the previous year. And this is driven in particular by the performances of Tod's and the Roger Vivier, that are the stronger brands among the group's portfolio. Obviously, the order backlog is referred to the wholesale channel, and the wholesale channel represents more or less 1/4 of the total sales of the group. So, it can be an indicator, but not a, how can I say? The element that can give you a full visibility on what can happen in our near future. So basically, the quality indication is good, order backlog is up double digit. Then, as far as leather goods, you are right. The most, the most, say, the best performer in terms of sales of leather goods is [the vintage channel]. In wholesale, leather goods are less strong than in retail. Also, because the wholesale client focus their attention on what they already know, what they already sold in the previous seasons, and are a bit scared about new ideas, new proposals, new things. What we expect is that starting from the good success of sales from stores, from the demand of clients, these channel of distribution, I mean, wholesale, can progressively share the, say, performance of retail as far as leather goods. Because, when wholesale client come to prepare the orders and know about the success of the collections in our stores, and the word of mouth of clients is saying the story of successful bags that are sold for a reasonable price, for outstanding quality, is something that can be the next contributors to a similar success into the wholesale channel of distribution. The collection of bags, as well as the collection of shoes, is characterized in our brand by a series of carryover kind of products. So yes, the answer is yes. We do have some carryover, let's say, styles and articles. As a matter of fact, if you read our press releases, in particular, those referred to the products, you can hear us speaking about families of products and products that have a name. So we are not selling the bag of the season, we are selling the lifestyle, the... Sorry? Style. Okay, Cinzia is suggesting me some of the names we gave to bags. So, to make a long story short, let's say, yes, we do have the carryover, and we do believe that carryover is one of the keys that can make a bigger success also in leather goods. Because I don't want to be arrogant, and I don't want to compare Tod's with Hermès, but the Kelly bag is something that exists from at least, I don't know, 50 years maybe, and is almost the same. The same, and the same happened with the most popular bags in other brands' collections, and so there is no reason why we should prepare only seasonal collections and not carryover kind of styles. So yes, we do have that because it's part of the strategy. Thank you very much. You're welcome. The next question is from Antoine Belge with BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Yes, good evening, Emilio and Cinzia. Three questions, please. So first of all, is it possible, maybe to comment a bit more on, on Roger Vivier? Especially, you know, it's been doing super well, and also, you know, if, also in Q3, I mean, it's, it's holding up, its, its ground, and, and I know you don't want to, to comment on profitability by brands, but maybe some qualitative comment and, you know, if, it was one of the main driver behind the sort of overall, growth of the group margin. Second question is going back to the designer. I mean, you mentioned personal reason, a bit unfortunate because, it had triggered quite a nice, recovery in results. What, you know, in terms of the successor, I mean, are you... Is the idea to find someone that will really follow the step, you know, very, you know, in a tight way compared to what was done before, or with the new person has a quite of freedom to to come up with his or her own ideas? And finally, on Q3, so taking into account not only your relatively positive comment about trend so far, but also the order book book, is it fair to say that Q3 could end up being, you know, at least double digit? Thank you. You're welcome, Antoine. Let's start from Roger Vivier. Yes, you are right. Roger Vivier showed, let me say, as usual, a very good and one of the best performances even in this semester. As you reminded, we do not provide you with the details by brand of the profitability by brand. However, as you said and as you imagine, Roger Vivier, due to its positioning, due to its prices, due to the strategy of exclusivity that we followed since the beginning in developing this brand, is granting to the group, let's say, the highest level of profitability. What I mean is that among the four brands we have, Roger Vivier is the richest, so to speak. Indirectly, I am also confirming that behind the very good performance of the profitability in the semester, one of the drivers of this good profitability is also the very good performance of Roger Vivier. Its margins are, let's say, above the group's average, and it is really the, let's say, best in class in terms of profitability. The second question was referred to the successor of Walter Chiapponi in Tod's. As I said before, as I tried at least to explain before, we are not, this is not something new, this is, since the beginning, we are not in favor of a creative director that is a sort of star to drive the style department of the company. We believe much more in a teamwork. We believe in a structure of internal designers that can be coordinated by someone that should be even more talented, that should be a good interpreter of the brand's DNA. In the research of the successor of Walter Chiapponi, what we are aiming at is to find someone who can be, let's say, continuing the work initiated by Walter when he joined three years ago, the company. So he did a good job. He translated the Tod's DNA into the new collections. These new collections have been well accepted by the market. The internal team somehow, I don't want to say learned, but for sure, shared with Walter his ideas, opinion, and creativity. So we expect the internal team to continue in the same way with the same attitude, and the successor is not someone who has to make a revolution on the brand's direction, but simply a sort of evolution of what Walter did in the last three years, supported by the internal team. The internal team remains absolutely the same. The pilot will be different because Walter had this, say, personal need to have a sort of break in its activity. So no revolution, but someone that is in line with the kind of mentality, the kind of approach that Walter used in preparing our collections, that for a significant part were also the result of the efforts of the internal team. That's why I am highlighting the importance of the internal team. The preparation of the collection is not the work of an individual. It is the combination of the efforts of a team that is more than 50 people working on the collection, and this will continue to be the situation into the Tod's style department. Your third question was related to? I don't remember because I don't, didn't take a note. Can you repeat the third question? Yeah. So regarding Q3, you know, you mentioned two things. One, that, I mean, the trends were, you know, still quite good in most markets, and also then on the order book, you know, you mentioned it was up double digits, so is it fair to assume that in Q3, there is no reason why the overall organic growth would not be up double digit? Yeah, but, you know, in terms of Q3, what I said before is also that the month of September will be very important to understand what the Q3 will result in. Because you don't need to hear from me the fact that the international environment is showing a third quarter less strong than the second or the first quarter of the year. This doesn't mean, in our situation, that we believe that the third quarter can be really, really a very poor quarter, because again, the third quarter is made by July, August that were in any way - in any case, positive, with a good growth rate. The month of September is, for the moment being, still good. I am not in the position to predict now, since now, what the Q3 results will be at its end. Again, the contribution of the outlet should be positive because the order backlog is up double digit. Then there is also an issue related to the timing of deliveries, and this is the reason why we always repeat, and I know that we are boring in doing this, but we always repeat: please do not analyze the results of a single quarter, blah, blah, blah. So, let me say that I am not significantly worried about the current situation. I see some negative views, some negativity, coming from some analyst research, coming from some of the comments we hear here and there. At the end of the day, if we look at the situation into the stores, with the client and with what we are getting from our sales, I shouldn't be that negative in evaluating the possible performance of the third quarter and even more importantly, of the full year. As I said before, I don't see a reason as of today to imagine that the full year should be lower than the consensus is indicating today. Obviously, if starting from tomorrow, nobody will go into a single store to buy a single pair of shoes, we could have a problem, but this is a sort of disaster scenario that I don't have any reason to imagine that can happen. Okay. Thanks, everyone. The next question is from Paola Carboni with Equita SIM. Please go ahead. Yes, hello. Hi, good afternoon, everybody. I have four questions, actually, very quick, though. The first one is on the European performance. You talked about normalization. I was wondering if you can elaborate a little bit on whether this comes mainly from a slowdown in domestic consumption or from a slowdown in tourism or, or both. Then, looking at the gross margin, I don't know, I probably missed, but can you specify the improvement of gross margin? Sometimes you did it in terms of percentage points. And the third question, actually, is about a sort of like-for-like trend in retail, which you used to provide before the pandemic. I'm wondering whether now, with a much healthier retail performance, can you start again providing this figure, or at least giving us some qualitative indications on your like-for-like performance in retail? And the fourth question actually is probably a broader one. I'm just thinking about your statement when the tender bid was launched when you referred, so not not basically you, but Mr. Della Valle was referring to an expected weakness of profitability due to the investments you were going to perform to relaunch the company. Actually, we have assisted instead to a very positive path of results since then. So I was wondering, what are the differences behind the scenario you had in mind at that time? So did you achieve a better-than-expected profitability? Have you possibly diluted over time, more than expected or more than envisaged, your investment in the business, or the scenario was more favorable than expected? So can you share with us a bit of thoughts on what explained better results compared to what you were envisaging, or Mr. Della Valle was envisaging and sharing with the market at that time? Thank you very much. You're welcome, Paola. I go one by one to your questions. The first was referred to the performance of the European market. When I mentioned a sort of normalization of the growth rate, what I meant, and you understood perfectly, is that we are still growing, but with a growth rate that is much more in line with a normal period and not as a sort of recovery after a very depressed kind of situation. The normalization is due in particular, or at least is more visibly caused by a reduction of the domestic demand, because the contribution of tourists and travelers remained, let's say, as strong as in the previous months. In particular, as you know, Italy and Europe in general, during the good season, I mean July and August, as well as June, is characterized for a higher number of tourists visiting and traveling throughout Europe. So, the demand from tourists and travelers remained very, very strong, very, very positive. The domestic consumption was a bit lower compared to the previous one. That means still growing, but at a lower growth rate. Second question related to the gross margin, Paola, I should say good try. We never gave indication on our gross margin. What I can tell you is that the improvement of gross, gross margin was, let me say, visible, is something in the region of, approximately, I should say, 200 basis points, 180 basis points. Cinzia is making me some, she is complaining with me, because she doesn't want me to, to give you this, this information, but I only mentioned the, the difference, the positive difference. Yeah, yeah. In fact, this is also what I was looking for, and- Okay ... you did, for example, in H1 last year, so I was hoping for that. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay, good. I'm happy to be in the position to help you. Then, you asked about the like-for-like. We were used to provide the market with a regular statement of our like-for-like. We interrupted this good habit because of the pandemic, it was not meaningful, it was not important. We continue to monitor that, even if we are no more reporting the information. Very likely, we start again to provide the market with this information in the future, and starting from next year, when the comparison, I hope, at least, I hope, I mean, because I hope the markets will not be hit by other tragedies, so to speak. So starting from next year, very likely we will report again the like-for-like performance. Anyway, again, to give you a help in comprehending what's going on, I should say that the like-for-like performance is in line, very similar to the performance of the retail network. So in other words, it is, most of it is generated by like-for-like. The selling surface increase is not particularly meaningful, and the only point is there are some differences in the perimeter, but it is not particularly meaningful. So, let's say that you can deduct 3-4 percentage points on the performance to understand what kind of like-for-like on average we have throughout the world. Finally, you asked the question, so that was referred to the statement of Mr. Della Valle, that was anticipating a very likely weaker performance of the company, due to the cost and expenses that we were incurring for the work of, let's say, increase the value of the single, of the single brands, and to make them more popular and more and with a higher brand awareness. To be honest, I agree with you. What I mean is that the results we reported are better than we expected, and the main reasons, in my opinion, are two: on one hand, remained listed, even if we said that we should have continued to make investments at the same pace as they were not listed, at the end of the day, we remain a bit shy in doing exactly that. So a bit of prudence has been adopted, again, and so some of the investments are a bit more diluted, compared to the initial ideas or the initial plans. On top of that, since we were expecting for lower results, we paid a higher attention to have full control on cost and expenses. And so some activity in cost saving is something that also has been applied. So we have been particularly disciplined in in controlling the cost and expenses. Finally, a positive contribution of revenues that in that moment, when we made that kind of statement, related to the expectations of profitability, we adopted, as usual, the same kind of cautious approach, and we were not predicting the same kind of growth rate that we reported, as a matter of fact. So basically, a positive contribution of an extra growth compared to what we had in mind at that moment in time, is the third key of explanation for the better than expected result in terms of profitability. Obviously, we are not, say, how can I say? We are not worried about that. We are not. We are happy that we have been able to provide the market with better than expected results. So, however, we have to continue, and as I anticipated before, we will continue to to invest even in the second half of the year, as I said before, more than the money we invested in the first half, and, we continue with our initial plans and intentions. And I- Okay. Thank you very much, Emilio. Very good, Paola. I don't know, I believe that we are out of time. If there is only one final question, I can take it, otherwise- Yes. I invite you to remain in touch with Cinzia, and email her any follow-up questions that you had in mind or something that you didn't have the chance to ask. So I can take the final question, and then we close the call. Okay, so the last question, the final question is from Thomas Chauvet with Citi. Please go ahead. Good evening, Emilio and Cinzia. Thank you. A couple of questions. The first one on the slight increase in net debt. You said in the press release, due to temporary working capital requirements. I guess you're referring to the 20% increase in inventory. Could you elaborate on that and the nature of the inventories and timing effects, if any? Secondly, on the scenario of H2 profitability below H1, so in the first half, you had 200 basis points gross margin expansion, you had around 500 basis points OpEx leverage. In the second half, you said marketing will increase, I guess year on year, not just versus H1. What other cost items you think will increase significantly year-over-year, and how to think about the gross margin again in the second half relative to H2 2022, to explain why profitability would be below 10%, perhaps in the second half and maybe below last year? Thank you. You're welcome, Thomas. The first question was referred to the slight increase of the debt. It is completely a matter of timing into the production cycle. We have been much more efficient, so we were anticipating compared to the corresponding previous season, anticipating the production, and so we had the absorption of part of money by in higher level of stock, that, as I presume we wrote in the press release, was devoted to produce goods already delivered in the months of July and August. And so, as of today, they should have been already translated or in account receivables or in cash. And so the position should be now even more normalized. As a matter of fact, in our expectations for the year-end, we do not consider, we do not consider, that the debt will be higher than last year. On the contrary, for the full year results, we expect the debt to be, say, lower than last year. I, I imagine something between EUR 15 million-EUR 20 million less than last year. This is what I, I foresee as far as the, financial position at the year-end. The second question was, was referred, was referred to, the scenario of H2 compared to H1. Yeah, the most visible impact on the second half profitability will be given by communication expenses, that, as I said before, will be much higher in the second half compared to the first half, and that will be the first difference. A further difference is to be seen into the cost for services and in the cost of labor and partially, no, substantially, I should say, cost of services and cost of labor. On top of this, there is also a difference that we are considering in the second half, in the, say, composition of sales. So, it's a matter of different composition of area, so to speak, mix of sales. And due to a difference in this mix, we imagine that even gross margin can be a bit lower than it was in the first half. So the combination of currency, unfavorable mix in H2 compared to H1, and a bit higher cost and expenses in cost for services and cost of labor should explain why H2 will be a bit, say, less rich, so to speak, compared to H1. Again, nothing that is that dramatic or that is able to generate an EBIT for the full year below what the market is expecting from us, on the contrary, with the possibility of improving it. Thank you, Emilio. You're welcome, Thomas. So for today, that's, that's it. Thanks for joining us into this call. Cinzia, as usual, can get your emails if you have additional questions to ask. Then our next, our next call will be in November, November the tenth, maybe. I don't remember. Anyway, when we will report the nine-month sales for 2023. Thanks again to everybody, and bye from me and Cinzia. Bye-bye. Bye. Good evening. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.