Good day and welcome to the Lucas Bols half-year results 2022-2023 conference call. This conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to hand the call over to Mr. Huub van Doorne, CEO. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you very much and welcome everybody. We start this presentation on the highlights of H1 2022-2023. It's on page five of our presentation. We are pleased to report a revenue which came in at EUR 56.3 million, which is a strong year-on-year growth of 23%, driven by volume, pricing, and exchange rate fluctuations. Most key markets reported strong double-digit revenue growth, particularly Japan and travel-related markets showed a robust recovery while U.S. sales were negatively impacted by severe industry-wide glass shortages. Our gross margin of 55.2% was impacted by accelerating input cost inflation, largely offset by price increases, positive exchange rate fluctuations, and mix effects. Operating profit landed at EUR 11.3 million in line with H1 2021-2022, reflecting better trading results offset by intensified brand investments and much higher logistics costs. Our net profit came in 2% higher at EUR 7.9 million. Net debt was further reduced to EUR 59.2 million with a solid leverage ratio of 2.6x versus 4.86x a year ago. We're pleased to announce that the dividend distribution will be resumed with an interim cash dividend of EUR 0.21 per share. On page six, we see the development of the Global Cocktail Brands and Regional Liqueurs and Spirits with a solid performance, both revenue and gross profit growth. Our Global Cocktail Brands realized a revenue of EUR 40 million, up 18% versus H1 2021-2022. While our Regional Liqueurs and Spirits had a revenue of EUR 16.3 million, up 38% versus H1 2021-2022. Regarding gross profit, Global Cocktail Brands had a profit of EUR 23.7 million, up 15% versus H1 2021-2022, and the Regional Liqueurs & Spirits, EUR 7.4 million or +43% versus H1 2021-2022. On a market basis, as you know, we report the markets in three different segments. The Sophisticated Cocktail Markets, which is North America, where we achieved EUR 13.8 million in revenue, up 5% versus H1 2021-2022. The Developed Cocktail Markets, which is Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, reported EUR 33.6 million revenue, up 30% versus H1 2021-2022, and the Emerging Cocktail Markets, which is the rest of the world, Latin America, Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe, EUR 8.9 million or +33% versus H1 2021-2022. If we look at the highlights by brands, we first look at the global cocktail brands on page number 10, where on the global cocktail brands, we conclude that the spirits category remains an attractive sector with strong fundamentals. The global cocktail market continues to be one of the key growth drivers. We are positive about the substantial long-term growth opportunities for our global cocktail brands, which are Bols Cocktails, Galliano, and Passoã. Our strategy is very well positioned to continue to benefit from positive trends in consumer preferences and the growing cocktail consumption. To accelerate growth, we continued our brand investment in international cocktail markets with a focus on our global cocktail brands. As a result, the global cocktail brands achieved 18% revenue growth versus last year. The key growth engines in H1 were the developed cocktail markets, so Western Europe and the Pacific, and the emerging cocktail markets, particularly Eastern Europe and Asia. On Bols Cocktails, looking at the growth drivers, we see that Bols Cocktails is positioned as a leading global cocktail brand and active in different spirits categories. First of all, the Bols Liqueurs is the anchor in the portfolio with a strong footprint in the on-trade and with a growing position in the off-trade in selected markets with focus on key flavors. Bols Genever is the original cocktail mixer, primarily sold in the U.S. and key cocktail cities around the world. We have a clear focus on high-end cocktail bars. Bols Vodka has an all-round cocktail focus that can't be missed in the well-known cocktails, Espresso Martini, Cosmopolitan and the Pornstar Martini. Important for the Bols Cocktails brand as a whole, we launched Bols Vodka in the U.S. in July. Bols Ready to Enjoy cocktails is the most recent innovation in line with our cocktail strategy, which focus on in-home consumption. We have expanded our distribution across all states in the U.S. with a focus on key states for activation and expanding distribution also in the Netherlands with the cocktail tube. Distributors and trade partners are excited about the proposition while our digital consumer campaign is scoring well against our prepared plan. On the Bols Cocktails, we saw a strong performance with growth versus last year for the total bottles, Bols Cocktails portfolio. We accelerated growth across markets due to the recovery of the on-trade. Retail shows steady performance with a focus on brand activation and consumer communication, resulting in additional distribution points across markets. Western European markets, especially Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and Spain, all show solid performance versus last year. In the U.S., however, we faced some headwinds due to volume constraints linked to glass availability and a tough comparison base last year. On the positive side, Japan and other Asian markets showed the expected gradual recovery after COVID-19 versus last year, due to the reopening of the on-trade and increased tourism. The Bols Ready to Enjoy cocktails contributed to the growth due to new listings in the U.S. and the Netherlands, combined with A&P investments and social media campaigns. We move to Passoã, page number 13, the passion drink. Passoã consolidates the strong gains from last year and shows revenue growth versus last year, driven by the Netherlands, U.S., Scandinavia, Spain, and Italy. Very good dynamic in the on-trade linked to the Pornstar Martini cocktail spreading to new markets, as well as the general appeal for lower-alcohol cocktails. After two years of strong growth, Passoã is slowing down in the U.K. due to lower retail and e-commerce sales post-COVID-19. The launch of the Passoã Sunset Limited Edition in six markets has been creating great visibility in retail. PR influence launch events took place in the U.S., the Netherlands and Belgium, generating great coverage for the Passoã brand. While social media campaigns in the U.K., France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia, an increased presence on Instagram overall contributed to an increased awareness for the brand. Last but not least, we were present at multiple summer events and summer bars. The Galliano brand, the third global cocktail brand, achieved double-digit revenue growth versus last year. In Australia and New Zealand, we continued to grow the activation in retail with Galliano Sambuca and the recovery of travel retail in the region. Scandinavia was driving the performance with double-digit growth versus last year, with a very successful digital Galliano Hotshot campaign. Significant growth came from the U.S., driven by the rebranding from Galliano Ristretto to Galliano Espresso, leading to an expansion of distribution. Key growth drivers for growth are the consistent activation of the signature serves, the Galliano Hot Shot and the true Italian Espresso Martini. Galliano Espresso is the preferred coffee liqueur at Difford's Guide for the U.K. and the U.S., which is one of the biggest online platforms for cocktail professionals and consumers. When looking at the regional liqueurs and spirits on page 16, we see that under the Fit for Growth model, the regional liqueurs and spirits portfolio is managed in a very focused and efficient manner. We focus on top-line growth for key regional brands, whilst optimizing the bottom line and cash generation of other brands. The regional liqueurs and spirits portfolio posted excellent 38% revenue growth, driven by the strong performance of Vaccari, Nuvo, Pisang Ambon, and certainly also the addition of Tequila Partida. The Dutch genevers and vieux portfolio maintained its leading market share in a still declining market. As Pisang Ambon recorded a good performance, continuing two years of growth trajectory based on the successful relaunch of the brand. While the Vaccari Sambuca brand achieved double-digit revenue growth driven by key market Mexico, but also the recovery in the on-trade in other markets. Nuvo continued to grow, particularly in the U.S., where the RTD Nuvo Rosé Vodka Spritzer was launched in August. We move on to Tequila Partida, our latest acquisition. We had a very successful transition to our Lucas Bols U.S. distribution platform effective April 1, 2022. The brand achieved a good distribution growth in the U.S. with core expressions Blanco, Reposado, and Añejo already present in 37 states. The high-end quality brands, Roble Fino or the Elegante expression, is available in 13 states, showing that the super premium proposition of Partida is recognized as the reference in terms of quality. Tequila Partida Reposado and Roble Fino Reposado have been recognized by leading spirits guide, The Fifty Best, as the 2022 gold medal and double gold medal winners. Also, Partida won seven medals at the New Orleans Spirits Competition. Based on the excellent quality, we continue to create value and increase the customer sales price further. We expect to accelerate growth in H2 based on distribution, expansion and activation. For Pallini Limoncello, we are implementing and continue to implement the on-trade focus strategy, which we decided at the beginning of the distribution partnerships, and this drives good results. The on-premise share of the total business is growing and has been growing from 25% to 28% of the total business of Pallini in the U.S. Retail efforts supported the summer gift pack launch, and we're doubling these total shipments from last year. We achieved new regional account cocktail placements, including the Delta Sky Clubs. There are 50 of these clubs in the U.S., which is a major achievement. We strengthened our partnership with an iconic Italian account, resulting in sampling events, staff trainings, and large-scale activations across the U.S., and we have seen a growing e-commerce and direct-to-consumer sales through U.S. web shops. This was the overall presentation regarding the brands, and would like to hand over now to Frank Cocx, our CFO, for the financial highlights. Frank. Yes. Thank you, Huub, and good morning, everyone. My part of the presentation starts with the four outlook statements that we issued in May and the extent to which these statements are rooted in our results over the first half of the year. Our first outlook statement commented that we would expect continued revenue growth on the back of a further post-COVID-19 recovery, strong momentum for the global cocktail brands, and of course, the addition of Tequila Partida. Our results over the first half definitely reflect that. Revenue is up 20% organically, despite, as we've already mentioned, U.S. sales being held back by severe industry-wide glass shortages. Most key markets noted strong double-digit growth, and revenue also benefited from further premiumization and price increases that we've implemented in the respective markets. We also expressed our concerns regarding the inflationary headwinds and the impact that would have on margins, profit, and product availability. This too is reflected in our H1 results. Input cost inflation phased in more rapidly than offsetting price increases did, and most container rates remained high throughout the first half of the year. In addition, availability of glass, and that was mainly in the United States, did not only lead to some missed sales, but also to substantial incidental logistic costs, further impacting operating profit in the first half of the year. The third outlook statement followed the implementation of our Fit for Growth operating model, stating that we would step up our brand investments. Albeit in a focused manner, we have in fact increased our A&P spend in the first half and by almost 20%. Such brand investments were mainly made to support our global cocktail brands and the new product introductions, and we have undertaken a notable shift away from more price and promotion-related spend to more brand-focused investments. The last forecast from May deals with our commitment to maximize supply certainty, even if that would temporarily be at the expense of working capital investments. To ensure in-market product availability, mainly on Passoã and in the U.S., we have substantially invested in working capital, and this impacted the H1 cash flows significantly. The next slide shows the full profit and loss statement compared to the first half last year, both on a reported and an organic basis, where organic means that it is adjusted for exchange rate developments. Revenue was up 23% on a reported basis, and EUR 1.7 million out of that EUR 10.7 million reported growth was driven by favorable exchange rate developments, mainly the US dollar. Underlying movements also strongly support the revenue growth. Depletions grew 5% with strong growth on all key brands and in most key markets, amongst other driven by further post COVID-19 recovery. In addition, revenue increased as a consequence of the addition of Tequila Partida, premiumization of our product portfolio, and the price increases that we've implemented across the globe. Gross profit increased significantly by 20%, and this increase is below the revenue growth rate as gross margins have come down. In line with the industry, we've seen input cost inflation accelerate during the first half year, and we've been able to partially offset that amongst others by another round of price increases, premiumization of the portfolio, a more favorable mix, we've been picking up higher sales to Japan, for example, and we've seen, as noted, favorable exchange rate developments. Despite the strong increase in gross profit, our operating profit landed in line with last year. As mentioned earlier, we have stepped up our brand investments and logistic costs went up dramatically, partially in line with higher volume shipped and global increase in container rates. More than half of the year-on-year increase is driven by that incidental shipment from the Netherlands to the United States to prevent out of stock. I will comment on this in more detail later in the presentation. Net profit did improve compared to last year, and that is mainly as a consequence of much lower interest costs now that net debt has come down substantially in the past years. Joint venture profits were more or less stable and at a declining effective tax rate, our income tax expense for the first half of the year was at the same level as last year too. Following the December 2021 equity raise, the company now has 20% more shares outstanding, and this means that earnings per share has come down to EUR 0.53. Last, as already mentioned by Huub as well, we are very glad to announce that we are resuming dividend distribution by declaring interim dividend of EUR 0.21 per share, which will be paid in cash on the 28th of November 2022, and that amount reflecting 40% of our net profit over the first half of the year. On the next slide, I've broken down our revenue growth over the two brand portfolios, the Global Cocktail Brands and the Regional Liqueurs and Spirits. To start with the Global Cocktail Brands, revenue there has grown 18%, which is on the back of 2% higher depletions. Bols Cocktails did well in most markets, and mainly in those markets where further post COVID-19 recovery took place. Bols Cocktails did not grow in the United States, facing very high comps and also held back by that severe glass shortage in the market. The brand did benefit from the introduction of the Bols Cocktails Ready to Enjoy portfolio and the launch of Bols Vodka in the United States. Passoã continued its global momentum with most key markets showing additional growth compared to last year. The U.K. is a slight exception to that. It started to see a slowdown in retail and e-commerce sales post COVID-19. Galliano did exceptionally well by beating the 2021-2022 record levels. Sambuca supported further growth in Australia, whilst the original Galliano Hotshot serving ritual led to booming sales in Scandinavia. In the United States, we benefit from Galliano Espresso riding the wave of the popular Espresso Martini cocktail. Regional liqueurs and spirits posted a strong improvement. Um, revenue was up 38% and depletions grew fourteen percent. Forty percent of that growth was driven by the addition of Tequila Partida, which means that another sixty percent was driven by other brands. And we're particularly proud of the growth that we've seen on Pisang Ambon, uh, but also Licor 43, and not only limited to Mexico, but also growing in other markets. Nuvo did well, uh, on the back of the introduction of the RTD can in the United States, but also exporting the brand to Latin American, uh, markets. And with travel and tourism returning, we also see strong revenue growth for our experiences, the House of Bols and Wynand Fockink, as well as the KLM Delft Blue Houses. And sometimes those revenue levels are even beyond pre-COVID-19 levels. Although the category remains in decline, we were again able to protect or in some instances even grow our leading market position when it comes to Dutch genevers and vieux. Moving on to the next slide, we are again breaking down our overall revenue growth, but now not to the brand portfolios, but to the three market clusters that we operate. Although revenue for the first market cluster, the sophisticated cocktail markets being United States, Canada and Puerto Rico is up 5%, this is driven by favorable exchange rate fluctuations and depletions have decreased by 3%. The cluster's two biggest markets have faced serious challenges in the first half. Sales in U.S. was hampered by glass shortages and the market was facing high comps. Whilst Puerto Rico, which was showing very strong momentum on Passoã last year, suffered from a weak local economy, but also from Hurricane Fiona that hit the island in September 2022. It wasn't all bad news in this region because the U.S. did achieve serious growth on Passoã and Galliano, and it also benefited from the introduction of Tequila Partida, Bols Cocktails Ready to Enjoy, Bols Vodka and the Nuvo RTD can. Very strong growth was posted for the developed cocktail markets and in virtually all markets. Japan, travel retail, Western Europe and our House of Bols experience took advantage of the reopening of the on-trade and increasing travel after two years of COVID-19 lockdowns. The Netherlands saw focused brand investments on Bols Cocktails, Passoã and Pisang Ambon pay off, and sales in Scandinavia and Australia were fueled by Galliano. As mentioned previously, we did note potential early signs of a slowdown in the UK after an excellent 2021-2022. The emerging emerging cocktail markets did best, relatively speaking. Depletions went up eight percent together with the premiumization price increases and some favorable FX developments leading to thirty-three percent higher revenues. And this is in spite of having seized all business with Russia, losing most of the business with Ukraine and the ongoing local lockdowns that we've seen in China. Each of these three markets are part of the emerging cocktail markets. So where did we see the growth? We saw the growth in Latin America, uh, on the back of Licor 43, Nuvo, but also Bols Liqueurs. And Southeast Asia and South Korea did very well as they revived from COVID-19 during the first half. Eastern Europe, excluding Ukraine and Russia, of course, continues to do well too. The last slide on our P&L shows how operating profit developed year-on-year. Operating profit was in line with last year, declined by 2%. If we adjust for the incidental logistic costs in response to the glass shortages in the United States, we would see an increase of EUR 1.2 million in operating profits, which equals 11% increase. Gross profit was up a strong 5.3% or 20%, which means that the severe input cost inflation that we've seen is way more than offset by solid sales growth, which of course includes the addition of Tequila Partida, the premiumization price increases and effects. If you look at our brand building in corporate A&P, that is in line with what we've announced as part of the Fit for Growth approach, that we have definitely stepped up our brand investments there, focusing on the global cocktail brands. Advertising and promotional spend was up EUR 1.4 million compared to the same six months a year ago, which is an increase of 37%, which means that brand building in corporate A&P as a percentage of net revenue is now 9% compared to 8.1% a year ago. Logistic costs saw the highest relative increase, almost 90% increase, up by EUR 2.7 million, more than half of which EUR 1.4 million refers to that incidental freight costs that were incurred in response to the industry-wide glass shortages in the United States. To respond to the glass shortages there, we decided to produce quite a significant number of Bols Liqueurs for U.S. market in the Netherlands at Avandis rather than at Brown-Forman in the United States. That, of course, then required those bottles that were bottled at Avandis to be shipped to the United States at the very high container rates that we saw at the time. On top of that, we have also shipped higher volumes to support the 23% revenue growth, also leading to higher logistic costs. The global rates that we've seen on containers in the first half were still at record high. Fortunately, we are seeing a decline also on the Europe to U.S. shipping route in the past couple of weeks. We also saw warehousing costs increase, and that is mainly because in anticipation of the longer lead times, we've built up higher levels of safety stock buffers, which of course then requires more warehousing space. Overhead costs rise moderately. It's up EUR 1.2 million, which also includes some unfavorable FX developments. If we adjust that for the government grants that we received last year, it means that we're still at a very low level of overheads as part of our revenue. It's only 13.1% of net revenue compared to 13.6% a year ago. Now, where did we see the increase happening? First and foremost, within personnel costs. We've added seven employees in Mexico as part of the Tequila Partida acquisition. We've put through a slight expansion in the rest of our teams to support the growth trajectory that we are on. Of course, we've also done an indexation of wages and to support the growth of the experiences, we've got more staff working at our experiences. Last, of course, we are traveling more than we did during COVID times, noting that we are still very focused on costs. In other words, the travel expenses are still below pre-pandemic levels. Moving from the profit and loss statement to the balance sheet where we are not comparing against a year ago, but comparing against six months ago, so the 31st of March 2022. On the non-current asset side, not much is happening. The slight decrease that we're seeing there, less than EUR 1 million, is basically the impact of the amortization and depreciation, which is only to a very small extent, offset by capital expenditures amounting to less than EUR 100K for the first half. The biggest movement is actually noted in the current assets and more specifically in net working capital. Compared to six months ago, we have invested over EUR 7 million in working capital with three key reasons driving that. The biggest, more than half of that increase, again, relates to that glass shortage in the United States. What we've done is producing significant numbers of bottles at Avandis, which were shipped to the United States only late in August and early September, which means that at the 30th of September, we had relatively high inventory levels. Because out of that inventory, we tried to ship as much as possible to catch up for missed sales in the weeks prior to that. We also had relatively high trade receivables at the 30th of September. To complete what I called the triple whammy impact of this U.S. glass shortage on net working capital, we also have lower accounts payable, which has got to do with the fact that at Avandis, we have two weeks of payment terms, as opposed to at our U.S. production facility, we have more than 70 days of payment terms. The invoices relating to this production were already paid for by the 30th of September. The second reason is that generally, we see an increase in inventory, again, in anticipation of longer lead times, but also starting to reflect the fact that input costs have gone up in the first six months. Last but not least, something that's definitely not worrying is that trade receivables are growing too. They're growing in line with revenue, which also means that the very low levels of overdue positions are being kept in place. There's no risks of any write-downs there. Altogether, it does mean that as a percentage of 12-month revenue, our working capital has increased from just over 22% to over 27%, where of course the objective and also the expectation is that per year end, we should be able to reduce it to around 22%-23% again. Non-current liabilities, we have again done repayments on our loans and borrowings because the cash is there, but also to minimize the interest payments that we have to do there. Deferred tax liabilities increased by EUR 1.2 million, which is basically because the deferred tax asset has decreased, and that is because we have utilized almost everything now of the tax loss carry forward that we have on the balance sheet. Under other non-current liabilities, per 31st of March, there was the full earn-out payment that we anticipate to do for the Tequila Partida acquisition. The first out of the two parts that is now payable within 12 months. We've simply moved that from non-current to current liabilities, and that makes up most of the movement of the EUR 1.2 million. In current liabilities, on the loans and borrowings part, it's up slightly, but just over EUR 1 million, which is an increase in our bank overdrafts. Included in the EUR 7 million current loans and borrowings is the required repayment of EUR 5 million that we have to do on the acquisition facility in the next 12 months. Other current liabilities declined by EUR 2.3 million. On the one hand, as you may recall from our 2021-2022 full year numbers, we had already accounted and expensed a EUR 1.6 million payment in regards to our Bols Kyndal joint venture in India, for which, as we announced at that stage already, we were doing the payment in the first half of this year. That one has gone out cash-wise, and it's also a decrease in the current liabilities. Second one is that there was also an income tax payable six months ago of approximately EUR 1.3 million that we paid in the first half. As mentioned, that was partly offset by the first Tequila Partida earn-out that is now considered to be current. Although we've had three challenges on cash, which is the working capital investments, the higher payments for income tax in France due to the good results for Passoã and that payment of the Bols Kyndal financial liability, we've still been able to further reduce net debt. It has come down by EUR a million and a half to below EUR 60 million. That's EUR 59.2 million. It shows that our focus and commitment to cash and cost management is still in place and will remain in place. It also drives down leverage further to 2.62. On the next slide, there's a bit more detail on our cash flows. As mentioned a few times, our free operating cash flow has suffered from the investments that we've done in working capital, specifically for the U.S. supply issues on glass, but also in general to be prepared for supply disruptions that we see happening globally. The second one, we've paid EUR 2 million more of income taxes. That's only payments in France for Passoã. It's EUR 2 million higher on the one hand because the final payment of the past fiscal was only paid for, as you normally do in the next fiscal, which is this fiscal then. Based on the higher profit before taxes last year, the advance notes that we're now getting for the current year have also increased. It means that by having those substantial working capital investments and the income tax payments in France, we also have a lower cash conversion rate than we normally do. It comes in at twenty-three percent, expecting that to be much higher at the year-end again. Uh, capital expenditures remain very limited and, uh, there's good news around Maxxium because there we've seen a slight increase in the dividends that we've received. Goes up by one hundred K to half a million euros. On the last slide, I address four what I call other matters, and starting with the supply chain, which is basically the same that I put up six months ago, which at that stage was more an expectation and now the majority is, uh, day-to-day reality. The challenges that the whole industry faces is availability of raw materials, higher input costs, the availability, and also the planning of containers and the volatility of container rates. The key actions that we promised to take and that we have taken is general cost control. For example, in overheads, we said that we were going to do longer term planning. We've definitely done that. We increased the horizon from three months average to at least six months average. We have invested in inventory levels to make sure we don't get out of stock. We have put through another round of price increases, and we've been able to leverage our strong and flexible partnerships, amongst others, reflected by the fact that we were able to produce substantial amount of U.S. liqueurs at Avandis on a very short notice. The impact was still there. We did see our gross margin decline. We did see higher logistic costs. We did see increased working capital. Albeit very limited still, we have seen some short-term distributor out of stocks, mainly in the United States and on Passoã. On the bank covenants, I can comfortably say that we comply, and that is sufficient headroom left there to covenants apply for the 30th of September. The first one is that we had to achieve a minimum LTM last 12 months, EBITDA level of EUR 11 million, where we have in reality achieved EUR 22.5 million. The second one was that we needed to have at least EUR 15 million of liquidity, and it turned out to be almost EUR 56 million of headroom that we got there. For the 31st of March 2023, we go back to ratio testing, and it means that our leverage ratio cannot exceed 4.5. I think we're very comfortable there on the back of the fact that we currently have 2.6x as a leverage ratio with no major changes expected towards the end of the fiscal. The other one is that the interest cover ratio cannot, sorry, should exceed 2.76x, and currently we're running at 7.5x. Also there should be sufficient headroom. Early October, we were happy to announce the sale of Avandis. In fact, Lucas Bols and De Kuyper signed two agreements with Refresco. One is about that intended sale where both parties are selling 50% of their interest in Avandis joint venture to Refresco, so 100% sale. The second one is that we enter into a long-term manufacturing agreement with Avandis for Refresco. This enables us to focus on our core activity, which is building brands and creating great cocktail experiences around the globe, which is a different ballgame than running a bottling facility. When it comes to the purchase price, what we agreed is that for 100% of the interests, we would get a gross purchase price of EUR 25 million, which is to be adjusted for Avandis' net debt, which was about EUR 15 million at the 31st of March 2022, and to be adjusted for any working capital and not for the full working capital amount, but only the amount by which working capital exceeds the average working capital that we operate within Avandis. If we do a rough estimate then of what we think that would look like, we expect that the net purchase price for 100% would probably be around EUR 10 million, which means that our share would be around EUR 5 million. If we compare that to the EUR 8 million current carrying value, it means that we would have a non-cash one-off loss on disposal of EUR 2 million-EUR 4 million. On this point, it's probably good to remind ourselves that out of that EUR 8 million carrying value, EUR 2 million was a non-cash addition two years ago when we purchased 17% additional stake in Avandis. That's the most part that we expect to be written down. We still expect the completion date to be either at the end of 2022 or maybe early in 2023, and it's of course, pending regulatory approval and works council consultation processes. Heading into H2, glad to announce we are resuming dividend payments, as mentioned, EUR 0.21 interim cash dividend per share. Of course, we are also facing ongoing geopolitical instability and macroeconomic uncertainty. We do expect that will weaken consumer purchasing power, which is likely going to impact consumer spending and hence also depletions in our business. On top of that, we expect that the cost inflation is expected to further reduce our gross margins in the second half of the year. That is simply because the price increases that we have agreed are substantial and should cover on a full year basis, but they're only phase in over time. The costs have already phased in and the price increases will phase in over time thereafter. Having said that, we are very confident about navigating through these headwinds as well. As we've already mentioned, we've got strong and resilient brands, which we've also shown to support us in putting through price increases. Um, our H2 performance in the United States will definitely be less or probably not even affected by supply issues. Plus, we are facing lower comps there. Logistic costs should absolutely come down in the, uh, second half of the year. First of all, because we're not expecting any incidentals there. But second, we also hope to, uh, see the, uh, recent developments of container rates going down to continue in the second half of the year. And we do all of this on a very strong balance sheet still with our cost and cash focus and mitigating actions remaining in place. Uh, back over to you, uh, Huub. Thank you, Frank. We look at the outlook statement. It's on page 29 of the presentation. As said already by Frank, at the short term. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Again, it is star one to ask a question. Operator, we haven't finished the presentation yet. We were now discussing the outlook first, and then there's room for questions. I continue with the outlook. Weakening consumer purchasing power is generally expected to affect consumer spending in most markets, which could have a negative impact on depletions in some of the markets in the months ahead. We also expect the significant inflationary headwinds to continue, putting further pressure on our cost base in the second half of the year. Due to the phasing of the implementation of additional price increases, this cost inflation will not be fully offset in 2022-2023, as a consequence of which gross margins are expected to decline further in the second half of the year. Container rates appear to be stabilizing and are even coming down on certain shipping lines, and in the year to go, no incidental logistics costs for shipments to the U.S. are expected to be incurred. Operational and cost efficiencies continue to be top of mind, but not at the expense of our midterm strategic objectives. The strength and the resilience of our brands is based on our fundamental brand equity and pricing power, and we have further improved our off-trade access, and we are confident that these will be key factors in navigating through these headwinds. We have strengthened our balance sheet significantly, and our focus on cash management remains in place. Performance in the U.S. is expected to be less affected by global supply issues, while the growth trajectory started in 2021-2022 is anticipated to continue also benefiting from the Tequila Partida acquisition. Despite the geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges we are currently facing, we expect to deliver at least the 4%-5% annual revenue growth target on our global cocktail brands for the full 2022-2023 financial year. This completes our presentation, and then now I would give the floor for any questions there might be. Thank you, sir. As a reminder to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. Now we have a question from Richard Withagen from Kepler. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, Huub. Good morning, Frank. I've got a couple of questions. First of all, on the Bols Ready to Enjoy cocktails, maybe you can give some background on that. What is the contribution to sales? What are your plans to drive further growth in the Netherlands and in the U.S.? How do you think about, you know, the next steps, maybe adding some more markets? Okay. To answer that question. Thank you for the question, Richard. As you know, we have introduced Bols Ready to Enjoy cocktails, both in the tubes and in 375 ml and 700 ml bottles. We have introduced it in the United States and in the Netherlands. We are in the process of expanding the distribution, mainly focusing on the retail. We are now at about 7,000 distribution points in the U.S. That is a good start. What we do is the moment we have these listings or retail listings, then we activate that around where we have these listings. We continue to expand distribution. I think that is the most important, let's say, objective we have for the coming year actually, or future. Focusing on expanding distribution and of course activate the brand. In terms of what it is exactly in terms of contribution to the revenue growth, we don't disclose exactly that number, but it certainly has contributed to revenue growth in the U.S. and the Netherlands in H1. More in the U.S. than in the Netherlands, Huub, or? Yeah. The U.S. is a, call it, more dynamic new market. That's the market where cocktails are the much larger than, of course, in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands it is a new category, so that's a category we need to build from scratch. While in the U.S. this is a strongly growing category where we participate and where we expect growth for the future as well. Yeah. Okay. Clear. On Tequila Partida, maybe also there's some background, you know, how is the brand performing? What kind of growth rates? If I do a quick calculation, I think you're at more or less the pre-pandemic sales level in the first half of the year. Maybe you can also, you know, give a bit more background on how the brand performs in the off-trade and the on-trade. Lastly, if there are any issues with agave supplies. Yeah. On Tequila Partida, we are very pleased with the acquisition, first of all. Like I said in my presentation, the quality is outstanding. The packaging is very well accepted, and the brand is winning medals, so that is very good news. In the first few months, we have focused of course in taking over the brands and putting it on our own platform of Lucas Bols USA. We made a few changes in our distributors as well. As from July, August, and moving into H2, we are focused now on expanding the distribution both off-trade and on-trade. Both actually are important for us. Also expanding distribution in control states where it takes a bit more time in presenting the brand and getting listed. We expect H2 to see now the acceleration of growth based on distribution expansion and on activation actually. Maybe on the agaves, Frank, you want to say something? Yeah, sure. Maybe also some addition, Huub, to what you already mentioned on Tequila Partida, because if you refer back to where we commented that we would see growth after the acquisition, there was two points that we made. First, we said we are growing volumes, which is to a large extent in the on-trade. As we've already mentioned, we're definitely doing that and also in the off-trade. The second one is equally important and also showing in the numbers already, is that we thought we would be able to bring up the average case rate by doing two things. One of them is that given that outstanding quality, we thought that Tequila Partida had always been underpriced compared to its peers in the industry. By putting through price increases more than just sort of the ones that are catching up for increased input costs, the way we got that through it actually shows that that was the case. We are selling at a higher price on each of the individual SKUs. Equally important is that we have changed the mix. The more premium and the aged tequilas, so both within the La Familia range, the Reposado and Añejo, and the Cristalino, but also the Roble Fino range, if you see how much we're selling there and how much we're increasing our share in total sales, that's also helping to bring up the average case rate and hence also revenue. On both of these strategic and tactical initiatives that we had with the acquisition, we are delivering. Having said that, also of course, with Tequila Partida, supply has become more challenging than it was two years ago, but thus far have been able to deal with that well. Agave is not an issue for us in terms of getting enough agave in. One of the reasons that we keep on winning these awards is actually that the agaves we get in, there's a relatively high amount of agave that we send back or refuse to use because our own team in Mexico is dedicated to making sure we get the highest quality in. We do sometimes send back part of a shipment, but we are able to get in more than enough agave. Prices are not going up. In fact, on most of the aging categories of agaves, we see prices coming down slightly. I think from an agave point of view, we have not seen and we are not expecting issues on sort of the foreseeable future. All right. Very clear. One last question from me. It may be a bit more, you know, stepping back. If you look at the U.S. market, I wonder what is the distributor feedback that you get after, you know, implementing the new strategy. You've also added some brands to the portfolio. You mentioned Bols Vodka, Nuvo RTD. What is the distributor feedback on, you know, basically what Lucas Bols is doing in the U.S.? The feedback from the distributors is very positive, based on the fact that what we have added to our portfolio is exactly where the growth is as well in the U.S. Tequila Partida is important for our distributors because they don't have that many premium tequila, super premium tequila brands in their portfolio. It is a very welcome addition to our portfolio. Same for Pallini, for example. The Ready to Enjoy is important because that is a category which is also growing fast. With Bols Vodka, we are able to propose and participate in the vodka-based cocktails, which is another lever to grow the brand. They like what we do, and they are supporting the brands. Now also for H2, we have put in place a strong recovery program for the Bols Liqueurs after the glass shortages. In that sense, they see the growth we do in the U.S., and they are fully supportive of that. Okay. Very good. Thanks, Huub. Thanks, Frank. I'll pass it on. Thank you. Thank you. There are currently no other questions in the phone queue. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. We'll pause for just a moment to allow you to signal. Is there no further questions in the queue? I'd like to hand the call back over to Operator. We have a follow-up question from Richard from Kepler. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, there's a few more that I have probably. Yeah, I mean, obviously one interesting point would be to see what the outlook is for price increases that you plan going forward. I mean, you obviously argue that you cover sort of the costs with the existing price increases, but you know, what's the outlook for additional price increases maybe in the, you know, the start of 2023? Yeah. Very important question, I think, Richard, and we also commented on that in the press release. We need to take a small step back, I think, because the whole input cost inflation movement already started during COVID-19, of course. We started putting through price increases as from January 2021 onwards. We did that in two steps. That is before the war in Ukraine broke out. We did it in two steps in most of our markets, and of course, per market, but also per channel. The rate by which we've increased prices varies. Generally speaking, that covered at least all of the increased input costs. Then as we all know, when the war in Ukraine, uh, broke out, we saw an acceleration of that input cost inflation, and it did not take us very long to also respond to that, of course, considering what our competitors are doing, considering the different, uh, market environments. So for example, in France, where we operate in a very competitive retail environment, it's much harder to get through price increases. Uh, but generally speaking, again, we did that in one or two stages. Now, if we have to quantify that now, uh, the way we look at it is that on an annualized basis, um, the price increase that we agreed, uh, to put through should cover for the current levels of input costs, the increase therein, that is. We will not be able to see that in the current fiscal because as I mentioned, the input costs have already started to phase in, and most of the price increases that we agreed will only be implemented either in September or more towards the start of the next calendar year, so January. That means that in this fiscal, we will definitely lose a bit of gross margin because of that delay in implementing price increases. Over a 12-month period starting from September, we should be able to cover. Now, of course, the big question is what happens thereafter. If it stays at the levels that we're currently at, then we should be okay with the price increases that we've agreed. If it goes up, then of course we need to reconsider what our approach will be, and that will be more than even in the past two rounds of price increases, be one where we need to look carefully at the individual markets and channels, because on the other side of the channel, of course, is the consumer or the bar owner that also has its own financial difficulties in terms of making ends meet. We'll have to be more considerative of that. Yeah, we'll deal with that when those signals start to come in. For now, we're comfortable and also actually quite happy that we're able to do this on our brands, which to us shows that we've got quite strong brands in the market. Clear. One last question I have. Is there any phasing in advertising and promotion spending between the first half of this year and the second half of this year? Yeah, there are. Are you planning? Yeah, sorry. I definitely understand your question, I think, Richard. There definitely is a bit of phasing, but fortunately, there's phasing in two key markets. In the United States, as Huub already said, we have, let's call it kickstarted, the launch of the ready-to-enjoy cocktails, which of course is accompanied by above-average investments. Now, in the Netherlands, we're kicking off almost like a similar program, but then of course, focused onto the Benelux region in the second half of the year. The U.S. was a bit higher in the first half. The Netherlands is a bit higher in the second half. If our expectations in terms of revenue go in accordance with plan, we should not see a massive phasing. Um, if, of course, things, uh, start to go, uh, worse than we expect now, uh, global recession kicks in, uh, quicker or tougher than expected, then as we've demonstrated during COVID-19, we are, I think, uh, incredibly agile in terms of also reducing A&P spend. Uh, but we will, as always, be careful in which markets and on what brands we then decide to do that, uh, because we don't wanna jeopardize our midterm, uh, growth strategy. But there's... Generally speaking, uh, there should not be a significant phasing in, uh, in A&P between H1 and H2. Okay, very good. Thanks, Frank. No problem. We have a question from Henk Slotboom from the IDEA!. Yeah, please go ahead. Yeah, good morning. Thanks for the presentation, and thanks for taking my question. Just a simple one. The problem with the glass, that's finally a thing of the past now, or do you expect more glass shortages? Is something like that, for example, to be expected in Europe as well? I mean, energy prices are high. You hear a lot about companies going out of business or temporarily bringing down production. Perhaps you can shed some light on that. Thank you. Yeah, sure, Henk, thanks for the question. It's been as you've seen a key or red line through our H1 results, the whole U.S. glass shortage. It's important to spend enough time on that. Of course, I need to be careful in the strength with which I'm saying these things, but the way it looks now is that the glass shortage issue in the U.S. is not going to be there for us in the second half of the year. There's two reasons for that. The first one is that by bringing in that substantial production order that we did at Avandis into the United States, we are good for quite a couple of months. The planning, which is not just the planning, it's committed glass supply from our glass supplier in the United States for the next 3-6 months ahead of us is enough. Even if we, you know, exceed our ambitious growth targets, then there should still be enough glass in the U.S. For the U.S., I've got no reasons to be concerned for the second half or the sort of 3-4 months thereafter. Fortunately, the same conclusion applies to Europe. However, Europe is a bit more volatile. We have not seen significant issues like we've seen in the United States. As you already commented on yourself, Henk, it's also driven by certain government actions in terms of the extent to which glass production facilities can actually continue. To give you an example, unfortunately, it didn't go ahead, but there was this idea in Germany for glass production facilities to shut down in November and December in order to save energy, to save gas supplies for domestic and more important industries, as they called it. If that would've happened, then of course there could have been glass shortage issues also in Europe. To the extent we know it now, that's not going to happen in Germany or in other markets. On top of that, we do see the demand for glass in Europe also going down. The sort of 30%-40% increase that we saw six months ago is no longer there. It's stabilized to slightly ahead of pre-COVID-19 levels. At this stage, also no concerns there. Europe, more than the U.S., is one that we are following closely also to see if there's any, let's call it, backup actions that we should take. Okay. That's a very clear answer. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. As there are no further questions in the queue, I'd like to hand the call back over to Mr. Huub van Doorne for any additional closing remarks. Okay. Thank you very much for your attendance and questions. This concludes our presentation for H1. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect.