Hello, and welcome to the Lucas Bols Half Year Results Call. My name is Courtney, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note that this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you require assistance at any time, please press star zero, and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Huub van Doorne, CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you. Thank you very much, and welcome everybody to the presentation of our half-year results, 2023-2024. I would like to start with the highlights of H1 2023-2024, which you'll find on page 5 in our presentation. And we start with the revenue, which came in at EUR 55.7 million, which is close to the strong H1 2022-2023 level. Our depletions value came in at -1%, which is a solid performance given the challenging environment. Growth in markets such as the U.S., Japan, and Spain was offset by slower sales in Western European retail markets. Our normalized operating profit was EUR 11.6 million and is slightly higher than a year ago, which was EUR 11.3 million. We made good progress on the preparations for the intended recommended public offer by the Nolet Group for all the issued and outstanding shares in the capital of Lucas Bols for EUR 18 per share, cum dividend, and jointly, we announced that on the ninth of October 2023. In light of this intended public offer, no interim dividends will be paid. If we then move to the next page, we see the Global Cocktail Brands and Regional Liqueurs and Spirits, where overall we achieved a solid performance. Our Global Cocktail Brands achieved a revenue of EUR 39.7 million and -1% versus H1 2022-2023. For the Regional L iqueurs and Spirits, we had a revenue of EUR 16.1 million, also -1% versus H1 2022-2023, and 71% of the revenue was Global Cocktail Brands. On the gross profit, we achieved for the Global Cocktail Brands, EUR 21.8 million, -8% versus H1 2022-2023, and for the Regional L iqueurs and Spirits, EUR 6.9 million, or -7% versus H1 2022-2023. This means that 76% of our gross profit was made by the Global Cocktail Brands. Then, moving to the world. As you know, we have our three separate cocktail markets in total, and the Sophisticated Cocktail Markets made a revenue of EUR 15.2 million or +10% versus H1 2022-2023. I'm happy to report that the depletions value was up by 15% versus H1 2022-2023. The Developed Cocktail Markets achieved a revenue of EUR 31.5 million, a -6% in revenue, and in depletions, about equal -7%, while the Emerging Markets made a revenue of EUR 99.1 million, a +2% in revenue versus H1 2022-2023, and then depletions value of -2%. If we then go to the Global Cocktail Brands on page 10. The Global Cocktail Brands, to remind everybody, are the Bols Cocktails, Passoã, and Galliano are in the core of our global cocktail strategy. In the first half year, our value depletions were -1%, and this was in line with our revenue development. We put through price increases, and they have been implemented across most markets and brands, and markets have been conscious with their demand as stock levels were reduced in on-trade and off-trade outlets. This is a post-COVID trend within the total spirits category and across markets. We continue to invest A&P brand investments in 2023, 2024, mainly focused at the point of purchase, meaning in the bar or in the retail outlet, and this is often combined with social media campaigns. We continue to be positive about the long-term growth opportunities for our Global Cocktail Brands, Bols Cocktails, Passoã and Galliano. They are each, and each of these brands is activated with a clear signature cocktail strategy. Moving to the Bols Cocktails. Bols Cocktails is the biggest strategic Global Cocktail Brand with a broad portfolio of liqueurs, vodka, genever, and ready-to-enjoy cocktails, and this is activating key signature cocktails globally. Despite significant price increases in the market, Bols Cocktails showed high single-digit revenue and depletions growth. Liqueurs, the biggest portfolio within Bols Cocktails, are driving the growth due to a focused flavor strategy for market with Blue Curaçao, Triple Sec, and Peach as the biggest flavors globally. Key growth market is the U.S., which is recovering from the heavy glass shortages last year and has achieved double-digit growth. Lower consumer spending impacted sales across Europe, while in Southeast Asia and Japan, Bols Cocktails continue to show significant growth, confirming the recovery from the pandemic. In the on-trade markets, we are activating bartenders via local Bols cocktail competitions in order to drive longer-term loyalty. Moving now to Passoã. Revenue was in, but this was offset by a slowdown in retail markets, U.K., France, and Benelux. After the launch in China and South Korea, Passoã now is sold in over 50 markets worldwide. The Pornstar Martini cocktail popularity keeps growing across the globe. The Pornstar Martini Week was brought to a larger scale this year, with social media communication as well as specific activation in the US. Passoã also partnered with Difford's Guide to launch the first Pornstar Martini competition, leading to higher brand awareness among bartenders and consumers. Engaging events, brand activations, and social media campaigns in core markets like the UK, Benelux, Spain, and the US were implemented. Move on to Galliano on the next page. After three consecutive years of growth, a slowdown was noted due to challenging retail markets in Scandinavia and Australia, which are two of the core markets for Galliano. In the US, Galliano Espresso achieved double-digit growth, supported by an increase in distribution and rotation, activating the popular Espresso Martini cocktail by a bartender competition in collaboration, again, with the Difford's Guide. In Australia, Galliano launched its first social media competition nationwide, driving awareness of the new Galliano Vanilla Mule cocktail, reaching over 2 million consumers. Last but not least, the Galliano Hot Shots increased its footprint, and the Galliano Vanilla Mule activations were implemented in various high-end cocktail bars in core market, Sweden. Looking at the Regional Liqueurs and Spirits. The Regional Liqueurs and Spirits had a solid performance. Revenue was in line with last year, a solid performance in challenging retail market circumstances. Tequila Partida achieved depletions growth through expansion to over 45 states in the U.S. and points of distribution growth. Pallini had a strong performance in the U.S., with double-digit growth in revenue and depletions. The non-alcoholic spirit, Fluère, was launched in several markets, including the U.S., on the back of an innovative no and lower alcohol strategy. The Pisang Ambon brand had a challenging half year due to tough retail markets in the Benelux and France. Nuvo declined in H1 due to difficult market circumstances in Latin America and high comps in the US, also due to the ready-to-drink launch last year. The domestic liquors and spirits portfolio achieved mid-single-digit revenue growth due to strong concentrate sales. And last but not least, the House of Bols experience and Wynand Fockink achieved high single-digit revenue growth based on a growing number of visitors. These were the highlights. Now, I would like to hand over to Frank Cocx for the financial highlights. Frank? Thank you, Huub, and good morning, everyone. This financial highlights part of the presentation starts with the full P&L of the first half of 2023-2024, where, as usual, I analyze the normalized numbers with reference to those of the comparable period. And in the last column, I do the same, but then adjusting for the net impact of any foreign currency developments. And to conclude on that directly, as you can see in the last column, there has not been any material impact of foreign currency developments on the first half of our performance. Looking at net revenue first, as already mentioned, it's stable versus strong comps and in a quite challenging environment on the back of also relatively stable depletions. Positives are, among others, price increases and the further premiumization. Markets such as the US, Japan, and Spain did very well. From a brand perspective, we saw Bols Liqueurs, Vodka and Pallini performing very strongly. By adding Fluère and also growing our concentrate business, we were able to achieve some further growth in parts of our business. The big challenges, challenges that we also expect to persist into the second half of the year, are retail, both in Western Europe, but also in the Pacific and China. Maybe the last time we do this, but if you compare the first half of this financial year, the revenue to the pre-COVID period, we have been able to grow that revenue by 20%. Gross profit is down 8% or EUR 2.4 million. That is not driven by revenue, as we just already concluded, but is driven by a drop in gross margin of 380 basis points. That does not come in as a surprise, because last year, in the comparative period, we did not see any real impact yet of the cost inflation that was happening at that point, because we still had inventory at the pre-inflationary levels that we were able to sell at that point in time. We've been able to offset a significant part of the input cost inflation with price increases, something that we also continue in the second half of the year. There's also good news from a gross profit perspective, because if you look at the gross margin we realized in the last six months of the previous financial year, we've been able to get back 420 basis points of our gross margin in the first half of this year. So that's a good accomplishment, predominantly on the back of the price increases. And at least equally important is that, in the first six months of this year, we have been able to grow the gross profit per case, that's measured in euros, by another 6%, and I'll get back to that in a second. Operating profit even improved, and that is in spite of losing EUR 2.4 million in gross profit. We predominantly were able to grow operating profit by being able to achieve savings on logistic costs, to have lower commissions paid, and also seeing a decline in depreciation charges. The only cost category that went up is overheads, but that went up moderately only. Net profit went down 7% compared to last year, as did earnings per share. There were operating profit increase. This went down because of two reasons. We see a minor decrease in joint venture profits, which is Maxxium only, the joint ventures that we currently have, driven by the challenging retail environment. But the bigger factor here is that our finance expenses have gone up, not so much because our debt has grown. We carry a similar level of gross debt, but of course, the Euribor has increased dramatically compared to a year ago. It has gone up by almost 240 basis points. Our tax expenses go down somewhat, predominantly driven by a lower profit before tax, but also a minor decline in our effective tax rate to 23.9%, which is below the nominal Netherlands tax rate, because the profits that we generate, on the joint ventures are not taxable at Lucas Bols level again. On the next slide, as usual, I show how our revenue, has developed by splitting it down into the Global Cocktail Brands and the Regional Liqueurs and Spirits. The Global Cocktail Brands, consisting of Bols Cocktails, Passoã, and Galliano, has decreased in terms of revenue by 1%, on the back of also a 1% decline in depletions, where Bols Cocktails actually did really well. High single digit growth, predominantly in the United States, Japan, but also importantly in Southeast Asia. And it's worth mentioning that Bols Liqueurs, where we lost, quite a bit of business last year in the United States, has been growing, particularly. The second Global Cocktail Brand, Passoã. We're very happy, as Huub mentioned, to operate that in over 50 markets worldwide now, and the Netherlands, on the RTD can, and Japan and Italy, more so on the Passoã bottle, did very well. However, that growth was more than offset by the slowdown that we have noted in the retail markets. Galliano has been growing for the past couple of years. However, not in this first six months. This is again driven by a movement we've seen in retail in the last period, where in Scandinavia and Australia, sales have been down a bit. Fortunately, we also have a very winning proposition, with Galliano Espresso, amongst others, in the United States, which is growing on the back of the popular Espresso Martini cocktail. Regional Liqueurs and Spirits is down 1% in revenue, with depletions being roughly stable. Quite a couple of positive news items here. Pallini grew double digits. Fluère is already helping our revenue here, so we are successfully launching the no and lower alcohol cocktail strategy in over 20 markets as we speak. The experiences, but also the Delft Blue Houses are doing great, and we are really developing our concentrated sales business, which is carrying quite significant margins. Significant part of our business still is the Genever and regional portfolio, where we are happy to report that we've increased our market share. This means that our revenue has been more or less stable, but in a market that has been declining again in the past six months. Tequila Partida was almost stable from a revenue perspective, but was growing depletions-wise, and Nuvo has been down largely because it was facing significant comparable numbers last year, but also because a portion of what we sell is sold in Latin America, one of the regions that is currently really challenging. Lacadi is also part of the challenging region of Central and Latin America. And therefore, we are very happy to report that sales are stable on the back of even a slight increase in in-market depletions. Pisang Ambon suffered two reasons. One of them is that retail is down, specifically in, for example, France and Belux, but also because we are undergoing a brand reset here, predominantly throughout the last summer. The next slide shows a similar waterfall in terms of how revenue has developed. Now, not broken down by brand portfolio, but by the three market clusters we operate. Starting with the Sophisticated Cocktail Markets, 10% revenue growth and even higher growth on depletions, 15%, which of course is a bit on the back of specifically the depletions on somewhat lower comps. But it's absolutely ahead of the trend that we see in the industry, where quite often we see double-digit declines in this region compared to the previous year. United States, as mentioned, was working on tough comps, but has won back a lot, specifically, Pallini, Galliano, and Bols Cocktails Liqueurs, and Vodka are doing well. Canada also grew, not just on the Bols Liqueurs, but also on Galliano, for example. And although the third country in this region, Puerto Rico, reported an increasing level of revenue, we are still quite prudent here. One reason is that last year had relatively low, comps because Hurricane Fiona occurred throughout the period. And the second reason is that there's quite a lot of instability in the market still. The developed cocktail markets suffered most, revenue down 6%, depletions down 7%. There's actually a couple of good markets in this region. Japan is recovering very welcomely, and travel retail, because travel retail is coming back generally in the travel sector, but also because of the different strategy we have, we see an increase in the business that we do there. Southern Europe, Italy, and also Spain saw a bit of an increase during the summer season, predominantly in the on-trade. However, these positive factors in the developed cocktail markets were more than offset by a declining spend in retail, something we know that in Western Europe, Scandinavia, but also the Pacific. For the House of Bols, based on the visitor numbers in the first 26 weeks of this year, we are on track to again get a record number in. Last year, we had a record of 60,000 visitors for the year, and we're on track to at least get to a similar level. Emerging cocktail markets had a revenue growth of 2%, but saw depletions go down by 2%. Positives here are Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, but also Africa, Middle East, where we've also been able to leverage the investments we did with the partners there and the route to market changes. The big challenges here are China and also Latin America, where macroeconomic factors are not helping. On the next slide, there's a bit of a deep dive for the second time on how our Premiumization strategy is actually working in practice. I proposed this slide for the first time when I presented the year-end results in May 2023. And there we quantified the impact of the premiumization strategy in terms of what it had on the revenue per case and the gross profit per case. How we do that premiumization strategy is by adding super premium brands to our portfolio, such as Tequila Partida, but also, for example, Pallini and now Fluère, by intensifying our brand investments specifically on the Global Cocktail Brands, and also by putting through the price increases that this position we feel deserves. In only six months' time, compared to what we did in the full fiscal year last year, we were again able to increase and benefit from the premiumization. So the revenue per case went up 6%, as did the gross profit per case, also went up by 6%, just over that six-month period of time during which input cost inflation did not really help. If we then look again at how we have enforced this strategy and what the impact of that has been over the 3.5-year period, starting at the pre-pandemic 2019-2020 year, which is also the year after which we implemented the Fit for Growth or Premiumization strategy, we see that over that 3.5-year period, we have increased the revenue per case by 35%, close to EUR 50 per case now. And the gross profit per case went up by 22%, which means that on average, we have been able to grow that by 6% per annum. The last slide on the profit and loss statement is a bit more detail on how our operating profit has developed. We ended H1 last year with million of operating profit, and this half year, we ended with a 2% increase. We're now reporting an 11.6% normalized operating profit. That increase did not come from gross profit, because as we already know, that that was down EUR 2.4 million, not because of revenue, but because of the lower gross margin driven by the input cost inflation. It's also not driven by savings on advertising and promotional expenses, because we continue to carry those at intensified rates, focusing on the Global Cocktail Brands. In line with the first half last year, we again spent about 9% of our net revenue on brand investments, and that includes the commercial A&P that's already accounted for in net revenue. The savings and the reason why we are able to report an increased operating profit comes from logistics costs instead. They have come down significantly by EUR 2.5 million. There are three reasons for that. The first one is that you may recall that last year we had EUR 1.4 million of non-recurring logistics costs. The reason for that is that, driven by the industry-wide glass shortage in the United States, we decided to produce Bols Liqueurs for the United States in the Netherlands, and to ship that to the United States, and that was on the back of record high container rates at the time. So that's a factor that we don't have this year. The second reason is that we have shipped slightly lower volumes, but more importantly, finally, I would almost say, container rates have come down in the first half of this year, and they've come down quite rapidly and quite substantially, something we expect to persist in the second half of the year as well. Overhead costs have only gone up moderately, about 200,000 EUR or 3%, which is mostly related to the CPI adjustment we have done on salaries and some cost inflation we see on minor categories of overhead costs, such as housing, office, and IT expenses. I think most importantly here is that compared to pre-COVID-19, we only spent 13.6% on overheads, compared to that being over 17%, prior to COVID-19. So from an EBIT margin perspective, the savings we've put through on overheads ever since are getting to a 350 basis points improvement on our EBIT margins. From the profit and loss statement to the balance sheet, conclusion here is that not much has really changed, which is good news because we were able to report a strong balance sheet already at the end of the last fiscal. I think, in fact, the biggest change is also the first change I want to highlight, and that is in intangible assets. We have now accounted for the acquisition of the Nuvo brand, where we paid EUR 5.3 million, that we've now capitalized under brands, which is part of intangible assets. Good to note here is that together also with our external auditor, we concluded that on none of the brands there is a triggering event to consider a potential impairment. The investments in joint ventures, which at this stage only is a maximum for the Netherlands and Belux, has remained stable. If you look at other non-current assets, which basically is property, plant, and equipment, that has increased by just over EUR 1 million in the first six months of the year. We did capital expenditures on the revamp of the Bols Cocktail Academy, quite a significant change and a reopening we did literally two weeks ago. The second reason why we had an increase there is that we signed up for a new office lease for our team in the United States, and in accordance with accounting standards, more specifically, IFRS 16, we have to capitalize the full lease commitment there. Those two increases were partly offset by the depreciation charge for the first six months of about EUR 700,000. Current assets, we'll look at cash and cash equivalents later as part of net debt. So the only relevant item here is net working capital. We see an increase there of EUR 3 million. That does not come from further investments in inventory. It has come down slightly already, about EUR 1 million compared to six months ago. And we still continue to carry elevated levels of inventory here on our balance sheet, so there's further room for improvement and hence cash generation in the second half of the year here. The increase in net working capital comes from the receivables. In the last quarter of the last fiscal, we had relatively limited sales as opposed to the second quarter of this fiscal, we had relatively high sales, so we carry higher balances of receivables. But again, we can confirm that there are no material overdue positions there. Payables have also gone up slightly. We have transitioned our U.S. production from Brown-Forman in Kentucky to Phillips Distilling in Minnesota, and we have very favorable payment terms at Brown-Forman, something that was not in line with market practice. So that has been adjusted slightly, which results in slightly lower payables. If we go to the other side of the balance sheet, the equity and liabilities part, there's not much happening there. The deferred tax liabilities go down somewhat because we see an increase in tax credits on temporarily non-deductible interest expenses, and there's a slight increase in other non-current liabilities. There, where we capitalized the new office lease, for the Lucas Bols United States teams. The counterpart is recognized on the balance sheet here as well. To the current liabilities, there's minor increases only, and those occur in the other current liabilities, where last year we did significant advanced payments on income tax payables, so we had no payable position, and now we have a, I would almost say, normal income tax payable position. And there's a slight increase in other current liabilities because we have higher interest accrued for the second quarter because of the increase in the Euribor rate. The next slide is a slide that I have not done before, and that's a bit of a deep dive on how our net debt has developed. The reason for putting this in is that as opposed to what we've done over the past three years consistently, we did not further reduce net debt in the first six months of this year, which was in line with plans, but still worth getting into a better detail. Net debt went up about EUR 1.4 million in the first six months, and that means it didn't go down, but there's a couple of drivers for that. The biggest is that we acquired the Nuvo brand and paid for that during the first six months of the year. So that's an expense of about EUR 5.3 million that we already took into account when we did the equity raise in December 2021. The second reason is, as I already mentioned, we see higher receivables coming in on the back of relatively high revenue in the second quarter of this year. In the first half of this year, we also paid the final dividend over the last year, almost EUR 2 million, and we see slightly higher interest payments on the back of that higher Euribor. It does not mean at all that we are worried about our leverage ratio. That's gone up a bit, of course, but it's still at healthy levels, 3.49. More importantly, we can comfortably confirm that during the second half of the year, we will continue what we had started three years ago, which is reducing our net debt, something that we will definitely continue in the second half of this fiscal year. From net debt, it's an easy link to talk about cash flows. One of the numbers we're actually very happy with over the first half, our free operating cash flow has improved substantially. It improved to EUR 7.5 million, where it was only EUR 2.8 million over the first half last year. That is not so much driven by the operating profit, because that has remained on a reported basis more or less equal compared to last year.... The reason for the significant improvement is found in our working capital, where last year we invested a lot in inventory, generally to be able to conquer the supply chain shortages, but more specifically to support a few product launches, and as already mentioned, to have an alternative for the industry-wide glass shortages that we saw in the United States. And these investments were not made in this year, so we spent less on working capital investments. Second reason is that last year, from a cash perspective, we paid quite a lot of income tax in France. That was on the back of high 2021, 2022 profit before tax, and this year we pay what I would call a more normal income tax payment, so relatively, we've paid less. Those favorable developments are only partly offset by slightly higher capital expenditures. It means that the cash conversion rate comes in at a strong 61%, compared to only 23% a year ago. If you look at the cash that we generated through operations and our joint venture dividends, we use that predominantly for three things. The first one is those investments in working capital, which is the receivables. We had to pay some income tax still, of course, majority of which in France. And the last one is that for our asset-light business model, we relatively spend a lot, but it's still only EUR 500,000 on capital expenditures, almost fully relating to that revamp of the Bols Bartending Academy, and a more insignificant part was spent on new molds for the bottles that we carry. My last slide, as usual, deals with some other matters. Of course, starting with the very enthusiastic news that we announced on the ninth of October, which is the intended public offer by Nolet. From a strategic rationale perspective, the key tagline here is that we are very happy to be able to create a Dutch champion in the global spirits and cocktails market. We really value the fact that Nolet would be a long-term, committed, and financially strong partner to us. One that also respects our independence and does not only endorse our full strategy, but also understands it, because in parts of the world, specifically in the United States, but also, for example, in the genever part of the business in the Netherlands, they have a similar strategy, so we know what we're talking about. We've got a great line of alignment when it comes to making sure that this transaction would also result in accelerating our growth strategy. Think about matters such as focus brand investments, but also on the M&A calendar that we have. And also important is that we are truly complementary. So there's not many aspects of business that we would be competing with each other. We would complement each other, and not in the last place when it comes to matters such as innovation, marketing, and research and development. First, more transaction highlights. First, there's the EUR 18 per share dividend that is being offered, which is a premium of 76% compared to the last pre-announcement share price. To us, equally important are the so-called non-financial governance, which include, for example, the fact that we're allowed to retain our offices, our identity, our name, our key brands, route to markets, partnerships, et cetera, et cetera. There's also no changes to the workforce or our labor conditions. But from a governance perspective, the management board will stay on and will run the company autonomously. The last and third part on the transaction highlights, we believe there's a very high deal certainty because of that significant premium, but also because Nolet is able to finance the transaction from own funds that are already available. The timeline, it started with the announcement on the ninth of October. On 3 November, we issued the required four weeks update, where, very briefly, we commented that we are making really good progress, to prepare for the, publication of the offer. And we still expect that to happen either late 2023, the calendar year that is, or very early in 2024, and we will simultaneously also publish the position statement. That means that in the first quarter of calendar year 2024, the tender period will run, including us, organizing an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders. And if things go according to plan, then in the second quarter of the calendar year of 2024, we expect the transaction to close, including the delisting. The second block of this slide talks about M&A transactions and one-offs. Under the first part, only there to report is the acquisition of the Nuvo Sparkling Liqueur brand. It's a strategic partnership that already started in December 2017, which is when we also agreed on a put/call option, and it was that put option that was exercised by the London Group in June 2023, which led to a purchase price of EUR 5-5.3 million, which was determined with reference to already predetermined multiples on the contribution after B. From a P&L perspective, not much changes because we already accounted for the full P&L in our consolidated profit and loss statement. The only change is that we are no longer required to pay commissions to the previous owners. Two very minor one-offs. One of them is EUR 300,000, which is a one-off transportation cost that was needed to transfer the US inventory from Kentucky to Minnesota, which was also the event after which we could conclude that we had successfully completed this project. Then there was about EUR 100,000 spent on various projects. Last bit is the company's financing. In May, I already explained that we had successfully extended our facilities, pushed it back by two years to December 2025 on favorable commercial conditions and at similar covenant levels. As per the thirteenth of September 2023, we comply with all covenants in place. The leverage ratio of 3.49 compares to a covenant level of 4, and the interest cover ratio of 4.92 compares with a covenant level of should exceed 3. So, there's headroom here, and we expect that headroom second half of the year. Now handing back over to Huub for an outlook statement for the second half of the year. Yeah. Thank you very much, Frank. So for the outlook, first of all, the challenging conditions are expected to persist in H2, given the high interest rates and the macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties. Customers and outlets are expected to carry stock at a minimum level, in response to which we anticipate some destocking in the year to go. For the full 2023/2024 financial year, we still aim to show year-on-year revenue growth and expect to do so at a stable growth margin. We continue our brand investments, albeit with close market-by-market monitoring, as we always do on a BMU-by-BMU basis, and anticipate logistic costs to remain at the moderated levels. The operating profit, adjusted for the costs related, of course, to the intended public offer by the Nolet Group, the operating profits should be ahead of the 2022/2023 levels. As our inventory levels should come down, should come down further in H2, we expect to bring full year free operating cash flow back to the level of 2021/2022. As communicated in the joint press release, dated October 9, 2023, the Nolet Group and Lucas Bols anticipate that the offer will close in the first half of 2024, which was just explained by Frank. This completes our presentation, and now we're happy to take any questions you might have. Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. And our first question comes in from the line of Richard Witherspoon, calling from Kepler. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, Frank. Good morning, Huub. A couple of questions from me. First on Tequila Partida. Can you talk a bit about the performance in the US and what your plans are, yeah, in the next couple of months, but also a bit more in the midterm, how do you see that evolving? And then the second part of the question, I checked on the Bols website that, you know, you can't buy tequila yet over here or your tequila on the Bols website. But yeah, what's the plan for tequila in Europe as a category? What do you see in terms of prospects? Yeah. Thanks, Richard, for that, for the question. Of course, Tequila Partida has become a very important part of our business. It's one of the bigger reasons that we've also been able to premiumize the business as we also quantified. From a U.S. perspective, the most important factor is that we're really happy that we're now in over 45 states. As you probably know, it's a very competitive market. So by us gaining access to those 45 states in the United States and happily growing the number of points of distribution, that's not just a good sign for what we're doing currently, but also for the future there. So those to us are very important factors. If you look at outside of the United States, there's a couple of initiatives that are quite promising here. For example, we have already started also selling Tequila Partida in the Middle East, predominantly in Dubai. That is something that we are starting as we speak. And the second international expansion that is on the horizon is, in fact, the Netherlands. So the fact that it's not on our website yet is because it's not yet available in the Netherlands. But if things go according to plan, we should be able to launch Tequila Partida in the Netherlands from the first quarter of our fiscal in 2024 onwards. And from there, we gradually try to expand it. We do keep two things in mind here. One of them is that worldwide, the big market for tequila is and will remain, at least for the midterm, will remain the U.S. So key focus will always be on the United States. And of course, if we launch Tequila Partida, it should be launched at super premium positioning and price levels. So it's not a matter for us to just launch it anywhere at any price or cost, but also to make sure we really leverage the super premium position it has. But it's definitely not going to stop at Dubai, the Netherlands and the United States. Clear. And then on the US market, yeah, what do you see in terms of your premiumization? Do you see that slowing down? I mean, what do you see in the on-trade? Is there lower footfall or are people spending less? And maybe also, yeah, what's the feedback that you get from distributors on consumer demand in the US? Yeah, to start with the, maybe the last one. Of course, there is a change at the going on in the U.S., where, from a distributor point of view, there is a lot of cautiousness on the market, and that translates into stock management. And if you compare that only a year ago, there were not enough supplies, et cetera. And now, actually, that turned around because supply, the supply chain is back to work. So there is much more critical look at inventory. Now, if you look at the overall situation, I think that consumers in the U.S. are a bit more cautious, and that is explained mostly also by the support which was received by the government in the U.S., where people had the opportunity and did some higher spending, which now is back to a more normal situation. So I would call it more a normalization as opposed to that we are in a very negative spiral. It is the new normal, and which means that for example, you don't see the high growth which we maybe have seen during a few years, but a normalized growth. So spirits are still expected to grow in the U.S. So that is a continuation, but not at the higher levels we have. Then in terms of category, tequila is still the category which is growing. However, the enormous accelerated growth of the super premium tequilas is slowing down. But we have the impression that tequila is still taking share from other categories. So from, it's taking share from cognac, it's taking some share maybe even from vodka. So tequila is a very promising category, and we with our own tequila, Partida, play a role, but it is very competitive. So we need to conquer account by account, which we are currently doing. And I think it is well positioned. We have increased the price last year, and we are happy with that price level, which is at the super premium end of the market. So we have good expectations from the Tequila Partida brand. I want to shift a bit to the pricing outlook. I think, Frank, you said in your prepared remarks that you continue to look for price increases. But what is the outlook for pricing, as you know, on the one hand, input costs probably remain a bit higher than previously anticipated, but on the other hand, yeah, you have a consumer outlook, which is not easy. What are your thoughts on pricing going forward? Yeah, that's of course you're touching on the right balancing act there, Richard. It's on the one hand, you know, it sounds not more than fair enough to make sure that we pass on at least a significant portion of the cost inflation that everyone has seen down the channel, so to say. On the flip side, you see that at the end of the channel, people are more prudent when it comes to spend. So that's the balancing act, and that is something that I think in the first round of price increases that you saw, not just with us, but also with our peers, is that that was something that was ignored for, I think, good reason. To just put on a price increase, and then it'll happen after that. What you see now is that also when we did our second round of price increase, which the majority we've already implemented, you see that we've taken a bit more, let's call it country by country approach there, to make sure we don't, you know, risk the volumes too much. And that, of course, depends whether you're in retail, how strong your brand is, how strong your distributor in the respective country is. So that is something that we are considering more and more when we're doing those price increases. Having said that, it makes sense that, you know, we have at least those two rounds of price increases, because in the first round we've been really dealing with it from a partnership perspective, saying, "You know, we're not directly on charging everything. It'll be like a stepped approach." And that is something that we complied with, and we're seeing the impacts of this year. So we're seeing favorable developments there. But like you say, it's always the balancing act between volumes and pricing, and we determine that almost on a market-by-market basis. The other part of the equation is, of course, the input costs, and that is something where we are changing our outlook a bit. So the prices, we're still doing what we were hoping to do, but from a cost, input cost perspective, in line with what you see, what our peers have reported, we're expecting that to come down rather significantly in the second half of the year. However, we do see that happening on parts of our raw materials, for example, alcohol, paper. Those are showing significant favorable developments. But for example, sugar has gone up in the world markets for sugar dramatically, and the price of glass is not really coming down. And of course, there's further inflation on salaries, et cetera, as well, that will be eventually also hitting, you know, our raw material and production fees. So we don't expect the current level of cost prices to go down, and although we are counting on the price increases that we committed to, we don't think our margin in the second half of the year is going to be much higher than in the first half of the year. Clear. Clear. Yeah. And then maybe one last question on Western Europe. I mean, the retail, more retail-focused markets are quite challenging. Southern Europe is still quite okay. So what's your outlook for Western Europe going into the last few months of 2023 and into 2024? What do you expect for the consumer? And the second part of the question is, how do you view promotions over the next couple of quarters? Yeah. I think that we what we see currently in the retail markets we expect that to continue, which means that consumers are putting much more attention to where they spend the money and how they spend the money. We also see some down trading happening, although we also have to see that that all prices have not completely been clear yet. So- ... also private label prices are going up in some markets, so we need to go, and we need to still see to a sort of a more normalized situation in retail market. So we expect the same trends actually to happen in retail. And the big question mark, and nobody knows the answer, of course, is how this year-end festive period, so November, December, how consumers will spend their money. So that's still a bit a question mark. So we don't expect a further deterioration, but the same trends will probably continue. Promotions, Huub, any thoughts on that? Do you expect more promotions in Europe as demand is under pressure? That could happen, under pressure, more promotions are being implemented. But I think in general, we would not, and I hope that not the industry, that we would go on saying we need a very, very high investment in extra promotion. So I don't expect that that would be a significant amount, and also because turning on the promotional efforts again would deteriorate the premiumization, which we have been working on for so many years, so that would be a counter effect. Very good. Thanks, Huub. Thanks, Frank. I'll pass it on. Yes, thank you. The next question comes in from the line of Salomé Charamelet, calling from ABN AMRO. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple of ones. First, I was wondering how consumers reacted to the recent launch or re-launch of a non-alcoholic spirit in the market. Was it stronger than any other alcoholic spirit, or could you give us a bit of your feeling on the trends of the non-alcoholic spirits? Thank you. Yeah, the trends are very visible, of course, that the non-alcoholic or lower alcohol cocktails are growing. So with Fluère, we have, as a first step, introduced or strengthened the brand in around 20 markets, as we said. However, this will be a slow but sure development. So you cannot say that this is immediately leading to huge volumes, because it is basically a new category, which still needs the development. And we are very confident that with our strategy of the non-alcoholic and low-alcohol cocktails, we can more and more convince also the on-trade and also retailers to give it the right position in the stores and in the bar. So it is a, it's a matter of time, and it's a, I think it's a step-by-step development. But we are certainly following the strategy of promoting this non-alcoholic and low-alcohol cocktails. If I can add something to that, Huub, if that's okay. The way we look, Salome, at our strategy is that it's almost like a two-step plan, and we are quite happy with the successes of the first step. The first step is that we are trying to get Fluère and the cocktails we've developed for Fluère, listed predominantly in the on-trade, so that it becomes part of cocktails. That is something that, for example, in the United States, we've worked with the distributors, and we're now in over 20 markets. So that first step, I think we're really good on our way. The second step that we always said is a bit more about also changing the mindset of how bar owners and also consumers look at the category. And by that, I mean is that the first step, you see a lot that our cocktails and our products are being listed on a separate page of the drinks menu, for example, under mocktails or, or quite often on the back page somewhere. And our vision is, is that that should evolve over time, for a non or lower alcohol cocktail to have the same sort of importance as any other cocktail. So it becomes part of the same menu, which is just called cocktails, and some of them happen to have alcohol and others don't or have lower alcohol. That's the second step. That's gonna take more time, and, we are very keen to, to work together with the industry and partners to also achieving some success in that. Okay, thank you. That's very clear. And maybe as a follow-up on that, how do you see the competition in this new market? Are you like the one, the kind of only one, and then it's easy to negotiate, for example, on trade, or how is it? I think that with the proposition, we have developed the combination of Fluère, the Fluère brand, but also certainly also Damrak Virgin, and the combination with our global cocktail strategy, I think we are very well placed to be one of the leaders in the development of this, this market. Although maybe it seems easy, it is not that easy to make a high-quality non-alcoholic spirit as the Fluère brand. So, it's just something where we believe we have a very good starting point, and also we are being able to develop that further. And of course, there are more brands around that, but this is more of an integrated strategy, which also was just explained by Frank. Okay, thank you. That's very clear. And maybe last, one last one. How do you? Do you expect any direct or indirect effect from the Middle East situation? Thank you. The only direct effect. You're referring to what, the Israeli-Palestinian? Yes. Is that what you're referring to? Yes. Yeah, the only, for the moment, the very direct effect is, of course, the market in Israel itself, which of course is under a lot of pressure. But we don't see major... Or we don't actually see any implications so far for the business outside of Israel itself. Not yet. Okay. Okay, thank you. That's very clear. Thank you a lot. We currently have no further questions in the queue. So as a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. Okay, there are no questions coming through, so I shall turn the call back across to yourselves for any concluding remarks. Thank you. All right. We thank you very much for your attendance and, yeah, thank you for joining us for the questions, and wish you a good day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets.