Good morning, everyone. This is Tako de Haan, CEO of B&S Group. With me is Peter Kruithof, our CFO, and also on the call is Mark Faasse. First, let me go through the highlights of the first half of this year. We will then discuss the figures in more detail and provide the outlook for 2022. After that, there's of course opportunity to ask any questions you may have. In the first half of 2022, turnover grew double digits and was driven by the liquor segment and supported by the retail and food results. However, industry-wide supply chain challenges and increased product scarcity had their impact on our growth margins in the first half of 2022. In addition, we had to take a provision of $7.5 million on a doubtful debtor in the food segment. Staff costs continued to rise. This is due to a tight labor market in Europe, as well as expansion in increased hourly rates for warehouse staff in the U.S. Despite these challenges, challenging economic circumstances, we made good progress on our strategy. With the recent acquisition of the French beauty company, we strengthened our direct-to-consumer activities and gained direct access to the brand owners in the premium beauty segment. Our retail segment is expanded with the upcoming openings of the shops in Abu Dhabi and with the newly won tender contracts in Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca. Besides our investment in acquiring the French beauty company, we invested in progressing our operational efficiency and digital transformation. More specifically, we expanded and further automated our B2C warehousing. We realized additional warehousing capacity for B&S Personal Care and further centralized our operations to our IT backbone. We're also proud to publish our revised sustainability program, Reach with Impact, today. This is yet another milestone in the execution of our 2021 to 2023 strategy. All in all, we are strategically in good shape to navigate through the global economic developments, but nevertheless, the impact of the macro environment on our half year results is clearly visible. This translates into the following numbers. Overall, turnover increased by 19.4% to EUR 983.2 million, while organic turnover increased by 18.8%. EBITDA came in at EUR 40.6 million, an overall decrease of 11%. When corrected for the provision in the food segment, it comes to EUR 47.7 million, a slight increase versus the same period last year. All segments contributed to the turnover growth. Turnover from acquisition originated from the beauty company that we acquired in Q2. Let me give some detail on the performance at segmental level. B&S Liquors turnover increased by 37.9%, and gross profit increased by 43% compared to the same period last year. EBITDA and EBITDA margin increased significantly as a result of the strong position, stock positions and relatively low staff cost when compared to the other business segments. Our European liquor wholesale business benefited from the lifted COVID restrictions for hotels, bars, and restaurants from the end of Q1 on. Our international liquor distribution saw relatively high demand in the current market, driven by good stock positions. The B&S Beauty segment increased turnover by 4.6%, with slight decline in gross profit due to the ongoing product scarcity that pressures our purchase prices. EBITDA and EBITDA margin decreased due to staff cost increase. This increase was driven by the online B2C business in the U.S. Q2 turnover growth was better than Q1 and driven by the consolidation of the French beauty company. B2B and B2R sales were impacted by the product scarcity and price increases, leading to limited product availability for some key customers. Online B2C continued to grow. Driven by the strong U.S. dollar, margins for this business decreased back to pre-COVID levels. B&S Personal Care increased turnover by 9.8%, and gross profit increased 11.5% compared to the same period last year. EBITDA margin increased 21.4% as more turnover was generated at similar cost levels. This performance was driven by increased sales to key customers as a result of the reopening of shops compared to the first half of 2021. This was further aided by well-managed stock positions. Further sales growth was held back by high prices of the private label assortment, driven by a strong U.S. dollar. If we continue with the B&S Food segment, we see an increased sales with 15.1%, while gross profit decreased by 26.8%. This is the result of a provision of $7.5 million for a doubtful debtor, as well as the altered business mix, with less contribution of remote markets, which normally comes at higher margins. EBITDA margins stood at -1.7%, corrected for the provision. Gross profit increased 9.3% and EBITDA margins stood at 2.9%. Food services increased turnover, mainly driven by the maritime market that profited from the automated order flows. Margins were aided by increased food prices, resulting in increased inventory value. This effect is likely to diminish in the second half as purchase prices increase as well. The government and defense business saw pressure on turnover and gross profit decreased when compared to the first half of last year, due to the rising food prices combined with the long-term contracts at fixed selling prices. Our brand distribution services performed better than anticipated on turnover. This was the result of a stronger than expected recovery of the duty-free and travel related markets. The domestic markets also slightly increased turnover, driven by our Dubai operations. B&S Health saw slight increase of sales by 1.3% with a margin increase of 2.6%. This was mainly driven by the vaccine business that was picked up in Q2 after lifting of the travel restrictions. EBITDA margin, however, still declined because of the increased fixed cost base. Last but not least, B&S Retail realized a 244.8% growth in turnover and almost tripled its gross profit when compared to last period, to the same period last year. Turnover growth in Q2 was less steep than in Q1, as Q2 2022 to Q1 also saw some recovery during the summer holiday season. EBITDA grew as well, albeit to a lesser extent than the sales and gross profit. This is the result of the increased fixed cost base to operate the shops. That brings us to the financial review. Peter, I would like to hand over to you. Thank you, Tako, and good morning to you all. Let's start with our key figures. Overall, turnover increased by 19.4% at 8.8% organically. At constant currency, turnover increased by 15.4% or 14.5% organically. This was driven by the strong U.S. dollar that positively impacted, especially the results of our U.S.-based FragranceNet business. Gross profit came in at EUR 139 million, compared to EUR 126.8 million for half year 2021. As a percentage of turnover, it was a decrease from 15.4% to 14.1%. This was the outcome of the global economic developments as well as the provision in the food segment. Corrected for the provision, gross margins stood at 14.8%. Operating expenses amounted to EUR 98.4 million, an increase of roughly EUR 17 million when compared to half year 2021. This was mainly due to the increased staff costs following the tight labor market in Europe, increased hourly rates for warehouse personnel in our U.S. operations. Marketing costs also increased, driven by the expanded direct to consumer business and the increased prices. The gross margin decrease that was to a large extent driven by the provision combined with the increased OPEX levels led to an EBITDA of EUR 40.6 million. When corrected for the provision, EBITDA amounted to EUR 47.7 million. The EBITDA margin amounted to 4.1% or 4.8% when corrected. Net profit stood at EUR 16.7 million, of which EUR 12.3 million was attributable to the owners of the company. Net profit attributable non-controlling interest amounted to EUR 4.4 million. This bridge shows the elements that together lead to the 19.4% turnover increase at reported rates for half year 2022. The organic increase of almost EUR 120 million was driven by the liquor segment and as Taco indicated, aided by food and the retail segment. The acquisition of the French beauty company contributed EUR 4.5 million, and the development of the EUR/USD exchange rate had a positive impact of EUR 35.4 million on turnover. This bridge shows the elements that lead to the turnover increase in Q2 2022. Turnover grew 17.3% organically at constant currency. The acquisition of a French beauty company contributed EUR 4.5 million, and development of the dollar exchange rate had a positive impact of EUR 23.2 million on turnover. That brings me to our financial position. Net debt increased as a result of investing activities and increased working capital. Working capital increased as a result of especially increased inventory positions. This increase is mainly the result of the early inventory buildup in H1 in order to preserve margins for the second half of the year, given the rising purchase prices and scarcity in the market. Also, please keep in mind that H1 2021 levels were low given precautionary measures we took during the pandemic. As a result, net debt to EBITDA stood at 3.7 at half year 2022. To give a little bit more color on that debt, let me elaborate on the bridge showing the movement from year end to half year. Net cash from operations amounted to -23.8. The result of the inventory buildup I just mentioned. Investing activities mainly related to the acquisition of the French beauty company and the payment for the remaining part of the acquisition price for the JTG shares at the beginning of 2022. Financing activities mainly related to new lease contracts, ones that, Taco indicated for the personal care segment and dividend paid to minorities in order to upstream cash. All in all, net debt increased and stood at almost EUR 415 million. That brings us to the working capital development. Net working capital increased to EUR 518.4 million, compared to EUR 442.1 million at June 30, 2021. Inventory increased from EUR 376 million to EUR 452 million, or from 87-95 days, the result of the earlier indicated inventory buildup. Trade receivables increased from EUR 168 million to EUR 205 million, mainly following the strong second quarter. Trade payables increased from EUR 101 million to EUR 139 million, in line with the inventory buildup. For the outlook, Tako, back to you. Thanks, Pete. Let me give a bit of more detail on how this affects our expectations. I want to zoom in on the turnover gross margin and EBITDA margin for this fiscal year. We expect our turnover growth to continue, but not as steep as in the first half of this year. This growth will be driven by personal care, retail, and the European part of our liquor business. Margins, on the other hand, will flatten, mainly driven by the increased product purchase prices following the product scarcity. Considering the effect of the global economic developments on our gross margins, as well as our staff cost and the other operating expenses, we expect our EBITDA margins for this year to be around 5%. We remain focused on the working capital management and the returning to normalized levels at the end of fiscal 2022. Our strategy execution continues with digitized operations and enhancing synergies between our business segments. We will also continue to roll out our sustainability program and prepare for our fiscal year 2022 sustainability reporting. This ends the presentation. I would like to hand it back to the operator and open the call for questions. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from the line of Tijs Hollestelle of ING. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks operator. Morning, gentlemen. Yeah, my first question is about the provision, and we already discussed it a little bit in the morning, but I want to also have it on replay because yeah, it was a large customer in the Middle East in the food and beverage segment, for which you didn't- That's correct. Have a credit insurance. Yeah, this is not something B&S normally does. I guess you have run through the existing agreements with all of your customers and then probably from now on also prohibited your sales force to make such rash deals. Could you confirm that, please? That's totally confirmed. Right. That's a truly one-off. It's a true one-off. On this subject, because if I look at, let's say, the performance in 2021 of the food division, was there already kind of an impact on the EBITDA margins of this customer? It has been a little bit above 1%, I believe, in the last two six-month reporting periods. Provision wise, definitely no. Of course, the partnership was already in the numbers. Turnover wise, yes. But the partnership came at quite low gross margins. Excluding the partnership, margins potentially would have been higher. Yeah. A little bit of an impact. What is your bent? Because also there were a lot of things going on in that food division last year. What is your feel for the kind of underlying performance going forward of this unit? I think food is picking up again, especially our B2B commerce side that is really helping us to make some traction again in the international market. Yeah, is it, let's say, a 4% EBITDA margin or 7%? I understand there are always dynamics that can impact it, but what is kind of the through-the-cycle EBITDA margin for this business as it is today with your businesses you still have? I think that if you look at the food segment, then we've definitely seen a couple of trends, yeah, during this year and during last year. One, of course, we had scale down of our, let's say, our remote business. Well, the business came at relatively high margin. So without that business, the margin was a little bit depressed. This year, the segment has been really focusing on growth margin, and we already see quite a significant improvement in that part. On the one hand, and that we should not forget, of course, helped by the inflation. In other words, yeah, if your inventory is in your warehouse, then yeah, it becomes more worthy just by being there. Also the focus that the segment has been fully on increasing that gross profit margin. That is one. Second, well, I don't think we will get back easily to that 7% we had in, well, let's say 2017, maybe a little bit 2018. Margin grows. Our EBITDA margin is definitely going to improve moving forward in that segment. Okay. Yeah, okay. That's clear. Yeah. A question on the OPEX level of the beauty division. It increased sharply. I think you explained it well. The labor cost, IT cost, high marketing expense in the first quarter at least. What is your feel for the second half? Do we see a similar increase or is it relatively flat? How should I look at it for the beauty segment? We expect that it will flatten the second half of the year. The marketing costs are stabilizing again, and we have taken most of our salary increases by now. We don't expect it will go up a lot further. Okay. Yeah, that's helpful. The acquisition of the French beauty company, yeah, that has been consolidated for how many weeks in the second quarter? Does it have the same, let's say, seasonality as your current beauty business? Should we, let's say, take 65% of the annual turnover of EUR 33 million of that acquisition for the second half? It's been consolidated since May first onwards, so two months in the numbers. Yeah, indeed, seasonality-wise, you're fully correct. Of course, being a beauty company, also the vast majority of sales is generated in the second half and especially in Q4. Okay. I think also with the press release of the acquisition, it should make EUR 2.5 million EBITDA, so a margin of a little bit more than 7.5%. Is that also under pressure now, seeing the same dynamics as your current business? A little bit less in that segment, but the complexity we also see and face in that company. They are sourcing direct from the brand owners, so they have to absorb the price increases that the brand owners push to them. Well, they range from, let's say, 20%-30%. Of course, we also need to take into account the price elasticity with our customers, where, if we see that consumption is not there, we will also have to take a little bit of those increases ourselves. Okay. That's, yeah, given the fact that, yeah, as indicated, the vast majority is in Q4. It's now early to really anticipate on those prices. You're mentioning investments of EUR 61 million in the cash flow, and that includes this acquisition for the French beauty company, but also the JTG investment. Can you give us the breakdown of the investment? As indicated in our full year report for the shares in JTG, in total, we had to pay EUR 48.5 million. EUR 10 million of that was paid in full year 2021, EUR 38.5 million was paid in Q1. For the acquisition of the French beauty company, we paid EUR 17 and a half million. The remainder is regular CapEx we always have. Okay. The CapEx is also in that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. For full year CapEx, what do you expect? CapEx and then ex leases? For this year, for the second half, we don't have any significant investments on plan. Yeah, basically what you will see is, yeah, roughly the line we also had in the first half. Okay. Yeah, there are no CapEx commitments for the second half or maybe for 2023? You're flexible on the CapEx. We're reasonably flexible in CapEx and, for this year we have no further commitments. Some shop openings. Yeah. Small shop openings and things like that. Yeah. Which I refer to in the text as well. We have Abu Dhabi, we have Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, that are opening up this year. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. One final question on the balance sheet. I understand the dynamics of the price inflation effect on your inventory levels. That's basically business as usual. The buildup is, we have seen that before. The problem is a little bit that the stock market is always a bit nervous when the leverage ratio is close to the bank covenant. The reason I'm asking this is, in the past that B&S proactively managed, let's say, potential breach of covenant. What is your leeway with the financiers towards the end of the year? Because it probably depends a lot on the timing of the cash collection or the receivables. Yeah. Not hampering, let's say, your operational business. If you have opportunities, you have to purchase other inventory for revenue later on. What exactly are the dynamics? What can we expect with this regards? What you normally see and normally would expect is a significant inventory build-up in the third quarter of the year, and that inventory is then, of course, sold in the fourth quarter, again, significantly decreasing the inventory position. What we've seen this year with indicated price increases coming up in the second half, we already took our positions in the first half, as such, increasing our inventory position earlier than we usually do and of course, with the Q4 sales, that position will significantly decrease again. In the end, of course, resulting in a lower working capital need as per year-end. Yeah. Okay. Even with a kind of an bandwidth of unpredictability you're probably building, you're not concerned on that? No. There's no concerns. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because in the past, we had, I think, there was one year you had a pretty big payment in January, so therefore I'm asking, but that gives me comfort, at least on this matter. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks. Next Next question comes on the line of Patrick Roquas from KBC Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you. Good morning. I almost got the impression that this was a one-on-one with Tijs. No, just kidding. I've got a couple of questions. The first is on the provision in relation to the food division. It seems pretty sizable also taking into account the sales of this division in the first half and the fact that it's related to one client. Why was this not insured? Also, does this highlight, let's say, or is there sufficient risk management in place with regard to debtors? That's the first question. Should I ask the others or do you want to answer these first, Tako? Put all the questions on paper, and then we can think about the answers as well. On the inventory position, yeah, I can see the rationale for some restocking. At the same time, consumer climate is very unpredictable. Doesn't it include certain risks that if consumer spending would drop, yeah, that inventories remain high? In relation to that, can you give any guidance for the level of net debt by the year-end? On your beauty division, is it fair to say that FragranceNet saw negative volumes in the first half, despite the expansion in Australia and also despite, let's say, the deal that you closed? On the CapEx, I missed part of the answer that you gave to Tijs. Could you give me the breakdown of the EUR 61 million in CapEx or investments, sorry, and also reiterate some of the amounts that you mentioned, so EUR 48 million, EUR 38 million and EUR 17 million first half this year? That's it. Provision wise, this is definitely on the high side for the food segment. Let us be clear on that. This is one partnership we had within that segment where we sold quite significant amounts to that customer. Usually, and this is the only exception of this size that we have within our portfolio, our customers are either credit insured or we still have the title documents in hand. Here we build up a partnership with a company that was, let's say, a growing company. The outstandings, we started seeing delays in those payments. Well, there, of course, again, we asked for reconfirmation on the numbers on their side. After really pushing through, in the end, it turned out that that company was showing a loss. Well, based on that loss and the fact that the loss was significantly bigger than also they expected, showed us that control was not up to standard at that company. Internally, we had to perform, of course, an impairment review on the outstandings we had with that company, and that review led to the EUR 7.5 million provision we had to take into account. Well, we consider this definitely to be a one-off, given the remainder of our accounts receivable portfolio as being the one exception that was in that portfolio. Peter, why then was it not insured given the size of this deal? I mean, and also, did you supply the goods all at once or gradually? We provided the goods gradually, so throughout, well, let's say 2021 and the first couple of weeks of 2022. In the end, credit insurance-wise, you cannot insure every customer because if a company is relatively new, relatively young, and in the end, it might be the case that the credit insurance company is not providing the credit insurance that you require. Well, given the commercial confidence that there was on this client, we decided to partner with them and to grow that company together with B&S. That in the end turned out to be a situation where that company financially did not have the controls needed. Yeah. All right. Clear. Thank you. The second question on the spending drop, net debt position at the end of the year, I think we have taken the current market conditions into account. That's why we pre-bought as well when we were doing this buying. There might be a slight change of product mix in which we pre-bought, so we are confident that we can, well, deplete all the product that we want to get rid of by the end of the year. Can you give any guidance for the level of net debt by year-end or guidance for, let's say, the expected leverage ratio by year-end? It's a little bit difficult to predict right now, Patrick, but in the end, we will be back towards or slightly above the levels we had last year. I don't think we will go for a net debt that is that low also, given the investments we did during this year. In a number of days, we expect our working capital to be in line or slightly above what we had last year. All right. CapEx breakdown, as I indicated to Tijs, of the EUR 61 million, EUR 38.5 million was related to the acquisition of the shares from the JTG from the minority shareholders. Yeah. EUR 17.5 was related to the acquisition of the French beauty company, and the remainder was regular capital investment. Thank you for that. Yeah. I have another question, but in order to prevent it become a one-on-one, I leave the floor to others now. Thank you. Interesting question, Patrick. You're always welcome, of course. Well, that's on then, let's say, the outlook for the midterm. Obviously, because of the inflationary environment, a margin target is something that makes more sense probably, or it's difficult. Yeah, these targets were set not that long ago. Yeah, investors now don't have any kind of guidance what to expect or what the ambition is. I assume this is not an answer, not something you can answer right away, but is there the idea that in time you will come back to the market with updated targets, whether it's then an absolute EBITDA level, and including organic sales growth and/or certain return on invested capital targets? Yes. Yes. That's absolutely what we have in mind. Okay. As you said, it's a difficult market at the moment. We want to see how it pans out in the next months before we come with another statement. Right. Okay. Thanks a lot. [audio distortion] Yes. Hi. Good morning, all. A bit of a challenge to think of more questions, but I have a few. First of all, just wanted to be very clear on this. If we look at the outlook statements on the final slide, for example, EBITDA margin, that is including the effect of the provision, right? Is that including this effect? That's my first question. Yes. Totally. Confirmed. Okay. Clear. Secondly, also on the outlook, if you talk about gross margin flattening or gross margins flattening, I quickly looked it up. The second half of last year, the gross profit was EUR 160 and the gross profit margin was 15.3%. This comment relates to which one? Is that the absolute gross profit or the gross profit margin? That's my second question. Margin. The percentage? The percentage indeed. Okay. That's also very clear. On working capital, I think, Piet you said to expect working capital days in line or slightly above last year's level. Last year's level, it was 102 days, if I'm not mistaken. That's pretty much the same as what you reported at the half year. Are you saying then that working capital days will not decrease versus the relatively high level at the half year, which is related to the buildup of inventory? If so, can you explain why it will not decrease? In the end levels, as such will decrease. Of course, what we see in the second half is that the sales are relatively high in the end. If we look at last year, inventory at year-end was standing at EUR 380 million, where at this moment we have EUR 452 million. Yeah, the same applies to the trade payables, of course, but our inventory position will of course, towards year-end, definitely decrease. Whether or not the receivables are already fully collected, that is yet to be seen. Also, it depends on the exact moment the sales orders are placed, of course, if that is moving towards year-end and even more towards year-end than we've seen in the past, then it might be the case that the receivables are still relatively high. Our inventory position, of course, will definitely be lower. Okay. Yeah. I thought you made this comment about the working capital days, and not specifically inventory days, but maybe you can clarify? I must admit, in all honesty, that I don't have the number of days last year at or in front of me. If we look at half year, 2021 inventory in days stood at, well, let's say roughly 87, where now we are standing at 95. That's also roughly the number, the 87 we saw last year. We should definitely see a decrease in the number of days back to that level at year-end. Yeah. In other words, a lowering of, well, let's say eight to nine days on the inventory position. A question on the minorities. If I look at the net profit before, let's say, the split between minorities and equity holders, you see that the decrease there is less than the decrease in the minorities. It almost halves at the half year. Is there any specific reason why the minority share dropped by much more than what you would have expected when looking at the net profit? That's basically twofold. One, of course, being the fact that we acquired additional shares in JTG, and as such also in FragranceNet. So the EUR 38.5 million I've indicated during this call. Well, that of course depresses the profit attributable to non-controlling interest. Secondly, what we've also seen, if you look at our U.S. operation, then given the increases in staff, but also given the fact that margins are normalized back to pre-COVID levels, and as such decreased, we can say that of course, 2020 and 2021 have been exceptionally high given our U.S. operation. That's, it's back to normalized levels, I would say. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks. And then a bit question on the French acquisition. A bit confused. I think you said to Stijn's question that it was consolidated in as from May, so May and June, so that's two months. I also think that was stated in page 11 of your press release. If I look at the interim report, so the full report and then the notes on the acquisition, it says that it was consolidated as from the 12th of May. It may seem a bit nitty-gritty, but if you talk about eight weeks or six weeks, that makes a bit of a difference when trying to calculate, yeah, let's say monthly or even annual turnover for this company. Can you clarify that? Is it 1st of May or is it 12th of May? It's the 1st of May, and we gained effective control as per May 12th. However, you can also imagine that a company does not close its accounts on, let's say the 12th of May. We always take the month-end close that is closest to the acquisition date. In this case, May first instead of June first. Okay. That's clear. The sales that you report is then for the month of May, the whole month and June? Correct. Related to that, the interim report also says that if the acquisition had been consolidated as from January, sales would have been EUR 8.2 million higher. An easy calculation then says I would like you to confirm this, that half year sales of the French beauty company amounted to almost EUR 131.3 million. Is that correct? Correct. My final question. It's a bit in line with the comment on the worry about the leverage ratio very close to your covenant. I recall that in the old covenant and probably also in the new covenant you had an agreement that temporarily you could go beyond the covenant in case of M&A. Is this agreement still in place for the current covenant of 4.0? Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, that's clear. Related to this, no matter what you still have in leeway you have in case of M&A, you are very close to 4.0. Is it fair to assume that you will hold back a little bit on M&A going forward or not necessarily? Not necessarily, [Robert-Jan]. There are two things that we need to take into account that have not been included in this calculation. One, in case of an acquisition, the full year acquired EBITDA can be added to our EBITDA for the covenant calculation. Although 3.7 does not reflect that number. In other words, EBITDA-wise, we could only shoot at, let's say, roughly EUR 2.5 million towards our banks. So that, of course, gives a little bit of headroom in that part. Secondly, indeed, if we do a significant acquisition, then we can go to the 4.5 level, allowing us some additional headroom. Third, yeah, we are also, towards year-end, of course, lowering our working capital positions in the end, yeah, also gaining headroom with that part. On top of that, yeah, we also expect the second half, of course, to be, yeah, to be profitable. In other words, yeah, if we generate EBITDA month by month, of course, our war chest is also increasing with that. All right. Those are my questions. Thank you. We currently have no questions on the line. If you would like to ask a question, press star one. There are no further questions on the line. Okay. Thank you for joining us today in a review of the first half results. Should you have any other questions, you know how to reach us via investor relations. Thank you. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.