Good morning everyone, and thanks for joining us this morning. I thought I'd start by just giving a quick introduction about me. Some of you will know me, and perhaps some of you don't. Trevor Masters, I've been the MD of Pepco for two and a half years, and in October of last year, Andy asked me to also be the COO of Pepco, and that was in October. In October, November, and December, myself and Andy worked quite hard on what we wanted the COO part, the group part to be. The reason I mention this is over the coming months, and especially when we get to the Capital Markets Day in Spain in October, you'll see not only a continued strategy as you know it, but also an accelerated one which both myself and Andy worked on before he decided to retire. If I can move over to the highlights. First of all, strong financial performance despite volatile market conditions which have been further exacerbated by the invasion of Ukraine. I think it's worth me taking a few moments to describe what is the volatile market conditions. Well, of course, it's containers, it's commodities, it's COVID-19, it's inflation, and it's Ukraine. I've been in retail for 40 years, 38 of them with Tesco and two to three with Pepco. I would say in my 40 years of operating in a retail market, never have I seen the conditions so volatile. However, what's really pleasing is to see how the management of Pepco have navigated all of these volatile conditions, always keeping an eye on what we need to do for the customer, what we need to do for the colleagues, as well as the business. I've been particularly pleased how all of the different businesses and management have navigated these very volatile conditions for everybody. Going on to the second highlight. Acceleration of our strategy around the key pillars, including a record first half openings in the first half, as I say. We've used two of the pillars I'm gonna come onto later to help us offset some of the inflationary pillars. Not only have we continued with our strategy, we'll actually talk about how we've accelerated some of the strategic levers as well. We'll talk about how we're getting bigger as a business. We also want to talk about our proposition, how we're doing renewals, and that makes it better for our customers. The good news is, in terms of our proposition renewal, we've completed 586 stores in the first half, both across Pepco as well as Poundland. The fourth point, we remain confident and excited about both our long term growth ambitions, as well as delivering the promised EUR 1 billion EBITDA that we described at the IPO. Finally, we're on track to meet guidance for the full year. Going on to the financial highlights, you can see that our like for like in the first half was 5.3%. You will see in quarter one to quarter two, a significant uptick from 0.7%- 12.1%. I think it's worth just helping to remember in quarter one, especially in Pepco, some of that like for like was compressed because they had a number of countries that were closed through COVID or were severely restricted. For example, in Romania, all the stores were restricted. You could only go shopping in the stores if you had a COVID certificate, and only 36% of the population had a COVID certificate. A number of the stores in Pepco were restricted or even closed because of COVID. You can see as though COVID-19 has calmed down, you can see the uptick in the like for like. In terms of total revenue growth, you can see moving up by 17.2%, and that has been significantly supported by our record of 235 net new store openings in the first half. If we then look at the underlying EBITDA margin, of course, there's an inevitable margin dilution, some of that driven by the store closures that I talked about in the first quarter and also some of the inflationary pressures coming in. Equally, and we'll talk more about this, we've got some very good operational plans that are already in place that have helped to mitigate some of the inflationary pressures, and they are set to increase. The operational plans are set to be accelerated in the second half. I'll now hand over to Mat. Thank you, Trevor. I'll now take you through some more detail of the first half financials. Just focusing on three initial areas up front. As Trevor's mentioned, strong revenue growth through accelerating our key strategic lever of store and country expansion. We delivered 17.2% on a constant currency basis, and that was driven through a record number of first half openings alongside the progressive easing of COVID restrictions. Notably, as those restrictions have eased, we've been able to understand the underlying performance of our stores. Analyzing the same cohort of stores in 2019 pre-COVID, and since the restrictions were eased, we can see that in the Pepco business, sales on an average weekly sales basis are up over 13.5%, and in Poundland, it's almost 4.5% up. Further giving us confidence on the underlying trajectory and customer demand of our business. Alongside that strong underlying performance, we're upgrading our store target store openings to gross number of stores to 500 for the full year. A further indictment on the fact that we are confident on both our store model and the openings that we have ahead of us. The second area of focus are our operating margins. Operating margins were impacted in the first half through a combination of COVID driven sales disruption and cost headwinds, with the operational actions that Trevor's described already driving a degree of an improvement which we expect to improve in trajectory into the second half. The gross margin price investment we are making to deliver for our customers is clearly impacting us with a 137 basis point reduction in margin. However, we can absolutely see the market share gains that are coming through on sales, validating the strategy that we have to deliver for our consumers. Operating cost ratios at 34% cost of sale are holding steady even against the SG&A inflation and sales disruption that we've described. Finally, on cash, we continue to use our cash to drive our business growth with investments into stores, infrastructure, and stock. There has been EUR 114 million of CapEx investment in the first half to support those record openings alongside concurrent investments in systems such as our new warehouse management system in our DCs in CEE. We're also investing in stock to support that store growth and also to support sales. We're not assuming to have COVID-19 disruption into the second half. Although it is worth noting there is some capital inefficiency through a combination of supply chain disruption, e-elongating lead times and a degree of carryover stock from Christmas 2021 that we will sell at Christmas 2022. Moving into the summary P&L. We've overall performed strongly in the context of the markets and the headwinds. We're driving our results through the acceleration of our strategic levers to offset these headwinds, delivering on both sales growth, total, like-for-like, and profit growth. The sales growth that we're reporting is through a combination of both those store openings and like-for-like, with the like-for-like changing notably from Q1 into Q2 as those restrictions receded, delivering a Q2 like-for-like of +12% versus a Q1 LFL of flat. That translates to strong EBITDA growth, just over 7% at EUR 347 million, which is in the middle of the range we gave at our Q2 pre-close in April, and in line with our internal forecast that keep us in line with delivery of our full year outlook. The operating margin pressure is driven through the gross margins that we've already described with those operational initiatives beginning to offset, and we will touch on this more through our strategic update later in the presentation. Although it should be noted that some of those operational initiatives that are being disrupted through the impact of the COVID closures. We therefore know that, and are clear that line of sight over second half ratios improving across our operating margins to drive our EBITDA into the second half. Finally, PBT and EPS have seen stronger growth as interest savings from our IPO refinancing bear fruit. I'll move into the Pepco operating segment. The group performance overall has been led by Pepco, notably with 11.5% first half EBITDA growth alongside strong LFL and revenue growth. At 28.7%, the revenue growth at a constant currency is an indictment of our continued strategy of expansion, which has continued across the half in all of our operating territories. As mentioned, the analysis that we've been able to undertake since the easing of the COVID restrictions has enabled us to understand that since the end of the restrictions, we've been able to drive over 13.5% sales increase versus pre-COVID. This is notable given some of the challenges that consumers still face today and gives the business confidence in the ability to deliver on our full year guidance and strong continued growth. Turning to the Poundland Group business. Poundland identifies a similar trajectory given the first quarter disruption in sales with the LFL recovery after the ending of COVID restrictions leading to a 5.9% like-for-like in the second quarter, delivering a 3.3% like-for-like. This continues to be strong in the context of what is an exceptionally challenging market that has been driven through a relative spike in inflation against a stagnant wage growth environment. As mentioned again, analyzing the sales performance on the same basis, pre to post COVID, the 4.3% increase in average weekly sales is a further indication of the strategy that we continue to deliver on our simple price approach to the business alongside the operational initiatives of the introduction of clothing and frozen food into the business. Overall, EBITDA is flat on the half with an expectation through the second half of the operational initiatives that we're beginning to take and the reduction in the disruption from sales driving the improvements in profit to support overall profit growth for the group. Finally, turning to the cash performance. It's clear to see that the business continues to invest heavily in its future growth through the investment in CapEx at EUR 114 million is a record for the first half, in the business, supporting those record store openings. In addition to the store openings, we also continue to invest in infrastructure, both physical and technological, to support our growth in the future and enable the business to scale more effectively over time. We continue to make investments in stock, some of those to support our growth, both through the combination of store openings and sales now not being impacted by COVID, alongside some inefficiencies in our working capital, driven through a combination of supply chain disruption and stock that we're holding from Christmas 2021 to Christmas 2022 that we will see unwind, the benefit of that unwind into the next financial year. Finally, the leverage remains below the target ratio and the business continues to explore further growth opportunities and use its cash judiciously to support our growth, and protect the business from the headwinds. I'll now hand back to Trevor. Thank you, Mat. In terms of strategic progress, as I said, we continue to deliver on our core strategic levers to drive long-term value creation. Indeed, we've actually accelerated two of our key levers, one of them being accelerating store growth and the other one being reducing the cost of operations, both of which are helping us offset inflationary pressures, which I'll talk more about as I go through the pack. Just a quick reminder of what are our four key strategic levers. The first one is getting bigger. That's essentially through accelerating store expansion. Second one, getting better as a business, and that's essentially through our store proposition and which it helps to drive like-for-like sales. The third one is always getting cheaper. We're a discounter, so it's incredibly important we have, you know, a number of programs that always helps us to reduce the cost of operations. Then lastly, but as importantly, as we get bigger and as we get better, we've got to make sure that we're simpler, and we do that by investing in the infrastructure and investing into our colleagues. Going through in terms of sustained store openings. As I said, a record net new store openings of 235 in the first half. That's a deliberate push on our store openings. This is really important. We know that there's some economies of scale as we get bigger, and I thought it'd be worth just sharing what would it be like to be a supplier with Pepco at the moment? We've had plenty of growth and our growth continues, so as a supplier, you're being rewarded from being participating in the growth journey. In terms of one of our operational plans, we've got a third-party company that's going around all of the suppliers manufacturing and they're working with our suppliers to make sure that all of the latest thinking on how a manufacturing plant can be efficient and effective. What the deal is that as we've helped them to be more efficient, more effective, we take half of the rewards and the supplier keeps the other half. That's proven to be a win-win for both of us. Finally, we've introduced a supplier credit program where our suppliers are able to access supplier credit at European rates, which are significantly less than the Asian rates. If you're a supplier, you've got a win-win on growth, you've got a win-win on the efficiency of factories, and you've got a win-win in terms of supplier credit, all of which makes us a preferred partner in terms of, you know, being a supplier. That helps us with the economies of scale. Going back to a bit more detail in terms of the openings. We're officially upgrading our guidance on store openings for this year, and our growth number of openings will be 500, as I said, for this year. You'll see in the numbers that we're increasing our number of stores in the Western European markets, and we've already opened 84 new stores in half one. We remain confident and pleased with the store performances, and we'll talk more about the Western European markets in our Capital Markets Day in Spain in October. Just to give you a bit of detail, you know, as it stands at the moment, we've got 49 stores in Italy, 40 stores in Spain, and 36 stores in Austria. You may have seen that we opened recently our first store in Germany in April 2022. It's just one store at the moment, but trading, we're very pleased and it's very positive as it stands at the moment. I think it's worth noting that the last time we spoke at the store seminar, we talked about we believe there's opportunities for 20,000 Pepco Group stores in continental Europe. If we take the markets of Italy, Spain, and Germany, where we're now present, that would equal 25% of the potential 20,000 stores that we talked about a few months ago. We've now got a good platform to really enter those 20,000 stores. Moving on, you know, if opening stores allows us to be bigger, the development of the customer proposition allows us to always be better for our customers. The good news is, we've continued with our customer proposition renewals. Across the group, it's worth noting that since 2019 November, we've completed 1,900 store renewals, and this year in the first half, we've done a further 596. It's worth noting that both in Poundland and in Pepco, we've seen no deterioration in terms of the performance of the store renewals through the, you know, volatile conditions. Consumers still are rewarding us for our propositions. In Poundland, we've continued with the refreshing the stores with our introduction of chilled and frozen food, and we've completed a further 52 stores. On average, they're giving us a 10% uplift. In terms of Pepco, they've completed a further 534 renewals. Just a reminder, that's where we optimize the layout of an existing store, and that gives us 10% more selling space in those stores. We've completed a further 534 of those renewals. Last time we spoke, we talked about trialing a new format renewal, which we've done in Wrocław, which is coming to the end of the trial. We're very pleased with what's happened there. Again, in our Capital Markets Day in October in Spain, we can give you far more details of what we're doing and how we wish to further continue this on the day in Spain. Of course, it's important that we have the renewals customers reward us for our renewals program, but it's also important that we keep working on our range, working on a good, better, and best, and that's particularly important for Pepco as it enters the Western European markets. It's equally important in the Central European markets as the consumers are continuing to see their disposable income increase. It's important that we work on our better and best for the Western European more affluent customers, but also the Central European customers whose disposable income is forever increasing. Going on to the third strategic lever. This is, you know, like store openings, gaining the economies of scale. We've worked really hard on accelerating the reducing of costs of operations to help offset the inflationary pressures. The good news is in Poundland, the labor-saving initiatives have kept labor costs year-on-year the same. They've renegotiated a further 43 leases, reducing the passing rent by an average of 37%, and they're well on track to exceed the EUR 20 million of savings that we're committed to at the IPO. In terms of Pepco, well, there's plenty of opportunities in terms of all of the cost of doing business reduction program. I'll just pick out one of the ones that we've been working on, and it's a crucial one. You may have heard me talk previously about some end-to-end work. How do we move the product from Asia all the way through to the stores? We call it the end-to-end, and it's a big program that's been running for a couple of years now. We've worked very hard on actually reducing the like for like stock levels in both the DC and in the store. What that's done is significantly improved the one touch, how many times you touch a product in the DC, how many times you touch the product in the store, and anyone that's ever run a DC or stores will know that is the most critical measure if you want to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The good news is from the work that we've done in reducing the stock, we've managed to improve the picking operations in the DCs across Pepco by 16% through more one touch replenishment. In terms of the stores, there's been such a significant reduction. We've been able to optimize our labor model by on average, taking out 1.5 full-time equivalents from every single Pepco store. Just give you a couple of more examples of what this really means. You know, last year, Pepco had to manage 2.2 million pallets through the DC, and previously all of the pallets would have come in, they would have got put away on the racking in the DC and then taken down and sent to the stores over the coming weeks. Now through improved stock levels and different methods, 40% of what now comes in does not get put away. It goes straight through from the receiving area to the dispatch area straight through to the store. Thus, meaning that the one touch is improved by 40%. The other real benefit, which again, is helping offset a lot of the inflationary pressures, because we have less stock in the stores, it significantly reduced the amount of markdown that we have to make on clothing and GM in the stores through our customers. So a real good effort on stock reduction with many benefits. Leading on to the final key lever, high-quality infrastructure and colleague investment. In terms of infrastructure investment that Mat talked about, well, both Poundland and Pepco continue with the ERP implementation, which will make all of the businesses or both businesses far more efficient, far more effective. In Pepco, as Mat said, we've now introduced a warehouse management system in all of the DCs, which again helps us to be more efficient, more effective, both in the DC but also in the supply chain. In terms of physical infrastructure, well, we know as Pepco enters the Western European markets, the cost of doing business is more expensive. We've as we've entered all of the Western European markets, we've installed self-scan tills in these stores. We don't have them in Central Europe, so we've installed them in our Western European stores. The good news is customers really like them. On average, anything between 35% and 45% of the consumers are using the self-scan tills. They particularly like them post-COVID, and that also helps us to optimize our productivity model in the stores. The other thing that we've done as we've entered the Western European markets, we've actually brought in a different software provider. We brought in Oracle with upper quartile capabilities around throughput for customers. That really means at the checkouts that we can put all of the consumers transactions through the tills really quickly, which is pleasing for the customer and also pleasing for optimizing the labor model. The third one, it's good to get bigger and better, but we need to make sure that we also grow our leaders. As the business grows, we need to grow our leaders, our managers and our colleagues, so they grow with the business growth. We're particularly focusing on the workplace, our social rooms in the DCs, our social rooms in the stores, and also the offices. When you've got unemployment very low in some of the countries, it's important that the colleagues feel comfortable in the workplace. We're working very hard to develop our leaders so everyone has a great boss. Of course, we work as always on the pay and conditions. We're particularly pleased that in Pepco in Poland the business was ranked the second best employer in Poland. Not the second best retailer, but the second best employer in the whole of Poland, which the guys are particularly pleased about. I think it's good reward for all of the effort that everyone's making with our colleagues. Thanks, Trevor. I'll now briefly touch on current trading and outlook. As described, since easing of COVID restrictions, we've seen the business perform strongly and the group performance has been strong coming into the third quarter, which is a reminder, Q3 results will come out at the end of July. What we are seeing, though, is while levels of absolute inflation in our CEE markets are high, wage inflation is substantively offsetting this. Whereas in Western European markets, the acute spike in inflation that we've seen over the past few months and in the stagnant wage growth environment has resulted in absolutely lower spending. However, both of these trends combined, we believe, continues to be supportive, not only for the business, given the discount channel, but also the strategy that we're navigating in investing in price. It's worth noting that the invasion of Ukraine continues to create volatility, albeit there is some trading upside through the influx of displaced Ukrainian people into three core markets that border Ukraine. Despite all of the above, we are on track to meet full year guidance as the business continues to invest in accelerating and delivering on its key strategic levers. I'll hand back to Trevor. Okay, what are the key takeouts? First key takeout is, we're completely focused on delivering our strategic four pillars. Equally, we are accelerating on getting bigger and our operational savings, all of which helps us to offset some of the inflationary pressures. Second one is through the volatile conditions, we are absolutely maintaining and indeed in many cases, improving on our price leadership position as we continue to focus on serving our customers. Third one is we are not just focusing on about managing the day-to-day challenging conditions, albeit I'm very pleased with how the management have handled that. We're also, you know, making sure that we're through this, making sure that we build a stronger business for tomorrow. We work very hard on, you know, the day-to-day business in the morning and very hard on developing a stronger business in the afternoon. We've always been a resilient operator, but I think through these unprecedented times, we're starting to emerge as an even more resilient operator. We've taken many learnings through all of the volatility in the COVID times. You know, we've done some things that perhaps we wouldn't have done through the volatile conditions, which means we are emerging as an even stronger and more resilient operator. Then finally, we remain on track to meet the guidance for full year, as well as delivering to our long-term growth expectations. I think we'll now open to questions from analysts for around 60 minutes. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We will take our first question from James Anstead from Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning, Trevor and Mat. If I can be greedy, I've got three quick questions. The first one would be. Sorry, can you hear me okay? Yeah, we can. Yeah, you can. Sorry, my colleague was waving at me, so I wasn't sure if you could hear me. The first question would be on the Pepco sales in particular. I just wonder if you're seeing any difference in sales trends between the clothing business and home wares, whether there's any divergence there, given that clothing's perhaps a bit more defensive than the home wares. That'd be the first question. Secondly, you're talking about 500 gross openings this year, and I guess there's a bit of an extraordinary contribution from the stores in Austria, but is 500 gross openings something you think you could continue to do, or again, is there something extraordinary this year? And the final one would be on working capital. Do you think the working capital position has now kind of stabilized in the sense you've you know adjusted your or you know brought forward your buying schedules or is there further to go in that process in the second half of the year? Hopefully that makes sense. Right. Okay. In terms of the clothing and GM, we're not really seeing any, you know, any sort of difference between the two. I mean, sometimes there are differences because of the weather. You know, when it's hot, suddenly you see a spike in the summer clothing. Generally, no, we aren't seeing any sort of difference between the trading trends in GM or clothing. In terms of the 500 stores, no, there's nothing special about Austria that's driving the 500 stores. We believe this is, you know. We're planning to set the 500 stores as a minimum going forward as well. In terms of working capital, over to you, Mat. Yeah, thanks, Jim. Now I think, look, we believe there's more to go on working capital. I think as we described this year, there's a number of sort of one-off drags in this financial year that are affecting it. On top of that, you know, we also feel that there's more benefits to come through engaging with suppliers. I think the short answer is no, there is more opportunity in working capital, and we're working quite hard on that to achieve it. Yeah, just to add to the 500 stores. You know, we're very clear that there's 20,000 store opportunity for Pepco in Continental Europe. 500 stores per year is still an incredibly long strategic. We would want over time to improve on the 500 stores a year. Otherwise, it's a 40-year strategy. That's very helpful. Just to clarify, Mat, on the working capital point, I suppose the bit I was driving at was you've obviously, you know, you're buying slightly further ahead than you might have done previously because of the supply chain challenges. Do you think the first half balance sheet kind of reflects what you've done? Well, obviously it does reflect what you've done, but are you having to do even more of that in the second half of the year? Or do you think that first half balance sheet reflects, you know, that process of buying a bit further ahead than you did in the past? Correct. I would not anticipate any further one-offs. Yeah. As I said, working on driving improvements in that should become more visible through the second half. Yeah. That's really helpful. Thanks very much. Thanks, James. We will take our next question from Simon Bowler from Numis. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. There is kind of a lot going on clearly from a cost side, and you kind of iterated kind of margin confidence going into the second half. I just wonder, can you be specific around which of those kind of cost initiatives are particularly kind of landing in the second half, and how should we think about that margin expansion from kind of a gross margin versus an OpEx base? Loo k, I think there's just three key levers we're working on just to sort of summarize from Trevor's side. First is working on, you know, somewhat offsetting gross margin pressure through working with our suppliers on efficiency programs. Secondly, how we run our supply chain to be a more efficient, effective business through our stores and DCs. Thirdly, how we look at our central costs to leverage the scale benefits of growth. You know, the key tool we have in our arsenal at the moment is growth across a whole host of things. Those three are the key tools that we're delivering on. In terms of the shape of that, you know, I'd anticipate gross margins to be reasonably static with, in terms of the level versus first half, but we would anticipate seeing cost of doing business improvements into the second half. That is through a combination of the central cost scaling benefits as we deliver on those savings and some of the further DC and store benefits. Those, that's the shape of how I would anticipate seeing it. Okay, great. Two other quick ones. First, you kind of obviously called out, unsurprisingly, some of the freight cost pressures coming through. As they hopefully kind of normalize or stabilize, do you anticipate kind of taking some of those potential savings through to your bottom line or kind of passing them on to drive share gains? Just to understand how you're thinking about kind of price investment going forward from here if opportunities arise. Second, would you be able to kind of share a sense of your kind of second half store openings of how many of those are likely to fall within the Western European region? Just covering the piece around the freight cost initially. Look, we are continuing to invest in price. It is our key strategic lever. It's what's delivering the market share gains that we see across our business at the moment. Therefore, you know, as prices on the input side do normalize, we will absolutely look to continue to drive our price advantage. That's that. I think in terms of the position, though, in terms of how things are normalizing or stabilizing at the moment, you know, as freight potentially has come off its, the sort of peak of its cost. You know, clearly the commodity prices are peaking as well, though those are beginning to normalize now. I don't. You know, I think if the question is sort of driving at, are things getting back to normal? Not yet. I think this is still more of a midterm phenomena. Therefore, you know, our kind of pricing strategy is based very much on looking through the long term about serving customers when we know there are customers now who are new coming into the discount channel that we can look to capture for the long term. I think just to build on that, I think one of the things that the management teams have done very well through the volatile conditions is, you know, you have things going against you, so you push harder on the opportunities. When things go for you have to kind of decide where do you want to invest. I don't think it's as clear as saying we're gonna put it into the bottom line or we'll put it into the customer. I think things are still moving quite a lot. You know, inflation is still continuing to go up. I think every time we have an opportunity, you know, the trick is how do we balance making sure that we're doing the right thing for the consumer, the colleague, as well as the business. It's a very much, you know, what I was trying to describe, spending the morning on today's issues and opportunities is a crucial part of what we need to do in these volatile, you know, conditions. Great. Thank you. Then just coming back to your second question on store openings, Simon. Yeah, we sort of described as over 80 stores of the 235 in the first half being in Western Europe. I would anticipate that mix to be broadly similar going, excuse me, going into the second half. Great. Thanks very much. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. We will take our next question from James Anstead from Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Please go ahead, James. Yeah. We can't hear you, James. Sorry, that was my fault. In the comments you made, you didn't talk a lot about the Dealz banner. I just wondered if you could give us a quick progress update on how things are going with Dealz? Yeah. You know, in terms of the Dealz business, as a reminder, we have the Western European business in Spain and the Eastern European business out of Poland. We continue to open stores in Poland, and I think as we described at the year end, from a strategic standpoint, that is clearly more of a focus at the moment. Store openings continue in the Dealz banner. And then we continue to believe in sort of the runway, particularly around the CEE, and the fact that, you know, the FMCG as a discount concept in Europe, you know, works very well. Clearly, you know, the openings are somewhat offset by some of the closures that have happened in the broader Poundland group, so I think perhaps not quite as visible. Okay. That helps. Thank you. We will take our next question from Elena Jouronova from JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yes. Hello. Thanks for opportunity to ask a few questions. The first one I had is on your guidance for EBITDA, which you are reiterating, despite I think somewhat slower growth versus the full year expectation in the first half. Where do you see the main risk to your full year EBITDA guidance? Is this on top line gross margin or operating costs? Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, we reported just over 7% growth in the full year, and it, you know, I think the kind of guidance we gave on an IFRS 16 basis is more like 15% on, you know, for the full year. We always anticipated a degree of acceleration into H2, and that is a natural consequence of a combination of two things. One, you know, the degree of sales disruption to our key trading period of Christmas. Secondly, you know, the impact, the dynamic of the impact of cost headwinds versus the gain effect of the operational initiatives that we're taking. You know, you know, inflation has been a relatively acute kind of phenomena and therefore, you know, it does take time for the initiatives that we've described that we're confident on and have clear line of sight on delivering benefits to fully take hold in the P&L. I think from our perspective, you know, the top line sales, I think we've described, you know, we are confident on. We've described the performance pre- to post-COVID as being strong. We continue to deliver on our growth opportunities and ahead of the initial guidance that we gave. You know, we feel secure on that. We are managing our gross margin. I think again, you know, the gross effect of inflation is somewhat being offset by some of the operational initiatives that we're driving in the gross margin around things like reducing markdown. Then the third one on operating costs, again, you know, being able to hold that ratio steady half on half, even with the sales disruption, which has been greater in the first half of this financial year, I think is, you know, an indicator of the fact that coming into H2 where there's more stability, we will drive that upside. At this stage, you know, those are the three key dynamics we're managing, and we have confidence and clear line of sight on delivery for all of them. Yeah. My build-up to the question would be, I think the risk is in inflation because it hasn't peaked yet. You know, we're monitoring it in every country every month, and it's still increasing. That's clearly a risk. History says when inflation gets high, discount has become, you know, more prominent in people's minds. Certainly the experience of 2008, there was a migration from, you know, to discounters. I think the risk is inflation because it hasn't peaked. Also, hopefully, if history repeats itself, it's an opportunity for us as well, you know, in the Poundland discount operation or the Pepco discount operation. Thank you very much. That's clear. Just a few follow-ups on working capital and operating costs. Mat, on working capital, I think I got you with the outlook for inventory that you're trying to improve inventory days going into the end of the FY 2022. What about payables? Could you please repeat your plans on optimizing them or not? Thank you. Sorry, just to be clear on the question. Payable days around stock itself or more generally? More generally and around stock, because, I'm just trying to wonder, do we extrapolate the first half trend in payables to the end of your financial year, or we can expect some lengthening of days payable? We would anticipate a lengthening and sort of as I described, you know, I think there's a couple of critical drivers that are one-offs in this year, although some of that will not unwind until next year. The first, you know, around supply chain disruption, you know, that is creating a degree of elongated lead time on products. We would much rather, as I said, use our cash judiciously to have a slightly more inefficient supply chain and guarantee customer availability than kind of, you know, damage our customer by not recognizing the fact that, you know, disruption is elongating supply chain. That is a very deliberate reaction to the current dynamic to ensure that we're managing for our customer. You know, the degree to which that unwinds is very much linked to the speed at which supply chains normalize. You know, when we talk supply chain, it's not just about container freight rates, it's also about the, you know, how well that's working. So that's kind of point one. The second one, which, you know, we have clear line of sight to unwinding this Christmas is where we have held stock over that was delayed from last year and made a decision to actively hold over to hold over that stock. So those are the dynamics that are one-offs. Again, you know, we're clear on what the drivers are that unwind it, but, you know, it will take time. You know, clearly what we are doing as a business though, is driving, Trevor as well as he mentioned, you know, how we drive supply chain credit with our suppliers such that we can elongate payables for stock over time. That we'll talk more about that as we get through this year, and it will start to become clearer in terms of the numbers as we get through this year. Okay. As for OpEx, with the optimizations of FTE per store and in your distribution centers and the leverage from central costs, is that fair to expect that your OpEx to sales on cash basis, right before any non-underlying items, before any depreciation charges, just cash OpEx to sales, does that ratio go down year-on-year in the second half? Is that a fair assumption? It is a fair assumption, and that's absolutely what we're driving. I think, you know, again, as we described, there's a degree of sales disruption in H1 that masks the absolute benefits that we're driving. So that will become clearer through H2. Okay. Thank you. Thanks a lot, and congrats on very decent results under these tough circumstances. Thanks, Elena Jouronova. I think we have time for one more question. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. It appears there are no further questions at this time. Thank you. Great. Okay, thanks very much, everyone for your time. Hopefully you found that useful and really appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Speak to you. Thank you.