Good afternoon, and welcome to Sphera Franchise Group H1 2024 Results Call. My name is Zuzanna Kurek, and I am Investor Relations Officer at Sphera Franchise Group, and I will moderate today's call. Today morning, we have published our H1 2024 results, which you can find on our website in the Investor Relations section, as well as on BVB website, Sphera Franchise Group investor profile. Before we begin, I would like to mention that this call is being recorded and that the recording of this call will be updated on our website by tomorrow, the latest. As stated in the call invite, by joining the video conference, you automatically and implicitly consent it to being recorded. If you do not consent to being recorded, please leave this call. In terms of organizational aspects, we will... One second. Apologies, let me reconnect the presentation. My apologies, we had some technical issues. Let me start again. In terms of organizational aspects, we will follow our standard call setup, which means the management will deliver a presentation outlining the H1 2024 results, and later we'll have a Q&A session. Please note that all the participants are put on mute. If you would like to ask a question, please type it in the chat box. Feel free to do so during the call, and we'll answer all the questions in chronological order as soon as the presentation of the management is over. Last but not least, as always, I would like to mention that we might be making forward-looking statements today during this call regarding the future performance of Sphera Franchise Group and that the actual results may differ materially. We encourage you to review the disclaimer that we have included in the presentation, which is available on our website, Sphera Franchise Group, Investor Relations section, as well as on BVB's website. This disclaimer applies equally to all the statements made in today's call. Now, that we're done with the organizational part, I would like to kick off this call, and I would like to introduce the management that is here with me today and will present the results for the H1 of 2024. I am joined today by Călin Ionescu, Chief Executive Officer, Valentin Budeş, Chief Financial Officer, and Monica Eftimie, Chief Marketing Officer. I will pass now the floor to our CEO, Mr. Călin Ionescu, who will share some insights about our performance in the first six months of 2024. Călin, the floor is yours. Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for attending this call. The first semester confirms the perspectives we have invited at the beginning of 2024. It has been a good year so far, but not without its challenges. We have ended with the best H1 of the year in history in terms of sales, EBITDA, and net profit. We remain attentive on the cost side, and as a result, the share of restaurant expenses in total sales continued to decrease in the H1 of the year by three percentage points. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio remains at the reduced level of 0.4. Also, we continue expanding our restaurant network, either by entering new cities, capitalizing on opportunities brought by new shopping centers, or expanding with drive-throughs, the most valuable format. More details about the financial results will be presented by Valentin and Monica. Therefore, I will cover several other important topics in the following minutes. We intend a new dividend distribution similar to the one we had in June, and the General Shareholders Meeting has been convened in this respect for October. The Board of Directors proposed the distribution of the growth dividend per share of RON 1.05 from 2023 undistributed profits. We are thus delivering on our promise to reward the confidence of our investors, and I take this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to continue creating value for those who have put their trust in us. Another topic I want to touch upon today is sustainability, and please allow me to present some of our achievements in 2023, as highlighted by our sustainability report, published in June. Our strategy is built on four pillars, and we have made significant progress for each of them. In the business field, we are proud that 80% of our purchasing budget in Romania went to domestic suppliers. This has contributed to the local economy while ensuring efficiency on the cost side. On the environment front, we have made strides in becoming greener by reducing our electricity consumption at group level by 3.63% compared to 2022, which was also visible in our bills. Additionally, due to the other efficiency we have managed to decrease our greenhouse gas emissions. Regarding products, food quality and safety remain our top priority. All chicken meat suppliers have been audited for any animal welfare standards, ensuring quality and ethics in the supply chain. Finally, the people and community pillars underscores our dedication to our employees and participation in social causes. 80% of restaurant managers are promoted from within the company, and we have over 30 different nationalities among our employees. Our commitment to the community is evident through our support for food and education initiatives, with over 1 million lei and 5 tons of donated food. We believe that operational excellence and corporate responsibility are mutually reinforcing, and we will continue to take measures that are ESG friendly, but also economically sound. As we discuss the future, we anticipate both opportunities and challenges. While inflation is more moderate now, there was a slight increase in July. We hope this is an isolated issue and not a sign of reversing trends. The upcoming election are expected to lead to less regulatory volatility and continued poor public investment for the rest of the year, despite a growing deficit. On the challenging sides, geopolitical risk persists, and I will not insist on this, as it has been a recurring issue for several years now, unfortunately. In addition, there are increasing concerns about potential economic slowdown, both domestically and internationally. While this could affect household spending, our brands may benefit as they offer an affordable meal option for consumers looking to scale down their expenses. To summarize, we had a strong H1 of the year, and the outlook for the remaining months is positive. However, we are staying cautious, as we cannot overlook potential risks. Being prepared is crucial for managing changes, and we are confident in our ability to navigate these possible uncertainties and maintain our stable position. I will now allow Valentin to present the financial argument that support our optimistic vision for a successful future. Thank you, Călin. Welcome to this call from my part as well. It's not the best context we met today in the final countdown until the end of the summer, and for most of us, the holiday season is over, so we face tough days. But I'm very happy that I can come with very good results to brighten these days. The H1 of the year has been the best first semester in history for Sphera in terms of sales, EBITDA, and net profit. We continue our strike of records, even though, as Călin mentioned, we face not so favorable market conditions. Inflation was still high, and customer behavior proved to be cautious. However, we have streamlined activity, continuing the wise cost control management, implementing network optimization, and capitalizing on efficiencies. These efforts have enabled us to strengthen our market position and increase profitability while maintaining a healthy balance between investment and operating costs. The result is the doubling of the net profit compared with the first semester of 2023, and a very good EBITDA margin of 10.7%. Please allow me to present extensively the results for the H1 of this year. We have the restaurant sales reaching 740 million RON, which is 6.4% up compared to H1 of 2023, a rate in line with our expectation. It is a combined effect of more transactions and higher average ticket. All three geographies contributed to this increase, with Moldova delivering the best level of 11.6%, an indication of the potential that still exists in this market. However, Romania remains the main contributor to the group performance in H1 2024, generating sales of 639.5 million RON, which accounted for more than 86% from the total share. KFC Romania is by far the most valuable asset in the Sphera portfolio, with the restaurant sales reaching 544 million RON, up by 8.6% year on year. Pizza Hut had lower sales in the H1 of the year compared with the first semester of 2023, which is a normal fact, given the streamlining process that saw the closing of several restaurants throughout the last two semesters. However, the benefit of these courageous actions are already visible, Pizza Hut performance having improved, with a restaurant operating loss of only 1.3 million RON, 24.6 lower than the one registered in H1 of 2023. We continue to remain confident in the decision we have taken, and coupled with some uplifts in our menu, optimization in restaurants, and the fine-tuning of our marketing strategy, we expect an uptake in the improvement trend in the near future. Taco Bell continues to grow at a lower rate, but brings a positive contribution to the group's profitability, ending its first semester in history with a net profit. I would like to highlight the great performance of Sphera's youngest brand, which managed to break even in terms of EBITDA at the end of 2019 in its third year of functioning, despite facing the challenges of pandemic during its critical development years. I will now move to the next slide to discuss the evolution of the key indicators. The healthy trend of expenses growing at a slower pace than the sales continued also in the H1 of this year, with an increase of only 3%. As a result, the restaurant operating profit had a 45% surge year-on-year to RON 87.8 million, with high double-digit increase for Taco Bell, KFC Romania, and KFC Moldova. Taco Bell performance is mostly notable, as it has doubled its restaurant operating profit. This brand is also the fourth runner in terms of EBITDA growth, having more than doubled this indicator. All brands, except Pizza Hut, witnessed improvements in profitability, with EBITDA showing a strong upward trend. It has risen to 78.9 million RON in the H1 of 2024, which is up 50.7% year-on-year. This was mainly driven by the performance of KFC Romania, which we saw 50.7% year-on-year increase, reaching 70.3 million RON in EBITDA. Additionally, KFC Moldova also experienced a double-digit increase of 57.3%. These improvements are mainly due to the effective cost control measures implemented throughout the group, a leitmotif of the past year, forced upon us by the pandemic, but internalizes hygiene behavior since. And if we look to the next slide, we have undisputed proof of this. Q2 continued for our group streak of records, being the best Q2 of the year in the history in terms of sales, EBITDA, and net profit. Total sales stood at RON 374.1 million, supported by growth across all three markets. This expansion continues to shape our promising year, with the company having a successful track record of increasing sales quarter by quarter, with the last three months of the year often delivering the strongest results. For 2024, this trend is expected to persist. Restaurant expenses saw only a 1.2% increase year-on-year to RON 331.2 million in Q2, compared with the same period of 2023. Food and material costs decreased 2.6% year-on-year in Q2, due to the cost control measures I have previously mentioned, but also to negotiation efforts to secure the best prices, while continuing to uphold the highest quality standards, which support our clients' retention. As the restaurant spaces increased at a slower pace than the sales, their weight in total sales decreased by over two percentage points to 88.5% in Q2. Increases in other cost categories were contained as well, and as a result, EBITDA followed a positive evolution, reaching 39.1 million RON, a 35.7% increase year-on-year, while the net profit of the group recorded a remarkable increase of 59.1% year-on-year to 19.2 million RON. I also want to underline that all three brands except Pizza Hut ended Q2 with a net profit. Due to the positive results of Q2 that built on a very good Q1, the half year performance is notable. As I mentioned, it's the best first semester in the history in terms of sales, EBITDA, and net profit. Restaurant expenses saw a moderate 2.9% increase year-on-year, reducing their weight in the total sales down to 88.3%. Food and material costs decreased their weight in sales with two percentage points. Now, please allow me to cover another category of expense, which is not present in this slide, but is very important, namely, the payroll and employee benefits. There is no news that we are facing a very, very tight labor market, and recent statistics are a clear indicator of this. According to Eurostat, the increase in the cost of hourly labor rate in the Q1 of this year, compared to the similar period of 2023, was the highest in Romania among member states of 16.4%. In this context, we managed to grow our payroll and employee benefit cost line by only 3.6% in H1 2024 versus the similar period of 2023, while increasing our retention rate. This speaks of our continuous effort to motivate and secure our employee base through a complex mix of benefits, actions, and measures, and a clear career path. This generates on the one hand a competitive working environment, while on the other hand creates an organizational culture, nurturing people wellbeing and growth ambitions. Now, returning to the more pragmatic side of the business, we are very pleased with the achievement in terms of EBITDA margin. For H1 of the year, this stands at a very good level of 10.7% for Sphera Group, a boost of 3.2 percentage points compared with H1 2023. This indicator varies by brand. KFC Moldova has the highest figure at an excellent 22.4%, followed by Romania, with KFC at 12.9%, then Taco Bell, which has continued to improve its margin and reach a healthy 7.8% in the H1 of the year. The group's net profit in H1 soared to 109.4% compared with the same period of 2023, reaching 40.7 million RON. This doubling in profitability was fueled by operational expansions and continued efficiency measures. KFC Romania was the main driver of these results, earning a profit of 45.9 million RON, up 74.4% compared with the same period of last year. KFC Moldova also saw a great improvement in net profit, 68.3% to 1.9 million RON, while Taco registered its first profitable half of the year. Pizza Hut made progress in reorganization process, reducing its net loss to 5.7 million RON, 6.7% improvement versus H1, 2023. The net debt to EBITDA ratio, as Călin mentioned, remains to a very reduced level of 0.4. The performance in the first semester is due to both network expansion and same-store sales growth. The group opened seven new KFC restaurants between June 2023 and June 2024, all in Romania, while two additional openings took place in Q3 2024. This year alone, we have added a new drive-through KFC in Sibiu and opened one in Craiova. We entered the larger small food court in Pitești, and we covered two new cities, Hunedoara, and the perfect treat for the mountaineers in Sinaia. Moving on the next slide from the presentation, I'm happy to close on a very high note regarding Sphera shares evolutions. We have once again surpassed by far the BET Index increased by 47.1% versus 18.7% in the H1 of the year. The total return on Sphera shares for the same period, including the dividend paid in June, stands at 51.2% compared to 25.2% increase for BET-TR. To create the best trading conditions for the company shareholders and to sustain the liquidity of our shares, we have signed during this period a partnership for a second market maker. And, as Călin mentioned, we intend to distribute new dividends in the H2 of the year. So having, as usual, the same shareholder confidence through these actions. And, we look forward to continue to deliver on our promises to all stakeholders. I believe that the results we have presented today reflect our determination to create value for our shareholders, consumers, and as Călin showed, to employees and communities as well. We remain committed to following this successful path. Thank you, and now I give the floor to my colleague, Monica. Good afternoon, and welcome. Well, thank you, Valentin. I'll take over from here, and cover the marketing news and updates. But before starting, I am excited to share some great news with you. One of the few Cannes Lions for advertising won by KFC globally was brought home this year by none other than KFC Romania. This prestigious award recognizes outstanding campaigns worldwide. I'm very proud of this achievement, which is a continued testimony of the consistent performance and high standards achieved by KFC Romania. Now going back to the slides, Q2 is always very busy, but you will see that this year we have increased our activities even more than usual. We are aiming to achieve two objectives for all the brands. First, increase the frequency among loyal customers through offers, and second, attracting light users through innovation. We will first cover KFC, and several initiatives that are particularly notable, and effective for Q2. We focused on growing the burger category, strategic for us, given its potential identified through research. We focused on this category since last year and continued to explore its potential in 2024. We ran two campaigns with a focus on burgers, the Cheesy Zinger Burger and the Star Burger, both of which also included product innovation. The objective is to drive sales by increasing frequency among loyal KFCers, as well as attracting burger-loving consumers. In the Q2, we promoted our new e-commerce platform. This is one of the most innovative platforms in the local market, as it aligns the entire menu across the entire e-commerce ecosystem. Click and collect, delivery, and e-com, all products can be found and ordered in the platform for the same price, no matter the point of entry or interaction type. The communication campaign was complex and aimed to increase the number of app downloads and transactions through this channel. We continued the aggressive offers in Q2 with a traditional Tuesday Bucket, a campaign that's consistently proved successful. We added coupons, both for special offers and for click and collect in the KFC App, to increase traffic in the restaurants and the consumer base registered in the app. We continue to focus on optimizing sales, including through localized tactics, where we had two such actions in Q2. The first one was implemented in 15 selected restaurants, and the second, in partnership with Nexus in seven restaurants. The latter was dedicated to the gaming community, a niche where we already have strong penetration, thanks to the multiple projects carried out in recent years. We carried out two gaming related initiatives in June: KFC Gaming Marathon and KFC Spicy Discounts, strengthening KFC's association with the gaming community. This niche is important in our strategy, which aims to increase the younger consumer base, especially Gen Z. For Pizza Hut, we implemented campaigns with the main aim of increasing transactions through very competitive offers. We capitalized on external context, such as EURO 2024, and channeled our efforts to communicate a very important moment for us, specifically the 30th anniversary of Pizza Hut in Romania. Some of the campaigns focus on offers, including medium pizza for 29 RON and good deals that come at unbeatable prices, and the kids' meals eat for free, where the name says it all. These were aimed at increasing orders as well as restaurant traffic, especially for the latter, during the period marked by events specific to these age groups, such as June first and the end of the school year. For football fans, we prepared an offer valid during the European Championship, two beers on the house when ordering certain products aimed at increasing transactions. The 30th anniversary of Pizza Hut in Romania is a very complex campaign through which we gave away 30,000 pizzas, as well as a substantial prize of 30,000 EUR. The campaign runs in the third quarter as well, but I can already tell you that the results are very good. For Taco Bell, we aimed to both strengthening our customer base through higher frequency as well as increased trial. We achieved both objectives by developing competitive offers and by adding innovation to the menu. This is the case of Little Cheesy Bacon Quesadilla, a product that performs very well, and which we innovated with a new recipe and communicated the junior version at an affordable and competitive price. In the offers category, Must Menu, a complete menu at a very attractive price, created exclusively for restaurants outside of Bucharest, aiming to generate transactions and build the image of an accessible brand in the QSR category. In May, we reintroduced the milkshake range in the menu, highlighting the diversity of Taco Bell products, from tacos to drinks and desserts. We communicated Play Más, an interactive and engaging gaming platform created to young audiences with the Taco Bell brand and products, with the main goal of increasing awareness. We also continue communicating for our click and collect platform to increase consumer loyalty. And now, turning to the financial performance of the brands, we continue to grow in terms of both same store and total sales. KFC Romania, as a consolidated brand, has a comfortable rate of 4.8% growth, with Italy continuing to advance, while Moldova has a strong performance with a 10.8% growth. Pizza Hut entered the recovery phase, as Valentin mentioned, and we expect to see the positive effects of the streamlining process initiated last year. Taco Bell also begins its brand consolidation phase with the single-digit growth rates, but substantially improved profitability, as you already saw. The evolution of delivery sales, which represented 18% of sales at group level in the Q2, is noteworthy. The total value registered an increase of 11.1% in the Q2 of 2024, compared to the similar period of 2023. Now we will open for questions during the Q&A session. Thank you. Thank you, Monica. This concludes the presentation of our results for H1 of 2024. We will now open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please type it in the chat box. We will then read it out loud and address it. To give you a few more minutes, to type your questions for the management, we will first address three questions that we have received on email from one of our analysts. The first question is: What is the reason behind the profit increase? Is this sustainable? I will ask Valentin Budeş to address this question. Yes. So, basically, the remarkable evolution of the net profit in our H1 results, it's a result of both our effective cost control measures implemented throughout the group, and also the negotiation done from a procurement standpoint. Specifically, we managed to keep flat in absolute figure our food and material cost. The weight of this cost in the restaurant starts improving with two percentage points. Romania poultry price has followed the constant European increases across the first two quarters, but on a slightly more moderate pattern. This allowing us to keep the prices negotiated at the beginning of the year. As a result, we have capitalized significantly number of savings in Q2, on top of the very good results of Q1. This is not replicable in H2 of the year, but we already reacted with different measures to counterbalance the pressure on the poultry prices. Thank you, Valentin. The next question: Your revenue increased by 6%, while your profit rose by 147%. What's the explanation for that? Is this logic reproducible? Why didn't the operational cash flow increase correspondingly? Yeah, I will split this question. For H2 of the year, there are some headwinds, as I mentioned. I will mention also here that 2024 hot summer will also be visible in prices of agricultural products. First impact is visible in vegetables, then the H2 of the year will bring some effects on shortening and consequently on sources, which are expected to show increases caused by the affected crops. But our target is to improve furthermore our EBITDA margin to offset all these unfavorable conditions, as we managed to do it also in the past. Regarding the first semester operational cash flow, there was a different timing in supplier scheduling versus the last year. If we split the semester per quarter, you will see that Q2 captured the effect of the profit, and everything is attributable to Q1, where we have this shift of payments from December. Thank you, Valentin. And the last question from the set we received on email. I would like to encourage all of you, if you have questions, to type them in the chat in the meantime. You mentioned the possible risks for H2 of 2024. Which of them are the most probable or even possible to happen? How can you avoid their negative impact? So concerning risk, we believe the most significant are associated with the macroeconomic environment, including political and electoral risk, inflation, economic slowdown, and of course, fiscal changes. As these are external factors, our preparation focuses on mitigating their impact, depending on the outcomes that we will see in the next months. Thank you, Valentin. Now we move to the questions from the chat. Hello, congratulations for the record results, and thank you very much for the presentation. Could you please update us on the expansion plans and the CapEx associated with these plans? Thank you. I will invite now Călin to address this question. Our budget that it was made public on the beginning of the year, it was in plan eight locations. We already opened five, as Valentin mentioned, and it's working on progress in another three: one Taco Bell, one KFC drive-thru in Romania, and one in line in Italy. The budget, the CapEx for all year, it was 69 million RON, but together with the remodeling, the budget for the remodeling. For all for these three locations that remain for this year, it's around 2.5 million EUR. Thank you, Călin. The next question: could you please also discuss the quarter-on-quarter performance during Q2 2024 versus Q1 2024? If I'm not mistaken, the profitability has suffered slightly, despite historically, the Q2 being more profitable than the first. What is the dynamic of employee costs in Q2 2024 versus Q1 2024? Thank you. There are different elements that contributed to this shift between Q1 and Q2. One of the main important one is the timing of our campaigns, our marketing campaigns, from an advertising campaign expenses point of view. Basically, we face more campaigns and more investment in Q2 versus Q1. From here, also, the weighted revenue of 5.4% in Q2 versus only 4.8% in Q1. Also in the payroll, there is a 5% increase between the two quarters, which is mainly triggered by the increase in the salaries. But, you know, even though from a quarter to quarter there are variances, we are focusing to be able to absorb all of them and to go towards the target we have engaged to our budget for this year. Thank you, Valentin. Congratulations on the great results. Could you please comment again on the dividends you intend to distribute in H2 of 2024? How much, and when can shareholders expect to receive the supplementary dividend? Thank you. I think it's a little bit already clarified through the current report we sent today, because we are already planning to go in the shareholder meeting for the approval. The magnitude of the dividend, it's already visible. The ex-date, it's also... Set by the. Mm-hmm. So as a reminder, you can see on our profile, as well as on our website, there's a convening for a general meeting of shareholders on October 7, where there is a proposal of the board of directors to distribute a gross dividend of 1.05 RON per share. And as you well mentioned, this is a supplementary dividend, so this is already a second dividend we are paying this year from the profits undistributed in 2024. 2023, excuse me. 2024 is still ongoing. You can find all the details on our website. Going to the next question, can you comment about the full budget numbers for full year 2024? Do you stand by those? For the time being, our guidance for this year remains in line with the budget we were already approved. It will be definitely a tough second part of the year. There are some signs of headwinds, as I mentioned, but we are counting a lot on our teams with their ability to find solution, as they proved in the past. And that's why we are quite confident that the levels of the budget are still achievable in this moment. Thank you very much. And the next question: can you comment about the share buyback program approved by shareholders? Indeed, we have, according to the last shareholder meeting, a buyback program. A buyback program that is supposed to have a green light decided together with our board, and based on the market evolution and based on our cash flow capabilities, now linked also with this just fresh information of proposing an extra dividend, will be assessed and decided whenever it's appropriate to be implemented. Thank you very much, Vali. We have one more question. In the meantime, if you have any remaining questions, please type them right now, otherwise, we'll conclude the call. And the last question is: can you please detail your plans with Italy and acquisitions or development of new brands, other growth initiatives? And I will invite Călin to address this question. Regarding of Italy, our plan is to, starting with next year, is to open around three location each year. Regarding of the new brands, we are looking constantly to see if we can bring another brand in our portfolio, but we cannot talk in this moment about this subject. Thank you, Călin. If there are no further questions, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, we are going to have a general meeting of shareholders on October 7 to approve the dividend. Other than that, we're gonna hear each other next time on November 15 after we publish the Q3 2024 results in the morning on the same day. Thank you all very much for joining us, and we wish you a great afternoon.