Good morning, good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Bid Corporation capital market trading update. This is an update. It's not a results announcement, so we'll keep it relatively brief, give you an overview of where we see trading conditions, and our look forward. We will give you a full, full results presentation on Wednesday, the 27th of August, for our final, our final results. The format will be exactly as we've done in the past. I'll talk a little bit. I'll hand it over to David to talk a little bit, and then we'll take your Q&A. The Q&A is in the normal format. Please just send them through using the Q&A button on your screen. We'll take the questions and answer them as best we can. Hopefully you've all read the SENS announcement, which I think summarizes our position. Very pleasingly, we're trading at very similar levels to what we reported at the end of February. We're pleasantly surprised that trading has held up as well as it has held up, bearing in mind that January, February are not great trading months for us anyway, bearing in mind you've got the northern hemisphere winter. March and April, we're a little bit confused because March was at the end of—Easter was at the end of March last year, and Easter was in the middle of April this year. That messed up our trading comparisons a little bit. As at the end of April, that all filters through and it balances out. Overall, we're still tracking more or less the 10% up on a constant currency basis, at a trading profit level. The strength of the rand, which I know has weakened and subsequently re-strengthened, has taken about 4% off that for the 10 months under review. We look at the business in constant currency. We assess our businesses in the currencies in which they operate, and then convert the numbers to rands as they get converted. When we talk about the business performance, we talk about it in its local currency, and that's how we measure and understand our businesses. We are actually very satisfied with our performance to date for the 10 months. Economic conditions generally out there are not great. There is way more headwind than tailwind. You do not have to look too far to see that there is a little bit of uncertainty in markets. Consumers are still very much under pressure. is still a cost of living crisis going on in many geographies. You have got food inflation that has come down to zero. It is bouncing back a little bit now, but it is only a little bit. You have still got cost inflation, which is pushing higher than food inflation. You have got a general lack of excitement, I guess, in most economies. In those difficult circumstances, our businesses have continued to perform very, very well. For that, we thank our management teams out there. I think these results are testament to our strategic decisions that we took many years ago, which we continue to refine, adapt and adjust accordingly, and our team's ability to navigate changing circumstances. The only thing we do know is circumstances in the next few months will be different to what they are now. Cannot tell if they are going to get better or worse or by how much, but they will be different. We can see that there is a lot of uncertainty coming about because of the tariff announcements that come out every day or 2 and change things and move things and change confidence and move things. Notwithstanding that, we get on with what we do. We manage our business. We have got a dry direction we are traveling in. Generally, we are very satisfied with where our businesses are tracking. From a top-line point of view, we have seen overall sales in about the 6.5% increased level, 6.5% in constant currency. There is some acquisition in that, maybe of about 2.5%. So 4% real growth in our turnover, and we are very satisfied with that. Like I say, the economies generally around the world are not great, and we'll unpack that a little bit more. To get any type of growth, I think is a good achievement. Certainly, when we look at our peers around the world, they seem to not be reporting generally similar types of growth. You know, one would have to think that we're doing okay under the circumstances. You know, we don't ponder what our competitors are doing for too much. We worry about our own business. It is heartening to understand that we think we are probably doing very well in a market that's pretty ordinary, and that will hopefully improve in time to come. At the margin level, we've managed to increase our margins ever so slightly. That's notwithstanding conscious decisions taken to hold on to market share in some geographies where we're facing some, maybe tougher than other trading issues. Gross margins have held up and improved a little bit. That's also because of our strategy of how we control our margins, house brand, import, product substitution mechanisms, manufacturing, light manufacturing opportunities. We'll continue to do that. I suppose another important factor also is our focus on the correct customer. We've said that for many, many years. We continue to refine the portfolio. That continues to be a work in progress. Always will be a work in progress. There's no end date to it because, as I've explained before, good customers become maybe not so good customers. Not so good customers can become good customers. There are a lot of moving parts across the world. I was very humbled the other day to find out we employ over 30,000 people around the world now. You know, the business certainly has grown, and we provide meaningful employment to over 30,000 people. I think we've got a fantastic team around the world that can continually deliver results of this caliber and do what they do so well. It really is easy for me to get up here and talk about this, but it's really them who do the work, who do the hard yards, and have delivered this result. A huge shout out to the teams around the world. They continue to do a great job. I think every single one of our businesses, when you look at it, is heading in the right direction. Some of them, the numbers might not reflect it totally yet. We are certainly doing those things that we need to do to ensure those businesses will be star performers of the future. I guess that's the benefit of a portfolio. We are in 33 countries, lots of businesses, different stages of development. Not all of them are going to fire on all cylinders at all times. That is actually the strength of our business, we do have this diversified portfolio. Some of the work in progress will be the star performers in years to come. We are very grateful to our teams around the world. For all of those who are listening, thank you very much. I have always said our people are our most important asset in the business. I continue to say that. We might invest lots of money in facilities, but without the correct people to ensure we run the business properly, those facilities are just beautiful warehouses. Our people, our team, are really the heart of our business, and they are what makes it all work. Like I said, gross margins have ticked up slightly, but so too has our expense base. Our cost of doing business has gone up slightly. As we have pointed out and continue to point out, cost inflation is running ahead of food inflation. Wage inflation, in particular, is running pretty hot. In In many countries, you have got minimum wage increases that need to be passed on. In the U.K., you have got the National Insurance, and generally, cost inflation is running relatively hot at the moment, or a little bit hotter than food inflation. Overall, we've managed to increase our margins, our EBITDA margins, our EBIT margins slightly. Coming off a high base, we're exceptionally proud of that. You know, once again, I think our teams have done a fantastic job of getting us to that position. There's very little negative to talk about. Most of our businesses are tracking exactly where we want them to track. You might not be happy with them in terms of where they're tracking on your spreadsheets, but in terms of where we think they are, in terms of where they need to get to, we're exceptionally comfortable with almost all of our businesses. They're definitely on the trajectory that we need them to be. Things take a little bit of time. You know, it's very easy to say, "Oh, snap your fingers and, you know, it should be fixed within 3 months." Reality doesn't work that way. These things take as long as they take. You need to build the base correctly. You need to build a sustainable foundation so that you can grow profitably, sustainably, on top of that. I think we've proven that, that even in tough times like we're facing at the moment or tougher times, the business continues to be resilient, and grow and perform well. Just very quickly running around the world, around the pillars of our business. The U.K., we're seeing some very nice improvements in our business. There's 2 reasons for that. Yes, we made an acquisition that has gone according to expectations, and that's helped us. There is no doubt that our strategic initiatives that we have spoken about before are starting to bear fruit. It is a steady as she goes progress. We do not want to make any knee-jerk type of reactions. It is a little bit here, it is a little bit there, tweaking this, tweaking that. We are absolutely getting the benefit of that, and we will continue to get the benefit of that. We will not be hurried in that. We will not do anything quicker than we are comfortable to do it. Because, like I say, you want to make sure that you have got a long-term proposition, not just a one-off flash in the pan 1 day. The U.K. business is, under the circumstances, performing very well and is growing its profitability very admirably and has certainly been a contributor to the fact of us growing our overall profitability by that 10% number. Well done to the U.K. team. I know they have had a tough few years. We certainly are not out of the woods yet in terms of the U.K. economy. We still do not know what the impact of the NI is going to be. It is way too soon. Notwithstanding the constant barrage of negativity that we hear about the U.K., our business is doing fine and will continue to do fine. We have got some exciting things in the pipeline. There are some good business wins which will certainly help us along our path. There are some strategic initiatives that we are undertaking, and we think we are on the up, on the uptake now, on the uptick of where we want to get to in that business, but it will take time. I will not be rushing to say, "When are you going to get the U.K. to 5% or 6%?" We will get there when we get there, but it is a little bit by a little bit as we go, and we are confident that we do that. We put the correct building blocks in place. The team will get us there in the correct amount of time. Moving over to Europe, it continues to perform very well for us. It probably confounded us a little bit. We do not really understand why there is this strength in Europe, but it seems to be across all our businesses. Sales are about 10% up. Overall in the European cluster, there's a little bit of acquisition in that. If you strip that out, there's still some very good organic growth, and that's coming out of most of our markets. It does seem like the European economy, notwithstanding the fact that many European countries aren't doing great, our European businesses seem to be doing relatively well under the circumstances, and are growing nicely. That goes across the Netherlands, Belgium, our Czech business, Slovakia, Poland. The established businesses are doing well. Italy, our sales growth is strong. Our profitability is pretty flat year on year, and that's absolutely predictable and acceptable because basically we had to put a big investment into opening new capacity in Rome, which opened in July of last year. You do not add 20% or 30% capacity to your infrastructure and do it at zero cost. It comes at a cost. It takes a year or 2 to recoup the additional running costs of that amount of infrastructure and get the full, not the full, but to start getting operational efficiencies from that investment. It was absolutely something that had to be done. We are very pleased we did it. We are through the worst of it, and we are now starting to cycle through that almost a year later. We are absolutely starting to see the benefit of it, but it has held their performance back in the year. We will probably end the year in Italy relatively flat year on year at a profitability level, but the sales was probably in the low double-digit increase type of range. They've done really well on the top line, which we're very comfortable with because we will get the operational leverage out of that in the next year or 2. The Spanish business is tracking well and is according to plan. Still small. We're still looking for opportunity. They will arise. There will be organic growth, but that business certainly is operating now at acceptable levels, and we see upside. Portugal's an exciting market for us. I've said it before. Small business that we do have to invest in. We're going through the investment phase. We're going through a little bit of a restructure in terms of our customer base and moving it away from its reliance on larger national business to more of a free trade business. We also made quite a sizable, for them, relatively small in the overall picture, but for them, quite a sizable acquisition in the Algarve area, which is very touristic and seasonal, in, I think it was March or April, which gives us about, I think it's about a 40% increase in the size of our Portuguese business, and it's the first step in us growing our presence there. The European cluster has done well, and performed, probably exceeded our expectations. On emerging markets, there are a few different components to that. South Africa continues to do very well, although we are seeing the growth taper off a little bit, but that's probably expected because they are cycling through some exceptional performances. We're still getting double-digit growth out of that business, at a bottom line. The South African team continue to shine, and perform admirably well in an economy I think that has not really kicked on and done anything special. You know, we are very satisfied with where our South African business is. Made a couple of acquisitions in South Africa. We continue to be optimistic about the future of the business in South Africa, and our team continue to deliver. South America, we are absolutely seeing some better prospects coming out of, and our businesses are all growing and doing better. I think they have through the worst of their economic problems. Middle East doing nicely. Our UAE business is now, I would say it is at a mature stage, and our Saudi business will get there. Saudi is still far more developmental for us at this stage. is far more investment that still has to go into it and development of that business, but we are, yeah, we are very satisfied with how we are tracking in the Middle East. Turkey, small business, but absolutely on track. Profitability is sequentially higher than it was last year. We still are in the startup phase, but we are confident that in a few years' time we will have a proper sizable business in Turkey. Moving over to Asia, China and Hong Kong remain very challenging. They are probably the only businesses, along with Singapore to a degree, that are impacted by the tariffs and the tariff war. Once it, that does not really have too much impact on us. If tariffs are put on product from one country, all that happens is we will switch the product and source it from another country. You know, if U.S. beef is too expensive in China, the market will move to Australian beef or Irish beef or something else. That is just the nature of our business. We are not beholden to any supply chains out of any countries and particularly not out of America. Hong Kong, China, we are fighting ferociously to stand still. I think our teams have done a great job in achieving that. Sales are very hard to come by, very competitive market, probably deflationary. At a profit level, we are running relatively flat compared to last year, which I think is admirable. Singapore, as we have mentioned before, we went through a management change about 18 months ago. We had to do some changes. We had to take a little bit of pain. We have gone through that, recycling through that. We're absolutely on the upside and things are looking way more positive. The sales numbers that come through on a week-by-week basis are far more, far more positive now. We've rebuilt, we've made the base much stronger. We've got a much, a much more coherent supply base, a much better structured business. So we're confident about the future there. Malaysia continues to grow very nicely. It's a, it's a small business that I've said before we've got hopes for, and we think we can build something of reasonable scale. Moving to the last segment being Australasia, that's probably been the anchor in the results in a positive and a negative way. It's still the largest, I think it's the largest segment. Europe might be larger now. Both Australia and New Zealand are very sizable businesses which are holding their own. New Zealand in particular is pretty tough. The economy is recessionary. We do have reasonable market share there. Obviously as things get tougher, we are going to find it pretty tough. When you look at what that business has achieved over 25 years and the fact that, you know, we're only marginally down this year, I think speaks volumes to the capability of our team there. We do see it as starting to improve. We do think the worst is over. From a New Zealand point of view, revenue is relatively flat. Profitability is slightly down. In Australia, I think the market is improving. We are starting to see some green shoots of positivity come through. There was an election a few weeks ago. I think that might have slowed things down a little bit. The economy is pretty lackluster and we are getting, you know, low, low single-digit growth in our sales and we're getting a little bit of profitability growth, which coming off the base, if they have come off, I think is a phenomenal result. Overall, I think the business is in good shape. The performance has probably exceeded our optimistic expectations, so we're very satisfied with where we are. We still have 2 big months to get through, being May and June. June in particular is a very big trading month. You have the beginning of the Northern European, the Northern Hemisphere summer, which is very important to us. We remain optimistic that the trend should continue. Our sales trends that we see on a weekly basis are actually quite positive. So, you know, there's nothing of great consequence that's concerning us at this point in time. Hopefully the weather holds up. What we are finding in some of our businesses is that the weather does play a big role. Those businesses that have a larger restaurant, hotel, leisure type of exposure have a much greater exposure to the weather, which is, it's a little bit crazy, but that's just the reality of what it is. Nice weather, people go out and spend money. That is always counterbalanced by the fact that a fair amount of our portfolio is in the non-discretionary spend in healthcare, aged care, education, military, government, et cetera. That is where we are at the moment. We're busy going through our budgeting process for next year. Like I say, our businesses are in good shape. Our team are very motivated and positive about where the future lies. We can't control the future. We do say that. We We don't know what, yeah, what hurdles we're going to have to face. All we do know is we've got a great team who are nimble, effective, understand their business, and have continued to perform exceptionally well in difficult circumstances. I know it's a very boring, repetitive update that I give, and I think that's awesome. I think if I can be really boring and offer a 10% increase every time we talk, that's a pretty awesome outcome. I think that's because of the way we set this business up and the stability we have in our management team and the coherence of our strategy, and the execution of that. I'm going to hand over to David, who can take you through some of the financial issues, and then we'll come back and answer the Q and A. Thank you very much. Thanks, David. I won't cover off the stuff that you've done. Revenues you've covered off and, as you said, it's continuing into May, so we're happy with that. The gross profit and the costs, I mean, you know, gross profits are up and costs, cost of doing business is up a bit, but we're seeing some improvement at the EBITDA level as well as the trading profit level in terms of percentage. I think as you noted, Q4 is a big period and certainly our EBITDA percentage run rate should improve and it typically does. I would not take the 5.8% that we have got to the end of April as the run rate for the full year. The tax rate we anticipate will remain between 26-27%, maybe at the slightly upper level of that range. The working capital I think is being reasonably well managed. We have got some pockets of investment into inventories that we are obviously looking at and hopefully we will manage down certainly into the last few months of the year. Debtors is heightened credit risk out there. It comes obviously with the broader economic environment. As we manage it on a very decentralized basis and a localized basis, I think the teams are very focused on it and we have not seen any real issues and we are conservatively provided. I do not anticipate any issues from that perspective. Yeah, I think CapEx obviously is a, is a relatively big number. It will be a big number in this period. We're probably tracking around 2.9% of, of revenue, which is, I guess, a little bit higher than what our, we think through the cycle run rate is, which is somewhere between 1.5% to 2%. But we do anticipate that that should moderate, going, going forward. Ben had spoken about the investments. There had been a few done, post, post, December, into this, these new, well, this past, 4 months, 4, and those have cost us about ZAR 580 million. And if you look at the year to date, we've, you know, other than the, the 2 Turner Price and the VDS, which, are the, the 2 larger 1s, we've done about 10 acquisitions to date at a cost of about ZAR 1.1 billion. I think nothing really other to add. I think the business, the balance sheet's in good shape. We did refinance some debt which rolled over in March, bilateral loan. Once again, we tapped the USPP market, which has been a good source of capital for us. The rates both in the 5 and 7 year space and the 10 years was somewhere between 3.8-4%. We are still managing to get relatively good rates, obviously in the current environment where base rates are significantly higher than they have been, you know, in the past. Other than that, I do not really have too much to add. I will hand back to Ben. Thanks, David. Yeah, just a couple of further points very quickly. I noticed we do not have too many questions, which is awesome. Obviously we gave you a lot of information in the announcement that you're happy with. Let's keep it that way. The acquisition pipeline looks relatively robust, particularly on the smaller acquisitions, the in-country bolt-on acquisitions, which really is where I think our DNA and our strength is. Yeah, we've done, I think there were about 10 this year, which is higher than normal. The look forward is pretty full. That will certainly help us going forward. Those acquisitions generally add to the scale of what we do, and we get some reasonable synergy and uptake from them relatively quickly. In terms of larger acquisitions, we continue to look, but they continue to remain elusive. That does not mean we will not continue to look, but they are only going to happen when they are going to happen. We will only do the deal if it is the right deal for us to do. We are disciplined. It is not a case of we need M&A to support these numbers. We are very happy with our organic growth and our organic acquisition growth that we can still get out of these businesses across the world. In almost every geography, there is still a lot of opportunity for us to extend the scope of our operations. We really are not under any pressure to do anything large, and it will have to be the right deal in order for us to consider that. Just in terms of the questions, how successful have you been at passing through the increased cost of doing business in the U.K., specifically the NI contributions? Look, so far, so far it's been okay, but it's only been a month. Yeah, we don't want to, we don't want to declare victory yet. Yeah, we've got to wait for this to filter through and to see what the competitive landscape looks like, what happens in the market generally. It's not a, it's certainly not a train smash. It does seem relatively well balanced, and hence we are relatively comfortable with where our U.K. business is tracking at the moment. We are keeping a very close watching eye on that. Given the good weather in May through large parts of Europe and the U.K., is it fair to assume the positive momentum seen in April has continued? Absolutely. Like I say, the sales, our sales growth has probably accelerated a little bit in the last 6-eight weeks. Maybe it is weather dependent, maybe not. Certainly, you know, where we sit today, we are relatively comfortable with where we are at on sales growth. You mentioned that you have done about 10 small bolt-ons that have been completed at a cost of ZAR 1.1 billion. How much are annual sales that can be expected from these acquisitions? I think the answer to that is in total, it is about 2% of our total revenue comes from those on an annualized basis. Now, the acquisitions do not all happen at the same time. You've got different periods of time. The large 1 was Turner Price in the U.K., which I think happened right at the beginning of the year. That's about GBP 100 million worth of revenue. The other large 1 is VDS in Belgium, which happened I think in September. They're about EUR 60 million of annualized revenue. For this year, it'll be about 2-2.5% of our revenue growth will come out of those acquisitions. From next year, they're in the base, so it becomes far more difficult to cycle through that. Looks like we don't have too many other questions, which is awesome. Thank you very, very much. Let's keep it boring. No, there's no more questions. I think that's excellent. Clearly we've answered all your questions in our SENS update or in our, or in our, in our actual, in, in what's actually happening in the business. There is very little to talk about because we're just doing what we do and our teams around the world have done it awesomely. So well done to everybody. Thank you all. Thanks for your participation. We'll update you on the 27th of August with the full year results and see you all there. David, is that all okay? Yep. Do you have 1 last question? 1 last question. Okay. Apparently we've got a last question. Could you elaborate on which initiatives are gaining traction in the U.K. that are boosting profitability, particularly are you seeing a change in the free trade mix? Yes, we are seeing a change. It's not monumental, but there absolutely is a change. There are cost saving initiatives. We have simplified some of our head office structures. We have simplified our approach to the market in how we approach the market. We are seeing some slight improvement in the balance towards free trade. It is not huge and it is very difficult in an environment like that because when you do get success with a national customer, it outweighs, particularly from a revenue point of view, what happens on the free trade side and tips the balance back again. We are also looking at a number of productivity initiatives, technology-led productivity initiatives, cost initiatives. I think the team in the U.K. are doing a lot and achieving a lot, and that is fantastic. They certainly are on the right path and, you know, we look forward to that continuing. Okay, that's it. Thank you everybody. Have a lovely day and we'll see you all in a few months' time. Thanks. And thanks to my team. Thank you everybody. Bye. Thanks. Thanks, Ben. Thanks everyone.