Good morning and welcome to our Boxer results presentation for the first six months of our financial year ending February 2026. I am Marek Masojada, the CEO of Boxer, and with me is my colleague, our CFO David Wayne. We are presenting to you this morning from our Boxer head office situated at Westville in KwaZulu-Natal. Today's presentation is made up of four parts. Firstly, I will give a high-level overview of the highlights of our performance for the period, followed by David presenting a more detailed look at the financial results. I will then give an update on progress made on some of our strategic initiatives, our plans, and our outlook for the second half of the year. Finally, we'll have an opportunity for Q& A. We encourage you to send through any questions you have as we go through the presentation using the facility on the webcast. Our Boxer Investor Relations Executive, Stephen Carrott, will accumulate the questions as they come through, and David and I will do our best to answer. David and I are proud to represent the Boxer team across South Africa and Eswatini and share with you a positive set of results showing that post our November 2024 listing, the company has performed well and is delivering in line with our guidance given. We are making good progress on both our financial and operational strategies and goals. Our turnover has accelerated throughout this first half despite a deflationary environment, a competitive marketplace, and a consumer under pressure. Our turnover has been supported by healthy volume growth underpinning the strong like-for-like sales figure. We are pleased with the momentum we have built and the increase in new customers shopping at Boxer. Our market share has grown consistently and significantly over the period. During the half, we opened 25 new stores across our three formats, taking our unique Boxer offering to more communities. We have maintained a stable trading profit margin compared to the equivalent prior period and managed to absorb the significant additional expenses associated with being a listed entity. Our growth has facilitated the creation of over 2,300 new job positions, and we have had 2,100 internal promotions in the period, with Boxer offering wonderful career opportunities and skills development as we extend our footprint and our customer offering. Our successful trading and our good working capital management has resulted in excellent cash generation during the period, enabling us to return to a positive net cash position. I'm pleased to confirm that, as indicated in our IPO documentation and our year-end commentary, our board has approved the declaration of our inaugural dividend to shareholders. We have made good progress on the key strategic initiatives which we shared during our year-end results presentation. Our Boxer Rewards Club is now in its 12th month and has reached 2.3 million members. We completed two milestone projects: firstly, the launch of our Boxer supplier portal, B- Inside, and secondly, the completion of construction of our seventh distribution centre at Tongaat, Durban, both of which I will talk to later. I'm happy to report that we continue to make progress in transformation initiatives, achieving a level six on the scorecard. To put some numbers to the financial achievements for the half, our turnover of R22.5 billion represents a total growth of 13.9% with a like-for-like, a commendable 5.3%. Boxer has seen good and strong growth across customer count, basket value, and units per basket. Boxer has delivered a trading profit of R931 million for the six months, an increase of 15.1% at a stable 4.1% of turnover. The stable trading margin reflects the increasing efficiencies in the business as a result of good volume increases and economies of scale. As a result of our positive sales growth, we generated significant cash in the half and closed the period with a R1.1 billion net cash position. During the first half, we opened 25 new stores across our three formats and closed three, taking our total store count to 547. I'm pleased to share that in September we celebrated the milestone of our 550th store when we opened at Bridge City in KwaMashu, and as mentioned, we have declared our maiden dividend, an amount of R0.453 per share representing a 40% payout ratio of headline earnings per share. Our two drivers of turnover growth are like-for-like sales and new stores, and I'm pleased to say that both have delivered positive results in the period. Our 5.3% like-for-like has accelerated from the 3.7% achieved in the latter half of last year. This is despite us experiencing deflation of 0.7% in our volume held constant selling prices. We have achieved strong volume growth in existing stores, boosted further by the new stores we opened. Our unlike stores have contributed a pleasing 8.6% to our total turnover growth, significantly up on the 4.8% in the previous year. Talking to our new stores, the nine new superstores opened in the half are proving to be valuable additions to our Boxer portfolio. On average, we exceeded the original turnover feasibilities on each of these nine stores by 36%. It is a deep-rooted DNA of the Boxer team to keep our tram lines tight when assessing the viability of new stores. This might influence our store opening numbers, but it ensures that we are spending our CapEx Rands carefully and only adding quality stores to our estate. Over the past six and a half years, Boxer has grown from 298 to 547 stores, an additional 249 stores over the period. As mentioned earlier, we have added a net 22 stores in this period and 58 in the past 12 months. Our liquor stores continue to catch up on the superstore number count. At period end, 58% of our superstores now have a liquor store nearby. Each new liquor store opened adds to our offering and gives more convenience to our customers. Liquor is a profitable addition that feeds off the main store infrastructure at marginal cost and strengthens our overall financial model. Our net new openings for the period are ahead of the same period in the prior year, 22 versus 12. Historically, our openings tend to be weighted towards the second half, particularly for our superstores in Greenfield developments. Whilst the new store rollout is always subject to last minute delays for many reasons, we are happy with where we are currently placed with our H2 store opening schedule and striving for the target of 60 across the three formats. A key project for delivery this year has been the development and commissioning of our seventh distribution centre situated at Tongaat in KwaZulu-Natal. This is a significant investment project for Boxer as we have a 50% share in the ownership of the facility. Building works were completed in the period on schedule and within budget. The DC went live with outbound deliveries in September, servicing primarily our Northern KwaZulu-Natal stores as our closest DC to the Durban port. In addition to supplying stores, this facility will also serve as our centralized import hub. Store service from our four coastal DCs will be rebalanced according to transport efficiencies, reducing distance traveled and associated costs. We now have sufficient supply chain capacity to support our new store expansion for the next four to five years. I'll now hand over to David for the detailed presentation of our financial result. Thank you, Marek. I'm pleased to present our results for H1 of FY 2026. We have had a successful first half where the execution of our strategy produces a strong set of results. Firstly, we'll kick off with some highlights. We recorded R22.5 billion of turnover for the half, which represents a total growth of 13.9% and a like-for-like growth of 5.3%. GP margin at 20.3% of turnover is flat on last year. Trading expenses at 17.1% of turnover are up from last year's 17.0%. Trading margin at 4.1% is also flat on last year. EBITDA calculated at R1.6 billion is up 13.7% on the prior year, and headline earnings at R518 million are up 5.3% on last year. Trading profit for the half grew 15.1% on last year. This was driven by the 13.9% turnover growth and the 18.4% growth in other trading income. Trading profit includes R57 million of new costs that's associated with being a separately listed entity. If these costs are excluded, the trading profit growth would be 22.1%. Headline earnings grew 5.3%, impacted by a 79.1% net finance charge increase. Our gross margin has remained consistent at 20.3% when compared to the first half of last year. The stability in margin reflects our deliberate strategy. Efficiency gains from supply chain have been reinvested directly back into price, helping us strengthen our customer value proposition and drive the virtuous circle. Looking ahead to the second half, we do expect some short-term dilution in supply chain efficiency as the new Tongaat DC comes fully online and operates below optimal utilization. Our trading expenses grew 14.3% when compared to H1 last year, but when we remove the impact of the extra expenses of being a separately listed entity, our trading expenses grew at 12.6%, which is 1.3% below our turnover growth, which was 13.9%. Employee costs grew 12.8%. This was driven by our expanding workforce and above-inflation wage increases for our unionized employees and share-based payments expenses. These were somewhat offset by increased collections of employee tax incentives. Occupancy costs grew 12.6%. This was driven by store expansion and annual lease escalations. Operational costs increased 16.4%. In this category, we see increased PPE depreciation, high electricity, and IT costs. Merchandise and administrative expenses grew 17.7%. This is reflecting a higher advertising investment and the increased card commission costs associated with debit and credit cards as customers increasingly switched to paying with plastic. The transition to being a listed entity has introduced a higher cost base with R16 million in ongoing additional expenses during the first half of FY 2026, and in addition we expense R41 million related to the IPO award which was granted at the listing. Net finance charges increased significantly, up 79.1%. The key driver is the swing in the funding costs. Last year we earned R59 million of net interest income, but this year we moved to a net interest expense of R2 million. This change reflects the impact of the balance sheet restructure during the IPO. Lease liability interest has also grown, but this is in line with our accelerated store rollout strategy. We closed the half with R1.1 billion in net cash, a strong position compared to the R180 million net debt in February 2025. There are some timing differences and the usual H1/H2 working capital seasonality effects to keep in mind, so the closing cash balance should be viewed in this context. We repaid R200 million in long-term debt during the period, and finally, the amount owed by Pick n Pay relates to overnight card acquiring settlement transactions and is a normal part of how we manage day-to-day cash flows. Net working capital at the end of the half was a negative R1.8 billion. This compares to the negative R1.1 billion in the prior period. Inventory is up 12.9% year-on-year, but that growth is 1% below turnover growth. This shows good stock discipline despite higher volumes. Trade payables are up 22.7%, largely reflecting timing differences at both the start and the end of the period. As a reminder, there is always a strong seasonal pattern. The first half typically generates a working capital liquidity inflow while the second half sees an outflow. Looking ahead, the new Tongaat distribution centre is likely to absorb some working capital in the second half. Boxer Retail Limited had a total CapEx spend of R539 million, which is highly weighted to expansion in the stores. The CapEx spend increased 73% on last year, but you are reminded that we opened 25 new stores this year versus the 13 last year. We also had the kit out and the final building works at the new Tongaat DC, and we implemented a new business intelligence system which enabled the launch of the data monetization project. Boxer Retail Limited generated R1.3 billion of free cash flow. This is after both maintenance and expansion CapEx. R60 million was spent on the purchase of shares for our new long-term incentive scheme. When looking at our H1 FY 2026 HEPS decline, remember that 157.4 million new shares were issued at the IPO. These new shares increased our H1 WANOS by 51.1%. Boxer's FY 2026 full year WANOS will increase by circa 34% year-on-year to fully account for the IPO share issue. Note that the full year WANOS dilution will be lower than the H1 dilution. This IPO-related share increase will likely result in a decrease in FY 2026 earnings metrics when reflected on a per share basis. Boxer is of the view that investors will be best served by focusing on absolute headline earnings growth for the moment, which better shows the underlying performance of the business. I thank you and I'll now hand back to Marek to take you through the strategic outlook. Thank you, David. I'll now give some insights into progress made on our strategic projects and focus areas for the second half of the year as we strive to achieve our goal of expanding the business and pursuing our journey of continuous improvement. I have shared in the past the details and philosophies of our Boxer Virtuous Circle. Our five pillars of volume, value, innovation, efficiency, and expansion are the elements we strive to drive through the business. The Circle remains highly relevant and alive in our business, with much of our success in the first half due to the strategies and initiatives executed. This allows us to drive momentum and, through reinvestment in our value offering, to achieve success in the months ahead. We are intent on keeping the sales momentum going, and we will do this through our well-loved innovative promotions. Success for us means delivering over the festive season trade, so we are ensuring that we have the necessary stock, ensuring our supply chain is ready, backing it up with in-store execution for customers, and adding to our volume through the opening of our new stores on schedule. With our growing Boxer Rewards Club membership and ability to collaborate with like-minded value-driven partners, we have more levers to offer customers genuine value and Rand stretch to explain how much value we give back in the Boxer advert on the bottom of the slide Swipe and Get More. This birthday 1 B reward is equivalent to R1, so the 50 B rewards offered on a spend of R750 is a discount of over 6% on our already market-leading prices, providing exceptional value to customers. Our Boxer Rewards Club has grown to 2.3 million members as of August, and we continue to see consistent monthly take up and an increasing percentage of our sales being linked to a Boxer Rewards Club card. We are seeing evidence of a change in consumer pattern spending, with bigger basket spends amongst members and an increasing number of visits per month per customer. A significant milestone this period was the Go Live of our B- Inside supplier portal, offering our supplier base deep insights with rich consumer data across categories, SKUs, promotions, geographical regions, and more. The rollout across our supplier base is underway. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we are excited at the many opportunities we have to use the technology developed. The new revenue streams unlocked will be reinvested into price to offer even more value and keep the growth drivers going as we celebrate the 12 month anniversary of the launch of our Boxer Rewards Club. We have partnered with key suppliers to offer innovative promotions for customers. High value prizes create excitement and strong brand associations, benefit all parties, and open up further possibilities for collaboration. Efficiency projects remain core to our cost control, and we are making good progress on our automation and digital journey to remove paper from our DC stores and head office. The final pillar of expansion reflects our growth ambitions and the stores plan for our second half. We have the capacity in our supply chain, and we are working hard to deliver on this year's stores whilst ensuring that next year's pipeline is being secured. To conclude, some comment on our outlook for the full year to February 26. We have traded with good momentum and solid growth in the six weeks post our half year cutoff. The success of our full year is reliant on a successful Black Friday and festive season trading. We have a high base from the prior year, and we have significant targets to reach, but we are fully focused and planning for success on trading margin. The market is highly competitive, and we may need to invest further over the festive season. We will have some additional costs associated with the Tongaat DC on finance charges. We will soon start annualizing the debt taken out shortly before the IPO, and we are now net cash positive, meaning that the negative earnings impact of the interest paid in this result will rapidly dissipate. We intend to repay further long term debt in the second half. Finally, I'd like to thank our incredible Boxer team across South Africa and Eswatini for their continued energy and dedication to Boxer. Thank you for this positive result and for continuing to give your best to make Boxer the successful company that we are. Thank you. Thank you, David and Marek. The first question is from Nick Webster of HSBC. The question is who do you believe you are taking market share from and is this more in groceries or liquor or both? I think that one would be addressed to Marek. Thanks, Stephen, and thanks, Nick. Yes, I think our numbers are showing that our grocery segment and our liquor category are the fastest growing areas in our business and probably leading that market share gain. It's difficult for us to say exactly where the share is coming from. I think it probably includes the informal market, so formal, informal market, and clearly I think we're taking something from the players that are in that lower LSM segment. Okay, the next question we have is from Yash Patel of Standard Bank Securities. Please can you elaborate on the three store closures, which format and why did they close? Yeah, I mean interesting question. I think given the size of our estate, nearly 550 stores and the term of our leases, we get between 40 and 50 renewals on an annual basis. This gives us the opportunity to really examine the relevance of a particular store or outlet in our estate. Referring to the three closures in the period, we closed a very small format store in Bergville. It was a 300 square meter outlet. During the 10-year period, we had opened a superstore in the same town, literally a couple of hundred meters away. We decided that it was prudent to close the small store and focus on the big store. The other two were a superstore and its adjacent liquor store in the township of Njoli outside. That was a more difficult decision because the primary reason behind it was the difficulty of operating in that particular area from a security point of view. We took an operational decision to close that store. Thank you. The next question is from Olebogeng Mukuna from the PRC. He says given that you have opened 25 stores, are there prospects of opening more stores in this period? I guess he means increasing your guidance of 60 stores. He also asks with more stores being opened, are there more prospects of further distribution centers? Thank you. Look, I think we've given the guidance on 60 stores. That means that we are aiming to open 35 stores in our H2 period and absolutely intent on delivering those. I think from a supply chain point of view, with the recent opening at Whetstone, with Tongaat here in KwaZulu-Natal, I think we are set for the next four to five years. Your attention is fully towards the extension of the store footprint. Here's a question from Carla Larue of Daily Maverick. How sustainable is the strategy of achieving 5.3% like-for-like volume growth while simultaneously managing negative internal selling price inflation? Yeah, I mean like for like remains our real daily focus, and that's the barometer that shows the health of the business. I think if we look back in our history, we've been consistent in achieving like for like in around that%. You know, fully focused. I think in a deflationary environment, I think that will change in the years ahead. I don't think we can count on deflation on a continuous basis. We absolutely understand that like for like growth is underpinned by volume and underpinned by winning market share in our existing stores. We have two questions from Shamil Ismail from Prima Research. I think these are for David. What will the full year additional cost be that totaled $57 million in the first half? All right, thank you, Shamil. I think let's just break that down into two parts. Firstly, we have the IPO award, which we indicated was ZAR 41 million. You can definitely see that will double for the full financial year. That was ZAR 41 million. On the ZAR 16 million incremental costs, we are still guiding to the ZAR 45 million full year number. Thank you. Clark Nepo from Ninety One asks the question. Could you please remind us and quantify the expected earnings or margin impact on the initial ramp up of the Tongaat DC? Specifically, what is the timing of this impact and how long do you expect it to take for the effect to normalize as the D.C. reaches steady state operations? I think, David, if you'll take that one. Sure. I think our calculations are that we will have a 0.1% impact on our trading margin. We'll see that play out throughout H2. We see that reducing over a three to four year period as the capacity, or rather the utilization of that DC improves. Okay, thank you. I have a couple of questions for Marek. I'm going to combine these questions that came in from a few people. The one is, please, can you indicate if there was any disruption in the chicken category over the half? Similarly, we have a question that says one of your competitors mentioned that their chicken shortage had a large negative impact on their trade. Did you benefit from this at all in these results? I think it's been, you know, well publicized of the disruptions that have happened, not just in the chicken category, but in the protein categories as a whole. There definitely has been a shortage of chicken specifically, and also some disruption in the pricing of the red meat associated with the foot and mouth disease. Boxer definitely has been impacted. It's been a struggle to fill our stores with chicken. I think it's a common complaint from our operational team, the frustrations of being out of stock over key promotional times. Yes, I think hopefully the situation is starting to settle down and that there will be stocks available over the festive season. Thank you. Marek, I have a couple of questions on your post period growth and the outlook for H2. You mentioned that trading post period end was strong. Are you prepared to give an actual% growth number on that? What is the outlook for the period? Thanks, Stephen. Always difficult to, you know, give a growth percentage over a short period of time. I think to talk to the trend that we've experienced over this year, it's well known from the numbers that we put out early in the year that our quarter one, March, April, and May, we achieved lower like-for-like numbers and lower growth, but really started to build momentum in the second quarter. That has obviously led to the half-year results, the good half-year results that we've put out in both our top line and our like-for-like number. I think, subsequent to our period end, we've traded more in line with what we achieved within quarter two. We are very happy that that momentum has continued and, you know, hopefully is setting up nicely for the end of the year. We are always cautious though because as we move into this festive season, some of the sheer size of the numbers that we have to achieve to hit our budgets in a short space of time and all the logistics behind it in terms of supply chain, etc., make it difficult to forecast exactly how it's going to work out. We're very comfortable with where we are at the moment. We have a question from Chris Logan of Opportune Investments. Another one for Marek. The nine superstores opened during the period on average outperformed budget by 36%. What would you attribute this substantial outperformance to? Yeah, thank you. We very tighten our selection of new stores, so each one is really. We spend a lot of time on making sure that we fit the tram lines. We've supported these stores with good opening campaigns to ensure that we embed ourselves in the local markets. Our feasibilities that we do before, obviously to ensure that we get a good return on the investment that's made. Obviously it's early days, some of these stores have only traded two to three months, but we're very happy with the contribution that's been made and combined with the stores we opened in the latter half of last year have really contributed significantly. I think it's 8.6% to our overall turnover growth. You know, happy that our Boxer format and as we bring stores to new communities that there's great acceptance of the Boxer brand. A question from Warwick Bam of RMB Morgan Stanley. How should we think about working capital dynamics in the second half due to the new Tongaat DC, could we expect a net working capital investment relative to the release in H1? I'll direct that one to David. Yeah, thanks Warwick. I think firstly with this DC there has been a rebalancing with the other DCs, and we don't see a full stocking of this DC but rather a rebalancing, and we do feel that this will be offset by trade payables. We're not seeing a large impact on our working capital at the moment. Thank you, David. A question on the loyalty program and your partnership with Capitec. What is the rough overlap of the Boxer customer base and that of Capitec? What do you see as the saturation point of the loyalty program of your own customer base? Yeah, we've had some exciting promotions that we've shared as we've launched our Boxer Rewards Club and part of that has been collaborating with Capitec Bank. I think there is a significant overlap in customers that bank with Capitec and who shop at Boxer, and clearly our promotions are appealing not only to them but all other Boxer customers as well. We've reached 2.3 million in our first 12 months. It's difficult to estimate what that number can top out at. What we do know is that there is significant opportunity, and we see that through the percentage of our turnover that's associated with the card swipe. We're seeing about a% a month increase in that, as we've shared in the presentation. We think there's still some way ahead to go. Thank you. We have a question from Michal at Avior who says could you please elaborate on the challenges being faced in identifying or securing suitable store sites, and how do you see this evolving over the next few years? Yeah, thanks, Michal. Look, this is definitely one of the major challenges and, you know, takes most of our attention on a day-to-day basis by our property team is bringing new store opportunities for Boxer. There clearly are many different factors that impact the delivery of those, from zoning in particular areas or just sheer availability to get into a busy area, or the rate of rollout of new shopping centres, or our ability to get into existing shopping centres. We focus on all of those different opportunities. I think we are gathering momentum, and I think one of the positives of our listing has been the exposure of Boxer into the minds of the property community. The big property funds out there, and more and more they are approaching us with offers to come into these centres. You know, clearly we are engaging with them, and we are trying to accelerate our growth as we go forward. Thank you, Marek. Another one for you from Dino Constantinou of Investec. Can you provide an outlook for H2 selling price inflation? I think we are difficult to forecast going forward. I think we don't see any major change from what we've experienced in H1. We operate in a very competitive space, and selling prices are being adjusted to make sure that they are market leading, and clearly that leads to deflation within those selling prices. November is Black Friday Week, etc., which has a big impact on that measure. We'll see how we come through that in December. A question on the store rollout. Are any more Pick n Pay stores expected to be converted into Boxer stores in this period ahead? We haven't factored any conversions into our. Numbers in terms of our forecast of 60 for the year. Thank you. A question from Sanlam Private Wealth. When do you expect the 7th DC to operate at full capacity, and at that level, what percentage of margin efficiency do you expect to extract? Look, as I said in the presentation, the addition of our 7th DC, whilst obviously having spare capacity in this DC, has created capacity across all seven DCs as we redistribute stores to make sure that a store is serviced by its closest distribution center. We've created the capacity across our seven distribution centers to probably 200 stores, and at our rate of 30, 40, 50 superstores that we can forecast going forward in the years ahead, it's going to take four to five years to reach capacity across all of our seven distribution centers. As David mentioned earlier, we estimate about a 0.1%, and then that will reduce over the next four to five years. I think we're going to leave it at that for now. We'll take further questions in the one on one meetings with investors over the next few days. Great. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you to everybody that joined on our broadcast today. We look forward to exciting H2. It does include our festive season trading, which we always enjoy and which the Boxer team is fully gearing up to fully support our store. Thank you very much.