2/19/2025

speaker
Graeme Chipchase
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

I'll start today by sharing some of our performance highlights for the first half of 2025, an overview of the operating environment, and an update on our transformation progress before commenting on our outlook for the full year. I will then pass over to Joaquin to provide a more detailed update on our financials. We achieved a 4%. with equal contributions from price realisation and volume growth, while delivering a 10% uplift in underlying profit against last year. The return to volume growth was pleasing, especially net new business wins in our US pallets business, while pricing continued to recover the cost to serve. Our profit result demonstrates continued operating leverage, driven by ongoing commercial discipline and productivity benefits. including further improvements to asset efficiency, which delivered a material reduction in uncompensated losses in the period. The significant improvement to asset efficiency was also a key contributor to our free cash flow before dividends performance of US$429 million, which increased US$118 million from the same period last year. The strength of cash flow generation in the first half has informed our decision today to upgrade our FY25 cash flow outlook by US$100 million, primarily driven by lower-than-expected capital expenditure, which we will discuss in more detail. Our profit performance, combined with the enhanced stability of free cash flow generation, has supported us declaring an interim dividend of US$0.19 per share. This represents a 27% increase on the prior comparative period and a payout ratio of 58%, which is in line with our increased dividend payout ratio range of 50% to 70% announced in August 2024. These strong financial results are a direct benefit of our shaping our future transformation, which has structurally improved the fundamentals of our business. Our ongoing investments in quality and service are enhancing the customer experience in all regions, while our focus on innovation is uncovering unique opportunities to collaborate with customers to remove waste and improve efficiency in their supply chains. At the same time, asset efficiency improvements and productivity benefits across our operations are reducing our cost to serve, which directly benefits our customers, improves our competitive advantage, and supports the progress we've made towards our FY25 sustainability targets and 2030 decarbonisation goals, which I'll cover in more detail shortly. Turning to our operating environment and the impact on our business during the first half. Operating conditions were largely shaped by moderating inflationary pressures and normalising pallet market dynamics, following inventory optimisation undertaken by retailers and manufacturers in FY24. From an inflation perspective, we continue to experience labour and transport cost increases, while other key input costs, such as fuel and lumber, decreased in the half. The latter was a significant driver of the 9% decrease in the group's average capital cost of a pallet compared to the first half of last year. As inflationary pressures have moderated, so have increases in our costs to serve. with contractual price growth and contributions from inflation recovery mechanisms adjusting accordingly in the period. In terms of consumer demand, on balance, conditions remained subdued globally. Although there are some signs of improvement in the US and Australia, Europe remained challenging, as weak macroeconomic conditions continued to weigh on consumer demand. For our business, pallet demand from existing customers improved from levels in the first half of the prior year, which was impacted by inventory optimization. In terms of outlook, we note there is some uncertainty about global consumption and cross-border trade, partly due to the prospect of tariffs. I do want to highlight that for our business, volumes are primarily weighted to the consumer staples sector, which offers a more defensive base in most macroeconomic scenarios, and there is minimal cost-broader trade across the group. Turning to pallet market dynamics, sustained industry-wide pallet availability, combined with our asset efficiency initiatives, supported lower losses and more efficient use of our pallets across retailer and manufacturer supply chains. the pooled pallet market remains competitive, although there was minimal dual sourcing activity in the first half of this year, which follows very limited activity in the second half of the last fiscal year. In the whitewood market, there have been moderate increases in whitewood prices at the same time that the availability of quality whitewood pallets has been declining. The combination of these two factors is highlighting the strength of our value proposition and supporting net new business growth, particularly in the US, where our teams have seen improved momentum in converting small to medium-sized manufacturers, as well as customers in the produce sector, to our share and reuse solutions. It is also worth noting that we do not see sustained new business volumes being contingent on whitewood returning to historical average pricing levels. The moderate upwards pressure on recycled whitewood pallet pricing and a deterioration in quality is providing a sufficiently fertile environment for us to successfully convert new business. As indicated at our FY24 results, retailer and manufacturer inventory optimisation is largely complete. However, we experienced a number of flow-on implications for costs and capital expenditure across our business this period. From an operating cost perspective, this included higher repair costs due to elevated damage rates in key markets, along with storage costs from excess plant stocks in the US. We expect US plant stocks to get back to optimal levels by the end of FY25, as we utilize excess pallets to service increasing volumes in this market through the balance of the year. Finally, from a capital expenditure perspective, we purchased approximately 1 million fewer pallets in the period, driven by asset efficiency improvements and the utilization of pallets returned from inventory optimization, including those in storage in the U.S., which provided a capex holiday in the first half. This benefit, combined with the decrease in the capital cost of a pallet, contributed to a group pooling CapEx to sales reduction of 2.6 points in the first half. Turning to the next slide and looking at our transformation progress in more detail. Starting with the enhancements we've made to the customer experience, which has been supported by utilizing machine learning and AI to analyze the considerable data we already have and continue to generate. This includes the increasing speed and efficiency of interactions with customers by resolving queries faster and adding greater self-service functionality. These improvements, combined with increased timeliness of customer deliveries and continued investment in quality of our assets, have supported an uplift to multiple customer metrics, including our Net Promoter Score in the first half. Notably, our transformation has also delivered a structural improvement in the capital intensity of the business through the asset efficiency initiatives we have in place, many of which leverage our data analytics and smart asset capabilities. In aggregate, these initiatives led to approximately 12 million additional pallets being recovered and salvaged in the period compared to FY21. The improvements in asset control can be broadly attributable to two streams of activities. Firstly, the expanded asset recovery capabilities, including specialized field resources and vehicles designed for low-volume recovery. And secondly, the rollout of our go-to-market strategies. which includes greater collaboration with retailers and enhanced retailer commercial agreements that seek to identify areas where we can build mutual value, for instance, by identifying leakage points and improving pallet flows. Another source of efficiencies and a critical aspect of ensuring our business is more agile and resilient in the future has been strengthening operational excellence across our service centres and optimising our network. While the focus is necessarily broad and looks at lifting standards across the business, the particular areas of focus have centred on procurement, repair techniques, automation and innovation, which are delivering benefits in quality, durability, productivity and costs. Finally, our digital transformation continues to demonstrate value through the uplift in digital capabilities across our organization and the expansion of advanced data analytics solutions, which have supported improvements to customer experience, led to better commercial outcomes and increased asset productivity. We are also progressing with our smart asset strategy. with the continued rollout of autonomous tracking devices and expansion of digital customer solutions, which are continuing to identify opportunities to address inefficiencies in supply chains. Further to the two commercial agreements secured in FY24, more customers have agreed to digital customer solution pilots in the US, UK, New Zealand and Chile, where we are also leveraging our serialization capabilities. Turning to Serialization Plus on slide six. Our trial in Chile and operational testing in the US and the UK is progressing as we continue to take a test and learn approach to determining the optimum operational and technological requirements of a Serialization Plus solution and the insights and value it can unlock for us and our customers. One of the key operational achievements in the period was developing new inline tagging equipment in Chile. The equipment removes manual activity associated with tagging the pallet, minimizes disruption to existing service center infrastructure, and importantly, delivers a step change in the tagging rate, increasing throughput. Combined with design modifications to make the inline tagging compatible with space-constrained service centers, This increased efficiency has allowed us to optimize our installation plans for the U.S. and the U.K. and be more capital efficient, including a 40 million U.S. dollar capex reduction in FY25, without compromising the speed of progress and quality of learnings from these trials. In terms of technology learnings, we know that building our understanding of tag performance will be an ongoing process. After testing multiple tags with different materials, adhesives and attachment methods, we have selected and rolled out a new tag in Chile, which is demonstrating operational and cost benefits through better readability and lower replacement rates. Knowing that conditions vary between Chile and the UK, we've also adapted our attachment method to generate better tag performance in the UK. Finally, we are exploring how we capture additional data, the best way for that data to be transferred, and how operating conditions can ultimately impact the solutions we create. Although there has been meaningful progress to date, more testing is still required before we can make a decision on the optimal technology mix required for Serialization Plus. With this in mind, the second half of FY25 will focus on what technologies make sense in serializing a pool, weighing up potential costs of the different operational and technology options, as well as testing for local conditions. Turning to value, it has been encouraging to see positive customer sentiment towards our effortless service offer in Chile. Indeed, a customer in Chile has told us that our effortless service offer, enabled by Serialization Plus, is the primary reason they have returned to using blue palettes. The way customers have taken to our new offering gives us confidence in continuing our efforts to migrating additional customers in Chile to the effortless service offer in the second half and validating the value Serialization Plus can generate for our customers and our own operations. Turning to the Shaping Our Future scorecard on slide seven, you'll see most of our targets are complete, while others are progressing and remain on track. I'm particularly proud to see all our customer engagement, revenue growth and asset efficiency targets being on track to meet our FY25 targets. In the areas where we are tracking below target, in some cases only marginally below, We have identified actions to progress towards our FY25 goals and to compensate for any shortfalls through other initiatives, which I'll take a moment now to outline. On product quality, we've reduced defects per million pallets by 12% against the FY20 baseline, but are lagging 2% behind the target for the first half. This is primarily due to the prolonged periods our pallets have spent in supply chains, which has led to higher damage rates. In business excellence, we've increased the representation of women in management roles, which is currently at 38.6%, and hence tracking slightly below our FY25 target of 40%. The shortfall is largely an account of lower employee turnover, and we have strategies in place to hire, retain, and engage female employees to continue progressing against this target. Turning to network productivity, our efforts to reduce the pallet damage ratio by 75 basis points year on year continues to be challenged by the extended length of time pallets have spent in the supply chain. Although we saw damage rates increase again in the first half, which are now in line with FY21 levels, we are confident in the benefits pallet durability initiatives have generated to date. Looking forward, we expect ongoing investments in quality and platform innovations, including double-walled blocks, enhanced repair techniques and timber species selection, will help us to continue reducing damage rates. In line with our disciplined approach to capital allocation, we have decided to pause the rollout of automated end-to-end repair processes that had been planned for FY25. This will allow us to learn from those installations that are performing in line with expectations and replicate the success to rectify installations currently not meeting operational performance metrics and therefore return expectations. Improvement plans are in place for the balance of FY25 and we remain confident of rolling out further automated end-to-end repair processes in FY26 and beyond. On balance, we have demonstrated meaningful progress in the first half towards our targets, and I'm confident that we have either implemented or identified the right strategy to make progress in those areas we're tracking behind. Let's turn now to slide eight to look at progress towards our FY25 sustainability targets and broader ESG achievements. Starting with safety, our Brambles injury frequency rate decreased to 3.2 in the first half, representing a 6% improvement on prior period levels. This puts us ahead of the FY25 scorecard target, despite the deterioration against our FY24 performance of 2.9. We've already addressed our Women in Management target, so looking to our Planet Positive pillar, you'll see we have maintained 100% timber from certified sourcing while increasing our chain of custody sourcing by 8.7 percentage points to 85.5% of all timber procured. Our decarbonisation progress remains on track, with a 5% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions in the first half against last year, largely supported by the increased use of zero-emission fuels and the ongoing electrification of our forklift fleet. we have made meaningful progress towards our target of zero product waste to landfill at all brambles and subcontracted locations, with 95% of our sites now with solutions in place to divert product waste, which is a 12.8 percentage point improvement from the first half of FY24. Finally, our sustainability programme and efforts continue to be reaffirmed and recognised through a range of ESG assessments and rankings, including the Dow Jones Best in Class Indices, where Brambles is a constituent for the 11th consecutive year, CDP, which awarded us A scores for our action on forests and climate, and Corporate Night's Global 100, which ranked us fourth most sustainable company in the world. Finishing now with our FY25 outlook on slide nine. we have reconfirmed our guidance for constant currency sales revenue growth of 4% to 6% and underlying profit growth of 8% to 11%. As outlined earlier, we have lifted our full-year guidance for free cash flow before dividends by US$100 million to between US$850 and US$950 million. This upgrade is largely driven by lower-than-expected capital expenditure reflecting asset efficiency improvements, capital allocation discipline around automated end-to-end repair processes, and the re-phasing of serialization plus investments. We continue to target a full-year dividend payout ratio of 50% to 70% and are on track to complete our on-market share buyback of up to US$500 million by the end of FY25 that we announced at our FY24 result. By achieving our FY25 outlook, we will again deliver on our investor value proposition and deliver total value creation for shareholders in excess of 10%. I would now like to hand over to Joaquin to take you through the financials in more detail.

speaker
Joaquin
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Thank you, Graeme, and good morning, everyone. Before diving into the detail of our first half 25 result, I wanted to touch on the key drivers of the result. as these will be recurring themes as we move through the slides and also flow through to our full year forecast. In line with Graeme's comments, the key drivers of our first half result are return to volume growth, and in particular net new business momentum, continued commercial discipline to recover cost-to-serve increases, and productivity initiatives, in particular further improvements in asset efficiency, which supported our operating leverage and strong free cash flow generation in the period. Breaking these components down further, it was pleasing to see positive volume growth of 2% in the half with equal contributions from net new business wins and like-for-like volumes. Price realisation of 2% in the first half demonstrated the continued alignment between our pricing and the cost to serve our customers. Increases in the period were largely driven by labour inflation while improvements in asset efficiency resulted in lower price increases required to recover the cost to serve. The improvement in asset efficiency included significantly lower uncompensated losses, which resulted in a $68 million decrease in the IPEP expense and contributed to the 2.6 percentage point improvement in the pooling capex to sales ratio to 11.9%. Collectively, our ongoing commercial and capital allocation discipline, combined with asset efficiency improvements, and other productivity gains delivered a one percentage point increase in group underlying profit margins and a $118 million increase in free cash flow before dividends, which supported the upgrade to our FY25 free cash flow guidance Graham just outlined. We continue to be focused on delivering our investor value proposition and remain on track to deliver over 10% value creation for the full year. Turning to slide 12 and an overview of our first half 25 results. I'll run through our sales and underlying profit performance in more detail shortly, but on this slide, I wanted to call out the key drivers of profit after tax and EPS. Profit after tax increased 11%, reflecting operating profit growth of 10% and a 2% decline in net finance costs. The decrease in net finance costs reflects a lower average debt balance in the first half 25 due to strong free cash generation, partially offset by higher lease interest expense relating to higher market rates on lease renewals and the impact of side additions over the last 12 months. Profit after tax included a non-cash hyperinflation charge of $10.2 million relating to our businesses in Tokai and Argentina, while profit from discontinued operations of half a million relates to our Chep India business, which was divested on 8 January 2021 2025. EPS also increased 11%, noting that the number of shares purchased and cancelled as part of the on-market share buyback did not have a material impact on EPS growth in the period. Moving to revenue growth on slide 13. Group sales revenue increased 4% in the first half of 2025, driven by equal contributions from volume growth and price realisation. Net new business volumes increased 1%, with the North America and Asia-Pacific businesses each delivering growth of 2%. Contributions from the EMEA business were modest, as new customer contract wins were partially offset by the rollover impact of prior year losses. Like-for-like volumes increased 1% and benefited from cycling subdued volumes in the first half-24 due to the impact of inventory optimisation across retailer and manufacturer supply chains in that period. Excluding this benefit, like-for-like volumes declined 1%, reflecting the timing impact of an early US harvest season, which brought forward first quarter 25 volumes into the last quarter of FY24, weak macroeconomic conditions in Europe and the average pallet hire balances normalising in Australia. As mentioned earlier, price realisation of 2% reflects recovery of cost-to-serve increases, which was largely driven by labour inflation. Turning to slide 14 and group underlying profit, which increased 10% as the sales contribution to profit of $97 million combined with the $68 million reduction in IPEP expense more than offset the impact of inflation, investments in transformation initiatives and incremental plant and transport costs associated with inventory optimisation in the prior year. North America surcharge income decreased $15 million in line with movements in market prices for lumber, fuel and transport in this region. All surcharge components delivered income in the period. Combined plant and transport costs increased by $73 million and included inflationary impacts of approximately $43 million, primarily due to rising labour costs, which were partly offset by deflation in fuel and lumber. In addition to the incremental supply chain costs driven by inventory optimisation in the prior year that Graeme outlined, the balance of plant and transport cost increases included continued investments in asset efficiency initiatives as well as platform quality and service levels to improve the customer experience. These cost increases were partly offset by supply chain productivity initiatives linked to network optimisation and operational excellence. Group net plant and transport costs as a percentage of sales revenue was up 1.7 points, driven by plant cost increases, with net transport costs as a percentage of sales revenue broadly flat to the prior half. Depreciation increased $8 million, largely driven by incremental non-pooling investments, including automation. Other costs were flat, as overhead cost discipline offset wage inflation and lower asset compensations in line with lower asset losses due to better asset control and improved pallet market dynamics. Lastly, shaping our future transformation costs increased $4 million, driven by continued investments in asset digitisation and data analytics capabilities. It's worth noting that this is only a marginal increase as we continue to leverage our previous investment in digital to progress our transformation. Moving to asset efficiency on slide 15. As you can see from the chart, the capital intensity of our business continued to improve in the first half, with our pooling capex to sales ratio reducing 2.6 points on the prior corresponding period. This improvement was driven by fewer pallet purchases, lumber deflation and higher sales revenue. Pooling capital expenditure on an accruals basis decreased $65 million in the first half, with $40 million of the decrease driven by lumber deflation and the associated 9% reduction in the weighted average capital cost of a pallet. The balance of the decrease was driven by 1 million fuel pallet purchases as asset productivity initiatives, improved pallet market dynamics and the utilisation of excess plant stock in the US limited the pallet purchases required to support growth and replenish the pool. Normalising for the CapEx holiday benefit of excess plant stock in this period, our first half 25 pooling CapEx to sales ratio was approximately 13%. Turning to slide 16 and free cash flow before dividends, which increased to $429 million in the first half. Asset efficiency improvements were a key driver in improved cash flow generation, with cash capital expenditure payments reducing by $172 million in the period. Lower financing and tax costs also contributed $27 million to the year-on-year improvement in free cash flow, largely due to the timing of Australian tax instalments. Offsetting these favourable changes was a $44 million movement in other cash flow items, primarily relating to provisions for employee benefits, and a $24 million reduction in asset compensations, which, as noted earlier, was driven by lower losses in the half. Working capital movements in the period were modest and mainly reflected growth in the business, while the $4 million decline in cash flow from discontinued operations was reflected lower cash flow from CHEP India compared to the first half of full year 24. Finally, the CAPEX holiday associated with the utilisation of excess pallets in the period provided a cash flow benefit of approximately $45 million. Adjusting for this benefit, normalised free cash flow before dividends was $384 million. Turning to slide 17 and our segment performance. starting with Chip Americas, which delivered solid top-line growth and operating leverage in the half. Sales revenue increased 6%, with equal contributions from volume expansion and price realisation. Net new business wins contributed 2 percentage points to revenue growth, driven by contract wins in North America, while like-for-like volumes increased 1%, with positive contributions from Canada and Latin America. price realisation of 3% was in line with moderate cost-to-serve increases. Underlying profit increased 8%, with margins increasing 0.4 percentage points, reflecting ongoing commercial discipline, lower IPEP in line with better asset control in the region, and supply chain efficiencies driven by network optimisation, operational excellence and procurement initiatives. These benefits more than offset inflation, lower surcharge income and incremental plant and transport activity, including increased investments in quality and other customer experience initiatives. Inventory optimisation in the prior year also drove higher storage costs in the US and additional repairs linked to damage rate increases across the region. Return on capital invested was flat as increased earnings were offset by an 8% increase in average capital invested. which reflects higher lease costs relating to market rate increases on renewals and site relocations and additions over the preceding 12 months. Looking at US pallet sales revenue in more detail on slide 18. Sales revenue increased 6%, with price mix of 4% as contractual price increases to recover inflation were partly offset by lower contribution from pricing mechanisms linked to asset efficiency in line with lower loss rates. Pleasingly, net new business wins were 2% as current and prior year contract wins more than offset prior year losses. Growth was primarily seen in the small to medium enterprise market and the produce sector, with improved momentum reflecting the enhanced sales capability, the strength of the pipeline and changes in whitewood pallet market dynamics Graham outlined earlier. Like-for-like volumes in the period were flat, despite an early US harvest season, which brought forward volumes in the produce sector into the fourth quarter of FY24 instead of the first quarter of FY25. Excluding this impact, volumes increased 1%, reflecting growth in grocery and other sectors, and included the benefit of cycling inventory optimisation in the first half of FY24. Sales revenue increased 2%, with volume growth of 1% in the half, driven by improved like-for-like volumes as the business cycle built inventory optimisation in the first half of 24. Net new wins were flat, as modest wins in European pallets, capitalisation of 1% was driven by Africa, Middle East and Tokai, while price in the European pallets business declined 1%, As modest contractual price increases to recover inflation were more than offset by lower contributions from pricing mechanisms linked to asset-efficient pallets business, it still delivered strong operating leverage and margin improvements. Underlying profit growth for the region was 14%, with margins improving 2.9 percentage points. This was primarily driven by lower IPEP charges in line with lower losses in the region, supply chain efficiencies and lower overhead spend. Return on capital invested in the period improved four percentage points, reflecting the strong profit growth and improved capital efficiency driven by asset productivity improvements. Turning to slide 20, CHEP APAC maintained strong margins and returns as the Dupin patterns normalised in the Australian market. Sales revenue increased 2%, including price realisation of 4% to recover cost-to-serve increases. Volume decreased 2% and included a 4% decline in like-for-like volumes in the pallets and IBC businesses. The decline in pallets was driven by lower daily hire revenue in Australia as the number of pallets on hire normalised from the peak levels in the first half of, albeit still subdued, macroeconomic conditions in Australia. Net new wins increased 2% driven by growth in both the pallets and RPC businesses. Underlying profit increased 2% with margins broadly flat as supply chain productivity improvements and lower overhead costs were offset by inflation, lower asset compensation and higher repair, handling and relocation costs due to increased pallet returns in the period. ROSI was broadly flat as profit growth offset the increase in average capital invested, which included incremental service centre automation investments and higher lease costs. Moving to the corporate segment on slide 21. Corporate investments in our shaping our future transformation increased $4 million, largely driven by incremented higher personnel related costs. Turning to outlook considerations for the full year. We continue to expect year-on-year sales revenue growth of between 4% and 6%, with a balanced contribution from both price and volume. Second half 25 like-for-like volume contribution is expected to be broadly in line with second half 24, as underlying improvements to consumer demand in Australia and the US is offset by continued weakness in Europe. We expect an acceleration in second half 25 net new business wins reflecting continued momentum in the US and a ramp-up in conversions in the European pallet business. Finally, based on our expectations of cost-to-serve increases, we expect second-half 25 price realisation to be similar to the first half of FY25. Underlying profit guidance of 8% to 11% remains unchanged and includes expansion in the EMEA, APAC and group profit margins. America's margins are still expected to remain in line with FY24, but contract in second half 2025 as a result of higher plan costs due to the same factors as first half 2025, and an increase in IPEP driven by the unit cost of pallet write-offs and a normalisation in the rate of asset productivity benefits compared to second half 2024 levels. We expect that this will be partly offset by supply chain efficiencies and overhead cost discipline. At a group level, the second half supply chain efficiency initiatives, although these benefit customer experience, including quality initiatives. We expect second half 25 IPEP expense to be in line with first half 25, reflecting an increase against second half 24, for the same reasons outlined earlier in the Americas. Shaping our future spend in FY25 is revised to approximately $135 million. which includes approximately $100 million relating to digital spend to support data analytics capabilities and the smart assets strategy. The net reduction in spend is mainly driven by lower costs in digital as we continue to optimise the required investment to conduct our serialisation plus operational testing in the US and UK. Moving to slide 23. For the full year, we expect to deliver between $850 million to $950 million in free cash flow before dividends. This $100 million upgrade on the prior guidance has been primarily driven by two factors. Firstly, a reduction in the pooling capex to sales ratio range by one point to between 12% and 14%, reflecting asset efficiency improvements. And secondly, a $70 million benefit from lower non-pooling capital expenditure driven by the benefit from optimising the UK and US Serialisation Plus pilots and the pause in rollout of the automated end-to-end repair process installations. In terms of other considerations, while I do not propose to go through each item, the two points to make are that we expect net finance costs to be slightly lower than our original expectations due to strong cash flow performance as well as the receipt of sale proceeds for CHEP India. Also, consider the 24 levels. In summary, we are pleased with our performance this half, which reflects improvements across key aspects of our business, underpinned by the Shaping Our Future transformation program. First half 25 saw the return to positive volume growth, and we head into second half 25 with improved momentum in net new business wins, while continuing to recover the cost to serve. The structural improvements we have made in relation to asset control, supply chain productivity and cost discipline continue to deliver sustainable free cash flow generation and an outlook which delivers on our investor value proposition. I will now hand over to the operator for Q&A.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Owen Birrell from RBC. Please go ahead.

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