Davide Campari-Milano N.V.

Good afternoon, this is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Campari Group Half Year 2024 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Matteo Fantacchiotti, CEO of the Campari Group. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. So good morning, good afternoon and evening, everyone. And thank you very much for your interest in joining us for today's call. I'm here in the room with our CFO and CEO Paolo Marchesini and Chiara and our investor relations team. Look, to me, we announced today a positive set of results, especially considering the current challenging industry context and broader macro context, which is still, as you know, quite volatile. We are braving the elements, Iranian Q2 in Europe and tailwinds of inflation. And yet we still outperform the market. We have solid brand momentum and growing brands in healthy categories. So in a sea of flattish red negative signs, we post positive growth with organic net sales up 3.8%, with an acceleration as expected in Q2 of plus 6.9%. driven by solid performance across global priority brands and markets. We see continuing strength in aperitifs led by April and Campari, especially in America and Germany, but basically both for April and Campari in all markets except Italy, France and UK that were the market most affected with poor weather in Europe. AproSpritz is growing from strength to strength and has been selected recently as the most popular cocktail in the U.S. and is also topping drink trends in Germany. Espolon is literally on fire, I would say, with double-digit growth, incorporating further acceleration in Q2. So I will say we have a couple of brands that if you look at the size and the growth rate of those brands are probably two of the best performing brands in the whole industry. Now, if you look underneath the surface of these positive top line results, I think we had some temporary headwinds we need to be clear about. One is mixed. which, if you remember, was supposed to be the main gross margin drivers for us this year, where, given the high inflation environment, we had soft pricing, still positive, but soft to offset some residual COGS increases, and margin was going to be the driver. So far, margin has been obviously not going in the right direction, mainly due to weather conditions. And it's obviously temporary because it may clear as soon as weather finally reflects the summer season. And July started well so far, finger crossed. On top of mix, some COGS end-wins, head-wins, part of which will need to bear the consequences in H2. Why COGS end-wins? Number one, it's taking a bit longer than expected to deplete last year's higher COGS operative inventory. And number two, we'll gradually take advantage of the COGS benefit, but later in the year, in 2025. So Paolo will elaborate further on this, and I'm sure there will be questions. But why do I say temporary? Basically, I want to remind everyone that especially when it comes to the higher inventory of aperitif this year, this was a result of our CapEx investment in Novi production capacity expansion and the one-off extra productions we did ahead of the line opening. So we don't expect this to be an issue for next year. And our production stock is very much under control. So as a result of those headwinds, we still delivered a bit organic positive growth of 2.1%. with margin at 23.6%, 40 basis point negative versus H1 2023, and EBIT also accelerating due to a plus 5.6%, minus 30 basis point versus previous year with diluting effect of gross margin and some SG&A expansion. um so gross margin is uh indeed uh impacted entirely by negative mixed effects of fast growth at poland on one side which is still decreasing at gross margin level and poor weather affecting high margin apparatus in those three markets especially in europe Pricing is offsetting costs, and AAP is slightly accretive because, again, we couldn't activate our brands and especially aperitifs in Europe as much as we wanted due to a very poor May, but especially June summer weather with quite a lot of rain. The net debt to EBITDA adjusted is at 3.5 times on a reported basis, and Paolo will give more color about this again later in the call. So net-net, our medium-term outlook remains the same. I need to say we're pleased about our industry outperformance. confident about the momentum of our brands and our future growth ambition, we will need to discount some temporary margin headwinds. So going into the brands and the regions. So next chart. Growth has been driven mostly by global priority brands, which we see as a positive and primarily in America. And we consider Europe to be really resilient when it comes to the full weather we had, because as you can see, America is at plus 6.8% and Europe is still growing. despite the weather, which again, to raise the rate in some of the markets in Europe, affect aperitif because they are very much an on-premise consumption business. Asia Pacific is still negative on the half, at minus 10%, but with strong consequential improvements. In fact, Q2 was rather flattish, and we will expand later on on the outlook for the region. Global priority is growing at 6%, and regional and local priorities slightly declining. We will see why in a few charts. So, giving a bit more thought about performance in America, you can see U.S. solid growth, again, especially given the market context. with Q2 acceleration of 7.2%. First-half performance is obviously driven by double-digit growth in Espolon and growth in Aperol, and also positive performance in Grand Marnier, which we need to flag, though, had quite favorable comparison base in H1 last year due to some stocking. Wild card is stable and sky is going down together with vodka, which is one of the problematic categories in the U.S. But Q2 was positive. Overall, as was positive. And I want to flag also when it comes to U.S., April is still growing in a very healthy way and has still a lot of runway for growth. In fact, when you look at sellout data, it's growing double-digit. But we had a very high combate in h1 in us For a pro which is going to be much easier in h2 So we expect actually a pro performance in u.s. To be faster in the balance of figure Jamaica Quite a volatile performance in H1, I will say, because you remember Q1 was negative. Now Q2 is very positive, and this is largely due to stock availability and production. The underlying consumption trend in the market is still positive. Most of our brands in RAM and Magnum as well are growing well. uh still um we had some supply shortages into one which were offset then into two and then uh in july there was a thunderstorm as you know um a typhoon uh and uh we had risk of production stock in Q3 and Q4, which we're still assessing. It was better than expected, but still not everything was playing. Other markets in America are growing well, and I will flag Brazil as probably the highlight among the other smaller markets. with both local brands and aperitifs going very nicely across all quarter and months. Moving to Europe, like I said, Europe, to be honest, quite resilient because, you know, We have a business with aperitif, which especially places like Italy, where if it is sunny, people will start probably already at lunchtime, but definitely mid-afternoon to be out in the terraces and bars drinking Aperol Spritz. If it's rainy, they stay in their office and at home. And they drink very little. And in Italy, it's about socializing in on-premise. So we had a very rainy Q2 in Italy, France, UK, to an extent even in Germany. Italy is down 5.5%. And especially in the north, the weather was bad. So that has an impact. I also need to say Italy had a quite high con base in H1 last year, especially in aperitifs, because remember we discussed in Q1 call that H1 last year, first, we had big price increases in May, so there was a forward buying, especially in March, and a bit of April of aperitifs. Secondly, price increases across both April and Campari were high single digits. So obviously in May and June, you have the net sales boosted by that price increase that was passed to the trade. So net-net, we are still seeing that in a reasonably soft market in Italy, we keep share with aperitif and with apparel, we slightly gain share, very little share, which is still positive. Germany is doing really well. Both April and even our innovation start, Rosa, is a double-digit growth. I need to say the number you see in Germany, both in selling but also if you look at the sell-out data, is also boosted by the fact that in the comp base, if you remember, we had the leasing last year. So you will see a much better number than the underlying performance is especially now in Q2, and a softer number in Q3. But when we get to the year-to-date after Q3 and full year, I'm sure we will see a very positive, strong growth because our Germany business is doing really well. France, like I said, another... Poor weather story impacting Aperol, Ricadona, although Campari and Picon are growing. But again, to be clear, because you will wonder why Aperol is not growing, Campari is. Campari had an easy con base because there was some delisting last year in France. Those were all the delisting stories for two, three months around our high price increases that then were all resolved in Q3. uk software performance i think you can see it across the industry is a combination of full weather and and macro and we had also a very tough home base with h1 last year plus 21 i need to say though that outside of those three problematic weather markets in germany doing really well instead The other markets in Europe are all doing very well. Spain is growing. Greece, very strong results from our newly created IMC, also in terms of market share gain. Other smaller markets and the CWTO market, all growing. And GTI is growing as well. Moving to Asia. Asia is really a tale of three clusters, I would say. Australia, challenging environment, also challenging trading environment, consumer confidence not great, spirits category suffering. Probably the one category that is growing, doing really well are vodka-based, white spirit-based RTDs with basically one player doing well. Most companies are losing share. We are holding share and this is basically due to aperitif and particularly upper groin nicely. But barbon glass and barbon RTDs that are a big business for us have been struggling. Now, we've been seeing positive signs on bar-burner RTDs in Q4. We have seen sequential improvements. In fact, Q2 was very low single-digit negative, whereas if you look at the odds, it's double-digit, so Q2 was much better. And we also have some innovation kicking in in July. So Australia, we're a bit more confident about Q3 and Q4. The second cluster is our route to market changes that are also going a little bit at different speeds. China is done. China is positive. We have a lot of confidence in China. We see a lot of opportunities. The team demonstrated high capabilities in executing the market change as per plan, and we started to see growth already in Q2, also a depletion level. India is taking a bit longer, and it was due to timing of registration, delaying due to elections. And it will be completed in H2. And I think for India this year, as we said at the beginning, also due to some leadership changes and strategy resetting, it's going to be a transition year. To remind everyone, India for us is very, very, very small, less than 1% of our revenues. And the rest of Asia is the third part of the story, which is growing very nicely. Some of our recently launched, in the last three, four years, IMC are growing share every month. Japan is doing well. South Korea is doing well, except we had some Q1 phasing, if you remember. New Zealand is also growing nicely, especially with aperitifs, and some of the distributor markets are also growing. That's Asia. Q2 was difficult. Q1 was difficult. Q2 was better. We think H2 Asia will be back at the right trend that we need to see from that region, which is definitely WBC. Now, going to the brands and starting, of course, with April. Now, I just want to be very clear about Aperol. We're growing 5%, which is not the usual double-digit rate you will see with Aperol. This is really, first of all, growing despite the poor weather, but this is really driven by Italy and France performance and task comparison base we had H1 last year was up 32%. This means that with April, we have positive growth basically across each and every other market that hasn't been impacted by weather. And it's typically double-digit growth again, the growth you will be accustomed to see. And that is really in Brazil, in Mexico, in Canada, in Germany, Spain, in Greece, in Japan, New Zealand, Australia, GTR. You name it, all the key markets are going double-digit. And like I said, U.S. was low single digit in H1 with Aperol, which is mostly a phasing because you can see both in the Nissan and NAPCA number, Aperol in U.S. is going double digit. So it's important to give you confidence that Aperol is in a good place. And we're very pleased about the growth trend of this brand. And we will have a couple of... chart to share later on that will probably give you also that sense. Campari as well, growing nicely, is up 9%, accelerated growth in Q2, led by Americas, Brazil, Jamaica, Greece, GTR, France. Espolon also against a very high comp base last year of plus 43%. It's been growing 22% on the half and 30% on Q2. So it seems the brand is really unstoppable and growing US, but also in Australia, in Italy, and even GTR from a small base where we're really making sure through our GTR team that in line with this brand to be a global priority brand, in all your key airports internationally, you will see and find Espolon. White Shark is a bit milder. I think there is a positive trend in Q2, where it's definitely growing. And you know that Q1, we had some phasing, especially with some markets like Korea, which is now becoming one of the top five markets for the brand. And, you know, we look at this brand in through this transition phase where we reposition at the brand, we're really looking at value versus volume, and we're quite positive midterm about our barb on leg strategic category plan. When it comes to Jamaican room, Rams is basically reflecting a bit what I said about Jamaica. The performance is resilient. I think especially Appleton is a great brand with a lot of premium innovation we're launching and that is delivering really well. We had some... phasing in between Q1 and Q2 in terms of stock availability, and we flag some possible risk on this portfolio still to be validated with the supply team as they're looking into all the consequences of the hurricane. Grand Marnier is very positive. I need to flag here, though, that... As I said, for April, it's a positive story because we had some phasing in between Q1 and Q2. It's going to be better. And it's a double-digit. It's probably also reflecting some easy comp last year and restocking in the U.S. market, so easy comp base. Of course, you know, we have increased marketing focus, but we expect that, you know, H2 might not definitely grow at that pace. And we did comment about Sky already. When it comes to regional priorities and local priorities, Sparking Wine, Champagne, and Vermouth are growing nicely. When it comes to other whiskeys, it's mostly a phasing one-off issue. As you know, especially Ken Grant is very much used into Asia. We had a very high con base last year, plus 31. And obviously, some of the route to market changes and the phase in Korea affected the house. But we see client grants on a four-year basis would go back to very positive performance because in terms of market share, it's doing very well in Asia. Of a small base, but starting to really pop up, definitely in the top 10 or in some markets, even top five brands in single malls. Our specialty is that the decline is mainly driven by mining tonic. And to flag, although the minus 1% is not that positive, but on non-alcoholic is really a Cordino story, which is our non-alcoholic play on aperitif is our non-alcoholic spritz. And everywhere is growing double digit and we're really quite excited about the opportunity with this brand. We have very strong plans starting from Europe and then to expand possibly in other regions next year. The decline is mostly a combination of weather in Italy and then streamlining the range to really focus now on very focused gain on the non-alcoholic spritz variant. And we basically delisted some of the minor flavors which we have in the base in Italy. When it comes to local priorities, I would say Campari Soda is, again, about Italian weather, and I think worth mentioning White Archie RTDs, which, like I said before, ESQ1 was, if you recall, negative double digit, and Q2 is positive, so it's plus 2%. So there is ongoing pressure on the category, but at least we see that... the brand is responding to the activities that will be put in place. Now, before moving to some of the usual marketing highlights, just one page on Uproll, which is a number of consumer insights and studies we received recently. uh that are giving us uh quite some confidence uh that you know we knew already but it's always good when you have uh uh news that us that are confirming what we think uh first of all there was a study um in in u.s uh that found that april's priest is the most popular cocktail in the united states with 22 states ranking it as their favorite the source of this study was port magazine By the way, very interesting for us to see that coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally, where Aperol is number one in the map, which is where you see the light green color, it's mostly overlapping to the places we always told you we were investing in feed activation for Aperol. But equally, we can see that then the opportunity we still have elsewhere to try to make the whole map light green is definitely there, and especially in the red central areas. Same with Nielsen in Germany. There was a study on the on-premise market recently that found that Apro is still gaining considerable traction among German consumers as the top gastronomic drink in 2024. uh it has emerged as the most on-trend green category with increasing of nine percent in consumer uh preference um then uh another article that was talking about april as the heat drink of the summer season uh this is happening every summer we see that um and then it is more across the portfolio but i i think something and again give us a very strong confidence in uh our team capabilities and impact in the U.S. As most of you know, recently there were the Spirited Awards at Tale of Cocktails in U.S. And within the Spirited Awards, they did a survey in the 135 venues that are subject of these awards that are typically the best bars in the U.S. or the ones that are voted as the best bars in the U.S. And they analyzed all the menus. which meant they analyzed more than 1,000 cocktails to understand what were the most utilized ingredients. And basically, Sampari Group was the number one supplier among the survey of all and the best place in terms of cocktail presence and our dream strategy executed in those accounts. So those are some highlights that are giving us, again, the usual strong confidence, especially on our aperitif portfolio in April. Now, when we move to some of the marketing highlights, we discussed last time about our Campari activations in 2024, marking the return of Campari to the Cannes Film Festival for the third year as an official partner. Now, this is the pinnacle of the many international street festivals that we're partnering on with this brand, trying to establish a mental link and associating the image of Campari with cinema. This year, we further announced our presence in Cannes with two locations, the Campari Lounge overlooking the red carpet at the Palais of the Festival and the Campari Beach, which was a new iconic space on Boulevard de la Poisette. where we hosted movie stars and guests with a rich program of events open throughout the whole day. And as we did for the Australian Open, you recall in Q1, we discussed about our 360 experience activation with integrated on and offline touchpoint activation through on and off-premise airport and digital, and also partnerships. uh with uh media and celebrities this is what we did in can uh including key movie partnership a strong focus on digital education and um media partnership with condena a lot of um cinema-related talents. You can see here in the picture some beautiful actresses where I actually forgot the name, but you can see I was enjoying the very entertaining company of one of our guests, Adrian Brody, in the picture, which if you recognize him, he did many movies, but I think what most of us know is the pianist. But long story short, those are people that are really amplifying through their channels our activations and really seeding in culture and in everyone that's interested in cinema and coveted events like Cannes, our brand into society. And the results, very good, Campari indeed ranked number one for earned share of engagement across all other sponsors. And I can tell you there were a lot of activation from other sponsors, so we're number one. We achieved millions, 3.6, of earned engagements, significantly higher versus last year, serving then in our venues more than 20,000 Campari cocktails, which is really in liquid to list to a very selected number of individuals. We did the same in Art Basel, which is another obviously very prestigious art fair. This year, we announced our presence with basically the team from Camparino bringing to life what I call the best of Italian hospitality, which means that under the flagship of Campari, we can also leverage the food portfolio. And again, with a lot of media partnership and talent to amplify our presence. Again, here, great results, 2 million impressions, We were ranked number one for earned share of mentions and engagement across all sponsors again. And we also had 7,000 guests in our lounge. What I also like to bring to light here is that our Camparino property really bringing to light the art of Italian hospitality and mythology is something that we can leverage really well in those events and in some prestigious locations. which is what you can see in the next chart, which is mostly an invite to go and visit for everyone that will be in Europe during summer. In the beautiful garden of Hotel Hermitage in Monte Carlo in Monaco, you will find the beautiful Campari Lounge, which is also showcasing some of our Camparino bartenders creating amazing drinks. So that's mostly about Campari. When it comes to another priority brand like H4Lone, first of all, this year it marks the 25th anniversary of this brand. I just want to remind everyone this is a brand that we grew 22 times since in the last 10 years. So it's really an anniversary that celebrates the great success of this brand, which is now a global priority brand. And as such, we launched the first global campaign. We just launched it, so we don't have results yet. But we're very proud of this campaign, which is called To The Bone, launched for us for now in the U.S. and Australia. A bit of a departure from the industry standards backdrop of Agavefields. This campaign is shot in the inspiring creative hub of Mexico City, really highlighting the contemporary onstage vibrance of Mexican culture, which is at the core of our brand. Moving into April, I'm going to go a bit faster here because we already presented a lot of details in previous calls, but just to give you some highlights and pictures and bring to life our presence in the big festivals across the world. And actually, I would say from big festivals to small events to Focused City, Orange Wave activations, So you can see Coachella and Primavera Sound, which are some of the biggest music festivals in US and Europe, Spain, namely, in the first chart. In the second part chart, you can see some of our 360 activation in Greece across beach bars, but also with a full 360 consumer journey, activating also visibility in transport, in stations, in digital, and then in on and off premise. Similarly in Germany, in UK. And then we have a city structure in Asia Pacific, and especially during the summer season, where we think we can also leverage the presence of a lot of tourists. In the seasonal hotspots, we start to activate, and this is what you see in this picture, places like Bali and Thailand. So that's April. And by the way, I'm not going to bore you with the details, but also with April, huge success in terms of our activation. I think we're becoming best in class in that respect. And I just want to mention one, at Coachella, we were the number three brand for social share of mentions this year. And Coachella is a brand that is activated by a large number of brands. You're not talking about... between brands is each and every brand is one of the biggest things that happen in US probably after a few others like Super Bowl and so on. So number three, and of course, number one in food and beverage. So being the second years we do it, we're really very happy about that result. Moving into White Turkey, I really like this chart because I think it visualized really well the journey of this brand. With two different elements. One is our visitor center. We just reopened on May 1st the renovated what we call Jimmy Russell White Sake Experience, which is our visitor center name in honor of the legendary master distiller. And I think this, you can see the quality of this destination is a must visit stop in the Barbon Trail with breathtaking views overlooking the Kentucky River. And the second one is Russell Reserve 15 years old, which we just launched. And you look at the quality of these liquid and end brand and SKU. And it has all the rights to compete with any other luxury brand in the whiskey space. And I will say, if you look at where we started with this brand, White Turkey, years ago, which was much more of a mainstream brand, And I've been told when we visited for the first time the visitor center and the factory, unlike where we were, we were not necessarily excited about the quality of what we've seen. Today, this is really becoming a brand that has all the ingredients to become a very premium brand in the whiskey space. And the direction that we see is very positive. Last but not least is a bit of, if you like, a new element versus the usual content we share. As you know, we're pretty single-minded in not being trapped in the temptation to launch too many RTDs and flavors across the globe. Our focus is very selectively on RTDs. RTD, premium profit pools, and very much in link with our drink strategy for any given brand that we decide to activate. So within that, we decided to launch in Australia Espolon RTDs, and this is in consistency with our Espolon drink strategy, De Paloma, and then the Margarita brand. And so far, we just launched in July. The trade reception has been incredibly positive. So we hope the consumer will follow right away. And then we launched in Japan, White Turkey highball. at premium price versus the competition. It was a pilot this year, and the results of the pilot were extremely positive, so we're going to make this also a permanent play from end of this year in Japan, possibly with some further announcement in the premiumness of the proposition. Just to say in something that, you know, As you know, a category that we consider not always in a totally positive light, but when it makes sense, we are also active and we believe we do good things. Before I pass on to Paolo, just a few words on Google ADS. Look, the integration is going well. It's going according to plan. From a supply chain, IT, admin, logistic, Everything has been completed and went really well. We're integrating the brand into commercial platform, and everything is also going well. We're live in all markets. We're selling and invoicing in all markets. We have now completed the global team that will look after this brand with some senior appointments. And we're very pleased about the people that are now part of that team. But we are also hiring and we're almost done with hiring also in the couple of markets, especially U.S. and China, where we say we wanted to hire some additional people focused specifically on either South of China or African-American U.S., And the new team is really looking at the brand in every possible way to understand how to really restart the growth for this brand starting from next year. And then in the medium long term, we beat this brand as a luxury brand in the cognac category as it deserves to be. As you know, H2 is going to be a transition period where we integrate the brand And we look at understanding as we go the full impact of H2. But medium term, I need to say that so far the team is really positive and we're all pretty excited about the opportunity that we see with this brand. And overall, I will say in the medium term with the category as well. I will pass to Paolo bridging with this picture, which is just something we also recently launched. which is the new line which we call the Garden of Splendor of Plain Grand with the 25 years old and 30 years old that are completing the range, which again is showing that the brand today is in a totally different place versus a few years ago. And I think this is going to be, in the medium term, another successful brand transformation story that we have up our sleeves.

So if you follow me to page 20, a few slides before we go back to conclusion and outlook and we open for the Q&A session. Page 20, you can see that the EBIT adjusted in organic terms in value by 2.1%, with a margin of 23.6% and 40 basis point organic dilutions. If you look at the second quarter in isolation, we had, you know, a sequential improvement of both net sales and EBIT, which showed an organic growth of 6.9% and 5.6%, respectively, with still a 30 basis point EBIT margin dilution in the second quarter on a standalone basis. Now, on a year-to-date basis, gross profit was up 3.4% with 30 basis points dilution and in the second quarter the gross profit organically was down in margin as a percentage of revenues by 60 basis points. The dilution of gross profit as a percentage of revenues was entirely due to the negative mixed effect coming from both The fast growth of Espolon, as we all know, comes with dilutive gross marginal revenues, as well as the impact of very poor weather conditions in EMEA negatively impacting the high-margin aperitifs in the second quarter. On the other hand, if you look at pricing in Cox, you know, the positive pricing impact, which was, as we said, skewed into the first quarter of the year, still on a year-to-date basis fully offset the tiny inflation, which is still there, which was largely driven by the negative carry-for-all effect of last year's high-cost stock that we've partly utilized in the first half of this year. Now, if you look at the AMP, it grew in value by 2.1% with 30 basis point margin accretion. In the second quarter, the accretion was consistent at 40 basis points due to The very poor weather condition that negatively impacted the second quarter and the start of the summer activations as a consequence of that. The SG&A were up 6% with the 40 basis point margin dilution. In the second quarter, the dilution was more minute at 10 basis point, reflecting the ongoing investments to ensure sustainable growth. On a reported basis, the EBIT adjusted grew by 0.1% with a negative perimeter effect of 0.5% in value and 40 basis point dilution due to the negative effect of agency brand, which were partly offset by the first-time consolidation of Urvoisier. Also, the effects were negative in value by 1.5% with 20 basis point dilution And again, this is the tail-end effect of the devaluation of the Mexican pesos versus both dollar and euro. A bid adjusted on a reported basis came in at 418.8 million euros with a value growth of 1.9%, which was driven by a healthy 3.5% organic growth, a negative 0.2% perimeter effect, and again, a negative 1.4% foreign exchange effect. If we move on to the following page, you know, segment analysis and review of EBIT by geography, Americas, which accounts for 44.9% of the overall group EBIT. The increase of EBIT organically in value accounted for 6.5%, with a tiny margin dilution of 10 basis points, which was driven by a gross margin accretion of 10 basis points, where the favorable pricing impact in both Brazil and Jamaica was more than offsetting the cost inflation and the negative mix effect due to the huge rise of Espolon bringing low gross profits on revenues. The AMP in America was accreted by 50 basis points due to phasing. And the SG&A in America were diluted by 70 basis points due to the ongoing investments in commercial and marketing infrastructure buildup. In the EMEA region, which accounts for 56.5% of the group profit, the EBIT organic growth accounted for 3.6% with the marginal accretion of 10 basis points. which was driven by gross margin dilution of 70 basis point due to less favorable seismics, as we said before, due to a softer performance of high margin aperitifs, which were impacted by very poor weather conditions, particularly in Italy and a few other European countries. The AMP was accreted by 30 basis points, mainly due to delay in start of summer activations. And the SG&A, on the contrary, were accreted by 50 basis points, driven by the phasing of build-up investments. In the APAC region, which accounts for a negative 1.5 percent of the group overall profit, we had a dilution of 960 basis points, which was driven by a dilution of the basis points at the level of gross profit with favorable seismics, more than offset by TASCOM based effects from H1 of last year. The AMP and SG&A were impacted by robust activation and phasing of investments in new route to market capabilities in the region to support the accelerated growth going forward. And those, you know, two cost lines, AMP and SG&A, create a dilution of 180 and 730 basis points. If you move on to page 22, other operating adjustments which were, you know, primarily related to the Courvoisier acquisition accounted for 24, the structuring of the Courvoisier acquisition accounted for 24.4 million euros in the first half. The total financial expenses came in at 33 million euros with a tiny increase versus a year ago of 0.6 million euros. The exchange gains accounted for 0.8 million euros versus exchange losses of the first half of last year of 10.5 million euros with significant benefits from low volatility in exchange rates. Now, if we excluded the tiny exchange gains of €0.8 million, the financial expenses came in at €33.8 million versus €21.9 million of last year, driven by higher average net debt amount, €1.9 billion this year versus €1.7 billion last year. due to the closing of the acquisition first half of this year, and the higher, and secondly, the higher average cost of funding following, on one hand, the redemption of mature bonds at low rates and the refinancing of those in a higher rate environment. Those, you know, were partly offset by the benefit of temporary high cash at hand ahead of closing and that repayment. The average cost of net debt, the coupon for the first half came in at 3.7%, so 1% higher than a year ago at 2.6%. Hyperinflation effects, this is Argentina, this is accounting and remeasurements driving 10.2 million euros of positive contribution to the bottom line. The adjusted pre-tax profit came in at 333.3 million euros, up 2.2%. And the pre-tax profit clean came in at 310.7 million euros flat versus a year ago. If we move on to the following page, 23, taxation came in at 94.1 million euros on a reported basis with recurring income taxes equal to 97.4 million euros. The net profit adjusted came in at 239 million euros, up 2.2%, where The recurring tax rate stood at 29.2% in first half, actually up 110 basis points versus a year ago due to the unfavorable country mix. The deferred taxes related to the amortization of brands for tax purposes amounted to 8.2 million euros in the first half of this year. down 2.7 million euros versus a year ago, and mainly due to the completion of the amortization of selected trademarks. Assuming the impact on non-cash component linked to deferred taxes, the recurring cash tax rate came in at 26.7% in H1, showing an increase of 200 basis points versus a year ago due to the combination of the two, you know, effects the increase in recovery tax rates and the decrease of deferred taxes, but this is in line with what we have already anticipated. The group net profit reported came in at €219.7 million, up 1.3%. Basic earnings per share adjusted at €0.2 per share, down 4.2%. Basic earnings per share at €0.18. If you move on to the following page, 24, we can see quite a remarkable improvement in recurring cash flow from operating activities before working capital changes. It came in at 395 million euros. In first half, up 54.8 million euros, or 16.1% versus a year ago. And that was due to an increase in EBITDA of 7.8 million euros and a reduction in tax paid due to mainly this is phasing, pure phasing of tax payment cycles across the year in the different jurisdictions. The recurring free cash flow, you know, excluding basically the extraordinary capex, was positive at 130.8 million euros. up 222.4 million euros versus a year ago when recurring cash flow came in at a negative 91.7 million euros. The increase of operating working capital in the first half accounted for 190.9 million euros, but that increase was significantly lower than the increase the group registered a year ago of 372.1 million euros. Net interest paid at 26 million euros, you know, marginally higher than a year ago, but, you know, 7.5 million euros due to the additional funding for the Courvoisier acquisitions. Excluding, you know, as said, the extraordinary capex, the maintenance capex came in at 47.5 million euros, 6 million euros ahead of last year. Now, if you look at the extraordinary capex, that is, you know, basically the difference between you know, total reported CAPEX of 290, 219, and the maintenance CAPEX. The extraordinary CAPEX in first half accounted for 171.5 million euros, and those were mainly related to the production capacity expansion project that we've announced, you know, remaining 550 million euros over 24 and 25, as well as the new headquarter building payment that accounted for 93 million euros in first half. um the investments in extraordinary capex are expected to continue as planned in the remainder of of this year as well as you know next year and and thereafter we're done with with extraordinary capex operating working capital page 25 as a percentage of net stale at the back end of june came in at 44.2 percent on a like for like basis so you know excluding courvoisier versus 37.9% of December last year, and 39.1% in June of last year. Operating working capital increase in the first half accounted for 648.5 million euros, of which the organic increase accounted for 190.9 million euros. Inventory growing by 53.8 million euros, and that was, you know, primarily driven by an increase of 40 million euros in aging liquid. But still, you know, the finished goods inventory increased by 10 million euros. driven by softer demand on aperitifs due to poor weather in Q2, limiting the envisaged reduction of finished goods. So, you know, this is, you know, we're in the Q&A, we may elaborate a little bit more, but, you know, this is where we're not exactly on track with the reduction of finished goods inventory that we will, you know, manage to achieve in second half of this year. Changes in receivable and payables accounting for 120 million euros and 16.8 million euros respectively are, you know, both in line with the seasonal trends. The perimeter effect is basically, you know, the first time consolidation of Courrovasier accounted for a step up in operating working capital of 439.9 million euros. with, you know, a prevailing component due to the maturing inventory, which accounts for 388 million euros. The foreign exchange impact accounted in the first half for 17.7 million euros, and it was mainly driven by the valuation of dollar and pounds. Move on to page 26. Net financial debt came in at €2,553,000,000 as at June end, up €699.7 million versus December and last year, reflecting the negative reported free cash flow of €60 million, a large due to cash absorption related to the extraordinary capital expenditures of €171.5 million, which I've just mentioned before. as well as, you know, the dividend payment of 78 million euros and the net impact of the Courvoisier acquisition, which was, you know, I said, a big cash outlay. Cash and cash equivalent at the back end of June stood at 555 million euros, marginally down versus December of last year. As you know, the financing for the Courvoisier acquisition has been Fully sorted out. The long-term Euro bonds and term loan amounted to 2.2 billion 375 million euros with an average coupon of 3.66%. On a reporting basis, that would be the ratio came in at 3.5 times. And this is including the earn house and put option for a total amount of €333.6 million. So, you know, the existing one as well as the ones related to the acquisition of Courvoisier. And that is about it on numbers. So, you know, I would happily hand back to Matteo for conclusion and outlook.