B&M European Value Retail S.A.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Tjeerd Jegen and I'm a new CEO at BNM. As I've just recently started at BNM and I'm still in the middle of my induction, I felt recording this update is most suitable. This will be the only time I will do this. In future, I'm looking forward to giving live updates and holding Q&A sessions as I strongly believe in a direct and transparent relationship with our analysts and our investors that follow us. I would like to start with a few words of personal introduction. My professional career spends 13 years in retail and of that I have spent about half my time in food and half my time in non-food. I've worked in three different continents in both private equity and listed businesses. And before becoming a CEO, I was in the commercial and buying part of the retail companies I've worked at. And it's also my natural focus. I always start with looking at the customer proposition and looking at the business from the customer's perspective. The last 10 years, I've worked both in variety value retail and discount apparel. And it's my strong conviction that discount retail has tremendous potential, especially in physical stores. My motivation for taking on the B&M role is this. It provides me with the opportunity to use my international food and general merchandise experience to strengthen the groups customer proposition with the ultimate aim to bringing back sustainable light for light growth and new store growth both in the UK and in continental Europe. And most importantly, the very big driver for me is to help our customers save money when buying their daily needs at B&M. Having completed the first phase of my induction, I'm truly excited about the journey ahead. and the significant opportunities that lie before us. My early days at BNM have been extremely insightful. And as a reminder, I only started on the 16th of June, so even less than a month ago. I've had the pleasure of meeting many dedicated colleagues across our stores, our distribution centers, and support functions in both the UK and in France. And I've been impressed with them. I've been impressed with the commitment, the passion that underpins our operations. And what stands out to me is the business solid foundation that provides me with confidence as I look ahead. In my first four weeks, I focused on understanding B&M and immersing myself fully in the operations of the company. Since joining, I've spent time in stores where I've reviewed our operation from the perspective of our customers and our colleagues. I've worked in two B&M UK stores, receiving goods, stacking shelves and working on the checkouts. Spent time reviewing our DC processes and walking the floors of our largest DC. I've been to the French operation and did a deep dive there on the commercial approach. And finally last week I spent time at our Heron Foods business. and spend time with the senior team and visit a number of stores in the whole region. I've seen many things that will be the base for a comprehensive plan to improve the B&M business. In one sentence, we will make B&M a better place to shop and a better place to work. There are many strengths in our business, but I also have seen many opportunities. My early assessment is the fundamentals of our customer proposition and the business processes are solid. We can make this foundation even stronger by being more commercially astute, especially in B&M UK, bringing more energy, more excitement in our customer experience and simplifying and strengthening our offer to our customers. That said, it is still my early assessment after just a handful weeks in the company. And in the coming months, I'll take my initial impressions and build them into a comprehensive plan which will bring evolution and strengthening of the business model rather than a revolution at BNM. It's also my experience that in a weak economic climate, consumers turn to discount as a search of value. That is our opportunity. Despite the challenging last year, the relevance of BNM's proposition to households across the UK and France is very clear to me. We are a destination for shoppers who seek value, offering quality products at prices that genuinely make a difference. We have a low-cost business model that makes strategic choices, differentiating itself from the specialist general merchandising specialists and supermarkets. That said, we still provide great choice, and we offer a wide range of products at discount prices. And we have a strong financial model that generates attractive profit margins and cash conversion from a very limited asset base, which we then use to reinvest in the business or return to shareholders. And in the last three years, we have returned more than one billion pounds to our shareholders. Turning now to our trading performance for the first quarter of our financial year 26. And to be clear, that covers a 13-week period up to the 28th of June, 2025. In that period, group revenues increased by 4.4% to 1.4 billion. Driven by growth from new stores, new space, but also positive, like-for-like performance in both B&M businesses. Zooming into the UK, our largest business. B&M UK delivered revenues of 1.1 billion. a 4.7% increase, with a like-for-like sales returning positive at 1.3%. The positive like-for-like sales were mainly driven by robust performance from our general merchandise, outdoor ranges, of course benefiting from drier weather, especially in the month of April, together with the positive timing effect of Easter. The general merchandise market remains still subdued. and customers are cautious. However, our sales values and units increased on both like-for-like and a total basis. And as already mentioned, our outdoor ranges such as garden and do-it-yourself have performed well. As I touched on earlier, I do believe we can improve quite some aspects of our commercial and in-store execution. And we still make you do much more work in FMCG. However, Following some changes made in May, we've seen an improving trend in our health and beauty and cleaning categories. These categories have benefited from allocating more space in our stores to these categories and as a consequence, improving also their merchandising. Despite the solid sales performance in terms of volume and also value, average selling price deflation in some general merchandise categories has led to a lower trading gross margin in Q1. With our ASP changes beginning to annualize in the second quarter, and with a good line of sight on finished goods cost benefits coming through as freight and FX rates improve, we expect border and trading growth marches for new ranges to keep improving into second half. Moving to France. BNM France continued to make satisfactory progress with revenues of 136 million, a robust 7.6% increase, and like-for-like sales up 1.1%. Having been to B&M France two weeks ago, I'm really encouraged about the growth potential. The stores looked very good, and the brand is appealing more and more to the French customer. B&M France benefits from the buying skill of our UK business, but I also believe their benefits in terms of learning of the way our French business operates in that market that we can bring to our UK business. And finally, Heron Foods. Heron Foods recorded total revenues at a slight decrease of 0.4% in the quarter, and the team are working hard to improve aspects of execution, but importantly, Heron is still delivering a level of profitability that is significantly higher than three years ago. We've made good progress on store openings in the UK and in France, with ten net new stores in the UK and four in France, and Heron opened one store in Q1, with a focus firmly on improving like-for-like performance. Some final remarks on our first weeks here at B&M. I've seen firsthand the core strengths that underpin our investment case. I have observed our relevance to customers from the value of our products, And I know that we benefit from strong relationships with our suppliers, many of whom provide us with great brands for which we drive significant and growing volumes. I've also been impressed with our lean cost base and the discipline evident in our focus choices, underscoring a robust operational efficiency that is truly one of our great strengths. That said, although I've only spent a few weeks in the company, I've identified a range of opportunities to strengthen and evolve it. We will be working on this plan over the upcoming months and share this in due course with you. Thank you very much. I look forward to engaging further with all of you as we move forward.

Good morning and welcome to the fireside chat with Sher Jagan, our new Chief Executive. Although this is pre-recorded, the questions we're asking are the ones that are on the forefront of investors' mind. So with that, straight into it, Sherb. Can you talk about your career to date? What made you join B&M and what your initial impressions are of the UK market?

Thanks, Dave. So 30 years in business, of which 20 years in public companies, 10 years in private equity. Probably half the time in food businesses and half the time in non-foods. And the last 10 years, permanently in value variety and in discount. The reason I chose this job, I think with my background, with my experience, I can really help to get the proposition stronger again. And of course, with the aim to get sustainable life-for-life growth back into BNM and grow the business both in the UK and in Europe. And why the UK? I think it's one of the most competitive retail markets in the world. And for me, it's also a professional challenge to be successful here.

Good. Excellent.

What's your initial impressions of BNN? I think it's a really solid business. I think with a really, really strong business fundament. A very strong customer value proposition. I spent the last four weeks visiting and meeting many colleagues, customers, UK, France, DC stores, and I'm impressed with the talent, the caliber of the people. But I also see opportunities on the upside to strengthen the business. Especially, I think, from a operational and commercial perspective. I think we can be a bit more driving more trades, a bit more energy, a bit more excitement, but underlying a very strong business model and a very strong business proposition.

Okay, so what's been your focus to date and what's going to be your focus in the next few weeks and a few months?

I always use the three L's, so listen, learn and look. And, of course, starting with looking. So, as I said, I've really spent my time working in a store, replenishing the shelves, working on the checkouts, helping the teams, understanding the way a store operation works in the UK. I spent time in the largest DC, walked every single process and discussed with the senior team how to go about it. Then what was in France, where I spent a really good time understanding the commercial proposition, but also the difference of being in France versus being in UK. I've saw a lot, so I looked quite intensely. I've listened to many people, so I've asked and spoken with many people, customers and staff, in terms of the opportunities they see for BNN. And then finally, of course, looking and listening comes back to learning. And I'm building, let's say, my first impressions into... a comprehensive plan that will underpin and strengthen the business of P&M. That's ultimately my timeline. I think the first four weeks, which concluded last Sunday, were about listening, looking, learning, mainly internally, and now my focus is shifting more externally.

Okay, so what makes a successful retail business, and are discounters different? Do discounters have a different set of criteria for success?

I think a strong retailer is normally a retailer that offers great value for its customers and has a very clear differentiated customer value proposition. Good ranges, picking with what their target customer needs, strong store execution and good stores with great locations, underpinned by a really good logistics setup and depending on the industry and e-commerce network and a loyalty system, depending on what retailer you talk about. It always comes back to great culture and the right mindset of the teams. I think that's applicable to every single successful retailer. I think when it comes to discount, I always talk about discount in price. Everybody realizes that. But I think discount is also discount in complexity. So a discount store needs to have an added range, curated range. limited offer but a right offer for customers so you can buy in big quantities and pass on the buying advantage to your consumers. And it's a discounting complexity. So shopping in a discount store needs to be simple but the flip side is to keep costs low also the operations of a discount set up needs to be simple. And that's ultimately where discount differentiates itself from other retailers. It needs to be discounting price, discounting complexity, discounting time.

Very clear message. And it's very positive to see a return to positive like-for-like with this trading statement. But how much of that was down to the calendar impact and how much is down to a genuine underlying improvement in the performance of the business?

Yeah, it's of course positive like-for-like after quite a few quarters of negative like-for-like. There's of course a positive change, but I think we need to be realistic. Our assessment is about half of the 1.3% is due to the impact of weather and the calendar shift. So underlying, it's still a subdued number. And clearly, our ambitions and aspirations are larger than the 1.3% we just recorded. That said, within the FMCG area, where we have seen underperformance versus our general merchandise, we did take action. The team took action in health and beauty and cleaning. We gave more space to those categories, better merchandising, and we did see an improved trend underlying in those categories.

The trading statement talks about a reduction in the trading gross margin in the quarter and indeed the first half. What caused this and why are you confident of a stronger trading margin in the second half?

The origin of the lower trading margin is mainly a commercial decision. It was taken when seasonal ranges were bought and they were actually bought at a lower margin, which means lower pre-printed The retail price is on our mainly Zoom merchandise product. We're now selling those products. So the lower trading margin is now flowing through. We do have line of sight of the new seasons coming through. And we have bought at a higher margin. So our bought-in trading margin is higher. There's also positive effects from freight and FX. So as a consequence, we can forecast and we can see that our bought-in trading margin is going to be higher in the second half than the first half.

So what are your views on the longer-term margin range then? Do you think there will be a sustained decline in profit margin beyond this year?

I think to answer that question properly, I think we should look at the way at a bit higher level. I would look at margins of a business. I think ultimately trading margin is an outcome of many, many input elements. And I think there are three drivers of ultimately, let's take the EBITDA margin of a business. I think first of all, it's the volumes you're able to sell through your box. So your sales densities that have a significant impact on your EBITDA margin. The second one is, what is your board margin? So what price do you retail? What price do you buy? And what efficiency you have in buying? And the third one is then the operating efficiencies, the scale, and then the cost to serve, cost to deliver. I think if you're able to have a sustainable position, Ultimately, you also have a sustainable EBITDA margin. But I can tell you, I don't think we should be talking about price strategy changes if there's still so many opportunities in the business at this moment. And I'll give you an example. I think if you look at our UK business, we have quite a static four-week promotional program. While our stores are able to actually trade in a much more agile way, so to be able to trade the weather and shorter events and bring more change and more excitement, and as a consequence, more newness to our customers every single week in our stores, that will have a bigger impact on like-for-likes, in my view, shorter term, than implementing different price strategies. So let's first exhaust all the opportunities that we had before we turn there.

So moving on, can you explain, there was eight BNM UK closures in the quarter, right? That seems a large amount, particularly in the context of it only being a quarter. Can you talk a little bit about the closure program?

Yes, good question. I think ultimately the overall number of store openings hasn't changed. It's just a bit more front-loaded this year. And I think of the eight closures, five were relocations. And that's why the number was a bit higher, so it's more timing shift. But to put it in perspective, I think the moment we decide to close a store... It's always driven by the fact that that store has very little cash contributions. And I think we are a very disciplined company in terms of capital allocation and capital usage. And if we believe it's better to close a store with minimal contributions, I think that that's ultimately doing the right thing. And what we normally see, given the network in the UK, if we close a store, actually its sales will flow to an existing store in the area, which has a significantly more profitable impact. So it's part of pruning your estate, keeping your estate healthy. That said, the UK state is very healthy, but now and then a store closure is necessary.

Okay, so let's move on to the other side of the coin on store openings. Are you happy with the current pace of openings? Because B&M historically has always focused on control growth. So what's your view on the opening program in the UK and France in particular? Is it time to dial up the expansion there?

Now I think First, talking about the disciplined growth, an element that you mentioned there. You know, I've spent my last 10 years in private equity, and you're very focused on spending the money wisely because you've got very little capital to grow your business. And I really like the discipline that we have in B&M, both in France and the UK, that we're only open stores where we believe it's the great location for our customers, that the business case is sound, it's got a good payback, and that ultimately it's margin accretive for the whole estate. And I think we should never deviate from that. What the actual number should be, I think for now the numbers that I've seen coming through in the plan and the objectives, they look sound to me. Clearly we need to assess longer term. But for the moment, I think the opening plan as it's currently planned is the right plan for me.

So moving on, you and a significant number of the senior management team and the board have been buying shares recently. Do you think this is important? And any comments you care to make around that?

Again, coming out of private equity, I don't know any better because I'm used to in private equity that the CEO and the rest of the leadership team, the management team, would normally invest quite significantly in the company they lead. And I think it's the perfect alignment then of the shareholder and management interest and doing the right things ultimately for the equity investors in the business. So I don't know any better. I think the fact that a broader group of people in the company has taken that decision reflects the opportunity we see longer term for BNM. I think that should be a good signal.

Good, excellent. And finally, what's your timetable for telling us and the market more about the long-term plans for BNM?

Yeah, I think first of all, I think most importantly, I'm really up for transparency with our shareholders. And again, this was a pre-recorded message, but ultimately we would like to with much more direct engagement, but also has spent time with investors and analysts over time to get their views as well on our business. I'm still absorbing and listening, learning and looking, as I shared earlier. All the observations will come into a framework of opportunities and the opportunities will be converted into a comprehensive plan for the business with the aim to improve its proposition and ultimately bringing back sustainable like-for-likes in Europe and in the UK. And the timing of that will probably coincide with the H1 update. And as everybody knows, at the H1 update, we will also give our guidance for the remainder of the year. And it's also the natural moment to come with a plan for the business.

Good. Well, I'm sure the market will be looking forward to it. Thank you all very much for listening. Thanks.