B&M European Value Retail S.A.

Good. Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of B&M European Value Retail's 2026 Financial Year Preliminary Results. My name is Andrew Orchard, Head of Investor Relations, and joining us today to present the results are Chair Diagon, our Chief Executive Officer, and Pete Waterhouse, our Interim Chief Financial Officer. So we'll start, as usual, with some prepared remarks, and then we'll devote some time at the end of the meeting to your questions. We'll take those both from you assembled in the room, and also anyone joining by the webcast can put a question into the chat function, and we relay them into the room by that method. And with that, let me hand over to Chet.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Andrew. Let's see if this works. Yeah, it works. So yeah, welcome to everyone to this presentation in the room and online. Before, I'm going to hand over to Piet. for the financial review of FY26. I would like to share the key highlights of the year set out on the slide number three behind me. So first of all, I'm pleased to announce, you know, profit came in at our midpoints of current guidance, adjusted EBITDA of 459. I'm also pleased that on the back of good working capital management, leverage came back within our range at 1.4. And I think that's a good foundation for driving future growth and over time share all the returns. Secondly, we're progressing at pace with back to BNM basics. Our actions are well advanced and the early indicators are encouraging, but much more to cover later. We've also started the phase two of our plan, where a lot of initiatives are already underway. And if you put it in perspective, phase two is all about balancing new space with investing in existing estate. And finally, I'm really pleased with the performance of our French business, so BNM France, growing like for likes, attracting more customers, and gaining share in a competitive market. But much more on all of this later. And before that, I would like to hand over to Pete to take us through the financial review of FY26. Pete, the floor is yours.

Just remember to pick up the clicker. Thanks for the introduction, Chair. Good morning, everyone. For those of you who have been with us a while, you may recall that I presented once before for BNM Although that was some time ago, not very used to speaking on the mics just yet. I'm pleased to be back with you today to take you through the group's financial performance in FY26. As I go through it, there's three or four things I'd like to focus on as we go through the financial information. The first is, it's been a tough year in relation to profitability with margin, cost line pressures. However, we've had robust cash flow, healthy leverage, and that drives investment flexibility for the future. Finally, I'll touch on the continued strong performance of France. Let's look at our key financial indicators. As Church just highlighted, FY26 represented a difficult year for the group. Profit was around the midpoint of our current guidance, and leverage end of the year in our one to one and a half times range. Our key indicators include revenue growth of 3.6%, driven by our store expansion program with flat like-to-like sales in B&M UK. Our profits were down. This was a result of trading margin and cost inflation impacts. Our out-term was an adjusted EBITDA of 459 million and profit before tax of 284 million. Whilst at the midpoint of our current guidance, these are significantly down on last year. Despite this, we've had strong cash generation with post-tax free cash flow of 321 million, which is 10 million better than last year. And leverage is also back in our target range. This demonstrates that we have the financial flexibility to make the investment choices that we need to make over the coming year. I'll now go into more detail. Our 3.6% revenue growth was driven by a new store opening program in the UK, where like-to-like sales were flat. And they also incorporated another strong performance from BNM France, with 13.4% overall sales growth, delivering an extra 73 million in group revenue. The chart in the top right illustrates the B&M UK estate program, which includes disciplined relocations and closures with older, lower contribution stores often replaced by larger, more productive stores within the same catchments. Like-for-like sales were flat. That's a significant step up from the prior results of negative 3.1%. Quarter by quarter, B&M have shown an improving like-for-like trajectory, except for the impact of the unusually warm and dry spring weather in quarter one last year. This directional improvement resulted in a positive 0.1% like-for-like in quarter four. France continues to be positive in each quarter. I'll call out their exceptional second quarter this year that benefited from annualizing the impact of introducing their new warehouse management system in FY25. That's an investment which keeps them set up for success into the future. It's also worth highlighting that France's positive delivery covers both FMCG and general merchandise categories. our year was underpinned by two key cost elements, trading margin pressures and cost inflation. In general margin, this includes both bought-in margins and clearance activity with pressures in both areas easing in FY27. We expect recovery here. FMCG margin is a result of our deliberate price investment to sharpen our value proposition on key value lines. This is how to be communicated in January at our quarter three trading update. This strategy strengthens our competitive position in the market as we move forwards. Here we can see the margin impact of the FMCG price investment and clearance activity that has taken place. we'll begin to annualize that investment from August. General merchandise showed encouraging signs of improvement in the second half, but we expect to build upon in FY27 as we restore our trading margin further. The other key cost element is our increased operating costs. A bridge is provided here. Key points of reference are the impact from statutory changes, national insurance, national minimum wage, and the new extended producer responsibility tax. That represented overall 66 million pound headwinds that was not sufficiently mitigated in FY26. Looking ahead, though, these pressures are materially reduced in FY27. And through the Back to B&M Basics program, we are taking targeted action to improve our cost control. More specifically, statutory pressures are easing in FY27, and whilst the Middle East conflict poses cost challenges around fuel, energy and freight, these are not on the same scale as the headwinds that we faced in FY26. Nevertheless, initiatives are alive in the business to address these cost pressures and ensure that the operating costs are kept under tight control going forwards. The result of our challenging year is lower profit delivery. This was signposted during the year with our final outturn around the center of our most recently issued guidance in January. I'd also call out France's strong performance on this slide, with profitability growth from 48 million to 53 million. That's an increase of 11.8%. Whilst their profit margin dropped slightly This is due to the planned investment made in their distribution center infrastructure, and that sets them up well to continue their overall growth into the future. France is a business that continues to impress. Lower profits did not mean lower cash, however. Our work in capital discipline, a feature of our back to B&M basics program, deliver strong free cash flow, reduce net debt, and finish the year with leverage back inside our one to one and a half times range. We do expect leverage to spike at the start of the golden quarter due to our usual seasonal trends. But over the full year, we expect to at least maintain working capital at this reduced level, and we are targeting further improvements in FY27. Our maintenance capex remains low at 1.1% of revenue. More than half of our overall FY26 capex represented new stores or DC infrastructure expansion. That included distribution center improvements at Ellesmere Port and Rugby, representing improvements to our supply chain network, and that will drive future benefits. Our cash generation and leverage profile gives us the ammunition to make capital investment choices, including disciplined investment in our existing estate as part of our strategic plan. Kirt will cover that more in his section. Our strong cash generation gives us clear capital allocation options. Our disciplined approach ensures that we prioritise investment back into the business whilst paying our regular ordinary dividends back to our shareholders. Where appropriate, our robust cash flow leaves space for opportunistic M&A, although this is not a priority at the moment, or additional capital returns with share buybacks now unlocked following the completion of our redumpsile process. Consistent with our usual seasonal cash profile, Any decision regarding additional returns is likely to take place immediately following our golden quarter in January 2027. In reflection. A difficult year driven by margin and cost challenges. Areas we've identified clearly in which we are addressing with early evidence of progress. Importantly, cash flow remains strong and leverage within our targeted range. That allows the necessary investment choices to be made to support the business strategy whilst maintaining our financial discipline. France, meanwhile, remains standout in performance terms, demonstrating how consistently strong execution of the BNN model can drive impressive performance and growth potential for the future. Finally, we're proposing to pay a final dividend of 6.1 pence per share giving total ordinary dividend of 9.6 pence per share for the year. This is in line with our 40 to 50% range specified in our capital allocation policy, and it's also in line with consensus. I'll now pass over to Chird. He'll take you through our strategic approach for FY27 and beyond.