Dr. Martens plc

Good morning everyone and welcome to our FY25 half one results presentation. I'm joined today by Giles Wilson, our Chief Financial Officer and EJ Wakodi, our Chief Brand Officer. So our agenda for today, I'm going to provide a short introduction before handing over to Giles who will walk us through our half one financial results. Then I'll provide a business update before EJ informs us on our brand and how we are refocusing it. Our first half performance is in line with our expectations. Back in May, we communicated four key objectives for this year, and I'm pleased to say that we are making good progress on all of them. The action plan we are executing in the USA direct-to-consumer business is working and will return this business to growth in the second half. We've pivoted our marketing to relentlessly focus on our product, and EJ will pick up on this in detail. We've reduced our operating cost base ahead of schedule and Giles will walk through this. And we have strengthened our balance sheet while delivering on the reduction in inventory that we promised. We said that FY25 would be a year of action and we are taking focused action. Now over to Giles, who will now walk us through the results.

Thank you, Kenny, and good morning, everyone. As Kenny has set out, our first half has been about delivering on our plan, setting the foundations for the key peak trading period. Before I run through the financial results, I would like to highlight four key areas. I set out back in May that we would take out 20 to 25 million of costs from the business on a four year basis with the full benefit in FY26. I am pleased to report we have delivered at the upper end of that range at 25 million of annualized savings. We have reduced inventory through reduced purchases and are on track with our target. Last week, we successfully completed the refinance of the group's banking facilities. During this process, we use excess cash generated from the reduction in inventory to pay down the term loan by circa 40 million and reduce the level of the rolling credit facilities to be aligned with future liquidity requirements. We are on track to deliver our financial results for the full year with our key trading months still ahead of us. The swift action taken on the cost plan and the tight cost management helps underpin our full year results. I said at the full year, I would focus on delivering more clarity in our financial results presentation. At this half year and going forward, we will set out our financial results both on the reported currency and a constant currency basis versus the prior year. This will allow us to show the true impact of underlying trading, taking out the impact of foreign translation on our reported numbers. For this year, we have also introduced adjusted profit metrics, due to the one-off costs largely related to delivering the cost action program. Turning to the financials themselves, in later slides I will give more detailed explanations of the key financial metrics. Our key financial headlines are as follows. Total payers are down 20%. However, due to better D2C mix, revenue is only down 16% at $332 million. on a constant currency basis and in line with our expectations. Gross margin is down in line with revenue with gross margin rate broadly flat year on year. Operating costs have been well controlled with strong cost management allowing for extra investment in demand generation to support the brand as we head into the busy peak period. Overall adjusted EBIT is a loss of 2.4 million and adjusted PBT loss of 16.1 million, both significantly back on last year, but in line with our expectations. During the period, we incurred 9.3 million of exceptional costs, mainly related to the Cost Action Programme, and 1.6 million due to the currency gains and losses impact on our accounts receivables and payables and our Euro debt. At the EPS level, there is a loss at adjusted EPS of 1.1 pence. Dividend is set at one-third of the previous year's total dividend, in line with our guidance in May. Turning to revenue by channel. As explained on the previous slide, we are showing constant currency for year-on-year comparison. We guided at the four-year results that wholesale revenue would be down by about a third. with actual results slightly better than guidance, delivering 27% or $55 million down on year-on-year. D2C revenue is down by 5% or $9 million, with total revenue down 16% or $63 million on a constant currency basis, in line with guidance given in May. I'll explain the movements on the next slide. Our D2C mix improved, driven by fallback and wholesale, The owned store estate increased by 13 stores year on year and was broadly flat in the half. I introduced this slide at the full year. The boxes in the bridge set out the key movements by channel and market. Starting with Americas, the key driver in the revenue decline was £27 million of wholesale, as expected. Kenny will pick up later the time lag on wholesale recovery. American's DTC was marginally down by 3 million, driven by weak retail footfall offset by slightly better performing e-commerce, all again in line with our expectations. Turning to EMEA, wholesale was again in line with our expectations and partly impacted by shipment timing differences due to the timing of Easter. EMEA DTC, as indicated in May, was also impacted by the timing of Easter and sale. together with weaker sandal performance in the summer, particularly in retail, delivered a 7 million year-on-year decline. However, as we entered the boot season towards the end of quarter two, we saw DTC performance improve to be back in positive territory in both Americas and EMEA. Finally, in APAC, the slight decline in wholesale is as planned, and in DTC, we saw continued year-on-year growth in Japan, partially offset by weaker performance in Hong Kong and South Korea. Overall, our regional and channel performance was in line with our expectations. Our DCC revenue performance was better in second quarter, with retail in quarter one generally weak across the group. The underlying EBIT drops from 39.7 million H1 last year to a 2.4 million loss on an adjusted basis this year. Stepping through the bridge, 50.1 million reduction from the impact of volume at standard gross margin, predominantly due to the decline in wholesale revenue as explained. The impact of better DTC mix and price adding 8.3 million. As indicated at the full year results, we increased support behind our brand by 1.8 million. We tidy control costs even before the impact of the cost action program. delivering 2.3 million reduction in operating costs. A small increase in depreciation due to the increase in stores. The exceptional costs and FX translation, as I explained earlier. A key area of focus has been reducing our inventory. This slide sets out the planned inventory reductions over the two years, split into the two halves. The chart starts at FY23 with inventory at 258 million. During the first half of FY24, we built up levels to 315 million. And then during the second half of FY24, we used that inventory to sell during peak period, closing the year with 255 million of inventory. As we entered FY25, The reduced plan purchases can be seen on the chart with the half year inventory position slightly down versus the FY24 year end. And as we enter the second half of FY25, we sell down inventory during our peak period. For the avoidance of doubt, our plan reduction in inventory is part of an organized reduction of purchases of core product in FY25. not through significant discounting or selling stock below cost. We remain on track to deliver our year-on-year target for a decrease of 40 million. We will continue the inventory reduction into FY26, with purchases planned to again be below our forecasted sales. Turning now to cash flow. there has been a significant positive reduction in both net bank debt and total debt year on year. The grey boxes are the net bank debt, being the bank debt less cash, and the red boxes show the lease liabilities. Total debt drops from £479 million at the end of H1 FY24, as shown in the column on the far left, to £349 million, as shown on the column on the far right. a total of $130 million reduction year-on-year, split $85 million decline in net bank debt from cash generation and $45 million decline in IFRS 16 debt. The bridge sets out the cash flow from FY24 year-end position. Starting with the second column, which is the net debt at FY24 close, the next four boxes show underlying operating cash movement in period, We've tightly managed our cash position this period with a particular focus on bringing down inventory, as I have just talked through. Overall, the impact of EBITDA and working capital movements deliver 39 million cash inflow. This is then offset by lease payments of 28 million and interest and tax payments of 13 million. CapEx accounts for 11 million, and with a positive impact of FX on our Euro debt, sees overall net debt marginally increase by 9 million since the full year. As I explained on the previous slide, we would normally expect to see a larger inventory purchase in H1 in advance of peak, which would see our net debt increase significantly from the prior full year position. However, this is not the case this half, given the plan reduction in purchases. Our net debt to EBITDA finished the half at 2.3 times, well below our bank covenants, leaving significant headroom. Finally, some new metrics on this slide showing our average lease term to break across past store and distribution center portfolio. As explained in previous results, the group tightly manages its store portfolio with all leases having no longer than five years before the first break. For H1, the average lease exposure to break was 2.8 years, marginally down on the full year average. Overall, as I set out at the full year results, cash flow is a key focus and we have significantly decreased net debt year on year, predominantly driven by our strategy to turn inventory into cash. At the full year results, we said we would deliver between 20 and 25 million of cost savings. we undertook a detailed and swift process to tackle our cost base. The key process and principles we adopted were as follows. A detailed analysis of FY24 costs were carried out versus prior years, by function, by region and cost line. Each global leader was then tasked to identify savings against these FY24 costs. Direct demand generating marketing costs and frontline retail teams were not included in the project. The focus was predominantly on support, operational and back office costs. Cost saving targets were not against future or uncommitted costs and therefore had to be true reductions from actual costs. Headcount reduction took place across all levels in the organization. There was an establishment of a steering committee with a dedicated team to support the cost action plan. This also aided the speed of execution. Programs were put in place to exit levers on a fair basis and also support the teams going forward. And finally, during the first half, certain guardrails around recruitment, discretionary operational spend, and capital spend were put in place over and above the normal controls. The process was effective and completed in advance of our peak period. The outcome of this swift, detailed, and well-controlled process is the Cost Action Programme was completed with the savings at the top end of the range of £25 million in FY26. The make-up of these savings are approximately two-thirds through headcount reduction, leading to an exceptional charge but to the half-year of circa £7 million, as explained earlier. The remaining third will be through efficiency and procurement savings. I'm pleased to share that on the 19th of November, we've refinanced the group, with a new facility of 250 million term loan replacing the existing 337 million Euro term loan and 126 million and a half rolling credit facility replacing our previous 200 million rolling credit facility. Our previous facilities were due to expire in early 2026 and therefore I felt it was sensible to secure the new funding facilities slightly ahead of time to give certainty as we go into FY26 and return to growth. The key features are as follows. An initial term of three years with the option to extend both facilities by two additional one-year term subject to lender approval. An interest rate ratchet relating to key net debt to EBITDA ratios. A maximum government of three times net debt to EBITDA We have 12 banks in the facilities made up of a mix of existing and new banks. The facility is structured to meet the future liquidity requirements of the group, and it was clear with the planned inventory reductions that there was excess funds to allow us to reduce the term loan to $250 million. In addition, the rolling credit facility, which has only been used a couple of times since the IPO, has also been reduced from $200 million to $126.5 million. The new facility gives us more than enough liquidity to meet the group's future requirements. We don't foresee any changes to net finance costs compared to consensus expectations as a result of the refinances. So to conclude, overall, the first half has been about delivering what we said we would do. We have delivered in line with our expectations. We have focused on our cost base and delivered our cost action plan. We have managed cash tightly and seen inventory and net debt significantly reduce year on year. Finally, we are pleased to have successfully refinanced the group's borrowing facilities. I will now hand over to Kenny.

Thank you, Giles. I'm now going to talk a little more about each region before moving on to systems and product. Turning first to the USA, which is a high priority market for us. As you can see from the Circana data, the total boots market in the USA continues to be challenging with a 12% decline year on year. We're assuming that this weak backdrop will continue into the second half and as previously communicated, we expect our USA wholesale business to be down double digit year on year. However, despite the external environment, we're pleased with the progress we're seeing in our USA action plan. On the left, you see what we said we would do, and on the right, you see what we've done. In marketing, we increased our investment in the USA as a percentage of revenue. We focused on talking specifically about our products, and as you will hear from EJ, we've recently launched our Boots Like No Other campaign. We've elevated the quality of our retail windows in key cities, and we've utilized more social media to drive consideration of our brand. In digital, we have driven double digit improvements in conversion by improving the quality of our product detail pages and optimising our checkout process. And we have also implemented order in store, which we already had in our EMEA business. In wholesale, we knew this year would not be about growth. However, we've been working closely with our key wholesale partners in continuing to reduce in-market inventory and building plans for the year ahead. Since the start of Autumn Winter 24, a direct consumer business in the USA has been encouraging with improved consumer demand. As we have outlined before, there is a lag between consumer pool and wholesale orders. In the months ahead, our partners will place orders for Autumn Winter 25, and more encouraging consumer demand today should lead to a stronger USA order book for Autumn Winter 25. As product momentum continues to build next year, there is the opportunity to take in-season reorders to drive growth. Turning our attention to EMEA, we have continued to see good strategic progress in our EMEA conversion markets. Italy, Spain and the Nordic saw good growth in H1, while German revenues were flat. We remain confident in the future growth prospects of these markets. We launched our first stores in three new European countries with the opening of Stockholm, Copenhagen and Vienna. These markets provide further runways for growth. Also, we've seen real success in key cities where we've opened two stores. Some examples include Milan, Berlin and Barcelona. And we see further opportunities ahead in more markets, both in EMEA and globally. Back at our full year results in May, I shared an update on our Japanese market which continues to perform well and which remains a significant growth driver as we have high brand engagement and low penetration at only four pairs per thousand people nationwide. Japan remains our largest DTC market with 80% of revenues through our own channels and we continue to target new store openings in and around both Tokyo and Osaka. We have a healthy franchise business with great partners And this remains an important part of our growth strategy. Our franchise partners help us in extending our reach beyond Tokyo and Osaka and growing the brand across Japan. In H1, we opened three new DTC stores and two franchise stores. And we have a strong new store pipeline in H2 and the year ahead. As you're aware, we've been investing in critical systems for our future growth. And I'm pleased to say that two of our biggest projects are now live or close to final implementation. The customer data platform, which gives us a single consumer view across both direct-to-consumer channels, is now live in EMEA and the USA. And this will enable more targeted marketing and personalized journeys. The benefits from the CDP will increase over time as we gather more data. Our demand and supply planning system will be live by end H1 FY26. This will help us to improve availability whilst reducing working capital. And again, we expect the benefits to build over time. Our product performance in H1 was in line with our expectations, with direct consumer pairs down 3% on the year. As expected, boots were down 12%. and we have made changes to our marketing approach from July, which will drive boots demand in H2. Shoes performed well with pairs up 7%, driven by core product and new styles like the Lowell shoe, which is shown in the middle picture here. Sandals were flat year on year, a disappointing performance following several years of growth. This is an area for improvement in spring-summer 25. Within sandals, we saw strong performance for mules, a growing category. We have a strong product pipeline coming through, and as we called out in our statement, current trading has been driven by good DTC sales of new product supported by a product-led marketing approach. I'm now going to hand you over to EJ, who will walk us through AW24 focus today. Thank you.

Thank you, Kenny. And hello, everyone. I'll now share the progress we've made with one of our four focus areas, pivoting our marketing towards relentlessly promoting our products. I'm nine months in as the Chief Brand Officer, a new role created to pull together our product, marketing, sustainability, and strategy efforts to drive the brand. And it'll be an honor to take over as CEO of Dr. Martin's next year. It's a brand that I not only love, but have always marveled at its resonance across demographics and cultures from generation to generation. While we have a lot of hard work to do, I'm encouraged by the progress we are making and excited by the opportunities ahead. We pivoted our marketing approach and organization this year based on three strengths that I found were underplaying in our marketing. First, a premium position in the category, by which we simply mean that the consumer is willing to pay more than the category norm for our products because they recognize the higher quality, design, and craft of those products. Second, the consumer connection with our iconic DNA that allows us to connect both new and core products, so we get more bang for our marketing buck. So we will amplify the things that make Docs Docs, like the yellow stitch, the groove sole, the heel loop, and our distinctive silhouettes. And third, the correlation between our product attributes, comfort, style, protection, et cetera, and the things that drive consideration for footwear buyers. Back in May, as part of this marketing pivot, Kenny shared this slide laying out the key product plan for autumn-winter 24. We still have the height of the season to come, but I want to share some early progress. The product pipeline is strong, so we'll continue to have more great products to drive our marketing efforts for seasons to come. In July, we launched a variant of our core icons in our soft letter. We call it Ambassador. We know comfort is one of those attributes that really matters to consumers. And while we have great comfort options, we haven't made it a big part of our marketing efforts. So we leaned in hard on comfort with the line, We've Gone Soft, and focused all our channels from social media to in-store experiences and the organization on a whole on the comfort message. This has done really well for us, significantly outperforming comparable products from Honor Winter 23. We've continued pushing these products through the season, and they have consistently been in our top selling products season to date. Comfort works really well for us. In August, we launched our Aniston boot, a biker boot style that borrows from our iconic and recognizable DNA to create a new silhouette for Dr. Martens. It leans on our premium position compared to our iconic 1460 boot, retailing at £210 in the UK versus a black smooth 1460 in at 170 pounds. We're pleased with the performance so far, with strong sell-through metrics and consumer reaction. The future product line will continue to reflect this elevated style as our designers make the most of our premium position. Another example of the premium coming through in the new product is the Mabel square toe, which we focused on in September. At 160 pounds, the Mary Jane shown here sells at a 20-pound premium versus the related core product. Again, we've seen very strong sell-through metrics globally season to date. The Chelsea Booth version you see on the right of the slide is a particular commercial and social media hit. In October, we switched our focus from new product back to the core, and the iconic 1460 boot in particular albeit with a few new friends. Let me share the global campaign we made, and then I'll share a few ways we've executed it in the market. Thank you. Mayor Bruce, the actor in that piece, models the iconic 1460 boot alongside new products inspired by it. The sub-boot max, which is a big part of our cold weather lineup, and the dramatic 14xx that showcases Doc's product innovation at its most avant-garde. But the focus of the campaign is the 1460 black smooth boot and the core of our brand. While fully reigniting our core icons will take several seasons, we're pleased with how much attention this campaign is getting. You can see on this slide some of the marketing in key cities globally. The campaign came to life on streets, in all our retail stores around the world, and in collaboration with many of our wholesale partners. Since it launched, I've visited teams in Berlin, New York, and of course London, and the engagement and feedback we're getting from consumers on the ground is encouraging. It's work that we will carry forward. And this month, As the weather turns cold in most of our markets, we've turned our marketing lens on another product benefit, protection, with the launch of our winterized line. This has only just landed, but again, the new product lines look great and early consumer feedback is positive. I hope that gives more color on the product-led marketing pivot. The observations and insights guiding the work and the early results we're seeing. Thank you for listening. I look forward to getting to speak to you more in the coming months in my new role. Back to you, Penny.

Thank you, EJ. As you have heard, we are on track to deliver on our four key objectives that we set out for this year. We will get USA DTC back to growth in H2. We have refocused our marketing on our product. We've reduced our cost base and we have strengthened our balance sheet. EJ and Giles will update on our crucial Q3 period at the end of January. Today marks my last results presentation as the CEO of Dr. Martens before handing over to EJ in the new year. When I joined Dr. Martens back in 2018, it was a brilliant brand. It is still a brilliant brand, but it is now a bigger and better company with more developed infrastructure and incredible people. The most exciting part is that the best still lies ahead for Dr. Martens. And I look forward to watching EJ, Giles, and the team realize that growth opportunity in the years ahead. Thank you. We will now turn things over to a live Q&A. Please state your name and who you work for before asking any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question is from Kate Calvert from Investec. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Morning, everyone. Two from me. You mentioned that you would reduce the purchase of core products again in FY26. Is this likely to be less of an opportunity than you have achieved in the current year? And I suppose thinking a little bit further forward in the implementation of the new supply and demand system, will the benefits from that really be felt in FY27, or do you think you can get any in 26? And then in terms of my second question, Any thoughts on manufacturing cost price inflation going into next year? And how will this feed through into price for next year? Because I do note EJ's comment on the premium for the standing of the brand and the fact that people are perhaps prepared to pay more. Thank you.

Morning, Kate. Thank you very much. Yes, you're correct. We do envisage that we will buy less product next year than we're going to sell. We've not quantified the scale of that reduction yet, but I think one would expect, again, a significant reduction in inventory year on year, which in the future Giles will clarify. In terms of the impact of the new supply and demand system, that would really benefit financial year 27 in terms of improving forecast accuracy. On the second question, Giles is going to talk to manufacturing costs, and then I can tell you what we've done on pricing.

Yeah, I mean, so manufacturing costs, we obviously, as we do, we always have a cost inflation. We look to try and manage that the best we can. So, no, we don't see any huge impacts from manufacturing price across inflation in the new year.

And in terms of the second part of the question, which was around consumer pricing, our pricing for autumn-winter 25 is already set, and on light-for-light products, you will see no price increases from the brand.

Okay, thanks very much.

Thank you. Our next question is from Ben Ryden-Martin from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Great. Hi, Kenny, E.J., and Giles. Thanks very much for the questions today. I've had three, please. My first is just on the wholesale channel, particularly in U.S. and Europe. Just interested maybe if you can talk to, I guess, what you're seeing with your partners' sellout trends and inventory levels at the moment across both of those markets. super helpful with some of those commentary around how you're thinking about the US from here. I'm interested in, I guess, what you're seeing at the moment. And the second question would just be on gross profit margins. Might just be worth useful. It might be useful stepping through, I guess, the drivers between the change year on year. I think it was slightly down versus last year's metric. And then finally, just on OPEC savings, excellent effort in terms of getting through those quite quickly. I'm interested now, do you think the cost base is kind of at a stable level where you can kind of reposition for growth? Or do you think there's still opportunities for efficiencies as we go forward? Thanks. Great.

Thank you, Ben. I'll take the first one on wholesale, and then Giles is going to pick up on gross profit and OPEX. In terms of what we're seeing in the wholesale channel, I think, you know, as we've said, we expect wholesale to be down this year. We know that because we know on the order book. In terms of the sellout, the trend is not as good as our DTC business. However, the really encouraging fact is the inventories at our wholesale customers, both in Europe and in the USA, are down more than the sellout. So the slide that I showed earlier today about the lag effect The improving and encouraging trends we're seeing in direct-to-consumer, I think we'll see some of that translate into wholesale next year.

Thanks, Kenny. In regards to gross profit or gross margin, you're right, it's actually broadly flat year on year, but it's very, very slightly down. We've seen a positive move on D2C, which obviously helps. We've seen a slight headwind in regards to our product mix. So there's lots of sort of moving parts in there. But overall, we've managed to hold our gross margin flat. In terms of OPEC savings, I think what we said when we set out the beginning of the year, I'm sorry, at the full year results, we said that we would focus on operational back office, procurement savings, those sort of things. We wouldn't cut into the muscle of the business. We wouldn't take any cut out of direct marketing or out of retail stores, which is exactly what we've done. we believe that we have now right-sized the cost base for the business today.

Great.

Thanks very much. Thank you. Our next question is from Richard Taylor from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got three, please. Firstly, can I push you a bit more on inventory, please? I think this was just over 100 million back in FY21-22. Realised that was during COVID, so perhaps not the right time to think of that. But is there any chance that you can get down to that sort of level over the medium term with your current D2C and wholesale split? Secondly, Giles, you mentioned the lease duration being quite short on stores if you do want to come out. Just wondered, did you allude to this because you were considering making some cuts to the store portfolio? And more generally, can you update us on your approach between D2C and the use of wholesalers as you look forward? And then finally, thank you for the data on the boots market. Can you help us sort of match up how you performed versus this market over the last 12 months or so?

We start with inventory, Richard. We're not quantifying the number today. I think what we're saying is that we will buy less core product again next year than we're going to sell. So we'll start to see that inventory come down, but we're not going to quantify the exact number today. Do you want to talk about the leases?

Yeah, so turning to leases, we made reference to it really so that people understand the full extent to the lease liability and also the fact that we very tightly manage our store portfolio and we never have anything longer than a five-year lease or a break at five years. In terms of are we planning to exit? No, it was focused solely around giving it an explanation by what we do to make sure that we manage leases very tightly are both capex and our leases.

I think in terms of your second part to that question, Richard, around DTC and wholesale, I mean, clearly what we've said is that both channels are really important to the company. You know, we've driven our growth over the last few years by building out the direct-to-consumer business, and we'll continue to do that going forward. But we know that one of the things that wholesale does is it brings new consumers into the brand for those people who wake up in the morning and they haven't decided which brand they want yet. And they go, we want to pay the boots and they go to a store and they discover a great assortment of Dr. Martin. So both channels, DTC and wholesale will continue to be important to us. In terms of the boots market in the USA, where we gave the statistic of the boots market being down 12% year on year. I think clearly we've said that our business in the USA was down more than that. So in the first half of the year, this year, we've underperformed relative to that. Most of the action plans we put in place in the United States were intended to deliver getting the USA DTC business back to growth in the second half. And as we've said, we feel encouraged by where we are in terms of current trading in the United States, and we believe that we'll deliver on those numbers. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Just a reminder to ask a question, it is star followed by one. Our next question is from Charlie Rothbart from HSBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much, Steve, for taking my questions. I wanted to ask you about inventory, but I think another question on that might be overdone. Can I just push you a bit on your leases? I don't know any company that says they aren't tightly managing leases. Across your portfolio, are you seeing... rental costs come down in the areas you're in, or are you seeing them stay flat? And the impact, are you keeping your store portfolio, are you expecting to keep it constant across your region? Sorry, the proportion within your region, because I appreciate the guidance you gave us before the UK budget, so increases in NI might well impact how you viewed stores at the marginal level.

I think if we take the last question first, you know, I think Dr. Martin's does 82% of its revenue outside the UK and 18% in the UK. So we're very much a global brand. And as we've said previously, we have no real plans to... significantly increased the store estate in the uk i think looking out you know our focus will be on growing the brand outside the uk in terms of new store openings i think you see that this year in terms of the stores we've opened have been in predominantly in in europe and in japan i don't know if you want to talk to cost jiles uh rental costs now i mean basically it's i mean city by city country by country uh we focus we do the best deals we can do

but actually, interestingly enough, where we feel the rental costs are too high, we will look to either exit that store or actually maybe not take on that store, and actually you will have noticed this year that we have actually taken down the number of stores that we were planning to open, not because we don't want to open them, but because we couldn't find the right stores that delivered the right financial metrics.

Okay, thank you very much. And then finally, are you expecting a material difference in your finance costs on the back of the refinancing?

As explained during the presentation, we expect finance costs to stay in line with consensus already guided.

So nothing less than that. Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you. Our next question is from Bob Pyrell from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, it's Pyrell here from RBC. Thank you. I have one question on the product strategy, if that's okay. I guess it's directed to Ige. I'm just wondering, really, whether there is any inclination to transition some of the offer towards more technical categories. We've seen a strong growth profile in, you know, hiking and outdoor pursuits post-COVID. I think some of your editors have been perhaps better positioned to capitalize on that trend. And we know Dr. Martens has a slightly more lifestyle-focused positioning. So is that an area that you see as an opportunity? And can we expect to see some changes to the overall product portfolio? Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks, Viral. The first thing to say is I'm a real believer in our product strategy. And if you look at my presentation just now, the level of attributes we can talk to our products about really excite the market and work in the market. So I don't think this is about any new product strategy, but we will speak to functionality. And so things like comfort might create new wearing occasions for our users and for our wearers. And that's a good thing. But no, we have no plans to to go compete in other people's spaces. We're quite happy with where we're positioned. We just have to work harder to make sure that the customer is discovering the right product. And when we do that, we're already sure that that works really well for our brand.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Kate Calvert from Investec. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Doesn't sound like Kate's got another question.

Kate, your line is not open. No worries, I will close your line. Kate, your line is not open if you did want to ask a question. Can you hear me now?

Yes, Kate.

Okay. Just a question on your Sandals performance, because you called that being disappointing. I'm just wondering why do you think it was disappointing? What do you think potentially you got wrong there?

EJ's got to take that one, Kate.

Thanks, Kate. It's a good question and one that we've really paid some attention to. The first thing to say is that that Sandals performance is coming off of a few years of significant growth in Sandals. I think over the three, four, five years, you know, Sounders has grown from 5% of our business to 9% of our business. So just a bit of context for that performance. We also would say to ourselves that our summer lineup needed a bit of refreshing. And there are products that did really well in there. We did really well with mules, but we needed a bit more newness in our summer lineup. We would be, we'd have to admit to ourselves. And so I'm really excited about what we have in this spring, summer lineup. I think we're really excited about that line. So a bit of context that we're coming off of quite a few years of strong comps, but also we could put a few more things in the product line, and we'll do that this upcoming spring-summer.

Okay, great. Thanks.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads now. We currently have no further questions so I'll hand back to Kenny for closing remarks.

Great, thank you very much. So I think today really has been about demonstrating that we have delivered on the action plan that we set out back in May. Our results are in line with expectations and we're delivering on our strategic objectives. We'd like to thank you for your time and for your attention. And our next update will be at the end of January when EJ and Giles will update on our third quarter performance. Thank you so much.