Dr. Martens plc

Like I said, we've been busy, and I'm proud of what our people have been up to in the first half of the year. So let's get into it. I know you would have seen the statement this morning, and so Giles and I will cover three things. I'll share a brief introduction, just frame a bit of what we're up to, and then Giles will pull out some of the key themes from our performance in the first half, and then I'll give you an update on the strategy that we introduced to you back in June. So I'm pleased to report, as we saw on the slide, that we are on track with the execution of the strategy and on track with our guidance for the year. I'll go into each one of the four levers later on, but I also want to be clear that we still have some challenges that we're addressing, particularly with boots and sandals and with EMEA direct-to-consumer. Yet overall, we're doing what we said we would do. with good cash generation and cost control driving good financial progress. And as I will keep telling you, I'm laser-focused on execution, and the work we've done to date gives me confidence that we will deliver our four-year results as planned. Giles will go into more detail now on how we performed in that.

Thank you EJ and good morning everyone. I'm here today to talk through our first half results and I'm pleased to report good progress in all our key metrics. But before I go into any detail, I felt it important to share with you how we're making decisions and how we're running the business. We are focusing on making the right decisions for the long term while making sure we control our costs and our financials in the short term, as evidenced through our Cost Action Plan last year and our significant reduction in our leverage position. This means we have FY27 and beyond at the front of our minds. We're making those decisions and the actions we are taking. A really good example of this is in our first half year results has seen been a focus on improving our full price sales and reducing markdown volume, especially in the periods outside more normal promotional events. Therefore making markdown directly related to those promotional events or as a tactical way to reward existing consumers and drive new customer acquisition. This principle has also guided our approach to US tariffs actions and to make sure we make optimal decisions for FY27 and beyond. We have worked closely with our wholesale and our supply chain partners in timing of those actions. So turning to our key financials and as I introduced last year, I will focus on constant currency comparison as this reflects the true underlying performance of the business. Just before I go into any detail and to flag at the outset, as you know, at the year end, we changed the definition of adjusting items to include impairment of financial assets and the H1 FY25 has therefore be represented accordingly. So turning to the financials, our revenue performance shows a small growth year on year, up 2.7 million to 327.3 million. And crucially, revenue quality was better as we focused on full price sales and a reduction in our markdown sales. The impact of better quality of revenue and focus on our costs can be seen in our profit lines, especially in operating profit, which swings by £6.5 million from a loss last year to a £3.4 million profit this year. After accounting for interest, our profit before tax is still a loss of H1, but a significant improvement on H1 last year. And as I'll explain in more detail, this is after accounting for a tariff headwind and demand generation timing headwind as well. Our dividend is declared at 0.85p, which as a reminder is a formulaic for the half, being one third of the prior year full dividend. Finally, I talked to you in June about the focus we've had on reducing net debt, and we've continued to strengthen the balance sheet in H-Rub, with net bank debt down by 33 million. As a reminder, our net bank debt tends to peak around now as we build the infantry ahead of the peak selling period. With our continued focus on profitability and the strengthening of the balance sheet, this sets us up for sustainable success in FY27 and beyond. So turning to the revenue, this bridge sets out the movement in sales by region and channel year on year. Starting with Americas, we see the business now return to growth across both D2C and wholesale, Following our return to growth in D2C in H2 last year, that has continued in the first half of this year, with particularly strong performance in our retail stores, offset by our planned reduction in markdown volume in our e-com channel, delivering an overall 4.8 million year-on-year increase in D2C. Following the focus on reducing inventory levels in our wholesale partners last year, we're now starting to see wholesale partner orders improving, delivering an increase of 2.4 million and we're also seeing further confidence in the spring-summer order book, particularly amongst our larger wholesale customers. Turning to EMEA, as highlighted at the AGM's trading statement, EMEA across DTC has been more challenging and that, together with our focus on reducing markdown volume, saw a reduction year-on-year of 5.9 million in DTC. However, this was generally much better quality revenue. Wholesale in EMEA, as explained at the full year, was stronger year-on-year. and that is together with the more normal wholesale shipments in H1 saw increase in wholesale revenue. Finally, in APAC, D2C saw continued year-on-year growth with a particular standout performance in South Korea retail and full-price e-com across the entire region. Again, like other regions, we saw significant reduction in markdown Ecom in sales, especially in China and South Korea, and therefore overall a 1.2 million increase in DTC and better quality revenue. The wholesale revenue is in line with our expectations with some small changes in shipment dates year on year. So overall, our regional and channel performance was in line with our expectations. Though we're disappointed in the overall D2C revenue in EMEA, this was partly due to our own decisions to reduce markdown volume and the well-publicized weak EMEA consumer environment. We are really pleased with the continued D2C growth in Americas, the overall performance at APAC, and the overall better performance in our wholesale sales, delivering on our strategic objective to reduce reliance on markdown sales. As we set out in the statement this morning, our gross margin has improved year on year, and I felt it was worth explaining a little bit more in detail. As always, there is lots of moving parts in gross margin. However, what this chart shows is the consistent resilience of our gross margin rate. So a slight headwind from our channel mix was fully offset by the average selling price. The average selling price was a combination of much better full price sales, offset slightly with the stronger shoes performance where the average selling price is slightly less. We saw a strong COGS performance with freight saving negotiated by our supply chain teams being one of the biggest components. And it is also worth noting that includes the H1 US tariff impact as well. And I shall speak a little bit more about that on the next slide. So turning to underlying EBIT bridge, and as I set out on the first slide, we see adjusted EBITs turn a loss back into a profit, increasing by 6.4 million to a 3.4 million profit. And actually, if you add the two headwinds of tariffs, the fourth box, and the timing of demand generation, the sixth box, that is a figure that increases to 9 million profit in the period, a year-on-year growth of 12 million. The slide sets out the key moving parts. 5.3 million gross margin increase driven by 5 million from strong average selling price and better cost of goods, particularly freight costs. 3 million from the increase year on year in volume, offset by a 2.7 million of US tariff costs. We have continued to tightly control our costs. Within the 2 million benefit from non-demand generating OPEX is the benefit of the cost action plan last year, partly offset by inflation, the full year impact of more stores being opened and paying retail bonuses as retail stores performed better. Demand generation OPEX drove a 2.9 million increase driven by the timing of our key stories campaign being in September this year versus October last year. This will vary year on year depending on when the right time is to support key campaigns. year-on-year benefit and depreciation and other items. And finally, 3.1 million of adjusting items, which includes the lease impairment reviews following the accounting policy change and the carryover adjusting items from prior year for incentives and our global technology centre. Before I move on to the next slide, I just want to come back to tariffs. As we set out in our statement, the focus has been to mitigate the effects of FY27 and beyond, and we are pleased to say the action we are taking will do that. Those actions are continued tight cost control, flexible product sourcing, and targeted adjustment to our US pricing policy. These have started and will now phase in through to the end of the financial year. We have worked these actions thoroughly, both internally and with our customers and suppliers. The intention has always been to think of the longer term impacts and make sure the actions we take are with that in mind. The net effect of all that work is that we see about half the high single digit millions tariff headwind in FY26 being offset this year, and most importantly, the tariff impact for FY27 and beyond being fully offset. I've cleverly left a page over there, so I'm just going to go and get it. Zip by magic. It was an important page because I couldn't remember it. So it's actually the final slide. So finally, turning to cash flow and our net debt. I'm really pleased to continue to report our significant reduction year on year in net debt. both in terms of net bank debt reducing by 33 million to 154 million and total debt including leases reducing by 46 million to 302 million. As a reminder, our business builds up the inventory levels in advance of peak and the September net debt position tends to be the highest in the year. As we go through the peak period, the net debt will start to reduce. It is worth noting that included in our half one results is around £4 million of tariff costs in inventory, and this will grow to nearer £10 million at the year end. The bridge sets out the cash flows from FY25 year end position. The first four boxes show underlying operating cash flow of £44 million, made up of delivering £37 million of cash inflow from EBITDAO, being invested into working capital as we build stock levels, and then the spend on lease payments of 28 million and interest and tax payments of 13 million. CapEx accounts for 6 million and our dividends in the year of 8.2 million. Finally, our net debt to EBITDA finished at 2.1 times, well below our bank covenant of 3 times and an improvement year on year. We will continue to see those leverage ratios improve as we head towards the year end. Our guidance remains for net debt of a year of around 200 million, including leases. So to summarise before I hand back to EJ, looking forward into the second half, we are pleased with our performance in the first half, setting ourselves well up for our key peak period. We continue to see positive performance in our U.S. D2C business and our order books across the business for SS26 are looking healthy. So with that, I shall pass back to EJ.

Thank you, Giles. So now let me give you some color on how in the first half we executed the strategy that we outlined in June. So you remember this slide, and after stabilizing the business last year, this is a year of pivoting the business towards the new strategy. The great news, by the way, that underpins this is that the brand is strong, the team is passionately committed, and we are already seeing results from our work. Importantly, the work we've done in this half has also set us up for the second half, particularly these big trading weeks that we have ahead of us in the next few weeks, and provided a foundation for growth in the outer years. But we are in this period of pivoting the business. And what's that pivot about? That pivot is about moving from a channel-first mindset that was primarily about building out DTC to much more of a consumer mindset, giving people more ways and more reasons to buy more of our products. And making sure the business is in a situation where any one market or channel or product or consumer segment presents an outsized risk to our success. We have a brand that resonates around the world. It's a privilege traveling around the world and seeing consumers and partners. And our ambition, therefore, is to become the world's most desired premium footwear brand. As you can imagine, it's a motivating ambition and one that the entire team is united around. So, in June we shared our four levers for growth. And what are they? They are engaging more consumers, driving more purchase locations, curating market right distribution, and simplifying our operating model. So consumer, product, market, and organization. And we also gave you a set of FY26 specific objectives in which we're gonna use to make sure that we're on track on this and that we advise you to use to also keep an eye on what we're doing. We said in consumer, we would reduce reliance on discounted pairs. We said in product that we would drive those new product families that we've introduced to you and I'll talk about a bit later, Zebzag, Buzz, Lowell. They allow us to give the consumer a different way to think about the brand and different purchase locations. In markets, we guided that we would open with capital light distribution in some new markets. And in organization, we said we will make concrete steps to simplify our operator model. So let me now share the progress we're making in each of these areas. And as you would expect, I'm going to start with the consumer. As I said in FY26, we are focused on reducing the reliance on discounts, and I'm pleased to say that we are making good progress on both wholesale, which we kind of paid particular attention to, and DTC. Working closely with our American wholesale partners and under the leadership of Paul Zadeh, our new president in the Americas, we've achieved a good shift from discounting both in the current season, autumn one and 25, and in the order book as we look forward to spring summer 26. And as Giles said, we're really happy with that growth that we have in the order book in the Americas. Because that's the first time we've been able to say that in a while. And similarly in our DTC, the shift is having a clear impact. DTC full price revenue is up 6% year on year. The mix of full price to clearance is up 5%. And we have a full 10% up in the percentage of new consumers coming to full price versus discounts. That's particularly important because if you remember, the objective is to attract new – to engage more consumers, and we're engaging them at – we're engaging more of them at that full price base. It's really critical for us. And while our full price to – if you look at that graph on the right, while our full price to discount profile will – go up and down in different times of the year, we will continue to make sure that we're offering the consumer the right thing at the right time. And we will continue to manage this as we go through the pivot. So for example, expecting the weeks ahead, we will participate in Black Friday and Cyber and we'll do some discounts. We'll reward the consumer with that. We will deal with seasonal product that we want to move quickly, but we will do that in very specific seasons and then return to that focus on full price. I would also say that our customer data platform is helping in this effort because it allows us to directly target consumers based on their buying behavior. So now, for instance, when we are targeting a consumer who has a high propensity to buy full price, we will not be targeting them with a seasonal discount message because we know that they are motivated by that full price offering. And I've got to say, this is still, and I'll talk a bit about CDP later on, this is early days of this work and a lot more to benefit from as we go forward. The push for full price, along with our focus on comfort, on craft, on quality, is supporting overall momentum, and you can particularly see this in America's DTC. America's retail revenue in the first half was up 15.7%, driven by increased footfall. The consumer is coming in to really engage with that product we've been putting before them. In America's e-commerce, while revenue is only marginally up, full price revenue is up 20%, offsetting a significant headwind as we've reduced, and we knew we would get this, as we reduced clearance revenue. So we'll share more on that reduction in discount revenue across channels and our work to attract new wearers at full price when we report the full year in May. I do want to emphasize, particularly with the U.S. numbers, that we are showing growth on weaker comps, and this is still work in progress. There is more work to do and significantly more growth to go after in that market. So that's consumer. Let's talk about products. On product, we said we will drive more wearing occasions, and in this year, that we will drive growth in those distinct family products, ZebZag, Lowell, and Buzz. So as you saw in the statement, we have had a successful half with shoes. Pairs are up 20% in DTC and 33% overall. And a big part of the success has come from us being able to give the consumer different reasons and different ways to buy, playing into those product families and the different wearing locations, and of course leveraging the individual customer profiles to give them what is really right for that individual. We talked to you at full year about our success with our more style-focused Buzz family. We're pleased that that momentum has continued. That's our product to the left, with the Buzz shoe being the best-performing new shoe of the half. Another product family that we haven't talked to you much about, but if you want to see it in real life, John is wearing a pair today, is the Lowell. The Lowell is more crafted and more elevated than the Buzz, and we introduced that just a year ago. We haven't really backed it with marketing, and it has already risen to be one of the top five shoes for us in EMEA. But let me just say, it's not just the new product families. Our iconic 1461 shoe has continued to perform well. In Asia, it is our best-selling product. I'll share a bit more about the work we've done in South Korea in a little case study about how this product has done really well there. And maybe a product we don't speak about a lot, but one that's been in the line since 1992 is our Mary Jane. And this is the number three best-selling product in the Americas and a big part of the success you're seeing there. Let me make one important point. I said this at the full year, but this is important to keep making. This ability to give the consumer more choice, we are matching that with a reduction in SKUs. So this is not about the proliferation of SKUs. And in fact, in autumn-winter 25, what we're in right now, we have 45% less SKUs than we did in autumn-winter 23. This is about discipline, curation of choice for the consumer, as opposed to proliferation of product SKUs. We've talked a lot about the Adrian, and I think the Adrian chassel loafer, and the success of shoes has really been driven a lot by Adrian, as Giles mentioned earlier. This is a product that's been in line since 1980. It is our second biggest selling product. So, I present shoes to make the point that the brand is not just strong, it is relevant across more silhouettes than we've really leveraged in the past. And consumer groups, knowing different consumers allows us to play the right product to the right consumer. And we're really focused on making sure that that curated breadth is put to work for the brand. What I don't want you to think, though, is that boots are not important to us. Boots are important, and this is an area, while we have work to do as we continue that decline in the half, we are committed to boots. And it's worth saying that decline has moderated and has been impacted by, as Giles said earlier, our planned reduction in discounting. Boots matter to us and the 1460 Black Smooth, the boot that everybody knows, remains our top selling product. And we're making progress in the category as a whole with an increased percentage in full price nicks. That's really important to us this year and we're achieving that in boots as well. I also say we're pleased with the performance that we've had in some of those, again going back to the product families, some of the newer products that we've introduced to the line. Let me give you some examples here. The KC High Boot. was new to the line last year and is the best, the third best-selling product in the line in DTC in the half. And so remember the 1460 Black Smooth is the first, the Adrian Loafer, and then it's the KC High. The Buzz High, the green one you see back there, has been built on the success of the Buzz shoe that we've talked about and that we launched in February. The Buzz High was the best-selling new product at launch in EMEA DTC this year. And as part of our focus on comfort this autumn, we introduced the ZebZag laceless boots. ZebZag's a family that we've built around being lightweight and casual. We've done mules. We've done sandals, and now we've introduced a really comfort-led, easy-on boot called the ZebZag boot. You probably, especially if you're in London, you probably saw some activation around this. And while it's too early to quantify commercial success in this, we're really happy with how that's gone and how it's raised comfort as a topic for this brand. And then, two weeks ago, we brought to market a new innovation that's built off the 1460 boots. Thank you. The 1460 rain boots. is the first fully waterproof Wellington boots, utilized in our signature heat seal construction. That's how the bottom is joined to the top. And our air cushion sole. If you've got the right, if you've got a sample size, it's worth putting your feet in this if you haven't yet. It is built for comfort, and we are getting great feedback on that already. It really captures the essence of what Dr. Martens is about. Comfort, innovation, craftsmanship, functionality, without losing the boldness attitude of docs that our consumers love. This is a whole new wearing occasion for the brand, a real proof point of our strategy of increasing wearing occasions. It's an easy sell for existing customers, they love that silhouette, they love, they understand what the brand is about, but it's also a compelling product for new wearers of the brand. It's been fun visiting our stores and talking to consumers about it, people who came with somebody else and were like, I never knew you did this, and all of a sudden they're getting it on their feet. We've used our customer data platform to customize marketing messages based on customer profiles. Some people are built more for style, and so you pitch a style message. And for some other people, it's comfort and function, and we're able to do that as well to those people. It ticks all those boxes. And we've brought it to life in a really immersive way. These are some pictures on screen. For example, a takeover of our store in Brooklyn, which was all merchandise just for the rain. And the wealth of press and social media coverage on this has been absolutely stunning. So, we're thrilled how the lunch has gone. I expect those of you in festival seasons in the summer to be wearing a pair of these, and we'll keep updating you on the others. So now, we've talked about consumer, we've talked about product, let's talk about markets. And the market's lever is really about making sure that in each market we have the right distribution, working in partnership with wholesalers and distributors. to get the right product in front of the right consumer in the places that that consumer naturally wants to buy. And in FY26, we've told you we'll focus on opening capital light models with our partners. And I'm pleased to share now the progress that we've made. Much of this has been announced, but it's worth just encapsulating it all in one place. In the first half, we've announced new distribution partnerships in LATAM and in the UAE. The Latin America agreement is with Crosby, and they will drive our reach in Mexico, Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile. And this will include both wholesale and monobranded Dr. Martin stores run by them. We now have two monobranded stores launched already, with Buenos Aires opening in August and Santiago at the start of October. In the UAE, we've partnered with Beside, who will launch and then grow the brand's presence in UAE, initially through wholesale, with monobranded stores planned very soon. And excitingly, products started arriving with that partner just last week. And in the Philippines, where we already have a great partner, we are accelerating that expansion on the back of this strategy. They have already operated two stores, but they've now opened a third store again in Manila. That's actually the picture that is here. And there are more planned. I also want to say, even though we've talked about capital-like models, this is not just about the deployment of capital. It's also about working with experienced and trusted local partners who have experience with global brands and who have deep market expertise and operating know-how. Working with them ensures our brand shows up in the right way for those consumers while still being 100% docs. And these are the first agreements of many that we will announce in the quarters and years to come. And while that is largely about new markets, it's worth saying the same principle applies to our existing markets. In Italy, we have 14 direct-to-consumer stores, and we've been making good headway in Italy since we started building that strategy up. Now we're expanding through a combination of, yes, our own DTC, but also these partner stores, with the first franchise store opening in Pompeii in October 2025 with a great local partner. And we're really pleased with how that's gone, and as you can see from that image, it's a really great Dr. Martin's experience. we have more stores planned for the future. We're taking a similar approach in China where we've opened recently in the half new stores in Chengdu, in Shaoqing, and in Hangzhou. So this is an exciting growth lever for us. And as we're saying, these capital light models are a good example of our ability to create value in partnership with great businesses around the world. As I shared in June, we're excited about the skill, commitment, resources that our partners bring to our brand, whether it's through franchise stores as shared or in deep marketing partnerships with our wholesale partners. The images here is just a spectrum of some of the wonderful activations that our partners put out when we launched the ZebZag laceless boot that I mentioned earlier. I'd highlight Zalando in Germany, who really took over the big hub. and held their biggest event there to date. And La Rescenta in Italy, which included the takeover of a metro station in Milan that you see in the bottom right corner there. These close partnerships, along with the work we've done with them over the years to right-size inventory, are some of the driving reasons behind healthy order books for spring-summer 26. And curating this market-right distribution with our partners is key to value creation for everybody. And so few things take up more of my time than this, and we'll keep you posted on how we keep going. And so finally, let me talk about the organizational layer, which is really about simplifying how we operate and focusing squarely on consumer. And here, we are beginning to reap early benefits of systems that we probably talked to you about in a bit, but that we've now really focused on executing, implementing, and embedding the organization in the half, and getting our global technology center in India up and running. I'll start with the customer data platform. The customer data platform is making it easier for our marketing teams, really simpler for our marketing and commercial teams to reach the right consumer with the right proposition. I think I've given a few examples of that already today. So the focus to date is has been on optimizing the consumer journey. That's how the consumer navigates through from social to a site to find the product they're looking for. Driving repeat purchases and making sure that we're efficient when we do do a discount, that we're not cannibalizing full price sales. And then we've also used it for our product launches, really tailoring the market, such as in the rain boot example that I gave you earlier. So again, early days, part of our business, but you can see how that really simplifies the way our teams can deliver value to each individual consumer. Our supply and demand system, as we told you, went live in the summer as planned and is already delivering greater visibility and accuracy between demand signals on one hand and supply orders on the other hand. You can imagine what that does for the efficiency of the business. For instance, our teams have started utilizing statistical modeling of past sales data based on this platform to identify patterns, trends, and seasonality, which then are used to predict future demand, really on a two-year rolling basis. That's new capability that really simplifies the way we think about things and operate. And then finally, while not due to be fully operational until FY27, our global technology center, and actually the image in the background is the global technology center in India, is now up and running. And by bringing engineering in-house, which is what this does for us, we have already become much quicker in delivering optimized customer journeys, allowing teams, for example, our retail teams, to recognize a consumer, and offer a more tailored store experience, such as an in-store pickup or a promotion for that individual consumer. So this is a muscle that we will keep pulling. How do we simplify the organization? How do we equip our teams to make it easier for them to really deliver to individual consumers? Because, again, that's what the pivot is about, being much more consumer-first-minded. So that's the work we've been doing and the results we're beginning to see. In consumer, we're driving more full price in both wholesale and DTC. In product, we're growing those product families, and alongside the icons, they're giving our consumers more reasons and more occasions to buy. In markets, we're working closely with partners, whether that's capital light models or deep marketing and product partnerships with major wholesale partners. And in organization, we're using technology to simplify how we work and how we serve our consumers better. So to wrap up, let me use one specific market to illustrate how this strategy all comes together just so you get a picture of it. South Korea is still a small market for us and a proof of how we can grow in new markets. It's also a critical market, South Korea, because as you probably know, it really influences cultural trends around the world. So how's our strategy playing out here? In consumer, we've grown full price with strategy. We've grown full price 65%, and we're increasing that mix of revenue by 25% in the year, in the half over half. In product, we've leaned into that market-specific demand for the 1461, which is really where that product is in more demand than any other market in the world, and really allowed our team to push that, while also significantly building new equity around the Lowell shoe. So we know what, if you like, the major product is, but we're also able to start creating an affinity around a product behind that so that we're not at risk of just one product for Anthony. But Lowell, as we've started doing that, is up a whopping 90%, half one to half one, as we've done that. We're building exciting partnerships, like this one in the picture shown here, which is with Nijinsa, who built out a major two-week installation for the 1461 shoe. And Giles and I were privileged to be in South Korea in the middle of those two weeks, and it's just a stunning experience, delivered entirely by a partner. And finally, by simplifying around the consumer, really making the consumer the top of mind, it's allowed the career team to be liberated and deliver what works for their market while aligning 100% to a brand. These are great experiences of Dr. Martens, but they're right for the South Korea market. As a result, revenue in South Korea is up 30% year-on-year in the first half. This is a growth market for us and we're excited to see how the customer focus is helping them connect with more wearers and the learnings we can take from there to apply to other markets. So, I hope that gives you a good sense of the progress we're making. We're focused on executing on the levers of our growth. We're seeing early results. But this is work in progress and there's still key areas to address. We've set ourselves up well to deliver the plans in the second half, and along with our partners, we feel good about our plans for these big trading weeks that are ahead of us. And I have to emphasize there is significant opportunity ahead. That opportunity, as you will remember, comes through the headroom that we still have to grow. Just in our 15 top markets, we are only 0.7% of a $180 billion relevant market. in just those 15 countries. And we're in many places where the brand is still attractive and desired. We're going after that. You've already heard us about Mexico and UAE and other places. And in our existing markets, as you've seen with the U.S. or South Korea, we're also going after opportunities to grow there. So these early results and the significant headroom give us confidence in our medium term value creation thesis. To grow profitably and faster than our peer set. the operational leverage that delivers high to mid-teens EBIT margin, and the underpinning, the continued underpinning of strong cash generation. This will create significant returns for shareholders. And that's why Giles, the team, and I are laser-focused on this execution of the strategy. There's a lot of work ahead, yes, but the brand has never been stronger or more relevant, and the green shoots are promising. So we're going after it. Thank you. We will take questions now. We'll take questions in the room first. Please say your name and what organization you're from. And then we'll go to questions via the operator. I think, oh, we're going to go John first.

Thank you. Thank you. John Stephenson at Pillhut. A couple of questions to get us going, please. On the product side, you mentioned sort of areas to focus on and mentioned sandals and boots. Can you talk about what the plans are for next year in terms of how you think you can address sandals and what sort of innovation or how we're going to develop that? Secondly, on EMEA, I don't know if we can have a bit of a sort of dive into the region in terms of trading. I mean, clearly the UK has been challenging. Can you talk about sort of an overview of where the weakness in EMEA is coming from and what your thoughts are from here sort of going into the second half? And a very, very quick one. What's the price change agreed for factory pricing for the year ahead?

I will take the first two and I'll pass you the questions on pricing. Yeah, it's interesting. I have for simplicity lobbed boots and sandals together, but I want to be clear that there are two different problem statements. And I'm confident about our boots plan. We have more work to do in sandals. I think sandals is a place where we need to drive more innovation and we really have that work to do ahead of us. And I think that will take us, to be very honest with you, that will take us a couple of seasons to get that right. But the team are working on it. I told you around innovation that we're working on lightweight. We're working on really making sure that our sandals proposition stands on its own and isn't just on the back of other things. But we're not starting from a standing start. We've had sandals on the line since the 80s. Some of our top selling products in the season have actually come from America. If I take an example, we have a sandal called Dunnett Flower. which even two weeks ago was one of the top sellers in America in November, right? And so we have strong, sound offerings, so we know what works. We now have to do the work to build that out over the next two, three seasons. But it's a work in progress, and it's an area of focus. With EMEA, you know, the slight evolution on our analysis since the first quarter is that the UK isn't particularly the challenge anymore. That really was the case in the April to June quarter. But since then, actually, we've seen traffic return to stores. And I would say that the EMEA challenge is an EMEA-wide challenge. Of course, there are variances from market to market, but it's really about a consumer who is out shopping but being a lot more considered. a lot more browsing and research happening. And they're doing two things largely. They are either looking for a deal, and so the market is promotionally led, but as we all know, there's a bottom that you get and the market will have to fight back from just being promotionally led. But actually, more interestingly, there is also a flight to quality. There's a bit of a trade down from luxury into premium into craft and quality. And there's a bit of a considered purchase, which means I'm not just buying anything. I'm buying, I'm making, I'm treating this purchase as an investment. I might actually spend a bit more because I'm getting the quality. And we see that come through in our more expensive products. We're actually doing quite well. whether it's the weekender bag at over 300 euros, or whether it's something like the Casey boot, which is one of our more expensive boots. This is a consumer who is considered. There's nothing wrong with that. And a brand that has quality has opportunities. And that's what we're going after. We can't, of course, control broader macro and economic issues and the ways in which the consumer thinks. But we feel we have enough levers. We planned into the headwind on discounts. We're not going to overchase that. We'll participate where we need to participate. That will remain a headwind for the rest of the financial year. But we still think we have opportunities to make sure that we are competitive in the market.

So your factory pricing, looking ahead, I mean, effectively, we don't guide specifically on factory pricing. I'm comfortable with the numbers. There's nothing there, with the exception of tariffs, which is obviously a cost that we've given you views on, but overall we have a good relationship with our suppliers, long-term relationships with our suppliers, and actually some of the work that we've been doing specifically around tariffs has been working with them about where we source some of our American purchase orders from. So I think we don't normally guide on it, but there's nothing in there that I would be saying is particularly to pull out. Thank you.

Thanks. It's Anne Critchlow from Berenberg. I've got two questions, please. First of all, on the U.S., in terms of the perception of pricing power in the U.S., how confident are you that you can put through these price rises? Do you think they'll strengthen the brand, or do you think you'll encounter some resistance? And then secondly, on EMEA, how confident are you that you can drive engagement and turn that sales trend around? And how important are the CDP capabilities within that?

I will grab both of those, but add anything if there's anything I miss out. So as I shared, and we've traveled a lot together. We were in a Boston store earlier in the year. We're not seeing any resistance in America to our higher prices. In fact, we have some anecdotal evidence that the price position in some products, some specific products, might be on the low side and we have opportunity. It's worth saying we haven't taken price in America for three years, right? And so the market, we have headroom to go to still remain competitive. But we will be... Surgical about this. This is not a blanket price raise. We will look at individual products We will understand how their benchmark would understand how the consumer sees them and that's how we will apply pricing So to your question, do you see any resistance never take the consumer for granted and But this is strengthening our premium position to have the right prices at the right price.

I think it's just worth also adding, we look at those prices on a global basis. So we look about how does that feature in a product, not just in the U.S., but where does it turn up in other countries. So it's part of our pricing policy to look at this. And as EJ said, we haven't taken pricing for three years in the U.S. So there's actually a lot more detail that goes behind that work that goes in, and we're much more confident about where they come through.

In EMEA, I think I'm going to make a similar statement that you never take the consumer for granted. We do think that less clearance will remain a headwind for the rest of the year, but we've planned for that. That's baked into our plans. That's not any new risk. We like the fact that the consumer is in the store, so that gives us the opportunity to make sure that we deliver that value that they're looking for, because the footfall in the store is absolutely fine. And online, we continue to make sure that we are using the CDP, to your point, to really manage that experience so that the consumer finds the thing, not just that they're looking for, but the thing that is right for them based on their profile. This is trading work, Anne, and so there are no grand strategies. It's really understanding each consumer, really understanding each, literally down to each individual store. But we've got great people in our stores who really know how to trade, and we're giving them great product to work with. So we're confident that we will hit our plans for India. Thanks.

Morning. Kate Hout from Investec. Just two for me. First of all, just on the franchise model, apart from Italy, where else in Europe are you thinking of using this model? And are you thinking of using it in the U.S.? ? And my second question on the U.S., you talked about the four-year results, about the opportunity to elevate the brands and work with more premium wholesale partners. Have you made any progress in autumn-winter on this, or is this all to come sort of next year and beyond?

Yeah, good questions. I'll take both of them. I don't want to get ahead of myself on markets where we will do the franchise model. It's worth saying we have it. It's a big part of our business in Japan. It's a big part of our business in China, a significant part of our business in China, and a significant part of our business in Italy. So we have those examples. We will look at it as we look at retail strategy going forward. So I don't want to open or close any markets to it. But those are the three places where we are active. And as we deliver on that and as we build that, I will We'll share that information with you. We're really happy with what we've been able to do with Nordstrom in the last year. And I'm not going to guide on their numbers, but we've had that premiumization and some of the product at the more expensive area. Some of the work and the success we've had with the Adrian Loafer has been in partnership with Nordstrom. So that's an example of a premium brand where we've done that. We've also done some really great work just recently with Kith, which is out in the market. And Kith is really that sort of that pinnacle retailer. And some of our more refined, elevated product, something we call Regen. These are not huge volumes, but they really position the brand in that pinnacle space. And so those are two examples, and Paul and the team are hard at work building that out. Yeah, thanks, Kate. You got some questions though? Let's go. Same rules, just tell us your name and where you're from and we'd love to hear a question.

We'll take questions from Alison from Deutsche News, please go ahead.

Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Two for me, please. First one is about the U.S. and the prosperity there and the operating cost base. Margins in the U.S. have kind of reached flattened down in the first half and expect they'll be positive in the second half with the seasonal waiting, but still very much dragging on the group. Just wondering what your outlook for regional margins there is. What you think kind of can be done now? Is this just a case of kind of growing back into the cost base. And then the second one is really on the product that your wholesale partners are buying into. So you talked about plans to get partners buying into a broader assortment. You've talked about a healthier order book. I'm wondering if you could add a bit more color around that in terms of the range of products that wholesale partners are now buying into and really how the regions are kind of comparing in terms of whether one's more ahead of the others. Thank you.

Thanks, Alice. So on the US margin, I think there's a couple of things we need to just pull apart for the first half. Firstly, obviously, the US margin has got the US tariffs in, so you will have that as a bit of a headwind in the half year. And obviously, as you rightly say, the first half is obviously the smaller of the half. You'll have noticed that EJ put up on the screen that we saw our retail stores grow 15 plus percent year on year. So we're seeing much better performance across our retail stores. And as we set ourselves up into peak, we feel much more confident there. And then thirdly, the growth in the wholesale. I think that's the other key part here. We've obviously had a couple of years where wholesale, particularly in the US, was where we came off. And we're sitting here much more confident about our summer, spring, sorry, spring, summer even, order book as we go forward. So I think it's a bit of both, in all honesty. It's about us growing back into the volume, particularly on the wholesale, getting better return from our retail stores as we're doing. but also as you're well aware we have been looking at our store network and we have closed or provided for stores and we are doing that we've been quite clinical now about what each store needs to produce and have actually in the I think at the half year or the full year we did actually put a few stores as impaired so we will expect to see that margin now begin to really improve and get back to the levels that you've seen in the past.

And on the second question, Alison, which is a great question, thank you. What we're seeing is our wholesale partners are buying into a broader range. But I want to be clear, what's the right range varies from wholesale partner to wholesale partners. What journeys wants is going to be very different from not some wants is going to be very different from, and it's not just wants, what's right for their consumer. And so having really built out the strategy and particularly the U.S. demonstrated that return to growth based on the strategy and DTC, of course the wholesale partners are now very interested in a broader range of product. But there isn't a particular regional split on that. That's going to be different from wholesale partner to wholesale partner based on who their consumer base is, who their buyer is, how they sell. But it's a broad spectrum across particularly we've seen a huge growth in shoes and the assortment of shoes and across those new range of products. So it's broader than it's been before. You've got those new product families in it. You've got a bit more shoes than in the past. But that's a general statement. It's going to vary from wholesale partner to wholesale partner.

Thank you. That's helpful.

Thank you. There are currently no further questions over the phone. With this, I'd like to hand it back over to EJ for closing remarks.

Thank you all very much. I believe the statement is clear, and it's been a pleasure to share with you some of the highlights from the execution of the strategy. The statement remains the same. We're happy with progress to date, but there's still work to be done. And when we look at the long-term opportunity, the headrooms in the market, the strength of the brand, the fundamental economics, we're really excited with how we're going to create value for shareholders in the future. So thank you very much.