Howden Joinery Group Plc

and welcome to the Howden's 2023 results presentation. So I'll begin with an introduction of our performance for the year, and then Paul Hay, CFO, will then review our financial results for the period. And then I'll share my perspective on our 2023 performance and outline our plans for 2024, and then we'll take your questions. The group delivered a resilient performance in 2023 against record prior year comparatives and in, as we anticipated, a more challenging marketplace. Sales and profits met expectations and we continued with our investment program, which is focused on our key capabilities, which give us end-to-end a stronger business. Group sales were in line with those of 2023 and were 46% up on 2019, being the year prior to the onset of the pandemic. In the UK, we believe we gained market share by volume in 2023, which helped us mitigate the impact of a decline in overall size of the kitchen market. Entry-level kitchens represented a higher proportion of kitchens we sold, with sales of products in our joinery category representing more of the sales makes. We maintained an industry-leading gross margin with gross profits at around the same level as last year, as we balanced recovery of significant input cost prices rises with our commitment to providing competitive pricing across the board for our customers. Excluding investment in strategic initiatives, active containment of operating costs kept those to 2022 levels, despite ongoing inflationary pressures. Profit before tax was lower than in 2022 in line with market expectations and 26% higher than in 2019. Our builders remain busy. We made good progress in our strategic plans for the UK business and sales and our international operations increased. The business delivered strong operating cash flows and we maintained a robust balance sheet. This gave us the flexibility to continue to invest in the growth plans for the business, provide shareholders with enhanced cash returns in the form of increased dividend payouts in 2023. We also completed a 50 million share buyback program during the year. Now, you'll see from the R&S announcement that we've moved forward our ESG agenda, but I just wanted to highlight one major milestone here on this point. We submitted our net zero plan in 2023, and the SBTI has now approved Haydn's 2030 emission reduction target. We've also committed to setting long-term emission reduction targets consistent with our intention of reaching net zero by 2050. The results demonstrate the strength of our local, trade-only and in-stock model. And we believe our increased market share by volume consolidated the gains made in 2022. A strong product line-up. high stock availability, industry-leading service levels, a very engaged team have all contributed to our performance, which benefits from the ongoing investments in our customer-focused strategic initiatives. We had a record number of customer accounts at year end with a similar number trading in the years in the previous year. We also increased some prices, which helped us to frame most of the impact of significant rises in annual input costs and sharpened our prices elsewhere. As well as maintaining industry leading gross margin, the business continued to deliver KPI volumes, which in aggregate are well ahead of those in pre-COVID times. As compared with 2023, sales so far in this year have increased in all countries from which we operate. In the UK, these periods last year were amongst the best performing ones. And whilst it's early days, we were encouraged by sales performance to date. In 2024, we expect market conditions to be broadly unchanged from those seen in 2023. And we are well prepared for this. And our customers, mainly self-employed people, are adept at managing their businesses in such times. Delivered by our highly entrepreneurial and well-incentivised teams across the business, I believe that our service-orientated, trade-only, in-stock, local model is the right one to deliver sustainable market share gains. Our model is hard to replicate, it's difficult to compete with, and we have initiatives in place to make it even more so. The addressable market value in the UK in which we have an established presence is some $12 billion and there are significant longer-term growth opportunities for us. We continue to prioritise cross-cycle investments in the business on this basis. So I'll update you on our strategic initiatives which are key to the long-term development of the business after Paul has taken you through our financial results for the year. Paul.

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be presenting Howden's four-year results. Now, we've performed well in 2023 in a challenging market. Overall, group sales were consistent with last year as we supported our trade customers with a strong product line-up, high stock availability, and outstanding customer service. We are pleased to report that we've made further market share gains in the year. Gross profit was similar to the prior year at £1.4 billion as we continue to recover increases in commodity, freight and energy costs through price increases and productivity improvements. The slightly lower gross margin percentage included the dilutive impact of growing the sales of everyday joinery products and solid work surfaces, which both performed strongly. These products make an attractive cash margin contribution, but have a lower gross margin percentage than most of Howden's products. Operating costs were £68 million higher at £1.1 billion, with productivity and efficiency actions taken throughout the year more than offsetting inflationary costs increases that totalled around £50 million. This protected our ability to continue to invest in future growth. We invested £53 million in our strategic initiatives, including new depots and revamps, XDC to support our sector-leading service levels, new product introductions and international openings. I'll cover this in a bit more detail shortly. As a result, we generated an operating profit of £340 million. This included £17 million of costs arising from the addition of an extra 53rd week. This was a non-trading week as the depots remained closed during this period and there was no revenue benefit. Excluding this one-off cost, the underlying operating margin was 15.5%. After net interest charges, profit before tax was £328 million. We incurred a tax charge of £73 million in the period and the effective tax rate was 22.3%. This included the higher corporation tax rate introduced in the UK last April and the lower tax rate in 2022 reflected a backdated tax credit relating to the patent box claim which we included in our financial statements last year. After all these items, profit after tax was £255 million. So looking at revenue in a bit more detail. Haldon's UK revenue was broadly level on the same depot basis after excluding £14 million of non-recurring sales. We faced more challenging macroeconomic conditions in the year and we were careful to balance price and volumes to support our trade customers and as a consequence we have continued to outperform the market. The major driver of our strong relative performance has been the ongoing investments in our strategic initiatives. Once again, we prioritised our investments in new depots and we now have 840 depots in the UK and we also revamped 89 older format depots into the new format. Product innovation has been a key focus and we introduced 23 new kitchen ranges in the year which were well received by our customers. We also grew our joiner in solid work surface categories as I mentioned earlier. To support our premium kitchen ranges, we also launched our new paint to order service during the year. And we opened a dedicated factory in the second half, which is fully operational. Finally, our digital investments seek to make it easier for our customers to do business with us through our trade app. And we've made further progress this year. We're also investing in tools to help grow awareness of the Howden's brand amongst end users. Now, Andrew is going to take you through these initiatives in more detail shortly. The international depots, which includes 65 depots based in France and 10 in Ireland, generated revenue of €80 million, a 9% increase. Our focus remains on building out the successful housing model in major cities, and we're making good progress with our strategy. Now, moving on to profit before tax. bridging from PBT of £406 million in 2022 to £328 million in 2023. As I explained earlier, gross profit was similar to last year as we successfully balanced pricing and volumes in a higher inflationary environment. In particular, we were effective in implementing price increases early in the year that benefited the business by £91 million and which more than offset lower volumes and mix of £67 million. The mix impact is from the strong growth of everyday joining products and solid work surface that I covered earlier. Importantly, we have delivered a number of productivity improvements in our manufacturing operations, which partially offset increases in commodities, wage inflation and energy costs. Being vertically integrated is a key differentiator, and we continue to increase the amount we manufacture ourselves to capture more of the profit pool, while giving our customers greater choice and quality. In the year we continued to invest in our manufacturing facilities. We added new kitchen furniture production lines and a second architrave and skirting line which are now fully operational. This is in addition to the new paint to order factory opened in the year. Operating costs increased by £68 million as a result of managing our costs tightly while continuing to invest in our strategic initiatives to drive growth. Now we've broken this down on the next slide. So bridging from left to right, you can see the £53 million investment made to support our ongoing strategic initiatives. The incremental cost of the 63 new depots, including the 30 new depots opened in 2022, totalled £16 million. Other strategic investments included the full-year impact of our 12 regional XDCs that further strengthen our in-stock offer for our depots and our customers. In addition, we rolled out the Howdens work surface range to the whole depot network, having upgraded and optimised our capabilities. We invested £12 million in our international businesses with a continued focus on a city-based strategy. We also expanded our newest business in the Republic of Ireland and we now have 10 depots trading in that region. As I mentioned earlier, we fully offset around £50 million of wage inflation, energy and other inflationary pressures in the existing depot network and other parts of the business through productivity gains and efficiencies. And finally, there was £14 million of operating costs from the impact of that 53rd week. Now moving on to cash flow. From an opening cash position of £308 million, we ended the period with £283 million of cash, a net cash outflow of £25 million. You can see from the slide that this was after shareholder returns of £164 million, including dividends of £114 million and the £50 million share back which we completed in the first half. Overall, working capital has increased by £35 million. Stock was higher by £10 million, including inflationary increases. and we continue to optimise the levels of safety stock to ensure that we remained in stock for our customers. In light of developments in the Red Sea, we have recently increased safety stock levels on some lines as a precaution to ensure that we remain in stock across the range. Debtors were £39 million lower than at the previous year end. This included the benefit of the later close to the year. An agent is in good shape. Creditors were £64 million lower, which had a negative impact on working capital. The cash outflow from capital expenditure was £119 million as we continue to focus on the execution of our strategic initiatives. Now turning to earnings per share and dividends. EPS was 46.5 pence, which compares with 65.8 pence in 2022. The Board has proposed a final dividend of 16.2 pence per share, bringing the total dividend to 21 pence for the year. This represents an increase of 1.9%. and the final dividend will be paid on 24th May to shareholders on the register on 11th April. Turning to our technical guidance for 2024. First starting with P&L guidance, we expect our effective tax rate to be around 23% in 2024, including the patent box benefit. Although always subject to review by HMRC, the group remains confident that the patent box claim will proceed with an ongoing reduction of around 3% to Howden's effective tax rate. With respect to foreign exchange sensitivity within cost of goods sold, we have set out the potential full-year impact of a one-cent movement in the euro and the US dollar, and that's on the slide. I mentioned earlier that events in the Middle East have increased freight costs and we are already re-routing a significant proportion of our Far East freight and we anticipate additional costs in the region of £5 million this year at current rates. In 2024 we will continue to carefully manage the cost base while making ongoing investments in our strategic initiatives. we expect overall investment levels will be at a lower level than last year given the successful completion of the XDZ rollout. Now in terms of cash flow items, we'd expect capital expenditure to be broadly in line with last year at £125 million as we continue to invest for growth. Working capital is expected to increase this year, impacted by higher debtors as a result of the timing of our peak trading period, period 21. This year, the last two days of the period 21 fall into November, which means that a significant proportion of peak trading customer payments won't be due until after the year end. We expect the overall impact at the year-end date is likely to be around £50 million. This is simply a timing issue and overall working capital remains very well controlled. Finally, on pensions, you recall that Howden's final salary pension scheme is closed for future accrual. At the end of March, the tri-annual valuation of the scheme was conducted and we have agreed a new deficit recovery plan with the trustees. This recognises the improvement in the pension scheme since the previous review in 2020. Under this agreement, deficit contributions of £1 million a month will be made if the scheme moves into a deficit position on a technical basis for more than two consecutive months. This new recovery plan will run until May 2026 and compares to the previous rate of £2.5 million per month. Now the scheme is now running with a small surplus and we're currently not making any contributions. So in summary, we've performed well in 2023 in a more challenging marketplace. Our strategic initiatives remain a priority as we support our differentiated business model. This is helping us capitalise on the significant growth opportunity in our markets and is underpinned by our strong balance sheet and cash flow. We have been proactive in delivering productivity and efficiency savings, fully offsetting inflationary cost increases. And we are confident in our plans for the business and the Group is on track with its outlook for 2024. Thank you. I'll now hand you back to Andrew.

Thank you, Paul. In reviewing our 2023 performance and plans for this year, I will use our strategic initiatives for the business as a framework. fully aligned with our trade customer only focus, our entrepreneurial culture and based around our core building blocks of trade service and convenience, product leadership and trade value. These are to evolve our depot model, to improve our range and supply management, develop our digital capabilities and services and expand our international operations. So I'll go through each of these in turn. The first is depot evolution. High service levels, including local proximity and immediate availability, are very important to our customers and we continue to see profitable opportunities to open up depots. We are using our updated format in all depot openings. The format enables us to provide the best depot environment in which to work and conduct business and to make space utilizations and productivity gains in a cost-effective way. We opened 33 new depots during the year, with a total of 840 trading at the end of 2023. Overall, we continue to believe there's scope for around 1,000 depots in the UK, and we plan to open around a further 30 in this year. We have progressed our revamp program for existing depots. This continues to receive very positive feedback from depot staff and customers alike. And providing a trading and working environment is important to our competitive position. In 2023, we completed a further 89 revamps. That was nine more than we initially targeted, taking the total revamp, including relocations, up to 274. The revamps are budgeted to pay back costs in less than four years, and the depot P&Ls are charged a reformat cost, which ensures depot teams are motivated to deliver the incremental sales. In 2024, including relocations, we plan to revamp around 85 more depots, which means by the end of 2024, we expect to have revamped around 54% of the 670 depots, which were opened in the old format, and to have around 64% of all UK depots trading in the updated format. Secondly, I want to go on to range and supply management. We're committed to providing market-leading and competitively priced product to our customers to sell onto theirs. In 2023, we introduced 23 new kitchen ranges with a focus on making more looks and styles accessible to all budgets and continue to develop our higher-priced kitchen portfolio, including through a new paint-to-order service for customers buying our solid wood doors, Chilcombe and Elmbridge ranges, in which the top end represents the top end of our offering. We enhanced our worktop proposition with new products and industry-leading service improvements and freshened up our line-up in other product categories. Sales of new products make a significant contribution to our performance. The total of new products introduced in 2022 and 2023 represented around 22% of UK product sales. And new products introduced in 2023 and the prior two years represented 32% of UK product sales. Sales of new products introduced during 2022 alone increased by some 34% in 2023. As in 2022, higher-priced kitchens continued to contribute more to our kitchen mix by volume than previously, which has a positive impact on our average order kitchen value. Managing our portfolio of kitchen range efficiently is crucial for both availability, which is highly valued by our customers, and also for profitability. In recent years, we've reorganised our range architecture, removing duplications and improving the balance between new kitchen introductions and timely discontinuations. The more efficient ways of testing new kitchen colours and finishes we now have are enabling us to bring more proven kitchen styles to market more quickly, and our new paint-to-order service is also informing our from-stock ranging decisions. At the end of the year, around 60% of the kitchens available from stock comprised ranges brought to market between 2021 and 2023. And consequently, for 2024, we have a lower number of new kitchen introductions and fewer discontinuations than in recent years. We have nine new kitchen ranges confirmed for 2024 as compared to 23 last year. And with our entire kitchen offering organised into 10 families, the same as last year. Value for money is a consistent feature of purchasers' buying decisions. Price featured predominantly in 2023, and given prevailing pressures on household budgets, we expected to do so again this year. Our offering, as enhanced by our 2024 New Product Introduction Programme, MPI Programme, is well positioned to take advantage of this. With an emphasis on value for money and choice at all price points, our MPI for 2024 includes our new kitchen ranges, which are aimed at entry and mid-price segments. We have also introduced clearer and more delineated pricing within kitchen ranges and across families. And we are innovating in other product categories and have added bedrooms to our overall depot offering. In 2024, we brought to market seven new entry-level kitchen ranges, adding new frontal options, and this year adding two more, Greenwich in marine blue and Whitney in reed green. We are also refreshing the look of our best-selling shaker family, which we named Halesworth, and launching new mid-price shaker family, Bridgemere. For these families, we have six new colours in 2024, including Halesworth and two of the best-selling paint-to-order colours, which are Antique Rose, Seafoam, and in Bridgemere, in Linen, and in Sage Green. In 2023, we are also continuing to develop our higher-priced kitchen portfolio, which is a large segment of the market and one in which we are underrepresented. The paint-to-order service for customers buying our Chilcombe and Elmbridge ranges, which we commenced offering in the second half of 2023, has been very favourably received by customers and depots alike. Priced at a premium to the nine range colours available from stock, for 2024 we're offering 15 paint-to-order choices from which customers can opt either to have all or just part of their kitchen furniture. For buyers looking for a more bespoke look, we believe the pain-to-order service is very competitively priced and with, by market standards, a short lead time between orders being placed and the kitchens being ready for delivery. A strategic priority for us is the development of a market-leading supply and fit capability for premium work surfaces. Solid surface worktops are often but not exclusively associated with the sale of higher-priced kitchens, and this product category is one with significant opportunity for us. Following the acquisition of Sheridan's work surface business and other investments in our in-house solid surface manufacturing capability, We're now amongst the largest in this in the UK. The number of solid surface worktop orders taken by depots increased significantly in 2023 as we continue to improve our offer. In the second half, with the integration of Sheridans complete, we reduced the time between template to fit at a national scale to an industry-leading five days. We added nine more deckworks to our solid surface template and fit service. And for 2024, we have a comprehensive offering of 48 deckworks to suit all budgets. In 2023, we also reinvigorated our offering in other categories and innovated again in 2024. Indoors, we've added more colours and bolder styles at all price points. Our new known label flooring brand, Oak and Grey, is performing very well. A new flooring product for 2024 includes a leading third-party premium-priced brand, Carndine. In appliances, we further additions to our Limona brand, which is the leading integrated appliance brand in the UK, alongside extensions to our range of third-party branded product. And in sinks and taps, more styles, more colours and more finishes. In the latter part of 2023, we tested demand for new fitted bedroom ranges. And for 2024, we have bedrooms displayed and available for sale in every UK depot. Installing fitted bedrooms suits the skills of our customers who fit kitchens and they have a high cabinetry content which matches our manufacturing capability. The ranges were developed in-house, utilising our existing manufacturing and supply infrastructure. We are offering 16 new bedroom ranges in four leading family designs drawn from our kitchen portfolio, matched with internal accessories including pull-down rails, internal storage. We are committed to providing competitively priced product for our customers and we've reinforced our focus on price and promotions and demonstrate the value we offer and promote footfall across the year. Howdens is an in-stock business and the trade tell us that high levels of stock availability is one of the key reasons that they buy from us. In 2023, our service level from primary to depots reached an astonishing 99.96%, a world-class performance by any standard. In 2023, facilitated by our new stock management system, which we call TED, we rolled out our daily traders initiative to all UK depots. Daily Traders is a means of improving customer service and increasing sales by optimising in-stock holdings of best-selling SKUs and associated range completers. Sales of these are outperforming non-Daily Trader SKUs and we have seen improvements in other key metrics, including a higher proportion of stock being replenished via Depo's core weekly delivery cycle, And this gives us efficiencies as it reduces utilization of our XDC service, which I'll talk about next. In recent times, we have improved stock replenishment by supplementing depot's core weekly delivery orders with investment in a next-day service via a network of 12 regional docking centres, or XDCs as we call them, combined with a rebalancing of where we hold stock. XDCs are a key enabler in delivering the levels of high service and availability which differentiate our offer. The improvements to stock replenishment enable depots to hold deeper stocks of fast-selling lines, for example, daily traders, and make it simpler and more efficient for them to deliver superior levels of service and availability and backed by certainty over lead time delivery for items that may not be held in the depot. The time spent and the cost incurred on stock management, for example, on inter-depot transfers of product or exiting discontinued stock, can be reduced. And it helps to de-risk depot ranging decisions, which, if correct, can be costly to unwind. With mainland coverage in place, our focus is now on using these assets most efficiently. The improved stock mix following the introduction of the new reorder system and the Daily Traders Initiative have enabled us to optimise annualised XTC capacity. We make all the kitchen cabinets and some of the other products we sell, which is the source of a competitive advantage for us. We keep under review what we believe is best to make and buy, balanced by cost, overall supply chain, availability, resilience and flexibility. In 2023, several major investments came to fruition. Production of the new furniture lines at the Houghton site, which are amongst the most advanced of their type in Europe, totaled around 600,000 pieces in 2023, with a full capacity of around 2 million pieces going forward. This gives us the ability to make a variety of kitchen furniture, principally frontals and panels for more of our ranges, at the same quality as we can source externally, but at a lower cost and at a reduced lead time to delivery. Our second architrave and skirting line became operational. The new line increases our capacity and broadens the range of such products that we can manufacture, enabling us to continue to service in-house substantially all of the growing demand we see for these products. Separately, we've also invested in two lines to facilitate our paint-to-order initiative, located in a purpose-based facility near our Huyden site, and the line gives us an industry-leading production capability in this area. Now, thirdly, I want to turn to our digital platform. So we use digital to reinforce our model of strong local relationships between the depots and their customers by raising brand awareness to support the business model with new services and ways to trade with us and to deliver productivity benefits and more leads for our depot teams and our customers. In 2023, usage of our online account facilities, which provide efficiencies and benefits for our customers and depots alike, has continued to increase. New registrations totaled some 75,000, and around 48% of our customers had an online account at the year end. Following a substantial increase in 2022, total users viewing our platform increased by 7%, with around 75% of users regularly looking at their confidential prices. Customers with an online account, on average, have continued to trade with us more frequently and spend significantly more than non-users, and proportionally more of them bought across our product categories. We saw high levels of engagement with our web platform and growth in our social media presence, which also stimulates interest in viewing our products and services on Hidens.com. Site visits totaled 19.6 million in the year. We continue to have the highest number of fitted kitchen site visits in the UK. And the time spent viewing pages and the number of pages viewed per visit were consistently high levels. Across social media, our follower base at around 554,000 was up 16%, with around 5.4 million monthly engagements. As our digital presence has grown, awareness of Haydn's among end consumers has increased. In 2023, our unprompted brand awareness amongst end consumers was now 31%, which is approaching three times what it was in 2019. And we see potential for this to rise and awareness amongst end customers too. In 2023, amongst other initiatives, we tested a digitized in-depot stock management system, which we call LiveStock. to deliver, to record delivery and picking, to check allocations, and to determine depot stock levels. Amongst other benefits, the system frees up times for the depot teams to use more productively, and the system is now being rolled out to all UK depots very successfully. The stock surety live stock system brings and other initiatives such as daily traders provide now enable us to offer a leading click and collect service to our trade customers. Completed in the coming months, online account customers for all our UK depots will be able to check real time availability of stock on a depot by depot basis. place orders for collection at a time of their choosing, and in two clicks elect to pay either when placing for the orders or simply put it on their account. Our initiatives to help end users interact with us at each stage of their buying decisions are contributing to an increase in digitally sourced contacts for depots. Online sourced depot contacts on the metrics we use increased by 22% in 2023, These are a source of high quality leads for depots and customers, including for kitchens. These are source of high quality leads for depots and customers, including for kitchens. A significant portion convert to kitchen sales with above average order values. And in 2024, we are looking to promote higher levels of lead generation online. And finally, international. In 2023, our operations based in France returned increased sales in a market at least as challenging as the one in the UK. The kitchen market in France is estimated to be worth around €4 billion, excluding appliances, with most kitchens purchased through kitchen specialists or DIY chains. As long-term followers of Howden's will know, we tested our ability to access this sizeable market in several ways before adopting the city-based approach. Serving solely trade customers, led by staff and staffed by people who embrace the Howden's way of doing business. By the end of 2022, we doubled the depots in France and Belgium to 60 in a two-year period and we opened a further five at the end of 2023. Consequently, as compared with their UK counterparts, some of the depot managers in France have fewer years of experience in nurturing trusted trade relationships. For 2024, we are focused on team development to foster these, and we're also expecting to open around another five depots this year. And we are investing elsewhere in the business through enhanced offerings of footfall promoting products. And in 2024, we will see regular trade days with all depots with aligned promotional activity and an increased level of supplier support. In 2023, we opened more depots in the Republic of Ireland and we'll do so again in 2024. We commenced trading in the Republic of Ireland in 2022 using a similar depot strategy to that in France, with the depot teams there supported by our UK infrastructure and our digital platform. During 2022, we opened five depots clustered around Dublin, and our arrival in the Irish market has attracted much attention locally. We opened five depots in 2023, three around Dublin, two serving Cork, taking the total to around 10 for the year end. We're encouraged by the depot sales performance to date. And in 2024, we plan to open around five more depots, which would increase the total number to 15 by the year end. So for 2024, we are well planned as we ever have been. including on our strategic initiatives. And these are aimed at increasing our market share profitably as we deliver value to customers across all price points. High stock availability is a major contributor to our performance. And in 2024, we will continue with our safety stock policies for the most part at the levels by volume we deployed in 2023. All of our confirmed new kitchen ranges for 2024 will be in stock by the end of June, well ahead of autumn peak trading, with an emphasis on entry and mid-price points with our very competitively priced premium-priced kitchens offering. We have a programme of rooster promotions in place to help Howdens to be at the front of the trade's mind, together with other pricing initiatives. and we will continue to make improvements to service and availability by utilising XDCs and through our daily traders, livestock and click and collect initiatives. We are increasing the range of services and functionality we offer online to the benefit of our depot teams, customers and end users alike. And we'll be making more product in the UK as our new production lines at Huygens move up towards full scale production, our solid surface business grows and our bedroom volumes increase. During 2024, we plan to open around 30 depots in the UK and refurbish around another 85 depots to the updated format. And by the end of 2024, we expect to have around about 70 depots trading in France and Belgium and around 15 trading in the Republic of Ireland. Lastly, outlook. Whilst it's still early days, we have made an encouraging start to 2024, as I mentioned earlier, and we are on track to meet our expectations for the business in 2024. We expect the market conditions to be broadly unchanged from those in 2023, and we are well prepared for the challenges and opportunities that such market conditions may present. We aim to retain a profitable balance between margin and volume, and we continue to maintain competitive pricing whilst aligning operating costs and working with suppliers to keep product and input costs controlled. We are confident that the business model is the right one to address the opportunities in our market, and in summary, we're well placed to outperform our competitors in 2024. as we continue to invest in our key capabilities and initiatives, which are pivotal to the long-term development of the business. And finally, before we take questions, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who works at Haydn's, whether it's in the depots, the factories, our commercial operations, our support functions, for their extraordinary commitment to providing exceptional service to our customers, which is a key component that sets us apart from so many others. Thank you.