Kingfisher plc

Thank you, Maj, and good morning. Welcome to everyone here at the London Stock Exchange and also to those joining online. And I would like to begin by warmly thanking our colleagues across the group for their continued hard work and commitment. I am immensely proud of all our teams for their focus and contributions against a challenging backdrop, helping us to deliver for customers and drive our long-term strategy. So now turning to our agenda for today on slide two, and I will start the presentation with the key messages and financial highlights for the year. And Bernard will then run through our performance in more detail and cover our outlook and guidance for the year ahead. I will then provide an update on our strategy, including details on our new plan for France. And as usual, we'll be happy to take your questions after the presentation. So now to slide three and our key messages today. Our financial performance for the year was in line with our guidance, which we revised at our Q3 results. Against the backdrop of high inflation and elevated cost of living, we saw contrasting results in our banners. We delivered a positive sales performance in the UK and Ireland with our three banners, BNQ, Screwfix and TradePoint, consistently gaining market share. And in France and Poland, as we have reported, sales were impacted by the more challenging consumer environment in those markets. We have stayed focused and continue to execute against our strategic priorities at pace. In particular, we are making significant progress in the areas of scufix, e-commerce marketplace, data, retail media, and trade. These are all key drivers of sustained market share gains and our medium-term growth ambitions. We are also today announcing a clear plan to take France to the next level, simplifying the organization and significantly improving the performance and profitability of Castorama France. Turning to the short term and the year ahead, we expect repairs, maintenance and renovation on existing homes, which are typically around 80% to 85% of our sales, to continue to support resilient demand. So while we start to see early positive momentum for housing demand across our markets, we are cautious on the overall market outlook for 2024 due to the lag between housing demand and home improvement demand. Against this backdrop, we are focusing 2024 on what we can control. This is delivering our strategy to deliver market share growth, driving productivity gains, and continuing to manage our cost and cash effectively. Overall, our consistent execution over the last four years means we are now strongly positioned for growth in 2025 and beyond. We have made significant structural changes in how we operate. We are more agile, more lean, And we have a high conviction in the multiple growth drivers we are already investing in. So turning now to slide four and the financial highlights for the year. Overall sales of minus 1.8% were resilient despite the conditions in France and Poland. This was supported by our positive performance in the UK and Ireland. We analyze our business by three broad categories. Seasonal, big ticket, and our core categories. Core represents 77% of group volumes and two-thirds of group sales last year. Through the year, we saw a sequential improvement quarter after quarter in the volume trend of these core categories as price inflation tapered. And this is still the case when we look at current trading versus the fourth quarter. This is an important and encouraging trend in the context of 2024. So e-commerce growth has been very encouraging, supported by the strong progress of our marketplace at B&Q, which has reached 200 million pounds in GMV in less than two years of operations. Our overall e-commerce sales now represent 17.4% of the group. This is more than twice the level of 2019, which shows how far we have come. We delivered adjusted profit before tax of 568 million pounds, and a strong free cash flow of £514 million. And finally, we continue to build on our track record of attractive shareholder returns, with around £400 million returned through dividends and buyback in the year. So let me now hand over to Bernard to take you through the financials in more detail.

Thank you, Jerry. Good morning, everyone. To slide six and the key financials for the year. As you've just heard, total sales in constant currency were down 1.8% to just under 13 billion. We generated gross profit of 4.8 billion, down 1.6%, with gross margin up 10 basis points. This reflected our active management of inflation and supplier negotiations, partially offset by higher customer participation in promotional activity in France and Poland, particularly in the first half of the year. In H2, the group's gross margin was 60 basis points higher year over year. In constant currency, retail profit decreased by 19.5% to 749 million. This reflected lower gross profits in France and Poland and higher operating costs in the UK and Poland, largely due to staff pay rates, energy costs and technology spend. The retail profit margin was 130 basis points lower at 5.8%. In H2, the margin decreased by just 70 basis points year over year, with our banners in France and Poland expanding their actions on cost management. After central costs and our share of joint venture interest and tax, adjusted PBT decreased by 25.1% to 568 million. We generated free cash flow of 514 million, supported by the unwind of working capital outflows from the prior year, as well as lower capital expenditure. And our total liquidity position remained strong at over 900 million. Net debt, mainly comprised of property leases, was just over 2.1 billion, with net leverage of 1.6 times EBITDA, unchanged from prior year. Moving to slide seven and looking at our performance by category. 16% of our sales were from big ticket categories, which include kitchen and bathroom sales. Like for like sales in this category were 3.8% lower, largely reflecting market weakness in France and Poland. 18% of our sales were from seasonal categories. This includes products such as outdoor furniture, barbecues, and heating and cooling products. Like for like sales in these categories were 5.9% lower, driven by adverse weather in our markets. This included poor conditions in spring and an unusually warm start to autumn. In our core categories, which accounts for the majority of group sales and volumes, we saw relatively resilient demand trends with like-for-like sales lower by just 2.1%. As Thierry mentioned, we saw a sequential improvement of the volume trend as price inflation tapered through the year. We see this as an encouraging trend which has continued into the start of 2024. Over the next few slides, we'll take a closer look at our performance by region. All year-on-year variances are in constant currency, starting with the UK and Ireland here on slide 8. We delivered like-for-like growths of 0.8%, supported by resilient e-commerce and trade customer sales. Space and acquisitions contributed an additional 2.2%, mainly from store openings at Screwfix and the acquisition of Screwfix Spares in March. Total sales in the UK and Ireland increased by 3%. Looking by banner, like-for-like sales at B&Q increased by 0.4%. This was driven by core category sales supported by robust demand from trade customers and the strong growth of marketplaces. B&Q's marketplace participation was 31% for the year, with overall e-commerce penetration reaching 13%, up from 11% last year. TradePoint delivered a good performance, with like-for-like sales up 0.7% for the year, accelerating in H2 to plus 3.6%. TradePoint penetration of B&Q sales remained at 22% for the year. Customer engagement and loyalty at TradePoint continued to strengthen, with active membership up 6% year-over-year. At Screwfix, like for like sales, increased by 1.4%. The business saw a good performance across most categories, supported by robust demand from trade customers. Space growth and the acquisition of Screwfix Spares contributed circa 6%, for total sales growth of 7.3%. B&Q, TradePoint and Screwfix all saw consistent market share gains in the year, strongly so at Screwfix. Gross margin for the UK and Ireland increased by 40 basis points, reflecting the effective management of inflation and favourable channel mix impacts due to the growth of B&Q's marketplace. While H1 gross margin was flat, H2 margin increased by 80 basis points year over year. Operating costs increased by 8%. This was driven by increases in staff and energy costs, higher technology spent and costs associated with new stores. The increase was partially offset through structural savings achieved by our cost reduction program. Retail profit for the UK and Ireland was 8% lower at 555 million, with the increase in gross profit more than offset by higher operating costs. Moving to slide nine and our performance in France. Like-for-like sales were 5.9% lower for the year, with the trading environment impacted by low consumer confidence, particularly in the second half. Within this, seasonal sales were impacted by adverse weather conditions, with like-for-like sales 9.2% lower. Looking by banner, Castorama's performance was broadly in line with the market, with like-for-like sales down 4.8%. At Ricodepot, like-for-like sales were 7.1% lower, Its performance in H1 was impacted by reallocation of a portion of its marketing budget to digital, which proved unsuccessful and was corrected in mid-July. Sales slowed further in Q3 as the trading environment weakened, but rebounded in the fourth quarter with the sales performance in line with the market. Gross margin for France decreased by 10 basis points, reflecting the higher weighting of sales towards special promotions at Brico Depot, largely offset by effective supplier negotiations and lower distribution costs and shrinkage rates in H2. Gross margin increased by 20 basis points in H2. Operating costs decreased by 2.9% due to the active flexing of variable costs and structural savings achieved by our cost reduction program. both of which were expanded in the second half in response to the weaker trading environment. Operating costs were 4.4% lower in H2. Retail profit was 29.7% lower at 139 million, driven by Drico Depot. France retail profit margin was 110 basis points lower for the year at 3.3%. Turning to slide 10 and the performance of Casarama Poland. Like-for-like sales were 9.5% lower against strong prior year comparatives and a challenging trading environment, particularly in the first half of the year. Sales trends improved in Q3 and Q4, supported by core category sales in line with a gradual improvement in the consumer environment. On a year-over-year basis, Casarama gained market share in Q4 and sales trends have continued to improve in current trading. Gross margin for Poland decreased by 20 basis points for the year. This reflected higher consumer participation in promotional activity and adverse sales mix, partially offset by Castorama's effective management of inflation, supplier negotiations, and a lower stock provision movement compared to the prior year. This was especially the case in H2, with gross margin up 150 basis points year over year. Operating costs were 5.6% higher for the year due to increases in pay rates, energy costs, higher technology spend and costs related to five new stores. This was partially offset by strengthened cost reduction actions, including the flexing of staffing levels, lowering discretionary spend and the re-phasing of certain investments. These actions resulted in operating costs being limited to a 1.7% increase in H2O. Retail profit for the year was 47.4% lower at 82 million, with a retail profit margin of 4.8%, 370 basis points lower year over year. Turning now to slide 11. The performance of the UK and Ireland, France and Poland are shown here in summary. Looking now at some of our other markets. First, in Brickwood Depot Arberia, where like-for-like sales were 1.8% lower. Core and big ticket categories were resilient, but the business saw weak seasonal sales due to adverse weather in the year, with the profit decreased to 6 million. At Ricodepo Romania, like-for-like sales were 3.3% lower, against strong prior year competitors and a challenging trading environment. Sales trends improved in H2, and the business exited the year with a positive like-for-like in the fourth quarter. Retail loss increased to 80 million, reflecting lower sales and gross margin, partially offset by lower operating costs. Other consists of the consolidated results of our new businesses, Scrufix International, Need Help and Franchise, and Wholesale Agreements. A combined retail loss of 30 million was realized in line with the prior year. The loss was largely driven by Scrufix France as the business invested in opening stores and building brand awareness. Our Turkish joint venture, Kostas, contributed a retail profit of 50 million, up 7 million from prior year. However, this was offset by higher Kostas-related interest in the year as a result of inflation accounting. To slide 12 and the full year movement in adjusted PBT for the group. In constant currency, this was down 25.1% for the year to 568 million. Lower like-for-like sales at constant gross margin rate contributed 150 million to the decline. The gross margin rate improvement of 10 basis points added 12 million. Increases in pay rates and energy cost inflation amounted to 148 million, which was weighted more to the first half due to the phasing of inflation in the prior year. Other cost inflation and technology spend, which includes depreciation on IT assets, had an impact of 66 million. We were able to substantially offset these cost increases through the active flexing of our staffing levels and variable costs, together with structural savings achieved by a cost reduction program. Overall, the net increase in operating costs, excluding new stores and new businesses, was 38 million for the year. In H1, we recognized one-off and non-cash charges of 10 million in relation to ineffective foreign exchange hedges, which was linked to lower product purchases. Over 5 million of this related to Poland. The year-over-year movement in profit contribution from our new stores and new businesses was 5 million, This was mainly driven by screwfix in the UK and Ireland. And finally, our non-retail profit items were 70 million higher year over year. This included 11 million more on central cost, plus 12 million of additional interest and tax at Kostas, reflecting accounting adjustments linked to high inflation and interest rates in Turkey. These items were partially offset by 7 million lower net finance costs due to higher interest income on cash deposits. On slide 13, we have replicated the profit bridge for H2. In constant currency, pre-tax profit was 19.4% lower at 232 million, which was an improvement on the H1 movement given a stronger gross margin rate and accelerated cost actions somewhat offset by the impact of a larger decline in year-over-year sales. Gross margin improved in all key markets in H2 for an increase of 60 basis points in total for the group. This was driven by our effective management of inflation and supplier negotiations, more normalized promotional activities, and a lower stock provision movement in Poland year over year. This resulted in a 37 million profit contribution. And as a result of our accelerated action, net operating costs, excluding new stores and new businesses, were 7 million lower year over year. This leads us to slide 14 and an overview of our ongoing work to lower our cost base and increase productivity. At the start of 2020, we initiated a multi-year cost reduction program covering all our retail banners and group functions. These efforts have delivered a combined 356 million in like-for-like operating cost reduction over the last three years, completely offsetting operating cost inflation. This number doesn't cover the significant savings realizing costs of goods sold from optimizing a distribution center space and logistics networks. For example, in France, Castorama and Ricodepo have reduced distribution center space by 28% over the last four years. Despite this, there's still much more that we can do, and we're continuing to increase labor productivity. Last year, the number of FTEs in the group reduced by approximately 2,600. In stores, we are enhancing productivity by deploying technologies such as self-checkout terminals and electronic price labels. We are also leveraging data to improve store processes and implementing new best practices to reduce stock shrinkage. In property, we continue to negotiate favorable lease terms. Last year, we completed 17 lease renegotiations across the group, excluding Shrewfix, realizing an average net rent reduction of 19%. and result from our right size stores have exceeded expectations, seeing an average space reduction of 30%, improved sales densities and improved profitability. We plan to right size up to 20 more B&Q stores over the medium to longer term and accelerate right sizing as Catarama France, as Thierry will touch on later. Across our group and banner head offices, we're also seeing savings on overhead expenditure, including through the expanded use of our shared service center in Poland. This is allowing us to be more efficient at our ad offices. Last year, we invested in software engineering and data capabilities in-house, facilitating more agility in responding to customer demands and a lower level of reliance on third-party contractors. We also decommissioned older and more costly legacy IT systems. And we continue to optimize our circa 2.5 billion of goods not for resale purchases with a range of projects led by category managers that operate across banners and local procurement teams. There are 230 such projects currently in train. We expect to continue driving cost savings and efficiencies. In the coming year, we have line of sight to an additional 120 million of cost reduction, helping to offset against expected inflation. To slide 15 and a summary of cash flow movements in the year. We generated EVTA of over 1.3 billion, lower by 8.7% year over year. As expected, we saw working capital inflow of 118 million. This was driven by 132 million reduction in inventory, 4% lower year over year, reflecting lower purchasing, a reduction in seasonal and buffer stock, product mix, and our ongoing strategic reduction initiatives. This was partially offset by the impact of product cost inflation and new stores. Payables were broadly stable year-over-year, lower by 8 million due to normalized purchasing patterns. Receivables increased by 6 million, resulting in a net overall movement of 14 million. Capital expenditure for the year was 363 million, representing 2.8% of sales. This was approximately 20% lower year-over-year, driven by lower tech and digital spend and some re-phasing of our store and range review investments. Free cash flow for the year was 540 million. We paid ordinary dividends of 237 million and a further 160 million was returned to shareholders via our share buyback programs. This included circa 50 million related to the first tranche of our ongoing 300 million program. Overall, we saw a net increase in cash of 84 million. Moving on to our outlook and guidance for the year ahead. starting here on slide 17 with a reminder of Kingfisher's sales by customer's fund category. Typically, the majority of our sales are linked to repairs and maintenance. This type of activity is less discretionary in nature, driven by essential demands. As such, we tend to see resilience in associated product sales and more limited volatility. Then there is the renovation of existing homes. More recently, we've observed a clear trend of improve, not move, with consumers investing to protect the value of their homes in an environment of fewer housing transactions and relatively high employment levels and saving ratios. We saw this trend clearly in the UK last year, particularly with trade demand at Screwfix and TradePoint. In addition, trends such as more working from home and growing interest in energy efficiency provide reinforcements for renovation-linked demand. The balance of the 10 to 15% of our typical annual sales are linked to renovation work following a house move. Our analysis suggests that recent home movers are likely to spend one and a quarter to two and a half times more on home improvement than the average home improver within 18 months of moving, providing some support for our big ticket sales. Moving to slide 18. To give you an insight into our scenario planning processes, we'd like to present our view of the outlook for home improvement in our markets this year. In the UK and Ireland, we observe a relatively resilient consumer and continue to expect repairs, maintenance and existing home renovation to be supportive. However, we are mindful of a couple of things. First, the continued uncertainties facing households, including from employment and mortgage rates, And second, a 9 to 12 months lag on average between housing demand and the realization of home improvement spend. As a result, our outlook for the UK and Ireland home improvement market into 2024 is somewhat between a low single-digit decline to flat year-over-year. In France, we continue to see subdued consumer confidence and a weak housing market. This supports our home improvement market outlook of a mid-single-digit decline in a low case and low single-digit decline in a high case. And finally, in Poland, more recently, we have started to see inflation and interest rates come down versus their peaks in 2023. And consumer confidence is slowly improving, with potential for further improvements as households benefit from real wage growth this year. We therefore expect the home improvement market in Poland to be somewhere between flat and low single-digit year over year. In the appendices, you will find the results from a recent survey of retail and trade customers in the UK, France and Poland, which we run regularly to check the pulse of our markets. Overall, these surveys highlight a gradual improvement in sentiment, but still some caution on retail and trade consumer intentions in the short term. Finally, to slide 19 and bringing our market outlook together with our guidance for the full year. Further technical guidance can be found in the appendices. To summarize the previous slide, we expect repairs, maintenance and existing home renovation to provide resilience, but we are cautious on the overall market outlook in full year 24-25, given the lag between housing demand and home improvement demand. In Q1 to date, we have seen group like-for-like sales of minus 2.3%, with improved sales trends in all regions compared to the fourth quarter. For the year ahead, you can continue to expect from us a focus on growing ahead of the market by leveraging our key strategic priorities. Thierry will cover these in more detail shortly. In terms of trading, as we have demonstrated very well in recent years, we will continue our effective management of product costs and retail prices while maintaining competitive price indices. We're also targeting an additional 120 million in OPEX reductions and productivity gains this year to partially offset higher pay rates and technology investments. Taken together, we expect full year adjusted PBT of 490 million to 550 million and free cash flow of 350 million to 410 million. With my review complete, let me now hand back to Jerry.

Thank you. Thank you, Bernard. So now moving to an update on our strategy, I would like to start on slide 21 with a reminder of Kingfisher's equity story. Home improvement, which includes DIY, do it for me and trade channels, is an attractive industry. Our addressable markets are worth around 160 billion pounds with many structural drivers. This includes an aging housing stock across our European markets. which supports repairs, maintenance and renovation, as well as an increasing need for greener and more efficient homes. We also see many supportive socio-economic trends. There is a high level of home ownership across the core customer groups in our markets. We continue to notice a sustained trend of more working from home and a budding generation of young DIYers post-COVID. We then believe Kingfisher has many distinct competitive advantages that enable us to win in this market. Firstly, we maintain leadership across all our key geographies with number one or two positions. These are achieved through diverse banners and formats which resonate with customers across general DIY, trade, and the discount market. We have group scale and resources which power our banners from product development and supply and technology and buying. Our own exclusive brands accounting for around half our sales are a treasure for Kingfisher. They enable differentiation and innovation at affordable prices for customers and a higher margin for us. We now have a powerful digital proposition supported by a strong store network and our leading-edge technology infrastructure. Combined, this creates our best-in-class omnichannel offering. We are a pioneer in leading our industry in responsible business and energy efficiency. Leveraging these advantages, Kingfisher represents a compelling returns opportunity. We have multiple growth drivers, from the expansion of SCOFIX, e-commerce and marketplace, retail media and trade, We're a highly cash-generative business with a strong balance sheet, and we have a strong track record of paying dividends and returning surplus capital to shareholders. Since 2019, we have returned over £1.6 billion, that is around one-third of our market cap today. So simply put, we believe our market, our competitive advantages, our strategy and growth drivers, and our record of delivering attractive returns making Fisher compelling investment opportunity. Achieving this potential means keeping our focus on the long term and continuing to execute against our strategic priorities at pace. Many of you will be familiar with our strategic pillars listed here on slide 2022. I will speak to some of these in more detail shortly. Overall, we are pleased with our progress in all these key areas. They support our goal of powering our distinct retail banners with the strengths, scale, and expertise of the Kingfisher Group. So on slide 23, we summarize the application of our strategic priorities across our banners to achieve their full potential. With each of our banners having clear and distinct plans, the role of Kingfisher is to provide product, technology, scale, and expertise where it makes sense to accelerate their strategies for the benefit of our customers. As you can see from the bottom of this slide, our discipline approach gives priority to our highest returning opportunities, the expansion of SchoolFix and the store opening program in Kastorama Poland. Over the next few slides, I will talk to a handful of our strategic priorities covering progress made to date and the significant potential we see in the future. And starting here on slide 24, with our first pillar, grow by building on our different banners. In our key markets, we have identified wide spaces and catchments where our banners are currently underrepresented. At B&Q, we now have 10 stores under the B&Q local branding, leveraging our compact high street format to penetrate more urban areas. We believe there are over 50 wide spaces to go after in the UK. B&Q trade focus banner, TradePoint, expanded into 21 additional stores last year, now present in more than two thirds of B&Q network. In the coming year, We will begin testing counters for smaller B&Q stores to increase our presence in this part of the estate. Screwfix continues to grow at pace. Last year, it opened 51 stores in the UK and Ireland, and with a total of 922 stores, it is firmly on track to its goal of over 1,000 stores in those countries. We expect to open up to 40 new stores this year. Skoufix also opened a further 15 stores in France for a total of 20 stores at the end of January, and we are encouraged by the results so far and more of this foresee. Poland remains a significant and an exciting opportunity for Kingfisher. There is a significant wide space in the country with potential for all Castorama formats, in particular our medium box and compact stores. We see more scope to add up to 75 such stores over the next five years and intend to open a further five this year. And finally, Brico Depot is well positioned to penetrate more white space in France with its leading discount format. It opened its first two compact stores last year with a 1,000 square meter format. Over the medium term, we believe net space growth will drive an uplift in sales of circa 1.5 to 2.5% per annum. Now to slide 25 and a deeper look at the opportunity for Screwfix International, where we are building on the industry-leading convenience model for trade customers developed in the UK. Last year, we focused on building the foundations. for the business in France and we are making good progress. We opened 15 more stores and expanded our range to around 14,000 SKUs. We are really pleased with the customer reaction so far across a customer base that has already reached 70,000. We have seen strong NPS scores and strong repeat customer trends with approximately half of our sales to trade customers. We believe the key to long-term success in France is leveraging our competitive advantages and all the things that make Scofix great in the UK. Our brand awareness is now already on par with our closest peers in France. Within only 18 months of opening our first stores, our sales densities are already higher and building on our existing presence in France, we are applying Kingfisher's local expertise, scale, and own exclusive brands. We plan to open up to 15 new stores in northern France this year, and we have a clear roadmap to profitability with a measured approach to the pace of store openings in the coming years. We are clear that the focus is further building brand awareness, scaling up sales store densities, and further refining the model. Assuming the success of the Fermat is confirmed, we see potential for more than 600 stores in France. And over time, we also see scope to extend our presence in more European countries, adopting our online-first approach. On slide 26, we have set out scufix store sales evolution in France versus the UK. Unsurprisingly, year one store sales are lower in France versus the UK, where the brand is one of the most as our brand continues to develop in France and as we build on our 70,000 customers and win more of their wallet spend. Overall, we are confident in achieving a positive retail contribution in year four of a Scufix France store. We believe this will become faster as awareness and consumer adoption grows over time, as it did in the UK. So now turning to our marketplace proposition on slide 27, I mentioned in my opening remarks the strengths of our e-commerce performance this year. Much of this is down to the success of our marketplace at B&Q and also in Iberia. In less than two years, B&Q has reached 200 million pounds of GMV, is growth sales from marketplace where 31% of online sales, and it continues to grow strongly, reaching 38% in January. At B&Q, we offer customers an additional 1.2 million SKUs from hundreds of selected merchants. This supports our own first-party proposition of 40,000 SKUs in-store and online. Merchants are choosing us for our high levels of traffic our trusted retail brands, and our sophisticated back-end capabilities and services. And with this virtuous circle, we are taking more share of traffic and attracting new customers, with 50% of marketplace customers new to B&Q. We apply a 10% to 15% take rate across our marketplace sales. So with a relatively low cost to serve, Marketplace is already delivering strong returns and the potential for further growth is very significant. Turning to slide 28 and our ambitions for e-commerce and Marketplace. In the UK, we aim to reach 2 million SKUs at B&Q, providing significant additional choice for our customers. This year, we will also onboard selected non-UK merchants to expand options from international brands. And we are really excited about extending our success to France and to Poland. With the technology already built, this can be done at a minimal cost. Last week, Castorama France launched its marketplace. The business is planning to scale at pace, leveraging new strategic partnerships already signed with various aggregators, Over time, we expect to offer more than 500,000 additional SKUs. Kastorma Poland will launch its marketplace in H2. So e-commerce is a major growth opportunity for Kingfisher. Our ambition is now to reach online sales penetration for the group of 30%, with one-third coming from these high-margin marketplace sales. To slide 29, another area where we have moved at Pace is retail media. We have built a proposition to give merchants the opportunity to advertise, utilize data, and improve their offering. This is supported by new partnerships to accelerate our capabilities in technology and sales. In H1 last year, we launched retail media in our two banners in France. followed by B&Q in H2 with multiple vendors now advertising via our e-commerce channels. Our priorities this year include expanding into Scrufix, Castorama, Poland, Iberia, and Romania. We will also launch a retail media proposition for marketplace sellers. Over time, we see the potential for retail media revenues to reach up to 3% of our e-commerce sales, and we are already excited about the opportunity here. And finally, our trade, our pro strategy here on slide 30. This is a key priority for Kingfisher and is already delivering very positive results as we extend our proposition into France and Poland. Through TradePoint in the UK, we have created a blueprint for ambitions in heavier trade. The banner is now present in 67% of B&Q's store network. Last year, we recruited dedicated sales partners in 39 stores to build more direct and personalized relationships with our trade customers. And we are already seeing positive early results with TradePoint delivering £834 million in sales last year and like-for-like sales in H2 of plus 3.6%. The business outperformed B&Q as a whole and gained market share. So we are extending our learnings here to other banners across the group. In France, we have launched tests at 24 Brico Depot stores with dedicated trade zones, colleagues, and a new loyalty program. Already in those stores, we have seen a doubling of trade sales penetration, and we have recruited more than 5,000 customers to our loyalty program. Given this early success, we have begun a nationwide rollout to all Brico Depot stores while in parallel stepping up our trade proposition at Castorama France this year. And similarly in Poland, we are testing CastoProZones, a store-in-store concept similar to TradePoint, with separate entrances to the store supported by a new loyalty program and dedicated sales partners. Early results show that trade penetration of our five pilot stores is significantly higher than the Poland average. And we are seeing trade customers shop three times more frequently as with much higher baskets. So this year, we intend to expand the store-in-store pilots to 10 additional locations in Poland, supported by a national rollout of our pro-loyalty program. Over the longer term, these plans support our ambitions to increase trade point sales to over 1 billion pounds and to double our trade penetration in France and Poland. Turning now to France and starting with slide 33. And we have established strong foundations in France over the last four years. The Fix France phase started in September 2019. We quickly started to improve the offer of both banners, bringing back local and international brands to meet customer better. We reintroduced dynamic trading events and promotional offers. We put in place new leadership and filled critical roles and teams. And we started to reorganize the entire logistic network in France, as well as addressing the key IT pain point of 2019. In 2020, we started implementing our new Powered by Kingfisher strategy. As you know, we fundamentally rebalanced all the banners, worked with Kingfisher Group, giving them greater autonomy and agility. We furthered the offer of both Castorama and Brico Depot, leveraging Kingfisher's OEB to provide differentiation between the two. And we invested in price at both banners, strengthening their price positioning and perception. We also started to test adaptation to the store estate, giving us insights we need to make longer-term decisions around ride sizing, modernizations, transferring Castorama stores to Brico Depot, and compact formats. In parallel, we have brought significant new e-commerce and data capabilities to France, preparing the banners for the next phase of their journey. And finally, over £150 million of cost has been structurally removed from the businesses in the last four years. As a result of all these actions, we have created a clear differentiation between our two banners, more competitive prices, strong product availability, and significantly improved customer satisfaction. As a consequence, we have now corrected the significant underperformance against the market that we were experiencing back in 2019. So the time is therefore right to take France to the next level, and this is summarized here on slide 33. First, we are simplifying the overall structure of the organization by dissolving our Kingfisher France structure. This will move decision-making power clearly to the banners, making us more agile, and it will eliminate some duplication of work at banner and France level, releasing some efficiencies. This simplified structure will reflect how we run our businesses in the UK and Ireland. Alain Rabeck, CEO of France, will retire at the end of September 2024. Alain joined Kingfisher in October 2019 and has overseen most of the significant progress I highlighted on the previous slide. I would like to take this moment to thank Alain for his many important contributions and wish him well for his retirement. As part of this, we have announced that Pascal Gilles will become CEO of Castorama France at the end of April. Pascal started his career at Castorama France before leading Brico Depot and then becoming CEO of Poland. Details of Pascal's successor in Poland will be announced in due course. Second, we have constructed a clear and actionable new plan for Castorama. We will restructure and modernize the store network, improve operating margins, and grow sales densities. Finally, we'll strengthen the discounted DNA of Brico Depot to drive like-for-like sales. The business aims to capture trade demand, roll out new store formats, and improve productivity. So based on this plan, our target is to reach a retail profit for France of circa 5% to 7% in the medium term, We expect to achieve 5% through self-help and the actions I will set out in the next few slides. And if the French market environment becomes more positive, we believe this can move to 7% with the operating leverage in the business. So starting with Castorama on slide 34, despite significant progress over the last four years, The margin of Castorama remains lower than group average and also that of Brico Depot. We have developed a plan with three core priorities to boost Castorama's performance, starting with restructuring and modernizing the store network. We are focused here on one third of the estate, which we have assessed as the lowest performing Castorama stores. Our plan is to address these stores via four main pathways, right-sizing, modernization, transferring to Brico Depot, and franchising. I will explore these pathways in the following slides, and 13 stores will be addressed during this year. Second, we'll focus on operating margin efficiency for the whole Castorama network. This means strengthening our cost reduction plan and leveraging our investment in data and AI to optimize promotion, markdown, and clearance. As discussed, we will also scale our retail media and marketplace offerings to generate additional income streams. We also believe there is significant opportunity to grow sales density across Castorama. This can be achieved with broader product choice supported by marketplace and also by growing threat penetration and capturing demand for energy efficiency and green renovations. And finally, we intend to achieve this with no material step-up in CAPEX. The investment required is within the group CAPEX guidance of 3% of sales and will be spread over the next three to five years. We see an internal rate of return of over 25% on these investments and payback within three to four years. We are now assuming any release of value We are not assuming any release of value from our freehold stores. Now to slide 35 and the first pathway for Castorama's lowest performing stores, right-sizing. Over the last two years, we have successfully right-sized two Castorama stores. This resulted in space reduction of around 25% and a material uplift in sales densities. on average, that saw a 600 basis point improvement in the retail contribution margin of those two stores. We have identified three stores where we will commence rightsizing this year with a targeted payback of investment within four years. Second, we are modernizing our store formats. We successfully carried out a pervasive store refit last year in our Castorama store in Anglo, near Lille, We reorganized the layout breaking from the format of 130 aisles and moving instead to six core areas focused on inspirational projects. The refit took six months to complete and we completed the work while the store was open. We expect payback of our investment within four years. Results have been strong and we significantly improved sales growth strong big-ticket sales, and higher customer traffic and NPS scores. The store has now become one of Castorama France's top 10 performing stores. We are planning to roll out this successful approach to one Castorama store this year, with six additional low-performing stores benefiting from a refresh. On slide 37, you can see how we have upgraded the look and feel of Anglo, creating a more inspirational space and improving the overall customer experience, including in-store digital and fulfillment service. We are looking forward to show you this renewed concept in person as part of our Store2 event in July, and we hope to see many of you there. Slide 38 shows how value can be created in specific situation by transferring Casto stores to a more profitable Brico Depot format. Over the last three years, we successfully transferred two low-performing stores to Brico. Our Poto Combo conversion showed on this slide, so a reduction in selling space of 50% with sales densities increasing significantly. by more than 100% and a material uplift in store profitability. We are planning to transfer one Castorama France to a Brico-Depot format this year. And finally, to franchising on slide 39, we have followed closely the very common practice of franchising in French retailing, and we believe there are significant benefits for both Castorama and our potential franchisees. The franchisee would operate the store with right to use of Castorama brand for royalty fee. They would also be able to leverage Kingfisher's capabilities, including our store technologies, our buying scale, and access to our OEB product via wholesale. All store operating costs, such as staff and OPEX, would transfer to the franchisee. We believe that the model will improve store profitability and provide an attractive income stream for Kingfisher. we are planning to test franchise in two Castorama stores in the next 12 months. Longer term, this model also gives us the option to expand our footprint with limited capex. Now to site 40 and Brico Depot, our industry's leading art discounter. We believe there is significant and exciting potential for this business and our plan will capitalize on the extensive work we have done to restore Brico Depot's discounted DNA. We'll drive lack for lack sales by further strengthening ranges, brand awareness, and our price positioning. As I mentioned earlier, Brico will expand its trade proposition to the entire store network this year, following very positive results in 24 stores. We are also testing and optimizing Brico's innovative 1,000 square meter format. The business opened its first two compact stores this year, and customer reaction has so far been positive. So Brico is well positioned to penetrate more wide spaces that exist in France, and over time, we see franchising as another option for capital light footprint expansion. At last, improving store productivity is a big focus for BricoDepot. We are starting by optimizing functions and creating a simpler management structure. There is then significant opportunity to leverage technology and data to be more efficient in how we run the stores and deploy our colleagues. So overall, there is much to look forward to in France, and we are excited about the possibilities ahead, and we expect a significant improvement in profitability over the medium term. So finally, to summarize today's presentation and starting on slide 42, 2023 was a challenging year. However, we are pleased with the fast progress made against our strategic initiatives, which are structurally changing our business for the future. And this is reflected particularly in our resilient UK performance. For 2024, our approach is to be realistic on market growth even the lag between housing and home improvement demand, but putting the market environment to one side, we have much to look forward to in the year ahead. This is leveraging our strategy to deliver sustained market share growth, driving productivity gains, and managing our cost and cash effectively. We also energize by our plans to improve performance and profitability in France. And to slide 43, The business is strongly positioned for growth in 2025 and beyond. I've been clear that as a business, we must not rely on the macro environment to drive our performance. Our very consistent approach in the last four years has been to structurally change our business on the inside, transform the offer for our customers, and focus our capital selectively on profitable growth opportunities. The box on the left provides a few examples of how we have repositioned the business since 2019. We have rebalanced the relationship and responsibilities of our banners and group functions. We have shifted our e-commerce strategy to leverage our store estate to drive our impressive online growth and have transformed our tech infrastructure while also investing in the use of data and AI. We have adopted a culture of test and learn which has enabled us to successfully adopt new approaches and format with minimized risk. And our colleagues are highly engaged and believe in what we are doing. Employee net promoter scores continues to increase and is within the top 5% of worldwide retailers. As you have seen from Bernard, we have also removed significant costs across the group with more efficiency opportunities still ahead of us. Now moving to the middle box in this slide, we have also significantly enhanced our customer offer. We have done this with new stores and formats in all our key markets through more choice, thanks to our new now proven marketplace model and industry leading OEB products. We have seen a real step change in our e-commerce proposition, offering our customers speed and convenience. and we have invested in price to provide better value for money with a price index of 100 or better at all our banners. We have also invested for our trade customers with new ranges and dedicated experts. And as I have set out today, we have focused our investment in key growth opportunities. On the right of the slide, you can see a summary of the financial ambitions related to these opportunities. All this means we are confident about the medium-term growth prospects for Kingfisher. The strategic drivers of the business support our ability to deliver an attractive top line, earning growth and cash generation, which in turn supports strong shoulder returns, as you can see here on slide 44. Next year, financial year 2025-2026, we aim to generate free cash flow of circa £450 million, And beyond 2025, we aim to deliver in excess of 500 million pounds of free cash flow per annum, supported by our profit growth and inventory self-help measures. We are keeping a disciplined approach to capital allocation. While we will continue to invest to support our strategy, we have revised our medium-term capital expenditure target to circa 3% of total sales. This is reduced from our previous target of 3% to 3.5%. We have a clear track record of delivering attractive returns to our shareholders through dividends and buyback. We have returned over £1.6 billion to shareholders in the last five years, and we are committed to our approach to return surplus capital. So with that, I will now open the floor to questions. Over to you, Maj.