Topps Tiles Plc

Good morning and welcome to the TopTiles PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and will be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand over to Alex Jensen, CEO. Good morning.

Thank you, Lily, and welcome everyone to the TOPS interim update. I'm joined, of course, today by interim CFO, Rob Swales. So to put these first half results into context, Mission 365 lays out an ambition to grow revenue 50% higher than the 2024 baseline and to deliver PBT margin of 8%. In 2025, we achieved 40% of this revenue ambition and 12% of our profit growth ambition. In December, I laid out six priorities for the year, crucial to realizing this ambition. And I'm pleased to say that we've made significant progress against each. And to remind you, they were to increase focus on bottom line, to deliver trade growth, to accelerate digital, to increase sales excellence in tops, and to tackle the non-profitable parts of the business. And I'm going to talk to you about these in detail later in the presentation. But to summarize at high level, we have increased our focus on profit. We continue to expand gross margin and have implemented three major self-help cost initiatives aimed at accelerating progress to 8% PVT margin. On the top line, we have outperformed a softer RMI market. This has been underpinned by growth in trade, in digital and delivering in sales excellence and new categories. We have also had a laser-like focus on improving the profit of our acquisitions with the loss on CTD more than halving and Fired Earth already profitable after four months. Moving now to financial highlights. I've used the pro forma numbers here where quite simply we've added CTD trading back into 2025 numbers so we can see a comparison on a similar basis. We delivered flat year-on-year pro forma revenue against a market that declined by 2.5%. Thanks to strong gross margin management, this flowed through to a 2.9% gross profit increase. We managed costs tightly, partially offsetting the cumulative impact of government-led inflation through self-help. This therefore led to a 17.3% increase in pro forma operating profit and flat year-on-year PBT profit due to the increase in interest paid. Looking ahead, and as we mentioned in the R&S, we're expecting modest PBT growth in full year, supported by structural self-help cost-saving initiatives executed and weighted to the second half. So I'd now like to pass over to Rob, who will take us through the financials in more detail. Rob, over to you.

Thank you, Alex, and hello all. I think a good starting point, just before we jump into the financial results, is just to explain the presentation of the numbers that Alex has just mentioned. Given the impact of the CTD business year on year, So you may recall that in FY25 CTD was completely adjusted out of the adjusted financial measures, largely due to the impact of the ongoing CMA process. However, in FY26 CTD is included in the adjusted measures, given we now have full control of this business. So in order to present the adjusted financials on a comparative basis, we've also shown a pro forma view, which brings CTD trading into the FY25 base. And this is what you see in the green box on the right hand side. So let's now walk through the key financial results. Firstly, from a revenue perspective, we're broadly flat year on year on a pro forma basis, which is the minus 0.2 in the top right. Within this, tops tiles like for like was marginally positive in the half at plus 0.1. and our online pure play revenue grew strongly, although total CTD revenue was down due to fewer stores year on year. Proforma gross margin percentage performance was strong. It was up 1.6 basis points, 1.6 percentage points, driven largely by TopsTiles margin growth, consequently driving a 2.9% increase in Proforma gross profit. Operating costs, however, grew by 1.8% with the impact of inflation and the additional cost to support the growth of the pro-tyler and fired earth businesses, largely then offset by cost savings. As a result of the gross margin growth and the partial offset in costs, pro forma adjusted operating profit was up 17%. And then after accounting for higher interest, PBT of 2.2 million was flat year on year on a pro forma basis when the CTD tradings included in the FY25 base. EPS was at 0.83p and we've also announced the interim dividend at one pence per share, which is a third of FY25 as per our policy. So just looking at revenue in a little bit more detail. So starting with half year 25, we've added 15 million of CTD revenue into rebase FY25. And against this pro forma base, revenue, as I've said, is a broadly flat year on year, 142.6 million. Now, if you look at TopsTiles specifically in the little box, we've got a small upside from the marginally positive like-for-like, noting that like-for-like performance was ahead of the market. And we've also got a decline of 1.9 million non-like-for-like, which is largely driven by our store rationalization program starting in H1, which, while sales dilutive, will be profit accretive as we look to rebalance the profitability of the business. Online has been very strong, particularly in Pro Tyler, which was circa 20% up year on year. And the addition of the Fired Earth business has also driven strong revenue contribution of about a million as part of the first half. You'll see as well that CTD revenue has reduced by 2.8 million, and as I've said already, that's largely due to the impact of fewer stores year on year. We traded from 22 stores in H1 this year versus about 30 in the prior year. Although it is worth noting that CTD store like for like in the first half was positive at plus 1%. Moving on to gross margin, you can see firstly that adding CTD into the base, which has a structurally lower margin, has a two percentage points drag on last year's gross profit margin. then on a pro forma basis we've increased gross margin by 160 basis points year on year this is predominantly driven by tops tiles where close management of cogs and price management has more than offset the mix impact we're seeing where growth in trade and essentials naturally dilutes the tops margin An additional margin rate upside in the half has been the focus on improving CTD's margin post the CMA investigation and post getting full control of this business. This is where we focused on product range, pricing, discounts and delivery. In addition, we've also benefited from the build of the Fired Earth brand, which operates at a structurally advantage gross margin. Another mix impact is also evident, the 0.6%. Another mix impact is evident through the strong growth in our online brand, Pro Tyler. This operates on a structurally lower margin. So this growth, however, does deliver strong additional gross profit on a cash basis, but will continue to dilute the overall margin percentage of the group as it grows. And that brings us to our 53% adjusted gross margin in the first half, 26. Finally, on margin, it's also worth noting that in the first half, on a brand basis, on a brand level, gross margin growth was strong. I've already talked about TOPS, but Pro Tyler and CTD margins grew strongly in the year relative to the prior year. If we now look at movements in operating costs, we see firstly that bringing CTD into the FY25 base adds about 6 million of cost. Then on a pro forma basis, costs have grown 1.8% year on year, which equates to about 1.2 million and broadly offset some of the gross margin benefit, partially offset some of the gross margin benefit explained in the previous slide. So within the costs, we've seen about just over two million have increased due to government driven inflationary costs, including the impact of national living wage and NIC increases. However, our strong cost management through cost control and self-help initiatives have fully offset the impact of inflation. Within the self-help cost savings, it's predominantly driven by savings in TOPS tiles where we talked about having fewer stores as part of the rationalisation programme and other cost initiatives in TOPS, plus savings have been delivered through CTD as we continue to focus on returning this business to profit. Further savings are expected in H2 as a consequence of the self-help actions we've taken and we'll explain this in more detail later in the presentation. Partially offsetting the cost savings are 1.4 million of investments we've made in the half. Now, this includes investments in our digital infrastructure, including the ERP upgrade, and our customer-facing digital investments, including the trade app, all of which we anticipate to improve the core infrastructure of the group and deliver a solid ROI. Strong growth of our Pro Tyler and Fired Earth businesses also have associated cost increases, but these have grown at a lower rate than the sales growth in these businesses. So to summarise the P&L performance on a pro forma basis, we've seen revenue broadly flat but ahead of a declining market, strong growth on margin with 160 basis points increased pro forma, partially offset by just over a million of cost growth, which consequently results in a 17% increase in pro forma operating profit. And then after interest costs, adjusted PBT of 2.2 million is flat on a pro forma basis year on year. However, the performance does highlight the necessity of the self-help measures we've put in place and which Alex will build on shortly. So just moving on to cash. From a cash position, the half ended in a small net debt position of 3.1 million. relative to a net cash position of seven million at the year end september 25. whilst cash from operations has increased about five million working capital offsets this in the first half due to an unwind of payables as part of the from year end as part of the buying cycle working capital is also impacted by a higher fy 25 s tip and a stock increase in pro tyler as the business expands CTD shows a small cash benefit across H1 of just over a million, where we focused on tight stock management. Capital investment in H1 of 2.3 million has been focused on investment in digital, including the trade app, which is currently being launched, and our investment in infrastructure as we upgrade the ERP systems and our tilling infrastructure. Note that capex is lower than last year in H1, given the prior year investment in DC2, our distribution centre in Northampton, that now supports Protyla, CTD and Fired Earth. Dividend outflows in H1 reflect the FY25 declared dividend, whilst the other notable cash outflow in the half relates to the acquisition of the Fired Earth brand. We still have in place a 30 million RCF facility that provides significant headroom. And as per previous years, we expect a modest cash build in H2 as we benefit from our H2 weighted profit delivery and an improvement in unwinding working capital. And we expect to deliver a small net cash position at year end. So I'm now going to hand you back to Alex, who's going to give you an update on the strategy.

Thanks, Rob. So as mentioned at the start, Mission 365 continues to be an important milestone. Two years on from launch at the end of last year, we were 40% of the way to Mission 365 on revenue, with profit at 12%. And as a reminder, our strategy serves retail homeowners, commercial specifiers, and professional trade installers. And this graph shows how five key areas will deliver growth across these areas to get us to our revenue goal of mission 365. The acquisition of fired positions us to compete in the premium set segment and the Collins consolidation of tile warehouse into tops strengthens our ability to grow in the value segment, the last block has been updated to reflect these changes. As mentioned, in December, shortly before becoming CEO, I laid out our priorities for 2026. And these were an increased focus on the bottom line, delivering trade growth, accelerating digital, growing sales capability in TOPS, and tackling the non-profitable parts of the business. And of course, then onboarding a new CFO and creating a high performing team. So let me go through each of these priorities in turn, starting with an increased focus on the bottom line. so mission 365 already has a strong focus on revenue generation and a track record of expanding gross margin in the first half as previously mentioned we continue to generate a strong gross margin with tops tiles ctd and pro tyler driving a 1.6 point uplift on a performer basis so you can see that in the middle the the top of the middle a continued focus on strong GM. However, as you can see on the top chart in orange, conversion of gross profit to PVT margin is low and has been declining. If we look at why, our tops tiles store estate makes up around 60% of the group's cost base. It's operated with a relatively inflexible labor model. and has been exposed to government-led inflation in the form of national living wage, where rates have risen by 29% over the last three years. And you can see this cost increase on the green bars and in the national living wage increase on the bottom. And the pricing required to offset these costs, constrained sales growth. Therefore, in addition to cost control on COGS, we've also implemented three business-specific transformation plans to improve profit. Firstly, in January, we communicated to our organisation the closure of 23 loss-making stores over nine months in 2026. Most of these stores were close to other locations, allowing a proportion of sales to transfer. In fact, 20% to 40% sales transfer has been observed in previous programmes, making the programme profit-accretive. Secondly, across the remaining estate, we're rolling out a new store productivity model designed to better match staffing to customer demand. And this dynamic approach increases flexibility and brings our labour model in line with best practice in retail. Thirdly, we've consolidated a number of roles in head office and central functions and reinvested some of the savings back into areas we see the largest growth momentum. These programmes are weighted into the second half and full benefits will be realised in 2027. Across all three, they're forecast to deliver 6 million sustainable annual benefits to offset future inflation and headwinds. Our second priority is to grow trade. Now, traders use the group's brands frequently and act as brand ambassadors to other traders and to homeowners. We're focused on improving our value propositions to them so we can expand trader acquisition loyalty. In the first half, we delivered a 4.1% growth before the impact of CTD, which diluted the first half due to the resizing of the CTD business during 2025. So 4.1% excluding CTD. So starting on the left hand side, in TOPS, we strengthened our proposition to the trade segment, placing a clear emphasis on convenience and value. In February, we launched livestock availability on Essentials, enabling our trade customers to see precise in-store availability. This was particularly important for the app launch that went live in May, as it improves planning and efficiency for our customers. We achieved a 55% increase in the adoption of trade pay, with 11% of trade customers now using this facility. Now, trade pay is the credit facility we offer to traders. We offer 30 days interest-free credit. And this is executed in a disciplined, risk-assessed way in coordination with our credit finance team. By improving access to flexible payment options, we're better supporting their ability to scale their business and customers on trade pay spend five times as much as regular trade customers. So on the right hand side, Protyler Tools continues to gain market share, delivering strong and consistent growth. During this period, sales increased by 20% year on year, with revenue now approximately three times the level at acquisition in 2022. This performance reflects a clearly differentiated value proposition as the Tyler's brand, with an unrivaled product range positioning Pro Tyler as the go-to marketplace for professionals. And this is supported by competitive pricing, rapid fulfillment, and best-in-class digital marketing capability. The continued expansion of our own brand, Premtool, is driving both revenue growth and margin enhancement. And looking ahead, we see a clear runway for further growth through category expansion and deeper penetration of the parental range. So our third priority, digital, it progresses at pace with sustained momentum across key initiatives shown here on the slide. Online revenue, including CTD, rose to 21% of our mix, an increase of 3.3 points versus first half last year and two points versus full year 2025. In top styles, we launched our new trader app this month, and this represents a step change in the value proposition we're offering this segment, particularly around convenience and the ease with which they can now trade with us. Main benefits of the app include livestock feeds, fast access to click and collect, better loyalty visibility with a rewards ladder, improved access to trade pay, exclusive app offers and discounts to drive average transaction value and frequency. First half marked the first six months that we used CRM capability. Our email open rates are 20% higher than the industry average. And the launch of the app enables us to personalize this, improving effectiveness and efficiency of marketing spend. The app with the link to CRM in place from now is a cornerstone for the next phase of trade growth in TOPS, and we expect to see an improvement in trade sales in the second half. Across the group, we improved our website site capability with new websites launched for CTD, for TOPS retail and for Fired Earth. And just to give you a sense of the holistic improvements we've made in TOPS, year on year conversion is up 16%. Checkout abandonment has decreased by 20% and speed has improved by 30%. The number of products with reviews has increased by 10% to 44%, two points higher than the industry average. At the same time, we're also increasing our focus on search engine optimisation and generative engine optimisation, with organic visibility improving by 25% since the start of the year and the highest share of voice and AI citations amongst our competitor set. And finally, on digital the group wide system modernization rollout is well underway, with the ERP upgrade all on track to be completed by year end across central functions. The TOPS tiles and CTD store networks and Parkside then follows in 2027 as planned, pro-tile runs on a different system and we'll revisit it at a later point. And as part of this ERP upgrade, we're enhancing our point of sale infrastructure by introducing tills with customer facing display screens. So we'll be able to link this to CRM data to deliver more personalized promotional messaging to individual customers and over time support self-service capabilities. The rollout is already 40% complete with full completion on track for the end of June. So loads of progress in digital. Our fourth priority is to drive sales excellence in TOPS by converting our inherent differentiators into stronger sales performance. And those differentiators include things that I shared in December around my first impressions of TOPS and why I joined, namely market beating product expertise and high quality customer service. So in the first half, starting on the left hand side, we invested in sales capability to improve the productivity of in-store labour costs. We invested in people, we invested in process and we invested in performance. On people, we developed and rolled out a top specific programme training 1,000 store colleagues on benefits-led selling. On process, we drove disciplined use of our customer pipeline tools. On performance, we changed our commission schemes to drive these new behaviours and link reward with outcomes. And we measured the impact of all of that through conversion rates and average transaction values, both of which improved. Moving to the second initiative, We strengthened our position in the value segment through targeted price reductions on key value items in tops tiles that generated gross profit improvement and always mindful of managing our gross margin. Let me bring this to life with an example. So Metro is one of the most popular tiles in the market. Our price was £21.50 against a market that was at about £14.50 and we were getting feedback from trade and retail customers that we were priced too high so we dropped the price by 30%. We supported this with clear digital and in-store marketing and colleague engagement. Volume increased by 133% and gross profit increased by 26%. We also simplified our customer proposition by consolidating Tile Warehouse into the Topps Tiles brand. While Tile Warehouse delivered 23% growth in the first half, operating two brands constrained our ability to present a distinctive offer to customers. Bringing this together allows us to build on the momentum achieved by both brands whilst better leveraging the reach, the brand reach and the efficiency of the Topps Tiles brand. In the period, we grew category extensions by 7% with acoustic panels and shower panels performing particularly well. And we have plans to ramp up investment and focus on category extensions in the second half. And I'll share more about this in our year end results. And finally, on this slide, our focus on driving sales is underpinned by excellent customer service, with Google reviews averaging 4.9 stars across 85,000 reviews. Now, having a reputation for good customer service supports local visibility and customer confidence, but it's also a key feed for generative engine optimization, where reviews are an important input into the AI answer. So moving now to our fifth priority, integrating acquisitions to drive sustainable profit. CTD has delivered a 1% like for like in its stores in the first half and more than halved losses to £400,000 loss, improving £600,000 year on year. It's on track to be profitable in the second half, two new house builder hubs dedicated to house builder needs with racked warehouse specified coverings and curated essentials of being opened in the second half with Minworth already open on the 12th of May and CTD Newcastle opening in the fourth quarter we continue to grow our parkside business which made a small profit in 2025 and is building momentum and as a reminder Fired Earth The strategic rationale for our acquisition of Fired Earth in November was because it expands our addressable customer base into premium. It strengthens our proposition to homeowners and house builders, and it accelerates digital. And that's what it brings to the group. Since acquisition, the group has also brought benefits to Fired Earth. So we've leveraged group sourcing. logistics scale and digital capability, all whilst preserving the integrity of the Fired Earth brand. Fired Earth sales are exceeding expectations and the brand is already profitable in the first four months of trading. We've had three milestones. In the first half, we secured long-term collaborative design partnership with Nina Campbell and Nisha Crossland. And this is an important aspect of newness and inspiration for FireDeath customers. That's important as part of the brand. And this week, actually last week, we launched a paint collection with 120 colours by a dropship with our paint partner. And finally, on top of our UK stockists, we've extended the brand reach via international stockists in four countries. We see international expansion as a good opportunity for a strong brand with clear brand differentiation around heritage, artist and craftsmanship, and quality. So if I turn now to current trading, So on current trading, tops tiles like for like has returned to positive and it's up 0.6% in the first seven weeks. CTD stores are also positive at 3% like for like and online businesses are continuing their strong performance with some record weeks in pro Tyler. In terms of the outlook, even though the macro and geopolitical environment remains challenging, The group benefits from a resilient, regionally diversified supply chain with market leading purchasing scale. As usual, trading is expected to be weighted towards the second half with a modest bias to second half revenues. And we'll see self-help management interventions add three million of benefit to the second half. And we expect gross margins to be broadly in line with the first half. Therefore, we expect modest year on year profit growth in the full year and in line with market expectations, assuming macro conditions and consumer confidence don't deteriorate any further. The balance sheet remains strong, supported by a 30 million banking facility. So let me finish with a summary before opening up to any questions. We have increased our focus on driving profitability and, in support of this, we continue to generate a strong gross margin and have executed three self-help initiatives to tackle unsustainably high costs, driven principally by government-led inflation. These initiatives will underpin profit delivery in the second half of 2026 and future years. We are making good progress in delivering our strategic agenda, accelerating growth in digital, trade and sales excellence and category extensions. We are expecting to deliver modest year-on-year profit growth in the full year and in line with market expectations. We're confident of a further year of strategic progress and look forward to showing the evolution of Mission 365 in our full year results. So I'd now like to open it up to any questions for Rob and me.

That's great. Thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just while the company take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. Alex, could I please ask you to read out the questions and give responses where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end.

very good yet happy to let me just start at the top, and how do you plan to continue winning in the trade market. And why is this attractive for the business, I mean this was a pre submitted question, so it might be that the presentation answered that. But you know the reason winning in trade is important is because, whereas a. a homeowner may only buy tiles when they're doing their bathroom or their kitchen or floors the trade uses tops tiles regularly they're frequent spenders they spend more and so creating that lock lock on with traders creating loyalty from traders is a really important part of our strategy and you know in terms of mix about 75 of our business is currently with trade and so in terms of how we continue to win it is very much about making sure we're giving trade and that's trade within tops but also you know the contractors that support our commercial specifying business and that work for house building or for our parkside clients it's really important to give them what they're looking for and a lot of that is around convenience uh supply um um reliability and value and as you can see from our presentation we continue to improve our offers in those areas and you know we've seen growth as a result so hopefully that answers that question What is your enduring competitive advantage? Shall I take that one? Yeah, please do. OK. So our enduring competitive advantage, I mean, I've touched on a little bit already. So across the group, one of our competitive advantages is category authority. So people come to us because we are experts. And you can see that in Pro Tyler, where we are, you know, for tilers by tilers. A lot of our top team in pro-tiler, they are ex-tilers. I'm heading up that business, set it up, and is a professional tiler. So we know what we're talking about. And homeowners come to TOPS because they know that if they've got questions, our team is well-trained and positioned to help them with those choices. So having that category authority is important to customers. those who do it a lot and those who perhaps don't do it very often. Secondly, it's the value proposition and the understanding we have of customers and how we're evolving our value proposition to make sure that we're giving them what they need around convenience, speed and so on. And then finally, it's the fact that we have an omnichannel strategy. We firmly believe in omnichannel. So despite the network rationalisation, something like 95% of our homeowner customers and those looking at home say that visiting the store is an important part of their journey. And obviously for traders, having convenient locations is also important. So having a very strong omni-channel strategy is absolutely integral to our strategy. Hopefully that answers the question, but feel free to ask a follow-up. um right what else have we got here um are you seeing any this is a this is a good one and i'm sure it's on lots of your minds i don't know if you um yeah a few of you have asked this question are you seeing any supplier pricing pressure from geopolitical disruption or freight inflation yet so i'll hand over to rob for this in a second but what what i would say first about this is you know it's clear that you know any any you know macro economic any any geopolitical events that affect energy markets are clearly relevant for retailers and consumers for that segment because it affects um you know production costs um shipping uh transport as well as consumer sentiment depending on you know the segment um but we have a very um geographically diverse supply chain very resilient, long-standing relationships with our suppliers and market-leading purchasing scale, which we believe positions us well to weather the challenges coming from the energy markets. But in terms of specifically, Rob, do you want to build on that?

Yeah, I think we are starting to see pricing pressure come through, given particularly the oil price increase and the fact that it's linked to production and all the stuff that Alex talked about. As she said, we've got a strong supplier relationship and a diversified supplier base that helps us. We also have a strong product knowledge. We really understand the engineering of our products and our teams really understand that so that they can understand if price increases come through, to what degree they are really relevant to the product based on that engineering. From a coverings perspective, The buy cycle is a little longer than it would be for UK production and some of our essentials products. So from a coverings perspective, the buy cycle takes a few months to get that product from Far East or nearer shore to the UK and then sold when it comes to our margins. So some of that will be pushed towards the latter stage. And then we're essentially managing things on a case by case basis, balancing you know, the pricing versus the COGS and trying to do the right thing for the business and the customer.

Very good. So what is the long-term role of CTD versus TopStyles? Great question. So CTD has a very specific role to play in the group. The reason for the acquisition was to access the house builder market, which has some very different needs. So supporting house builders and A key part of that is making sure that we can bring products to them where they're building. And so these house builder hubs specifically catering towards a different need. For instance, the racked shelving, the racked warehouse system, forklift trucks, the house builder contractors can come with flatbeds. It's a much more volume business. And so CTD absolutely has a role to play alongside the Tops Tiles brand. So hopefully that answers that. And the market is about 100 million pounds. So it enables us to access that extra market and to increase our addressable market. Lots of questions about Fired Earth. So let's try and answer all these together. Let's do the M&A one in a minute. Fired Earth appears to be... Oh, I've just lost my connection. Fired Earth appears to be outperforming... This is why we're on the same screen, because my computer connection's a little dodgy. Fired Earth appears to be outperforming expectations very early. What are the key reasons? And I think there's a couple more on Fired Earth. Can we just get them all together? hmm okay maybe maybe just sort of i think they've been combined okay so expectations i mean honestly it's a it's an awesome brand isn't it it stands for something so clear artisan craftsmanship quality um you know heritage um and so making sure we preserve that with things like you know the partnerships the design partnerships that we talked about that's all part of uh making sure that that momentum continued and we were so quick with the acquisition and then the integration into tops i mean the team did a phenomenal job so so good you know taking all the stock and moving it into our warehouse consolidating the system having the website up and running, a lot of customers I think didn't really notice that we were down. So the momentum wasn't lost. So I think it's because it was already a great brand and some of the things that we have done to continue to improve that with, you know, the partnerships, the paints, the fact that we continue to have stockists in the UK. So although it's online, you can actually also go and see the product through our stockist network. You know, I think those are the reasons why the momentum just continued and we've been reinforcing what the brand stands for. Do you want to answer this one? How disciplined will M&A be after CTD and FireDeath?

Yeah, so I think certainly our priority focus is really embedding previously acquired businesses and really optimising them within the group. And within the presentation, we touched on that. I think, you know, obviously CTD has been challenging and Fired Earth, Alex has just explained. Clearly, M&A can have a very important and critical role to developing and growing the business. but also it brings challenges with integration and management time etc. So I think our view on this is very much balanced. We will continue to go after embedding previously acquired businesses and we'll continue to monitor M&A opportunities on a case-by-case basis.

very good um and and when you say um how disciplined will m a be and you know obviously discipline is absolutely key um on that we'll just go to the vote up so we're sort of going through most of them let me have a look why is the share price so low i mean yeah What is the market misunderstanding about your business? I don't know that the market misunderstands our business. Be good to get your feedback on how clear you think our strategy is. But, you know, share prices move, don't they? So I haven't got a full answer for that. I think everybody on the call will have a view on how share prices move. But clearly it's about more than just the company. It's, you know, lots of other factors. And then we answered that. How are you leveraging AI for efficiency and innovation? Well, I think we've talked about that in marketing. You know, we've got we're very focused on both SEO, which is still very valid and a lot of our visits to our websites come from SEO still, sort of 45%. So that's good because it lowers the cost of pay-per-click because a lot of it's coming through organic search. But increasingly clearly, we're also making sure that we rate very highly in AI discovery. And as I said, the generative engine optimization and across both SEO and geo, we're benchmarking extremely well with the highest share of voice and ai citations um in the market and we've maintained that trend um consistently over months so you know what we see going forward is uh probably the balance increases towards geo um and um