Fonterra Shareholders Fd

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Fonterra 2024 interim results investor briefings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After this speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, CEO Myles Harrell. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining. As mentioned, Myles Harrell here, CEO, joined by Simon Till, Acting CFO and Selina Robb, Director of Capital Markets and M&A. Hopefully by now you have had a chance to see the results, maybe the briefing video that we put out early this morning, but in summary, A strong first half, lifting performance, lifting earnings across the organisation. Profit after tax up 23% to $674 million. And earnings per share, $0.40 up from $0.33 last year. And, of course, it's given the board the confidence to pay an interim dividend of $0.15. So I'm really pleased with the performance and how the organisation is tracking. I'm happy to go straight to Q&A. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now conduct the Q&A session. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by as we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Joshua Dell of Craig's Amesta Partners. Please go ahead.