加载中...
共找到 25,348 条相关资讯
Jose Antonio Calamonte: Good morning, everyone. Super happy to see you here one more time in our -- in this case, fiscal year '25 results announcement. And I'm going to cover the first part, the strategic part, and I'm going to then hand over to Aaron, who's our CFO, and I will give him the opportunity to introduce himself much better later. He will do a better job, and he's going to cover our financial results over fiscal year '25 and our outlook for fiscal year '26. And then we will move to Q&A that I'm sure this is what you guys are looking forward to. So let me start sharing with you a couple of reflections, and I promise I'm going to be short. Since I joined ASOS 4 years ago and since I became the CEO 3 years ago as well, I think it's clear in my mind, and I'm pretty sure you feel the same every time you come here, that this is a place full of energy, full of passion and with a very bold ambition to become the most inspirational destination for young fashion lovers in the planet. But it was also clear that we had a lot to do to get there. And what I'm going to try to do today briefly is to try to cover these 2 things. The first one is like -- and you already know, but I think it's always good to do a little bit of balance and to take stock. It's like what is it that gives us the right to compete in a market that is as dynamic as -- probably, I should say, ultra dynamic as our market and a market that is changing so much and where things like -- I mean, like AI is bringing a complete evolution to the market. So what is it that makes ASOS different and gives us the right to compete? And where are we in this journey to transform ASOS into this very ambitious vision that we have. So let me start with the first one. What is it that makes us different? And as I said before, we have a pretty bold ambition. We want to be the most inspirational destination for young fashion lovers in the planet, and we want to do it while at the same time, we have a business model that delivers excitement, but sustainability in terms of profit. So it is a really, really bold, if you want, ambition. And there are 3 main pillars that support this ambition, 3 main things that, in our mind, makes ASOS different and gives us the right to compete and to win. The first one is our obsession to always offer consumers the most relevant product. And relevant means it's the right product at the right time at the right price. We have a unique model here. We are -- we have a perfect blend between our brands and the best brands in the planet. And that is very weird to find. You're going to find great brands out there. You're going to find great retailers out there, but it's very difficult to find a formula like ours. And we are working very, very hard in making sure that our assortment is the most relevant all the time for consumers. And I hope during the course of these years, I have been able to convey how important both elements are our brands and our partners. And if not, hopefully, today, I will be able to do it so that you see that the value of our formula and why is it different. The second part is that we are obsessed with offering an inspirational shopping experience, and we offer today a different shopping experience. I'm going to say that with this picture you are seeing here that probably for you is just a nice and a beautiful picture. But in this picture, you see a model she's wearing 4 different brands. She's wearing Good American. She's wearing Mango, she's wearing ASOS Design and Dragon Diffusion. ASOS is the only place where you can see a picture like that. It's the only place where consumers can see a picture as realistic as this one because this is how they behave. Most consumers don't dress top to down with one brand. This is how they behave. And by the way, this is incredibly valuable for the brands as well because this is the only place where they can be in this type of context. And that makes ASOS shopping experience different and unique and inspirational, and we think that gives us the right to compete and a place in the market. And we do all that underpinned by an efficient operating model. We're obsessed with efficiency, with effectiveness. And this is really underpinning everything we do. That's what we -- that's why we're convinced we have a place in this market, and that's why we're convinced we can win and be relevant for our consumers. But to really deliver that, there was a lot to do. And I want to go fast over what we have done over the course of the last 3 years. I know 3 years is a very long period of time, but I think it's a good time to make this balance, and that's why I'm going to do it, and I'll not talk to you for too long. This has been a long journey with 3 clear steps. And I'm going to go fast over the first -- over the 3 steps. The first part of this journey was we had to deal with the legacy that we had. 3 years ago, this company had 2 main issues: stock and debt, very clear. We had GBP 1.1 million pounds in stock. That is a lot of stock. That is more than 100 million units in our warehouses. That is a lot of stock. During the course of these 3 years, and you have heard me a lot talking about stock, maybe too much. I'm not going to talk about stock today, but you have heard a lot of that from me, we have gone from GBP 1.1 billion to around GBP 400 million -- a little bit less than GBP 400 million in stock. That is a massive reduction of stock, somewhere between 50 million and 70 million units of stock reduction. That is really, really big, just put it into the context of the population of this country, and that will give you an idea of -- to what extent that was a big challenge. And why it was so important? Well, for a lot of reasons, but 2. One, we were sitting on a lot of money. Obviously, that is not very smart when you're sitting on money and you're not doing anything with it. And the other one, this old stock was preventing us from offering new stock to consumers. And remember, we want to offer the most relevant stock. The stock from last year and last, last year is the opposite of being relevant. So we really needed to clear that, and we've done it successfully. By doing that, we unlocked a great opportunity, which has been to optimize our footprint in terms of supply chain. And we have reduced our footprint in more than 50%. Obviously, that unlocks cost improvements, cost optimizations, and we have really seized that opportunity and taken it. And the second big challenge was debt. And as you have seen during the course of these 3 years, we have been restructuring our debt. We have been looking for flexibility and liquidity. The last time, it was last week. So you saw that we announced a successful restructuring last week that is giving us even more flexibility and more liquidity, and this is exactly what we wanted to get. And while we have done this, we have reduced our net debt in approximately 40%. So we can see there that we have successfully reset the essential foundations of our model. It was absolutely a must. There was no way to move on without doing that, and we are happy we've done it, and this is water under the bridge. Then we had to transform, refresh, I don't know which one is the right word, our business model. We were transitioning from a business model that was built on a lot of stock, as I said before, a lot of promotion, a lot of performance marketing into a business model based on speed, agility and profitability. It was very, very important to prove that we can make money while we do business. Otherwise, we become a different type of organization. And we started that journey by focusing on what is important to our consumers. That is to give them better product. This is what they want. They want relevant product, what they are looking for at the moment. They are not looking for a bargain necessarily. They're looking for something they like at a competitive price. And we did that built on 3 critical ideas. The first one was we want to make sure that we are first for fashion and the work behind that is speed. We have to be very fast to be able to offer our consumers what they want right now. This is one of the critical elements that our own brands play in that equation. They are our best opportunity to be super fast and react much faster to what the consumers are demanding. And that's why we're in a better place than just a pure retailer because we have a weapon they don't have. During these 3 years, we have been working on systematic solutions, not just a solution. We want a system that brings improvements and continues bringing improvements. And that is what we have done pretty much in everything we have been implementing and obviously, on the product side. And I think this is also a very important idea that I wanted to share with you, this obsession with systematic solutions. So we have been working on accelerating our time to market. And on average, we have accelerated our time to market by 30%. But if we go to our flagship project in this space, that is our Test & React that I also talked a lot about Test & React in the past, not today. It was a project. Today, it is more than 20% of our business in our own brands. Today, it's a reality that is really changing how we show in front of our consumers and the type of value proposition we can put in front of them. The second big idea was to bring more flexibility in the relationship we have with our partners. More flexibility means more ways of doing business, not just one avenue. Now we have several avenues. And this is helping us to do quite a few things. Obviously, one is to deepen the relationship with some of them. Some of them are growing very healthy because of that. And today, it has gone from a project to be more than 10% of our business with our partners, is done through these flexible models, either what we call partner fulfills when they do the delivery or ASOS fulfillment services where we take care of the delivery, but it's like businesses -- it's a different way of doing business. And also very important is the work we've been doing in how do we define our portfolio of brands, what we offer our consumers. I told you that this is about offering them relevant product. Not all the brands are relevant to consumers all the time. So in these 3 years, we have done a lot of, I don't know if the word is, cleansing or sharpening our brand portfolio. We had approximately 900 brands 3 years ago. Today, we will be more around 600. That has not been a journey of minus 300 because in this journey, we have added more than 100 new brands. So that gives you a little bit of the idea we have probably changed 50% of the portfolio one way or another. And we have not only done that, we are working more and more with our partners to develop exclusive products. Today, we develop exclusive products with approximately 40 brands. Again, our flagship project here is our collab with Adidas that you have seen all over the place. It's quite a unique collab. That is a multiyear type of collaboration that I think shows the role that ASOS can do with these type of brands, and it's generating a lot of positive effects with Adidas and a lot of interest in other brands, and we continue going in this direction. So we feel we have really had an impact on the assortment, on the value proposition our consumers see in front of their eyes. And this additional speed and this additional flexibility has been complemented with a very rigorous inventory management. Remember what I told you about systematic solutions before. We have a systematic way to deal with our inventory. We have a systematic way to tackle the problems early and not late. And putting together speed, flexibility and rigorous inventory management has helped us to significantly accelerate our stock turn or to reduce our -- I always -- reduce our cover, increase our stock turn. It's pretty much the same one way or another. In the last 2 years, we have reduced our cover by 20%, and that is having a very big impact on the quality of what our consumers see and what they're exposed to, but also our profitability because by offering our consumers better product, they buy more product at full price and then we can improve our margins. And that has had an impact, obviously, on our margins. We have systematically increased our gross margin. Last year, 370 basis points, we landed more than 47%. I remember 3 years ago when I said our ambition is to go to 50%, some people said, you are crazy, and probably they were right, but not because of that. Today, we're at 47%, and we are convinced we're in the right way to get to 50%. We are really taking the right steps to get there. And this is pretty much built on this flexibility and this capacity to sell more full price by coming faster to the market. That has been complemented with our effort in our efficiency. As I told you it is one of our pillars. We have looked for systematic solutions that is giving us relevant changes like we have significantly reduced our returns -- our underlying returns in 150 basis points or we have reduced our supply chain costs during the course of the last year, approximately 20%, and we continue finding new ways to improve our costs with these systematic solutions. When we put it all together, we wanted to change our business model to have a business model that gives us speed and profitability. I've been talking about the speed. Let me tell you about the profitability. Last year, we increased our EBITDA by more than 60%. We have increased our profit per order by 30% approximately. This is now a healthy business model that is producing profitability. So we feel in this second step of the journey, we have certainly moved the needle here, and we are in a place where we are now having a business model that is giving us what we wanted. That's why we feel that the time has come to really focus on reengaging with our consumers, focusing on bringing them back to ASOS on regaining their hearts and minds and again, positioning us as the most inspirational destination for young fashion lovers. And we are going to do that based on 3 main ideas. There's always 3. I'm sorry, I'm a pretty boring guy, but it's 3, 3, 3. You can call me Mr. 3, if you want. Three main ideas. The first one is a product we sell fashion -- I have told you many times, we are a fashion company that has technology that runs through our veins. So it's -- we are going to double down on all the exciting things we are doing to have the best product, the most relevant product in front of the eyes of our consumers. We're going to invest in putting our brand more in front of our consumers with a really ROI-driven mentality that is very important. And we are reinventing our shopping experience. Let me give you a little bit of color on each and every of these ideas, but this is what is giving us the confidence that we are in the right path to really return to sustainable and profitable growth. So let's talk about product. Let's talk about what is it that we're going to do this year. And the expression is quite simple. It's double down. We're going to continue doing what we've been doing, but more. So we're going to continue working on speed and flexibility. We're going to take our Test & React from 20% to 25%. We're going to take our flexible fulfillment from 10% to 15%. We're going to continue accelerating. We're going to continue going fast, fast, fast, more relevant, more relevant, more relevant. We're going to also invest more in quality. We are investing in fabrics. We're investing in [ workmanship ], in fits. We're going to continue doing that, investing in improving the sustainability of our fabrics and -- our materials, fabrics in general, not only fabrics, but also trends. And that can be seen in some of the new lines we've been launching recently. These are 3 examples here. You will see here a range, BreatheMax and AS Collective. Different lines we have launched recently, all of them with a focus in higher quality, all of them very successfully. They are having a very, very good reaction from our consumers and they are really resonating with them. And the last thing, we will continue sharpening our brand portfolio. That means new brands coming. So there are going to be more brands coming. That means more collaboration with the brands. The same thing we have done with Adidas, where we are going to -- this is a systematic solution again. We're going to start expanding that to other type of collaborations with other type of brands once we have shown to the world what we can do. Let me go to taking our brand in front of our consumers. And we're convinced that there has never been a better time to do that. And why is that? Well, first of all, because we have the right product. Second, because we have the right economics. As I told you, we have increased our profit per order by 30%. And third, because during the last years, we have learned a lot about how to do it, and we have increased the return on the ROAS of our marketing actions during the course of fiscal year '25. The second idea why we think there's never been a better time to do it is because we have a very, very clear strategy. We will continue increasing the ROAS of our performance marketing, where we are in a very positive path. And we are going to invest in expanding, in more frequency, in more breadth, in more quality of interactions with consumers. These interactions happen in real life, with pop-ups, with events. They happen in social, they happen in campaigns. And we have been learning how to do that, and we feel we are now much better equipped to do that. And what is giving us the confidence that this is true is that we are seeing very positive signs right now. We have seen that during the course of fiscal -- what we have a fiscal year '26, new consumers are growing in the U.K. by approximately 10%. We are seeing that we are getting more engagement and more average spend from our consumers. We are seeing that our retention rates in fiscal year '25 have improved in general, but more especially with our best consumers where they have improved 80 basis points. And we are seeing that some of these marketing actions, that it took us some time to learn, now they are having an impact. I just illustrated, for instance, with the pop-ups we are doing, at the beginning, we were really not getting there. The last 2 pop-ups we have done, one in the U.S. and one here, we have got sales per square meter -- sorry, I still think in square meters. I don't know how to do it in square feet. I still struggling with that. Sales per square meter, that are comparable with the most relevant operations in the market, and they are generating halo effects that are really visible for us, and we are seeing how it is impacting in the areas where we do these pop-ups. So we see it starting to work the way we want. So we are convinced this is the time to double down on what we're doing with marketing. And the last thing comes to the shopping experience. And let me go back to this idea that we offer a unique shopping experience. And again, this is -- you see a picture here, but what I see here is 3 brands perfectly blending into one picture. Here, you will see ASOS Design blending with another story and with ARKET. There is no other place in the planet where you can see that. That's why I say we always offer a unique experience, but we want to make it even more special for our consumers. This is going to be done on 3 axes, on 3 ideas. Again, 3, sorry. Outfits, outfits was always at the core of what we do, but we're going to take outfits to a different level, engagement and personalization. And all this is powered by AI. I know it's going to sound like, okay, you have to drop AI at a certain point in time. Now is the time to drop it. That is not the case. It's like AI is transforming this industry. I'm absolutely sure, and it's not just a belief because I believe in that, I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it with my own eyes, and I'm seeing it in ASOS. It's just like AI is opening possibilities that a few years ago, even months ago, but certainly years ago, were just like a dream, like an ambition, but it was not possible. Today, it's possible. And that is going to bring a lot of, I would say, tailwinds to the digital world. Tailwinds, yes. And we are right there to do it, and we are very, very much into it, always with this mentality of systematic solutions and with a mentality of very rigorous investment, but we are there. So this is something we have already started recently, and let me share with you some of the things we have started to do. One is the launch of our loyalty program, ASOS.WORLD, where we have launched a loyalty program really aligned with our value proposition of delivering excitement, inspiration. So it's not a loyalty program based on discounts. Sorry, if you were expecting that. This is giving access to consumers to exclusive products, early access, exclusive experiences. We launched it with a small cohort of consumers, I think it was in March. We really opened it to a bigger audience in the summer. In the U.K., both during the course of the first 6 months, we reached 1 million consumers -- 1 million members. Today, we are north of 1.6 million. We're very, very excited to see how fast this is growing and even more excited to see the impact design on consumers because what we see is that consumers that join our program increase their frequency and they not only increase their frequency, we get a more qualitative relationship with them. So we depend less on paid marketing, which obviously is good news for us. Second one is ASOS Live. We launched on-demand shopping platform. Every consumer that is interacting with that, 50% of them go to review the product, and they all increase the quality of their relationship with us, increase their conversion rates and the time they spend with ASOS, which is also very important for us. And the third one, the third example that I wanted to show you here is Topshop. We relaunched Topshop.com in the summer. We have seen that the vast majority of the consumers that are interacting Topshop.com are new consumers to ASOS. So it's not consumers from ASOS that now running through Topshop, it's new consumers to ASOS. And these are consumers that are coming with bigger baskets. So it's quite interesting way of capturing consumers. This is only the beginning. There is so much more to come. And I want to share with you just some examples because this is much more of the things that are coming. And I told you there are 3 main ideas. One is outfits. So you're going to see outfit generators. So consumers will be able to choose one item and then request that we generate an outfit for them, but we will use what we know about them and what we know about the trends to generate an outfit that is relevant for them in this moment. They're also going to be able to save outfits, to search outfits, to look for -- to look into the outfits of their celebrities they follow. So there's going to be a lot of a completely new experience or improved experience around the area of outfits that was already present in ASOS, as I've been telling you. Second idea was about engagement, and there's a lot about making it more immersive. And obviously, that means a lot of video. We're going to see much more video coming to the landing page, to the product pages, to the list pages. We're going to be -- we're going to see shoppable reels. We're going to obviously expand our loyalty program. Consumers will be able to search by trend, by occasion. We are going to incorporate much more community and influencers. There's a big, big change here. And the third idea that I told you is personalization, absolutely critical. There is this 4 you tap. We launched an AI Stylist in the past in a collab with Microsoft that we are going to improve even more in a renewal of our collaboration with Microsoft, and consumers will be able to personalize their search, make sure that the brands they love are more present in their search. So it's really a big, big change. But instead of hearing me talking, talking, talking, I thought that maybe it's interesting that you see it all together because when you see it all together is when it comes to life much better. So let me share with you, if I can. [Presentation] Jose Antonio Calamonte: They say that image is better than a thousand words, especially they are my words. So very, very ambitious program, really a step change in our customer proposition, in our shopping experience and a step change that is going to be delivered this fiscal year '26. And you're going to see a big change between what you see now and what you will see in a few months. So we are very, very excited about that. And I'm sure our consumers are going to be as well. This is such an amazing change. So let me conclude by kind of summarizing. As I told you, we have a very bold ambition. We think we have a place in the market and we can win, and we have to go through different steps to get there because it was a big change. We feel we have addressed these issues -- these legacy issues, and we have set the right foundations, structural foundations for this business. We have successfully transformed our business model so that we can offer to our consumers what they want in a profitable way. We are in the right moment, in the right time to really reengage with our consumers. We have a very clear plan. You've seen it. We have all the determination. The first signs we are seeing from the market are positive. We see growth in new consumers in the U.K. We see some geographies offering very interesting performance. We see visits doing much better. We see that the signs are here, and we are totally determined that now is the right time to do it. So now I'm going to hand over to Aaron. He's going to be really giving you the real stuff I gave you the blah, blah. So please, Aaron. Aaron Izzard: Thank you, Jose. But before I jump in, my name is Aaron Izzard, as I've met some of you before, but I'm really proud to be standing as CFO to present the FY '25 financial performance. And before I jump into the numbers, I think it's important to step back and say what was FY '25 about from a financial perspective? It was about delivering the second stage of our transformation, delivering sustainably profitable baseline for us to move forward and deliver against the third stage confidently. And it was really important to me in stepping into this role to make sure that we approach that second stage with the appropriate depth and rigor that it required to make sure that we can move confidently forward. That meant a deeper focus on variable and fixed cost optimization to make sure that we explored and delivered additional opportunities to set us up for FY '26. And the financial performance I'm going to talk you through reflects that. So I'll talk you through all the metrics. Firstly, GMV. This is our appropriate new measure for customer purchases, if you like, and it's our primary indicator of sales. So this reduced by 12% year-on-year, which is a reflection of the cautious consumer backdrop, but also the deliberate profitability actions that we took. Because of this, the quality of our sales improved. Gross margin increased by 370 basis points as a result of the increase in our full price mix and reduction in discounting. Cost to serve, whilst reduced by 12% in absolute terms, increased by 130 basis points, but when taking account of the deleveraging impact of our volume reduction of 200 basis points, there was around 100 basis points of efficiency improvements, which I'll talk about a bit more later. This contributed all of this together towards an improvement year-on-year in our EBITDA -- adjusted EBITDA of over GBP 50 million to GBP 132 million. From a balance sheet perspective, we reduced our stock further by GBP 118 million down to just over GBP 400 million. This is a reduction of 23%, reflecting the new operating model that is now fully embedded and the rollout of our new flexible fulfillment models. This represents the inventory cover that we will take forward, as Jose has already referred to. Free cash inflow of GBP 14 million, slightly reduced versus last year owed to the huge increase in -- reduction, sorry, in inventory that we delivered in FY '24, yet still the GBP 14 million was ahead of guidance. And finally, our net debt improved by GBP 112 million to GBP 185 million. This is as a result of the Topshop, Topman JV that we entered and the subsequent structural refinancing that we undertook in early FY '25. So looking at the geographies. As you can see, there was a reduction in GMV across these geographies, but the important point to note is that profitability improved across the board, which was our main priority for FY '25. There are a couple of geos though that I want to explicitly call out. The U.K. at minus 7% was more resilient as our home market, where consumers really responded to the product actions that we took, but also, of course, in a cautious consumer backdrop. And the other one is the U.S., minus 18%, does not tell the full story. The U.S. was the first market that we took deep profitability actions in FY '24 and many of those actions annualized in the second half of FY '25. When combined with the benefit of our sales of moving the fulfillment back to Barnsley and from the Atlanta closure, this opened up a wider assortment of product to the consumers. And those 2 actions combined with a number of other specific growth-driving activity that was in the U.S. H2 performance was minus 7% year-on-year. And Jose has already touched on it, but I'll talk a little bit more about some of the more recent trends later on. Key driver of our profitability improvement, as we've already said, was our gross margin improvements year-on-year. The main benefit within this was from the commercial model. And what this highlights, again, as Jose has already touched on, is that when we surface the right product, fresh product to consumers, they're willing to pay full price. And that's highlighted in the improvements in our margin through the new commercial operating model. We also delivered improvements through the success of our commission-based flex fulfillment models, and this contributed to the 370 basis points improvement in gross margin. It's important to note, though, that this isn't the result of profitability actions. This is a result of the improved offer that we've generated for the consumer and the gross margin is the output. More choice, newer, fresher product and a cleaner on-site experience all delivers a better experience, and that's resulted in the improvements in our gross margin. I've touched on this already, but our overall cost to serve in absolute terms reduced by 12%, but that is an increase as a percentage of sales to -- by 130 basis points. The volume deleverage, as I've mentioned, accounts for 200 basis points reduction, but also, we absorbed the inclusion of the Topshop royalties, which weren't prevalent in FY '24. That meant an underlying improvement in our efficiency, variable cost, in particular, efficiencies of around about 100 basis points, which was predominantly driven through supply chain, through reduction in returns rates, again, Jose has already touched on, but various different efficiency projects that we've landed. There is also a modest improvement in these numbers from a number of sizable projects that we landed towards the end of H2, most notably, the exit from the Atlanta warehouse, which generates annualized savings that we've talked about previously, but in particular, renegotiation of global distribution contracts, which has delivered a significant benefit, all of which will be felt in FY '26. All of -- the combination of embedded in this new operating model and the cost efficiencies more than offset the volume deleverage and was the main contributors towards our improvement in adjusted EBITDA of GBP 50 million year-on-year. This represents significant progress. And alongside those locked-in benefits that I've already mentioned that we delivered towards the end of Q4 gives us the platform to confidently move forward into our third stage of our transformation. Moving to cash. FY '25 saw modest inflow of cash of around GBP 14 million, ahead of our guidance, as mentioned, and as a result of our improved profit and discipline across the board. The new operating model delivered net working capital benefits of around GBP 40 million, as we normalize our inventory cover. Continued investment discipline reduced our CapEx by GBP 50 million year-on-year to GBP 86 million, although this increases to GBP 100 million when you include the Atlanta automation spend, which was subsequently reclassified to non-underlying. Net interest of GBP 33 million reflects reduced term loan interest from the refinancing that we did at the start of FY '25, but only includes half a year of the 2028 convertible bond interest. I'll talk a little bit more about structural free cash flow in the guidance section. Finally, before I move on to the outlook, I wanted to talk about the refinancing that hopefully you all saw announced last week. So maintaining our investment discipline is absolutely critical going forward to deliver on the final stage, but we embarked on this process in addition to the efficiency projects that we landed to create the investment fuel towards the end of FY '25. We embarked on this project and that one to increase -- improve our flexibility, as we move into the final stage. And I'm confident that this refi supports that flexibility required. This refinancing effectively replaces our first lien Bantry Bay facility, the RCF and term loan and delivers 3 significant improvements for us, extended term of 5 years out to 2030, additional liquidity headroom of GBP 87.5 million and a reduction in our interest rates, which delivers cash interest benefits on an LFL basis of around GBP 5 million. This refinancing reflects the strategic and profitability actions that we've taken and also reflects the partner confidence in our strategy going forward. So I'm just going to turn to outlook now. The clicker works. Thank you. So we expect in FY '26 with the new offer that we're accelerating for our GMV to show improving trajectory throughout the year. And within that, our GMV, we expect to perform around 3 to 4 percentage points ahead of revenue performance. Now we touched on it already, but we've already seen an improvement from the enhancements that we're making to the consumer offer in the metrics that we're seeing in FY '26. So there's been an improved sales trajectory, in particular, in the U.K. and U.S., some of our core markets. But more importantly, the lead indicator for midterm growth is new customer acquisition. And our new customer acquisition is improving across the board and is in 10 percentage points of growth in the U.K. year-to-date. We expect gross margin expansion of at least 100 basis points above 48%. And this, coupled with the efficiency benefits in the sizable projects that we landed towards FY '25, combined gives us the confidence in delivering GBP 150 million to GBP 180 million adjusted EBITDA in FY '26. We're expecting broadly neutral free cash flow in FY '26, which I'll come on to and talk about on the final slide. In the medium term, our guidance hasn't changed. We're expecting a return to GMV growth and adjusted EBITDA margin of 8%, which will contribute towards adjusted EBITDA sustainably being ahead of CapEx, interest and leases to generate structural free cash flow positive. Finally, I wanted to give a bit more context. I've been talking about this structural free cash flow throughout this presentation. But I think it's important to do that to look back over the last couple of years and how we generated our cash. And the chart on the left here shows that a big driver of our free cash flow positivity in the last couple of years has been through the benefits in working capital, as we've reduced our inventory. But we have shown improving structural free cash flow benefits in the left -- the far left-hand graph here, which shows our free cash flow, excluding working capital. We expect our FY '26 adjusted EBITDA of GBP 150 million to GBP 180 million to offset the CapEx leases and interest. But if I move -- if I use FY '26 as the platform for our medium-term aspirations and targets, there are a number of additional aspects in our midterm guidance, which we expect to deliver sustainable structural free cash flow generation. Improvements in our operating leverage through our GMV growth, continued expansion in our gross margin towards 50% and CapEx of 3% to 4% of sales will all represent opportunities to continue to enhance our structural free cash flow, and we are not reliant on any one of them individually to be able to deliver that. To wrap up, we're really, really pleased with the progress we've made in FY '25. FY '25 was about setting a structurally profitable base for us to move confidently into the third stage -- third and final stage of our transformation. And we're really, really confident in the plans that we've got in that final stage to be able to deliver growth and meaningfully free cash flow positive generation. Thanks for your attention. We'll now move to Q&A. Emily MacLeod: Thank you, Jose. Thank you, Aaron. For Q&A, as usual, we'll start with questions in the room first. If you could introduce yourself and where you're from before you ask your questions, that would be great. It looks like it's Anne first. Anne Critchlow: Anne Critchlow from Berenberg. I've got 2 questions, please. So I noticed that average basket value was up more strongly in the U.S. and the U.K. Just wondered if you could comment a little bit generally about average basket value, splitting it out between like-for-like inflation and mix. And do you see perhaps more potential to add more premium brands to the site? Is that the direction of travel? And then secondly, if you could just comment on performance by category, so womenswear, menswear, sportswear and formal versus casual, anything that's interesting and anything that you need to work harder on? Emily MacLeod: Thanks Anne. Jose, do you want to start with both of those questions. Aaron would follow... Jose Antonio Calamonte: Yes. Happy to do that. Good to see you. So we have seen average -- sorry, I was going to say ABV [indiscernible] shouldn't do that. Average basket value evolving positively during the course of the last -- not only the last 12 months, probably more the last 24 months. And we read that obviously, as an impact of our strategy to be able to have a more collective relationship with consumers and then they buy more full price, hence, less of a discount. So we've seen growth of 3% to 5% consistent year-on-year, one year and another year. And that has happened, if you want so far, not through a growth of number of units, but not with a decrease of number of units. So it's pretty much stable. It's more a growth of the value of the items consumers are putting in the basket. A different thing is what you were asking about more premium brands. And we have added a lot of brands, 100, during the course of the last 12 months. Some of them are more premium, and I was showing a picture with ARKET that can be considered for us a more premium brand or another story. In the other picture, it was Dragon Diffusion, but it is a bags brand, also can be considered more premium. It is having a very good -- Good American could be probably another example. It is having a very good reception with our consumers. So we are seeing an interest in brands that are -- I mean, the word premium is premium for our consumers in the perspective of the market. They are a little bit of mass market or higher up, the upper part of the mass market. The high end of the high street, probably I could say, is having a very good reception. Our consumers want relevant products. And when it's relevant, if it's a little bit more expensive, they are willing to pay the money for it. So certainly, it's a direction of travel. We are bringing more of these brands because we are seeing that our consumers are interacting well with them. So at the same time, we keep on bringing other brands that are lower price points, and we have other consumers that are fine with that. We always try to keep a very, very broad assortment for different type of consumers. So -- and then in the performance by category, we are happier with the performance in womenswear, definitely. It's the part that is working better. It's where we have put more effort. And -- I mean, not trying to damage anyone. Clearly, this is the core of our business, just like the business in fashion at least for ASOS is pretty much in womenswear. So this is where we're seeing a better performance. Sports, we are seeing a very good performance in apparel of sports, which was not the case in previous years that all the performance of sports was coming from footwear. Now it's coming more from apparel. Footwear is a little bit weaker, to be honest. And in our case, I mean, apparel is doing incredibly well, also fueled by some of the call-ups -- we are doing the call-up, we're doing with Adidas, is having a really big impact. So obviously, that is also doing it -- if you want, is amplifying the impact. In terms of categories, we are happy with jersey, with needs, but it's not -- there is not a clear standout, if you want, in terms of categories. So we're happy with what we're seeing in the collection and it's fairly well balanced. Emily MacLeod: John, would you like to go next... John Stevenson: Yes. John Stevenson at Peel Hunt. A couple of questions as well, please. Interested in the -- who the customer is in terms of the 10% growth in U.K. customer base you're seeing coming through. Are they hitting the same metrics as your existing core? Are they buying the same stuff for the KPIs you saying? Can you sort of talk about how you're attracting these guys in and what they're delivering to the mix? Secondly, just in terms of cost efficiency, Aaron, you mentioned, obviously, a lot of the work done last year. There's obviously a lot of like-for-like cost reduction coming in this year. Can we quantify that? And finally, if you can comment on what you think the right balance sheet structure will be for ASOS in the sort of 2, 3 years out? Emily MacLeod: Thanks, John. Jose, do you want to take the question on new customers first? And then, Aaron, you can take the second and third questions. Jose Antonio Calamonte: John, good to see. So yes, we are happy with what we're seeing in the U.K., seeing new customers. Obviously, it's very early to understand very well these new customers because the fact that they are new means that they have not interacted so much with us. But if you want in general terms, what we're seeing is that customers are improving the quality of the engagement with us. Let me explain what I mean with that. They're buying more categories. We are moving away from -- I mean, moving away, not completely, but we are reducing the amount of new customers that come on buy only one category. They're buying more categories. They are buying less promotion. We're also seeing that. And also, they are buying more fashion-oriented type of products. So in principle, it's all good signs because we know when consumers buy more categories or buy more fashion categories, they tend to be better consumers over time. But it's still early to know if that is going to have an impact or not. What we have seen is during the course of fiscal year '25, we have reduced churn on all types of consumers. So I think it's probably somehow correlated. Aaron Izzard: Thank you, John, for the question. I'll take the first part first. So the cost benefits I'm not going to quantify it, but what I can tell you is a number of the various different projects that we've done. So as I mentioned already, we have the benefit from the annualization of exit in Atlanta. We've already talked about the values there. Significant benefits from renegotiation of our distribution contracts, that's globally. It started in the U.K. As you can imagine, a sizable project that we expect to have huge benefits in FY '26. We are also reviewing all of our various different SaaS contracts and SaaS operations to streamline our underlying support in tech and continuing to review our returns fair use policy and various different activities to improve the experience for consumers, and that we expect that to improve our returns rate as well. In terms of the balance sheet structure in 2 to 3 years, look, our goal is to be neutral on debt and not have a net debt. But ultimately, what we want to do over the next few years is focus on growth. And the important thing for me when delivering the refinancing was making sure that we give the flexibility to the teams and the focus to make sure that if there are high ROI opportunities that we can invest in them for growth. But ultimately, we're building towards generating free cash flow and getting ourselves into a net neutral position, which will also help us capitalize, of course, on interest costs in the future. John Stevenson: How much of a restriction was the lack of headroom in the old facility? Did that actually stop you? Aaron Izzard: So I wouldn't say a restriction. Ultimately, we've created more flexibility. We had previously GBP 150 million term loan and the RCF wasn't available based on the ABL facility. What we've got now is a facility of GBP 150 million and GBP 87.5 million, which is readily available. So it creates additional headroom for us that allows us the flexibility, as we move forward. Emily MacLeod: Mia, I think you've got a question next. Mia Strauss: It's Mia Strauss from BNP Paribas. Just 2 for me. Maybe -- if we can maybe look at the customer profile over the last 5 -- say, 5 to 7 years, what sort of age demographic you're looking at? So maybe is the customer 5 years ago, someone who was 20 years old and they've now grown to 25? And do you have enough of the Gen Z cohort in that? Or do you need them? And then secondly, what sort of impact are you seeing from TikTok Shop? How you plan to compete with them? Because they're obviously more of a discovery sort of platform. So I appreciate the AI initiatives you're doing on your side, but is it maybe a little bit too late? Or just how you plan to address that? Emily MacLeod: Thanks. I think, Jose, if you take both of those questions, please? Jose Antonio Calamonte: So on the customer profile, obviously, we measure the average age of our customers. And what we have seen over the course of the last 5 years -- probably not sure 5, maybe it's a little bit too, but over the few years, is that it has not changed significantly. I think we have got, I'm going to try to be too precise, probably I'm wrong, 11 months older. So it's not a massive change. It's pretty much in the same space. You were dropping something interesting in the question that was like this Gen Z, do we need them? It's like our bull's eye, if I can use that expression, is 20-something. We used to use that expression. It's people in their 20s. Obviously, Gen Z would be probably a little bit young. But anyway, so -- but that doesn't really mean that we only talk to these consumers. You go to your bull's eye, but you know you have consumers that are older and younger for sure. So yes, having some Gen Zs -- of course, having Gen Zs plays a role, and we do have Gen Zs and actually, that's why we have such a broad assortment. We have some of our brands that are more targeted towards these younger consumers, whether Gen Zs or Gen Alpha, whatever they are now. So -- but it's not the core of our consumer. It's not that Gen Z is where we are -- it's not the bull eye, if that makes sense or not yet. One day, they will become bull eye. Then on the TikTok Shop, we are present in TikTok, which seems to be something really, really big in the U.S., not so big in the U.K. We are not seeing such a huge explosion in the U.K. We really use TikTok as a place of discovery, but not necessarily where people are executing the purchase. So we are present in TikTok with the TikTok Shop, and we also have our social marketing happening not only in Instagram, but also in TikTok, we're pretty active. And it's true. It's a place of discovery. It's a place where people go to find new brands. But at least in the U.K. and in Europe, we are not seeing this explosion that they seem to be having in the U.S. But we are there. And if that becomes a bigger channel, we will obviously capitalize on that because our obsession is to be where our consumers are. So it's like we are agnostic about that. It's like we want to be wherever they are. Mia Strauss: Just to follow up on that. Maybe what is your approach to the marketing side? So I appreciate that maybe the transaction doesn't happen on TikTok, but how do you get them from TikTok onto ASOS when you've got tools like the AI Stylist and things like that? Jose Antonio Calamonte: That's a great question. TikTok or Instagram could be similar. Obviously, we have a big presence there. We are working not only organically, we also work with content creators, with influencers from more well known to less well known. When we did, for instance, the relaunch of Topshop.com, we work with Cara Delevingne, super iconic, but we are working every day with influencers. So the ambition is, as I was saying before, to be where our consumers are, to be top of mind for our consumers. Then there is a transition into ASOS when they have more the intention to buy. Once they come to ASOS, tools like the AI Stylist plays a very important role in going back to this idea of the outfit. It's like consumers, what we see is that consumers don't buy one thing isolated. They want to buy a dress, but they want to understand how to wear this dress, which are the right shoes, which one is the right bag, which one is the right makeup, which one is the right. So there -- today, we have always been, in that sense, different because we've always brought this idea of outfits. But it was, if you want in a sense, a little bit static. It was much better than going to a physical store because in a physical store, you could see 10 outfits. And in ASOS, you could see 100,000 outfits. But it was static. Everybody was exposed to the same outfit. Suddenly, the AI Stylist, so AI as an enabler, is giving us the possibility to generate a specific outfit for every consumer, and that is incredibly powerful. What we're seeing is that the consumers that interact with the AI Stylist, they increase by 50%, I think it is, the amount of items they save for later. And we know that this is a leading indicator. When people start saving for later, they end up buying. So it is having a big impact. We're working -- as I said before, this is something we did in collab with Microsoft. We are not generating our own LLMs or anything like that. That would be completely crazy. And we will continue -- we are renewing our strategic alliance to continue developing that and to make it even better. The more we train the model, the better the model knows the consumers and the better the recommendations. And we are seeing an evolution there. So we see that there is a very natural flow from I discover a place where I can find what I want to I really want to transact with that place and then I want to do it in a more comprehensive way. Sorry, a very long answer. But don't let me talk too much because I could talk for hours. Emily MacLeod: Super. Sarah, do you want to go next and then Yash after? Sarah Roberts: Sarah from Barclays here. So just firstly, on the guidance of adjusted EBITDA of GBP 150 million to 180 million. Can you just take us through the puts and takes of what you need to believe in to get to the higher and the lower end? And at the higher end, do you have to believe in a return to growth next year? And then secondly, more broadly, we've seen a lot of headlines about agentic e-commerce in the news recently, potentially changing how consumers shop online. Just curious what your thoughts are on how ASOS fits into an agentic e-commerce world? Are you making investments in tech and product at the moment? And I suppose, are you -- could you consider partnerships with some of the AI players as we've seen Shopify do in the U.S. Emily MacLeod: I think, Aaron, if you take the first question on guidance and Jose, you can take the second one on agentic AI. Aaron Izzard: Yes. Great. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, Sarah, for your question. We've built our guidance for next year so that it doesn't require growth. That's the exact reason that we, you might say, extended our process on the second stage of this journey, creating us the flexibility, creating the investment fuel to be able to move confidently into the third stage. So within that guidance range, there is no explicit requirement for us to return to growth. But of course, what we've guided to is an improving trajectory on GMV, and that's what we're building towards. I think for us, really, the key thing is we've landed that second stage. We've created the efficiencies that enable us to move into structural free cash flow positive. The focus now is on making sure that we double down, as Jose said, on that final stage across investment in marketing, which will have a higher return on investment against it, against the customer experience and continuing to enhance our product offer. That's the focus. That's what we're getting everyone in this business focused on. And as we do that, it will enable us to continue to move through the guidance range. Jose Antonio Calamonte: Yes. So on agentic e-commerce, I guess you refer to checkout happening directly in ChatGPT or whatever of these things. So obviously, probably, we're going to get there. I think it's a very, very likely direction of trouble that is going to move from what today we call SEO more to, I think they call it GO -- sorry, I'm awful with these DLAs. There are so many. But -- so it's a different type of search engine type of optimization and marketing into this. And it will be a big change in the market. But at the end, the consumers will have to find a place to close the transaction. So obviously, we are open to that. I mean, as I said, we want to be wherever our consumers are, we don't skip. We just want to make sure that we offer the best assortment, the best shopping experience, and we are convinced that, that is the winning formula. Then you were talking about us partnering with AI specialists. And we do that. I mean we have -- as I said before, we have a strategic alliance with Microsoft. We have another alliance, an aesthetic project with a player called Sierra. Probably you guys never heard of them, but they are probably one of the biggest players in terms of AI solutions for customer care. And today, almost 50% of the interactions we have with customers in the U.K. happen through an AI solution and growing. And we're partnering with smaller start-ups as well. We have a partnership with a Turkish start-up. We have a partnership with some start-ups here in the U.K., in Israel. So we have a really big setup of different ways of approaching AI. As I said, we are doing that because we see that this is a fundamental change in the industry, and we are really embracing it. But we are doing that with a lot of rigor, making sure that our investments are really always under control, and they always bring value added to our consumers. So we're really focusing on that. But yes, we're really embracing the AI opportunity because we're convinced it is not going to change. It's already changing, as I said before, this market. I don't know if that was what you were looking for, Sarah. I hope it is. Emily MacLeod: Thanks. I think, Yash, you might end up being the last question in the interest of time. So just go ahead. Yashraj Rajani: Yashraj Rajani, UBS. So the first question is, if I just look at some of your competitors, whether it's the European pure plays or some of the U.K. omnichannel players, right, there's a big dichotomy in the performance of you versus them. And I appreciate there's been some legacy issues that you've been dealing with. But now that the legacy issues are behind us, who do you think you can take share from, especially given that some of these players are meaningfully larger than you, right? So that's the first question. And the second question related to that is, Jose, you spoke about trying to train the models and actually models getting better over time. Again, some of your competitors have bigger customer bases than you. Maybe they're a little bit ahead in some of that journey. So do you feel like you're playing a little bit of catch-up on that front? And if so, I mean, how are you making sure that you're getting in line or better than them? Emily MacLeod: I think Jose, if you take those questions. Jose Antonio Calamonte: Yes. So on our competitors, well, this is probably one of the most competitive markets in the planet. And I've said that so many times that that's why it's so fragmented. So we will be taking share from a lot of them, not just from one. It's not that we are going behind one. Our consumers today buy in ASOS. They buy in a lot of these competitors, you have implicitly mentioned. They are buying in other competitors you have not mentioned like secondhand or -- so there is like -- and we are not just going after one. We are not going after the entry price point. We're going after these individuals that they are interested in fashion at a competitive price. I think our current and future consumers are pretty much everywhere. There is not one target. There's not -- we're going to take it from competitor A, B or Z or whatever. We're going to take it probably from most of them. And this is what we're seeing in these new consumers that we are receiving. Actually, almost every consumer buys in more than one place. It's almost impossible to find a consumer that only buys in one place or consumers buy in different places. So it's also changing the share of wallet that they have here and there. On how do we train the models and if we are playing catch-up? That's quite an interesting question. When we talk to companies like Microsoft, clearly, we're not playing catch-up. We're ahead of the curve. We are one of their key partners globally to do that. So -- and it is true having a lot of information is very important. We have 16 million consumers, so we do have a lot of information. But it's not only the information you have, it's the quality of the information you have. And a lot of these competitors might not have the same quality of information. Omnichannel brands have normally less quality of information because -- so the offline interactions are less qualitative in terms of data, I mean. And even some of the online players, they are more worried about the transaction itself, where we're very worried about also the styling behind the transaction. So we have a very, very qualitative type of information about how consumers interact with different styling. And that is incredibly important for the journey we are trying to define, not for a different journey. So I think I'm convinced we're not playing catch-up. If anything, we're ahead of the curve, and we are determined to continue being ahead of the curve. Aaron Izzard: I think if I may, just to build on that. AI for us, we feel we're uniquely positioned to capitalize on AI, not only versus the offline players, but also if you think about the -- what Jose described around outfits and personalization, with this being a really core part of our proposition that we're going to add for consumers, that is different to what others are doing. And the use of AI can really turbocharge that, presenting outfits across tens of thousands of different products that we hold across a multitude of different brands and being able to surface them to the consumer in a really personalized way. I think this really gives us an opportunity for us to capitalize on, and that's how we're thinking about this with our new strategy and how we can utilize AI to turbocharge. Emily MacLeod: That's us at time. Thank you, everyone, for your questions. Jose, I'll just pass over to you. Jose Antonio Calamonte: Just wanted to thank all of you for coming here, especially on a Friday. I know it's not the easiest day to come. So thank you so much. As we both have said, we're incredibly excited about where we are and the prospects. We are very, very excited about the signs we're getting from the market at this beginning of fiscal year '26. And we will continue with this journey to completely finalize our journey to make ASOS the most exciting fashion destination in the planet, and I hope you guys will all witness this soon. So thank you so much, and looking forward to the next interaction with you guys. Thank you. Have a nice weekend.
Operator: Thanks for your patience, and also, welcome to join us for MINISO Group 2025 September Quarter Earnings Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] We have already announced the 2025 September quarter performance early today, and you can also check our slides on investor relationship website. First of all, we are very happy to have Mr. Ye Guofu, the founder and the CEO, and also Mr. Zhang, our CFO, to join us for the webcast. Before we proceed, please refer to the safe harbor statement in our earnings release, and we are also going to make forward-staking statements. Today, we're going to discuss non-IFRS financial indicators today. And we have already included that into and explained that in the filings we filed to the regulators. And we also have already adjusted it with comparable indicators reported by IFRS. Otherwise noted, all the currencies in this presentation are in RMB. In addition, we also include financial and business slides for this presentation. [Operator Instructions] If you are using Zoom Meeting, you will be able to see the slides on the screen. And you can also check for the slides after the call on our IR website. Now let's welcome Mr. Ye to start the presentation. Guofu Ye: Good day, and welcome to MINISO Group 2025 September Quarter Earnings Results Presentation. This quarter, the group continued to deliver accelerated growth with revenue increased by 28.2%, supporting the high end of our guidance. And you can see multi-key indicators, including same-store sales and adjusted operating profit, either met to exceed our prior guidance, demonstrating the resilience and growth potential of our business model. Today, I'm going to walk you through quarterly performance highlights and share with you some of our insights for strategic initiatives. In September quarter, the total GMV grew by 28%, revenue increased by 28%. Same-store sales being accelerated, reaching mid-single-digit growth. Our 2 flagship brands, MINISO and TOP TOY demonstrating accelerating revenue momentum in Q3. MINISO brand grew by 23%, while TOP TOY delivered exceptional revenue growth of 111%. On the profitability front, the group maintained a stable GP margin of 44.7%, and the GP margin approached to RMB 2.6 billion, grew by 27.6%. This quarter marked a significant milestone as our adjusted operating profit crossed RMB 1 billion threshold for the first time, grew by 40.8%, reaching RMB 1.02 billion. Our adjusted operating margin stood at 17.6%, show sequential improvement from Q2. Coming next, I'm going to walk you through our quarterly performance across MINISO China, MINISO International and TOP TOY. Starting with MINISO domestic operation, revenue grew by 19.3%. The performance is outstanding, whether compared with China's total retail sales of the consumer goods grew by 3.4%, while online retail sales of the physical goods grew by 7.5% of the same period or measured against our previous guidance. What makes me particularly proud is the growth was coming from same-store sales growth, indicating high-quality growth that is more sustainable with lower operational risk, reflecting our continued enhancement of MINISO's core operational capacity. Entering into Q4, same-store growth still remained robust with strong National Day holiday performance, driving low double-digit same-store growth for the entire month of October. This quarter, we achieved a net addition of 102 MINISO stores domestically. Year-to-date 2025, we have accumulated a net increase of 21 stores. Our franchise base has already surpassed 1,100 for the first time. Since the beginning of this year, our franchise network welcomed new partners with diverse breakthrough and resources, enhancing MINISO franchise system, not only in scale, but also in business ecosystem sophistication. MINISO China business has significantly outperformed the broader consumer market, fundamentally driven our enhanced systematic operation capacity, take Q3 happy holiday shopping at MINISO campaign as an example. Based upon the comprehensive data analysis across multiple categories during holidays and also weekend, we forecasted that toy would be the category with greatest performance elasticities. Consequently, from the early product development to inventory planning, we allocated sufficient resources and capacities for toy category, and we also leverage the summer scenarios. For China front, we secured a prime location in top-tier shopping district with peak summer periods in advance of the PoPark stores, where for our regular store, everything from creative display merchandising to visual presentation of the promotion materials was deeply aligned with seasonal atmosphere and the core product highlights, achieving end-to-end customized operations. Compiled with the TNT brand endorsement announcement in August, we ultimately created powerful strategies of the right type channel, right timing, right product and the right marketing, maximizing the growth potential of our summer toy category. Turning to our international markets. In Q3, revenue exceeds RMB 2.3 billion, grew by 28%. Our international MINISO store network expanded at a net 170 stores during the quarter with year-to-date net addition of 306 stores. Our largest international market, United States, delivered revenue growth more than 65%, with same-store sales growth in a low double digit, exceeding our expectation. Our operational initiative in U.S. continued to strengthen and stable our long-term growth and continued to improve new store success rate, brand recognition and also with consumer retention across multiple dimensions. Starting from this year, we have a store expansion committee structure and a clustered store opening model, opening multiple stores at the same time in different locations. This can actually improve the management efficiency, and also, with great brand exposure, attracting great consumer attention. Year-to-date 2025, new member acquisition in U.S. market have grown by 100%. By progressively building bidirectional communication channels with consumer, we enable the companies to more precisely understand the consumer preference. Our membership program not only driven our revenue growth, but also providing critical data insights and consumer touch points for further enhancing repeat purchase rate. Regarding the product assortment, our IP product launch cadence operates like the release of the same, different season and monthly features, providing freshness to the consumer and encouraging the store activities. You can see that for beauty, consumer electronics, food and beverage, mainly served to drive the basket attachment and repeat purchase once consumers are in store. MINISO is committed in creating balanced product portfolio to achieve a more stable store operating model to address diversified consumer needs across different shopping occasions. The stronger result of the MINISO in both China and the U.S. market are giving us tremendous confidence in both international markets. Our experience in both major markets has provided proven systematic insights across 4 disciplines: optimizing store site selection, creating differentiated store formats, achieving precise product channel alignment and orchestrating full funnel market synergies, all of which can help to consolidate operational stability and long-term growth. International markets represent our key opportunities for MINISO's long-term expectation. We will systematically replicate and scale up our validated operational framework to more countries and regions. Every initiative is facing on the long-term sustained profitability, ultimately unlocking tremendous potentials of the global markets. TOP TOY delivered outstanding revenue growth by 111% in Q3, store account expanding a net increase of 40 locations, reaching 307 in total, including 292 in China, 50 outside China. Benefiting from the enhanced product competitiveness, particularly the rapid scaling of our proprietary IP, and it's actually achieved a very good growth, especially our proprietary IP, [indiscernible]. TOP TOY achieved a middle single-digit same-store sales growth in Q3 with significant gross margin optimization. TOP TOY also continued to elevate store presentation, transforming proprietary IP into more immersive experience, continue to contribute to our owned IP and proprietary IP and brands. This quarter, we achieved 2 significant milestones. First of all, our global network store number already surpassed 8,000 milestone. And our brand presence is actually in key global markets from Asia to Europe, from Americas, from established commercial districts to emerging neighborhoods. Our product and service are reaching an ever-expanding consumer base, marking a new chapter for our global expansion. The second milestone was our quarterly revenue crossing RMB 5 billion threshold for the first time, while a single quarter adjusted operating profit also break through RMB 1 billion mark for the first time. Moving forward, we will transition from scale-driven growth to a new development paradigm, emphasizing on both quality and scale, taking confidence and measured steps along the pathway of high-quality development. Achieving high-quality development need strategic directions and sustained execution excellence. For the past quarter, both our channel upgrades and IP metrics strategy have delivered significant breakthroughs. On the channel upgrade front, our inaugural MINISO FRIENDS store that has been inaugurated in high mall in Shenzhen. The FRIENDS format represent a crucial innovation with MINISO's channel upgrades with the following features. First of all, store design and product curation emphasize on IP content presentation, creating unique shopping experience akin and movie release schedules based upon the synchronized IP launch reason. Secondly, leveraging MINISO's comprehensive category coverage and multi-IP metrics product development, MINISO has already become an anchor tenant for selecting shopping malls so that we will be able to enjoy primary location with favorable lease terms and more marketing support from the mall operator. Thirdly, MINISO FRIENDS store positioned at accessible luxury store, designed for mid- to primary shopping center represent a strategic channel segmentation initiative for MINISO Group. Regarding proprietary IP, by November 2025, we have already contracted 16 pop toy artist IPs, building a rich and diversified owned IP portfolio with enriching IP value of our core objective. Our first artist at trendy district has already been launched at Beijing Road Play Grand store in Guangzhou. Through comprehensive scenario-based renovation of the designated area of the store on third floor, we precisely embedded the exclusive bird view of our TOP TOY IPs. The competitive island area generated a sales performance exceeding a typical store's entire monthly sales result in just 2 weeks. Furthermore, we created atmospheric installations and interactive elements that align the IP character personas transforming every space into extension of the IP storytelling. When consumer enter this immersive store environment, they not only experience the characters appeal and narrative depths of our system, but also deepen their IP understanding and emotional connections through the experimental touch point, facilitating meaningful transmission from product purchase to IP affinity, strengthening the emotional bond between consumer and IPs. I believe over the longer run, MINISO's core competitive advantage in category architecture and IP portfolio will become increasingly pronounced. Geopolitical macroeconomic uncertainties represent universal challenges to all companies. We are already well positioned for that. MINISO maintained the industry's most balanced and diversified IP portfolio with IP assets spanning international renowned licensed properties, primary domestic content, proprietary IP across multiple development tracks. Our extensive category cover enable rapid product assortment and also merchandising adjustment based upon the seasonal needs. And more importantly, we also have precise capture emerging trends and end-to-end channel control capacity, allow our operation to be more adaptive to the market change. Looking to the future, MINISO will capitalize on the expansive opportunities with lifestyle consumption sector, driving high-quality performance through continued strategic evolution. That conclude my remarks. I mean, next, I will turn the floor to Eason, who will walk you through our first 3 quarters' financial performance, please. Eason Zhang: Okay. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to join us for our September quarter earnings release. In front of you is a wonderful scorecard, which is actually showcasing how we leverage flexibilities and high-quality growth to navigate the future development. So first of all, let me help you to review our performance against our guidance. There are 4 guidance we provide you from revenue to SSSG and adjusted operating profit. We hit our profits. And there you can see actually regarding the guidance of the revenue growth. Well, for SSSG, we gave the guidance of a lower single-digit growth, but we made it mid-single digit. But a few points I'd like to share with you. For MINISO China, we made it to a high single-digit growth for SSSG, while at the same time for MINISO International, and we also made a middle single-digit growth. For TOP TOY, it also registered a mid- to high single-digit growth number. It is also worth mentioning that many of our stores in international market are franchised stores. The control is less than the direct operated stores. But even against such a backdrop, we will be able to have a low and positive growth among our 3,000 stores worldwide, while at the same time, you can also see adjusted operating profit also registered a double-digit growth, reaching 50%, where for the adjusted operating profit margin, our previous guidance was a minor improvement month by month. But actually, we made a net profit, 17.86%. And the decrease has already been narrowed down from 2.3 percentage to 2.1 percentage. From a revenue perspective, there are a few things I'd like to draw your attention to. First of all, 28.2% of the growth with RMB 5.8 billion revenue already go beyond our expectation. It's also the first time for the group's revenue to exceed RMB 5 billion. Our Q1 revenue growth was 80.92%, and also Q2, 23.13%, where for Q3, that was 28.2%. And you can also see that we foresee for Q4, the revenue growth would be around 25% to 30%, continue to deliver our commitment for a full year revenue growth by 25%. Well, let me also dive into our operating segments. MINISO Mainland China revenue grew by 90.3%. MINISO International growth was 27.7%, reaching RMB 2.3 billion. TOP TOY revenue surged by 111.4%, reaching RMB 570 million, significantly exceeding our expectation. Breakdown into domestic versus international, group's Mainland China revenue grew by 25%, and international revenue grew by 32.9%. We'll break down to different brands. For MINISO, as a brand with GMV close to RMB 35 billion to RMB 40 billion, and we'll still be able to manage a revenue growth by 23%. While for TOP TOY, the growth was more than 111%, as I mentioned. High-quality growth is inseparable from SSSG. In Q3, SSSG performed good, which can help to drive the same-store growth by a mid-single-digit number, among which in Q3, MINISO Mainland China same-store sales achieved high single-digit growth. Overall revenue growth was approaching 20%. October continued a strong same-store momentum, reaching a low double-digit growth, while for international same-store growth was a low single-digit number. Strategic markets like North America, Europe showing outstanding same-store performance. U.S. and Canada achieved low double-digit same-store growth in Q3, too. While for TOP TOY, same-store sales grew by mid-single-digit number, in line with our expectation. The improvement is because we captured the strategic and high potential product category with multiple sales opportunities. We also optimized the product assortment. We leveraged direct sourcing and international market, enhancing the merchandise dollar capacity, while at the same time, we always focus on product, coordinating with frontline operation, strengthening the refined product assortment management, conducting customized product development and also create some regular best sellers. More importantly, we emphasize on seasonal and holiday opportunities. We organized holiday plus IP-themed pop-up stores to stimulate the sales performance. Our directly operated market are the closest one to our headquarters management radius and also the first place where our strategies and adjustments take effect. The domestic market is our largest, most mature, but also most competitive intense market. Achieving positive same-store growth in such a fierce competition market in China not only validates our effectiveness of the measures we take, but also reflect our rapid market response capacity and strong execution. Through channel and store format differentiation, we continue to explore the boundaries of the same-store efficiency, continue to open up long-term store expansion opportunities. Excellent same-store performance has also emerged in our strategic directly operated market like U.S. Stores are the smallest profit-generating units, just like the sales of the body. Pursuing high-quality growth requires refined optimization of the store model beyond the traditional mall stores. We also actively explore plaza store. We leverage scientific decision-making to be selective for store opening, cluster openings and refined store staffing, continue to optimize profitabilities for the stores, allow the smallest profit unit can fully realize the potential in driving future high-quality growth. We are very happy to see that for our international directed operating stores, including U.S. and Canada, show significant Y-o-Y improvement in operating profit margin in Q3. We plan to first extend our China-U.S. success experience to Southeast Asia market in 2026. We will be in Southeast Asia market for nearly 10 years. Markets like Indonesia contribute substantial profits to company every year. However, alongside the local macroeconomic downturns and the social unrest, we faced certain operating challenges, especially the need for upgrading channel product assortment, organizational and Thailand improvement. The market optimization, we bottomed out this year. It's going to be the key focus of our strategy in 2023, and we are very confident to achieve success in those markets similar to what we accomplished in China in 2025. This quarter, the GP margin was 44.7%, used to be 44.9% same period last year. Looking at the first 9 months of 2025, GP margin was 44.4%, which was 44.1% last year. And I also mentioned our GP margin has climbed from 27% in 2021 to 44% today, increased by 70 percentage points over 4 years. This improvement stemmed from, first of all, continued increased contribution from our international revenue and also upgrades and solid execution of IP strategy. As international-directed operated business continued to expand along with category structured adjustment between quarters, seasonal fluctuations are inevitable. Going forward, we will continue to focus on balancing product price and volume. For IP product, we will persist in product innovation and value for money. And for non-IP products, we will emphasize product profitability and quality to price ratio, achieving better sales performance while maintaining overall GP margin. For this quarter, deducting the equity payment expenses and incentives, our SBC grew by 33.7%, representing 27.6% of the revenue. It is worth noticing SBC, share-based compensation, altogether totaled RMB 176 million, significantly increased compared with the previous period, primarily due to the TOP TOY equity incentives plan. The selling expenses, excluding SBC, grew by 36.5%. The increase was because our international-directed operational store investment, including the labor cost, leasing, depreciation and optimization grew by 40.7% in Q3. Well, you can see in Q1, this number used to be 71.4%, and 56.3% in Q2. So you can see directly operated store, their selling expenses growth has been clearly slowed down, while at the same time, the directly operated store revenue growth was close to 70% higher than the growth rate of the related expenses with significant deceleration because of our continued refined operation and strict expenses management. Well, coming next, let me also touch upon YH. Our investment in YH began to impact our financial statement last quarter. We accounted for these transactions using the equity method. The YH investment affect our net profit by RMB 146 million this quarter, which has been included from the non-IFRS financial metrics. Well, let's also talk about effective tax rate. With IFRS categories, our effective tax rate was 33.9% compared with 24.8% same period last year. 33.9% of the tax rate sounds to be relatively high, but it's not the true tax burden. It's primarily due to the share-based compensation and YH losses, where those items can't be deducted pretax under the tax law, but they actually didn't generate income tax relief, resulting in a higher effective tax rate on our financial statements. These expenses totaled around RMB 320 million. If we're excluding those impacting the nonoperating related items, our adjusted effective tax rate was 22.8%, 1% lower than last year. Let's also talk about profitability. Adjusted operating profit grew by 40.8% and reaching RMB 1.02 billion. Those were actually showcasing our operating quality. Adjusted operating margin was 7.6%, down by 2.1%, but a great improvement compared with Q1 and Q2. The decline in adjusted operating margin was due to the structural changes of the revenue composition. Looking at each of our major business segments, operating profit margin were either flat or improved. For example, international directed operating business maintained a high operating profit margin by a low single-digit number. China franchise business and international agent business have a flat growth, but why we see a 2.1% decline, the key reason is because international-directed operating revenue proportion continued to go up. The business profit margin still facing some gap compared with asset-light franchise and agents business model, causing dilution of the overall profit margin. But you can see as U.S. and Canada already have the directed operating model, the operating profit margin for international-operated -- directly operated business will continue to improve, especially we see low double-digit growth of the U.S. directly operated business going to bless the local profit margin, but we are operating in different countries and regions. We inevitably face profit fluctuations due to the regional economic and social environment. Our team is still young. Capacity needs to be improved, but there is significant room for growth. Q3 adjusted net profit grew by 11.7%, and adjusted EPS grew by 12.7%, adjusted EBITDA grew by 90%. The Y-o-Y also accelerated by quarter-by-quarter, but adjusted EBITDA margin was 23.4%. For the working capital, our inventory turnover remained robust and efficient. As of Q3, MINISO brand inventory turnover was 87 days compared with 104 and 94 days in Q1, Q2. You see our inventory efficiency improved in Q3. And at the same time, as of September 30, our cash reserve was RMB 7.77 billion, remained robust. And our net cash flow from operating activities reached RMB 1.3 billion with a net cash -- net profit to cash ratio 1.7. Capital expenditure was RMB 330 million. Free cash flow was RMB 970 million. In first 9 months of this year, net cash flow from operating activity was RMB 2.01 billion, exceeding adjusted net profit for the same period. Capital expenditure was RMB 770 million. Free cash flow was RMB 1.55 billion, demonstrate our high-quality profitability, efficient working capital management and our stable business, providing fuel for our future high-quality development. Last, but not least, I'd like to walk you through the outlook. Despite pressures and challenges in the micro consumption data, we remain confident achieving full-year guidance, having a 25% full-year revenue growth and RMB 3.65 billion to RMB 3.85 billion in operating profit. We see Q4 revenue grow by 25% to 30%, with China and U.S. same-store sales achieved double-digit growth. For the full year, we expect the China and the U.S. same-store grow by a mid-single-digit number. We expect Q4 operating profit will register double-digit Y-o-Y growth. Operating profit margin will still decline due to the revenue structural changes, but the decline would be modest, close to Q3. North America is about to enter into peak shopping season. China Q4 will maintain rapid growth. Even continued macro weakness in Southeast Asia may bring some impact, but our global business layout will diversify our operating risks. We will continue to talk to the capital market regarding the progress and the expectations. Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's now move into Q&A session. Operator: [Operator Instructions] First of all, let's welcome Michelle to raise a question, please. Michelle Cheng: Congratulations on the company's high-quality performance in September quarter. I have 2 questions. My first question is regarding domestic MINISO business. From the macro perspective, since Q2, despite consumption slowdown, we still see that MINISO's same-store sales and overall revenue growth continue to be accelerated. Particularly, we noticed the company seemed to have accelerated the rollout of the new store format. For example, Chairman Ye mentioned the MINISO FRIENDS as a new format. In your previous interview, Chairman Ye, you also mentioned you are going to renovate 80% of your domestic stores. Can you share with us the current progress of those store renovation, the targets? What about the unit economies? Anything you can share with us? This is actually my first question regarding domestic MINISO stores. And I also have another question regarding international outlook. Just now, Eason walked us through the Q4 outlook. Is it possible for you to elaborate on that because Q4 is always a peak season. Last year, we saw some adjustment. While for this year, enter into Q4 peak season, is there something worth noticing regarding inventory preparations, marketing, store operations? Can you share your work on the next year international strategy planning? Those are the 2 questions I have. Guofu Ye: We are extending the space. We upgrade from the small to large with greater frontage and better display space. The larger stores truly provide consumers with a better experience with more display space, larger, more attractive displays. We want to give more consumers a wonderful shopping experience. Moreover, opening large stores has a higher barrier to entry. Only MINISO's extensive IP portfolio and category place can truly support a large store format. If you don't have enough IP and product category, you won't be able to accommodate large stores. Our 2025 channel optimization achieved initial success, and we have accumulated systematic methodologies and experience. However, the number of the optimized store isn't large yet. In the upcoming years, we will proactively plan and implement store optimization work, hoping that we can optimize more stores next year. The pace of the store renovation would be gradual. We are not going to rush for that. Most importantly, we need to have the right location selection. Many existing stores already have a good profit margin. We will advance our strategy based upon the lease and the new store site selection. Thank you, Michelle. Let me just give a few updates. In the first 3 quarters, we've relocated and expanded and optimized more than 200 stores. The optimized sample store show significant store efficiency improvement, maintain healthy sales per square meter and the rent-to-sale ratio declined by a low single digit. This can help to driving high performance while achieving win-win for both companies and franchisees. Both parties have seen revenue and profit growth from the optimized stores. Store optimization will become a regular part of our channel expansion work. Well, regarding the outlook of the Q4, a few points I'd like to share with you. I think the September ordering conference was very successful with record high ordering amounts. 5 categories each exceed RMB 100 million in orders, and all specialized sections broke historical records. Category were quite evidenced. For IP merchandise, we have a strong creative outlook, where for value for money products, we continue to enhance cost and pricing competitiveness. Well, additionally speaking, our international, localized IP design and category implementation has already been improved. For example, the Mickey Merlion limited edition launched in Singapore in October, an airport store exclusive that perfectly match channel and merchandise. The product has extremely scarcities and differentiation. It actually created a new single store record. Our executive bearer was even asked by tourists at the airport to borrow her passport so that they can purchase more Mickey Merlion product from initial market insights to creative design to logistics support to integrated marketing every step worked closely, demonstrating IP merchandise store operation and marketing capacity integration. This is a very good and replicable IP operation model. This above demonstrated deeper collaborations between IP partners across entire value chain, including channel, product, operation, design. This month, Zootopia film would be released worldwide. And yesterday, Director of the Zotopia was also providing us very good comment on MINISO pop-up store by weaving ourself design product. We remain confident about long-term international opportunities. MINISO's achievements in both China and the U.S. market over the past years give us strong confidence in international market growth potential. The practice in the 2 major markets have provided us with proven systematic insights, optimizing store opening decision mechanism, creating differentiated store model and to be precise to have the product channel matching and full funnel marketing synergy. International markets are MINISO's core potential field for the long-term growth. Those proven, systematic, operational framework will gradually be replicated and extended to more countries and regions with every step centered on long-term sustainable profitability. And ultimately, we will be able to steadily release the tremendous global market opportunities. Operator: Next question, let's welcome Lina from HSBC. Hau-Yee Yan: Can all of you hear me? Operator: Yes, please. Hau-Yee Yan: Eason and Mr. Ye, congratulate on company's IP strategy success. I have a question to you. I know that IP means a lot for your same-store sales growth. There are some pulse-like growth where we know that for many of the investors, we really would like to know how sustained your growth would be when you just do IPO? Your product category are quite similar to Muji. But how are you going to comment on the non-IP product, especially from the existing suppliers? For example, if you're going to benchmark with Muji, Muji also registered a very good growth in China for the past few quarters, I'd like to ask you, how sustainable the growth would be? What are those categories that are going to register sustained growth in the near future? What would be your plan? Guofu Ye: We can see within the consumer conception, the most important and the best one is interest-driven consumption. And you can also see the most promising one is also the interest-driven consumption. Consumers no longer just pursue product functionality contributes, but also value the aesthetic identity, social labels, killing experience and spiritual satisfaction behind the product. That would be the ultimate pursuit for consumers. Going forward, consumer will pay for passion, pay for emotions. This interest-driven, emotionally connected consumption demand has higher stickiness and prime space and also becoming the company's core lever to navigating circles and building differentiated competitiveness. The IP transformation is not abandoning our existing category advantage, but rather IP plus core categories do well drive, allow our 10 years of accumulated experience to unleash greater value. Our supply chain resources covering the home goods, cosmetics, stationeries, [indiscernible], toys and snacks, along with the mature multi-category product development capacity, which are a great way to support our IP strategy implementation. MINISO is a very unique business model worldwide. IP empowerment isn't only about single point best seller, but also the full scenario penetration. Our product development capacity's key is understanding category and better understanding how IP can empower categories rather than printing a logo. For example, since November, MINISO's seasonal product has grown very fast, plush socks, scarves and gloves has captured and converted the traffic brought by IP. Our original key category are the perform [indiscernible] store. Essential categories, including home goods, cosmetics and stationery products, contribute our traffic -- stable traffic and repeated purchase, where IP is a growth catalyst, enhancing product design appeal and the brand pioneer through collaboration and same sale rules. We can also leverage IP popularities to boost the core category sales. The model is quite unique because single IP brands lack multi-category supply chain support, making full scenario coverage difficult. Traditional general merchandise brands lack mature IP development and operation capacity, but our 10 years of accumulated multi-category supply chain plus IP-integrated development capacity allows IP to rapidly penetrate into high-frequency consumption scenario, where key categories can leverage IP to break through the growth bottlenecks. Ultimately, forming a healthy growth structure of having essential category men traffic and category boost to profit. Operator: Let's also welcome Mr. Wei, Xiaopo from Citi. Xiaopo Wei: Can all of you hear me? Yes, great. My first question is quite forward-looking. Just now, I see Eason has already provided the guidance for the Q4 performance. As Eason, you are quite conservative about the guidance, so I think I don't have any doubt on that. But a question I may have is that U.S. business has a strong Q4 seasonality, where Q1 in 2026 will see seasonal declines. In your prepared remarks, you also mentioned you are improving your operational efficiency to buffer the seasonality impact. Is it possible for you to share with us from Q4 2025 to Q1 2026, whether the so-called seasonal decline trend would be similar to last year or narrow down compared with same period of last year? This is my first question. My next question, Mr. Ye, you mentioned about the China IP go for international market. You have already signed 16 artists. Then you're probably going to bring those IP outside China. Mr. Ye, according to your experience, in international market, for Chinese IP go for international business, how long will it take to develop them there? And whether it's going to hurt your profitability? Eason Zhang: Let me just respond to your questions regarding the seasonality of the U.S. business. And Mr. Ye will answer the second question. I think the questions are well raised. For the past 3 to 4 years, especially starting from 2021, and we started to work for direct operated business in U.S. Q1, generally speaking, is a low sales season in U.S. The store sales in low season will be around 10% to 20% lower than peak season in Q4. This is the common practice of the U.S. retail industry, but how we can iron out the seasonalities. One thing is store operation, where another thing is the store opening. You can see that our U.S. store, they do have a very good experience. A key takeaway is that in Q4 of the previous year, you have to make sure your stores being well prepared for presence. In Q4 of this year, we're going to have all the stores ready and not open new stores next year in Q4 in order to make sure that all stores are well in place in the first 3 quarters of every year. For example, in 2026, when I tell you how many stores we're going to have in U.S.? We need to make sure at least half of those promised stores are already been contracted. This is also a common practice in retail industry in U.S. In Q1 of 2026, you see we have a very nice store opening growth to iron out the seasonality on scale, where on the other side, regarding the business operation, we're not going to smooth out or iron out, but we are going to follow the trend because the essence of the retail is to capture and satisfy the consumer needs. For U.S. and the European market, they do have a very strong seasonality and the festival attributes. This is something we can work on. For consumers, they have very different needs in different seasonality. For example, Black Friday is coming. It's the peak season for consumers to spend, and the consumer willingness to consume were peaked. We have already made inventories ready. We have worked on the supply chain, making sure we have enough inventories to take care of the shopping festival needs from the consumer. And you can see in U.S., Q4 is still going to register good growth. We're not going to give up on the golden growth opportunity in Q4 just because of seasonality difference compared with Q1 of next year. We're going to leverage the seasonality dividends, having good marketing, seasonal disciplines as well as strategic inventory building, translating seasonal fluctuations into an exemplifier of our business. This is how we respect the market and also be able to continue to follow the retail development. Well, you can see that MINISO brand Chinese IP overseas will definitely leverage our unique advantage, not letting China IP to go it alone. We're going to leverage our past licensed IP experience and massive IP portfolio for mutual empowerment. For example, on first of this month, MINISO Canada National flagship store has its grand opening. Such a prime store provided best stage for IP going overseas, representing a key milestone for MINISO global IP strategy. The Canada National flagship store open day sales again broke North American new store open sales record. Such successful opening was inseparable from the IP catalyst. The event was featured by [indiscernible] surprise, triggering people to check in and purchase the product. Coordinating with this store opening, our gifted bear family made its overseas debut with very cute and lovely design that filled with the opening atmosphere as a joy for energy. The Chinese IP go for international market is not starting from 0. It was standing on the shooter of the giants to -- for steady growth. We have every confidence leveraging our store resources worldwide and a very successful experience to bring Chinese IP international wide. Operator: Coming next, let's welcome Samuel from UBS, please. Samuel Wang: I have a question also concerning U.S. market. Recently, no matter for the capital market or investors, we find out the U.S. consumer market has been relatively weakened recently and especially the performance of the retail market in U.S. was not looking right. I would like to ask you, what do you see in the U.S. market, especially in October, what would be the SSSG in U.S.? In that way, how you're going to find your own measures? And also, for U.S. market, specifically, how we're going to look into a full-year revenue and profit guidance for U.S. market? Eason Zhang: I'm Eason. Let me just respond to your question. U.S., indeed, we see some of the high-frequency consumption data, especially credit data consumption from the U.S. was quite weak. But it was actually external macro environment pressure that it cannot be avoided. What we can do is to strive to be the best of ours and give our all. I have already mentioned to you the 3 strategies being mentioned. For example, the thing was to take care of the holiday, early preparation, sufficient inventories and good adoptions. Now, we have already been prepared for the decorations ahead of the time, finished creating holiday shopping experience. And the store inventory is more abundant than last year. We expect that the U.S. Q4 revenue growth would be a low double-digit growth, where for Q4 revenue growth would be 50% to 55%. The same-store growth will be low double-digit growth. Well, for Q4, I think the scale growth would be slower than Q3. It's because we are slower than last year for numbers of the stores opened and the cadence, but still, the profit is going to generate a healthy growth. Thank you, Samuel. Operator: Let me also welcome Xu, Xiaofang from Citic. Xiaofang Xu: I have a question regarding your proprietary designer IP. I can surely feel the company investors and the consumers have a high expectation of a proprietary designer IP. Looking to the next 3 years, how the designer and the proprietary design IP may look like? Are you going to have a designer ecosystem organizing the trendy toy communities exhibitions, where you invest in the secondhand market? Guofu Ye: By end of June, we have already signed 9 designer IPs. And by Q3, we signed 16. We are proactively discovering highly potential original toy art IPs globally, working hard to build MINISO trendy toy IP landscape. When there is one IP breaks out, it will definitely show exponential growth. The upper limit for proprietary IP volume is anchored to the trillion level interest to consumption market. Generation Z has already become the key consumption force, close to RMB 260 million of them, and their annual consumption would be more than RMB 5 trillion, and they are happy to pay for emotional value. And -- but at the same time, proprietary IP growth always have the risk backstops. We continue to test market through small batch trial sales data iteration, but adjust our design style and the category based upon the market needs and feedback. Such model allow proprietary IP to grow steadily within a very safe trial and error framework, avoiding traditional IP incubation pain points of high investment, high risk and unpredictable returns. We're going to continue. Where for MINISO, we have a great advantage, full category coverage, omnichannel penetration, global layout, full funnel operation. Our stores themselves are theme park ecosystems. MINISO LAND and MINISO FRIENDS has a checking area with proprietary IP characters, placing IP characters sculptured model in the most prominent areas. We also have audience zones like Shiba signing event. And we also have the dedicated product display areas and interactive activities like the gifted bear family plush [indiscernible] that you can see when you visit MINISO stores. Products are key in IP ecosystem. Good product doesn't consume IP, but actually enhance IP value. Yu Yu second-generation ring [indiscernible] has excellent sales with the product innovation and liability maximizing secondary creation attributes. In marketing, MINISO plush festival gifted bear mascot performed supporting store opening activities, and screens in store checkout areas play cute gifted bear family in cartoon clips in snow form that can help enhance IP exposure and strengthen IP personalities and images. Operator: Coming next, we're going to have Runbo from CICC. Runbo Yang: Maybe we will move to our next analyst first. Let's also welcome Shi, Di from Huatai Securities. Can you hear me? Di Shi: Yes. My question is regarding your China business. I find out your store format is more in retail, including the SPACE, LAND and FRIENDS stores and flagship stores. And can you break down on the appropriate proportion structures of different store types in sequential expansion plans? And for your store renovation and upgraded stores, how it's going to drive your domestic business growth? Guofu Ye: In the near future, we're going to have 2 kinds of the store models, different models are going to have different VE and logo. The first one is the Wonderland and the regular stores for -- we leverage meaningful space, meaningful land and meaningful land to provide people a Wonderland experience. But at the same time, we also have the regular stores, benchmarking the higher tier and the newer tier cities, asking for the prime location, where we're going to make sure it can cover as many as the traffic possible. Looking at the quantities and different store types, more will still be the flagship stores and existing store location optimization expansion, where we have 2 logos for the regular stores. We have 2 store types. When consumers come to our store, when they look at our exterior design, they will surely understand what are those MINISO LAND, FRIENDS and SPACE, what are the regular stores, where at the same time, we can see still -- we're going to continue to work on the flagship store and the store door renovation, where we're also going to leverage our brand priming and bargain power to leverage the best location in the commercial districts and continue to upgrade our channel. We're also going to leverage 8,000 stores to have a good and high-frequency consumer feedback to provide us the market data and continue to empower our channel upgrading and also lay a solid foundation to further improve our product performance. So that's the reason starting from this year on, our store type is going to be more diversified. Well, at the same time, even for the MINISO, we have MINISO SPACE, MINISO LAND and MINISO FRIENDS. And in the near future, we're also going to have the Super MINISO. Well, for regular stores, we do have the regular stores, small stores, car parks and also the train station stores. By so doing, we're going to be more focused on our IP strategy and making sure we really roll out the product for the price to quality product, which will make our store presence more clear to the consumer, which will also create good space for our IP strategy to continue to navigate the market development. Operator: Coming next, we're going to have Runbo from CICC to raise a question. Runbo Yang: Can all of you hear me? Operator: Yes. Runbo Yang: My name is Runbo. Congratulate on the continued optimization of the company. And 2 questions. First of all, I see your domestic business continue to go up with more larger and well-performed stores being demonstrated. What would be your next year business development and your store number forecast? My second question, for outside China, especially outside China, U.S., what would be the retail market you see now? Do you see some pressures? What will be the regional difference -- performance difference? Eason Zhang: I'm Eason. Let me just respond to your question. In China, we have already confirmed, in China, we are going to seek for high-quality growth, inseparable for the store growth, where in China, we have a mid-double-digit or even high-double-digit growth, which would be supported by SSSG improvement. Well, for this year, our internal KPI assessment also introduced SSSG and hoping that we're going to improve our performance in 2026. The SSSG target for 2026 are not being confirmed yet, but we hope we can have the best-in-class SSSG in our industry. Regarding international business, in Q3, the international market that performed weak are the third-party agency markets, especially in Southeast Asia and Latin American markets. There are some macroeconomic seasonalities. For example, the local currency exchange rate fluctuations and also the consumption tax changes. But we are happy to see that from beginning to now, the terminal GMV growth is much better than our shipment GMV growth. In other words, our agency inventories would be quite healthy. They can still travel light in 2026. In some key markets, like Southeast Asia, GMV already been accelerated in Q3 with a double-digit growth. And we also see there are some comparable listed companies in Southeast Asia, say October consumption stay improved, but we're still observing the performance. Thirdly, we will also be proactive in adjusting the product assortment channel. Many of our investors have already joined us for the order meeting with the new heights being achieved. I surely believe those high order would continued to be converted into revenue contribution in the next few quarters. More importantly, we are very confident that our success in U.S. and China proven our business ability and resilience. We have every confidence to that. For overseas market, we do have the direct sales and agency business. Direct sales would be something we can reach first, which can actually showcase our key market sensing capacities, fast response, where agency market, it was somewhat not easy to be well managed, and we are adjusting the assortment and the channel. We have already identified the root cause. Let's leave more time for further execution to improve the performance. Operator: Final question, Anne from Jefferies. Can you hear me? Kin Shun Ling: I have 2 questions to you. Now, you see your equity incentives plan was registered a high number. Eason also mentioned there are some equity incentives from TOP TOY included into Q3 performance. Is it possible for you to share with us regarding equity incentives plan? What are the KPIs inside? And how it may look like in next quarter? Will you continue to have such equity incentives in the next few quarters? My second question for TOP TOY, I think your drafted prospectus has already been filed. What would be your IPO schedule for TOP TOY? What would be the relationship between you and the TOP TOY? I know you may have some related party transactions. And many of the profit and sales being given to TOP TOY. But once TOP TOY has been IPO-ed or spin offed, what will be the relationship between the 2 entities? And how can we protect the interest of the stakeholders of the MINISO? Guofu Ye: For this quarter and the next quarter, the expenditure was relatively high due to the equity incentives plan for TOP TOY. As you have already mentioned that for TOP TOY, its revenue doubled this quarter, significantly exceeding expectation. We believe excellent team in excellent sector combined with incentives, they can release more growth potential. TOP TOY has always been MINISO's fully consolidated subsidiary. So MINISO shareholders were also benefited from TOP TOY's high growth. The IPO plan is advancing now. We will inform the market when any progress being made. Both industry and the TOP TOY brand are in rapid development period. As a leading player, TOP TOY's market share continues expanding from user to category to region. We continue to explore the boundary. TOP TOY also see abundant market opportunities. The only reason for IPO is hoping TOP TOY can become stronger and continue to expand its business, fully capture the broad opportunities in the trendy toy market. Okay. Let me just give one more comment for Anne. Internally, we actually made some long-term discussion. There's no better strategies to advance by having both entities, MINISO and TOP TOY, would be the best strategy. We can leverage MINISO's full category and omnichannel operation and global presence along with TOP TOY as a specialized trendy toy brands. The trendy toy market is growing very fast with explosive growth rate. I believe both business would be able to let our business to be the top one in the dual market. You were worried about SBC expenses. It's going to be RMB 100 million for this quarter and another RMB 100 million for next quarter. It's actually a normal accounting that after we have been IPO-ed. For MINISO, in 2020, after IPO, you can see that SBC and the team equity incentives plan, it's going to be diluted and amortized a few quarters after the IPO, and it's going to have higher IPO in the first few quarters, but going to be smaller in the next few quarters. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, we conclude the earnings call for September quarter. Thank you very much for your participation. If you have any follow-up questions, please contact our IR team. I wish you a wonderful weekend. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Jonathan Oatley: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'll just start with a few introductions for those of you who don't know us. My name is Joe Oatley. I'm the Chairman. To my immediate left, Frank Doorenbosch, CEO; and to his left, Ian Tichias, CFO. The bit of introduction is, I believe you should be able to submit questions at any time during the presentation, and then we'll come back to them and answer them at the end. I think the key takeaway for me from this set of half year results is, it's really steady progress, a really robust performance, and we've delivered what we said we're going to deliver. In a moment, Frank and Ian will take you through the details, and I don't want to steal their thunder, but there is one thing I wanted to just pick out and highlight. Some 3 years ago, we set off on a journey of transformation under Frank's leadership, and he set some quite stretching and ambitious financial goals for the business on return on sales and return on capital employed. And I'm really proud and delighted that the business is now at a level of performance and achievement where we are meeting those goals. You'll see some more detail on that as we go through. As we're now moving into the next phase of our strategy where we're seeking growth on top of that stable platform that we've now delivered, it's important to remember that we will continue our focus on cost discipline. We'll continue our focus on capital discipline and we'll continue our laser focus on operational effectiveness and operational performance. And those are the underpins for our future success. I think with that, I'll hand over to Frank to take us through the presentation. Frank Doorenbosch: Thank you, Joe. So yes, good morning, and thank you all for joining us. As Joe said, I'm Frank Doorenbosch. I'm the CEO of Carclo. And today, we are presenting our half year results. And besides Joe, I'm also very pleased to say that we have delivered on our projection. So through the agenda, this morning presentation will have 3 parts. First, I will take you through the journey, the transformation we've executed over the past 3 years. Ian Tichias, our CFO, will then walk you through the status, the financial results and what they mean for our balance sheet. And I will close with the future, how we scale this platform further. So let's begin. When I took over the helm at Carclo in 2022, we set out to transform this business from volume to value. Three years on, the transformation is complete. We've rebuilt the portfolio. We strengthened the margins. We improved capital efficiency, and we fortified the balance sheet. This was disciplined, structured and deliberate. So let me show you what we delivered. Before we discuss financials, let me start with something more important, safety. We maintained our incident frequency ratio at 0.6 in the first half, sustaining the significant improvement we achieved in full year '25. There is a saying we use internally. Safety is operational excellence in disguise. When you perfect the art of preventing accidents, you accidentally perfect everything else. This is not just good ethics, it is good business. This culture of operational excellence flows through everything we do in quality, efficiency, margin discipline. You will see that in the numbers. So we delivered on our projections, 4 numbers will tell the complete story. 10.1% return on sales as we transitioned from volume to value; 28.8% return on capital employed to optimize capital deployment; 1.4x leverage, strengthening our balance sheet; and GBP 57.2 million in revenue via disciplined portfolio repositioning. Four metrics, one story from volume to value. So let me put those numbers in context. In '23, we have set medium-term targets that were ambitious, but we knew they were realizable in the business we are, 10% return on sales and 25% return on capital employed. We have now exceeded both 10.1% return on sales and 28.8% return on capital employed. This wasn't luck. It was portfolio discipline and operational focus. And we've done it while reducing leverage from 2.5x in FY '22 to currently 1.4x. Control before growth, that was the plan, and we delivered it. This chart shows the portfolio transformation from FY '22 to today. We stopped the Manufacturing contract, which would deliver insufficient margin when we would have started that into with manufacturing. We've also exited low-margin, capital-intensive business. GBP 13 million of revenue we have choose to walk away from. The overhaul of asset revitalization project is now behind us, and we are now moving to focus ourselves on scalable growth and innovation programs. And in the past 3.5 years, we have grown the chosen CTP Manufacturing Solutions by 4% cumulative growth rate and Specialty by 14%, both on a constant currency basis. The results versus FY '22 when we started. Our portfolio margin has expanded from 4.1% to 10.1% return on sales. Our capital productivity has quadrupled and our balance sheet leverage has improved from 2.5x to 1.4x. The portfolio reset is complete. We now focus our talent, capital and engineering capabilities on highly critical opportunities in regulated markets. So here's what it looked like across our divisions. Our CTP Manufacturing Solutions demonstrate the disciplined portfolio management and strategic resilience. In FY '23, we generated GBP 92 million from our core focused portfolio. The COVID-19 PCR testing boom temporarily inflated FY '23 results. As the market normalized, we've experienced the expected decline through FY '24 to GBP 85 million. However, this masks the real story, our deliberate pivot towards high-value life science and safety and security solutions. Since FY '24, we have delivered consistent growth, reaching GBP 19 million in the trailing 12 months half year '26. This steady upward trajectory reflects the strength of our repositioned portfolio and validates our strategic focus on sustainable, high-value market segments. The business we've built today is more resilient. It's more focused, it's more valuable and positioned for continued growth in markets with strong structural demand. And Specialty, GBP 10 million was delivered with 14% cumulative growth rate in the last 3.5 years, mainly driven by our aerospace manufacturing. The CTP Design & Engineering operates on a project basis, driving natural volatility. FY '24's peak reflected our asset revitalization program, addressing years of underinvestment across our partnerships. With operational excellence restored and margins expanded, we are pivoting to growth and innovation programs, recurring revenue streams built on sustained asset quality. We're staying on top of our maintenance to ensure we will never slip back. The portfolio is optimized for sustainable growth in high reliability precision solutions in restricted regulated markets of life sciences, aerospace and safety and security. Strategic exits are complete, low-margin. Capital-intensive business is eliminated. The result, Carclo has stronger margins, enhanced ROCE and a scalable platform for growth. That's the journey. And now Ian will take over and get you through the numbers in detail. Ian Tichias: Thanks, Frank. It is a pleasure to announce our half year results for the financial year 2026, which we believe demonstrate continued performance in line with our expectations. Starting with the overall group financial performance. On a reported headline basis, revenue has dropped, and that's something I will explain in more detail on the next slide as it has been impacted by some FX headwinds as well as comparing to HY '25, which included revenue from sites impacted by our exit from the non-core activities completed a year ago. Despite this drop in reported revenue, we have grown underlying operating profit from GBP 3.4 million in HY '25 to GBP 5.5 million this year. And alongside that, EBITDA has grown to GBP 8.6 million, which is now 15% of revenue when compared to 11% a year ago and 13% at the last year-end in March. This excellent EBITDA delivery has driven positive cash generation, which after accounting for the expected working capital outflow in the period is still strongly positive at GBP 3.9 million. Net debt now stands at GBP 24.5 million. Now I will cover the detailed movement in net debt later, but key to point out that this is now 3% lower than the same time last year. So moving to look at the revenue profile. The profile demonstrates the benefit of the hard work of previous years as we have tightened the product portfolio and focused on key value drivers across the business. We have absorbed negative FX impact of GBP 1.5 million on revenue, primarily coming from the translation of our U.S. business and the impact in the last 6 or 7 months of the GBP-U.S. dollar rate as well as other currencies from the various markets in which we operate. Within CTP, our focus has been on portfolio refinement and completing strategic customer projects. Accordingly, D&E project revenue has dropped GBP 2.9 million. As we have previously discussed, we have exited non-core primarily short-run business. The final site exit related to this was in the comparative reporting period last year. Accordingly, there is GBP 2.2 million revenue included in last year's numbers. So pleasingly, allowing for this, on a like-for-like basis, our CTP Manufacturing Solutions revenue has grown by 4.5% in constant currency. The Specialty division also continues to thrive and grow, and we report 14% growth in the business, driven primarily by the aerospace sector. As Frank has previously told you, we are delighted to deliver improved margins. This is demonstrated by exceeding the medium-term target we set ourselves a couple of years ago by hitting a return on sales of 10.1%. This has come about through consistent delivery of improved margins over time. For this reporting period, we have continued to improve efficiencies through reduced wastage, materials usage and more efficient power usage. And this focus on a more streamlined value-added portfolio has enabled us to absorb increases in labor costs and some non-repeatable costs. So moving now to look at the divisional breakdown and firstly, with CTP. So as previously described, revenue is down on a reported basis. CTP Manufacturing Solution has increased 4.5% on a like-for-like basis, allowing for the GBP 2.2 million from site closures last year. D&E revenue reduced by 44% to GBP 4 million. And as a result of the portfolio reset, we have had lower customer activity, primarily in the U.S., which has been the key driver. Performance in EMEA. Project activity is strong in EMEA with revenue up 21% compared to the previous year. We have grown operating profit due to the self-help increased efficiencies that I just mentioned. And through enhanced machine utilization, rigorous cost control initiatives, we have steadily improved margins for several reporting periods now, and this trend has continued throughout HY '26. This sees our operating margin in CTP increased from 8.1% -- 8.2%, sorry, to 13.8% and is also up from the 12% in FY '25. So turning now to Specialty. The robust demand in aerospace, coupled with a return to growth for light and motion in this business unit have driven growth of GBP 1 million, which is over 14%. The operational focus and discipline in the business has also increased operating profit margin to over 21%. So now moving to look at our cash generation. Strong EBITDA growth has driven operating cash generation of GBP 3.9 million. This has been partially offset by an anticipated normalization of working capital. At the year-end, we previously talked about working capital being particularly low due to higher-than-normal provisions and accruals, and this has largely been unwound as we anticipated. And accordingly, working capital is now at 7.5% of revenue. This is at the higher end of the range we have previously talked about and should now be at a normalized level. Looking at net debt. This has dropped to GBP 24.5 million on the next slide, please. So this has now dropped to GBP 24.5 million when compared to a year ago. In comparing to the year-end balance of GBP 19.2 million, it has increased, and this is primarily due to the one-off pension deficit recovery payment made in April '25 of GBP 5.1 million. This payment was made as part of the refinancing arrangements we completed in April. Our new facilities with our lending partner, BZ is working very well, and we are very pleased with this arrangement. Moving now to the topic of the pension scheme deficit. At the last results presentation, we discussed how we are being proactive in managing the deficit and acknowledging that the subject of the deficit has previously been somewhat ignored. I think it's important to acknowledge the significance and also the actions we are taking with a proactive approach to reducing the deficit. We are aligned and work collaboratively with the trustees, which is vital to managing the position and reducing the technical provisions deficit. Since March '21, the deficit has reduced from GBP 83 million to GBP 61 million at the end of March '25 and further reduced to around GBP 53 million at the end of September. This has been achieved through a combination of higher investment returns and company contributions. Having a clear and agreed deficit recovery plan is important in derisking cash flow for the company. This chart shows that as we have continued to deliver performance, growing EBITDA, we have also been able to manage the risk more closely, seeing pension administration costs come down and accordingly, the cash cost and risk to the business has reduced. We will continue in our approach to further derisk the company cash flows. So finally from me, in summary, the business is more financially resilient. We have a stronger balance sheet with well-managed working capital and net debt. Delivering higher margins is now a solid trend, supporting good quality of earnings, and we continue to make sure our assets deliver more for the business. Thank you very much. I'll hand back to Frank. Frank Doorenbosch: Thank you, Ian. So you've seen the journey. You've seen the status. Let me now show you how we scale from here. Next slide, please. This pyramid shows our strategic road map. The foundation is complete. You saw the proof in Ian's numbers, financial resilience, operating excellence. And that foundation gives us the platform to move into Phase II, disciplined expansion and Phase III, innovation. From control to growth, that's where we are now. Let me show you the markets we are targeting. We're positioned in 3 high-growth, highly regulated markets. The IVD solutions, so our diagnostic consumables, we partner with 6 of the top 10 IVD OEMs and the market is growing with 5.6% cumulative growth rate between now and 2030. Drug delivery, auto-injectors and inhalers, custom solutions with regulatory excellence, the market is growing at 10.8%, which is the fastest of the 3 and delivering good opportunities for us. In aerospace, for our extreme performance parts, we are the leader in the [ MRO ] cables and wires, and we're adding machining to our portfolio. The market itself grows at 5.6%, with our additional machining portfolio addition will bring us to the high double-digit growth. We've got 3 restricted regulated markets. We've got strong positions and we've got structural tailwinds. And we're focused on where we have competitive advantage. So why do we win in these markets? Three reasons: technology, trust and transformation. Technology. We've got 40-plus years of precision engineering experience. We've got ISO 13485, FDA and AS9100 registered sites and our manufacturing platform now delivers 85% plus overall equipment efficiency. Trust. We partner with key players in all these respective markets. Our average relationship tenure is 15 years plus. And with 98% plus on-time delivery performance, we also there deliver on our commitments. Transformation. We've delivered it. 10.1% RoS, nearly 2.5x FY '22; 28.8% ROCE, 4x '22. And we've approximately invested GBP 14 million in the period FY '22-FY '25 to uplift our organization. So technology validates us. Trust creates stickiness and transformation proves execution. That's our competitive advantage. So we are now investing to widen our competitive moat through proprietary innovation with 3 priorities. The technology platform, for example, the C-Mould, our new modular tooling system, which accelerates time to market for our partners by 40%. We build it once, we deploy it globally. It's scalable capitation and replicatable region to region. In product innovation, working on an inhaler platform, which integrates counter and reusable holder. And on material development, we're managing wettability tuning for fluids. It's platform-led solutions for regulated markets. And digital intelligence. Our platform [ Syncura ], will be a digital layer for packaging and devices, real-time orders ready and traceability. So innovation isn't an idea. It is a system and our begins long before the product. We're building defensible IP that compounds our competitive advantage. So let me bring this together and why we are confident in delivering sustainable profitable growth and ensuring value for all stakeholders. Again, we've achieved the milestones set in 2023. 10% return on sales, target met; 28.8% ROCE, target exceeded. Recent highlights reinforce confidence. Safety culture is embedded with an IRR of 0.6. We've got a 5-year contract renewal from our major customer secured in July. We've got GBP 36 million in financing funding arranged in April. Now we're focused on 3 growth priorities: Life Sciences expansion, advancing our presence where high-precision solutions remain in robust demand. Specialty growth, sustaining the momentum in Aerospace with our Specialty division and further margin enhancement, continuing the journey from volume provider to value solution partner. So yes, we are confident in delivering sustainable profitable growth and ensuring value for all stakeholders. So thank you, and we're happy to take your questions. Jonathan Oatley: Thank you, Frank. I'm slightly disturbed that I don't have any questions showing on my system. Can I just check? Hold on. Let me refresh and see if it comes through. We do have one question coming from Chris. And the question is for the full year -- looks like this one is for you, Ian. Will the full year accounts include distributable reserves? Ian Tichias: Well, I'm not going to be in a position to forecast our numbers for the full year. So it's quite difficult to actually answer that directly. But we are confident in terms of how we are performing at the moment and confident in delivering our full year numbers. Jonathan Oatley: Okay. Another one just coming from Andrew. In previous presentations, you reported on the improving trend in environmental sustainability for the group. Seeing that nothing is included this time, I wonder if you could provide an update? Still with you, Ian. Ian Tichias: Yes, happy to take that. So we do tend to focus on that in our full year results. But I can kind of talk to the fact that we measure our energy intensity ratio, which is a measure of our carbon emissions per GBP 1 million of revenue. That's consistently dropped in the last 3 years. And actually, the reporting period now for HY '26 shows a continuation of that. So we're at 76.4 now, which is actually a 25% reduction from the number of 3 years ago. Jonathan Oatley: I'll just allow another minute or 2 to see if anybody has any further questions. There's nothing else showing on my screen. Ian Tichias: I can probably just add to that, actually. We are also in the process of establishing a governance structure for our ESG and our sustainability targets. And as I said, we'll report more on that full year. Jonathan Oatley: Okay. I think if we have no further questions, Frank, do you want to say a couple of words to wrap up, just to summarize? Frank Doorenbosch: Yes. I'm extremely proud to be -- being part and coaching the journey of this team. We've got a very, very motivated team to change in this organization. We've been able to keep ourselves focused and disciplined. And at the end, people are now focused on the growth. We now restructured in the right way, got the right platform. We've done it in 2.5, 3 years. That was within the plan. We always said medium term to get somewhere. I know people were very skeptical in the beginning, but we said the returns were there now. I think we are return-wise roughly where the market asks us to be. And now it's for us delivering the growth in the future. Jonathan Oatley: Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody, for joining. We hope to see you all in just over 6 months' time when we're doing the full year results. Ian Tichias: Thank you very much. Frank Doorenbosch: Thank you.
Peter Podesser: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us in this call presenting our Q3 and 9-month figures as well as an overview of the business right now. Together with Daniel, we will lead you through all the key figures, but also key facts relevant to the 9-month period right now, but also naturally on to the outlook. And thereafter, we will be happy to answer all your questions. No question, we are looking back to a soft quarter. We're looking back also to a challenging period here in the business. We have to say, as also anticipated as this was one of the key reasons why we saw ourselves obliged to bring down the guidance back in Q3 at the end of July. But naturally, starting with this point, I think we want to give you, let's say, a solid and concrete analysis on this. If we look at the development here in the first 9 months, we see a slower growth than originally planned in core parts of the business. And if we look into the main reasons of deviations, I think we have to start off with the biggest impact on the defense business. In India, we saw a postponement of the follow-on programs here for our EMILY and JENNY deployments -- EMILY and JENNY fuel cell deployments to the Indian Army based on a decision that was basically a repurposing of funds during this current fiscal year. We have spent quite some time in various meetings on site in India. And I think within the last 3 months, we see -- I think we see solid signs and we see, let's say, basis also for a rebound within, let's say, the next fiscal year here for the business in India, maybe not back to immediately the levels of the 2024 business, but at definitely higher levels than we see it in '25. Two additional elements here. We have signed service and repair contracts, comprehensive maintenance contracts now for all the deployments with the Indian Army, which going forward as of Q4, and we have signed them last Friday. So going forward, this is basically also covering more or less local cost and also yield a proper capacity loading here for our operation in India. And we have also started last weekend local methanol filling here as we do it in other parts of the world, North America and Asia as well. So we are also able now to provide local methanol, address also cost concerns from customers there and also see this as a basis also for the rebound. So India, the first element here of deviation this year, definitely, I'd say, volume-wise, the biggest impact. If we look at our organic growth, we also see a growing -- we still see a growing business in the U.S. Overall, in the first 9 months, we see about 28% growth, but we have to say, especially with new customers, we were expecting also based on historical growth rates, a significantly higher growth. The overall economic uncertainties have an impact on decision-making of our customers there. And therefore, we have missed out on the original plan to see growth above 40%. As said, 28% organic in the first 9 months and a corridor that we also expect until the end of the year is per se, a solid growth number, but definitely not what we had planned for and what we expected. The third element, and Daniel will dive into this, yes, we have seen 3 functional currencies, I'd say, devaluating significantly against the euro, U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar as well as the Indian rupee with an impact on sales and earnings, getting into this in a bit. If we look now into, let's say, the reaction on these developments, I think we are seeing first fruits out of, let's say, cost alignment and cost measures that we have implemented right immediately in third quarter. We are seeing, let's say, a normalization, especially on IT and ERP spending and I think also functional cost, you will hear from Daniel is, I think, an alignment on what we implemented. As also mentioned before, we are not talking about here now a significant headcount reduction at all. I think we are in a selective hiring mode here in those areas where we see growth, and we are reallocating also resources to those areas where we see growth, and we are taking capacity out in those areas where we don't see growth. If we now look into the third quarter, we have to -- we are seeing a significant increase especially on the order intake side, which also is the basis for us expecting a strong fourth quarter. We are overall seeing an increase to a book-to-bill ratio of 1.2 compared to about 0.76 in the first half of the year. And combined with, let's say, a product mix also impacted and positively impacted by a higher defense sales ratio in the fourth quarter, we see a positive impact also in the fourth quarter. If we now look also into, let's say, the next steps of implementing our strategy, I think the acquisition of a 15% stake in Oneberry Technologies in Singapore is a key element, on the one hand, for the regional expansion of the business, we are seeing Singapore as the regional hub for the expansion in Southeast Asia. The closing process is in a final phase. And besides the regional expansion, I think we have a unique opportunity here to learn and to step into a business model that is highly attractive and profitable where Oneberry is operating under a security as a service business model for their AI-based unmanned security solutions from border protection to drone defense applications and critical infrastructure protection. Overall, we have an option also to take majority ownership, and we are working actively on this as also a platform for further growth in Asia as of 2026. Furthermore, important to inform you about the U.S. operation. We are on track for the ability to do the local production to ramp up the local production in our facility in Salt Lake City. Strengthening our local-for-local program here at the end helps us to reduce exposure to import tariffs. But over time, naturally also makes us less vulnerable and depending on exchange rate and currency risks by establishing a local supply chain. Our team from the U.S. right now is here in Europe for training. And therefore, we will be ready to have a first pilot series produced still this quarter and ready for production early 2026. So overall, looking at the sales performance, we see a decline of 2.4% as said, not happy with this performance, the reasons for the deviation, the reasons for the decline, the main reasons mentioned here. If we look into, let's say, the order intake, I mentioned this, seeing EUR 34.6 million in the third quarter, we see a significant increase to the previous quarters. So the book-to-bill ratio now is up 1.2% in this quarter, and this also naturally gives us a solid basis here now for the final weeks of the year. If we look at the overall backlog here being around EUR 79 million, that is definitely significantly lower than at the beginning of the year with EUR 104 million, reflecting the weak order intake we had, especially in the first 6 months of the year. Here, I would like to also draw your attention to the fact that we naturally have a part of the business being highly transactional, which means it's kind of a rolling order book that is turned around within the quarter. And we are looking here at a ratio between, let's say, slightly below 40%, up to 50% of the revenue also turned around within a quarter. So we are looking at, let's say, this year, EUR 14 million to EUR 15 million turnaround in the quarter. So -- having this in mind also, you put in perspective the order backlog. If we look at the segments, the big impact here on the revenue and the significant impact here was mainly on the clean energy segment. The biggest segment, clean energy still is accounting for about 69.7%, so almost stable to the year before, but still here, we see a drop in revenue of about, I'd say, 2.5%. I mentioned this, the U.S. and the Indian defense business being the biggest impacting factors. Looking at the end markets there, we still have to see that the Industrial part of the fuel cell business is growing above 10%, 10.8% and the security part in this, that is basically CCTV application, civil security business is running above 15% growth. So there is an intact growth curve, I think, visible. Looking at the Clean Power Management, around 30% of the business, a decline of 2%, strictly leading back to a single project missed in the Canadian oil and gas business of, I'd say, a EUR 2.8 million business here for power products, VFDs with one customer in Canada that was basically in our forecast, but lost to competition. Looking at the clean energy business in Canada, we see also this part on a solid growth curve. With this, I will hand over to Daniel leading you through the financial results here of Q3 as well as the first 9 months. Daniel Saxena: Good morning. Thank you for dialing in. Let me go into the margins a little bit as well as the cost basis. I think as a summary, what we could say is that those negative impacts that we have seen in the first half year have continued. To some extent, they have lowered, but there was still a negative impact. I believe from the cost base, you've seen we are running rather stable in the underlying because costs are rather optimized. But let me go into that quick and highlight certain developments. So when it comes to the overall gross margin in the first 9 months, we've seen the negative effects that we also have seen in the first half year, especially with regards to the segment's clean energy, which is the less favorable product mix with a lower share of the defense revenue. We mentioned that before, that really play an essential role in the unfavorable gross margin development that we've seen since the beginning of the year. But what we also have seen now is that the customs duty that have been introduced slowly negatively impact our gross margin. Like I said, it will be unlikely that we'll be able to avoid the entire customs impact. So we -- it is not that we'll see a huge impact, obviously a slight impact from those custom duties. And then what we also see in the segment clean energy is the less favorable exchange rate with regards to the U.S. dollar and the Canada dollar. So if we compare the average exchange rates of those 2 major currencies, the U.S. dollar in average depreciated by 1%. The -- Canadian dollar in average depreciated by 4%, which has an impact on the gross margin. So the overall group's gross margin 40% in the first 9 months, which is slightly below what we've seen in the 9 months of 2024, while we had a gross margin of 41.7% and it's also moderately below the level of the previous full year margin, which was 41%. Nevertheless, we consider the group's gross margin to be on a level with which we're not entirely satisfied for a good reason. At the beginning of the year, we had higher goals and higher targets. We may not have anticipated entirely the economic turmoil ahead of us at the beginning of the year. We may not have seen entirely the development of the exchange rate, but also the development in India, all of it has an impact on the gross margin, especially with regards to the segment clean energy. It is a heterogeneous development in the gross margin, we've seen that, we have a gross margin expansion in the segment Clean Power Management, where we see the gross margin going up to 29.7% from 26.9%. So that is something that we are happy and content with. The main reason for that, the increase is basically that in both main product line in that segment. So the power management solution, we were able to implement a higher pricing also because I mentioned that in the first half year report call already, also due to our own products that we've been operating, but we've also been able to implement higher prices in the drive motor control products. So if we then look at the EBITDA margin and the key impact on those operating expenses, R&D and G&A, I think there's -- again, there's 3 major topics that we've seen in the first half year, which is the extraordinary cost for exchange rate losses. That is the IT spending for the implementation of SAP as well as making our IT overall landscape more robust. We've seen those costs, or those expenses having come down in the third quarter, but there was still an extraordinary expense in there. And what we've also seen in the third quarter is a lower rate of capitalization of R&D, which is something we've had in the first 6 months and which is also something that will unlikely change because that is pure accounting and that has also impacted EBITDA negatively compared to the first 9 months in the last year. So if we add up those 3 facts and look at the last year, make a like-for-like comparison, those 3 effects together have impacted EBITDA negatively with approximately EUR 5.5 million, which really shows that our cost basis is solid. The earning power is still there. We believe we take those 3 effects away. We know that they're there, but you'll see that we didn't do that bad. Let me dig into the exchange rate losses. First of all, so you've seen we had an income from exchange rate gains of EUR 1.8 million in the first 9 months, which were entirely offset by the exchange rate losses of EUR 5.1 million in the first 9 months. So that comes to a net effect of EUR 3.3 million, which negatively impacted the EBITDA or 3.2% of revenues. So out of these exchange rate losses that we've seen, EUR 4.4 million or 85% is unrealized losses and out of which approximately EUR 4 million are related to intercompany positions, i.e., shareholder loans and intercompany receivables. I mentioned that already in the first half year. So that's why you would not see that in the cash flow statement. Yes, we'll book it, but this unrealized losses for the exchange rate. But still it does impact our EBITDA negatively with 3.2% rather highly. The next position is the extraordinary cost for IT in the G&A expenses. These are costs relating to the SAP implementation. So in the first 9 months, the total cost has been EUR 1.9 million. They have come down notably in -- the spending has come down notably in the third quarter, but it's still over the first 9 months translates into 1.8% negative impact of the revenues on the EBITDA. We also had costs for improving our IT system that amounted to approximately EUR 1.4 million in the first 9 months, which again would then mean a 1.4% negative impact on the EBITDA. Together, if you see the amount that we really spend on IT, and yes, it's necessary, we need to make our system more robust. We need to make a step forward in higher efficiency and automation in our system. So this is not something that we're just doing for doing it. It really means making the major steps in getting our system safer, more secure, more robust, increased efficiency, also increase effectiveness of our operations. While it's a huge investment that we've seen, we'll see further investment in the fourth quarter. We also will see some of those investments still in the next year until we got the system entirely implemented. And then the third impact is the lower rate of capitalized R&D expenses. So the total R&D spending amounted to EUR 8.7 million in the first 9 months of 2025 compared to EUR 7.5 million in the previous year's 9 months. So you see a decent hike in our R&D spending. But what you will also see is that in the previous years, approximately 23% of these costs were capitalized, in the current year, we are capitalizing 30% of the cost. So on a like-for-like basis, this would also translate into a negative impact on the EBITDA on EUR [indiscernible]. To go into this really briefly, so capitalizing R&D expenses is not a choice or not an option, which we do. It is, as I mentioned at the beginning of the call, it is an accounting principle. So projects can be capitalized, certain projects cannot be capitalized. And that's a little bit depending on your R&D focus, but also what you have in the pipeline. Remember, any capitalization going forward means also depreciation, additional cost. So it's not that you're optimizing your cost, you're just pushing those expenses into the future. In any event, it is what it is, but you'll see that our R&D spending as though it has increased, it has not a huge jump that you see in the P&L and the earning power, that's why I said at the beginning, is still at a decent level. So what does it mean for the adjusted EBITDA, for the adjusted EBITDA, it means that we reached EUR 10.81 million, which, of course, is significantly with 56% below what we've seen in the previous year's 9 months. It is, of course, a factor of revenue growth of gross margin and those negative effects in the other operating costs that I just mentioned. Depreciation and amortization, you don't see a big change in there. Depreciation, EUR 5.8 million versus EUR 4.5 million, 40% of the depreciation is IFRS 16 related. So you will not see a huge change in that position going forward either. That brings us to the adjusted EBIT, which is -- came up to EUR 5 million. That represents an adjusted EBIT margin of 4.9%. That's significantly lower from what we've seen in the first 9 years (sic) [ 9 months ] in 2024. Again, we're not entirely happy with that, as you can imagine. Let me finalize with the cash flow and our cash position. Cash freely available at the end of the first 9 months were EUR 40.8 million compared to EUR 60.5 million, which we had at the end of 2024. So it's EUR 20 million lower from what we have seen. The financial debt on the other side also decreased by approximately EUR 1 million to EUR 3.1 million, which gives us a net debt -- sorry, net cash position of EUR 37.6 million, pretty much EUR 20 million below what we've seen at the year-end. Our equity decreased by EUR 1.5 million. That is due to the negative earnings. But remember, the negative earning also those nonrecurring effects with regards to the IFRS 2 and the stock option programs that are reflected. Cash flow, the operating cash flow before the change in net working capital was EUR 10.5 million. That compares to EUR 18 million in the first 9 months of the previous years. So what we see is it is significantly lower, but it's still at a good level with EUR 10.5, so it is 40% -- sorry, what we see then is the net working capital development. The net working capital increased by EUR 21.5 million. That compares to EUR 2.5 million in the last 9 months. So the working capital ratio to last 12 months net sales went up to 40% as of September compared to 25%, what we see at the year-end. So we're really trying hard to manage that working capital. It is really the inventory that we need to look at. It's really looking at the accounts receivable. The largest impact is really the increase in the inventory, which has gone up by EUR 10.3 million. That has changed the days of inventory to 237 compared to 131 at the end of the year. That is an extreme high value, and we are fully aware of that. That is something that we need to manage more actively and bring it down. We are fully aware of that. We have a lot of material sitting in there. It is mostly fuel cell components and material, which we intend to bring down in the next 6 months. So it's nothing that is going to go bad or will become obsolete. It is really material that have been acquired as bought this program. You also see a large impact on the increase of the accounts receivables. They increased by EUR 8.1 million compared to year-end. That translates into a 12-month trailing days of sales outstanding of 114 compared to 90, which we had at the end of the last year. So we see an increase in the sales outstanding. We don't see any bad receivables out there. But this is something also that we are managing actively and intend to bring that number down again towards the 90 days. Then what you also see is that the accounts payables have gone down EUR 2.8 million. That brings the payables outstanding down 52 days from 66 days So then with the tax payments of EUR 1.4 million, you'll see that the operating cash flow after net working capital and tax is becoming very negative with very negative, it means minus EUR 12.4 million, all driven by the net working capital development. Cash flow from investing activities is much, much lower from what we've seen in the last year. We are looking at EUR 2.6 million compared to EUR 6.4 million in the last year. So all those large investments that we have made last year are done and completed. So EUR 2.6 million is at a decent level. It includes, of course, the capitalized R&D. Then you see the cash flow from financing activities of EUR 2.8 million, a large portion of that is related to leases. And if you add those numbers up, you'll see a change in the cash position of EUR 17.9 million, and then we'll still have to add the exchange rate impact on our cash in foreign currency. So overall, cash has reduced, like I said, in summary, mostly net working capital. We've seen the margin decline. Still, I think we are at a good level, but not a level which we are happy or satisfied with, and we are fully aware that we need to keep on working on further implementing measures and structures to optimize especially our cash consumption. With that, I'll return it to Peter. Peter Podesser: Thank you very much, Daniel. So summarizing where we are, I think on the basis of the performance to date, also, we talked about the order backlog and also, let's say, still some, I'd say, challenging macro conditions here. We've done, I think, a concise assessment here on the year-end forecast, and we are expecting the revenue at the lower end of the target corridor that we had out there -- that we have out there as a revised guidance. We see EBITDA adjusted as well as EBIT adjusted in the lower half of the corridor that is out there for EBITDA, the corridor is EUR 13 million to EUR 19 million and for the EBIT, respectively, it is the corridor of EUR 5 million to EUR 11 million. As said, we are expecting to end up in the lower half for both ratios. So looking at this, I think after years of continuous and significant growth and increasing profitability, while you see ourselves here clearly and honestly disappointed with those results here after 9 months. We also have to be self-critical here in terms of some maybe too aggressive and optimistic plannings in some areas, especially of the top line against the macroeconomic also environment that we are operating under. But at the same time, I think we have done a thorough analysis of the situation, we also see the reasons of deviations and we have implemented clear and targeted measures. We've talked about the cost part. I think on the inventory part, yes, the defense part of the business has downsides with, let's say, longer procurement cycles. But the good thing is those products are not turning anywhere that, as Daniel mentioned. So this is naturally the basis here for the improvement also on the cash flow side to get let's say, this out of the door as fast as possible. And that's why you see ourselves here, let's say, this clearly, let's say, a realistic moat, but with all the dedication to get this back to a growth curve. And again, I think for all of us here, we have an organic growth in the business, be it, let's say, our civilian security business, be it the industrial business, we are talking here about double-digit growth here between 11% and 15% and also our U.S. business, significantly above 20%. So the expectation there is to continue on this growth path to return to a growth path in India, as I said, service contracts in place, local methanol filling, all basis also for further, I'd say, satisfying the customers' needs there. And we've been intensively working on OEM programs on the defense part of the business in Germany as well as in NATO states. And naturally, we are expecting an impact of this in the year to come. We are doing, again, our regional expansion with the investment in Singapore. We expect a growth impact out of this. We are seeing our products performing properly well also for new applications like drone charging, and I also mentioned the drone defense activity here in Singapore. So all over, yes, the situation, especially the last 2 quarters are very, let's say, disappointing. We've taken the measures now, and we are looking at a strong year-end and again, a return to growth and improved profitability here based on all the measures that we mentioned together. With this, we close our presentation and would like to open the floor for questions. Thank you very much. Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Karsten Von Blumenthal from First Berlin Equity Research. Karsten Von Blumenthal: My first question is regarding Oneberry. You have now a 15% stake. And perhaps you could shed some light on your future activities. You have a 50% option. When and how will you try to get this option? Daniel Saxena: So we have that option to be exercised in the short term. Short term within this year, potentially beginning of next year. That option apparently, as we said, is to increase our holding in Oneberry to a majority for a fixed valuation. So this is something that we intend to do, and we put this option in there in order to exercise it. And of course, we'll have to review certain things with the business. We'll have to complete a bit more on the due diligence side, everything that is such a process and then we will likely exercise that option. Peter Podesser: If I can add here, Karsten, just to, let's say, shed a little more light on, let's say, the business model. At the end, they are engaged in long-term multiyear contracts with the Singaporean government, the pipeline they have and the backlog they have is more than 90% government business there. And this is something that we want to continue to drive, but then also replicate this model to other parts of the region and if possible, also in other parts of the world, a rental business, so security, unmanned security automated based on, let's say, significant also, let's say, AI content to, let's say, recognition parameters here. At the end, with a higher profitability than we see it in our own business. And well, having been partners for quite some years, I think we also have a good trust base there to roll this out to other areas in the region as well as in other parts of the world. Karsten Von Blumenthal: So there's a high likelihood that you will be able to consolidate Oneberry next year when you exercise the option. Could you shed some light on sales and EBIT Oneberry reached, for example, last year in 2024 that we can have an idea what will be the impact on your P&L next year? Peter Podesser: I think we would -- at this point also of the negotiations there, I think it's good to have a ballpark figure here in terms of revenue, we're looking at about EUR 20 million revenue. And as that profitability, I'd say, above our own EBIT and EBITDA level. Daniel Saxena: Consolidation -- well, let's assume that we exercise that option, let's assume that we'll get the control as defined for consolidation, then currently, let's assume that we will close that transaction, then yes, we would consolidate Oneberry from next year on. The numbers we are saying are not in IFRS to be also to make that sure, right? We're talking about Singapore GAAP [indiscernible]. Karsten Von Blumenthal: All right. That is very helpful. Next question, you mentioned the postponement in India, and you said that you expect a rebound in 2026, but not as high as in 2024. Could you roughly tell us how high revenue was in India in 2024? Peter Podesser: Well, the defense revenue in India was around EUR 12 million. And being, let's say -- now, let's say, 60% below last year's revenue, as said, is one of the major impacting factors this year. The fiscal year there ends at the 31st of March, and that's why we are, as we speak now in the assessment of, I think, the right level of -- or the right budgeting level together with our partner on site and will naturally be based on the experience, a cautious assessment for next year, but still we expect a rebound and growth based on what we have learned over the last 3 months out there. Karsten Von Blumenthal: All right. One follow-up question regarding the U.S. You mentioned that you are on track for local production in your facility in Salt Lake City. Could you shed some light on the next milestones you want to reach? So when will production start? How quick do you want to scale it up? Peter Podesser: Pilots, we have our team of the U.S. right now in Europe for training for, I'd say, still the next weeks here. And then we do the first pilot trial still in December so that everything is geared up for 2026 series production. The plan here is to have especially, let's say, our high runners, the EFOY 2800 all produced locally next year. And that's why we are looking, let's say, at a shift here from production from Germany as well as Romania to the U.S., whereas the core elements as the specs still will be mounted here in Brunnthal. So it's pretty the same exercise we did here with India, and we did with Romania in the last, let's say, 12, respectively, 24 months. So we are not reinventing the wheel here. So it's basically copying the process. Karsten Von Blumenthal: Yes, that was certainly facilitated. Could you roughly give us an idea about the value of this shift in terms of revenue for 2026? Peter Podesser: You mean end customer revenue or simply the transacted systems? Karsten Von Blumenthal: No. What -- how much revenue will you generate with the U.S., or you plan to generate with the U.S. production next year roughly, very roughly. Peter Podesser: Well, this will be somewhat above EUR 10 million because still part of the products will be shipped from here as we are not transferring the whole product line over there. We also do refurb of old EFOYs here in the market where we will not shift the entire production of this and therefore, in the first, I would say, 2 years, we will still see a mix dominated by also the old version here that is in the market. And then step by step, I think we will fade this one out and then the entire production for the U.S. consumption of EFOYs is planned to be there. And in addition, naturally, we will also have to see how the defense part of the business evolves. I think -- we were particularly pleased to be invited by the U.S. Army on the occasion of the AUSA, this defense show here a couple of weeks ago to again reengage into a fuel cell development program, and they were particularly happy about the fact that we already had prepared local manufacturing capacity there, which I think is also a big argument for us being a partner for them doing the local production also on defense over time on site in the country. Operator: The next question comes from Michael Kuhn from Deutsche Bank. Michael Kuhn: Three essentially. First of all, you mentioned OEM programs in the defense space into 2026. Is there any possibility to roughly quantify that scope already? Or would that be too early? Second question would be on the contract loss you mentioned in North America, I think, where you lost versus a competitor. Was that a fuel cell competitor? Or was a customer there going for, let's say, a different technical solution? And last question would be on working capital. I think you talked about a 6-month time frame to reduce that. So just to confirm that and maybe get a confirmation on, let's say, that working capital won't dramatically change over the course of the fourth quarter. Peter Podesser: First, OEM programs in defense. I think with, let's say, all the experience we just are undergoing, yes, we are a little hesitant now to come out, let's say, with numbers on those programs that are still work in progress. What we see today is that, I'd say, with a very, let's say, favorable financing environment based on all the political decisions, we also see that still capacity, the capacity on the administrative part of the purchasing or procurement part, but also the capacity in, let's say, some of the OEMs manufacturing capacity is a limiting factor. And we, let's say, therefore, expect all this to happen, let's say, in 2026. Part of it, I would say, on the earlier part of '26. But I'd say the visibility at this point in time is not at the point where I would feel comfortable to, let's say, put numbers out. We are looking at programs in Germany, but we are also looking, as you recall, we have, let's say, this also partnership here with Polaris on where, let's say, our products are under a NATO procurement contract. So we know that this program, the tender has been awarded here to Polaris, but we have not been, let's say, informed about individual numbers here out of the different countries participating. And I think the same thing here now with our German program. We are working on it as soon as we have more clarity, even if this is still before Christmas, we would be, let's say, able to share this. On the contract loss in Canada, we are talking here -- we are not talking about the fuel cell business. So it is, let's say, on the power management side, where we are integrating VFDs where we are integrating equipment also from ABB, and this was a loss based on, let's say, tough pricing here with an oil and gas OEM. At the same time, I think we also see, let's say, that's a competitive market. So it's -- but it's the single reason for, let's say, seeing a deviation from the original plan here. Otherwise, in the, let's say, Canadian oil and gas business, also especially on the EFOY side, we are still on our growth plan. And the third question, I would hand over to Daniel for answer. Daniel Saxena: So with regards to the working capital, yes, there are 2 positions that we're really working on, as you rightly said, the first one will be inventory, bringing inventory down. That, of course, is a function apparently of selling and manufacturing those fuel cells because the largest part of the inventory increase, as I mentioned, is in the German entity and happening in Germany. So that is really our intent to get back to a normalized level, which would be looking at what we had at year-end. One impact that is -- one factor that is negatively impacting our inventory is the platinum pricing. Remember that a large part of our membrane is platinum that has been -- the price has increased significantly in the last 9 months to all-time high, I think the highest thing I've seen for a couple of years. The amount of platinum that we have in our inventory is over EUR 1 million. So of course that and we tend to buy platinum when it's at a low price or relatively low price. And then we intend to buy an amount of platinum that covers us for at least 2 to 3, sometimes 4 quarters. That is really making sure that we can lock in the cost. That will have an impact on our inventory, like I said, right now, we only have EUR 1 million. On the accounts receivable, yes, we intend to bring them down significantly. We expect collections. We don't see any receivable [indiscernible] write-off there. So that is something we expect to improve towards the year-end. I know you made the math with regards to revenue. So what we expect in terms of revenue in the fourth quarter. And currently, the higher revenues at the end of the quarter, the higher the accounts receivable, but everything that we have right now to turn around quickly. Operator: The next question comes from Malte Schaumann from Warburg Research. Malte Schaumann: First one is on the customer behavior. I mean, during the second quarter call, one of the reasons for the weak order intake in the first half of the year, you mentioned that especially new customers kind of hesitated to adopt new technologies, place orders, et cetera. Do you actually have in the recent weeks registered a change in the customer behavior or more or less the same U.S. tariff discussions, et cetera, and still lead to existing uncertainties? Peter Podesser: I think at the end, we see, let's say, with new customers still, let's say, hesitation out there. And I mentioned before also that the U.S. pattern of the business still, yes, seeing, let's say, a growth of significantly above 20% organically is a solid growth, but it's not at what we have seen here, let's say, historically over the last 3 years. And that's why I think we -- with the environment, let's say, not being more stable and continuing as it is in the macro part for the new customer business, we have also factored this into our year-end planning. Existing customers, I think, being -- we published a significant order a couple of weeks ago with one of our largest civilian fuel cell customers here in Europe. We see a consistent repeat business. As mentioned before, the overall CCTV part, civilian security part of the business is also above 15% growth. But the change or the decision-making to, let's say, embark on a new technology here and complementing the existing whatever battery and solar devices with fuel cells definitely is delayed with, let's say, the environment as it is. So therefore, I think we can differentiate this pretty clearly and see this also in, let's say, the customer behavior. Malte Schaumann: Okay. And then maybe kind of an early view next year or your level of confidence that order levels will -- would you expect kind of subdued order levels going into early next year and then hope for a recovery later next year? What's your visibility or your level of confidence then going into 2026, where do you see maybe increasing customer activity and where uncertainties still prevailing kind of reducing the visibility? I mean you have alluded to in some areas, still unstable situation, low visibility. But then on the other hand, you might have kind of gained some confidence in the meantime that, for instance, India will return as a major customer in defense. So maybe you can shed some light on what are your thoughts on maybe how 2026 can [indiscernible]. Peter Podesser: As you can imagine, now we are doing, let's say, a constant analysis on this and let's say, also assess, let's say, the regional part of -- or the different regions of the business and also the different end markets. And looking at where we are right now, I think we see, I'd say, this repeat part of the business on a constant, let's say, growth curve that we also would, let's say, assume as a basis, and we are also doing this in our planning right now because it's budgeting time. We are finalizing our planning rounds right now. So we are expecting, let's say, an organic growth out of this. We are seeing, let's say, signs of, again, improvement again in India, where we have this deviation this year. With this coming back to, let's say, a modest growth part, I think we are in a corridor here of mere organic part that is somewhere around, let's say, low double-digit growth. And we also do, I'd say, this analysis here on our, let's say, what we call this rolling part of the order book that is intra-quarter business transactional, where we have a pretty good view on it. As I said, this is between, let's say, 40% to 50% here that comes in and out within a quarter. So adding this all up, I think -- and then also looking at what we have, let's say, done on the cost side. We're also looking at our product pricing here based on raw materials, platinum being a big factor here. We will have to adjust this, and we are preparing for this. And therefore, I think a growth corridor just organically, as mentioned here of a good 10% is, I think, a solid ratio across everything. This does not include, let's say, a big impact also of when we look at, let's say, a larger defense program. And at the same time, we have just discussed with Karsten also the impact here of a potential majority acquisition of the Singapore business here adding up to, let's say, the planning then in 2026. Also, with the caveat, we have not exercised this option yet. But naturally, we have done this to go through this process and hopefully get to a positive end also here with our partner in Singapore. Malte Schaumann: Okay. Then Oneberry, in the press release, I think you laid out the scenario for potential significant growth in the years ahead. So maybe you can shed some more light on where do you see growth? I think you mentioned EUR 100 million potential revenue contribution. So maybe you can shed some more light on that number? And where does the growth primarily come from? And what should happen that this will materialize in maybe, I don't know what the time frame is 5 years, 5 years plus. So what are your thoughts on that? Peter Podesser: Yes. Oneberry has been very focused and fully entrenched in the Singaporean security architecture also by, let's say, family roots here of the owner of Oneberry. And also, let's say, looking where, let's say, such a family business then stays also in terms of, let's say, further investment into regional expansion, the planning of the owner here, the family owners was not to expand this and roll this out, let's say, into the region. With us being on board, this is a key element, really copying what we have -- what they have built up, integrating also our products into those security services and roll this out. And naturally, it is logical. We have done some business development in Indonesia. We have done in Malaysia and Thailand and in the Philippines. And this is, at the end, the overall business plan that we have already sketched out with them. But naturally, first of all, we need to take the next step and close the transaction and talk about, let's say, the option. And then it is initially a regional play, but we are also seeing large customers in our civilian security business looking for potential rental solutions, and we might also have to -- and be able to, let's say, copy this part or this business model here in other regions. And if we look at the, let's say, potential in, let's say, Asia, this is, let's say, what we have developed together as a scenario with the owner family of Oneberry that is also at the end, a reflection of what we see in terms of demand here in Asia, which at the end, again, is the most populous region. Time frame, yes, as you said, we are talking definitely midterm, and we are talking about a 5-year scenario. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Dr. Peter Podesser for any closing remarks. Peter Podesser: Well, with this, we thank you all for your time and interest. As always, we are at your disposal also for bilateral discussions here with Daniel, myself and also Susan. We are heading through some rough waters here. Stay with us. I think we have a solid plan ahead of us. And we have shown that we are able to, let's say, implement plans apart from naturally, not neglecting the fact that we have seen 2 very tough quarters behind us. Thank you very much.

Eric Beiley, managing director and wealth manager for The Beiley Group at Steward Partners, discusses the volatility in the markets and the macro factors impacting investors. He joins Caroline Hyde on “Bloomberg Tech.

“AI is in a rational bubble,” says Mohamed El-Erian. “It makes sense to overinvest in it, to overspend on it, because the payoff is enormous.

Developments in Japan are creating a risk that investors in the U.S. Treasury market may one day pull the rug out by keeping more of their savings at home.

How crypto's current slide was a "warning" of a broader pull-back from risk, according to this strategist. About Yahoo Finance: Yahoo Finance provides free stock ticker data, up-to-date news, portfolio management resources, comprehensive market data, advanced tools, and more information to help you manage your financial life.

CNBC's Rick Santelli reports on news regarding bond markets.

Recent market sentiment has shifted, causing a pullback in high-valuation momentum names, especially in tech and AI-related stocks. The article distinguishes between fundamental momentum (growth-justified valuations) and price momentum (reliance on continued price increases).

"Bloomberg Real Yield" highlights the market-moving news you need to know. Today's guests: Federated Hermes Senior Portfolio Manager Deborah Cunningham, Columbia Threadneedle Fixed Income Portfolio Manager Ed Al-Hussainy, UBS Global Wealth Management Head of Taxable Fixed Income Strategy Leslie Falconio and AEGON Asset Management Global Head of Leveraged Finance Jim Schaeffer.

Ben Emons calls the current market environment "fragile." He points to the staggering selling activity in Bitcoin and crypto-tied stocks as an impact that will last for weeks to come.

In the near term, I am no longer bullish on the broader markets in the US. It has nothing to do with fundamentals (especially those of tech companies).

CNBC's Robert Frank sits down in a rare and exclusive interview with two of the most well known and secretive bankers to the wealthy, Byron Trott and Gregg Lemkau, co-CEOs of BDT & MSD Partners. Trott discusses how the wealthy view stock market volatility.

Markets have experienced a sharp selloff due to the Federal Reserve's unexpectedly hawkish shift and worsening liquidity conditions. The Fed's late-cycle pivot, driven by inflation concerns, has created unnecessary volatility despite stable economic and labor market fundamentals.

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESS Newswire / November 21, 2025 / Carcetti Capital Corp. ("Carcetti" or the "Company") (TSXV:CART) is pleased to announce that it has received conditional acceptance from the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") for its previously announced acquisition of the 100% interest in the Hemlo Gold Mine (the "Hemlo Mine") in Ontario, Canada from certain wholly-owned subsidiaries of Barrick Mining Corporation (the "Transaction"). The Transaction has been deemed to constitute a reverse takeover pursuant to TSXV Policy 5.2 - Changes of Business and Reverse Takeovers.

Federal Reserve President John Williams sparked a major equity rally on Friday by signaling that the central bank still has room to cut interest rates in the near term, boosting investor appetite for risk.

Wells Fargo analyst Ohsung Kwon put out his 2026 outlook, and predicts that the S&P 500 will end the year at 7800

John Stoltzfus, Oppenheimer chief investment strategist, joins 'The Exchange' to discuss where to look for market opportunities, the sectors the strategist favors and much more.

Stocks have been beaten up bad lately, with technology shares particularly in pain.