Welcome, everybody. In the room, some of you are here, but also we've got people joining us remotely, we welcome you all.

I'm joined obviously by Giles Wilson, our CFO. Our chair, Paul, is in the room.

Good morning.

I think everybody knows Bethan Barnes, our head of IR and Corporate Communications. Questions after the meeting, please do make contact.

We've been busy, before we get into today's agenda, I want to share with you some of the great products our teams and partners have been hard at work on introducing our consumers to. Like I said, we've been busy, and I'm proud of what our people have been up to in the first half of the year.

Let's get into it. I know you would have seen the statement this morning, Giles and I will cover three things.

I'll share a brief introduction, just frame a bit of what we're up to, and then Giles will pull out some of the key themes from our performance in the first half, and then I'll give you an update on the strategy that we introduced to you back in June. I'm pleased to report, as we say on the slide, that we are on track with the execution of the strategy and on track with our guidance for the year.

I'll go into each one of the four levers later on, but I also want to be clear that we still have some challenges that we're addressing, particularly with boots and sandals and with EMEA direct-to-consumer. Yet overall, we're doing what we said we would do, with good cash generation and cost control driving good financial progress.

As I will keep telling you, I'm laser-focused on execution, and the work we've done today gives me confidence that we will deliver our full-year results as planned. Giles will go into more detail now on how we've performed in the half.

Thank you, EJ, and good morning, everyone. I'm here today to talk through our first-half results, and I'm pleased to report good progress in all our key metrics.

Before I go into any detail, I felt it's important to share with you how we're making decisions and how we're running the business. We are focusing on making the right decisions for the long term, while making sure we control our costs and our financials in the short term, as evidenced through our cost action plan last year and our significant reduction in our leverage position.

This means we have FY '27 and beyond at the front of our minds when making those decisions and the actions we are taking. A really good example of this is in our first-half-year results has been a focus on improving our full-price sales and reducing markdown volume, especially in the periods outside more normal promotional events, therefore making markdown directly related to those promotional events or as a tactical way to reward existing consumers and drive new customer acquisition.

This principle has also guided our approach to US tariffs actions, and to make sure we make optimal decisions for FY '27 and beyond, we have worked closely with our wholesale and our supply chain partners in timing of those actions. Turning to our key financials, and as I introduced last year, I will focus on constant-currency comparison as this reflects the true underlying performance of the business.

Just before I go into any detail and to flag at the outset, as at the year-end we changed the definition of adjusting items to include impairment of financial assets, and the H1 FY '25 has therefore be represented accordingly. Turning to the financials, our revenue performance shows a small growth year-on-year, up 2.7 million to 327.3 million, and crucially, revenue quality was better as we focused on full-price sales and a reduction in our markdown sales.

The impact of better quality of revenue and focus on our costs can be seen in our profit lines, especially in operating profit, which swings by 6.5 million from a loss last year to a 3.4 million profit this year. After accounting for interest, our profit before tax is still a loss in H1, but a significant improvement on H1 last year.

As I'll explain in more detail, this is after accounting for a tariff headwind and demand generation timing headwind as well. Our dividend is declared at 0.85p, which as a reminder is a formulaic for the half of being 1/3 of the prior-year full dividend.

Finally, I talked to you in June about the focus we've had on reducing net debt, and we continue to strengthen the balance sheet in H1, with net bank debt down by 33 million. As a reminder, our net bank debt tends to peak around now as we build the inventory ahead of the peak selling period.

With our continued focus on profitability and the strengthening of the balance sheet, this sets us up for sustainable success in FY '27 and beyond. Turning to the revenue, this bridge sets out the movement in sales by region and channel year-on-year.

Starting with Americas, we see the business now returned to growth across both D2C and wholesale. Following our return to growth in D2C in H2 last year, that has continued in the first half of this year, with particularly strong performance in our retail stores, offset by our planned reduction in markdown volume in our e-com channel, delivering an overall 4.8 million year-on-year increase in D2C.

Following the focus on reducing inventory levels in our wholesale partners last year, we now starting to see wholesale partner orders improving, delivering an increase of 2.4 million, and we're also seeing further confidence in the spring/summer order book, particularly amongst our larger wholesale customers. Turning to EMEA, as highlighted at the AGM trading statement, EMEA across D2C has been more challenging, and that, together with our focus on reducing markdown volume, saw a reduction year-on-year of 5.9 million in D2C.

However, this was generally much better quality revenue. Wholesale in EMEA, as explained at the full year, was stronger year-on-year, and that is together with a more normal wholesale shipments in H1 saw increase in wholesale revenue.

Finally, in APAC, D2C saw continued year-on-year growth, with a particular standout performance in South Korea retail and full-price e-com across the entire region. Again, like other regions, we saw significant reduction in markdown e-com sales, especially in China and South Korea, and therefore overall a 1.2 million increase in D2C and better quality revenue.

The wholesale revenue is in line with our expectations with some small changes in shipment dates year-on-year. Overall, our regional and channel performance was in line with our expectations.

Though we're disappointed in the overall D2C revenue in EMEA, this was partly due to our own decisions to reduce markdown volume and the well-publicized weak EMEA consumer environment. We are really pleased with the continued D2C growth in Americas, the overall performance in APAC, and the overall better performance in our wholesale sales, delivering on our strategic objective to reduce reliance on markdown sales.

As we set out in the statement this morning, our gross margin has improved year-on-year, and I felt it was worth explaining it a little bit more in detail. As always, there is lots of moving parts in gross margin.

However, what this chart shows is the consistent resilience of our gross margin rate. A slight headwind from our channel mix was fully offset by the average selling price.

The average selling price was a combination of much better full-price sales, offset slightly with the stronger shoes performance, where the average selling price is slightly less. We saw a strong COGS performance, with freight savings negotiated by our supply chain teams being one of the biggest component, and it is also worth noting that includes the H1 US tariff impact as well, and I shall speak a little bit more about that on the next slide.

Turning to underlying EBIT bridge, and as I set out on the first slide, we see adjusted EBIT turn from a lost turn turn a loss back into a profit, increasing by 6.4 million to a 3.4 million profit. Actually, if you add the two headwinds of tariffs, the fourth box, and the timing of demand generation, the sixth box, that is a figure is increases to 9 million profit in the period, a year-on-year growth of 12 million.

The slide sets out the key moving parts: 5.3 million gross margin increase driven by 5 million from strong average selling price and better cost of goods, particularly freight costs, 3 million from the increase year-on-year in volume, offset by a 2.7 million of US tariff costs. We have continued to tightly control our costs.

Within the 2 million benefit from non-demand generating opex is the benefit of the cost action plan last year, partly offset by inflation, the full impact of more-year impact of more stores being opened, and paying our retail bonuses as retail stores performed better. Demand generation opex drove a 2.9 million increase driven by the timing of our key stories campaign being in September this year versus October last year.

This will vary year-on-year depending on when the right time is to support key campaigns. Year-on-year benefit in depreciation and other items, and finally, 3.1 million of adjusting items, which includes the lease impairment reviews following the accounting policy change and the carryover adjusting items from prior year for incentives and our Global Technology Centre.

Before I move on to the next slide, I just want to come back to tariffs. As we set out in our statement, the focus has been to mitigate the effects of FY '27 and beyond, and we are pleased to say the action we are taking will do that.

Those actions are continued tight cost control, flexible product sourcing, and targeted adjustment to our US pricing policy. These have started and will now phase in through to the end of the financial year.

We have worked these actions thoroughly, both internally and with our customers and suppliers. The intention has always been to think of the longer-term impacts and make sure the actions we take are with that in mind.

The net effect of all that work is that we see about half the high-single-digit millions tariff headwind in FY '26 being offset this year, and most importantly, the tariff impact for FY '27 and beyond being fully offset. I've cleverly left a page over there, I'm just going to go get it.

So... as if by magic.

Must be an important page. It was an important page cuz I couldn't remember it.

It's actually the final slide. Finally, turning to cash flow and our net debt, I'm really pleased to continue to report our significant reduction year-on-year in net debt, both in terms of net bank debt reducing by 33 million to 154 million, and total debt including leases reducing by 46 million to 302 million.

As a reminder, our business builds up the inventory levels in advance of peak, and the September net debt position tends to be the highest in the year. As we go through the peak period, the net debt will start to reduce.

It is worth noting that included in our half-one results is around £4 million of tariff costs in inventory, and this will grow to near a 10 million at the year-end. The bridge sets out the cash flows from FY '25 year-end position.

The first four boxes show underlying operating cash flow of 44 million outflow of 44 million, made up of delivering 37 million of cash inflow from EBITDA, being invested into working capital as we build stock levels, and then the spend on lease payments of 28 million, and interest and tax payments of 13 million. Capex accounts for 6 million, and our dividends in the year of 8.2 million.

Finally, our net debt to EBITDA finished at 2.1 times, well below our bank covenant of 3 times, and an improvement year-on-year. We will continue to see those leverage ratios improve as we head towards the year-end.

Our guidance remains for net debt of a year of around 200 million including leases. To summarize before I hand back to EJ, looking forward into the second half, we are pleased with our performance in the first half, setting ourselves well up for our key peak period.

We continue to see positive performance in our US D2C business, and our order books across the business for SS '26 are looking healthy. With that, I shall pass back to EJ.

Thank you, Giles. Now let me give you some color on how in the first half we executed the strategy that we outlined in June.

You'll remember this slide, and after stabilizing the business last year, this is a year of pivoting the business towards the new strategy. The great news, by the way, that underpins this is that the brand is strong, the team is passionately committed, and we are already seeing results from our work.

Importantly, the work we've done in this half has also set us up for the second half, and particularly these big trading weeks that we have ahead of us in the next few weeks, and provided a foundation for growth in the outer years. We are in this period of pivoting the business.

What's that pivot about? That pivot is about moving from a channel-first mindset that was primarily about building out D2C to much more of a consumer mindset, giving people more ways and more reasons to buy more of our products, and making sure the business isn't in a situation where any one market or channel or product or consumer segment presents an outsized risk to our success.

We have a brand that resonates around the world, and it's a privilege traveling around the world and seeing consumers and partners. Our ambition therefore is to become the world's most desired premium footwear brand.

As you can imagine, it's a motivating ambition, and one that the entire team is united around. In June, we shared our four levers for growth, and what are they?

They are: engage more consumers, driving more purchase occasions, curating market-right distribution, and simplifying our operating model. Consumer, product, markets, and organization.

We also gave you a set of FY '26-specific objectives in which we're going to use to make sure that we're on track on this, and that we advise you to use to also keep an eye on what we're doing. We said, in consumer, we would reduce reliance on discounted pairs.

We said, in product, that we would drive those new product families that we've introduced to you, and I'll talk a bit later, Zebzag, Buzz, Lowell. They allow us to give the consumer a different way to think about the brand and different purchase occasions.

In markets, we guided that we would open with capital-light distribution in some new markets. In organization, we said we will make concrete steps to simplify our operating model.

Let me now share the progress we're making in each of these areas. As you would expect, I'm going to start with the consumer.

As I said, in FY '26, we are focused on reducing reliance on discounts, and I'm pleased to say that we are making good progress on both wholesale, which we kind of pay particular attention to, and D2C. Working closely with our American wholesale partners, and under the leadership of Paul Zadoff, our new president in the Americas, we've achieved a good shift from discount in both the currencies in autumn/winter '25 and in the order book as we look forward to spring/summer '26.

As Giles said, we're really happy with that growth that we have in that order book in the Americas because that's the first time we've been able to say that in a while. Similarly, in our D2C, the shift is having a clear impact.

D2C full-price revenue is up 6% year-on-year. The mix of full-price to clearance is up 5%.

We have a full 10% up in the percentage of new consumers coming to full price versus discounts. That's particularly important because if you remember, the objective is to engage more consumers, and we're engaging more of them at that full-price basis, really critical for us.

While our full-price to—if you look at that graph on the right—while our full-price to discount profile will go up and down in different times of the year, we will continue to make sure that we're offering the consumer the right thing at the right time, and we will continue to manage this as we go through the pivot. For example, expecting the weeks ahead, we will participate in Black Friday and Cyber, and we'll do some discount.

We'll reward the consumer with that. We will deal with seasonal product that we want to move quickly, but we will do that in very specific seasons, and then return to that focus on full price.

I will also say that our customer data platform is helping in this effort because it allows us to directly target consumers based on their buying behavior. Now, for instance, when we're targeting a consumer who has a high propensity to buy full price, we will not be targeting them with a seasonal discount message.

Because we know that they are motivated by that full-price offering. I've got to say—and I'll talk a bit about the CDP later on—this is early days of this work, and a lot more to benefit from as we go forward.

The push for full-price, along with our focus on comfort, on craft, on quality, is supporting overall momentum, and you can particularly see this in Americas D2C. Americas retail revenue in the first half was up 15.7%, driven by increased footfall.

The consumer is coming in to really engage with that product we've been putting before them. In Americas e-commerce, while revenue is only marginally up, full-price revenue is up 20%, offsetting a significant headwind as we've reduced, and we knew we would get this, as we would reduce clearance revenue.

We'll share more on that reduction in discount revenue across channels and our work to attract new wearers at full price when we report the full year in May. I do want to emphasize, particularly with the US numbers, that we are showing growth on weaker comps, and this is still work in progress.

There is more work to do, and significantly more growth to go after in that market. That's consumer.

Let's talk about product. On product, we said we will drive more wearing occasions, and in this year, that we will drive growth in those distinct family products: Zebzag, Lowell, and Buzz.

As you saw in the statement, we have had a successful half with shoes. Pairs are up 20% in D2C and 33% overall.

A big part of the success has come from us being able to give the consumer different reasons and different ways to buy, playing into those product families and the different wearing occasions, and of course, leveraging the individual customer profiles to give them what is really right for that individual. We talked to you at full year about our success with our more style-focused Buzz family.

We're pleased that that momentum has continued. That's that product to the left, with the Buzz shoe being the best performing new shoe of the half.

Another product family that we haven't talked to you much about, but if you want to see it in real life, John is wearing a pair today, is the Lowell. The Lowell is more crafted and more elevated than the Buzz, and we introduced it just a year ago.

We haven't really backed it with marketing, and it has already risen to be one of top five shoes for us in EMEA. Let me just say, it's not just the new product families.

Our iconic 1461 shoe has continued to perform well. In Asia, it is our best-selling product.

I'll share a bit more about the work we've done in South Korea and a little case study about how this product has done really well there. Maybe a product we don't speak about a lot, but one that's been in the line since 1992, is our Mary Jane, and this is the number three best-selling product in the Americas and a big part of the success we're seeing there.

Let me make one important point. I said this at the full year, but this is important to keep making: this ability to give the consumer more choice, we are matching that with a reduction in SKU.

This is not about the proliferation of SKUs. In fact, in autumn/winter '25, what we're in right now, we have 45% less SKUs than we did in autumn/winter '23.

This is about disciplined curation of choice for the consumer as opposed to proliferation of product SKUs. We've talked a lot about the Adrian, and I think the Adrian tassel loafer and the success of shoes has really been driven a lot by Adrian, as Giles mentioned earlier.

This is a product that's been in the line since 1980. It is our second biggest-selling product.

I present shoes to make the point that the brand is not just strong, it is relevant across more silhouettes than we've really leveraged in the past, and knowing different consumers allows us to play the right product to the right consumer, and we're really focused on making sure that that curated breadth is put to work for the brand. What I don't want you to think, though, is that boots are not important to us.

Boots are important, and this is an area while we have work to do as we continue that decline in the half, we are committed to boots. It's worth saying that decline has moderated and has been impacted by, as Giles said earlier, our planned reduction in discounting.

Boots matter to us, and the 1460 Black Smooth, the boot that everybody knows, remains our top-selling product, and we're making progress in the category as a whole with an increased percentage in full-price mix. That's really important to us this year, and we're achieving that in boots as well.

I'll also say we're pleased with the performance that we've had in some of those, again going back to the product families, some of the newer products that we've introduced to the line. Let me give you some examples here.

The Casey high boot was new to the line last year and is the third best-selling product in the line in D2C in the half. Remember the 1460 Black Smooth is the first, the Adrian loafer, and then it's the Casey high.

The Buzz high, the green one you see back there, has been built on the success of the Buzz shoe that we've talked about and that we launched in February. The Buzz high was the best-selling new product at launch in EMEA D2C this year.

As part of our focus on comfort this autumn, we introduced the Zebzag laceless boots. Zebzag's a family that we've built around being lightweight and casual.

We've done mules, we've done sandals, and now we've introduced a really comfort-led easy-on boot called the Zebzag boot. You probably, especially if you're in London, you probably saw some activation around this.

While it's too early to quantify commercial success on this, we're really happy with how that's gone, and how it's raised comfort as a topic for this brand. Then two weeks ago, we brought to market a new innovation that's built off the 1460 boots.

The 1460 rain boots is the first fully waterproof Wellington boots utilizing our signature heat-sealed construction—that's how the bottom is joined to the top—and our air-cushioned sole. If you've got a sample size, it's worth putting your feet in this if you haven't yet.

It is built for comfort, and we're getting great feedback on that already. It really captures the essence of what Dr.

Martens is about: comfort, innovation, craftsmanship, functionality, without losing the bold attitude of Docs that our consumers love. This is a whole new wearing occasion for the brand, a real proof point of our strategy of increasing wearing occasions.

It's an easy sell for existing customers: they love that silhouette, they understand what the brand is about. It's also a compelling product for new wearers of the brand.

It's been fun visiting our stores and talking to consumers about it. People who came with somebody else, "Oh, I never knew you did this," and all of a sudden they're getting it on their feet.

We've used our customer data platform to customize marketing messages based on customer profiles. Some people are built more for style, and so you pitch a style message, and for some other people, it's comfort and function, and we're able to do that as well.

To those people, it ticks all those boxes. We've brought it to life in a really immersive way.

These are some pictures on screen, for example, a takeover of our store in Brooklyn, which was all merchandised just for the rain, and the wealth of press and social media coverage on this has been absolutely stunning. We're thrilled how the launch has gone.

I expect those of you in festival seasons in the summer to be wearing a pair of these, and we'll keep updating you on progress. Now we've talked about consumer, we've talked about product, let's talk about markets.

The markets lever is really about making sure that in each market we have the right distribution, working in partnership with wholesalers and distributors to get the right product in front of the right consumer in the places that that consumer naturally wants to buy. In FY '26, we've told you we'll focus on opening capital-light models with our partners, and I'm pleased to share now the progress that we've made.

Much of this has been announced, but it's worth just encapsulated all in one place. In the first half, we've announced new distribution partnerships in LATAM and in the UAE.

The Latin America agreement is with Crosby, and they will drive our reach in Mexico, Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile. This will include both wholesale and mono-branded Dr.

Martens stores run by them. We now have two mono-branded stores launched already, with Buenos Aires opening in August and Santiago at the start of October.

In the UAE, we've partnered with Beside, who will launch and then grow the brand's presence in UAE, initially through wholesale, with mono-branded stores planned very soon, and excitingly, products that are arriving with that partner just last week. In the Philippines, where we already have a great partner, we are accelerating that expansion on the back of this strategy.

They have already operated two stores, but they've now opened a third store again in Manila. That's actually the picture that is here, and there are more planned.

I also want to say, even though we've talked about capital-light models, this is not just about the deployment of capital. It's also about working with experienced and trusted local partners who have experience with global brands and who have deep market expertise and operating know-how.

Working with them ensures our brand shows up in the right way for those consumers, while still being a 100% Docs. These are the first agreements of many that we will announce in the quarters and years to come.

While that is largely about new markets, it's worth saying the same principle applies to our existing markets. In Italy, we have 14 direct-to-consumer stores, and we've been making good headway in Italy since we started building that strategy up.

Now we're expanding through a combination of yes, our own D2C, but also these partner stores, with the first franchise store opening in Pompeii in October 2025 with a great local partner. We're really pleased with how that's gone, and as you can see from that image, it's a really great Dr.

Martens experience. We have more stores planned for the future.

We're taking a similar approach in China, where we've opened recently in the half new stores in Chengdu, in Chongqing, and in Hangzhou. This is an exciting growth lever for us.

It's worth saying these capital-light models are a good example of our ability to create value in partnership with great businesses around the world. As I shared in June, we're excited about the skill, commitment, resources that our partners bring to our brand, whether it's through franchise stores as shared or in deep marketing partnerships with our wholesale partners.

The images here is just a spectrum of some of the wonderful activations that our partners put out when we launched the Zebzag laceless boot that I mentioned earlier. I'd highlight Zalando in Germany, who really took over their big hub and held their biggest event there to date, and Rinascente in Italy, which included a takeover of a metro station in Milan that you see in the bottom right corner there.

These close partnerships, along with the work we've done with them over the years to rightsize inventory, are some of the driving reasons behind healthy order books for spring/summer '26. Curating this market-right distribution with our partners is key to value creation for everybody, and so few things take up more of my time than this, and we'll keep you posted on how we keep going with it.

Finally, let me talk about the organizational lever, which is really about simplifying how we operate and focusing squarely on consumer. Here we are beginning to reap early benefits of systems that we've probably talked to you about in the bit, but that we've now really focused on executing, implementing, and embedding the organization in the half, and getting our Global Technology Centre in India up and running.

I'll start with a customer data platform. The customer data platform is really simplify our marketing and commercial teams to reach the right consumer with the right proposition.

I think I've given a few examples of that already today. The focus to date has been on optimizing the consumer journey—that's how the consumer navigates through from social to a site to find the product they're looking for—driving repeat purchases, and making sure that we're efficient when we do do a discount, that we're not cannibalizing full-price sales.

Then we've also used it for our product launches, really tailoring the market, such as in the rain boot example that I gave you earlier. Again, early days, part of our business, but you can see how that really simplifies the way our teams can deliver value to each individual consumer.

Our supply and demand system, as we told you, went live in the summer as planned, and is already delivering greater visibility and accuracy between demand signals on one hand and supply orders on the other hand. You can imagine what that does for the efficiency of the business.

For instance, our teams have started utilizing statistical modeling of past sales data based on this platform to identify patterns, trends, and seasonality, which then are used to predict future demand, really on a two-year rolling basis. That's new capability that really simplifies the way we think about things and operate.

Then finally, while not due to be fully operational until FY '27, our Global Technology Centre—and actually the image in the background is the Global Technology Centre in India—is now up and running, and by bringing engineering in-house, which is what this does for us, we have already become much quicker in delivering optimized customer journeys, allowing teams, for example, our retail teams, to recognize a consumer and offer a more tailored store experience, such as an in-store pickup or a promotion for that individual consumer. This is a muscle that we will keep pulling: how do we simplify the organization, how do we equip our teams to make it easier for them to really deliver to individual consumers, because again, that's what the pivot is about, being much more consumer-first minded.

That's the work we've been doing and the results we're beginning to see. In consumer, we're driving more full price in both wholesale and D2C.

In product, we're growing those product families, and alongside the icons, they're giving our consumers more reasons and more occasions to buy. In markets, working closely with partners, whether that's capital-light models or deep marketing and product partnerships with major wholesale partners.

In organization, we're using technology to simplify how we work and how we serve our consumers better. To wrap up, let me use one specific market to illustrate how this strategy all comes together, just so you get a picture of it.

South Korea is still a small market for us and a proof of how we can grow in new markets. It's also a critical market, South Korea, because as you probably know, it really influences cultural trends around the world.

How's our strategy playing out here? In consumer, we've grown full price with that with strategy.

We've grown full price 65%, and we're increasing that mix of revenue by 25% in the year in the half over half. In product, we've leaned into that market's specific demand for the 1461, which is really where that product is in more demand than any other market of in the world, and is and really allowed our team to push that, while also significantly building new equity around the Lowell shoe.

We know what the what if you like the major product is, but we're also able to start creating affinity around a product behind that so that we're not at risk of just one product family. The Lowell, as we've started doing that, is up a whopping 90% half-one to half-one as we've done that.

We're building exciting partnerships like this one in the picture shown here with is which is with Musinsa, who built out a major two-week installation for the 1461 shoe, and Giles and I were privileged to be in South Korea in the middle of those two weeks, and it's just a stunning experience delivered entirely by a partner. Finally, by simplifying around the consumer, really making the consumer the top of mind, it's allowed the Korea team to be liberated and deliver what works for their market, while aligning 100% to our brand.

These are great experiences of Dr. Martens, but they're right for the South Korea market.

As a result, revenue in South Korea is up 30% year-on-year in the first half. This is a growth market for us, and we're excited to see how the customer focus is helping them connect with more wearers and the learnings we can take from there to apply to other markets.

I hope that gives you a good sense of the progress we're making. We're focused on executing on the levers of our growth.

We're seeing early results, but this is work in progress, and there's still key areas to address. We've set ourselves up well to deliver the plans in the second half, and along with our partners, we feel good about our plans for these big trading weeks that are ahead of us.

I have to emphasize there is significant opportunity ahead. That opportunity, as you remember, comes through the headroom that we still have to grow.

Just in the 15 in our 15 top markets, we are only 0.7% of a $180 billion relevant market in just those 15 countries, and we're in many places where the brand is still attractive and desired. We're going after that.

You've already heard us about Mexico and UAE and other places. In our existing markets, as you've seen with the US or South Korea, we're also going after opportunities to grow there.

These early results and the significant headroom give us confidence in our medium-term value creation thesis to grow profitably and faster than our peer set, the operational leverage that delivers high to mid-teens EBIT margin, and the continued underpining of strong cash generation. This will create significant returns for shareholders.

That's why Giles, the team, and I are laser-focused on this execution of the strategy. There's a lot of work ahead, yes, but the brand has never been stronger or more relevant, and the green shoots are promising, we're going after it.

Thank you. We will take questions now, and we'll take questions in the room first.

Please say your name and what organization you are from, and then we'll go to questions via the operator. I think we're going to go John first.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. John Stevenson at Peel Hunt.

A couple of questions to get us going, please. On the product side, you mentioned sort of areas to focus on and mentioned sandals and boots.

Can you talk about what the plans are for next year in terms of how you think you can address sandals and what sort of innovation or how are we going to develop that? Secondly, on EMEA, I don't know if we can have a bit of a sort of dive into the region in terms of trading.

Clearly, the UK's been challenging. Can you talk about sort of an overview of where the weakness in EMEA is coming from and what your thoughts are from here sort of going into the second half?

A very, very quick one: what's the price change agreed for factory pricing for the year ahead? I will take the first two, and I'll pass you the questions on on on pricing.

It's interesting. I have, for simplicity, lobbed boots and sandals together, but I want to be clear that they are two different problem statements.

I and I'm confident about our boots plan. We have more work to do in sandals.

I think sandals is a place where we need to drive more innovation, and we really have that work to do ahead of us. I think that will take us, to be very honest with you, that will take us a couple of seasons to to get that right.

The team are working on it. I told you around innovation that we're working on lightweight, working on really making sure that our sandals proposition stands on its own and isn't just on the back of of other things.

We're not starting from a standing from a standing start. We've had sandals in the line since the '80s.

Some of our top-selling products in in the season have actually come from America, if I take an example. We have a sandal called Dunnet Flower, which even two weeks ago was one of the top sellers in America in November, right?

We have strong sandal offerings, we have we know what works. We now have to do the work to build that out over the next two, three seasons.

It's work in progress and it's it's an area of focus. With EMEA, the slight evolution on on our analysis since the first quarter is that the UK isn't particularly the challenge anymore.

That really was the case in the April to June quarter, but since then, actually we've seen traffic return to stores, and I would say that the EMEA challenge is an EMEA-wide challenge. Of course, there are variances from market to market, but it's really about a consumer who is out shopping, but being a lot more considered, a lot more browsing and research happening, and they're doing two things largely.

They are either looking for a deal, and so the market is promotionally led. As we all know, there's only a there's a bottom that you get in the market will have to fight back from just being promotionally led.

Actually more interestingly, there is also a flight to quality. There's a bit of a trade-down from luxury into premium into craft and quality, and there's a bit of a considered purchase, which means I'm not just buying anything, I'm buying I'm making I'm treating this purchase as an investment.

I might actually spend a bit more cuz I'm getting the quality. We see that come through in our more expensive products are actually doing quite well, whether it's the weekender bag at £300 over €300, or whether it's something like the the the Casey boot, which is one of our more expensive boots.

This is a consumer who is considered. There's nothing wrong with that, and a brand that has quality has opportunities, and so that's what we're that's what we're going after.

We can't, of course, control broader macro and macroeconomic issues and the ways in which the consumer thinks, but we feel we have enough levers. We've we planned into the headwind on discounts.

We're not going to over-chase that. We'll participate where we need to participate.

That will remain a headwind for the rest of the financial year, but

we still think we have opportunities to to make sure that we are competitive in the market. On factory pricing, looking ahead, effectively, we don't guide specifically on factory pricing.

I'm comfortable where the numbers are. There's nothing there, with the exception of tariffs, which obviously are costs that we've given you views on, but overall, we have good relationships with our suppliers, long-term relationships with our suppliers, and actually some of the work that we've been doing specifically around tariffs has been working with them about where we source some of our American purchase orders from.

I think we don't normally guide on it, but there's nothing in there that I would be saying is particularly to pull out. Brilliant.

Thank you.

Thanks. It's Anne Roy from Berenberg.

Got two questions, please. On the US, in terms of the perception of pricing power in the US, how confident are you that you can put through these price rises?

Do you think they'll strengthen the brand, or do you think you'll encounter some resistance? Then secondly, on EMEA, how confident are you that you can drive engagement and turn that sales trend around?

How important are the CDP capabilities within that?

I will grab both of those, but add anything, Giles. I'll add on price.

If there's anything I miss out. As I shared, and we've traveled a lot together, we were in the Boston store earlier in the year, we're not seeing any resistance in America to our higher prices.

In fact, we have some anecdotal evidence that the price position in some products, some specific products, might be on the low side, and we have opportunity. It's worth saying we haven't taken price in America for 3 years, right?

We have headroom to go to and to still remain competitive. We will be surgical about this.

This is not a blanket price raise. We will look at individual products, we will understand how they're benchmarked, we'll understand how the consumer sees them, and that's how we will apply pricing.

To your question, do you see any resistance? Never take the consumer for granted, but this is strengthening our premium position to have the right prices at the right—

I think it's just worth also adding, we look at those prices on a global basis, we look about how does that feature in a product, not just in the US, but where does it turn up in other countries. It's part of our pricing policy to look at this, and as EJ said, we haven't taken pricing for 3 years in the US, there's actually a lot more detail that goes behind that work that goes in, and we're much more confident about where they come through.

In EMEA, I think I'm going to make a similar statement that you never take the consumer for granted. We do think that less clearance will remain a headwind for the rest of the year, but we've planned for that, that's baked into our plans, that's not any new risk.

We like the fact that the consumer is in the store, so that gives us the opportunity to make sure that we deliver that value that they're looking for because the footfall in the stores is absolutely fine. Online, we continue to make sure that we are using the CDP to your point to really manage that experience so that the consumer finds the thing not just that they're looking for, but the thing that is right for them based on their profile.

This is trading work, Anne. They're no grand strategies.

It's really understanding each consumer, really understanding literally down to each individual store. We've got great people in our stores who really know how to trade, and we're giving them great product to work with, we're confident that we'll hit our plans for EMEA.

Yeah. Thanks.

Morning. Kate Calvert from Investec.

Just two for me. Just on the franchise model, apart from Italy, where else in Europe are you thinking of using this model?

Are you thinking of using it in the US? My second question on the US, you talked at the full-year results about the opportunity to elevate the brand and work with more premium wholesale partners.

Have you made any progress in autumn/winter on this, or is this all to come sort of next year and beyond? Yeah.

Good questions. I'll take both of them.

Don't want to get ahead of myself on markets where we will do the franchise model. It's worth saying it's a big part of our business in Japan, it's a big part of our business in China, a significant part of our business in China, and a significant part of our business in Italy.

We have those examples. We will look at it as we look at retail strategy going forward, I don't want to open or close any markets to it, but those are three places where we are active.

As we deliver on that and as we build it out, we'll share that information with you. We're really happy with what we've been able to do with Nordstrom in the last year, and I'm not going to guide on their numbers, but we've had that premiumization, and some of the product at the more expensive area, some of the work and the success we've had with the Adrian loafer has been in partnership with Nordstrom.

That's an example of a premium brand where we've done that. We've also done some really great work just recently with Kith, which is out in the market, and Kith is really that sort of that pinnacle retailer, and some of our more refined, elevated product, something we call Regrind.

These are not huge volumes, but they really position the brand in that pinnacle space, and so those are two examples, and Paul and the team are hard at work building that out. Yeah.

Thanks, Kate. You got some questions up?

Let's go. Same rules, just tell us your name and where you're from, and would love to hear a question.

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Two for me, please.

First one is about the US and the profitability there in the operating cost base. Margins in the US kind of reached flatishness in the first half, and expect that will be positive in the second half with the seasonal weighting, but still very much dragging on the group.

Just wondering what your sort of outlook for regional margins there is, what you think kind of can be done there, or is this just a case of kind of growing back into the cost base? Then the second one is really on the product that your wholesale partners are buying into.

You talked about plans to get partners buying into a broader assortment. You've talked about a healthier order book.

I'm wondering if you could add a bit more color around that in terms of the range of products that the wholesale partners are now buying into and really how the regions are kind of comparing in terms of whether one's more ahead of the others. Thank you.

I'll take those. Thanks, Alison.

On US margin, I think there's a couple of things we need to just pull apart for the first half.

Firstly, obviously the US margin has got the US tariffs in, you will have that as a bit of a headwind in the half year. Obviously, as you rightly say, the first half is obviously the smaller of the half.

You'll have noticed that EJ put up on the screen that we saw our retail stores grow 15-plus percent year-on-year, we're seeing much better performance across our retail stores, and as we set ourselves up into peak, we feel much more confident there. Then thirdly, the growth in the wholesale.

I think that's the other key part here. We've obviously had a couple of years where wholesale, particularly in the US, was where we came off, and we're sitting here much more confident about our spring/summer order book as we go forward.

I think it's a bit of both, in all honesty. It's about us growing back into the volume, particularly on the wholesale, getting better return from our retail stores as we're doing, but also, as you're well aware, we have been looking at our store network, and we have closed or provided for stores, and we are doing that.

We've been quite clinical now about what each store needs to produce, and have actually, I think, at the half year or the full year, we did actually put a few stores as impaired. We will expect to see that margin now begin to really improve and get back to the levels that you've seen in the past.

On the second question, Alison, which is a great question, thank you. What we're seeing is our wholesale partners are buying into a broader range.

I want to be clear: what's the right range varies from wholesale partner to wholesale partner. What Journeys wants is going to be very different from Nordstrom wants, and it's not just wants, what's right for their consumer.

Having really built out the strategy and particularly in the US demonstrated that return to growth based on the strategy in D2C, of course, the wholesale partners are now very interested in a broader range of product. There isn't a particular regional split on that.

That's going to be different from wholesale partner to wholesale partner based on who their consumer base is, who their buyer is, how they sell. It's a broad spectrum across particularly we've seen a huge growth in shoes, and the assortment of shoes, and across those new range of products.

It's broader than it's been before. You've got those new product families in it, you've got a bit more shoes than in the past, but that's a general statement.

It's going to vary from wholesale partner to wholesale partner. Thank you.

That's helpful.

Thank you all very much. I believe the statement is clear, and it's been a pleasure to share with you some of the highlights from the execution of the strategy.

The statement remains the same: we're happy with progress to date, but there's still work to be done. When we look at the long-term opportunity, the headrooms in the market, the strength of the brand, the fundamental economics, we're really excited with how we're going to create value for shareholders in the future.

Thank you very much.