Currys Plc U/Adr (CURYY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everybody. I'm going to lead off and then Bruce is going to take you through the numbers. So how would I summarise what happened last year? In short, mixed, a very mixed performance. So on the one hand, we came in at the top end of the guided range on profit and on cash. And the UK's very strong and strengthening performance is very encouraging, not least because we can see the strategy working that lies behind it. And we've started this year in line. On the other hand, the Nordics performance last year was deeply disappointing, and we remain cautious about the consumer outlook. And you put those two things together, it's caused us to be pretty prudent in our planning to make sure that we are staying absolutely watertight, even in any reasonable worst case scenario on balance sheet and on liquidity, and also being cautious in the forecasts for the market going forward. We expect another year of declining markets. So that's the the prudence in our planning, if you like, but if the market is better, if we turn out to have been excessively prudent, okay, we'd rather be surprised on the upside and we will do better than, we'll be ready to do better in the event that the market is better. And longer term, we're confident. We're confident that we're building something here that's not just resilient through the short term, but in the longer term is going to prosper. Enough from me, I'm going to hand over to Bruce to talk you through the numbers from last year. Thank you, Alex. Good morning, everybody. So as Alex has said, it was a mixed performance from a group perspective with a very strong UK performance and perhaps a disappointing Nordic performance. What I'm going to do, I'm going to step you through a very single slide on a group overview, and then I'm go...