Dr Martens Plc (DOCMF) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning everyone and welcome to our FY25 Half One Results presentation. I'm joined today by Giles Wilson, our Chief Financial Officer and E.J. Wakodi, our Chief Brand Officer. So our agenda for today, I'm going to provide a short introduction before handing over to Giles who will walk us through our Half One Financial Results. Then I'll provide a business update before E.J. informs us on our brand and how we are refocusing it. Our first half performance is in line with our expectations. Back in May, we communicated four key objectives for this year, and I'm pleased to say that we are making good progress on all of them. The action plan we are executing in the USA direct-to-consumer business is working and will return this business to growth in the second half. We've pivoted our marketing to relentlessly focus on our product, and EJ will pick up on this in detail. We've reduced our operating cost base ahead of schedule, and Giles will walk through this. And we have strengthened our balance sheet while delivering on the reduction in inventory that we promised. We said that FY25 would be a year of action, and we are taking focused action. Now over to Giles, who will now walk us through the results. Thank you, Kenny, and good morning, everyone. As Kenny has set out, our first half has been about delivering on our plan, setting the foundations for the key peak trading period. Before I run through the financial results, I would like to highlight four key areas. I set out back in May that we would take out 20 to 25 million of costs from the business on a four-year basis with the full benefit in FY26. I am pleased to report we have delivered at the upper end of that range at 25 million of annualized savings. We have reduced inventory through reduced purchases and are on...