John Barton
Chairman of Next plc
Replay available
Next Group Plc Unsp/Adr (OTC: NXGPY) Q4 2025 earnings conference call, held 2025-03-28. Replay captured from the company's public earnings webcast.

Chairman of Next plc
Chief Executive Officer, Next plc
Analyst, Redburn
Analyst, Citi
Analyst, UBS
Well, good morning to everybody and welcome to the next results. In the presentation this morning, Simon will talk about surpassing a profitability milestone. In fact, if you read the press this morning, it was the headlines in the first two things that I saw. And what that really should mean for Next and its 40,000 plus employees. In general, the most widely held view is that when companies become bigger, they change, and generally the change is for the worse, as they discard some of the behaviors that brought them success to date. Some of the well-known comments, companies become more bureaucratic, are more control focused, less entrepreneurial, resist change, more risk averse, et cetera. The list of negative behaviors can go on. With respect to Next, we have been evolving as a company for a long period of time, and we will continue to evolve as a company, and we continue to change. We will do that best by continuing the behaviors which have brought us success to date. And those practices, you've probably read this, it was both in the public domain and certainly is inside of Next, the six rules for running a successful business. They've been laid out very clearly by our management team, our leadership team, and these six rules are, take decisions and make things happen, change is everyone's job, create value and make a profit, Keep it simple and speak in simple English. Be open, honest, and considerate in your dealings with others. And finally, be demanding, but never nasty. These rules don't guarantee success, but in my opinion, surely make it a lot more likely. Simon, over to you. Good morning, everybody. Welcome. First of all, Chairman, thank you for that impromptu start. And, you know, it just shows what an innovative place next is, because the chairman didn't ...