Smiths News (LSE:SNWS) — Preliminary Results

0:01 Good afternoon, and welcome to the SMITHS NEWS PLC Preliminary Results Investor Presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q and A tab situated in the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it received in the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you over to Jonathan Bunting, CEO. Good

0:31 afternoon, sir. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for, dialing in for our update today of our annual results. I'm here together with Paul Baker, our Chief Financial Officer. And between us, we'll cover off the highlights of the key events of our year, review our financial performance and give some wider context on the progress we've made. It is, I believe, a strong story reflecting the underlying stability of SMITHS NEWS. And by any one standards, it's been a good year in what has been challenging and uncertain economic environment. In the second part of today's presentation, I will also give some insight into the assessment we've made of opportunities to enhance our core business through organic growth and potential entry into new markets.

1:17 For clarity, what I plan to share is our approach and direction. It is not a roadmap. What I do want to do though is make it as tangible as possible, and I will give some examples of the trials and initiatives we have underway at the moment. But the key thing I want to say at this point is we're already testing our strategy in a low risk way. So as Alessandro said, I'm happy to take questions at the end. So let's start with the headlines.

1:46 We've delivered a good performance underpinned by a determined focus on our key deliverables together with some pragmatism in achieving our short term goals. As a result, performance is ahead of expectations with adjusted profit before tax up 0.6% to GBP 31,100,000 and adjusted operating profit of GBP 38,100,000, down 3.8%. Free cash flow of GBP 48,200,000 is an outstanding performance, up over 100% and benefiting from planned one offs that came through in the first half. As a consequence, year end bank net debt of GBP 14,200,000 is down by 73 percent, well below our target of one times EBITDA by the end of twenty twenty three. And frankly, a transformation from where we were just three years ago.

2:42 There's no no one single factor to achieving these results. Rather, they are founded on sustaining the positive circle of close cost control, maximizing sales, and an agile response to any revenue opportunities. Looking ahead, these qualities will remain essential, but as I indicated earlier, we're in a strong position to continue to deliver value to our shareholders alongside providing an invaluable service to our clients and our retail customers. Our reduced borrowings mean we can be confident in paying dividends this year to the full extent of the 10,000,000 cap that was agreed under our new banking agreements from December 2021. The recent award of publisher contracts amounting to 35% of our revenues and over 50% of our magazine share sends a clear message about the future shape and security of our network.

3:29 And finally, we have identified a range of options to enhance our core business by taking our skills and assets into adjacent markets. I'll talk later about these, but for now I'll hand over to Paul who will talk you through the numbers in more detail. Thank you, John and good morning everyone. Starting with the financial headlines on Slide five. Revenue was down 1.8%, a better performance in the pre pandemic declines of 3% to five percent and was buoyed by better than expected one shot and magazine sales. The impact of inflation was managed in line with guidance given earlier in the year with the net impact of £2,100,000 largely flowing to adjusted EBITDA which was down £1,900,000 at 14,700,000 Adjusted operating profit down £1,500,000 will become our new profit performance measure from 2023 and includes both depreciation and IFRS 16 lease accounting adjustments.

4:32 Free cash flow increased 100% to 48,200,000 and includes the final settlement of deferred consideration for Tough Nails of 14,000,000 and the return of the pension surplus of 8,100,000. Both receipts were used to pay down debt in line with the terms of our financing agreements.

4:53 As a result of these cash flows bank net debt was reduced to $14,200,000 at the end of the year. Reported leverage is now 0.3 times EBITDA compared to 1.2 times last year. Average net debt meanwhile reduced 40% to $49,900,000 for the full year. We are pleased to show a dividend per share of 4.15p for the year. We've increased this dividend from £4,000,000 in 2021 to £10,000,000 that John referred to in his headlines. Now on to the adjusted income statement on Slide six. The 1.8% decline in revenue has a £20,000,000 impact at the top of the income statement.

5:39 The impact is a profit level however is mitigated due to the stronger product mix towards magazines and one shots. We shall cover this further on the next slide. As I have mentioned the main driver of the £1,500,000 reduction in operating profit was the net impact of inflation of 2,100,000 As previously guided we saw pressure on contractor and warehouse staff costs from early in the financial year which we have managed to offset through cost reduction measures and the benefit of higher prices for the sale of waste paper. As we move into 2023 we are still subject to inflationary pressures in the broader economy but we are not seeing the same level of staff and contractor shortages this year.

6:25 As a result we remain confident that our cost out plans and additional revenue activities will be able to offset the annualization impact of last year's cost increases and maintain performance in 2023. Net financing charges have reduced by £1,700,000 due to the lower levels of debt and as a result profit before tax increased to £31,100,000 The tax charge at an effective tax rate of 17.4% was a 1,200,000 higher than last year because that benefited from the final utilisation of Tuff North losses. Adjusting items after tax of £2,300,000 were £2,200,000 higher than last year and included a £4,400,000 provision for bad debt following the administration of McCall's Retail Group.

7:17 Excluding the impact of McCall's, adjusting items continue to reduce from prior years. Adjusted EPS is maintained at 10.8p as lower profit is offset by the dilutive impact of own share purchases. Moving on to Slide seven and revenue. It's worth explaining how this year's results fits into the historic trading patterns and the impact on profitability. Newspapers continued to decline but at the lower end of historic ranges. This is supported by cover price inflation as publishers look to recover higher input costs. Magazine sales were declining at 5% to 6% prior to the pandemic and have also shown some resilience with a decline of less than 3%.

8:07 Higher levels of travel and a year free of lockdowns have also helped support these sales levels. OneShots performed particularly strongly up 43% year on year and are now contributing more to our profit than before the pandemic. While sales have benefited from the return to school compared to 2021 the publishers have had real success with Pokemon and Premier League football trading cards which are sustaining sales into 2023.

8:43 This chart shows the last twelve months movement in bank net debt which supported by twenty two point one million dollars of one off receipts showed a 73% reduction. Closing net debt of $14,200,000 is 0.3 times EBITDA compared to 1.2 times at the end of twenty twenty one and well below our target of one times EBITDA. Average net debt which is more representative of our overall borrowing levels as it takes into account the material working capital movements we have each month reduced by 40% to £49,900,000 In the last quarter this average net debt dropped further to £34,000,000 compared to £73,000,000 in quarter four last year.

9:32 Operating cash flows on this chart represent the underlying cash generated by the business available to pay down debt and pay dividends. We expect similar levels of operating cash flow from the core business for the foreseeable future. We've used this next slide which is Slide nine to set out modeling guidance. We use a basic premise that both profits and underlying cash flows are maintained. Decline in newspaper and magazine revenues are offset by cost out savings and other mitigating measures and ancillary revenue activities.

10:11 Net debt and interest both reduced as a result of cash flow generation. Interest has a somnier underpin and will therefore move in line with base rates. CapEx of £2,000,000 in the last two years have been lower than guidance. The depot refurbishments and IT improvement programs which are now underway should increase CapEx to around 10% of adjusted operating profit on average going forward. And the dividend of £10,000,000 that are permitted under the current banking facilities are our planning assumptions. And finally just a brief update on the cadence of our headline performance measure the business will use for 2023.

10:57 The business will move from the adjusted EBITDA pre IFRS 16 to an adjusted operating profit APM, which is a number you will see in our income statement. This will enable the business to continue to focus on operational performance including the impact of leases through depreciation while moving away from the historic measure. Now back to John. Thank you, Paul. I'd now like to spend a little time looking at the key drivers in the core business this year, the priorities that we have so relentlessly pursued and where this positions us in terms of our future opportunities and direction. There should be no major surprises in this first section, but I'm sure the sharp eye will have noticed that I've used the title here enhancing the call. That's because as I said earlier, I plan to also share the outcomes of the work we've undertaken to identify avenues for growth The judgment calls we are making to enhance the business in a way that continues to meet the needs of all stakeholders.

11:53 But first, let's look back at those key drivers of performance over the last year. And in essence, there are four major factors. Firstly, the gradual fade out of the impact of the COVID pandemic. Aside from the Omnicron variant, which amazingly was only this time last year, we are now coming around to a point where the various restrictions are no longer a significant year on year influence to our UK wholesaling operation. Secondly, sales of newspapers and magazines have returned to best than historic trends, albeit with softer annual comparables in H1. Pleasingly, the margin benefit from the sale of World Shots for stickers and albums has been sustained throughout. Thirdly, the cost mitigations to help offset inflation have been ongoing throughout the year. And as a result, we have limited the net impact to our forecast of circa £2,000,000 As you would expect, there will be some carryover into the current year, which we've allowed again for in our forward planning.

12:44 And fourthly, through a range of initiatives ranging from small tactical gains to opportunities with longer term potential, we have generated welcome additional revenue that we are confident can be repeated and indeed developed further. Finally, the improvement to our debt and cash flow benefited from the expected inflows, but also from the disciplined management of capital. This has reduced our interest payments and as I said earlier, transformed the underlying financial strength of the business. This in turn supports the increase in dividend whilst the new contracts give us confidence in the visibility of cash flows that will be underpinning our future shareholder value. As I said earlier, I hope there are no surprises in that. It should also be no surprise too that we've made good progress with the priorities we laid out this time last year. I don't propose to go through each one of those that's listed here. The key points I want to make is that our results are delivered and they're not delivered by compromising our future, which is a really important a really important part of the philosophy philosophy that we have in a way that we run the business.

13:47 So before looking ahead to future opportunities, we should be clear that we are building on a solid core business with a clear path to sustaining its value generation. The historic drivers of service and efficiency are once again the key challenges we face. Our track record, our skills and our expertise mean we are well placed to continue balancing these imperatives. Our markets have stabilized after the disruption of the pandemic and although the wider economy is under pressure, we've benefited from both price increases and indeed margin mix. And finally, the contract renewals are a milestone in securing our future. Our model is based on long term partnerships and a matching commitment to the supply chain and we are confident of reaching equivalent agreements with all our other major publishers in due course. So in short, this is the core of our value model and all the work we have done in relation to the future is focused on how we build from these very solid foundations.

14:40 That's why it was so important that we first established the underlying financial strength and flexibility that will allow us to enhance the core by moving up the value chain as and when the right opportunity present themselves. So what for the future and and what might we do beyond the core? Are there opportunities to leverage our network, skills, and relationships in new markets without diminishing our focus? How do we grow the business in a way that's ambitious for the long term, but is mindful of the immediate needs of us and stakeholders and indeed the missteps of the past? These are the questions that many shareholders have been asked for us and I'm conscious of wanting to provide some meaningful insight without laying out every detail of our plan in a way that might actually create new barriers to execution. Before I come on to specifics, it's worth saying that looking as we look ahead, we first tested our business model and its capabilities against the trends and opportunities that are emerging in and adjacent to our core markets.

15:37 All the options for growth we have identified are grounded on these twin tracks of a robust market assessment and a detailed review of our capabilities as they stand today. The robust analysis including assessing opportunities against the macro trends in logistics and warehousing, forecast changes in consumer behaviors, the future requirements of our publishers and retailers and beyond what we do for them today, and last but not least, the practical transferability of our skills to give us competitive advantage. In parallel to this review, we've also developed a set of guiding principles that will ensure we meet the needs of all stakeholders. First and foremost, we will seek to enhance our core business and will not allow our pursuit of growth to distract that progress. In short, we will grow from this enhanced core not in isolation of its foundational importance.

16:26 This is what we mean when we talk of pursuing adjacent opportunities rather than outright diversification.

16:32 Secondly, where possible, we will prioritize opportunities that facilitate enhanced partnerships with our existing retail customers and publisher clients. Thirdly, and this is pivotal to what I have to say today, we will pursue an adaptive and agile approach combining organic opportunities with focused bolt on acquisitions and that's important. So it's a combination of organic opportunities and focused bolt on acquisitions. We will test and explore opportunities through real life trials rather than textbook theories or modeling assumptions. And finally, we'll maintain capital prudence throughout ensuring the investment parameters allow for the continued strong dividends without materially higher levels of debt. So what are some of the tangible opportunities we've targeted?

17:18 Well, we've identified a range of opportunities actually, and they both play to our strengths and enhance the core business. Towards the top part of the graphic, we have opportunities to leverage our physical capabilities using latent or spare capacity either directly or in partnership with others. This is about expanding our service for existing customers or partnering with logistics providers to use spare capability in our network. In the middle, we have supply chain integration, which refers to playing a bigger role in our existing supply chain. Towards the lower half of the spectrum, we have direct to consumer sales, which also represents a potentially large opportunity to partner with suppliers and retailers. Lastly, categories and data partnerships refer to opportunities to work with suppliers and customers using our depots, data and technology and systems to manage the supply of complementary categories.

18:08 And in line with the principles of first testing our capability and the market appetite, we have a range of initiatives already underway. So starting with service expansion at the top. In Birmingham, we have launched a service for cardboard and plastic waste collection that backs into daily deliveries. It offers a simple solution to what is a growing issue for our retail customers. And after encouraging early trials, We are now expanding this and have around 50 customers signing up each week. For logistics services, we have partnered with a major national courier to provide storage for sortation using spare capacity at selected depots. In relation to the supply chain, we now have two national home news delivery businesses operating from within our facilities.

18:55 To give some idea of scale, NEWS PIM alone delivered to 60,000 homes making 420,000 home deliveries of media per week. And then if we look at direct to consumer, we've recently made a seed corn investment in a joint venture with Lucid Digital Magazines. It's called Mimex and has been developed with publishers and research to create a one stop solution, which enables consumers to browse and order single issue magazines or newspapers digitally. And they do this by swiftly downloading these onto their tablets or phones. By offering a simple solution that's successful at the fixture or in the store, MyMax complements traditional print sales and effectively increases the range of titles that are available in the stores, albeit digitally. And then finally, at the bottom, we have in category and data partnerships.

19:43 This summer, we supplied and serviced over 50,000 DVDs into a leading supermarket using our Epos driven replenishment systems. This way, the stores did not have to hold or handle the stock process returns or forecast demand. From the retailer's perspective, it's a super simple solution for an otherwise time consuming and complex to manage category. While from our perspective, we are simply applying our existing deliveries, invoicing relationships, and smart replenishment systems to a new product category. So as I said earlier, these are some of the trials that tests are already underway. At the risk of laboring the point, they cover a range of options for growth, all of which are adjacent to our markets and complementary to our existing capabilities. They're also part of the process of evaluation we've established. And whilst we're excited about the prospects of potential scalability, we're also realistic enough to note that some will work while others will prove too complex or distracting.

20:38 Understanding which are the most appropriate is precisely the purpose of the approach and the principles that I set out earlier. Importantly, the progress we've made so far in the core business means we can choose carefully on those decisions that will undoubtedly shape our future. But in the meantime, we've got very clear plans and priorities to continue delivering value for our shareholders. From sustaining the core business to generating cash flows that underpin strong returns, we are focused on all the actions in between and confident we have the right balance of ambition, realism necessary to sustain progress. The fundamentals of great service and tight cost control remain central to our operating model. The renewal of our contracts in a way that works for all parties will give further certainty and visibility of cash flows. Investing in capability through people, systems, and processes will help the core, but also complements our pursuit of new ventures, new revenues.

21:30 And last but not least, we'll seek to maintain strong returns for our shareholders, paying dividends subject to our performance up to the full limit of the £10,000,000 cap. This overarching commitment to the reliable delivery of tangible value remains our number one priority. So in summary, we believe we are well placed to grow shareholder value. The core business has come through some difficult years in good shape and it remains a solid foundation for tangible value creation. The discipline we have shown these last three years has not only strengthened our finances, it has given us the flexibility to explore new opportunities without compromise the deliverables that our stakeholders expect and indeed rely on. In terms of outlook for the current year, actually, we've made a good start. Our markets again have returned to historic trends with the relative predictability that brings.

22:20 Inflation remains a key pressure, but within our forecasts and trading year to date is in line with our expectations. So on that note, I'm very happy now for Paul and I to answer any questions anyone may have submitted. Jonathan, Paul, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just using the q and a tab, which is situated on the top right hand corner of your screen. But just for the company to take a few moments to review those questions submitted today, I'd like to remind you that recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed by your investor dashboard. As you can see, we received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. If I could ask you just to read out the questions and give responses where it's appropriate to do so I'll pick up from you both at the end.

23:06 Thanks very much. So the first question we have can you talk about the cost inflation outlook and how we can digest some if not all of the cost increase? And could you talk about the status of selecting some of your warehouses as you have mentioned before? Is there any potential to further optimize our hard assets? If I take the first bit on inflation, I'll let you answer the one on the warehouse. So inflation, yeah, we talked about the annualization impact of inflation. We expect that to be broadly about $1,500,000 into 2023. That's in our plans and we expect the cost out program and the ancillary revenues that we're pursuing to offset that. And so we expect to be able to maintain performance and cover that impact of inflation.

23:56 On the warehouses, John? Yes, it's a good question. So yes, you're right. We did talk about that at the half year. We've continued to make progress with that. Lots of what we've been doing with clients in that area is both repeatable and indeed we can grow the revenues in that area. I don't think it's necessarily absolutely core to where we're going from a growth perspective. But that said, the clients we're working with are very happy with our capability, very happy with the culture we have within the business. And therefore it's an area that could potentially grow. But for the purposes of our three year forecast, the revenues associated with that particular area are not material. Thanks, John. The next question is partly inflation related but how does the inflation affect revenue?

24:42 Do your customer contracts include inflation linked price increases? I think that we have two revenue streams. So one is cover price Yeah. Which our contracts have in there. So clearly, if publishers increase their cover prices, we benefit from that because we're paid on a percentage of that cover price. We don't have control of the when those increases come through, but clearly in the final quarter of last year we benefited as publishers were looking to recover some of their inflationary costs. Then the other part is when we deliver to our retailers we apply a delivery service charge and that has some degree an inflationary impact recalculated every year although we have to be mindful about how much that increases and making sure we protect the category at a retail level.

25:33 Hopefully, answers that one. The next question is what is your target for debt levels? What will you do with your cash once you've achieved your debt target? I guess we have a stated debt target one times EBITDA. We're unable to maintain that under our current banking facilities and therefore we will continue with our banking facilities to pay out the the maximum dividend we can and pay down net debt with the remainder. John, I think one for you. Citi analysts seem to think revenues will decline by 4% annually through 2025. Do these estimates seem sensible to you and can you maintain earnings in that environment?

26:22 Yes, good question. So pre pandemic the business revenue decline was typically four to five percentage points each year and would return to those sorts of trends, you know, over the last twelve months. So I think from modeling purposes, declining at 4% is a sensible assumption. And in terms of how would we maintain profits and cash flow through that period in exactly the same way we have been for the last ten years through a combination of managing our cost base with great care and some agility and driving up ancillary revenues and for the benefit of driving proactive sales and the margin mix, it will come with that. Thank you, John. The next one again is about average daily debt. So current average daily debt was 36,700,000 Would you expect these numbers to trend in 2023 and 2024 and continue to be downwards?

27:18 Think our operating cash flow will be 20,000,000 to $25,000,000 and we'll pay dividends of 10,000,000 up to our cap if we deliver that and that will remain the we'll be used to pay down our net debt. So hopefully that is pretty clear from a planning perspective. What about fees? Bank arrangement fees were 2,900,000 in '22. What are your expectations for the current year? There's no more so we've completed that refinancing in December. Last year there's no more cash payments. So there is P and L charges to the end of the '25, August 25, the term of the facility of $1,200,000 per year but the cash flow has already taken place.

28:10 Do you expect any further one off costs to arise in relation to pension schemes in 2023? No, that's all completed now. We see the surplus so we're providing some one off insurance. We have some provisions for providing insurance in the future. There's no further costs. Bit of a longer question so I'll take a deep breath here. Can you please elaborate on approximately how much of your warehouse distribution space you have managed to select and whether there is more to go for? Also can you give investors any idea of any timeline for upcoming negotiations on your banking facilities to unlock the current 10,000,000 dividend cap? John, do want to say the first one about Yes. I mean, I think I've covered some of this in a previous question. But yes, there is still a degree of space that we could sublet and we continue to talk to interested parties about that.

29:09 That will be business as usual for us. But even if we do sublet it, think it not be material to this year's numbers. Yeah. And on the banking facilities, we just increased the dividend from 6,000,000 to $10,000,000 this year by the refinancing within December 2021. There's no current plan to renegotiate that now, but clearly we'll look to at the right point in time to have the negotiations with the banking syndicate. So next question is about contract strategy. I'll pick that one up. So, yeah, so we've announced the Daily Mail, DMGT and Frontline, but you're right, we haven't announced NEWS UK region market force.

30:00 That's simply because their contracts are not up for renewal yet. In fact, none of our contracts are up for renewal until 2024 or 2025, but each individual publisher takes a different view as to how they want to manage that negotiation. Some like to renegotiate early, some a little later, and that's absolutely fine. There are clients and, you know, we're happy to negotiate at whatever point works for them. That said, we've got excellent relationships with all of our publisher clients and we're very positive about the relationship we have with them and our ability to renew our contracts with them. Thanks, John. There's a question here about I think it's about the recycling actually about the fact that we go out to a lot of small corner shops that generate a lot of waste and could we drive more value through picking up that waste and returns as part of the recycling. Yes. No. Exactly.

30:51 So apologies if if I didn't make that clear in the in the presentation, but you're absolutely spot on. That is exactly the initiative. So our our delivery drivers take the newspapers and magazines out with them. They bring back yesterday's returns of the product that was not not been sold, and at the same time, collect retailer cardboard and plastic and bring it back. And then then we would we'd make sure that that is then recycled. So, yes, we agree with you. There is a market there. It is in growth, and and it's something we are therefore exploring and trialing. Thanks, John. Retail customer numbers are listed as broadly flat. Are you able to put the number on current total outlets supplied?

31:38 We couldn't supply about 24,000 outlets which is about 19,000 independents and the rest either the multiple grosses or check or change. That's about the number. Yeah. How are potential volume changes and cost inflation reflected in customer agreements? Yeah. So in terms of how the commercial model works for the supply chain, so as Paul has already alluded to, our contracts with our publisher clients are linked directly to volume and cover price. So that's a direct link there and broadly as cover price increases, that's beneficial to us because typically it creates greater value than the volume decline that sometimes is associated with that price increase.

32:33 And from a customer agreement perspective, we have delivery service charge, so the charge we levy to deliver the products to our retail customers and they are index linked. So yeah, that's how it's reflected. There's a question about share price, John. Okay. Somebody thinks the share price looks undervalued and why do we think that might be? It's a really good question. We would agree with you that it looks undervalued but we would say that, wouldn't we? The whole market is let's rewind back a bit. Prior to the recent three years and when the business was known as Connect Group, he had a turbulent period and that materially impacted the share price and dented people's confidence.

33:22 Over the last three years, we've stripped a lot of the ancillary businesses away and we're left now with a very strong call. And we've got a new leadership team in place. And I think if you look at our track record over the last three years, we've been very transparent about our commitments to all stakeholders and then our performance against those commitments. So I'd like to think that's starting to rebuild some trust. We've done all the things that you would expect us to try and do in terms of sorting out the balance sheet in phase one with the disposal of Tuff Mills, renegotiating our banking arrangements twice, with the latest time to improve the dividend payment for a potential from $4,000,000 to $10,000,000 We started to renegotiate our publisher contracts. We're delivering our profit promises. We brought down the debt materially.

34:08 And the last bit therefore really is about how do we grow the business. And you started to hear today the progress we're starting to make in that area. So I think we're trying to do all the right things. Sometimes it takes the market a little while to to catch up, and it's turbulent times in the broader economy. So I think all we can do is not get too fixated about the share price and assume that if we run the business in the right way and continue to deliver on our promises that actually the share price will take care of itself and that's very much the approach we take. Thanks, John. Next question is an interesting one because it enables us to talk about Rascal too often. We don't get a chance to. So the question is with the expansion of the EBR into newspapers was mentioned as a long term opportunity, How often are news publishers to buy into working with Rascal, Rascal being a joint venture we have?

34:59 Yeah. I mean, think everybody in the supply chain, whether that's newspaper publishers, magazine publishers, wholesalers or or retailers are very focused on how do we elongate the lifetime of the category. And to do that, we've got to make sure that all links in the chain are profitable and to the best extent they can flourish. And therefore, part of the role of Rascal has been to try and help our major retail customers reduce waste and shrink in their stores and thus, therefore improve the category profitability. It started with magazines. It's now moved on to collectibles in some cases. And I'm sure over time newspapers will also adopt an EVR model or something similar to that. But everyone's very fixated and very focused on making sure that we do everything we can within the supply chain to reduce unnecessary waste and shrink.

35:50 Thanks, John. That was about Rascal. There's another question here about Biomax, which is a new initiative. Can we expand upon what you've talked about before? Any more detail on Biomax? Yes, sure. So this is a really exciting and simple initiative. So what we look, there are lots and lots of digital players out in the market. But actually, we think there's a potential gap there for us. But we recognize we didn't necessarily have the digital skills ourselves. Hence, the reason why we created a joint venture with Lucid Digital Magazines. And how they offer will work is very simply, a consumer can walk into a store and if the store does not have the magazine they were looking for or indeed the newspaper they're looking for, either because they don't stock it or maybe they've sold out. There is a simple QR code they can scan, and it automatically takes them to a website which offers them all of the digital magazines and newspapers.

36:44 And unlike many other, digital propositions, you don't need to subscribe for a month or a year or commit to certain level of downloads. You simply buy a single issue there and then. And and therefore, we've been working on that with our publisher clients and our retail customers. And I have to say so far, the reaction from the supply chain has been very positive. So we're hoping that what we're driving there is a complementary sale not only for ourselves but for our publishing clients and indeed our retail customers. Thanks, John. I think that's broadly I mean, there are other questions that are on a theme on debt in those new initiatives we've talked about. We've been able to give you a little bit more color on. I think that concludes the questions. Jonathan, Paul, thanks very much for that. I think you addressed all those questions you can from investors. And of course, the company will review all the questions submitted today and we'll publish those responses on the investment company platform.

37:40 But just before redirecting investors provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to you both, Jonathan, could I just ask you for a few closing comments? Yeah. I mean, as I started with, I guess, thank you for for dialing in and taking the time to show an interest in SMITHS NEWS. Hope you feel whenever we do these things, try and be as honest and open and transparent as we could possibly be. And yet again, we've tried to do that today. It's always a pleasure to have the opportunity to come and present to you. Hope you feel you've got some value from it and go and buy our shares. Thanks, Foole, thank you very much for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations.

38:28 This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of SMITHS NEWS PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.