Watches of Switzerland Group plc (WOSG) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Our presentation this morning will commence with me, Group CEO, Brian Duffy. I'll be taking you through our first half highlights, talking about our growth initiatives in the first half. I'll then be followed by our CFO, Anders Romberg. He'll give you more detail and colour on the numbers. Then me again to give you a bit more background on our growth pillars and where we stand. And then we'll open things up for your questions. So the top line numbers for the first half year that ended in October are sales $845 million for the half. We were up 10% in constant currency for the group, driven by a very strong performance in the US, plus 20% in US dollars. UK was decent at plus 5% when we adjust for the store closures that we had last year. All in all, a good half year in terms of sales. In terms of profits, EBIT came in 6% ahead of last year at 69 million, the currency. Our leverage is 0.6% EBITDA leverage to debt. Our free cash flow, 48 million, was 71% better than last year. Our expansionary capex, 37 million, following all of our projects that I'll be talking more about in detail as we go through. We completed our 25 million buyback, 14 million actually going through in the first half of this year. At Rocky, we were up 80 bits at 17.3. So our pillars of growth and much delivered our first half year numbers. Showroom investment, both new projects and refurbishment of our existing network. We spent 37 million in total. We completed eight projects in the half year. We've already done six projects in the start of the second half, obviously getting ahead of the holiday period. We apply disciplined hurdles in terms of payback when you look at all of these investments. And as usual, we have a strong pipeline going forward. Certi...