Nichols plc ($NICL)

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Nichols Group plc Full Year Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and will publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from Nichols plc. Andrew, good afternoon, sir.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. A very warm welcome to our full year presentation this afternoon. And I'd firstly like just to say a big thank you to all of you for taking the time to dial in this afternoon. So if we just move on to the first slide. So the flow today will be, I will kick us off, and I will look back from a strategic and an operational point of view in terms of what has happened in 2025. I will then hand you over to Rebecca, our Financial Director, who will give you a deep dive into the numbers. I will then come back and give you a view on the rest of 2026 and the future, and then we're very happy to open the floor to the Q&A. So, okay, to kick off today, then I'll first start by just giving you the key highlights that we'd like for you to take away today. So, firstly, we're really pleased to announce that we have delivered double-digit growth in operating profit, plus 10%, which is absolutely in line with the expectations we have out in the marketplace. Once again, we have delivered accelerated package growth in Africa, absolutely in line with the strategy we outlined at our Capital Markets Day. And on a like-for-like basis, which is adjusting for the switch from can products into Africa to the concentrate model we now operate, sales have grown by 9.4%. Through a real disciplined focus on cost and mix management, we have improved our margins at a profit before tax level. They've moved from 18.2% in 2024, up to now over 19% in 2025. At our Capital Markets Day back in November 2024, we were at 16% and highlighted we wanted to move that to 20% over the five-year horizon. So we're really pleased with the progress we've made to date. Again, I'm pleased to report that we have delivered a very strong cash balance, over GBP 55 million on the balance sheet, and that gives us real strong firepower for the capital allocation policy that we have in place. After three years of hard work and careful planning, we successfully launched our new ERP system, SAP S/4HANA in quarter 1 of 2025. I'm really pleased to say that there were minimal disruption to customer service levels during that launch. And as we move forward, we will start to deliver payback on the GBP 14 million we invested into the system, and that will take about five to six years. And then finally, twofold really. So we're pleased that we have been able to deliver extra profit, which has been extra dividend for all our shareholders. And also, we've announced that from 2026, we will be reducing our ordinary dividend cover from 2x to 1.5x, which will increase our payout ratios, give certainty to our shareholders, but also reflect the confidence we have as a Board in future growth. Okay. So let me just remind you all of our strategy. So, at a top line level, our focus is on accelerating our higher-margin package business, both in the U.K. and internationally. And in out-of-home, which is far more simplified now since the strategic review we carried out three years ago, it will be by focusing on delivering real value from the bottom line. We have four key pillars, strategic pillars that we focus on in terms of driving our strategy. Firstly, more from the core, and this is all about driving accelerated organic growth through additional distribution, strong brand investment on the brands we have today, in the categories we operate in, in the channels we operate in and the core geographies, which are U.K., Africa and Middle East. The second pillar is called thirst for new, and this is threefold. Firstly, we have a very healthy pipeline of innovation, predominantly of the Vimto brand that we will continue to launch over the next few years. We are also looking for new geographies where we can take the Vimto brand and expand and grow. And finally, as part of our capital allocation strategy, which is, firstly, to invest in core brand opportunities; secondly, to pay an ordinary dividend. Thirdly, to look for M&A in the U.K. and finally, then to return cash to shareholders. That acquisition piece remains very important to us. We are looking in U.K. packaged into areas where Vimto can't stretch, but also into subcategories predominantly around health and wellness that are predicted to grow very quickly over the next 5 to 10 years. The third pillar we call fuel for growth, and this is really about how we drive efficiencies, both through our asset-light model, but also through the benefits we should see from the implementation of our new ERP system, SAP S/4HANA. Most of those benefits should come out of procurement and logistics, and we are then able to reinvest that money back into our brands and our marketing programs to accelerate growth. And our final pillar is called happier future, which is our ESG commitments out to 2030. These are then all underpinned by three foundations in the business. Firstly, brands. We are only a branded business, and we'll focus on brands. Secondly, we work in partnership in our asset-light model, and those relationships are very important to us. And a great example would be the relationship we have with Aujan over in the Middle East who do all our bottling for us, and we've been partners with them for over 100 years. And then finally, our people, we take great pride in the culture we have at Nichols and the very high engagement scores we enjoy. Okay. So let me just now give you some context. So this is the Nielsen data for soft drinks in the U.K. package area. And this is retail sales value to the end of 2025. So the key point to take away here is if you look down to the left-hand area of the screen and the pink bubble. So what's really encouraging is that the soft drinks market in the U.K. is worth GBP 14.5 billion. Volume growth is strong at 5%, and value is also strong at 8%. So a very resilient soft drinks market. We operate in four categories: squash, ready-to-drink still juice, flavored carbs and energy. I'm really pleased that in all four of those subcategories, we have delivered value growth. And in Squash, we have taken market share. In ready-to-drink still juice, we have taken market share. And in energy, we have taken market share. And you can see then if you look to the left at the purple bubble, we have delivered a record year, delivering GBP 129 million of retail sales value. So what's been helping drive that growth? So the first thing I talked to you about today is one of our more from the core activities. So, a number of years ago, we developed a new category strategy called fresh thinking for drinking. We went to talk to all our retailers about this concept. And one focus area we had was how did we continue to grow our squash brand and also grow the category of the retailer. The initiative was about making sure we have the right space for our brands to make sure we didn't go off sale. So we have invested in both Sainsbury's and Morrisons. You can see the great pictures there. We have now over 100 stores in both retailers where we've got extra space, we've won extra distribution. We've got great branding to disrupt shoppers when they are in store. And as a result of these initiatives, we are now the fastest-growing squash brand in three of the top four retailers in 2025. Innovation has been very important for us in 2025. So I'm pleased to announce that our launch of Wonderfuel in three new flavors under the Vimto brand in squash, which was targeting new occasions such as breakfast is progressing well. And really importantly, from a retailer perspective, 10% of all the shoppers who buy this product are brand new and incremental to the category. Our launch of Vimto Energy, we set out a plan to try and create a GBP 10 million brand. I'm pleased after two years, we're at GBP 4 million, so on track for that five-year goal. In 2025, we launched the product into the convenience independent channel with a GBP 1 price-marked packs. And then thirdly, a big focus for us is our beyond the bottle concept. So this is where we have two very good strong relationships with the Hook Group and Applied Nutrition. We have taken Vimto into both powders and tablets and gels. This is unlocking new channels for us and new retailers such as Holland & Barrett where you typically wouldn't see Vimto, but it's also where we put Vimto to on these products, they often then become the fastest sellers range across the peers. Hopefully, as you're all aware, the Middle East is a key market for us. And in 2025, we had another very successful Ramadan campaign. We ran a world-class multimedia comms plan and went back on TV for the first time for a number of years. Outstanding displays in store drove an increase as measured by Kantar of 6% in brand awareness, which really strengthens the emotional connection the brand has with the consumers in the Middle East during the key Ramadan trading period. In Africa, as a reminder, half of our business was in the Red Can format, which historically was produced in Spain and Portugal and then shipped down into West Africa, Senegal and distributed. Due to raising tariffs in ECOWAS, lots of our distributors were having their monies and working capital tied up paying the fees, which left them less money to buy the product to resell. So we have now moved into Africa with a partner called Millennium, who are building factories in both Senegal and later in Ivory Coast. This will allow us to send concentrate straight to Africa. We will then produce the cans in market. Our local partner, Millennium, will do this. Then that allows our customers and distributors to go straight to the factory, improving speed to market in terms of delivery, reducing supply chain risk. We have invested in marketing programs to drive execution. And as a result of this, in the five markets we've launched in Africa during Phase 1 of Senegal, the business has grown by 34% year-on-year. Innovation plays a key role for us, too, in our international business. So, in Middle East, where we are #2 kids brand in Saudi Arabia on the strength of the consumers look for berry products out there, we have launched a successful kids range in Blackcurrant flavor. We have also listed a new 330 ml can for Vimto to complement the 250 ml range we have in market. And then in Africa, where we have a 330 ml Red Can range, you can see the image there where we've launched a 250 ml product to really capitalize on weddings as a new opportunity for us where the product is consumed. Part of our fuel for growth, three years ago, we undertook a strategic review in out-of-home. We have now simplified that business massively. Our margin at the time of that strategic review was circa 8%, and it is now at 17.5%. We have continued to simplify the business. So we have come out of our still Starslush brand. So our model there now is predominantly about dispensed products in soft drinks, and we do have the ICEE slush brand, which is sold in cinemas. And we have won new cinema chain, real cinemas. There's about 15 outlets in the U.K., and that complements the business we already have with Cineworld and Showcase. Also, as I mentioned earlier, we have successfully launched our new SAP system. And as we go forward now, we look to drive payback over five to six years on the GBP 14 million investment we made in the system through real synergies and operational benefits across procurement and logistics. Finally for me, our happier future strategy is threefold. Everyone matters, products we're proud of, and owning our climate impact. A couple of points I will pull out here in the central box. So there was new legislation last year and the lower band in the sugar tax threshold was reduced from 5 grams per 100 ml to 4.5 grams per 100 ml when the tax will come in. This will go live from the 1st of January 2028. And I'm really pleased to announce that all of our products in the U.K. are already below the sugar levy levels, so no impact for us. And the other big focus for us here has been on the deposit return scheme, DRS, which goes live in October 2027. when there will be a deposit levied on plastic bottles and aluminum cans in the U.K. And in Wales, it will also include glass, although we don't operate in glass in the U.K. And so we are busy planning for that launch in October 2027. Okay. I will now hand you over to Becky, who will talk you through the numbers.

Thanks, Andrew. I'll just start with some of the financial highlights and key takeouts. I think overall, we're really pleased with the results, and we've made strong progress towards our strategic ambitions. If we start by looking at adjusted operating profit, we've exited 2025 at GBP 31.7 million, which is 9.9% up on the previous year, and that's on the back of double-digit growth in 2024, and it's also in line with the ambitions that we shared at the Capital Markets Day. We're pleased to share that our margins have also improved and adjusted PBT is up 1% versus '24. This reflects the ongoing switch to the concentrate model in Africa and further simplification in out-of-home. As a result of this, we've maintained strong cash balances. And at the year-end, our cash and cash equivalents were GBP 55.7 million, which is 3.8% up on last year. Finally, we're pleased to announce a final dividend of 18.7p, which is up 9.4% versus last year and total dividend growth of 5.3%. We just move on to have a look at revenue then. As I go through this slide, you can see the note at the bottom there, I will reference like-for-likes, and that is just converting our new concentrate sales volumes into equivalent can sales in Africa just to enable for a consistent comparison. So group revenue was up 1.3% overall and then factoring in those like-for-likes of Africa, it would have been up 1.9%. U.K. packaged is up 3.1%, whereas Andrew discussed earlier, we've seen growth in value across all four subcategories that we operate in. International revenues were down 0.9%, but allowing for like-for-likes, they were actually up 1.5%. Within this, Middle East is down 15.5%, driven by the earlier timing of Ramadan. But if we look at that over three years, we are actually in growth as we've seen the move of Ramadan shift the phasing of sales into earlier years. In line with our strategy, Africa has again delivered another strong performance with year-on-year growth of 5.7% or on a like-for-like basis, 9.4%. And then finally, for International, Rest of the World, which just as a reminder for us is Europe, U.S.A. and Canada, we've seen double-digit growth in the U.S.A. and strong growth in Europe, which has delivered a year-on-year increase of 7.4% overall. The combination of international and U.K. drive the overall package growth of 1.8% or again, on a like-for-like basis, that's 2.5% growth. Finally, in line with expectations, Out-of-home was flat or after allowing for the exit of Starslush, it was up 2% year-on-year. If we then move on to our segmental reporting. If we look at growth across our two key segments, which, as a reminder, are packaged and out-of-home, we're in line with our -- sorry, in line with our strategy, we've seen growth across packaged, and we've held our position in out-of-home. Growth in packaged of 8% year-on-year has delivered an increase in return on sales of nearly 2 percentage points. In out-of-home profit has grown by 2.3% and the strong margins delivered by the strategic review have been maintained. Central costs have increased 3.2%, driven in the main by cost of living pay increases and an increase in IT costs following the implementation of our new ERP system. So overall, our adjusted operating profit has grown by nearly 10% and margin has improved by 1.4%. We then flip over to adjusted PBT. We've seen growth in gross profit of GBP 1.7 million, and we've improved our margin to 46.1%, and this has been driven in the main by the West African concentrate model, price and mix in package. Admin expenses have savings of GBP 1.1 million, where increases driven by IT and cost of living that we've just discussed have been offset by a reduction in our bad debt provision, some marketing efficiencies and some careful cost control. All of that results in adjusted operating profit growth of 9.9% and adjusted PBT growth of 7%. And again, this is on the back of really strong growth in 2024, and it is in line with our ambitions shared at the Capital Markets Day. If we move then on to exceptional items. 2025 saw further investment in our transformation program of GBP 4.4 million. and our new ERP system successfully launched in March of '25. Exceptional costs have ended in Q4, and we're now not planning any more into 2026. We're forecasting payback across the program over the next five to six years, and the payback will be driven by efficiencies across the business in general, but most noticeably across our operations. If we move on then to net cash. 2025 has seen the group maintained strong cash balances, an increase in EBITDA of 9.6% delivered GBP 33.8 million. This has then been offset by the GBP 4.4 million of exceptional costs, which, as we discussed, completed in Q4. We've seen increases in working capital, but this has predominantly been driven by the half year 2 weighting of sales. And after a reduction in interest income following the prior year special dividend, that results in full year cash balances of GBP 55.7 million. If we then take a look at our capital allocation and dividends. The capital allocation strategy remains the same in 2025, where we continue to invest in profitable growth opportunities. We operate a progressive ordinary dividend. We assess potential M&A. And if there is none, then we return surplus cash to shareholders. Our dividend policy for 2025 was a 2x cover, and that's resulted in a total dividend of 33.7p, which is a total growth of 5.3%. As we move into 2026, whilst our strategy will remain the same in investing in profitable growth opportunities, a progressive ordinary dividend, and our potential M&A will continue to be a focus for us, and we will continue to return surplus cash to shareholders. Reflecting Board confidence in future growth and in order to give shareholder certainty, we're really pleased to announce that we're moving to a 1.5x cover from 2026. I'll now hand you back over to Andrew.

Thanks, Becky. So I will now just focus on the year ahead. So we launched Energy two years ago. Our plan here was to drive the business to be a GBP 10 million RSV opportunity. I'm pleased two years in, we're at GBP 4 million, and then as we go into 2026, we've got some exciting new launches. So we've got a new tropical flavor, which should bring new consumers in. And then also to capitalize on the drinking at home occasion, we are launching a Vimto multipack four products in the multipack back of store in the major retailers. And within squash, we are the #2 squash brand in the U.K. We now have a broad range of products, pack sizes and flavors. To continue growth in 2026, we will launch a new 2-liter raspberry product and a new 2-liter orange and pineapple product. And we've also done an exclusive special buy in Aldi on a 1.5-liter product during January. We were really pleased with our performance on ready-to-drinks in 2025, delivering double-digit growth, one of the fastest brands in this category. And as we head into 2026, I'm pleased that we've now launched a new pack, much more contemporary, greater standout, and we will now take our Vimto products into our kids mini pack format, multipacks that will go live in the grocers. On our ready-to-drink carbonate ranges, again, we have launched a new bottle, as you can see there on the image, again, hopefully giving much greater standout. And we are launching two new products called fans editions. So we have done crowdsourcing here. We have had feedback from consumers on what flavors they would like us to launch, what they should be called and how the packs look. So we will do two limited editions this year, pina guava and sunset papaya-dise and some great new flavors that taste really good and should hopefully bring some excitement onto the shelves. Two years now, we've had a multimedia campaign running called love at first taste. And this year, we're evolving that to be called that first taste. It means our marketing to be a little bit more edgy. So captions there is like your usual drink doesn't need to know. We will use advertising like why not come back to my fridge that hopefully should just give standout in store, and we will run this promotion over the key summer trading months during the summer. The first time in over 100 years, we are launching a new flavor, rose cordial in the Middle East. That is out there now in Ramadan. You can see some of the fabulous displays we have there, capitalizing on the rose opportunity in the Middle East, which is already a popular flavor, as you can see, bringing some excitement to store on a product that tastes absolutely fabulous. In Africa, we will now move to Phase 2 of our switch from cans to a concentrate model, where Phase 2, we will see the factory built by our partner, Millennium in Q3 of this year. We will then ship the concentrate into the factory, and we will then produce cans in the Ivory Coast. And then we will also serve the markets of Burkina Faso, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, ensuring a faster speed to market and ESG benefits, but also reducing the amount of money our distributors in those countries will have to spend on import duties, allowing them to invest more into driving distribution of the brand. We launched in Malaysia back at the end of 2024, and I'm pleased to say that we continue to invest in the country in marketing programs, sampling and promotions, which has helped to build the rate of sale. Now this is always going to be a long-term play for us because it's a new brand in a new market and excited about the opportunity here. And then we are also returning back to the Sudan region of Africa. So it's a large country, 50 million people. Pre the civil war there, we have a strong business with the DAL Group, who are the country's largest food and drink business. They're also the Coca-Cola bottler, and we will be relaunching in country in May with four SKUs. The part of the business we call rest of the world is predominantly U.S.A. and Canada and Europe. This business continues to grow well. It's now worth over GBP 9 million of revenue, so about 20% of our international business. We've seen very strong growth in 2025 of nearly 15% in the U.S.A. and Canada as our partner there has grown distribution that will continue to drive growth in 2026, and we've seen some excellent in-market activations during Ramadan. Within Europe, we have a partner based in Holland, Unidex that services all of the country for us. We produce in Spain, and we go and then sell those products in about 80 customers across predominantly Western Europe. And as we go into 2026, we have seen new listings in the World Food fixtures with some big major retailers, Albert Heijn based in Holland and Delhaize based in Belgium. So to wrap up and to summarize. So as we said at the start, we're really pleased with the operating profit growth we've delivered today at plus 10% on the back of the plus 15% we delivered the year before. So, in total, over 25% growth in profit, which just puts us absolutely on track to hit the CMD targets we outlined back in November 2024. You've seen that soft drinks is large. It's worth GBP 14.5 billion in the U.K. alone, and it's proving very resilient, both in the U.K. and in our international business. We have a very clear and focused strategy, accelerate growth in our higher-margin package business. Keep out-of-home simple and continue to drive a high margin, drive efficiencies through our operational change and business transformation program to reinvest back into the business, and we will focus on acquisition in U.K. packaged where we can find brands to accelerate our growth but doesn't cannibalize our inventory. Trading has started well for us in 2026, and we are in line with market expectations. And a reminder today that we've changed our ordinary dividend policy to a 1.5x cover from 2x, which will increase our payout ratios to give certainty to all of our shareholders and to hopefully demonstrate the confidence we have as a Board in future growth opportunities. Okay. So that concludes today's presentation. We will now move into taking questions.

Perfect. Andrew, Rebecca, if I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. [Operator Instructions] I just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Andrew, Rebecca, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this afternoon. And thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But guys, at this point, if I may just hand back to you to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so. And if I pick up from you at the end, that would be great. Thank you.

Yes. Okay. Thank you, and thank you to everybody who submitted questions. And I am hoping that we've answered quite a few of them through the presentation, but we will just work through. So I think we should start with a question that's been asked around our Middle East business, how sales are broken down and what the impact is, what's happening out there at the moment. So, firstly, what I would say is we've had a relationship with Aujan for over 100 years. Vimto has been selling in the Middle East. So we've got lots of experience and have dealt with many situations before. Our business there breaks down broadly that about 75% of our sales are in Saudi Arabia, about 10% of our sales are in the Yemen and then 15% are split across the UAE, Kuwait, Oman. What I would say is our shipments are not really planned to start into the country until June onwards. So no impact to sales going in at the moment. Obviously, Ramadan is happening at the moment. So we are just assessing if there's any impact there. The intelligence we're getting is that Saudi is largely not affected at the moment. In Dubai, for example, people are staying in, but therefore, may be consuming some more product, whilst in our routes in there, we already use the route through the Suez Canal and down to the Red Sea into Jeddah on the west of Saudi, and we transport our product over to Dammam where it's made and then distributed throughout the region. So we're not using the Strait of Hormuz, which is positive. And finally, all of our people and our partners at are all safe, really importantly. So, in summary, we think we're in the best position we can be at the moment. We don't see an impact. But clearly, we will monitor the situation daily to see if anything changes. The next question I'll probably answer is we've been asked about why we think the share price has fallen recently so sharply and perhaps ask what our brokers are telling us. So yes, we are disappointed that the share price has dropped. Really, that happened in the half year last year. I think a few things have happened. So I think perhaps the change to IHT has impacted us with some of the outflows. I think at the half year last year, our revenues may have looked slightly lower. Sometimes this is not always understood because we've signposted that our revenues would look lower because our shift to the concentrate model in Africa, we're not shipping finished goods. So the revenue comes down, but the margin increases, hence, the additional profit we've been making. There was some news about the soft drinks levy, and we think some people maybe were worried about that as a stress today, all of our products are [Technical Difficulty]

Ladies and gentlemen, please do just bear with us while we reconnect the team. Hi, guys, thanks for just coming back in there. Please let me just connect you through. Thank you. Let me just bring you back in. Hi, guys. We can hear you now. Thank you.

Apologies about that. I'm not sure what happened. The power just literally went down at our end, so apologies about that. Hopefully, you heard the final point there around -- we think there was some news around the sugar tax. Maybe some people have sold the shares on the back of that, but we absolutely are below all of the sugar levy. So, for us, we've delivered over 25% profit growth over the last two years. So hopefully, that gives people confidence that we are delivering on the strategy we have out there. The share price has moved up since we announced our results yesterday. So hopefully, that momentum will continue. Let me just -- sorry, just go back to some of the questions. Some more have flowed through when we went down there. Okay. So there's a question here around what new territories you envisage entering over the next one to two years. Hopefully, we've answered that. So we will continue to focus in Malaysia, as we've said, and we've highlighted the Sudan region as a new country that we're going back into. There's a question here around how likely is an acquisition in the short term on a scale of 1 to 10. So, hopefully, what we've demonstrated today is that acquisition is something we're looking at for our U.K. business. We are looking at all the opportunities that come our way. We assess whether they're right for our business. There are acquisitions available at the moment. And if we believe it's right for our business, then we will look to make those acquisitions because we do have, as I'm sure you've all seen, a very healthy balance sheet. There was a question here around do you look at lowering headcount to reduce costs. And I think there, we are always assessing the business. We are always looking for efficiencies. Sometimes that means headcount may leave the business as we did when we did the strategic review in out-of-home a few years ago. But we manage costs tightly and hopefully, you've demonstrated today through profit growth of 10% that by investing in the business and growing the business, we are achieving the profit growth, not just through cutting costs. There's a question here about how we view alcoholic companies buying soft drinks at the moment. So that's probably referring to Carlsberg, Britvic. I think the reason they're doing it is if you look at all the data and all the trends, alcohol sales are tending to go down as particularly younger consumers are consuming less alcohol. And therefore, as a result of that, soft drinks are very resilient. We've seen in the U.K. last year, soft drinks grew by 8%. The alcohol companies are probably looking to move into soft drinks as well. So we may see more of this happening as we go forward as those trends continue. There is a question here around have we got a payment date for the dividend in our results. So the payment date will be April 28 that we'll make the dividend payment. Let me see what the next question is here. What is the growth rate in the Middle East over the last three years? And what should we expect looking ahead? So, broadly, in the Middle East, if you look at it over three years, our growth is about 2%. And that's what we signed posted low single-digit growth in the Middle East as a very mature market. We were expecting similar growth levels for this year, 2% to 3%. Obviously, what has happened, hopefully, I've explained earlier. So we're hoping there won't be an impact on that. But clearly, it will just depend how the war plays out over the next few days and weeks. There's a question here around revenues with the partnership with Myprotein and Applied Nutrition. I'm really asking what the commitment there is in the growth. So look, we've got two great partnerships with Myprotein and Applied Nutrition. Myprotein is where we have the powder ranges and put Vimto on. Applied Nutrition is in the tablets and the gels. Vimto grows very well. And as a result of these partnerships, we've seen our revenues grow double digit over the last 12 months and fully expect that to happen as we move forward. Let me just see if there's any new questions coming in. Okay. So there's one question here around the difference between our space in the North and the South. So historically, we've been very strong in the North with all the northern retailers as that is where the brand grew up. Part of our focus, though, is to increase our market share down south. So as we deliver growth with retailers such as Sainsbury's, drive distribution in Waitrose, grow bigger with Tesco, who have a more even spread of retailers across the U.K., and that is really helping us not only grow the business but also drive our market share in the south. And I've probably got time for one more question. That question, M&A. Yes. Okay. I think most of the questions are some repeat questions there that we've already answered. So I think that brings us to the end of the questions.

Perfect, guys. If I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for addressing those questions that came in from investors. Andrew, perhaps before really now just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company. If I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that would be great.

Thank you. No problem. Yes. So, firstly, again, thank you for taking the time to dial in today. We really value your time, and thank you for investing in the business. Hopefully, what we've shown you today is that we are delivering on the strategy we outlined. We've delivered 10% profit growth on the back of the 15% profit growth we delivered the year before. Trading has started in line with expectations this year. So we fully expect that momentum to continue into 2026. Thank you.

Perfect. That's great. And thank you once again for updating investors this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback. On behalf of the management team of Nichols plc, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.