The Artisanal Spirits Company plc (ART) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to The Artisanal Spirits Company plc Preliminary Results Investor Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. And I'd now like to hand you over to Andrew Dane, CEO. Good morning to you, sir.

Good morning, and good morning, all. Thank you very much for joining us today for this full year results presentation. Joined by my colleague, Bill McCarter, our CFO.

Good morning.

So as a reminder, The Artisanal Spirits Company creates and sells outstanding limited-edition whiskeys and experiences around the world. We primarily do that through The Scotch Malt Whiskey Society, a 40-year-old business that creates an outstanding and unique range of single cask whiskeys and other spirits to fee-pay membership with now over 40,000 members around the world in over 30 countries. In addition, we've been developing a group. And last year, we added Single Cask Nation, a U.S.-based independent bottler that sells both direct-to-consumer as well as through traditional retail channels, primarily in the U.S. as well as in a growing number of export markets. We also have J.G. Thomson, a brand focused on outstanding small-batch blended malt run and gin as well as a range of other cask and bottling services that we operate through our supply chain facility at Masterton Bond. And what binds them all together is an underlying focus on exceptional quality and a shared purpose of exciting and captivating a global community of whiskey adventurers. To cover the headlines for 2024. It was our first positive EBITDA since IPO and actually represented an all-time record profit for the group, having delivered just over GBP 1 million -- sorry, just over GBP 1.1 million against an expectation of GBP 1 million. And that's been delivered in the context of relatively flat revenue where we saw revenue diversification. And that increased profitability, combining with the transition from stock investment to stock replenishment means we were also cash-generative and that investment in stock over the last 10 years means we have a substantial and outstanding asset backing. We've then been growing our membership base and membership was up 4%, led by the U.K. and Europe as well as Asian markets with membership growing in the new market of Korea as well as membership up in China. That Single Cask Nation acquisition success last year, which we'll talk a little bit about, has been fantastic and helped that revenue diversification as well as strategic delivery across the rest of the group with things like product innovation, creative collection, et cetera, which I will talk about later on. So if we just pause to reflect back for a moment, we've made really good progress since the IPO, and it can certainly be -- when you look at the share price, it can be easy to forget actually the substantial progress that has been made over the last 4 years. Since the IPO in early 2021, revenue and membership are both up by almost 60% and the book value purchase price of our Cask Spirit is up by almost half. On that asset backing, Billy will tell you about the current position and what that means for the future, but it's worth noting that that's a reflection of the long-term strategy of the business, which has been to invest in quality spirit and capture its appreciation as it goes up. And we now hold almost 10x as much liquid as we did when ASC was created to acquire the Scotch Malt Whisky Society 10 years ago, and that gives us all the stock we need for the foreseeable future. And it also means we've transitioned into this replenishment stage. So what does that mean for us right now? Well, as I said, since IPO, we've been on that path to profitability and cash generation and pleased to have now passed that inflection point. We've now delivered a record profit for the business in what were more challenging economic conditions for our consumer businesses, and that reflects the strength, depth and diversity of our business model. We are now cash generative and have started to reduce net debt as that transition from asset growth to replacement costs significantly changes the cash trajectory for the positive. So I'll now hand over to Billy to take you through a little bit about that profitable growth.

Thank you, Andrew. So I'll give a little bit more flavor around the key elements of the business, what we've delivered in the last year and essentially what we're going to deliver in the future. So as Andrew mentioned, revenue, marginal growth, we've managed our cost base, has delivered EBITDA. I'll also talk about cash generation and the strong asset backing that we have. So if I start with revenue, as you can see, since 2020, we've consistently grown the revenue of the business. Noting that in '24, it was marginal, so we increased it from GBP 23.5 million to GBP 23.6 million. Now if I give you a little bit of flavor behind that, what we're really pleased about, as Andrew has mentioned, is our revenue diversification. So if I come on to revenue in a bit more detail, so that 0.1 marginal increase is essentially additional delivery within our Europe region, offset with decline in our Asia region. So if I focus on some of the key positives within our Europe region, our Trade Cask Sales continue to grow significantly, in line with expectation and in line with our strategy. Now other key callouts, there would be E-commerce and Venues & Events, essentially flat year-on-year, alongside the likes of Americas and our Rest of World or other, if we call it. So in a tough marketplace, there are some industry headwinds at the minute. We are managing to keep our revenue flat in some areas, but importantly, grow due to some of the strategic implementations over the last couple of years. So I've mentioned Trade Cask Sales. Single Cask Nation, as Andrew mentioned, delivered fantastically last year, delivering GBP 0.7 million revenue. And our new markets that we started during FY '23 of Taiwan and Korea delivering full year. So that's excellent. So that's a growth. In terms of the offset giving us a marginal revenue increase overall, that represents China. So China within Asia, in '23, we saw a decline. In '24, we saw a decline as well of around 30%. Now there are some significant headwinds in China, and we're doing what we can to manage those. But like many businesses and many spirits in this -- spirits companies within the industry, this is a challenge. So what we're really pleased about is the growing diversification to manage that. And going forward, we expect that rebound, if I use such a word, to be relatively slow. So our expectation on China is prudent. And therefore, we think the declines aren't what they were. They're not going to be 30%. So as that starts to bottom out and we look at our continued strategic objectives, which Andrew will talk about in a bit around U.S. and Europe, we are well placed to deliver further revenue growth. If I then move on to our cost base. Ultimately the cost base has helped us deliver the impressive EBITDA or the record EBITDA of the group that we've delivered this year. On marginal revenue, the GBP 1.1 million deliveries, therefore delivered through cost base efficiencies. So on the left-hand side, you can see our cost base as a percent of revenue is back down towards pre-IPO levels. As a reminder, when we -- at the IPO, we invested strongly in mainly people and systems to really help drive the growth of the business. As Andrew has shown, we have grown the business. As we've become more efficient, more mature, we've been able to utilize the investment in those systems and investment in those people to drive efficiencies within the business. So this year, delivering around GBP 1.5 million of cost base efficiency across commission, advertising, promotion or marketing, as we call it, payroll and other overheads, which we're really pleased about. So as we summarize what we've achieved, we've achieved that record profit for the group of GBP 1.1 million. The chart on the right, the purple line showing our EBITDA and for prior year showing our adjusted EBITDA. You can see that GBP 1.5 million improvement from GBP 0.5 million loss to GBP 1.1 million profit this year, which we're really pleased about. And what's positive is that we're well placed to deliver revenue growth going forward on a cost base that is sustainable at the level it's currently at so that more of the revenue growth that we deliver will deliver to the bottom line. And following on from that cash, Andrew has talked about cash generation. We will continue to be cash generative. And what we're really pleased about is in F '24, for example, on the screen, you can see the cash -- the operational cash flow improvement. So EBITDA clearly plays a role in delivering a GBP 3 million improvement in operational cash flow. But what's also clear there is that middle bar of GBP 1.7 million, that's our net working capital. So we've been able to deliver operational cash flow improvement through our U.S. debtor timing because we're a significant U.S. debtor. Our trade creditor timing, which is also supported by the cost reduction that we've seen and also managing our inventory from a drying finished goods and bottled -- final bottle stock point of view. That's been really strong as we look to ensure we carry an optimal level of inventory, and that will continue going forward. As we look ahead, and I've talked about profit generation, that will deliver cash generation so further EBITDA growth will ensure that from a cash perspective, we become a bit more cash self-sufficient alongside lower investment in spirit and wood purely as we have enough spirit and wood to last us long into the next decade. So we're in a good place to make sure that we are marginally reducing that net debt from a directional perspective. Andrew talked about asset backing. We did an asset valuation, an independent asset valuation, I should add, in July 2024. And one of the key purposes for us as a business for doing that was we have directionally given a view as to what our assets -- our inherent asset valuation is. So over the past couple of years, we've done Cask sales. Over the last 2 years, the return on the Cask sales that we've achieved are around 4.9x net book value. We've always directionally given that view to our shareholders and our investors and anyone interested. We've also done -- we also entered an agreement with Ferovinum, where we saw similar levels of return. But ultimately, we wanted to get a more a more specific and true understanding of what that asset is valued at. Ultimately, as Andrew mentioned, we have grown a lot, and we think the current share price -- our view is it does undervalue us a little bit. And as you can see, our market cap is around GBP 23 million where it was at the time of release. Our net debt is around GBP 25 million. Our enterprise value is around GBP 50 million. That asset valuation has doubled our enterprise value and 4x our market cap and net debt. Now to be clear, the business model is to utilize all those nearly 19,000 casks to deliver the retail value and the gross profit that comes with that, which Andrew will talk to in a minute. But doing that, we also have the ability to unlock some of the inherent value within those casks. So we will continue to do Trade Cask Sales, and we will do some private cask sales. But it's really important for us as a business and others to recognize that there is that strong inherent asset backing behind us. So as I close out before handing back over to Andrew, I wanted to give a bit of a view on what our capital allocation strategy is. And ultimately, it's a balanced approach. So as we delivered cash -- profit and cash generation this year, and we will continue to do in future years going forward, there are 2 sides to this, operational use or strategic use. And the first thing I'd mention is Andrew and I have both mentioned, we're becoming a bit more cash self-sufficient, and we will look to make marginal reductions in net debt. Alongside that, from an operational perspective, the key considerations for us are growing the membership and therefore, investing in marketing to help drive that. Cask Spirit. So as I said, we are -- we do have enough Cask Spirit to last us long into the next decade. But where opportunities arise, we will consider those because as you can see, our ability to make significant returns on Cask is strong. And, therefore, we will always seek opportunities where they exist. From a CapEx perspective, the CapEx over the next couple of years is less than it has been in previous years, remembering we've made significant investment in the bulks over the last couple of years and the new EPO system last year, which has gone extremely well. But again, always ready to seek opportunities there. And from a strategic perspective, alongside the debt reduction is consideration of shareholder returns. At this minute, the dividend policy is no dividend currently as we reach that growth, we want to deliver more Cask. And also from an M&A perspective, we're really pleased with the delivery of Single Cask Nation. We don't think it could have gone much better. So if these opportunities arise, something similar to Single Cask Nation, we always want to be well placed to utilize those opportunities. So that just gives you an idea of how we evaluate, how we use our cash as part of our capital allocation strategy.

Thanks, Billy.

Back to Andrew.

Thank you. So that's a really good summary of the success of last year, the profitable growth delivered, the cash generation and the asset backing. And if we now look at where does the future opportunity come from, you heard that in 2024, the profit improvement came from cost savings. Our view is we have now rightsized the cost base and that the future profitable growth comes from top line growth and getting back to double-digit top line growth. So we've set the progress that's made today, but the future is about getting the business growing again. And we'll talk later on about current trading, but pleased to say Q1 '25 is in double-digit growth again. So that's where the growth comes from. And I thought it might be helpful to just walk through how we think about our framework for delivering that growth. And first up is our strategic framework, which remains unchanged and focuses on our 5 key strategic pillars. Whiskey, membership, experiences, new brands and audiences and our people. From a whiskey perspective, that's about returning the focus to creating and selling our own outstanding whiskey. Membership, delivering a step change in that membership to expand our global community of whiskey ventures. From an experiential perspective, going big in size and impact to deliver those world's best whiskey experiences. From a new brands and audiences perspective, investing in new premium private cask experience, continue to expand our global brand reach with new markets like Vietnam coming on, et cetera, as well as keeping an open mind to M&A opportunities. And from a people perspective, a focus on enabling our people to be their best, recruiting, retaining and training the best people. And then what we also add is this regional perspective. And since last year, we've been transitioning to these kind of macro geographic regions with strong leadership across each of the key areas supported by the central team. As we look at where the growth is going to come from, rather than talk through every part of the business, I'm going to pick 2 or 3 key strategic focus areas and try to bring them to life a little bit. And first up, I'll talk about whiskey and through the lens of innovation and product development. And many of you may well have seen an announcement a few months -- a few weeks ago about the success of new product development and product innovation in the business. And at the tail end of 2024, we launched the first outcome from our significant range review that we talked about last year and the first series from that coming out that's new called the Creators Collection, and that's been received to great success. It supports our existing signature White Label Core range and the Heresy ranges, and it showcases the real liquid art of the whiskey making. And following the first, The Peat Plants Collection that was released in November 2024, in early '25, we followed up with the homecoming collection, celebrating the spirit for home of SMWS at The Vaults and Leith through the visual art illustration combining with some of the oldest and rarest whiskeys and most delicious with beautifully designed labeled by local artists. In 2025, we'll release more new and exciting creators collection upcoming Spring Wakenings as well as really doubling down on the Heresy range of outstanding small batches with great personality, great liquid and great stories behind them. [indiscernible] is one of the regions. And I think the U.S., we talk often about it being a key strategic focus for us. And I thought it was worth just explaining why I see that. So first of all, the U.S. is the world's biggest Ultra-Premium Scotch Malt Whiskey market, a total addressable market of over $1.5 billion. Alcohol and spirits sales in the market have returned to their pre-pandemic trend levels, their pre-pandemic growth trajectories. The graph -- that's what the graphs are showing. On the left-hand side, you can see U.S. alcohol sales all the way over the last 10 years. And quite often at the moment, people are looking at the last 2, 3, 4 years and commenting on an industry in decline rather than looking at the last 10 years and seeing a long-term growth trajectory interspersed with a COVID super cycle. And some of you may be able to relate to that period of COVID when the alcohol consumption was higher. The right-hand graph also is telling the same story, but in a different way. On the right-hand side, the dark orange bars represent actual U.S. spirit sales. The yellow bar represents the 2019 forecasts for long-term spirits growth. And if you look closely, you'll see that 2024 was right on the money. So the U.S. is a huge market with the right structural direction. But also my view is that our own footprint in the U.S. is underrepresented. It's smaller proportionally than our presence in other markets. Hence, why we made the decision to invest in the U.S. at the start of this year, spending GBP 0.5 million to transition the business to bring full control of the marketing and operations in the country and really give the team the impetus to unleash their capabilities as well as giving them a bit of spend power to go after that market opportunity. And the challenge to that team has been how do you double the size of our presence in that market over the next few years. And the team are well up for the challenge. We've made good early progress on some of their target initiatives, everything from flat rate shipping costs to expanding the reach of our experiential offerings there as well as upcoming direct targeted marketing campaigns, which we hadn't done in the market before. So those are a few examples of the things we've been doing. And those sit alongside. As I said, the acquisition of Single Cask Nation, which gives us another route into the substantial U.S. market where they operate both direct-to-consumer as well as through classic retail channels. So that's an example as well of some of where we are seeking to grow. The third one that I probably will highlight, there's not a slide for this, but I would highlight is delivering that step change in membership. And we have been working hard to identify new opportunities in how we present to the society, how we recruit. And you'll see a number of test and learn things being deployed over the coming year where that's everything from how we present ourselves online. A good example of that is a change in the U.S. where we have been more whiskey-led rather than community-led in our membership -- in our marketing to prospects. And what that means in practice is when you land on the U.S. site, you're able to engage directly with the whiskeys. You don't have to sign up to the membership before you see the whiskeys. People can add bottles to their basket. When they come to check out, they ask them, are you already a member? Yes, log in. No. Don't worry, we've automatically added the membership to your basket. We saw a 2.7x increase in the number of bottles being bought on day 1 when we made that change, and that's being replicated in other markets now. Another example is partnerships where we are looking to build on successes, for example, a partnership with Amex in Australia, where they took their records of Amex cardholders in Australia who had spent money at The Scotch Malt Whiskey Society there took that and created a kind of persona and applied that to the much larger Amex membership base and then allowed us to give a targeted SMWS offering to that cohort. And we'll be doing something similar in the U.K. later this year. So just bringing to life some examples of partnerships and approaches, which we hope will drive a substantial step change in membership. The other thing that we note is -- and we'll come to questions later on, but a lot of questions that we receive are around share price and how do we drive the share price. And Billy and I have both acknowledged a frustration of the disconnect between our business, which is growing, delivering profits being cash generative and a share price which doesn't match. My view very firmly is that the thing that management can do best to drive the share price is deliver the results of the business, continue to deliver profitable growth, continue to deliver cash generation, continue to demonstrate that significant asset backing. However, there are other things that we can do. And one of those is we're driving the level of retail shareholder engagement. So you already have seen this year the level of communications that's going on, press releases, RNS reach announcements, LinkedIn posts, these type of Investor Meet company presentation, memo presentation, retail engagement, all stepping up at press calls. We did 10 press calls on Monday to go through the results and try to get the word out. But alongside that, you may well have seen this morning's announcement that we're actually relaunching an enhanced shareholder benefit program. And the existing program is existed since IPO, has been very successful. To date, we've had well over 1,000 SMWS members have taken the chance to own part of the business, which is brilliant. And that program is being enhanced. So what we're doing is we're offering some incremental benefits to the existing members. So for example, making the discount on the J.G. Thomson site permanent as well as offering the chance for discounts on flights of whiskeys in the venues. But we're also going to be introducing a new kind of plus benefits, enhanced benefits tier for those who hold at least 5,000 shares. The benefits of that new tier include complimentary membership of Scotch Whisky Society, a slightly larger discount on the J.G. Thomson site as well as savings on vault collections, whiskey flights, et cetera. And in addition, anyone who is a member of that new benefit tier on the 30th of June 2025, i.e., holds at least 5,000 shares at that date, will also receive a complimentary bottle of an exclusive and delicious commemorative 21-year-old scotch whiskey. And that's all part of our plan as we continue to develop the quality of our shareholder engagement sits alongside last week's announcement that we relaunched our website. So that's part of the things that management can do on top of the day-to-day primary focus of deliver the results. So as we look ahead, the future opportunity is substantial, and it's about top line growth, getting back to double-digit revenue growth, driving over 50% EBITDA growth as the more efficient business cost base that we have now delivered ensures a greater proportion of that new gross profit flows to the bottom line. Then cash generation with the growth in EBITDA, the growth in profits, combining with the reduction in spirit and wood spend, delivering cash self-sufficiency and hence, reduction in net debt and positive free cash flow. All of that with asset backing, strong spirit asset that not only supports the core business model and strong returns related to that, but allows us to continue to recognize significant value through other strategic priorities. Then driving growth through market opportunity and membership growth that I touched on, through innovation that you saw through Creators Collection Heresy, et cetera, noting we release 1,000 new whiskeys a year. So innovation is at the heart of what we do. And then market expansion with the upcoming release opening of the Vietnam franchise, which I look forward to going out and being there for the launch of that in the coming months. And finally, before we move on to questions, just give an update on current trading and outlook. And here, it's really been a good start to 2025, delivering double-digit revenue growth in Q1. And importantly, that's been driven by bottle sales in Europe, supported by the success of that product innovation, Creators Collection, et cetera, as well as early delivery against our full year forecast of Cask sales target. And that has again been profitable growth. Year-on-year profitability increased by more than GBP 0.5 million, meaning that even after paying the one-off cost of that transition in the U.S., profits are still up in Q1. And that U.S. investment has allowed us to unleash the potential of the team, resulting in our ability to take a greater proportion of the value chain and deliver a long-term optimized cost base as well as making us better placed to go after the opportunity that exists there. And then as I said at the start, the bit that binds all of the business together is dedication to quality. We've continued to win awards across the group, primarily across Scotch Malt Whiskey Society. We've awarded something like 300 awards over the last 5 years as well as Single Cask Nation, who again have quality at the heart of what they do, who picked up the icons of Whiskey Award for Independent Bottle of the Year for the second year running. All those things then combining to mean that we are profitable growth, cash generation and asset backing. So that, therefore, ends the formal part of the presentation. I'm now looking forward to going through some of the questions and a chance to engage more fully with you all.

Andrew, Billy, thank you very much for your presentation. [Operator Instructions] As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation. And what I'll do is I'll just hand back over to you now to read out the questions where appropriate to do so, and I'll pick up from you at the end.

Yes, no problem at all. So I'll start with the questions that were pre-submitted, and there are 2 questions that are around the share price. One of them says, can you explain the weakness in the share price and outline what the Board intends to do to improve it? The other saying the share price seems unreasonably low given the value of the Board doing enough to raise the rent. So I'll cover those both together. Certainly, of course, we are disappointed that despite the growth that the business has delivered that the share price hasn't matched. There are structural challenges. There have been AIM fund outflows over the last couple of years. You understand that the company does not set the share price. And certainly, our #1 focus on what can drive the share price is delivering the business results, and we're really pleased to have done that, delivering profitable growth, delivering cash generation, slightly outperforming consensus estimates for this year and with an objective of continuing to do so as well as other things that are in our control, like the retail investor outreach program that we're undertaking. The next question is around U.S., U.K. tariffs. And this is from last week, so it talks about 25% tariff. Many of you may well have seen the introduction of a 10% blanket tariff on all U.K. products. So a couple of things to note. The first is that we have roughly 9 months' worth of stock in market. So it gives us time and flexibility. We have also been working over the last 6 months or so on tariff mitigation plans that we believe can offset the majority of the impact of tariffs on our business. Those are being developed as we speak. The U.S. entity has already been registered. It's going through license kind of application processes, et cetera. So that will allow us to offset the vast majority of the tariff impact on our business. And it's really by moving to a model which is already used by every other spirits business and unwinding the idiosyncrasies of our current model. Yes, so I've just seen another question coming just now again about tariffs. Can you tell us what revenue is earned from exports to the U.S.A. Last year, it was about $5 million of total retail sales, including both membership fees and bottle sales, just to help put that into perspective, though the tariff applies to the price at which it is imported at. So the tariff would not apply to that full value. A question here that says, if you were forced to choose between share buybacks and dividends, what would you choose? As Billy has said, we don't have dividends as part of our current capital allocation strategy. Share buybacks are certainly something that we have seen as widespread or growing in the market, particularly where you see a structural disconnect between the value of the business, in our case, GBP 100 million of assets and GBP 50 million enterprise value or the fact that at the time of IPO, we were valued at 4x revenue, that's now closer to 1. I can understand why share buybacks in those scenarios would be of interest. As Billy said, we've committed to not increasing net debt to reducing net debt. So if there were opportunities to generate surplus cash, it's certainly something that the Board has discussed and would consider, though at the moment, we're not proposing that today. The next question is around, I think, thanks for enhancing shareholder benefits today. I own my shares in several nominee accounts. How do I ensure that you know the full extent of my shareholding. We have got a platform in the background that's able to look through the nominee accounts. So if you hold through [indiscernible] or AG bill, where it can look through those accounts. If you're in any doubt, there is actually a form on our website that allows you to confirm your holding, and that will flag to us if it doesn't match our own records, that will flag to us and we can go and make sure that we're amalgamating accounts across different things if required. If you have any issues, just drop us a message, use the website, use the platform that's there. Okay. Next question again is about tariffs. Can you talk about the past experience with tariffs and the outlook there? Does having Single Cask Nation change this in any way for you? So let's, first of all, talk about the impact of the previous tariffs, which were 25% on all Scotch Whiskey imports imposed under the previous Trump period in 2019, I think they came in from memory. At that stage, we did not implement any tariff mitigation impact and the impact, I think, was close to $1 million for us at 25% because it was being charged on the full retail price. So first of all, the tariff this time is a lower number and our tariff mitigation plan should offset the vast majority of that. So that -- we certainly don't expect it to be anything like the same overall impact. The other point about Single Cask Nation, I would say, in general, we believe that there is an opportunity in the American whiskey market and Single Cask Nation does represent as a domestic proposition, a better vehicle through which we can go after that. It will continue to sell scotch as well, but that American whiskey weighting within that business will grow over time. And that does again help to mitigate some of the impact of tariffs or their exposure to us. Okay. So that's 2 more questions about tariffs, which I think have now been addressed. So the next question, I'm vaguely aware of several competitor of whiskey membership businesses. The industry has been difficult in the past couple of years. Is there any change in the competitive landscape in terms of number or strength of competitions? To my knowledge, there is no one who does everything that we do. If you were to lay out our whole business on a page, of course, there are people who do elements of what we do and do those very well. There are independent bottlers, some of whom have direct-to-consumer, most operate through traditional retail. There are whiskey clubs, but nobody has that combination of the whiskey membership, the international footprint, the direct-to-consumer, the vast stockholding, et cetera. I would say that there has been a period of kind of flux across the industry. You've seen challenges to some distilleries, and that's international distilleries like Waterford or Mira closing. You've seen even large players like Brown-Forman reducing production at Glenglassaugh, et cetera. That also presents opportunities. And as Billy alluded to, we keep our eyes open and where there are exceptional opportunities to acquire inventory as a result of those conditions, we will look at those closely and may consider extra opportunities there. So the next question is your continued promotion of a dated asset backing number of greater than GBP 100 million is flawed. The market simply does not accept this. When is your next valuation being done? I would say, I don't quite agree with that. So the valuation was done in the second half of last year. So I don't think that necessarily the challenges of being out of date. As Billy said, that valuation pointed to 4x book value. Over the last 2 years, we've delivered 5x, and that continues through into sales in the early part of 2025. I think the challenge there is the people who understand the whiskey industry look at the business differently to those who have come in through the traditional small-cap AIM fund investment space. So an example of that is that those people who look at this as long-term whiskey business with significant asset backing, the GBP 100 million is a helpful validation point of something they already understood. The challenge in the context of some investors or potential investors is when you're screening for a business, you look at debt. And if you look at that debt through the lens of current profitability, that debt number looks significant. However, from our perspective, you look at the debt as we've got a 25% mortgage on our house. Our view of that is different. So I'm not sure that constantly refreshing the valuation, but we will probably do it again in the future, but I'm not sure that constantly refreshing that will necessarily help convince those people for whom the first valuation didn't land the message. I think instead, that combination of having the third-party valuation and actually realizing some of the value from the asset to prove the point. By the end of this year, we'll have sold something like GBP 10 million worth of cash to demonstrate the value of that and use those funds to reinvest in the parts of the business that we think deliver long-term growth, like the U.S., like the step change in membership, like the launch of the new premium private cask experience. So it's redirecting that capital to the areas that are growing the business the most long term. Okay. I think that was all the questions that were submitted in advance or that have gone through just now. Hopefully, that helps bring it to life. But overall, I would say, feel really positive. The business has been delivering good results, been delivering profitable growth, cash generation, asset backing and it's had a good start to 2025. We look ahead to a good year. Thank you very much all again for joining us today. I look forward to engaging with you again.

Perfect, Andrew, Billy, thank you very much for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session as you now would be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team of The Artisanal Spirits Company plc, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good morning to you all.

Thank you very much.