Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Endeavour Group's F23 third quarter trading update. All participants are in a listen-only mode. Endeavour CEO, Steve Donohue, will provide some opening remarks, followed by a question and answer session. All participants will need to press star one to ask a question. Only one question per person will be permitted. However, if time permits, participants are welcome to rejoin the question queue. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Steve Donohue, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Thank you everyone for joining us this morning. I'm joined here today by our CFO elect, Kate Beattie. My plan today is to make some quick opening comments before opening up to questions. Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we're conducting this call today, the Wurundjeri people, and pay my respect to their elders, past, present, and emerging. Now turning to our trading update. During the third quarter, the Group delivered a sales result of AUD 2.83 billion, up 3.7% on the prior corresponding period. This trading result reflects solid sales performances across both our retail and hotel segments.
Retail sales returned to growth in December and have continued to perform well over Q3, driven by our in-store sales, which grew by over 2.8% in the quarter. We continue to invest in and enhance the omni-channel experience for our customers, which has seen us deliver some outstanding achievements in the quarter, with things like maintaining our strong customer metrics. Our My Dan's membership program has now reached over 5 million active members, and our Pinnacle Drinks business continues to deliver great value and quality for customers. It was a standout achievement on part of our Oakridge Wines team to win the Winery of the Year award from The Real Review for 2023. In hotels, as we've restored the full service offering, our mix of business has continued to normalize.
Revenue in food, bars, and accommodation have all continued to be materially above the prior year as we cycle an abnormal trading period during which COVID-19 restrictions impacted both customer demand and our team availability levels. Gaming has returned to its pre-pandemic share of turnover with low single digit growth in the quarter. Further to that, we've been actively bringing back live entertainment to our venues, and across the quarter we had over 100 live events, with ticketed sales attracting over 38,000 patrons. The cost of operating hotels has of course also normalized in proportion to the rebalancing of sales mix, with all areas of the hotel back to full trading and team availability levels. In terms of our longer term investments, we're making good progress on the redevelopment of the Brook Hotel in Queensland, and we added five hotels to our portfolio in Q3.
The Tower at Magill in South Australia, The Beach in Seaford in South Australia, The Marine Hotel in Cardwell in Queensland, The Beachfront Hotel at Rapid Creek in the territory, and the Rainbow Beach Hotel in Rainbow Beach in Queensland. We also divested the leasehold of the Victory Hotel in Brisbane. Looking ahead, we continue to closely monitor customer choices in context of the macroeconomic climate. We remain confident that we offer a great breadth of options and value for all social occasions. We're gonna continue to tailor our offerings, I should say, as the environment requires. Last of all, I'd like to take the opportunity to say thanks to every team member across the group for all their amazing efforts in the quarter. Now I'd like to open up to any questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Tom Kierath with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Just a couple of questions on the retail business. Just be interested to know what happened with volume growth post the excise changes, in February and whether you saw a slowdown there on volumes as a result of that? Thanks.
Yeah, thanks, Tom. Good question. Appreciate it. It's obviously something that we're monitoring very closely. We are seeing volumes decline, certainly at a faster rate than we have over the longer term relative to the sort of price increases that have been flowing through off the back of CPI. In terms of the broader dynamics, we're basically seeing basket size is whole. On each trip, customers are spending about as much. They're obviously getting slightly less for that, given the excise increases that flow through to price these. The items decline a little bit, so fewer items in the basket, but the basket is holding. And obviously, that's connected to item prices going up. We're seeing a slight tick-up in frequency as well, so customers shopping a little bit more frequently.
The dynamic is really, basket size holding off the back of unit price inflation and the commensurate reduction in volume.
Your next question comes from David Errington with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Morning, Steve. I'm trying to work out what's going on in your hotel. You're going very well, obviously, at the bar, at food and entertainment and that. Your gaming has dropped off. Now, obviously, I know you don't need to remind me. I get that. The gaming part of the business is what we as investors really, you know, are attracted to, obviously, because it's the high margin part of the business. Are you concerned that gaming is back now down to pre-COVID levels?
I would have liked to have thought that gaming would remain elevated for a period of time, particularly as patrons are entering your venues. They're visiting the food and bar, but they're visiting the low margin part of the business, and they're not going into that best part of the business which makes you money. Can you give a bit of an overview of what's happening in that gaming side? That to me, is the part of the business that I'm worried about, why that's dropped off to low single digits, and it's probably gone a little bit backwards in some weeks. Can you give us a bit of an overview of what's happening in that part of the business, please?
Yeah, thanks, David. Sure. It's obviously a really relevant topic. You know, the data on what's happening in each state on gaming is publicly available. You can see what's happening with the return to the sort of pre-COVID levels. I suppose my reflection is it hasn't been so much a question of whether the performance of the gaming segment would return, more a question of when it would return, and it clearly has now returned. 'Cause you really did see that elevation in trading performance off the back of the pent-up demand as hotels reopened. At the same time, you saw subdued patronage in areas like food.
Really, hotels reopened, and the performance of hotels was very much led by the performance of gaming. As that has returned again to those pre-COVID levels, when we look through all the metrics, they're very akin to what we saw before the lockdowns and the reopenings. I think, you know, to answer your question about what are we seeing in hotels, we're seeing gaming return to normal. We're seeing food stay quite elevated. Bars have been pretty solid, and we're pretty comfortable with our accommodation performance overall. That's sort of how I would describe it. Again, it wasn't a question of whether it would return. It was more a matter of when it would return.
I, you know, I think what we as operators and investors should be conscious of is, what does the forward look like on this? At the moment, we're watching it very closely, but expecting it to maintain at those pre-COVID sort of cadences that we're talking about seeing at the moment. Watching it very closely and as we've described in this quarter, it has changed. It could change again, but we're feeling as though it'll continue at its current rate right now.
Your next question comes from Shaun Cousins.
Go ahead.
Please go ahead.
Sorry, Steve, do you wanna continue on with your answer or you're happy for our question?
No.
Yeah. Sorry, it's Kate here. I was just gonna add one more comment in relation to the conversation about gaming and pre-COVID levels. What we're talking about is share of total turnover as opposed to absolute dollars. What we're commenting on is that our income mix in hotels is back in what we would regard as normal proportions, as opposed to the same period last year when gaming was the first income stream to come back to full trade post-COVID.
Thanks, Kate. Sorry, Shaun, go ahead.
No, no. Fantastic, thanks so much for taking the question. Maybe just another question on hotels, just the slowing of sales growth during the quarter. I think you're at 31.5 for the first five weeks, and then you've come in at 18.5%. You know, it looks like around mid-single digits in the back sort of eight weeks. Should we anticipate that that's kind of a run rate you can sustain, or should that actually moderate? Particularly, is that reflective of, you know, the consumer shifting from drinking out of home to drinking at home?
Yeah, thanks, Shaun. It's all cycling. It's all cycling. That first part of the quarter was off a lower base a year ago, and the second part of the quarter was sorry, off a high base a year ago. In the second part and lower in the first part, which is reflected at the inverse in the current quarter. The results that we're cycling over in the current quarter are, you know, publicly available. We've reported them before. They were very high a year ago. To Kate's earlier point on gaming, what we're seeing is consistency in the dollars. What's moving the percentages around is the results that we're cycling over from last year.
That was more acute in New South Wales and Victoria's numbers in the quarter just passed because of the timing of their reopenings and how strong their performance was last year. That's why we're referring to the sort of stability of our trading result. It's the historical that are, that are lumpy.
Your next question comes from Lisa Deng with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, Steve and Kate. Just wanted to ask on the CapEx guidance. If I look at, like, the first half, we spent probably close to AUD 190 million, excluding the Victoria gaming, there was none for that. We're guiding, say, midpoint of AUD 500 million for the full year. That implies, like, AUD 300 million in the second half, and we've acquired an additional, I think, five hotels this quarter. What are we thinking in terms of hotel acquisitions for the full year, the way that we value it, and then, you know, incremental, I guess, sales and earnings that we should be thinking about? That's a big number.
Yeah. Thanks, Lisa, for the question. Yeah, we wanted to be really transparent with the capital position as we've tried to be all the way along. I think you'll recall, at our investor days and prior announcements, we've guided to a number but always said there will be opportunities in the event that the right sort of assets came into the market. You'll recall that last year we only acquired five hotels, and actually the year before, we only acquired five hotels. We've actually generated access to 10 hotels that fit our model, by the way, 'cause we do look at many more than that which we buy, has been us just taking advantage of the opportunities as they've presented.
Albeit it is relatively small, but you can include the Cape Mentelle acquisition, which we announced back in January as well. Yeah, it's 10 year to date. As I say, five in each of the two years preceeding. Look, all things going to plan, we might land on about 12 for the year, but there's obviously a few things to happen to make that come off. It has been positive, I suppose, albeit it's active in the quarter, those five, in terms of the impact that it's had on our trading performance. I think where you'll see, obviously the full year benefit is as we get into next year and we've integrated those hotels and started to apply our model to them. Yeah, that's why we've given that updated guidance.
We feel, I think, increasingly positive about our access to hotel inventory that meets our model requirements moving forward. We'll continue to keep everybody abreast, obviously, of the progress we make in regards to that. Our position's not really changed, I suppose, in terms of our overall approach to capital management. Just noting that we've got. We take some flexibility when it comes to the opportunity with new hotels in the market. Do you wanna add something to that, Kate?
Yeah, just like to add, Lisa, that in the trading update, you might note under the operating metrics for hotels, we've included comparable sales growth. To understand how the new hotel acquisitions are improving our performance, just look for the difference between total sales growth in the quarter of 18.5% relative to comp sales growth at 16%. That's on a like for like hotel count basis.
Your next question comes from Bryan Raymond with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking the question. Just on the hotel acquisitions, just continuing on from that, can you help us understand the return on capital broadly around hotel acquisitions, particularly around synergies in terms of procurement of tap beer and some of the other opportunities? What sort of return on capital should we be expecting given that stepped up in terms of the run rate quite meaningfully? I'm just interested in the more generally in terms of the earnings outlook going forward from that. Thanks.
Thanks, Bryan. We typically target over 15% ROI on all of the additional hotels that we acquire there or thereabout. Obviously the compositional mix of what we acquire can change that quite materially, just depending on how many of the income drivers we're able to get in the mix when we acquire, including what the size of the retail opportunity is that's attached. It's probably worth noting that for the hotels we acquired in the quarter, all of them had attached retail, which drove the additional retail stores in the quarter as well.
Your next question comes from Craig Woolford with MST Marquee. Please go ahead.
Morning, Steve. Morning, Kate. Just a question just to clarify on the CapEx. Maybe if you can tell us, what the CapEx or the guidance for the full year is excluding hotels acquisitions?
I don't think.
No. We'll provide as much breakdown as we can once we get to the end of the year, and we've got a full year number that we can talk to, but we're probably not in a position to provide that guidance.
I think.
The.
Let us get through these potential other acquisitions. I'm happy to give you a more detailed breakdown of the full year, I think, Craig.
I think the nature of the question is really just understanding has there been any increase in CapEx excluding hotels?
well, there's the acquisition of the
Okay.
Yeah.
I would say probably not. There's quite a number of pieces to land before we'd be able to talk about it in specific terms, but directionally, no. The material driver of the increase is the additional hotels relative to prior years. We are spending, as we've said before, we are spending in mix more on technology transformation this year than we have in the prior year, but that's, you know, it's small in the scheme of things. I would say.
Yeah.
The key driver is, as we've spoken to.
The next question comes from Michael Simotas with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Can we pivot back to the retail business and specifically the comments around promotional activity remains elevated? When we look at your sales, they are still lagging Coles Liquor a little bit, and I know the market data's not great, but it looks like you're lagging the market a little bit as well. Can you just sorta talk to the industry dynamic a little bit more and what's happening there? I know you've made comments in the past about focusing on profitable sales, so maybe you can talk to that too.
Yeah. Thanks, Michael. I mean, your last point really does go a long way to answering the question, and there is a real distinction between the performance in bricks and mortar and e-commerce, I think when you look through any retailer's numbers at the moment. I'm not just talking about drinks, I'm talking overall. We're no different. We've been really pleased with the performance of our bricks and mortar numbers, and we called that out at 2.8% in the announcement. Obviously, given the elevated performance of e-commerce a year ago, that's moderated. That's probably the space where there's been a lot of activity, and it's kind of an interesting phenomenon.
I think we continue to observe that as markets or segments of markets contract, you tend to get heightened competitive activity in trying to hold on, if you like. We've been very deliberate, to your point, in making sure that we continue to drive profitable sales. I think that, again, is reflected in that mix when you consider the fact that we've seen our bricks and mortar growth at 2.8%. It is the most profitable way for us to generate as well, notwithstanding the fact that our e-commerce business is profitable overall. It's just slightly less profitable than our bricks and mortar business. That's sort of how I would catch the current performance.
The next question comes from Ben Gilbert with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Morning, team. Just following up from that last question. Just interested in terms of how you're seeing your value proposition or value perception when you do it, as guided out there in the market. Obviously, Dan's always been ranked extremely high and appreciate the price match every day. Given that focus on profitable sales, how are you seeing general pricing perception in the market? Can you give us any color around what you're seeing in terms of the own brand growth within the business as well, just as some sort of indicator around value shopper?
Yeah, thanks, Ben. Just as a minor correction, Dan beats everybody's prices rather than matching them. Just, I'm very finicky about it. Forgive me for correcting you.
No problem. I forgive.
Yeah. Yeah, I think It's a great question because we've seen quite an inflection in customer feedback in terms of valuing things like the lowest price guarantee. Our value perceptions for Dan Murphy's are at all-time highs, as is our NPS for Dan Murphy's. While you'll see that our voice of customer for BWS declined by 1 point in the quarter on a year ago, a lot of that's reflected in their e-commerce experience, you know, versus what they were enjoying last year. There's less value placed on that this year than was last year.
The nub of the point is that I think we're seeing a real shift in customers' desire to pay for convenience, and there is a tendency to wanna drive, literally drive to a store where you will get the very best deal in town. Again, that's very much reflected in our customer metrics for Dan Murphy's. Associated with that, BWS' value metrics are also holding up. We've been very focused on making sure that whilst that is a convenient offering, it's still delivering great value for money for customers. The team's doing a good job there.
I think, you know, what we called out at the half year that we're starting to see some reductions in demand, the most expensive ways to shop, like on-demand delivery, which for us is Jimmy Brings and for Brothers is things like the Uber platform. Those are the most expensive ways to buy something, and they're becoming less popular relative to the benefit that you get as a My Dan member, where the Dan Murphy's team are actively checking everybody's prices and beating them.
Now, to your question on what does that mean for profitability, well, I've talked a lot about the structural resilience of our gross margin across the retail group, and it's as true for Dan's as it is for BWS when you consider the performance of our Pinnacle portfolio, as well as the constant inflow of new products and that's continued unabated. We are watching very closely the way consumers are behaving and monitoring their appetite for risk because that is... there's always a bit of a risk for you as you buy something that you haven't tried before, and we're keeping a close eye on that. Those two key factors still very much underpin the profitability of both Dan's and BWS.
You know, the price guarantee is proving to be extremely popular, as popular as ever for customers across Australia.
Your next question comes from Phil Kimber with E&P Capital. Please go ahead.
Good day, Steve. Maybe another crack at that acquisition question and the CapEx. Did any of the hotels you buy come with freehold property or were they all leased assets?
Yeah, all those were leased assets. I'm looking around to see if I get that wrong. No, I think they're all leased assets.
You know, we can sort of guesstimate that, yeah, the average sort of, you know, price. There's no sort of big chunk of that extra CapEx than what the market thought, which is probably around, I don't know, AUD 100 odd million. There's no sort of big one particular hotel that makes up a big chunk of that? Were they all sort of broad, you know, roundly similar-sized hotel acquisitions?
Yeah, there's a little bit of variation in them, but there's no big ticket items, if you like. As you know, our propensity is to be a hotel operator rather than a real estate manager. We tend to sort of follow the model that we've done in that quarter. Yep, that's right.
Your next question comes from Richard Barwick with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just a quick one to clarify. You've also given some guidance around the finance costs. Can you just explain that? Is that an all-in finance cost? Is it net? Does it capture all the leasing and also income? Or was it just talking the actual, the expense element?
It's an all-in finance cost inclusive of leasing.
But net of, interest income as well?
That's right.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Bryan Raymond with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just a quick one on the retail business, just around trends in premiumization and Pinnacle. I just wanted to understand how those two factors are going, given your comments earlier around basket size and transaction numbers, et cetera. Just keen to sort of round out that discussion, if you can help us there. Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks, Bryan. Well, one of the reasons why we've put a lot of effort in the last couple of years to expanding our Paragon Wine Estates portfolio is because on balance, we under-trade the premium end of the spectrum in our Pinnacle Drinks portfolio. The Paragon-based business is growing at a faster rate than the Pinnacle business. A lot of those Pinnacle products, well, certainly the Pinnacle range starts at entry price points and then tries to move up the price architecture into the most premium space, which is where you get the Oakridge of the world. Actually a lot of what we sell in Pinnacle is value products.
That stands us obviously in good stead in the event, and we haven't seen any material evidence of it at the moment, but it does stand us in good stead in relation to customers wanting to choose lower priced options or better value options, as it were. In terms of the overall dynamic in the category, the drinks category that is, the only real sort of short-term shift we've seen, and it's off the back of the most significant price increases is good news for Australian sparkling wine producers, because French champagne that took a really big price increase has meant that we've seen a switch out of that into some Australian sparkling. At premium levels.
I think the long-awaited, you know, love for Australian sparkling, given the amount of effort and investment the Australian wine industry's put into it, is starting to materialize, which is a nice thing to see.
Your next question comes from Michael Simotas with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking another one. I just wanted to pick up on a couple of the comments that you made on hotels that gaming sort of back to normal levels of the mix, and costs have also normalized as capacity has come back on. Not expecting specific guidance by any stretch, given this is a sales call, but if we sort of put all that together as well as the moving parts around the Victorian changes, are you sort of suggesting that you should be able to sort of settle at the sort of margins you were before COVID-19?
I think you'd have to say broadly. I mean, if food's performance relative to everything else continues to outstrip it by 10x, then sure, our mix is gonna change over time. I think in broad terms, Michael, yeah, I think you could assume that.
Yep. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Ben Gilbert with Jarden. Please go ahead.
I just wanted to squeeze one more in. Just on the CapEx guidance, and this maybe this is gonna be one for the full year, but the ERP progression, is that still progressing in terms of your sort of feasibility of looking at what you're gonna do? Should we expect some sort of update around that for the full year?
Yeah. The ERP is not part of the CapEx cost for this year. We haven't started that program yet. This year's costs are reflective more of the people systems than anything, which we started, which we're materially underway this year. Yes, in relation to will we give more guidance at the end of the year, we'll certainly provide an update on where we're up to and what we expect in the short to medium term.
Your next question comes from David Errington with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Steve, Kate. Steve, can I follow up a bit on the My Dan's card growth? I mean, it's phenomenal growth now. It's up to over 5 million holders. I'm just wondering, though, is it just basically a price guaranteed ticket, or are you actually going to use it more as a... Now, I don't mean to be offensive with that comment, but, you know, listening to your commentary, you know, it's, and certainly the way I use my card, it's just a guarantee that I'll get the lowest price. I don't, it doesn't drive me to grow sales. Now, it doesn't get data. Is that a fair accusation or do you think that you could do a lot more with this? 'Cause 5 million holders is huge. The second part of the question, can you leverage a similar sort of concept into your hotels business?
That to me, you're lacking, you know, sort of like that loyalty in, into hotels. It's a broad question, but if you could have a go at it, that'd be really appreciated.
Thanks, David. None taken, in terms of offense. I know you don't mean to cause any. Likewise, you know, the way you shop might be different to the way many other customers shop, might be similar. You're right, I think, with your observation that it has been a phenomenal success and it is somewhat linked to that point about customers seeking out value at the moment. We would see that correlation. Different customers get different benefits, I suppose, so, what underpins that is the notion that we need to very much personalize our offers. We have made, over the course of the last few years, some very material investments in our personalization capability.
The way that manifests is via the offers that we might send you through our email offers, but most particularly through the app platform that has been the sort of single most focused area of development and investment for us. We do benchmark ourselves and we feel we've got a long way to go, but we do benchmark ourselves against, like, the music service providers and the television content providers. We think about the Netflix of the world and the level of personalization that they're able to provide. That's what that data is in part intended to do, is to make the experience for our customers richer, more valuable for them in a very personalized type of way. Some people use it just to get the best price in town, and that's all fine.
Many others we're finding, though, are expecting us to be able to make suggestions to them that are relevant to them, not only on things that we've had in our range for a long time, but particularly new products, which as you've heard me talk a lot about, is the lifeblood of our profitability, underpins our profitability. I think you ask a great question with respect to our hotels.
It's interesting that in our hotel business we actually have more data touchpoints in many respects than that which we do in our retail business, and that covers, you know, whether, the way you perhaps might book a hotel room to stay the night or buy a ticket to see a live event or tap order and pay for your meal at a table. What we need to put our minds to is how we could perhaps build a platform that did all that for you in one place, let's say it's an app or something like that. You know, we've seen others perhaps do a good job of this, both in Australia and around the world. It is on our agenda to be thoughtful about and get active on.
I think it's the sort of thing I should come back and perhaps update the market on it at the full year.
Your next question comes from Shaun Cousins with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking the time. Just a second question on hotels. Are you seeing any sort of trading down in hotels by way of, I guess, a shorter visitation time, punters staying for a shorter period of time drinking, you know, fewer drinks when they're there? Or are they trading down within the meals from steak to burgers, et cetera? I'm just curious in sort of some of the things you're seeing on the consumer, when they're spending time in your venues, please.
Yeah, thanks, Shaun Cousins. Yeah, we touched on, in the announcement on the various elements of the hotel. I think really the standout is this performance in food. I know there's been some commentary about more people eating at home, and I'm sure that's true on an aggregate level, but we're certainly seeing more people eat in pubs. That does have a link to time, but it is more focused around the food occasion relative to the drinks occasion. Obviously, drinks are complimentary to food when having a meal in the pub, but that has continued to be the biggest driver. Accommodation is really important for us too, I might add, particularly on the topic of time, because it's just enormously convenient, obviously.
You get to spend the night in the same place as you're socializing, perhaps enjoying some live sport or a live act or time with friends and family. Yeah, I think you make a really important and good point about the topic of time, but it varies from one part of the hotel to the next. We've touched on gaming performance. We're seeing that look more like it did in pre-COVID. What is abnormal at the moment is our food performance, so food's really, really elevated. In terms of the mix therein, it's actually quite slight, the shift that we're seeing out of perhaps higher priced protein into lower priced protein.
A lot of that is also managed by our chefs and our hotel managers in terms of the way they construct their menus and their specials and so on at any given point in time. A bit of movement there, but really the key takeout is people are loving getting to the pub and enjoying that time with friends and family over a meal.
Your next question comes from Lisa Deng with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, Steve. Just to follow up on the hotel acquisitions, you mentioned that, you know, the accessibility to stock has eased up a little. Can we talk a little bit about what's been changing in the market, and the valuation versus like previous, you know, market valuation? How's that trending? Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks, Lisa. We're not seeing a material shift in valuations and really we've probably considered the same number of hotels as we have historically in any given period. We're just finding more that are meeting our model requirements at the moment. Maybe that talks to a bit of a shift in the ownership therein across the market. I guess at some point it's we're not seeing a massive change. We're just taking the opportunities as they're presented and they're being more in line with our expectations. I think the earlier questions connected with our capital guidance are also important to consider too. We're not out there buying those big ticket pubs, the marquee prices, all those sorts of things.
We're very focused on that disciplined approach to acquisitions that we've talked a lot about over the journey and them meeting our model. You heard Kate talk about the retail opportunity on all of the ones that we've talked about in the quarter and also the fact that we're not outlaying for freeholds, we're buying leasehold businesses. That is really what we've generally been more focused on.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Donohue for closing remarks.
Well, I'd just like to say thanks to everybody for joining us and for your ongoing interest in Endeavour Group. A special thank you to the team again, as I said in my opening remarks. I hope to see you in the pub. Make sure you book a table because it's pretty busy at the moment, certainly around meals and, yeah, it'd be great to see you all there. Thanks for joining us.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.