Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the MoneySuperMarket Group Interim Results 2020 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a moment to compile the questions. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday the July 28th, 2020. Now may I turn the conference over to your speaker today, Mark Lewis. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. It's Mark Lewis here. I'm sitting in our Dean Street office with Scilla Grimble, the CFO. Hopefully, you've all had a chance to have a look through and see the recorded presentation and presentation materials. With that, and no further ado, let's open up the floor to questions.
Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Joe Barnet-Lamb from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you for taking my questions, team. Three from me. Firstly, while supply constraints remain in place in the Money division, your comps do get 15 percentage points easier in 2H 2020 versus 1H 2020. What do you think the key factors are as we think about the shape through 2H and into 1H 2021? Secondly, when we think about mortgages, to what degree has COVID accelerated the digitization of the industry? In addition, is the unlocking of the property market coupled with stamp duty cuts aiding mortgages? Finally, on energy. How has sign-up been for your new energy auto -switching proposition? Won't energy cap cuts result in a call to action, even if it's a cut rather than a hike? As such, could it be helpful rather than a hindrance? Thank you very much.
Thanks, Joe. I'm going to have Scilla take the first question on Money. I will lead off on mortgages and touch on energy.
Morning, Joe. Turning to Money, we've called out within the statement what we saw across Q2. Fairly consistently, we sort of around 45% down each month in Q2. What we've said is that at the start of that quarter, we did see some slowdown in demand, that did improve as we went through the quarter. On that side of the marketplace, things are better. What we're seeing is quite a significant tightening of lending criteria from the providers. That's meant that when people come to the site and do a search, what they're seeing is fewer results returned, that clearly has been impacting our conversion. What we've seen as we've moved into the second half is that that story really hasn't changed. We're calling out really that that suppressed view in terms of revenue haven't changed.
I think if you were sitting in a provider's chair today, what they'd say probably is that they've got very limited view in relation to delinquency at the moment. The combination of furlough schemes and payment holidays mean that there's very limited visibility for them over that. Clearly, there's also a lot of uncertainty over the unemployment outlook. I think those factors combined mean that we've got limited visibility on what's going to happen over the second half, but it's probably going to take some time for those lending criteria to loosen again.
Thanks, Scilla. Money is one of the big topics, I think, in this update, so I'm sure we might get some more questions on that going forward as well. Let me turn to mortgages. There's a couple of parts to the question. I think there was the sort of what's going on in the market and are we seeing a recovery and is stamp duty holiday having an impact on that? What are we seeing on the integrations? I think what we're saying in terms of the market, clearly the housing market was part of the lockdown and had a negative impact on our business as a result of that. There is some sense of recovery, but we'd describe it as sort of early stages compared to some of our other verticals. Obviously, the stamp duty holiday will help with that.
There's some commentary I've seen in the media around what impact that is happening. We are seeing the beginnings of a recovery rather than a full-blown meaningful recovery in mortgages at this time. Your question around the digitization, let me first of all just make a sort of broader comment which I made in the presentation, which is particularly in the early stages of lockdown and enforced working from home. What we saw for a number of our providers, particularly those that had significant telephone-based contact center operations, that it did take a little while for them to overcome some of the operational hurdles that were put in place there. I think broadly, that has encouraged some people to think through their processes and how can they be simplified, how can they be digitized going forward.
That's a sort of broad comment, and as I also said in the presentation, our providers are now past that point of operational complexity from the initial phase of the lockdown. We're still encouraged in what we're seeing, so we continue to work with the main providers in the market on their integrations. I think we called out that the full year that we had the decision in principle live with Nationwide and the product transfers in flight with four providers at that time. Those integrations continue. We don't have anything specific we want to share with the market today. That's definitely been happening through the first half. The third part of the question was around energy. What are we seeing on auto switch, and how do we feel about the market in the second half?
I'll touch on auto switch, then I'll ask Scilla to make explicit comments around the second half. On auto switch, it is now live with MoneySavingExpert. As I tried to flag in the presentation, we have done what we trailed at the prelims, which is we have put a proposition into the market, which we think is differentiated and provides all the range of providers that we have into the auto switch proposition with sustainable economics. For the user, essentially automatically moves them to the tariff that they would have selected had they done the search themselves based on their selection criteria. We think this is quite differentiated in the market. Remember, for us, this is all about the big base that we already have with MoneySavingExpert in the Cheap Energy Club.
We have, in the first instance, released it to that base of users, and we're really encouraged with what we're seeing. I mentioned that we kept things quite simple. At the beginning of lockdown, our user base wasn't really open for new messages, we felt at that time, so we put it a little bit later into the quarter. Super excited about what we see and encouraged, and more on that as we go through the year, I'm sure. Over to Scilla to talk about the second half, specifically, what we think we might see from the cap and what that'll do for the cost.
We see with the cap, which gets reset, as you know, in the autumn, that we think that will fall in the region of GBP 80-GBP 90. Difficult often to see a straight translation through in terms of what that means in performance, but it's likely to mean that savings levels fall as we go into the second half. As you know, the levels of savings is important in terms of driving switch, but it's also important because it gives the ability for the editorial team and MSE to amplify that and tip it when there are high levels of savings available.
I think that's absolutely right. Sorry, Joe, go on.
No, no.
No, no. I was just going to say that You go, Joe.
We've got a standoff here. You go, Mark.
Oh, the only thing I was going to add, which will now seem quite trivial given its build-up, is that I think if we think about the introduction of the caps last year, there was just a larger sense of new news, per se, about the caps and the movements of the level. Although we'll see some commentary around this, I'm sure, from the media in the second half, I don't think that will be at the same level that we saw.
Much further to answer the questions, and thank you over the last couple of years, Mark. We appreciate all your help.
I appreciate it, Joe. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Natasha Brilliant from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi. Morning. Thank you for taking my questions. My first one is just to come back on auto -switching, and Joe's question. Appreciate the color that you've given us on that. I just wondered, I know it's early days, but whether there are any specific KPIs that you could share with us on that. Secondly, also just coming back on Money, we've talked about the relationship between the supply and demand. When we think back to the global financial crisis, the Money vertical took quite a long time to recover. I just wondered if you could remind us, was that largely supply as well, or were there different dynamics going on there, sort of versus this time around? My third question is on the gross margin and the transition to mobile. Obviously, that's still ongoing.
I just wondered if there was anything you could share on whether that's changed over the last few months, as we're all at home a bit more. Are you seeing a shift actually away from mobile towards desktop, or whether anything has changed as we're all at home, is my three questions. Thank you.
Thanks, Natasha. On auto switch, I'll take. We're not revealing KPIs on sign-ups or performance at this stage. It's too early for that. I do want to just reiterate a couple of key KPIs in the proposition. The first of which is that all the providers on our comparison services are in auto switch, and that's very differentiating, we think. Specifically, that means that the savings that are available for users, when they select one of the tariffs in the auto switch proposition are at the same level, currently about GBP 330, as they would be if they did a straightforward comparison. They are key things to hold onto, I think, as we go through this. Scilla, do you want to touch a little bit further on Money and then on gross margin?
Yeah. Morning, Natasha. From the Money side in terms of comparison with the global financial crisis, I suppose two things. One specific to us, at that point in time, our revenue was quite dependent on the secured loan business that in reality sort of dried up, and basically the provider withdrew from the market. We're not in that place. We're not reliant on any particular provider in the same way. However, if you look at it in terms of demand and supply within the marketplace, it feels similar in some ways in that it's a supply side issue particularly that we're continuing to see. I'm not a banking expert. Clearly, the banks' balance sheets are in a better place now than they were in 2008, 2009. Hopefully, that does mean that it doesn't take quite such a long time to recover.
As I've answered on Joe's question, it's quite difficult to call at this stage as to when we'll see any improvement. Moving on to your question in relation to transition to mobile. We've been, I hope, quite clear in all of the updates that we've been giving, that we're still continuing to see that shift to mobile. I think many people have sort of assumed that being at home means that people are going to use their desktops more. In reality, we use it at home. Also clearly when you're at home, your connection is much more stable on your mobile and so on. We're continuing to see that move and that shift towards mobile.
Great. That was really helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Ross from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks a lot. Morning, everyone. First question is on Revolut, which sounds pretty exciting. Is there any more color you can give us in terms of exactly what you're doing for Revolut and how that's going to look? I guess the question to be, are there any KPIs you can share with us now, this has been going for a while, in terms of what types of people are switching, how big those volumes are, how frequently are they switching, et cetera? Yeah, those are my two questions. Thank you.
I think we might not have as many KPIs as you're looking for, Andrew, that we want to give you at this point. Let me talk to Revolut partnership. More broadly, if I can just reiterate the point, we're really pleased with how this has gone. Since the acquisition of Decision Tech in 2018, as we've said, they reported strong double-digit growth, and the partnership side of that is accelerating, which I think sort of aligns what we think is the case, that by taking the strength of the Decision Tech business and then wrapping that into our group technology, our existing provider relationships in energy, we've been able to take to the market a very compelling proposition that is winning business and growing.
Remember, in energy, it is one of our categories where we think there is the largest amount of headroom available due to the inertia, the consumer inertia, to switching. It's super exciting. In terms of the proposition, it will be under the Revolut Essentials proposition, and it will feature within that core Revolut Fintech banking suite. Very pleased. This is one of the areas that we thought was very interesting as we got into B2B. We called out what are the places where people will be spending time where inherently we could take our services to them rather than just asking them always to come and visit our property. It's exactly in that sweet spot. More to come, I think, in KPIs going forward, but it's a very pleasing deal to see the team secure.
Great. Thank you. Maybe one follow-up there. Without giving any specific numbers, is your sense that this is expanding the market or cannibalizing people who might have switched otherwise on an existing price comparison platform?
Yeah. We've always been really clear on this, obviously, we watch it like a hawk, but we think this has the potential to be positive for us and grow the market. That comes right back down to within the number of households in the U.K. that don't participate in reviewing their energy supply, that are still sitting on standard variable rates. When you break down the economics, you get to the point where you can see how this can be additive rather than net cannibalizing of the comparison business.
Great. In terms of your tech and why you have won this flagship contract, is there anything you can point out as to what permitted you to do that? Was it just price or was there more to your offering that meant you were seen as a more attractive partner than someone else? I'm just trying to understand how your market share in that B2B world might evolve over time.
At the risk of giving our secrets away, if you think of the key elements of the proposition, this proposition is based on the group technology and is based on the group provider relationships, which means that you have the scale of the group in terms of the provider relationships, the talent in the marketplace. You have the prowess, if you will, of the group technology, which is obviously stable, secure, and offers all the full regulatory wrap that is appropriate in these categories. I believe that in Decision Tech, we have a very innovative and excellent accounts management client service proposition that meets and services their partners' needs in an outstanding way. I'd say they are the key elements.
Fantastic. Thank you very much, and all the best for the future, Mark.
Thank you very much, Andrew.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Bridie Barrett from Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Morning, all. A couple of follow-on questions from me, actually. Just returning to your points on the margin, and you talked about the impact of mobile. There seems to be quite a lot going on at the moment in terms of what underlying shifts in that margin we had last year, the volatility as a result of Google-led issues, and now obviously we've got COVID-led issues in the Money segment, prices potentially coming down for advertising. I think you've mentioned that your tech costs are becoming more P&L versus balance sheet weighted. I wonder if you wouldn't mind just kind of talking through maybe those points in a little bit more detail and what we might anticipate over the next year or two. I have one other question once you've dealt with that, please.
Okay. Why don't you go through from the margin point?
Sure. I'm going to chunk it up a bit, if that's okay, Bridie. I'll start with gross margin. Hopefully we were clear within the RNS that what we've seen, there's just over 2.5 percentage points reduction in gross margin in the half. Broadly, 1 percentage point of that is some of the continuation of the volatility and lower on average positions that we've seen in natural search. We talked through that in the second half last year. We've continued to see that in the first half. As I sort of intimated at the prelims, some slight improvements first half versus second half. We've continued to see that tailwind.
We've now, as we've come to the end of the first half, if you'd like, we've annualized through that impact. The second thing in gross margin, as you've touched on, is the Money conversion. I've talked to it in terms of the impact of those lending criteria significantly impacting conversion. That cost us about 1 percentage point of gross margin in the first half. We've signposted that we haven't seen that improve as yet. Clearly, if that was to continue all the way through the second half of 2020, there'd be more impact because we've just had sort of one quarter of it in the first half. Mobile, I sort of touched on in relation to the question from Natasha. We're continuing to see that shift.
You'll note, in aggregate, we're under 3 percentage points of shift, and we've had 1 percentage point roughly from natural search, 1 percentage point from Money conversion, and the balance from mobile. That's a bit of an improvement on what we have seen before. Again, we sort of flag in the RNS, we're continuing to make progress on improving conversion by device, and to narrow that gap between mobile and desktop. That's a sort of gross margin story. In terms of marketing, sort of splitting that out in terms of the TV and radio spend, we signaled at prelims we were looking to invest a further GBP 5 million this year. That's going to be second-half weighted. Most of that coming through into the second half. We continue to think that that's the right thing to do.
That's the kind of spend reduction in OpEx in the first half. That was driven both by a reduction in general discretionary spend, but also a lower year-on-year incentive accrual, materially lower. As we go into the second half, partly due, to be honest, to some headcount phasing, we will end up with those costs being slightly higher than the first half.
Thank you. That was very clear. Just onto my second point. We obviously have held the dividends at last year's level. Can you just refresh us on your capital allocation policy, given the situation we're all in at the moment? Is there any reason why that should change at the full year if trading continues sort of more or less as you flagged?
Yeah. Our capital allocation policy broadly remains unchanged. We first invest for growth in the business, organic. We'll look at M&A, and then if there's surplus cash left, then we continue to return that to shareholders as we have in the past. That framework is unchanged. I think it's fair to say that when, clearly the dividend is a board decision, but in taking the decision for the interim, we've been conscious of two things, really. First is our expectations in terms of the performance for the business over a medium-term view, but also and importantly, the cash characteristics of the business. You've seen our cash generation in the first half has remained strong. We finished the half in a net cash position, and our liquidity is also very good.
Yeah, I think if I could just underline that point. Clearly, any future dividend decision is one for the board at the appropriate time. What we are saying in this is that the business model has proved resilient through what is undeniably significant impact in our markets. We're very confident about our ability to continue to trade through. Our teams are all fully deployed. Our services are useful for people. In fact, probably never have been more useful than they are now. There's a sort of underlying confidence in the resilience of that model that's a significant point here.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Giles Thorne from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning. I had three questions for you. The first two were on auto -switching. I don't mind admitting, I Googled MSE Cheap Energy Club this morning and was surprised to see that the paid search return was for Look After My Bills. It kind of prompted me to ask a question, or to invite you to comment on how you'll approach customer acquisition in auto -switching, both offline and online as we go forward. Obviously, you've got a fantastic existing platform. Surely, there's an opportunity to up the customer acquisition activity. Kind of in the same vein, Cheap Energy Club's got 4.5 million members. It'd be useful to know how many of those initiated a switch last year or in the most recent trading period before auto -switching went live.
Where do you think that penetration could go to now that you're into an auto -switching proposition? Then finally, completely separate question. In the past few weeks, we've seen that Admiral is looking to sell Penguin Portals. It's not often that you've had the opportunity to talk about transformational M&A. What would the MoneySuperMarket view on that deal be, both from a value creation and an antitrust perspective? Thank you.
A few things in there. First off, sort of auto -switching. I think the anecdote you're relating, if I understood it correctly, is what happens on the Google search sites. I just want to check I understood that correctly. If you think of our position in the market here, obviously we have positions on energy across both MoneySuperMarket and MoneySavingExpert. MoneySavingExpert is a very big player in this space. That's really built on that editorial strength, the point of view, and the understanding of the market that it takes to its users with great confidence. The range of sort of unique deals and collectives that it's able to secure.
As such, we have built up a sizable base within the Cheap Energy Club, and obviously a very sizable base of users that subscribe to what we call the MoneySavingExpert tip, which essentially is about a go-to-market strategy for auto switch. Our absolutely main priority is to take that proposition to our existing [three from us] most over the coming periods will be communications to our existing users, rather than choosing to invest marketing spend against trying to acquire further users. We have our own inbuilt communications channels that we have developed, and invest in through the strength of that editorial proposition. I think what you're seeing is very consistent with our approach to it, and I think that is the right approach for us in the business.
We'll see where the penetration gets to, because this is obviously a new proposition. We are very excited about it, and we think that a number of users will want to say, "You know what? Move me every year to the deal that matches my declared preferences." Some, we think may still want to invest the time each year and do their own search. You know what? We are comfortable with that. MoneySavingExpert likes to give that choice to its users, and that's part of the thing that underlines the super high levels of trust and confidence that that brand receives. It's not really something we're going to give a target on at this moment. Obviously, there is a very sizable base to penetrate within there, before we have to worry about going outside of that group.
Remember, the economics are based on our existing economics, and so retention play there would be very meaningful for us. With regards to sort of M&A, we're not going to comment on any specific deal. You wouldn't expect us to do that. I think we've always laid out that the group is open to M&A opportunities that enhance our strategy. Whether that is plays that could help support the re-acceleration of the core growth of the business, or whether that is in some of those new market growth areas. We actively scan for opportunities within that, but I'm afraid we're not going to be drawn on comments on any specific incidents.
Okay. Let me try that last question a different way. As you consider the CMA's findings from the infamous review a couple of years ago, do you think there was headroom within their framework and their findings on price comparison in the U.K. that would allow for consolidation here? Do you think there's an antitrust headroom for it to get done?
Well, look, I think I'm just going to sort of revert back to what I'd always say on these things, which is, first off, you'd have to believe that there was an economic rationale that made sense for the deal. Then you'd have to believe that any deal is doable through an appropriate regulatory framework. I'm not going to be drawn further on that, I'm afraid. As Scilla has sort of laid out our capital allocation framework in terms of how we would use our sources of capital.
Understand, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ross Broadfoot from Investec. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Morning, everyone. Two from me. First, just keen to understand the rationale behind the decision to go for sort of the auto compare and switch rather than the full automated auto -switching. I guess the follow-up to that is the full auto -switching a later development we might expect? The second is, keen to hear your view on the mix within energy switching. I think Ofgem said about 60% of switches last year used the PCW. Clearly, that will have been higher in Q2, sort of latter elements returning, do you expect them to return in the same way? Thanks.
Okay. Well, let me try and talk to the propositional bit first, and then we'll get into some of the market data. Maybe, Scilla, I'll ask you to pick up on that. The propositional piece, this is an auto switch service, but the way that we have done it, and you'll recall we talked to this a little bit at the prelims earlier in the year. We have deliberately sort of sat out of the first wave of auto switch because we haven't felt as though the propositions really work for the user and indeed for the provider. We've been trying to work out how can we take this to the market in a way that meets the user needs, guarantees them the value that they're looking for in the market, and that we would be happy to put our brands behind.
Also provide sustainable economics so that you have the full range of providers that might appear on a comparison table into an auto switch proposition. Our way of doing that is by saying, actually, users, you tell us what you care about, and it turns out that most users don't just care about the price. Some absolutely do. Actually, for the most part, users actually are making a balance in their considerations against things like service, against the green credentials of the providers. Some want a big name provider and so on. That's really what we've done here. That allows it to be essentially auto -switching to the deal that you would have chosen if you had done the search yourself, which is why at times we'll call it a sort of compare and auto switch.
What that also means, this is why it's quite neat, I think, is that it means that we're able to offer the providers a way to appear in the auto switch proposition that is offering the same economics that they would if they were in comparison. What we're seeing is that in some models, those economics are not sustainable for providers, they're not putting their ranges into those services. Which means that the user doesn't get the value. Quite a long answer, that's an important part of the proposition. That's what gives us the confidence to put the MoneySavingExpert brand behind it, which is a statement of customer value. Also it's why all the providers in the group's mix have come on board with this proposition. That's really critical.
Scilla, do you want to talk to the sort of overall market dynamics in energy switching and how we have done within that?
I think if you look at the total market data, I think you'd see particularly over some of the initial stages of lockdown, a little bit of distraction, frankly. We saw that across a number of categories. I don't think, though, in terms of the overall market, and Mark's touched on this in relation to some of the answer on Decision Tech, we're still seeing as compared to our other vertical, significant headroom for penetration within PCW. I still think that out of all of the verticals, there's more structural growth available in home services.
Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Roddy Davidson from Shore Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Morning, both. Thank you for taking my question. I think most of the questions have probably gone, but two of maybe more slightly general questions, if I may. Firstly, just interested in whether you are seeing any initial sort of feedback on the new marketing campaign, whether that's gaining any traction, just sort of initial thoughts on that. Also, just wondered if there is anything you can share with us regarding sort of evidence of customers using multiple categories or searching across multiple categories, whether the sort of propensity to switch, you think, through lockdown has changed at all. Finally, just wondered if, with any of the working practices that have changed through lockdown, whether any of those are likely to sort of stick over the longer term and whether that might have any implications for costs. Thanks.
Let me just make sure I capture that third question. Right. Intelligence from what we're finding with the new MoneySuperMarket advertising, a question around what are we seeing in the category mix, something around, I think the question is around are we seeing that the working practices have changed our cost structure as opposed to broader societal changes on working practices. Roddy, come back later if we're misinterpreting what you're asking. We're really pleased with what we're seeing on the brand support for MoneySuperMarket. You'll remember we moved our branding forward about 12 or so months ago, when we introduced a new corporate identity in the sense of Get Money Calm as a brand proposition. This was to support the services which we've then taken to market under the personalization banner, so things like Credit Monitor and so on.
If we go back, that was the repositioning work that we started 12 months ago, and we're pleased with how that's gone. What you're now seeing is the sort of next iteration of that campaign, which features our hero, the Money Calm Bull, which we have taken to market towards the latter end of the quarter. We sort of kept things simple in the first stages of lockdown, when our customers were very distracted at that time. We're really pleased with what we're seeing. We've obviously flexed our media mix to match how consumers are now behaving. What does that mean? Less people are going to cinemas, outdoor has a lower mix and things like that. Obviously the value that's available in the media market has changed, and we've taken full advantage of those opportunities. We're really pleased.
I think we made a reference in the presentation around the net promoter score of MoneySuperMarket, which sits over 70. Also some of the softer sort of brand tracking metrics are also increasing through the second quarter. I think that is a combination of how people are responding to the advertising, but also just how much value they put on the services at a time of great stress for household finances. In terms of what we're seeing in terms of which categories and so on, well, obviously you've got the overall trading dynamic. I would point you to the material that we shared at the prelims around when our users are on personalized services, how they come back more frequently and search across multiple categories, and I think we've said that that has continued through the first half, so we're pleased with that.
More specifically, I think that obviously one of the simplest areas to say that's generated a lot of interest over the last few months, which is things in the home. We've seen that obviously through our energy performance, but we're also seeing it through the broadband performance, which is a category where there's been strong consumer demand, not surprisingly. Everyone's working from home, homeschooling and the likes, putting demand, media consumption, putting demand on the home broadband. Also one where the providers were very, very quick, I think, to get their operational activity in place and be very clear to the consumer which services were available to upgrade to and switch to through lockdown, which ones required an engineer visit and weren't available temporarily, and so on and so on. That was a very, very strong category.
In regard to our working practices, I'll ask Scilla to pick up on the cost point. We have been able to move the team to full remote working. We thought it would be harder than it was. In reality, we were able to do that in advance of the full lockdown, and were fully operational from home very, very quickly. Where we can track these things, we can track productivity rates of, for example, throughputs in product engineering. The teams have been incredibly productive, and I should underline I couldn't have been more proud of how they have responded in the crisis. That's how we're operating. I mentioned at the start, we are now sitting in our Dean Street office, and we are slowly reopening our offices on a voluntary basis for our colleagues who want to work in an office environment.
The vast majority of our operations remain remote at this stage. Scilla, do you want to talk about any-?
Yeah. Really just to build on that, Roddy. We already had a robust platform, and the tech has enabled us to work from home effectively. There weren't any additional costs that we had to incur in that transition. Other than that, clearly there are some elements of costs that fall out because we're all traveling less and so on. Other than that, the occupancy costs certainly in the shorter term are relatively safe.
Thanks, Scilla.
Okay. That's very useful. Thank you.
Thanks, Roddy. My understanding is that is the end of the posted questions. Thank you very much for your engagement this morning. I guess I should also flag that this is my last presentation, so thank you very much for all your support over the years. Who thought that my last one would be updating on the impact of a global pandemic? Nevertheless, although the pandemic has had significant impact on our marketplace, I just do want to underline the point about the strength of our business model that's proven to be robust, and I think that gives us the confidence that we will trade through it and come out of it very strongly at the end. I could not be more proud about how the business, and indeed our brands, have responded to that challenge.
I think the way they are serving their users at a time of great financial need is truly inspiring. Our cash generation remains robust at that, which as we've discussed, has given us the confidence to announce the interim dividend payment today. Look, as I hand over to Peter, I feel as though the business is in good shape. Let me sign out there with just one last thank you for your support, challenge, questions, and commentary through that period, and I look forward to catching up soon.