Good evening, well, certainly for us. Good morning, I suspect, for any of you that have dialed in now. I'm Liv Garfield, Chief Executive of Severn Trent. I've got with me Helen Miles, our CFO, and Shane Anderson, who looks after strategy, regulation, sustainability, and transformation. And what we're gonna do now, I guess, is we're here to answer any questions that you've got in terms of the draft determination presentation that we issued earlier today. We know that there are literally thousands of pages, thousands of models, a whole heap of commentary from lots of analysts on it, and we thought that we'd try and do a couple investor calls at different times of the day or night to enable any investor that wanted to ask us anything specifically, to do that now.
Now, we've got a couple of questions that have come in already in the last couple of minutes online, but we thought we'd see if there's any live questions at any stage, then just literally put your hands up, kind of like do the normal flag, and we'll come straight to you. In the meantime, I'm gonna start with the four or five questions that have arrived online, if that's all right? So, Helen, you're first up. So one of the questions coming in is, "So how does transition spend actually appear when we look at our RCV growth rate?
Great question. So, the RCV rate that you'll see, in the slides that, we made in the presentation is 28%. That assumes all of the transition spend, which we have forecast GBP 450 million, goes, is in AMP8. The reality is that spend will come into this financial year and will be adjusted in the RCV, at the end of AMP7, and that takes our RCV growth then to 24%, when you adjust for that expenditure. So that's how you'll see it flow through.
Very good. Okay, good technical one to start off with. Shane, I've got a different one now, which is a bit more of a high-level one, which is: "What do you think could change between the draft determination and the final determination?
Quite a lot, I think, even Ofwat signaled that in its documents by comparing previous draft determination and final determinations. So I think a few things that will change. So first of all, Ofwat always utilizes the latest data. So they'll have another year of cost information, another year of debt information, and ODI performance, so that will flow through. So you expect Ofwat will look at the cost of debt that companies have been taking on in the last 12 months and updating the embedded debt. They'll be looking at the TotEx performance, so what we've been spending on our assets, and that will flow through the cost models. And given companies are spending more at the moment, that will naturally lead to an improvement in the base cost models.
And on ODIs as well, Ofwat has been very clear that they're looking to set a very, a balanced package with equal chance of upside and downside. So they'll be looking at the performance data to inform their decisions as well. So I think in the round, we're seeing Ofwat use that data, and then, of course, we'll be making representations on business cases. Ofwat's given us very clear feedback on what we need to do for some of the cases, like WINEP and things. So, and that's the WINEP is the, the environmental national program. And so we'll be providing feedback to improve our enhancement cases, and that will obviously lead to higher TotEx and RCV growth. So quite a lot.
Good. So quite a lot, and you can imagine that we're in detailed conversation with Ofwat, so where the time window works might be touching on as well, Shane?
Yes, so we'll be working through until the last Wednesday in August, when we submit our business plan. I think it's the 28th of August at noon. We then have some more engagement with Ofwat, and then it's quiet until the middle of December.
Well, I'm not quite sure it's quiet.
Mm.
But effectively, we have a whole heap of documents that go in now over the next few weeks. And then typically, the re-query process begins again. And so we'll submit a lot of information on everything Ofwat's asked for. They will then query us, and we'll get involved in individual conversations around those specifics.
Yeah.
So it's probably a pretty busy time, I'd expect, between now and Christmas for Shane. Now, one more detailed, specific question, Helen, just for yourself, is: "Can you comment specifically on what you think will happen in terms of cost of debt and what Ofwat has said, because the cost of debt being an important part of the WACC? What has Ofwat said around that?
Yeah. So, the cost of debt that has gone into the WACC in the draft determination is up until 2022, 2023. What it doesn't include yet is the most up-to-date data, so that will be for the financial year 2023, 2024, where we know across the sector costs of financing have gone up. And Ofwat have said they will update the cost of debt in the WACC for those latest costs and also potentially for FY 2025, an estimate when we get to the final determination in December as to what we've seen so far this financial year. So we are expecting those costs of debt to go up.
So, one for me now, and don't forget, by the way, if you've got more questions you'd like to ask live, then just use your hand feature in the normal Zoom chat situation. But in the meantime, one that's come through for me is: "Which of the enhancement business cases did Ofwat not approve?" Well, the good news is that they approved all of them, just not all of them to their full amount. So I think for some of them, it did literally get, you know, an almost 95%-97% tick-through, and that was typically on anything where we had good models, good benchmark models across the sector. Then we were able to evidence that, and Ofwat could look at it, so metering or, I guess, new water resources, things where you can see what the costs would be.
Ofwat was able to cross-compare, and we came up very efficient, and we typically got the vast, vast, vast majority of the money. Where there was maybe a business case that was unique to us or maybe one other, I'll get Shane to flesh out a couple of examples in a second, then on those ones, Ofwat did what they call shallow dives or deep dives. What they've seen across the sector is because they've not been able to really get through all of it, they now need more information from us to evidence it. You've seen pretty severe cuts on a number of those cases. The need has been agreed from Ofwat on all 13 business cases.
Whether we've yet been able to provide all the evidence, or whether they've been able to read all the evidence to go through it all and cross-compare it to the same apples for apples basis with every other company, is where the debate still remains, and we expect to see quite a bit of movement on that between draft and final. But Shane, do you want to flesh that out?
Yeah, so a couple of good examples would be the water WINEP program. So as we've talked about, where we have to make a number of cuts to our abstraction licenses as part of the Environment Agency's program to restore sustainable abstractions and the like. So ourselves and Affinity both have this challenge where we're gonna be reducing abstraction, and then building new capacity, and re-plumbing the network, and this has never been done before at the scale we're doing. So both ourselves and Affinity are seeing quite material cuts here, because Ofwat naturally can't build a cost model when they've only got two examples, so they're looking for more evidence.
So there's one very large example, and the other would be on bioresources, where we're building the first pelletization plant, as we understand, in the UK, and Ofwat can't benchmark that, so they want more information to be comfortable at the cost allowance.
Very good, and this is the last of the questions that's come through. So, so I guess we'll take this. We'll see if someone's hand dramatically goes up or another question comes through, and if not, then, we've given you a nice, cheerful start to the day, wherever you are. Maybe afternoon, nice cup of tea. And for us, we'll call it a day as well. So the last question, then, is one for you, Shane. So can you talk through, the comments that were in the draft determination that related to the fact that we need to do an equity raise, and the linkage in terms of what they would expect, from the dividend policy as a result of that equity raise?
Yeah. So when, when Ofwat said we need to do an equity raise, it's not Severn Trent actuals, it's the notional company. So Ofwat's price review always assesses the notional company, and they said, "Given the high RCV growth rate," the 28% that Helen talked about, "to maintain your gearing at a sustainable level, you need to raise equity." And their solution was to reduce the base dividend yield to 2% and assume a GBP 500 million equity injection. Of course, in the actual company, we've raised a GBP 1 billion and set our base dividend yield at 4%. So Ofwat's not disputing or we're having any problems with what we're doing, just they have a certain way they deal with financeability constraints of the notional company. So I think they're quite consistent with what we're doing there.
There's no dispute with our equity raise or our 4% dividend yield.
Very good. Good, so Paul has come up with a question. Excellent, Paul, good morning.
Good. Good evening, good evening, Liv. Thank you. A couple of questions. Just on the outstanding status of your submission, I'd just be interested to know, in the discussions with Ofwat, I'd imagine there was some to-ing and fro-ing between yourselves and Ofwat, and so I just... I'd just like to know how that occurred, and were you a fair way apart, say, in the early days? Or, were you fairly aligned, and so this was fairly straightforward to get to this position?
Good. So, so you remember the last time around in the last price review, Ofwat had this top category called Exceptional, but they never gave it. So they had Exceptional, they then had Fast Track, they then had, I don't know, Standard, and then whatever they had as the bottom one, and, but they never gave it. And when we discussed it with them last time around when we were fast tracked and said, "What would it take to be Exceptional?" They were like, "The list would be too long.
You're too far away for anyone to get to that situation, so we've decided not to offer it." And one of the things we've said, I guess, constantly over the last couple of years is, if you have a top category, in this case, Outstanding, then it's really important to us to understand what needs to be true to actually reach it.
Ofwat made a commitment that actually they would look at, across the piece, the most ambitious plans in the sector, but it was always clear that they would also maybe have a couple of asks that went with that, kind of sense of, "You've got a really good, ambitious plan, but we also have a couple of things that we think is important for us to announce alongside that." So, so the three things that they asked for, we did have some good conversation about the detailed specifics of those three, but actually I always, from the first, second of the conversation, understood why those three were important. There is no bigger topic in the U.K. right now than spills, and so it's fair that they wanted, to see real commitment in that space.
It's the reason that our plan was, you know, kind of like so outstanding, is the fact that we are going bolder than anybody else in the place, and they want to make sure that we don't embarrass them, right? We don't take the Outstanding status and then fail to deliver. And so what they've asked for is us just to deliver an average of 14 spills once in that five-year period, along with the investment we've committed to. I'm delighted to commit to that, because I want to go beyond 14. I've always been clear that that is the right regulatory target that is different to all our internal ambition as an organization. We need to get down to world-class best practice on spills. We need to take it off the debate point for our investors to be something you don't need to worry about.
To invest in Severn Trent, you don't need to worry about spills. We fixed that, right? So that was the first thing. The second thing was around four-star status, and I think what was important here to them is that it is a big accolade. It was announced actually just today that we're now four-star for five years on the bounce, and it's important to Ofwat that companies do attain that. I mean, that is what they expect every company to try and reach, is four-star status. That's what the Environment Agency said in their foreword today. Now, you know, again, they've asked us to deliver four-star once in five years, so they're really saying, "Look, we trust you. We've just got to ask you to show that you're gonna do it at least once in five years." That's not unreasonable by any stretch.
We've delivered it every year for the last five years. We're on track again for this year, and we'd be mortified to not deliver 4-star again in our future. That would be something that would be alien to us as a senior team. So that, again, felt very fair. And then the last one was linked particularly to the fact that our bill increase is moving, and we are getting a lot of RCV growth because we've got really good plans that our customers support. But it didn't...
It, again, it felt right that now that we know that we are getting at least 28%, real RCV growth, and that's likely to increase based on what Ofwat have said themselves, and based on new asks that we can see coming in from government for some more spend, then they said, "As it is now confirmed at real 28%, we would like you to contribute a little bit more to the affordability situation." And, you know, we looked at the team and said, "Yeah, totally fair enough, actually. We don't want anyone to be in water poverty. We are now increasing by a decent percentage, then we feel comfortable putting in that extra GBP 25 million." And don't forget, they've given us GBP 80 million extra on the retail model, so we'll be able to fund the GBP 25 million out of the extra contribution.
They've also accepted we are an efficient company, second most efficient on retail, bioresources and waste, and that means we've been given all the base costs that we asked for in those areas. That also assists us in being able to fund that. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of the color of the conversation.
... No, that's fabulous. Thanks, Liv. And just a follow-up question. Like in the very unlikely event, you don't meet those conditions for outstanding plan, like a-
Yep, how does it work?
Maybe it's more of a practical question. Like, I presume it obviously it has to wait until the end of-
Yeah
... the end, and there's an assessment made, presumably is, and then you have to-
Yeah, yeah
... pay back the return or something or some sort of true-up.
Well, you have to pay back. You have to do a true-up. You'd have to pay back the 93 or an element of the 93. I mean, like, fundamentally, the easiest way to solve that is we need to hit the four-star status and the 14 spills early in the AMP, and then we've not got any investor worried about what does this mean. So the answer is not to leave it to be a back-end loaded delivery, isn't it?
Mm-hmm.
So internally, that's our ambition, is just we're confident we can definitely do these targets. Let's just show that by delivering that in the first three years, and if we can do that, then we're not kind of waiting till year four and five to achieve it. That's got to be our ambition, is to go early and to achieve it early.
Makes sense. Thanks, Liv.
Pleasure. Very good. So that was exciting. We know the technology now works at least, which is always good. Oh, I've now got a question on my iPad coming through. So, David Costello, thank you very much, David. So two questions, so get ready, team. So the first question then is: Having seen more detail regarding the regime, are you comfortable that you can deliver at least a net neutral incentive outcome under the scheme? It's the first things. Yes, it's around ODIs, but I think it's also about RoRE, right? So let's just cover that off. And the second one then is: Is the price control RoRE risk range a subset of the outcomes RoRE risk range and subject to the same aggregate sharing mechanism? So I guess, Shane, I'm gonna... Let's do the detail of the second one first, right? So-
Yeah, so I think Ofwat's increasing the number, the coverage of the aggregate sharing mechanism. So previously, the Mex's weren't part of, what Ofwat was going to be including in the, in the sharing mechanism. So they are proposing now that C-MeX, which is more high-powered, D-MeX, which is definitely more highly powered, and BR- MeX will all be part of the aggregate sharing mechanism. So the answer is yes.
Good. Hopefully, that quickly answers that one. On the first part, I mean, so you know, if you look at what Ofwat says openly in their document, their methodology, it says very clearly that they're going to have a symmetrical up and down, they're going to have fair metrics based on performance and life, and they're going to make sure that it's possible for good performers to perform well. Now, do I think they've got every metric correct yet against that? Then, no, I don't. So, for example, C-MeX currently shows, as an example, as a symmetrical measure, and yet actually, no company is going to make money on C-MeX as it currently stands because they've put in extra triggers, which means it's impossible. Now, this is not a measure we've earned money on in the last period of time.
We've got hopes for the future, but nonetheless, the point is, it's a very good example of how currently the risk range isn't quite right, 'cause you've got something showing as actually symmetric, which is definitely completely asymmetric. So there will definitely be movement on the incentive regime between draft and final.
It's probably important to emphasize, Ofwat, in its methodology, said they want to address asymmetry at the source as well, so that's why we're making these representations.
So the key thing that they will say to us is, "Just make it really clear." And the way Ofwat would have created the regime up till now is they would have looked at it purely from a kind of like psychological, what am I trying to drive value against? So I want to do... I want to have more focus on pollution, let's increase the pollution rate. I want more focus on leakage, let's increase the leakage rate. What they'll then need to have is all the company's latest performance metrics, all the company's latest forecasts. They'll need to look at all the representations which will come in and make it clear that some of these things probably are a bit punitive in some areas, and then it will tweak again by the time you get to the final determination.
Now, last price review, this negotiation had gone on behind the scenes before you accepted fast-track status. This time round, that's not how it works this time round, you know, you receive your outstanding status regardless of the representations you now make, but it means you don't get to negotiate behind the scenes. You have to. You negotiate as part of the draft determination process. So am I confident in the end that good companies will earn fair rewards? Well, that is all over the Ofwat methodology, so I believe that is where it will end up. Do I think currently all of the ODI targets are right? I don't, but I don't think Ofwat would also say they've got everything right at this stage either. It's why they have a draft. They get a draft to get the representations, to get to the final.
Hopefully, that answers your question, David. But I think you're also online, so you can ask another question live if you'd like to. Oh, you're on mute. There we go. New haircut as well.
Yeah, new haircut.
I have. Sorry, just a clarification on the previous question. I was actually looking for some guidance around the price control deliverable aspect-
Oh
... of the outcomes regime. So firstly, your confidence in delivering at least a net neutral outcome under that regime.
Yeah.
And then secondly, whether it's part of the outcomes RoRE risk range and part of the same aggregate sharing mechanism?
No, it's not. So they have been talking. Some of the aspects of the PCDs are in there.
Just explain what PCDs are for everyone.
Sorry, yeah.
So Ofwat's just introduced a new situation, just for anybody who's not... Yeah, this is a really good question. So Ofwat have previously had the ODIs as an opportunity for outperformance. They've now got this thing called PCDs, which is all around, price control deliverables, and it means are you delivering your capital investment broadly? And then for certain PCDs, you have, like, particularly ones which are benchmarked across the business, so meter installs, for example, or stuff of that kind of ilk, then you can effectively, if you're early with your delivery by a whole 12 months, you can make a bit of upside. If you're late on your delivery by a whole 12 months, then you can receive some penalties. So I think the first question David asked is: Are we confident that we can be at least neutral? Yes.
We are a good delivery company, would have delivered GBP 450 million worth of transition spend early. The PCD targets are all still being worked through. They're mostly just straight evened, 20% like, you know-
Quite a lot at the end of the AMP as well, which is why Ofwat's asked for this new delivery framework where you propose interim milestones to show that you're going to hit the PCDs.
Yeah. So we've never failed on capital delivery of that kind of stuff. We did really well on the Green Recovery ones, so we're confident. I think the one thing we think could be improved on the PCDs, and I guess again, we've made the same point to Ofwat, they are very, very detailed and very sub-level, and you can apply to change them with a change control process, but we think it could be quite admin-heavy. So we're not worried about delivery of the outcome. We do think the current mechanism is a bit unyielding, so we are gonna debate-
Yeah
... how do we end up making it easier for Ofwat, easier for ourselves, to kind of churn through these without almost creating an industry justifying what's done, what's not done?
I think the other point to add, it's not new to us either. So we've effectively had some of this with the Green Recovery and the WINEP program already, so we're used to the engagement as well with Ofwat, where if you're gonna change your scheme, you go to Ofwat and engage and present the evidence of why that's the case. So I don't think we're starting from a, a blank sheet here.
When we had the Birmingham Resilience Scheme last AMP, we had very big PCD-style targets against it. And again-
Much larger than that.
... like much, much larger than this, right?
Yeah.
So this is, for other people, probably new news and a bigger issue. For us, we actually recommended Ofwat did this. We think it is a good thing because it's protection for customers. That means other companies that don't then spend their capital, there is a process for Ofwat to work that out by year two or three of the AMP and not get to year five. Good long answer. Sorry about that, but it's a really, really important question. Very good. Paul, have you got a new hand up?
Yeah, that's, that's my-
Yay
... that's my other hand.
Lovely.
That's my other hand. Yeah.
No worries. Good.
We did... yeah.
Yeah.
Is that okay? Can I ask another question?
Yes, love it. Go for it.
Yeah. Just, just when you now reflect on the draft decision and, and, and I guess where it might end up with the final, and also reflecting on the outcomes in the last AMP and, and where I think nearly all businesses, overspend on TotEx, did well on financing, or you did and a few others, and, and obviously you did well on ODIs. When you, when you sort of think about where it might land and, the confidence you might have to, to outperform or, you know, that you've got a, a reasonable chance of outperforming, across all those parameters, like, how can we get confidence, I guess, as investors, that, it's not gonna end up like, like it did last time around? Having said that, you obviously did very well in financing and ODIs-
I was gonna say-
... so I'm talking more across the sector.
You should almost want me to have last time around, right?
Yeah, yeah. You did, you did very well, so I'm sort of talking more across the sector, but the TotEx, obviously that was different. So I just wanted to-
Yeah
... get a sense for, I don't know how you sort of go to answering that, but, yeah, that's the question. I guess I'll stop talking.
So three questions there, right? So I think on the sector, you are gonna have winners and losers, and we've said this, I think, openly for the last six, seven years. That whereas when I first arrived, I think, a decade ago, and Laura's been here pretty much a similar time, at that stage, everybody did well, and you kind of hunted as a pack. That's gone because, partly because companies are in a very, very different position now. Some companies have invested, they've got strong asset management, strong performance, strong track record, strong teams, and they are gonna push on and win, and some haven't, and partly because the regime naturally pits you against each other on a lot of metrics, right? On cost base, in terms of efficiency of base cost, but also enhancement spends, lots of models on those.
It looks at historic performance on assets. It looks at ODIs. You've now got PCDs that some companies will struggle with. So I think you can't get comfortable, I don't think, across a sector basis, but you can get comfortable, I think, on a Severn Trent basis. And the journey to getting comfortable on a Severn Trent basis would be partly track record. Our track record is second to none, so five years on the bounce, EPA four star. No other company's got it for more than 1 year this year, 'cause nobody else got it last year. I guess if you look at ODIs, we've been the sector leader every year for a decade. I know sometimes people say, "Oh, you've had easy metrics." Every year for a decade? "You've had bespoke targets." Really, two price reviews?
So you're only good at waste." We're the only company to have ever hit the cap on water and hit the cap on waste, and on waste for two price reviews on the bounce, right? So there are lots of evidence points there. On financing, we've got a lot of locked-in embedded debt at good prices. So that is locked in, right? I mean, that is, you know, we're competing against some people that have a trickier situation and less index linked. They're conscious choices we've made. And then on our, on our costs, on our base costs, we've just been highlighted as being very efficient. On three of the four models, we came out second. That's brilliant. So that's of all the big chunk of the base costs.
And then on the modeled enhancement spend, we also came out efficient on all the modeled enhancement spend, and we've got good evidence for the other stuff. So I think that shows you across the piece, we've got a good situation, and we've typically delivered twice the base return, right? So I think there is... It's track record. You can look at track record. In terms of data to look forward-
Just, just probably two-
Yeah
... two points to add to that, which is there's additional risk protection measures that Ofwat's introduced.
Mm, yeah.
So the two sources of TotEx, you know, overspend this AMP were energy and the enhancement program. So for PR24, Ofwat's introducing a true-up for energy costs and machinery and plant on the enhancement spend.
Mm.
So there's additional protection there on our TotEx spend.
And as you say, energy's got to true up. And the last point I was gonna make is it's been a pretty unique five years. So on TotEx, if you look at the last five years, to end up with broadly a 1%, 1%, 1% overspend... God, that was tricky.
Mm-hmm.
On a basis of a Ukraine situation, a COVID situation, a supply chain situation, but also we've lent into a topic that has been immense, which is spills, and we have spent more of our own money leaning into spills to get ourselves in a much better position for the future. That is a pretty unique five years, I would say. Doesn't mean there won't always be new risks, but I guess new risks are manageable, you assume. There's also always new upsides at some stage. You can't see them today, but they'll arrive. So I think that hopefully gives you a sense. Does that give you an answer to your question, Paul?
... No, it does, and, no, that's helpful, and in fact, Shane preempted my next question, 'cause I was gonna ask you about those elements. But because I thought they were helpful reductions in the risk for the business, and obviously they linked it to the return conversation as well. But do you think there's anything more they could do there? Like, do you think that's part of the conversation? Because I thought that was quite a helpful change to the, like, like Shane said, around the reduction of risk. Obviously, they linked it to the return as well, which-
Yeah
... would be good if they didn't do that. But are there, are there further steps they could take, do you think?
They've taken another... To be fair, they've taken another couple. So they've given us an uncertainty mechanism on if sludge to land-
Yeah
... becomes a route to market problem, which was the biggest uncertainty we faced as a sector as well. So that's not probably something that you guys would've noted. It's like a sub-level detail in the text, but I suppose at the moment, that was one of the sector risks that everyone was agitated about. They've given us an uncertainty mechanism there. That's fair. So I think there are probably other subtle ones that are probably quite geeky, but we look at and say are fair. So,
Yes. So probably two to call out. So they've stepped into asset health for the first time in a big way, so giving companies enhanced expenditure for mains renewal. I'd say the second point was how they're funding growth. So previously it's been quite opaque, but I think for the first time there's a clear process for funding, expanding your treatment works and your network capacity for new housing developments and commercial developments. So I think we're in a very positive direction in that aspect as well.
Thank you. Very helpful.
Very good. So I've got no more questions coming through on the iPad. I'll just have a quick check. No more hands have gone up. So... Oh, not at all. Yu Tao. There we go. Snuck in. Brilliant. How are you? Yu Tao, can you hear me?
Hi.
Oh, there you are. We good.
Sorry, I was on, I was on mute. Yeah, just one quick question from me. If problems at Thames Water causes a credit contagion and the spiking spreads for all of the water companies, will Ofwat be obliged to intervene to make the sector financeable?
So couple of things here, I suppose. So one is, and one of the reasons that Ofwat have said that they will re-look at the actual cost of debt, is we have seen cost of debt increase in the last year. So we know that will play in between now and the final determination, and we'll also get a chance to have a look at that as to whether anything does occur over the next few months as well, and that would all play into Ofwat's decision-making around that. So that's the process between now and then, is to monitor that and to see. Once you're live in the price review, then you have protections at the end of it where they look at stuff later on, but it's basically the iBoxx, isn't it, right?
Yeah.
So you're linked to the iBoxx-
Yeah
... and you've got protections linked to the iBoxx.
Yeah.
So that's, that's how the process works. Now, typically as well, though, when you have seen individual moments, like specific moments, you know, it's why we've made sure that we've got very, very good debt now, very good liquidity, and that you would just keep yourself out of the market for a while if you thought that prices were unreasonably high for a period of time. And don't forget, we saw this straight after the Liz Truss budget. So straight after Liz and Kwasi had their go at PM and Chancellor, you know, we did see some fallout from that for a few months, and we just kept ourselves out of the market. Other people did have to go into the market and do stuff. We just made sure that we are always ready for the unexpected.
Ironically, even with a situation like that, it does calm down quicker than you might think, as we saw exactly then.
Mm
... with the Liz and Kwasi budget situation.
Mm.
Within a matter of two or three months, we saw the peak come through, and we saw it wave through.
Mm. We've consistently said that, one of the benefits of having one of the lowest gearing in the sector is that it means we have choice about when we do go to the market. So, we can take our opportunities at the best time, and that's what we will always seek to do.
Good.
Okay, thank-
Ace! So I'm just gonna give one last check, see if anybody suddenly appears. In which case, a massive thank you for you guys for getting up so early in Australia to dial in. Otherwise, we'd have felt very lonely if we'd sat here, the three of us, thinking, "Where's our friends in Australia?" And we look forward to speaking to lots of you over the next couple of weeks anyway, and thank you for your continued support. And with that, good evening.
Thank you very much.