We now move on to our next presenter, Philippine Seven Corporation. Presenting for the company is Mr. Lawrence De Leon, Head of Finance and Investor Relations, and Ms. Almarie De Leon, Finance Team Lead. Moderating the session is Ella Marie Lamonsito, CBC. Before we begin, please turn your attention to the screen for a short video about the company.
[Presentation]
Thank you very much, Mika. A very pleasant afternoon to everybody. Thank you for joining the call. We shall be presenting the financial results of SEVN for the second quarter of 2026. 7-Eleven in the Philippines, it's part of a global brand with more than 84,000 stores worldwide. We are happy to share that the Philippine licensee, which is us, we're the sixth largest among 20 countries, and the second fastest licensee when it comes to store- count growth, behind CP ALL, which operates 7-Eleven in Thailand. The biggest licensee remains to be Japan, which is the parent company of the U.S., which has 12,500 stores. South Korea has 11,000. Our parent company, President Chain Store, operate more than 7,300 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan. We are growing fast, around 9%-10% clip per year. Our leadership team is also globally recognized.
Our current President, Richard Lee, receiving the award from SEVN and I, as we were recognized in 2019 for recording the highest same-store sales growth. The photo in the middle, you can see our current Chairman of the Board, Mr. Victor Paterno. He was elected as the global chairman of the U.S.-based National Association of Convenience Stores, or NACS. He ended his term last year but remains to be active in the organization as part of its executive committee.
PepsiCo and NACS also endowed Mr. Paterno as the Industry Leader of the Year award in 2019. We also marked the first year of the leadership transition in PSC. Our previous Chairman of the Board, Mr. Jose Pardo, announced his retirement July of 2025, and he now serves as the Chair Emeritus of PSC. Our previous President, Victor Paterno, is now the Chairman of the Board.
The new President, Mr. Richard Lee, started his term also in July of 2025. Mr. Lee has been with the company since 2010, so he knows the local market very well. Here are some information about our stock. We are part of the MidCap Index of the PSE for the second straight year. The MidCap Index as of August 3, 2026, includes SEVN as part of the MidCap Index. When it comes to the shareholding structure, majority of the outstanding capital stock of the company is owned by President Chain Store, Labuan Holdings, with 57%. Other foreign funds on the aggregate own 18% of the company, while the founding families, led by the family of Mr. Paterno, owns 8%, Asian Holdings 6%, Agus Development 3%, and Progressive Development at 2%. While the rest are owned by local shareholders.
Last week, we returned cash dividends to shareholders, which corresponds to PHP 1 .1 0 per share. This is commensurate to 46% of the prior year's net income, and this totaled to PHP 1.66 billion. We are planning to maintain a payout ratio of 40%-50% of previous year's net income as dividends to shareholders. Going to the current retail landscape, the Philippines remain to be dominated by the mom-and-pop, the traditional stores, which account for more than 40% of retail sales by FMCG companies. This is followed by the big formats or the supermarket with more than 37%. CVS, on the other hand, accounted for around 4% of the total retail landscape in the Philippines. We consider this sector to be underpenetrated, and this gives us more opportunity to grow our footprint all over the Philippines.
As we ended the first half of 2026, we had 4,650 stores. We opened 182 new stores for the first six months of the year, more than half of which are located in the Visayas and Mindanao regions. This keeps us on track of meeting a new milestone of ending 2026 with more than 5,000 stores in our portfolio. We are spending around PHP 5.5 billion to open more than 500 new stores in the Philippines, and at the same time, expand our lead compared with other formats, which we still consider to be an indirect competition with SEVN. These are the mini-marts and the hard discounters. We know that the market is ripe and the organization is ready, both financially as well as operationally, to fulfill or execute our market development plan.
Last July 11, which was a 7-Eleven day, we opened seven new stores in new territories in Zamboanga City, in the western part of Mindanao. Five out of the seven are owned stores, and the other two are operated by franchisees. This allowed us to expand our footprint in Mindanao. Mindanao is an underserved market, and we are very encouraged with the sales performance of the new stores. It surpassed the average sales of a new store by 3x - 4x , despite having the nearest DC for supply very far from Zamboanga. We are now in the process of putting up a new DC in Zamboanga Peninsula to ensure a stable supply for our 7-Eleven stores in those locations. Some of our proprietary brands, we have our freshly brewed coffee program, we call it City Cafe.
This contributes around 2%-3% of our sales. It is mostly hot coffee, but recently we rolled out chilled coffee beverage by launching ice cups in our stores. We continuously innovate, and we listen to the voice of the customers. That is why we also tied up with other products, such as Mister Donut, which is shown in the photo. We continuously innovate the brand by putting in improvised caramel and hazelnut syrups. Crunch Time, you saw in the advertisement earlier, Crunch Time is now present in around 3,000 7-Eleven stores. These are served by satellite kitchens. We now have around 30 satellite kitchens all over the Philippines. It serves around 50 stores within a 30-minute bike ride.
For those stores wherein the demand are late at night, especially those in the BPO clusters, the stores have their own instant fryers so that they can offer Crunch Time fried chicken to their customers. We also have Slurpee frozen carbonated beverage. We innovate a lot when it comes to ready-to-eat meals, not only on rice meals, but also on hot dog. We have a new product line on burritos as well as snack food items, and a newly launched product, Sushi Bake. There is a lot of store promotions. July 11, we had a 7-Eleven day. This is a venue for both us and the suppliers to increase their sales to customers. That is why we partner a lot with our vendors.
Due to the high inflation environment, we have a lot of payday sale, price markdowns, and a lot of combo meals to add value to our customers through the various store promotions that we are doing in our stores. For the second quarter, financial performance of the company, same-store sales growth rose at a very healthy level of more than 7%. This allowed us to grow systemwide sales to more than 16% to PHP 29.7 billion.
This accounts for sales of all store types, both corporate and franchise. Operating revenue likewise went up 15% to PHP 28.6 billion. Operating income, on the other hand, rose 7.6% to PHP 1.89 billion during the second quarter, while net income rose modestly 3.3% to PHP 1.22 billion. Second quarter is usually a strong quarter for SEVN, as we usually cross the PHP 1 billion net income mark during the said quarter.
As I mentioned, same-store sales growth was very robust at 7.8%. This was driven mainly by the 5% increase in customer traffic. Around 2% came from higher basket size during the quarter, despite the high inflation environment. We were able to add a net addition of 75 stores in our portfolio, bringing our total to more than 150 already year-to-date when it comes to new store additions. Breaking down the growth in same-store sales per location, the 7.8% was mostly driven by the very strong performance in our Metro Manila stores, double-digit 12% growth in Metro Manila in the second quarter, reversing the contraction in second quarter of 2025 of - 4%.
This is followed by a strong 7.5% growth in the rest of Luzon, while for Visayas and Mindanao, this went up by 4.3% and 5% respectively when it comes to same-store sales growth. In other words, the sales of stores age 12 months and up. We attribute the growth mainly to the rollout of the card payment terminals, increasing the share of our digital payments over total sales. We also think that sales of Metro Manila as well as rest of Luzon outperform VisMin because of the high fuel prices since people traveled nearer because of high gasoline prices during the second quarter. The rebound, we sustained the momentum in Q1. If you will recall, we grew 4.4% in Q1, then 7.8% in Q2, bringing the YTD growth to more than 5.5% SSSG.
This allowed us to increase operating revenue by 15.4% to PHP 28.6 billion. The main drivers are higher customer traffic supported by the continued rollout of card payment terminals, as we've also seen a favorable busier effect from tobacco sales, as well as the reduction in payment switch downtime that allowed us to increase commission income as well in Q2. We were able to migrate into a new payment switch third quarter of last year, and this improved uptime a lot at a lower cost for the company. Operating income went up 7.6%, which is faster growth rate compared to net income, owing to the increase in interest expense from lease liabilities. For financial reporting purposes, we capitalize leases on our balance sheet. We depreciate the right of use asset, and an accretion of interest also occurred on lease liabilities.
We see this situation increasing moving forward, not only because of the rising interest, but also because we're aggressively expanding, and most of the locations are leased from third-party property owners. Some pressure on margin was brought about by the increase in logistics and utility cost, especially the cost of generating power. Electricity is one of the highest expense components for our stores, accounting for around 7%-8% of total sales for electricity. The cost of generating power is up 20% year- on- year. That's why you can imagine the impact to store-level profitability. There are also some pressures from logistics costs since most of the trucks that deliver, there's more than 1,000 trucks that deliver from our DCs going to our stores, so they consume a lot of diesel fuel.
The good thing, since we are increasing our volume a lot, we were able to negotiate with our suppliers to subsidize a portion of the distribution cost so that the impact to operating income will be tempered. The interest drag, which is a non-cash expense, arising from lease liabilities, went up 38%. This ate a lot of operating income. That is why the growth in net income came in at a modest 3.3% compared with the 7.6% improvement in operating income.
For the first half, systemwide sales went up 15.1% to more than PHP 55 billion. This is an all-time high. Operating revenue, on the other hand, went up almost 15% to PHP 53.5 billion. Operating income went up almost 8% to PHP 2.99 billion, while net income stood at PHP 1.84 billion, corresponding to a 3.8% increase year- on- year.
We already covered 98% of our stores for the card payment terminal deployment. We now have 4,482 stores. Card sales contribute 8.5%, customer account 4.5%, since the average basket for customers paying via card is 2x compared to cash-paying customers. If you will combine with other digital payment options like the scan-to-pay, digital payments now account for more than 12% of our total sales. We hope that we can cover 100% of our stores, including the franchisees, at the start of the fourth quarter so that sales increase will further improve. This is the breakdown of the product mix. Food service, which includes ready-to-eat rice meals, sandwiches, and other snack food items, contribute 20% of total revenues. Cup drinks, which is mostly City Cafe. Slurpee as well as Gulp is also part of the 3% contribution.
Tobacco, including the alternative cigarettes products, contribute 11%. Alcoholic beverage, 9%. Non-alcoholic beverage, 1/4 of total sales. The very good performance in cigarettes and non-alcoholic beverage driven by card payments also contributed to the increase in SSSG. 55% of our stores are owned by the company, while the other 45% are operated by third-party franchisees. When it comes to sales contribution by location, Metro Manila stores account for 28%, rest of Luzon 41%, and Visayas and Mindanao accounting for 18% and 13% respectively. In terms of stores by cluster, 40% are located in residential, followed by transit stores with 24%, offices at 10%, school at 12%, and commercial at 9%. Around 2% of our stores are located in tourist destinations.
Some of the plans to mitigate the impact of higher fuel prices, we are now in the process of switching our stores under the retail aggregation program to ensure more stable supply and at the same time generate some savings when it comes to the process of procuring power from renewable energy suppliers. For the income statement highlights as well as the balance sheet and the cash flow, I will now turn over to our Finance Team Lead, Ms. Almarie De Leon, for her discussion. Almarie.
Thank you, Sir Lawrence. For the first half of merchandise sales, grew 15.8% to PHP 48.81 billion, up 16.6% in Q2, lifting total gross profit to PHP 18.42 billion, or 15.1% via better product mix. General and administrative expenses rose 17.6% to PHP 15.59 billion, driven by network expansion, higher utility rates, mid-year wage adjustments, and fuel-driven logistic costs. First half net income reached PHP 1.84 billion, or 3.8%, and Q2 hit PHP 1.22 billion, or 3.3%, absorbing a 30.5% increase in net interest expense from store lease liabilities.
Q2 operating margin is eased 6.6% versus 7.1% in Q2 2025, and net margin to 4.2% versus 4.7% due to rising utility logistics and expansion G&A costs. EBITDA margin held firm at 11.8% in Q2 2026 versus 12.2% in Q2 2025, confirming core cash generation remains structurally sound. The trailing ROE adjusted to 30.8% in Q2 2026 versus 42.7% in Q2 2025, reflecting a 16.5% larger equity base reinvested into store expansion. Stockholders' equity grew 19.8% year-over-year to PHP 13.01 billion, with earnings reinvested directly into store network and logistics expansion. Cash dropped to PHP 7.19 billion as free cash flow swung to a PHP 1.49 billion deficit, driven by a 28.4% CapEx surge for 182 store openings and strategic inventory forward buying. That ends our presentation. Thank you.
At this point, we now open the floor for questions from the participants.
Okay. Thank you for that clear run-through of how Philippine Seven performed in the first half of the year. I am Ella from China Bank, and I will be moderating today's Q&A session. I would also like to acknowledge Sir Lawrence De Leon, who is the Head of Finance and Investor Relations, as well as Ms. Almarie De Leon, who will be joining us to take on questions. With that, let me open the session with a high-level question before we get into detail. Lawrence, you have just walked us through the first half where sales grew at a double-digit pace while net income grew modestly. Looking beyond the headline figures, what do you see as the one or two things that will shape 7-Eleven's trajectory over the coming years?
Well, it will be mostly the growth of our store footprint. We have a market development plan that we are implementing. This is not only focusing on a certain location. This also focuses on other unserved markets, such as the towns and cities in the Visayas and Mindanao. This is just not about the store itself. You need to have the supply lines to support expansion. Currently, we now have 28 distribution centers, not only in Luzon but also in the Visayas and Mindanao, to support our continued push towards those territories. Because you can have the best location, but you don't have the supply lines, that will always result to out- of-stock situation and will further depress sales. We invested a lot in our logistics capability.
I think this is the primary advantage of 7-Eleven compared with the other formats, since they are now only expanding in VisMin, while us, we jumped to the Visayas in 2012 and slowly expanded our footprint. This is our market development plan execution. On product development, you can see a lot of new and exciting ready-to-eat offerings for 7-Eleven. City Cafe, for example, cup drinks. We have the ready-to-eat rice meals. We have these co-branding alliances with the casual- dining restaurants to increase the quality of our food service offering. The two, market development as well as product development. That's the areas we are looking at.
Okay. Thank you for that, Lawrence. Let's touch on the same-store sales growth, which was one of the highlights of your presentation since you mentioned that it was in its all-time high. 7-Eleven has showed a strong turnaround in the first half, led by the Metro Manila stores, correct? Now, the question is whether that momentum has carried into the current quarter. I believe we're also getting this question from the audience. How is same-store sales growth trending in the third quarter?
We're still okay with July. We were able to maintain the momentum. That was also strengthened by the annual 7-Eleven day. We had a lot of customers July 11. However, our sales are very sensitive with bad weather conditions, especially the past two weeks. Very rainy. You can see same-store sales drop as much as 20% on a very rainy day. You can imagine the effect. We got affected a lot by the monsoon rains during the past two weeks.
But the good thing, you can see our stores are clustered quite evenly. If there's school suspension or if there's a work suspension, you can see some recovery in residential clusters since it's kind of diversified when it comes to location. But still, that's not enough to make growth positive. We are still figuring out ways on how to promote other categories, which we think will do well on a rainy weather so that it can help lift same-store sales growth.
Okay. In relation to that, Lawrence, you added a net of more than 150 stores in the first half and reaffirmed the goal of reaching 5,000 before year-end. That leaves quite a good number still to open in a short window. Can you walk us through how many stores is SEVN targeting to open this year, and where will these be located? As you've mentioned, you are expanding your footprint.
Yeah, that is right. We opened 180. In the opening pipeline, we have around 300 more stores in the various stages of construction. That will allow us to meet our objective of doing more than 500 new store additions this year. The bottleneck remains to be permitting. We are dealing with a lot of local government units. We are regulated at the local level, not at the national level. That remains to be a bottleneck.
At the same time, the electrical capacity of a 7-Eleven store is different. We are also waiting for the distribution utilities to install the necessary power capacity for a store to open. But that is a lot of new stores in the pipeline. That is why, if you will notice on the cash flow, we funded. That is why it affected our free cash flow since we need to fund those stores under construction.
Building out that many stores is quite capital-intensive. I would just like to get a clear picture of the spending and how it is being financed. What is SEVN's on- total CapEx budget for the year, and how will it be funded?
We are projecting up to PHP 5.5 billion in total CapEx for this year. Up to 80% would go to new store opening. We are also renovating 100 older stores once we secure lease renewal to keep the stores fresher and better looking to serve the trade area where they are located. It is mostly funded internally. We are generating a lot of cash, especially on operating cash flows. We convert inventories into cash in around 40 days.
Our payment term would be around 50 days. We use that gap to finance our expansion. Although at the start of the Middle East crisis, we anticipated supply chain disruption. That is why we did forward- buying exercises, more than PHP 1 billion. That is three months' worth of supply so that we can protect against any disruption in suppliers' fulfillment. That also created a strain in our free cash flow. That is why Almarie showed a negative growth in our free cash flow. But we think that this is temporary. We also funded dividends to shareholders corresponding to a 46% payout last Friday, and most of which came from our internal cash. Moving forward, our expansion will remain to be supported by internal funds.
Okay. Thank you for that. In your presentation earlier, Lawrence, you highlighted that card terminals now reach almost the entire network and that digital payments already make up more than a tenth of sales. It is worth understanding where it goes from here, most especially now that both Google Pay and Apple Pay go live in the Philippines. Can you further elaborate as to how many stores are now accepting e-wallets and card payments? How would you describe the company's progress on digital payments adoption across the store network?
Well, it was a very fast implementation. We started in October. Now, after nine months, we are at 98%. More than half of the transactions would be through QR code, still via QR, since the digital adoption remains to be high for us. It is mostly QR payments, but there is also a lot of card payments, both debit and credit. We are actually surprised that a lot of foreign tourists buy a lot since we can see the international card that they are using, but not the card number, of course, based on the data. That will allow us to benefit from the data- mining aspect also of modifying our offering for the tourist cluster.
It is growing very fast. It is a not-so-difficult implementation since the terminal is not directly linked to our POS, but we were able to execute anyways and reduce customer complaints. Because last year, we received a lot of backlash from customers that were not offering cashless payment options. But now, we are happy that we almost covered most of the stores, 98%. By fourth quarter, we will be deploying a second terminal because now there is only one terminal per store. There is still a very long queue in one POS terminal. Once we deploy another one, it can make things more efficient and hopefully can lift sales further.
Okay. That is good to hear, sir. Almost half of your stores are now owned, as you mentioned, and run by franchisees. They are contributing a growing share of the company's profit. From a prospective franchisee's point of view, is franchising a 7-Eleven store a good investment? How long is the typical payback period?
Well, it depends on the location. A typical franchisee invests around PHP 4 million- PHP 5 million to get one store. It did not increase the franchise fee that we are charging, part of that PHP 4 million- PHP 5 million. It is PHP 600,000 one-time franchise fee. It is only the construction cost since part of the building cost is the franchisee's investment. I think most, if not all, are happy with what they are getting, especially if you go to a franchise exposition.
The 7-Eleven booth always gets recognized for the top crowd draw. Because we were able to establish a very good track record in supporting the franchisees operationally, not only on the stable supply with the DC infrastructure that we have, but with the operations support. Our operations team, it is a very big team. One area manager goes to a franchise store at least once a week to provide support to franchisees. We were able to do a very good track record. That makes 7-Eleven franchise a very attractive and a very financially viable for prospective franchise investors.
Okay. All right. That's a great insight to keep in mind. Over the years, 7-Eleven has weathered its fair share of competition. With more store formats entering the market, we want to understand what continues to protect the company's position. Are mini-marts and hard discounters a threat to SEVN, and what do you see as the company's key competitive advantages?
Yeah. We consider them as indirect competition. The majority shareholder, the parent company, wants to treat them as classmates. We learn from them. They learn from us. But it remains to be indirect. If a hard discounter format, a new one, opens beside an existing 7-Eleven, the impact to our sales is not significant. And normally, it goes back after a few months. Since their offering is totally different, they're more on deferred consumption.
You need to take it home. While 7-Eleven's key strength would be immediate consumption. If you're hungry, if you're thirsty, go to 7-Eleven. We have a wide assortment of chilled beverages. The ice cup, for example, created a lot of affinity, not just for coffee, but also for energy drinks with ice. The ready-to-eat rice meals, the branding partnership with the casual dining restaurants. These remain to be a major advantage that differentiates SEVN with the other formats.
Okay. You've pointed to 7-Eleven's ready-to-eat food and beverages as the main core points, right? That leads naturally to how you sustain that quality and how much of it draws on the expertise of SEVN. How does SEVN ensure the quality of its ready-to-eat products and coffee? To what extent does it benefit from technology transfer from its parent company?
Well, there's a lot. I can consider that as another advantage since the parent company operates more than 7,000 stores in a more advanced market. They are very specific when it comes to food quality and food safety. That's why there's a lot of technology transfer from the commissary where the ready-to-eat products are prepared up to the store level. They always make it a point that stores, including franchisees, always adhere to the high-quality standards set by 7-Eleven because it's the brand reputation that we really need to protect.
There's a lot of innovation as well. The Bake Sushi , for example. We launched that. Then the partnership with Korean restaurants to take advantage of the popularity of Korean products. We partnered with Romantic Baboy for samgyupsal and bibimbap. It created a lot of traffic as well as increasing the image of 7-Eleven that it only not caters to general merchandise, but also for higher-quality ready-to-eat food.
Okay. You recently signed a supply agreement with ACEN Renewable Energy Solutions to power roughly a third of your network with renewable energy under the retail aggregation program. Beyond that sustainability angle, should investors expect this deal to translate into meaningful electricity cost savings in the second half? How does it factor into your cost management strategy going forward?
Yeah, that's right. Aside from the ESG aspect, we shall also be benefiting from lower electricity costs, especially now. It ate up a lot of our operating income. We wish it was done much earlier, but we only signed a second quarter. Currently, we are around 20% of stores with the switching process. There is an issue with the availability of the digital meters, by the way, that hinders full transition. Hopefully, by Q4, we can start seeing the benefit of the lower cost of procuring power this time directly from ACEN.
Okay. Thank you for that. We have a question here in the Q&A box. How long does it typically take for new stores in the pipeline to start operations?
Well, at least six months from the time we sign the contract, so we construct the store. Then again, the key bottleneck would be the permitting as well as the energization. So around six months. That is why the opening pipeline is quite important so that it can support the opening of 500 new stores this year. We secured them in the second quarter. Hopefully, it can be open November and December of this year.
Okay. There is also a question on product categories. How did the sales mix change from the end of the first half last year? What is the growth rate for specific product categories within the first half of this year?
Well, it's mostly cigarettes. That's one because of the low base effect. We had a supply issue, especially for the vape products. They need to comply with the fiscal marking requirements of the government. They need to pull out. Shelves were restocked. Sales improved, especially for the alternative tobacco. The traditional tobacco, it's also stable. Non-alcoholic beverage also helped to lift sales in second quarter. There's a lot of new product launches as well, new brand activations. Those two. Crunch Time, we're increasing the coverage for fried chicken. We're also building new satellite kitchens to serve Crunch Time products to stores.
Okay. Just a follow-up question on that. On the days of inventory outstanding, do you have any guidance on the second half figure for this year?
Yeah. The uptick came from stores because the DC inventory level is stable less than 30 days. It's really because of the forward buying. We need to ensure that there's no supply chain disruption. That's why we did the forward buying and increased the DC inventory. I think that will be fine. But if you look at the DC payable outstanding, it went shorter because we also took advantage of early- payment discounts. That contributed also to operating margin from payment discounts.
Okay. Another question that we have here is that the investors noticed that the dividends are consistently attractive. However, in the list of the top 100 shareholders, almost 40% is held only by about three or four entities. How does 7-Eleven plan to have wider shareholder base?
Yeah, that is right. Since most of our shareholders, their horizon is very long-term because they view 7-Eleven's potential in Philippines. They look at the experience of other 7-Eleven operators in emerging markets, like Thailand, for example. Imagine the GDP per capita of Thailand compared to Philippines. It is about 2.5 x. But when it comes to store count, they are more than 4 x compared to us. They can really see the potential over the long term for Philippines' 7-Eleven that someday, with our strong operating fundamentals and with the continued growth in the Philippine economy, we can open more stores over the next 10 years. They are not looking at a horizon of five years. They are looking at a horizon longer than that.
Okay. I guess we have one more room for one more question. One question here says that, "Can you update us on the latest situation regarding the commission fee rate you received from GCash? Will there be any revisions?" Sorry, your—
Yeah, that is right. Well, nothing changed really on the cash in since we are receiving a lot of cash in from their customers since they can see the advantages for 7-Eleven. 24/7, high uptime, well-lighted, well-secured locations. There are no changes there. It just so happened their volume is not growing that much due to several factors. Our revenue share remained to be the same.
We are looking at other growth areas aside from the cash in. The motorbike riders, for example, of the aggregators. They are remitting their collections for the day in SEVN. That is an added revenue stream. We are streamlining revenue sharing by also going direct. That is one way of eliminating or reducing cost. Since we think cash- in business, it could be on a maturing stage already as what we have seen in our stores. It is not growing that much.
Mainly because also of the growing financial inclusion. Especially with the reduction in fees for InstaPay. We are looking at added revenue source. But to answer the question, there is no change even until now.
Okay. All right. Thank you for that, Lawrence. In as much as we would like to take on all of the questions, this is all the time that we have. Thank you again, Lawrence, for engaging with the questions so openly, and to Almarie as well, and to all of the investors for being here with us virtually this afternoon. Now, giving back the floor to Mika to continue on with the rest of the presentation. Thank you and good afternoon.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you to the Philippine Seven Corporation team and to Ella for moderating the—