Camellia (LSE:CAM) — Half Year Results for the six months ended 30 June 2025

0:01 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CAMELLIA PLC Half Year Results Investor Presentation. At any time via the q and a tab that's just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and we'll publish our responses where it's appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet company platform. Before we begin, we would just like to

0:32 submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the team from CAMELLIA PLC. Byron, good morning, sir. Good morning, and thank you thank you all for joining us today. We'll be shortly playing a a prerecorded presentation, and

0:54 that that will be available on our website going forward. The before I think we we kick off, perhaps it might be useful for us to introduce ourselves. I'm Byron Coombs, CEO of CAMELLIA for the last two years or so.

1:10 Most of my career has been in in financial services, banking, investment management, financial markets. In the six years prior to joining CAMELLIA, I held a portfolio career, and, you know, part of that portfolio career involved, being investment director at CAMELLIA. I'm joined here today by, Oliver Capon and Graham McLean, and perhaps they can introduce themselves. Oliver? Good morning. Good afternoon. My name is Oliver Capon. I joined CAMELLIA just over a year ago at last year's AGM.

1:52 Prior to that, I spent twenty six years at Shell in a number of roles across the world in The UK, US, Netherlands, and Australia, including being CFO of the group's global chemical business as well as the group's businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Graham? Good morning. Good afternoon. My name is Graham McClain. I'm the director of agriculture for CAMELLIA. I've been immersed in agriculture in Africa for forty five years, covering tea, macadamia and avocado operations, both man and boy. I joined the group in 1992 and spent twenty two years working in the Africa operations, where I became the Regional Director for Africa.

2:39 I've been involved in the global operations for the last eleven years and have been working very closely with the MDs of all of those operations. Thank you. And I think at this point, we can hand back and begin the presentation, and then we'll open up afterwards for a live Q and A.

3:05 Good morning, and, welcome to the CAMELLIA first half twenty twenty five business update. Thank you for joining us and taking an interest in our company. I'm joined here today by Oliver Capon, CAMELLIA's CFO, and Graham McLean, CAMELLIA's director of agriculture. This is the first business update since we presented our value enhancement plan or VEP on the May 19 this year. Our goal today is to give you an update on CAMELLIA's business performance and outline some of the early actions we are taking to progress the value enhancement plan.

3:45 These are the usual disclaimers, and I encourage you to review them. Over the next three slides, I'll provide a brief outline of CAMELLIA's business. For those of you who'd like to understand our business a little better, there is more information in the original VEP, full details of which are available on the CAMELLIA website and in our 2024 annual report.

4:16 CAMELLIA has been around a number of in a number of guises for over a hundred years. It's now beginning the next phase of its life focusing on large large scale agriculture and associated services in emerging market economies.

4:31 The production of tea is the largest and most historic part of our business. CAMELLIA has a strong commitment to social and environmental sustainability. Indeed, sustainability is a core element of the company's purpose and essential to maintaining its license to operate. CAMELLIA has financial interest in 10 operating companies ranging from full ownership to a small majority. Of the 10 investments, eight are large scale agricultural businesses located across Asia, East And South Africa, and Brazil. In addition to tea, we also produce avocados and macadamias in Africa, and our Brazilian business is a large scale herbal farm.

5:24 The other two investments are both UK businesses, an Aberdeen based engineering business and a London based luxury packet tea business. In May of this year, the board of CAMELLIA announced its VEP, a medium term plan designed to improve returns to all stakeholders. The VEP comprises three elements, improving operating results, reducing business risk, and investing in growth. We believe there is considerable untapped potential in our core businesses and that our noncore assets can be sold and the proceeds deployed to achieve higher returns.

6:12 Some of the changes we propose to implement can be done quickly, such as the sale of some of The UK real estate, but other changes such as the diversification of crops and investment in growth will take more time. I'd like to make clear that we have a sense of urgency here in the business, but we also recognize that realizing the best value for shareholders and stakeholders may take a little patience. With that as an introduction, let me hand over to Oliver to review twenty twenty five's first half financial performance. Thank you, Byron. The trading performance for the first half showed a margin improvement on the same period last year. Due to the cyclicality of the crops, where the costs are relatively constant through the year and the sales are heavily weighted to the latter part of the year as the crops are harvested and sold.

7:08 With our current crop portfolio, the company expects to make a trading loss in the first half and then be profitable in the second half of the year. We've increased investments in the year, primarily in Brazil and in Tanzania, as we'll hear later. As we communicated in our BEP, we expect our inorganic and organic growth capital to increase over time to 15 to £25,000,000.

7:35 The net cash position remains very strong even after the 18,900,000 shareholder distributions in the first half of the year. This is on the back of further sales of property and disposals of items from the collections.

7:52 As I said earlier, the trading performance was marginally improved on 2024. The key drivers for this were Malawi, which has seen improved profits over the period from a better macadamia crop, which is up 61%, and improved pricing, which is up 33%, along with new revenues and profits from a new revenue stream supplying fertilizer in country. Brazil had a very successful 2025 so far with soy production up 27% year on year and success with other arable crops. Both Bangladesh and India are performing in line with 2024, but face headwinds in the industry from oversupply, particularly in smallholders and increasing costs.

8:38 In EPK, our Kenyan tea business, harvest this year reverted back to more normal levels after last year's high, and selling prices are lower due to current oversupply of tea in the country.

8:53 In Kikusi, our Canadian avocado and macadamia business. At the end of June, avocado prices were down significantly against 2024 due to oversupply from Peru, impacting crop valuations at the half year stage. It is expected that this will recover over the second half as the Peruvian supply declines. This has impacted results as evaluation of the immature crop is based on the selling prices at the end of June. In the other businesses, both AJT and Jing have shown increasing revenues, and AJT has increased its profit, and Jing has delivered a reduction in its losses.

9:36 Below trading loss, the consolidated results show a profit of 2,500,000 from the sale of the Chelsea Tea Estate, investment properties in The UK and India, and assets from the collections. The total proceeds from these sales was £10,500,000. The noncore assets continue to disposed off in an orderly manner.

9:59 The company holds US dollar reserves to fund future investments, and we incurred losses on this as sterling strength against against the dollar during the period. The h $121.25 loss after tax has improved versus last year due to higher income from the cash deposits and reduction in taxes over the period, particularly in Kenya.

10:21 The net assets of the company reduced by 45,000,000 over the period. This is made up of distributions to shareholders and operating losses along with other comprehensive losses of 11,700,000, primarily from the revaluation of the overseas subsidiaries balance sheets with sterling strengthening against most of the functional currencies of the group. I'll now hand it hand over to Graham. Thank you, Oliver. I would now like to share with you the progress we have made with our value enhancement plan objectives. Improving CAMELLIA's results has been the core focus of the operations in recent months. Development of the VEP has been designed to create shareholder value through improved efficiency, productivity, and profitability.

11:10 We are pleased to report that progress is underway on several enhancement projects across our core businesses. In Brazil, a new winter cropping initiative has been established. 200 hectares of land under irrigation pivots has been leased to a contractor for potato production. The objectives of this are threefold. Firstly, to provide fee income from land with minimal risk,

11:38 to enhance soil fertility and yield prospects of future arable crops, and lastly, to improve crop rotation through the introduction of a new crop.

11:50 In the tea gardens in India and Bangladesh, mechanized harvesting is being introduced to augment traditional methods of blucking. The rollout must be managed very carefully and the balance struck between employment and cost savings.

12:06 Over time, mechanization will deliver both productivity and efficiency. Bangladesh now has the benefit of a second processing line and increased automation in its Langma factory, more than doubling its capacity and greatly improving efficiency. Two other factories have also received investment to expand capacity.

12:30 A recent initiative in Malawi to introduce a fertilizer supply contract has provided a diversified source of income and profit for the business, which is proving successful. In addition to operational improvements, we have two newly appointed MDs, both of whom have been with the company for some time, Mustafiz Raman in Bangladesh and Shival Dutt in India.

12:59 These young executives are the next generation of tea business leaders. They bring with them a wealth of industry experience and a raft of new ideas. In South Africa, a reorganization of senior management has reduced overheads and resulted in the closure of the regional office in Zanin after fifty two years. These actions will contribute to a leaner, more cost efficient structure going forward.

13:31 Risk mitigation and business diversification are components of the VEP that are being implemented across all businesses. In Brazil, water security is a critical factor in the long term sustainability and success of the business. Significant investment in the renovation of water reservoirs, one of which accounts for almost 50% of the total available resource, has been made on the farm. A redundant reservoir has been brought back into operation to enhance the farm's water availability.

14:07 Brazil has also invested in five new irrigation pivots covering an area of 200 hectares, bringing the total irrigated area to 2,440 hectares. Two further pivots are expected to be introduced this year.

14:24 Water reservoir construction continues in Tanzania, where the earthworks on a 1,000,000 cubic meter dam are making good progress.

14:34 In respect of diversification, cropping trials are underway on the tea gardens in India to reduce the company's exposure to monocropping. The growing of crops such as garlic, ginger, and palm oil are under trial, and the conversion of historic garden bungalows into tourist accommodation in Darjeeling are now integral to India's diversification initiative.

14:59 The sale of two garden two tea gardens in The Duars has been concluded, thereby reducing the company's exposure to marginal estates. Businesses are investing in new technology to improve productivity and efficiency and to reduce both cost and risk. CAMCOOZY has introduced drones to reduce security foot patrols. A single drone can replace up to 25 guards. The use of these drones not only enhances the safety of personnel, but provides highly effective twenty four hour security with far greater coverage. This technology is being considered elsewhere. CAMPUSY is also exploring the use of drones to assist in the management of avocado orchard health, a technology that can provide advanced warning of any canopy health issues, thereby reducing the risk of declining yields.

15:56 Facial recognition technology as a means of employee identification and registration of work has been introduced in Kenya, India, and Bangladesh. This technology improves employee safety and counters the risk of fraud.

16:12 Renewable energy investments continue globally. A large solar power project is underway in Nandy Hills, Kenya that will provide power to Chimomi tea factory, one of the largest among the operations. Such investments decrease exposure to rising electricity costs while reducing carbon emissions.

16:35 Investment in growth is a key component of the VEP and has been a principal focus this year.

16:43 Increasing the revenue generating capability of the farm in Brazil continues. A total of 720 hectares of land under commercial forestry has been repurposed for arable crop production, 230 of which have been already converted this year. Arable crops provide an annual income compared to that of commercial forestry, which only generates income once every ten to fifteen years. By the end of twenty twenty five, East Africa will have over 500 hectares, of which a 150 have been planted this year, of immature Hass Orchard. These will mature over the next three years. Meanwhile, there are currently nearly 500 hectares of immature Macadamia orchards across the Africa operations.

17:33 These investments and expansion of productive cash generative crops will yield significant volumes in the coming years with the associated contributions to growth in revenue and profits. In Aberdeen, AJT, our engineering business, is making a considerable investment in a new lay, which will enable the business to significantly increase revenue generation in the coming years. These are early days for the value enhancement plan, but as you can see, we are working hard to implement change and deliver shareholder value. Momentum continues to build as we advance technology, infrastructure, and talent. Let me now hand over to Byron to provide a summary of our first half progress.

18:25 Thank you, Graham. As we draw this presentation to a close, there are three points I'd like to leave you with. Firstly, in broad terms, CAMELLIA is suffering from the oversupply of tea around the world and the consequent weakness in prices. We're taking action where we can to reduce our cost of production and are constantly calibrating our processes to achieve an optimal balance of quantity and quality. On a more positive note, the three year slump in macadamia pricing seems to be in an end, and the pricing of avocados is currently within our target expectations. And year to date, arable crop pricing is in line with anticipated levels. While a degree of uncertainty remains for the rest of the year, we believe 2025 will see improved financial results on 2024.

19:15 Secondly, our operating company management have been been examining all aspects of their businesses, looking for opportunities to improve operational efficiency, asset utilization, and risk mitigation. Some of these actions are being implemented quickly, while others will take time to execute and show through to the bottom line. For example, our investments in water supply and irrigation equipment have an immediate impact on crop yields and are critical to sustaining the revenues during periods of drought, while investment in generators and solar power improve operational efficiency and quality of production during grid outages. Operating companies are also examining the efficiency of the assets used within their businesses and are developing plans to improve their returns.

20:05 For example, our India businesses are sold two tea gardens and a non core property in 2025. And here in The UK, we have sold more of our collections and nonoperating assets. This program of change will continue through 2026 and through 2027. Finally, we're working hard to invest carefully in business growth. We're already benefiting from prior year's investment in land improvement and crop planting and have existing immature avocado and macadamia orchards, which will deliver higher yields in the years ahead. Importantly, we are continuing to plant new crops on existing land, the benefits which of which will show through to revenues in the period through 2030.

20:56 We've also begun repurposing some of our land to focus on crops which generate higher and faster returns and offer revenue diversification. Lastly, we continue to explore new investment opportunities to deliver both short term and longer term growth while also diversifying existing business risks. Thank you for listening to our presentation and taking an interest in CAMELLIA. Perfect, guys. That's great. And if I may, just jump back in there before we move into the q and a. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that have been submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the public's q and a, can all be accessed via your investor dashboard.

21:50 Guys, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions, and thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But Oliver, this point, sir, if I may hand over to you just to share the Q and A with the team. And if I pick up from you at the end, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you very much. I will be reading all the questions verbatim. We'll try to get through as many as we can, and any that we don't get to, we'll be answering on the website later on. So the first question is around the tender offer. The company has a very large net cash cash position. You talk about further acquisitions, yet the company record is extremely poor in this regard. At the same time, company shares are trading at deep discounts to the intrinsic value. The open goal of further buybacks is gaping before you.

22:35 Will you not do the obvious and buy back a significant number of shares? I'll answer that one. As you know, we undertook the tender offer this year, and we think that was a very successful process that we went through. We've been quite explicit that we're not contemplating another tender offer at this moment. We've stated the key elements of the VEP are maintaining the strong balance sheet, paying the dividends, and investment for growth. We think that'll put the company in a better position going forward. The next question is around the pricing of the tender offer. Why was the recent tender priced at such a huge discount to book value, and who was it intended to benefit? The pricing of the tender offer was debated very, very deeply at the board, and we had to go and price it so that it didn't benefit any one particular shareholder. It was for that benefit of the shareholders as a whole.

23:31 It was priced at a premium, the six three months volume weighted average price, so almost a 17% premium, and we think that's a more important number to look at than the net asset value. Basically, we had to make sure we were fair to all shareholders, knowing that some shareholders were not gonna participate and some shareholders were gonna participate, and that's why we ended up on that prize. Next question around management compensation and share ownership. I see that the senior management have been party to amounts of personal shareholdings at the end of last year. I'm also aware that recently the MD of Saga directed his board to personally purchase and accumulate from their own finances over the next few years and continue to own over a minimum set period a multiple of their salary income in company shares as a requirement to remain part of the executive incentive package.

24:27 Is this something that you your company would also seriously consider an action as a formal policy of ensuring management commitment? As a shareholder, I would like to encourage you to look at this and certainly makes director remuneration in stroke incentive packages more palatable. Know, first of all the board does discuss these matters. You know, the recent developments on the QCA code are encouraging us to look at these matters. This has been discussed recently. We believe there are a variety of different approaches and that there are arguments for and against substantial share ownership by the directors and so on.

25:14 I think it's unlikely that CAMELLIA is going to go down a route of mandating this. On the other hand, it is an active discussion in the business, and we'll make sure that these questions are fed back to the board so that they can take that into consideration as they move forward. Thank you, Brian. A question for you, Graham, I think. How are you actively managing your assets to ensure their environmental sustainability? That's an excellent question and a topic of great importance to us all. We achieve this really by focusing on two particular but very critical aspects of all the businesses. One is water resilience and the other is carbon emissions.

26:00 Just going back to the water resilience, most of the water that we have on the operations is captured rainwater, which is stored in reservoirs. It is not water that is pumped from the soil aquifer. As we talked about in the VP, we have big investments in dams, particularly this year in Brazil and in Tanzania, but we have in the past, invested heavily in Kenya and in South Africa in our dam infrastructure. We also have very advanced water use technologies, which ensure that our water use is efficient and effective for the crops that we have and that we're growing. We also ensure that all the water that we use to wash down our factories, particularly our tea and macadamia factories, is cleaned through into a natural wetland scheme, which then ultimately filters back into the normal natural water courses.

26:58 On the carbon emission side, very important for environmental sustainability. We are investing, as we've talked about in the VEP, in renewables and solar, for example, in Chamomni factory, that's one example, but there are many others around the group. We also use, in the African tea factories, sustainable biomass to provide heat for the drying of the tea. This is done through the growth of sustainable forestry. And we also use our macadamia shells from the macadamia processing system to provide heat for macadamia drying. So that's a circular system that we have in macadamias as well. And then we also focus heavily on energy efficiency use in our factories.

27:45 This is either through drying of fuels like wood, the use of low energy fans or energy efficient fans and also the use of energy efficient dryers, which is a particularly large area of energy consumption. And lastly, in Brazil, we perform zero till management of the land. That is we do direct drilling. We don't plow the land, And that ensures that we save carbon emissions in terms of diesel use, which is reduced and also the fact that there is no carbon emissions from the turning of the soil. And lastly, on the use of chemicals. We use very heavily managed integrated pest management systems, which involve the use of pheromones and predators, pest predators, which reduces the overall use of pesticides.

28:38 And then we have many, many different ways of of reducing the amount of herbicide that we use on the operation through intro cropping, through the use of citric acid sprays and so on, and that prevents or diminishes the use of our of our herbicides. Thank you. Thank you, Graham. The next question is around the the gilts that we purchased this year. So why is the 20,000,000 of gilts not considered as a liquid asset and should not be considered as a cash equivalent? And we're following accounting rules on that. The asset is held to to maturity, so it's classified as an investment. But obviously, for our own purposes, internally, we we view that as part of our liquidity portfolio that we're managing. So internally, it's viewed as a liquid asset, that's what it is, but for the purpose of accounting, because it's held for sale, we classified as an investment.

29:31 The next question is around what else is included in the purchase of investments in the cash flow of 35,000,000. This is also other investments in term deposits as part of our liquidity portfolio. So it's how we manage the the cash balances to optimize risk and and return. The next question I'll pass to you, Baron, I think. Given the scale of investments, is the management team disappointed by relatively low finance stroke investment income? No. You know, what we are trying to do is to is to provide a balance of risk and return across the portfolio. And, you know, These assets play an important part in that risk balance. We're invested quite heavily in some quite risky parts of the world.

30:24 Having said that, we're constantly trying to increase the return on our assets, and these assets aren't immune to that. So optimizing the return across all of our portfolio and, indeed, all assets in every aspect is a focus of our attention and will remain so. It's a key part of delivering the value enhancement plan. Do wanna go back up to seven? Did you miss that? It's okay. Sorry? Okay. Yep. Sorry. I noticed another question around the collections. I note there is a forthcoming auction of heritage assets with Eastern Auctions Limited. Based on guide prices, what is the expected cash flow even roughly? So we're not going to announce that at this point. The sale of Philately gives is quite a range of potential outcomes.

31:18 But the auction is coming up. It'll take place in November. We've got quite a few stamps for sale, and we'll announce that as we go into the full year results and so on. There are other options planned for next year as well, and we'll take the same approach when we get to those. The next question is around the distribution to shareholders. The question whether the dividend is included in the cash flow. No. It's not. So the dividend is a July item, so the cap that's not included in the cash flow for the first half of the year. The usual question, any update on the sale of Lynch and Park? Byron. Excellent question. So, this one comes up very, very regularly. I think we commented it on it, back in in May and June.

32:05 The original the original Lynton Park comprised quite a lot of assets. It was a large piece of land with a lot of individual residences on it in addition the main house and its surrounding parkland. What we've done is we've broken up that estate into a variety of smaller parcels. Many of those parcels are relatively easily sold. They are good, high quality residences that people with a variety of different price points can look at. The actual the actual and and we're making good progress with those. So we sold a number. I think we've got reasonable degree of confidence that we'll sell quite a few of those through the rest of, you know, this year and and into next year.

32:55 The main house itself and its parkland, that's a more rarefied asset. It's quite unique, and the demand for that is much more limited. We're it's actively being marketed, and, yeah, it we may we may have to be a little patient with that one, and we are happy to be patient with it. We're not going to rush to sell it. We'll we'll take our time and make sure that we get good return for the shareholders. Thank you, Darren. Next question is on the tender offer again. Were the management team disappointed on the outcome of the tender offer, not fully subscribed? Was the price set too low? Could a future action be considered to address the excess cash balance?

33:43 No. And we're actually very happy with the the tender offer and the outcome of it. We think it managed to achieve that the the goals of the tender offer to give liquidity to shareholders who wanted to get out, but price it such that people who wanted to stay were also happy. So we think the balance was right. And as I said before, there's no we're not contemplating a further tender offer. We believe that the, the goals of the VP in particular in terms of shareholder distributions through dividends is the way we'll be going taking this forward. The next question is on, investments. Do the investment the management team have any concerns on the ability to maintain capital discipline in the context of such a large cash balance? This is very much front of mind for both the board and the executive.

34:30 We're in no rush to spend the money. We're very clear we'll invest in good opportunities as we see them and not rush into things. We have a very stringent rigorous investment process, and all these will be reviewed by the board as well. So we we don't worry about that, but it's definitely front of our mind. Next question is on acquisitions. Are the company currently considering any significant acquisitions? If so, what are the key target sectors? I think this question builds a little bit on the on on Oliver's answer to to the last one. You know, we've said in the value enhancement plan that we have roughly 15 to 25,000,000 of growth initiatives per annum as part of our projections over the next several years or so.

35:23 In order to achieve this, there'll probably be some inorganic investments. I think that's quite clear. But most immediately, we're focusing investments within our existing businesses, and there are several that we think will meet the grade. The only thing I can say on external investments is that we've been very clear internally and, I think, to some extent externally, that any external investments will have to fit our strategy of building on our core expertise and utilizing our existing country and crop expertise as well. The board is very vigilant about this, and I think investors should be fairly confident that, you know, we'll have a very disciplined structured approach to any any actions that go down that route.

36:13 Thank you. Graham, I think this is one for you. I'd be grateful if you'd give an update on the blueberry production in Kenya, giving details of intended acreage, profitability, etcetera. We've been as you probably well know, we've been running a 10 hectare commercial trial on blueberries for a number of years now, while we established the ideal cultivars and varieties for kikuzy, which is where the commercial trial is established. It is good to note that we are well progressed on that. We have identified some excellent varieties, and they are performing extremely well. So we are now in a process of considering the future on Blueberries and possible potential expansion.

37:01 We have a question on AJT. Order of magnitude, what is the size of the capital expenditure mentioned for AJT? What is the future strategy of this business? Invest more for growth or defensively to preserve value? So the investment was a sub million pound investment, but still sizable in terms of the balance sheet of AJT. I think it underlines that that we are continuing to invest in h a t. It is a great company, ideally suited in Aberdeen to service both the offshore oil and gas and also the nascent offshore wind industry and does a lot of work in the hydro space in Scotland. So it's a very well positioned industry with great expert business with great expertise for the industry, and we will continue to invest in it carefully to make sure we can maximize value in the company.

37:52 A question on Jing. When do you expect Jing to reach breakeven stage? What is the synergy with the broader businesses? So so Jing is progressing very well, actually. Actually. There's an awful lot of operational improvements that have taken place this year, platform platform building. There's been a lot of work on on developing the customer base, and the revenues have grown very well as as well. So there's a lot of progress being made there. I think we are certainly progressing well to cash flow breakeven. That's certainly on our agenda, we're conscious of needing to get there. And we're working very hard to achieve that. Alongside that, we are making sure also, though, that we build out the brand and the customer base to make it an attractive business going forward.

38:47 For those of you who have any interest in in Macallan whiskey, you might you might have seen most recently over the last week or two, Macallan's launching of of a new member of its Harmony range, which is inspired by Jing's Phoenix Honey Orchard Orchid Tea. So for those of you who do have a chance to see this perhaps in the duty free at airports or what have you, I do encourage you to look for the Macallan Whiskey. And it's part of the brand building that we have and working with some very high profile customers around the world to progress the Jing brand and build out its customer base. Thank you. I have a question on the the Premier recent research notes.

39:35 So it says CAMELLIA's own broker, Premier Liberum, in their research notes, data today writes, notwithstanding the lack of visibility in forecasting agricultural operations, CAMELLIA has given no full year guidance. What is the reason for this lack of visibility, please? So there are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, as I've said earlier, a lot of our profit comes lot of our revenue comes in the second half of the year. We are price takers in the market, and we have no real line of sight on where the prices are going. So we have considerable variability in the second half of year in terms of profitability. And secondly, we have large carryover inventory volumes, particularly in India and Bangladesh, which dependent on pricing in the first quarter of next year. And again, that's very difficult to predict at this time.

40:23 We've given some guidance in terms of where we think the pricing and yields will end up for the year, but those are indicative at this moment in time. As we come through the rest of the year, we'll have better line of sight to that, but it's very difficult to predict full year results at this stage in the year. We have a question on Bangladesh. So I think I'll get that to you, Byron. The company holds £47,000,000 of assets in Bangladesh. Presumably, the operating costs of CAMELLIA's profit and purpose in harmony model are greater than local competitors who may not operate the same standards. Can management provide evidence to demonstrate that customers, which are a 100% domestic for the Bangladesh business, are willing to pay premium prices for the company's tea and rubber to justify the higher cost purpose driven model of the owner?

41:17 If not, then please could management provide some clarity on the prospects of profitability in Bangladesh? Right. That's a very long question. Alright. So where do we start from here? First of all, it's it's true that the the Bangladesh tea market is is very much a domestic market. The tea produced in Bangladesh is sold in Bangladesh. There's very little import into the country and very little export. I think it's also fair to say that Dunkin' Brothers and which is our local brand, operates to high standards of social and environmental care. It's an important part of our business. I think it's also fair to say that there's a certain cost associated with this.

42:04 Pricing has gone up a little bit this year, which has helped us out. And the problem, for the most part, has come through come through a reduced volume of production that we've had in the first third of the year or so. I think that, you know, looking forward, there are still quite a lot of work that can be done to make that business more efficient whilst also retaining a degree of making sure that we we we focus on our on our purpose and values there. Most recently, over the last twelve months or so, certainly for this season, we've introduced about a 100 mechanical harvesting units. I believe the managing director there looks to take that substantially higher next year and the year after.

42:54 And we are trying to manage very carefully the introduction of more efficient technology alongside the care and attention we need to provide to local workers. As many of you will know, Bangladesh at the moment has an interim government. The probable elections will take place, I don't know, first quarter, second quarter of next year. This is obviously an area of, you know, the the the managing a business during that environment is makes decision making a little slower, and we need to to tread carefully as we as we as we manage our business. I think that's probably about as much as I can say at this point. So question on getting a greater visibility of the company. Would you consider a more comprehensive presentation at the operating company and holding level to allow a clearer sum of the parts valuation?

43:50 Value of each component can be obscured in the consolidation, expect especially for higher higher growth but loss making businesses like Jing. Mhmm. So we we changed the segmentation as part of the annual report 2024 showing up each business separately. We think this gives a good clarity on where the where the income comes from across the company. We also disclose the net assets for each business. We think this gives a good opportunity for people to understand the businesses better, but we're happy to have suggestions in terms of further presentations on that. I mean, just adding to that, I would hope that, you know, the decision we took about a year ago to to break the the report and accounts down, you know, company by company, We we hope that that's actually been very helpful to investors. It's in my opinion, it's considerably more transparent than the model that we had before, and it's designed to make sure that investors can see the value inside those companies and appreciate the the work we're doing business by business to improve their their their performance and their profitability.

44:55 And that's time for one last question. There's a question on carbon capture. Can take that, Graham. So have you considered carbon capture projects on your agricultural land, particularly the tea estates? We have. We've been looking at the opportunities for biochar, particularly in the macadamia operation, and that could extend in terms of an application to the likes of tea soil. But in tea itself, again, looking at a biochar operation within our sustainable biomass production is something that we can also consider and has indeed been considered and is something that we're looking at. I think adding to that or building upon that, you know, the full amount of the land that's at our disposal is is one one value, then there's the amount of land that we can actually farm.

45:54 And the the excess land that can't be farmed, we work very hard actually to to build out local local vegetation, to bring in new trees, and so on. So there's quite a lot of work that's done in that regard as well to to take care of the environment in a broader context at the margins of the farmed land. And for us, that's that's really quite a substantial amount of land around the world, and most of the farms have various initiatives going on to to improve the the vegetation, to build out trees and and and riparian forest and so on in the gullies and channels around the farm. Absolutely right. Yeah. Guys, that's great. If I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for being so generous of your time then, addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this morning. And, of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended. But, Byron, perhaps before really now, just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company. If I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that'd be great.

47:04 So I think we've we've covered most of the topics we needed to cover today. I think, really, just to thank you for joining us and for taking an interest in CAMELLIA, and we look forward to updating you again at our at our next point. Thank you very much. Perfect, Byron. That's great. And thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the management team can really better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf the management team of CAMELLIA PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.