Welcome to Ferguson's Full Year Results Presentation for 2019. As you know, it's rare for me to be accorded a speaking part on these occasions, but the executive management have decided to risk it on this occasion. Firstly, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to Geoff Drabble, who is in the audience today. Geoff will take over the reins from me in November as Chairman. I'm sure Geoff needs no introduction and he joins Ferguson following 12 years as the Chief Executive of Ashtead. He's been one of the most successful CEOs in the FTSE in recent years and his record of value creation has been simply outstanding. He brings a wealth of experience in the distribution, technology and manufacturing sectors, particularly in the United States. And I've no doubt he will be a wise counsel for our executive team and will lead the Board with great skill and personality. For those who don't know Geoff is a Newcastle supporter, but despite that he is well-known for his cheery disposition. Secondly, as we announced in September this will also be John Martin's final set of results at Ferguson. John joined the Board as Chief Financial Officer in 2010 before being appointed Group Chief Executive in 2016. Now during his time with us, the Group has been significantly simplified, exiting less attractive markets, and focusing resources on those markets where the company is best equipped to win. John, who has brought great strategic clarity to Ferguson and he leaves the business in very good shape. John's numbers for his tenure at the company are particularly impressive. He has turned in 37 quarters of revenue growth, a 9 consecutive years of trading profit growth for the Group. Total shareholder return during his time at Ferguson has been a very impressive…

Gareth, thank you very much indeed for those very kind words, and good morning everybody. Welcome to the presentation of our results for the 31 July. I got Mike and I presenting this morning. We are also joined as Gareth mentioned by Geoff, who is taking over from Gareth, the AGM as Chairman. Now as you know I’m handing over to Kevin Murphy in November. Kevin is joining Mike and I for the roadshow. He couldn’t be here today because of prior commitments, but he is joining us on the whole of the roadshow. So shareholders will have plenty of opportunity to hear from the whole of our team about why we are so enthusiastic about the opportunities for Ferguson in the years ahead. 2019 has been an extraordinary year for the company. I’d like to share some of the highlights. Firstly, as you can see on the chart, it is our 9th consecutive year of growth with sales up nearly 8%. And it's also the 9th consecutive year of gross margin expansion, up another 10 basis points. It's worth reflecting that if our gross margins today were at the same level that they were back 10 years ago, our profits would be $500 million less than they are. It's also the 9th year of trading profit growth, perhaps surprising when you think of all the businesses that we sold over that period, up another 7.5% and also the 9th year of EPS growth, up 16%. The markets weakened over this year, but I'm very proud that we continue to take market share. We took prompt and decisive action to control our costs and I'm very proud about how Kevin and the team got about this. The cost base today is in very good shape as we go into the new year. We invested over $600 million of the cash that we generated on some great acquisition, helping to improve further our market positions. Own brand, which we will come to a little bit later has also been a strategic focus that now represents 8.6% of group sales in the second half, but the economics are about twice as important due to stronger gross margins. We’ve also concluded on the future of Wolseley in the U.K., which will be demerged as an independent company listed in London. It was another great year of cash generation with a record $1.6 billion of cash from operations contributing to further expansion as you can see from the chart in our return on capital employed. We returned another $600 million to shareholders by dividends and buybacks and that strong cash position has enabled us to increase the dividend by a further 10% this year. So those are the highlights. And now over to Mike for the financials.

Morning. I’m pleased obviously to present the Group's full-year results, which show we've had a strong finish to the financial year. Revenue growth for the Group clearly driven by our U.S organic business, but a good decent contribution from bolt-on acquisitions through the year. Ongoing trading profit $1.6 billion, over a $100 million was 7.5% in constant currency with headline EPS up 16.4%. As you'll see later, cash generation has been excellent again this year and the balance sheet is in great shape at 7x levered at the end of the year. And we’ve recommended a final dividend to be increased by 10%, which reflects our ongoing confidence in the business. Moving on to the revenue and trading profit growth. What I've done here for the overall Group is I have expanded the first chart to expand the revenue growth of the 7.1% and the profit growth of 7.2%. You can see the organic profit growth of 5.3% exceeding the top line revenue growth and that’s due to good gross margin performance and tight cost control. There's also a significant contribution from acquisitions, and it's pleasing to see the effort put in by the teams to bring these businesses into the Ferguson family. The profit for the acquisitions shown here is after $14 million of integration costs. Organic revenue growth in the U.S did moderate in the second half, albeit again some tough comparators. We continue to take market share, something John will come back to later. Inflation has been running about 2% to 3% across all of our businesses through the year. In the U.K., on a like-for-like basis broadly flat and Canada showed some declines into the second half of the year. So moving on to the business results and first and foremost our largest region, the U.S.,…

Thank you very much, Mike. I will start today with a couple of comments about how the markets have developed during the year. The growth of the market is most clear from the supplier data that we’ve referred to in our press releases this year, which show that overall U.S growth slow from about 6% in the first half as you can see there on the chart through to about 1% in the second half. As we’ve done for several years, we grew faster than the markets and continued to gain market share. Again, as can see on the chart in each sector outperforming the markets by just over 3%. This chart from Zelman shows how the market for all building products, that’s building products going into new resi, into home improvement and also commercial construction has moved over time. Our markets across represent a subset of that market, but this data also suggest that the market for overall building materials has been growing over the last six months by about 1% or 2%, and that's the backdrop of the market that we’ve been operating in. I think as Mike said, the results that we’ve produced in this environment really confirm the strength both of the operational management in our business and also the attractions of our service driven business model. Now one of the key strategies of the Group is to ensure that we constantly maintain and improve the efficiency of our operating model. That's important for two fundamental reasons. Firstly, we need to make sure that both the services and the product availability that we provide to our customers is the very best in the industry. And that we provide our associates with the tools to fulfill that promise to our customers. And secondly, we want to maintain…

Hi. Good morning. Elodie Rall from JP Morgan. Thank you for these. I’ve a couple of questions, if I may. First of all, can you come back on to slide 25 on the cost flexibility and give us a bit of color of how much additional cost flexibility you see in the business? Should we see a little bit more pressure on the top line in the U.S., in particular? Second, how is the acquisition pipeline shaping up? Is it still as strong as usual or we seeing any headwinds from, I don’t know, higher valuation or anything? And lastly, I know you touched a bit on that, but if you could give us a bit more color about the feedback that you got from shareholders on the listing options? Thanks.

Okay. Thank you. Well given its that the cost is a forward statement, I will not let John commit us to anything forward.

There is lot more to do.

I think you’ve seen from what we’ve done, let me just roll back, I’m very pleased with what we’ve delivered in the second half. It is very easy to sit here when the business has been growing at 10% a year and say when tough times come you’re going to reduce your cost base. That’s what this guy use to do, okay? I’m very pleased that actually we’ve at least showing that we’ve got after that in a quarter, okay? Which is only a quarter and we need to keep on that case. That’s why we’ve just launched the voluntary early retirement program to keep making sure that we get the cost base right for the top line, but also provide succession for our future management, so get the real growth characteristics of the business locked in for the future. So I think we will always stay cognizant of it. I’m very pleased, we’ve actually shown we can do it, because actually it’s the first test of the business in truth in a low growth environment for years, okay. So we thought we could do it. We’ve actually just shown we can do it. We need to keep on doing it. Labor is 60% of our cost base. So it is actually about labor, but it's also about protecting the opportunity for the upside when the upside comes. So I come from a manufacturing background were all about costs. The great strength of Ferguson is taking those growth opportunities when they come. So it is a balancing act, okay? So we will get after the cost base. There are clearly opportunities, but it is in labor and it is labor that get you to growth when the growth comes. So Kevin and the team are very close to that as I am, and there's always a bit of ying and yang around cost out versus future growth, that will continue. And I think that’s a healthy tension for us to continue, but we will keep absolutely on top of the cost base. Now we’ve got to a good place, we will keep on top of that cost base, okay? In terms of acquisition pipeline, absolutely normal. That means nothing, because of course acquisitions come and go. We look at a number of acquisitions. I would say most of the acquisitions we are looking at would fall into a normal pipeline. That guidance will over the years, John, that's normally average around $200 million, $250 million. If you wanted a number, it's not that number, but it's likely to be wrong because, of course, I'll either look, it will likely be not a lot or it will be more. But it's mostly normal at the moment. There is nothing abnormal about our pipeline. We continue to work it hard.

Yes, and Elodie, look, on the shareholders -- because we talked to about two thirds of the shareholders representing about two thirds of the shares of the company, which is about 35. Shareholders, I would say this has been a wide range of view. So far, we've posted sort of three or four questions, carefully scripted questions, same questions to that group of shareholders and heard back from them. And I think now we need to reflect on that, but all -- and be informed that in our work because I think next time that we go into sort of a more sort of structured consultation with shareholder -- shareholders have said they would like the company to set out the costs and benefits. One thing that is clear is not all shareholders have got a very clear view of actually what the options are, what they would mean, what they mean for the company vis-a-vis what they mean to shareholders. And then the other point that I would say that there isn't a single -- there isnt going to be a single shareholder view of what the right way forward is for the company. There's a wide range of views and some of them are not going to be reconcilable, but the Board need to. And I think the encouragement Mike and we spoke to shareholders is pretty much everybody has said do the right thing. I think that's great guidance for the company and for the Board.

Hello. I’ve got the mike. So I will go for it. Arnaud Lehmann, Bank of America. A couple of questions. Firstly for you, John, I guess we knew the direction of travel for Ferguson would be to have you as -- sitting as CEO in the medium-term, but I guess everybody was slightly surprised that the move can probably faster than expected. So could you maybe give us a bit of color around what happened at Board level or at shareholder level that accelerated the change considering you’re still extremely young and he's done a -- as you related, you’ve done a good job.

I’m good looking. So thank you, Arnaud.

Precisely. That too, absolutely. My second question is on the decision to demerge the U.K. Again, can you give us a bit of color. Is it was it a business that maybe you wanted to sell and you couldn’t find the right buyer? And I guess related to that, do you believe it as critical size to be a standalone entity, and would you consider a combination with another U.K player either in merchanting or heating and plumbing in order to make it a more visible assets once its demerged? Thank you.

Let me take the first one. Let me take the second one, first on the demerger, Arnaud, if I may. Look, the business has -- we haven't have the business for sale. We said we are going to demerge it. That’s we intend to do is to follow through on the demerger. We absolutely think it's got critical size. It's 1.7 billion sterling business and made 54 million trading profit last year. So clearly the EBITDA numbers sort of north of that. And so, yes, we do think it got the -- it got critical size. It's a cash generative business. It's got a good -- it's got decent assets. There is no reason the business shouldn't do well as a standalone business in our view. The combination, I got to say we’ve looked over the years at almost every possible -- every conceivable combination of the business with another and that hasn't worked so fine. It has a good future as an independent business. Slightly strangely, this summer, we did find one small acquisition. It's a nice little transaction, but it's small. It isnt going to change the structure of the industry, it just strengthens our business. So that's the background on the demerger. Look, with regards to -- with regard to me sort of moving on to carry, I don’t see -- I see the timing as being absolutely logical. I saw that, the Board saw that, this was the most neutral -- when we are a 100% North American. So I'm delighted to be handing over -- truly delighted to be handing over to Kevin. I sponsored him and appointed him two years ago to the position that he is currently in. He has done a great job. He is a strong, smart energetic leader of the business that felt entirely appropriate. What wouldn't have felt appropriate is for me to have relocated to the U.S that would clearly have left sort of two people with CEO on their cards. That just wouldn't have felt right. So now felt like a good time from my perspective and I think that was something which the Board entirely agreed, all right.

Will Kevin be based in the U.K or he is moving to …?

No, he is in Virginia, yes.

Thank you.

Good morning. Suhasini from Goldman Sachs. Just a couple of questions, please. Can you please clarify how the trading has been post full-year close, August-September. Has it been consistent with the trends that you’ve seen in the second half of the year? And second one by when can we get an update on the potential new listing structure? Will it by year-end, in a month's time? Thank you.

Thanks. I think trading since year-end nothing unusual. So I think if you look, we haven't given specific monthly data that doesn't really help, but if I said to you it is bang in line with our budget. So no dramatic trends there. Look, on the listing we just need -- you saw the things on this charts. One of the things it's been interesting, Mike, as we've dug into this, there isn't whole heaps of precedents. There was Invesco in …

2007.

… 2007, that's delisted and relisted, fine. We need to sort of work through that, but that is just a lot of detailed work to do. And I think we've been surprised as we've dug in. There aren't thousands of professionals who know exactly how to do this assessment and what the options are and so it just needs to be worked through. So it is going to take us a number of months to work through that work, okay?

Thanks. Aynsley Lammin from Canaccord. Just three, please. First of all, just wonder if you could comment on the kind of market backdrop in the U.S. Is it still -- not easy, but is it still achievable from the market share gains with decent gross margins or is it being more competitive given the flat markets? Secondly, just on the end markets, may be a bit more color if you break down the kind of private non-resi side, any change in trends within those categories, and similarly just comment on the resi. And then thirdly, just on the U.K comments you just made on track with your budgets, but have you seen any further deterioration, a bit more fragility in the U.K market given the kind of political backdrop? Thanks.

Let me take the U.K first and then I will let John pickup on the U.S. I think, listen, I mean it's pretty early in the year still, so I don't think we've seen dramatic shift in the U.K. It's clearly not gotten any easier. But Mark and the team there are doing a good job around making sure we got the right product set that are offering to customer and that right service capability as John has touched on, making sure that we are absolutely attractive to the customers. But the market remains pretty challenging in the U.K., but I don't think we've seen a significant shift in the last couple of months any different than we’ve seen in the last 12 probably.

Yes, look, I mean the end markets, the competition, I wouldn't say there's a step change or even a very clear trend in the competitivity of the markets. And it is interesting if you went back over several years, competitive intensity it can become more intensive on a local basis at some point, that’s usually -- its usually is sort of a pinpointed reason, specific competitors in a specific local market. And as you know we don't have any national competition in the core -- in the core, for example, residential building market. We don't have national players. We are competing its local players. So I don’t think we’ve seen anything sort of more intense on competition. And it is interesting looking through the cycle even if you went all the way back to the last downturn, our strategy was to hold our gross margin. And I think that served us well, because it's quite difficult to rebuild gross margin if you let it go, particularly when you've got distributed the responsibility for pricing. So I think that's very important for us culturally to maintain the gross margins as we touched on in the presentation. In terms of end markets, if you look at new -- I will go through new resi improvements existing and then sort of commercial just very quickly. The new resi market actually over the summer months has been a little bit more positive news there, permits and starts up little bit over summer and completions. And new home prices are up about 2%. New residential revenue, if you go to Zelman is something that’s also up about 2% over the last sort of 2 or 3 months. Home improvement, again revenues look flat to low growth. I think the Zelman data is sort of between…

Ami Galla from Citi. Just a couple of question for me. The first one on trading in the U.S again. I was wondering if you could give us some color what sort of visibility do you have from the order book? And is there any differential trends that you’re seeing in large contract work over the last six months? My second question is on the own brand, and as you progress on this journey, I was wondering if you can talk a bit about the sort of experience or the feedback that you’ve had from customers? Are there any product categories where you would have an intension of significantly increasing your penetration of own brand? Is that a possibility? And my third question really was on ecommerce penetration. Just wondering if you could give us some color so how has that progressed, and across your submarkets -- sub segments to an extent.

Yes. Thank you. Look, the order book is just over $2 billion. So it's not that significant given -- it's not that significant, but it does give us some sort of directional feel for what's happening. And directional movements in it are they do correlate reasonably well to growth or slowing growth or even we have contraption. There are no significant trends in large contract work particularly over recent months, with one exception in industrial there is less large project work in industrial. Now it's not that big for us sort of 7% or 8% -- 8% to 9% of the business, it's a bit less large and industrial tends to be, particularly if they’re building new facilities that can tend to be larger scale work. It has been a bit less than that and you saw I think in our industrial growth rate, industrial grew in the first half at 30%. In the second half it was down at single digits, low single-digit growth. That's fine. We know, we make good margins in both of those places, but that really strong growth back at the end of '18 and into the first half of last year was boosted by a couple of large contract, that's the only area it's made a difference. Own brand, look, I mean now we are -- we got a really good dedicated team on own brand looking consistently at what are the next categories that we should be looking at. Firstly, customer feedback is excellent. It just gives more choice. We really care about going all the way back through the supply chain, which we own. We own the design, we own the procurement, so we got QA people out in -- out in low-cost countries making sure that these products are properly manufactured…

John messenger from Redburn. And its two to Mike and two to John, please. Mike, can I just ask on the U.K the -- to give us an idea of what we should think about in the shape going forward? The annual leasing cost that sits in the U.K, if we get a rough idea of what that is relative to the 54 of EBIT, and your view on the cash or that you’re going to move across or what will likely be required in terms of the financing structure for the U.K business? Second one was just on and this is playing a bit devil's advocate, but $62 million as a redundancy charge figure is like 4% of last year's EBIT. What is the justification for treating it as exceptional and that I could argue that its next year's operational gearing kind of being neutralized and you taking it early. So just to understand why that should be treated as exceptional in investors' eyes. Third one was for John. You mentioned Blackman didn't happen five years ago. And it's sort of portfolio the only chance we will have to ask yourself and Gareth to understand what changed over that 5-year period? Was it your confidence about what you could get out of it, was it the price, was it the change of ownership at Blackman, because it obviously went into the kind of trust structure, what was the kind of changing dynamic there? And final one, just coming back to this whole shape of the U.K like-for-like -- sorry the U.S like-for-like, obviously you flagged 13% was the industrial kind of boost first half of last year, down to zero in the second half. Is that one of the biggest ingredients so when we are thinking about the shape of 2020? Is it a first half no industrial that annualized in the second half? Guess, what I’m getting to is, is it 2% half one for half to you have to get 3% for the year, that’s a broad kind of feel as to what you would be looking for this year in the U.S? Thank you.

Excellent. Well, thank you for allocating the questions today. Of course, our jobs are more easier. Listen, on the U.K., I’m going to duck that question totally because we are working through all the details on the U.K with all the advisors. So we will give all the details on the U.K at the appropriate time, in terms if we need to obviously define the exact parameters of the demerger, it's easy for us to sit here. I think U.K there's clearly we need to make sure that we understand the parameter and give the right financial information out at the right time. So we'll do that in due course. And I loved your accounting question on why is it exceptional? The very simple answer is we have accounting policies, which are stated and clear. It is by size and by nature defined in our accounting policies, that's -- those are the rules we follow. Those are the rules we set out. And under those rules, a $62 million charge by size and actually by nature, falls into the exceptional category. I think the good news is at least we’ve disclosed it very clearly, so investors can quite rough. I was trying to figure a better phrase, but listen, it's clearly disclosed. It is a big number, but I think it's absolutely the right I think you use the word operational leverage, John, absolutely. It is to get our cost base in the right space and grow that young talent to come through the Ferguson organization. So it is absolutely in my view a great investment, shareholder funds albeit separately disclosed. I will grant you that.

Yes. Just on that exceptional, do you know it is interesting thing. It's the first exceptional item in Ferguson Enterprises for 10 years. Every other exceptional that I had the misfortune to have prior to Mike when I did his job, every other one was somewhere else in the group. And I think to Mike's point, we absolutely encourage the team. And I think Kevin and team have done a great job on this to look at is there anything that we should do now to position the business well. And I think to Mike's point where it goes -- fine, it's cash, all right. We all agree. It's cash and it's -- and it goes through. It can't be distributed to shareholders. It's cash, but it was an important thing for us because I think the net headcount reduction as a result is 500 people. So it's absolutely worth doing. Blackman, what changed? The owner died. U.S like-for-likes, the -- I wouldn't get carried away with the industrial. Industrial bit doesn't make that much difference. I think the shape of the year, it's easy to look back and think well last year we had sort of a 9% plus growth in the first half and 3%-ish in the second and therefore the comps will get easier. The comps will mathematically get easier, but I still don’t know what’s going to happen to the growth rate. So I think our budgets are more balanced than that. So, yes, I mean, it would be lovely to think there is going to be better growth in the second half, but it is too early in the year for us to get visibility on that at the moment, John.

Robert Eason from Goodbody's. It's kind of more follow-up questions. And just in terms of what you are thinking about the cost base in the U.S., just to help us if you -- if you could see the chart, I think at the presentation where you benchmarked against like-for-like growth clearly all the work is coming true in Q4 that annualizes. Is it simply that you’re just trying to offset underlying cost inflation in this slower growth environment? How are you thinking about it or is it more than that you want to take out in terms of the cost base, so just a bit more thinking around that. And as the growth have slowed in the U.S., and the challenging markets in the U.K., are you seeing any change in behavior either by yourselves or your competitors in the use of working capital in terms of getting that volume in? And how more watchful or -- I’m sure, you always are watchful, but how much is bad debts changing or materializing in the business is materializing in one area, large contractors versus small contractors, just a general kind of conversation around bad debts?

Sure. So little more on the cost base. The cost base as I say, it's easy to sit here to do the financial modeling. We will get the cost base, we've talked about the bottom line growth being at least as good as the top line growth, okay? We do need to be careful because we're getting into small numbers. So that maths starts to work against you and therefore don’t come at me in any quarter. As I’ve always said, we don't run the business by quarter or by year-end periods. But what is important philosophically is in a very low growth environment you can deliver a better bottom line growth than your top line, that is really, really important. There aren't actually any -- back to our -- simple folk like me and, you said, yourself. There's only a couple of ways to doing that. One is gross margin and the other one is costs, okay? So we must get our cost base aligned for the market environment that we existed. It sounds obvious, okay? But you’ve seen most of the coverage this morning has got growth 2.5%, 3% for our top line. And therefore we need to make sure our cost base is managed accordingly. That's what we set out to do. Clearly, back to your earlier question, if the markets continue to come off as they did in the rather large recession, we will act accordingly. And are we planning to do that today, we've got a plan, but we're not executing that plan. We expect our markets to grow as we’ve set out today and therefore we set out our path to growth in that. I think the other thing to grow as always balanced is if we will -- I generally as the FD…

Yes. And then with regard to the U.S in working capital position, there is no change at all in our vigilance or the customers behavior or competitors behavior in the market. I mean just to give a sense of and we are very good managing credit. Very good. If you think about the million customers that we have to manage for trade credit, our total charge in the U.S last year was $10 million on $18 billion. So our total credit losses were $10 million on $18 billion in the U.S with no change from the year before when it was also $10 million on a slightly lower top line, okay? Paul?

Morning. It's Paul Checketts from Barclays Capital. [Indiscernible] with that, please. And then the second is you’ve also got a new slide on shared infrastructure. Conceptually, how significant would the dissynergies be if you are to separate out any of your verticals? Thanks.

Yes. Distribution centers we set out a few years ago that we got sort of 11 distribution centers, which are therefore replenishment of branches across the U.S. We have no plans for more distribution centers. The market distribution centers are there for final mile fulfillment as and they may also be used to replenishment of local branches. That’s the area where we will see investments over time. The strategy is to move to those. Most of those will be consolidation facilities in specific markets. I think last year we talked about Denver, for example, which is the consolidation of four sites. There's another one at the moment which is Phoenix, which is a consolidation of three sites, but they are more in the normal. They will be in the normal course of business. If we’ve got growth, then we'll absolutely be adding capacity, but it will be proportionate to that growth, Paul. So it doesn’t -- and all the numbers are within mike's CapEx guidance. So that’s -- and that will just happen now I think over quite frankly many years on an incremental basis. The shared infrastructure, look, I think with regard to blended branches, I think that the phrase blended branches is sort of it does what it says on the 10. If you are an HVAC customer you can come into a blended branch and get a range of products. And so to me the issue isn't a question of separation. The issue is really this. If you have a contractor who does some plumbing and some HVAC, you want to go into a branch and get all your products, can you come to Ferguson. So we’re never going to stop. Never. Doesn’t matter any management change, any Board change, we are never going to stop selling…

Yes.

Thank you. Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Three questions, with many things answered already. But just on the headcount reduction on U.S., could you just be clear all that happened in the fourth quarter there is nothing kind of still coming into the first, because I see in the slide that I think your headcount on sort of year-over-year basis organic was done 250 or something like that. That’s question number one. Question two, on the U.K. And again in the fourth quarter it looks you had a pretty -- I’m not radioactive or anything like that, but there was a pretty significant kick up in operating margin, so I want to understand what happened there and whether you think that’s a sustainable performance? And then maybe wrapping up your guidance, I think in your statement this morning you’re talking about good progress on I guess operating profit or trading profit. Is your thinking that that is a similar -- was last year good or was last year better than good, I guess? And then, finally, on the U.S listing, obviously this has been something that you've considered and we’ve talked about this in this kind of forum, I think, for certainly a number of years. Historically, what has been this key area of that kind of box chart that you gave us in the presentation that held you back from doing this. So what was kind of -- if you had or maybe if you pick out sort of 1 to 3 items that you really saw were negative and therefore you stayed with the status quo, what were those? All right, I’m going to give this back.

Yes. Can I just get your first question again? By whilst I’m doing that. Just so I’m clear on your headcount question.

[Indiscernible].

Okay. I think the question on the headcount was, was it all done in the fourth quarter? The actions that we talk at the half year were completed. The voluntary early retirement program that we talked about was initiated in July, that will work through by the end of Q1. So no for the second one. Yes, for the first one. Your question on guidance was did we think this year was a good year and further progress into this year? Just help me clarify your question.

I think that was in the U.K.

So the -- that’s fine. The -- I think in your text you're talking about another year of good progress. I think consensus is like 2%. In my mind that’s not particularly good. Last year you did 7%. I guess the question is to get a little bit more essence what the level of growth you think you can achieve? I guess, there's a few technical items and maybe you want to go through those that are tailwind on operating profit.

Yes. Well, look, I mean I think if you look at consensus at the moment, there's 3% or 4% revenue growth at consensus. I think it's important for us if we get 3% or 4% revenue growth and Mike touched on our ability to be able to generate profit growth in a lower growth environment, I think that's important and that's what we should expect of ourselves. If we get top line growth, then we should -- and I know we are talking about smaller numbers, but we should still be making progress at the bottom line. And if the markets are relatively flat, we should be taking market share, that's what we expect of ourselves, we've doing that for some time, we should carry on doing it. So that’s I think our sort of view of making progress. If we’ve got a market at the moment, which is 1% or 2%, flat to 1% to 2% depending on whether it's resi, whether it's commercial, whatever. And we can take a little bit of share. We can do a little bit better than that and make sure that we get that down to the bottom line. That is what is reflected today in our budgets in our plan.

On the U.K., I think your question on U.K was, it was the quarterly performance sort of -- do you roll that forward? I've always said we should look at the -- all businesses sort of over a period of time. I think we set for the U.K as you think next year versus this year, the markets are flat probably at best in the U.K. I think some competitors would say they’re getting worse today. Mark and the team clearly continuing to take internal actions, but I wouldn't expect heroics out of the U.K business. We have got small acquisition. So I think we will see some progress in the U.K., but it wouldn’t be a market I would be too overexcited about in terms of the numbers getting ahead of themselves right now. We’ve been through pretty tough years, pretty tough market, good management team, good progress. I would say sort of more slow and steady rather than revolutionary in the U.K. Gregor, your question on listing and how we looked at this historically? I think there were a couple of things historically. And of course, we were busy back then as well. I think at the time we looked at listing, we were absolutely -- we were pretty clear and it was certainly pretty strongly advised that any change to the listing structure in any case was not achievable. That’s the first thing historically. Okay? And also there have been changes to the technology that change the question about, for example dual listing. Now of course over time, our -- the proportion of our income coming from North America has just inexorably risen. And actually as it happens because Mark has worn out a lot of shoe leather in North America and we've become more U.S owned as well. So I think those are the things that’s -- that has sort of moved over time, Gregor.

Thank you.

Clyde Lewis at Peel Hunt. I’ve got two, if I may. Maybe I’ve missed it, but have you mentioned anywhere how you performed in the MRO business in the U.S? I mean, obviously it's tucked away in various of those divisions, but we didn’t seem to get an update as to how Ferguson is performing in the end market. And the second one I had was on share gains. John, you referred to it just then, but Ferguson is very consistently for as long as I can remember, grown in share in virtually all of its markets very consistently. But the reason for those share gains, I’m sure have evolved and we will continue to evolve, but as you are leaving there or and as you’re looking forward, and obviously Mike and Kevin and Geoff's challenge going forward, how -- I suppose do you think that share sort of story is going to evolve? What are the big challenges there for the biggest group? Is it still a service? Is it still product availability? Is it still the geographical infill that has completed the map? I mean you’re not there yet, There's still opportunities there, but just sort of hear your, I suppose, views as you sort of step out of the door, what really are the challenges on that front in particular?