Hammering Home: Will the DIY Boom Last?

Susannah: Hello, and welcome to Switch your Money On from Hargreaves Lansdown. I’m Susannah Streeter, I’m the senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. And I’m here with Sarah Coles, our senior personal finance analyst.

Susannah: Well Sarah the sun has been shining intermittently and I’ve been busy gardening, which is very unlike me I have to say, my garden is usually wild, but I splashed out on some handmade wooden planters at the front - they were not cheap. It’s partly because the price of timber has been so volatile. Lumber has rocketed and then dropped back again three times over the past year… I’m thinking rather than flowers, I should have planted some veg in their instead, to make up for how much they cost!

Sarah: I tried tomatoes last year, and ended up with a crop of about five of them, and some very well fed snails. This year I’ll be giving it a miss, partly because my neighbours have started a big renovation project and with all the banging and shouting, my garden isn’t a particularly relaxing place to be right now.

Susannah: And you’re not alone living in the shadow of home improvements, our research has shown that 29% of people spent at least some of their lockdown savings on home improvements, so there have been skips in driveways across the UK for months. But while it has been a boom time for the building and renovation sector, it has had its share of challenges too, and volatility in the price of building materials, adding to supply chain challenges and it has really caused a headache for the construction industry, and the companies that supply materials for the growing army of DIY enthusiasts out there. So, what are the prospects for the sector? That’s the focus of our podcast today, in an episode we are calling Hammering home - will the DIY boom last?

Sarah: So we will be talking to Phil Lidgerton - Managing Director of Building Materials Nationwide. Hi Phil.

Phil: How are you doing Sarah?

Sarah: Very good thank you. I think I'm probably the least likely to be used any of your products, all of us, so apologies for my ignorance.

Phil: Don't worry, I won't hold that against you.

Sarah: We’ll also be talking to Sophie Lund Yates - our lead equity analyst, who’s been looking at which companies have been building up sales following the surge in demand for DIY over the past year and some of the headwinds facing the sector right now.

Susannah: And we’ll hear from Emma Wall, our head of investment analysis and research here at Hargreaves Lansdown who has been talking to Alex Wright, manager of the Fidelity Special Situations Fund.

Susannah: And don’t forget the quiz of course. I’ll be testing our knowledge of decoration trends, taking a bit of inspiration from some of the paint/nails/screws piled up alongside me in the studio broom cupboard - I kid you not. But will you be able to nail these questions, Sarah!

Sarah: The puns are flowing thick and fast today.

Susannah: But first let’s just look at the overall volatility of prices of just some of the raw materials used by the trade and by DIY enthusiasts. Lumber, or wood used for building, for example has been on a rollercoaster ride over the past two years. According to the National Association of Home Builders in the United States, the volatility is at its highest level since records began in 1947 just after the second world war. The monthly change in softwood lumber prices averaged 0.3% between 1947 and 2019, but since January 2020, the monthly change has averaged 12%. That volatility, with prices dropping and rising dramatically, is causing a huge headache for the industry, which has also had to deal with an average price rise in construction materials of almost 16% last year.

Sarah: Yes, and demand for home improvements, using all these materials, has gone through the roof. Research by Ratedpeople found that demand for home improvements had risen 50% in two years. It’s partly because we’re spending an awful lot more time at home than before, so people are doing work to create more space. They’re also after a new look to try to relieve the monotony of being home all the time. This has boosted demand for tradespeople significantly, and a combination of this, plus those increased materials prices, mean refurbishment projects cost 40% more than before the pandemic.

Susannah: This has had all sorts of knock-on effects. Uncertainty over price rises is leading contractors to think twice before entering contracts. Some construction suppliers will only hold tender price quotes for 24 hours due to spiralling price inflation, according to the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) and the Builders Merchants Federation. Both industry groups are also warning of a shift in the balance of demand. Some regions reported a decline in retail sales for DIY and home improvement products, though this was compensated by higher volumes of trade sales. Higher crude and gas prices are also of concern given that it’s an energy intensive sector with expectations that higher prices will be passed on. Plus add into this volatile mix - Covid shutdowns in China. Industry bosses are also worried that the conflict in Ukraine could affect prices of paints and coatings, and possibly their availability, in the coming months.

Sarah: Yes, and you can’t underestimate the influence of the property market in this sector too. So during boom times like the last couple of years, people can see the value in investing in their property. There are a few things behind it. Some of it is people moving and deciding to renovate their new home. Some is people who calculate that it’s cheaper to extend or improve their property than it is to trade up. And some of it comes down to people seeing their home is more valuable and therefore deciding it’s worth investing in. Data on the number of planning applications for extensions and home improvements revealed that in the 12 months to last September the number of applications was up a third in a year, and up a fifth from typical pre-pandemic levels. If the property market was to slow down, it could have a knock-on effect on the demand for DIY and renovations. If you look at the most recent house price data, you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s no chance of that. The Nationwide House Price index recently revealed that the average house price hit a record high of over £265,000 - up £33,000 in a year.

Susannah: But Sarah do you think over the coming months we are likely to see demand and price rises slow down?

Sarah: That's definitely a possibility, property prices have been pushed up partly as a result of pent-up demand during a time when supply has been so thin on the ground. Those who have chosen to use any lockdown savings as a deposit on a bigger property have helped boost demand for any new property coming to market. But there will come a point when this demand is sated. Zoopla figures show supply is rising and demand dropping back slightly, and while it’s still high for the time of year, it’s not going to propel the market onwards forever. Meanwhile higher levels of inflation mean we could see more buyers questioning whether now is such a good time to buy. The employment market has also been supportive, but wages aren’t keeping up with runaway prices, so buyers may be more likely to think twice about stretching themselves to buy ever-more-expensive properties. And sentiment also plays a key role. While prices are booming, people have the confidence to pay more for a new home, and price rises become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When demand starts to drop away, the rising cost of living starts to bite, or mortgage costs rise significantly, prices rises will slow, which will dent enthusiasm for the market, and persuade more buyers to step away.

Susannah: Already in the US home sales have fallen back, despite expectations of a rebound from January. And in recent weeks, in expectation of a further cooling market, the price of lumber has actually dropped pretty dramatically. So, let’s take a reading right now on the pressures affecting the sector with Phil Lidgerton - Managing Director of building materials.co.uk. Tell us a bit about your business, and what the past year has been like.

Phil: The past two or three years have been fun to say the least. Specifically timber you're talking about there, that just to reaffirm what you've been saying, that has been up and down all over the place. Clearly, we had the issues coming out with the Far East with container prices. I think at one point, an average container was something like $1,500 for a container from the Far East. I heard crazy prices going for $15,000 to get a container over there. They were getting held up in ports, there was all the issues with Brexit going on. So timber alone was just ridiculous for us. You didn't really know what was going on from one day to the next. Now, we're in a reasonably good position in how our business model operated. We have the ability to buy for a number of different sources. So maybe a contractor or a DIY person was looking to buy 100 sheets of OSB board, they'd ring their local merchant who they've rang for three or four years and got the materials from, they just couldn't get the material. We get the call and we're in a position where we may ring 5, 10, 15 merchants to source that product. But on the back of that you might get 5, 10, 15 different prices. So it's been a real challenge for us. Certainly from a pricing point of view. When you look at the website, you display a price and let's just say for instance, display a price of 10 pound for an item we may take the order of 10 pound and then we're trying to physically source it and because we might get the order on a Friday then it'd be a difference in price on the Monday. We're struggling to buy at the right price to allow us to trade. So it was a real challenge with the the website prices. Internally we do a lot of trade business. So you get a lot of trades people ringing in or you'll get a retail customer ringing in as well. They'll have a basket of goods, we'll go off and we'll work out the price of that come back a week later, and potentially there might be 10 items in the basket, six of those items might have gone up in price by 20%. We got to that point on some instance on certain products, and then you got the haulage issue as well. You know haulage, getting materials from A to B.

Susannh: I suppose you can still have extremely careful with the prices because although you might want to put a higher price just make sure you're not caught out, then you could see customers going elsewhere.

Phil: 100%. We're all in the same boat. Ultimately everybody's in the same boat but there are going to be nuances depending on where you are in the country, how well you buy and a whole host of factors. But 100%, we've got to be very careful with that. We don't want to be putting an item that was 10 pounds, you can go online and it might be 15 pounds somewhere it might be nine pounds somewhere else. It is a real challenge keeping up to date with that and of course, the customer wants the best experience. The expectation now the customer, he sees the item going for 10 pounds on the website. He wants a delivery in Inverness. We've got to get the item there and Inverness for 10 pounds. That's what we're displaying. So the demands of the customer have definitely increased over this period as well.

Sarah: And with the sort of the volatility of the price is does it mean that you're having to absorb some of these extra costs.

Phil: We have to take the commercial decision that if we take an order, we have to make an commercial decision, can we actually supply the order? I get things landed on my desk, we've taken this order a week ago, two weeks ago or a month ago. This is what the price is now, what are we going to do with it? We have to make a decision, a commercial decision on what we're going to do with that order now. Yes, 100% we have had to absorb certain price increases. But again, we've had to adapt our model when we're talking to customers now to say look, we've just priced you on, I don't know 500 sheets of OSB board. This is the price today, we can only hold this for maybe maybe a week, maybe two days because we know there's like three issues this product. We are absorbing where we can, but we're also becoming more careful on the wording we're using when we're dealing with quotation.

Susannah: Have you ever known anything like this before?

Phil: Not to the severity that we've got now. I remember a time probably 10 or 15 years ago when the plaster shortage and I had a couple important some plaster from Ireland. But no way is it anything like we've got at the moment. I mean, I'm just looking at some of the price increases that we've got coming up. You know, one of the insulation suppliers, up 32% increase on an insulation product, a high move insulation on the first of July. One of the plasterboard supplies, 18.75% increase on standard plasterboard on the first of July. That will be in place of increases already have this year. We're being told, expect more increases later in the year. Well, I don't ever remember a time on just those two products alone, where A they've gone up so much, and B you've had three increases in a year.

Susannah: What about the demand side? As we see these prices shooting up all over the place, are you seeing a drop off in demand or do you think still people and trades you are working with are pretty resilient?

Phil: I think the demand is an interesting question. If we were doing this yesterday, I would have said, definitely we're seeing demand increase just by the pure numbers that we're talking about in terms of invoices we're raising, but I had a conversation with a supplier this morning and he said to me, you are seeing an increase in the numbers that you're doing and that's just purely inflation. When you're looking at the sheer volume of material, it's actually not a huge increase in the volume of material that gets sold. When you're looking at the construction sector, there are so many different products out there. It's not like if you've got to buy clothes it's all fabric. There's so many construction materials and they are brought in from maybe the Far East or America and even manufacturing in the UK. There's a whole mixture of different things that could come together.

Sarah: You're talking about sort of price rises already expected in July. I mean, sort of looking further ahead, do you see any time of this changing or sort of looking down the barrel of more inflation?

Phil: We just don't know. My gut instinct is that it's not going to end in July, it's going to continue obviously there's external factors like what's going on in Ukraine, Brexit is still having an effect. It's not going to surprise me if this certainly continues for the rest of the year, what the following year brings will be anybody's guess. My gut instinct, it will probably continue in the new year.

Susannah: So no end to the turbulent times insight just yet then. So great to have you on the show really appreciate your time.

Phil: No problem. I just say one other thing as well, if you are looking at a refurbishment or you're looking at a DIY sector or whatever it may be, you need to be looking at things well in advance where, you know, two years ago you could have ordered something on a Monday and you'd have it on a Friday. You need to be doing things certainly for something like bricks, maybe two or three months ahead.

Susannah: Great tips for our listeners there, thinking about possibly undertaking a DIY project, although it certainly seems to be a bit of a headache right now. So lets bring in Sophie Lund Yates. Our lead equity analyst at HL. Sophie you’ve been looking at some of the listed companies operating in the sector.

Sophie: Hi, Susannah. Yes, I also have to say that as someone currently living on a building site in the middle of a renovation project, that was all hitting very close to home. We've had many heated discussions here about the cost of plywood but looking away from my house and looking at stocks specifically I was going to start with the US name today, which is home improvement and hardware retail chain, Lowes. According to its 2020 figures, it serves about 20 million customers a week across the US and Canada, and has annual sales in the region of $90bn. Just to give you an idea of scale, it has over 2000 stores, and 300,000 associates. The pandemic saw the market react positively to the stock, buoyed by the increases in DIY thanks to lockdowns, but whether that praise is sustainable or warranted is an interesting one. I personally think that for the next couple of years at least, Lowes is in a good position. The mushrooming interest in home improvements seen over the pandemic will be a source of longer-term customers. Sure, some will put down their spirit levels forever, but a decent chunk of people that picked up a hammer for the first time are likely to keep coming back, thanks to their new skills. Revenue and profit growth is expected to slow, but not stop, according to analyst estimates. I also think it’s worth remembering that American houses are generally much younger than those found in Europe, meaning that as they age there’s a potential pot of longer-term growth as owners look to renovate. For all the strengths, there’s no getting away from the fact it’s a bricks and mortar retailer. That puts a lid on how excited I’m prepared to get when looking at the very long-term.

Susannah: So that's very much the view of one company in the United States, but what about here in the UK, I'm thinking about Kingfisher, what's your take there?

Sophie: Yes can't really do this podcast without talking about the B&Q and Screwfix owner, both places I've been frequenting a lot lately. In all honesty, the sentiment is quite similar. The pandemic came at a time when the group was facing a lull and then came the DIY sales boom. And to its credit, Kingfisher has taken the opportunity and run with it. It’s managed to gain market share thanks to a heady combination of better product availability and pricing, and a better digital offering. Bit like with Lowes, I think there are longer-term growth drivers at play. Be aware that ongoing supply chain and wide economic disruption could cause some ups and downs in the short term.

Susannah: So that's very much the kind of DIY but what about when you actually put the walls in and you want to furnish your new abode what stock should we watch.

Sophie: Yes. So obviously general, in my opinion, anyway, just as important to round up this week's retail trifecta that I need to talk about Dunelm. So as you're saying, it wasn't just home projects that we went after in lock downs, but we have a newfound appreciation for our homes. You know, we're all spending just a huge amount of time in our homes now. And we certainly spruce them up over the last couple of years. So for Dunelm revenue jumped over 26% last year to 1.3 billion pounds, and that’s expected to climb to £1.5bn this year. Looking further ahead, the majority of Dunelm’s 175 or so stores are located in retail parks, which we know are faring better than city centres. Some physical stores will, we think, always be wanted, sofas and curtains are the kind of thing people like to look at in the flesh. But the group has also worked hard to secure a stronger home delivery proposition, which is a serious benefit as the world becomes more digital. The group’s net cash position of £129m is also fairly remarkable for a physical retail operation, and is partly thanks to improved buying and inventory management. There are, in my opinion, a lot of things to like about Dunelm. But whether you agree with that or not comes down to your own opinion on the future and stability of retail.

Sarah: Thanks Sophie. It’s interesting to see the breadth of retailers who could benefit from the renovation revolution. Now I’d like to bring in Emma Wall, our head of investment research and analysis here at Hargreaves Lansdown. She’s been talking to Alex Wright, manager of the Fidelity Special Situations Fund.

Emma: Hi Alex, how are you?

Alex: I'm very good thanks Emma.

Emma: So we're here today to talk about home improvement, homebuilding everyone's been at in the pandemic. They've been sitting in their houses looking around thinking what can I tinker with. But we've also had recently, considerable price rises in inputs due to trade associated with the pandemic and additionally the war in Ukraine having impact on soft commodity prices. We know what some of the difficulties being presented to those who are potentially looking to import these prices. What about the investment opportunities that come from that because I know you've got a couple of home improvers and home builders in the portfolio haven't you.

Alex: Yeah, that's correct. We've got quite a large position in Kingfisher in the portfolio as well as owning both of the Irish house builders, Cairn and Glenveagh. And when you're looking at stocks such as Kingfisher for you, what are you analyzing in terms of the growth opportunities? So I think there's two interesting things happening at kingfisher. Obviously, there's been a very unusual period through COVID, where you've seen a bit of a boom in DIY sales. I think that is now coming off because clearly when people were able to go to other stores, DIY stayed open as an essential retailer in the UK and people did more work to their homes as they couldn't eat out in restaurants or go on a holiday. And it's natural for them to decline and that is very much expected by us and external commentators. I think what people are missing though on Kingfisher is two things. First of all that do it for me was actually quite depressed during COVID As people didn't want tradesmen to come into their house so actually sales there and 2021 for those markets were still down there pre-pandemic and are now recovering quite strongly as people do want to do larger projects that maybe they planned last year during lockdown but weren't able to enact. And then I think much more importantly, there's quite a big internal turnaround story going on at Kingfisher, which has really been masked by recent trends because new management team only took over in late 2019 just before the pandemic, so the good work they were doing was really masked by these very volatile COVID trends. So they've been able to take quite a bit of market share, really reinvigorate the business after previous problems where they were losing market share. Kingfisher have gained quite meaningful market share growing about twice as fast as the market over the last couple of years, and that really isn't really being priced in. So actually, that's the more important thing for me, the fact I think actually, this has moved for a market share loser over the previous five years before COVID to a market share gain and going forward in my eyes.

Emma: And what about the threat of E-commerce because ultimately Kingfisher is a retailer and E-commerce, we have seen absolutely divide retailers the wheat from the chaff those that embrace it but digitalise have done well and those that have fallen behind the curve have not. Presumably DIY stores are slightly insulated from that, but does it have an impact?

Alex: Yes, so ecommerce is important across the whole retail chain and so you're definitely right sort of many retailers have really fallen where they've been slow to embrace E-commerce and they've lost market share to online only rivals. There definitely are some online only rivals ManoMano is a particular example in the UK of a marketplace model. I think the good thing about DIY is a lot of it is because you want to do something pretty much right now. So if you get to the weekend, you want to do a small project. You kind of want the stuff now you don't want to wait a day or two or three days for delivery. And also a lot of the goods tend to be quite bulky. So again, delivery is very expensive. And if you're doing DIY, you're generally more conscious than if you're getting a tradesman to do it. So again, you don't really want to pay those delivery charges. So certainly a DIY online is a much smaller percentage of the business because people want to go and pick up even in formats like Screwfix where people tend to order online, they tend to then go to the actual physical store to pick up the goods so again to get it straight away. So I think that's the key thing about their marketplace. Not only do they have quite good online offer with Screwfix and then improving one with B&Q, Kingfisher also own the diy.com domain name, which has an awful lot of traffic.

Emma: Looking down more broadly at other property trends and in particular, property purchases and you do have exposed the house builders, but I believe that has been reducing over time. We have seen quite strong house price growth in the UK, which has surprised people given that there are sort of economic headwinds still around inflation not quite recovering or out of the threat of the pandemic and associated lockdowns. Why do you think the house market has been so robust? And are you playing this through the house builders in the portfolio?

Alex: The UK housing market has been very robust and robustness of this through the pandemic wasn't a particular surprise to us. And indeed, we had quite a lot of exposure to that trend at the time because consumers had an awful lot of savings and they obviously weren't able to use those and a lot of things through the pandemic, and they were spending a lot of time in their homes as well. So clearly people's value of the home environment was at a higher level than it had been historically, people increasingly sort of structurally looking to, to work from home sort of at least one or two days a week. So wanting more space, kitting out home offices, etc. or just wanting to buy a bigger house that made that possible. I do think it's a bit more nuanced now because you have seen that that high house price growth houses has already become a bit less affordable. And then also obviously you're starting to see interest rates rise now as well which increases the cost of mortgages in the UK. So we have cut back some of our UK house building exposure that had done very well. So we sold out of LSL, which is an estate agent and Redrow, a UK housebuilder and we've just continued to keep our holdings in Ireland. The key difference there is that house prices to income are much cheaper in Ireland actually, almost half actually if you look at price to income, so more like three times compared to six times the average income in in Ireland. Then also interest rates aren't rising in the euro zone yet while they are in the UK. So similar desire for extra space good savings built up in Ireland like in the UK, but those two positives that you don't see in that the UK housing market anymore after the big price rises that we've seen here.

Emma: Alex, thank you very much.

Alex: Thank you

Susannah: Emma Wall our head of investment research and analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, talking to Alex Wright, manager of the Fidelity Special Situations Fund and that was recorded on April the 12th. Please bear in mind that these are the views of the fund manager and they're not individual stock recommendations. You’re listening to Switch your money on from Hargreaves Lansdown.

Sarah: And finally, it’s time for the quiz, and Susannah has been delving into the greatest interior fashions of all time. I’m personally hoping that some of the more questionable 1990s design choices of the people who used to live in this house make a comeback, so I can avoid doing any more DIY.

Susannah: I now imagine your home as a riot of sponge painting and sun and moon décor, am I right?

Sarah: Yes, it does sound quite similiar.

Susannah: It sounds like you didn’t get up to much DIY during the lockdowns, but you’re in the minority. According to a Mintel survey, during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, most people turned to DIY to pass the time, but what percentage of people got stuck into home renovations, was it 64%, 74% or 84%?

Sarah: You’re right I didn’t pick up a paintbrush once during that time. My lockdowns were all about home school hell. I can’t believe everyone else was being so much more productive, so I’m going to go for 64%.

Susannah: No I’m sorry, it was 74% - so almost three quarters of people went for a home makeover during lockdown. Which actually sounds more fun than home schooling. Sticking with home renovation, the FT did a survey of how people would use their bonus in February this year. One in ten people said they planned to spend it all, with the top three answers going on holiday, home improvements and buying a new home. But what order did they give them in? And which was the most popular answer?

Sarah: OK, well I can’t imagine many people getting a bonus big enough to buy a house, so I’ll put that last. And I know everyone is desperate for a holiday, so I’ll put that first, and home renovation in the middle.

Susannah: Oh I’m sorry. No. Home improvements was actually the most popular way to spend your bonus in 2022, followed by buying property and then a holiday, so you didn’t get any of those right. Right, now we’ll go back in time for this question, to the Victorian era, when a particularly bright green wallpaper was considered the cutting edge of fashion for a few years. Unfortunately it dropped out of fashion after a few years, but why? Did Queen Victoria announce she hated green, did William Morris decide to move onto pink, or did the wallpaper get a reputation as a killer?

Sarah: Well I know Queen Victoria was quite the trend setter, so I’ll go with her not liking green.

Susannah. No, I’m afraid not. The wallpaper got a reputation for killing people. The bright green came from copper arsenite which contained arsenic, and rumours started circulating about people who had this green wallpaper and mysteriously died. They hadn’t been eating the wallpaper, but the theory gained traction that just having it around was enough, so wallpaper manufacturers stopped using it, just in case, which seems like a sensible move. You know what I live in a Victorian house. and we're pretty tight quite tempted to start scratching through all the layers to see if there was one of those kind of scary greens underneath. Next, paint colours – specifically the ingeniously named colours sold by Farrow and Ball. I have four names here. Three are real paints, and one I’ve invented, so you have to spot the made up name. Is it sap green, salon drab, mouse’s back or badger’s breath?

Sarah: They all sound distinctly made up, but the thought of calling a colour drab seems like a bad idea, so I’m going to say salon drab has been made up.

Susannah: No, sadly not, they seem to have embraced ‘drab’ as a fashion choice. It’s badger’s breath, although there is one called elephant’s breath and one called mole’s breath, so I wouldn’t rule it out.

Susannah: Finally, onto furniture. In 2004 Christie’s auction house sold the most expensive piece of furniture of all time. It was an ebony cabinet inlaid with stones, known as the Badminton Cabinet for the very boring reason that the owner lived in Badminton. But how much did it sell for? Was it 12 million dollars, 24 million or 36 million?

Sarah: Oh, I’d have thought it was bound to be the most expensive option, although with my luck so far I’m not totally convinced.

Susannah. Yes, you’re right, 36 million dollars. It was sold by an heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, bought by a Prince of Lichtenstein and sold to the Liechtenstein Museum in Austria. So if you’re really keen to see it, you can pop in next time you’re there. And you know what, our producer, Elizabeth has just acquired an Austrian passport, so perhaps she might be the first to go and see it.

Sarah: I’m not sure my excitement about a cabinet will get me all the way to Austria. It might not even get me as far as Badminton. But thanks anyway. At least I salvaged one right answer in the dying seconds of the quiz.

Susannah: You’re back to one correct answer. We’ll just have to stick with chocolate and cake again next time. Well, that’s all from us this time, but before we go, we need to remind you that this was recorded on 12th April 2022, and all information was correct at the time of recording.

Sarah: Nothing in this podcast is personal advice. You should seek advice if you’re not sure what’s right for you. Investments rise and fall in value, so you could get back less than you invest. Past performance isn’t a guide to the future.

Susannah: Yes this is not advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any investment. No view is given on the present or future value or price of any investment, and investors should form their own view on any proposed investment.

Sarah: And this hasn’t been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and is considered a marketing communication.

Susannah: Non-independent research is not subject to FCA rules prohibiting dealing ahead of research, however HL has put controls in place (including dealing restrictions, physical and information barriers) to manage potential conflicts of interest presented by such dealing.

Sarah: You can see our full non-independent research disclosure on our website for more information. So all that’s left is for me to thank our guests Phil, Alex, Sophie, Emma, and our producer Elizabeth Hotson.

Susannah: Thank you so much for listening. We’ll be back again soon, so if you enjoyed this podcast please do let us know what you think, and do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you get a fresh new episode in your inbox as soon as it’s ready. Goodbye.