Diploma PLC

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining. Great to have you with us today. I'm here as usual with our CFO, Wilson Ung. I'm going to start with an overview of performance. Wilson will take you through the numbers, and then I'll come back to talk about strategy and the businesses.

Questions as usual at the end. Let's get started. It's been a great first half.

We've delivered a very strong performance across all our key financial metrics, building on our long-term compounding track record. We balance ambitious earnings growth, 36% in the half, with disciplined returns, 23% in the half, and together, key to sustainable compounding success. The quality and diversity of our portfolio gives us exposure to attractive end markets, which supports structural long-term organic growth, 15.5% and 10% on average over the last five years. It also gives us resilience in uncertain times. We accelerate organic growth with targeted acquisitions. We've done 15 deals in the last 12 months, including seven since we updated at Q1. The pipeline remains healthy with plenty of balance sheet capacity. We're upgrading guidance again today, adding a further 6%, meaning expected operating profit growth of over 30%. And we're looking forward to another year of sustainable quality compounding. Diploma has been delivering compounded double-digit revenue and earnings growth for decades and at great returns on capital. We've developed the strategy, injected more ambition, improved our execution. The compounding has accelerated. And what's really exciting is that we're just getting started. The group's future is very promising. We balance ambition with discipline. Our business model is robust. Our growth potential with structural support is massive. We focus on cash, capital allocation, and returns. And we're intensely execution-orientated. I'm really excited about our future. Our people and our culture deliver this. they make it sustainable. I'd like to thank all of my brilliant colleagues. Their skill, energy, and passion drives our success. Our differentiated culture of commerciality, accountability, and continuous improvement is thriving across the businesses, and we complement that with a connectivity and performance ownership mindset across the group. We spent a great few days together in Nashville last month, and we asked some of our business leaders how they would describe our culture. And this is what they said.