InterContinental Hotels Group PLC

Q&A session. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 5 by 1 on your telephone keypad. Our first question for today comes from Vicky Stern of Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. First one was just on unit growth. So I think if we strip back and over from this year, it looks like you'll be sort of around the 3.5% range in terms of net unit growth. Is that the right underlying rate to have in mind for you going forward, or can you see that accelerating without any sort of larger deal signings like Novum? And related to that, I noticed that exits were just a nudge higher than your 1.5% in the first half, just checking that 1.5% is still the right level of exits that you've got in mind going forward. The second one's on incentive management fees in China. So I saw H1IMS was down a few million to 19 in the first half. Can you just talk about your expectations there for the full year? Obviously, one of your competitors has been flagging the weakness there. And then just more broadly, your outlook for China as you see it over the next six, 12 months. And then just finally on the credit card opportunity, that was helpful color from Heather in the prerecorded presentation. Just curious when you think you might be in a position to give any clearer guidance on the quantum of that material revenue upside that was mentioned there. Obviously, any indications today on how we should be framing that materiality would be great. Thanks.

Okay. Hello, Vicki. How are you? Thank you, everybody, for joining our call today. I was supposed to give an intro, but I guess we're jumping right into the questions, which is fine. Might as well get right to it. So on your question about net system size, growth expectations, and Novum, a couple things. We're exactly today where we said we would be at the first quarter when we announced the Novum deal and discussed it. We said that we were comfortable when a system size expectations consensus was four, and we said that – That included Novum, and we said that Novum gave us greater confidence in reaching that system size expectation this year and actually beyond this year. And so where we are today is that consensus moved up to 4.2. We're saying that we are comfortable with that, confident in that, and that still includes Novum. Now we have visibility of how many rooms are going to open this year. Over 7,000 rooms are going to open this year. In the year, we've already opened 1,000. And also, there is an equal amount, probably a little bit more, that will likely open next year and maybe some even into 2026. So it's not just a one and done. It's a multi-year thing. So, no, I would say that your expectation going forward should be closer to what the expectation was for this year. because every year we do organic conversion deals that sometimes we're aware of going into the year, sometimes we're not aware of. This is an organic conversion deal. Yes, it's a big one, but it is individual licenses. It's an individual 119 individual 20-year licenses. It's not a partnership. It's not an acquisition. It's a fee-paying deal, so it's very accretive to us. And We will do other in-the-year conversions this year that we're not calling out, and we'll do more next year in the year beyond. So we're comfortable with consensus where it is today, and I actually have very good visibility to it. And we're comfortable with next year, you know, maintaining a similar trajectory given, you know, not just all the in-year conversions that we're doing, but also the spillover of the November rooms next year and the acceleration of our pipeline. You've seen our signings increase even if you – took out no room, 23% globally. New builds and conversion signings increased in a healthy manner in the first half. That gives us some fuel going into the future. So that's your first question. Michael, do you want to add into that? Did you want to grab exits first and then we'll... Yeah, let's just touch on exits. No, we're comfortable with the 1.5%. In the first half of the year, we always have more exits than in the second half of the year. Maybe not always, always, but traditionally. If you look at our pattern over the years, the first quarter has more exits than the second quarter, but then it's fewer usually in the second half. So we're comfortable with the one-and-a-half long-term objective, and we've been roughly around that. IMFs in China, I'll turn it over to Michael, but I think it's a decent story there, too.