RELX Plc

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. As you may have seen from our press release this morning, we delivered strong financial results in 2025. We made further operational and strategic progress, and we continue to see positive momentum across the group. Underlying revenue growth was 7%. Underlying adjusted operating profit growth was 9%. and adjusted earnings per share growth was 10% at constant currency. All four business areas continue to perform well. On this chart, you can see the relative sizes of the business areas and their growth rates, with underlying adjusted operating profit growth exceeding underlying revenue growth in each business area. In risk, Underlying revenue growth was 8%, and underlying adjusted operating profit growth was 10%. Strong growth continues to be driven across segments by the development and rollout of our deeply embedded AI-enabled analytics and decision tools, with over 90% of divisional revenue coming from machine-to-machine interactions. In business services, which represents over 40% of divisional revenue, Strong growth continues to be driven by financial crime compliance and digital fraud and identity solutions and strong new sales. We continue to expand our differentiated data set, build out our global fraud infrastructure, and more deeply integrate advanced authentication and behavioral intelligence. In insurance, which represents around 40% of divisional revenue, Strong growth continues to be driven by innovation and adoption of contributory databases and market-specific solutions, supported by positive market factors and strong new sales. We continue to extend our products across the insurance continuum and across insurance lines, while adding data sources and analytics to enhance value for our customers. Going forward, we expect continued strong underlying revenue growth with underlying adjusted operating profit growth exceeding underlying revenue growth. In STM, underlying revenue growth was 5% and underlying adjusted operating profit growth was 7%. Improving momentum is being driven by the evolution of the business mix towards higher growth, higher value analytics and tools. supported by the increasing pace of new product introductions and strong new sales. Databases, tools, and electronic reference, which represents around 40% of divisional revenue, delivered strong growth driven by higher value-add analytics and decision tools, and we continue to expand our solution sets, build our industry-leading trusted content with an ongoing series of new releases. In primary research, which represents a little over half of divisional revenue, good growth continues to be driven by volume growth. The number of articles submitted continued to grow very strongly across the portfolio by over 20% in 2025, and the number of articles published grew 10%. Going forward, we expect good to strong underlying revenue growth, with underlying adjusted operating profit growth exceeding underlying revenue growth. In legal, underlying revenue growth improved to 9%, with underlying adjusted operating profit growth of 12%. Strong growth continues to be driven by the ongoing shift in business mix towards higher growth, higher value, legal analytics and tools. In law firms and corporate legal, which represents around 70% of divisional revenue, double-digit growth is being driven by continued adoption of our core AI-enabled legal platform and integrated agendic assistant, Lexis Plus AI and Protoday. Ongoing releases of new functionality and deeper integration with our comprehensive, verified legal content is enabling us to increase our value add and serve an increasing number of use cases. Going forward, we expect continued strong underlying revenue growth with underlying adjusted operating profit growth exceeding underlying revenue growth. Exhibitions delivered strong underlying revenue growth of 8%, reflecting the improved growth profile of our event portfolio and good progress on our growing range of value-enhancing digital initiatives. Underlying adjusted operating profit growth of 9% was ahead of revenue growth, with margins now significantly above historical levels. Going forward, we expect continued strong underlying revenue growth with an improvement in adjusted operating margin over the prior full year. Our strategic direction is unchanged. Our improving long-term growth trajectory continues to be driven by the ongoing shift in business mix towards higher growth analytics and decision tools. This is being supported by the continued evolution of artificial intelligence, which is enabling us to add more value to our customers as we embed additional functionality in our products and to develop and launch products at a faster pace. Our revenue growth objectives for the business areas remain. For risk, to sustain strong long-term growth. For both STM and legal, to continue on their improving growth trajectories and for exhibitions to sustain strong long-term growth. When combined with continuous profit innovation to manage cost growth below revenue growth, the result is a higher growth profile with strong earnings growth and improving returns. I will now hand over to Nic La, our CFO, who will talk you through our results in more detail. I'll be back afterwards for a quick wrap-up and Q&A.

Thank you, Eric. Good morning, everyone. Let me start by providing more detail on the group financials. As Eric said, underlying revenue growth of 7% with underlying adjusted operating profit growth ahead of that at 9%. As a result, the adjusted operating margin improved by just under 1 percentage point to 34.8%. The strong operating results flowed through to adjusted earnings per share, which of constant currency increased by 10%. Cash conversion was again strong at 99%. After acquisition spend of 270 million and the completion of the one and a half billion pound buyback, leverage ended the year at 2.0 times at the lower end of our typical range. Given the strong overall performance, we are proposing an increase in the full year dividend of 7%. 67.5 pence per share. Looking at revenue, you can see how all four business areas contributed to the overall 7% underlying growth. As we discussed at the half-year results, we have separated out the reporting of print and print-related revenues and profits, reflecting changes to how we manage the distribution of print versions of our content. The proactive steps to reduce our involvement in print-related activities continued in 2025, resulting in a reduction in associated revenue of over 20%. For the group as a whole, total revenue growth of constant currency was 4% after portfolio effects in risk, legal and exhibitions, and after the step-down in print activities. In addition, there were cycling effects in exhibitions, with 2025 being a cycling out year. In sterling, total revenue growth was 2%, impacted by the relative strength of the pound against the dollar compared to the prior year. Here you can see the 9% underlying growth in group adjusted operating profit. As Eric mentioned, we continue to manage cost growth to be below revenue growth in each business area. As a result, risk, SEM, and legal each deliver to underlying profit growth two or three percentage points ahead of underlying revenue growth, while exhibitions was one point ahead, reflecting event cycling in the year. The profit contribution from print and print-related activities declined, but at a lower rate than revenue. As I said with the half-year results, going forward, we expect profit from print-to-print related activities to continue to decline in the high single digits each year, in line with historical trends. Portfolio effects on the decline in print were a slight drag, leaving total adjusted operating profit growth in constant currency at 7%. There was a similar currency effect on profit as there was on revenue, giving adjusted operating profit growth in sterling at 4%. With profit growth ahead of revenue growth, margins improved across all four business areas, driving the overall improvement of 90 basis points to 34.8%. Margins dropped by 40 basis points in risk, 70 in SDM, and 80 in legal. Exhibitions margins increased by 250 basis points, aided by prior year disposals and the effects of cycling. Turning to the group adjustment income statement, you can see here the underlying growth of 7% in revenue and 9% in operating profit. The interest expense was slightly lower, with the decrease reflecting lower average interest rates, partly offset by higher average debt balances. The effective tax rate was 22.5%, in line with the prior year. Net profit was up 8% of constant currency and up 5% of sterling to over 2.3 billion. With a lower share count as a result of the buyback programme, adjusted earnings per share were up 10% of constant currency and up 7% in sterling, 128.5 pence. Turned to cash flow, cash conversion was strong at 99%. EBITDA was over 3.8 billion and CapEx was 525 million equating to 5% of revenue. After interest and tax, total free cash flow was over 2.3 billion. And here's how we deployed that free cash flow. We completed five small acquisitions with total consideration of 270 million and made two small disposals. The most significant acquisition was IDverse, an ID document verification platform for business services in risk, which completed in the first quarter of the year. Dividend payments were $1.2 billion, and as I mentioned earlier, we completed $1.5 billion of share buybacks. Overall, year-end net debt was $7.2 billion, including pensions, the ratio of net debt to EBITDA, calculated in US dollars, was 2.0 times, at the lower end of our typical range of 2 to 2.5 times. Our priorities for the use of cash remain unchanged. Organic development is our number one priority, with CapEx consistently around 5% of revenues. We augment that organic development with selective acquisitions, with this level of spend typically being the most significant variable in our uses of cash, depending on the opportunities that arise. Average acquisition spend over the last 10 years has been around 400 million per annum, with 2025 a little below that average. We pay out around half of our adjusted earnings and dividends, I've increased it every year for well over a decade. Leverage has typically been in the two to two and a half times range. From cash generation, improving EBITDA, and modest acquisition spend in the year, being at leverage at the end of 2025 was at the lower end of that range. We continue to return our surplus capital through the share buyback, with 2.25 billion of spend announced today for 2026, of which 250 million pounds has already been deployed. With that, I will hand you back to Eric.

Thank you, Nick. Just to summarize what we have covered this morning. In 2025, we delivered strong financial results, and we made further operational and strategic progress. Going forward, we continue to see positive momentum across the group, and we expect another year of strong underlying growth in revenue and adjusted operating profit. as well as strong growth in adjusted earnings per share on a constant currency basis. And with that, I think we're ready to go to questions.