SSP Group plc

Good morning. Thank you for joining our interim results presentation for the six months ended the 31st of March, 2024. For those of you who don't know me in the room or on the call, I'm Patrick Coveney. I'm the Group CEO of SSP, and I'm joined for today by Jonathan Davis, our Deputy CEO and Group CFO, by Sarah John, our Corporate Affairs Director, and by several other members of our leadership team. In a moment, I'll run through the highlights of the first half before Jonathan takes you through the financial review. I'll then come back in to set out the operational and strategic progress that we've made and update you on our outlook before we both take questions at the end. But before getting into this, I wanted to make a few opening comments. As many of you will know, I spend a huge amount of time in the business, so I can see firsthand the quality of our offers, the performance of our restaurants, bars and shops across the world. Importantly, it also allows me to engage directly and in person with our teams, our clients, our brand owners, suppliers and local equity partners across more than 30 of the countries in which SSP operates. What's clear to me now, after two years in this role, is that we have a strong growth and returns platform. one that combines access to sustained structural long-term growth with hard-built competitive advantages, deep food travel expertise, and an entrepreneurial, highly commercial culture. Indeed, the choices that we have made will drive high revenue growth, sustainable margin progression, and deliver attractive and compounding rates of return on the capital that we invest. So that's what we're doing, investing thoughtfully now to capitalise on both the pace of the post-COVID recovery and travel and on the discrete in-market competitive opportunities that we see so that we can secure sustainable growth and attractive returns for the months and years ahead. With that context, let me get into the highlights for the first half. Our business has traded well, with sales growing at 19%, driven by strong like-for-like sales growth of 12%, complemented by a 4% contribution from net gains and a 3% contribution from M&A. That revenue growth has been converted into 24% growth in EBITDA, with a 30 basis point improvement in underlying margin. Three of our four regions, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East, and the UK delivered strong year-on-year performances in the first half. Our continental European region was behind the prior year in profit terms, but for some specific and anticipated reasons, most of which are about the scale and the timing of the renewal of our contract platform in the Nordics. The impact of this issue is short-term, and Jonathan and I will talk more about it as we go through the presentation. We're a food travel business in which delivery for customers and clients sits at the core of our model. It's encouraging to see that strong and improving year on year customer propositions and client relationships are helping to drive in year like for like revenues and the net gains that will underpin our future growth and returns. We've also delivered five infill acquisitions consistent with our regional growth priorities and with our financial return expectations. Three in North America and one in Australia have now been completed. And today we're announcing the acquisition of Taras Gemeling, a small business which gives us an entry point into Indonesia. As you know, SSP's financial performance has always been second half weighted. This waiting is becoming more pronounced as our business continues to skew towards the air channel and towards leisure travel. External forecasts are for a strong summer ahead, and we're well set up to capture that demand, serve customers well, and deliver strong profit conversion in the second half of the year. all of which means that we are on track against the financial planning assumptions for FY24 that we detailed back in December. With that, let me hand over to Jonathan to walk through the financial review.

Thank you, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. As you've seen, we've had a good first half led by strong sales growth. And looking at the highlights briefly, sales were around 1.5 billion, up 19% year on year on a constant currency basis. Underlying EBITDA was up by 24% to 106 million and operating profit up 21% to 38 million. EPS was a small loss of a penny a share, similar to last year and very much as expected. Leverage at the end of March was 2.1 times net debt to EBITDA compared to 1.8 times last year. And we're proposing to pay an interim dividend of 1.2 pence a share representing a payout ratio of between 30 and 40% of the expected full year net income. And our intention to split the dividend roughly one third, two thirds between the interim and the final. And this reflects the seasonal trading pattern of the business. So briefly looking at the results under IFRS 16, underlying operating profit was 58 million for the first half, 20 million higher than the pre-IFRS 16 result. The main difference here is the treatment of our leases where the minimum guaranteed rents are capitalized and therefore no longer included in the rent line and the effect of this is to increase EBITDA by about 132 million to 238 million but correspondingly increased depreciation by 112 million to 180 million. The reported operating profit was also 58 million with the exceptional items broadly neutral, reflecting an impairment charge of around 11 million, offset by some releases due to the successful conclusion of a longstanding legal case and the derecognition of a lease contract under IFRS 16. Now, turning to sales. In the first half, we saw strong sales momentum maintained across most of our markets with double digit revenue growth across all of our regions. Group like-for-like sales remained strong at 12%. We saw the strongest like-for-likes in APAC and EAM at 20%. reflecting buoyant passenger numbers across the region, particularly in India, Thailand, and in the Middle East, helped by the further recovery of international Chinese passengers. We also saw good like for like growth in continental Europe at 9%, and this was despite the significant impact of strike action, which hit the rail sector in the second quarter. The light for light performance in the UK at 15% was very encouraging driven by good packs growth in the air sector and a steady recovery in rail passengers and helped by the more limited impact of strikes this year compared to the prior year. Light for light sales growth in America at 8% represented another strong performance given the tough comparatives because this was the region where passengers recovered more strongly in the prior year. On top of this, we saw organic net gains of 4%, which reflects the healthy new contract pipeline that we've mobilized, particularly in North America where you can see it added 8% to sales. The overall growth in North America at 29% year-on-year also included a significant contribution from acquisitions of 13% and that reflects the midfield concessions deal that we did last summer as well as some smaller acquisitions during the first half at Canada and in Atlanta where we actually acquired an additional eight units. Over the first six weeks of the half, overall sales have been up 14% year on year, with like-for-like running at about 6%, which is entirely consistent with our expectations for the full year of like-for-likes between 6% and 10%. So, turning to profit. EBITDA, as I've said, increased by 24% year-on-year on a constant currency basis, driven by the very strong growth in North America and in APAC and EEM. And Group EBITDA margin increased by 30 basis points on a constant currency basis. In North America and Asia, PAC and EEM, we saw year-on-year EBITDA margin improvements of 140 and 60 basis points respectively. And the margins in both of those regions are now comfortably ahead of their pre-COVID levels. In the UK, we saw good profit growth year on year, 14% driven by strong passenger growth across the board, as I've already indicated. In continental Europe, despite the strong sales, EBITDA margin was down by 2.2% in the half. Now this was principally due to the impact of the extensive contract renewal programme across the region, much of this being deferred from the Covid period and very much as built into our planning assumptions. As we've said previously, this was most marked in the Nordic countries, where we've seen an unusually large number of contract renewals and rebuilding programmes over the last 12 months. And this has affected all of our major capital city airports in the region. And as ever, these renewals put pressure on the P&L in the short term, coming with disruption, closure periods, pre-opening costs, and in some cases, higher rents. Now, on top of this, we also saw in continental Europe the unexpected impact of strike action, principally hitting the rail sectors in France and Germany. And as ever, the on-off nature of this strike action does make it difficult to fully reduce the cost base in line with the lost sales. So the overall impact of this across the region of continental Europe, well somewhere in the region of 10 to 12 million or about a 2% or so drag on the margin in the half. As we look into the second half, we anticipate some of these margin pressures easing as we reach the end of many of the renewal programs and we see settlements reached on some of the strikes. For example, as we've now already seen in Germany. Now looking at the wider P&L. Overall EDITDAR margin was up 30 basis points and operating margin up 10 basis points on a constant currency basis. You can see here that gross margin improved by 40 basis points. This represented another really strong performance, albeit it was helped by some easing in the inflationary pressures that we've seen in many food commodities and across the supply chain. However, once again, it demonstrated our ability to mitigate inflation through pricing action, as well as the effectiveness of our work on range and menu engineering. Labour ratios were 70 basis points better than last year and that was despite the inflationary pressures which remain on wage rates. This was achieved through continued discipline in the management of staffing levels and through the increasing deployment of digital order and payment technology. Concession fees were 70 basis points higher year on year, and that included the impact of this particularly high level of contract renewals and investment, most notably in continental Europe, as I described earlier. And finally, depreciation was up about 20 basis points, reflecting the higher level of investment that we've seen over the last 12 months. Now, looking further down the P&L, The net loss of around 8 million was entirely as expected, reflecting the normal seasonality of the business. And it was slightly behind last year, mainly due to the effects of higher interest costs and a lower share of profits in our associates. So let me look at both of those. Interest costs were higher year on year, mainly due to the average net debt rising as a consequence of the acquisitions we've made over the last 12 months, but also because of the impact of higher than expected interest rates during the first half. And now looking to the full year, we're expecting interest costs to be somewhere in the region of 40 million, reflecting those higher interest rates, as well as the acquisitions and the recent acquisitions in the second half of ARE and the deal in Indonesia, which we've announced today. The tax charge reflects our assumption of an ETR of 22 to 23% of underlying net profit consistent with the prior year. The lower contribution from associates was largely due to startup costs in Xteam, our new joint venture with Aéroports de Paris. And just to remind you, this joint venture will ultimately run all of the food and beverage in both of the main Paris airports operating around 100 plus units. And finally, minority interest share of profit remained broadly in line with the prior year. And let me give you a little bit more detail on that now. So in North America, despite a 38% increase in EBITDA as actual FX rates, the minority share of profit was broadly flat. This reflects the relatively stronger year-on-year profit growth in airports with lower joint venture shares and the good performance in Canada where we own 100% of the business. Across APAC and EME, the minority interest chart increased by about 14%, so broadly in line with the EBITDA performance. And you can see from the chart, once again, India performed very well and therefore represented a disproportionately large component of that MI charge due to its high joint venture partner share. Now looking at the full year of MI, our expectations remain unchanged and that is for growth in MI year on year to be roughly in the region of 20%. Now moving to cash. We used 240 million of cash in the first half, which was after the investment of 144 million in capital projects and a further 59 million on acquisitions. We saw a working capital outflow of 66 million reflecting the normal working capital seasonal cycle, as well as the unwind of the remaining deferred payments from the COVID period, very much as anticipated amounting to about 30 million. Net financing costs were 22 million in the period, so similar to the P&L charge, all of which left net debt at 619 million at the end of the half and leverage at about 2.1 times net debt to EBITDA. Now, looking at the full year, since the end of the half, as I've already said, we've announced these two acquisitions, one in Australia, one in Indonesia, for a combined consideration of just under 90 million. Now reflecting our normal seasonal working capital cycle and the strong cash generation in the second half, and including the investment in these acquisitions, we still expect leverage to be back within our target range at the end of the year, our target range being one and a half to two times, albeit towards the higher end of that range. In anticipation of the additional investment that we're making and the upcoming maturities on our first USPP notes in late 25, last month we secured additional financing of around 200 million from the USPP market. The coupon on these notes is just below 5%, so therefore slightly cheaper than drawing on our RCF and they are for a five-year term. So turning to a little bit of detail on capital expenditure, this chart shows you how we think about CapEx, breaking it down into its three core components. Looking at the dark blue bar at the bottom, you can see the underlying renewal and maintenance CapEx running at similar levels to pre-COVID. So about 4% of sales or around 140 million in the year. And this is in line with depreciation, which of course is what we've seen historically. On top of this, the pink bar represents the capex on renewals deferred during COVID, about 60 million this year, much of which is in continental Europe, as I've described, and the UK. And we think that this COVID catch-up will be fully completed by the end of next year. The green bar represents the annual capex on net new contracts, which this year will be about 80 million. Now looking forward, we expect to spend capex in the region of 260 million next year, consistent with around 5% of net gains. And most of this is underpinned by the existing pipeline of secured contracts. On top of that, we're planning for net gains of between three and 5% in 2026, based on the pipeline and our recent track record of new business wins. And therefore expecting capex consistent with that three to 5% to be in the range of 220 to 250 million. All of this is exactly in line with the guidance that we gave in December. Fundamentally, our capital model is unchanged. The current elevated levels of capex are all about the timing of investments in new projects and our success in winning business and this COVID catch up. And hence, we are seeing this in the high level of renewals at the moment. Important to reiterate, the returns we expect on both renewals and new contract capex are unchanged, as indeed is the process by which we evaluate these returns. So let me just say a few words about that now. On the left hand side of the chart here, you can see a reminder of our investment appraisal process, which has been embedded into the business for many years. So all projects with capital spend of more than £100,000 come to our Group Investment Committee, which I chair, Patrick attends, along with Miles Collins here and the team that provides support. and analysis. We use the same financial models and benchmarks to evaluate every project. And our minimum hurdle rate is a 20% IRR on a post-tax basis for organic investments. Now on the right hand side of the chart, to validate these returns, every project goes through a post-investment review cycle which we've now run from since well before SSP was a public company. And as a result, we can point to a long track record of delivering returns well ahead of these target hurdle rates. Now we've recently run our first series of post investment reviews following COVID, and I'm pleased to report that the results are very, very consistent with our historical performance. Turning to how all of this fits with our capital allocation framework, As ever, our first priority is for capital investment in organic growth, given our ability to generate high returns on investment as I've just mentioned and described. Our second priority is for M&A, where we've been very selective in the past, however the good news is that over the last 12 months we have been able to secure a number of deals at attractive multiples meeting our 15% minimum IRR hurdle rate and Patrick will cover these in more detail in a moment. And as I've already mentioned we're proposing to pay an interim dividend and we still believe that the medium-term leverage target of between one and a half and two times net debt to EBITDA is appropriate for the business. So to wrap up, a few words on our expectations. Our planning assumptions are unchanged on a constant currency basis from the range that we set out in December. And that was for sales of 3.4 to 3.5 billion and operating profit of between 210 and 235 million, all on a constant currency basis. This will now be underpinned by the acquisition principally of ARE, which will deliver a modest upside in operating profit, albeit this will largely be offset by integration and interest costs and therefore will have a minimal effect on earnings. On an actual currency basis, the strengthening of sterling year on year would impact operating profit by around 10 million or nearly 4% if these rates were maintained throughout the rest of the year. And this is purely a translational effect. In the appendix, we've provided some additional information on currency mix and our expectations for the lower end of the P&L as previously. So in summary, for the full year, we're on track to deliver a very strong sales growth, further margin enhancement, and all of this will flow through to a very material step up in EPS. So now let me hand back to Patrick to take us through the business review. Thank you.

Thanks, Jonathan. So I'm now going to set out the progress we're making against our strategic priorities and the way in which our strategy is setting us up to deliver further growth and returns, compounding returns into the future. But first, let me give you some colour on the scale and the pace of the change that we're putting through the business and the outcomes that we've delivered in the last 12 months. We've widened our client and store footprint and strengthened our customer propositions across all regions. In this chart, we highlight our progress against several of these areas. The rapid mobilization of our outlet pipeline, with 325 outlets opened in the last year, 200 of which were opened in the first half of FY24, and 124 units secured through our M&A projects, equivalent to a 15% increase in our total footprint. We've secured entry into three new high-growth markets, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and New Zealand. We have 4,000 more colleagues working with us than we had at the same time last year. We've won 250 new units, 19 new clients, including Cincinnati Airport, Noida Airport in Delhi, Stuttgart Airport and Helsinki Rail Station, and we've added 18 new brand or format propositions to the group. And as we continue to combine the benefits of the customer digital experience with our own hospitality experience, we've rolled out almost 200 new digital touchpoints. So significant progress across the board. We're building for the future while delivering the results that Jonathan has just described. This momentum in our business is being supported by clear structural growth tailwinds in our markets. In a large and fragmented global travel market, forecast demand remains strong. As you can see from the chart on the top right, global air passenger traffic is now back to 2019 levels and is projected to grow at an annual rate of more than 5% from here. Moving to the chart on the left, discretionary spending on travel and holidays continues to be prioritized even off what all of us recognized was a strong 2023 base. The latest external data points to travel being amongst the top categories in which consumers are looking to treat themselves, with higher income categories over-indexing on this. On the supply side, notwithstanding the short-term challenges exacerbated by issues at Boeing, the message here is that record numbers of aircraft deliveries are anticipated over the next five to six years. Of those aircraft, almost two-thirds are expected to be delivered to the regions in which SSP is prioritising growth. So let's now look more specifically at the progress we're making against our strategy. Our progress is rapid, evolving a business to be one that is more aviation focused and geographically optimized for where travelers are going to be over the next decade. Indeed, almost 40% of our current sales are now in America, Asia Pacific and EME, a four percentage point increase on last year. Like-for-like revenue growth has been strong, up 12% for the half, underpinned in part by our geographical exposure to countries with higher levels of structural demand growth, but also by a stronger brand and concept lineup, increasing digital capability, engaged teams, deeper client relationships, and strong sustainability credentials. Taken together, this progress is reinforcing our purpose to be the best part of the journey. Customers are noticing too, with our group reputation score up to 4.4 out of 5 from 4.2 six months ago. Delivering operating efficiency is and always has been a core skill at SSP and we brought in new processes and tools to drive this further. The momentum we have in operating efficiency has enabled us to move the gross profit margin forward by 20 basis points and reduced our percentage labour costs by 70 basis points. Let me now turn to the regions, starting with North America. With a strengthening competitive position there, an experienced team and momentum on all fronts in a large and growing North American market, our plan would be to build a market share to more than 20% in the medium term. We will do this primarily organically through like-for-like growth and new unit growth opportunities in existing and new airports, and supplement this where it makes sense through value creating M&A. Our business development and M&A agenda are coming together at pace in America, and we expect to deliver over a billion dollars of sales in America this year, making it a 50% larger business than it was pre-COVID. Growing from 37 airports at the start of FY23, we were at 51 by the end of March and 52 today, including a presence now in almost half of the top 80 airports in the region. Since the start of the year, we've completed the acquisitions of the final part of midfield concessions, securing the business in Denver, and the ECG business in Canada, in addition to acquiring a small business at Atlanta Airport, the busiest airport in North America. Our step forward in EBITDA margin in North America, up 1.4 percentage points from an already good base, is particularly encouraging. It has been delivered primarily through continuous improvement in gross margin as we carefully optimise menus. And helping us to offset labour cost pressures, digital order and pay solutions now account for approximately 15% of transactions, almost double the level it was a year ago. So we're on track with our strategic and operational plans in North America. Similarly to North America, but from a very different starting point, we are planning to more than double the size of SSP in Asia Pacific and the Middle East over the medium term. These regions have some of the fastest-growing airport infrastructure and F&B travel markets in the world. We are investing now both to build further scale in our existing geographic footprint and to selectively enter attractive new markets to secure long-term growth and returns. Currently, we operate in 16 markets in these regions and have a set of businesses that we group into three categories that we show on this slide. Starting on the left, Unsurprisingly, our most well-established businesses, where we have the greatest scale, are also our most profitable. India, Egypt and Thailand. Importantly, we see a long runway for further growth in each of these countries. For example, in Thailand, we have opened a further 25 outlets in the last 12 months, taking our outlet count there to more than 100. An important component of this strategy has been extending into convenience retail with our Point brand. The middle column of this slide comprises markets where we have a more recent presence and where we're investing now to grow faster. For example, Australia, where we've acquired ARE to become the market leader now, and Malaysia, where we have scaled from one unit to 34 in the space of the last 18 months. And the third section represents our three most recently announced market entries, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and New Zealand. Saudi is a good example of how we are pushing very hard to build out our presence, scale and relationships in a market where we see structural growth and where projected returns are attractive. We have already secured 10 units across three terminals in Riyadh Airport, 26 units in Jeddah, and we see significant potential for further growth. The UK is our heartland market. It's our home market, and we expect to lead on multiple fronts. And we're making excellent progress in that regard. We're leveraging our traditionally strong position in the rail channel, where we're seeing a steady underlying recovery in rail commuting, alongside building out our presence strongly in the air channel. Improving our customer and client propositions has been central to our strategy, and this is delivering improved like-for-like sales, strong retentions and further net gains. Importantly, we're converting this growth well to profit. In the first half in the UK, we delivered strong like-for-like sales and 14% profit growth, notwithstanding the impact of further rail strikes and a full renewals programme. In terms of the strength of our UK customer proposition, as evidenced by what customers tell us, we're making excellent progress with a reputation score now of 4.6 out of five, up from 4.4 out of five last year. The impact of this work shows in how clients rate us too. From a satisfaction rating of 53% in 2019, our client satisfaction as measured by a survey we conducted comprehensively in March of this year has now stepped up to 92%, 53% to 92% in the period. So how are we doing this? We've been upgrading the core state and we're also bringing innovative new propositions and brands to market. For instance, in the Air Channel, we've recently opened three premium bars in a similar style to our successful Juniper Gatwick proposition. They are Sable & Co in Liverpool, Astor & Thyme in Newcastle, and Evergreen in Manchester. In the Rail Channel, we've been investing to refresh our M&S stores, as well as resetting our own brand convenience retail estate, with 18 of our new cafe local formats open by March, and more than 20 to come in the second half. Importantly, in parallel to this growth, we have a full programme of efficiency initiatives across all cost lines. For example, we're using new technology to facilitate better labour scheduling, we've adopted new waste management tools, and the ongoing rollout of digital is enabling production efficiencies, speed of service, while also increasing spend per customer. Sustaining this progress in our core home market will allow us to strengthen this important performance engine. Continental Europe is an important part of our group, and we have long established presence across the Scandinavian countries and in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, and Spain, with strong market positions in each of these countries. While our performance in the first half has been strong in several of these countries, we've faced some specific challenges in the region, which have left year-on-year profit down about 10% in the first half, as Jonathan has already described. The key reasons for this are twofold. First, the sheer scale of the rebuilding programme in the Nordic airports has, as we anticipated, resulted in a short-term disruption as large numbers of units have been closed for rebranding. This programme is fully on track and we expect these units to perform well as they start to mature. Importantly, though, through this process, we have retained our share of space and extended our contracts across the Nordics. Second, as Jonathan said earlier, in Germany and France, we've seen a slower level of year-on-year growth in the rail sector. This has been exacerbated by a step-up in strike action, most notably in Germany. So looking into the second half in continental Europe, we're expecting an improved performance because the timing impact of the renewal activity will naturally ease, most notably in Nordic markets. And in Germany, the strike action has now been settled. As we now look to the summer, we're planning for a demand boost from the European Football Championships during June and July, and from the Paris Olympics and Paralympics in July, August, and September. Indeed, across our Southern European and Mediterranean businesses, we continue to trade very well, and we carry good momentum into the summer holiday season. Finally, it's worth noting that last year we announced the phased exit from our German motorway business. This will be substantially complete by the end of FY26, and once complete, will enhance our margins in the region by approximately 75 basis points. So looking to the medium term, we're setting up to deliver steady sales growth and sustained margin enhancement from here in continental Europe. As Jonathan outlined earlier, we're combining operating our business, investing organically, and growing our business through M&A. As I said out earlier, we're deploying our M&A spend into the strategic regions, those that combine structural growth with our ability to generate returns. As we're starting to demonstrate through recent acquisitions in North America, targeted infill M&A can add value where the strategic fit and the economics are both right. By accelerating growth, providing entry to new airports that would be otherwise difficult to access, unlocking new relationships and accessing new formats or brands in a way that's harder to achieve organically. As we put the two Australian businesses together, the newly acquired ARE business and our own, we go from having approximately 100 million Australian dollars in sales per annum in about 40 outlets to having 300 million sales per annum across more than 100. The proven capability of ARE in designing and operating large format bars and casual dining restaurants, their longstanding relationships with East Coast airports and iconic Australian brands, and the opportunity for combined efficiencies should underpin the anticipated returns on this acquisition. We're also today announcing the acquisition of 60% of Taurus Gemelang, a business in Indonesia marking our entry to the fourth most populous country in the world, and which by 2040 may well be the world's fourth largest aviation market. We will start by operating 13 outlets there, mostly in Bali, but we expect this acquisition to provide a platform for further growth and returns in the market. What each of these five acquisitions have in common is a disciplined investment hurdle. We expect each to deliver IRRs in excess of 15%, which typically means we pay an EBITDA multiple of between five and seven times. Underpinning the success of our growth and returns agenda is the work that we're doing to strengthen our sustainability credentials. These are of increasing importance to our colleagues, our clients, and to our broader stakeholder set. All of the work that we're doing in this area has been set out in our standalone sustainability report, which I would encourage you to review. But just a couple of highlights for today. You can see from the slide on the left that this year we achieved an MSCI rating of A and also a 42% reduction in our scope one and two greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2023 against our science-based target initiative approved net zero targets. This progress that I've described across all areas could not have been achieved without the skill, the hard work and the culture of the 43,000 people working with us in more than 600 locations to deliver the best part of the journey to our stakeholders. Engagement matters. We know that when we get this right, we deliver a better colleague proposition, better service to customers and better unit performance. In our recent engagement survey to measure this, we saw a record level of participation with an 80% completion rate, an improvement of four percentage points on last year. We're also making good strides in diversity, equity, inclusion with, for example, 39% of our senior leadership roles across SSP now held by women. While there's more to do, it's encouraging to see the progress that we're making. So, each of these priorities come together to set us up to drive improved and sustained financial performance from here. Now, let me take a step back to summarize what this means for the SSP investment case. The components of this case are strong. The travel food industry has favorable structural long-term growth dynamics. our strategy to focus our capital and our teams on the geographies and channels with the highest growth is working well. Importantly, we still do see further opportunities to optimize performance and to selectively grow in our more mature markets in the UK and Europe. We have the capability to convert this growth efficiently, to deliver margin growth and generate cash to reinvest to expand the business. When we do so, we achieve high returns in excess of 20% IRRs. Of course, this cycle of investment takes time, but as these new sites and businesses mature, they generate cash, which, taken together with our base business, gives us the opportunity to delever and then either accelerate growth or return cash to shareholders. This model will create a cycle of compounding growth and returns for shareholders. So our investment case is a sustainable model from here. with strong sales growth on the back of structural market growth, sustainable margin accretion, double digit EPS growth, a strong balance sheet and a regular dividend. So to conclude, our business is in good shape. We have strong like for like momentum, high levels of new business wins, and we're translating that into EBTA growth. We've built a platform and we carry good momentum into the second half. These factors, together with the travel industry expectations for a strong summer, give us confidence in the delivery of our planning assumptions for the full year. Furthermore, the progress we're making against our strategic priorities is building a positive investment case and a positive outlook for the medium term, where we expect our model to generate sustainable and compounding growth and returns from here. So thank you for joining us, and Jonathan and I will now take questions from the table.