Compass Group PLC

Welcome to conference group 2026 first quarter training update conference call hosted by Dominic Blakemore, group chief executive officer. All is being recorded. Ask a question, please press star 1 on your touchstone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Dominic Blakemore for his opening remarks. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Welcome to our Q1 trading updates. As usual, Petros is alongside me. We've had a strong start to the year, delivering organic revenue growth above 7%. Growth moderated as expected from the exceptional Q4 run rate, but the overall momentum remained very positive and strongly within our multi-year growth algorithm. Both regions and all sectors performed well, with sports and leisure and business and industry the fastest growing. For the fifth year running now, net new business remains in our 4% to 5% range, supported by sustained strong client retention of over 96%. Outsourcing trends remain robust, with new business wins up 10% year-on-year to $4 billion, nearly half of which came from the B&I sector. We completed the acquisition of Vermont in December and are now progressing with the integration. Together with synergies from the other acquisitions and operating leverage across the business, we're confident in delivering good margin progress this year. We've also announced our intention to change the currency of our share price from sterling to US dollars from the 1st of April. Turning to guidance, our expectations for 2026 are positive and unchanged. We anticipate underlying operating profit growth of around 10% on a constant currency basis, Driven by organic revenue growth around 7%, 2% profit growth from M&A and ongoing margin progression. Before I hand back over to the operator for Q&A, I'd like to address the trends we're seeing in AI across our business. BNI continues to be one of our fastest growing sectors, both globally and in North America. Supported by strong net new and positive volumes. Contract signings are very healthy, with over half of the new wins coming from first-time outsourcing, driven in part by the continued expansion in the tech sector, where we have a very strong presence and are growing above double digit. After spending three weeks meeting with around 40 current and prospective clients, one message came through loud and clear. AI is driving significant improvements in efficiency, productivity, and growth. But capturing the opportunity requires new skills and evolving roles across organizations. It's also important to remember that 80% of our business is in sectors such as sports, defense, mining, manufacturing, education, and healthcare, which are largely insulated from any AI risk and continue to offer us very strong pipelines and attractive first-time outsourcing opportunities. The remaining 20% of our portfolio is in white-collar B&M, which spans tech, professional, and financial services. And over one-third of this is related to tech, where we are benefiting from what's been described as the largest infrastructure build-out in human history. The other two-thirds includes professional and financial service clients, where only a very small proportion is exposed to entry-level roles. The AI supply chain now spans energy generation, chip manufacture, data centers, modeling, and applications. And we already have a very strong exposure to all of these layers, where we see an acceleration in growth as this ecosystem continues to scale. And we're an active AI adopter ourselves, embedding AI across our operations to drive growth and productivity, particularly in sales execution and procurement. In summary, we're well positioned to benefit from the AI economy, both supporting our hyperscaling technology clients and by participating in the broader AI supply chain. Experience has also shown us that our business has proven extremely resilient through major cycles, from the global financial crisis to COVID, and we've consistently adapted, emerged stronger, and accelerated net new growth. With that, I'll now hand over to the operator so we can take your questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, to ask a question, please press star 1. Thank you. We will now take our first question from Jamie Rollo of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.