Wolters Kluwer S/Adr

Hello and welcome to the Bolton's CLUA Half Year Results 2020 conference call. My name is Rosie and I'll be your co-ordinator for today's event. Please note this conference has been recorded and for the duration your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If you require assistance, please press star 0 and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to Meg Geldens, Head of Investor Relations, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Thank you, Rosie, and welcome, everyone, to the Voters Coor Half-Year 2020 Results Call. Today's earnings release and the slides for this presentation are available for download on the investor section of our website, voterscoor.com. On the call with me today are Nancy McKinstry, our CEO, and Kevin Entrykin, our CFO. Due to COVID-19, we are all dialing into this call remotely from various locations around the world. We thank you in advance for your understanding in case we experience any delays during this event. Nancy and Kevin will shortly discuss the important features of our first half results, and following their comments, we'll open the call to your questions. Before we start, I'll remind you that some statements we make today may be forward-looking. We caution that these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. Factors that could affect FolterScore's future financial results are discussed in Note 3 to the half-year earnings release. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to some disruption in our end-user markets and created significant uncertainty in terms of economic conditions around the world. If the situation deteriorates or persists for an extended period of time in key regions or businesses, then the risk of a significant impact on the group's business due to this pandemic will increase. In addition to Note 3, we also refer you to Note 30 of our annual report for details on other risks. And as usual, we'll refer today to adjusted profits, which excludes non-benchmark items. We also refer to growth in constant currencies, which excludes the effect of currency movements. And we refer to organic growth, which excludes both the effect of currency and the effect of acquisitions and disposals. Reconciliations to IFRS numbers and further information can, of course, be found in the notes to the financial statements. And so at this time, I'm happy to turn the call over to our CEO, Nancy McKinstry.

Thank you, Meg. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this call. Before I start, I would like to thank all employees of Walters Corp for their enormous efforts and dedication during what has been an unprecedented and challenging time for everyone. Since mid-March, our attention has been on ensuring the safety of our employees, safeguarding the continuity of the business, and providing as much support as we can to our customers during this difficult and disruptive time. Today, with approximately 95% of our employees still working from home, we are monitoring everyone's well-being regularly to help steer how we can best assist them. Across all segments, we've been focused on supporting our customers. whether it is by providing access to medical resources or by launching new solutions that help our customers manage COVID-19 challenges. Underpinning all of this has been a global incident management organization that has been active since the pandemic began and our global IT infrastructure team who has been involved at many levels. Against this backdrop, we are encouraged by how the business performed in the first half. Our first half results speak not only to the quality and resilience that we have built at Walters Clore over many years, but also the agile manner in which the team responded to this crisis on all fronts. If anything, the crisis has reinforced our commitment to our strategic direction. While our financial trajectory has been altered somewhat, we remain very committed to our strategic priorities, growing our expert solutions, advancing our information products and services, and driving operational agility. After a strong first quarter and helped by the rapid rollout of a solution to enable our bank customers to participate in the U.S. Paycheck Protection Program, otherwise known as PPP, we delivered 3% organic growth in the first half. Rapid action on cost containment, a few one-off factors, as well as some underlying improvements pushed up the first half margin and adjusted operating profit, which in turn drove an increase in diluted adjusted EPS and in adjusted free cash flow. Our balance sheet and liquidity position remained strong, enabling us to continue with dividends and share buybacks. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Enterkin, who will cover our financial performance. After that, I will come back to discuss divisional developments and provide you with some examples of how we are progressing on our strategic priorities. Kevin.