Wolters Kluwer S/Adr

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Volta's Clua Half Year 2023 Results Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. and you are in the queue to ask a question. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to hand over to your host, Meg Gowdans, Vice President, Investor Relations, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and welcome, everyone. Welcome to the Voltoscuro first half 2023 results presentation. Today's release and the slides are now available for download on the investor section of our website. On the call with me today are Nancy McKinstry, our CEO, and Kevin Entrykin, our CFO. As we have been recently, we're dialing in from various remote locations, so thank you in advance for understanding in case we experience any delays during the event. Nancy and Kevin will shortly discuss the important features of our half-year program. results. Following their comments, we'll open the call to your questions. Before we start, I'll just remind you that some statements we make today may be forward-looking. We caution that these statements are subject to risk and uncertainty that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the statements. Factors that could affect future financial results are discussed in our 2022 end report and in note two of today's release. As usual today, we will refer to adjusted profits, which exclude non-benchmark items. We refer to growth in constant currency, which excludes the effect of exchange rate movements. And we refer to organic growth, which excludes both the effect of currency and the effect of acquisitions and disposals. You can find reconciliations and further information in note four of today's release. So at this time, I'd like to hand over the call to Nancy McKinstry.

Thank you, Meg. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call. In keeping with our usual practice, I will start with the highlights of the first half. Kevin will then discuss the financial results in detail. After that, I will come back to discuss divisional developments and the progress we've made against our strategic goals, including how we are deploying artificial intelligence. Following this, I will conclude with the outlook for the remainder of the year. So let me start with the highlights on slide four. Financially, we delivered healthy organic growth of 6%. The development of our operating margin and cash flow were in line with our expectations for the first half. We are on track to meet our full-year guidance. Diluted adjusted EPS rose 2% in constant currencies, and we were pleased to see return on invested capital reach 15.4%. The share buyback contributed to a slight increase in leverage But at 1.5 times, our balance sheet remains very healthy. In the second half of our current three-year plan, we've taken some bold steps to advance our strategic and ESG goals. Expert solutions now make up 58% of total revenues and grew 7% organically. Within this cloud-based software grew 15% organically. Product development spending increased compared to a year ago to 11% of total revenues. We formed a new division in March this year, Corporate Performance and ESG, which will help us accelerate our expert solutions and extend our reach into the ESG market and other adjacencies. Importantly, in the first half, we centralized nearly all of our product development teams into the DXG organization, and we've created a unified branding, communication, and digital marketing team at the center. At the same time, we continue to make progress on key sustainability goals. So with those highlights, I'd now like to hand it over to Kevin, who will take you through the financials.