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Okay, good morning, everybody, and thank you very much. Good to see a full house, particularly in July. We were rather expecting more people to be on vacation, but there you have it. But we are reasonably well prepared.And before we start, I have to tell you that there are no scheduled fire alarm tests today, so if the fire alarms do go off, then please listen to the announcements and follow the instructions. And the fire assembly point is over by St. Paul's Cathedral, opposite the Blacks camping store. Have we all got that? Good. Right, second disclaimer: This presentation comes with all the normal disclaimers, but apart from that, we'll get into the meat of it.Very good to see you all. We've had a busy time at Informa for the last few months, so for us it's a great opportunity to share with you what's going on inside the company; and in particular give you a bit of an insight into how we are combining Informa and UBM, as we laid out the last time we had a chance to talk.For those of you who have followed the company for the last few years, you'll be very familiar with this program we put in place back in -- the end of 2013, beginning of 2014, the Growth Acceleration Plan, which was largely designed to give ourselves a framework to be able to do 2 things, which was to operate the company as a company focused on and delivering growth; and at the same time creating a platform for scale to enable us to expand in the markets that we saw future growth opportunities, of which the first we identified was Exhibitions, of which the most recent manifestation of that has been our acquisition of UBM. We will come back to the Growth Acceleration Plan later, but this is the first set of results that we are presenting since the end of the GAP plan. And whilst it includes a short 10-day stub period of UBM, in the main it is a report on old Informa, if you like. And we've presented the numbers out so that you can see them pretty clearly, what the contribution was in the stub period and what UBM did over that period.At a headline level, these are the divisional numbers. Academic Publishing, a steady growth number. I wouldn't get carried away with that. Some of that's a phasing effect, but we feel good about where that is. Exhibitions, in growth in the mid- to high single digits. Business Intelligence, tracking reasonably comfortably in growth, slight change in the mix; and Knowledge and Networking, steady despite the fact that it's carrying a bit of a burden from a major cancellation which it didn't carry in from year to year.And the revenue-to-profit flow-through is as is. There's a combination effect in the difference between the revenue and the profit largely driven by a mixture of depreciation and currency. EPS number ticks up, free cash flow strong. And a confirmation today that we're maintaining our commitment to increase the dividend by 6% on a year-on-year basis.So at a headline level, that's where the business is, and we feel very good about that at this point in the year. The steady track on both revenue and earnings continues. And of course, the group is quite a different group in size and scale in 2018 from where it was in 2014.Underlying revenue growth is very much the focus of the business. Top line growth of all the businesses is where we have focused our activity, whether it be in product development or in new markets or in sales or in pricing, but underpinned by a steady, progressive improvement in profit and earnings and a particular focus on free cash flow. And the free cash flow strength of the business continues to perform.Clearly the balance sheet post the UBM acquisition is slightly at the upper end of the gearing level following completion, but there's a clear track to see that tick down through to the end of the year. And Gareth will talk in his presentation about where the balance sheet is and where we ended up on our most recent financing. Because of the strength of the free cash flow, we feel very confident with where we are in our dividend commitments. And most of all, inside the business, what are we doing? We're focused on how we do this combination of the 2 companies as effectively as we can. And we'll get into that in quite some detail later.Just to get into each of the businesses.Academic Publishing, as you will recall, had a strong year last year and has tracked into '18 equally strongly. We're continuing to see steady and progressive performance in our Books business both in electronic products but also in physical product. And we launched a program, which people will have perhaps slightly forgotten about, 18 months, 2 years ago inside the business to internationalize the business, to simplify it, to improve the volume and the specificity of subject matter development inside Books. And that continues to treat us very well. And we feel, I think, confident about where that business is. Our renewals levels in Journals remain high. And reassuringly and interestingly for us, we bought a business in the middle of last year called Dove Medical Press to expand our footprint in open access. And the open access business is showing high single-digit growth. It's a very small business by comparison to the reach and range of our overall subscription business but nevertheless is giving us a very nice footprint in a place in the market where, as people who follow this industry will know, there's a significant shift towards. We're also continuing to invest at a slightly higher level in Academic Publishing, particularly to improve our service offering around discoverability and the digital services for specific subject matter groups.So a little bit of currency headwind. You see that generally in our profit numbers, that's partly a kind of revenues in dollars, costs in pounds effect, is partly a change in the currency between the pound and the dollar. Put those two together, and you see a little bit of a headwind in the first half but not, we believe, a material issue on a going-forward basis.So headlines on academic: resilient performance, particularly underpinned by strengths in Books.Good morning.In Global Exhibitions and UBM. This is the first time that I will be talking about the UBM business. So we've owned the business for 5 weeks, so I am by definition therefore an expert, but in Global Exhibitions, in our own business, we had very strong underlying trading. If we had one part of the portfolio that hit a couple of problems, it was in the Middle East, largely because in that market we've had significant growth year-on-year for 4 or 5 years on the trot. The business is still in growth, so this is not a problem zone, but it came off slightly. And also, we had a 1-year effect last year because of a break-out in our major medical show Arab Health, where we took MEDLAB out as a separate brand. And so that obviously doesn't repeat in '18 as it did in '17.Our big brands in the portfolio continue to perform extremely well, particularly in natural products, particularly in construction and particularly in the Beauty categories. And all 3 of those categories look very well set for further growth into '19.We, like many players in this market, have been innovating around value delivery for customers, whether that be around how they bring product to market; how they exhibit; how you develop their footprint in and around, before or during an exhibition, what broadly we call customer value initiatives. And they continued to be rolled out. We're seeing volume expansion in some of our shows, and there have been a series of new launches. We announced about a year ago the launch of what we called our Market Maker product, which is essentially a digital product service which affords exhibitors and attendees an ability to be able to extract more out of the event before, during and after. And that is rolling progressively out across our portfolio.Headlines: very consistent business, very strong growth[Audio Gap]and through into the second.UBM is quite a different portfolio for us. If anything, it's complementary solely on the numbers in that, that tends to be a back-half-weighted business rather than a front-half-weighted business; trading broadly in line with expectations, with the exception of Fashion, which we'll come back and talk about; underlying revenue growth just over 1% in aggregate; the Events business growing at just over 2%, with some drag overall in Marketing Services which is a small portion of the portfolio. And in that portfolio, particular strength in Pharma, Technology and Food & Hospitality; and as we are discovering, really strong performances in Asia in particular. Fashion, we've called out. And I'm going to come back to that, so I'm not going to dwell on it here.In BI and in Knowledge and Networking, steady performances in the first half. With both these businesses, they're quite back half weighted, BI because the subscription renewal period is a back-6-months period, and for K&N, just the nature of that business, the portfolio is very weighted to the back half. But notwithstanding that, we saw actually steady performances in the first half of the year on subscriptions. And we saw actually strong performances in K&N because K&N is carrying a drag in the first half of the year of about GBP 5 million worth of revenue from a nonrecurring contract which we didn't renew. So actually we feel pretty good about where K&N is given the first half realities.Going into the second half of the year, we see improved levels of growth coming through in BI, particularly in subscriptions; and a steady performance in K&N.Obviously the main headline of today is this is the first time we've presented as one company. And what we're really trying to do here is create a new company, a combination of the 2 businesses. And there's been a lot of time, management time, meetings, travel, engagement, customer engagement and portfolio planning, to see how you put 2 companies together in a way that maximizes success for the people inside the company, for customers and therefore ultimately for shareholders. There is nothing that we have discovered, notwithstanding the issues in Fashion, that changes our view that combining these 2 companies creates a business of international scale and reach with a geographical footprint that is advantageous because it gives us channels to market for the brands we've got. It gives us vertical scale in markets, particularly B2B markets, which have got long-term sustainable growth features. It enhances our specialist knowledge in areas where we want to continue to improve. The power of the face-to-face platform sees no sign of abating, although clearly, like in all businesses, there's a need to add more product and service delivery to it in order to make it remain competitive. And the ultimate competitive advantage is, of course, the strength we have in the knowledge we have about our customers, their markets and what they're doing.So we feel, I think, strongly positive about how we've put the 2 companies together. We've made some quite significant early decisions about the operating model, which we've laid out in the release to give people a sense of how we're going about the operation. And I'll come back and talk about that after Gareth.So we've metamorphosized our GAP approach into an integration plan, and the integration plan has these 6 key elements. And over the next couple of years, this is what you'll see us focus on, report on and measure ourselves on. It's a 12-month program to then set us up for future growth, particularly revenue growth. The first thing that we have spent much time on is the operating model. How are we going to run this business? What is the operating model? And in short order, what are the synergies that we can extract as a result of combining the 2 businesses? We announced today that we, a, now can see the GBP 60 million synergies that we planned in the preacquisition due diligence and were audited. And we can see a path to taking that to GBP 75 million, and we're going to use that gain in order to fund an investment program in Fashion.We've made some decisions around leadership and talent, which is a mix-and-match of talent and skills from the 2 companies, at the operating level and at the staff level. We've called out today that the combined business is going to focus on those markets and categories where we see growth at a level that we are interested in. And therefore, that will bring some portfolio trimming to the business over the next year to 18 months.The cost and revenue synergies, we've been very specific on the cost synergies. The revenue synergies, we're still at the stage of where do we see them rather than identifying how and when. We've been very specific about how we're going to approach Fashion. And I will lay out our approach to that after Gareth takes you through the detail of the numbers. And on the brand, we've made the explicit decision to retire the UBM brand within 12 months. The company will be called Informa. The UBM brand is not a brand we will trade. We will focus our investment around the operating brands, the customer brands and the product brands; and focus any attention that is needed at the corporate level around the Informa brand.We've laid it out inside the company and externally pretty transparently as a 12-month program. The first phase, in fact, finishes at the end of this month, what we've called the validation and discovery phase where really what we're doing there is ensuring that what we thought we knew, we knew; and refining on the back of new discovery. And then during the months of August, September and October, the second phase, what we've called the combination period, we will intend to put the 2 companies together at an operating level of detail, which will mean that we will go into our budgeting process for 2019 as one company. So we feel pretty confident that we have a programmatic approach to combination, which should seek to minimize the downsides and the disruptions that inevitably go with these activities. We talk about them in these rooms and in presentation slides, but they affect in round numbers 9,000 or 10,000 people's lives. And so being methodological about how you're doing it and as transparent as you can be, both pays respect to the colleagues and the companies but also means you can get there by minimizing disruption to the operating business.Those are the phases. They in reality should see us go into 2019 as an operating company; and then allow us in '19 to then pick up pace both on cost synergies that we haven't looked at yet and operating benefits that we haven't looked at yet, particularly in and around shared service. And then begin to focus in '19 through '20 on the real promise, which is around the revenue synergies and the upsides in markets.With that point, I will pause and hand over to Gareth to take us through the detail of the financial numbers that we have reported this morning.Gareth?
Cheers. Thanks, Stephen. Good morning, everyone.Reporting the financial results for the first half of 2018, and I'm pleased to say that we've delivered another good performance in terms of trading. And that includes another year of -- another period of year-on-year improvement in our underlying revenue growth.So I'll start by talking you through those headline financial results for the first half. We are reporting improved underlying revenue growth of 4.3%. This figure excludes UBM, and it's ahead of the 3.7% growth we reported this time last year and the 2.4% growth for the full year 2017. This growth was powered by the Global Exhibitions division, now our largest division in revenue terms, but supported by the other 3 divisions, which all improved their underlying revenue growth performance compared to the first half of last year. Reported revenue growth increases by 4.6%. In addition to the 4.3% underlying growth, we benefited from the combination with UBM. And that enabled us to more than offset a currency headwind from the weaker U.S. dollar.Adjusted operating profit increases 1.9% on an underlying basis, with the drop-through from revenue to profit reflecting depreciation on the portfolio of GAP-funded projects and platforms that went live in 2017. Reported operating profit increases 3.3%, delivering a 2.5% increase in earnings per share after increased charges for interest and tax and the increased number of shares post UBM.The group's balance sheet was used efficiently in the UBM combination, with half year leverage increasing to 3.1x and positioned to return under 3x leverage by the year-end, before trending down to the 2x to 2.5x leverage range that we've consistently stated as our medium-term target.And free cash flow continues to be a strong feature of the group and increased by almost 5% to just over GBP 119 million in the first half of the year.The board considered both the first half performance and the increase in half year free cash flow before raising the interim dividend by 6% to 7.05p per share. And this 6% growth is consistent with the dividend per share growth that we were delivering at the end of the Growth Acceleration Plan.So in summary. The 2018 half year results demonstrate that we're on course to deliver the headline objectives for the year of growth continuation, to continue to reposition the group while delivering a progressive trading performance.So if we take these headlines and then break them down into a closer look at the division-by-division results for the first half.Academic Publishing had a good first half, reporting 3.5% underlying growth. This was driven by an improved performance in the Books business, where we benefited both from our operational fitness program that we launched and delivered in 2017. And also as well, we benefited from a more stable end market outlook. This was supported by further solid growth in general subscriptions; and assisted by good growth in open access, as Stephen just touched on.Global Exhibitions delivered another excellent performance in the first half of 2018. The 7.3% underlying revenue growth was built off a strong performance from the top 30 events, which grew at just above the divisional average. And this included strong growth in some of our largest verticals, including Health & Nutrition, Life Sciences, Construction and Real Estate and Beauty & Aesthetics. The growth in the first half of 2018 is slower than the prior year because 2017 included the break-out of the MEDLAB exhibition from the Arab Health exhibition, MEDLAB becoming a top 20 event in its own right immediately and enabling Arab Health to expand. However, our outlook for the second half of this year in [ GES ] helps, because we don't have the headwind from the Ipex print show which we had in the second half of 2017 but does not repeat in 2018.Business Intelligence continues to make good progress. The division delivered another acceleration in growth to 2.4% on an underlying basis compared to 1.2% at this time last year. A steady performance in subscriptions was augmented by strong growth in contingent revenue streams, including Consulting and Specialist Marketing Solutions.Knowledge and Networking delivered 0.5% growth, an improvement on the 4% decline in the first months of 2017 in what is the business' weaker first 6 months of the year. With steady progress in the core events, balanced by the performance in the regions, the business rode out the headwind from the Critical Communications contract discontinuation.And then UBM was part of the group for 2 weeks at the end of June and in that period delivered GBP 69 million of revenue and just over GBP 28 million of OP. If we look at the 6 months as a whole, which is obviously a more relevant period to assess the business over, it delivered underlying revenue growth of 1.1%, comprising 2.5% underlying growth in Events and a 7.6% decline in Other Marketing Services. And within Events there was strong performance in verticals such as Pharma, Technology and Food & Hospitality, offset by the weaker performance in Fashion that Stephen touched on.Turning to the margins on a division-by-division basis. Overall the adjusting operating margins were broadly unchanged around 31%, reflecting a mix of the strongest growth being in our highest-margin division offset by the impact of GAP depreciation and FX effects from the weaker dollar. For Academic Publishing the decrease is really a reflection of the currency movement, with the division weighted to the U.S. dollar on revenue, and sterling on costs, and therefore you get a transactional headwind in the business when the dollar weakens. This was a dynamic we discussed at the time of the February events -- February results, when we could see that the 2018 currency was starting weaker than in 2017.In Global Exhibitions there's a bit of a yachting headwind following the YPI addition in 2017, plus some depreciation from GAP investments coming online. In Business Intelligence there's a revenue weighting towards the second half of the year. And all things being equal, when the stronger second half trades out, we'd expect the full year margin to be broadly unchanged year-on-year. And likewise, in Knowledge and Networking, well, that also has a "second half of the year" revenue weighting, and therefore we would expect the full year margin in that division to be broadly unchanged.If we talk a bit about how the revenue growth mix builds up. This is a key area for us that's delivering increased, sustainable levels of underlying revenue growth with always the key objective of the Growth Acceleration Plan. So it's good for us to report that we have delivered another period of growth in that respect. Today, we've delivered 4.3% underlying revenue growth, which I've just outlined on a division-by-division basis. We've added 7.4% to revenue through the purposeful expansion of our business and particularly the combination with UBM. There's a 0.4% phasing downside from biennials that ran in the first half of 2017 but do not run again in 2018. And finally, there's a 6.7% headwind from currency, which was principally the effect of the weakening U.S. dollar, which represents around about 65% of the group's revenue. And that's how you track into the 4.6% reported revenue growth, including UBM, for the 6 months.So moving to the income statement, you can see that the group has generated around about GBP 294 million of adjusted OP in the first 6 months of 2018. The net interest for the 6 months increases a touch year-on-year because of the higher debt at the end of the period, including the UBM combination. The full year interest, depending on when you -- whether you assume any changes in interest rates or in FX, I'd expect the interest charge to be around about GBP 85 million to GBP 90 million for the full year, including a full 6 months of the UBM financing. And next year, with a full year of that financing, I think you'd expect the interest charge to be around about GBP 100 million, all things being equal.The effective tax rate decreases to 18%, with the main factor being the lower tax payable in the U.S. following the tax reforms that were enacted in December 2017. And as previously communicated at the time of the UBM announcement, we'd expect the group ETR to tick up in 2019 to around about 19%. For the second half of this year, it'd probably be somewhere between the two, depending on what happens in tax law changes around areas like state aid.The outcome of all of this is a 2.5% increase in earnings year-on-year despite the significant headwind from the U.S. dollar. And as we previously disclosed, a 0.01 move in the U.S. dollar has a 0.3p impact on legacy and former earnings on a full year basis. Therefore, the weakening in the first half from $1.26 rate in 2017 to $1.37 in H1 '18 has an effect of around about 1.7p headwind on the earnings per share. So if you adjusted for FX effects, it would result in earning around about 10%.So driving free cash flow remains a strong and key area of focus for us. And although the first half of the year is usually the slower of the 2 halves, and we expect that to be the case in 2018, we have turned a 3.3% increase in operating profit into almost a 5% increase in free cash flow.CapEx in the first half was over 12 -- just over GBP 12 million lower than 2017, which reflects the completion of investments under the Growth Acceleration Plan. Working capital is about GBP 23 million worse year-on-year. But this includes a GBP 26 million outflow from the stub period of UBM, which is not really an ongoing reflection of the UBM working capital performance and just reflects what happens in -- what happened in those 2 weeks. So compared to H1, free cash flow delivery in the second half is our key period and a stronger period for free cash flow, as we deliver a large amount of subscription cash in the publishing businesses and well -- as well as we get the down payments on exhibition space for the first half of 2019. UBM also will contribute strongly to free cash flow in the second half, looking at the phasing of that business.So as results stand, we'd expect our leverage to be under, just a touch under, 3x by year-end, before tracking down to our target range of 2x to 2.5x net debt-EBITDA by the end of 2019. In conclusion, our focus remains clearly on free cash flow. And with 6 months of UBM included, we'll be targeting free cash flow in excess of GBP 475 million for 2018 as a whole.So one of the dynamics you see in these results is an increase in depreciation partly offsetting some of the underlying revenue growth in the first half of the year. And we pulled together this slide as a way of trying to give you a feel of how the change in dynamic is working over time as the Growth Acceleration Plan CapEx has gone live. The Informa guidance overall still remains that CapEx is around about 3% to 5% of revenue. So for example, if you take consensus group revenue for 2018, assumed 3% for events, 5% for publishing, you get to a CapEx figure of around GBP 90 million for the year, which is what's on the slide. But in the mix, with UBM as an events business diluting this slightly, that's why you see the blue line trending down in 2018. But the key message from this slide is that the gap is closing between the CapEx and the depreciation columns, and that signifies that the catch-up investment impact from depreciation is coming to a close. And we expect that gap to fully close over the period of 2019, 2020.Our balance sheet gearing was at 3.1x net debt-EBITDA at the half year. When we made the 2.7 announcement at the end of January, we said that we expected, half year, our net debt to be a touch over 3x; and that's exactly what's happened. However, by taking the gearing up just over 3x, we've used the balance sheet efficiently and effectively in the UBM combination without overextending them.The key development in terms of our financing in the first half of the year was the refinancing of the GBP 645 million drawn UBM acquisition facility through the issue of our first public bond in July. We issued notes for EUR 650 million and GBP 300 million in a process that was over 2x subscribed and with a post-swap interest cost of 3.1%. And our 10-year maturity profile shows a good spread on debt expiries, you can see on the graph there, with a balanced mix of funding sources.So looking at our free cash flow performance over the period from 2014, you can see consistent growth in free cash flow despite the first half being a weaker cash-generation period. That strong cash generation and our balance sheet flexibility has given us real optionality in terms of capital allocation. And whilst we have allocated capital to building and buying the #1 position in the exhibition and trade show industry globally, we've also consistently grown the dividend to reward shareholders supporting that strategy. Dividend per share has increased by a CAGR of [ over ] 5x through the period, but cash returns to shareholders have more than doubled over the same time period to over GBP 250 million on a pro forma basis for 2018.To summarize. We made a good start to the year. We delivered steady improvement in underlying revenue growth, broadly stable margins overall as we continued to invest in the group and continued the strong cash generation while completing the acquisition and starting the integration of UBM. Now as in previous years, there's plenty of trading to deliver in the second half, so there's still a long way to go but with the benefit of predictable subscription and exhibition revenue accounting for over 65% of our revenue numbers, giving us good forward visibility. And our 30%-plus margins and GBP 600 million of annual free cash generation mean we convert our revenue very efficiently.As we've seen, our balance sheet is secure, with long-term financing and flexibility in place, meaning that we continue -- we can continue to make steady investment to support consistent returns. But overall, notwithstanding the dynamics I've highlighted here, I feel reasonably assured about where we are at the half year and think we are well positioned and confident about delivering another full year of progress and performance.Stephen?
Thanks, Gareth.All right, I'm conscious that there's a packed agenda of results today, so I'm going to crack through the next section quickly so we can get some questions before people may wish to head off to other presentations of more interest.This is the AIP plan. I'm just going to pick out a couple of these to talk about in a little bit of depth, and then we'll maybe take some questions.Let's just talk a bit about the operating model, how we're combining the 2 companies. We've made a number of decisions already which are material to the way in which the company will operate. The first is that in Asia, where by far and away UBM was a senior party, we are folding our business into UBM's operating model in Asia, would be the best way to think about it. We have a very nice business and a series of very good joint ventures in China, but by comparison to UBM, they are the senior party. And to that end, we've announced a management approach, a [ measure ] which we think gives us a very smooth transition of combination for both our joint venture arrangements and theirs. We spent quite a bit of time on the ground in that market meeting our partners. And I think we feel very comfortable about where that puts the combined company in what is probably one of the most exciting geographical areas for a combination. By contrast, in EMEA and in Americas we will largely drop the geographical operating model and move to a market model which is more orientated around market verticals or end markets. And we're in the process of working through what that means for individuals, but as a philosophical matter, in those 2 areas, that's how we will combine the businesses. And actually when you look at the portfolios inside the 2 companies, that makes an awful lot of sense when you see the overlap.So what you'll end up with is a business which in the end will be more market led than geographically led and will allow us over time to increasingly move to a more market and verticalized model. We're not going to create a matrix. We're not, by nature, matrix managers. We prefer clean line of sight on authority over decision making, and so we are aligning our businesses around markets and customers.We've made some decisions around the portfolio, and the one where we've spent most time is Fashion, so I want to go to Fashion, first of all. This is a business which is facing some market challenges. We've now had a chance to pore over the business cases associated with both the Advanstar acquisition and the bolt-on acquisitions that we've done following the Advanstar acquisition. And in round numbers, that business was targeted to do around $200 million of revenue by the end of '18, and it's currently tracking to do about $150 million. So it sizes the scale of the change in a relatively short time period. We've taken the view that this is not a market which we can't address or a set of market challenges that we can't address, but to do so requires us to make some investments in the product in order to make it more relevant to what is a significantly changing end market. There's a statement of sort of operating principle. The truth of the trade show industry, which I'm sure all of you know, is that trade shows essentially work well when they are seen as focused on the health of the industry that they serve. When trade shows work less well is when they're seen to be focusing on the health of the trade show first and the industry second. And so the decision we're taking here is that this is an industry that's facing market and structural challenges, and the role of a long-term healthy trade show portfolio is to be seen to be alongside the industry as it navigates its way through those changes. That will require us to make some investments in price, some investments in product, some investments in people, some investments in innovation; and probably will result in us changing the way in which we manage and operate what is, as you can see on this slide, quite a diverse set of individual segment market brands.To that end, the identified upside on the synergies, the GBP 15 million worth of incremental synergy gain that we can see through the combination, we are targeting a reasonable proportion of that as an investment budget to rebase the Fashion business over a 2- to 3-year period. We've badged it a Fashion GAP program because it's simple for us inside the business to understand what that means, and programmatically we know how to do that. And that will be a program that we'll run and track over the next period.On the people side, we've made a number of appointments at the senior level. Generally speaking, we are operating in the operating model that you recognize, that is Informa through the operating divisions. You'll begin to see more and more changes in the operating divisions underneath the headline of K&N, BI and GE; an increasing move towards a market-led approach, but nevertheless for the purposes of simplicity and clarity, we will use our existing operating model. On the core staff functions and the senior staff functions, we've seen a mix of leadership appointments that we've already announced. Some of them are colleagues coming from the Informa. Some of them are colleagues coming from UBM, but the obvious objective is that, in relatively short order, everybody works for one company. And that is something that we are very keen to achieve.The synergy delivery runs as previously undertaken, GBP 60 million, with GBP 50 million of that GBP 60 million coming at pace in year in 2019, a run rate of GBP 60 million by '20 and a target now of GBP 75 million through to 2021. And obviously there are some costs to achieve those synergies. The revenue synergies, which obviously take a bit more time to blend in, will flow largely in the first instance, as we've outlined before, around cross-marketing, internationalization and sharing data and marketing solutions in businesses in markets where we already operate. And I think where we'll see those coming first and fast will be in Asia, by geography; and in food and ingredients, by sector.The brand decision, we've headlined. The company will be called Informa. One of the great underlying strengths of this business is the depth and range of individual operating brands we have in a series of markets. And the brand transition program inside the company and externally where it is relevant, so there are some markets where the UBM brand has some footprint as a trading brand, is underway. Jime Essink from Asia is running that program for us, but really the focus will be around building and developing the customer- and market-facing operating brands.So this is where the business is, as Gareth says, at the half year, just to throw in my own yachting metaphor, steady sailing through to the half year. And we feel good about where the business has gone. Doing these integrations and combinations takes an enormous amount of effort and, candidly, goodwill on all sides because it's change and change in people's lives can be disruptive. But actually having lived these things in a number of lives, this one is going about as well as it could go. The operating performance in both businesses, I think, pays testament to the fundamental resilience in the businesses and the quality of the colleagues around the company as well as the strengths of the underlying fundamentals. We have good confidence about where the business will track in the back half of the year. And as I say, the back-half, front-half weighting of the 2 portfolios is helpful.This programmatic approach to the operating model, how we're making the leadership decisions, how we're going to refine our portfolio to make it more focused around growth, where we find the synergies in revenue and cost, what we're going to do with the Fashion portfolio and how we operate the business is the way in which AIP will gain traction over the next 6 to 12 months. This is our growth outlook for the company as a whole.And on that, very happy to throw it open to questions. Thanks very much for listening.I think we'll need some mics at the front, if we could, please, Michael. Maybe start over here because you're -- and then Kate, there's 2 or 3 people here.
It's Ian Whittaker from Liberum. Actually just one question. I just want to come back to something you actually said with regard to Fashion in terms of the sort of events, that you said events rely on the underlying health of their sectors, sort of -- and therefore, you need to look at things such as price and more investments. Are there any other sectors, when you look through your Events portfolio, where you think that in terms of the structural challenges facing the underlying industries, that you'll need to take a similar approach over the next 2 to 3 years?
It's interesting. That's a question we didn't rehearse. And no, I don't think so. I mean, in all of our -- I will say, in all of our major sectors, some of the things you're seeing going on in Fashion are visible. So let's take the obvious, the rise and rise of electronic retailing and international distribution and an increasingly transparently global supply chain. These are truths in virtually all of the B2B markets that we operate in, but the scale of the structural change in Fashion, I think one of the things that gives our portfolio quite a bit of strength is we are not seeing that elsewhere at that level, no. I don't think so would be my sense, but to use a phrase that Charlie McCurdy used in a meeting -- we were discussing this the other day. The features and the facts of what is happening in the fashion industry are not features and facts that we haven't seen in other markets. I think the question is the pace and the rate and how do you address that in a way that's seen as being invested in the health of the players in the industry. And how does the fashion portfolio and the trade show and what it does adapt at the same pace and rate? I think that's what we'd say. Two -- there's -- Kate, there's two here in the front -- oh, sorry, only here. That's it.
Matthew from Crédit Suisse. 2 questions, please. First, as you said, the journal renewals are going really well. Have you experienced any sort of consortia pushback? And in which markets have you done, if any, any offset deals or any pay-and-read deals? Second question is more for Gareth, which is free cash flow. You're saying it's over GBP 475 million is the target for the year. I think you did about GBP 400 million last year. So there should be some natural growth in your own free cash flow, so it should be more than GBP 400 million. I think UBM was a couple of hundred of free cash flow. As you said, they are stronger in free cash flow in the second half of the year, so to me the math doesn't really -- should be more because you've got at least GBP 100 million from UBM. Plus, you've got some natural growth in your portfolio from free cash flow, so why such a conservative number on free cash flow, particularly as the CapEx-depreciation gap, as you pointed out on your slides, is narrowing? Is it working capital? What's happening?
Okay, why don't I take your first question, Matthew? And then Gareth, your maths aren't adding up. On Journals, as you know, Matthew, we don't comment on individual deals. We never have. Are there changes in the way in which subscription arrangements are being executed in the market? There are. Some of them are much documented upon. And we are definitely adapting our approach to journal subscription renewal contracts on a customer-by-customer basis. Is it affecting our overall renewal rates? No, it's not. It's not. And do we have any specific issues that are live today in the 2 areas that you pointed to? No, we do not. Gareth, do you want to talk...
Yes. Well, you say it might be a prudent target, but that's generally because we only ever set targets that we can hit. So yes, you're right. It is slightly prudent. We certainly erred on the side of giving a number that we feel is definitely deliverable and achievable. So that's where the GBP 475 million-plus number that was on the slide has come from. In terms of the makeup of the numbers, yes, I can see you all -- how you're constructing the UBM number, taking that apart. I don't think that's unreasonable. I think in the Informa number you got to bear in mind it's an actual currency number. So whereas we did GBP 400 million last year, we get some growth on an underlying basis, but on a actual currency basis that offsets it. So in terms of actual currency free cash flow in Informa, that probably would have been flat to maybe slightly down on a like-for-like plain vanilla basis. Then you throw in the UBM cash generation, which is strong in the second half. I wouldn't say it's overweight strong, but it's certainly not weak in the second half. And then you put in the extra interest. You come up with a number north of GBP 475 million, but that's the number we've set as a target to beat for the second half. And what we're really trying to say there is, if you look at the long-term progression of free cash flow, we did GBP 300 million in '16. We did GBP 400 million for '17. We think we can beat GBP 475 million for '18. And then that's extrapolated again for '19, where we think we can be in the region of GBP 600 million. And so what we're talking about really is the long-term progression of the free cash flow generation of the group and the optionality that gives us in terms of capital allocation going forward.
Thanks, Gareth. There's 2 questions in the front here and then 1 in the middle there.
It's Adam Berlin from UBS. First question is on a similar theme. Because if you look at the chart behind you, you've got 5% underlying revenue growth for Global Exhibitions, when you did over 7% in the first half. Is that another kind of prudent piece of guidance? Or are there reasons why you're expecting a big deceleration in the second half in terms of growth rates? That's the first question. The second question is you mentioned quite a lot of reasons around the margins to do with FX, to do with depreciation, to do with operating leverage, but if we just take the 2017 margins as a base and you think 2 to 3 years ahead, if FX roughly stays where it is, should we expect the underlying margins for Informa before UBM to be up, down or roughly flat?
Okay, I -- should I take the first one and you come in on the margin question, Gareth? I mean I think you're asking a general and a specific question on guidance. So there's a specific question around what are we guiding on Exhibitions, and I think there's a general question about -- on Exhibitions, the general view from published sources is that this is an industry that's doing, on an industry average, somewhere between 4% to 4.5%, 5%, depending on whose source numbers you take. And we have always set ourselves the target to try and beat that industry number, and that's where we guide people at north of 5%. We're not trying to make a sort of specific halfway-through-2018 comment on how '18 is trading. This time last year, I think what was then the old Informa Exhibitions portfolio did around 10...
For the half year.
For the half year. Am I right, about 10?
Yes.
Was it 11, 10 or 11? But the -- a, the portfolio is slightly different this year. B, the yachting portfolio, to return to yachting, and not metaphors but facts, the yachting portfolio was not a full -- it wasn't a full year for last year, so there's a comp difference, which is nontrivial because it was a major show in that portfolio which was not ours for the period. And that combined with a little bit of softness in the Middle East has given us a half year performance of around -- what are we for the half year, 7...
[indiscernible].
Yes, just over 7%. Equally, however, when -- our view is that our back half will be less differentiated from the first half this year. So we feel, I think, confident about where we are in this year's trading in GE. I wouldn't try and over-connect the dots. Well, broadly, on your guidance point around growth, these are, I think, sensible, prudent guidance numbers for both the individual divisions and then how they aggregate at the group level given where we are halfway through the year. And then at the beginning of next year, we'll do a reset for '19. On the margin point, Gareth, do you want to...
Yes. So I think we've talked about previously in terms of the -- if you look at the legacy Informa Group, if you like, and the legacy UBM group and take them separately. In terms of the legacy Informa Group, what we've tried to do through the Growth Acceleration Plan was build a business that was capable of consistent 30% margins overall whilst delivering a higher level of underlying revenue growth in the region of sort of 4%, 5%. And that's what we still stand by for that group as a longer-term projection of what we want that business to be able to achieve and what we're looking for consistently from the management teams. The -- look at UBM, that as a business in totality had a -- had a reasonably similar operating margin. And therefore, the 2 businesses are not dilutive to each other. And I think, in terms of the guidance that UBM had given previously, they were talking about sort of margin progression slowly over time, stepping up in the biennial-strong years and trying to hold it in the biennial-weak years. And that's something that's we've -- we're looking to validate through our long-term planning now that we're inside the business and seeing how they were going to get there. But one thing we're broadly saying is a business that delivers consistent sort of circa 30% margins at a higher level of underlying revenue, consistent revenue, growth is what we're trying to deliver. And we think we're on course to do that.
A question here in the front. And then 2 questions there, if we could.
It's Will Packer from Exane BNP Paribas. 3 questions for me, please. Firstly, in terms of the Fashion business within UBM, the company previously disclosed the organic performance of that business. Could you let us know what it was in H1 '18? Was there a further deterioration? And connected to that, the company in the trade press over the last 12 months or so had given some quite specific plans around what they tried -- intended to do to reinvigorate the business. Are those -- should we assume today that they are now ditched and there's a whole new strategy? Secondly, to ask the margin question in a slightly different way: When can we expect underlying profit growth to meet or exceed underlying revenue growth? Is there a date we can have in mind when that catch-up could occur? And then finally, in terms of Books, performance has really improved in the last 12 months or so. Could you just update us as to what the key factors behind that has been, in a part of the portfolio where there's historically been some concern?
Okay, I think there were 4 questions in there, but we'll let you off. It's summer. On H1, I think -- the underlying revenue growth decline in Fashion, I'm looking at some combination of Gareth, Richard and Chris at the back of the room, was around 10?
Yes...
Around 10%. Is that right, around 10%? On your question on plans, no, they're not ditched. They're just developed. And it'll be our intention to engage with the industry in the MAGIC show in August to begin to lay out our plans. There's a very strong team inside that business. What we're outlining today is a plan to invest in the business for growth, not to do anything more than that. So I think, from -- if you were an industry player, our message is we want to see these brands make a contribution to the industry. And I think there are things we can do on that, and there's actually quite a lot of work been done inside the team. I think one of the benefits of being in a combined business is that it doesn't have quite such a drag effect on our growth. And that allows us, I think, to take a medium- to long-term view of the portfolio; and candidly I think that's in everybody's interest. I think it's in the industry's interest. I think it's in our interest, and I think it's in our shareholders' interest. So that's the way we'll approach it. I personally will give you no dates, Will, on that, but Gareth might, so I'll leave him to come to you on the "underlying growth matching profit growth" question. And on Books, well, really a multiplicity of factors, I think. I mean, interestingly, book -- physical book volumes were good. Electronic book numbers were good. Subjects expansion was strong. Absolute new product was strong. And I think it was a slightly more benign end market, but -- so you put all that together and then, I think, a bit of a good outcome from our own programmatic approach to simplification of our business. We're now in our second full year of a single international, unified Books business. And I think operationally it feels like a more coherent business, and we're a bit faster on speed to market and product innovation. So that combination, I think, as well, but the back-half comps is what I meant when I said in my opening remarks, don't get too carried away. The back-half comps in Books were tough because, last year, we had an absolutely stellar back end of November through December. But certainly in the sort of 5 or so years now I've been around that business -- that section of the business, it feels much more steady. Do you want to comment on the profit conversion question?
Yes. I think that's announced -- a key element of the Slide 20 message we were trying to talk to was just how that parity is being achieved over time. I mean, certainly in terms of '16, '17, '18, it has been -- CapEx has been trending ahead of the depreciation, but we feel that for '19 -- between '19 and '20, around those 2 years, we'll reach parity in that sense. And that's where you'd start seeing more of a equal drop-through between the underlying revenue growth and the underlying profit growth.
And just to come back on Fashion. Should we think that your kind of business plans are still well in place in terms of where organic growth for the wider business can go despite the Fashion deterioration?
You mean the overall group level...
For UBM.
I mean, look, in relatively short order, I mean, it's already beginning to become one business, but I mean we're not changing our view of the UBM growth number for this year, if that's your question. I think that's your question.
Yes.
I mean, look, ultimately it's a law of numbers. I mean, if the Fashion decline went from 10% to 20%, we'd be having a different conversation, but what we're calling today, I think, is a conservative view of where the business will be at the end of the year and a sensible view of an investment program.
And it's 5% of the overall portfolio, 4% to 5% in term -- revenue terms. It's just less of a headwind on the larger group's revenue number than it would have been for UBM on a standalone basis.
Yes. There were some questions here -- sorry.
Katherine Tait from Goldman Sachs. Just on academic, you talked about the successes that you've seen at Dove and the sort of strong growth that we're seeing within the open access segment. Can you talk a bit about your ambitions within open access and whether or not you see that -- how you sort of see that fitting into your broader Academic Publishing business going forwards?
That's a -- that's quite a big subject. I mean, slightly to connect your question and Matthew's question, there's no doubt, and we've talked about this at these sessions on a number of occasions, that the academic business is facing change. It's a bit like other areas where there's -- there were changes in consumption patterns. There were changes in commercial negotiation. Open access has become a kind of soundbite descriptor of actually a multiplicity of different changes in the way in which people want free-er access, faster access, easier discoverability, a higher level of freedom of use. And that's creating a demand on the publishers, of which self-evidently we're responding, to the way in which you provide your customers with either contractual agreements, subscription agreements, deal agreements or individual usage contracts. And so I think all the players in the industry are adapting. What's our ambition? Well, our ambition at a very simple level is we have a very rich catalog of content. That's our great strength, and our ambition is to maximize the discovery and use of our content. And so where are we focused? We're focused on investment in technology. And actually to go back to Will's question around Books. One of the other things is our UBX platform, which we deployed last year, which is now our single Books platform, has really helped on discoverability of content on Books. I'm sure that's been a contributing factor. So our -- one of our ambitions in academic is to increasingly drive technology solutions that make discoverability and use of the content easier for our customers. And that helps when it comes to contractual renewal and subscription discussions, but it's a steady cadence of better content, more relevant, more easily accessible, high use of technology and flexibility in the way in which you contract with your customers. And that's the pace we've been on for the last few years, and I think that's serving us well. Question...
It's Nick Dempsey from Barclays. I've got two left, please. Just on the Middle East, you talked about slowing there. Are we talking about a macro thing in the Middle East? And maybe can you talk about how those shows, the important ones in the first half in the Middle East, have booked into next year? And second question, on the 5% of revenues that are now under review, are we focused here on BI and K&N? Is that what we're saying? Are they mostly in those divisions?
Yes, to your second question, Nick. And on your first question, it's really a combination effect in the Middle East. I mean the Middle East, again, is an -- is a sort of generic term. Some of it were some locations in the territory where we just reined back our ambition on new launches because we just couldn't see the economics on them. So a little bit of a hit on the revenue line. And specifically we've got a kind of 1-year effect in the healthcare portfolio because of the -- really what was a spectacular break-out of MEDLAB from Arab Health. And then -- what that has a comparative effect year-on-year. But actually the main shows in the portfolio are still in growth. So I mean I don't want to either mislead you or overly worry you. This -- we're not -- I'm not calling a decline in the portfolio. It's just it's been a comparatively super strong performer, as you know, for the last few years. And we've just seen it rein back a little bit versus our budget ambitions in the year.
Bookings into next year?
Advance bookings into next year are actually pretty strong. We came out of the 3 main shows in that portfolio in the first half feeling very good about next year. 2 questions in the front here.
It's Tom here from Citigroup. Just one question actually on the reinvestment. So you've got GBP 15 million of extra cost savings. And I think you said you're going to reinvest -- well, effectively reinvest that in turning-around Fashion, but obviously the turnaround in Fashion comes before you get the cost savings, so I just wanted to understand. Is -- the phasing of that, is it included in the one-off restructuring charges, or is it included in the underlying margin expectation?
Gareth?
It's in the OpEx. We're thinking it's flowing through OpEx, and therefore that will come through in the business margins. It's not part of the cost to delivering the GBP 75 million that we've talked about. That's separate. And in terms of the phasing, we think with the -- looking at sort of revenue trend, I think you'd expect there to be a year-on-year margin impact in -- of this overall Fashion dynamic in '19 and '20. And then you kind of stabilize as the costs are going in. The costs will go in, in '19 and '20. And as you see the revenues stabilize, then it'd be sort of neutral in 2021.
It's Chris Collett from Deutsche. I just had one question which is about Business Intelligence and just wanted to understand the -- you're expecting a bit of an improvement in the growth in the second half of the year. Is that because you're expecting some onetime revenues to come through? Or is it the effect of the stronger-growth subscriptions sort of rolling through in the business? And also just wondering if you could talk a little bit more broadly about sort of Business Intelligence and how that will look with parts of the -- what was UBM's Other Marketing Services in it.
Yes, to your first question. It will be a -- it's a mixture of both. I mean the back half of the year is just slightly -- it's a busier period for that business, both in sub renewals. The peak sub renewal period kicks off in -- sort of mid-October, runs through to late January, early February. So it just is a busier period for sub renewals, but it is also, particularly in Marketing Services, it's a kind of one-off. There are kind of some one-off spikes if the business does well. And actually the indication from the first half is that our Consulting revenues and our Marketing Services revenues in the first half were actually -- were tracking well. So yes to both is the short answer. And more broadly, we will be doing some pruning in that portfolio. Part of what we've talked about there affects the overall portfolio, so where will you see us double down? You'll see us double down, I think, in the areas where we think we've got real strength, market position and growth. And I think that will -- you will therefore see us in Pharma or in tech, which are 2 areas where there are overlaps with the UBM portfolio, have a greater level of focus. Just to use those 2 as an example. Any final questions?Okay, I think we're pretty much out of time. I very much appreciate people coming. I know it's a very busy time of year. Thanks for your questions. Thanks for your support, and have a great summer.