Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm Sam, Sam Knights, Chief Executive of Next 15, and I have Mickey Kalifa, our Chief Financial Officer, with me here.

Morning.

Just over 12 months ago in our first interim presentation together, we told you that we needed to simplify and refocus Next 15 to return it to growth. Today, I hope that we can show you the early evidence that that transformation is starting to work.

I'll cover where we are, Mickey will talk through the financial review, and then I'll come back to strategy and outlook, and we'll finish with any questions that you may have. The key headlines are as follows.

There are six key messages that we will explore today. The first one is that we're starting to see some positive momentum in this business.

Like-for-like net revenue was down 1.3% at constant currency for the first six months of the year. Whilst that is a decline, it is favorable given the market conditions.

More importantly, the group returned to organic growth in three consecutive months—June, July, and August—for the first time in three years. We found out this morning that that continued into September as well.

Second, Track 1, the businesses that we're investing in, grew. Revenue in these businesses was up 1.8% like-for-like, and profit also grew with improved margins at 18.4%.

Thirdly, our simplification plan is delivering. When Mickey and I started these roles last summer, there were 22 different businesses in the group.

There are 10 businesses in the group today. Most recently, as part of our Track 2 review, we announced the partial asset sale of our creative services business Elvis to Wonderhood, and we retained the profitable digital commerce practice, too.

Within that, we've also continued to focus on operational discipline, with our headcount down a further 5% in the half. In the last 12 months, that's a total reduction of around a fifth, just from under 4,000 people at the start of '26, fiscal year '26, to 3,200 today.

Fourth, the foundations continue to be strong: net debt of £57.3 million, which is 0.7 times our EBITDA, and we will maintain the interim dividend at 4.75p. Fifth, Mach49: the arbitration hearing is now completed, and a ruling is expected within this financial year.

We've maintained the liability on our balance sheet, and our position remains unchanged here. We maintain our stance regarding the nonpayment of the remaining earn-out, and we've counterclaimed for previously paid earn-out amounts.

We are confident in our case, and we await the ruling from the panel. Finally, perhaps most importantly, sixth, our group is now a higher-quality one than it was 12 months ago, focused on data, technology, and AI businesses in structurally grown markets, with the public sector now our fastest-growing and third-largest client vertical.

If we dig into the numbers, we continue to see that strong performance in our Track 1 businesses. Our digital transformation category, which consists of our exceptional consultancy Transform, grew just under 27%.

Transform expanded further across government, including big new contracts with the Department for Education and Defra. Retail Media continues to grow, 2.1%, with our US investment stepping up further in the second half.

N2 continued to grow, and N2 Health, the dual business of ours operating in the highly lucrative US healthcare market, grew strongly. Savanta's turnaround continues to be on track.

The one more difficult spot was within Pretzel, where we merged four B2B businesses together into one. When executing that, we found the market to be tougher than we planned, but Transform's performance has offset that, showing the strength of our portfolio.

We've also had early decisive action, including a change of leadership in that business, which means that we've now stabilized the revenue and we expect to see better comparables in that business moving forward. The strength of the portfolio in Track 1 shining through.

On execution, I mentioned our headcount down a further 5%, and that means that our operating margin is up 70 basis points to 14.9%, a very healthy margin. Importantly, within Track 2, this is the group of businesses that was declining double digits last year, we've moderated that decline to just 4.3%.

Within that, Macha returned to growth. On the market, we're seeing client confidence still difficult, but it's better than it was just a year ago, and our new business momentum is good.

We're seeing discretionary technology spend still remaining constrained, but we're planning for that to continue into the near term, too. With that, let me hand over to Mickey to take you through the numbers in detail, and then I'll come back to talk through the strategy.

Great. Thanks, Sam, and good morning, everyone.

Thanks for coming. Let me start with the P&L, adjusted P&L.

Like-for-like revenue was broadly in line with expectations, with Track 1 like-for-like revenue up 1.8%, and that was due to strong growth in Transform and in N2 Health, which was partially offset by a decline in the marketing segment. Our operating margin profit margin increased, and that was a result of simplification and our continued focus on managing cost base.

PBT was at £30.2 million, and that's in line with the revenue movement. Our diluted earnings per share declined by 3.3%, and that was due to increase in diluted shares and the operational gearing impact of lower revenue.

We've maintained our dividend at 4.75% 4.75p per share, and that reflects our confidence in the underlying business and its outlook. We look at our operating segments, which we started from this year, we created at the start of this year, there are five segments starting with Retail Media.

Retail Media is up 2.1% in the half year. That's This segment is largely SMG, which is growing in both revenue and profit in tandem with continuing to invest in the US market.

Costs are under tight control, and that that has led to an increased operating margin to 20%. We also introduced a new business into this segment this half year called Digital Commerce.

This is a division of Elvis, which is the division of Elvis which we've retained, and this has been reclassified from the creative segment to the Retail Media segment. Data and research is down 11.5% in revenue.

That revenue decline in Savanta that is is as a result of building higher-margin digital products for launch this year. They are they are on track to be launched towards the end of the year.

Our underlying core research business is performing well, and it's also stabilizing after a period of decline, a long period of decline, and this year we've seen consistent quarter-on-quarter growth in that business. That's led to a marginal improvement in operating margins to 12.9% from 12.1% last year.

The standout performer for the group is digital transformation, which is our Transform public sector business. That has grown 26.8% year-on-year.

We're seeing strong growth across all of the clients there, most notably UKHSA, and also new contract wins with Defra and with DfE. Marketing comms, which is our largest segment, is down 4.7%.

It makes up 53% of total revenue, produced £24 million of profit at a very stable and good margin, 21.1%. N2 Health was the fastest-growing business in that group, and it's got good momentum going into the into the end of this year and into next year.

Sam mentioned the the growth in this segment that I've just referred to was offset by challenges that we saw in Pretzel in the first half of the year, but the changes in leadership and the restructure are now bearing fruit, and we can see a much steadier business in in Pretzel in the second half of the year. Creative services was down 14.6%.

We all know that the creative marketing sector has been impacted by all sorts of forces. We saw that in Elvis' revenue, which, as you now know, has been divested.

Head office costs are at £8.2 million, they were at £7.5 million last year. The increase is driven by new long-term incentives.

Looking at the three tracks that we we have classified for this year, Track 1 is our core growth portfolio. That comprises our data, technology, and AI-enabled businesses, which are all operating in growth markets, and we are concentrating our investment around this area.

Track 1 delivered revenues of £143 million, like-for-like growth of 1.8%, and adjusted operating profit is up 3.5% to £26.3 million. That's all that's largely or all driven by revenue growth from Transform, up 26.8%.

Track 2 is our managed portfolio, and that that consists of established businesses which are in, effectively, mature markets, and we're managing those largely for margin and the cash generation that they bring, and they delivered a very, very healthy 21.5% margin this year. Track 3 are our divestments, and and in this one, we we include Elvis, which was divested right at the end of H1, resulting in a net loss on disposal of £1.1 million.

This is the revenue bridge, which just looks at the comparison between H1 2027 and H1 2026. Taking you through it very swiftly, £11.5 million of impact through the divestments.

Taking those out, like-for-like revenue was down £2.9 million, or 1.3%. Track 1 is up by £2.6 million.

That's That's driven by Transform and N2 Health. Track 2 was down by £3.1 million, or 4.3%, partially offset by the growth in Macha.

Track 3 was down £2.4 million, which reflects the decline in Elvis' revenue ahead of its divestment. There was also weaker US dollar, which had a 2% impact on the comparison.

Same same comparison again for operating profit. Operating comparing H1 2027 versus H1 2026, adjusted operating margin was up 70 basis points to 14.9%, and that's effects reflecting disciplined cost management and the benefits of restructuring actions that we've taken.

Staff costs major movements were staff costs, which were down £4.7 million, and that was driven by the full-year benefit of FY '26 restructuring actions. Headcount at 3 3,200 at the end of the period, compared to 3,350 at the beginning of the period, which is a reduction of 5%.

There have been ongoing productivity improvements, largely result of the application of AI. Other non-cost non-staff cost savings of £400,000 include property-related and IT cost savings.

If we look at customer segmentation now, that that that shows a shift towards faster-growing sectors. Public sector is our fastest-growing client sector, which was up 29% to £40.1 million, and it's now our third-largest segment with 18% of revenue.

Healthcare was up 20% to £15.2 million, and that's 7.1% of revenue, and that's driven by N2 Health. Consumer and retail remains our largest sector with 30% of revenue, and that was down £5.4 million.

Technology was down 9% to 27% of revenue, which really reflects continued lower marketing spend by our technology clients. Professional and financial services is down 5%, which was a result of lower spend from our financial services clients, which are primarily sitting within Savanta.

There's a table in here as well that's worth looking at, which shows that Retail Media and digital transformation operating segments are concentrated in a small number of customer sectors. So 79% of our Retail Media clients are consumer consumer, 90% of our digital transformation clients are public sector, and 43% of our marketing segment clients are technology.

If I look at the cash flow and talk about the major movements, first off, net debt increased in the half year from 30 £36 million to £57 million. The major movements here are net inflows from trading of £22.7 million, offset by a working capital outflow of £21.2 million, which was principally timing-related, principally driven by the following: a buildup of trade debtors in the period, which is typical of the period, and that was a £12 million increase in trade debtors; we paid annual bonuses in the first half of the year, in April, about £5 million; we also saw changes in supplier payment timing, principally affecting our government contracts; and we also paid adviser fees related to the ongoing arbitration process.

We do expect to see a significant improvement in working capital in the second half of the year. Looking at our leverage now, our net debt-adjusted EBITDA ratio of 0.7 times is well within the 2.5 times covenant.

We're we're quite comfortable, quite pleased with that ratio. Net debt, as I said, increased to £57.3 million, reflecting earn-out payments of £6.2 million, tax of £4 million, and capex of £5.3 million.

If we were to include the full Mach49 earn-out provision we have in the balance sheet, that would take our net debt-adjusted EBITDA ratio to about 1.6 times at the end of H1 '27, which, again, is well within the expected or allowed covenant levels. Looking at EPS, dilution, and dividend, our diluted earnings per share of 20.7 20.7p is down 3.

3.3%. That the the dilution is due to the dilutive impact of shares potentially issuable to senior leadership in both group and subsidiaries.

Some of those are LTIPs, growth shares, and earn-outs. Our interim dividend has been maintained at 4.75p per share, and that's covered by 4.4 times diluted adjusted EPS, and that's underpinned by our healthy balance sheet and our low leverage ratio.

We'll be paying the dividend, we go ex-dividend on the 15th of October, and we'll be paying it on the 20th of November. Last slide for me, which is our estimated earn-out commitments.

The majority of our earn-out commitments are now settled. We have remaining the remaining earn-outs total less than £8 million if we exclude Mach49, and those are payable through FY '28, with no commitments beyond that date.

Of that FY '27 £4.3 million, most of it has now been paid. The £67.7 earn-out commitment for Mach49 remains on the balance sheet, and the majority of our remaining earn-outs are expected to be cash settled, with only £1.4 million of the £7.9 to be settled in shares.

Thanks, Mickey. I'm going to cover now the strategy and the outlook, what we're building, give you some idea of the type of work that we're doing and what comes next.

If you remember back in the beginning of this year, we had a Capital Markets Day when we talked about our new vision, and that vision hasn't changed: data-powered growth fit for an AI future. Next 15 is now a group of specialist businesses which is unified, but not uniform, sharing data and technology, and run by entrepreneurial people.

The medium-term ambitions remain: revenue and operating profit, both 1.5 times over the medium term. We're targeting ourselves to generate 40% of revenues from new sources of growth.

Our strategy remains the same, and we're starting to see the early evidence of this working. We talked about the flywheel of data, proprietary data or access to proprietary data, technology that underpins it, enabling us to activate measurable outcomes for our clients, and we're seeing this throughout the group.

To give you some examples, the work that Transform have been doing with Defra is outstanding. In just six weeks in an AI lab, Transform built an AI funding finder with Defra.

Farmers describe their land in plain English and are matched to the right funding schemes, with grant compatibility checked automatically. Defra's own analysis shows that with 20,000 farmers self-serving, it would save nearly £1 million and carbon equivalent of 1,300 short-haul flights: outstanding work, which Defra highlight themselves in case studies.

Pretzel fused in-store competitive and intent data with Atlassian's marketing on 6,000 highest-potential accounts from a pool of around 12,000, and the early pilot is running 16% ahead of target. Savanta used eye-tracking research through their Explora business during real shopping trips to show a leading international grocer where in-store screens commanded attention and what content drives shopper action: the evidence base for a rollout across its banners and stronger retail media proposition, tying in with the work that SMG do, too.

SMG's RMX platform just launched this year, really exciting products which connects fragmented retail media networks into one planning, buying, and measurement group for agencies. Five launch partners include Co-op and Morrisons, around 5,000 screens, and a major agency holding company signed as beta partner, the controlled beta launching in December: very exciting products, and going to be a big growth driver for SMG's for the future.

That flywheel is showing in our new business pipeline, too. We have a bigger new business pipeline than at any point during the last two years, including Defra, Atlassian, Department for Education, Google for Education.

As an example, Transform's new bookings in half one are £159 million versus just £19 million in the same period last year. We continue to invest our capital in our Track 1 businesses.

These are the businesses that we believe have those capabilities to operate successfully in an AI world within structurally growing categories. These businesses are growing at 1.8% with an improved margin fueled by that investment.

Within Track 2, we've also been doing a lot of work to improve and stabilize their performance. As I said earlier, we've moderated that decline and seeing good growth coming back from Macha, which bounced back from a double-digit decline over previous years, a more stable and robust group.

We're also making progress on developing our operating model. This is one area which we changed fundamentally from a very federated model into one which is unified, but not uniform.

We've created a Track 1 operating board where the Track 1 CEOs meet regularly and remove the silos together, and we've already seen huge progress from that. Transform and Savanta have jointly pitched for new business.

We're building a shared data proposition across Savanta, SMG, and Transform. Our largest technology clients are increasingly served by more than one of our brands.

We've also completed the work on changing our incentives, which has now been aligned so that collaboration benefits our leaders, too. This model is settling in, and we're finding pockets of value across all of our businesses.

What are our priorities for the next six months? They simply fall into three buckets.

First is resolving the Mach49 arbitration. Secondly, it's simplification: progressing the portfolio actions and embedding the operating model.

Thirdly, it's growing: continuing to invest in Track 1, scaling AI across the group, and sustaining positive momentum into the second half. Trading since the period end has remained encouraging.

June, July, August, and September were consecutive months of like-for-like growth. First time we've seen that for years in this group.

The new business pipeline is stronger than we've seen in the past year, too, and the drivers of the first half, especially digital transformation, continue. We know that it's a tough environment out there and discretionary spend remains constrained, we have to stay disciplined on costs, and you can see that in the actions that we're taking, too.

On that basis, we expect to deliver in line with market expectations, with revenue growth over the course of the year, and we're maintaining the interim dividend at 4.75p. In summary, a simpler, higher-quality group than when we sat in this room just 12 months ago: 22 businesses down to 10; cost base reset; our capital being invested behind businesses that are in structurally growing markets enabled by data and technology; an early evidence that that strategy is delivering: Track 1 growing, margins up, brands winning together, consecutive months of growth for the first time in three years.

We do still have a significant legacy issue, but one that is moving to resolution, with a balance sheet that is resilient across the range of outcomes. Momentum into the second half, with the board expecting full like-for-like growth in line with market expectations.

18 months ago, we had a story that was very complex: 22 businesses. Today, we have 10, one clear model, and we're starting to see numbers to prove the strategy is working.

We know there's still a long way to go, we know that more evidence needs to be shown, but we know there will be more evidence in the next six months to show our strategy in action as we continue to unlock the core value of what is an exceptional group of category-defining businesses. Thank you for your time, and Mickey and I are very happy to take your questions.

You've got your hand up first.

Alistair Reid from Investec. A couple from me.

Just on SMG first. How confident do you remain that the US expansion is meaningful boost for the medium term?

Can you touch on any sort of impact from macro pressure among retailers that's on that business and how that's doing? Secondly, obviously touched on sort of collaboration, unified not uniform.

Too early to see any sort of metrics for number of clients we're doing sort of cross-sell? Then lastly, any more color on kind of progress with those Track 2 assets in terms of potential disposals?

Sure. Okay.

Taking each one in turn. SMG's expansion into the US is really, really important to us.

In fact, I was there yesterday, and we're working very hard to get the traction that we need. In answer to your question, yes, I remain confident.

What I see on the ground, the conversations I'm having from the involvement in RFPs, although we can't talk about any evidence specifically today, I remain confident that that US expansion is on track and is the right thing to do. The size of the prize there is huge.

The market is six times that of the UK. We have a strong reputation in the UK, and we're in discussions with some of the largest retailers there.

It may be taking a little bit of time, but it's the right thing for the business, and we continue to invest in it. On metrics for unified and not uniform, I mentioned a couple of them today.

More less numbers, but I hope that when we get to the year-end, we'll start reporting on that. We're building the numbers in terms of how we measure which clients are moving across more than one of our businesses, but we're starting to see that improve today from what we've seen so far.

Then your final question, sorry?

Track 2 assets.

Oh, Track 2 assets. Do you want to take this one?

Sure. They're progressing well.

We haven't announced anything today, but we are working very hard on several different assets. Progress is being made, and we would hope quite soon we could make an announcement or two around those.

Hi. Jessica Pok from Peel Hunt.

Three for me, please. Obviously, you had some very big contract wins in Transform.

Can you just talk a little bit about the pipeline going into the next, well, 18 months? The head's down, focused on delivering now, or actually there's potential for significant client wins from here?

Second, just on Retail Media. The landscape is changing very rapidly.

We're talking about AI agents now, and brands seem to be thinking very hard about where they spend and how they allocate. Are the changes in landscape opportunity for SMG or do they bring challenges?

Because maybe they don't adapt to LLMs. Then the final one is just on data and research.

You talked about some launch of products over the next quarter in the near term, and some of the customized research is okay. What isn't working with research, or where are the challenges there?

Yeah. Sure.

Okay. Starting with Transform, it's both.

It's head down to deliver the big contract wins that they've got, but you can see already from the new business pipeline I talked around, £159 million in that new business pipe, that we see a great path to new business wins over the course of the next year, and we hope to announce even more over the course of the next 12 months. On Retail Media, I see it as both a challenge and an opportunity, as I'm sure you do, too.

That's why we're launching products like RMX. Increasingly, we're seeing brands utilizing agents to buy at scale across multiple retailers.

RMX is actually the solution for that. It creates a one buying point for five different retailers across the UK and 5,000 screens that can be bought agentically, online and offline.

We're seeing a lot of interest coming from both the retailers and the brands in that product, and a lot of opportunity to grow that both here in the UK, but also internationally as well, because that's obviously a very scalable product. Then finally, data and research, I see this as two sides of the same business.

You've got the traditional market research, the type of research that I would have done when I was at P&G when we launched a new razor, where you'd get a bunch of us together in a room and talk about whether we wanted four blades or five blades and get the feedback from that. That type of research, which is quite intensive in terms of human input, is declining, and declining in double digits year-on-year, because the type of marketing that brands are doing is changing.

It's going from kind of that long term into more shorter term, almost weekly changes to creative. Savanta's business historically has been quite strong in that area, and we're seeing that decline.

Where we're seeing the growth is coming from new products. Things like virtual personas, BrandVue, where you can look in flight at the impact of campaigns and test them quickly within days and hours rather than weeks.

As we see the revenue start to grow from that side of the product, from the data and product side that we're investing in, we'll see a leveling out of the revenue at a higher-quality margin, because these are subscription-based SaaS revenue products. Obviously, that will take a little bit of time.

We see we're on track with that business.

Can I just have a follow-up on the SMG question? RMX, am I right you previously said that Planext might be rolled into what you're offering now, rather than having it as a subscription base?

It's part of Planext, which is the product that SMG have owned. It's a different entry point.

Whereas up to now we've had brands being able to buy through Planext and retailers being able to sell products, what RMX does is allow agencies to access that, too. They can buy on behalf of the brands and the retailers, which unlocks another investment pool that wasn't available before.

Just SMG again, sorry. Going back to the US, obviously, you're targeting bigs.

My memory is right, you have one contract with one? Yep.

No more. Why is there a kind of delay in winning stuff?

It can't just be the RFPs are just extending, you must be losing. Why is that?

What can give us comfort that you can win stuff in the US? That's the first question.

Second question, would it be fair to say that that market, having been super hot, is less hot now overall? Does that imply more pressure on the kind of core business in terms of retail margins and stuff like that?

That's the kind of second question. Then just jumping into the debt and working capital.

You said you could improve your working capital in the second half. If we start off with a £21 million outflow in the first half, what do you think is a good outcome in terms of, let's say, outflow in the full year?

I assume it's going to be an outflow, but what's a good outcome?

Okay. I'll take the first two, and then take the third one, Mickey, the actual.

You mentioned we won our first client, that's Wakefern. Yep.

That's going very well. They've grown their revenue 80% year-on-year, and it's a really strong case study.

These are very different types of contracts, having run the business for a number of years. I can tell you that they don't happen overnight.

These are big structural changes that retailers make, often with teams of up to 100 people moving into their offices. It's not something like other agencies where they come quickly.

Are they coming as quickly as we'd like? Probably not quite.

It's not easy expanding a business out across to the US, and we're doing it sensibly. We're not blowing the bank over it, and we're happy with the progress that we're seeing.

It's absolutely the right strategic move to do that, and I'm working very closely with the team still to make that happen. I hope to have news on that very soon.

Is the pushback no one knows you, or do you have, going back to what you said earlier on, do you have some profile there?

We have a good profile.

It's not because no one's ever heard of you?

No, it was that 12 months ago. I think where we are now with that case study and with the presence that we have in the market, there's some credibility in SMG.

RFPs take time, and especially ones of this ilk, they don't happen overnight. What I see from the team, we are getting to the later stages of these RFPs, and we're seeing some strong progress.

Like I say, we're confident in the ability for us to win these things in the future. You also asked me whether retail media as a whole is less hot than it was.

I think the answer to that is no. I think that brands are still continuing to invest in different types of retail media.

I think what's happening is retail media as a whole is becoming more like just media in general, in that at its core, retail media is good data that is available to target that makes media more efficient and measurable in the end. That's driving the core of what we're doing in all of media at the moment.

No, I don't think it's any less hot, and I also think we're seeing some bigger growth in other markets as well now as it starts to catch up. Over to you, Mickey, to talk.

Sure. Then working capital.

Question on working capital, we had a £21 million outflow in the first half of the year, and we'll be in a much better position at the end of the year, we estimate somewhere between £5 million and £10 million outflow. If we can get to zero, great, but we should be able to get between £5 million and £10 million.

The reason for that is that it's just the timing of flows. At the end of last year, at the end of this year, things are very different.

A large part of the £21 million is due to Retail Network, or Retail Media. Kind of I think you all know just how aggressive retailers are, but that tends to unwind during the course of the year.

We will redouble our efforts on collection, just as we did last year. I think £5 million to £10 million is readily achievable.

Thank you. Katie Farmer from Canaccord.

Two questions from me, please. Firstly, on SMG.

Just on the back of today's announcement that Boots has been sold to Weston, I appreciate it's still very new news, it might be a bit too early to have a strong view there, but it sounds like they want to modernize a lot of the Boots estate, both online and in-store. Obviously, SMG's been very instrumental in strengthening Boots' ad revenues in the past.

I was wondering what your view is and what this will mean for SMG. I think Weston owns other pharmacy estates in Canada, and I was wondering whether you have an idea of what their retail media strategy is and whether it could actually be an opportunity for you to go into Canada, further North America.

That one. Then second was just an update on Pretzel, if you could give us an idea of what wasn't working there.

Merging those four businesses, was it just teething problems? Then any progress with the launch of JourneyLab there?

Thanks, Katie. I think it's probably too early for me to make comment on the news that came out yesterday with Boots, but you step back and, if you ask my opinion on it, I see it as an opportunity.

Gives us a path to work with somebody across multiple markets. The job that SMG has done with Boots has been phenomenal, and it continues to grow, the revenue continues to grow.

It's a very important part of the P&L, and the relationship there is really strong. On Pretzel, I think it was a combination of market pressures in terms of a switch from traditional creative, which was part of the Pretzel offering, into more AI-led creative, which drove a revenue decline, and disruption as well.

When you bring four businesses together into one, that creates operational issues that we needed to fix. I think we've done a good job of being quite decisive in making those fixes.

We've seen the revenue stabilized now, we've got a good leadership team in place, and we're investing behind the operational AI capabilities of that business that allow us to grow it into the future. I feel confident in Pretzel's future.

A big part of that is JourneyLab, which is part of what I talked about with Atlassian today, and is going to be central to the model moving forward. We're already working with that product with our clients today, and it's being rolled out across the group.

If I can, firstly, on SMG, are you seeing any sign of any sort of fee compression, either from contribution from retailers or from brands? Then a second, I'm afraid, two-piece on working capital again.

Talked about supplier payment term changes, particularly on the government contracts, which I presume is mostly in Transform. I think I'm right in thinking you've had some pretty advantageous terms relative to commercial terms on those before.

Do you think those are sort of now in a stable place, or is there risk of potential change in the future? I guess the tool key part of that is, is this a one-off outflow, or should we be expecting an outflow of this sort of size H1 of sort of future years?

Then just thirdly on working capital, you put the adviser fees for the Mach49 arbitration in there. That should be, because I'm relatively new to the stock, but is that a provision, a payment of a provision already accrued, or something that you've capitalized and put to the balance sheet as an asset as well?

I'll answer that immediately. It's already been accrued.

First question on fee compression for SMG, I think as markets mature, the answer is yes, we do see fee compression, and the UK is becoming a more mature market. SMG is the leader in that market, 40% market share, and has been with a lot of the retailers for that it serves for over 4 to 5 years.

Obviously, over time, those contracts are pressured. We've seen our margins have actually gone up on that, and that's because we're actually working on delivering the work in a better way through products and technology, through automation, and through AI.

Obviously, that fee compression happens, it's our job to make sure that we're more efficient in how we deliver. Do you want to talk the other working capital question?

Sure. You asked the question about government contracts and suppliers.

Government insists that we pass on all of our terms that they pay our suppliers under far faster and far quicker terms, and that is not a one-off, that's a permanent thing. That's what we're doing, and that's accounted for some of the creditor difference that you've noticed.

That will continue, but it'll flow through. What you see right now as far as that point is concerned about payment terms of government creditors, you won't see that again in future years.

Will Hargreaves from Berenberg. Just a couple left for me, I guess.

Firstly, in consensus, you've got roughly 2% like-for-like growth for the full year, and obviously you delivered, well, -1.3% in the first half, it implies sort of an acceleration in growth into the second half. Can you just provide a little bit of numbers around the growth from the four-month period from June to now, maybe, to just give some confidence in that number?

Then also just more detail around the pipeline to that. Then secondly, I just curious to know, with things like Pretzel underperforming expectations and Savanta, I guess you talked about Savanta, but Macha, obviously, is outperforming expectations.

Is there a case for moving things around from different tracks?

Sure. We're very confident in the second-half year performance and that that will lift the whole year to a year of growth.

What we've seen from June to August and now June to September, four months, is on average 2% year-on-year growth. What we've seen in September is 5% year-on-year growth.

We're confident in our forecasts, and as those come through, that will result in close to 2% like-for-like full-year growth. The picture that we're seeing over the last four months indicates that we're on track.

Then on the track question, the way that we looked at our businesses wasn't in terms of short-term performance, it was in terms of mid- to long-term capability in the markets that we wanted to be in. We looked at what we called the three Cs: do they have the capabilities in terms of data, technology, and activation; are they in categories that we see having structural growth; and do they have a strong commercial pipeline?

We've picked those Track 1 businesses knowing that we needed to do a turnaround in Savanta and knowing that we needed to do a turnaround in Pretzel as well. You look at within that Track 1, you've got commerce digital transformation in good growth, you've got N2 in good growth, N2 Health growing strongly, Retail Media in good growth.

We knew that there was a balance in that portfolio. We're constantly in review of the Track 2 businesses, and we're really pleased with Macha's performance in the first six months of this year.

Like we said at the beginning of this year, by the end of this financial year, we hope to have clarity on whether any of those Track 2 businesses will move into Track 1 or not. Any other questions?

No questions from the webcast.

Thank you for your time, and we'll close it out there. If you have any more questions, happy to take them offline.

Thank you.