Thank you. Welcome to interim results for Keystone, 6 months ended 31st of July 2026.

I am unsure exactly how familiar you are with the model, but Keystone has been alive and well for the last 25 years and operating very much the same model now as we did right from the start. At the time, a very revolutionary, disruptive model: lawyers working from their own offices, earning a high percentage of fees rather than the conventional partnership, employed, salaried model.

This continues to give lawyers a great sense of freedom and flexibility whilst also allowing them to be part of a strong community, to have all of the support and the infrastructure of the conventional law firm. Throughout the years, we've grown bigger, we've grown stronger, the support has become increasingly sophisticated in line with the sophistication of our lawyers and our clients, and of course technology, which always played a strong part of what we do, has increasingly come to the fore, never more so than today with AI innovations.

The firm has grown really well on an annualized basis for the last 25 years. We IPO'd in 2017 and have continued to go really well since then.

The market in which Keystone operates, the mid-market commercial law market is large. It's about £14 billion, and that's just the sector that we operate in, and I'd say almost all of that is addressable by the Keystone model.

We are able to scale quickly, unencumbered by office space and the requirements of cash flow. We operate a very efficient paid-when-paid model, which allows the lawyers to achieve the efficiencies and the freedoms and the flexibilities that they want, whilst helping our financials.

We operate a progressive dividend policy, and that has consistently returned value to shareholders ever since IPO in 2017. Moving now to the results of the 6-month period just gone, I'm delighted to announce another strong financial performance with revenue increasing 22.5%, revenue per principal up 14.5%, adjusted profit before tax increased 31.3%.

Those are the high-level stats. This is the first time ever that we have completed a full gamut of different styles of payaway: share buyback, interim dividends, and special dividends.

You can see the figures there. The share buyback of £1.5 million is, let's say roughly related to the value of the LTIPs, which eliminated the dilution that would have flown from the issuing of new shares for the LTIPs.

Interim dividend 9.6 pence, special dividend 15 pence. Whilst we grow as a firm, it is also extremely important that we improve.

I like to say that this is a law firm that is improving quicker than it is growing. It is been wonderful to have launched our brand refresh over the last 6 months, bringing the look and feel of Keystone up to where we've become.

Every 10 years or so, it's necessary to do these things. Cultures change, times change, looks change, we need to keep abreast with that.

The AI is another big focus. We have been rolling out an extremely good tool called CoCounsel, owned by Thomson Reuters, one of the big choices available and certainly the one that we believe is highly suitable for Keystone.

It has been well received by our lawyers and the rollout and uptake continues. Recruitment is always a big part of the story.

23 high-caliber principals joined us and the same number coincidentally of pod members. These are junior lawyers that are employed by our senior lawyers, who we call principals.

Focusing on the recruitment KPIs, last year was an extremely strong market for us. Certainly we recruited more substantially than usual.

This last 6 months is a little bit off from where we are there, but still, extremely good in many ways. It's very important that we maintain a high caliber for our reputation because that is our product, for our liability, our risk, for all reasons.

This firm, it has a tremendously good reputation because we have such good lawyers. 23 new principals recruited during the period, as I mentioned earlier, brings us up to 501 principals in the firm, 682 lawyers in total.

I mentioned earlier that the AI is a important focus for us at the current time. Obviously it's important for our lawyers to have the tools so that they can remain competitive.

There's some excellent tools out there for lawyers: there's the Leya, the Harveys, the LexisNexis, and CoCounsel, the one that we believe is appropriate for this firm. Rollout is ongoing and follows on from other AI initiatives that are continuing to receive take-up from lawyers.

We're also producing a number of tools, or have produced, that help with the operations of the firm internally. The most recent one that we are launching in the near future, just testing at the current time, deals with source of funds, a requirement for us to establish where our clients' moneys have come from by asking certain questions.

It's a device that will save time and deal with what is often a rather difficult exchange for lawyers, when sort of delving into the wealth of our clients. We'll pass over now to Ashley to take us through the financial highlights.

Yes, it's been a a very strong period for us this year or this 6 months. We've seen revenue growth, of 22.5%, taking us up to £66.3 million, whilst adjusted PBIT has grown 31.6% to £8.1 million.

The, continued strength of interest meant that we have adjusted PBT up 31.3% to £9.6 million, which is a margin of 14.5%. Cash conversion in this business is always strong.

The paid-when-paid model, fundamentally makes that the case, our conversion of 95.6% in the first half is reflective of of of that. That left us with £10.5 million of cash, and the adjusted EPS in the period of 23.1p, is an increase from 17.8 pence the same period last year.

James has already mentioned the dividends, that we are paying at this time. If we move across for a bit more color on the income statement, you'll see that the the the revenue growth, has been driven essentially by broad-based client demand, we've seen strength across the business as a whole, albeit that, we have had some standout strength in within the corporate and corporate restructuring.

Essentially, a couple of million pounds worth of revenue, was slightly lumpier in the first half and so we've seen about 20% of the revenue come from corporate this year versus 16% last year. We've also seen continued strength in recruitments during the second half of last year particularly and into this half, driving that revenue.

We've seen the average principals increase 7.1%, year-on-year whilst total fee earners rose 12.5%. All of this was driven, resulted in an increased revenue per principal of 14.5%, taking us up to £133.8 thousand.

Now we're a very real business, and it's really important that once we recruit these lawyers, the high quality and the high caliber, we need to, ensure that we continue to invest in the business to provide the support and infrastructure that they need. To that end, we've continued to invest in our people.

We've seen staff costs increase 15%, year-on-year with average headcount increasing from 79 to 92. Other admin costs also increased by 14%.

Within that, one of the larger areas was, a transition, a move to a a different, IT managed provider, managed service provider. We now, work with Acora.

The reason for that migration was very much that we identified about 18 months ago that the provider we were with at the time wasn't really the partner that we needed to continue to scale the business and grow into the future. The new partner that we've taken, Acora, is much better suited to deal with the complexities that we have now as a growing as as the business of the scale we are at.

We're very happy with the transition. It went exceedingly well, and, as I say, is really has resulted in that slightly increased in cost.

All of these factors resulted in our, enhanced drop-through of revenue to adjusted PBIT, with a margin of 12.3%, which is up 0.9% this year or this period, and the net interest remains strong, increasing 0.3 million, leaving us with a margin adjusted PBT of £9.6 million. On to the balance sheet.

The balance sheet here is, as always, very clean, very strong, and very simple. We are, always cash positive.

We don't have any debt and with net cash position of £10.5 million at the end of the period. The paid-when-paid, model of the business ensures that trade debtors remain very much aligned in interest, for the lawyers have to get paid, 33 debtor days remains very strong, and in there is always a a corresponding liability for any remaining debtors on the balance sheet.

We've already was explained that we carried out the share buyback, of 1.5 million in the period, which went we bought just under 268,000 shares, which we used to fulfill our commitments under the LTIPs, which vested in the period. On to the cash flow.

Again, it's a very clean cash flow statement this year, as always, very strong cash conversion, as is the nature of the business. CapEx is operating at normal levels, which for our business is sub 0.1 per annum.

On the on the cash flow, obviously reflective of the share buyback, we have the 1.5 million, which is normal which is new this year. Whilst the dividends in this year, reflects as lower than previously, that was because in 1H last year, we paid not only an ordinary, but also a special dividend at that point in time.

Thank you, Ashley. Very delighted to bring you a set of results that certainly I hope will instill some confidence.

In terms of outlook, as you probably guessed, I'm sort of quite positive about that. Certainly this 6-month period has started, we're only a month in or so, it started well.

There's a lot of advantages now with Keystone: from being an outlier small firm, we are now a really significant, very, very good law firm that operates behind the scenes very differently, but in terms of the output, in terms of the product that we deliver, it is a conventional legal service. Whilst we used to be successful in attracting lawyers with the promise of better work-life balance, we still have all of those advantages, but now we can also attract lawyers on the basis that we are more often than not a better firm than the one that they're coming from or certainly able to stand alongside them.

It makes me extremely positive that not only are we, I suppose in some ways getting better at what we do, getting more experienced, but there are very many reasons why this firm is in a much, much better position than it was even 5 years ago. In terms of these next 6 months anyway, we expect to be comfortably ahead when it comes to revenue, and materially ahead when it comes to profits.

Hopefully that is something that we will turn into a reality. I'm pretty sure that we will.

That's the end of the sort of formal report, and we'll work through some questions now.

If I can take the first question. James M.

has asked, "Could you talk through the economics of newly recruited principals? How long does it typically take for a new principal to reach mature level of productivity and has that changed over time?"

In terms of the period of time it takes lawyers to come up to speed, in terms of individual lawyers, there can be all shapes and sizes depending on their personal circumstances when they come across, but broadly, if we look at cohorts of lawyers each year, they broadly come on board and run up to productivity, up to the level they will be billing, pretty quickly, typically within sort of a quarter of being on board. That's what we see there.

That's really been a fairly consistent theme for a number of years now. That's not really changed dramatically over time.

Gareth H. asks, "Should we be concerned about the reported rise in AI-assisted legal actions and claims as it affects the legal sector in the UK?"

Certainly the AI claims are becoming a very significant issue. Now that relates in all sorts of different ways: AI claims against our clients, in areas like employment.

The employment tribunals are, I understand, at the point of collapse already because it is so relatively easy and quick for claims to be put in, whereas in the past they would not happen. These are by and large individuals who would not be going to a law firm for a claim and they would not know how to do it anyway, and it is possible to create a 20-page claim document in a very short amount of time using AI.

Now, it is likely, I believe, and we're starting to see some evidence of this, that lawyers are going to be very busy as a result of AI claims, or certainly those that represent commercial clients as we do, because our clients are seeing a lot of increased activity, and they need lawyers to defend that. That's one side.

In terms of claims against us as a law firm, well, again, like every organization, yes, there's some indication that that is going to be uptick in people that are putting in claims, complaints. We have an extremely good, strong claims record.

We're an extremely well-run, efficient firm and we deal with these things, but you can't please everybody all of the time. All firms, from what I understand it, have noticed an influx from this.

It's just one of those things that you have to deal with.

Continuing a bit on the AI theme, here we've got sort of a question: "What is driving the big increase in value per principal? Is AI already having a positive impact and how is AI impacting the daily working life of principals?"

In terms of the drive in the big increase in the value per principal this year, it's really a number of factors, and we're not attributing this to positive features of AI as of yet. Really, it's the step-up of the drive through from the numbers of principals we recruited throughout the course of last year.

We had a strong second half last year with 30 principals join and a further 23 obviously in this period, the drive is there. The broad client demand continues to be strong.

We've seen our annual rate rises come through in the quarter as we do every year as well. In response to the demand that's there, the normal nature of people using pods and recruiting juniors into the business now, we've seen strength, such strength there with 23 pod members joining.

That is both an engine for delivery, but also a reflection of the demand, or an indication of the demand that the lawyers, the principals themselves have for client work. All of those have really been the features driving the step-up.

In terms of AI and positive impact on that, I don't think anyone's ever going to be able to give absolute statistics as to how much additional revenue a business makes in due course as a result of AI. Doing things quicker doesn't in and of itself provide additional client demand.

We won't be able to provide direct statistics on that. In terms of how it's impacting daily life, lawyers are using it for a range of activities.

It's very powerful in terms of both drafting, comparisons, research. All of these things are available through there indeed.

Obviously, our new tool with CoCounsel sitting across Westlaw and PLC means that the deep dive analytics and research tool is very powerful there. It supports our lawyers in all sorts of ways both across the business, and it continues to evolve.

I think the important thing for us is the continued adoption of it across the suite of tools we provide to lawyers to take advantages that it offers.

Marcus H. asks, "Are you confident on the number of new principals picking up again in the short term, or most likely not in this financial year?"

I'd say that in actual fact our recruitment, whilst slightly less than a very bumper year last year, is really something that I'm by no means disappointed about. It's strong and, in fact, if you combine that with the pod members, it's 46 lawyers in the 6 months, which is really, really quite some going.

The reason it's slightly down, I would suggest, and it is anecdotal, is geopolitical uncertainty. We see this every time there's an election, a Brexit, a Ukrainian war.

The uncertainty that is created until that abates does tend to mean that people are less likely to move jobs. I have no idea whether that uncertainty will continue over the next 6 months.

I think it's likely to abate, just as people get used to this situation in the Middle East, but we'll have to see. Really, all we can say and make predictions on is how we believe that we will do by year end, and as stated earlier, we're very confident, both in terms of revenue and profit.

Turning now to a question around whether there's any update on the Ministry of Justice consultation in respect of interest on client accounts. There's been no confirmation one way or the other, I'm afraid, the consultation happened in the spring.

Everyone responded from the industry negatively to the proposal, which was for the MOJ essentially to take a good chunk of the client interest by means of whatever they chose to implement. There hasn't been an update.

There's no further clarity. What I would highlight is if you do see analyst notes in the market, you will see that they are building into it now a decreasing interest income over the coming 3 years in reflection of this downside risk.

To the extent that the MOJ do end up implementing something, the projections should be deliverable in light of that, and if they don't, there could potentially be upside against that.

There's a question: "Where do you think the ceiling is for Keystone? Is it the number of principals, revenue target, or something else?"

It's a very interesting question. What I would point out is that the market that we operate in is a £14 billion market, and our turnover is distinctly less than that, in terms of the amount of growth available is obviously very significant.

The lawyers are there, the market is there, there's a long, long way to go, and we're looking forward to the journey.

The final question we have in here at the moment is in relation to revenue growth coming from new hires versus others, and why we refer to principals when we use partners on the website. In terms of the revenue growth, for us, the growth of our business is through recruitment of lawyers who bring on new clients, both themselves and their colleagues.

That really is an organic growth strategy. To that extent, 100% of our growth is organic.

We're not an M&A business, there is no payouts for other things. In terms of principals versus partners, principals are, for us, those people who contract with us through the service company, and partners is a title which is used externally, essentially in the marketplace and therefore we attribute that to partners.

You can, in some case, have more than one partner within a pod, but that is just a slight differentiation in the market.

Thanks, Ashley. That concludes the questions.

I'd like to thank you all for attending today, and look forward to continuing to present to you in about 8 months' time.