Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here to present our H1 2026 results.

I'm Dominic Agace, CEO of Winkworth, and this is Andrew Nicol, CFO, and—

Good morning, everyone.

—the pleasure to go through the slides now. When we start with this slide for those who don't know us, just give a bit of background on the company and where we've come from, as well where we are today.

The model itself, Winkworth was established over 190 years ago in 1835. It came to franchising in 1981, which was the first estate agency in the UK to franchise, starting in Central London and franchising out from there, which has given us today 105 offices in total, 102 franchised offices, and 6 59 in London.

London being, I suppose, the heartland from which we've grown, and very much a sort of USP versus other franchise organizations or real estate businesses that don't have established network across London. The model effectively is to provide a platform for an independent estate agency to operate under our name and compete in the top three in their local marketplace.

We'd like to think of it as that they may have been working for a wholly owned business, and they can come and set up their own business and take control of their destiny within our sort of manuals and rules of the road, and have everything at the end of the phone that they're used to having as an employee, and hopefully that enables them to compete better than they could do on their own. For that, it's 8% royalty fee of gross revenues.

There are some additional fees, which if you sort of put them all together in relation to sort of training and website, then wrapped up to around just shy of 11% of the average office. The local franchisee takes the lease in their name, and we take options on those premises should we need to step in.

We have a very light fixed cost model, and we build centrally so that all the sales contracts are paid to us, and then we distribute, having deducted our franchise fee, which is obviously sort of very good for our cash flow. That's a little bit about us as a background, and so with that, we'll sort of go into the presentation.

Start with sort of operational overview and H1 2026 traded broadly in line with management expectations. The underlying '26 PBT expects to be slightly ahead, but reported PBT for full year materially below market expectations due to ongoing legal and advisory costs.

We had a good sales performance though when compared to 2025 in H1 2026. Last year in the first half we obviously had stamp duty changing, which kind of created another artificial surge of activity.

To be so close to it in terms of sales performance was actually a fantastic result in the first half of 2026. We continue to grow lettings, which, in the face of changing legislation in that market in terms of the Renters' Rights Act, which came in in May, is fantastic achievement as well and shows the strength of network in terms of the advising they're giving their clients and the landlords they're managing to retain and convert to property management, as well as acquire new ones.

We supported a franchisee to acquire four new offices, which is our largest assisted acquisition to date. It's in the sort of Cotswolds-Nottswolds Warwickshire area, and is created a whole new hub for us, really, sort of alongside the others we've talked for previously.

This is a new point of growth with a really good operator we've supported and some really good talent he's brought into the business. We consolidated our owned offices businesses.

Sort of we closed down the development commercial investments business, really we felt that there is too much risk attached to it. Was profitable last year, but risk in this market without the sort of recurring revenue underneath it, and perhaps therefore wasn't suitable for us at this time to be involved in.

The Crystal Palace we sold on to a neighboring franchisee, which fits well with his geography and adds to his own network. Profits, we've said, were impacted by exceptional legal costs relating to the board and shareholder matters.

The board is in the process of resolving that. We are considering ways to strengthen the board and the company's wider governance to come out fitter and stronger from it all.

Then finally, really, just to say, we've retained the position of having no debt. We're highly cash generative, with cash generated from operating activities up 39% in the first half versus the first half last year.

In terms of the actual numbers themselves, network revenue was at £31.6 million, was down 1% on H1 2025. Within that, as Dom sort of alluded to earlier, network sales revenue at £16.1 million was 5% down on the same period last year, and lettings revenue at £15.5 million was 3% up on previous year.

The lettings-sales split had gone from 53 sales, 47 lettings in 2025 on the back of the stamp duty surge that Dominic alluded to, to 51/49. In terms of Winkworth's actual revenue, Dom alluded to the sale of Crystal Palace and the deconsolidation of the development and commercial business.

Winkworth revenue was down to £4.7 million, 10% down on the last year. I'll be providing a bit more detail on that on a subsequent slide.

Operating profit before exceptional items, as the trading element of the business, was 9% up at £0.84 million versus last year, but with the exceptional items, profit before tax was down 5% at £0.78 million. The sale of Crystal Palace and wind down of DCI had an impact on the owned offices, their revenue was down 30%, and they were roughly breakeven, a loss of about £10,000 at the half year.

Cash was at £3.73 million at the half year, and ordinary dividends declared were 6.6p in the period. To give a bit more flavor, as I said, about the impact of the sale of Crystal Palace and the wind down of our development and commercial business, these charts are designed to give a bit of flavor around that.

The left-hand blocks are the position as at H1 2025, and the blocks moving across show the movements to get to H1 2026. On the revenue side, even though the 8% revenue from sales and lets was down slightly, £50,000 or so, down on H1 2025, overall revenue was up.

We had some small increases on our ancillary fees. We made more money from our CSD business in the first half.

The deconsolidation of Crystal Palace meant that £47,000 of revenue, which would have been excluded in previous years, actually registered as revenue for this year. That's why that's up a wee bit.

Pimlico was up 26% revenue half year on half year. Tooting was up 14% half year on half year.

Then the decreases are the wind down of DCI and the closure of Crystal Palace, getting us from the 5.202 to 4.7, £4.7 million. On the PBT side, the trading element of the franchising business was up by £111,000 year on year PBT.

That's basically driven by cost savings. We didn't have the one-offs that we'd had in H1 2025, there was no investment in Prime Central London marketing, which had been £100,000 this time last year.

We didn't have an office move, which cost us £70,000 or so in the first half of last year. There were some cost savings and some small cost increases, the net effect was a significant profit uptick.

Pimlico's profitability was up by £24,000. Tooting was down slightly, basically on the back of the appointment of a high-performing sales director in the business and the timing difference around their sales pipeline.

The start of Q3, slightly frustratingly, has been phenomenally strong. It would have been good if that had started a month earlier, but hey, we are where we are.

DCI was down year on year as we went through the final knockings of the pipeline. Crystal Palace is up because it actually lost money at the half year last year.

Then the major element down on the far right is the exceptional legal fees of £105,000. I'm afraid we can't talk much about that.

Just to give you a flavor of the network, some movers and shakers, the different elements of the business and how they performed in the first half. I suppose this shows the mix of Winkworth, and all the different sort of areas and revenue streams, and how they move to kind of create a nice revenue that's supported by diverse income streams.

When you look at this, I suppose sales is against the stamp duty, and clearly Central London is less affected, but we've also seen a benefit from our investment in Central London, where larger deals helped support revenue growth in H1. That's been positivity in still a difficult market, but it has made a difference.

Country markets we're growing in, so that slightly offsets general market trends. Outer London, where we're very mature with well-established high market share businesses, was more affected by the change in incentives that kind of stamp duty change last year created.

On the lettings side of things, you can see that, again, there's a bit of a change. Country, where we're growing, was the highest increase of revenue.

It is also a slightly different market for us, where there is more growth in buy-to-let landlords still because the economics are sort of different because the value of the property is cheaper, and therefore the business case for landlords stacks up to a greater degree. Both of those things were coming together to ensure sort of greater growth in that part of the business.

Outer London continues to perform very strongly. They're close to their landlords, they are communicating, they're getting new business from supporting landlords, and other landlords looking for advice through the change of the Renters' Rights Act, as well as, as you'll see below, offsetting lettings reductions, 3% down in lettings, with increase of property management revenue, 4% increase.

What we're seeing is that with greater legislation, our franchisees are able to provide more advice at greater value and be able to charge for that to their clients. That is effectively playing out as we've discussed previously.

Central London really slightly suffers from the malaise of the higher ticket lettings properties not being so popular at the moment, and so that has affected rental income in Central London, as well as the fact that actually it's the one part of the business where the monthly charges were more up front, and that had to change during the Renters' Rights Act, and therefore there's a change in accounting for those offices of how they account for lettings fees. Moving further into sort of the balance of the business, and again, this is a familiar slide, but we always put it up, and it sort of shows the ebb and flow really, and with one side picked up the slack from another, and that's the 50/50, it's not quite 50/50, split that we spent many years getting to, and now it's providing very useful to ensure the business continues to be kind of really resilient.

The offices are well-fitted out to meet both requirements. The sales market's busy, they can act quickly and put value there, and equally in the lettings, and they are underpinned by solid lettings revenue.

That's hopefully shows it's moved a bit by a slightly weaker sales market, which is directly fed through to the division. Then the revenue by area, again, this is the distinct areas we look at as we feel they have different dynamics, and so, yeah, often move at different times, really.

Clearly, we've been talking about Central London growing its share for a while, and there are still reasons why that isn't. We are investing in areas like Central London to ensure the quality of our business improves, and therefore we're able to take advantage of uplifts.

You can see the natural growth in the country where, as I say, we're sort of growing the network. Again, this is really for sort of market sort of feedback.

I think what you can see is sort of lettings is easier. Sort of demand is improving.

I think you saw rental prices sort of overshoot, and therefore demand dropped as everyone stayed put as long as possible to avoid having to move to new rental properties, and therefore applicant numbers dropped off. We've seen that improve again.

There is a shortening of supply, certainly in the face of the Renters' Rights Act as some landlords decided they didn't want to be part of the post-regulatory environment in the rental market. You're seeing quite fairly solid business increases in rent again, and more shortening of supply, particularly in London.

In the sales sector, I think this is a reflection of supply. We saw last year really sort of a big kick on of supply of properties to sell, and that, I think, is a reflection of increased costs over the years that we've talked about in terms of mortgage rates going up, VAT on sort of school fees, costs going up of building houses.

Everything having gone up over a number of years has meant that there's more movement as people readjust their lives to a different cost base in many cases. I think the numbers reducing to sort of 6 and 5 per property is driven by there was a drop in applicants of sort of 3 or 3 or so percent, but really also an increase in supply.

I think that's feeding through to weakness in pricing. We've seen that in Central London for a while, but we're still seeing that in the wider market, where there's a lot to choose from for a buyer, and therefore, whilst there is not huge stress because the nature of the mortgage market and employment market, you are seeing gentle decline in prices.

The dividend was maintained for H1 2026. Future dividend decisions will be made prudently, taking account of trading, the group's cash requirements, investment opportunities, and clearly the costs rising from the ongoing matters.

Just to reinforce, dividends are absolutely in our DNA.

Drivers of growth, again, it's a familiar slide as the four parts really as we see it: the new franchising element, it's very simple, who comes to us and open new locations or convert their existing estate agents to us; the assisted acquisitions, which is sort of big story is the acquisition of the Peter Clarke business in the Knottswolds, that sort of largest to date; portfolio management, where we're trying to headhunt and collect the best talent in the industry to come and join Winkworth and deliver sort of internal network growth, I think we haven't put it this time, but we'll talk in a little bit about how that's affecting market share; and owned businesses, which, again, we will we'll talk about in a little bit. This is a consistent slide, and it shows the ebb and flow of of the offices over a period of time.

Some of this is, I suppose, positioning. Our view really has always been that, better to have a strong network and walk away from offices that may be struggling and, therefore, of no benefit to the franchisee or ourselves for the strength for the reinforcement of a network and our proposition and our ability to evolve and invest in the newest things that need to be done to ensure we can compete in the top three.

When you look at this year, obviously you've seen the the acquisitions, assisted acquisition, with some fantastic new offices joining us. Sadly, several closing, particularly Dartmouth and Milford on Sea.

I saw there was a question and it's, they are unfortunately been hit by they're very low volume areas, I should say, but they they've had their sort of buzzing time, but clearly tax and agendas against taxation against second homes and local council tax changes have meant that the sort of holiday home market is very difficult. There's a big readjustment going on in these areas.

I think we're seeing that not only is the demand stopped, but the different type of buyers. The buyers of the holiday homes in the centre of these towns, it's not the same as the local buyers.

There's there's big readjustment going on, and so those offices sadly weren't viable. Paddington was disappointing, suffered from sort of Prime Central London difficulties and a multi-site operator, which we've elected to consolidate into his two other offices and service it now currently from neighboring offices, maintaining revenue.

Going forward, I think who's we have six offices in the pipeline: one new office, which is hopefully one of our regional hubs who is going forward with another new office to add to his localized network; and then some resales and some good opportunities to resell some important offices to some new talent that we think will boost them significantly and, therefore, make our network stronger and and grow our our 8%. We started doing this as a sort of series, and these are the some of the some of the stars around the network.

Jamie and Carly are sort of our Norfolk network, they also have Southwold, but are predominantly Norfolk, and are soon to be opening a new office. They are fantastic operators, ambitious, and are sort of leading the leading the charge of the Winkworth brand in the area and creating a fantastic reputation.

They opened in 2018 and have done that, sorry, 2019, Poringland, and have done that since then with our sort of backing of Poringland, Hellesdon, Eaton, Southwold. The revenue last year was £1.9 million.

We will continue to support people like like Jamie and Carly where they look to expand because we have our trust in them. Owned offices, yes, a bit of change, and I think we sort of talked about a little bit up front.

We've consolidated it. There's less, I suppose there's less exposure to them as a as a venture within our business.

We have Crystal Palace we sold on, it was a situation where we were set to lose the office due to contractual dispute. We took it on, we put in a good manager.

The manager didn't in the end wish to take it on himself, we sold it to a neighboring franchisee who is sort of great operator, has a number of offices, and it's slotted very neatly into his localized network. We we kept the kept the revenue stream from the area.

Actually boosted it many times over, I think, in terms of for 8%, and now put it in a place where we continue to deliver that for years to come. Development commercial investments, I've said it's it's very difficult market for that sector of the business.

We felt that, that posed a risk to us as a and our sort of high dividend paying nature, and so better to sort of wind it down where if we didn't have the recurring revenue under it to support it through a difficult time. Again, sort of reduce our exposure.

The Pimlico and Tooting are two examples of this strategy. Pimlico, again, was something that we, the office would have been lost, we felt it was important to retain it, we stepped in and put in a good operator in there.

Therefore, we continue to have the office and is growing its revenue. The Tooting business is something that we took our time to acquire.

It has delivered lots of different value in different areas. It produced a lot of increases, 8% from well, revenue, gross revenue from, £200,000 to £1.6 million or £1.5 million.

Got a great operator into the network. He went on actually to own two others, which are now doing fantastically well.

We had then we had a manager that didn't deliver as much as hoped, but maintained its profitability, and we've now got another star star player in there and and hopefully he'll go on to own more of it or all of it in due course. I suppose in the meantime, we'd be benefiting from the increased 8% and profit generation over the years.

Operating performance, this really just to give you an idea flavor of the network and how it performs. A couple of sorts of stats we take from the industry sort of depth sort of data company, which TwentyCi, and they generally sort of have the data for the for the industry and and produce these statistics.

First thing to say is it's always good to have a number one: number one properties sold in subject to contract across the area we operate in. That's fantastic, obviously.

Then, we've put we always do it sort of at the end of the year, we put it in the slide normally where it's start of in the slide where we say how many more of our offices we've got in the top three as showing I suppose to show the work that goes into improving the quality of our network and how we are improving and therefore continue to move revenue forwards. This is just to say, look, we've improved our market share in London 24% in the last 5 years.

That is another way, I suppose, demonstrating that, the existing network is going forward, perhaps on the back of portfolio management and the new talent we're bringing in, hopefully our efforts to improve our platform. Then just some other statistics, this is against the operating area: with us, you're more likely to agree a sale; you're more likely to exchange that property once you've agreed it; you're less likely to have to withdraw your property from our services; and you're less likely to have a sale fall through.

Hopefully those all bode well for a healthy network. Then the digital evolution, what do we call Winkworth OS, and this is, I suppose, to break down, make sort of clear, we look at it as lead generation: how can we ensure that our digital investment generates more leads for our franchisees?

Clearly, that's being getting involved with ensuring that AIs can read our website and read our properties within it more easily, and that's an investment in our website to ensure that can happen and therefore we can get more searches and more inquiries as people move some of their searching or or a lot of their searching through these AI language models away from traditional routes. We can cover that off and we have invested and will continue to invest.

We've done some of the work, and we've got more still to come. We also will be off with the sort of new website, have a platform where we'll be able to provide more options for clients to be able to do things themselves should they wish.

Obviously, our whole purpose is we are a people business, and they're front and front center, we want to do things that supports our people and support them in communicating with their clients. Then there's obviously the there are operating efficiencies, how we can communicate with our franchisee network, how we can use the data we have in our network, how, as I said, the My Winkworth can help clients manage or have transparency around their their property transaction and their property dealings.

Obviously franchisee economics, what can we look at that doesn't undermine our people-first business, but gives them savings, hopefully, and ensures them they're more efficient and that they can add value to their business. There are these are these are that's our thinking of how we do it.

Obviously, there is, a number of projects that are running. First and foremost is the sort of new website platform, which should be with us sort of this year, which will be the first step and other parts are following.

Again, another slide with the website is the center of center of the network really, and hopefully we've always aspired to have a best-in-class website. We feel it's something that franchisees can hang their hat off, and it can deliver a lot of value to to our franchisees.

This just really gives you the leads. What's interesting on the leads, visit sizes, obviously, I think you can see the surges in the market in 2021, for a start, but but also that it's stuck, which is worth noting.

We've seen a significant pickup, and part of that is AI generated, more searches coming from AI, which is boosted our visits significantly from its more recent trajectory. Then just to give you an idea, obviously looking at the the charts on the left, valuation leads, it's sort of around 6,000 to the network a year.

That's quite a big engine of delivering business and hopefully shows the value we are we add to an individual business through this sort of platform we invest in to ensure it's it's it's best in class. Looking back and looking ahead, H1 broadly in line with management expectations.

We'll continue with our plan of recruiting new talent to uplift our revenue and improve the the network. We do have a we had a stream of new talent through the Peter Clarke business joining our business and improving the mix of it.

With our franchisees have done really well and managed the Renters' Rights transition and managed to grow the lettings and management revenue through that uncertain time. We've deployed strongly increasing cash flow to to do that, assisted acquisition, support franchisees, whilst maintaining the dividend in the first half.

Going forward, some of these goals are always consistent goals: being the first option for wishing to aspiring to be the first option for wishing to set up their own business, operating in prime markets; and continue to offer a platform allowing success successful agents to rank in the top three in their area, they're profitable in all markets; manage the portfolio to grow the quality of the network, reputation, and income; provide a menu of options to ensure that we can attract the best operators out there to join the Winkworth network through one of those options; continue to invest in our brand, digital platform to support our franchisees; remain a people-led business backed by the state-of-the-art technology, obviously, as we've talked, launching our new website, adapt to the new role AI is playing in property search, ensure that we're therefore adapting and providing value to our franchisees because of that adaptation; we have a strong balance sheet enabling us to invest in opportunities as they arise through the cycle; and finally, sharing strength with shareholders through regular dividend distributions. Thank you.

That's the presentation. I suppose on to any questions.

We have a pre-submitted question. Investors are of course keen to hear the latest news on whether or not the current directors are likely to still be on the premises.

Certainly interested to hear more about 34% shall Irene Ho King Li, chair's wife, who was hitherto unknown, throwing her weight around. Can't really talk about that at all, I'm afraid.

Ending, meanwhile, back at the coalface, pleased to see the Leamington franchisee thriving and expanding, more concerning is the closure of the South Coast branches, Dartmouth and Milford.

I think I can answer that. I think, yeah, we've got a really talented guy in Leamington, and he's doing great things, and so we're really pleased that we backed him and that's going really well.

It's a happy ship with great potential, so that's fantastic. The Dartmouth-Milford, hopefully I explained a bit.

There's been a big change, the holiday homes has really struggled due to recent sorts of steps, disincentives, tax changes, I suppose, and so they sadly were not viable. What level of sales transactions are expected in London markets in 2026?

Let me just see if I get this. There we go.

'26 versus 2025, I think you're seeing it probably come in slightly below the Yeah, I think it's been pretty resilient. Obviously, it has started off with great hopes to move significantly ahead, and as is the way with the property market of late, macro events have affected things.

I think we'll see it land within overall UK transactions sort of 4 I think the Hometrack was saying sort of 4% down, I think that seems reasonable. A

question: "Of the 104 offices currently in the network, how many would you classify as mature, and how much revenue growth is typically achievable from a mature franchise?"

Gosh, yeah, hard to I don't know if we have that categorized that that way. Sort of basically, our London network is very mature, it's those 59.

They they've been there for a very long time, most of them, and have great market share. It does vary by area.

Every area's got different transaction numbers and different property price points, which all feed into different commissions and, therefore, opportunities. What we did when we, I suppose, we look at that, and when we did, for example, Tooting, we looked at it and said, "Okay, well, look, that's got a lot of transactions, young professionals, houses, flats, a lot of movement.

Doesn't have perhaps the big gardens of some areas, which means people stay there forever." Had huge potential, we we invested in it to make sure we realized that potential.

That's not a direct answer, but it explains that we do do look at it. There is generally more potential in in a London market because there's more movement than perhaps a country market where people move less often.

A question from Stephen B: "With the equity-owned businesses now representing a smaller proportion of the group, should we expect the underlying margin profile to become more stable?"

Yes. Yes, there's lower risk from, I suppose, in particular, the fluctuations of DCI, it was profitable, it was based on significant deals, there was more risk.

I think, yes. Yes, I think we're taking is a slightly uncertain backdrop, and we're taking a cautious approach, and it's one of the tools we use to improve our network revenue and bring quality people into it.

As I say, we go back to the initial Tooting story, the chap came on board, wouldn't have bought it, didn't have the funds to buy it, now owns two neighboring offices, which are sort of rapidly moving to the top 10 in Winkworth. It brought in some really good talent and generated some money along the way.

It's one of the tools, but we're wary to not overcommit to it.

What have been the key changes in the rentals market since the Renters' Rights Act came into being?

I think it's that from an agency point of view, there's been a movement from upfront charging because of the fixed terms to charging monthly. Most of our franchisees have adapted to that, hence why there's been fairly smooth transition because they spent the years before doing that.

Not all of them, and I think you saw that in the Central London slide where it was slightly down. That's the main thing from an agency point of view.

From a client, consumer point of view, clearly the issue will be around rental increases and whether tenants dispute those increases and how the tribunal can cope. Basically, the overall message seems that it's in place, and perhaps some of the fears that were being talked about haven't come to pass, and we will continue.

It's just some of those landlords didn't wish to be under that regulatory environment.

Do you expect to see any measures in the October budget which might have an impact on the sales market?

Fingers crossed not. I think he said he's not going to hopefully make the mistakes of budgets past and that wasn't within the remit.

I'm hopeful and certainly, what has been a great improvement, is we haven't had the kite flying of last year, which started at the end of August, sort of weighing on everyone. I'm optimistic and I don't think there's going to be a particular housing agenda in the coming budget.

Question: "Adam Stackhouse left in February, and Development/Investment closed. With BTR development a huge driver and potential deliverer of letting instructions for franchisees, why isn't he being replaced?"

I think it's just, I suppose at the moment, we feel that there's probably a bit too much risk for the profile of business we have to be involved in what is a very difficult market in the current economy, I suppose, in terms of the costs involved for developers and investment and what's being done in that sector is everyone's been struggling in it, and so perhaps now is not the time to be pushing forward on it as we pay deference to being a high dividend paying out, progressive dividend business. Not saying it may not be revisited in the future, but that's the current thinking.

Can management confirm the status of Simon Agace, please? One, is he still non-executive chair?

Yes, he is. Is he or a representative still attending board meetings?

Yes, he is. He is still on the company's payroll.

Now, a further question: "Today's statement says our cash position provides us with the capacity to continue to explore new opportunities as well as to absorb exceptional costs incurred in 2026. Does the cash position also provide the company with the capacity to maintain the dividend?

The wordings suggests the company will prioritize new dividends over paying the dividend if the legal fees really rack up." I alluded to the dividends when we went through the dividend slide, and we can't really say more than that at the moment.

We understand it's important to our shareholders, and we'll be looking to pay them as we always have done.

That marks the end of the questions.

I think really it's just to say the company's proved again that it's a fantastically resilient business, and that's driven by some really high quality people in the network working very hard for themselves as business owners to succeed, and never more so than when markets are uncertain do they succeed. I think we've seen that.

We are in uncertain times, but that will always be true, which bodes very well for Winkworth's future.