Richard Solomons
Management
Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Welcome to our 2014 full year results presentation. So before I hand over to Paul, I'd just like to start with some of the highlights and prospectus on the market. 2014 was an excellent year for IHG, and we delivered a strong financial performance, which Paul will talk about in more detail shortly. We made excellent strategic progress. We acquired Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, opened the first EVEN Hotels in the U.S., and just last week, opened the first HUALUXE hotel in China. Alongside this, we developed our more established brands, achieving many growth milestones, which I'll talk more about later on. And our disciplined approach to capital allocation saw as return over $1 billion to shareholders in the year. So where is the hospitality industry today, and how is the outlook? As we've seen for many years now, tailwinds for the sector remain very favorable. Demand continues to be driven by global GDP growth, increasing disposable income, demographics, the globalization of travel and the growing number of outbound travelers from emerging markets. The industry is also becoming increasingly branded, driven by both consumers and the capital markets. And this is a backdrop where our strategy and strength position us well to win in the future, explaining why we have a 13% share of the active pipeline globally with only a 5% share of existing supply. In our largest market, the U.S., we continue to experience favorable industry dynamics. GDP growth remained strong, driving demand to record levels. And supply growth is still considerably below the long-term average, driving strong RevPAR performance. However, today's macroeconomic environment outside of the U.S. seems to be more uncertain and variable than it has been for some time, with an unfortunate mix of falling oil prices, the strengthening U.S. dollar, heightened potential for a Eurozone crisis, continued terrorist activity across the Middle East and the specter of a hung parliament in the U.K. Having said that, as we look into 2015, we're confident that we'll continue to deliver against our strategy and the strong momentum in our business positions us well for continuing out-performance. So I'll now hand over to Paul, who'll talk in more detail about our financial performance in 2014. And I will return later to discuss our strategy, with a particular focus on our brands and how we're using technology to enhance the customer experience across the guest journey. Paul?