Hello, and welcome to the Rentokil Full Year Results 2025. My name is Carla, and I will be coordinating your call today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand you over to your host, Andy Ransom, Chief Executive, to begin. Please go ahead when you're ready.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our full year results presentation for 2025. After my opening remarks, Paul will provide a review of our financial performance. I will then focus on the execution of our plan in North America as well as providing a brief update on our International region, our categories and our adoption of AI. We'll then open the floor for your questions. And as usual, details of how to ask a question can be found on the web portal. 2025 has been a year of encouraging progress with group revenues increasing by 3.8% and with organic revenue growth of 2.6%. Our H2 performance was particularly encouraging with group revenues increasing by 4.5% and with organic revenue growth being 3.5%. My main focus for today, however, will be on North America, looking at our performance in 2025 and how we're building on that platform in 2026. This time last year, we set out our plan for growth in North America, and it has been a year of encouraging progress with our performance, particularly in the second half, improving significantly. Whilst we're not there yet where we want to be, organic growth reached 2.6% in the fourth quarter. This was underpinned by strong execution, rolling out our new marketing plan, investing in our regional brands, opening 150 small local branches through our satellite program and delivering $25 million of in-year cost savings through our efficiency program. Our International business also saw improving organic revenue growth of 3.4% in the second half. This combination of improved growth and cost efficiencies delivered adjusted operating profit growth of 5.4% and positions us well to deliver our plans for 20% net operating margins in North America next year. Now looking to 2026, we have clear plans in place to build on the progress…

Thank you, Andy, and good morning, everyone. I will now walk you through our key financial highlights for 2025 and look at our regional performance in more detail before closing on cash flow and capital allocation. As a reminder, unless I state otherwise, all numbers are on a continuing operations basis following the sale of our France Workwear business, and any comparative performance is on a constant currency basis. Revenue was up 3.8% to $6.9 billion with organic revenue growth of 2.6%. Adjusted operating profit increased by 5.4% to just over $1 billion. This resulted in a group adjusted operating profit margin of 15.5%, a 30 basis point increase year-on-year. After an adjusted interest charge of $204 million, up $29 million due to the cost of additional bond debt issued in the year and an adjusted effective tax rate of 25.3%, adjusted basic EPS increased 2.4% to $0.2591. I have spoken previously about our focus on maximizing cash, and I'm particularly pleased with our free cash flow performance with 24.5% growth to $615 million and free cash flow conversion of 98%. This reflects disciplined working capital management and also some one-off benefits, including real estate sales. With the growth in profits and free cash flow and the proceeds from the sale of France Workwear, partly offset by an adverse foreign exchange impact of $181 million on year-end net debt, our leverage ratio improved to 2.6x, down from 2.9x a year ago and close to our target range of 2 to 2.5x. Reflecting this performance, the Board is recommending a full year dividend of $0.1239 per share, an increase of 3%, in line with our progressive dividend policy. Turning to North America. Revenue grew 3.2% to $4.3 billion with organic growth of 2.3%. Pest Control Services was up 1.1%, while Business…

Thank you, Paul. So over the next few minutes, I'm going to start by highlighting the strength of the pest control market, both in the U.S. and globally before diving into North America's performance. I'll then finish with brief updates on our international growth and emerging markets, on our 2 categories and on the good progress we are making with the use of generative AI across the business. As you can see, the global pest control market has demonstrated consistent, resilient growth, expanding from $15.4 billion a decade ago to an estimated $29 billion in 2025. This represents a robust 6.6% compound annual growth rate over the last 10 years. Looking ahead, the market forecast for growth in the pest control industry remains very healthy with a projected 6.2% CAGR through to 2035. This growth is driven by multiple consistent factors, including increasing urbanization and growing middle classes, which drive demand for professional pest services. Heightened demand for higher hygiene standards across all sectors and as you would expect, climate change are also contributing to a rise in pest activity, all combining to create a sustained need for our services. In Hygiene & Wellbeing, which accounted for 17% of group revenues in 2025, we are the leaders in an attractive global market, which is expected to grow at around 4% annually through to 2030. This is being driven by an aging global population and their increasing hygiene needs, social and demographic trends such as urbanization and increasing middle classes, so similar to pest control, a heightened focus on hygiene standards post the pandemic and greater environmental and regulatory compliance requirements. So we're operating in 2 very healthy global markets. Let's now get into the main focus of today's presentation, that's our plan for North America, where we're continuing on our…

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Andy Grobler with BNP Paribas.

Just a couple from me, if I may. Firstly, in America and operationally, as the strategy moves to kind of more branches, more systems, more brands and so forth, how would you balance the cost of doing that against and the visibility that you need from a central perspective. Is there a risk that some of these branches become somewhat independent through that process? And then secondly, just in terms of cash costs with termite costs going up in '25 and looking to '26, what are your expectations going in the longer term for those -- both for those termite costs and for the one-off integration costs over the next 2, 3, 4 years?

Thanks, Andy. I'll take the first one and hand it to Paul for the second. Look, I don't think so is the answer to your question in terms of risk either on the cost side or indeed on the risk of loss of control of lots and lots of small branches. If I take the second limb of that first. The Branch 360 single pane of glass, in particular, is going to give us the best visibility that we've ever had at branch level. At the moment, if you're a branch manager, across our suite of branches, you've got to have about 42 different tabs if you want to complete the full suite of KPI metrics and measures. And going forward, every single branch is going to have the same desktop open with the same KPIs, metrics, measures, dashboards and push reports going to them centrally. So I actually think we're going to have better control, visibility and consistency across our branches than we've ever had. And many of the smaller branches opened under the satellite program are really an extension of the larger local branch. So they're run by the same branch managers. So I don't think there's any risk there at all of loss of control, quite the opposite, I think. In terms of cost, the smaller branches are relatively cheap, if I can use that word, relatively inexpensive. The costs have been included in our plans, in our budgets, in our forward look on our numbers. So not a significant increase. And the majority of the increased investment on the brand side is actually on organic search. So it's not so much on the paid search, which is quite expensive. It's on organic, supporting their independent websites, web pages, et cetera. So I think the increased cost is modest. It's all factored into our forward-looking numbers. And I think it's going to give us great, great transparency and consistency on the branch level. So Paul?

Look, on the cash side, I think the first thing that we should all remember is this is a very cash-generative business, and we've proven that in 2025. So we brought the leverage down. Cash conversion was at 98%, and we're going to keep pushing really hard on this. The working capital outflows were significantly lower in '25 than they were in 2024. In terms of the sort of one-off areas, the cost of the termite provision, $95 million in 2025 cash cost. We expect it will be about the same in 2026. Our strategy is to try and close off claims as quickly as we can, whether that's litigated claims or non-litigated claims. It's good to push them through, get them to resolution, and that's our plan so that we can put this behind us as quickly as possible. I can't tell you really exactly what the cash is going to be in '27 and 2028, how that will track down. Expectation is that it will track down because we are dealing with large complex claims now. That's what's put up the provision in the second half. And so we will see it ameliorating over time, but I can't tell you exactly the trajectory on that. In terms of the costs related to the transformation plan, the cost-out plan, we will continue to see those costs in 2026. I'm really pleased with how the plan has gone in 2025, how quickly we've managed to get cost out, but there's a lot more to do. The returns on this, obviously, though, are very, very good. So where we see an opportunity to take cost out of the business, yes, it will have a onetime cost for redundancies or restructuring, but we'll continue to pursue those. Thanks, Andy.

And just one further thing. Andy, thank you for however many years it's now been, and best of luck with whatever the future brings.

Appreciate it, Andy.

The next question comes from Suhasini Varanasi with Goldman Sachs.

A couple for me, please. I just want to get some more color on the door-to-door pilot that you implemented in 2025. In the places where you implemented it, is it possible to understand the proportion of new sales that came from this new channel versus your traditional or digital channels? That's the first one. And the second one, I think Business Services has been delivering very strong growth despite the headwinds in vector control services in 4Q. Just wanted to understand the drivers behind this and your expectations for 2026.

Thanks, Suhasini. The door-to-door program, we're pleased with it. It did not make a major contribution to the revenue performance, relatively modest, but we were pleased with it. It's our first toe in the water for door-to-door. And as I've said before, it's become a big channel. I still think we're learning on the job with this. And I'm on the record of saying in the past, I've always had a slight concern about door-to-door that the customer retention rate on door-to-door isn't as strong as it is where a customer has reached out to find us. And that's proven to be the case. So retention rates have been lower in the door-to-door business, but absolutely in line with what we modeled. So we put a big tick against the program in 2025 as a success, but as a pilot. And we've included, I'd say, a relatively modest ambition in 2026. We're moving up from 25 territories to about 40 territories. If it continues to go well, and I don't see why it wouldn't, in '26. It will obviously be up to Mike and the team, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that getting potentially materially bigger in '27. So not a big contributor. We don't break it out separately. More to come for in '26. Let's see how we get on. If it continues to go well, I think that could be a much more material potential opportunity in the future. Business Services, yes, it's had a really good year actually off a less good year in '24. So you've got a little bit of comp benefit, I would say, '25 on '24. Just a reminder what's in Business Services, half of Business Services or just over half of Business Services is our distribution business, our products distribution…

And the next question comes from Annelies Vermeulen with Morgan Stanley.

I had two questions, please. So firstly, on the rebranding of the retiring brands, I think you said a lot of those are one-branch businesses. So how many branches or brands does that involve? And what was the criteria for the decision on that segment specifically? Were there certain things that you look for in terms of signing those off? And then secondly, on the pay plans for the technicians, have you collected feedback on this from your existing technicians? And what was that based on? And if so, do you expect it to meaningfully continue to contribute to improving retention from here? And are there any additional costs associated with having to run 2 pay plans?

Thanks, Annelies. On the rebranding, those who've got a good and long memory will remember that we've got about 80 brands, give or take. So we're going to keep 30. So that means there's 50 -- I unfairly call them 1 horse towns. There are 50 brands. They're almost exclusively single city or single town brands. It doesn't mean to say we don't love them and like them, but it doesn't make economic sense to support those 50 individuals. So they are the 50 smallest. In aggregate, those 50 brands don't even represent 10% of the total revenues. So they will be retired quietly, slowly, gently over the next couple of years. And the criteria really was just based on scale. It's the ones that have got the least footprint, the smallest brands in small towns and smaller cities. And we tested brand equity as well. So we actually tried to work out how strong are these brands in the market. And the ones where we've got strong brand equity, we've retained and the ones where the brand equity is weak, we've taken a decision that it's better to migrate those to a strong brand equity local brand, whether that's Terminix or it might be one of the other 30. On the pay plans, no, look, there's not additional costs. There's the absence of some savings, but it's not material. And again, it's all fully costed in the plan. But as I said in the remarks, it's a very pragmatic decision. As I've explained several times over the last 2 or 3 years, we do have quite a distribution on a bell curve of pay for technicians and some have got legacy pay plans that look quite generous compared to the pay plans we've been operating across the business for some time now. And we've just taken a pragmatic decision that we will grandfather those. So if you want to stay on the pay plan that you're on because you like it, because you think it's generous, because you've worked out how to maximize your income, you can stay on it. So for the pay plan that we're moving to for the new people that joined from '27 onwards, we're essentially taking an existing pay plan that works quite well. We've modified it slightly. So there's absolutely no reason to believe it will be anything other than business as usual and a successful new pay plan. But it does mean we're running more than one pay plan for longer than we originally wanted. So there was some modest cost improvement originally planned to move to a single pay plan. We've foregone that saving. But as I say, relatively modest and included in our forward-looking plans.

Great. Thank you for the engagement, Andy. Best of luck.

Thank you. Cheers. Pleasure. .

And the next question comes from Bill Kirkness with Bernstein Societe Generale Group.

I have two questions, please. Firstly, as organic growth rehabilitates, I assume there's some market share gains happening. And if so, can you just talk about where you see those? Are they quite broad-based? Or are they sort of focused with the smaller peers or larger operators? And then secondly, you mentioned the weather impact in Jan. I just wonder if that's so material as to disrupt this sort of improving momentum we're seeing in North America pest or whether actually you've got enough self-help to drive ongoing improvements regardless of the adverse weather?

Thanks, Bill. Look, market share in pest control is a notoriously difficult endeavor, there's about 18,000 to 19,000 pest control companies in the United States, and we're operating across hundreds of cities. So in any particular town, any particular city, customers have got massive choice. Typically, they've got a choice of 10 to 20 local players. And so trying to work out when we improve where the share improvement is coming from and vice versa is really, really difficult. You can only really see in a live dynamic way, whether you're winning or losing share on the big national account piece. And that isn't really what's driving our improvement in organic growth. I'd say it's broad-based, and it's coming essentially from improvement in our operations in residential and termite, and it's across multiple towns and cities. So really difficult to say where we're winning or where we're winning from. But most of it, I would say, is local movement as such. On the weather, look, the way it works in our North American business, the way the entire industry works in North America is you only get paid and you only recognize revenue once you have done the work. So if you get a weather event, as we saw for a few days in January and you can't get your colleagues out on the road to do their routines. If you're not visiting that customer, then you're not billing that customer and that revenue doesn't happen. But that doesn't mean that revenue has gone. What that means is you work like crazy in the month of February to catch up the visits that you missed in the month of January. And clearly, that's what we will have been doing in February to try and catch up that work as much as possible. February weather, we thought was going to be a bit wobbly as well. At one point, there was a couple of snow days. But in actual fact, the weather in Feb turned out fine in the end. So we draw attention to it simply because it happened. It was material. It wasn't just one day. It was a few days down the Eastern Seaboard. But we will be working very hard to catch it up through February and into March. So we're not flagging a major issue, but clearly some softness in the month of January.

The next question comes from Nicole Manion with UBS.

One on the price and volume split in North America piece. There are a few mentions in the release about the robust pricing environment. I think that's actually sort of fairly consistent with what you said earlier in the year. But is there anything to call out here in terms of the pricing piece still accelerating or just holding at a similar level? And then secondly, sorry if I've missed this, I think you can sort of back it out from the numbers on branches that you have given in the release and the presentation. But could you sort of just confirm the total sort of branch base number as of the end of 2025 in North America?

Thanks, Nicole. So in terms of price and volume, we're still very encouraged by what we're seeing on price. We do manage to get inflation plus, which we've seen through the year. And as you've seen, the organic growth has been ticking up quarter by quarter. So we are continuing at a similar level on price and clearly doing better on volume. We're still losing a bit of volume if you look at that number that we printed in the fourth quarter, but it's improving sequentially. And in terms of the number of branches, well, we said that by the end of this year, we expect to get up to approximately 800, and that's going to include 220 of these sort of small local branches or satellite branches, which we're at 150 on. So the 70 delta is the change from 730-ish at the end of this year to 800-ish at the end of 2026.

Got it. All the best, Andy.

Appreciate it. Cheers, Nicole. Thanks.

And the next question comes from Jane Sparrow with JPMorgan.

Two questions, please. Just on the regional brands and the Terminix brand, it sounds like the improvement in lead generation is largely being driven by the reinvigorated regional brands. Can you perhaps comment on the main Terminix brand and how that is performing? And then secondly, of those branches where there's a high proportion of people sticking on the old plan, is there any noticeable divergence on KPIs on your new one pay scorecard versus the other branches where more people are on the new plan, please?

Jane. Yes. Look, the Terminix brand is doing well, but you're correct in your deduction that the regional brands must have done really well. They did do really well. Super pleased with the performance of quite a number of the 9 regional brands. And as I said in an earlier answer, a lot of that has come through really focusing on organic search performance, and that's what's given us the encouragement in part to go with the 30 brands. So that's excellent. But the big, big battleship brand, Terminix, is going well and has performed very nicely. We haven't seen as big percentage increases, but it is performing nicely. And there, we do things like market testing for brand recognition, unaided brand recognition. Can you name a pest control company in the United States? Can you name a pest control company that you would consider using if you had a pest control problem. And we've had a recent survey on that, and the data has come out very, very strong. It's a powerhouse brand, and it's got fantastic brand recognition. And so it's performing well, but we do support Terminix significantly with paid search as well as organic search. And over time, what we'll be looking to do, particularly as we get more into the AI generative search, we'll be looking to move further down the organic search for Terminix as well. So it's performing well, but a big part of the rebound in lead performance has come from those regional brands and the reason why we're supporting the 30 going forward. In the second question, that's way too early to say what that looks like in terms of branches with a high proportion of people on old pay plan, which is largely heritage Terminix brands and then performance of…

Okay. All the best for the future apart from the obvious foot front.

Yes. Well, I would say the same to you, Jane. I would say I hope Spurs don't get relegated, but I would be lying if I said that. So good luck, Jane.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from Allen Wells with Jefferies.

Most have been answered, but just two quick ones. Firstly, Paul, just on the $100 million cost saving plan. Obviously, we've had lots of moving parts over the last 12 to 18 months with the change in brand strategy, less closures, more satellites, changing brands, changing remunerations. As we sit here today, could you maybe take a step back and simplify down how we should think about the maiden building blocks of the $100 million and what will be delivered in 2026? That's the first question. And then maybe just secondly, just following up on the remuneration plan and the allowing of grandfathering, et cetera. Obviously, we're a couple of years into this process now. And what drove the need to change that at this stage? What have you seen? What were staff telling you? And why now? That would be my question.

Thanks, Allen. So in terms of the cost plan, I'll happily take a step back and many of you will remember that we had our integration cost savings back in the day. That got a little bit difficult to track through. So when I came in, I said, take the 2024 cost base, there will still be inflation on that cost base, but we will take $100 million of that. And that's what we are tracking well against. So I've said that we've taken $25 million out of the cost base in 2025. We came sort of at that from a cold start. So most of the savings were manifested in the second half. So if you think about that, that means that on a run rate, it's more than double that, that we're achieving, we are investing back into the business. So whether it's the new capabilities we've talked about in pricing, in data, in many other areas of the business or the additional resources we're making available for marketing and for our additional branch network, that's all being funded. So it's a fuel for growth strategy, and we'll continue to do that. So we will tackle back-office costs, we'll tackle inefficiencies, we'll tackle spans and layers, all the normal opportunities that you would see in a very large-scale business to take cost out. There is significant opportunity. What we are doing is going after the right cost at the right time. Some we will leave a little because they might be a bit more disruptive to the business. So the focus at the moment has been on that back office cost, cost of finance of accounts payable, et cetera, et cetera, removing roles, offshoring roles, et cetera. But still lots to do, and we will get that $100 million out by the time we're reporting the 2027 results and to get the margin up to 20% plus. And look, in terms of the pay plans, the whole plan that we're coming up with in terms of how we simplify the go-forward integration is not to cause disruption. It's to settle people down. If there was some anxiety in technicians that perhaps they wouldn't like the new plan as much as their current plan, fine. They can just grandfather on to their current plan. We want people to get focused on doing their jobs well. We are an employer of choice in the industry, and that's the most important thing to make people go out and delight customers every day. And if there's something getting in the way of that, then we've removed that. So yes, that's our thinking.

And the next question comes from James Beard with Deutsche Bank.

I've got two, please. Firstly, you noted the improvement in residential leads in the second half. I was wondering if you could talk through the time that you expect those to convert over and how that improvement in resi leads is splits between contract and jobbing. And then secondly, going back on to pay plans, again, you said no change to residential sales staff pay plans in '26. When should we expect any sort of change to residential sales staff pay plans, please?

Thanks, James. '27 is the answer to the second question. Sorry, I should have said that. In terms of the time it takes from lead into sale into install is a really good question. I mean, that's a proper pest control question, James, that's really down in the weeds, but it's really, really important. Because if it's residential, if you've got a mouse running around your kitchen, when do you want that solved? You want it solved immediately. So the speed from which we can take a residential lead, and the same is true of termite. You've just discovered termites munching away in your basement or your cellar, you want that sorted quickly. And what we've seen is why I mentioned the new KPIs, operational KPIs in terms of how quickly are we getting from the lead to the sale to the install and it only becomes revenue when you do the install. We've got to get faster and we've got to get more consistent at that. So we are now getting a good proportion of the leads converted, sold and installed within 24 to 48 hours. And that's the sort of time window we are giving ourselves because if customers are having to wait 3 days for their mouse running around the kitchen to be dealt with or for the worry of the fact that termites are in their house, for many customers, that's too long. On the commercial side, time is much less critical. Commercial customers, that's fine. You can come next week, you can come next month unless they've got an emergency. So yes, look, it's a really, really key part of the business. And if we look through 2025, what we saw, particularly in the second half was a -- if you go at the top…

And all the best in the future, Andy.

Appreciate it. Cheers. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from James Rose with Barclays.

I've got a few on commercial, please. In the release, this has been flagged as a particular growth area. I wonder can you expand on your growth plans there? Secondly, is it right that commercial branches will be running on new systems, so slightly different ones to resi and termite branches? And then finally, how progressed are you in bringing some of the innovations and technology you have in the international and European business into the U.S. And what's the opportunity there?

Thanks, James. Yes, look, good question. Rentokil is the undisputed global leader in commercial pest control. The Terminix acquisition brought with it a big business in residential and termite. But Rentokil, which operates in, what, 88, 89 countries is globally renowned for its commercial pest control business. So we should be punching above our weight in commercial in the United States. And we're not yet where we need to be in commercial. I think in part because we've had so much focus on getting the resi business right and getting the termite business right. We've recently taken the decision to give independent leadership of the commercial business to one person. We've got an individual who probably knows more about commercial pest control than just about anyone on the planet. He's an export from the United Kingdom. So we've given it dedicated leadership. In terms of the plan for the business, improving customer retention has to be at the first part of that plan. We still don't have retention where it should be. Customer retention in commercial should be very high typically. It needs to be higher. It is going to be -- the commercial business will all be on PestPac, which is the core system that Rentokil has been using for 3 or 4 years now in the United States. So there won't be any great surprises or drama there. So that should be relatively straightforward. And you're absolutely right to raise the question of innovation. I was chatting to Mike the other day, and he's been introduced to some of the really cool innovations that we've got in pest control and commercial pest control, in particular. And we've got some really interesting ones coming in the pipeline over the next year or 2. But we have manifestly been weakest…