John Buchanan
Management
Well, good morning and welcome, everybody. Before Dave and Adrian take you through the full year results, I thought, in the light of the other announcement this morning that I should say a few words. You’ve seen the announcement of the succession, CEO succession at Smith & Nephew and the announcement of Dave’s retirement. The board is very sorry to see Dave go. Some evidence, I could go much beyond this. And that might come out with many questions you have. But this is what’s been happening under Dave’s tenure as CEO just to highlight one point, earnings per share 13% compound over the four years and we all recall this is probably the most difficult business environment and ever so been through. This is a stunning achievement and not at the expense of growth. What Dave leaves behind, platforms from growth as for the business level, and a wider geographical footprint. Dave’s nine years at Smith & Nephew have been characterized by a customer oriented approach, and of course, aimed at creating shareholder value. You can see from those numbers the compounding of value under his tenure has been excellent. But Dave has also evolved the culture of the company, deepening the innovative skills that are so essential, and you’ll have more of that later, but also to focus on efficiency. Efficiency, not as a program but as a deeply embedded process in order to fund future growth opportunities. So, we thank Dave very much and we’ll have lots of time for celebration and wish him well for the future. But looking to the future of Smith & Nephew, of course, we’re delighted to recruit an excellent successor from the healthcare segment, Oliver Bohuon, who has worked with GSK and more recently with Abbott in the States for a number of years, running their pharmaceutical business is an impressive health care professional. His leadership skills together with the team that Dave has created, the foundations for growth that have been established we’re very excited about. The underlying foundations of this industry and the segments were an of course, enormously powerful, as demographic trend now expanded to the emerging markets. That, without skills set the leadership team that’s been developed and the products coming through make us really excited. So, we look forward to introducing you to Olivia in due course. With those few remarks, let me pass it over to Dave and Adrian. Thank you.