Welcome to Compass' third quarter trading update conference call hosted by Dominic Blakemore, Group Chief Executive Officer. This call is being recorded. To ask questions, please press star one on your touchtone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Dominic Blakemore for his opening remarks. Please go ahead. Thank you. Hello. Thank you for joining today's call, which is a little later than usual, as Petros and I are in the U.S. meeting clients and supply chain partners. We delivered another strong quarter with organic revenue growth over 7%, continued excellent client retention of 96%, and net new business growth accelerating back into our 4%-5% target range. We remain on track to deliver net new business growth at this level, which represents over $2.2 billion for the fifth consecutive year. As such, we're demonstrating our ability to grow consistently at scale over the long term. Our performance reflects the strength of our sector focus model, disciplined execution, and strong client demand. We continue to win market share across multiple sectors, supported by a record pipeline. Over the last 12 months, we secured $4.3 billion of new business wins, which is up 16% year-on-year with around 1/2 coming from first-time outsourcing. Business and industry remains our strongest performing sector, delivering double-digit organic growth and more than $2 billion of new business wins. With a record sales season in U.S. education, six of our top 20 biggest wins coming in healthcare, International sports and leisure growing double digits, great new account wins in U.S. Defense and data centers supporting our progress in DOR. We have broad-based growth across all of our sectors. Given our strong execution and continued momentum, we are reiterating our 2026 guidance of above 11% underlying operating profit growth in constant currency. This is being driven by a combination of strong organic revenue growth, acquisitions, and ongoing margin contribution. With that, let's open the call up for questions. Over to the operator. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Again, to ask question, please press star one. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Jamie Rollo of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Great. Thanks. Morning, afternoon, everyone. Three questions if I may. First, on net new, you sounded very confident on the first half call that we'd see the midpoint of 4%- 5% in the second half, and you've come in in the low fours in the first quarter. Should we expect that figure to improve again into the fourth quarter? How much should we think about 2027 is sort of 4% the new 4%- 5%, if you like? Is that really a 4% on ongoing run rate? Secondly, on International 6.4%, perhaps a little bit light, given that was your easiest comp last year. Could you talk a bit more about this pricing slowdown and the events calendar? I think you said Sports & Leisure was up double-digit in International. Again, is that a segment you're expecting to pick up in Q4 on OSG? Then just finally, big picture, no real M&A in the quarter, what's your sort of view going forwards there? Should we think maybe about a more balanced capital allocation at year-end and maybe a buyback? Thank you. Yeah. Morning, Jamie. Thank you for those questions. Let me just touch on each of them and maybe hand over to Petros to give you more detail on them all. First of all, just on net new, we're really pleased with the progress we've made quarter-on-quarter. We do anticipate further acceleration in the fourth quarter. Our guidance of being between 4% and 5% is because we will oscillate as we've seen. That guidance is on a 12-month basis. We will oscillate between that. We've performed in the higher end of it, been at the lower end of it. It really depends on timing of some of the mobilizations. As we said, we will expect to do better as we progress through this year. Yes, on International, really pleased with the Sports & Leisure performance, impacted by the timing events in the prior year calendar. Petros, do you want to pick up on a bit more detail? Just a couple of things, Jamie. On net new, let's recognize we have been delivering a 4%-5% for fifth consecutive year. What is really interesting here is we have sustained a level of retention of 96% over four years with International being sustained at 95%, a significant improvement to the pre-COVID performance. As Dominic referenced, the first-time outsourcing trends we're seeing has been the strongest over the last four or five years, and we're making really good progress across all sectors. To realize one thing, we will be a $50 billion business this year. Our sales growing within the 4%-5% sustainably is giving us very material share gains in the market in a very fragmented $360 billion size. When it comes to International, the only thing I will add to Dominic's point is we do see lower inflation in International. We discussed this in half one call. Predominantly is behind food compared to North America. On the M&A, you have seen our spend has been the same with half one. We have discussed before, we have completed our sectorisation, the medium-sized deals with International. We continue to focus on GPOs and attended vending. We do think as we go to end of September full year results, to be in a position to evaluate the balancing between the M&A and buybacks. Just to remind everyone, we will be a fraction higher than the 1.5 x leverage on September, and we deleverage as we go forward in 2027. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question will come from Leo Carrington of Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. If I could ask three, please, on slightly separate topics. Firstly, on CapEx, beyond that point you made about the phasing of openings and the phasing of net new increasing the CapEx potential sales this year, are there any other factors to draw about impacting this potentially vending and micro markets that are lifting the CapEx intensity? Secondly, on ARO, which is developing very well, but beyond that University of Kentucky contract, are there any particular large contracts to flag, or is this the bulk of signings being more typical sized? Lastly, on the topic of construction phase data centers, I know at H1, Dominic said that these projects are just one strand of the growth from AI. Have there been any evolution in this market since then that you can update us on? Thank you. Morning, Leo. Thank you. Let me speak to the ARO development. I'll hand over to Petros for the CapEx and data center construction. Again, just revisiting our LTM signings are now $4.3 billion on a 12-month basis, 50% from first-time outsourcing. We believe that's two to three times the size of our International competitors combined. We feel we're doing extremely well on the winning of new business against what we believe is a record pipeline. You're absolutely right. Within that, we have a very significant contract with the University of Kentucky. Over years, we've had major contract wins over time. This isn't unusual for us. In fact, we're actually lapping significant contract wins in the prior year and prior years, which effectively we need to continue to deliver, and we believe we can, and we see in our pipeline. In terms of other significant contracts, yes, there are deals which are in the high tens of millions, low $100 million. We see those in Sports & Leisure. We see those in the defense sector. That wouldn't be unusual for us. At the same time, that's balanced by a very healthy pipeline of lower contract value wins, which really is the bread and butter of our business, whether that's in International or North America. We're very positive about those. We're very positive about the balance of our book of wins, about the balance of our book of opportunity in the pipeline. Thank you, Dom. Leo, morning. On CapEx, just to be clear here, we don't see any change in the underlying intensity of CapEx in the business. This is truly to do with lumpiness. We have signed couple of sizable contracts. Last year, we closed the year at 3.3%, this year at 3.7%. If you're going to take an average four or five years, we're just around 3.5%, which we think is the underlying funding requirements for our business. I just want to also call out, this year we're going to spend $1.6 billion in CapEx, somewhere there. Around 20% of this is not client-facing CapEx, which goes to technology data, AI, all of the things we have talked in the past. That gives us really good investment in the business. Our ability to keep making progress in the efficiency and investing in data tech for growth. When it comes to data centers, first thing to say is that in the last nine to 12 months, we have been awarded couple of hundred million dollars in data centers through our five out of six Mag partnerships we have for which we have the largest share of the wallet. We keep expanding this capability. I want to remind you, we do have a very strong support services businesses in North America and International that support food and non-food service for our clients. In addition to this, our teams are on opportunities on the construction phase, and we take them as they come. Thank you very much, Petros and Dominic. Thank you. Our next question comes from Neil Tyler of Rothschild & Co. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yeah, good afternoon. Good morning. Thank you. Three from me as well, please. Firstly, within the $4.3 billion, you mentioned $2 billion of that is within B&I. Just trying to unpack that a little bit more. If you're able to share any details around the momentum of that $2 billion sort of relative to the 16% growth overall, please. Thinking about the like for like growth, or maybe it's the new wins alongside the M&A that you've undertaken over the last couple of years. Can you please update us on your thoughts on the timing of revenue synergy delivery and maybe update some comments on that delivery as it pertains to the acquisitions you've made? Finally, in the release you mention with regards to Sports & Leisure and specifically in the International business, customers maximizing the commercial potential of their operations. Can you sort of expand on that a little bit and maybe if you're able to give some examples of how that's translating into either like for like or new wins? Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Neil. Let me just tackle the revenue synergy point. Petros will pick up on B&I and Sports & Leisure. I think it's important to say, if you look back at our track record of revenue synergy delivery, you will see that our rationale for doing many of these deals is that their contribution to organic growth year after year, once we've lapped that first year of acquisition, has been growth accretive to our model. We've proven that with Bon Appétit, we've proven that with Levy, we've proven that with Restaurant Associates, we've proven it with FLIK. We do believe that the case is the same for the acquisitions that we've made with CH&Co, with Vermaat, 4Service, and others. We've seen that in part, that will accelerate, we believe, over time as they become embedded into our model. That becomes part of our ordinary course growth and very much the rationale for the acquisitions that we've made, that we believe will increasingly give our international region the attributes of our North American business model. Petros? On your $ 4.3 billion, just to give a bit of color. Just remember our B&I is the most sectorized business, goes from financial services, banking institutions, all the way to an attended vending. We have a very broad footprint there. We do see this actually applying across all of the subsectors within B&I with also one third of this being first-time outsourcing with clients mobilizing new locations. When it comes to Education, I would say it's above fair share in this $4.3 billion. We had record wins within North America, some really positive developments in K-12. Sports & Leisure International, definitely above fair share. We're growing 10%, double digits on a year-to-date, and we do have a very strong pipeline. Healthcare, we have grown six out of our top 15 wins, which is really promising signs there. A fraction lower than the fair share, with good opportunities as we go forward, and we remain positive on this. If I go on the Sports & Leisure, actually the backdrop here is the fan experience and our ability to trade up and trade across within our offer. The key thing is maybe 10 years ago, we used to have two offers, the VIP boxes, we used to call them, and the concessions. If you go to our accounts now, you will see a vertical offer up to seven or eight tiers spanning a very, very high-end hospitality all the way down to an amazing concessions. In addition to this, we're adding fan zones within the stadiums. It's the partnership with our clients, a long-term partnership with our clients to keep improving the offer and growing these accounts organically as we go. The last thing I'm going to say, we have invested a lot in data and AI in this space. You imagine very big events, we have to deliver exceptional service, exceptional revenue in a very short period of time, and technology is really helping us and demonstrating to our clients the value we can add to the operations. Yeah. I might just add a couple of comments to that. I think as we came out of the pandemic, we talked a lot about the strength of Sports & Leisure being around this thing we call revenge spend. I think increasingly we're now seeing this being baked into exactly what Petros has described, the fan experience. It's very clear to us that the consumer is willing to pay for a great experience and a unique experience. It's extremely important to our client partners that they can generate competitive revenues from the food and beverage and hospitality experience to support their underlying operation. What we're seeing is exactly what Petros has described, a tiering of hospitality experiences, which hits different price points and has very premium experiences at the top end of that. Having visited Wimbledon this year, we operated over five partner restaurants with chefs or Michelin-starred, providing different types of experience across the entirety of the estate, as well as the broader fan base concession experience. I think this World Cup has been another demonstration of the willingness of the fan to spend on great experience, and we think there's a lot more to come in global sporting events, international sporting events, and local sporting events in individual markets. We think it's an area of great opportunity, and one where we partner, we think brilliantly with our clients because our interests are so mutually aligned. That's really helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll now take our next question from [Kate Chow] of Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Good morning, Dominic. Good morning, Petros. I have two questions. The first one on net new acceleration trajectory. Your ARO, obviously at $4.3 billion, is a 16% year-on-year growth. When I think about the trajectory of that ARO number, about a year ago, it was at mid-single-digit kind of growth, and that has accelerated to low teens and now 16%. Your ARO has accelerated for the past three or four quarters. Obviously your net new, with retention being stable, has just started to accelerate. Does that mean we should think of the next three to four quarters as net new acceleration as well as a reflection of your ARO acceleration in the past couple of quarters? That was the first question. The second question, I just want to ask around the data center opportunities, particularly around construction side. Obviously, the space and opportunity is very big, but there is asset-heavy and asset-light operators, right? Can you talk to us about the kind of opportunities with your capabilities that you are seeing? Do you intend to operate asset-heavy when it's required, or are you only looking at asset-light opportunities? If so, can you tell us a bit about the size of the opportunities and the relative share of those opportunities within the overall, I guess, TAM in the construction phase data center. Thank you very much. [Kate], thank you. Let me tackle the data center question. Maybe Petros might have some further color, then he can pick up on the ARO acceleration point. I think the first thing I'd say to this is, look, it's happening very fast, right? I think we are, if we're all genuinely honest, we're all learning as we go. It's a super opportunity, certainly it's been sized differently by different commentators. It's a very significant marketplace. It's multi tens of billions, hundreds of billions in both the construction phase and the ongoing operational phase. Of course, there are different partners. In some instances, we'll be partnering directly with the major tech players. In others, it's with the data center owners and operators, where they typically franchise their capacity to a number of different customers. In others, it will be through EPCs and EPCMs who are constructing the data centers on behalf of those owners. We're working through this to understand what a different client base looks like. What we do believe is we have a compelling offer. We're already operating many data centers for, in particular, the Magnificent Seven. I think Petros referenced it earlier, of the six of the seven that outsource, we are the almost exclusive partner to five of those six. We have very significant volumes on their existing estate. It gives us the opportunity to speak to them about data center construction and data center provision of services. We're working more and more on building out our relationships with the individual data center owners and operators. In terms of your question regarding sort of asset-heavy, asset-light, I mean, a lot of this depends on the relative remoteness of the facility. Our preference would be for the asset-light model. We don't rule anything out if the opportunity is significant. I think we demonstrated that in the remote sector in Australia, where we have co-invested in facilities in the short and medium term, where the economics are attractive. We'll feel our way through this. We'll ensure we do what is absolutely right from a CapEx and return standpoint. We're building those capabilities all of the time. I would stress as well, as Petros referenced earlier, let's not forget our capability when it comes to the support services and some of the maintenance facilities. We have those capabilities through our businesses in Canada, in the ESS, effectively the remote mining and construction sites in Canada, which we've been franchising to the U.S. We have ESFM, which is our U.S. support services facility management businesses. In the Nordic region, for example, we have full services. In a number of the European countries, we've got support service businesses as well. In Australia, we've got Delta FM, which provides facility management alongside food. I guess the reason I make that point is that the solution here on the construction phase of data centers is beyond food, as it will be in the operational delivery thereafter. We believe we have a compelling combination of both food and support services that we can bring together under acknowledged and recognized brands in the industry by our clients. We feel we're very well-placed. We started strongly. I think there's a lot to go after. I think we'll see this sort of play out over time. A lot of it is about, I think, partnering with the right individual client partners as we go to build those relationships. Thanks, Dom. Morning, [Kate]. Nothing to add on data centers. I think Dominic captured everything there. On net new, this number you appreciate we're going to grow north of 7% this year. This number has to continue to grow as we go in order for us to have confidence we deliver within the 4%-5% range. Just to remind us again, a $50 billion business this year, $ 4.3 billion of new business, retention 96%. We do see an acceleration in Q3 on net new versus Q2. We talked about this. We do expect a modest improvement in Q4 as we go. Above all, I think we're looking here at being consistent in delivering within our medium-term algorithm for years to come. This is why the gross new evolution of the business, which is broad-based across sectors, gives us good confidence. The sustained level of retention gives us good confidence. As we go forward, we will see some quarters are going to be maybe towards the low end of our range, some quarters are going to be towards the middle part of our range, but it's going to be within the 4%-5%. I just want to remind you, last year Q4 had been an exceptional year for Compass. We finished the year at 9.2% organic, so we're lapping these comparators in quarter four this year. The business growing at around 7% on top of a 9% + last year demonstrates the underlying resilience of the business and the growth opportunities that exist for us. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from Jaafar Mestari of BNP Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning. I have three questions, please. The first one is just following up on this net new business trend. I am reading my notes from H1 and trying to compare and contrast, and I know lots of people heard more formal indications that you would touch 4.5% in second half. Just wanted to circle back on this. Again, I know it has been labored, but just to understand if there has been specific delays or specific changes in how you intend to mobilize some of the wins, and if there is any reason not to expect a mean reversion. You said just now, Petros, some quarters would be towards low end, some quarters would be towards top end. We have had a handful towards low end. Secondly, I just wanted to maybe wrap up the World Cup contribution, your estimate of the contribution for the quarter on just one month, and what will be different in the Q4 contribution, where perhaps you have more of your normal events that are being displaced, perhaps less of a net contribution. Lastly, on the U.S. education market, you mentioned a record-selling season. You showed a chart at your quick strategy update in H1 that was showing that North America Education, you did not really see that uptick in first-time outsourcing. It was still very much competitive wins. Just curious, if we exclude University of Kentucky, generally is it broad based but competitive wins? Or is this already changing, and have you seen any meaningful first-time outsourcing K-12 or higher education deals, please? Thank you, Jaafar. Good morning. Without being a broken record, we are delighted that our net new business is on an LTM basis within the 4%-5%. We are delighted it is accelerating. We do anticipate further acceleration in the fourth quarter. It is very difficult to forecast exactly what we are going to see based on the timing of mobilization of new business in particular and the relative pickup of volumes in new business. Look, as we have said, and as was picked up on previously by [Kate], we have got a very positive uplift in the gross new business signings. There is an element of timing with all of that. We know that there is a number of those signings which will open in out years, and we do not get the immediate benefit. So there will always be that to it in our guidance as we manage that through. We are retaining very strong retention levels at the 96%. Of course, the absolute dollars have to grow significantly for us to continue to sustain within our 4%-5% range. Again, I would stress at $4.3 billion of new business and $2.3 billion of net new, we are something like two to three times ahead of the competition in absolute terms. So we are very pleased with where we are. We believe we can sustain that. It continues to allow us to be within our P&L algorithm, and I think our focus is very much over the multi-year performance. Do we think we can do this in the fourth quarter? Yes. Do we think we can do it for the next year? Yes. Do we think we can do it for the next three years? Yes. That is what is really important to us, and that is what we see in this marketplace rather than concerns around sort of 10 basis points here and there by quarter. In terms of the World Cup, before I hand over to Petros, we are absolutely delighted with the event. We are very proud of our teams who operated on the ground for such an incredibly important event and with such high volumes of spectators and such high profile. We were the biggest F&B partner to the event with over a quarter share of the total matches. But let Petros give you some more color. As Dominic referenced, north of one quarter of delivering exceptional service within the games played in World Cup. In total, about north of 100 games in the period of June and July. We said in Q3, the impact on group is around 30 basis points, and we are expecting Q4 to be around 10 basis points. There are still some games played in July. Phenomenal experience. But what I would like also to call out is, outside of World Cup, we do see positive volume contribution across the business that you see in the organic for Q3. If I go to the education question, I think the answer is we do see broad-based growth, competitive wins within K-12, first-time outsourcing, and competitive wins within higher education. We're quite pleased that the education sector is giving us growth across all of the sources of growth, share gain, and first-time outsourcing. Enrollments look good to the extent we know so far, so we remain positive on the sector. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now take next question from Sabrina Blanc of Bernstein. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, everybody. I have two questions for [Michael. The first one is coming back to the performance in International and partly due to lower inflation. Do you expect a catch-up in the coming months? Because when we look at what happened in the Middle East and the inflation coming from that part looks like a bit counterintuitive. The second question is regarding the CapEx acceleration at the end of the year. I understand it's a question of timing. Usually when you have mobilization first, we used to have them more in OpEx than in CapEx. Could you explain the difference this time? Yes. Thank you, Sabrina. Let me touch on the point around food cost inflation pricing in International, and Petros can reflect on CapEx. I think the first thing to remind us all of is that we're in sort of very dynamic times. I remember being in this business in the first five years when we virtually saw no food cost inflation at all for over five years. What we've witnessed since the pandemic through Ukraine and now through Middle East is volatility, and that volatility is based on global geopolitical events as well as local weather patterns. That means we'll see different conditions in different markets at different times, unlike anything we witnessed before. Right now, food cost inflation in some of the Western European markets is a point. It remains at 3.5% in North America for different reasons. What we've demonstrated in this business is our ability to price for inflation. We've done that because we changed our contract structures through the pandemic. That means that we have more dynamic contract structures, which protect us better. We obviously talk about three different types of contracts that we've got. I think in the least flexible, we've introduced the opportunity to price more with greater agility. What that means is I'm not concerned with the headwind that the cost inflation can present and our ability to price for it. What it also means is that when cost inflation comes up, pricing will come up, and you'll see that in our top line. Typically, we know that because of the way that we protect our clients, we're not pricing with margin. Therefore, there is no real impact to the profitability of the business. As a result, as I've said, you're seeing that slight slowdown in pricing in this quarter. Were we to see an impact from the Middle East, and we haven't yet seen that, but there are many commentators that are suggesting that we'll see high single digit food cost inflation, for example, in the fourth quarter here in the U.K., then you will see us take that in pricing over time, and it will flow through our top line. I think you may see an acceleration and deceleration over time, which will lag the movements in food cost inflation. I think that's really the index that you need to track. Whereas labor inflation, which is the other driver of pricing, is I think more predictable and more stable based on the trends that we're seeing across the piece at the moment. Petros. On your question on CapEx, I think the key thing here is timing. Just to remind ourselves, we invest in client-facing solutions before mobilized contracts. Mobilized contracts take couple of years, even three years to go to maturity in terms of performance. You have always a lag between capital investment and the returns over time. We're confident with the returns over time, and we know the organic CapEx investment is giving us north of 20% return on capital employed across the business. It's for us, it's an area we'd like to continue to invest there. It's pretty much down to lumpiness timing of execution of investments in Q4, and as we move to Q1 next year. Thank you. The final question comes from Pravin Gondhale of Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Hello. Thank you very much for taking my questions, and good morning. Firstly, on like-for-like price. You called out lower inflation being a driver of moderate like-for-like growth in International. How should we be thinking about inflation and like-for-like price growth trajectory in Q4 and H1 next year? If you can provide some steer on that would be helpful. Just wanted to know related to that, whether are we firmly in the territory of the low end of that 2%-3% inflation range right now, have you seen any signs of increased resistance from clients in International markets on price revisions in Q3, especially in Europe? Thank you. Petros, why don't you take that? Yeah. Good morning, Pravin. I'll try to answer your question. The line was not very clear. I think I got most of it, that's why I'm going to take a stab at it. On like-for-like, if you exclude return to office and a lot of tailwinds we had in the last couple of years, we do see a positive volume contribution anywhere between 20-100 basis points, you have seen this across the quarters. The attribution of this, primarily, we believe is behind our value offer being received positively compared to the street pricing in restaurants and when our associates dine in our premises. The second thing is we discussed about the premiumization of the offer, the trading up. The third thing is the use of data and AI in driving more sell-outs at given certain locations. Think about the kiosks, pre-order, grab and collect, all of the solutions we have with our clients. We do expect to continue to have positive volume as we move to Q4 and beyond, structurally based on the three elements I referenced. For Q4, again, I am going to say we have to recognize an exceptional strong volume last year across the piece, North American, International. We have to lap this as we go in Q4. When it comes to food inflation, I would say we are running around 2.5% on a blended basis. Iran, as Dominic referenced, we haven't seen the Iran conflict embedded in the numbers. Typically, these things may take six to nine months to show, and I want to remind you this is a different thing compared to the Ukrainian-Russian Conflict back in the day that had also an element of product availability shortage within our supply chain. This is more, we believe, to do with the oil price and distribution cost of the last mile of our supply chain partners. We are monitoring the space. If it is going to manifest itself in next year, as Dominic said, the business has been resilient in navigating through this, and we remain confident to deliver within our medium-term algorithm. Thank you very much for that. Apologies for the bad line. Thank you. Thank you. I will now hand it back to Dominic for closing remarks. Thank you, and thank you everyone for joining us today. I hope you all have a very enjoyable summer, and we'll speak to you again in November. Goodbye. Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.