Good day and welcome to the Informa November trading update. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Gareth Wright. Please go ahead. Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this trading update call. The Informa November trading statement that we've issued this morning increases our full year revenue and operating profit guidance ranges for 2022, while also confirming that underlying revenue growth in the 10 months to October has been over 40%. The increased guidance is driven by strong trading in our B2B businesses, and specifically in live and on-demand events across North America in particular, as well as EMEA and ASEAN, which combined with the continuing growth in our academic markets business, is delivering the increasing revenue and operating profit performance. Our 2022 reported results benefit from the strength of our brands and our market position in the United States, which has been a key strategy for us for around about the last six or seven years. Both those factors benefited trading through the period, but also the strength of the US dollar. Significantly within the updated guidance, the strength of our B2B performance across the US and elsewhere enables us to totally de-risk Mainland China in our guidance. We're delivering our upgraded 2022 guidance, assuming no further Mainland China revenues through November and December. You may recall at the half year stage, we had assumed about GBP 80 million worth of revenue in Mainland China for the full year. This upgrade in the guidance de-risks China underlines the strength of the outperformance we've seen in the U.S. and elsewhere globally in the second half of 2022. More broadly, the GAP 2 program continues to deliver growth and acceleration in both our B2B markets business and our academic markets business, with Taylor & Francis maintaining its 3% underlying revenue growth rate. Beyond live and on-demand events, within B2B markets, we're also continuing to make good progress with growing and expanding our B2B digital services revenues. In corporate activity, our divestment program has completed ahead of schedule and has delivered returns ahead of target, generating expected post-tax cash proceeds of around $2.5 billion and an average EV/EBITDA multiple just under 30x. To be clear, our upgraded 2022 guidance updates for all divestments and acquisitions that we expect to complete in the year, so now guides to a fully reported outcome. As you'll have seen, also in the release, another encouraging performance by the group through the period is our strong free cash flow generation, which we expect to be comfortably over GBP 400 million across the year, despite the large working capital inflow we saw in 2021, and particularly at the end of that year. The stronger operating profit and good forward bookings and cash commitments have both helped drive further strong cash generation in 2022. Together with the divestment program, this has significantly strengthened our balance sheet heading into the end of the year. This continued strong operating momentum we're seeing in the business, together with the incremental growth opportunities in Mainland China as that market reopens, puts us in a strong position for further growth heading into 2023. Combined with the strength of our balance sheet, we think it really gives Informa real momentum and flexibility into the new year. Those are the headlines from the trading statement that we've announced this morning, and I now just turn it over back to the operator, and we'd be happy to take any questions that you have on the statement as a whole. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. I'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for question. I'll take our first question. Adam Berlin from UBS, your line is open. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning, Gareth. Thank you very much for doing the call. Just two questions from me. Firstly, just wanted to get your thoughts on China. As you said, you've downgraded your guidance on China revenue for this year. Is that because the restrictions got worse as the second half progressed, or just you didn't get the relief that you were looking for? Can you give us your thoughts on how things might reopen next year? The second question's on North American B2B markets, which clearly has had a very strong second half. Is there still scope to grow the North America event revenue into 2023? You know, I know there's some pricing upside. Is there volume upside as well? Has it just been so strong in 2022 that you're kind of back to kind of normal there? Thanks. Hi, Adam. Good morning. Let me take them in reverse order. Yeah, no, I think in North America there's definitely still the opportunity to grow further into 2023. Your volumes are recovering, but recovering at different speeds in different end markets. Therefore, you know, I think there's continuing opportunity for growth, you know, across the North American market, and even in the areas that have grown well in 2022, like for example, Boating has been a very strong market in that year. You know, I think we're still positive about the opportunities for further growth in that area into 2023. We will be looking to increase prices in 2023. Whereas you may remember that in some of the times since the restart from COVID, we've looked to hold prices, just because that's been easier, simpler operationally and encourage customers to reengage with the product, which has been a key objective of ours. We are now looking to return to a more normal level of annual price increases, driven by the value that the customers get from attending the trade shows, and given, driven by improvements in the products. In terms of China was, for 2022, always gonna be a story of what permissions we were given to operate events. You remember from the half year that we pushed a lot of the revenues back, into, you know, the end of the year period to try to allow as much time as possible for the restrictions to allow operations, the operation of trade shows. It's looking, you know, likely now as we get close to December, like, that's not gonna be the case and that the restrictions will still be in force. Therefore, particularly in Shanghai, you know, it's unlikely we'll operate trade shows. That's why we've taken, you know, the decision to, you know, look at the guidance today. In the light of the strong performance elsewhere globally, you know, we've managed to both upgrade the guidance and de-risk the China out, which in the mix, you know, I think is a, you know, a very strong performance. In terms of trade shows generally in China, yeah, we're both very confident in the model and the return of the model from what we've seen in, you know, 2021, et cetera. Also we're confident in operational return because, you know, we do get the feedback from the authorities that they are looking to reopen events when they can. Therefore in 2023, we're, you know, confident that there will be, you know, upside from the China business compared to what we've delivered in 2022. It'll be a 2023 upside rather than something for this year. Thanks, Gareth. It's very clear. We'll take our next question. Lisa Yang from Goldman Sachs, your line is open. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly on the guidance raise. You raised your revenue guidance by GBP 100 million, operating profit by GBP 15 million. Just wondering why the drop through was only 15%. Were there maybe additional costs related to China that we had to take into account for this year? That's the first question. Secondly, could you please confirm how much revenue and profit you have generated from China through to October? Because it looks like the guidance is excluding any shows in November, December, but what have you generated so far? Obviously, given the recent headlines around, you know, the government preparing for reopening, what is sort of like, you know, sensible range of assumptions to take into account for next year? Or do you think you basically will get without China for next year? That's the second question. And thirdly, could you also confirm so you've achieved 85% recovery already as of the ten months. Any reason why we can't get to 100% ex-China next year? That's the last question. Thank you. Okay. Good morning. A few things in there to work through. I'm just taking them in the order then. In terms of the OP, drop-through, yeah, as you picked up or we clarified in the statement there, you know, it's around about GBP 100 million of revenue and about GBP 15 of OP. I think there's kind of two factors in there. One is that, it really depends on where, you know, you were in the guidance ranges previously, that have been given and where, you know, consensus was and where it had fallen in those guidance ranges. That definitely is a kind of variable that we had to kind of address in trying to move the guidance numbers. Also, as I kind of touched on in the previous question, we've been really keen in 2022 to get customers re-engaging with the events and getting them back to the events. We've been making sure that the event experience has been really as positive as possible, at the trade shows. Therefore, that has resulted in us, I wouldn't say, kind of, you know, investing, in a, in a material sense, but just making sure that the experience of the trade shows has been as positive as possible. Therefore there's been a bit more operating costs, in the business in 2022. I don't think that's a structural change in margins or anything like that. It's just been re-engaging with the products, in the year. In terms of China, in 2022, I think if nothing else operates this year, we'd probably say the China 2022 revenues are somewhere around about GBP 10 million in terms of what we've generated in the year- to- date. We have operated one or two small trade shows, and we've operated them generally outside Shanghai. There's a little bit of revenue. As you'll know from our, you know, pre-COVID numbers in mainland China, a significant upgrade and acceleration performance still to come from that business, as we begin to operate more fully in terms of that portfolio. In terms of 2023, I think we'll, you know, wait and see a bit about how, in terms of precise numbers, we'll wait and see how that begins to come back in terms of the time of the year and where geographically in the country it comes back. You know, the upside from GBP 10 million in 2020 to GBP 200 million previously is a significant increase that we'd expect to see in the year. I have to admit, I've forgotten what your final question was. Yeah. Just outside of China, so the 85% recovery to 2019 -level you're seeing— Oh, yeah. For any reason, why we don't get to 100% next year? Sorry. That's right. Yes. No, I think in terms of... I mean, look, we're seeing 100% in some parts of the business now. But certainly outside of China in 2023, we definitely see another year of recovery. It may reach 100% and may be sort of, you know, heading back in that direction over time. The shows vary in terms of how much international attendance there is and how much domestic attendance there is in the shows. You know, I think the ones that are more domestically oriented definitely have a, you know, a chance of getting back to 100% in the year. The ones that are more international are the ones that would be the drag and perhaps, you know, not getting back to 100% either in terms of, you know, shows that have a lot of international attendance at them, or shows that take place in destination events. For example, you know, places like, you know, Dubai, a lot of people travel into there, and that's a, you know, a big part of that may be a factor, I think, that stops certain events getting back to 100% in 2023. Very clear. Thank you. We'll take our next question. Nick Dempsey from Barclays, your line is open. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning, Gareth. I've got three left. So the first one, I mean, your comments about the momentum you're seeing into 2023 are encouraging, but can you be a bit more specific about the kind of forward bookings you're seeing at shows that you've run in geographies, obviously outside China? Are those pointing to a good increase in 2023 versus 2022 for those shows? Are you putting through decent price increases already in those booking conversations? That's the first question. Second one, a bit of a follow on from that. You know, if you were to see macro weakness, when might that hit you? So I'm thinking if exhibitors have put down a deposit already when booking for next year, are they likely to follow through and attend the show? Can we have high confidence on that? Could they just waste that deposit if they get to May or June next year and things are a bit tougher? I'm trying to understand how much we can rely on the link between the booking pattern at the moment and what you'll actually get into, particularly first half next year. Final question. Yeah, just looking at that free cash flow running ahead of our expectations and yours, I think. Do you expect an inflow in change in working capital this year? Is there any reason why that would unwind into an outflow of any size next year? Okay. Well, let's go to the free cash flow one first. Yeah, so in terms of free cash flow for 2022, yes, we would expect that to include a working capital inflow. It's not as strong as the working capital inflow that we saw in 2021, because obviously, that was the, you know, the first year of, you know, the kind of reinflation, if you like, of events revenues post-COVID. That was a very strong inflow. We would expect working capital to be a fairly significant inflow in 2022 for the full year. I think for 2023, we would still, you know, think there'll be a working capital inflow, probably less than 2022, which in turn will be less than 2021, but still be a working capital inflow in 2023. I don't expect there to be a reversal of the working capital position in 2023 that we're seeing in the business. In terms of the momentum into 2023, we're definitely seeing, you know, a momentum in terms of volumes. You know, there's been good rebookings at the shows that we've run in 2022, which, you know, it's kind of followed the kind of pace and culture, if you like, we saw in rebookings pre-COVID. Therefore, that's definitely been a good factor in the events. As I said, you know, in the earlier question, we are looking to crystallize some price increases in 2023. We're really looking to try and do, as we've always done, look to increase it and link it to higher levels of value that the customers are getting from the trade shows. We're looking to try and, you know, add extra products to the portfolio, add new digital services, and let them see, you know, an increase in the quality of what they're getting alongside, you know, any price increases. Those factors, I think the quality of the experience in 2022 and, you know, what they've experienced on the return post-COVID is really driving the levels of rebooking that we're seeing in the business that gives us confidence looking into 2023. In terms of, you know, potential macro weakness, look, I think you're right that that can come later. You know, you can have rebookings and contracted revenues now that if you were to go into a period of macro weakness in 2023 could result in some people dropping out. But I think as we've said, you know, a lot over the years, you know, when we see periods of macroeconomic weakness, you know, the ability trade ratio and the cost ratio really doesn't just come down to the space that you're buying from us. We would fully expect customers to look to change other aspects of their packages in terms of the number of people they bring, the size and expense of the stands, et cetera, before they just refuse to attend the trade show. We are still pretty confident that the bookings that we can see to date are, you know, a reasonable indication of things stand at the moment of the performance into 2023. Look, we're not casual about the macroeconomic environment as you'd expect. We're watching that closely, and we're really focused on trying to get the rebookings in as good a shape as possible going into the new year. Great. Thank you. We'll take our next question. Sami Kassab from BNP Paribas, your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you and good morning, everyone. I have my three questions as well please, Gareth. Perhaps can you elaborate a little bit more on the performance of on-site rebooking? You started answering Nick's question, but perhaps provide a bit more color on how the onsite rebooking rates compare to pre-COVID and whether there are big discrepancies across geographies in particular with regards to on-site rebook rates. The second question is within academic market, what type of underlying revenue growth are you seeing for the pay to publish model, year to date? Is that still up? Perhaps how would you see that going into 2023? The last question is on wage inflation. Can you share with us what type of wage inflation you're budgeting for next year across the group, please? Thank you. Well, thank you for the questions. In terms of the, yeah, maybe taking the last one first, we're going through the budget process at the moment. You know, there's quite a lot of debate around, you know, where wage inflation is heading. We're obviously a global business and therefore we work across a lot of different countries and therefore it's a different answer in a lot of different places, and a lot of different end markets in terms of where we serve. We're having a lot of local conversations around that to make sure that we get this right. It may well be that actually, you know, there's different elements or there are different elements to it in terms of, you know, what is underlying inflation rates, you know, what is a fairly or more normal cost of living increase. We may look to break it down and sort of, you know, focus on different areas in different ways. I think in terms of, you know, financials, if you're looking at numbers, I would say probably, the kind of sort of wage inflation we're seeing in the bigger markets that we serve is probably somewhere around about 5%-6%. Therefore, I think, you know, if you look at what we're delivering in terms of revenue growth, in terms of our business, that wage inflation is at a level where we should be able to broadly protect the margins in the business from wage inflation. We're in a good position in that we don't have large exposures to markets like the commodity market or, you know, large operational exposures to the energy market which other industries have, and therefore act as a bit more of a headwind on the margin. But that's not really our business. In terms of the academic business, we are seeing further improvements in the pay-to-publish element of the business. As you've mentioned, yes, that is growing year on year, and it's our, you know, our. One of our focus areas for further acceleration of that business as we look to target 4% + underlying revenue growth by the end of the GAP 2 period. Our focus is on increasing further the pay-to-publish area in terms of our growth potential and our growth rates. They've done well in that market again in 2022, and we would expect, you know, further growth on that in 2023 above the average of what the business achieves as a whole overall. Then finally, in terms of the on-site rebookings question, I'm not sure I've got a huge amount to add really to what I've said so far. I mean, the rebookings at some shows occur a lot at the site, they occur basically as you're running the show. In other shows, you're just taking expressions of interest and contractual terms are agreed a couple of weeks later. That does vary sort of show to show. Really nothing different in the dynamic, I would say in you know the latter half of 2022 to what you were seeing pre-COVID. Maybe some of the outright levels are a touch lower still, as we said earlier, because of travel. Really the dynamic looks positive for us around rebooking and we think sets us up well for the you know early months of 2023. Thank you very much. Thanks, Sami. We'll take our next question. Silvia Cuneo from Deutsche Bank, your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my questions. Good morning, everyone. My first question is on the upgraded guidance. It sounds like the potential contribution of both live and on-demand events revenue from China is excluded. Since we see some major events for the rest of the year, like Furniture China appear to be scheduled, can you please talk about whether at least some on-demand revenue could be generated? Second question, you flagged a strong position in North America as well as growing monetization of first-party specialist data. Just wondering if the two are connected and can you perhaps talk a little bit more about in which markets you are seeing more monetization of the data side of the business? Then actually my third question was already asked. Thank you. Okay. Well maybe in terms of the Growth A cceleration P lan 2 program and how we're thinking about that in terms of the B2B markets growth, and we're pleased with how that is going, and how we are continuing to improve things there, and how we are beginning to grow to a greater extent our digital revenues there. I mean, those are alongside of the live and on-demand events revenues, which, you know, I've talked to earlier and, you know, said, you know, have been really the strongest part of our growth and the reason for the outperformance in the guidance. And B2B d igital s ervices are, you know, a good element of that, growing, in many cases, revenues that we already had some experience and skills and capability in. Expanding the, you know, the areas that we're selling those into and growing them, you know, more quickly in the areas where we have grown them previously. You know, that's, you know, I think a good part of the story as we head into 2023. In terms of the data products, you know, our activities around Iris are continuing and we're looking to, you know, continue to capture increasing amounts of first-party specialist data through the Iris platform. At this stage, I would say we're not really producing significant amounts of incremental revenue from Iris. I think that's something still to come as GAP 2 evolves over the remaining period through to 2024- 2025, in terms of incremental revenues, specifically, from data. In terms of China. Yeah, China, we have, I think, you know, factually postponed a number of the events that were due to run later in 2022. I think the reality is these events will now be rolled into the 2023 examples of those shows. Really what we wanna do is, as we've done all through the COVID recovery, we wanna make sure we're making decisions in the best long-term interests of the brand. You're running a small event in December, either regionally or outside of China, that, you know, might get some revenue away, but not be, you know, that great an event for customers. We'd rather not do that, and we'd rather focusing on running a big event in 2023 that's gonna give customers a great experience, and is going to really fuel future demand, in the brand in the shows. We're really focusing on how we get the best experience in 2023 for our customers and therefore, you know, a number of the shows that we might have been able to operate in regional venues on a smaller basis in 2022, we've looked to postpone those and push those back, into 2023. One or two of the events may still say on their websites that they're operating in 2022, and I know a number of you check those websites fairly regularly. I think that is a kind of an evolving thing, and we think it's more likely than not that those events will not operate in the last months of 2022. Great. Thank you. We'll take our next question. Steve Liechti from Numis, your line is open. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi there guys. I've sort of got three. First of all, on China, just trying to think into 2023, and I'm presuming we don't get to 1st of January and all restrictions are lifted and permissions given to run shows in Shanghai and stuff. Just any sort of feel for the traditional skew of, let's say there's GBP 200 million of pro forma sales in China, mainland China. What sort of seasonal skew would they have? Or am I just thinking of that in the wrong way because you can shift events around as we've seen in COVID. Any sort of feel for the quarterly seasonality of the GBP 200 million? That's the first question. Second question is just remind us in terms of your event portfolio, what you would call. How much of it is what you would call cyclical in nature? I don't know if you've done any analysis that you could share with us there in terms of, you know, we know you've got concrete and stuff like that. I'd put boats in cyclical too, but you may or may not do that. Anything you can give us there. Finally, just on technology. Given all the sort of issues in terms of the big tech platforms, headcount reductions and stuff like that, are you seeing anything there in terms of the performance of your technology? I don't know, in terms of rebookings, admissions, or whatever you're seeing, canaries in the coal mine there in terms of that might come under more pressure into next year. Thanks. Okay, Steve, thanks for the questions. Maybe starting in the order that you raised them. China into 2023, I mean, how the normal cycle of events of our events portfolio works in China is that we basically had no revenues in Q1. I think as a matter of fact, we might have in the normal cycle run one small event at the end of March, but generally it's been no revenues in Q1. From April onwards, the season really kicks off. Bit of a break over the summer, but really it's from April onwards. In the normal cycle of events, you would have Q1 for operational matters to stabilize further and for us to get permission to operate events. You know, as the China team has demonstrated, their ability to move events around within the calendar has been, you know, one of the real strengths of their response to COVID, and we would expect them to be able to do that still going forward into 2023. If they began to feel that those Q2 events were under any sort of operational threat, there is definitely the opportunity for them to move them later into the second half of the year after the summer holidays. We'll see how that evolves over time as we get into the new year. In terms of events, you know, I think what we would say is some of our events service markets that are cyclical in nature rather than the events themselves being cyclical. Generally, you know, we find even in downturns, there's quite a lot of, you know, desire and quite a lot of customer drive to attend the trade shows as a good way of bringing their products to market, and a good way of seeing their customers and seeing their competitors and what else is happening with products in the industry they serve. We definitely, you know, tend to see a fairly resilient performance on rebookings through the macro. But in some end markets, you could see a bit more of a cyclical move. Something like construction that you mentioned, in terms of World of Concrete, that could be a factor. Although I would, just getting specific for a moment, point out that in 2023, there is a triennial construction event that happens in the U.S. and that is running in 2023. We wouldn't wanna be looking at the World of Concrete numbers for 2023 and getting specifically focused on those numbers in terms of a, you know, cyclical market response because of the association competitor event that runs in the year. I think overall we would be, you know, relatively confident that provided for some cyclicality in the end markets we service, we probably see a pretty resilient performance from the trade shows through a downturn. Finally, in terms of technology, we are investing a lot in technology through the GAP 2 program and changing a number of the capabilities as well as the capacities we have in the business through using technology. We've noticed and seen the news around the redundancies and some of the restructuring of the big tech companies over the last couple of weeks. It remains to be seen how that impacts our ability to you know, recruit staff. Certainly it's too early at this stage to draw any conclusions from that, but it may well be an opportunity to you know, look at getting some talent that's recently come out of those businesses you know, if that opportunity arises over the next couple of months. A bit too early to see that in our business. On the whole we're, you know, pretty confident and pleased with the progress we've made in the year in terms of the technology platforms and services in our business. Yeah. Gareth, sorry, just to be clear, what I'm really talking about was Informa Tech on the event side, you know, in terms of the performance there going into 2023 and any forward visibility you've got given, you know, the sort of changes in the industry as a whole on the live events. Oh, sorry, Steve. I was mixing up Informa T ech and t echnology in general. Okay. Yeah, in terms of Informa Tech as a business, no particular changes there. They don't operate any big shows in sort of December, January, February. But certainly the last round of big shows that they operated through the autumn have gone well. Their biggest show of the year in August, Black Hat, was excellent. Delivered a really good result. Their bookings for their next round of big shows, which really start from March and April, the shows start operating from then, those shows are booking up well. You know, pleased with how the events revenues are going there. In areas like Omdia, where they're selling, on an ongoing basis, subscriptions and consultancy products, again, that continues to go well. I think their annualized contract value in Omdia is the highest it's ever been at the moment. Their, you know, year-on-year growth in that area continues to strengthen. Overall Informa Tech, you know, going well as a business, both in terms of the recovery of live or on-demand events, but also in its non-events revenue streams. Cool. Thanks. You'll have our next question. Sarah Simon from Berenberg. The line is open. Please go ahead. Yes, hi. It was just one question on China. You obviously ran shows in China in 2021. Can you remind us what kind of recovery level you were running at then? And how, obviously how that compares to the sort of 85% you've been doing ex-China this year. Thanks. Yeah. I I mean, this is one of the important factors about China looking into 2023, is that it's not like the China model is unproven post-COVID. Performance in 2021 was really strong. There was a lot of demand from exhibitors and buyers to attend trade shows, and the numbers delivered by that business in 2021 were really positive. They were a lot of the time the China shows are quite big domestic events with you know relatively small international attendance. In 2021, a lot of the shows you know pretty much sold out by selling the spare international space to a higher number of domestic attendees. Therefore, actually in terms of 2021, China was kind of at the, you know, 90% mark, 90%-100% of pre-COVID levels of revenue. Traded very strongly. Again, depends in terms of end markets and location, but, you know, in the range, China was very, very good in 2021. That despite the operational challenges we faced in 2022, that's what really gives us confidence that going into 2023, there's the opportunity for real acceleration in our numbers from China, and in our overall performance as that business begins to come back online. That's great. Thanks a lot. Again, press star one to ask a question. I'll take our next question. Matthew Walker from Credit Suisse, your line is open. Please go ahead. Hi guys. Hi, Richard. Just still a few questions? Hi. First of all, is.. Hi. Any thoughts around Hong Kong specifically? Is it right that Mainland was around GBP 200 million and then Hong Kong was around sort of GBP 60 million-GBP 80 million? Just wonder if you could sort of address the issue of Hong Kong and I think the jewelry shows moving back, but yeah, if you could address Hong Kong potential as well, that would be useful. Then going back to your point about, you know, recovery. I think your guidance is for recovery of trade shows to the 2019 level by 2024, and you were commenting on international shows maybe taking a bit longer. Just conceptually, why given that borders are reopened and have been for quite a long time, why do you think that, you know, we can't get back to normal levels for international in 2023? What's gonna change on international travel between 2023 and 2024, so that international shows can only recover fully by 2024? And then finally, on the net debt level and the buyback. I think you've outlined a GBP 725 million buyback. You're gonna be, you said basically zero net debt by the end of this year. I think your original plan, thinking back before disposals, was to give back around a GBP 1 billion, half of that in special dividends, half in a buyback. Why not up it back up to a GBP 1 billion? Thank you. Cheers, Matthew. Just picking our way through those then. You mentioned Hong Kong first. Yeah, that's another part of the opportunity that we see for 2023, in terms of reopening that market. I think you said GBP 60 million-GBP 80 million on the revenue. It's probably at the top end of that range in terms of what we did from that market pre-COVID. What we've done in terms of 2022 is basically we've tried to operate some of the Hong Kong brands elsewhere in the region, places like Dubai or Kuala Lumpur, et cetera. You operate them in the region. But really the key driver of Hong Kong exhibition revenues is attendees from mainland China coming over the border from China. That obviously hasn't really restarted so far in terms of Hong Kong's performance. We're planning to take the regional events we operated in 2022 and move those back to Hong Kong for 2023 and look and see how that market continues to evolve. Certainly, they have relaxed over the recent month or two a number of travel restrictions into and out of Hong Kong, and therefore that gives it, I think, good reopening potential into 2023 for that market to continue to accelerate. In terms of the international travel, you know, that's definitely something that we're seeing come back over time. I don't think there's any sort of structural issues in there or structural effects. You know, we have got, as I just mentioned, in China, there's obviously still some restrictions. You know, we're used to it in the West being fairly easy to travel now and getting back to kind of pre-COVID levels of you know travel patterns. Certainly in China, though, it's still pretty difficult, as I know from talking to colleagues. There's still restrictions on it. They've just eased them, I think, last week. There was another easing of those restrictions, which will help restart China travel. Until we get China travel back, I think that will be a factor in the overall travel numbers for trade shows. Just more internationally, I think if people just kind of they're kind of getting back to pre-COVID levels of travel. I think you know the facilitation and ease of travel is definitely getting better, as I said. You know, I think it's taking a little bit of time for people to come back. I mean, part of that will be, you know, grumpy finance directors not freeing up budgets. That's always a bit of a problem. Travel budgets, you know, are taking a bit of time to come back, thankfully. I think overall there'll be, you know, a bit more of a return for that in 2023. As I say, nothing particularly structural in there. In terms of the share buybacks, you're right that we've committed to a GBP 725 million program there following the divestment program. We've done over GBP 450 million of that to date, and we're tracking towards somewhere in the region of GBP 500 million-GBP 550 million of it completed by the end of the year. As you said, we originally committed to some of that being through special dividends. It's now all through share buybacks following feedback from shareholders that we, you know, listened to and took on board. You know, I think we will come back to the topic next year when we get to the end of the existing commitment to talk further about how we want to take the commitment forward in terms of the overall program. In terms of net debt, you know, that sort of buyback profile by the end of the year should get us to a point, whereby we will be, you know, round about zero in terms of net debt. Potentially excluding the leases, which is how we think about our leverage number. That I think really gives us a great opportunity and capacity in the balance sheet to accelerate investment, both organically and inorganically into 2023, as we look to, you know, look at businesses that would help develop and accelerate the GAP 2 story further. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Again, press star one to ask a question. We'll take our next question. Tom Singlehurst from Citi, your line is open. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi there. Just one question. I just wondered, with the comment on the outlook where you say you're in a strong position for continued growth and acceleration in 2023, should we take that literally? I mean, should we assume that you're actually talking about a growth rate in 2023 above 2022? Or is that just a, are you just talking in general continued improvement? That's it. Thank you. Hi, Tom. Yeah, I think we're talking about, you know, a general improvement in the business, and an improvement in acceleration in some of the mix areas that we're looking to drive, in terms of GAP 2. Yeah, certainly, Taylor & Francis, we touched on earlier, we'll be looking for that, you know, to deliver another year of, you know, good revenue growth at or above the levels of 2022. And in the, you know, B2B digital services areas, looking for another year of acceleration there. Clearly in terms of live and on-demand event revenues, while there's good opportunity for further expansion of those revenues into 2023 in terms of the growth rate that benefits in 2022 from the COVID recovery and therefore, you know, I wouldn't expect to see another year of 40% growth rates. Clearly, I think our growth rates well above the long-term average for that business are absolutely achievable for the business. That's magic. Very clear. Thank you. Again, press star one to ask a question. There are no questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back to Gareth for any additional or closing remarks. Okay. Well, thank you for the questions. We'll wrap it up there. I hope that was a useful call, both in terms of the headline commentary around the 2022 full year guidance upgrade that we've announced this morning and our confidence into 2023 that we have in the business, both from an organic and an inorganic perspective. If you have any further questions, Richard and Matesh are around during the course of today. You know, by all means, drop us a line. Otherwise, good day to you, and thank you for taking the time to join our trading update call. Thank you. This concludes for today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.