Good morning, and welcome to our presentation where we will explain our acquisition of Avantus Federal in the U.S. that we announced on Friday evening. I'm John Haworth, Group Director of Investor Relations at QinetiQ. I'm joined by Steve Wadey, our CEO, Carol Borg, our CFO, and Shawn Purvis, President and CEO of our U.S. business. Steve, Carol, and Shawn will run through the presentation, after which there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions. In order for you to ask a question, please use the telephone line provided. Steve, over to you. Great. Thank you, John, and good morning, everybody, and welcome to our WebEx this morning. I'm absolutely delighted to share with you that we've entered into an agreement to acquire Avantus in the U.S. The conflict in Ukraine has reinforced the vital importance of a technologically advanced defense and security industry, especially in precision effects that we see on the TV, but also in the rapidly growing domains of cyber and information that we don't see. This deal is a major step forward in delivering our long-term global growth strategy and is totally aligned with our customers' mission both now and in the future. We've selected Avantus as a high-quality business with state-of-the-art mission-focused cyber and data analytics capabilities, similar to those that we have in the U.K. The combination with QinetiQ, which meets all our acquisition criteria, creates a powerful and differentiated team, provide an exciting new platform to build a disruptive mid-tier business in the U.S., an opportunity to leverage our capabilities for our customers globally, and offers compelling returns for our shareholders as we drive growth. Let me start by giving you a summary of the strategic rationale and the key transaction terms. These are the seven key highlights of the deal. It's an all-cash acquisition at $590 million, including a net tax benefit worth $70 million to us. Avantus is a market-leading, mission-focused cyber data analytics and software development solutions provider for U.S. defense, intelligence, and homeland security customers. It delivered approximately $300 million of revenue last year and has 1,150 employees. Avantus provides a strong and aligned cultural fit focused on its customers and employees, and has a very talented management team and employee base, which augments our strengthened U.S. leadership team that we have recently built. The combination of Avantus and QinetiQ transforms our U.S. business with complementary capabilities to create a platform to accelerate growth in our customers' high-priority segments aligned with the U.S. National Security mission. Avantus is a mature and highly integrated business that is aligned with our global strategy to focus on and build six distinctive offerings by extending our customer base and increasing our breadth and scale within the U.S., whilst providing further growth opportunity from global leverage. Financially, the business is highly attractive, with a $2.4 billion order pipeline providing significant visibility and at least 10% forward revenue growth attracting stable double-digit operating margins. The business case for the acquisition is compelling, with enhanced shareholder returns and effective use of our balance sheet. The deal is a strong strategic fit, compelling economic case with high confidence integration and a major step forward in delivering our global growth strategy. The key terms of the transaction are, from a valuation perspective, the deal is an all-cash acquisition at a purchase price of $590 million, including the $70 million tax benefit. The last 12-month performance of the business to June 2022 was $298 million of revenue with $35.5 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing an enterprise value multiple of 14.6x net of the tax benefit. In terms of financial performance, we expect the business to deliver at least double-digit revenue growth and stable operating margins consistent with our group guidance. Therefore, the deal will be immediately earnings accretive with double-digit EPS growth by the end of the first full year. Return on invested capital will exceed our cost of capital by the end of the third full year after completion. The financing of the deal is very conservative through a combination of existing cash and new debt facilities, creating leverage of approximately 1.3x net debt to EBITDA, while targeting rapid deleveraging to less than 1x by the end of the first full year after completion. The deal is subject to U.S. regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, and we expect the transaction to complete by the end of the calendar year. In conclusion, this is a fantastic strategic acquisition for our company that is completely in line with our global strategy, creates an exciting platform to grow in the U.S., and will deliver enhanced shareholder returns. Let me introduce the agenda and team for this morning's presentation. First, we have Shawn Purvis, our President and CEO of QinetiQ U.S. Shawn joined QinetiQ in February and is making great progress with her mandate to deliver our short-term operational performance. Today, she will talk to you about Avantus and the powerful combination with QinetiQ U.S. as part of our strategy to realize our long-term ambition and deliver a disruptive mid-tier business in the U.S. I will then give you more color on the strategic rationale for acquisition and the role it plays in delivering our group's global growth strategy. Carol Borg, our Group CFO, will talk you through the financial aspects of the deal and why it offers compelling returns for our shareholders. Finally, I'll run through the transaction timetable and summarize before we take any questions. I'll now hand over to you, Shawn. Thanks, Steve. We're excited today to discuss our proposed acquisition of Avantus into the QinetiQ U.S. portfolio. Avantus is a United States defense contracting company providing mission and operation support in the areas of cyber, data analytics, and software development to the United States Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and the Department of Homeland Security. Avantus has over 1,100 employees, of which 92% are cleared. Their skill sets are in the expertise of data engineering, cloud development, and cyber and intelligence analysis. The security-cleared employees are individuals who have been granted access to support the customer's most exquisite missions. They are passionate and dedicated to providing the best solutions to our current customers. The Avantus employee demographics are an excellent fit for QinetiQ. Their diverse employee population is over 33% and over 88% are direct billable to current contracts. All are steeped in highly technical skill sets such as engineering, technical program management, intelligence analysis, and operations. The company's core capabilities align nicely to our current strategic areas. Avantus work in intel analysis, data software, and digital engineering align to our information advantage and test evaluation areas. They develop and deliver automation, software, and systems applications in support of the customer. Their mission enablement, augmented intelligence, and cyber operations align to our technical, engineering, and training-focused areas by delivering key artificial intelligence, data processing, training, and cyber range program support to the government customer. Their core markets split between the United States Defense and Space, the intelligence community, and the Department of Homeland Security. For example, in the defense market for a space-related customer, Avantus provides engineering and analytical support in advancing a critical evolving mission and the agile development of innovation space concepts they deliver in support of the National Defense Space Architecture. They work to identify existing and future requirements based on evolving threats, identifying and analyzing concepts and technologies for mitigating operational gaps, and they develop a concept for operations for how a system of systems would be used in support of the defense customer. For an intelligence customer, the Avantus team supports a dynamic cyber tool test automation program that seeks to improve and evaluate a wide range of capabilities before fielded to operations. This work also includes special projects groups who manage and maintain and enhance complex operational networks and associated automation frameworks. In all, Avantus has a strong portfolio, a powerful set of capabilities, and is poised to deliver key requirements to customers in support of the United States National Defense Strategy. The combination of Avantus and QinetiQ U.S. make a powerful United States defense contracting company poised to deliver critical services, technologies, and solutions to our government customers. From a competitive and customer perspective, this combination allows the newly combined company to address an expanded customer market. It positively shifts the current portfolio into a balanced DoD, intelligence, federal, and civil expanded market arena. The combination also provides a solid foundation for revenue growth and expansion with new business development opportunities that will utilize our strong capabilities of cyber, information solutions, mission services, and program support. Our planned investment in capture and business development resources are targeted to accelerate the revenue synergies and double-digit forward growth with stable margins. The Avantus business have a strong cultural fit to the QinetiQ U.S. Their mission-led customer focus and the integration of the two companies will strengthen our workforce, particularly in the technical data analysis, engineering, technical program management skill sets. The future combined leadership team are recognized successful leaders within the government contracting community. This integration provides a powerful and highly confident leadership team poised to deliver on our strategic growth plan in the United States market. On day one, we plan a detailed focus integration plan that will target our people, processes, and tools. The current performing business from Avantus will operate as a business unit led by current Avantus senior leadership to ensure customer continuity and continued focus on program delivery. From a systems and processes perspective, the team will be focused on creating an integrated business platform that will integrate and leverage the best of breed from each company and will create a cohesive environment for our employees, unlocking the full potential for value creation. I will now turn it over to Steve Wadey to speak to our global growth strategy. Great. Thank you, Shawn. Let me put Avantus into strategic context at group level. QinetiQ's investment case is to build an integrated global defense and security company, delivering mission-critical capabilities for its customers, operating in attractive markets with distinctive offerings and delivering good returns for its shareholders. Our major focus for growth into our addressable market is worth more than GBP 20 billion per year, as shown on the left-hand side of this slide. That focus is into our three home countries, Australia, U.K., and U.S., where we are pursuing similar opportunities to support those customers' shared defense and security mission. Our strategy to grow into this addressable market is disciplined and underpinned by our clear capital allocation policy. We drive organic growth by investing in our distinctive offerings to build local differentiated capability. In addition, as we've described many times before, we have been actively seeking strategic acquisitions to complement our organic growth that strengthen our capabilities, extend our customer base, and build scale with Australia and the U.S. prioritized. The U.S. market, as shown by the green box, represents our largest growth opportunity. Avantus is a highly attractive acquisition to enable our long-term growth in both this market and globally. The business which doubles our scale in the U.S. is at the heart of the customer's mission in rapidly growing cyber, data analytics, and software development segments, which attract higher growth rates than the overall market. The business, which we have diligenced thoroughly, is mature, highly integrated, and a similar people-based business profile to QinetiQ and a great cultural fit. The complementary capabilities, customer relationships, and contract vehicles create a strong platform to drive U.S. growth, including revenue synergies. In summary, Avantus is completely aligned with our global strategy and meets all our acquisition criteria to accelerate growth in the largest defense and security market in the world. As I shared with you before, we deliver value for our customers and enable growth by focusing on our six distinctive offerings. Our long-term objective is to build a company with a full suite of offerings in each of our home countries so that we grow coherently into our addressable market. The picture on the right illustrates in blue the current breadth of our offerings in each country, and the capability acquired with Avantus is shown in green. As you can see, we are acquiring capability directly aligned with four of our offerings, with the bulk of capability aligned to our Engineering Services and Support and Cyber and Information Advantage offerings. Here you can see we are creating a business in the U.S. with a very similar capability and risk profile to the business we manage successfully in the U.K. Therefore, the acquisition offers low operational risk to the group. This coherence also provides further opportunity for global leverage in support of the trilateral partnership between the governments of Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., known as AUKUS. Why is this different to QinetiQ's distant history? There are three main differences that give me confidence. Avantus is strategically aligned and selected as a high-value business, attracting high-value margins coherent with group capabilities. We built a strong leadership team led by Shawn, whose capability and values are aligned with the group and will be augmented by the great talent who will join us from Avantus. We've established an effective governance model through our U.S. board, which Andy Maner, Avantus' founder and current CEO, will join, and our Special Security Agreement, known as the SSA, with the U.S. government. In addition, as Shawn mentioned, we've developed a high-confidence integration plan focused on our customers, people, and systems and processes. The acquisition of Avantus is a good example of our disciplined execution of our strategy and demonstrates good progress to realize our growth ambition by creating a global leader in high-value solutions to national defense and security challenges. Let me step back and look at the effect of acquiring Avantus to the group on delivering our five-year global ambition. Over the last six years, we've grown the company by 75% to GBP 1.3 billion of revenue, as shown from the first graphic on the left to the second graphic. The third graphic shows the FY 2022 pro forma revenue for the combination of Avantus and QinetiQ Group revenue grows by 25% to GBP 1.6 billion, and U.S. revenue more than doubles to 25% of the group. In May, I explained that we are at an exciting stage in the development of the company, with recent events in Ukraine reinforcing the long-term needs of our customers for our high-value solutions. As a result, we increased our ambition to grow to more than GBP 2.3 billion over the next five years, as shown in the fourth graphic on the right-hand side. This acquisition creates a platform to accelerate both U.S. and global growth and is a significant step towards delivering our long-term ambition. We remain focused and on track to build an integrated global defense and security company to deliver sustainable growth with enhanced returns for our shareholders. I'll now hand over to Carol to talk you through the financial aspects of the deal and why it does offer compelling returns for shareholders. Over to you, Carol. Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everybody. Like Steve and Shawn, I too am delighted with this acquisition. In this next section, I'll outline some of the key financial metrics and why we are confident that this will deliver strong returns for our shareholders. I'll be addressing three distinct areas, Avantus' strong financial profile, our conservative financing strategy, and how this delivers shareholder value and returns. Here I'm showing the financial profile of Avantus under our four key financial metrics, orders, revenue, operating profit, and cash, all shown in Avantus' year-end. Firstly, on the top left, our extensive due diligence has concluded that Avantus has a robust order pipeline. With an order pipeline for the next five years at $2.4 billion and at a win rate on primary competes at greater than 90%, this gives us good forward visibility. In the 12 months to June 2022, Avantus has won in excess of $400 million of orders and has 76% of their expected 2022 - 2024 revenue covered by a combination of backlog, which is secured, and anticipated high-confidence wins on contract growths, extensions, and recompetes. Next, onto revenue. Avantus has a strong track record of revenue growth, both headline reported and on an organic pro forma basis. In the 12 months to June 2022, Avantus has delivered revenue of $298 million. We are predicting at least double-digit compound annual growth for the foreseeable future, which is achievable due to the nature of work performed being consistent with areas of increased spend and focus in the U.S. defense and security budget. Now on to operating profit, bottom left. Avantus has delivered attractive and stable double-digit operating margins. In the 12 months to June 2022, Avantus delivered adjusted EBITDA of $35.5 million and EBIT or operating profit of $32.2 million. Resulting in an operating profit margin of 10.8%. We see absolute profit function of the revenue growth with some modest percentage margin improvement opportunity in the mid- to long-term to the lower end of our group guidance. Finally, onto cash. Like QinetiQ, Avantus is cash generative, asset-light, advisory, and solutions-based business with operating cash conversion in excess of 90%. In conclusion, Avantus is a highly attractive business with significant order visibility, providing revenue growth at stable margins. We have put into place a conservative financing structure to secure this acquisition. We have GBP 350 million of fully committed debt financing with our key relationship banks, all of whom continue to show strong support to our global growth ambition. As previously referenced by Steve, our capital allocation policy has been deployed, and we will be using existing cash to partially fund this deal, resulting in a reduced interest rate exposure. Further, we have flexibility within our existing revolving credit facility, GBP 275 million, that is currently undrawn. You will recall that I have previously mentioned that our balance sheet could support a 2x leverage if we felt it appropriate for the right acquisition. At completion of this acquisition, we expect a very conservative leverage of 1.3 x net debt to EBITDA and are targeting to reduce leverage to less than 1 x by the end of the first full year of completion. This is achieved through the cash generative nature of the combined business, with a further potential to accelerate deleveraging with proceeds from any non-core disposals that we constantly review as we continue to deliver on our strategy. In conclusion, this conservative financing structure makes more effective use of our strong balance sheet. My final slide brings together our compelling business case with enhanced returns for shareholders. In order to do this, let's look at the acquisition through our three investment gates. Firstly, strategic fit. As described by both Shawn and Steve, the Avantus acquisition is the right strategic choice that will support us in delivering our global growth strategy. This increases our breadth and scale in the U.S. and is fully aligned with our six distinctive offerings, particularly in the areas of engineering services and support and cyber and information advantage. Further, this doubles our size in the U.S., making us more relevant and accelerates our growth in the world's largest defense and security market. Secondly, economics. As I mentioned previously, Avantus is a mature business with significant order visibility, revenue growth at stable margins and strong cash conversion. Our purchase price translates to what I believe is a fair valuation for a high-quality asset. Our business case has a forward multiple forecast that is expected to reduce to single digit by the end of the third full year following completion. This transaction also creates relief, which is anticipated to generate a cash tax benefit. We have modeled what this means for the combined U.S. business discounted by our weighted average cost of capital. This has resulted in a tax asset with a value of $70 million in net present value terms to QinetiQ. The acquisition does provide us with opportunities for revenue synergies, predominantly across our existing U.S. business and potentially globally, which have been incorporated into the business case. Thirdly, integration and deliverability. Shawn described earlier that we have a robust, jointly developed plan to integrate and deliver the Avantus business case. Steve further elaborated on what we have done by taking a very deliberate and different approach to this integration. We have a solid business case that we continue to performance manage against to ensure that we deliver against the commitments that we have made today. What does that mean for the combined enlarged QinetiQ? Avantus is a mature organization which should provide comfort that there is low operational risk. Fundamentally, this acquisition delivers attractive financial characteristics consistent with what you have come to expect from QinetiQ. While we do not expect analysts to update their models yet, this acquisition provides no changes to our previously stated guidance, except an improvement to our revenue growth. Let me take you through our guided financial metrics and what we expect post-completion. Revenue growth will improve modestly from mid-single digit organic growth to mid- to high single digit revenue growth due to the growth expected from Avantus. Operating profit will remain consistent within our guidance of 12%-13% in the mid to long term with 100 basis points invested in the short term. ROCE will remain strong at the upper end of 15%-20%, highly attractive and favorable compared to our aerospace and defense peers. Capital expenditure will remain within the upper end of our guided range of GBP 90 million-GBP 120 million, with the Avantus business requiring limited capital expenditure investment. Cash conversion will continue to remain strong. In conclusion, this is the right strategic acquisition for QinetiQ that grows our global company in line with our strategy and financial plan to deliver enhanced shareholder returns. With that, I'll hand back to Steve. Great. Thank you, Carol. Let me briefly describe the transaction timetable and then summarize before we take any questions. As I mentioned at the start of the presentation, the transaction is subject to U.S. regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Over the last three years, we have established a highly effective governance model with our U.S. board, chaired by the Honorable Dr. John Hillen, and the SSA with the U.S. government. The effectiveness of our board and SSA, along with the advanced preparation of our filings, gives us confidence that we will obtain the required approvals and complete the transaction by the end of the calendar year. In summary, the combination of Avantus and QinetiQ transforms our U.S. business and creates a platform to accelerate growth in our customers' high priority segments aligned with the U.S. national security mission. We have a strong and aligned cultural fit with a very talented management team and employee base, which augments our already strengthened US leadership team. The business case for the acquisition is compelling with enhanced shareholder returns and an effective use of our strong balance sheet. The deal is a strong strategic fit, creates a compelling economic case with high confidence integration, and is a major step forward in delivering our global growth strategy. Shawn, Carol, and I will now be happy to take any of your questions. Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder. Steve, Carol, and Sean. In order to ask a question, please use the telephone number provided. Please could we ask you to introduce yourself by name and by company name. I'll now hand over to Sergey, our operator, for our first question, please. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. We'll pause for just a moment to assemble the queue. Now our first question comes from Richard Paige from Numis. Please go ahead. Thank you. Morning, all. Looks like a very exciting deal. I guess a couple of things from me. First of all, the business has grown at 10% organic on the top line in recent years as you described, and obviously you're looking for at least 10% revenue growth going forward. Could you just provide an outline of how that compares with underlying market growth rates, please? On contract profile, obviously, it looks like that looks pretty broad. Just wondering if you could provide a bit more detail or granularity around the sort of largest contract size as a percentage of sales potentially. And then on margin profile, looks to be up towards the upper end of, you know, this sort of levels of activity. Could you just expand a bit more on how you expect to drive the sort of modest improvement you speak about, please? Okay. Thanks, Richard. Three good questions. Let's take the first one. Yeah, I'll make a start and then ask Shawn to sort of comment as well. You're absolutely right. The business has got a very strong track record, and it's been growing at least double digit revenue growth in recent years. I guess behind your question, you're getting to confidence, you know, in our ability to see that forward revenue growth rate at 10+% margin. There are several reasons why we have that confidence. The first thing I'd point to, and I think both myself and Carol referred to it, the team have developed a very strong pipeline. The pipeline is some $2.4 billion on an equivalent basis to the overall orders pipeline that we share at a group level. Within that pipeline, they've demonstrated great customer focus around the customer set that Shawn has described. Through a combination of strong customer focus, you know, a really strong business development team, you know, good industrial partnering, you know, we have good confidence in that pipeline and their ability to perform, you know, win recompetes and new awards. Within the pipeline, they've also been following a very similar strategy to what QinetiQ has followed in the recent years. Starting on, you know, relatively, you know, small, you know, contracts, winning and repeating, but progressively building confidence and maturity and focused on larger, longer term deals. As they've developed, that pipeline has grown, and to your question about the sort of contract mix, we probably won't go into specific contracts. What we can describe is that, you know, the pipeline is full of several contracts in the $10 million or tens of millions class, you know, and more recently has now got some programs in it in the $100 million+ class. I think it's a combination of the confidence of historic growth, Richard, and following a very similar strategy to focusing on, you know, winning larger, longer term contracts, and that gives us, you know, the confidence in the growth rate. Now that probably sort of blends into both, you know, questions one and two. Shawn, would you like to make some sort of comments to build upon that? Yes. Great. Thanks, Steve. I echo your comments and agree with the profile of the company thus far. Carol alluded to, on contract growth and recompete being very high across their markets, which show good customer performance, delivery of requirements. And when you look towards the whole of the pipeline, shows significant ability for us to continue to grow both in those current customer markets, but also to be able to take those technologies into adjacent customer markets as well. From an execution across the pipeline, as Steve alluded to, the organization has continued to invest and expand. The combined organizations together will be able to go across all three of the domains that I mentioned to do not only current contracts and grow those contracts they have today, but take on those larger integration, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance type programs which span across the portfolio and require the combined capabilities of both of our current organizations. Very strong in their current experience, very strong in their first wave of pipeline, and the combined organizations together will be able to take on a bigger mission across the U.S. Intelligence Community, United States Department of Defense, and United States Department of Homeland Security portfolio. Thanks, Shawn. Maybe the third question around margin, Carol. Yeah. Well, just maybe an add to the revenue growth from my perspective, Richard. Yeah, the QinetiQ U.K. Cyber and Intelligence business has equally performed in this at least double-digit growth, right? In addition to what the U.S. can do in its own right, I think QinetiQ has the broader capabilities, the scale to actually demonstrate. Those of you that have been following us for a while will have seen that and enjoyed that for the last number of years. That also gives me confidence that there's a broader family, in which we have proven delivery, in this. Specifically onto the question of margin growth, you're right, Richard, that we are seeing Avantus in the last 12 months has delivered 10.8% operating profit, which is very close to our current, you know, guided range in the short term. We see some modest margin improvement, and that's gonna be driven by us moving along in the value chain. This is a high quality asset. It provides very high quality dedicated solutions for our customer, which can yield a higher margin. We believe that there's not a lot, but there's some modest margin improvement that is available over the mid to long term, which is why I feel confident that we hold our group guidance in the mid to long term to the 12%-13%. Yeah. If I might just add on to that point that Carol just made, Richard. I think Shawn alluded to investment. Within this case, we are increasing our investment, and that investment will build further capabilities that will support, you know, further expansion of the pipeline and support the revenue growth that we've discussed. It will also support exactly what Carol is saying, which is going up further, you know, in the value chain. This company is a company that operates at a high position in the value chain. Hence, it attracts the margins that it attracts with the opportunity for a modest improvement as Carol described. Richard, I'll give you the opportunity if you want to come back on any of those questions or whether we've answered them for you. No, that's very clear. Thank you very much. Thanks. Charlotte Keyworth, Barclays, please go ahead. Morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. Hi, Charlotte. Hi. I've just got the one, actually. I've just been listening kind of to the commentary and you've mentioned the word mature several times and high quality, and it's clearly got a lot of characteristics that QinetiQ holds in terms of cash generation and being asset light. With any kind of large scale M&A, the integration piece is critical. With something that's clearly functioning very well already, I'm interested to hear a little bit more about integration, what your thoughts are on that, because it's where a lot of the value can either be destroyed or created. Great. Well, absolutely. I mean, Shawn described quite a lot in her presentation. I might go to you first on it, Shawn. 'Cause I think you touched on the critical points, and then I'd sort of like to make a couple of builds on that. Shawn, could we go to you first? Sure. Great. Thanks. Thanks for the question. First, we do agree the current platform is quite mature, and that the organization has been very deliberate and thoughtful about their acquisitions, their integration of their acquisitions and their processes. Continuing through each of their journey to unlock value along the way. As I mentioned in my remarks, what we see or where our first thoughts here is to take the combined leadership team between our current QinetiQ U.S. team with the senior leadership team of Avantus and integrate into a corporate organization, really leveraging some of those key personnel that have both capabilities in their current market, but also can stretch across the whole of the portfolio. The current P&L business will come in as a single business unit and be a direct report into myself, aligned with our other two business units, and we'll be very thoughtful and mindful about how we then take a look at that portfolio, integrate, look across the contract vehicles that now the two combined companies will have, and be able to go to market in a much stronger way than before. We also think there's extreme power in some of their best practices. They have an Integrated Talent Management system. They have a different business development cycle component. When you integrate the back office with the front office, unlocking the value of their processes, their procedures and tools, but also their people and their culture and the integration of some of where they have continued to grow and have really deep good customer intimacy, sound business development processes and procedures, contracts and supply chain. We're excited about how that integration comes in, and we believe will add value immediately as the teams come together, start to look across the whole, really look at best of breed across both of the organizations, and then integrate that leadership team at our corporate level to be able to unlock the value right off the gate. Great question on that. Steve, over to you. Yeah. Thank you, Shawn. I mean, just to sort of say some different things rather than repeating what Shawn has said. I think one of the things that I was really pleased with through the diligence process is the conversation that we had about integration. Because from a philosophical point of view and a cultural point of view, you know, we were at one with the Avantus leadership team. The way that we thought about how you go about successful integration. The philosophy is, you know, simple to describe. It was number one, putting, you know, our employees first. Yeah, and making sure that they understood, you know, the logic for the acquisition, the approach to integration, the combination that would come from, you know, bringing the companies together. Secondly, by focusing on our customers and remembering that this is all about creating a platform for growth. Thirdly, looking at how we optimize, you know, our systems and processes as an enabler, you know, for our employees to deliver for our customer. Shawn used a phrase, you know, during her main presentation around best of breed. Yeah, that is very much, you know, the philosophy here. We're bringing together two companies in the U.S. of similar scale, and we're gonna be combining them. I think that Charlotte, for me, that alignment from a complementary capability and alignment from a sort of a cultural and philosophical point of view, you know, brings you a high degree of confidence. Now, sitting underneath that, you know, we've developed an integration plan. You know, we'll have milestones and objectives and targets that we will you know, achieve and deliver. As we both alluded to earlier, you know, that integration will also be supported by investment. That investment will go into, you know, critical capabilities such as, you know, increasing our business development, strategic capture capability. You know, increasing the volume of investment in our internal research and development so that we're developing, you know, new state-of-the-art technologies or tools that we can cross-sell to our customer, you know, as well as optimizing the various systems. I think, you know, we've really thought through the integration, you know, from a planning and an organization point of view. More important to that, I think we've got the right philosophy, mindset, and culture between the teams, you know, to make this a truly successful combination. If I may just come back to the word mature and high quality, I think it is a really important point, Charlotte, of why, you know, this acquisition is so different to QinetiQ's, you know, distant history. This is a high-value asset operating in, you know, frontline, you know, high-value segments in the U.S., you know, and that's why, you know, it's attracting, you know, high margins. It's a really great asset for us to build this platform to drive growth. Charlotte, I'll give you the opportunity to come back whether that triggers any further question or whether we've answered your question. Thanks, Steve. You know, that's really interesting. I've actually got one more question for Carol, if I may. Sure. Just in terms of leverage, we're at 1.3x when the deal completes, and then you're gonna rapidly deleverage to 1x at the end of year one. I just wondered sort of in terms of medium-term guidance. I mean, now we've done the transformative deal, where do you think the right balance sheet is for QinetiQ going forward? I mean, will we return to a net cash position eventually given the cash generation from the combination of the two entities, or can you see kind of returning to the level we're at today? Charlotte, I mean, it's too early to say, I think, in terms of what it is. We've got our clear strategy in terms of achieving GBP 2.3 billion in revenue by FY 2027. This acquisition is a great step towards that, but we'll continue to deploy our strategic vision of looking at things that are non-core while we're increasing our focus on the U.S., U.K., and Australian markets. I don't really have a prediction at the moment. I think for me, let's get through. This is fantastic. Let's get through to completion. Let's begin the integration journey, and let's see what comes along in the future. What I can say is that, you know, I'm really comforted that this is a conservative financing structure. I've been out publicly to say that we could withstand 2x leverage. I'm really pleased that we've conservatively financed at 1.3x. I'm immensely pleased that the cash generative nature of this business brings us below 1x within a very short period of time. Let's just work on performance and delivery. That would be my kind of response. Great. Thank you very much. Thanks, Charlotte. Thank you. The next question comes from George McWhirter from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Good morning. I have three questions, please. Firstly, the press release indicated Avantus had completed several acquisitions over the past few years. Can you just give a bit more detail into which areas of the business these have been focused on? Secondly, do you think you may look to complete further acquisitions to strengthen Avantus' capabilities within QinetiQ into the future? The last one, Carol, you mentioned during the presentation about the potential for disposals to accelerate the delivering timeline. Can you comment on which areas of the business these could be coming from? Thank you. Okay. I think, Shawn, I might just ask you to make a few comments on prior acquisitions, and then second and third, I might actually just combine them because I think I've got a similar answer that'll cover both the second and the third one. Shawn, could I ask you just to say a few words about prior Avantus acquisitions? Right. Yes. Thanks, Steve. Thanks for the question. As we sat with the management team that Steve alluded to, we've had significant amount of detail on their history of their series of acquisitions. One of the areas that was most promising was that they were deliberate, and they were strategic as they continued to grow and expand across the markets that we talked our way through. For example, in the customer areas of the United States intelligence customer, they've made several acquisitions that have moved them into the heart of that particular mission with that customer and then grown that contract on contract growth and/or recompete, on both of those components of the organization. They looked across Department of Defense and looked to expand to support the Unified Combatant Command or the United States Special Operations Command or space, as Space Development Agency stood up, Spacecom stood up. They also procured several acquisitions that allowed them to provide program management, mission operations, and/or technical and engineering support in the Department of Defense. Again, very deliberate in terms of the market on the intelligence organization. Again, deliberate in the market as they expanded across the Department of Homeland Security. Department of Homeland Security, their acquisitions have allowed them to have both contract vehicles as prime, but also perform a statement of work in support of all of Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, and federal and civil markets across the Department of Homeland Security. For each of those markets that they have continued to both grow in organically. They have merged that and enhanced that with an inorganic acquisition in those domains. Been very thoughtful and deliberate about what they procured, been very thoughtful and deliberate about ensuring that they identified their gap and their acquisitions filled those gaps and then very quickly turned into value, whether it be contract prime contract roles, customer access, customer intimacy, or augmenting the acquisition technology capability with the current portfolio. What we've seen across all of their 70-80 acquisitions, we've seen them be a creative value creation in each one of those markets, and very deliberate and mindful of the kinds of technology, the kinds of individuals, and the culture that they've brought in that's continued to enhance what we've seen today. Well, part of the reason why you hear us talk a bit about how excited we are across the whole of the portfolio and how we do believe that it'll have immediate value and synergy as it comes into the QinetiQ U.S. market today. I think that's great, Shawn. I sort of build upon that and then move into question two and three at the same time. I think the thing that I would add is that their philosophy to identifying those acquisitions and how they've been integrating them is exactly like ours. It's not just looking at acquisitive growth, but it's the combination of that inorganic growth that complements how they drive organic growth and then move up that value chain into those larger, longer term programs. It's exactly the same philosophy that we have applied. Let's sort of not forget that, you know, in our own history over the last six years, we've done seven acquisitions and three disposals. George, to move into your question two and three about further acquisitions and further disposals. You know, I'd sort of make, you know, a couple of comments. First of all, short-term focus. Right now, our short-term focus is laser-focused on completion. You know, getting through all of the submissions, you know, with the U.S. government and closing this transaction. Then we would immediately flip into delivering on, you know, the commitments that we've made in terms of integration and performance. Short-term, it's completion and operational performance. That said, you know, we also have a long-term growth ambition, and our long-term growth ambition continues. This is a really significant and strategic step and puts us well on the path. As a mature company, our strategy will continue to look at our portfolio, you know, and as we described in May, we are actively managing our portfolio. We described that our priority, you know, for acquisitions is in the U.S. and Australia. As we develop and grow, I think I used this phrase in May, some aspects of our portfolio become more in focus and markets become more in focus, you know, and that's the area where we would look to, you know, invest further in terms of long-term growth. Other aspects of our portfolio, you know, may become less focused where we would look to dispose. That's part of just being, you know, a mature global company that continues to, you know, execute in a disciplined way, you know, on its long-term global strategy. George, I don't know if you want to come back, but hopefully we've answered all three of your questions on that. Yeah, that's really clear. Thank you very much. Thanks, George. As a reminder to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one. Our next question comes from Sash Tusa from Agency Partners. Please go ahead. Thanks very much indeed. Good morning. I've got three questions, at least two of which are pretty gormless. The first of which is, I don't understand this tax asset. Is it that you are paying $590 million and then get $70 million back at some stage through deferred or the deferred tax asset is separate? I mean, how should we model the cash out compared to the cash in? Over what time period would you expect that deferred tax asset to be realizable? Okay, we'll do that one first. Do you wanna do all three questions? Well, okay. Yes. Let's do all three questions. Yeah, certainly. The second one is really what Avantus is selling is billing, because I don't think I understand this. My concern, I think, is that it's a it might be a business that basically builds highly classified bums on seats and that there isn't a great deal of sort of stickiness in the revenues. I wonder if you could just describe, are you billing or is Avantus billing, you know, workstations populated per quarter or per month or whatever, or is it delivering particular packages of work and how is that deliverable defined, or is it delivering software as a service or something in between? The third issue really that I just wanted to check on is, does Avantus have any non-U.S. revenues at the moment, or has it had any non-U.S. revenues? What if what it's doing is highly classified, even within the context of AUKUS, how likely is it that it's going to be able to export or work abroad in the future, and how does QinetiQ's ownership of it change that? All right. Great. Well, I'm happy to sort of pick up the last question. Shawn, maybe the second one, and Carol, we'll kick you off with tax assets. Tax asset. The sexy one. Okay, Sash. The tax asset, the way I think about it is we've bought two things, right? We've bought a cash generative operating business for $520 million, and we've bought a tax asset that gives us relief worth $70 million. The combination of those two is $590 million. What are the characteristics of the tax asset? You will expect that Avantus or the combined U.S. business will still show a P&L tax expense over the life as it generates profit. It is a very profitable combination, but we get a relief from a cash perspective on tax for a foreseeable future. Actually, it goes out for quite some time as a result of this benefit that's being created. For your modeling purposes, think of it as its own kind of cash flow stream that you can incorporate into your models. Basically meaning that the U.S. business will be not paying tax for quite some while or while showing a tax expense. I hope that is kind of. Do you want just to check, does that answer your question? Does that answer the question, Sash? Yes. That's great. Yes. Thank you. That's super. Thank you very much. Great. Let's go on to the second question, Shawn. Yes. Thank you. You know, first I would say in the U.S. market, in the way our customers, the United States customers, the United States Department of Defense, and the United States Department of Homeland Security both procure. It is people, but it's not commodity kind of services. It's high-end, highly cleared, highly sought after cyber intelligence analysis, mission operations and support. The delivery of that ends up in software development, systems development, the creation of a system of systems, if you will. The systems integration role and integration of components of the ISR, the intelligence surveillance reconnaissance mission. That can be hardware and systems, but also, the bulk of that is really, and the power of that is turning the collection and the processing that happens with those platforms, those kind of big platforms that you see, down into the ground stations into finished intel. That is in direct partnership with the government customer. The quality of individuals that are part of this organization as is part of the QinetiQ U.S. current team are those that are highly sought after in the market. Their skill sets span across the engineering domains, the computer science domains, the data analysis, and the data scientist domain. They are essential to the mission and essential to the customer, as shown by in some of what we've articulated today. The phenomenal contract growth, the current contracts in their portfolio, but also the really outstanding over 90% recompete of current portfolio, with the current customers. We've been very deliberate with that. This is not a commodity type business, meaning, it can come in with a low barrier or low entry. It really does require both the contract access, the skill set access, the employee access, and the level of customer intimacy and knowledge of the mission that is unique to these individuals, these 1,100+ individuals that are part of the portfolio. When I think about how U.S. procures in general, it's a base plus four option years. We call it five-year programs, in general, across our current market. These are those organizations, these are the contracts that allow us to continue to come in with current personnel, but then expand and grow and move up the value stream, with the customer and tackle some of their real hardest challenges across the whole of the Department of Defense, the intelligence market, and the Department of Homeland Security market. Great. Thank you, Shawn. If I can add, I think what Shawn said is also totally consistent with the comments that we were making earlier, Sash, about this pipeline that's going into larger, longer term contracts. Many of their contract vehicles are quite long-term, you know, contract vehicles ranging from, you know, three to five years. You know, these are, you know, sort of really, you know, quality contracts and high quality, you know, activities that we're performing, you know, for the customer, hence, the ability to attract, you know, high margins. If I go on to the third question. Avantus' history, you're right. There is, in big picture terms, no, you know, non-U.S. revenue. However, looking forward, in our pipeline and our strategy, and I will put this in the area of, you know, opportunity. I refer to this as further opportunity. There are some significant opportunities to expand, you know, the capability set into non-U.S. revenue. I'll give one maybe small example. They've got strengths, you know, in the area of cyber test range. You know, cyber test range is an area, you know, where there are some, you know, quite advanced tools and processes which can be, you know, relatively easy to transfer across borders with the right government approvals. It's an example that within, you know, the AUKUS arrangement, that certainly would give us, you know, an opportunity to leverage our skills and capabilities, you know, for instance, between Australia, U.K., and U.S. While you're right historically, you know, there has been no non-U.S. revenue, we certainly see that as an opportunity, you know, in the pipeline, going forward. Sash, hope those three answers address your three questions, but I'll give you the opportunity to clarify or come back as well. Yeah. No, thank you. I mean, it seems to me, based on the comments that Shawn made, that as well as the recompete rate. Chris, you know, 90% is extremely encouraging. We need to be looking at staff turnover rate as well, because keeping your staff is going to be very, very important to maintaining your recompete rate. Staff retention is industry leading. Shawn, I think the figure is 86%. It's got a hugely attractive retention rate. It's the same for the rest of QinetiQ, by the way, Sash. I mean, you know, this is a company that has got, you know, a very similar. I think I said it in my presentation. It's got a very similar capability and risk profile to the rest of QinetiQ, which is why this is such, you know, a great strategic fit. I think Shawn also mentioned a methodology that they've embraced and developed, which I would also describe as industry leading, you know, that supports that retention by focusing on the employees and attracting a, you know, creating a really attractive place to work is their ITM program, Integrated Talent Management program. This is all about, you know, empowering, you're creating teams focused on the customer, you know, that really does drive, you know, value add, and it's differentiated, you know, compared to, you know, some of our peers, hence the, you know, really high retention rate and also high attraction rate, you know, in terms of recruitment, you know, in this business. Yeah, I mean, those sort of questions that you're raising, clearly we've diligenced exceptionally thoroughly and, yeah, are very confident in, you know, how we will, you know, work with the team as we combine, you know, to keep those rates high going forward. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. As there are no further questions in the queue, I'd like to hand the call back over to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks. Okay. Well, great. Well, thank you, everybody, for joining today's call. As we said, we're really delighted with the acquisition. You know, strong strategic fit, compelling economics, and a major step forward in our global growth strategy. If you have any further questions at any point, you know, please do come through our IR team, and we'll be happy to answer them. Thank you very much, and everybody have a good, great day. Thank you.