Experian deliver strong and resilient growth, with second interim dividend up 6%

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Experian plc (LON:EXPN), the global information services company, has issued its financial report for the year ended 31 March 2023.

Brian Cassin, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

“We delivered very strong results in FY23, reflecting a combination of new business wins, new products and expansion into higher growth markets. We saw growth in every region, in many cases outperforming our underlying markets substantially. Total revenue growth from ongoing activities was 6% at actual exchange rates and 8% at constant exchange rates, and organic revenue growth was 7%. Benchmark EBIT margin expansion was at the top end of our expectations, helping us to deliver Benchmark earnings per share up 9%.

“For the year ahead, we anticipate another year of growth due to the breadth and the resilience of our portfolio, and significant structural growth opportunities. Despite the uncertain economic climate, we expect to deliver organic revenue growth in the range of 4% to 6% and modest margin accretion, all at constant exchange rates and on an ongoing basis.”

Benchmark and Statutory financial highlights
	2023 US$m	2022 US$m	Actual rates growth %	Constant rates growth %	Organic growth %²
Benchmark¹
Revenue – ongoing activities³	6,587	6,216	6	8	7
Benchmark EBIT – ongoing activities^3,4	1,802	1,653	9	9	n/a
Total Benchmark EBIT	1,794	1,645	9	9	n/a
Benchmark EPS	USc135.1	USc124.5	9	9	n/a
Statutory
Revenue	6,619	6,288	5	8	n/a
Operating profit	1,265	1,416	(11)	n/a	n/a
Profit before tax	1,174	1,447	(19)	n/a	n/a
Basic EPS	USc84.2	USc127.5	(34)	n/a	n/a
Total dividend	USc54.75	USc51.75	6	n/a	n/a

1. See Appendix 1 (page 14) and note 5 to the financial statements for definitions of non-GAAP measures.

2. Organic revenue growth is at constant currency.

3. Revenue and Benchmark EBIT for the year ended 31 March 2022 have been re-presented for the reclassification to exited business activities of certain Business-to-Business (B2B), detail is provided in notes 6(a) and 7 to the financial statements.

4. See page 15 for reconciliation of Benchmark EBIT from ongoing activities to Profit before tax.

Highlights

· A year of very strong progress. Q4 organic revenue growth was 7%, to give 7% for the year, taking total revenue growth from ongoing activities to 8% at constant exchange rates.

· Consumer Services organic revenue up 11%. We now serve 168 million free members, up 23 million year-on-year across an expanded range of products and services.

· B2B organic revenue growth of 6% driven by new business wins, superior data and new product performance.

· All regions contributed to organic growth, with significant expansion in Latin America, good performances across North America and the UK and Ireland (UK&I), and improvement in EMEA/Asia Pacific.

· Benchmark EBIT rose 9% to US$1,802m.

· Benchmark EBIT margin uplift at the top end of our expectations. Ongoing Benchmark EBIT margin of 27.4%, compared to FY22 reported Benchmark EBIT margin of 26.2% and re-presented prior-year comparative margin of 26.6%. Benchmark EPS uplift of 9%, Benchmark operating cash flow conversion of 98% and Return on Capital employed of 16.5%.

· Statutory profit before tax of US$1,174m down from US$1,447m, predominantly due to a non-cash charge for the impairment of goodwill of US$179m in EMEA, a decrease in net gain from associate disposals of US$89m and an increase to the fair value of contingent consideration. Basic EPS decreased from USc127.5 to USc84.2 reflecting the lower profit before tax and an increased tax charge.

· Second interim dividend up 6% to USc37.75 per ordinary share.

There will be a presentation today at 9.30am (UK time) to analysts and investors via webcast. To view the slides and listen in online please go to www.experianplc.com for the link.

Experian will update on first quarter trading for FY24 on 13 July 2023.

Strategic report

Part 1 – Chief Executive Officer’s review

We delivered a very strong performance in FY23, despite a challenging economic backdrop in many of our markets. It was driven by growth across all of our regions. Our past investments in data, technology, new products, client service and talent have enhanced our competitive position, resulting in significant new business wins. At the same time, the expansion of our product portfolio has positioned many of our businesses to address higher growth opportunities and over the years we have expanded existing vertical markets and entered new segments. This is reflected in the strong organic growth we saw in FY23, despite deceleration in some of our volume-based businesses. This progress also reflects our focus on improving the foundations of our business, a very strong culture of innovation and a powerful social mission to help people thrive financially. It is also down to the hard work of our 22,000 people around the world who strive every day to make it happen. All of this has helped us to sustain our growth trajectory, offsetting the effects of the slower macroeconomic backdrop.

Very powerful structural growth trends drive our extensive growth opportunities. With large and growing addressable markets, we have many opportunities for long term growth. In the near term, businesses need to improve productivity, deliver better digital experiences and build stronger customer relations, at the same time as improving risk management, assuring compliance and fighting fraud. Despite short-term pressures, clients continue to invest in these areas. Advances in technology continue at pace and will accelerate this. The power of our unique, proprietary datasets, and the significant advances we have made in the range and sophistication of our products, has and will continue to allow us to develop new ways to help customers to achieve their goals, and we believe these trends will expand our opportunity set. Our progress is illustrated by our strong client Net Promoter Score performance in every region, best-in-class employee engagement, and an increasing number of awards recognising this, such as Fortune’s America’s Most Innovative Companies.

So, while the coming year will likely see headwinds in the global economy, we are very confident in the strategic position of our business, in the resilience of our portfolio, and we are excited about the opportunities ahead.

Full-year financial highlights

· Revenue growth was in line with our expected performance range. Total revenue growth from ongoing activities was 6% at actual exchange rates and 8% at constant currency. Organic revenue growth was 7%. Organic revenue growth is determined on a constant currency basis and for ongoing activities.

· All four of our regions contributed positively to our performance. Organic revenue growth was 7% in North America, 16% in Latin America and 5% in UK&I. EMEA/Asia Pacific organic revenue growth was 3%.

· By quarter, organic revenue growth was 8% in Q1, 8% in Q2, 6% in Q3 and 7% in Q4.

· B2B organic revenue growth was 6%. We saw strong client adoption of our data-centric products, powerful analytics and world-leading platforms as we help our clients with their shift to digital, to optimise profitability and better manage risk.

· In Consumer Services organic revenue was up 11% with growth driven by marketplaces and memberships. We now have 168 million free consumer members globally.

· We delivered strong Benchmark EBIT growth, up 9% at both constant and actual exchange rates.

· The underlying margin improvement was at the top end of our expectations, Benchmark EBIT margin for ongoing activities was 27.4%, compared to 26.2% in FY22 and a re-presented prior-year comparative margin of 26.6%. This represented 30 basis points underlying uplift, and a 50 basis points uplift from foreign exchange translation.

· We delivered strong growth in Benchmark earnings per share, which increased by 9%. Basic EPS was USc84.2 (2022: USc127.5), predominantly due to a goodwill impairment in EMEA of US$179m due to higher interest rates and macroeconomic weakness in our European markets, and an increase to the fair value of contingent consideration.

· We had another year of strong cash flow conversion. We converted 98% Benchmark EBIT into Benchmark operating cash flow. Benchmark operating cash flow was US$1.8bn.

· ROCE was 16.5%, up 80 basis points on the prior year.

· We ended the year with Net debt to Benchmark EBITDA at 1.8x, compared to our target range of 2.0-2.5x and we have no debt refinancing due until September 2024. Around 90% of our current debt is at fixed interest rates for the next two years.

Strategic highlights

Our performance in FY23 represented further progress on our strategic evolution. Our strategy is focused on enhancing the depth, breadth, quality and uniqueness of our datasets, to which we add advanced analytics and other sophisticated software solutions to address a range of client requirements, all built on the foundations of outstanding talent, great technology and world-class innovation. Our solutions address a wider range of client needs across identity, credit, fraud, compliance and marketing, and include capabilities such as strategy design, originations, ongoing customer management and collections. All of our new platforms are cloud-based and leverage advanced technologies to deliver the best outcomes for our clients and consumers. Increasingly, they are integrated capabilities that combine with our datasets. More and more of these solutions in the future will address end-to-end capabilities, for example being able to move seamlessly from initial strategy design to an executable credit decision in one platform. This brings together the power of our data, with our industry-leading platforms to create unique and differentiated solutions.

A key component of our strategy is to grow and deepen our relationships with consumers, and we are now well on our way to becoming an unrivalled platform for consumer finance.

These actions have positioned Experian to address large, growing markets which, we estimate at over US$150bn in scale. Some notable data points in FY23 highlight the progress we are making:

· Over US$1.0bn of Group revenue added from new product capability since FY18.

· We’ve added to the richness and extent of our data assets, with new expanded sources and user-permissioned data to help our clients manage credit risk, fraud prevention and transaction categorisation. For example, we have processed over 188 billion consumer-permissioned transactions in our global bureaux and are adding new sources of data such as buy-now-pay-later records.

· Ascend continues its growth trajectory, now with 491 clients globally and Total Contract Value of US$471m. We are bringing more of our data and software platforms together and are further embedding analytics across Experian’s broader products and services to deliver more solutions to clients which are uniquely Experian.

· Our expansion into Verifications and Employer Services is progressing well. North America has achieved revenues of over US$160m and a record count of 47 million, and we have established access to records representing 77% of the UK PAYE workforce and have nascent positions in other markets.

· We continue to grow consumer memberships, deepen customer relations and deliver new products to both our free and premium members. Free memberships have grown to 168 million. On a like-for-like basis, consumer membership was 145 million, up 16% year-on-year, and our total now includes 13 million members from Spanish Latin America.

· The implementation of positive data and other regulatory reforms in Brazil are expanding the addressable market and enhancing growth opportunities. We now have c.200 positive data solutions in market and are delivering significant growth across data, scores, attributes, fraud, software platforms and much more.

· Consumer Services now addresses half the Brazilian adult population. It has moved into profitability, and we are extending our presence into new services such as e-wallet to add functionality.

· We are successfully repositioning Targeting to address the larger addressable market of digital identity resolution to support marketers. Nearly 60% of North America Targeting revenues now arise from digital products compared to 26% in FY19.

· We have further expanded our vertical market presence with strong growth in North America Automotive and Health, Agribusiness in Brazil, and as mentioned above, Verification and Employer Services.

· We have an extensive roadmap of new product introductions planned in the UK&I in FY24 to leverage our global capabilities and build on a strong year for B2B new business performance in the region.

· The first phase of our transformation in EMEA/Asia Pacific is on track with improving profitability. In the second phase, we are focused on improving growth with stronger, new product introductions.

· Our technology transformation is advancing rapidly, we have signed an agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to be our preferred cloud provider globally, which will accelerate the rate of product innovation still further.

Other financial developments

Benchmark profit before tax (PBT) was US$1,670m, up 9% at actual exchange rates, after a net interest expense of US$124m (2022: US$110m). Benchmark net finance expense increased modestly despite the large increase in market rates thanks to our forward rate fixing program meaning the average interest rate on our Net debt was broadly stable at around 3%. For FY24, we expect net interest expense to be in the range of US$125-130m.

The Benchmark tax rate was 26.0% (2022: 25.7%). For FY24, we expect a rate of around 26-27%, taking into account expected profit mix for the year and an increase in the UK corporate tax rate.

Our Benchmark EPS was USc135.1c, an increase of 9% at both constant and actual exchange rates. For FY24, we expect weighted average number of ordinary shares (WANOS) of c.914m.

Foreign exchange translation was neutral to Benchmark EPS. For FY24, we expect a foreign exchange translation effect of c. 0% to +1% impact on revenue and Benchmark EBIT, assuming recent foreign exchange rates prevail.

Non-benchmark items:

· Statutory PBT was US$1,174m, down US$273m, as a result of increased non-benchmark costs.

· Macroeconomic conditions have contributed to a non-cash impairment of goodwill of US$179m, partially offset by a gain on financing fair value remeasurements of US$51m.

· We have incurred a charge of US$45m for increased contingent consideration due to over-performance on prior acquisitions.

· We have also continued to execute on our plans to streamline our geographic and operational footprint in EMEA/Asia Pacific and associated global functions. In connection with this programme in FY23, we have provided for costs of US$69m, including US$53m of restructuring and US$16m of onerous global support costs for exited businesses.

Reconciliation of statutory to Benchmark measures for the year ended 31 March 2023

	Statutory	Non-benchmark and other items					Benchmark
		Investment-related items¹	Goodwill impairment	Amortisation of acquisition intangibles	Non-cash financing items	Exceptional items²
	US$m	US$m	US$m	US$m	US$m	US$m	US$m
	6,587						6,587	Ongoing
	32						32	Exited
Revenue	6,619						6,619	Revenue

	1,273	92	179	192		66	1,802	Ongoing
	(8)						(8)	Exited
Operating profit	1,265	92	179	192		66	1,794	Benchmark EBIT

Profit before tax	1,174	109	179	192	(50)	66	1,670	Benchmark PBT

Basic EPS USc	84.2	10.2	19.7	15.4	(4.5)	10.1	135.1	Benchmark EPS USc

1. Investment-related items include the Group’s share of continuing associates’ Benchmark post-tax results.

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2. Exceptional items are analysed in note 8 to the financial statements.

Capital allocation and liquidity

· Cash generation was strong with 98% conversion of Benchmark EBIT into Benchmark operating cash flow (2022: 109%). Benchmark operating cash flow was US$1.8bn, down (3)% at actual exchange rates.

· We continued to invest in data, technology and new products through capital expenditure, which represented 9% of total revenue. We plan to sustain strong levels of investment to support our growth, and for FY24 we expect capital expenditure to represent c.9% of total revenue.

· We invested US$480m in acquisitions and US$15m in investments in support of our strategic initiatives. Acquisitions were principally in income verification and employee services, and included CIC Plus, Inc. (CIC Plus) in North America, and Pay Dashboard Ltd and the Work Report in UK&I.

· We are announcing a second interim dividend of USc37.75 per share, up 6%. This will be paid on 21 July 2023 to shareholders on the register at the close of business on 23 June 2023. Taking our full-year dividend to USc54.75 per share, up 6%.

· We have completed our FY23 share repurchase programme for a net cash consideration of US$175m, which offsets deliveries under employee share plans. We are also announcing that we will commence a net US$150m share repurchase programme in FY24, which will again offset deliveries under employee share plans.

· Our bonds, including derivatives, totalled US$3.9bn as at 31 March 2023 and had an average remaining tenor of five years. Undrawn committed bank borrowing facilities were US$2.4bn as at 31 March 2023 (2022: US$2.6bn).

· At 31 March 2023, Net debt to Benchmark EBITDA was 1.8x, compared to our target leverage range of 2.0-2.5x. We have no refinancing commitments until September 2024. Around 90% of our current debt is at fixed interest rates for the next two years and 67% fixed for at least four years.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

The current cost pressures faced by consumers makes gaining access to fair, affordable credit all the more important. We are focused on our mission and purpose to encourage broader financial inclusion and to help people to take control of their finances. This is a defining ethos of our business, and we take great pride in it, doing what we can to make a positive difference to society.

· Around 13 million consumers have now connected to Experian Boost, empowering millions to improve their credit scores and improve their financial lives. Experian Go launched in the USA in January 2022, enabling ‘credit invisibles’ to establish their financial identity in minutes, and over 130,000 US consumers have since connected to the platform. We were delighted that Experian Go was recognised as a 2023 BIG Innovation Award winner.

· Since 2013, our social innovation products, specifically developed to deliver societal benefits and improve financial health, have reached 106 million people, exceeding our target of 100 million people two years early.

· Our United for Financial Health programme to improve financial education among disadvantaged communities has now connected with 113 million people since launch, exceeding our target of 100 million people a year early.

· We pride ourselves on our ‘people first’ culture. This year we were listed in Fortune’s 2023 ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ for the fourth consecutive year, 95% of our employees agreed that Experian is committed to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture, and we were ranked 21st in Equileap’s ‘Top 100 Globally for Gender Equality’ for 2023.

· Following recent appointments to our Board, it is now 45% women and includes two ethnically diverse Board members. Our Board meets the recommendations of the FTSE Women Leaders Review on gender diversity and the Parker Review on ethnic diversity.

· As part of our journey to be carbon neutral by 2030 in our own operations, we have reduced our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 38% this year, reaching a 65% reduction since our 2019 base year. 62% of our electricity is now renewable. In order to reduce our Scope 3 emissions, we are continuing to engage with our suppliers and have improved our emissions calculations methodology. We are pleased to be recognised again in the Financial Times’ Europe Climate Leaders 2023 for our success in reducing our carbon emissions. Our commitment to help tackle climate change is also reflected in our CDP rating of ‘A-‘, placing us in the Leadership category and among the top 24% of professional services companies. We are working to complete our Net Zero Transition Plan in line with the UK’s Transition Plan Taskforce draft Disclosure Framework.

Part 2 – Regional highlights for the year ended 31 March 2023

		Year-on-year % change in organic¹ revenue – for the twelve months ended 31 March 2023					BenchmarkEBITmargin²
	% of Group revenue³	Data	Decisioning	B2B	Consumer Services	Total	Total
North America	67	4	7	5	11	7	33.1%
Latin America	15	12	16	13	32	16	31.0%
UK and Ireland	12	7	7	7	(4)	5	21.7%
EMEA/Asia Pacific	6	–	13	3	n/a	3	3.3%
Total global	100	5	8	6	11	7	27.4%

1. At constant exchange rates.

2. At actual exchange rates.

3. Percentage of Group revenue from ongoing activities calculated based on FY23 revenue at actual exchange rates.

North America

Growth in North America was good. Revenue was US$4,432m, with total revenue growth at constant currency of 8% and organic revenue growth of 7%. Acquisition growth included CIC Plus, in employment services, and Gabi in Consumer Services.

In B2B, organic revenue growth was 5% driven by innovation, a diversified portfolio, and competitive outperformance.

Consumer and Business Information Services delivered low-single digit organic growth overall, and high-single digit organic growth when mortgage is excluded. This was despite mixed external conditions in the USA which caused some of our lending clients to adopt a more cautious stance by tightening their credit criteria. Our growth was due to strong new business outperformance in the year with our differentiated data assets, real-time data delivery capability, analytics and Experian Ascend major contributory factors. Ascend continues on a positive trajectory and we continue to expand the range of products on the platform. Ascend Ops is the latest innovation and will sustain momentum. Experian PowerCurve also had a good year, particularly in collections and analytics. We also made significant progress in Employer and Verification Services, adding to our data count, now at 47 million US individuals, and securing new clients across verification services and for Experian Verify.

We saw growth in automotive, where we have a range of products which combine Experian’s credit and marketing capabilities, as the industry seeks to stimulate car purchases and auto lenders adjust to recessionary risk models. In Targeting, which had a very strong year, we are successfully delivering on our strategy to reposition towards digital marketing. We are serving higher growth segments of the market having expanded our position in digital identity and data connectivity and enablement. We also performed well in Health, despite a strong prior year comparable. We were delighted to be recognised as Best in KLAS, a US Health industry award, for our claims and contract management solutions.

Consumer Services delivered organic revenue growth of 11%. We are deepening and growing our member relationships by helping consumers to manage their financial health. This year we introduced a range of new features, including new ways to boost your credit score using rental information and bill negotiation to help with savings. We are proud that Experian is now a top 15 US finance app (in the Apple App Store) with a 4.8 star rating. Our membership base has grown to 62 million, up by ten million year-on-year. We now provide offers across several active verticals, which means more ways for consumers to engage with Experian in order to manage their finances. Marketplace delivered another strong year of growth, driven by cards and loans expansion, even as credit market conditions got somewhat tougher and lenders reduced credit market supply. New services for lenders have been an important factor in helping us to outperform in the current environment: Experian Activate enables lenders to target their offers more precisely and to help them secure higher conversion rates. We also benefit from the growing diversity of our business model. The contribution from our insurance vertical is growing rapidly, while premium membership and partner solutions also contributed positively.

Benchmark EBIT rose 6% to US$1,467m. The Benchmark EBIT margin reduced 40 basis points to 33.1%. Margins reflected the mix of growth, investments in our verification services and our insurance marketplace and our innovations across our scaling verticals.

Latin America

Latin America delivered strongly, with revenue of US$947m representing organic revenue growth of 16% and total revenue growth at constant currency of 18%. Acquisitions contributing to our performance included Sinacofi, our new bureau in Chile, and PagueVeloz in Consumer Services in Brazil.

In B2B, organic revenue growth was 13%.

Credit markets in Brazil continue to undergo significant change brought about by regulatory reforms, creating new opportunities for our business all driven by the expansion of the market. We have established over 200 sources of positive data, covering 82% of the credit active population, and are seeing strong demand for positive data solutions, including improved scores, more predictive analytics and sophisticated software platforms. Ascend is progressing well, with adoption by existing and new clients. PowerCurve performed well and we are growing strongly in fraud prevention. We are adding and growing relationships with small and medium enterprises, and our agribusiness vertical, which is still at an early stage of its development, grew very strongly.

Spanish Latin America delivered strong growth, reflecting bureau volume strength, uptake of new richer datasets and advanced analytics. We are also rolling out the Ascend platform and have benefited from good demand for our fraud and identity management products.

In Consumer Services, organic revenue growth was 32%. We continue to build our brand in Brazil with the ambition of becoming one of the most recognised financial services brands. We added 10 million consumer memberships year-on-year to take our total free membership base to 81 million. Our app now ranks at number two of Brazil’s top financial services apps (per data.ai). We are enhancing our ecosystem of consumer offers to encourage engagement and enhance the value of our services to our consumer members. Revenue growth reflected further progress in our debt resolution service, Limpa Nome, as we added new partners and settled more debts on the platform, plus increased usage of our credit marketplace and premium services. We are also developing services for consumers more widely across Latin America and our membership count for Spanish Latin America has reached 13 million.

Benchmark EBIT in Latin America was US$294m, up 30% at constant exchange rates. The Benchmark EBIT margin from ongoing activities at actual exchange rates was 31.0%, up by 280 basis points. While we continue to invest in developing new market opportunities, the margin uplift reflects revenue growth drop-through and improving margin in Consumer Services as the business scales.

UK and Ireland

The UK and Ireland delivered a good performance overall. Revenue was US$784m, with both total and organic revenue growth at constant exchange rates of 5%.

In B2B, organic revenue was up 7%, a great performance in a year that included periods of extreme economic instability. Our market position in the UK has strengthened, driven by investments we have made to extend data superiority and to add new product capability. As a result, we secured new business wins across a broad range of industry segments including financial services, energy, utilities and telecommunications. While lenders have tightened credit criteria, affordability and eligibility products performed well, and we are helping our clients to cope with the cost-of-living crisis, as well as to meet new regulatory obligations under the Financial Conduct Authority’s new Consumer Duty. Fraud and identity management also performed well, with strong win rates and new business bookings, while Targeting also contributed positively. While we expect economic conditions in the UK to remain fairly soft, we are confident we will emerge strongly when the economic cycle turns. Our confidence is underpinned by a compelling pipeline of new product introductions, which include new Ascend modules, products to support fairness in lending and new capabilities to conduct income and employment verification.

In Consumer Services, organic revenue was down (4)%. While consumer demand for credit held up relatively well, volumes in our credit marketplace were affected in the second half of the year by the reduction in credit supply. Our premium subscription services were also affected negatively as we lapped a strong prior year comparable. We are investing in new capabilities to attract and retain members, and introducing a new Credit Lock feature this year. We plan further new feature introductions in the months to come. Free memberships were 12 million.

Benchmark EBIT from ongoing activities was US$170m, up 1% at constant exchange rates. The Benchmark EBIT margin from ongoing activities was 21.7% (2022: 22.2%). The reductions reflect start-up investment in our income and employment verification initiative, the commencement of the implementation phase of our UK&I technology migration plan and lower growth in Consumer Services.

EMEA/Asia Pacific

In EMEA/Asia Pacific, revenue from ongoing activities was US$424m, with both total and organic growth at constant exchange rates of 3%.

The transformation of our EMEA/Asia Pacific operations is progressing well. We have reduced costs and are exiting from non-core activities. We are focused on realising our full potential in markets where we have scale by utilising our extensive data assets and leveraging Experian global platforms. We made progress this year despite macroeconomic headwinds in some markets.

· Australia & New Zealand – made good progress positioning Ascend and Experian One, with positive contributions in data.

· DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) – delivered a weaker performance due to economic headwinds and lower volumes.

· India – delivered strongly with a strong contribution from our bureau.

· Italy – performed strongly due to new product innovations and higher bureau volumes from new business.

· South Africa – delivered well, with good progress in decisioning, despite macroeconomic headwinds.

· Spain – performed well despite a strong prior-year comparative, with strong growth from Consumer Information volumes and Open Banking.

Our actions have led to an improved Benchmark EBIT trajectory, which for ongoing activities was US$14m, up 8%. The Benchmark EBIT margin for ongoing activities improved to 3.3% from 2.9%.

In the full year ended 31 March 2023, the non-core markets accounted for revenue of US$32m and Benchmark EBIT of US$(8)m. Due to higher interest rates and macroeconomic weakness in our European markets we have impaired goodwill in EMEA by US$179m.

FY24 modelling considerations

Organic revenue growth	4-6%
Benchmark EBIT margin¹	Modest margin improvement
Foreign exchange	c.0 to +1% on revenue and Benchmark EBIT
Net interest	c.US$125-130m
Benchmark tax rate	26-27%
WANOS²	c.914m
Capital expenditure	c.9% of revenue
OCF³ conversion	>90%
Share repurchases	US$150m