So, hello and welcome to our FY26 full year presentation. And if we could move straight on to the presentation team slide. So, I'm Rod Waldy, Chief Executive Officer of Gately PLC. As usual, I'm joined by our Acquisitions and Investor Relations Director, Nick Smith. In addition to which, I'm delighted to welcome two new people to this week's presentation team. Firstly, in September 2025, we announced that John Payton was joining Gately in January 2026 as an executive director. John has been on board since then and, as planned, succeeded Neil Smith as our CFO on 1st May. He is an excellent CFO and a great new member of the executive team. A very warm welcome to you, John. Secondly, in line with an announcement made by us on the 21st of July, for personal health-related reasons, after six years in role, I will be stepping down as CEO on 1st August. We'll soon launch our search for a new CEO. In the meantime, Martin Pike will be our interim CEO. He's been a non-executive director of Gately since April 2025 and chair of our audit committee. He knows the business well and has a wealth of experience in professional services. I know that Martin is very much looking forward to meeting investors and other stakeholders in due course. So moving on briefly to the agenda slide. Very briefly, as shown on this slide, we've split this presentation into three sections. And well, without further ado, actually, I'll take the key highlights section, which takes us nicely on to the next slide. So moving to this overview slide. It's good to once again be reporting strong revenue growth, despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop during parts of the year. If you need a reminder of this, please see our unbroken track record of revenue growth in the appendix to this deck. When we turn to it, the next slide will show that most of our revenue growth was organic and was delivered by a broadly flat average overall fee and a headcount. Key contributors being a slight improvement in ongoing good utilisation overall versus FY25, allied to the improved pricing methodology that was introduced in year. the ongoing benefit of which we will see enhanced by the FY27 adoption by our legal services teams of COSIGN, a market-leading pricing tool which was part of our investment in systems during FY26. It's also encouraging to see contribution margin improved during the year. That was achieved despite two factors which reduced reported FY26 revenue. So, some transactional activity deferred into 2027. As we reported at the half-year, transactional activity softened during the eight-week period between announcement and delivery of the government's autumn budget in late November. We then saw a further softening following the uncertainty stimulated by the onset of unrest in the Middle East in early March. In a number of areas, clients became more cautious and transaction timetables lengthened. Now, importantly, much of this work hasn't been lost. It's simply taking longer to complete than originally anticipated. Secondly, whilst we saw good contribution from our dispute resolution teams, some of our more complex dispute resolution work is contingent in nature. meaning that some or or in much rarer cases all of our value in those cases cannot be recognized until as revenue until case specific milestones are reached a good example is austin hayes where we have continued to invest in a growing portfolio of class action matters more broadly we're also involved in some higher value non-class action mandates from which regular invoicing is delivering strong contribution, but where part of our fee remains deferred or contingent. We have a good, strong track record of converting this work into revenue over time and remain confident in the underlying value being created. Whilst we're pleased to report an increase in our adjusted operating profit, I'm the first to admit disappointment in us not progressing our adjusted operating profit margin, which did slightly reduce. This is a factor of the previously mentioned twice softening of some activity versus our budgeted cost base. We took some in-year steps to reduce cost and cost management is an active and important ongoing pillar in our current year strategy to improve profitability. I know that John will pick up on this later. In-year M&A activity was confined to the acquisition of GWW at the end of August last year. As then reported, this was a cash-weighted transaction funded through RRCF. It adds strong trademark attorney credentials to the existing trademark expertise in group, performed ahead of our expectations in FY26, and it now forms part of our consolidated IP consultancy services. That's effective from 1st May under a new brand, Gately IP. This represents a maturing of our model with appropriate consolidation, simplifying our offer to the market, and ultimately delivering synergies and efficiencies that will go to the bottom line. AI is one of the most important developments affecting professional services in recent years, and it has been an area of focus for Gately for some time. During FY26, we completed an extensive, seven months actually, testing and evaluation program before selecting GILO as the platform on which we are now building AI-enabled workflows across our service lines. Alongside that, we continue to invest in our internal AI development capacity, creating bespoke solutions which support client service and operational efficiency. And we've recently strengthened our technology leadership team with the appointment of a new CTO with strong professional services credentials. We remain deliberately pragmatic about the opportunities that AI presents in what remains a rapidly evolving area. We believe we have the right foundations, governance framework and technology partnerships in place to allow us to continue developing our capabilities as the market evolves. And I know Nick will say more about this shortly. Like most businesses, we're navigating through what feels like perpetual macroeconomic uncertainty, accepting that some degree of macro volatility is now almost a certainty to be planned for year on year. However, our unbroken track record of revenue growth is testament to the resilience in our differentiated business model, the diversity of services in which positions us well as we move forward. We're pleased with the momentum which we've carried into FY27, reflected in good utilisation across most parts of the group, and we're positive in outlook. continuing to grow our business model remains a key part of our strategy but with an enhanced focus on actual delivery of progressive improvement in profit for the benefit of all our stakeholders that focus is thematic as we move through this presentation we're set up for disciplined application of strategy to achieve our goals and i've got a deep belief in those tasked to do so so just moving to the next slide key financial highlights this builds numbers into some of the overview points made by me in reference to the last slide John will build out these numbers in the slides that follow and therefore I'm not going to dwell too long here as already said by me we're pleased to be reporting strong revenue growth at 8.2 percent against a difficult backdrop during parts of the year. 6.2% of that growth is organic and in part was delivered from our focus on pricing and scope management. Other ongoing initiatives which helped revenue growth include a strong contribution via our key client account management program, Stellar, which grew revenue from those clients attached to it by 16%. That means £6 million, including through the introduction of 37 new business lines. I've already said that we are pleased with delivery of improved contribution and improved adjusted operating profit, but disappointed with our adjusted operating profit margin outturn, improvement in which is our core financial focus as we move through FY27 and beyond. Are net debtors increased? John will take us through this by reference to the group cash flow slide later in this presentation. And I think for me, the final point that I'd like to pick up on this slide is that we are recommending a 2p per share final dividend, making total dividend for FY26 5.3p per share. This represents circa 45% of FY26 adjusted earnings and rebases our dividend on a more sustainable footing with greater dividend cover and providing greater flexibility for future progressive dividend growth each year. Again, John will touch on this later. And actually, John, I think that's probably a good point for me to hand over to you to fill out the key financials.
Thank you, Rod. And I'm very pleased to be presenting my first set of Gately the results and while clearly disappointed of Rod's news I look forward to his ongoing support and working with Martin over the coming months alongside the wider team to deliver our plans. And on the income statement as Rod notes strong 8.2 percent revenue growth this year over 6 percent organic growth reflecting strong property and business services progress in particular plus the addition of GWW. Platform contribution after allocation of certain direct and other platform costs improved 110 basis points to 34.9% reflecting this fee rate focus and progress this year alongside broadly consistent team activity on average and similarly sized fee earner team on average overall. And we'll step through the platforms in a moment. So going through the P&L the key administration operational support cost line grew 18 percent comprising firstly a two million increase in support personnel costs from both additional support roles full year effect from FY25 and some further heads in FY26 across HR, finance, risk compliance etc. Also the admin support pay rises summer 25 plus the April 25 national insurance increase contributed to the rise, part offset by variable cost management in the year. Secondly, 4.4 million of other operating expenses across a range of areas, mainly above inflationary cost increases in the likes of IT licenses plus ongoing IT project spend, insurances above inflation increases including private healthcare premium increases and other professional advisor and other fees alongside the additional investment into Dubai, in Austin Hayes and of course the GWW admin spend as well. Which results in adjusted operating profit of £21.5 million for the year, up slightly on last year and at a lower 11.1% margin, reflecting this improved platform contribution offset by the higher cost base. Net finance income drops to £159,000, reflecting both the higher RCF borrowings and lower client interest earned. The 28.8% effective adjusted tax rate results in adjusted profit after tax of 15.4 million which flows through to 11.5 pence adjusted EPS which was restated in the prior year. The 5.3 pence total dividend per share comprises a two pence final dividend recommendation added on to the 3.3 pence interim already paid. And as Rod noted, this dividend level represents up to around 45% of adjusted profits. The board considers that this remains a strong payout ratio while placing the dividend onto a more sustainable footing with a greater dividend cover and allows the group the flexibility to grow progressively from this year's 5.3 pence per share. So turning over to the platform's performance, property is the group's largest platform accounting for just over half of the group's revenue. The UK property market has remained uncertain and the property teams have navigated this very well with near 8% revenue growth, particularly from residential house building and real estate spaces, albeit with some Q4 inertia seen also as the interest rate environment worsened. Contribution also improved, particularly in the legal businesses, with good fee rate progress and cost focus in certain areas such as real estate. The built environment consultancies have had a flatter top line year overall, with margin improvement through active cost management for example in Gately Hamer at the start of the year. The platform enters FY27 cautiously positive overall with some good activity levels and legal service lines and some of the consultancies and the platform looks to continue to navigate successfully the wider UK property market dynamics in the year ahead. In business services, business services benefits from the GWW acquisition and also delivered strong 10% growth organically year on year with good legal services growth also, particularly our corporate dispute resolution business and our international recovery work streams. Legal fee rates progressed well alongside good utilisation levels across legal, especially in the disputes and international recovery teams. This improvement includes a top 20 UK legal litigation which is part funded and part recognised at good rates and also contains further upside benefit of not yet recognised contingent income on satisfactory conclusion of the matter. The intellectual property consultancies within business services had a mixed year with lower activity levels year on year offset by the GWW acquisition, which is performing ahead of our expectations at good margins. Business services enters FY27 well, with our contentious legal businesses continuing to be active with some good activity in the IP consultancies. And turning over to corporate, the corporate platform ended 3% up on last year overall. As noted at the half year, the UK government's budget timing affected H1 and further macro transaction inertia was seen towards the end of our financial year with the March outbreak of the Middle East conflict affecting activity with paused or slower transactions often extending deal contingent timelines into FY27. The highlights were seen in the counter cyclical restructuring team and the banking team which both had strong years with strong activity levels and new bank relationships also added. Contribution margin was affected by this transaction inertia alongside further investment in our Dubai office. Those themes have continued into FY27 with a good pipeline transactions building albeit with the ongoing extended timeline effect alongside good restructuring activity. Dubai has also started the new financial year well with a tax offering now launched and the pipeline continuing to build relatively well and while encouraging we approach the year cautiously given the regional macro. The people platform revenue eased year on year having resized our private client team appropriately. People consulting was also more mixed albeit some more discretionary leadership service landed some key new global clients. The highlights were and employment and pension teams comprising the majority of the platform, which both saw strong activity levels and some fee improvements. Contribution margin eased, reflecting the overall mix of these factors. Similar themes continue into FY27, with the employment and pension teams remaining busy, with opportunities seen from the introduction of the Employment Rights Act. Consulting has also started well with large projects ongoing into H1. Turning now to the operating profit bridge and viewing the operating profit and its component drivers we show here the organic revenue growth bridging organic inorganic and growth investments and stepping through the movements first on the left hand side the 9.3 million revenue uplift excludes GWW, Austin Hayes and Dubai. As noted, this growth comprises mainly rates and conversion progress in the year. The first cost block, the FY26 salary increases, were at more modest levels compared to previous year, plus the NI increase. As mentioned earlier, the group also added two million of net support staff additions, part offset by variable cost management, and this 1.1 million shown is the relevant organic addition. Other operational costs increases included 2.3 million across both increased IT costs and increases in insurances as mentioned. Positively GWW adds its 1.8 million contribution for the first eight months of group ownership and that takes us to an over 24 million adjusted operating profit before organic growth investments around 12.5% adjusted operating margin before those organic investments. And the organic growth investments on the right hand side of the page are now more narrowly defined as supporting the Dubai office build out and supporting our Austin Hayes class action business. Investments discussed previously in corporate disputes and complex international recovery work streams are now contributing well. Combined the Dubai and Austin Hayes net investment bridges us to the final 21.5 total adjusted operating profit and as we'll cover later we continue to see future margin improvement via our fee rate focus, further capacity utilisation, cost management and returns from our organic investments. Turning over to the adjusting expenses and briefly touching on this page these are very consistent captions from prior years bar the addition of a one-off debtor's provision at the foot of the table. And stepping through, the share-based payment charge increases with the larger number of employee-restricted share awards in the year plus an increased associated social security accrual. Acquisition-related items are also added back. The group acquisitions have to date typically included payments conditional on the vendors remaining in the business for a period of time post-acquisition. Therefore, this employment linkage results in the acquisition being an employment expense under IFRS 3. This is added back to analyse underlying profitability. And the add back reduces this year, given the balance between prior acquisitions and GWW. Similarly, negative goodwill or a gain on bargain purchase arises on the GWW acquisition this year as a result of this employment linked acquisition treatment and is similarly added back. Reorganisation costs relate to the active management of the cost base are considered non-underlying and increased to £2.6 million, given the more active staff management processes across real estate, Hamer and other parts of the group. And the new caption shown is the £810,000 increased provision on significantly aged receivables. A review was conducted in recent months across the debtor book, especially debtor items aged over three years old. And this concluded that the recoverability of certain items was objectively now limited and the level of this write-off is materially higher than recent years write-offs and is not expected to repeat and is therefore treated as an adjusting item given this one-off cleanse of historical non-recoverable debtors. And moving to the balance sheet and focusing on the working capital movement, first the debtors increased by 4.8 million overall with broadly flat 111 debtor days and focus is being brought on debtor collections generally with internal processes being enhanced, aligning credit control and senior finance with the wider business to ensure timely focus and follow-up of outstandings. Material opportunity sits within the property and other platforms And we'll look to improve the group's typical 100 plus debtor day profile over the coming periods Secondly, the 2.6 million widening in the contract assets or WIP balance is also for extra WIP days The movement is mainly in business services, contentious work streams, corporate recovery and real estate teams Some of which represents the timing of delayed deal completions It is worth noting that the contingent contentious workstreams are only recognised to the extent that they are on retainers, are funded or insured. Contingent fees are not recognised in group revenue or WIP and this off-balance sheet contingent element has also grown in the year. And we look forward to future workstream resolution to allow future revenue recognition in due course. Otherwise, the balance sheet movements represent acquisition-related movements, increased lease office footprint, trading and relative timing of payments year on year. The group ended the year with £25.3 million net debt, with £33.3 million drawn on the RCF. And going forward, we'll look to improve working capital and reduce the RCF balance. And the final number page we turn to is the cash flow bridge. and the group's net debt increased by almost 19 million to 25.3 million at 30th of April as set out. Adjusted cash conversion improved mainly relating to the balance sheet movements and the relative working capital cash outflow year in year. Working capital widened and we have discussed the increased trade receivables earlier and this will remain a key focus to improve in FY27. From the 13.3 million adjusted operating cash flow, 6.7 million of tax payments were made with around a million of additional catch up from earlier periods and free cash flow after tax, capex, interest and other non-operating payments, including restructuring, was 2.5 million. From this, the group acquired 3.4 million of shares via the EBT, paid almost 13 million in dividends and 5 million in acquisition payments, thereby ending the year with 25.3 million in net debt. And that ends the key financials section. And if I turn now more to Outlook, let me pick up briefly our strategy to improve margins and then hand over to Nick and Rod to wrap up. Our strategy to improve margins is fourfold. Firstly, fee rates. As previously set out, fee rates have been an ongoing focus. Rod and Neil have talked previously of fee earner pricing training and good rate increases last year, which again increased recently at the start of FY27. The Cosign budgeting software is currently being rolled out and being well received by fee earners to support pricing discipline, better whip management and fee recovery and ongoing refreshing write off levels and approval limits. In cost management, we have already mentioned some focused headcount reductions in certain of the property businesses and elsewhere in the year. The FY27 budget has a strong cost focus with certain savings year on year in discretionary spend areas. And as part of this, we have recently launched a small redundancy consultation process, potentially to lose up to 40 mainly support staff, but also a handful of other lower margin or lower utilised fee earner roles. Utilisation is a key lever in the FY27 budget and ongoing recruitment is being selectively and carefully balanced with pipeline outlook as well as operational efficiency. In the organic investments we'll have talked previously of the growth focused organic investments in recent years and as noted the commercial disputes resolution and international recovery work streams have good activity part funded part contingent and we look forward to further contingent upside and positive resolution. Dubai and Austin Hayes in our organic growth investments are making good progress and we look forward to updating further going forward. And finally in systems and AI the business continues to invest in systems and technology including this year the Jylo AI platform. We have governance in place prioritizing AI playbooks with the most immediate benefits and we look forward to reporting progress through the year. And with that I will hand to Nick to give more detail on AI.
Thanks John. As Rod has said, AI has been an area of focus for Gately for some time and we have now moved from evaluation into deployment. Our approach is practical rather than theoretical. We are identifying specific workflows where AI can produce measurable benefits for clients and for our business. That means being workflow-led, not technology-led. We're not trying to present AI as a single answer to every part of the group but we are applying it in areas where we believe it can improve speed consistency efficiency and ultimately the way we deliver our work importantly we're not a legal only business as you will know around 30 percent of group revenues are generated by consultancy operations and a number of those services are inherently more resistant to ai driven disruption because they involve things like physical world activities, evidence handling, site-based delivery, or ongoing operational responsibility. That diversification means we are assessing AI from a different starting point to legal-only operations. Following a successful seven-month pilot program, we've invested in the GILO AI platform, and we've moved from assessment into deployment. The initial focus is in areas such as due diligence review, NDA review, chronology generation, commercial lease analysis, and certificate of title workflows. These are examples of work streams where technology can improve speed, consistency, and efficiency while still operating within an appropriate framework of professional supervision. However, our deployment program is not confined to client-facing legal activities. We're also exploring opportunities across central operations and support functions where improved efficiency, consistency and scalability can benefit the wider group. Importantly, our objective is not merely to reduce the time spent on particular tasks across fee earning teams. The real opportunity is to improve throughput, increase the consistency of outputs, enhance the client experience, improve recovery rates, streamline internal processes and allow our people to spend more of their time on higher value advisory and operational activities. But we are also realistic about the risks. Recent well-publicised examples across the legal sector demonstrate why governance matters. our approach is therefore founded upon testing human oversight and clear accountability we see technology as augmenting expert judgment not replacing it and whilst it's still in the early stages of adoption across the industry as a whole we believe ai has the potential to become an important contributor to productivity scalability and ultimately margin improvement over time that's particularly relevant to gately given the diversification provided by our consultancy businesses our focus is therefore on disciplined implementation practical use cases and ensuring that value created through these investments is captured by the business put simply our objective is to use technology to help our professionals and our operations deliver more effectively while strengthening Gately's long-term competitive position. Rod.
Thanks Nick. That's a really good summation of our current positioning in relation to AI. Really grateful for that. So I'm dropping back in here. John and I are actually going to share this slide. I'm going to pick up the left hand side and in doing so let's start by reminding you as I said at the top of the presentation that we are pleased, very pleased actually, with revenue growth of 8.2%, the majority of which was organic. New pricing methodology allied to improved utilisation were key drivers of growth in contribution and represent strategy in action. Those drivers continue positively into FY27, including in relation to client mandates that were deferred into this year. We remain committed to growth through appropriate organic and acquired investment in services, exampled by the well-made acquisition of GWW last August, and also through appropriate internal change projects, including for streamlined service offer, as exampled by the recent consolidation of our IP businesses under the banner Gately IP. And finally, our commitment to growth is through investment in AI and related systems, a strategic imperative most recently shown in us adopting the GILO platform. steps taken by us in year in fy26 i mean there to realize appropriate cost savings will benefit this year fy27 alongside which we are actively addressing further appropriate cost savings as part of our strategy to deliver our core financial objective improvement in our adjusted operating profit margin and working capital. So John handing over to you for your closing comments on this slide and in doing so saying that we are confident in our positioning and ability to deliver with good activity levels baking into our current year. John.
Thanks Rod and on the right hand side of the page agree we are well positioned for the future and we start the new financial year well with good ongoing activity levels in the first couple of months and we will carefully manage through the uncertain backdrop. We remain focused on margin improvement. On pricing, we have talked and seen that we've implemented strong standard fee rate increases at the start of this year and the cosine rollout should help us further through the year. There's more potential in the platform structure and will continue to look to drive full client servicing and increased multiple client contact points. Costs will be tightly controlled and we're currently consulting on potentially up to 40 redundant roles and we'll continue to look for efficiency and technology quick win enablements. Our organic growth investments also progress and we look forward to further developments and returns in due course. We'll also continue to focus obviously on working capital through the year and with focus on those levers in a diversified and high quality model we believe we are well positioned for further sustainable profitable growth ahead
