Reach PLC (RCH) Q2 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to those of you in the room and also online. Welcome to REACH's half year results for 2025. It's good to see a number of familiar faces in the room, but for those who don't know me, my name's Piers North, and I'm privileged to be here today as the REACH Chief Executive. Today, I want to cover three things. One, how I see the business and its trajectory. Two, sharing with you our strategic priorities for the upcoming future. And then I'll move on to updating on our performance from the half years before handing over to Darren to talk through the detailed financials. Before I do that, just a couple of dry housekeeping points. It's just a reminder to turn your phones onto airplay mode or silent, please. And secondly, our standard disclaimer, which you'll be glad I won't read out, but I will trust that you're familiar with and that has been noted. So moving on, these results will be my first as Chief Executive, so I do want to just briefly introduce myself, and I promise, obviously, I won't do this every time. I've been with the business for 10 years now, and I spent the last five years in the role of Chief Revenue Officer before taking on the role of Chief Executive in March. What excited me about Reach when I joined those 10 or so years ago, our scale, our incredible legacy brands, plus the potential to unlock future revenue opportunities, is still what excites me today. Now, as I said, I was Chief Revenue Officer here for five years, which means I know the commercial business, especially the digital, and especially the wider industry, very well indeed. It also means I've been lucky enough to establish some fantastic relationships across the leadership team at Reach and the wider business. We have brilliant people at our business, an...