Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Intercontinental Hotel Group Interim Results Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to Catherine Dolton to begin today's conference. Thank you.

Thank you, good morning, everyone. This is Catherine Dolton, Head of Investor Relations. I'm joined this morning by Richard Solomons, Chief Executive; and Tom Singer, Chief Financial Officer. Before I hand over to them for discussion of our results, I need to remind you that in the following discussion, the company may make certain forward-looking statements as defined under U.S. law. Please check this morning's press release and the company's SEC filings for factors that could lead actual results to differ materially from any such forward-looking statement. I will now turn the call over to Richard Solomons.

Thanks, Catherine, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to our 2013 half year results presentation. In a moment, Tom will take you through the financial results in detail. But first, let me cover some highlights. IHG has delivered a solid half of growth, but there is clearly some continuing noise in several of the markets we operate in around the world. One of IHG's many strengths is our global reach and in recent months, our good performance has been driven by our significant position in the U.S. At the top line, our global RevPAR grew 3.7% driven by growing preference for our brand and decent levels of consumer demand around the world. Together with 1.7% net rooms growth, which is fueled increasingly by our expansion in developing markets, this drove up fees almost 4%. Whilst investing to drive growth, we continually look to be efficient in our cost management, combined with our success in leveraging our scale, that allowed us to reinvest in the business, whilst delivering further growth in profit margins. Our announcement today of a $350 million special dividend, combined with a 10% increase in the interim dividend is the latest step in our long-standing commitment to deliver value to shareholders. I'm now going to hand over to Tom, who'll talk in more detail about our financial performance in the first half, and I'll come back later to provide an update on some of the work we've been doing to create preferred brands. Tom?

Thank you, Richard, and good morning, everyone. We've had a good start for the year with group revenue up 2% and operating profit up 6% at constant exchange rates, and excluding the impact of $40 million of liquidated damages received in the half. Profits were up 9% if you also adjust for the disposal of InterContinental London Park Lane. Interest of $36 million is higher than last year, reflecting the bond we issued in the fourth quarter of 2012. Our effective tax rate was 2 percentage points higher at 31%, in line with our guidance. For the full year, we still expect the effective tax rate to be in the low 30s, and this should also be the case for 2014. Profit after tax grew to $209 million and our adjusted earnings per share increased 25% to $0.782. This includes the lower average share count following good progress with our capital returns program, which I'll update you on later on. Growth in fee revenue is an important metric for our asset-light business model. The key drivers of this are RevPAR, room growth and royalty rate. Group fee revenues were up 3.9% in the half, led by our Americas and Greater China regions, up almost 7% and 5%, respectively. The Americas is a mature market, and our business model there is predominantly franchised. This means that fee growth closely tracks our growth in RevPAR and net rooms. The dynamic is similar for Europe, albeit with a higher mix of managed hotels. As I've said before, our geographic mix is changing with an increasing proportion of hotels opening in developing countries, which are predominantly in our Asia, Middle East and Africa, and the Greater China regions. This means that hotels are often opening at the same time as the sources of demand…

Thanks, Tom. So we're now 10 years as a standalone company. IHG has demonstrated consistent delivery gains that clearly defined strategy. We deliver preferred experiences for guests through our highly targeted brand propositions consistently delivered by talented people. We establish and build on scale positions in specific markets and leverage these to create revenue and cost synergies. We have a strong portfolio of brand and an industry-leading loyalty program, which allows us to capture more guests and then grow our share of their wallets. Having effective strategy which optimizes our delivery channels is a key way in which we deliver profitable revenue into hotels, and of course, providing a superior proposition for our owners is vital. The output of this model for IHG is growing cash flows and a high return on investment. We'll talk to you in more depth about the work we're doing around some of these areas in an educational event that we plan to hold in London on the 19th of November. This will focus on, amongst other things, the guest segmentation work we've been doing and how we're tailoring our strategy and innovating to enable us to continue to win in key markets around the world. So today, I want to provide an update on some of the work we've been doing to build preferred brands with more to come in November. Our focus is on creating genuinely-preferred consumer brands, which are at the heart of our business. It's a simple concept but one that is hard to deliver unless you have the portfolio of brands, the scale and the expertise that IHG has. Our approach has always been to maximize the strength and scale potential of every brand that we own. This has worked well for us. Although we have fewer brands than most…

[Operator Instructions] And we have a first question from the line of David Loeb with Baird.

Did you -- Richard, did you give a date for the London meeting? I'm not sure I caught that.

I did. 19th of November.

Great. Can you give a little more detail on how New York is going, the sale of the New York asset? You referenced in the release that it was ongoing, but any more details on that?

Yes. No, it is progressing. Let me ask Tom just to say couple of words on that.

Yes. David, I mean there's no concrete news at this point in time. Obviously, we started the remarketing efforts in early May. We are still in active discussions with a number of interested parties. We don't -- although it's been a longer period of time to sell than we would have ideally wished, we don't need to force the pace on this. And ultimately, we're very much focused on doing the right deal for shareholders, which means getting the right owner involved who really understand the InterCon brand as -- is prepared to invest in the asset for the longer term. And if you look at the actual performance of the hotel, it's traded well through the year-to-date with RevPAR up 6%. So [indiscernible] we'll do the right deal for shareholders, and we're still working very hard on it.

New York asset prices seem to be firm to, if anything, up a little bit; cap rates really solid. Do you think that you will get more than you originally contemplated?

It's hard to tell. I mean it's a complicated deal. As you know, there's a big refurbishment plan attaching to the hotel. It's not just also about the headline price, it's also about the management agreement that we put in place and also about getting the right investment plan agreed with any perspective owner. So yes, I think the market probably has moved in our favor a little bit over the last 2 years whilst we've been talking about the transaction. But we're still working hard on it, and you'll have to wait and see in terms of the final shape of the deal that we're able to do.

Sure, that makes sense. And one more piece on that. You've said some things about beginning that refurbishment plan. Does that mean that you, as the current owner, are putting the plans together essentially, but that would still be funded and executed by the buyer?

Yes. That's the intention. We're having to make a minimal amount of CapEx investment in the hotel right now, but it's very much in the nature of maintenance CapEx. But in terms of the refurb plan, our intention is to work with a prospective purchaser on that and not to ultimately [ph] fund ourselves.

Okay. And one more topic on EVEN. The first New York Hotel, it doesn't seem like there's a lot going on there, a lot of construction activity. Is that still on track? Do you still expect the opening next year?

Yes. I don't think we've been specific about which hotel opens when. But no, certainly that's -- they're all proceeding as we planned.

Okay. And on the $150 million target, with the owner acceptance growing for this, do you think that you'll be able to spend less than you originally thought? Or do you think you will spend most of that $930 million?

No, we targeted spending that. And if we can spread it across more hotels, that would be good. But if we don't have to spend it, we won't. But I think we're committed to getting the right hotels in the right places, so we'll put the capital that we need and then we'll recycle it as we've done in previous occasions.

Our next question comes from the line of Steven Kent with Goldman Sachs.

2 questions. One, I guess Richard, when I think about what you said about China and some of the more macro issues, I guess I continue to struggle why wouldn't the pipeline of build start to follow if there's broader weakness? And maybe you can just address that, if there are 2 different dynamics that we're missing on that. And then second, we've heard from another -- from some of the other leisure travel companies that the U.S. consumer is acting weak or it's just weaker than it has been in the past few months. Is there anything that you see that gives you some comfort that at least near term, besides the July results, that August, September, October, November are going to act better? Or any sense for that from talking to your franchisees or GMs?

Yes. Steve, we don't give formal guidance, as you know. And given how much they'd moved it, you can probably can see why we don't. But no, I think, July trend is broad in line with the first half. And we have specific visibility, as you know, that's relatively short because booking windows have got shorter. But I think overall, if you look at the [indiscernible] we've seen for the year, we've continued to grow, we've continued to gain share in many of the markets. And I think it will really be down to confidence, GDP and disposable income. Those, as you know, are the key drivers. It's very hard to predict, but I don't see anything out there now that necessarily changes trends, I have to say.

As far as China is concerned, I think the issue in China is sort of twofold. We take a long-term view on it, and the longer-term macro trends are very good in terms of GDP growth, this move towards, say, consumers spend. There's huge investments in infrastructure. All of which will dictate, I think, that hotel demand will continue to grow. In the shorter term, you've got winners and losers and we've been in the market 30 years. We're the biggest, as you know, by quite a long way of all the global companies. And I think we do take a very careful approach when it comes to how we're growing this. So we really focused on picking the right owners, picking the right locations. And we signed 9,000 rooms in the first half, which is significantly up on same period last year. So we've got a lot of owners, whether it's across the existing brands or the 19 deals that we signed on HUALUXE. We're taking a very positive medium- and long-term view. And again, as I think you know, a lot of these developments are part of mixed-use; not in sort of U.S. terms mixed-use, but city blocks, suburbs, cities being created. And the issue really is the demand drivers are being built at the same time as the physical hotels. So I think it's quite -- it's sort of hard to compare exactly with how the development's been maybe in the U.S. or with some other developed markets. But I think we've seen -- in these emerging markets, we've seen always, whatever they are, ups and downs. But I think you have to take a medium- and long term-view, which we do. And I think -- also, I think we've been there long enough hopefully to understand what's going on. I think there are a few of our competitors who've been late to the game, who are just dashing for growth and I think signing a lot of deals, many of which may not open, and some of which may not be in the best locations. And we're doing our best to avoid that. And with 70% of our pipeline under construction, I think we're in a decent place. Does that answer your question?

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Jones with Telsey.

Just 2 quick questions. Just following up on the last one, can you just maybe focus specifically on the group business? I think some of our -- of your competitors have actually called out group as an area and it seems to be a bit of a split in the U.S. as to what the prognosis is for that going forward there. And secondly, we've heard some chatter out there about some franchise operators potentially raising fees. And I'm not sure if that is something that you guys are contemplating or something you would seize an opportunity as well?

Chris, I think on group, bookings are up for 2013, but we aren't as skewed to that group market as some of our other competitors who've reported, I think. So it's a much bigger issue for them. We're much more broadly spread. And as I talk about the quality of our income stream, the breadth of our brands, the spread of our business, I do think we're less skewed to certain markets than they are. So I don't think we see some any particular trends around group. As far as fees, I mean we upped Holiday Inn Express from the 5% fee to 6% fee some years ago. And I think that worked very well for that brand at that point. I think right now, we don't see a lot of the short-term opportunity for moving fees. I mean, I think, for us, it's about continuing to drive the top line and getting our share of revenues coming through and signing new deals. So we're not contemplating anything in the short term.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now hand back to your host for any concluding remarks.

Okay. Well, thank you, everybody. I appreciate the questions, I appreciate your time. And obviously, if you've got any more things you'd like to ask, please contact us directly and we'll get back to you. Thank you very much, indeed.

Thank you for joining today's conference. You may now disconnect your lines.