Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to welcome you to the IHT Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to handover to your host, Heather Woods to begin. Please begin when you’re ready Heather.

Thanks [Pauline] and good morning everyone. This is Heather Woods, Interim Head of Investor Relations at IHG. I am joined this morning by Richard Solomons, our Chief Executive; and Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson, Chief Financial Officer. Before I hand over to Richard for his introductory remarks and the 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 statements. I'll now turn the call over to Richard.

Thanks, Heather. Good morning. Thanks for joining us today for our first quarter trading and conference call. As Heather said, I’m joined by Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson, our Chief Financial Officer. In a moment Paul will take you through the details of our first quarter results. But first, I wanted to update you on the other announcement that we made this morning that I’ll be retiring from IHG at the end of August stepping down from my role as Chief Executive on June 30 to be succeeded by Keith Barr, our Chief Commercial Officer on July 1. There is never perfect time to make this decision, but the timing feels right for me. I’ve been with IHG for 25 years, 14 of those on the board including the last six as Chief Executive. We’ve achieved a great deal since becoming a standalone company in 2003. The transition to asset-light is complete, marked by the announcement of our yearend results of $400 million special dividend which will be entirely funded through underlying operations and leverage. Winning model is firmly embedded in the business to disciplined application of our strategy we’ve made, considered long-term sustainable investments across our business to build a platform for future growth. We’ve launched new brands, enhanced our existing brands also leading position in China, [leveragely] importance to lifetime relationships with our guests who are the Rewards Club and innovated in the areas of digital marketing and technology. We continue to execute again this winning model at an exciting time for IHG. The acquisition of Kimpton presents a significant opportunity to grow that brand internationally. The first Kimpton in Europe will open this year, and most things strong interest mode as an obligate with cities particularly in Asia. The HolidayInn brand family remains the engine of our business, more than…

Thanks, Richard. And good morning everyone. I'll begin with some of the key highlights in the period before covering each of our regions in turn and then I'll open up the call to questions. Had a good start to 2017 with net system size growth of 3.4% year-on-year and RevPAR growth 2.7%. Benefitting from the later timing of Easter and some early times of stabilization in U.S. oil producing market. We've strengthened our portfolio in France, finding more than 14,000 rooms or 112 hotels into our pipeline. This is our highest hotel [sign-in] pace for the first quarter in nine years, taking our total pipeline to 232,000 rooms. Our share of the active label industry pipeline is three times our share of open rooms, which means we are set up well for future organic growth. We opened 7000 rooms in the first quarter, which is typically our smallest quarter for opening. These included 2,300 rooms in Greater China, taking our number of open hotels in that region to 300. We've seen progress with our new Chinese franchise plus proposition with our first opening the HolidayInn Express in Shanghai Pudong and our 25th timing since launching the model a year ago. At the same time, we remain focused on removing underperforming hotels from our system. We exited 7000 rooms, 6000 of which were in the Americas. Looking now to our brands. We further established intercontinental hotels and resorts position as the world's largest luxury hotel brand with our [first dining] in Taiwan. We expect to open nine additional intercontinental hotels in 2017, including locations in Singapore, Washington, and Los Angeles. For the HolidayInn brand family, we signed up almost 10,000 rooms or 80 hotels, our best signings rate for nine years. As Richard said, we continue to roll out our new…

If there are no questions, then we will draw the call to a close. And thank you very much for dialing in. And Richard with say, it's been a great pleasure working with you and we wish you all the best in your future endeavors. Hello, thank you all, and you can disconnect now.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's call. Thank you for joining and have a lovely day.