Johnson Matthey Plc (JMPLY) Shareholder/Analyst Call Prepared Remarks Transcript

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to this General Meeting of Johnson Matthey. Joining me here today at the table is our Chief Financial Officer, Alastair Judge; our Chief Operating Officer, Richard Pike; and our General Counsel and Company Secretary, Simon Price. And we also have our Chief Executive of the group, Liam Condon, joining us on Teams. It's 9:00 just gone. We are quorate, so I'm declaring the meeting open. As previously announced, following the completion of the divestment of our Catalyst Technologies business on the 17th of July this year, we intend to return GBP 1 billion of value to our shareholders. Approximately GBP 800 million of this will be distributed to shareholders by way of a special dividend. This general meeting is being held in relation to the proposed GBP 800 million special dividend and the share consolidation. which is intended to maintain comparability in the company's share price before and after the special dividend is paid. The notice of the general meeting, together with explanatory notes were posted to shareholders on Monday, the 27th of July. And accordingly, the requisite notice of the meeting has been given. Ladies and gentlemen, before moving to voting on the resolutions, we would be very happy to take any questions that there may be? If you are here in the room with a question, please raise your hand, and we'll bring a microphone to you. We'll take any questions first from the room, then from the telephone conference and finally from the webcast. Before asking your question, please introduce yourself. So let's start here in the meeting room, are there any questions that people have? Very well. Thank you. I will now turn