Underlying trends in H1 encouraging RELX has today reported H1 results that were very modestly ahead of our expectations at a headline level, with revenue at £3394m (INVe £3380m) and EBITA of £1023m (INVe £998m). It has also reported EPS of 40.0p and leverage is at 2.8x, hence management note that the buyback will continue to remain on pause in 2021. By division, Risk accelerated to 10% organic growth, with STM at 4% and Legal at 3% - all ahead of expectations (albeit they note the easy comps from disruption last year, particularly in print), with the revenue decline / operating profit loss for Exhibitions in-line with consensus. Generating value for customers Management note that ‘almost all’ segments have returned to the improving trajectory that they were seeing in early 2020, helped by their ongoing focus on developing sophisticated analytical tools for their customer base. Overall on the outlook, management note that based on the improved performance of non-events businesses in H1, they expect full year underlying growth rates in revenue / EBITA to be slightly above historical trends. Valuation full, but fair We have never doubted the fundamental attractions of the RELX business, or its resilient growth drivers, but we believe the valuation largely reflects these factors, with the stock trading at c.20x CY23E EPS, relative to the likes of Informa at 12x. We hence remain at Hold.