to AUB Group's results for the year ended 30 June 2026, and our outlook for FY '27. Before I start, I want to recognise our dear friend and colleague, Tim Wedlock, whose sudden and tragic passing has deeply saddened us.

Tim was a highly valued member of the Austbrokers family and we're absolutely heartbroken. Our love and wishes go out to his family and to the AEI team he led with patience, wisdom and passion over many years.

FY '26 was another strong year for AUB. We delivered double-digit underlying profit growth, expanded margins, completed the acquisition of Prestige, and further strengthened the AUB platform for its next phase of growth.

At the same time, FY '26 was unquestionably a year of challenging market conditions. Geopolitical disruption affected trade and business confidence in some markets.

Together with policy uncertainty in the United States and foreign exchange movements, these conditions increased the period-to-period variability, particularly of the International division's revenue. In parallel, lower interest rates created an income headwind across most divisions.

Insurance premium rates also remained subdued, with rates declining in some classes. While we are pleased that many clients are benefiting from limited or no premium increases, competitive conditions have softened across several classes.

We encourage our insurer partners to maintain sustainable pricing and underwriting discipline, particularly in New Zealand and parts of the United Kingdom. Against that backdrop, there are three messages I would like you to take from today.

First, AUB Group comprises a resilient portfolio with a strong earnings track record. Our businesses continue to grow and generate operating leverage across uncertain economic and premium rate environments.

We have delivered a 16% compound annual growth rate in underlying EPS since FY '19 and see strong earnings growth continuing. Second, our selective approach to portfolio management and acquisitions is improving both the scale and quality of the group.

We continue to assess a range of selective M&A opportunities against clear strategic and financial return hurdles. Third, we have multiple earnings drivers across the group and we reaffirm our medium-term margin targets.

Slide 2. Before turning to the year's performance, I want to briefly frame what AUB has become.

AUB is now a global insurance distribution platform operating across 17 countries, with approximately 7,000 insurance professionals in about 640 locations. The group supports more than $11 billion of gross written premium, approximately 1.6 million clients, and 2.5 million policies.

The point I'm making is not simply about scale. Our differentiation comes from combining the entrepreneurial leadership and local market expertise of our individual businesses with the capital, capability, insurer relationships, and technology of the broader group.

These businesses are led by management teams who are also shareholders. This owner-driver model remains central to how we create value.

We are also increasingly diversified across retail and wholesale broking, agencies and MGAs, insurtech businesses, and claims and loss adjustment services. These make AUB stronger and give our portfolio more ways to serve clients and partners.

Slide 3 shows AUB's transformation from FY '19 to FY '26. The transformation has been deliberate and cumulative.

Since FY '19, revenue has grown from approximately $540 million to now almost $1.6 billion, while the underlying net profit after tax has increased from $47 million to approximately $225 million. The model has delivered sustained growth and returns.

Underlying net profit after tax has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 25.1%, while the group EBIT margin has expanded by 920 basis points to 36.1%. Importantly, these improvements have also translated into shareholder value, with underlying EPS and dividends per share both growing strongly over the same period.

Moving to slide 4. The margin expansion has been an important contributor to earnings growth and it reflects the strength of the operating model we have created.

Across the group, principal drivers have been organic growth, operating leverage and cost discipline, portfolio optimization, and accretive acquisition. We have benefited particularly from portfolio consolidation and from greater agency scale, which has enabled us to capture more of the insurance value chain as we've expanded our portfolio.

The segment chart on the slide demonstrates both the progress already delivered and the remaining potential. Our focus in FY '27 is therefore very specific: to continue the established portfolio playbook, close the segment-level gaps, and use technology, data and automation to lift productivity.

We view the medium-term targets as achievable through execution, rather than by relying on a material change in market conditions. Slide 6.

Turning now to the FY '26 performance overview. Underlying net profit after tax increased by 12.2% to $224.6 million, and the group EBIT margin expanded by 140 basis points to 36.1%.

This was supported by particularly strong contributions from the International division and BizCover, and another resilient year of profit growth in Australian Broking. International underlying profit before tax grew by 19.6%, with a 410 basis point improvement in margin.

BizCover and Australian Broking delivered profit before tax growth of 19.9% and 10%, respectively. New Zealand underperformed.

Market conditions were difficult, and execution was not at the standard we expect. During the year, we initiated a reset of the business, and business performance has stabilized over the past few months.

We also completed the acquisition of Prestige in March, materially strengthening our UK retail position. For FY '27, we are guiding to underlying net profit after tax in the range of $245 million to $265 million, representing growth of 9.1% to 18% over FY '26.

We'll discuss the guidance and its assumptions in more detail later. Slide 7: the FY '26 financial highlights.

Revenue grew 6.4% to approximately $1.6 billion. This, together with a 140 basis point increase in EBIT margin, drove a 12.2% increase in underlying net profit after tax.

The underlying EPS increased by 7% to 183.69 cents. The reason EPS growth was lower than the underlying NPAT growth was because of the additional shares issued to fund the Prestige acquisition, which were on issue for the final quarter of the year.

The board has determined a final dividend of 71 cents per share, taking the full year dividend to 98 cents, up 7.7% on the prior year, which is consistent with our long-term payout range. Slide 8.

This bridge highlights the quality of the profit growth during FY '26. Organic growth contributed $21.6 million, which is 10.8% on prior year, with acquisitions adding a further $17.3 million or 8.6%.

These contributions more than offset a $14.5 million or 7.2% headwind from foreign exchange and from increased funding costs. The existing portfolio continues to deliver strong growth, while selective acquisitions added a further layer of earnings growth.

Turning now to the performance of the operating divisions. Slide 10.

The portfolio was broadly strong. Australian Broking, BizCover, Agencies, and International all delivered profit growth, while New Zealand was the exception.

As a reminder, this slide presents a 100% view of the portfolio. That is, all businesses, including associates, are shown as though they were 100% owned.

At the operating business level, revenue increased by 6.4%, EBIT increased by 10.8%, and profit before tax attributable to AUB shareholders increased by 12.1%. The breadth of this contribution is important.

The result was not reliant on a single division or transaction. This table also shows the margin progression.

International improved by 410 basis points, BizCover by 200 basis points, and Australian Broking by 30 basis points. Agencies declined 50 basis points because of the Strata revenue challenges, but increased by 80 basis points when Strata is excluded.

You'll note on the left-hand side of the page that we are showing a graphic aggregation of our retail broking businesses and operations in Australia and New Zealand. This foreshadows our proposed Australia-New Zealand retail reporting segment for FY '27.

This proposed structure better reflects how we manage the business and the changing scale of profit contributions across the AUB portfolio. Slide 11.

Australian Broking delivered revenue of $647.8 million, up 6%, and EBIT of $246.7 million, up 6.8%. Broking commission and fee income grew by 7.8% during the year, while the average commission and fee income per customer grew by 6.5%.

The core message is that revenue has continued to grow faster than expenses in Australian Broking. From FY '19 to FY '26, revenue increased at an 8% compound annual growth rate, compared with 5.7% for expenses.

This operating leverage lifted EBIT margin to 38.1%, despite a headwind from lower interest income. We remain confident in the 40% medium-term margin target.

The broking portfolio was also actively managed during the year, with three bolt-ons, 12 equity step-ups, one merger, one step-down, and one restructure. This is the repeatable work that supports both earnings quality and margin progression, and we have further actions planned for FY '27 and beyond.

I'd like to thank Mark Whyte, who recently retired after more than 10 years representing AUB Group interests on a number of Austbrokers portfolio boards. I would also like to welcome Eric Harris, who has taken over this role.

Eric is very well known in Australian broking circles and has made a seamless transition since joining. Slide 12.

BizCover produced another excellent result. Revenue increased 14%, EBIT grew 19%, and the EBIT margin expanded by 200 basis points to 47.8%.

The Australian business remains the primary earnings engine, with EBIT increasing 18.5% in FY '26. At the same time, the non-Australian businesses are scaling, with margin improving from 8.5% in FY '24 to 20.1% in FY '26.

Active clients grew by 13.7% to 308,000, and customer advocacy remains very strong with an NPS of +73. The direct channel gained momentum in the second half, and the new MYOB referral partnership provides another attractive distribution avenue.

BizCover is at the forefront of insurance technology, including the practical deployment of AI. In March, BizCover launched the first business insurance app globally, and the first insurance app of any kind in Australia, to provide SME insurance quoting functionality within ChatGPT.

Since launch, ChatGPT has also begun to emerge as a new source of business enquiries. While it remains early, the evidence supports two initial observations.

Firstly, AI appears to be actually expanding the addressable market by prompting some previously uninsured small businesses to recognise their need for cover. Secondly, AI-assisted research is increasing customer confidence in using digital intermediaries, such as BizCover, including customers who previously approached insurers directly.

We continue to monitor lead quality, conversion and channel overlap as volumes develop, noting that we are not observing any cannibalisation of AUB's existing broker channels, rather that we are seeing the capture of business from other, non-traditional digital search engines or comparison channels. BizCover is also demonstrating practical benefits from AI and automation in other areas.

The focus is on faster delivery, consistent code quality, and greater delivery capacity from the existing team. AUB Group is benefiting from BizCover as a hub for insurtech innovation, creating a pipeline of capabilities and solutions that can be leveraged more broadly.

This, together with the Covernet team in Belfast, has accelerated AUB's ability to leverage AI tools and thinking. Slide 13.

New Zealand was the one area of underperformance for the group. Local currency share of profit increased by 2.7%, while reported Aussie dollar profit before tax declined by 3.9% due to foreign exchange weakening.

Revenue was broadly stable, and the EBIT margin reduced by 130 basis points to 33.1%. Broking commission and fee income increased by 2.7%, while the average commission and fee income per client actually reduced by 2.9%, reflecting very competitive market conditions.

This result did not meet our expectations, but the reset initiated during FY '26 has stabilized recent performance, and the FY '27 improvement plan is underway. Our priorities for FY '27 are to restructure the NZbrokers network with closer alignment to Australia, to better leverage our scale in New Zealand, to improve cost control, and to accelerate portfolio optimization.

During the year, we completed nine bolt-ons and one equity step-up. Each of these will provide a base for renewed growth for the business in New Zealand.

The 42% medium-term margin target highlights the size of the opportunity, but our immediate focus is on restoring operating momentum and consistent delivery. Slide 14.

Agencies' profit before tax increased by 8.4% and the EBIT increased by 7.8% to $105.2 million. The EBIT margin was 43.7%, down 50 basis points.

However, the margin actually increased by 80 basis points to 46.5% if Strata agencies are excluded. Revenue in Strata actually reduced during the year.

Despite this, because of very strong year of profit commission income, we were able to offset this reduction in income. The broader Agencies portfolio performed strongly, supported by organic growth and increased ownership positions in 360 and Pacific Indemnity.

I'd like to acknowledge and thank Angie Zissis, who recently retired from AUB after more than 10 years leading our SURA portfolio of agencies and, more recently, establishing the new AUB Agencies portfolio. Dennis Morrissey, founder 360, has been appointed as CEO to lead the next phase of growth for AUB Agencies.

We are now working through a range of changes to simplify and optimize the portfolio. Slide 15.

International delivered the strongest divisional profit growth. Revenue increased by 6.2%, EBIT increased by 24.5%, and the EBIT margin expanded by 410 basis points to 27.6%, benefiting from elevated war rates and momentum from recent acquisitions, partly offset by adverse foreign exchange movements.

Recent investments are building momentum. Prestige has materially expanded our UK retail footprint, while Renaissance gives us a foothold in the rapidly expanding economy of Turkey and enhances Tysers' access to Lloyd's placement flows.

Together with the continued scaling of our startup businesses, these investments are broadening the group's growth opportunities. The 32% medium-term margin target provides clear further growth potential as we integrate and leverage these businesses.

I'll now hand over to Nick.

Thank you, Mike. Slide 17 sets out our group funding position on the 30th of June, 2026.

AUB retains a strong and flexible balance sheet, with available cash and undrawn debt of $330.5 million and leverage of 2.30 times. Leverage reduced from 2.49 times at the half, primarily reflecting higher EBITDA following the pro forma inclusion of Prestige, which was largely funded with equity.

Compared with FY '25, leverage increased from 1.97 times due to higher net debt, mainly from funding the increased ownership in Pacific Indemnity and AUB 360, the residual debt needed to fund the Prestige acquisition, and the final Pacific Indemnity earn-out. During the second half, we refinanced our syndicated facility with total commitments of approximately $1.1 billion and maturities reset to three, four, and five years.

The refinancing was well supported, oversubscribed by 1.5 times, and delivered a 27 basis point reduction in credit margin. The $200 million facility maturing in 4.7 years is the bilateral agreement with Macquarie, which was committed at the time of the Prestige acquisition.

The right-hand side of the slide shows interest-earning assets and interest-bearing debt on a look-through ownership basis. While the totals are broadly aligned, the key exposure is the currency mismatch.

At 30 June 2026, around $210 million of interest-earning assets were in US dollars with no US dollar-denominated debt. These US dollar assets are hedged through to July 2027 via cross-currency swaps that receive BBSW and pay SOFR plus .61%.

Slide 18 sets out FX sensitivity on the expected FY '27 currency mix, which includes the full-year impact of Prestige, which is predominantly a GBP business. Our key exposure remains the unhedged US dollar brokerage from the International business.

GBP is broadly neutral after allowing for our US dollar to GBP hedging program. Post-Prestige, this program would typically hedge around US$50 to $80 million over the next 12 months and US$25 to $40 million over the following 12 months.

FY '27 guidance incorporates our stated foreign exchange outlook assumptions and the current hedge positions shown on this slide. Approximately US$75 million of brokerage income remains unhedged, with each 1% movement in the AUD to USD exchange rate affecting midpoint UNPAT by approximately .3%.

As existing hedges mature, the replacement hedges will reflect the prevailing market rates. Slide 19 shows underlying earnings per share increased 7% in FY '26, while the full-year dividend increased 7.7% to 98 cents.

I'll now hand back to Mike to cover our FY '27 priorities, AI strategy, and outlook.

Thanks, Nick. Slide 21.

Our priorities for FY '27 are focused and practical. The first is to integrate UK Retail and unlock the benefits of scale while continuing to expand Tysers' wholesale and specialty capabilities.

The second is to improve the portfolio. This means scaling and strengthening the Agencies business across 360, SURA, and Pacific Indemnity, and taking decisive action in New Zealand and across the broader Australian portfolio to enhance earnings quality and margins.

The third priority is disciplined capital deployment and continued investment in capability. We will remain selective on M&A, apply clear return hurdles, and continue strengthening our technology, data, and operational capability across the group.

These priorities are deliberately consistent with the playbook that has driven AUB's performance over the past seven years: to empower strong, local, entrepreneurial leaders, actively manage the portfolio, and to use collective scale to improve outcomes. Slide 22: our AI strategy.

We are firmly of the view AUB is an AI beneficiary, and we've now moved well into deployment of multiple initiatives to improve our productivity, efficiency, and value to customers. We have an enterprise AI platform, an emerging data foundation, clear governance, and a scalable delivery model built around Covernet and BizCover.

We are focused on citizen development and partnering with specialist partners. The adoption is already meaningful: 92% of active copilot utilisation, 43 active AI agents, more than 40 solutions in the pipeline, and 710 hours of capacity released in the last 30 days alone.

These are indicators of momentum rather than an end outcome. We are now embedding AI into broking, underwriting, claims, and operational workflows to reduce administration, create more capacity for client-facing work, improve decision-making, and to deliver more consistent client outcomes.

Over time, we expect this to support growth, margin improvement, and differentiated insurance capabilities. Slide 23.

For financial year '27, we expect underlying net profit after tax in the range of $245 million to $265 million. The midpoint of $255 million represents growth of 13.5%, with the range representing growth of 9.1% to 18%.

The bridge on the slide shows the components. Organic growth is expected to contribute between $15.2 million and $33.2 million, with acquisition growth expected to contribute $17.5 to $19.5 million.

These growth rates are partly offset by approximately $12.3 million of anticipated foreign exchange headwinds and increased funding costs. This guidance includes completed and sufficiently certain acquisitions and excludes any contribution from future, unannounced transactions.

At the midpoint, the expected first-half and second-half earnings split is 41% and 59%, broadly in line with our historical seasonality. The underlying EPS guidance is 187.54 cents to 202.85 cents per share.

The difference between underlying NPAT and EPS growth reflects the full-year impact of the shares issued for the Prestige acquisition. Excluding this equity funding effect, the EPS range would be 200.35 to 216.71 cents per share.

We have set out the principal currency, interest rate, and cash rate assumptions on the slide. The UNPAT guidance range of $20 million is intended to reflect an appropriate variability in organic growth and market conditions for a group of our scale, while preserving our commitment to consistent execution.

In closing, financial year '26 demonstrated the strength of the AUB model. We delivered strong organic and acquisition growth, we expanded margins, increased shareholder returns, and further strengthened the global platform.

We enter FY '27 with clear execution priorities, a strong balance sheet, and meaningful earnings and margin growth potential. Nick and I are now happy to take your questions.

thanks gentlemen for taking my question. Uh, just picking up on a couple of last comments you made there in terms of the sort of reset um, from AI and then the reach into new divisions.

Could you just talk about the medium-term margin targets and the potential timing? The potential to see those upgraded and brought forward?

Thanks, Tim. Um, well firstly I think the in terms of the the margin targets, the first point is we're confident the margin targets are as stated.

Second thing is, as part of um, our new reporting grouping uh, for the Australia, New Zealand uh, retail uh, business, um, one of the things we'll be doing is working through what our estimate is of that margin target for the aggregated business based on some assumptions around, um, the medium term. As a reminder, we've always said whenever we upgrade or change these, it represents our three to five-year view of what can be achieved in that timeframe.

They're not terminal margin targets, they are uh, what we think are achievable within that time horizon. What we will do, uh, possibly at the AGM, but more likely certainly for the February uh, half-year will be to, uh, uh, revise where we think appropriate uh, the margin targets, but it's specifically uh, clarify what the margin target will be for the new reporting aggregation.

Just to make sure it's clarified, but with that sort of AI commentary, Mike, are you telling us that there's scope that they could be increased, that you're quite positive on that AI benefit in the business?

Yes, absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you very much for taking my questions. Um, maybe a couple.

Um, the first one just on your guidance uh, for UNPAT for uh, for FY '27, I was hoping you could just give us some steer as to what you're expecting the um, the contributions to be by, in in Australia versus international. I know you give us some high-level comments around funding costs and uh, and FX headwinds, but just uh, directionally if you can just flag, previously you'd been explaining that you thought we could still have pretty strong revenue growth in the Australian market with um, even even with a soft cycle, but there's a few things you flagged that were uncertain in your guidance around, I think just the war and other things.

I was just hoping you could tell us, international versus Australian broking versus agency, directionally, how you're seeing things in terms of margins and revenues.

If we just if we just do a quick trundle through, um, the assumption is that BizCover will continue the momentum that it has demonstrated for several years. Um, Agencies, actually we think Agencies have performed really well ex-Strata.

Strata is a market phenomenon, I'll talk about that separately. The other two agencies uh, we think have performed really well, remembering that premium rates impact agencies more than they impact broking businesses.

Um, and so those two groups of agencies performed really well, uh, we, we're winning market share, we're winning new business, and um, and our sort of focus on on underlying uh, profit for our insurer partners uh, has paid dividends as well. On the Strata side, um, we foreshadowed this in fact in August last year and at the half-year, the the market is incredibly competitive.

Um, candidly we don't understand the logic behind why the market is so competitive. Premium rates have been dropping despite the fact that there is no view we we don't see any underlying reason why premium rates should be dropping.

Our main competitors are able to are willing to write business at significantly lower premium rates than we are comfortable to do. Obviously, these are decisions we take in partnership with our insurer partners, and they'll be taking them in partnership with theirs.

Strata has continued the trend that we foreshadowed in February, which is, um, unfortunately, unless we drop rates, our retention rates are, which we which we're not willing to do, our retention rates are dropping because we are losing business to competitors who are competing at much lower uh, premium rates. Um, structurally, that has to have it has to be time-boxed because insurers can't afford, there's nothing in the market that says the cost of repairs and remediation for or or loss ratios for Strata are decreasing, right?

They they they match uh, residential um, loss ratios, it doesn't make sense, the the the rate trend. Ex that, um, we see Agencies as continuing to to grow and expand.

I referenced uh, when I spoke about Agencies, that we do see some cost and margin improvement opportunities out of some of the consolidation activities, which we started in Agencies during FY '27, but that we've been very successfully doing in uh, in the broader broking business for the last few years. Um, in terms of um, Australian broking and New Zealand broking, um, I think I probably gave as much colour.

I think it's more of the same. It's more consolidations in in the two markets.

We do see signs that the the market um, is strengthening. The market conditions are strengthening in New Zealand.

Um, we have taken the opportunity over the last 12 months to invest and expand our uh, broking footprint in New Zealand. We we believe we'll be strong beneficiaries of that market strengthening.

Then in in International, it's really on the retail piece, it is about um, executing on our plans around uh, the um, the consolidation and integration of the UK retail piece. While in parallel on uh, international wholesale, it is about um, I guess part of it is linked to some pieces of the, the sort of geopolitical uncertainty dialling back slightly so that, trade in some of those affected areas can continue.

Um, but broadly those are the those are the key levers.

Sorry, just on the international ex the acquisition, am I to read that you're expecting um, growth? I I I just wasn't clear exactly whether, whether you're we're expecting margin expansion or or not.

Ex ex the Prestige, which I presume lowers the margin, but just um, I wasn't 100% clear on International.

If you took um, full year, we think that there's some uh, some artificial inflation in the margin in the International business. We think it's we actually believe it's running at about a 25% margin.

We do see revenue growth, and we do see the opportunity for uh, some expansion of margin. Um, the exact timing of that, first half versus second half, is a bit unclear, it may still look lumpy.

Um, but I think that's more related to the timing of revenue flows in the first half than anything else.

Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you very much for that colour. Just my my second question is just around the strategic priorities.

I think you've got a slide there, I think it's slide 47? Let me just have a look.

There was a slide you had there about change in your strategic priorities from, um, sorry, it's 45 uh, versus where you were um, uh, a year ago. It seems like um, M&A has has reduced in terms of focus, and there's much more of a focus on consolidation and specialization.

In fact, a lot of the other areas, it seems like there's been a downweighting in terms of, the the the expected uh, improvements from commercial arrangements, fees, etc. I was hoping you could just first firstly flesh out um, what you mean by um, specialization leading to improvement.

Is that a long-dated thing? Presumably that takes a while to come through?

Just uh, comments on just the downweighting on M&A and some of the other some of the other levers.

I think, firstly, I'd say the way to read the slide is about a statement of um, progress, right? For example, commercial arrangements.

In in um, in Tysers for example, uh, a year ago, we had one uh, commercial arrangement with a with one insurer partner. Let's imagine that the majority of the business is placed with, pick a number, 20 insurers.

Obviously, we had one commercial arrangement. We now have seven with, imminently another three that will be entered into.

The the opportunity size has reduced simply by virtue of the fact that we now have 10 in the bag rather than one. I think that's the first thing.

You should read it as this is not necessarily a comment on the size of the total prize, but more a comment on the progress we've made towards getting to achieving that. That's the first comment I'd make.

The second comment is, um, your question about M&A. There are two observations I'll make about M&A.

The first one is, we don't buy things just because we're trying to be an aggressive acquirer. Uh, I've used the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle before.

We intentionally target certain types of assets. Um, Agencies is the perfect example.

We bought 360 because we wanted to strengthen general commercial. We bought Pacific Indemnity because we wanted to strengthen financial lines.

We bought Strata because we wanted to strengthen Strata. Um, in UK Retail, we bought Prestige because we wanted to strengthen UK Retail.

We bought [Movo?] and Momentum, or invested in them, because we wanted to have access to replicate our Insurance Advisernet uh, network in Australia in the UK, and have access to the appointed representative share of the market.

Um, we invested in BizCover because we wanted access to an insurtech with, access to the micro-SME uh, space in the market. All of our M&A has not been about trying to spend a certain amount of money or discrete uh, isolated decisions.

It's a strategic overlay about what we're trying to complete. The fact is we've made fantastic progress in completing that jigsaw puzzle, but obviously that also needs to be in the context of unlocking all of the value that we can see.

I almost see this as a series of phased approaches where you unlock the first round is about ensuring that an acquisition is stabilized, you're getting the return you expected from it in isolation. The next step then is unlocking some of the synergy benefits you get from, particularly, consolidation and creating almost these centers of excellence.

The third piece is then iterating how you can further consolidate and strengthening the way in which the the the business flows go through those businesses uh, across the different parts of our, um, our network and our group. I think this is more a function of actually we've made we've completed a lot of the jigsaw puzzle.

That doesn't mean there aren't opportunities for us to still make bolt-on acquisitions, etc. Um, but the reality is a lot of the core capabilities that we needed to invest in, we have invested in now, and now it's about unlocking more of the value from those.

Um, there's also a simple function which is, we are very uh, focused on ensuring that investments we make, we make with an eye on the return we can generate. We are cautious about capital capacity and the deployment of that capital, and the best ways to generate returns from that.

Um, we we have seen that as we've matured and expanded our portfolio, the better return now is about um, leveraging those investments to optimize the return for shareholders.

Yep, okay. Thank you very much.

Hi, team. Thanks for taking my question.

Just had a couple on Prestige, if you don't mind. I'm just curious to get your initial read, I see you got the keys in March, just your initial read on how that business has run relative to your expectations.

Maybe a comment on the 10 million or more in synergies that you talked to back in February, is that is that implied in your FY '27 guidance? Uh,

not all of it is implied in the FY '27 guidance, Blake. I think three observations that might sound slightly contradictory.

The first observation is very pleased with the acquisition. Excellent, excellent business, excellent growth potential, excellent management team.

Uh, very happy with that. Um, firstly.

Secondly, the market environment for uh, sort of SME um, and, sort of the smaller end of broking in in the UK has been really challenging, uh, very competitive. Um, some of the competitors, and, this is not news because there've been some um, broker-type reports about some of our big competitors there, have been uh, struggling because of capital and funding challenges, and have been very, very aggressive at trying to, dare I say, buy business.

It has been a challenging market environment, we've focused on ensuring that uh, the business strength and capacity and capability is preserved and focused. Um, and we've put in place, I guess we've tried to make sure that we integrate the business, but don't don't negate the benefits of the independence and the entrepreneurial capability that they have.

Um, in terms of unlocking the synergy benefits, I mean the key first step is about transitioning the historic Tysers retail branches into Prestige. There's an element where we, we require legal, compliance, and regulatory changes, including approvals from the regulator.

There's always a lead time on that. We're in that phase now.

Uh, we have been, I think, had a balanced view of how much of the synergy to include in FY '27 versus what flows through to FY '28. Very confident about the synergy quantum uh, in terms of on a run-rate basis.

In terms of timing, only a portion of that finds its way into our estimate for FY '27.

Got it. Appreciate that.

Just uh, a second question on Agencies, just um, noting historically and and back in 1H, for example, you've told us margin ex-profit profit commission. Um, is there any way you can give us that number for FY '26?

Just helps us understand the underlying business. Uh,

Blake, I'll have to come back to you come back to you with that. Um, I think the reality is Strata uh, Strata sort of clouds clouds the view, we can give you that.

Um, we'll probably um, I'm deferring, yeah, yeah. I think I think we'll have to come back to you with that.

That's fine. I'll circle back later tonight.

Thanks, you two.

good morning. Can I ask um, just uh my first question, uh a little bit around what you've seen in Tysers and the Lloyd's market?

Uh, we we're hearing that marine insurance reinsurance demand is rather strong at the moment. What are you seeing in terms of conditions there for Tysers and their marine franchise?

Andrey. Thank you for the questions.

Um, the reality is there's an incredibly strong, pent-up demand uh, with a lot of potential in marine. Um, it's very hard to estimate.

There's a there's a judgement call. As a reminder, the way it works is, uh, you'll have insurance on the ship, including both on the hull as well as on the, the cargo.

Um, but if the ship doesn't sail or isn't filled with cargo, then even though you've placed the insurance for it, the actual premium is quite low. Then there's significant value, premium volatility according to what it's carrying and where it's sailing.

Ironically, you you have the premium, you you sort of you are the broker for the for the ship. If it's a ship that then carries cargo, uh let's imagine it's oil at the moment and it's through the Strait of Hormuz, and it's able to sail filled with cargo, then there's a, a massive payday for the insurer and for the broker, right?

Obviously, if the ship doesn't sail and it can't, it's sitting outside the Strait of Hormuz and can't get loaded with with oil, then, there's very little uh, income for us. I don't want to overstate the Middle East piece, but the fact is that is where a significant chunk of oil shipment come from and that's where a significant portion of the world's shipping is deployed.

The uncertainty is not, will the income flow to us? The uncertainty is when and how much.

I know that sounds crazy, but it's because you don't know when and how much. Um, that's part of the slight uncertainty.

The second piece is, we do a lot of uh, construction um, and engineering projects, um, in terms of the insurance and placing the insurance. Historically Dubai has been a centre of, significant construction activity.

At the moment, there's little to no construction activity going on in Dubai. Again, that's a pent-up demand.

Our clients haven't changed, their needs haven't changed. In fact, if anything, there's going to be an increased uh, um, uh, level of activity in Dubai.

Um, the question is when, and how much of that will flow, how quickly. The optimist in me says, if I look out over the next three or four years, there's a massive pent-up uh, revenue opportunity for us, um, and it's stronger than just opportunity.

Um, but if you said to me how much of that will flow through in the next 3 months, I haven't got a clue. I think that's the level of opportunity versus um, uncertainty that we have at the moment.

You're right, marine war rates are at the highest that I think they've ever been. Um, we are significantly well represented in that area.

Our teams are incredibly respected and capable and um, and it's, it's it's a significant upside for us, but quantifying that and estimating that is incredibly difficult. In fact, nigh on impossible.

Thank you, Mike. Look, for my second uh question, uh something closer to home, right?

With um Australian broking, it looks like the fee and commission revenue line went up just oh just under 8% year-on-year. Uh but the the premium pool went up maybe 5.5% roughly to $3.8 billion.

Where's successful in um optimising some of the fee and commission uh levels and how do you do you view that going forward?

Part of it is about slightly a mix. Actually, interestingly, um previously I've spoken about the book ends where we've been very successful at winning new client new large clients, where predominantly it's fee-based income rather than uh commission.

The premium would go up disproportionately to the revenue. We've also won a lot of new clients on the small end, the micro-SME largely through BizCover and Express Cover.

Ironically, in FY '26, we actually lost um so more of our client losses / the mix shifted where we we actually had a net shrinking of business in the large corporate side, which means that proportionately premium went, where where the premium might have gone down from losing those clients, our revenue proportionally went down. It's not it's not a fundamental piece where we actually, I'd love to say we're earning more per dollar of premium, it's a mix shift where we've lost some of our revenue sorry, some of our fee-earning clients where they had big premium levels, but raw but not commission rates.

Yep.

Hi, guys. Just a question on some of the below-the-line items.

Your stat profit this year, less than half your your management profit. Just sort of keen to understand when we can expect that gap to to narrow going forward.

In terms of some of the second-half impairments, where those came from and and I guess, what what revenue impacts there would be off the back of that going forward.

Yeah. I think the first um first thing I'd do is I'd I'd say, let's let's put this in context.

Um the first is, since FY '22, you have two correlated um and therefore relevant points. Since FY '22, we've had a cumulative uh uh sum of $110 million of impairments.

This is across roughly 55 um cash-generating units that get tested for impairment. Uh in the same period, it's $110 million of impairment.

In the same period, we've had $150 million of um write-ups in value, right? Gains on uh on effectively increases in carrying value.

Um and so there's a net $40 million increase rather than a net decrease in in carrying values over that period. That's the first thing.

In context, um this is a every 6 months, all of those CGUs are tested. We test the the headroom in terms of the carrying value of those uh assets, et cetera.

That's the first point. The second point I'd make is that um, we really have one asset that didn't meet the headroom test, right?

The and that asset is an Australian broking business very unimaginatively called Austbrokers Corporate, which is where we house our corporate broking business. That's what I actually was referencing when I when I was answering Andrey's question about losing some large corporate clients.

Um, Austbrokers Corporate is the is the sort of the outcome of the merging of four entities. Two we already owned and then two we acquired over the last 4 or 5 years.

When you acquire them, I don't want to I I'll try to do this briefly, when you acquire a um a broking business, you estimate the value of the um client portfolio, which we call the broking register, and the balance of the purchase price is then the carrying value or the goodwill, right? Uh, and I'm leaving out all any other tangible assets.

Then the test is, when you lose clients that were part of that original portfolio you acquired, you write off the balance of whatever the carrying value is related to the clients that have left. Um, and so that happened in the first half of FY '26.

We had an impairment in December. Then we foreshadowed in March when we did the cap raise that we thought there might be additional impairment related to uh those client departures.

That's because you're trying to estimate how much income you'll retain or lose from that portfolio. Important point is, you never increase the carrying value of that for new clients you might have won.

You might have the irony where you bought a business with three clients, you they won three new clients, but actually if you lose the three clients that were at the time of buying, you you write off and impair the asset, but you never write up for the new clients that you've won, right? You can't directly correlate and say therefore the business has lost its original clients, it's worth nothing.

Um, the second thing you do is you then test the carrying value by looking at the you basically do a DCF of the future cash flows using uh, a discounting rate. Now, there are a couple of vag- vagaries there.

Obviously, what you're doing is you're estimating the future cash flows, if those have come down, then your carrying value uh, your DCF is reduced, and if that's below the carrying value that then you do decrease it. The second thing is you do have changes in that discounting rate, you could have this slight vagary where if discounting rates shift from year to year, you could have an impairment purely because of that.

Uh, now I'm not saying that's what happened here, but what I am saying is this is a technical accounting process that happens every 6 months across all of our um our the carrying value of all of our cash-generating u- units. It's a standard practice.

It's, for the purposes of assessing value, a uh a a only a partially represented representative view of things. Um, but nonetheless, you are correct.

The fact is we had, a significant impe- set of impairments, um, but only one cash-generating unit that was, sort of a, let's call it, a fundamental impairment. Um, I think in context, the 150 versus 110 are the important numbers.

Um, as to your question about, when do we see uh, whe- when does this stop happening? I think, ironically, um, this is something that we've tested every year.

I think in most years, we've had some form of small impairment. Um, it's actually ironically a function of, our oldest assets that we might have bought at 5 or 6 or 7 times multiples are the least likely to be impaired.

As soon as we buy a majority stake in one of those, we write up the value. Your view on on discounting rates and multiples might shift over time.

For example, prac- there is a difference in multiples in the market now versus 18 months ago. That shift in the market valuations also changes this.

I don't want to poo-poo it. I'm an accountant, I sort of am comfortable with the principle of it, but we shouldn't conflate it with a representation or a representation of the quality of our M&A, historic M&A.

All right, thanks. Thanks, Mike.

If I if I can just ask a a second question uh, around M&A. Just I guess, how are you seeing the pipeline and and what changes have you seen in in valuation multiples relative to 6 months ago?

Um, I

I think the the short, quick answer is uh, valuation multiples have drifted down. Um, but I think it's less about the valuations, it's more about the rationality of the participants.

I think some of the participants who were inflating the multiples, um, and inflating So, for me, the issue with the with the valuations was actually more about the normalizations being made to EBIT rather than the multiples themselves. We're seeing less of the the silliness of uh, normaliza- EBIT normalizations, and we're seeing more sensible vendors because some of the let's, dare I say, irrational participants in the on the buyer side have have sort of gone away.

Um, but we've been very clear all along about our view on valuations. We haven't really been beneficiaries of it.

I think we're just seeing less competition. Um, we definitely are we see New Zealand as a market where we have, our eye on quality M&A.

Uh, and that might sound counter-intuitive against the backdrop of what I said about the market comp- competitiveness. The reality is we see that as a very attractive market in the medium term, and the best time frankly to be investing in that market is now, when um, the market is under a bit of stress.

Great, thanks.

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Um, just wanted to ask for any commentary on the impairment charges recorded on slide 36 is uh a reasonable uplift year-on-year. Just um, where's that coming from?

Uh, I I

I sort of feel like I've just answered that question with from Shreyas.

Okay. Uh, I was trying to get, yeah, sort of a bit more granular in terms of um, which which business segment or anything like that.

Pretty sure I answered that quite thoroughly, yeah.

Okay. All right.

Um, and just the uh And maybe maybe it's it's exactly the same. The um, adjustments to fair value of entities um, that seems these things are intertwined, I guess, um, more the same?

Uh,

yeah. That's the the reference I made.

Yeah. $150 million up, $110 million down, yeah.

Right. Okay.

All right, that's it for me. Thank you.

Good morning, guys. Um, just to follow up on the previous uh, discussion just around slide 45, um, just wanted to round out the discussion there just around the reduced focus on fee and commission changes.

Um, I just thought that'd be a more important feature in a in a softer market and should should continue. Can you just sort of understand that piece?

Also just the cost reduction piece reducing to low for broking, thanks. Um,

well the commission and fee changes, I mean I think that, that implies that, these are things that we we see as levers we can apply. This is not about, So, our view is, um, at the moment, we can put some fees through um, and the the split in International is um, a function of retail versus wholesale.

Um, but we we think we've put through quite a lot in the second half in particular of FY '26. It's it's how much more can we do versus this flowing through, um, the business as we progress through FY '27.

Got it. Then on the cost reduction piece uh for broking?

The the cost

The cost reduction is actually a function of um the, you know Is that specifically on retail broking that you that you're asking?

Specifically. It was reduced [so that's for?]

retail broking, that's right.

I think it's because actually a lot of the, let's call it, uh enterprise-wide cost reduction that we could apply across Australia and New Zealand broking, we feel like we've implemented. Um, we think that the margin improvement is going to come from uh growth without increasing cost, rather than cost reduction per se, whereas we do see opportunities to reduce cost in the underwriting agencies and in the International, both UK retail and wholesale.

Uh, again, just a function of what we've put through versus what we still see to come.

Got it. No, that's that's that's fine.

Then in terms of just Tysers, uh if my memory serves me correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, there was about $11 million of post-tax costs um on the bonus/board realignment that came through in FY '25. Um, you're seeing about $6 million of pretax unwind coming through the FY '26 numbers.

There's still a little bit of a gap between what was booked in FY '25, noting that the $11 million was post-tax in FY '25. Just want to understand, um is that are those numbers, features recurring and or is anything anything being held back there and what's being assumed for FY '27 in the outlook there?

No, there's nothing in FY. That has now reversed.

What we can recognize and estimate has re- has has reversed. Um, I think the challenge is you sort of we're trying to compare and clarify things in a moving piece.

For example, um, if you have fewer people, if, you've got natural turnover, you might get a cost in the provision when someone joins, oh sorry, when someone is there, then when they leave, you can release that provision. It's not it's not a precise we don't have provisions by individual, by month, et cetera.

It it is it's trying to make a a port- portfolio-wide estimate into, too precise a sort of a spreadsheet piece, dude. I think the reality is whatever we can recognize as as will reverse has reversed.

Um, some of it may have We might have overestimated the negative in in FY '25, but some of it would have flowed through potentially in organic, or, is is sort of still there because people have stayed, because we part of that is an assumption around retention rates, et cetera. If our retention rates go up, ironically, the reversal goes down because that becomes almost like a permanent provision that you carry until they leave.

Got it. Maybe just tying it back in terms of the the outlook, um, just keen to understand how you're sort of expecting the premium rate environment to pan out just across the different divisions um, versus what you're seeing today.

Yeah. Thank you.

Um, I mean it's, again, it's one of these predict the unpredictable. Our view is that premium rates in New Zealand have softened too far.

Um, and so we believe that premium rates have to harden in the New Zealand market, that they are they are too low, uh, rate reductions and, rate freezes have gone too far, and, they've been too aggressive. We think that is unhealthy.

Ultimately, we want our clients to be paying fair prices. We don't want them to be exposed to volatility where you have a -20% premium rate and then 20 +20%.

We want, just just a 4% or 5% rate growth through the, it should be less volatile. New Zealand is definitely too soft, needs some remediation, and we're hoping that flows through in the next 6 to 12 months.

Um, the UK is behind where New Zealand is, but still, it's softened faster than we think is appropriate. This is particularly on UK retail, and so we would see some hardening in New Zealand in the next 12 months, we would see some hardening in the UK in the next 18 to 24 months.

Um, in Australian broking, I think it's by it's by class. We do think that Strata, in general, uh is now irrationally priced, and so there's a piece there where the we, the Strata market logically needs to needs to harden.

Uh, we're not seeing evidence of that, but we're saying needs to harden. Those are the observations about uh at a generic level.

I think at a particular, specific level, um we are observing that, insurers are releasing reserves, they released they've released reserves now consecutively through, a couple of uh half-year reporting cycles. Um, they release reserves bluntly when, insurance profits are inadequate, and um, are my words, not theirs.

Um, and so that normally uh preempts uh an adjustment in terms of the way in which they price, um uh underwriting risks. Now, all of these are unfortunately hypotheses, Julian, because, we don't know what's going to happen, but that reflects a little bit of what we've seen in the in the last 2 months, in June and July, in terms of some pricing behaviours.

Certainly, it reflects what some of them are saying, but not necessarily what they're doing. Um, and so unfortunately that's the best I can project.

Again, I'll come back to, uh if I observe what FY '26 to me demonstrates, if we went back 2 or 3 years, the comment I was making all the time was, irrespective of premium rate cycle, we will be able to manage through the cycle to ensure that we deliver fair and reasonable profit growth. Our view is that our sustainable ability to grow profits is low double digit, right?

I think what we've evidenced is through feast and famine, we've been able to do that consecutively for, I don't know, 7 or 8 years at least now. Um, and so for me that's the key message.

Thank you very much, moderator. Uh, thanks everybody for joining us today.

Uh, hopefully you could hear from the presentation and from uh the answers to the questions, uh we're quietly pleased and proud of the result. Um, I think an important uh, metric to throw out there is, um, last year uh at this time, we had a guidance range, and as we have this time, we state all of our assumptions um, in terms of FX rates, interest rates, um, split in terms of the um, the the seasonality, et cetera, and that guidance range a year ago was $215 to $227 million.

If you applied those assumptions around FX rates for example to our result, then we estimate that the result would have been $231 million. Um, against the 215 to 227 a year ago, uh which a number of you said was a bit conservative, um the reality is we don't adjust or restate our guidance every time we see FX headwinds, for example.

Our view is we're managing a portfolio of businesses, we're going to try and manage to the to the guidance range. Actually our read of our performance is a beat because we've delivered effectively against the assumptions we stated a year ago in a in a year of frankly incredible um, global craziness, um we've delivered an incredibly strong, robust result and the equivalent of, a significant beat on our guide our top end last year.

We are pleased about not only the result, but mostly we're pleased with the fact that we now have, significantly complemented our geographic and our um capability sort of footprint. Uh, we've got a number of uh, um uh additional revenue and margin growth opportunities, and we have made, very strong progress and so we we're looking forward to uh, a strong FY '27 and, stronger FY '28 and '29.

Thank you very much. I look forward to catching up with many of you over the next few days.