I'm also joined today by Chief Operating Officer, Jason Serafino. Say hello, Jason.

Our Chief Financial Officer, Victor Peplow. Apologies, we all were attempting to be in the same boardroom today, but hit a little bit of a technical hitch, but anyway, hopefully, that shouldn't be a bother.

Before formally commencing, I wanted to pay tribute to Andrew specifically for a wonderful contribution to the business. We are also very pleased that Andrew will remain with the business as an Executive Director up until the AGM, and a Non-Executive Director thereafter, specifically helping the business with sales and client relationships, which he's so fantastic at.

Moving on. In my time with the business thus far, I've had the time to reflect on and assess where we are positioned.

The business has a number of very strong attributes, which stand us in good stead for future prosperity. In particular, as I sort of looked at the business, we are a key service provider to a large, growing, and diverse blue chip client base which drives recurring revenue.

We enhance the financial and customer outcomes for those clients, creating loyalty, and leading to repeatable organic growth. We continue to strive for and drive operating leverage, whereby underlying earnings growth outstrips the revenue growth.

This trend is supported by increasing digital collections and operational enhancements. AI-based tools and selective offshoring are a key driver of many of those enhancements.

We have a dedicated, intelligent, talented executive and senior leadership team, and they're committed to driving the business forward. We've also, you noticed, entered the UK market, which we estimate to be four times the size of our home Australian market, with a lot of similar attributes.

This provides us a new medium-term growth platform. We continue to see good growth opportunities across digital and traditional channels in the Australian market, particularly in banking, insurance, and utilities industries.

Operating cash flows have grown, and a capital raising was completed during the period to assist with the UK acquisitions, leading to a strong balance sheet which will be an enabler for future expansion. Moving to this first slide that we've got here, you will have seen this slide before.

It really summarizes the group well. We're a tech-enabled, full service debt collection business from an early stage SaaS platform via Credit Clear and now the DTS business following that acquisition, to what we'd call a tech-enhanced traditional provider via ARMA and now Oak Europe in the UK, and finally, later-stage collection via our legal services firm, Oakbridge.

We can move forward, Mel. Now to the numbers.

2026 has been a very successful year with strong growth in all key metrics. Revenue was up 28% to $60 million.

This was driven by both organic growth and initial contributions from the Oak Europe and DTS acquisitions. Key drivers of the organic revenue growth have been continued digital first adoption across the core Australian collections business, growth in the client base and increased share of wallet.

Underlying EBITDA was up 41% to $10.5 million. Continuing operated operating leverage is evident with the underlying EBITDA margin increasing from 15.9% to 17.5%.

Increasing higher margin digital collections and operational enhancements aid this trend. In particular, AI-based tools will continue to be a key driver for many of those enhancements.

These AI-based tools are increasingly assisting our team in their customer discussions. Underlying NPATA was up 65% to $6.7 million.

This is a new measure we are tracking going forward as it approximates an underlying cash NPAT for the business, and we believe should further assist shareholders in assessing value. Next slide, Mel.

Thanks. Thank you.

Underlying earnings per share was up 45% to 1.4 cents per share. This was calculated as the underlying NPATA divided by the weighted average diluted share count.

This is taking into account the in the money share rights under the executive incentive program. Operating cash flows were also strong in the period.

Underlying operating cash flow was up 25% to $8.3 million, and the net cash position at balance date was $16.9 million. We'll move forward again.

Thank you, Mel. Just looking at the attribution of the performance, specifically looking at the revenue bridge here, organic revenue growth was $4 million or 9%.

We also obviously had the initial contributions from the Oak Europe and DTS acquisitions with a contribution of $9.1 million. If we were to pro forma 12-month contribution from those acquisitions, the pro forma annual revenue would be $70 million.

Moving to the likewise the under underlying EBITDA, organic EBITDA growth was $1.3 million or 17%. Again, the initial contribution from the Oak Europe and DTS acquisitions was approximately $1.7 million.

Jason will talk a little bit more on on those acquisition performances, but they they are ahead of investment case, which is very pleasing. Again, if we were to pro forma a 12-month contribution from Oak Europe and DTS, pro forma underlying EBITDA would be $12 million.

Moving forward again, more numbers. This shows the detail reconciling the underlying EBITDA that we've spoken about to the reported NPAT.

Some some some items to call out, an an accounting thing, there was an a $2.8 million credit to the P&L upon the thought fair value of the Oak Europe contingent payment, because part of that payment is payable in two years' time. This payment is to be made in a set number of shares, and this fair value change reflects a reduction in our share price.

As I say, just an a non-cash accounting charge. There was approximately $2.4 million in non-operating costs, the main of which relates to the cost associated with our busy acquisition year, and a smaller amount of legal costs relating to the ACCC matter, which we will touch on shortly.

Uh the share-based costs reflect the non-cash costs associated with the executive incentive plan. The dilutionary impact of of this plan is reflected in the underlying EPS numbers that that we've already stated.

Uh the depreciation and amortization capture the AASB 16 charges on our rental properties, and also the amortization of capitalized software costs. Moving on.

Thank you, Mel. A little more information here about well related to this and following on, I guess, from the previous slide.

This shows the bridging items between the reported NPAT of $4.3 and the underlying NPATA of $6.7 that we've called out. In particular, a few things there.

The tax credit reflects a further addition to the deferred tax assets which are now on balance sheet. It is therefore expected that no tax will be payable for up to the next two financial years.

The amortization on the intangible assets is added back. We've spoken earlier about the fair value of the deferred consideration, the tax adjusted non-operating costs and the share-based costs are also added back in the way that we've calculated this underlying NPATA.

Moving on to the balance sheet. You went Yeah.

Thanks, Mel. That's better.

The balance sheet is in a strong position. The cash and liquidity position is strong and has improved over the period.

The net cash position was $16.9 million on on at balance date. Intangible assets increased as a result of the Oak Europe and DTS acquisitions.

Further, we entered into a new debt facility with ANZ in the period. The initial loan was $6 million reducing over a three-year period.

This new relationship provides funding flexibility for future growth plans, which I think places as in good stead as we look forward to grow. Share capital increased over the period by net $17 million.

We raised approximately $21 million in equity for acquisitions, offset partially by the share buyback program that we enacted during the year, which was approximately $8 million. The balance related to share issues as part of the Oak Europe acquisition, and there was a also movement in shares relating to the executive incentive plan.

Okay. Next one.

Thank you, Mel. Just talking about our our cash flow here, which was very good in the period.

Cash generation and conversion was strong. Underlying operating cash was up 25% to $8.3 million.

This number adjusts for the costs associated with the acquisitions, which was about $1.7 million. The reported cash was up also up 14% to $6.6 million.

This represents good cash conversion, which is very pleasing. Investing cash was $14 million for the acquisitions, and further $2 million across both capitalized IT costs, and plant and equipment.

Finally, we sort of touched on this, the financing cash captures the net equity and debt raised from various raising activities offset by the share buybacks and the cost of the rental leases. I will now hand over to Jason, who will run you through some various items as well.

Thanks, Jason. Um

thanks a lot, Josh. This is a a nice slide to start on.

We're very pleased how this one is looking. As you can see, we have a large, growing, and very diverse blue chip client base, very evident here.

Great to see the expansion into new geographies. Both our two recent acquisitions in DTS and ARC have strong client bases into the UK, which will be a focus for us for growth into the coming year; a smaller footprint into the US and Canada with somewhat of a niche offering from DTS servicing libraries there.

To the next slide, thank you. Now peering under the hood of the numbers.

As Josh said, one of the key contributors to improving margin is the use of digital. Uh the numbers here show payments on our digital platform.

This is when a customer clicks on an SMS or an email, WhatsApp message that we send them, makes a payment through our web portal without human intervention. These kinds of payments are higher margin than when our team is on the phone with the customer taking payments that way.

You can see our top line organic revenue growth was 9%, but our digital payments grew by 26%, and that's one part of what is underpinning the 41% growth in underlying EBITDA. Very pleased to see that.

The numbers there are not including acquisitions. We haven't put DTS or ARC in there just to keep that story simple.

Um but, however, with this acquisition, Software as a Service, SaaS, revenue now accounts for 18% of company revenue, and that's very pleasing to see because not only is it high-margin, but it's very sticky because we're integrated into our clients' back end collection processes. Next slide there, Mel.

Talking more about digital and AI, we do see a further opportunity to expand the use of digital automation and AI across the business for further operating leverage increase. That's through automating the tasks that are currently done by our teams today, more and more of those tasks.

In the center here, I have a diagram of our platform capabilities either live today or in development and expected to be released over the course of this financial year. Starting at 12:00 and going clockwise, we have digital communications, self-service capabilities, human operators, and documents, and they're current and very mature capabilities that we've been leveraging for many years to get to the kind of results that we have today.

Adding to those capabilities, we now have a number of new technologies in in play for this year. We've recently added digital voice with the addition of the DTS digital IVR technology, so that allows us to make outbound, inbound phone calls using pre-recorded messages that you use your keypad on your phone.

If you've ever made a payment to, your electricity company or similar on an IVR, you know what that experience looks like. It's just another technique for us to remove these higher-cost activities from our call center.

Further around the the the dial there, we are also investing into the exciting new world of agentic AI that, everybody's talking about at the moment, I suppose, think ChatGPT and other technologies. We're starting with emails, because it's a big overhead in our teams.

They spend a lot of time answering emails from customers. In fact, in our insurance team where it's the highest, they spend 3.5 hours per day per operator doing that.

We think that there's a significant opportunity to reduce this by having an AI read the customer email, draft a response, but still have a human review that before it goes back to the customer, so that we've got the human in the loop, and it keeps it safe. We're also looking at deploying AI voice, which is where we have robots speaking to customers in in in voice calls.

I do not want to overhype that technology at this point. It's got a lot of promise, but there's a lot of risks and issues to work through in our space, particularly in collections where we're dealing with customers in in vulnerable circumstances.

There's a lot a a lot to do in terms of evolving that tech technology and getting the right guardrails in place, but we do plan to remain on the forefront of that technology and continue to invest in that space. Finally, in the center, we have our own AI agent, Ari.

This is a rebrand of our next best action AI that we've been winning awards for all the way back to 2021. That sits in the center optimizing the best channels, approaches, strategies to use with an individual customer in order to achieve the best collection result, but in order to optimize our costs as well.

We're very excited to continue to invest in that technology. To the next slide, thanks, Mel.

Turning to the acquisitions now. We're very pleased with how both the acquisitions are progressing.

First, here we have Oak Europe. This is our UK-based debt collection agency.

We're presenting a couple of numbers here. We've got the revenue and EBITDA as was announced, and then we've taken the first half of this calendar year and annualized that to give you a sense of how that's progressing.

As you can see, in in both cases there, it's meeting, perhaps exceeding, our expectations, which is very pleasing to see. The integration's gone very well.

Financial integration is complete. We've developed a road map, a tech road map, to combine ARC, DTS, which is also in the UK, and the Credit Clear technology, and we're working through the implementation of that over this year.

The sales pipeline is very strong. We we're in very promising discussions with a number of blue chip opportunities.

With the combined ARC, DTS, and CCR services, we had a successful launch event a month ago. It was very well attended.

Very pleasingly, we already have our first new Tier 1 client in onboarding. This will be a big focus for us for growth in in across this year.

To the next slide, Mel. Similarly with DTS, as I mentioned, it's a a technology provider of collections capabilities, voice and other capabilities that we're leveraging.

DTS is strong in the UK, as well as presence in New Zealand, Australia, and as I mentioned, a a bit of a niche presence in the US. Again, a blue chip customer base, really great opportunities to cross-sell ARC and CCR services.

The again, the transition and integration are complete. All the technology services have been transitioned over.

That went very smoothly. We'll be again looking for growth in this area, but also some rationalization of infrastructure costs in order to improve EBITDA.

Over to you, Josh.

Thanks, Jason. Um yeah, despite these positive advancements, business is often not plain sailing, and we were served with legal proceedings on the 24th of June brought against us by the ACCC.

We are working through this. We are well-represented, um and are and are defending the proceedings.

In terms of an update, look, the matter is following usual legal procedure. In this regard, we confirm that there was an initial Federal Court case management hearing, so that's not a trial, but a case management hearing, and that occurred on the 31st of July.

There were various procedural orders made by the judge at that time, the first of which was the ACCC were to provide further and better particulars to their concise statement by the 14th of June. That has occurred.

We, being ARMA and Force Legal, are to file and serve any any sort of adjustments to that by the 18th of September. Probably the most substantive update that we can share is that there's a further case management hearing on the 16th of October this year.

The matter has not impacted our day-to-day sort of financial results or operations in a material manner at the present time. Of course, we will provide material updates as and when required under our continuous disclosure obligations.

To the next slide. Thanks, Mel.

Now looking forward, that was the year that was, we're very pleased with it. It was, we made a lot of great strides.

Looking forward to the 2027 year, we remain confident in the future prospects of of the group, with an expectation of continued organic revenue and earnings growth across core operations in both Australia and the UK. At present, the ACCC proceedings have not materially impacted the financial results as I sort of said.

On this basis, the company provides the following guidance for FY '27. FY '27 revenue, we expect to be in the range of $73 to $77 million.

We expect underlying EBITDA to be in the range of $12 million to $14 million. We expect a skew to the second half performance, consistent with prior periods, also noting that Oak Europe are further weighted in this half also.

That's important to note as we look forward into '27. This guidance assumes no material operational impact from the ACCC proceedings.

A couple couple of other things that we've called out here. We're expecting good growth in the on the UK side.

We've got a couple of new sort of sales executives there to help build out and and grow the business there. Likewise, on the SaaS and BPO side, we're expecting some good growth there.

To Jason's point, we're expecting further AI deployment and enhancements across the group. There's a few interesting technologies that we're looking at there.

To wrap up, Mel, just the final slide, almost a bit of a summary that we sort of touched on at the start. Key key key attributes they're really looking at here, that I've certainly been impressed by since I started here is there's a blue chip client base here which is growing, a loyal client base, that that leads to repeatable organic growth.

We're expanding, our expertise in collections into a new market in the UK. We sort of see that as a medium-term growth platform.

Operating leverage is a key focus internally with the management team, looking to get earnings growing more than revenue from all those efficiency measures that Jason has referred to. Good domestic market opportunities as well, particularly we sort of see in, the banking, insurance, and utilities sector.

We still see good growth in those areas particularly. Importantly, we've got a a strong balance sheet, good capital position, and a fantastic sort of executive and senior leadership team.

Very pleased with the year and we're we're looking forward to FY '27. That's it for the formalities, Mel.

Happy to open to Q&A at your convenience. Um we might

we have Larry Gandler from Jarden online. Larry, if you would like to ask your questions live.

Uh

yes. Can you hear me, Mel?

Yes, thank you. Oh,

great. Uh Josh, uh welcome aboard, uh congrats on your appointment, and uh congrats to Andrew uh moving up to the board.

Um first question is uh, when you look at your guidance, and uh not wanting to uh pressure cook the organization, but when you look at the guidance at the midpoint, I think it's something like $14-plus million of revenue growth. Uh and then looking at the EBITDA, it's $2.5 million of revenue of EBITDA growth uh at the midpoint.

Uh normally, uh Credit Clear has sort of a higher conversion uh for marginal profits. Then, when I think that there might even be synergy with the acquisitions or some uh acquisition investment unwinding, it seems like maybe $2.5 is very conservative, or that guidance EBITDA guidance range is conservative.

Can you talk to what factors have gone into that EBITDA guidance range?

Look, we're always looking to be, with guidance, you've got to strike the balance between a confident position, but also being sufficiently conservative. I I guess all I can say is the, we're very focused on organic revenue growth and and being efficient with turning that into profitability.

They're they're some of the key factors we have sort of thought about with them. Okay.

Uh

did you have some integration costs in FY '26 that might unwind in FY '27, Josh?

We've called out sort of the one-off costs in in the FY '26 result, those one-off costs we've called out. Oh, and

they might be already captured below the uh the sort of um management EBITDA number? Okay.

I see I see that. All right.

The other question I had is um, SaaS as a proportion of your revenue kind of steps up with the acquisitions. Just wondering maybe, Jason, you could talk to, is that DTS uh which is largely integrated with its customers?

How does How does that change, that that um SaaS?

That's great, Larry. That's DTS is entirely SaaS business integrated with the customers, part of their collections process.

Oh,

great. Okay.

It's fully integrated. Yep.

Okay. That's good to understand.

All right, guys. That's my questions.

Thank you.

Thanks, Larry. Um Josh, can we just talk to the ACCC?

Um What specific systems or processes and governance changes have been made in response to the matters underlying the proceedings? What independent assurance has the board obtained that those historical issues cannot recur?

How is Credit Clear engaging with the ACCC regarding that remediation? Yep.

I'll hand that to you to start with, Jason.

Let me cover the uh the the first part of that question in terms of operational changes. It's certainly we've um specifically re- review reviewed uh all the allegations and uh, put in place um improvements around those.

Let me let me say though more broadly, we're in a in a process of continually reviewing these things. The areas that the, the ACCC looked are the same areas that our our clients and our, internal audit functions, etc.

look. We with with all of our major clients, we will be in an annual and quarterly audit, largely compliance focused.

With many of them, we have a monthly uh review as well. We genuinely are constantly reviewing and improving the processes uh around all of these the points all the time.

We actively uh encourage our clients to do that. As you can imagine, post the uh the ACCC announcement, uh many of our larger clients did come in and do exactly that, do a deep audit.

I'm I'm pleased to say um weren't able to identify any issues at all out of that. Very confident about the state of play of our uh compliance and controls.

On that last point, Mel, I think you sort of said to what extent are ACCC involved with us on those that they aren't uh involved in that. That that's something we're doing independently um of them that it's not something that we're liaising with ACCC directly on at this point.

Thank you. Maybe just to continue with that, Jason, you touched on it in terms of compliance and customers, but um could you maybe talk about your pipeline conversion rate with customers and if the proceedings have affected the group's ability to win new business at all?

I'll take that in in the first instance. If If we in terms of the impact on the operations at the moment, Mel, um yeah, the impact has been immaterial.

Um Particularly if we look at the existing client base, the clients have been generally very very supportive. If we look almost at a worst case scenario at the moment, um estimate of current impact is probably 1%, maybe 2% of group revenue.

That's if if you've been conservative. Um that does not and that equally doesn't mean that um the revenue ceases immediately from what is a very small number of clients that um that have questioned um look, that have been asking questions.

Um what it has led a little bit to to, as Jason sort of said, is an increase in out-of-cycle um client reviews, and all of those have come up very very well. Um yeah, at this stage, um the the, as I say, the the impact is uh has been immaterial.

In terms of new clients, um we continue to win and progress new business opportunities, particularly um particularly in the UK is a key focus um and to get the sales momentum up there, particularly in DTS. DTS has been is a really good strong business, but having come out of a corporate the way it had, it didn't have um an over, or a a strong sales and growth culture, we see good opportunity there.

Um also in the SaaS area in those digital sales, um we see good opportunities there. The the um pipeline there is good, our prospect list is good.

Possibly, the ACCC matter has led to sort of longer sales conversion cycles. Um, they've probably had sort of extended internal reviews and procurement processes as a as a result, but um Eddie and the team have a good uh good pipeline and really good sort of discussions um occurring with with clients.

Um so, particularly on sort of new new business, um yeah, it's probably more an issue of timing. Existing clients, new business can also mean existing clients giving you sort of increasing work, and our performance on our panels has been um, really has has been good over the period or probably better than good.

Thanks. Um, and just further to that, um could you maybe talk to the financial resilience of Credit Clear given um the uncertainty around the proceedings?

Um, has the board stress-tested Credit Clear's balance sheet for potential penalties? Under what range of outcomes could the group fund these costs from existing facilities without needing to raise additional equity?

Yeah. Look, in the presentation, we've we've, I I spoke about the strength of the balance sheet.

Um, there's there's a net cash position uh of $17 million. Um, the balance sheet's never been in a in a stronger position.

Um yeah, that that's that's probably about as simple as that, Mel.

Thanks. Um, we have James Filius online from Morgans.

James, you're open to ask your questions.

Thanks, Mel. Um yeah, welcome uh to the Credit Clear team, Josh.

Um, I just uh Oh,

thank you. Um

I just wanted to ask a question. Obviously, um you called out that you've um won a Tier 1 uh customer in uh Oak Europe uh um which is going to go live in September.

I guess how how should we think about um, the ramp up of that uh Tier 1 customer? I think, historically there's been a bit of a lag um in you know onboarding volumes as um customers sign up, but can you sort of talk us through I guess your expectations and and sort of help us think through um the ramp up of that and how it sort of plays into the guidance for for '27 as well?

Um, well, in our guidance is based um I'll let you, Jason, perhaps speak about that specific client, but in terms of um the guidance, that's based on internal budgeting, and the internal budgeting is unsurprisingly a ground-up um budgeting process where each business puts forward their plans and growth plans and what have you. Um as part of that um in the internal budgeting, the Oak Europe um business shows, a pleasing amount of growth compared to the investment case.

Um, and as part of that and the phasing of that new Tier 1 client is sort of reflected in in the guidance. Um, Jason, you're probably better off speaking about, the timeline with which they start um, becoming sort of mature revenue earners.

Yeah. Um

as you said uh, Joshua, yeah, that is that is uh included in the guidance there, James. Um, yeah, it's similar to to as we've said here in Australia, you know.

Quite commonly, your onboarding process is, three three months uh by the time everybody, particularly with a Tier 1, have been through all their checks and balances. Really quite commonly, it takes your first 6 to 12 months is really um proving proving results, uh getting deeper allocations.

Uh so, it it does usually grow slowly, particularly with these Tier 1s over that kind of course. That again, has been included in the uh in the guidance for this year.

Maybe just to um unpack further, I guess you guys talk to um a a pretty robust pipeline um of opportunities that are out there for the year ahead. Um, how how many I guess would you consider within the pipeline to be at that Tier 1 sort of level um and even Tier 2, just so we can sort of think through um, I guess, the the opportunity set?

I don't have that in in front of me and and I want to be clear that this is a pipeline that's building, I don't think we're at a point to say, we want to start counting them in um just yet, it's fairly early days. I think we can provide more information on that a little bit further down the track.

I I think give I think it's better to I think that you're you're at risk of making it more business slightly, you're at risk of making it slightly more complicated than it needs to be. I guess the guidance reflects our our current view of, the next 12 months.

We're constantly talking to new clients, new opportunities, but look, there's other growth opportunities. If I look at the um, the the ARMA business, it it's got a lot of, a large number of clients.

We've called out at 500-plus. There's a lot of opportunity, the new new's always new and sexy, but there's a lot of opportunities within existing relationships where we're probably not optimizing the revenue with existing customers.

I think sort of um only focusing on the new new possibly doesn't look at all the opportunities that might be there. Eddie and the team here in Australia, and the sales team are, are constantly looking at enhancing and growing the existing client relationships as well.

Understood. Thanks for that.

Appreciate the questions.

Josh, Jason, are you looking to target school fees with the digital collections business? It it would be a natural fit, as Scott.

It's

actually something has been in in discussion. Uh we do a small part of that, uh yeah, no doubt Eddie uh is is looking at that, but maybe there's a broader kind of point here around um targeting niche markets and adjacent markets.

We've been really successful at doing that in the insurance space with uh uh a specific product for collecting, or engaging and collecting on uh third-party at fault uh uh motor vehicle claims. You see the same thing with DTS in New Zealand with a niche uh piece around libraries, it's been very successful there.

It's a really good call out and uh exactly the kind of niches that we are targeting.

Great. Finally, can we ask what is the current status of the share buyback?

There's uh there's approximately 13 share 13 million shares um uh available still left under the the original um share buyback plan. Um at at this point, yeah, the board's still considering um its its position as to whether we'll continue that.

Josh, that brings us to the end of the Q&A segment. I'll pass back to you for final comments.

Okay. Thank you, Mel, and and thanks, everyone, for joining us.

Um, as I sort of say, uh we're we're all very pleased with the way the uh 2026 year has gone. Um, the results are good, the business is really well uh positioned.

Um, we've got a great team here. It's it's a strong, robust team.

The last couple of months, there's been some ups and downs. Um, but the the the core of this business is is really strong and uh, uh pleased with the results, looking forward to next year.

As one year ends, the next one begins, there's uh, that's what we're really focused on. Thank you, Mel.