Chief Financial Officer, Kenneth Ko. We've had a tremendous enrollment of people for this call today, which we're very grateful for.

To those who are here on time, we'll just get moving now. I can see more people coming in.

I want to start by acknowledging the quality of our teams. We have tremendous people in the business led by very, very capable leaders who've made long-term commitments to the business, and it is really that leadership that makes so much difference within the system.

I want to start by acknowledging those more than 100 partners as leaders, really leading from the bottom up, our incredible people, to deliver our 20th year of results that I think can only be described over that period as extraordinary. We started in June 2006 with $200,000 Australian dollars of billings, and this year, you can see that our revenue is $159 million Australian dollars as a group, which is 800 times the revenue that we started with.

While, when we started, we did have an intention to make an impact to improve the quality of opportunities available for people within accounting firms and in the accounting industry, and we were ambitious on day one to take that number to—I remember us hoping that by year 10, our plan was we'd have $50 million of revenue—we are continually grateful for the quality of the people, clients, and communities that are part of the ecosystem of our business. Every day, the business becomes, frankly, more fun and the difference it's making to people is more obvious after this period of time.

That's very, very gratifying. As we like to say, in one page, you can see across the top there, the team's got over 700 people, average revenue per person remains very high by industry standards anywhere over $220,000 Australian dollars per person in billings.

It's 105 partners, 43 businesses in six countries, $159 million dollars of revenue, current run rate is about $164 million, the shares on issue, 45.2 million, are still below the 45.5 million shares that were on issue at IPO. Revenue at IPO was forecast to be about $30 million Australian dollars, and we haven't increased the share count since IPO, which I think shows the discipline of the model and the team.

Free cash flow per share is 22.1 cents and is up 17.5%, our return on invested capital at 23.2% remains very high, organic growth, 2.9% we're pleased with, and our ROIC plus organic growth is 26.1%. From a numbers perspective, they're a good set of numbers.

On page three, Kenneth, if we can whip through this 20 years of growth. The business has doubled six times in a row, and we've tried to lay that out here for new and long-term investors.

The point here is that Kelly Partners Group Holdings operates a business system, and that system is in the habit of doubling itself consistently. When I moved here with my family of five in January 2023, our trailing revenue was $64.9 million Australian dollars, and this year, that revenue is $160 million.

You see in that period, again, the business has doubled, as it's now done, that's the sixth time, which is great. On page four, the book value of the business has compounded 34.3% CAGR for 20 years.

Particularly pleased with that, and that was a goal of mine from day dot and to compound that book value at 30% or more annually. It was a quiet goal and I'm very pleased to be able to sign off on that 20-year track record that I regard as a really interesting investment track record because when we started, accounting firms were not regarded as even businesses, let alone as investable businesses.

The industry itself was just not considered investable, which is very interesting. On page five, Ken's done a huge amount of work.

We are consistently asked questions by people confused by our structure and the accounting conventions that standards mandate, and we've tried to be very clear here, and I want to thank Ken, our CFO, for the effort that he's made to again try and make this clearer. Our partner-owner-driver model means that the Holdco owns typically a 50.01% or more interest in a local accounting firm, and often I get some people on Twitter who are confused by the accounting, and I don't think they're confused, I think they've just spoken before they've taken the time to look carefully at the accounts.

I think as a group, we've done the best now we can to make our business as understandable to a quality shareholder with some insight who can sit down and have a good look at the business. That's laid out there.

I'll get Ken in the financial section to come back and take you through that carefully. Page six, and all of this presentation was published this morning on the ASX, you've got statutory versus underlying NPATA and EPS, and you can see the consistent growth in the business over a long period of time.

Page seven, some financial highlights for you, underlying EBITDA is $17.9 million dollars, underlying NPATA, $10.8 million, it's up 18%, NPATA, $8.4 million, up 18%. Balance sheet remains very, very strong with a very high cash conversion, the nine-month earnings of $10 million, and our returns, 35.7% on equity, up from 31.9 last year.

The business is trading at an EV to EBITDA multiple of 12.6 times, which doesn't appear to be excessive, and earnings per share on an underlying NPATA basis are up 18%. On page eight, some common misconceptions.

We've published this, we get asked many, many questions every day, and we try not to do one-on-ones with investors, we're really try to hold to these types of meetings twice a year so that nobody really has an information advantage, and if anyone asks these questions, we'll often publish them in a quality shareholders letter or to Twitter or in an ASX announcement as is appropriate. These are some of the questions that we get asked, and often I do think they're by people that haven't understood our model because they haven't perhaps taken enough time to really look at the materials.

Now often I get the other criticism that we provide too much information about the company. We're now at a point where there's more than 20 quality shareholders newsletters, 9 years as a public company's accounts published and results presentations, I must have done 30 podcasts or so and plenty of interviews, and our team have done a great job on our website of publishing an AI engine that will allow you to search much of that information.

We are getting to the point where saying much more than we've said about our model and how we generate the returns we do, we don't really believe at a point is in the interests of the business. I'm not that interested in sharing any of our trade secrets as interest in this sector continues to grow.

You will see a posture from us of less sharing of the operational and other insights of the business because we do think we've done our best to at this point make clear what the business is, how it operates, and to some degree how it generates the returns it does. On page nine, one of the very, very exciting things about the business today is that the business now never sleeps.

It's trading 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which gives us this opportunity to take the flywheel. Even 5 years ago, our flywheel was certainly in operation, but it was really only in operation 10, maybe 12 hours a day.

Let's say, certainly for a good 8-hour workday. Ken is in Hong Kong and has been for 10 years, so that extended it a little bit, and Ken works a lot, as does his team, it was a little bit more than 8 hours a day.

Today, genuinely, I'm very pleased that our business is a global business, and it is operating 24 hours a day, most days a week, hopefully not on Sundays, and is compounding, and that flywheel is being established and is starting to turn. Now I don't know that I've got a good photo, Ken, but you might find it and pop it up at the end of our presentation when we take some questions, but our signage officially went up today on the new office in Dublin in Ireland, and so our partners in Wexford have opened the office in Dublin.

That's a 20-year vision for Stephen and his father who built that firm over 55 years in Wexford, and I'm very, very excited about the opportunities that will come from that, which is just another fantastic thing that's going on. You'll see us talk a little bit today about the next stage for the business, and I'm confident that today, our revenues outside Australia are at or above what they were at the time that we IPO'd the business in 2017.

While they're not as profitable as we would like them to be in the US, we're certainly beyond benchmark in Ireland, and there's really no reason that we won't close the gap on those earnings over time and very dramatically grow this business, which is particularly exciting. On page 11, many years ago, for people that are new to the group, I used to sit with investors who weren't that interested in the sector, let alone Kelly Partners, and they'd say, "Can you just give me the story in 10 seconds?"

This is KPG in 10 seconds, this is where this slide comes from. Lots of green dials.

Basically, revenue up 18%, margins are very strong, parent NPATA, very pleased with, returns on equity at 40%, I don't think anyone can be too upset about that, 38.8 on the underlying group NPATA. Gearing at 1.52 times net debt to EBITDA I think is very moderate.

I saw a large competitor, a PE-backed competitor recently here in the US, 6.5 times net debt to EBITDA seems to be very common, which is not Kelly Partners. To emphasize, we can fund in the manner that we have, the type of growth that we have for decades at these levels of gearing, 2.5 times or less.

Cash flow is up 20% to $32.4 million, and our cash conversion, I think our team is doing exceptional job there. Our people remain very, very effective, as you'll see with revenue per FTE, and our group operating cash flow at 47.9%, it's a type of number we're happy to see.

Tons of great graphs on page 12 and 13, which I'll leave for you to admire, and not me. These are our teams' just epic efforts and on a consistent 20-year basis.

I really want to emphasize that Ken and I have the pleasure of presenting these results, but this is 100 partners, 700 people who every day turn up for their teams and their clients and make a difference in their local communities, and I could not be more proud of them. On page 14, this is a slide you've seen before, but stage five of what we're doing is really, this is what we've built in Australia, can we now take this business global over these next 5 years?

The answer I think is yes, but we'll be doing that with our partners as we always have, it's not a sort of Holdco operation, it's a 51/49 with our partners, and at $134.6 million in '25, we're on our way to try and double that again, because seven's our lucky number, and seven doubles would be excellent, and so that's what we're on about. The revenue CAGR remains very, very strong.

I might leave the rest of these slides for you to review in your own time, but I think much of it you've heard from me before, and then really hand over to you, Ken, on the financials, and then take some questions. Hey,

awesome. Thanks, Brett.

Great to see everyone again and have the opportunity to present the financial results for 2026. This slide we publish every year for the group, and it has the consolidated metrics as well as the attributable metrics for the parent.

As Brett alluded to earlier, we've had investors ask us about just focusing on the attributable measures, and that's why we presented the slide five in the presentation that is a one-pager on just the parent attributable economics and metrics. Going forward, if you're after group and parent measures, look at this old slide.

If you're just after, or you want to see is parent attributable economics, then look at that new slide that we published. I won't go through this slide in much detail because a lot of the metrics and measures are covered in the later slides.

On the P&L, revenue of $159.2 million, increase of 18.2% on the prior year, driven both by organic revenue growth of 2.9% and acquired growth of 15.3%. I just want to highlight here that if we exclude the effects of consolidating offices that we did during the year and exiting unprofitable clients, our organic growth was 4.5%.

On the right there, operating EBITDA margins of our operating businesses was 28.4%, our Australian businesses achieved 31.9%, which is a very strong result. On the right here, you'll see that revenue is grown 18.2%, our operating expenses have increased in line with that, our underlying EBITDA has increased in line with that, and I'll leave the rest for you to look at.

At the very bottom of that table, underlying NPATA to shareholders of $10.8 million, up 18.9% on prior year. In terms of the balance sheet, 1.52 times is our leverage ratio as at 30th of June 2026, the group return on equity of 40.8 million, parent return on equity of 35.7%.

If we look on the right there, lockup days, which is something we like to measure regularly because it gives an indication on how well we are managing our working capital, is very strong at 52.8 days, which comprises of 8 WIP days and 45 debtor days. On the summary of the balance sheet there at the bottom, you'll see our total assets of $229.9 million, having increased because essentially of the acquisitions that we completed during the year.

On the next slide, in terms of our debt and liquidity, we had as of 30th of June $89.4 million of facility limits, of which we drew $74.7 million of drawn debt and $70.7 million of net debt, leaving us with $18.6 million of cash and headroom, representing 25% of the gross debt drawn. I just want to highlight there on the right, because we have had again some investors and shareholders misunderstand, they think that the consolidated debt is all debt relating to the parent, and that's not the case.

This table, which we publish every period, shows where the debt actually sits. In terms of the $74.7 million of total debt in the group, $28.5 million sits in the parent's balance sheet, and $46.3 million of the debt sits in operating businesses' balance sheets.

I just want to make that clear to everyone to see that. As we said before, the group gearing increased to 1.52 times EBITDA from 1.42 times in the prior year due to the debt that's been taken out to complete the six acquisitions during the year.

This is a new slide that we've put in this year. Again, we've had feedback from shareholders.

We used to publish, and we still do, in the appendix a slide called net debt per partner. We think that this is obviously a much better way to look at the debt situation or the leverage of the group, and here I've presented since IPO all of our debt-to-EBITDA metrics for the last 8 years.

You'll see that I've put different calculations: net debt to underlying EBITDA, net debt to underlying EBITDA after you take out rent expense, net debt to statutory EBITDA if you reduce rent expense and you don't add back the non-recurring items, what would it look like? If you look at the history of the business, we've never exceeded two times EBITDA in the last 8 years, which demonstrates the disciplined approach in us repaying debt.

As Brett said just now, we come across examples in our competitors that has much higher leverage than what we have. We think this is very moderate.

I also note here at the bottom left of this slide, we often also get asked why we don't include contingent consideration as debt. Contingent consideration is the deferred component of the purchase price when we make acquisitions, and that's because we pay this through saved operating cash flow.

We actually don't borrow again to pay for this. We set aside cash flows in our businesses to pay for those contingent considerations, and that's why we don't count it in the leverage ratio.

In terms of the cash flow, very strong, as you can see there, $32.4 million of cash from operations, up 30.1% from the prior year. If you take out the scheduled debt reductions of $13.1 million, you get to a free cash flow to the consolidated group of $18.4 million, which has grown 50.5% on the prior year.

You'll see that during the year, we drew debt of $23.1 million, and we used that primarily to complete the six acquisitions during the year of $20.5 million, and we also did fit-outs on three of our offices of $3.5 million. Again, $13.1 million of scheduled debt reductions.

We think that is a very disciplined approach in repaying down the debt, and we're very pleased about that. Then the parent NCI waterfall, which we have presented since the previous year, showing how we get from the 51 to 49% share of the net profit before tax to the statutory split, which is affected by parent taxes, interest on parent debt, depreciation, additional investments, and non-recurring expenses.

I might just go quickly before I hand back to Brett just to the parent attributable slide on slide five and just explain quickly what I've done here. As I said, this is a one-page that shows all the economics of the parent.

Previously, all of these metrics are available in the slides, just in different sections, but we've put it now together in one slide for everyone to refer to. You'll see there on the top how the consolidated revenue and EBITDA per the statutory accounts, and how we then kind of do a waterfall to show how that then the parent gets a share of the operating business underlying EBITDA, it spends the additional investments, it spends on interest, depreciation, income tax, to arrive at the underlying NPATA.

On the right there, you'll see some parent-specific measures: balance sheet, return, and valuation metrics that I think will be helpful to everyone. With that, I would like to hand back to Brett.

Thank you. Brett?

You're on mute, Brett, sorry.

Thanks, Kenny. Just for everyone that's attending today, we have a Q&A service.

We can put in a question, and we can do our best to try and answer that question. We'll give you a moment to do that.

General comments are that the business is in a really tremendous place. We have a settled business model, and we are in a market where there's probably never been more acceptance of what we're doing as a good place to invest.

We have had a strange year of people being worried by AI, but I do believe that there's a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of the potential of that technology for our business coming through. We believe that we've got a very strongly differentiated understanding and deployment in that space that will create tremendous value for the business, to such a degree that we won't say much about what we're doing or how we intend to use that technology to make our shareholders better off, but we feel very comfortable that that's just a massive, massive opportunity.

I think I've said enough in various presentations over the last 12 months to give people some comfort that we're aware that AI's a thing, and we might have some ideas as to how to create some value from it. I have written a shareholders letter for our quality shareholders today that I hope you find helpful, and I want to acknowledge that the last 12 months share price performance has been very distressing for many people, including myself that owns shares, and quite a few of them in the business, although we do take a decades-long view of the business.

While I do find the gyrations of the share price annoying, I accept that that's the mood of the market. To some degree, that's just one of the things you accept when you run a public company.

Other than that, the business is very much in a posture to aggressively grow from here. We've mentioned in our presentation that there are three things that we're working on, and we've been working on them for a couple of years.

We've really invested a fair bit of capital and certainly a huge amount of time to really move the business now onto a global footing. Those things are to continue to investigate and at some point execute a listing on an international exchange; to secure long-dated debt funding in the style of Constellation's 15-year debentures; and to implement a dual-class structure for long-term governance of the business.

Those three things we think will add huge capability to the business's opportunities to grow. That growth is really about taking our unique partner-owner-driver model into markets where there is real demand, not least of here in the US.

We think that our model very much sits between private equity buy 100% and roll you into a big monster, and try to swim by yourself at an increasingly older age against a market that really is on the move. Our model is tremendously unique and differentiated with a two-decade track record that I think is without peer, frankly, in the industry globally.

I think that's probably become quite well known. There's good acquisition pipeline, and there's real deep opportunity for the business.

Now, Kenneth, I can't see the questions here. Where are they published?

In the published section. Here we go.

"Focusing on SME clients, do we see the risk that your customer gets acquired and losing that customer?" It's true that from time to time, clients' companies do get acquired.

I'm pleased to say that we often keep them as clients, but it's very marginal at best as a risk to the business. It's been that way for a couple of decades.

Number two, "You are still working on the new structure and the financing of the company, and mentioned that it takes a long time. Could you be more specific?"

For the deal we looked to close in Cyprus, we were pleased that we were able to attract from the Bank of Greece funding that duplicated what we've done in Australia. We've duplicated the arrangements that we have in Australia in Ireland, and we're confident we could do that in most places.

We are working with Westpac on how we structure long term for global growth, and we think that a 15-year debenture at Headco would do the best job of that. Executing that is not without its challenges, we continue to work on that together, and Westpac have been a long-term and excellent partner of the business.

Then there's a third question, "The partnership in Cyprus that we looked to buy into, that deal didn't go through as the company suddenly asked for more money. That's true.

Did we have to pay any fees for walking away?" No, we didn't have a break fee because we had a binding term sheet, and when the vendor asked for a lot more money at the end, we just said no.

Deals that don't start well seldom end well. We're very careful at this point.

We've got a huge amount of internal opportunity, and we've got a lot of incoming partnership opportunity. We're really continually trying to raise our standards as to the quality of the people and partnerships we bring into the business, because when deals get difficult, they do absorb a lot of time, and they don't create additional value for that time.

They're the answers to those three questions. Now we've got a bunch of people with us, have we got more questions?

Brett, there's more in the in-review section in the Q&A.

Sorry, I had them in the published bit. Great.

"Group investment went to 3.1% of revenue, the highest level for 5 years. Where do you think the right level is for the business?

What are some of the investments being made and expected benefits, returns for the business?" It's true that our additional revenue at group level is the highest that has been in 5 years, but a careful look at what the pattern of that is over the over the last 20 years is is, is, frankly, more relevant.

We are duplicating all of the capabilities to a great degree that we've got in Australia, and on a global basis. So, that has been seconding team members in here, investing in infrastructure, technology, and teams.

And, I think short of one or two people, we've probably got, full capacity, now that Australia has, in in the US, across Hong Kong, and into the UK. We feel pretty good about that.

If if we'd been public the first 10 years of Kelly Partners, it would have looked like this. In fact, that's, that number would have been about 4%, could have been up to 5%.

I think when we started services, it was between 12 and 14% of revenue, and post-IPO, we committed to the partners we would keep it at 9, and we would pay the difference at the Holdco level. I feel really comfortable on that.

It's it's a capital allocation decision. It's taking internal profits and and, essentially, directing them to to internal growth.

Any serious study of the book The Outsiders will will, in an analysis of our business would show that our best returns are from additional partnerships, and next-best returns are from internal investments at these very, very high ROICs. "Hi, Brett.

Appreciate if you can talk about the recent dilution in your shareholding down to 31%." Chinmay, I really took a, the position, in a situation where there was a massive fire in LA, and I I said this to our shareholders at Berkshire catch-up in Omaha and again in, London recently.

There was a big fire in the middle of, of LA. We're living in Malibu, and I needed to relocate our family to the other side of that, fire.

My wife has a serious heart condition, and and Bec had said to me for years that, the stress of the gyrating share price does affect her much more than it does me, and I committed over time that, as I'd said publicly in four versions of the Owner's Manual, that I would look to have a Warren Buffett-style, 35% shareholding. I took on some margin loans because when I needed to buy a new house, I couldn't get a term loan.

I couldn't sell a bunch of stock. I approached Morgans, who'd been our bank for the IPO, and they they were going to sell some stock for me, but it came up short a few days later after being quite confident that they could sell the stock.

In an emergency, I entered into facilities that I thought confident, it was unlikely to see a 50% decline in our share price in the period, given the results you've just seen. The market has moved in a different direction to our business.

It was simply a bet I took. You're a shareholder in a business, that was founded by my wife and I on the bet that I could take the $200,000 of personal billings I had and turn it into something.

Most of our bets have gone okay. This one's gone, strongly against me.

I thought that our shareholder base was less likely than the market to react to, broad AI fears. I would say to our long-standing quality shareholders, many of whom have smaller holdings, that we did have a couple of larger shareholders in February sell down pretty aggressively, one in particular, across all of their portfolio.

That seems to have spooked the market. I I've paid a real price for that, but we have diversified our family's financial position, which is good for my wife and kids, and we've been able to move homes in an emergency.

It's not the way I would have liked to, to achieve that outcome, but it was the only, option available after very exhaustive inquiries, by me over a period of time. I've held a significant shareholding in the business for 20 years.

At IPO, I had 65 personal guarantees, and Westpac released their charge on my family's trust in about January, February this year, which held our entire stake in the group. I think my wife and I have taken on a fair amount of responsibility for a long time, and, and I don't think in that period I've I've been idle, so, it's it's generated a lot of commentary.

I think a lot of the commentary is, is what it is, I won't say much more than that, but I feel very confident as the largest shareholder in the group to, continue to be the largest shareholder in the group. "Um, there's a fair amount of commentary around funding sources.

Given the low debt-to-EBITDA, it doesn't seem like it's limiting your near-term growth." That's true.

"What's the thinking behind a long-term debt funding?" Long-term debt funding at at the Holdco would allow us to grow very dramatically outside Australia.

It's difficult to get an individual, banking situation in each country, to do what might be, at least in the first instance, smaller, one, two, three, four, five deals. Constellation Software is the best example.

They're in over 100 countries. They can move very quickly and give certainty to people, about joining their group.

We bought a 51% interest in Kudos Network, and it's got, 60 firms in 48 countries. Many of those are smaller firms, smaller countries, would be harder to finance, and certainly Westpac couldn't do them under our current arrangements, and they've been a tremendous partner in helping us grow this initial, global, foundational footprint.

That's the thinking, but again, we're thinking decades out, trying to get the structure right and the funding structure, right now so that we can do as we've done in the in the current business, just continue to get that flywheel moving and keep it moving on the same same, basis. "Can you please give, any updates on acquisitions or partnerships and what you're seeing on the ground?"

We're seeing a huge amount of activity as always. We feel unanxious about doing much.

I think we did six or seven deals in the first 6 months of the year, Ken, up to the end of January,

and the share price,

the share price fell 70%, Ken, maybe if we do less, share price will will will get closer to intrinsic value. Who knows?

There is, we'll just continue to do what we've always done, and that's not be desperate to do a deal that doesn't make sense. There's a huge amount of activity in the market, and and we'll always get our fair share.

We're pretty pretty confident. "Um, any update on listing in US, Canada markets?"

I can't say much more because there are real laws about that commentary, but we are I have visited and shared openly, online that I've been to London Stock Exchange twice, I've been to Toronto Stock Exchange, we've been to New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. You can see disclosures in the accounts the last more than 2 years of some millions of dollars spent on that effort, to investigate the right venue long term for the business, and, and spent some money with lawyers to work out the structure and and other good things.

So, we are we are, we are on the move there. "Shed some light on the number of acquisitions slowed down?"

That's not my position. Just look back 20 years, there's a really clear graph of when we when we've been able to find, good partnerships to join the business, and, it's got to be the right people, right values, and the right terms, right price, etc.

A lot has to come together to do to do the right type of, a partnership, deal. So, feel pretty relaxed about that.

"At what company performance would you reinstate dividends?" Great question.

Probably, none, Lynn. If we ran out of places to earn the sorts of, ROICs, that we're generating, then, we might sell the company as opposed to pay dividends, Ken.

While ever our our returns are miles beyond our weighted average cost of capital, then there's no plan to to pay dividends at any point. Should there be a a a, a change of listing venue, it's quite likely that we would fund out the very large, franking credit balance that we have, and, if we were to do that, that'd go out as a special dividend.

That's the only thought I've had of late of of of dividends. I don't mind the idea of having a base-level dividend like Constellation has had, but the opportunities to grow have been so substantial over the last 5 years that we have thought that internally funding that was better for all shareholders than paying dividends.

"You made a comment in your presentation earlier US is not as profitable as you would like. Is that because the inherent economics are lower, or it's taking, longer to get to maturity than compared to Oz?"

I think their profitability probably looks a lot like Australia did in the early years, when it, consistent effort into those businesses, and it just takes time to build the relationship, and we've just completed a new office in Woodland Hills, which is amazing, and that will change everything about that business. We're building a new office for our large Florida firm that will be finished by 1 January.

Again, that will dramatically impact that business. It it's just a a step-by-step process of, you can do in 6 weeks, but often when you don't have the relationships that we would in Australia, it might take 18 months to 2 years.

Again, we feel unanxious about that because we can see clearly in the P&L where the opportunity is, and we've actually think that that's an understanding that isn't in this market generally, so, we actually see a very, very big opportunity, in this market as a result of sorts of margins that we're seeing, in firms that we look look to bring into the group. That's that's actually quite an interesting opportunity.

That might be the last question that's in that list. "How do you intend to scale the acquisition engine in the event you're able to raise a debt?"

It's a great question, Patrick. It would be a matter of scaling the teams in various markets, and so we really like businesses like McDonald's, who have sort of five global markets.

I can see us having teams in each of those markets, North America, UK, Australia, Pacific, potentially into Asia, and and and Africa, and and and Middle East, Middle East and Africa and Asia. This is a 20-year view rather than a 20-minute view, but there's no question we could scale, teams into those places and grow those businesses dramatically.

We're getting a lot of, of inbound from private equity groups who have bought into groups and now have 10 firms and are like, "What do we do with this thing?" There's not an obvious public market exit, and a lot of these groups are not obvious targets for for very, very large consolidators.

When I started, I was excellent and became excellent at getting an individual client or or person that owned an excellent business to come across to to the business, and then I saw the opportunity in just bringing an entire, firm into into the group, which was just more efficient. Frankly, took the same amount of time.

What I see today is there's whole, groups that have been consolidated, multi-location businesses that are like, "Well, where do we go? We don't really want to go to a big private equity group, and and we're sort of too big to be small, but too small to be massive, and so where can we go?"

What I'm trying to set us up for is to be the consolidator of those consolidators as a, a a global posture, listed Holdco that can bring many of those groups into the business. I don't want to say too much more than that.

It's It is, it's a different thing, to a degree to what we've been doing, but I think, you'll see that come to shape over the next 5 years, and in I think in quite an exciting way. "If you could share your thoughts about, long-term debenture."

If we could bring that together, we could do that as a rights issue to existing shareholders is that if there's appetite, and that would be the best way to give a shareholder a dividend-like return. Mark Leonard at Constellation designed a a 15-year debenture with inflation plus 6.5%, and the total return was basically designed to mimic the 30-year historical return of equities on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

We are contemplating and have designed an instrument that would allow shareholders to get a dividend-like return, income-like return from a business that they understand, that would also strengthen our ability to grow the equity value of their equity investment. And, for anyone deeply curious about that, study, what Constellation have done and how they've done it, and imagine what KPG would look like if we can make that happen.

"I'm also curious about your thoughts on any buyback." There isn't the capital in the business today to do a meaningful buyback.

Should we go to the market, as we have, as you can imagine, over the last number of months, looking for that alternative, capital, typically debt, to fund a very large buyback, those debt providers then typically start to try and encourage us to take the entire business private, and we keep the conversation said, "No, give us a very large debt facility at the right prices so we can buy a meaningful amount of stock back." It doesn't really move the dial if we buy 5 million bucks worth of stock back, but, if we had the capital, we would buy a very, very large chunk of this business back and cancel those shares.

We have, a very strong preference to be a public company. So, "You intend to scale the acquisition engine in the event you're able to raise debt?"

There's a question as to, "Has the acquisition engine been unable to scale so far?" No, I wouldn't suggest that.

I think a a two-decade, 30% revenue CAGR performance is, without, essentially issuing additional shares is probably okay. If you throw that performance on for another 20 years, as a shareholder, and you you hang around long enough, you might be pretty happy with what happens.

"Um, is AI giving any noticeable any noticeable benefits?" What I'll say to that is, very strongly, yes.

What I won't do is is tell you how or why or anything else. We'll let the other accountants try and work that out.

What we're not going to do from this point is run a sort of education service for for other firms, industry, and and other consolidators. "How is the acquisition pricing in the USA affected by competition from private equity?"

I must say there really isn't any impact on on the part of the market that we are looking at. There's a real sort of bifurcation.

Private equity are into very large firms, and there are some sort of now popping up sort of AI-led Holdco consolidator-style.com-flavored things that might want to buy small things. It's not affecting us.

We We have a very much a proprietary, deal flow line over 20 years where people know who we are, they know what we stand for, the difference that we can make, and we've got a proven track record and dozens and dozens of people that have partnered with us who can, stand behind what we say that we will do, with you and your business. So, I think we're in a very, very unique place.

This is permanent capital, relationship-based, with a decade-long view versus, flighty PE capital with a transactional emphasis with a a 3-minute, 3 to 5-minute attention span—I mean 3 to 5-minute, 3 to 5-year. I feel I feel very, very confident that we're in a extremely strong position, at this point.

I can't I must say, I haven't been involved in the business at a time when the business was stronger. That, I I'm very, very excited about where we are.

"Has the equity equity raise made through partners of $11 and change led to any morale problems with the partners who bought at that price and subsequently saw the price drop 60%?" Frankly, that's it's been a good education for, our partners.

I think I owned, our equity for many years, and during COVID, we saw 60, 70% price drops. During COVID, our share price dropped to 60 cents.

We issued at a dollar. There was never going to be a situation where any government contemplated not collecting tax even for a second, and so I'm very confident that the intrinsic value of the business, is the focus of our partners.

They've all they've all made typically 10-year commitments to the business, and, when they bought into the business, I explained to them, "Buy into the business with a 20-year view, and I think you'll do okay." I, I'm not concerned about that at all.

If you're a short-term person, our firm and our stock's not a place for you. "What are your thoughts on recent acquisition of CBIZ by Grant Thornton at current depressed price?

Do you see KPG as a potential acquisition target?" I think that, CBIZ acquisition is is instructive.

I think it leaves a hole for our type of business to be listed on a US exchange, or a or a Toronto Exchange, or a London Exchange. There's billions of dollars worth of invested capital in that business that's going to be looking for a home, and our returns have always been three times on any major metric, three times better on any major metric than CBIZ's.

I think it's great that CBIZ has been, or will go private, with Grant Thornton, and I think that that, frankly, just, presents an enormous opportunity for our business. I think our business today is, by far, the best-performing publicly traded accounting group in the world.

"If you look out 10 years, what do you think is the biggest constraint on KPG becoming a much larger business: availability of acquisition target, partner group, and capital?" If we can get the structure right, Warren Buffett I think wrote the best one-page letter ever in the history of business when he wrote about Charlie Munger on his death and said, Munger's contribution to Berkshire was the architecture of Berkshire.

If we can duplicate that architecture to set us up to be able to compound for for many decades from here, then then I think, I feel very, very excited about the future of the business. Structure kind of is everything.

We've got a very settled strategy, and after structure, it's availability of flexible capital on the right terms that's very long-dated. "Um, do you need to change your stock market listing venue in order to raise a debenture debt?"

We thought we did, we're getting some feedback that that might not be the case, and we are working with Stifel in Canada, on that matter, and we can publicly, share that. So, we'll tell you more when we've when we've got more more news.

From Brendan Harrington, "Hey, Brendan, great to, see a note. Hello, Brett and Ken.

Hope you are both very well. Congratulations on 20 years.

A phenomenal personal achievement, phenomenal achievement in and of itself, to do in a patient, principled, and platform-building way at KPG, this should be especially proud of. Can you please speak more of the rationale and performance to date of the Workpod acquisition?"

The Workpod acquisition is this sort of sleeper business, based in the Philippines, more than 1,000 seats, that we are now we are using I'll I'll say a little bit more, it's a very, very good question, Brendan. We did a shareholders meeting in London.

We had 35 investors there, including, and I won't mention who it was, but a gentleman came up to me, said, "Look, I run the family office of this family. We have more than £20 million investable capital in our Holdco.

I saw you speak in Sweden at the Serial Acquirers Conference earlier in the year, and I wanted to ask you one question." He wanted to do that privately, we did it before the meeting.

He said, "Will you take your partner-owner-driver model over time and apply it to other verticals?" I said, "Well, look, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, when asked what's the number-one thing you can do in business, answered simultaneously, 'Focus.'

We will stay focused on the accounting sec- sector, but at the same time, when Workpod came along that can provide team members to our firms and to our 25,000 clients, the alignment and the fact that it was that it has been built from scratch by one of our clients, the values alignment and the business alignment was so strong, I saw this as an opportunity to to apply a partner-owner-driver model in this this niche. Now what we're doing under that, effectively, Workpod Holdco is identifying niches where we can build, these types of virtual teams that, gym operators need, healthcare operators need—and I won't say any more than that.

There's a dozen niches that we've identified that really need excellent people. What Workpod does is it doesn't just find random people, it actually finds great people and then trains them, documents the systems of the of the business looking to work with them, and then it trains those people.

Brendan, what the opportunity there is is to take that from 1,000 seats to 10,000 seats, and, and based on today's market cap, that business would be more valuable than KPG if we can execute that plan, and, and by a significant number. Now I believe KPG will continue to grow, and I think today's market cap just doesn't matter, and it doesn't reflect intrinsic value of the business, but I want everyone to be aware that we believe that the number-one asset of KPG is our partner-owner-driver model that we invented, designed, and refined over nearly 100, partnerships and transactions all up.

As we find partners that want to take that model and really, apply it with our expertise and coaching and guidance, I'm very, very keen to scale the use of that intellectual property across those verticals. Now longer-term shareholders will know that we attempted to do that in Texas here in the United States as a start in the accounting industry, and we didn't have a partner that was able to execute, and it wasn't all his fault, wasn't all our fault, and all of that, but one of the insights was that if we had somebody who had an established, decent-sized business and and was more closely aligned in in in various ways, then we thought that might actually, work very, very well.

I'd I'd just say that Workpod is performing very well, and I believe will continue to, outperform its sector and and be a very, very valuable contributor to our business, contributor to our clients' business, and and asset of of the group. Another question, "Chinmay, what are your observations post-partnership with Hello AI, on AI adoption and embed- embedment by KPG?"

We are doing well with the initiatives that we are running in the in the AI space. I would point you and and everyone to Jim Collins' amazing book, Good to Great.

He has a six-part framework, and it talks about great leadership, great people, great thinking, and then great execution. It's a discipline, and the last step is technology as an enabler.

What, whether it's the .com boom or now in in AI, it's very easy to turn that framework—I'm seeing it in our in our industry—to rather than start here, to start here and say, "AI will save me. AI will make me better.

AI is going to be awesome," which it is awesome, but it's a technology, and in a change program that Collins describes in the flywheel that results from it, it has to happen in the right place at the right time. The way to think about it in my view is, if we go and get the latest and greatest machine gun, and we give it to 6-year-olds who aren't trained, or even 36-year-olds that aren't disciplined, then the return on that machine gun is going to be very low.

You've got to have great leaders of excellent soldiers with the right thinking, right strategy, right structure, and then that disciplined force needs to take that technology, whatever it is, into into the the theater of war, if you like. That's the way we think, and if you get that right, you get this flywheel.

The reason I'm so confident about our business's ability to extract enormous value from any technology, and in particular from AI, is that we all operate on a consistent technology network, which is very, very unusual across accounting firms anywhere in the world. We have at least 80% commonality in our software stock, software stack, which, again, is very, very unusual across any accounting groups that you'll see at anywhere near our size.

That's because we have a 51/49 ownership situation where the Holdco has control of certain things, and one of those things is the the IT network and the software stack. It's always been like that, and we've always done the work to do that, to do that change program, to do that actual hard yards of operational effort.

It is very, very hard work. It's much easier to buy something and not fix it.

Then because of the alignment created by our partner-owner-driver model, we've got leaders and soldiers who are more like the SAS or SEAL teams than general armies. Most firms our size have huge audit practices.

Our audit practice is less than 5% of revenue. They have masses of people, and and they don't have a 51/49 structure where there's any agreement on real governance, let alone who's responsible for what.

Our ability to move and move fast and implement technology, whatever that technology is, is miles in advance than the average group. Now when private equity come in and think that they have power because they bought 100%, in professional services, just because you own 100% doesn't mean you have 100% of the hearts and minds.

We have more than 100 partners who on average have signed agreements that say they're committed to the group for at least 10 years. That's 1,000 years of people commitment to our business.

That's unheard of. It's that commitment when shit gets hard, which change, in particular technology adoption, is very hard, when it gets hard, it's that commitment from the leadership and the fantastic people in the group that drives change through the business.

We're not a top-down organization, we're Services from the bottom up with unusual alignment and partners who are driving this change, who are saying, "Brett, how can we go faster? How do we do this?

We want to use that." Now our Services team serves those people, and the dynamic and frankly, the high-performance culture that that is building the team is unbelievably exciting.

I get most excited by the quality of our people, their alignment, their commitment to what we're doing, and that's a commitment to their people, and clients and communities, and so it's that area that I'm excited about. Now I'm holding myself back giving you anything specific that we're doing, but, I've said enough.

If you go and you look at our, my presentation in, Sweden in March, which was the most I'm ever going to say about it, and you use your AI to look at everything I've ever said on any podcast or anywhere else and ask me the questions, you'll have a very, good conversation with me based on, what we've already shared, and I hope I hope that, that, makes some sense. What you will see is our continual strength of billings per person, and revenue growth, which which tells you a little bit.

Kenny, did I leave anything out? My friend, have you got anything you'd like to share?

Certainly, to answer the other questions, we're right here. I've got time.

I'm in Los Angeles today, it's 6:00, 6:04 p.m., I have nowhere to to rush off to. In particular, Ken and I have dinner at 7:00, I do have a bit of time for people.

There's a few more questions, Brett, in the—

In review? Yep.

Yeah. Okay.

"Recent news of Big Four accounting firms, recently KPMG, undergoing erosion of corporate trust. Do you think it creates an opportunity for KPG?"

I have had the view and started the group in 2006 because I thought that there was an opportunity, if you look at the Bain book, Founder's Mentality, to create a scaled insurgent. Big Four here, I've often said I think they're cancer-ridden, given their values and that their future looks like this, that their structure is not right for today, etc., let alone tomorrow.

I think those businesses have got a bit of a drift. I think there's an opportunity for us to scale.

This is the industry, this is us. The second tier will pick up some of that work.

I think we are the best place firm globally to be a specialist provider of very, very high quality, what we call a first-choice accountant, to private business-owning families going somewhere. I think we do own that space today and can own that space globally, and I don't fear the Big Four or anyone else with respect to that.

We are our focus. There's no big audit group, we're not taking public companies, we're not getting distracted with consulting businesses or ad businesses or whatever.

Feel pretty good about that. "What takeaways do you have other firms that recently listed globally: Andersen in the US and MHA in the UK?"

Just very brief. It's a very good question, Tristan, very brief comments.

Andersen structure is incredibly complicated, and that business's history is interesting, it's done well, it's a good business, and we'll see. MHA in the UK, for example, both of these have had successful listings, and KPG was mentioned in both of their investor packs, etc.

MHA in the UK has, for example, a, I think, a 4-year partner commitment. Just jump in, ask your favorite AI tool to compare the three of us and throw CBIZ in there in the mix, and I think KPG looks pretty good.

Patrick's asked a question, "Non-recurring expenses have a habit of becoming recurring. Can you shed some light on the non-recurring expenses at parent level?"

Patrick, I think I've probably spent half my life telling people that if we keep running an acquisition-led strategy, we will continue to incur these non-recurring expenses, and I don't think we could do a better job at stepping them out very, very clearly for any investor. The best way for us to prove they're non-recurring, we'd be to do no deals for a year, and then you wouldn't see any, but probably better if we do.

"Any book recommendations, please?" Favorite books at the moment, Barry Diller, his book is exceptionally good.

John Malone, his book, read back-to-back, is very good. I think both of them are just very, very interesting gentlemen.

Their books I think have a number of lessons for sort of everyone, which is really cool. Any other questions?

Tristan, just one comment on Andersen and MHA. When we went to list KPG, investors pretty much spat in our faces.

The whole idea of a listed accounting firm was sort of anathema to people. I think that you can see in the shareholders letter that I published today, a list of the private equity investment into the group, more than $10 billion US in a very short period of time, and these two listings, and I expect there'll be more to come.

I think our investment thesis is validated. I think our operational track record is good or better than anything that I've seen, private or public, and really from here, it's a question of getting the structure right and the capital to deploy much, much, much more capital, at high rates of return.

A very excellent mentor to me who's built one of the world's best compounders said to me, "Brett, look, if you could deploy some billions at 25% compounding, it'd be better than deploying some millions," and that's an obvious observation, but it was very adamant, "Get your structure right, get the right access to the right capital at scale, and get on with deploying this model globally." I'm excited by the more acceptance of what we're doing.

I think our model's very proven, and well-respected, and I think the opportunity for the group is, frankly gigantic.

Brett, I just want to chime in on Patrick's questions on the non-recurring expenses in that if you look at the reconciliation table, there are actually two components there, in actual fact, they're just non-cash accounting entries that don't really mean anything. The first one being, we are required by the accounting standard to record the present value, i.e., a discounted value, of the contingent consideration, and every year, there's this unwinding of this interest into the books to get it to the current value.

That's one of the non-cash adjustment, which sorry to be technical, but that's what it is. The second one is—

It's very important. Ken, that's very, very important.

Guys, that's a huge number. There's no question that it's not real.

It's just something we're required to do, and there's no question that we're not losing clients at anywhere near that number, I'd like to think that's not particularly controversial.

No, it isn't. Then, Patrick, the second one is this impact of this accounting standard that came in many years ago where the rent is actually capitalized.

Therefore, it creates a non-cash difference between kind of the depreciation of the right-of-use asset and the repayment of the lease liability. Again, this is so technical, but it's again all non-cash that's been added back.

Those two components there, that's part of non-recurring expenses, that's always going to be there because that's simply an accounting non-cash adjustment that doesn't really make a lot of sense, and that's why that's been added back. The others, as Brett's alluded to, it's the one-off costs of us completing acquisitions.

Various other things that happen from time to time. It's a good one.

Today, with the use of AI, you can take our half-year, year-end accounts since IPO, throw them in there, ask it to give you a good explanation, and see if it lines up with what makes sense for you, and I'm very, very confident that that'll work okay for you. Thank you, Ken.

Is there any more questions here, Ken?

No.

All right. Going once, going twice.

I appreciate all the answers. Thanks to you both.

Thank you, Patrick. I appreciate everyone's attendance today.

We always aim to give you clear information that is very, very transparent and hopefully helpful to you. If you've got any questions, please, at any stage, drop Ken and I an email, and we'll always do our best to give you a swift and clear answer, even if it's just a reference to where we might have answered that before.

As I love to say, thank you, Kenny, and to our entire team, for what's been a huge year again, and to Joyce for setting up today's meeting, and for all of those people quietly doing incredible things within our businesses and within our group. It's always a great day to be an accountant.

Have a great day. Thanks so much.