Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. My name is Aimee McNamara and it is a privilege to welcome you to the Orexi Group's first investor presentation under our new name.

This marks an exciting chapter in our journey. On behalf of our chairman, Michael Pimstein, our CEO, Bradley Sacks, and our Chief Financial and Value Enhancement Officer, Sjoerd Douwenga, we thank you for joining us for Orexi's H1 results presentation for the financial period FY 2026.

First in our lineup is Bradley Sacks, who will present the group overview, followed then by Sjoerd Douwenga, who will take us through the group's financial performance. We will conclude with closing statements from Bradley Sacks and then open the floor for our questions, asking Dan Engelbrecht and Michael Shapiro, our managing executives for Payments and Softwares respectively, to join us.

Please feel free to add your questions to the chat as we go through the presentations by clicking on the questions tab on the top left of the screen. We will endeavor to get to as many questions as possible in the time we have.

We wish to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement, which will be included at the end of the presentation. Without any further ado, I hand you over to Bradley Sacks.

Welcome, everybody, and thank you for joining us. It is an exciting day as we start our, engagement with shareholders as Orexi.

It has been a journey for us, and we're very pleased with where we have come to. The presentation today is going to follow a similar format to what we have done in the past, and I will jump straight in.

As you have come to know, our Payments division has a number of different companies: Adumo, ResProp, Dashpay, Halo Dot, which we've consolidated into Payments and our investment in LayUp. In In the Software division, we have consolidated the Responsive Group into Synthesis, and so we have Synthesis, Dariel, and AssetPool, and our international business continues to include our international operations in Synthesis, Regal, and Halo Dot.

When we When we talk about our investment case, it is, It is consistent with what we have demonstrated in the past. From a secular growth trend perspective, we think we are very well positioned as a company for both organic and acquisitive opportunities.

There is strong demand for payments, and software continues to be the fuel which drives lots of, operational efficiencies and opportunities for companies in the financial services sector and beyond. We are a trusted partner to a number of blue-chip customers in South Africa, and as we look to expand internationally, we hope to be in a position to replicate that.

We have a very talented group of people, and our team is very dedicated to our mission, we are, very well resourced to be able to pursue our objectives. Our track record is is demonstrable, and we are recognized as a leader in a lot of what we do.

As a company, we are not only focused on short-term results, we are making deliberate investments for the future with a with a view to creating a sustainable business that well exceeds this half year or even this calendar year. Our businesses are cash-generative, they are resilient as a business model, and we have substantial amount of annuity income.

Our balance sheet is debt-free, and so we have a lot of flexibility to pursue opportunities as they come our way, and from a cash resource perspective, we ended the half year with a cash balance in excess of R300 million. We will be able to use that for acquisitive growth, to continue to drive our organic growth investment strategies, as well as pay dividends and pursue share buybacks.

In terms of recent events, this has been a busy period for us in what I think is can be characterized as a tough market. We changed our name, and that took us a little bit of time.

We, have got a new livery. We hope you all like it.

Our Payments division has executed on its strategy and has performed exceptionally well, not only in this half year, but we have a strong pipeline for opportunities going forward. The Software business, as we indicated when we released our last, set of results, was going to go through a little bit of a restructuring to, try and achieve some cost savings.

Those initiatives were undertaken. They are progressing in a way that is satisfactory.

It is a difficult thing to do in a business that is human-capital intensive and where our ethos is to be very focused on our team. We, are starting to see a recovery in our sales initiatives within the Software division, which we hope will evidence themselves in H2 of this fiscal year.

Both businesses had managed, expenses really well. We continue to have a commitment to BEE, and our software business in Synthesis, a Level 1, Dashpay, too, is a Level 1, with our group overall being a Level 2.

We did indicate at the end of our during our fiscal 2025 financial year that we had a number of restatements that were brought about by a change in auditors. Those results were for the full year.

We now have had to apply those same restatements into our, half year for fiscal 2025, and so our comparisons this period to last period have both the reported results as well as the restated results. In a sluggish economy, we think we have performed really well.

While our headline earnings are only up 1.8%, we have declared a dividend of 4.5 cents, which is consistent with what we did in last year's results. We have seen a growing demand for our services and our products.

Our Payments division had an outstanding period, with revenue up 23%, EBITDA was up 33%, which shows the operating leverage that we have within that business. We have received significant orders for our terminals in H1, and we have a good pipeline for H2.

Our estate grew by 15%, we have approximately 450,000 terminals in our estate across the country. The, restatement that we had to undertake was a result of the revenue recognition policies that were brought about through our change of auditors, and we had full recognition of a multiyear software license agreement, come into last year's, first half results, which made our comparison for this year rather challenging.

There were new software contracts that are signaling growth for H2. We are encouraged by what we are seeing in both divisions, and when we as a management team look to try and understand the underlying performance, we've come up with a normalized view of the performance taking into account both the restatements and also the restructuring charge, and on that basis, we had EPS and HEPS grow by almost 60%, which we think is a tremendous performance, particularly in a really difficult market.

As we turn to the accounting changes that we had, we reviewed all of this with you in the full year results, which we released in June, and all of these categories are the same except for matter seven, which didn't present itself in last year's results, but, make themselves much more felt here, and that relates to the revenue recognition of recognizing revenue at a point in time as opposed to over time. As I go through that item, it was a multiyear contract which we had recognized proportionally in each year over each of the years.

The new accounting policy requires us to recognize the full contract in the period in which it was signed, and so we had a full R42 million of revenue which comes through in last year's half year results, which we think distorts that performance, quite considerably. The net effect of that was R32 million pretax, R23 million post-tax, and we have done an analysis to try and demonstrate what that means from an operational perspective.

Here is an illustration of that analysis where we have done two things. We have adjusted for the way in which we now have to treat that software contract, and we have also taken into account the restructuring costs that we incurred at the Software division for the restructuring that we implemented, this year.

When we adjust for those two items, you can see a normalized headline earnings number of 58%, with normalized EBITDA being up 43.8%. Overall, we think this is a really good indicator of the underlying health and performance of the business, and, is is something that, we think is, is worthy of being proud of.

We do have one other element which we are going to discuss, and that is how we have recognized the liability for the appraisal remedy. When we released results in, July, the court had not yet decided on the value at which we would need to repurchase the shares.

It was a determination of fair value. We had accounted for the, for the shares at R1.06 per share in our financial statements.

The court came back with a determination that the purchase price needs to be R1.19 per share. We were advocating for 1.06.

The, appraising shareholder was looking for something materially larger than that. We also have to pay interest on it.

We get the dividends back that we had already paid with interest, and the net result is we will be repurchasing 18 million shares at an effective cost of R1.61 per share. Our profitability over the period, notwithstanding the tough comparison, has has kept pace with that after we made the adjustment for, the software contract.

We had revenue increase by 4.3% and, and overall, EBITDA was up just slightly at 0.4% against the restated 2024 numbers. Our EBITDA margin remained stable, and cash flow from operations was much improved at approximately R90 million.

When we turn to the Payments division, I continue to talk about the migration to digital payments and digital payments growth, which is an underlying driver for the demand for our solutions and services. This is a chart which you have seen before, but it it bears repeating given the experience that we're all seeing in the marketplace, not only with a use of credit and debit cards, but also with the use of digital wallets.

A digital wallet is nothing more than an incarnation of a digital account, and we are seeing that drive demand for our services and solutions. Our growth strategy within the Payments division is is, continues to be the same.

It has worked well for us to date, and for a company that has the scale and the capabilities that our Payments division has, we think there are lots of opportunities to apply that skill and knowledge. We are, focused on continuing to grow our market share in the established segments in which we operate, but more importantly, we are looking to grow the customer base and the markets for our devices.

We have seen a number of our clients look to enter new markets, and we have worked to try and develop solutions for them that are fit for purpose in those particular market segments. The migration away from the 2 and 3G devices continues, and we are working with the larger institutions to help them down that path.

Our initiatives across Africa continue to evolve, and, while it's not going as quickly as we would like, it continues to be an area that we are going to invest some time and effort. We have introduced a number of new services, and we are looking to help our established clients enter markets that they haven't played in before, particularly lower-tier markets, and providing services to merchants that are software-based.

We have a very affordable, feature-rich Android device that we think is well suited for that market. We continue to look at our payments software as a service, initiative, which is completely hardware-agnostic, and we have our MicroPOS strategy, which has seen tens of thousands of downloads already, which is very encouraging.

Our focus is to continue to look at enterprises, and that, initiative is going well. Within our Halo initiative and our payment software-related activities, we are looking at international markets, and I will talk about that a little bit more shortly.

Our overall strategy is to continue to innovate and drive solutions in a market which is moving further away from cash and is looking at digital applications. MicroPOS is one of those solutions that we've spoken about in the past and is core to our strategy in helping customers focus on smaller merchants.

The objective is to help merchants move from a countertop of chaos to one of order. The picture on the left demonstrates a number of devices and tools and artifacts that merchants have.

They have a calculator, they have a POS machine, they have a menu, and it is a lot of clutter. All of that gets combined onto a single device.

It gives the merchant the opportunity to manage its stock, demonstrates what items are sold out, gives them baskets total so you don't need the calculator, accepts payments immediately without having some type of finger error, and it and it provides a an amount of reporting to the merchant at the end of the day or shift or whatever the case may be, which helps them with their business. This has experienced a relatively good uptake, and we think that there's lots of legs left in that initiative.

Halo Dot, which is, the SoftPOS solution, we have spoken about the global opportunity for Halo Dot growth in the past, and it continues to be something which we are very focused on. The opportunity in terms of transaction value is is in the billions, if not hundreds of billions, of US dollars, and we are very well positioned to capitalize on that with our solution.

We have also seen, as I mentioned last time, that Apple has embraced SoftPOS as a solution that it is advancing and marketing quite strongly. In that arena, Halo Dot has been approved as a gateway service provider, which effectively is an implementation partner for Apple solutions with PSPs that are looking to have a a SoftPOS solution that is enabled on the Apple platform.

That is a relatively unique position for a for a SoftPOS provider and speaks to the capabilities, both technical and functional, that the Halo Dot solution provides. In terms of the Halo Dot growth, since April of last year, we have had a number of initiatives commence together with customers and integrations in the USA, in Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Netherlands, some additional ones in South Africa, Turkey, and Singapore.

As we had indicated, we are starting to see some really nice traction on the Halo Dot solution and are quite bullish on its prospects going forward. Most importantly, it is a validation of the technology solution set that the team has developed, which has getting international recognition.

We are able to demonstrate the capabilities across multiple industry segments, all the way from telcos, logistics, transit, events, retail, and financial services. The the opportunity for Halo is starting to take effect.

We have spoken a little bit in the past about a number of different applications for the Halo Dot solution, there's this notion of tap to pay, which we all understand, but there's also opportunities around identity and other functionality, and we are, we've got those arrayed at the bottom of this page for you to look at. In the first quarter of 2026, we are going to be launching a, a proof of concept in partnership with a gaming company and the local schemes and a local bank, which is going to have a gaming company embed Halo Dot within its application.

It is going to allow users of that app to complete transactions on their own device, which does a number of things. It helps, importantly, helps reduce fraud.

It converts what was previously a card-not-present transaction into a card-present transaction, which results in lower fees for the gaming company, and it reduces the, complexity of facilitating that payment, a much more seamless experience. One of the the things that we have come to realize with the Halo Dot application and the way that it's constructed is that we are going to follow in the footsteps of our Payments division and be platform-agnostic.

Whilst we started on the Android platform and we have also been approved as a GSP for Apple, we are looking at other platforms as well, and we think that there is a tremendous opportunity to make this universally applicable across different ecosystems. A use case around Halo Dot in the South African marketplace that you may be interested to to explore is with a company called NightsBridge.

It is a company that manage that's in the, excuse me, in the leisure industry. It manages hotels and accommodation facilities, and they wanted to embed a payment acceptance capability within the application that many of their their customers have, and it is being tremendously well received and is working well at scale.

We are pleased with how that application has unfolded. If you stay at a bed and breakfast or some of the smaller hotels, you may come to experience its use.

LayUp is a company which you've heard us talk about. It is starting to gain some really nice traction.

The largest transaction that has been executed in the year to date in this financial year is for just under R800,000. The transactions are large.

We are getting very good returning customers. We are we are Excuse me 1 second.

We are seeing that, the there is a large uptake of next new customers who are using the solution, and overall, it is being a positive experience for the merchants, and you can see a number of our merchant customers and partners in the enterprise space where we are seeing some real traction. Across Africa, you are seeing a new notion evolve, which is not buy now, pay later, but rather save save now and buy later, and that is exactly where LayUp is focused.

There are a number of new innovations and solution sets which will be introduced in H2, and we look forward to sharing that with you when we chat next. When we turn to our Software division, it is interesting to for you to note that our Responsive operations have now been fully integrated into Synthesis, and going forward, its, logo will no longer appear.

We will, talk about Synthesis, Rethink, and Dariel. It is part of our, our cost savings and strategic realignment, and we think it, it is going to be, a very positive net effect for all of the people involved.

Our action plan for for improving the performance of software, as we noted, was multipronged. We knew the the business wasn't unfolding as we had hoped.

It was primarily demand-related with a constriction on the amount of money that some of our larger clients were willing to invest in new and complicated software projects. This required us to undertake a number of different initiatives.

Some of them were internally focused, and others were externally focused. From an internal perspective, we refined the roles and responsibilities of our leadership team, which allowed us to be much more deliberate on our, on our strategies.

We initiated a headcount reduction of which we expensed, we registered an expense of R10 million in this set of half year results. We also, were much more diligent on our relationships with outside contractors.

We rebalanced some of our resources to optimize across the division. So, people within Dariel worked on Synthesis projects and vice versa.

We, used the time and resources on of bench resources to help with internal development products, and we were very judicious against the against hiring for committed demand only. The cost management initiatives that we undertook have been followed in a very disciplined way, and you saw that not only in You see that not only in Payments, but and you see that is software as well.

The operational efficiency initiatives around overheads, etc., were an area that we paid some attention to. From an external perspective, we refocused our sales effort to improve pipeline quality and, most importantly, the conversion ratios.

What we are starting to see is a much greater desire to engage with us on innovation projects. Conversations have evolved to a point where we are having meaningful conversations with clients about new initiatives and how technologies are able to help them drive revenue opportunities, as well as how to optimize their costs.

We have got enhanced commitments to and from our strategic partners like Confluent and AWS and GCP. We are very focused on, applying our efforts against high-impact, long-term projects that we believe are meaningful to our customers, and we're working with them to try and to try and explain where we see the opportunities for them to drive value.

Our proposition is very value-enhancing, in its in its approach. Our growth strategy continues along the lines that we had spoken about in the past.

We are working closely with the partners and relationships that we have, not only in the South African market, but in international markets as well. We are looking to grow our portfolio of of, intellectual property and licenses, proprietary software, that gives rise to very good annuity revenue for us, and so we continue to invest in that.

AI is a very important element for us in our strategy and also our conversations with clients, and I will provide some use cases around that shortly. We are very focused as an organization on innovation.

We have done that in Payments well. We are doing that in software, too, and we think that that, is starting to pay some very good dividends for us.

The AI initiatives for us are not only focused on our external customers, but also on our own internal efficiencies, and we are looking to, expand internationally. As we turn to AI, there are two elements to how we think about AI as a force multiplier.

You can think of it for internal opportunities, excuse me, and how it helps us drive internal efficiencies and be more productive. Then there are a number of of other areas for us to help our customers enhance their value proposition to their end customers.

That is an area where we are focused acutely. In that in that vein, we have been able to gain, some projects, or we've been able to land some projects where we are helping customers through the implementation of AI.

AI doesn't only present a compelling opportunity in concept, it has moved to to implementation, and the experimentation that people have seen and been willing to undertake is now starting to unlock business value. That's the conversation that we are having with customers is how to unlock the business value and what do we need to do with them to help them achieve that.

Here are some examples. Capitec, I think everybody on this call would acknowledge, is a bank that is performing very well.

It has a reputation for being at the forefront of technology and engaging with their customers on a technology-forward basis. We have worked with them to develop a system of real-time fraud detection around their transaction activity.

It is using AI. It is delivering substantial value for them, and there was an article recently, which speaks about the value of fraud that they have been able to prevent through their through their systems.

We're very proud that we are working with them on on this initiative, a really good use case for real-time AI detection. A second example is with another large financial institution in South Africa, and this is the implementation of an agentic AI solution.

Financial institutions have many channels through which they engage with their customers, whether it's an in-branch network, the ATMs, digital channels on mobile phones, desktops, etc. Agentic AI becomes yet another channel for a financial institution.

In this instance, it is going to be used to help, originate and process home loans, an area where the bank's reputation and brand can be particularly useful in helping their customers through what is often a difficult process, and this is an example where we started a conversation around the idea of agentic AI and what it may portend for the institution, and it was recognized that the solution, is you know is hugely value-enhancing, and we were able to to, start this initiative with the institution and look forward to them launching it as soon as they are ready. An area where we are very active with AI and data, is with an initiative with Credic, which is a, which is, an affiliate of a large insurer in in South Africa.

It is a very focused credit insurance business, and the mantra within the organization is all the data, all the time. It is intended to allow the institution to have a single source of truth and to allow the organization to rely on the data that it has in making affirmative, value-adding business decisions.

This is an initiative which takes advantage not only of our AI capabilities, but also our cloud capabilities and intelligent data capabilities to deliver a platform that, has compelling business value opportunities. AssetPool is a the minority investment that you are aware of.

There have been a number of initiatives over the course of this year that have, helped that business advance. You can see the growth in the number of assets and inspections through the graph on the right-hand side.

Overall, the business is growing nicely. There, is a new platform which is going to be released called APN AssetPool NOVA.

We have had a number of customers join the platform across the Americas, Europe, and South Africa, and overall, we continue to hold, good hope for the AssetPool business and its growth. With that, I am going to turn it over to Sjoerd, who will work through the financial performance.

I'll come back at the end and, answer any questions that you may have. Sjoerd, over to you.

Thank you, Brad. If we start with the financial performance, let's, we'll focus on the Payments, division firstly, where we've seen significant revenue growth continue, about 23% year-on-year growth, into September '25.

EBITDA EBITDA up 33% year-on-year, and that's really been supported by significant terminal orders still. As we've mentioned previously in in some of our discussions, we also, seem interested in lower-tier market segments, which we haven't necessarily competed in previously where we, can offer more affordable, feature-rich, devices, specific to to our market, and we certainly seem some of that coming, coming through.

I think what was really pleasing to to also see is the focus on on the expense base, or the cost base, despite the top-line, revenue growth, expenses have continued to grow, below inflation. Our diver- diversification in revenue streams remains a a key focus in the business, and I'll show that in the following slides, just how that continues to evolve, but, yeah, very pleased with, with how that is progressing.

Then just a reminder that the Halo Dot, payment SoftPOS business, which was previously, classified as part of software segment is is included in in the Payments, business. If we move on to some of the key metrics in in the Payments business, some really, really pleasing, numbers we're seeing, the total terminal estate in the hands of customers growing to 446,000, 1,000 units, up, 15% year-on-year and and significantly from, from year-end.

We're also seeing, a good EBITDA margin, improvement, certainly aided by increased license fees, which we continue to speak about, and that growth has been quite strong, and I'll touch on that in in the following slides. Despite the strong, top-line growth and and hardware growth, our annuity income has has followed suit, in terms of overall revenue composition, it's largely stable at at 55%, but individually grew grew about 22%, which is, which is really, really good.

If we If we move on to the next slide, just on the revenue composition, sale of terminals up 23%, really driven by, unit, unit sales, so that is quite, that is quite strong. We've seen, on the rental side of the business, it'd be really, a flat year on year.

We've seen a, I suppose, a stabilization of of, rental contracts within within that estate and probably a return to to outright sales as we look forward in to into the business. The maintenance and support fees have been growing steadily year on year.

Given that the estate, especially the growth in the last couple of years, has been quite strong, we do see a a temporary slowdown in the maintenance and support fees element of the of, of the revenue mainly because the estate is is fairly new. Then significantly, the license fees in and, related services, this was previously called transaction, related income, but I think it's more appropriate to, to reference, terminal license fees and related services, up 86%, year on year, and that's really a function of, increased terminal sales, but also the shift of of the the estate into more Android, Android-platform, devices.

That's a really, pleasing, pleasing growth that we're seeing in in that in that line item. That certainly supports margin as well as the the annuity income of, of the business.

If we move on to to the Software, side of the business, Brad has, has spoken, quite a bit on, the remedial Let's move to the next slide, Brad. Some of the remedial actions, that we've taken, in the business given given the sales pipeline, et cetera.

Um, we have mentioned the cost of around R10 million of restructuring costs that has been incurred in the in the period, but I think more importantly, and significant going forward, is that we estimate currently that to to equate to about a R35 million annual run rate in cost savings. The majority of those cost savings would not be reflected yet, in this half of the year, and and will be forward-looking, in nature.

We've also seen, the the sales pipeline strengthening, quite reasonably well at the end of this, financial period towards the end of September. Those are multiyear, agreements, that we that should, support the business growth or the or the return to to growth in the business going going forward.

Certainly, given the right-sizing exercise of, that we've undertaken in in the business, I think sets the business up, fairly well to return to, to what we're targeting in terms of profitability for for the business going forward. When we look at the comparison, year on year, I suppose just trying to to to understand or unpack what the underlying, earnings for for the business is, excluding the impact of the license the the license fee, which was quite significant, being an upfront recognition of a 5-year license in in the first half of '24, and also excluding the R10 million restructuring cost, the year-on-year progression in EBITDA, is from, R7.6 million in 2024 to R16.9 million in 2025.

Certainly hitting in in the right direction, not at the level that that we want, or think the business should be should be performing, but, certainly, really good momentum and some of the the, corrective action starting to to take to take effect. So, pleasing pleasing trend that we are seeing in in the Software business.

If we look at the revenue composition, for the Software, for the Software division, service and consultancy is is really where we've seen the pipeline, pipeline pressure, and as we mentioned, we have secured, quite meaningful, large-scale, projects towards the end of the year, so that should support, the service and consultancy side of the business going forward. In September '24, looking at the license and and subscription fees, clearly reflected in the September '24 was that upfront or at-a-point-in-time recognition of of the 5-year license, fee, that will happen from time to time, depending on the nature of the licenses we, we sell, and hence, the drop to September 2025, is not, not unexpected, just given the nature of of the accounting for for that, for that license.

Then security and hardware fees, up, up 40 42%, driven by third-party sales in in, third-party licenses, so, good trajectory there as well. If we move on to the consolidated, income statement or statement of comprehensive income, the revenue line increased, slightly by 2.3% on on the restated basis, so, higher Payments performance, especially in terminal sales and license income, offsetting, a software software, a lower software performance.

If we look at the gross margin, down slightly, obviously, the recognition of the the 5-year license in September '24 had a major impact on on increasing the gross margin in '24, the 2025 margin, excluding the license fee recognition, has come down by 210 basis points. Operating expenses, I think this is one, a key line item for us in in this period.

Only marginal increase in in overall OpEx. This still includes the R10 million, roughly R10 million in re to re- restructuring charges, incurred during the period, but also more importantly excludes what we anticipate to be future savings, in terms of the right-sizing of the of the cost of the cost base in in the business.

On the EBITDA margin, relatively, stable, positive mix in in the Payments business, especially due to license, due to software licenses, and then obviously, the restatement of, of the license fee in in the prior year. Finance income, slightly higher than than last year.

It's the impact of finance lease arrangement we have with one of our big financial institutions on the Payments business, and that's taking, full effect in this six months, and the prior six months was not, was not fully in in in, fully deployed within that financial period. Finance costs remaining largely stable, predominantly relates to to the capital appreciation empowerment trust, and then, slightly slightly reduced finance lease liability cost.

If we move on to the, state- the the condensed statement of comprehensive income, this really just reflects the the overall performance summarized, and I think when we think through or look through the restatements and and unpack the overall impact of of the restatements on on the prior period, most of these restatements, as as we've said, it's it's not there are no new restatements, it is just reflecting, the adjustments made a year into the September 2024 numbers, with the only really meaningful, adjustment being the last one, on the list, being the software license, which was recognized at a point in time, which had a significant impact in on the, on both the revenue and EBITDA, for the period, overall, the impact was about 29%, on, on on the business, on on on the on the earnings per share, for for the period. If we look at the, statement of financial position, on the next slide, it's a fairly stable balance sheet.

We've seen property, plant, and equipment come down, slightly, that's largely due to result of a stabilization of our rent operating rental, book in the Payments business, so that's just depreciating the operating rental, book essentially. Cash and cash equivalents still, quite strong, and, majority of of, debtors, which, is included in the following line, and has already translated into cash post-period-end, the cash balance on hand currently is is much stronger, and is available to us, as Brad mentioned, for for further, investment, the acquisitive invest- investment, organic investment, et cetera.

On current liabilities, important to note just for the comparison does include at this point, share appreci- share appraisal right, liability of about R38 million, which is included in in this in this number, and as we showed in the a slide, previously in the presentation, the net outflow, is about R26 million, or about 1.6 R1.61 per share that we estimate, upon settlement of, of the liability. From a cash flow perspective, on the next slide, we've seen net finance income received increase, increase slightly, again, largely due to the to the finance leases, which we've, which which started rolling out in the first half of last year, now fully, fully present in in the first half of 2025.

The net working capital, increase since year-end has been about R52 million. Majority of the net working capital move has been, we've seen in in receivables, or or net receivables, of which, the majority has, has earned or has, converted into cash, post period.

Then on, item three, net cash paid for for acquisitions, just that's just confirmation that we have settled the profit warranty that, that was settled to to Dariel, on the closeout of their of their profit warranty period, the net cash paid out in addition to about 7 million shares was about R40 million, R40 million. Then we still acquired, treasury shares, about 28.9 million treasury shares, just shy of R40 million, allocated to to buybacks, at a good value, about R1.37 a share, so, as we think about capital allocation going forward, that will still be, certainly, on top of, top of mind as well.

Then looking at the the operating cash flow on the next slide, as well as dividends, declared for the period, dividend declared of 4.5 cents, per share, so that gives us operating cash generated coverage of about 1.5 times. The cash flow really gives us, the ability to maintain, strong dividend practice, which, as you can see from the history, has been been quite progressive, over the last, over the last few years.

Over over 8.5 years, operating cash generated has been about R1.8 billion, of which R825 million has been paid out in in dividends, or 61 cents, a share, really strong, yield on on dividends. Then just the last, slide from my side just on on treasury shares, it is likely given the level of treasury treasury shares that we currently hold, that some, might be or will be canceled.

As at year-end, we held 63 million, or just shy of 64 million in in, treasury shares. We also had, 75 million in deemed treasury shares, because of the the consolidation of our Capital Appreciation Empowerment Trust.

In addition to that, we will be acquiring or buying back another 18 million, in in shares from, the dissenting shareholder, which we which we've discussed. Those will be bought back and canceled and not not held in treasury.

Then since March, '25 to September '25, we bought an additional 29 28.9 million, shares, as I mentioned, so that leaves about a, 92.7 million, shares directly under the control of, of Capital Appreciation, directors, and, with that, I will hand it back to Brad to speak about prospects.

Thanks, Sjoerd. Overall, I think you can get a sense that the business is performing well.

The opportunity set that we have in front of us is good. We are positively inclined to a view of what the future looks like.

We are looking at funding the organic growth of our businesses. We think there are many, and the businesses are performing well to warrant that continued investment, we are going to do that.

The opportunity for acquisitions continues to present itself. We have been very active in looking at opportunities, and we'll continue to do so.

The strategic fit of opportunities is obviously very important to us, and we will come back to you at the appropriate time when we have something to talk about. The economic climate in South Africa is obviously something that we take into account in our planning, and the expenditure, or CapEx expenditure plans of our customers is important as we think about when to invest, but overall, we are positively positioned for H2 in '26, and we will continue to focus on looking at other areas for us to continue to grow and take advantage of our capabilities and skill set.

With that, I am going to bring the presentation to an end, and turn it over to Aimee, who can field any questions we may have, and Sjoerd and I will be happy to answer those as necessary. Aimee, anything that you want us to address?

Hi. Thanks, Brad.

Thanks, Sjoerd. We do have a few questions here.

The first question I have is from Amara from Tanisa, extending a well done to the team, and it's a question in two parts. The first applicable to software is we've spoken to remedial action, is there any additional remedial action that we foresee taking?

Is the first part of the question. Then the second part refers to decline in international revenue, and can we provide some detail on those contracts?

Brad.

I will take them in order. We were very reluctant to do anything within our Software division when we saw weakness.

Our people are critical to our success, and our internal culture is such that we were very focused on keeping people even when the business was not doing that well. Over a period of time, we saw that the demand for the service wasn't materializing, and we had to take some action.

We were very deliberate in how we did it. We did it in a way that we thought was very thoughtful, and we did it in a way that we only needed to do it once.

We had the plan. We communicated it to our team.

It was a very difficult decision for our software leadership, but it is now behind us. We have moved on, and we are starting to see that our way of working is also starting to yield enhanced demand.

It hasn't yet all come through, but we have seen some enhanced demand in the latter half of the H1 period, and we think that that will evidence itself as we move forward. The need to do anything further doesn't exist at the moment.

We are very focused on growing the business, and we are focused on implementing our growth plan that we went through. As it relates to the international opportunity, we have the office in Amsterdam, which is effectively a business generation office for us.

We do a little execution out of there, with the majority of our execution being done in the South African market through our South African staff, and we will continue to do that until the need arises where we have a much higher demand for international activity. We are doing it on a very deliberate basis without trying to incur excessive cost, and so as we think about it, we expect the international opportunity to grow, but grow at a relatively modest rate for the immediate foreseeable future.

We obviously would like it to grow faster and to become a much larger component of our business, but at the moment, it is still modest.

Brad, as it relates to payments, also a question from Amara, how soon can we expect transaction-related revenue to grow ahead of terminal estate growth?

Amara, it's important to recognize when we talk about transaction-related revenue, it's not frequently that considers the transaction value. There are very few areas where we earn ad valorem on the value of the transaction that is processed through our terminal.

We are much more focused on either flat fees or use fees or something like that, and so that will grow primarily as the estate grows on the one hand, and then with respect to our software that we deliver into the payment sector, it will grow based on the number of software licenses that we issue, which isn't necessarily tied to our estate. As we indicated, we have become platform-agnostic, and so we can offer our software on devices that are not necessarily supplied by us.

That license fee will grow as we enhance the value proposition that that software presents and as we license more terminals that are not supplied by us. I don't know the time at which those two lines cross, but we are looking to do both.

We're looking to grow our estate, have the fleet of terminals that are supplied by us increase, as well as continue to provide our payment software as a solution into estates which are not supplied by us.

Brad, the next question is from Mark Tobin. Sorry,

I just wanted to add to that question two things. I think transaction-related income, as we've noted in the presentation, we have changed the naming convention to terminal license fees and related services, exactly to the point that Brad was saying that it's not specifically a transaction-related item, predominantly relates to license fees.

If we look at the current year growth, period on period in the Payments division, it actually did exceed terminal growth already, both in percentage terms and in absolute terms, just slightly ahead of the sale of terminals, but in percentage terms was up 86%, compared to sale of terminals of 23%. I just wanted to make that additional comment.

Thanks.

Thanks, Sjoerd. Mark Tobin's questions relate to our associate companies.

The first one as it relates to LayUp, are we able to share the gross merchandise value passing through LayUp and how it is growing?

Mark, that is not a decision which we make alone. We make that decision in conjunction with LayUp.

It is not yet comfortable for them to disclose that, when they are, we will certainly do that. It is fair to say that the growth in GMV is growing nicely as they grow the merchants and their user base increases.

Thanks, Brad. The next point is more a statement.

Just with regards to the chart for AssetPool, with regards to their results, if we could please provide a current graph, as the existing one is only up to May. Thank you, Mark.

Then, I've got an interesting question here as it relates to AI. What are our observations on new entrants in the market from AI and/or new fintech partners entering the South African market?

Aimee, you cut out as you spoke. Could you just repeat the question?

What are our observations on new entrants in the market from AI or new fintech partners entering the South African market in that space?

AI means lots of different things. It's a question of how that AI is manifested in the specific use case.

You get AI which we're talking about as large language models like a ChatGPT or Claude or something like that, or you get companies that are using AI in their product. We think that AI is much more impactful when it's put to use in a specific use case, then we are concerned about it in the generic.

We have a great range of capabilities around AI, and we have a deep knowledge base on different applications. We will continue to push those forward, I'm not too concerned about AI competition because it is a huge area, and I think the skills that exist in implementing that are relatively limited.

I do think AI, though, does have a marked impact on the production capabilities of software firms where AI assistance can help software developers become much more efficient, do more with less, and be able to develop solutions that are really compelling. It is incumbent upon us to continue at the forefront of that.

We have done that in our Payments division, we have done that in our Software division, and we'll obviously continue to do that as these technologies become more and more useful. In the payments area, there are a number of new entrants that are coming to the market, and from our perspective, that adds opportunity.

We view ourselves in the Payments division as an enabler, I saw today that Wise, a money transfer company out of Europe, has received a license to enter the market. That's a great opportunity for us to engage with them on how we may be able to be of assistance and help them.

Revolut is entering the market. I think that is also useful to us and presents an opportunity for us to add a new client to our roster.

From that perspective, I think new financial services companies entering the South African market is a net positive overall.

Our final question before we close out, from J.T. Loubser, is with regards to our Microsoft partnership.

Is it important for our line of business, and do we plan on expanding partnerships with the likes of Microsoft going forward?

As it relates to Microsoft, we are a very competent partner of Microsoft on Azure, and we have great skills in Azure, as we do in AWS, and as we do in GCP. We are not a reseller of Microsoft software.

Being a Microsoft partner means different things in different contexts. From our context, we are a well-regarded and very competent Azure implementation partner, and the decision on which platform to use in a particular circumstance is most often not ours, it is our customer or client's decision.

They could decide that they want to standardize across the Microsoft suite of products, or they could go across the GCP suite of products, or they are happy to use AWS. That decision is not ours mostly.

It is a decision that that customer makes.

Brad, that's all the questions we've got on the chat line before I hand over to you to say our goodbyes. Just warm wish to everybody for the festive season, to our audience for joining us on this call, and all the very best.

Thanks, Brad.

You stole my words, Aimee. I want to wish everybody a good holiday break.

I hope you like the new Orexi profile. We look forward to seeing you all again next year with another set of good results.

Thanks, everybody, for joining us, and we'll see you soon.