Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Sonic Healthcare's FY 2026 full year results presentation.

On the call with me today are Sonic Healthcare's Chief Financial Officer Chris Wilks and Deputy Chief Financial Officer Paul Alexander. We delivered solid financial results in FY 2026, achieving our EBITDA guidance for the year on an underlying basis.

Total revenue grew strongly, up 13% year-on-year to $10.867 billion, with strong EBITDA growth of 11% to $1.933 billion. Net profit after tax increased 17% to $621 million, with earnings per share up by 14% to $1.26.

Operationally, we completed the acquisition of the LADR Group in Germany, further strengthening our position in that market, with synergy realization well on track. In Switzerland, we continued substantial synergy capture from our recent acquisitions, which are also well on schedule.

Across Sonic's portfolio, we achieved strong growth in advanced diagnostics, leveraging market-leading brands across multiple geographies, including our acquisition in the US this year of Chroma Diagnostics. We commenced an operating review of our US business, which is laying strong foundations for improved financial performance.

In addition, we completed the sale and leaseback of our Brisbane hub laboratory as part of our disciplined approach to capital management. All of these achievements were underpinned by our firm focus on growing earnings per share and improving return on invested capital.

Sonic's investment proposition is clear. We deliver high-value medicine at scale, which drives growth and financial performance.

Our FY 2026 results reinforce this proposition, something I've seen firsthand through my first 9 months as CEO. Meeting our people across the globe and seeing our world-leading operations platforms, I've gained an even greater appreciation for the unique competitive advantages created by the scale and diversity of our portfolio, our exceptional Medical Leadership culture, and our unparalleled operational excellence.

Over 4 decades, Sonic has built one of the world's leading medical diagnostics networks, spanning 9 countries and 11 markets across pathology, radiology, and primary care. We hold leading positions in all our markets, including the number 1 position in 6.

In FY 2026, that scale translated into nearly $11 billion of revenue and $2 billion of earnings, but its impact extends well beyond strong financial results. Over the last year, our 47,000 employees supported 144 million patient consultations across more than 3,000 access points.

Each consultation represents a moment when a patient and their doctor rely on us for an answer they can trust. That trust has been earned over decades and lies at the heart of our Medical Leadership culture, our second key differentiator.

Medical Leadership is a unique operating model that places the delivery of highest-quality medicine and patient care at the heart of everything we do. We attract industry-leading experts, maintain the highest standards of medical excellence, and build deep, trusted relationships with referring doctors.

Those relationships create a powerful, self-reinforcing value cycle, driving organic growth and market share gains, which in turn translate into financial value for shareholders and enable us to successfully reinvest in our people, platforms, and innovation. The power of Medical Leadership was evident in our FY 2026 results.

Our organic revenue grew 5%, continuing our long-standing track record of strong organic growth. Advanced diagnostics was a particular highlight, with Sonic Genetics in Australia and Bioscientia in Germany delivering year-on-year growth of 15% and 12%, respectively.

Specialist referrals in Australian pathology continue to outperform, growing 7% year-on-year. We built strong momentum in the expanding direct-to-consumer testing market, with our Mein Direktlabor business in Germany growing more than 60% year-on-year.

Our third competitive differentiator is operational excellence, enabled by the capabilities and infrastructure we have built at scale. By combining industry-leading expertise, highly personalized specialty testing, and proprietary information systems, we consistently deliver high-quality patient outcomes.

These capabilities are supported by sophisticated logistics management and an advanced global procurement platform, driving further productivity and operating efficiencies across the business. With these key differentiators as our foundation, we are focused on investing for the future.

In FY 2026, we launched a major initiative to modernize our global digital infrastructure. This company-wide transformation represents a step change in our ability to deliver better outcomes for doctors, patients, and shareholders in an increasingly digital world.

We are implementing this initiative across all 3 components of our tech platform. In our back office functions, we are migrating our finance, supply chain, and HR platforms to cloud-based systems, enabling greater standardization and scale efficiencies.

This project was initiated in FY 2026, with approximately $30 million of investment planned per annum over the next 3 years. Operationally, we are optimizing our specialist laboratory and radiology information systems, enabling more efficient, higher-throughput laboratory and radiology workflows.

At the clinical front line, we are scaling a suite of leading-edge AI-enabled solutions, including proprietary patient and doctor applications that improve access to care and enhance productivity. Combined, these investments create an interconnected, scalable platform that will drive greater efficiency today while expanding our ability to innovate and deploy new technologies.

Let me now turn to the performance of our markets and the key initiatives to drive revenue and earnings growth in FY 2027 and beyond. Across the group, revenue performance was strong, reflecting the strength of our competitive differentiation and industry tailwinds, including aging populations, the rising prevalence of chronic disease, and the growing shift towards personalized, preventative medicine.

Over multiple decades, we have built unmatched trust and goodwill with doctors and patients, who in ever-larger numbers choose Sonic for our high-value medical services. We translated strong revenue growth into healthy margins across our markets.

Specifically, Germany, excluding the LADR acquisition, Switzerland, and Sonic Clinical Services delivered strong EBITDA margin expansion, demonstrating operating leverage from organic growth, ongoing synergy realization, and disciplined cost management. In Australian pathology and Belgium, we maintained healthy margins despite fee changes, supported by strong organic growth and revenue diversification, including private billing initiatives.

Margin performance in the US, UK, and radiology was affected by market-specific factors, and multiple initiatives are in train to improve performance in FY 2027 and beyond. In Germany, Sonic achieved revenue growth of 43%, with organic growth of 5%.

We grew strongly in advanced diagnostics, including genetics, specialized biochemistry, and personalized precision medicine. We are leveraging Sonic's national infrastructure, trusted medical expertise, and extensive laboratory network to capture growth in the fast-growing direct-to-consumer market.

On the regulatory front, we are closely monitoring the proposed reform of the GOÄ private fee schedule. There is currently no clarity on whether the reform will proceed, nor its potential timing or impact, although it appears highly unlikely to take effect before calendar year 2028.

While a wide range of potential mitigation strategies are under consideration, it is premature to provide any guidance on potential impact at this stage. In the meantime, we continue to advocate against the proposed reform while pursuing opportunities for further cost efficiencies.

At the beginning of this new financial year, we realigned our management and operational structure to accelerate synergy capture and efficiencies through consolidation, bringing 11 federation members into 3 unified operating divisions. Finally, we are delivering significant synergies from our LADR acquisition well on schedule.

We captured more than 40% of total synergies in the first year, with the balance to be realized over the next 2. Key milestones included the migration to Sonic procurement contracts, the completion of 2 laboratory mergers in Berlin and Oldenburg, and the insourcing of LADR's external referrals into Sonic's specialty laboratories.

We are realizing synergies from the expansion of LADR's market-leading medical consumables trading and logistics business to Sonic's referrers. In addition, we completed extensive integration across shared services, including sales, logistics, technical maintenance services, IT, and financial systems.

In Australian pathology, we delivered strong 5% organic revenue growth driven by specialist referrals and private billing for selected tests. We benefited from the 2.4% annual indexation applied to 30% of Medicare schedule fees in FY 2026, with a further 2.6% indexation in effect for FY 2027.

In the hospital segment, North Shore Private Hospital and Hollywood Private Hospital contracts commenced in July 2025 and February 2026, respectively, further contributing to increased specialist referrals. We also continued to implement private billing for selected tests.

A highlight during the year was the completion of a national laboratory platform procurement process, driving further efficiency gains, including for the cutting-edge Docklands laboratory due to open in mid-calendar year 2027. The Fair Work Commission Gender Undervaluation Review resulted in wage increases for phlebotomists and health professionals, with an estimated FY 2027 cost impact of $4 million and $2.8 million, respectively.

Our industry association is in good faith discussions with the Department of Health on offsetting funding options. In the meantime, we are maintaining strong cost discipline through initiatives such as the right-sizing of our collection center network to improve productivity and deliver lease cost savings.

Our US business delivered stable underlying revenue performance in FY 2026, with 2% organic growth after adjusting for the loss of a major Alabama payer contract and the restructuring of anatomical pathology operations. We are firmly focused on improving our financial performance through the previously announced US operating review.

This review is ongoing and is already delivering tangible benefits. At the same time, we achieved accelerated growth in advanced diagnostics.

We delivered strong organic growth of 16% driven by the nationalization of the division, which combines Chroma Diagnostics, ThyroSeq, and other highly specialized testing. We also continued to improve underlying operational efficiency.

More than 70% of dermatopathology volumes are now processed through our proprietary, world-leading PathologyWatch digital pathology platform. This platform enhances workflow efficiency while expanding our ability to serve referring specialists across a broader geographic footprint.

In addition, our enhanced revenue collection system is delivering results, with cash collections trending positively. The decision on PAMA fee cuts scheduled for 1st January 2027 remains uncertain, although there continues to be positive dialogue regarding potential alternative legislation.

The US operating review is delivering substantial results and continues to ramp up into FY 2027. During FY 2026, we rationalized 9 anatomical pathology practices, improving profitability through laboratory closures and test portfolio optimization.

We secured procurement savings across a range of non-clinical spend categories and implemented a 10% reduction in corporate headcount across centralized support functions as part of a broader efficiency program. Building on this momentum, several initiatives remain in progress, including the optimization of external reference testing and the centralization of corporate functions, including compliance, legal, HR, and marketing.

Combined, these initiatives are expected to add $25 million to $30 million to FY 2027 earnings. We are also actively considering further initiatives as part of our ongoing operating review to improve financial performance.

Our market-leading national network in Switzerland achieved strong organic growth of 4% in constant currency, accelerating to 6% in the second half. This translated into strong margin expansion, supported by significant synergies realized from the integration of the synlab Suisse and Dr Risch acquisitions.

In FY 2026, we completed 4 laboratory mergers across Geneva, Lausanne, Zurich, and Ticino, with the 2 largest mergers in our pipeline, in Bern and Lucerne, on track for completion in FY 2027. We launched further optimization initiatives during the year, including in procurement, logistics, sales, IT harmonization, and insourcing of external reference testing.

Regulatory changes which took effect from 1 July 2026 are expected to have an estimated CHF 20 million impact on FY 2027 revenue, equating to approximately 3% of revenue, as a result of fee reductions for 10 high-volume tests. We have put in place initiatives across our operations to mitigate this impact.

The UK delivered revenue growth of 17%, supported by the first full-year contribution from the Hertfordshire and West Essex, or HWE, NHS contract. As noted earlier, margin performance in the UK was impacted by market-specific factors.

One factor was the extended integration timeline for the HWE contract. Our cutting-edge Watford hub laboratory was completed and ready for go-live as planned during this year.

The transfer of testing volumes associated with the HWE contract has progressed more slowly than anticipated due to operational issues within the NHS. As a result, we now expect to achieve the planned margins for the contract by H2 FY 2028.

Looking ahead, the Watford laboratory is well-positioned to support the strong growth we are seeing in community-based diagnostics across the region. Margin performance was also impacted by higher labor costs associated with the introduction of a new pay framework in the second half of the year.

This cost increase will annualize in FY 2027. We continued to strengthen our long-term strategic position in the UK in other areas, including through the acquisition of Cellular Pathology Services, expanding our capabilities in the attractive and growing private anatomical pathology market.

More broadly, we have multiple promising opportunities in the pipeline to serve the growing private pathology market in the UK. Radiology delivered strong organic revenue growth of 7% and underlying EBITDA growth of 5%.

Growth was supported by continued increased demand for higher-value modalities, including CT, MRI, and PET-CT, as well as annual Medicare indexation of 2.4% for FY 2026. Margin performance was impacted by our investment in 10 greenfield sites over the last 2 years, which lay the foundation for future growth.

These sites remain in their ramp-up phase and are expected to become accretive approximately 18 months after opening. Changes to the Department of Veterans' Affairs referral guidelines affecting MRI volumes also impacted margin, but are now fully annualized.

We are focused on driving margin improvement through organic growth, cost discipline, and productivity gains from the continued deployment of AI-enabled tools. As part of our digital transformation initiatives to optimize our radiology workflows, we are evaluating new system options to replace our existing radiology information system, which is now considered end of life.

Finally, Sonic Clinical Services delivered revenue growth of 5%, with organic growth strengthening in the second half. EBITDA increased 25% year-on-year off a low base, with significant margin expansion.

Our performance in the second half was supported by a 3.2% increase half-on-half in GP consultations per working day following the introduction of the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program on 1 November 2025. Our skin health business continued to deliver strong financial performance, supported by its highly personalized approach to patient care.

We realigned our operational and management structures to promote shared services and other efficiencies across the medical center, occupational health, and skin health businesses. This, combined with ongoing cost-saving initiatives, contributed to EBITDA growth during the year, with more improvements expected in FY 2027.

Before I hand over to Chris, I would like to personally thank our management teams and all of our 47,000 people around the world. Our people's deep commitment to caring for our communities through high-value medicine is the beating heart of Sonic Healthcare's success.

It is our people who have delivered our strong performance in FY 2026 and who will continue to do so into the future. Looking ahead, I'm confident in the momentum we are building across the business and excited by the opportunities ahead.

I'm positive that the initiatives underway across the business successfully build on our sound foundations of scale and diversification, an exceptional Medical Leadership culture, and unparalleled operational excellence. We are positioned to deliver strong, long-term growth, profitability, and value creation for shareholders.

I'll hand over now to Chris to discuss the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to now move to slide 23, where we have some more detail on the financial results.

As Jim has already stated, FY 2026 was a solid financial result for Sonic and in line with the guidance we set back in August 2025. Total revenue for the year increased by 13% to $10.867 billion.

On an underlying basis, adjusted for net non-recurring items of $51 million, which I'll discuss in more detail shortly, EBITDA for FY 2026 was $1.933 billion, 11% higher than FY 2025. On a constant currency basis, EBITDA was $1.916 billion and within our guidance range for the year.

Net profit for the year was $621 million, up 17%, while earnings per share grew 14% to $1.26. As you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, depreciation expense was $771 million.

Interest expense was $188 million, approximately 19% higher than the previous year, largely a consequence of the funding of the LADR acquisition in Germany and the Cairo acquisition in the US, and also the purchase of 2 laboratory properties. The underlying effective tax rate for the year was 26%, a bit lower than the 27% we had guided.

Property, plant, and equipment capex in FY 2026 totaled $631 million. This was higher than normal owing to $280 million in strategic property investments.

These included the acquisition and ongoing fit-out of the Melbourne laboratory in Docklands, as well as of 16 Giffnock Avenue, Macquarie Park, which expands our existing site at 14 Giffnock Avenue. Maintenance capex was $351 million, or approximately 3% of revenue.

We expect property-related capex to be lower in FY 2027 and drop away from FY 2028 onwards as these major Australian projects and the lab infrastructure in Switzerland and the UK are completed. On slide 24, we have more detail on the non-recurring items we have excluded from our underlying results.

The most significant item was the $107 million gain from the sale and leaseback of our Brisbane hub laboratory, which was completed in June 2026. This gain was offset by a number of items, which also have their own tax impacts, as set out in the table.

We've written down $33 million Australian dollars in US debtors relating to the 2024 Change Healthcare cyberattack for revenue which was recognized in FY 2024 and 2025. As we have mentioned in previous disclosures, this was a very disruptive event for us, and this is the net financial effect of it.

There was a $14 million wage adjustment relating to the interpretation of an Australian shiftworker award dating back 6 years prior to FY 2026, which was identified through an internal review. We've impaired $83 million in software intangibles, which is part of our digital and AI transformation initiative.

This mainly relates to our radiology information system and legacy ERP systems, which, as Jim has mentioned earlier, are considered end of life. We incurred $8 million in acquisition costs relating to the LADR acquisition in Germany and the Cairo acquisition in the US.

There was $14 million in restructuring costs related to US anatomical pathology business and facility rationalization in Germany and in the Sonic Clinical Services business in Australia. We made an initial $6 million investment in the implementation of finance, supply chain, and HR systems as part of our digital and AI transformation initiative.

We've also taken the decision to adjust for an interest deduction we're expecting in Germany relating to FY 2017 to '19. This was triggered by a recent German court decision against another taxpayer.

The net impact on the EBITDA of these non-recurring items was an adjustment of approximately $51 million in FY 2026. Turning to capital management on slide 25, our priorities remain unchanged.

First, maintaining an investment grade balance sheet is considered fundamental. Second, we are maintaining a progressive dividend and expect the medium-term payout ratio to return to 70% to 80% of net profit as our profits grow.

Third, pursuing strategic, selective, and synergistic acquisitions, which has been an important part of our history and remains a priority going forward. Finally, we will consider share buybacks using surplus funds, subject to market conditions and other factors.

Moving to slide 26, our credit metrics remain in line with historical levels. We ended the year with a debt cover ratio of 2.2.

The increase in net debt versus prior year relates to the acquisition of LADR and Cairo Diagnostics completed during the year, offset to some extent by the sale and leaseback of our Bowen Hills lab, which settled in June. As at 30th of June 2026, we had approximately $1.6 billion of available headroom.

This was, however, before the final dividend payment. I note that we have recently entered into a new €245 million bank debt facility that will effectively refinance the USPP debt we have maturing in November this year.

On to slide 27, we are pleased to announce a final dividend of 63 cents per share, taking the full-year dividend to $1.08, an increase of 1 cent on FY 2025. This dividend will be franked to 60%, with a record date of the 3rd of September and a payment date of the 17th of September.

Whilst the payout ratio is relatively high this year, it is well-supported by a strong operating cash flow and investment-grade balance sheet. Turning to slide 28, where we have set out some of our recent property transactions, which are important operationally, but also for capital management.

We remain focused on optimizing returns on capital tied up in owned real estate, beginning with the sale and leaseback of our Bowen Hills laboratory, which was completed in June for $445 million. The transaction enabled us to release capital at an effective pre-tax cost of 5.6% while also crystallizing value that was not reflected on our balance sheet.

We also signed a conditional contract for the sale of our surplus property at 95 Epping Road, Macquarie Park, which has been rezoned for multi-story residential development. Together, these transactions demonstrate our disciplined approach to capital management and our ongoing focus on improving returns on invested capital.

Looking ahead on slide 29, we're evaluating additional property sale and leaseback opportunities, including our Melbourne pathology laboratory development in Docklands and our Macquarie Park laboratory at 14 and 16 Giffnock Avenue. The latter property was acquired during the second half of the year for approximately $75 million to expand our laboratory footprint and support our long-term growth in this important market.

Moving now to our FY 2027 outlook and guidance on slides 30 and 31. We believe the fundamental growth drivers that underpinned our performance in FY 2026 will continue into FY 2027 and beyond.

We expect strong organic growth across our key markets, supported by favorable healthcare demand trends and Sonic's key differentiators of scale and diversification, Medical Leadership, and operational excellence. We also see significant opportunities to accelerate growth in advanced diagnostics and emerging channels, including direct-to-consumer testing.

While these underlying drivers remain positive, we have some headwinds with regulatory changes in Switzerland and the extended integration timeline associated with the UK NHS outsourced contract that are expected to impact EBITDA growth in FY 2027. Our focus remains firmly on the execution of our proven strategies in FY 2027 to help mitigate these margin impacts.

These include continuing to deliver cost efficiencies through our ongoing operating review in the US, capturing the benefits and synergies from our Swiss and German acquisitions, and executing on operational efficiency initiatives across procurement, automation, and clinical AI. Now for our FY 2027 guidance.

On a constant currency basis, we expect EBITDA to be within the range of $1.95 billion to $2.03 billion. This excludes the back-office IT transformation costs of approximately $30 million, as Jim mentioned earlier.

Depreciation expense is forecast to be in the range of $810 to $825 million. Amortization expense is forecast to be lower in FY 2027, within the range of $90 to $95 million.

Interest expense is expected to increase by 6% versus FY 2026, and our effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 27%. This guidance excludes any gains from the sale of properties, includes only completed acquisitions, assumes no future regulatory changes, and that current interest rates prevail.

Specifically, the guidance does not allow for the potential PAMA fee cuts in the US. To conclude, FY 2026 demonstrated the strength and competitive differentiation of Sonic's business model.

We delivered strong organic growth, invested strategically for the future, and maintained a disciplined approach to cost and capital management. Looking ahead, we remain well-positioned for continued growth, supported by industry tailwinds and the initiatives underway across the business to drive further efficiencies and improve returns on invested capital.

We are confident in our outlook and in Sonic's ability to deliver earnings growth and long-term value for shareholders. We will now open the call for questions.

Thanks. Morning, Jim and Chris.

Appreciate the presentation. Jim, perhaps a question for you to start off with.

If I look at your FY 2027 guide on an EBITDA basis, it implies about, I would say, low to mid-single digit type growth. Clearly, there's a fair amount of moving parts for the business.

Could you perhaps summarize the top 3 key priorities that you're looking at to sort of help improve EPS and ROIC in line with your strategy? Thank you.

Thank you very much for the question. I think if we look at the FY 2027 guidance, we've tried to provide a lot of color there about the moving parts, as you've said, and where our markets are at.

We see, as we've always seen, the biggest driver of achieving that guidance is the organic growth, and we've got a very strong history in that regard. I see Medical Leadership and our culture and our ability to have those relationships with referring doctors and patients directly as the key driver for that, as well as our incredible strength in logistics and operations.

I think we enter the year with really good momentum on a lot of initiatives. We've identified opportunities through the operational improvement initiatives and productivity programs across the markets that we've talked about.

The US operating review is obviously front of mind, and we've identified significant savings there that will contribute to the guidance this year. In terms of the potential headwinds that we've flagged, I think that we've come in with a lot of strong momentum and the ability to mitigate those through our strong operating platforms and scale in Switzerland and the UK.

We're very confident that we can mitigate those, and we've incorporated that, of course, into the guidance. I think that, looking ahead to the year, we see a huge amount of opportunities, a lot of momentum from the previous year that we're going to take forwards, and strong growth ahead.

Okay.

Just one last one for me. An observation is over that second half '26 period, it looks like there were a lot of non-recurring costs that were recognized across multiple components.

Could you please perhaps give us a sense of what happened across that time frame? Have you sort of taken a detailed review of the business and uncovered all these different, I guess, parts of it?

Thanks.

I think what we presented today in terms of the digital and AI transformation is a recognition of several assets of ours, software assets, which are end of life, and then a deliberate attempt to invest in the future and create a very modern, scalable platform across those 3 areas that includes back office, operational, and clinical. We've looked at all of those areas in terms of our current software platforms and identified those impairments, but on the flip side of that is the investments to create this global platform to move forwards.

I think very much enable the operating platform that we already have around the world, but do so in a way that is modernizing our approach to it, enabling AI tools across all 3 of those areas of the software portfolio. Particularly, I think moving forwards, what we see is an opportunity where we're first rolling out in Australia is our 3 operating divisions here, which is the most well-advanced of this rollout, the opportunity to use shared services and scale those across our 3 divisions in Australia, but then more broadly globally in the future.

Thanks, team.

Thanks very much. Maybe just one for Chris to start off with.

Just the FX, it's all constant currency, could you give us a sense of if we use spot rates, what the implications are for some of those guidance lines, please?

David, obviously it's difficult to forecast, but in the 4E, you'll see the rates that have been used for the year's results that we've just reported. I guess you can compare that with current rates, but there is a bit of headwind there.

I think off the top of my head, it's probably if the current rates prevail for the whole year, it'd be something like $40 to $50 million at the EBITDA line. Who knows where that will head from here.

No,

that's helpful. I think we got something not so far away from that, but given constant currency, it is helpful to hear your take on that.

Look, the other topic I wanted to touch on is just the US and post the restructure. Can I get you to talk a little bit about what you think can happen with margins from here post the restructure?

If you wouldn't mind just reminding us of the Xifin revenue recognition and whether there's still benefits expected there. If I could just add into that, the PAMA cuts, are they in the guidance?

I think in the past, they've tended to be excluded. Just

maybe the last question first. I think we specifically mentioned the PAMA cuts are excluded because they're still pretty uncertain, and there seems to be gaining momentum in Washington on the issue of the RESULTS legislation, et cetera.

That remains a work in progress, and we probably won't hear about that until closer to the end of the year. In terms of the margin improvement, I guess if you just take the numbers we've mentioned there, the 25 to 30 million, that in itself adds a reasonable margin improvement to our US operation.

Separately, there's other things that are happening there, I guess we're hoping that that will flow through into the '27 numbers for the group. Was there a third question there?

Oh, yeah, just

the Xifin revenue.

Xifin is fully rolled out other than in Hawaii, and it has been a little more challenging than we had hoped because it's not just a simple rollout of a software. It involves lots of tools, including client portals, all that sort of thing.

We're starting to see some green shoots on that. I think we mentioned in February that we're probably a little behind the upside we were expecting from it this year, but that's evolving.

There's some new AI tools that we've started implementing, I think in March this year, that are starting to bear some fruit. I think going into '27, we hope to see some more benefits flowing through from the use of that technology.

The other point to make around the operating review of the US in general is that we're seeing very good top line growth in important areas like advanced diagnostics. We have a clear market differentiation in there with ThyroSeq, Chroma Diagnostics, and other services, and seeing very good national rollout of those.

That's a platform that we're very confident will continue to grow, and that will help drive margins there as well.

All right. Thank you very much.

Good morning, team, and thanks very much for taking my questions. First question and then a follow-up.

I've noticed that you've had less impact from the Fair Work decision for FY '27 than at least one of your peers has talked to. Can you give us an idea of why that would be, given the size of your operations compared to your peers in the Australian market?

Thanks, David. I think we talked about this at the half year.

It's a similar story to back then, which is that we believe leading employees in terms of expertise and long-term retention. We have historically valued them very strongly.

Part of that is that we're starting at a higher base in terms of any uplift from the Gender Undervaluation Review, and I think you're seeing the impact of that in these numbers compared to our competition.

I think, David, it might be worth mentioning that I think one of our competitors also included in their number just the base wage case impact, whereas we're just pointing out the impact of the gender undervaluation aspect of it.

Probably also just to reinforce the point, I think we made at the half year that in relation to the increases for phlebotomists, the ratio of collection center numbers to revenue for Sonic is vastly different from our competitors, and so we're less impacted by that.

My follow-up is one for Chris. I wonder if you could give us sort of a more specific guide around capex, PP&E in FY '27, please.

Look,

I think I did in my comments mention some numbers there trying to pluck out the building costs because that's had a fair impact in the last few years as we've built some infrastructure, which we also referred to in the deck. I think the maintenance capex number is kind of, I think a rule of thumb, about 3% of revenue, and I think we quoted around about 351 million which was this year just gone, and it's probably going to be sitting at a similar level for FY '27.

That doesn't include intangibles, which is a pretty static number around the 100, just bit over 100 million.

As Chris flagged earlier, on top of that maintenance cost in '27, there will still be some building costs, but not as high as in the current year. That is in the '26 year.

We've got the completion of the fit-out down in Docklands, which is the biggest chunk of that, which is due to finish in June '27.

Down on the 631, I guess would be the call.

Yes. Absolutely.

Okay. Thank you.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question.

I just wanted to ask about the guidance and I think just looking at the mid-point of EBITDA, it equates to about just under $60 million of uplift versus this year, as in from '26. You flagged the $25 to $30 million coming from improvements in US operations.

The remaining EBITDA increase is really only about $25 or $30 million. I guess my question is, is this an issue that relates to top line?

You highlighted 5% organic revenue growth for the business in '26. Is this a revenue issue into '27 that revenue growth is going to slow and therefore EBITDA growth slows?

The mid-point of your guidance, if you run down through all of the line items, suggests NPAT will be flat on fiscal '26, and I'm trying to understand where is the lack of leverage coming through at that EBITDA line? Is this a revenue issue or is it a cost issue, particularly labor cost?

Thanks.

Saul, yeah, look, I don't think it's a revenue issue, but we have cited in the Swiss slide that we have we've got some headwinds there, which are circa 20 million, so that's Swiss francs, which is, getting closer to 40 million, which is because it's a fee cut, it's top and bottom line effect. There's also we mentioned delays in HWE.

Without those, the guidance would probably be a bit stronger. Also you've chosen the mid-point.

I guess we're hoping, even though we've given a range, we're hoping we would do better than the mid-point, but, time will tell on that.

I think on organic revenue growth, we flagged that in both Switzerland, other than this fee issue, and SCS that actually we saw growth accelerate in the second half of the financial year. We're certainly not expecting anything in our underlying organic growth rate.

As Jim said, with solid growth and all of the initiatives we've got to improve efficiency, we would like to think that we'll end up with a pretty solid result in FY '27, barring those few headwinds that we've got to work through.

Just to follow up on that, would it be fair to assume that you're expecting your organic revenue growth at a group level to be fairly consistent in '27 as in around 5%?

We will have annualized the Herts and West Essex contract, which was obviously a substantial step-up in revenue, as you would have seen in the UK that was 17% in the year. Adjusting, if you take that impact out, then yes, we would expect probably similar levels of organic growth other than the Swiss fee cut.

Got it.

Thank you very much. That's all I had.

Morning. Thanks for taking the questions.

Just on the US, it does sound like you're happy with the progress of the operating review clearly contributing a decent amount of the growth to the '27 guide as well with that 25 to 30 million number that you called out. Just curious, performance overall there still seems below where you would expect it to be.

Are there scenarios where you would consider other options for that business, or is that entirely off the table for now?

Our focus has been and continues to be on the operating review. We've presented the positive outcomes from that.

Again, apart from efficiency and productivity measures that we've seen bearing fruit, we're also seeing pleasing top-line growth in really important areas. That's our focus and we'll keep the market up to date with the progress of that operating review, as you'd expect.

We're quite pleased with how it's going. Okay.

Just secondly on the EBITDA guidance, you're excluding the 30 million of IT costs. Can I just confirm that's a number you have a good handle on?

We tend to see time and time again, this is the sort of thing that can creep up and become more of a headwind as these investments progress. I just wanted to make sure that that 30 million number is not going to sort of extend through the course of the year.

Look, we're pretty comfortable with the 30 million for '27. We also cited a similar number in '28 and '29.

Those outer years we probably haven't got as much detail on, but based on the work we've done so far, we're pretty confident that those projects can be delivered within that sort of envelope of cost. They will then help us deliver all sorts of other benefits from shared services, use of AI agents, et cetera, et cetera.

There's lots that we're expecting to flow from that, particularly in the back office area.

Thanks for taking the questions.

Hi, good morning, all. I might come back to the United States here.

I think you quoted flat organic growth in the United States and called out progress with advanced diagnostics and ThyroSeq. I'm trying to understand, when you compare it to the organic growth that you showed in the first half, it was quite similar.

Can you explain how you might be able to accelerate United States top-line growth, particularly given that it's one of the more challenging markets?

Thank you for the question. It's important in this financial FY 2026 to look at the underlying organic growth.

We did have, as we've talked about, the major payer contract loss in Alabama in January 2025. Of course, the restructuring of the AP operations that we've talked about.

Adjusting for that, we've got an underlying organic growth of 2% in FY 2026. Moving forwards, apart from the advanced diagnostics and dermatopathology divisions, we're putting a lot of effort into coordinating our sales teams in our major markets and investing in those.

Those are particularly important in US markets. In our major clinical pathology divisions, we are putting extra resources and strategic intent into that, which we're seeing the benefits of.

In our midsouth area, we're seeing benefits apart from in Alabama in different states that we've been able to shift resources from the Alabama market into other neighboring states and seen a lot of benefit in terms of top-line growth there. Across all of our areas, and then in Hawaii as well, we're seeing excellent growth ongoing there.

I think it's fair to say this is not just a advanced diagnostics story. We're putting focus on other large parts of our business like clinical pathology core business and investing in marketing teams and sales processes there.

Okay.

As a second question, I think that slide 11 on EBITDA margin movements was interesting. What are your expectations for those markets in terms of what the EBITDA margin movement might look like for fiscal 2027?

In particular, the United States, United Kingdom, do you expect that to return to sort of the margins you saw in fiscal 2025?

Maybe I'll take that one. Look, we we're trying to give a bit more transparency on on margins in that slide without giving too much detail, but the the the margins for for for the US should improve with the initiatives we've spelled out in in the US slides and that Jim's talked to.

I think in the UK, we're probably expecting a flatter period in '27, maybe even down a bit as we incur some some some double costs associated with the HWE contract until we we get the the lab in Watford live. I think probably more a margin improvement in the US in the UK, sorry, in FY 2028 and beyond.

That should be pretty solid then because, we're we remain very confident that that contract is going to be ex- excellent for the for the business. Did that answer the main questions you had?

Then also Switzerland, given the fee cuts there, and then Australia with the labor. Do you expect Australia to be maintained and Switzerland perhaps a little bit down?

Maybe I'll have a go at that, and Jim, you can chime in, but I think Australia, particularly we'll have cycled past some of the changes to fees for B12 and urine, and with some of the private billing, I'm hoping that we would see some improvement in margins in Australia going forward. In Switzerland, we've got lots of synergies coming through.

We've got that happening at the same time as this fee change, we'll see how that pans out. Certainly there's pressures going both ways in that market, and that just remains to be seen how we end up at the end of the year.

Jim, I don't know if you want to...

I think just stepping back and having a look at a bit of a longer-term time frame here, I think important to remind ourselves that in terms of the margin story, we intentionally went into contracts and acquisitions which we knew were going to be margin dilutive in the initial stages. That's the LADR acquisition and the HWE contract.

LADR is well on track. We're realizing synergies from that and its integration into the broader German network that we have.

HWE, we've shared today some of the delays that we're seeing with that, but still looking longer term, what we see here are incredible opportunities to drive long-term earnings growth and drive scale and efficiency across those two markets. Important to remember that we went into those with that strategy and that there is still a very attractive long-term margin and value growth story with those contracts and acquisitions.

Maybe just to remind you that the HWE contract is a 15-year contract, it should deliver good returns for Sonic for many years. They're a little harder in the first few years with the transition process.

Great. Thank you.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions.

Just want to understand the headwinds into FY '27 a little bit more in terms of EBITDA. The Swiss fee cut, presumably that's all margin until you can potentially mitigate that somewhat?

Then secondly, are you able to quantify the UK headwind that you've flagged there and maybe talk about the extent to which you think that may reverse in FY '28?

Look, we probably can't give you more information than we've set out in the deck. On the Swiss front, you're right that that amount it's a fee cut, so that it goes off the top and bottom line initially.

We're obviously also right in the middle of a whole lot of synergy capture from the acquisitions we made. This is where we've got two issues at play here: a fee cut, but that should be to some degree offset by some of those synergies that are flowing through for FY 2027.

I think in our answer to the previous question on HWE, we've said that we think the impact in '27 will be kind of flat to maybe slightly negative on margin for '27, but then rebound in '28.

I think in both of those markets, again, to point out the history here is that in FY 2026 in Switzerland, we saw very strong margin growth through synergy capture from recent acquisitions which were margin dilutive and great execution on that. We're very confident in our platform and team there to drive further synergies and margin growth moving forwards even with the regulatory change that we talked about.

In the UK, similarly, we've got a very strong operating model relationship with the NHS over many years through our HSL joint venture. We have the right people, platforms, processes to realize these and have the historical evidence for it, it's about moving forwards executing on that, and we're very confident in that.

Yep.

Okay. Then my follow-up, just in relation to this Swiss fee cut, I know you're not going to comment on GOÄ reform at the moment, but are there any other fee cuts of this magnitude that we should be aware of beyond FY '27?

No, there's nothing to advise on at this stage.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, and good morning. Just with the UK labor cost increases, when did they come into effect and what impact did they have in the second half period?

They came into effect, they were partly backdated in April '25, this FY '26 has had more than a year's effect of them because they only were instigated when, Paul, can you remind me? It was...

H2.

I can't remember the exact date, there was some backdating of that, they've been effective for even more than the full year that we've just reported.

The impact into '27 will be lower than the actual amount you had in the second half, given that that was inclusive of back to April '25?

Yes, that's correct, yeah.

Okay. Then just the second question is on the net interest expense, the increase of 6%.

Just trying to understand that, is that mainly the additional leasing costs coming through?

As always, that's a complicated forecast to perform. Obviously with the sale of Bowen Hills, the sale and leaseback, there's a sort of a move between sort of normal debt interest and lease interest, lease interest is up significantly in relation to that deal, but largely the lease interest on Bowen Hills offsets the savings in interest that we'd have on the other side.

Then you've got other movements like, for example, the USPP debt that Chris mentioned expires in November this year, that was at a low rate of 1.75%, there's a bit of a higher rate comes through once that's refinanced. We've got some tax payments to make that were flagged in the NRI and some earnouts on some acquisitions to make as well, all those parts contribute to that uplift.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks very much for taking my question. You've been talked to the spot effect, I guess, versus the constant currency EBITDA guidance.

Just wondering if you could put a number on what your sort of natural hedging offset might be against that 50 50 or so at the EBITDA?

That's a difficult question to answer on the hop, Andrew.

I thought I'd give you some balance.

We gave a little bit of direction to I think a question David Low asked before at the EBITDA line, but you're asking also what's the natural hedge offset? Yeah...

I think we'd need to take that offline, Andrew, and maybe if you had a look at the movements in the second half of the financial year of FY 2026, that would give you some guidance

for '27. Okay.

Against the run of it, but I just thought you had a back of the envelope. Then maybe just moving on to Australia, obviously good growth there, probably more than double the MBS, a lot of moving parts, hospital contract wins and so on.

When it comes down to patient pay, or patient billing, just wondering how capable your systems are and whether there's sort of a more upside there, how far down that journey you are and to rolling that out? Are you charging on the ineligibles, non-funded, and expanding copays?

It's a bit of a scratchy line there, Andrew, but I think I've got the gist of the question. We have, as we've talked about previously, rolled out private billing particularly for vitamin B12 testing, but also other vitamins, which are actually quite complex and advanced tests to perform, specialized tests, many of the other vitamins.

It is certainly gaining momentum, and we have private billing testing pathways in the majority of our operations for vitamin B12. In all cases, there is informed consent from patients beforehand, there are other options to do in most cases.

All of these, I think it's really important to say, come with first of all medical decision with clinical governance around what's the right medicine to do in different situations and then giving a patient if there is an option a choice to go down different pathways. We've done that, of course, in close collaboration with our referring doctors.

It is a complex area, but we've certainly gained momentum during this last financial year in private billing in general because we think it's the right thing to do in order to meet the medical needs, and to support those, we need to raise appropriate revenue from private billing to support those diagnostics.

I guess what I'm pulling at there is sort of ongoing and I guess still some more upside?

Yes, we're certainly gaining momentum, we think there is more upside into FY 2027 on that in that front.

Some of the changes were only introduced through the year, Andrew, there's an annualization effect upside to come from those in FY '27.

Finally, you've mentioned buybacks. What sort of timing would you put around the idea or the consideration?

Look, it's on the list of capital management priorities. I don't want to be disclosing something we haven't made a call on yet, but it's there and will be considered when appropriate.

That's great. Thank you.

Morning, team. Thanks for taking my question.

First question, could we just get an update on that New Jersey contract? I guess in terms of timing, when we can assume a more meaningful impact to US revenue?

Yes,

thanks for the question. This is the Horizon contract that we've talked about earlier, and we are seeing a lot of sales outreach going on in that region.

It is relatively new, I think it's fair to say that we're not seeing significant uplift in FY '26 from that, but moving forward to FY '27, there is, I think, a lot of growth to be gained in that northern part of New Jersey in particular through the initial sales outreaches that we've had. I think it goes back to what we talked about earlier, which is that we've presented some headlines in terms of advanced diagnostics, dermatopathology, as well as the cost efficiency measures, but there is a lot of work going on at the ground level in our major markets in the Northeast and Texas and midsouth from a routine or more routine clinical pathology point of view to get out there and grow our sales network and our footprint.

We're very happy with how New Jersey is going, but in terms of last financial year, I think it's still building pace, but we'll continue that momentum into FY '27.

Great. Just a second question from me.

I guess it's been a bit quiet on the M&A front. Just interested on your stance on future M&A, and if there are any opportunities you are chasing or just focusing on that core business for now?

We talked about again our capital management priorities, and that continues to include selective, synergistic acquisitions where there's a strong investment thesis. We've got a very strong focus on return on invested capital, as we always have at Sonic Healthcare.

I think what might be a little bit different today is that we have a lot of internal opportunities to create value from the assets we already own. We've talked already about the LADR acquisition, Chroma Diagnostics, recent Swiss acquisitions.

That's unlocking a lot of value in those areas. Of course, we remain active and interested in opportunities, but we're also equally focused on extracting the value that we already have in our strong portfolio.

Great. Thank you.

Good morning. Just two very quick ones just for helping with reconciling some of the items.

Firstly, in the FY '26 EBITDA, could you just quantify, and I might have missed this, the amount of IT costs that were reclassified out of the '26 year?

Steven, I think there's a number in what page? The 6.3 million number, which is part of the total of the net 51, relates to the IT transformation project, that's the FY '26 impact.

Then we've alluded to another 30 million in FY '27. Is that what you're meaning?

That's exactly right. So '25 looked like it was 22 million, '20 '26 is 6 million, and then FY '27 is 30.

Is that right?

I'm not sure about the '25 number. I have to look back at '25, but I'm not sure about that.

It was what you reclassified, because you did it in the accounts you reclassified that for the '25 number. Anyway, that was just the net difference, the movement in the EBITDA that I took.

Anyway, we can take that offline, but it's the 6 that I was after. Then just the second thing was just in the one-off items the tax effect on the gain on sale, is that a benefit?

It's a bit of a crazy one. I'll hand this one over to Paul to wave his magic on an answer here.

Yes, it is a credit, you're right. That credit is a combination of, first of all, that we had something like 170 million of unbooked capital losses that we've utilized against the gain, so that certainly has a positive impact on the amount of tax we actually have to pay.

There is about 40 million of tax to pay, but the other impact is related to AASB 16 and the timing differences between AASB 16 accounting and the tax deduction for rent. We've tried to explain this in the 4E under the tax expense explanations, you can have a look there, and happy to go in it in a little more detail later.

Really it relates to the fact that under old accounting standards, our gain on the sale of this building was more like 300 million, whereas under AASB 16, it was only a bit over 100 million. That 200 million is a kind of a timing difference for tax purposes going forward.

The net of all of that is the credit of 19 million this year. Right.

Okay. One of my issues was trying to get to your 26% effective tax rate, that's going to be one of the big explanations, I think, as to why it's different to the 30%.

That is the part of the delta between the 22% and the 26%. Yeah.

Got it. Thanks for that.

Thanks for taking my question. Look, just one from me.

Just be good to get a bit of a guide on where you are in terms of earnings contribution from recent M&A in Switzerland and some of the other regions, and understand whether they're delivering in line with rest of the group's margins. Really just trying to understand the progress here, as M&A in Switzerland wasn't seen as contributing to earnings when you acquired it.

Maybe we can't obviously disclose more than we've disclosed really, but just on maybe LADR to start with, that German acquisition, there is some information in the 4E that discloses the fact that it contributed about 59 million NPAT. That's obviously without interest for FY '26, so that's already a return above our cost of capital.

I think when we announced that transaction, we told you that we expected to get to about 11% ROIC after 3 years. That one is performing absolutely according to plan.

We've already achieved 40% of the expected synergies in this first year. Absolutely on target, and as are the two in Switzerland.

There's been, you'll see in that margin slide, solid margin growth in FY '26 in Switzerland. We've got this fee issue now to deal with in FY '27, but so all of those acquisitions are performing according to plan.

Likewise with Chroma in the US. That's probably doing even a little better than we'd originally budgeted for.

That's great. I'll have a look at that.

Just looking into '27, do you still see some uplift coming through, as they progress to where you want to get to?

Absolutely. On all of those, we would be expecting continued improvements coming through from the synergies, which we've talked about.

We've got two big lab mergers coming up in FY '27 in Switzerland, which we I think mentioned on the slide. Look, lots of activity going on and all heading in the right direction.

That's great. That's all I had.

Thanks.