We'd now like to hand the conference over to Elle Roseby, Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.
Well, good morning, and thanks everyone for joining us. I'm joined today by Ashley Gardner, our outgoing Group CFO, whom I'd like to acknowledge from the outset, who's been a wonderful colleague and enormous support in my first year as Group CEO. He leaves us with our best wishes for his next exciting chapter in his career. Before he leaves us, he has the job of taking you through the detailed financials. I'd also like to welcome Matt Edmonds, our incoming Group CFO, who has officially joined us just 2 weeks ago, and who I will more formally introduce in a moment. Let's dive into our results. In the first half of FY 2026, we delivered record group sales of AUD 329 million, up 5.9%.
However, this did not translate into profit growth for the group, largely due to the aggressive clearance activity undertaken in the Adairs brand in Q1. While the results across the brands were mixed, I'm pleased with the progress we have made and the significant decisions we have actioned to reposition and reset our businesses. This work positions us well for sales growth, margin expansion, and earnings improvement into the second half. We've also made some key executive appointments. Matt Edmonds joined us as Group CFO on the 9th of February, bringing over 20 years of senior and operational leadership experience across major international retailers, including Coles Group, Tesco PLC, and Safeway.com, with experience spanning Australia, Asia, the U.K., and the U.S. I would also welcome Candice Deale as our new CEO of Focus on Furniture.
Candice is an experienced furniture retail executive with over 20 years experience in large furniture and home lifestyle brands, including Freedom and Fantastic Furniture. I look forward to working closely with Matt and Candice as we continue our journey towards Vision 2030. I'll now touch on the highlights for each brand, and Ash will go through the numbers in detail more shortly. Our efforts around big moments paid off. Black Friday, Christmas, and Boxing Day were standout periods and contributed significantly to the results of all three brands. Adairs sales were up 4% for the half, cycling a strong prior corresponding period, where sales grew 9.3%. Our like-for-like sales were up 4.2%. We recognize the importance of clearing up our inventory in Q1 and ensuring the business was set up for the important Q2 trading period.
This saw margins significantly down in Q1, but was necessary to maximize the impact of new seasonal ranges in Q2. We invested in key seasonal categories and in-store fixtures to showcase new products across the November and Christmas period, resulting in pleasing results with strong sell-through, improved shop conversion, and importantly, an increase in market share in December. We also undertook a number of test-and-learn go-to-market trials across the half, and learned a lot about how our customers respond to different types of promotions that can be applied moving forward. Our improvements in cost efficiency and service levels from the National Distribution Center continued, achieving another period of cost reduction despite sales growth. Underlying EBIT for the half was AUD 18.6 million. It was AUD 2 million down on the prior year. All of this decline was incurred in the first quarter, with Q2 profits up on last year.
For Mocka, it delivered an outstanding half, with sales up 29.8%. New product innovation is driving sales and margin growth and allowing Mocka to reduce the depth of promotional activity, especially in Australia, where sales increased 44.5%, and that's on top of 27.5% growth in half one last year. It is also pleasing to see our Mocka team rewarding with such positive feedback from customers and these impressive results. I'm excited by the next phase for Mocka and the opening of their first standalone retail store in Queensland in May. Focus on Furniture had another challenging half. Total sales up 1.9%. However, like-for-like sales down 3.3%, with profit declining by 32% to AUD 5.8 million. We have made the changes to the team that are necessary to reset the business.
The appointment of Candice as CEO and new experienced heads of retail, product, digital, and marketing provides the skills and capability to deliver growth. I'll now pass to Ash to talk through the financial results in more detail.
Thanks, Elle. Good morning, everyone. As Elle said, sales to the group of AUD 329 million were up 5.9%, and all three brands achieved sales growth. Underlying EBIT of AUD 13 million was down 9.1% on last year, which was a result of the Q1 clearance activity that Elle referred to in Adairs. Q2 delivered profit growth across the group, with margins improving significantly and costs well controlled. If I turn to the brands now, starting with Adairs, it was very much a tale of two quarters. While sales growth across the half was consistent, the activity that underpinned the sales was very different. In Q1, we deliberately and aggressively cleared excess inventory. This was necessary to ensure the business was set for the important Q2 trading period, when new product was ranged and the customer traffic was substantially higher.
Pleasingly, performance across the 3 key trading events in Q2 exceeded expectations. The Linen Lover event in late October, Black Friday in November, and the important Christmas trading period, all performed well ahead of last year. Gross margin was down 170 basis points to 60.7%. However, we saw consistent month-to-month improvement through Q2, following the clearance activity that saw margin down 300 basis points in the first quarter. Total cost of doing business decreased by 50 basis points. Costs at the National Distribution Center were 12% lower in absolute terms than the prior year, despite the increased volumes. In addition, service levels from the NDC have continued to improve, with more than 98% of online orders dispatched within two days.
Efficiency gains have also been seen in stores, with higher sales per hour, which helped offset the cost growth in store rents and wage rates generally. Underlying EBIT for Adairs of AUD 18.6 million for the half was down 10%. Importantly, all of this decline occurred in Q1, and the business has good sales and margin momentum going to the second half. The technology upgrade at Adairs continued during the half, with project expenditure of AUD 6.6 million expense days incurred and excluded from underlying earnings. The project is progressing well for go-live in the first half of FY 2027, and the planned spend is in line with the guidance provided back in August. Appendix 1 of the investor presentation includes a reconciliation of underlying EBIT to statutory EBIT, with the other item excluded from underlying earnings being the AASB 16 lease accounting adjustments.
If I move on to Focus on Furniture now, the business delivered sales of AUD 63.1 million, with total sales up 1.9%, but like-for-like sales down 3.3%. The business traded well through the key Black Friday and Boxing Day sale events, but was softer at other times. The refurbished stores continued to outperform the older stores, and the store refresh program remains a priority for Candice and her team. Gross margin was only slightly down, with the benefits of supplier cost reductions negotiated early in the half, helping to offset the impact of additional promotional activity and the weaker Aussie dollar. Costs were generally well controlled. However, they did increase due to the non-like-for-like store costs and the higher rent of the new Victorian warehouse and customer support center.
This, combined with the negative like-for-like sales, meant that Focus reported an underlying EBIT of AUD 5.8 million, which was down 31.7%. I'll now move on to Mocka. Mocka delivered an outstanding result, with sales of AUD 36.5, AUD 36.5 million, up 29.8%. Australia continued to achieve significant growth, with sales up 44.5%. That's on top of the 27.5% growth that the Australian business achieved last year. Pleasingly, we also saw New Zealand deliver 8.2% sales growth in what continues to be a difficult market. These results were achieved through continual product innovation, with new categories launched during the half, driving incremental sales and marketing campaigns, attracting a larger and increasingly engaged audience.
The new product and a reduction in the average depth of promotional offers led to an increase in gross margin to 60.1%. Mocka reported an underlying EBIT of AUD 5.6 million, up 45.5% on last year, with the EBIT margin improving to 15.3%. Looking at the balance sheet and cash flow now, total inventory was 4.4% lower than at the same time last year, and stock turnover has improved. More importantly, the quality of that inventory is good across each of the brands, which should support continued margin improvement through the second half. Underlying operating cash flow increased by more than 30% to AUD 32.6 million, due mainly to the improvement in stock turns.
This helped fund an increase in capital and project expenditure, with the capital expenditure on new stores, store refurbishments, and digital initiatives of AUD 6.4 million, and an additional AUD 6.6 million invested in the Adairs technology upgrade. Overall, the improved net cash flow for the half enabled a 20% reduction in net debt to AUD 53.6 million. The board declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.055 per share, fully franked, and the DRP remains active. Before I hand back to Al, I'd just like to thank you all for your support and questions over the last six and a half years. We've seen some pretty extraordinary events in that time, and I've been privileged to have been able to play a role in navigating the group through it and sharing that journey with many of you.
This is a great business, and I'm confident it will continue to grow and realize its full potential. Back to you, Elle.
Thanks so much, Ash. I'd now like to talk about the progress we are making toward our Vision 2030 objectives in each brand. In Adairs, we've been focused on delivering on our strategic commitments. Playing to win in the big moments remains our biggest unlock for customer engagement and incremental sales. We're now executing these at these events with conviction. Over the November and December period, our investment in Christmas and other key seasonal categories, like gifting and decorator, combined with new store fixtures to support our in-store execution, delivered material sales and margin improvement. Importantly, this drove the growth of our market share in December, which is a month when historically, we have lost share to our competitors. Big moments are key drivers in our calendar that showcase our unique and exclusive designs. I was pleased to see these executed so well during this important trading period.
We've started work on an elevated design handwriting and brand story, alongside a clear understanding of the customer profiles we are serving and the wants and needs of these customers. This has been supported by deep customer research. As part of this journey, we have been working with an agency to design our concept store format that will showcase a modernized view of the Adairs experience. I'm excited to share that our new first concept store will open at Bondi Junction in May this year. This new store will bring our brand vision for Adairs to life, with immersive storytelling, curated spaces to inspire our customers, and a more intuitive customer journey. Our Linen Lovers program continues to be a critical part of our customer experience, with more than 1 million unique paid-up members contributing more than 80% of sales.
We introduced new exclusive events for our Linen Lovers during the half, as well as commenced a new partnership with Qantas Frequent Flyer, which provides another exclusive benefit for our Linen Lovers. Whilst it is early on our partnership with Qantas Frequent Flyer, we are seeing this partnership help drive customer acquisition and encourage customers to spend more when they tag their QFF number. We are relentless with simplifying our business as a priority. We are investing in new systems to improve our processes and provide better data insights. We will continue to scrutinize our product ranges to maximize returns on each SKU, and have a disciplined approach to category growth, which has already seen some categories plan back mid-double digits. We are continuing to tightly manage productivity improvements in store, and we've seen our smaller stores come under increasing pressure recently as rents continue to rise.
We have commenced a rigorous store portfolio review, which will see seven smaller, less profitable stores close in the next six months, with a coordinated strategy to use the Linen Lovers program to transfer some of these sales to other stores and online, reducing the sales impact and improving overall profitability. These initiatives, along with others, are expected to deliver meaningful margin and productivity gains for Adairs over the next 12 months. Moving to Focus on Furniture, we continue to have confidence in the foundations of the business and see significant upside potential as we move forward with a new leadership team. Candice Deale commenced in November and has a new and experienced team alongside her, with extensive furniture retail experience to capitalize on the foundations of the business.
Whilst we haven't seen the top line move significantly yet, we have been seeing a good response from customers to the new initiatives, with extended finance options and made to order, both increasing their share of sales throughout Q2. Candice will be focused on refreshing the product strategy, with an emphasis on more trend-driven furniture options in evolving colors, shapes, and finishes. In addition, she'll be reviewing the store refurbishment program, where we have seen good success with another 3 to 5 stores to be refreshed over the next 12 months. Our Frankston store was the most recent store to be refurbished, and we've seen a sales uplift of more than 20%.
Opening new stores remains a key part of our growth strategy for Focus on Furniture, and in the last 12 months, we have opened Robina in Queensland, and we'll open a new store in Tuggerah next month. We are actively reviewing a planned market entry into Western Australia. However, our priority remains to expand our network in Queensland and New South Wales. For Mocka, as we said earlier, Mocka delivered an outstanding half. The success has been achieved through a deep understanding of their customers and continual product innovation that is on trend and represents great value for money. Brand awareness in Mocka's target demographic has increased by more than 60%. What has also pleased us is that the operating platform has scaled to support growth, with an average time to dispatch orders falling and more than 100,000 reviews receiving an average of 4.5 stars.
Our New Zealand shop-in-shop trial has validated the physical retail proposition and continues to provide operational learnings. We are excited to be opening the first Mocka standalone store in Queensland in May, and this will really place us to showcase the Mocka product in an environment designed for our customers. A second store will open in Victoria later in the year and provide valuable insights into the potential for a national retail chain for Mocka. Turning now to the trading update we are providing for the second half of FY 2026. For the first 7 weeks of H2, group sales are up 6.4%. Adairs has had a solid start, with sales up 4.8%, cycling a strong base from last year, when sales for the first 7 weeks were up 15.2%.
Focus's summer sale campaign was in line with last year, with sales up 0.8%. The order book sits at AUD 9.5 million, 6% below the same time last year, but margin has improved on last year. Mocka continues its strong performance, with sales up 31.3%, Australia up 47.1%, and New Zealand is up 10.9%. As I look ahead, the group is well positioned to build on the sales and margin momentum from Q2 and expects sales, margin, and underlying EBIT growth in the second half of FY 2026 compared to the same period last year. Our focus is on executing and making sure we maximize each brand's sales potential, while continuing to simplify processes, improving productivity, and reducing costs.
We expect to open 3-5 new Adairs stores, 1 new Focus on Furniture store, and the first Mocka standalone retail store in half 2. We will also close 6-7 Adairs stores as we look to improve the profitability of our overall portfolio, and our technology upgrade program at Adairs is progressing well, with a planned go live in the first half of FY 27. It's been a big half with a lot of progress and lessons learned. We have momentum heading into the second half, and I'm confident we can continue to deliver improved results. I would like to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of our teams as they work diligently every day to delight our customers. Thank you for your work ethic and the challenge to be better every day. Thank you, and I'd now like to invite questions from anyone on the call.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Shaun Cousins with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, Elle and Ash. My first question is around gross margins in Adairs in the first half. I think the guidance in October 25 was for 61.4%-61.9%, and it came in at 60.7%. You've called out much of the pain was in that first quarter. Was the second quarter more intense and more aggressive from a promotional or from a discounting perspective than expected? Did you just sort of do more of your sales in those key promoted periods, idea winning the moments that matter? Did you do more of the sales there, and so hence it had a negative impact on gross margins? Just curious around the difference between the October comments and, and, and what was reported today, please.
Yeah, it's more of the latter, Shaun. We, as I mentioned in my notes, our performance in those big events was good, well ahead of last year, and those big events also had a higher level of promo in them. It was more to do with just the overperformance in the Linen Lover, Black Friday, Christmas, Boxing Day event.
Given your strategy to win these, the moments that matter, does that sort of lend itself a little bit to lower gross margins in that the volume is there at that time, so they're, they're tremendously important, but they do tend to skew lower gross margins. Does that have a, an impact on the, the medium-term outlook for GM's?
Shaun, probably on that one, I'll take that. What we did learn is that we didn't need to be as aggressive, so the product, worked really well, and we sold out of some categories within three weeks. Going forward, some of that really deep discounting, we are reviewing.
Okay, great. My second question is just generally around the first seven weeks in Adairs. Just what's driving that strength of sales? you're cycling quite a tough comp. Do you think it's the market, and or do you believe it's sort of market share gains that you're achieving in the.
Yeah, I, I think it's certainly the momentum from Q2, and we've been working a lot on the product profiles, so we're seeing really strong growth out of product.
Fantastic. That's great. Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Allan Franklin with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Morning, Elle. Morning, Ashley. Thanks for your time. Perhaps just a follow-on to that last comment you made, please. Promotional, sorry, on the product offer itself, can you provide a bit of detail within the Adairs piece category mix? Where are you pushing harder on? How should we be thinking about that sort of mix shift going forward in terms of promotional intensity as well?
Yeah, we're certainly seeing the growth coming out of bed linen, and also our toweling offer. Certainly the textile side of our business is working very nicely.
Just a layering on Linen Lovers, please. I mean, if we are seeing short, sharp activity in terms of promotions, you know, such as Linen Lovers, members get a 20% discount, when we're seeing that come through, is that only on sort of portions of stock and categories? Perhaps, can you provide a bit more detail on the frequent flyer sides, Qantas Frequent Flyer, and just in terms of, you know, how much more evidence do you need to see of that sort of cut-through to be comfortable that it is working in your favor?
Sure. I think, so we've been doing a lot of test and trial activity over the course of the first half, and that included different types of Linen Lover offers. I think when you look at, so whilst a lot of the Linen Lover offers have been across the store, the average depth of that offer has been lower, and it's been exclusive to those Linen Lovers. As you look ahead, we'll see a, you know, those that worked well, we'll obviously repeat. Where we need to dial up a little bit more value in certain categories, take bedding, for example, which is a highly competitive category where, you know, the department stores particularly are often on bigger discounts than what we would offer our Linen Lovers.
That's where we'd look to separate and offer more value in that category, whilst continuing to have lighter value in the bed linen categories and, and towels and so on, where we're seeing really good response to new fashion ranges. In terms of Qantas, yeah, we're 7 months in, 7 or 8 months in. What we're seeing is it's attracting new customers. We see a high tag rate of new Linen Lovers tagging their Qantas Frequent Flyer when they join, and that's our proxy for a customer acquired because of the Qantas program. We're also seeing those that tag their card spending more. At this stage, it's all positive. Obviously, it does come at a cost, but we're covering that cost with the incremental customer acquisition and the average, higher average spend.
We wanna see it through another four or five months and sort of cycle a full year where we can really pull apart the Linen Lover behavior and just understand how many of our existing Linen Lovers are now just acting or just taking out points, and that's additional cost versus spending up and attracting more Linen Lovers. Ideally, frequency is the last part that we need to spend a bit more time for, 'cause we do wanna see our Linen Lovers that are promiscuous and may shop at our, our competitors, you know, take one or two of those shops back to Adairs, where we can increase our share because we're the ones that have the Qantas Frequent Flyer program, and that's exclusive in our category.
One other one for you, please, Ash. Just on the, on the FX side, you know, obviously, you have given some decent color there, but just shaping, the last couple of years have been sort of, you know, AUD 0.66, AUD 0.67 or thereabout. I think FY 2024 was AUD 0.69. How, how should we think about the sort of the balance of the hedging that you lock in for FY 2027? Are you gonna be sort of, you know, steadily work, work, working through that? Or how, how do we sort of think about the, the, the tail from FX, please?
Yeah. We'll lag it up. The way we've got our strategy and our policy are sort of designed to create a level of certainty. Over time, we can operate within a range, minimum, min-max range at different, different time horizons out there. With the dollar where it is at the moment, we'll continue to average up in FY 2027. I think we're sitting at around 40% odd covered in FY 2027, so the balance will, you know, be closer to 70, 71, depending on where the dollar goes. You know, I'd, I'd expect that we will have an increased or a better rate in FY 2027 relative to FY 2026 and be able to, you know, capture that in margin.
Powerful. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Aryan Norozi with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. How's it all? Just first one for me. On previous, I think, last result, you sort of talked to Brand Adairs' gross margins in the second half of fiscal 2026, getting back to that sort of 62% plus level. Does that feel very much the base case? Any change in thinking to that, please?
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as we, as we said, we gave up a lot in Q4 last year as we sort of started that cleansing process, that we finished off in Q1 of this year. That's the bit that we have to-- or that's the margin we have to recover. From a buying pattern, qualifications, perspective, that's all been adjusted, so the volumes reflect realistic volumes of what we should sell, 'cause last year we bought too much. Even at best sellers, we bought too much of it, which just means you gotta clear it, you gotta burn it to finally get rid of it. I think the combination of buying better and a better quality of product-
Yeah.
-that Elle touched on earlier, particularly bed linen and bathroom, sort of our big categories, our expectation is that we, we get that margin back, and we're 62 plus in H2.
Right. Then moving into FY 2027, on my numbers, FX should be about a 200 basis point tailwind, based on your hedge profile, maybe a bit less, roughly 200.
Are you in Adairs, Aryan, or are you in group?
For the Brand Adairs business.
Yep.
You've, you've got that benefit, plus you're still on this journey of steadily re-reducing promotions. I mean, if we have to bridge out the gross margin, is it fair to assume that sort of rises to 64%+? I appreciate, I mean, historically, some of that FX upside gets competed away. How do we think about the gross margin, sort of as a conservative baseline into FY 2027, please?
Well, I think, I think you should expect sort of F for the year, excluding currency, to be sort of look more like FY 2024. Then whatever your currency assumption is year on year, that'll be the plus. I think, yeah, as we've seen in past years, when the dollar rises, we tend to be able to hold on to it and not pass it back in RRP price too quickly. It sort of takes sort of a year or 2 for that, that temptation to come in. Really, how much have we held on to from a promo perspective will depend a bit on the market, but our goal would be to hold on to it-
Yes.
Therefore deliver a margin outcome in FY 2027 that's ahead of FY 2024, which was sort of a clean recent year since the reference point.
Yeah. Great. The last one, just, I mean, Elle, since joining, you've been on a journey of refurbishing some of these Adairs stores. Can you just update us on how many stores you've refurbished so far? I'm talking light touches or full refurbs, just whatever your strategy has been. Maybe just on the sample of stores, I appreciate it's a small sample, but what the gross profit dollar uplift is when you refurb the store versus before, please?
We've refurbed around about four stores, and the gross profit has been, you know, kind of aligned to-
Noticeable, but not material to the group.
Yeah. It just depends on how much markdown you've got sitting in those stores. I, I think importantly, when I spoke to you last time, we've been we invested, you know, about AUD 450,000 into fixtures, and those fixtures rolled out to all stores. which really helped drive materially the increase in November and December for us. That investment had a big impact for us, particularly on key categories for, for that period of time. We will continue to review that fixture program as we move forward.
Right. It's, it's more you've done 4 refurbs. It's not like you're on a journey of refurbing all the stores. It's mainly you've, there's a few more stores to refurb, and then you've changed the fixtures in all your stores, which is helping the sales. Is that fair? Like, what, what is the refurb strategy, please?
Yeah. First of all, we're opening the Bondi store, so we are in 190 square meters at the moment. We're going to about 550 square meters in Bondi. That store is not only a more modernized view of Adairs, but it also has new fixtures from the learning so far. we certainly se- which allows us to gain greater productivity. As we consider refurbishing additional stores for Adairs, we will look at this new format of Bondi and how we can start to translate that into the refurbishment program going forward, and take the lessons of these new fixtures throughout the fleet.
Right. If I can take one, one last one, just around the sales momentum. I mean, Jan said you're up 5%, cycling sort of 15%, and the comps for the rest of the half become sort of +7%, so your comps get easier. Sorry, you, you did 6%, not 5%. How do you expect sort of sales momentum for the rest of the half, sort of to continue? I mean, yes, you're cycling easier comps optically, but is there anything behind the scenes in terms of sales, dollar seasonality, average transaction values that we need to take into account, please?
I think the main thing is, you know, we were pushing volume at big discounts in that clearance activity in Q4. There's no doubt that that had a net positive effect on the top line, albeit it was a negative effect on margin. Our goal will be to maintain the current level of growth that we've seen through Q1, Q2, and, you know, sort of match, match that into H2. At a much better margin, which will translate into a better bottom line. Much better bottom line.
Great. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Zoy, private investor. Please go ahead. Pardon me, Ben. Your line is live. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. Your next question comes from Jason Ellenport with Tomori Pty Ltd. Please go ahead. Pardon me, Jason, your line is live.
Sorry, I'm not sure if you, if you've got a question registered for me. There, there wasn't one registered, so I don't quite know why that's why that's happened on your end.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now head back to Ms. Roseby for closing remarks.
I'd like to thank everyone on the call today. Thank you for your continued support, and look forward to updating you on our half two results in time. Thank you very much, everyone, and thank you very much to Ash, of course. We've thoroughly enjoyed working with you, and best of luck. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.