Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the AUB Group FY 2026 results conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Mike Emmett, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Through AUB Group's results for the year end of 30 June 2026 and our outlook for FY 2027. Before I start, I want to recognize our dear friend and colleague, Tim Wedlock, whose sudden and tragic passing has deeply saddened us. Tim was a highly valued member of the Austbrokers family, and we are absolutely heartbroken. Our love and wishes go out to his family and to the AEI team he led with patience, wisdom, and passion over many years. FY 2026 was another strong year for AUB. We delivered double-digit underlying profit growth, expanded margins, completed the acquisition of Prestige, and further strengthened the AUB platform for its next phase of growth. At the same time, FY 2026 was unquestionably a year of challenging market conditions.
Geopolitical disruption affected trade and business confidence in some markets, and together with policy uncertainty in the U.S. and foreign exchange movements, these conditions increased the period-to-period variability, particularly of the International Division's revenue. In parallel, lower interest rates created an income headwind across most divisions. Insurance premium rates also remain subdued, with rates declining in some classes. While we are pleased that many clients are benefiting from limited or no premium increases, competitive conditions have softened across several classes. We encourage our insurer partners to maintain sustainable pricing and underwriting discipline, particularly in New Zealand and parts of the United Kingdom. Against that backdrop, there are three messages I would like you to take from today. First, AUB Group comprises a resilient portfolio with a strong earnings track record. Our businesses continue to grow and generate operating leverage across uncertain economic and premium rate environments.
We have delivered a 16% compound annual growth rate in underlying EPS since FY 2019 and see strong earnings growth continuing. Second, our selective approach to portfolio management and acquisitions is improving both the scale and quality of the group. We continue to assess a range of selective M&A opportunities against clear strategic and financial return hurdles. Third, we have multiple earnings drivers across the group, and we reaffirm our medium-term margin targets. Slide two. Before turning to the year's performance, I want to briefly frame what AUB has become. AUB is now a global insurance distribution platform operating across 17 countries with approximately 7,000 insurance professionals in about 640 locations. The group supports more than AUD 11 billion of gross written premium, approximately 1.6 million clients, and 2.5 million policies. The point I am making is not simply about scale.
Our differentiation comes from combining the entrepreneurial leadership and local market expertise of our individual businesses with the capital, capability, insurer relationships, and technology of the broader group. These businesses are led by management teams who are also shareholders, and this owner-driver model remains central to how we create value. We are also increasingly diversified across retail and wholesale broking, agencies and MGAs, insurtech businesses, and claims and loss adjustment services. These make AUB stronger and give our portfolio more ways to serve clients and partners. Slide three shows AUB's transformation from FY 2019 to FY 2026. The transformation has been deliberate and cumulative. Since FY 2019, revenue has grown from approximately AUD 540 million to now almost AUD 1.6 billion. While the underlying net profit after tax has increased from AUD 47 million to approximately AUD 225 million. The model has delivered sustained growth and returns.
Underlying net profit after tax has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 25.1%, while the group EBIT margin has expanded by 920 basis points to 36.1%. Importantly, these improvements have also translated into shareholder value, with underlying EPS and dividends per share both growing strongly over the same period. Moving to slide four. The margin expansion has been an important contributor to earnings growth, and it reflects the strength of the operating model we have created. Across the group, principal drivers have been organic growth, operating leverage and cost discipline, portfolio optimization, and accretive acquisition. We have benefited particularly from portfolio consolidation and from greater agency scale, which has enabled us to capture more of the insurance value chain as we've expanded our portfolio.
The segment chart on the slide demonstrates both the progress already delivered and the remaining potential. Our focus in FY 2027 is therefore very specific: to continue the established portfolio playbook, close the segment- level gaps, and use technology, data, and automation to lift productivity. We view the medium-term targets as achievable through execution, rather than by relying on a material change in market conditions. Slide six. Turning now to the FY 2026 performance overview. Underlying net profit after tax increased by 12.2% to AUD 224.6 million, and the group EBIT margin expanded by 140 basis points to 36.1%. This was supported by particularly strong contributions from the International Division and BizCover, and another resilient year of profit growth in Australian Broking. International underlying profit before tax grew by 19.6%, with a 410 basis point improvement in margin. BizCover and Australian Broking delivered profit before tax growth of 19.9% and 10%, respectively.
New Zealand underperformed. Market conditions were difficult, and execution was not at the standard we expect. During the year, we initiated a reset of the business, and business performance has stabilized over the past few months. We also completed the acquisition of Prestige in March, materially strengthening our U.K. retail position. For FY 2027, we are guiding to underlying net profit after tax in the range of AUD 245 million- AUD 265 million, representing growth of 9.1%- 18% over FY 2026. We'll discuss the guidance and its assumptions in more detail later. Slide seven. The FY 2026 financial highlights. Revenue grew 6.4% to approximately AUD 1.6 billion. This, together with a 140 basis point increase in EBIT margin, drove a 12.2% increase in underlying net profit after tax. The underlying EPS increased by 7% to AUD 1.8369 .
The reason EPS growth was lower than the underlying NPAT growth was because of the additional shares issued to fund the Prestige acquisition, which were on issue for the final quarter of the year. The board has determined a final dividend of AUD 0.71 per share, taking the full year dividend to AUD 0.98, up 7.7% on the prior year, which is consistent with our long-term payout range. Slide eight. This bridge highlights the quality of the profit growth during FY 2026. Organic growth contributed AUD 21.6 million, which is 10.8% on prior year, with acquisitions adding a further AUD 17.3 million or 8.6%. These contributions more than offset a AUD 14.5 million or 7.2% headwind from foreign exchange and from increased funding costs. The existing portfolio continues to deliver strong growth, while selective acquisitions added a further layer of earnings growth. Turning now to the performance of the operating divisions. Slide 10.
The portfolio was broadly strong. Australian Broking, BizCover, Agencies, and International all delivered profit growth, while New Zealand was the exception. As a reminder, this slide presents a 100% view of the portfolio. That is, all businesses, including associates, are shown as though they were 100% owned. At the operating business level, revenue increased by 6.4%, EBIT increased by 10.8%, and profit before tax attributable to AUB shareholders increased by 12.1%. The breadth of this contribution is important. The result was not reliant on a single division or transaction. This table also shows the margin progression. International improved by 410 basis points, BizCover by 200 basis points, and Australian Broking by 30 basis points. Agencies declined 50 basis points because of the strata revenue challenges, but increased by 80 basis points when strata is excluded.
You'll note on the left side of the page that we are showing a graphic aggregation of our retail broking businesses and operations in Australia and New Zealand. This foreshadows our proposed Australia New Zealand retail reporting segment for FY 2027. This proposed structure better reflects how we manage the business and the changing scale of profit contributions across the AUB portfolio. Slide 11. Australian Broking delivered revenue of AUD 647.8 million, up 6%, and EBIT of AUD 246.7 million, up 6.8%. Broking commission and fee income grew by 7.8% during the year, while the average commission and fee income per customer grew by 6.5%. The core message is that revenue has continued to grow faster than expenses in Australian Broking. From FY 2019 to FY 2026, revenue increased at an 8% compound annual growth rate, compared with 5.7% for expenses.
This operating leverage lifted EBIT margin to 38.1%, despite a headwind from lower interest income. We remain confident in the 40% medium-term margin target. The broking portfolio was also actively managed during the year, with three bolt-ons, 12 equity step-ups, one merger, one step-down, and one restructure. This is the repeatable work that supports both earnings quality and margin progression. We have further actions planned for FY 2027 and beyond. I'd like to thank Mark White, who recently retired after more than 10 years representing AUB Group interests on a number of Austbrokers portfolio boards. I would also like to welcome Eric Harris, who has taken over this role. Eric is very well known in Australian broking circles and has made a seamless transition since joining. Slide 12. BizCover produced another excellent result.
Revenue increased 14%, EBIT grew 19%, and the EBIT margin expanded by 200 basis points to 47.8%. The Australian business remains the primary earnings engine, with EBIT increasing 18.5% in FY 2026. At the same time, the non-Australian businesses are scaling, with margin improving from 8.5% in FY 2024 to 20.1% in FY 2026. Active clients grew by 13.7% to 308,000, and customer advocacy remains very strong with an NPS of +73. The direct channel gained momentum in the second half, and the new MYOB referral partnership provides another attractive distribution avenue. BizCover is at the forefront of insurance technology, including the practical deployment of AI. In March, BizCover launched the first business insurance app globally and the first insurance app of any kind in Australia to provide SME insurance quoting functionality within ChatGPT. Since launch, ChatGPT has also begun to emerge as a new source of business inquiries.
While it remains early, the evidence supports two initial observations. Firstly, AI appears to be actually expanding the addressable market by prompting some previously uninsured small businesses to recognize their need for cover. Secondly, AI-assisted research is increasing customer confidence in using digital intermediaries such as BizCover, including customers who previously approached insurers directly. We continue to monitor lead quality, conversion, and channel overlap as volumes develop, noting that we are not observing any cannibalization of AUB's existing broker channels, rather that we are seeing the capture of business from other non-traditional digital search engines or comparison channels. BizCover is also demonstrating practical benefits from AI and automation in other areas. The focus is on faster delivery, consistent code quality, and greater delivery capacity from the existing team.
AUB Group is benefiting from BizCover as a hub for Insurtech innovation, creating a pipeline of capabilities and solutions that can be leveraged more broadly. This, together with the Covernet team in Belfast, has accelerated AUB's ability to leverage AI tools and thinking. Slide 13. New Zealand was the one area of underperformance for the group. Local currency share of profit increased by 2.7%, while reported Australian dollar profit before tax declined by 3.9% due to foreign exchange weakening. Revenue was broadly stable, and the EBIT margin reduced by 130 basis points to 33.1%. Broking commission and fee income increased by 2.7%, while the average commission and fee income per client actually reduced by 2.9%, reflecting very competitive market conditions. This result did not meet our expectations, but the reset initiated during FY 2026 has stabilized recent performance, and the FY 2027 improvement plan is underway.
Our priorities for FY 2026 are to restructure the NZbrokers network with closer alignment to Australia, to better leverage our scale in New Zealand, to improve cost control, and to accelerate portfolio optimization. During the year, we completed nine bolt-ons and one equity step-up. Each of these will provide a base for renewed growth for the business in New Zealand. The 42% medium-term margin target highlights the size of the opportunity, but our immediate focus is on restoring operating momentum and consistent delivery. Slide 14. Agencies' profit before tax increased by 8.4%, and the EBIT increased by 7.8% to AUD 105.2 million. The EBIT margin was 43.7%, down 50 basis points. However, the margin actually increased by 80 basis points to 46.5% if strata agencies are excluded. Revenue in strata actually reduced during the year.
Despite this, because of very strong year of profit commission income, we were able to offset this reduction in income. The broader agencies portfolio performed strongly, supported by organic growth and increased ownership positions in 360 Underwriting Solutions and Pacific Indemnity. I would like to acknowledge and thank Angie Zissis, who recently retired from AUB after more than 10 years leading our SURA portfolio of agencies and more recently establishing the new AUB Agencies portfolio. Denis Morrissey, founder of 360 Underwriting Solutions, has been appointed as CEO to lead the next phase of growth for AUB Agencies. We are now working through a range of changes to simplify and optimize the portfolio. Slide 15. International delivered the strongest divisional profit growth.
Revenue increased by 6.2%, EBIT increased by 24.5%, and the EBIT margin expanded by 410 basis points to 27.6%, benefiting from elevated war rates and momentum from recent acquisitions, partly offset by adverse foreign exchange movements. Recent investments are building momentum. Prestige has materially expanded our U.K. retail footprint, while Rönesans gives us a foothold in the rapidly expanding economy of Turkey and enhances Tysers access to Lloyd's placement flows. Together with the continued scaling of our startup businesses, these investments are broadening the group's growth opportunities. The 32% medium-term margin target provides clear further growth potential as we integrate and leverage these businesses. I will now hand over to Nick.
Thank you, Mike. Slide 17 sets out our group funding position on 30 June 2026. AUB retains a strong and flexible balance sheet with available cash and undrawn debt of AUD 330.5 million and leverage of 2.30x . Leverage reduced from 2.49x at the half, primarily reflecting higher EBITDA following the pro forma inclusion of Prestige, which was largely funded with equity. Compared with FY 2025, leverage increased from 1.97x due to higher net debt, mainly from funding the increased ownership in Pacific Indemnity and AUB 360 Underwriting Solutions, the residual debt needed to fund the Prestige acquisition, and the final Pacific Indemnity earn-out. During the second half, we refinanced our syndicated facility with total commitments of approximately AUD 1.1 billion and maturities reset to three, four, and five years. The refinancing was well supported, oversubscribed by 1.5x , and delivered a 27 basis point reduction in credit margin.
The AUD 200 million facility maturing in 4.7 years is the bilateral agreement with Macquarie, which was committed at the time of the Prestige acquisition. The right-hand side of the slide shows interest earning assets and interest-bearing debt on a look-through ownership basis. While the totals are broadly aligned, the key exposure is the currency mismatch. At 30 June 2026, around $210 million of interest-earning assets were in U.S. dollars with no U.S. dollar-denominated debt. These U.S. dollar assets are hedged through to July 2027 via cross-currency swaps that receive BBSW and pay SOFR plus 0.61%. Slide 18 sets out FX sensitivity on the expected FY 2027 currency mix, which includes the full year impact of Prestige, which is predominantly a GBP business. Our key exposure remains the unhedged U.S. dollar brokerage from the international business. GBP is broadly neutral after allowing for our U.S. dollar to GBP hedging program.
Post Prestige, this program would typically hedge around $50 million- $80 million over the next 12 months and $25 million- $40 million over the following 12 months. FY 2027 guidance incorporates as stated foreign exchange outlook assumptions and the current hedge positions shown on this slide. Approximately $75 million of brokerage income remains unhedged, with each 1% movement in the AUD- to- USD exchange rate affecting midpoint UNPAT by approximately 0.3%. As existing hedges mature, the replacement hedges will reflect the prevailing market rates. Slide 19 shows underlying earnings per share increased 7% in FY 2026, while the full-year dividend increased 7.7% to AUD 0.98. I will now hand back to Mike to cover our FY 2027 priorities, AI strategy, and outlook.
Thanks, Nick. Slide 21. Our priorities for FY 2027 are focused and practical. The first is to integrate U.K. retail and unlock the benefits of scale while continuing to expand Tysers wholesale and specialty capabilities. The second is to improve the portfolio. This means scaling and strengthening the agencies business across 360 Underwriting Solutions, SURA, and Pacific Indemnity, and taking decisive action in New Zealand and across the broader Australian portfolio to enhance earnings quality and margins. The third priority is disciplined capital deployment and continued investment in capability. We will remain selective on M&A, apply clear return hurdles, and continue strengthening our technology, data, and operational capability across the group. These priorities are deliberately consistent with the playbook that has driven AUB's performance over the past seven years to empower strong local entrepreneurial leaders, actively manage the portfolio, and to use collective scale to improve outcomes. Slide 22, our AI strategy.
We are firmly of the view AUB is an AI beneficiary, and we have now moved well into deployment of multiple initiatives to improve our productivity, efficiency, and value to customers. We have an enterprise AI platform, an emerging data foundation, clear governance, and a scalable delivery model built around Covernet and BizCover. We are focused on citizen development and partnering with specialist partners. The adoption is already meaningful. 92% of active Copilot utilization, 43 active AI agents, more than 40 solutions in the pipeline, and 710 hours of capacity released in the last 30 days alone. These are indicators of momentum rather than an end outcome. We are now embedding AI into broking, underwriting, claims, and operational workflows to reduce administration, create more capacity for client-facing work, improve decision-making, and to deliver more consistent client outcomes.
Over time, we expect this to support growth, margin improvement, and differentiated insurance capabilities. Slide 23. For financial year 2027, we expect underlying net profit after tax in the range of AUD 245 million- AUD 265 million. The midpoint of AUD 255 million represents growth of 13.5%, with the range representing growth of 9.1%- 18%. The bridge on the slide shows the components. Organic growth is expected to contribute between AUD 15.2 million and AUD 33.2 million, with acquisition growth expected to contribute AUD 17.5 million- AUD 19.5 million. These growth rates are partly offset by approximately AUD 12.3 million of anticipated foreign exchange headwinds and increased funding costs. This guidance includes completed and sufficiently certain acquisitions and excludes any contribution from future unannounced transactions. At the midpoint, the expected first half and second half earnings split is 41% and 59%, broadly in line with our historical seasonality.
The underlying EPS guidance is AUD 1.8754- AUD 2.0285 per share. The difference between underlying NPAT and EPS growth reflects the full year impact of the shares issued for the Prestige acquisition. Excluding this equity funding effect, the EPS range would be AUD 2.0035- AUD 2.1671 per share. We have set out the principal currency, interest rate, and cash rate assumptions on the slide. The UNPAT guidance range of AUD 20 million is intended to reflect an appropriate variability in organic growth and market conditions for a group of our scale, while preserving our commitment to consistent execution. In closing, FY 2026 demonstrated the strength of the AUB model. We delivered strong organic and acquisition growth. We expanded margins, increased shareholder returns, and further strengthened the global platform. We enter FY 2027 with clear execution priorities, a strong balance sheet, and meaningful earnings and margin growth potential.
Nick and I are now happy to take your questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star then two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Tim Lawson with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Thanks, gentlemen, for taking my question. Just picking up on a couple of last comments you made there in terms of the reset from AI and then the reset of new divisions. Can you just talk about the medium- term margin targets and the potential timing, so the potential to see those upgraded and brought forward?
Thanks, Tim. Well, firstly, I think in terms of the margin targets, the first point is we're confident the margin targets are stated. Second thing is, as part of our new reporting grouping for the Australia, New Zealand retail business, one of the things we'll be doing is working through what our estimate is of that margin target for the aggregated business based on some assumptions around the medium term. As a reminder, we've always said whenever we upgrade or change these, it represents our three to five year view of what can be achieved in that timeframe. They're not terminal margin targets. They are what we think are achievable within that time horizon.
What we'll do, possibly at the AGM, but more likely, certainly for the February half year, will be to revise where we think appropriate the margin targets, but specifically clarify what the margin target will be for the new reporting aggregation.
Just to clarify, but with that sort of AI commentary making it, are you telling us that there's scope that they could be increased, that you're quite positive on that AI benefit in the business?
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Siddharth Parameswaran with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. Maybe a couple. The first one just on your guidance for UNPAT for FY 2027. I was hoping you could just give us some theory as to what you are expecting the contributions to be in Australia versus International. I know you gave us some high level comments around funding costs and FX headwinds, but just directionally, if you can just flag. Previously, you had been explaining that you thought we could still have pretty strong revenue growth in the Australian market even with the soft cycle. But there are a few things you flagged that were uncertain in your guidance around, I think just the war and other things. I was just hoping you could tell us, International versus Australian Broking versus Agencies directionally, how you are seeing things in terms of margins and revenues.
If we just do a quick trundle through. The assumption is that BizCover will continue the momentum that it has demonstrated for several years. Agencies, actually, we think Agencies have performed really well, ex strata. Strata is a market phenomenon, so I will talk about that separately. The other two agencies, we think have performed really well. Remembering that premium rates impact agencies more than they impact broking businesses. And so those two groups of agencies performed really well. We are winning market share, we are winning new business, and our sort of focus on underlying profit for our insurer partners has paid dividends as well. On the strata side, we foreshadowed this, in fact, in August last year and at the half year. The market is incredibly competitive. Candidly, we do not understand the logic behind why the market is so competitive.
Premium rates have been dropping despite the fact that there is no view. We do not see any underlying reason why premium rates should be dropping. Our main competitors are willing to write business at significantly lower premium rates than we are comfortable to do. Obviously, these are decisions we take in partnership with our insurer partners, and they will be taking them in partnership with theirs. Strata has continued the trend that we foreshadowed in February, which is, unfortunately, unless we drop rates, our retention rates, which we are not willing to do, are dropping because we are losing business to competitors who are competing at much lower premium rates. Structurally, that has to be time boxed because insurers cannot afford. There is nothing in the market that says the cost of repairs and remediation for, or loss ratios for strata are decreasing, right? They match residential loss ratios.
It does not make sense the rate trend. Ex that, we see Agencies as continuing to grow and expand. I referenced when I spoke about Agencies that we do see some cost and margin improvement opportunities out of some of the consolidation activities, which we started in Agencies during FY 2027, but that we have been very successfully doing in the broader broking business for the last few years. In terms of Australian Broking and New Zealand Broking, I think I probably gave as much color. I think it is more of the same. It is more consolidations in the two markets. We do see signs that the market is strengthening, the market conditions are strengthening in New Zealand. We have taken the opportunity over the last 12 months to invest and expand our broking footprint in New Zealand, and we believe we will be strong beneficiaries of that market strengthening.
In International, it is really on the retail piece. It is about executing on our plans around the consolidation and integration of the U.K. retail piece. While in parallel on International wholesale, I guess part of it is linked to some pieces of the geopolitical uncertainty dialing back slightly so that trade in some of those affected areas can continue. Broadly, those are the key levers, Sid.
Sorry. Just on International, ex the acquisition, am I to read that you are expecting growth? I just was not clear exactly whether you are expecting margin expansion or not, ex the Prestige. We do not presume low is the margin, but just was not 100% clear on International.
If you took full year, we think that there is some artificial inflation in the margin in the international business. We actually believe it is running at about a 25% margin. We do see revenue growth, and we do see the opportunity for some expansion of margin. The exact timing of that first half versus second half is a bit unclear, so it may still look lumpy. I think that is more related to the timing of revenue flows in the first half than anything else.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks very much for that color. My second question is just around the strategic priorities, and I think you have a slide there. I think it is slide 47. Let me just have a look. There was a slide you had there about change in your strategic priorities from, sorry, it is 45, versus where you were a year ago. It seems like M&A has reduced in terms of focus, and there is much more of a focus on consolidation and specialization. In fact, a lot of the other areas, it seems like there has been a down weighting in terms of the expected improvements from commercial arrangements, fees, et cetera. I was hoping you could just first flesh out what you mean by specialization leading to improvement. Is that a long dated thing? Presumably, that takes a while to come through.
Just comments on just the down weighting on M&A and some of the other levers.
I think firstly, I would say the way to read the slide is about a statement of progress, right? For example, commercial arrangements. In Tysers, for example, a year ago, we had one commercial arrangement with one insurer partner. Let us imagine that the majority of the business is placed with, pick a number, 20 insurers. Obviously, we had one commercial arrangement. We now have seven with imminently another three that will be entered into. The opportunity size has reduced simply by virtue of the fact that we now have 10 in the bag rather than one. I think that is the first thing you should read it as. This is not necessarily a comment on the size of the total prize, but more a comment on the progress we have made towards getting to achieving that. That is the first comment I would make.
The second comment is, your question about M&A. There are two observations I make about M&A. The first one is, we do not buy things just because we are trying to be an aggressive acquirer. I have used the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle before. We intentionally target certain types of assets. Agencies is the perfect example. We bought 360 Underwriting Solutions because we wanted to strengthen general commercial. We bought Pacific Indemnity because we wanted to strengthen financial lines. We bought SUU because we wanted to strengthen strata. In U.K. retail, we bought Prestige because we wanted to strengthen U.K. retail. We bought Movo and Momentum, or invested in them, because we wanted to have access to replicate our insurance advisor network in Australia, in the U.K., and have access to the appointed representative share of the market.
We invested in BizCover because we wanted access to an insurtech with access to the micro SME space in the market. All of our M&A has not been about trying to spend a certain amount of money or discrete isolated decisions. It is a strategic overlay about what we are trying to complete. The fact is, we have made fantastic progress in completing that jigsaw puzzle. That also needs to be in the context of unlocking all of the value that we can see. I almost see this as a series of phased approaches where you unlock. The first round is about ensuring that an acquisition is stabilized. You are getting the return you expected from it in isolation. The next step then is unlocking some of the synergy benefits you get from particularly consolidation and creating almost these centers of excellence.
The third piece is then iterating how you can further consolidate and strengthening the way in which the business flows go through those businesses across the different parts of our network and our group. I think this is more a function of actually we have completed a lot of the jigsaw puzzle. That does not mean there are not opportunities for us to still make bolt-on acquisitions, et cetera. But the reality is, a lot of the core capabilities that we needed to invest in, we have invested in now. Now it is about unlocking more of the value from those. There is also a simple function, which is, we are very focused on ensuring that investments we make, we make with an eye on the return we can generate. We are cautious about capital capacity and the deployment of that capital and the best ways to generate returns from that.
We have seen that as we have matured and expanded our portfolio, the better return now is about leveraging those investments to optimize the return for shareholders.
Yep. Okay. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from Blake Dowsett with Jarden Group. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Thanks for taking my questions. I have just got a couple on Prestige, if you do not mind. I am just curious to get your initial read. I see you got the keys in March. Just your initial read on how that business has run relative to your expectations, and maybe a comment on the AUD 10 million or more in synergies that you talked to back in February. Is that implied in your FY 2027 guidance?
Not all of it is implied in the FY 2027 guidance, Blake. I think three observations that might sound slightly contradictory. The first observation is very pleased with the acquisition. Excellent business, excellent growth potential, excellent management team. So very happy with that. Firstly. Secondly, the market environment for SME, and the smaller end of broking in the U.K. has been really challenging. Very competitive. Some of the competitors, and this is not news because there have been some broker-type reports about some of our big competitors there, have been struggling because of capital and funding challenges, and have been very, very aggressive at trying to, dare I say, buy business. So it has been a challenging market environment. So we have focused on ensuring that the business strength and capacity and capability is preserved and focused.
We've put in place, I guess we've tried to make sure that we integrate the business but don't negate the benefits of the independence and the entrepreneurial capability that they have. In terms of unlocking the synergy benefits, the key first step is about transitioning the historic Tysers retail branches into Prestige. There's an element where we require legal compliance and regulatory changes, including approvals from the regulator, so there's always a lead time on that. So we're in that phase now. So we have been, I think had a balanced view of how much of the synergy to include in FY 2027 versus what flows through to FY 2028. So very confident about the synergy quantum, in terms of on a run rate basis, in terms of timing, only a portion of that finds its way into our estimate for FY 2027.
Got it. I appreciate that. Just a second question on Agencies. Just noting historically and back in 1H, for example, you told us margin ex profit commission. Is there any way you can give us that number for FY 2026? Just helps us understand the underlying business.
Blake, I'll have to come back to you with that. I think the reality is strata sort of clouds the view, so we can give you that. We'll probably, defer, yeah. I think we'll have to come back to you with that.
That's fine. I'll circle back Wednesday night. Thanks for your time.
Your next question comes from Andrei Stadnik with RBC. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Can I ask, just my first question, a little bit around what you've seen in Tysers and the Lloyd's market. We're hearing that marine insurance, reinsurance demand is rather strong at the moment. What are you seeing in terms of conditions there for Tysers and their marine franchise?
Yeah, Andrei, thank you for the questions. The reality is there's an incredibly strong pent-up demand, with a lot of potential in marine. It's very hard to estimate. There's a judgment call. As a reminder, the way it works is, you will have insurance on the ship, including both on the hull as well as on the cargo. If the ship doesn't sail or isn't filled with cargo, then even though you've placed the insurance for it, the actual premium is quite low. There's significant value, premium volatility according to what it's carrying and where it's sailing. Ironically, you have the premium, you are the broker for the ship.
If it's a ship that then carries cargo, let's imagine it's oil at the moment, and it's through the Strait of Hormuz, and it's able to sail filled with cargo, then there's a massive payday for the insurer and for the broker, right? Obviously, if the ship doesn't sail and it's sitting outside the Strait of Hormuz and can't get loaded with oil, then there's very little income for us. I don't want to overstate the Middle East piece, but the fact is that is where a significant chunk of oil shipment come from, and that's where a significant portion of the world's shipping is deployed. The uncertainty is not will the income flow to us, the uncertainty is when and how much. I know that sounds crazy, but it's because you don't know when and how much. That's part of the slight uncertainty.
A second piece is, we do a lot of construction and engineering projects in terms of the insurance and placing the insurance. Historically, Dubai has been a center of significant construction activity. At the moment, there is little to no construction activity going on in Dubai. Again, that is a pent-up demand. Our clients have not changed, their needs have not changed. In fact, if anything, there is going to be an increased level of activity in Dubai. The question is when and how much of that will flow how quickly. The optimist in me says, if I look out over the next three or four years, there is a massive pent-up revenue opportunity for us. It is stronger than just opportunity. If you said to me how much of that will flow through in the next three months, I have not got a clue.
I think that is the level of opportunity versus uncertainty that we have at the moment. You are right, marine war rates are at the highest that I think they have ever been. We are significantly well represented in that area. Our teams are incredibly respected and capable and it is a significant upside for us. But quantifying that and estimating that is incredibly difficult. In fact, nigh on impossible.
Thank you, Mike. For my second question, there is something called sort of home rights. With Australian Broking, it looks like the fee and commission revenue line went up just under 8% year- on- year. But the premium pool went up maybe 5.5% roughly to AUD 3.8 billion. Were you successful in optimizing some of the fee and commission levels, and how do you view that going forward?
Yeah. Part of it is about slightly a mix. Interestingly, previously I have spoken about the bookends, where we have been very successful at winning new large clients where predominantly it is fee-based income rather than commission, and so the premium would go up disproportionately to the revenue. We have also won a lot of new clients on the small end, the micro SME, largely through BizCover and ExpressCover. Ironically, in FY 2026, we actually lost so more of our client losses stroke, the mix shifted, where we actually had a net shrinking of business in the large corporate side, which means that proportionately, where the premium might have gone down from losing those clients, our revenue proportionally went down. So it is not a fundamental piece where we actually I would love to say we are earning more per dollar of premium.
It's a mix shift where we've lost some of our fee-earning clients, where they had big premium levels but not commission rates.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Shreyas Patel with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just a question on some of the below-the-line items. Your stat profit this year, less than half your management profit. Just keen to understand when we can expect that gap to narrow going forward and in terms of some of the second-half impairments, where those came from and, I guess, what revenue impacts there would be off the back of that going forward.
Yeah. I think the first thing I'd do is I'd say let's put this in context. The first is, since FY 2022, you have two correlated, and therefore relevant points. Since FY 2022, we've had a cumulative sum of AUD 110 million of impairments. This is across roughly 55 cash-generating units that get tested for impairment. In the same period, it's AUD 110 million of impairment. At the same period, we've had AUD 150 million of write-ups in value. So gains on effectively increases in carrying value. There's a net AUD 40 million increase rather than a net decrease in carrying values over that period. So that's the first thing. In context, every six months, all of those CGUs are tested. We test the headroom in terms of the carrying value of those assets, et cetera. So that's the first point.
The second point I would make is that we rarely have one asset that did not meet the headroom test. That asset is an Australian Broking business, very unimaginatively called Austbrokers Corporate, which is where we house our corporate broking business. That is what I actually was referencing when I was answering Andrei's question about losing some large corporate clients. Austbrokers Corporate is the outcome of the merging of four entities. Two we already owned, and then two we acquired over the last four or five years. When you acquire them, I will try to do this briefly. When you acquire a broking business, you estimate the value of the client portfolio, which we call the broking register, and the balance of the purchase price is then the carrying value or the goodwill. I am leaving out any other tangible assets.
The test is when you lose clients that were part of that original portfolio you acquired, you write off the balance of whatever the carrying value is related to the clients that have left. That happened in the first half of FY 2026. We had an impairment in December, and then we foreshadowed in March in read of the cap raise that we thought there might be additional impairment related to those client departures. That is because you are trying to estimate how much income you will retain or lose from that portfolio. An important point is you never increase the carrying value of that for new clients you might have won. You might have the irony where you bought a business with three clients. They won three new clients.
Actually, if you lose the three clients that were at the time of the buying, you write off and impair the asset, but you never write up for the new clients that you have won. You cannot directly correlate and say, therefore, the business has lost its original clients, it is worth nothing. The second thing you do is you then test the carrying value by looking at the, you basically do a DCF of the future cash flows using a discounting rate. There are a couple of vagaries there. Obviously, what you are doing is you are estimating the future cash flows. If those have come down, then your carrying value, your DCF is reduced, and if that is below the carrying value, then you do decrease it. The second thing is you do have changes in that discounting rate.
You could have this slight vaguery where if discounting rates shift from year to year, you could have an impairment purely because of that. Now, I am not saying that is what happened here, but what I am saying is this is a technical accounting process that happens every six months across the carrying value of all of our cash-generating units. It is a standard practice. It is for the purposes of assessing value, only a partially representative view of things. Nonetheless, you are correct. The fact is we had a significant set of impairments, but only one cash-generating unit that was, let us call it, a fundamental impairment. I think in context, the AUD 150 million versus AUD 110 million are the important numbers. As to your question about when do we see, when does this stop happening? I think, ironically, this is something that we have tested every year.
I think in most years, we've had some form of small impairment. It is actually, ironically, a function of our oldest assets that we might have bought at 5x or 6x or 7x multiples are the least likely to be impaired. As soon as we buy a majority stake in one of those, we write up the value, and your view on discounting rates and multiples might shift over time. For example, there is a difference in multiples in the market now versus 18 months ago. That shift in the market valuations also changes this. I do not want to poo-poo it. I am an accountant, so I am comfortable with the principle of it, but we should not conflate it with a representation of the quality of our historic M&A.
All right. Thanks, Mike. If I can just ask a second question around M&A, just, I guess, how are you seeing the pipeline and what changes have you seen in valuation multiples relative to six months ago?
I think the short, quick answer is valuation multiples have drifted down. But I think it is less about the valuations, it is more about the rationality of the participants. I think some of the participants who were inflating the multiples and inflating. For me, the issue with the valuations was actually more about the normalizations being made to EBIT rather than the multiples themselves. We are seeing less of the silliness of EBIT normalizations, and we are seeing more sensible vendors because some of the, dare I say, irrational participants on the buyer side have sort of gone away. But we have been very clear all along about our view on valuations, and so we have not really been beneficiaries of it. I think we are just seeing less competition. We definitely are. We see New Zealand as a market where we have our eye on quality M&A.
That might sound counterintuitive against the backdrop of what I said about the market competitiveness. The reality is we see that as a very attractive market in the medium term. The best time, frankly, to be investing in that market is now when the market is under a bit of stress.
Great, thanks.
Your next question comes from Richard Amland with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, guys. Just wanted to ask for any commentary on the impairment charges recorded on slide 36 as a reasonable uplift year-on-year and just where is that coming from.
I sort of feel like I have just answered that question from Shreyas.
Okay. I was trying to get a bit more granular in terms of which business segment or anything like that.
Yeah. I am pretty sure I answered that quite thoroughly. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Maybe it is exactly the same, the adjustments to fair value of entities, these things are intertwined, I guess. More the same?
Yeah. That's the reference I made.
It depends on the year-over-year changing.
Yeah. AUD 150 million up, AUD 110 million down. Yeah.
Right. Okay. That's it from me. Thank you.
The last question today will come from Julian Braganza with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just to follow up on the previous discussion, just around slide 45. Just want to round up the discussion there just around the reduced focus on fees and commission changes. I just thought that would be a more important feature in a softer market and should continue. Just want to understand that piece and also just the cost reduction piece reducing to low for broking. Thanks.
Well, the commission and fee changes, I think that implies that these are things that we see as levers we can apply. Our view is, at the moment, we can put some fees through, and the split in International is a function of retail versus wholesale. But we think we have put through quite a lot in the second half, in particular, of FY 2026. So it is how much more can we do versus this flowing through the business as we progress through FY 2027.
Okay, got it. The cost reduction piece for broking?
The cost reduction is actually a function of the—i s that specifically on retail broking that you are asking?
Yeah, specifically. It was reduced, but actually through retail broking. That is right.
Well, I think it is because actually a lot of the, let us call it, enterprise-wide cost reduction that we could apply across Australia and New Zealand Broking, we feel like we have implemented. We think that the margin improvement is going to come from growth without increasing cost rather than cost reduction per se. Whereas we do see opportunities to reduce cost in the underwriting agencies and in the International, so both U.K. retail and wholesale. Again, just a function of what we have put through versus what we still see to come.
Okay, got it. No, that is fine. In terms of just timing, if my memory serves me correctly, correct me if I am wrong, but there is about AUD 11 million of post-tax costs on the bonus period realignment that came through in FY 2025. You see about a AUD 6 million pre-tax unwind coming through the FY 2026 numbers. There is still a little bit of a gap between what was booked in FY 2025, noting that the AUD 11 million was post-tax in FY 2025. I just want to understand, are those numbers featured as recurring, or is anything held back there, and what is being assumed for FY 2027 in the outlook there?
No, there is nothing in FY 2025. That is now reversed. What we can recognize and estimate as reversed. I think the challenge is we are trying to compare and clarify things in a moving piece. For example, if you have fewer people, you have natural turnover. You might get a cost in the provision when someone joins, or, sorry, when someone is there, then when they leave, you can release that provision. But it is not a precise—w e do not have provisions by individual, by month, et cetera. It is trying to make a portfolio-wide estimate into too precise a sort of a spreadsheet piece to it. I think the reality is whatever we can recognize as will reverse, has reversed.
Some of it may have, we might have overestimated the negative in FY 2025, but some of it would have flowed through potentially inorganic or is still there because people have stayed. Because part of that is an assumption around retention rates, et cetera. If our retention rates go up, ironically, the reversal goes down because that becomes almost like a permanent provision that you carry until they leave.
Okay, got it. Maybe just stepping back in terms of the outlook, I am just keen to understand how you are expecting the premium rate environment to pan out just across the different divisions versus what you have seen today. Thank you.
Yeah. Again, it is one of these predict the unpredictable. Our view is that premium rates in New Zealand have softened too far. We believe that premium rates have to harden in the New Zealand market, that they are too low, rate reductions and rate freezes have gone too far and they have been too aggressive. We think that is unhealthy. Ultimately, we want our clients to be paying fair prices. We do not want them to be exposed to volatility where you have a -20% premium rate and then +20%. We want just a 4% or 5% rate growth through the cycle. It should be less volatile. New Zealand is definitely too soft, needs some remediation, and we are hoping that flows through in the next 6- 12 months.
The U.K. is behind where New Zealand is, but still it's softened faster than we think is appropriate. This is particularly on U.K. retail. We would see some hardening in New Zealand in the next 12 months. We would see some hardening in the U.K. in the next 18-24 months. In Australian Broking, I think it's by class. We do think that strata, in general, is now irrationally priced. There's a piece there where the strata market logically needs to harden. We're not seeing evidence of that, but we're saying needs to harden. Those are the observations about at a generic level. I think at a particular specific level, we are observing that insurers are releasing reserves. They've released reserves now consecutively through a couple of half-year reporting cycles.
They release reserves bluntly when insurance profits are inadequate, and are my words, not theirs. That normally preempts an adjustment in terms of the way in which they price underwriting risks. All of these are unfortunately hypotheses, Julian, because we don't know what's going to happen. But that reflects a little bit of what we've seen in the last two months, in June and July, in terms of some pricing behaviors. Certainly, it reflects what some of them are saying, but not necessarily what they're doing. Unfortunately, that's the best I can predict. Again, I come back to, if I observe what FY 2026 to me demonstrates.
If we went back two or three years, the comment I was making all the time was, irrespective of premium rate cycle, we will be able to manage through the cycle to ensure that we deliver fair and reasonable profit growth. Our view is that our sustainable ability to grow profits is low double digit. I think what we've evidenced is through feast and famine, we've been able to do that consecutively for, seven or eight years at least now. For me, that's the key message.
I'll now hand back to Mr. Emmett for closing remarks.
Thank you very much, moderator. Thanks everybody for joining us today. Hopefully you could hear from the presentation and from the answers to the questions. We are quietly pleased and proud of the result. I think an important metric to throw out there is, last year, at this time, we had a guidance range, and as we have this time, we state all of our assumptions, in terms of FX rates, interest rates, split in terms of the seasonality, et cetera. That guidance range a year ago was AUD 215 million- AUD 227 million. If you applied those assumptions around FX rates, for example, to our result, then we estimate that the result would have been AUD 231 million.
Against the AUD 215 million- AUD 227 million a year ago, which a number of you said was a bit conservative, the reality is we do not adjust or restate our guidance every time we see FX headwinds, for example. Our view is we are managing a portfolio of businesses, we are going to try and manage to the guidance range. So, actually our read of our performance is a beat, because we have delivered effectively against the assumptions we stated a year ago in a year of, frankly, incredible global craziness. We have delivered an incredibly strong, robust result and the equivalent of a significant beat on our top end last year. So we are pleased about not only the result, but mostly we are pleased with the fact that we now have significantly complemented our geographic and our capability footprint.
We have got a number of additional revenue and margin growth opportunities, and we have made very strong progress. So we are looking forward to a strong FY 2027 and stronger FY 2028 and 2029. Thank you very much. I look forward to catching up with many of you over the next few days.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.