Good morning, everyone. My name is Doug Richardson. I'm the Company Secretary of Count Limited. Thank you for joining us today for Count's first half FY 2026 investor results briefing. The results were released to the ASX earlier today. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay our respects to elders, past and present. We extend that respect to all First Nations people joining us today. Today, we hear from our Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Hugh Humphrey, followed by our Chief Financial Officer, Keith Leon. We'll then open the line for Q&A. For questions, please use the Raise Hand function in Teams, and we'll invite you to speak in turn. I'll now hand over to Hugh.
Thank you, Doug. Good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased with the outstanding financial results we've delivered in the first half of financial year 2026. These results represent the clearest and the strongest validation of our corporate strategy to date. Two years ago, I introduced you to the Count flywheel, how we would generate stronger results through the interconnection of our three business segments. Growth not only within a segment, but accelerating growth across each segment. Today, in these results, you can see the fruits of disciplined execution against that flywheel. As intended, we are seeing a much greater contribution from wealth, and pleasingly, our leverage to wealth emerges in a number of different growth drivers: financial planning revenues within the equity partnership segment, partnership revenue from our advice licensee business in wealth, and our investment solutions business in wealth.
Count goes to market in three clear segments: wealth, equity partnerships, and services. We've continued to build momentum across all three segments, particularly in wealth, and you can see the benefits of our integrated strategy coming through in both earnings and cash flow. At a headline level, the key highlights for the half include statutory revenue of AUD 82.8 million, up +12% on the prior corresponding period. Underlying EBITA of AUD 16.6 million, up +19%, with EBITA margin improving and lifting to 20%. Underlying NPAT attributable of AUD 7.2 million, up +45%, and underlying NPATA of AUD 9.2 million, up +33%. This means we've delivered yet another increase in our dividend, which is up +14% for the interim to AUD 0.02 per share, fully franked.
Our underlying earnings growth continues to outpace revenue growth, which is a clear indication of operating leverage in our business platform. Earnings growth and margin expansion over the half was driven by continued scaling in wealth and funds under management growth, improved advisor economics across the network, benefits flowing through from prior period and current period acquisitions and integration, and a sustained focus on operational efficiency and productivity, leveraging robotics and AI opportunities, while progressing plans to defend our business against threats from the very same technology developments. What's really driving this performance is focused execution, and we're delivering it with a sense of urgency. We're seeing the benefits of scale in wealth, stronger advisor economics across the network, and the way our services and investment capabilities increasingly reinforce one another.
Importantly, we've stayed disciplined on both cost management and how we deploy capital. This is underpinning our ability to continue to invest for long-term growth in our people, in our technologies, and in our capabilities, while we consistently enhance shareholder value. Wealth continues to remain the key focus and the growth engine for the group. It is an increasingly important contributor to both earnings, quality, and scale. For the 12-month period, funds under advice increased to AUD 40.2 billion, up +11%. Funds under management increased to AUD 5.3 billion, up +49%. Care funds under management grew by +AUD 853 million over the calendar year.
We now have 157 firms using Count Investment Solutions, That speaks to both the relevance of the proposition and the productivity benefits that advisors are achieving and lifting their client satisfaction and engagement at the same time. Alongside good organic growth, we've closed nine transactions in the half. That's one transaction every three weeks, We continue to prioritize high-quality financial planning acquisitions, particularly where we can onboard quality advisors, deepen client relationships, and accelerate the integration of advice, investments, and services. Our M&A activity is deliberate, it's disciplined, and it's highly selective. Each transaction must align to our ambition to scale advice revenue and improve earnings resilience across the group over time.
Importantly, the strength in wealth has translated to improved profitability and cash flow, which you can see in the numbers, which reflects the step change we're seeing in the scale and quality of Count Group. Capturing wealth revenue in three parts of the value chain: client fee revenue, licensing revenue, and investment solutions revenue, diversifies our participation in this fast growth market. We employ nearly 80 financial planners across our equity partnerships now, and you can expect to see further M&A and advisor recruitment into our employed advice channel. Our made in Australia, owned by Australians business model resonates with local small and medium business owners, particularly when they're undertaking succession planning or transactions, and they are increasingly skeptical of foreign capital and their intentions.
We've continued our trajectory of increasing dividends over the last few years, and we were pleased to announce a further increase to the interim dividend by +14% to AUD 0.02 per share, fully franked. Now, let's take a closer look at the performance across Wealth, Equity Partnerships, and Services. All three segments delivered growth during the half, reflecting the execution of our growth initiatives, integration of quality M&A opportunities, and organic growth driven by industry tailwinds. Wealth continued to perform strongly. FUM growth was supported by ongoing care adoption across the network and the successful transition of the Count Portfolios in-house. Gross business earnings growth with our advisors continues, which has translated into higher than expected licensee revenues, helping to appropriately reward the licensing risk - more appropriately reward the licensing risk that we carry in this business line.
Equity Partnerships delivered solid momentum, with revenue up +24% and EBITDA up +12%. Financial advice fees now represent around AUD 0.25 in a dollar of revenue for this segment, with accounting at AUD 0.75 in a dollar, highlighting the improving mix and quality of earnings. At the same time, this continues to reinforce the latent opportunity to, to grow advice revenues in our equity partnership segment. We did see some short-term margin compression in some firms, primarily due to system upgrades and additional transaction costs associated to acquisition activity, and we expect that to normalize for those firms as those investments are absorbed and the benefits flow through. This will increasingly be a recurrent feature of our results as we succeed with M&A into our equity partnerships model.
Services continues to be stable with some modest growth, where we did see growth that was supported by increased demand for outsourcing and ongoing cross-sell opportunities across the network. Importantly, services EBITDA margins remained around 30% despite incurring some integration costs associated with the McGing transaction, and that demonstrates the underlying contribution of this business. I'd also want to point out that there's around AUD 1.1 million of intercompany services revenue that is, of course, eliminated from these segment results for accounting purposes. The role of the services segment, beyond delivering very healthy margins, is to strategically enhance our wealth and accounting propositions that we take to market. It is a key differentiator for us. Stepping back, we're operating in a structurally attractive environment for advice and wealth services. There are numerous long-term wealth tailwinds that we think are particularly important.
Capacity constraints across the industry, driven by increasing demand for advice, coupled with advisor supply shortages. The sheer scale of the demand for advice from affluent and high-net-worth clients. Consistent growth in small and medium businesses in Australia, our heartland. The intergenerational wealth transfer in Australia, which supports long-term demand for trusted advice. Rising advice fees, improving margins as demand continues to outstrip supply. The increasing adoption of managed accounts as advisors look to scale advice delivery, manage complexity, and improve client servicing. The compelling productivity advantages that robotics and AI present to both wealth and accounting processes. Count is very well positioned to capitalize on these trends through our scale, our governance, our discipline, and our technology-enabled productivity.
A key differentiator for us is the Count Emerging Advisor Program, which is enabling us to attract, train, and transition new advisors into the network in a structured and sustainable way. It strengthens advisor capacity, it supports succession planning in our firms, and it underpins long-term growth and advice delivery. We have almost 50 future advisors in the current cohort. We'll scale up this market-leading program over the next 12 months, and I will have more to say about it in the future. Our integrated model is designed to convert, convert demand into sustainable earnings, and you can see that playing out clearly. We do that through a scaled national network with strong advisor advocacy, supported by investment solutions that enhance advisor productivity and free up capacity to focus on more clients.
Overlaying that is disciplined capital deployment, investing selectively in opportunities that strengthen the platform and improve earnings quality over time. As a result, you can see that the mix of our businesses continue to shift positively. Total wealth revenues, including financial advice, client fees from the equity partnership segment, now represent approximately 40% of total group revenue and approximately 46% of the group's EBITDA. This is an increase from 32% in FY 2023, and it highlights the transformation underway towards more recurring, scalable, and higher quality earnings. We're leveraging our professional heritage and our accounting client base to advantage us and to accelerate growth in wealth. Across every key metric, we're seeing consistent momentum. Advisor numbers continue to grow. The contribution from wealth to EBITDA is expanding. We're delivering strong FUM growth alongside continued margin expansion.
Importantly, this momentum is broad-based rather than driven by a single initiative. What underpins that performance is a balanced mix of targeted acquisitions, solid organic growth across the network, and disciplined reinvestment back into our business platform. That combination allows us to scale sustainably and to maintain momentum as we continue to execute our strategy. Our local community-based, Australian-owned equity partnership model remains a key point of differentiation for Count and an important driver of sustainable growth. At its core, the model combines the entrepreneurial autonomy for our partners with institutional-grade governance and support. Firms are encouraged to innovate and express their entrepreneurialism, retain ownership and day-to-day decision-making and control, while benefiting from the discipline and the support of a scaled national platform.
Partners have access to capital, M&A capability, business integration, technology, and a broad suite of services, which enables them to grow more confidently and efficiently than they could on a standalone basis. Critically, this model creates long-term alignment between Count and our firms, and that alignment supports scalable growth with lower risk, strong cultural cohesion across the network, and a consistent focus on building mutual long-term value. With more foreign capital entering the market, we are seeing the appeal of our 46-year-old Australian-made, Australian-owned business strengthen. Australians just don't seem to like seeing local profits sent to foreign offshore corporations. Add to that, this year, the Count Foundation, created by our founders, Barry and Joy Lambert, expects to cross over total donations since inception of AUD 15.2 million. Game changing for our advisors and for the communities in which we all live and work.
Before I hand over to Keith, I just wanted to reiterate my deep appreciation to my team, to our partners and advisors, and the people across the group for their personal role in delivering an outstanding first half. Keith, over to you.
Thank you, Hugh, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with the headline numbers for the half. On an underlying basis, we delivered EBITDA up +19% to AUD 16.6 million. Underlying NPAT attributable up +45% to AUD 7.2 million, and underlying NPATA A up +33% to AUD 9.2 million. On a statutory basis, we delivered EBITDA up +50% to AUD 18.7 million, and statutory NPATA attributable up 133% to AUD 9.2 million, and statutory NPATA A attributable up +91% to AUD 11.2 million.
We had a number of one-off adjustments, of which the majority relates to the WSC transaction due to the accounting treatment of the AUD 1.3 million gain on sale of the WSC equity holdings and the recognition of deferred consideration related to a Diverger subsidiary acquisition prior to Count's ownership. More importantly, this is the first set of results for a clean comparison on a full 12-month basis for the company post the Diverger acquisition. The uplift in earnings was underpinned by the full period contribution of businesses acquired and integrated over the last 12-18 months, combined with solid organic growth across the network. We also saw the flywheel effect strengthening, with more firms using Count services, more managed accounts uptake, and increasing reoccurring revenue from wealth service lines.
To demonstrate the internal cross-sell within our subsidiaries, we eliminated AUD 1.7 million of inter-entity revenues in the first half 2026, of which AUD 1.1 million belonged to the services segment. Productivity initiatives across the equity partnerships and continued outsourcing demand in services also supported the earnings across the segments. Margins improved as costs continued to grow more slowly than revenue, reflecting the disciplined investment and the increasing operating leverage the business has. Our underlying earnings growth this half was driven by increasing exposure to the wealth segment, which we're benefiting from the industry tailwinds. M&A continues to play a key role as the market continues to consolidate, and our first half reflects the M&A momentum that we have had in the past 18 months, with those earnings-accretive transactions flowing through into the revenue mix.
We delivered a strong half of revenue growth of 15% as the higher quality recurring parts of the business continued to expand, particularly through the greater uptake of our investment solutions, combined with the financial planning organic growth within our equity partnership segment. Importantly, disciplined execution remains a hallmark of the half. Our EBITDA margins continues to increase year-over-year, with underlying EBITDA margins improving to over 20%. Furthermore, our proactive approach to capital management and optimization of our cash continues to deliver benefits to the bottom line, resulting in lower interest costs for the business. On Slide 14, we outline the principal movements that reconcile statutory EBITDA to underlying EBITDA for the period. The uplift represents a combination of both organic and acquisitive growth. We saw strong organic earnings momentum.
supported by firm growth and increased gross business earnings across the network as more advisors and clients adopted our investment solutions. At the same time, we benefited from the full period of contributions of the businesses acquired, in particular, the upgrade from associate to subsidiary of Count Adelaide, as well as the various acquisitions we completed in the last financial year. We continued to see operating leverage come through, with costs increasing at a slower rate than revenues, which reflects both the scale benefits and the cost discipline we've had. There are two areas worth calling out in respect of our operating costs. Firstly, we've been very deliberate around in reinvesting in areas where we can see clear long-term returns, particularly in technology, uplifting capability, and increasing maturity in our support functions, while still expanding margins overall.
Secondly, we've remained focused on keeping corporate costs appropriately scaled as the business grows as a percentage of total revenues. We continue to be focused on maintaining our cost discipline, invest where it matters for the long term, and ensuring incremental revenues continue to translate into incremental earnings. Earnings growth across the group was mainly driven by strong contributions from wealth and equity partnership segment. Firstly, the equity partnerships continued to deliver growth with a stronger mix of wealth revenues and an ongoing productivity initiatives across the firms. We're also seeing more firms lean into outsourcing, and into Count services to address capacity constraints and increase productivity. That operational discipline is increasingly showing up in their earnings growth and margins.
Within the half, we continued to incur additional transaction costs relative to the prior period, in particular, higher stamp duty costs following two acquisitions in Count Gold Coast in Queensland. Secondly, our wealth co- contributed strongly, supported by firm growth and higher gross business earnings, and we've really benefited from the full period contributions of the businesses acquired and integrated over the last 12-18 months, in particular, the continued adoption of investment solutions across the network. In practical terms, this is the flywheel at work, with more of the advisors using the Count Investment Solutions, resulting in a bigger base of recurring revenues. Lastly, our services delivered a strong and steady performance, with outsourcing demand and actuarial revenues major contributors to the half-year performance.
Notwithstanding the integration and transaction costs of the McGing acquisition, which will boost our true consulting capability, particularly in meeting our clients' needs in retirement income products and services. Our cash flow remains a strength. Operating cash flow increased materially on the prior corresponding period, and our EBITDA to operating cash conversion was around 90%. That conversion reflects the quality of earnings and our continued focus on operating discipline. We continue to actively manage our interest costs and ongoing liquidity. This strong cash flow generation from a flywheel helped reduce debt over the half and increased our funding headroom, giving us flexibility to pursue targeted M&A opportunities while maintaining a healthy balance sheet.
Finally, on dividends, the board declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.02 per share, fully franked, which is another increase of 14% or AUD 0.0025 per share compared to the last interim dividend. We continue to target our payout policy of 60%-90% of maintainable NPATA attributable to Count shareholders for the full financial year. Dividends continue to be funded from operating cash flows. We remain focused on a balanced capital allocation, maintaining a sustainable dividend profile while continuing to deploy capital into earnings accretive opportunities. We have a strong balance sheet with plenty of headroom capacity to continue our M&A strategy. We remain very disciplined in what we acquire and target earnings accretive transactions that also meet our non-financial requirements, particularly around people, capability, and culture. I will now hand back to Hugh for an update on outlook and priorities.
Thank you, Keith. Looking ahead, our priorities are consistent and very clear. We're focused on, one, adding employed planners and scaling financial advice revenue, two, executing disciplined mergers and acquisitions, three, accelerating the takeup of our investment solutions, and four, driving deeper uptake of our services across the network. The common thread is very simple: keep building a larger, more productive advisor base, and keep increasing the proportion of recurring, scalable earnings in the group. Robotics and AI feature throughout our strategic growth plan, and we have numerous live use cases that are improving our productivity and the number of clients that we can serve. It's also proving fruitful in reducing our risk by enhancing our compliance processes. On the balance, we see a number of potential AI threats and disruptions to stay ahead of.
We're not complacent, in particular, we know we need to evolve our specialist tax services and training businesses in the form of Knowledge Shop and TaxBanter. We have some near-term execution priorities, firstly, as I said, we'll continue scaling wealth and advice, including growing our salaried advisor channel and supporting advisor capacity across the network. We plan to double the throughput of emerging advisors. This is a key part of how we'll convert the structural tailwinds in advice demand into sustainable earnings growth and allows us further leverage into funds under management. Secondly, we'll execute disciplined, accretive M&A. We're focused on targeted acquisitions that strengthen the flywheel, particularly in financial planning, with a clear emphasis on cultural fit, quality, and integration readiness. Third, we'll build out our investment solutions with a clear ambition to grow funds under management to AUD 10 billion within five years.
That growth is supported by continued care, education, adoption, advisor productivity benefits, and increasing client demand for managed account solutions. Fourth, we will deepen the uptake of Count services across the network, including outsourcing, IT, and education, because that is a practical lever for improving productivity, addressing capacity constraints, and supporting margin resilience for firms. Stepping back, it's clear our flywheel continues to gain momentum. The way our segments intertwine with each other, wealth, equity, partnerships, and services, is increasingly evident in the financial outcomes, particularly that Keith has just highlighted. With the structural tailwinds in advice, demand, and wealth transfer, we know that Count is well positioned to keep executing and keep delivering sustainable long-term shareholder value.
Thanks, Hugh and Keith, for your presentations. We'll now open the line for questions. To ask a question, please use the Raise Hand function in Teams, and we'll bring you online one at a time. Ollie, I've noticed you've had your hand up for a while, so we might unmute you first and let you go with your first question.
Sorry, can you hear me now?
We can. Go ahead.
Yeah. Helps if you unmute yourself. Just had a question, you're speaking a lot about transaction expenses during the underlying numbers. What, what is your policy around, I guess, normalising for transaction expenses? 'Cause it sounds like you kept some transaction expenses within McGing, in the services segment and across the equity partnerships as well.
Thanks, Ollie. Thanks for your question, and good to have you on. Keith, maybe you can just share a little bit more color around the nuances and why we've sort of called those out.
Yeah, look, you know, our typical policies, they're part of the BAU acquisitions when they're in the sort of tucking into our existing hubs, so to speak. Typically, they're considered as part of that underlying figure. Only the reason call out is where there has been quite a significant increase. For example, McGing, in the services that, you know, we've, we haven't done a transaction like that. But not significant enough that it needed to be called out as a significant one-off item, 'cause we'll continue to look at these bolt-on acquisitions, particularly into the equity partnerships and services segment.
Yeah. Okay. Just on the leverage to the gross business earnings of your licensees in wealth, you know, I always kind of assumed that it was relatively low. Sounds like it's actually driven a reasonable outcome in this period. You know, without going into too much detail, what is the leverage to the gross business, kind of, earnings of your licensees, in your licensee segment?
Yeah, thanks, Ollie. There, there are two elements there I'll talk about in the licensing segment. We'll also sort of touch on, obviously, in the equity partnership segment, too, because that client financial advice fee revenue line is important. The gross business earnings of our advisors in the licensing business did exceed expectations. Of course, as we've been clear before, that segment is a relatively lower margin part of our business, but a crucial and critical, very important part of our entire proposition and business. What we're seeing there is strong demand for advice, you know, increase in fees, that the firms are performing well. That translates to slightly higher revenues within the financial advice part of the licensing business, and higher revenues within the equity partnerships model through the advice fee revenue.
Keith, did you have anything else you wanted to add to that?
Yeah, look, I think we're, what we're seeing in the licensee business is just increasing benefits from scale. Maybe a few years ago, there was a licensee business, you know, you'd be quite hard pressed, you know, in that kind of single to low mid-teens. I think we're, we're starting to really get the benefits of scale, and that's really driving a much higher margin business for us. You know, it is naturally approaching, you know, high teens and to low twenties, kind of, EBITDA margin. We're increasingly seeing more quality. It's not only is it just the number of firms being licensed.
It's actually also the the structure of the fee structure and the quality of their gross business earnings, which we then capture, a percentage share of through, through the pricing structure of the licensee, fees.
Right, okay. Now, that's, that's pretty, very positive. In terms of just, I, I mean, you know, spectacular growth in the care firm, almost $500 million, with most of that being net flows. Yeah, how do you feel about the momentum in that business? 'Cause it does seem like it may be accelerating. I think you did something more like AUD 180 million in net flows in the preceding half, as in the second half of 2025.
Yep. I'll either, just sort of step back a bit, the two kind of headlines there. Obviously, AUD 5.3 billion in funds under management now, as you rightly point out, care makes up the lion's share of that, and then, of course, we, we did as, as we flagged last year, we brought in-house those, CFS, the Count Portfolios, which is the other, you know, contribution to, to, to very strong headline growth in funds under management. From a, from a FUM, perspective within care, there's been, you know, continued good contributions from existing firms using care, from new firms taking up care, and Keith, I might get you to talk a little bit about this in a moment. Equally, you know, market movements have probably, in the period, have probably exceeded what, what we had anticipated when we were forecasting.
There is strong momentum there. At the same time, I'd hesitate, the penetration of Care across our network still remains lower than we think would be its potential, much lower than what we think it would be its potential. When we originally onboarded the Diverger transaction going back two years ago, I think we talked about that representing about 10% of our funds under advice. Keith, that's probably closer to 12%-13% of funds under advice now under Diverger ownership. That within the GPS group was a much higher proportion, around 50%, and across Diverger Group, represented about 20%.
We still see, you know, a lot of room to move, a lot of interest from firms, and we have a, a, you know, a backlog of, of discussions with businesses around the right time for them to adopt that integrated solution for, for them and their, and their clients.
Ollie, I think what, what we have provided is the number of firms, that have been adopting Care. I think that's always a good leading indicator for us because, you know, the new firms coming on, they're just writing new business for new clients. What you see is, over time, they start converting their existing clients, to, to that. You'll see it's sort of like a bathtub in terms of that takeoff, in terms of FUM. For us, it's a good indicator of the proposition, it's a good indicator of future take-up, and increasingly, like, as Hugh mentioned, it's only about 13% take-up.
What we've seen historically is it can get as high as 53% under GPS when we, when we first acquired Diverger within that GPS licensee in terms of FUM divided by funds under advice. There's still plenty of opportunity and plenty of firms to talk to, and driving more of that engagement in terms of the client engagement tools that are on, on offer under the care proposition.
Yeah. Okay, maybe just the last one from me. I understand that I think you had the Count National, you know, shindig, during the first half.
Conference.
Conference professional.
Yeah, sorry, conference.
Professional conference.
Yeah, professional, yeah, sorry. professional conference. Apologies. The, the earnings impact of that in the half, 'cause I understand they, they are normally kind of loss-making.
Well, I'll just touch on that. We do an annual education event. It's called Count Ed, or Count Education, and that brings together all of our financial planners and accountants are invited along to that, and our key business partners as well, for, you know, four or five days of learning, networking, business development, et cetera. It's a, it is a full-on experience, and as you know, particularly in financial planning, the CPD point requirements for a planner are extremely high, about three, four times that of a lawyer. Education is a critical component of our value proposition, as is the network and, and, and, and having those shared experiences. We had 500 people together last September. It was a highly successful event.
What I would say is that, firstly, advisors pay a registration fee to attend that event. They, they fund their own travel and accommodation. Kind of the short answer to your question, Ollie, is that any kind of net costs of running that event are included within the results. On a net basis, the cost is a lot lower than the gross basis because a lot of those costs are funded by the attendees themselves, and there's some contribution through our educators to the partners' education program that helps us to acquire the best talent and speakers and other people at that event.
Yeah, I think, Ollie, to, to also add, like, we didn't hold, Count National Conference in the last financial year. Going forward, this, this will be normalized, so we've got another one scheduled in October, this year, so that will flow into FY 2027. You can expect those costs to be normalized, on an ongoing basis.
Yeah, just to clarify, it did cost you money at a net basis in this first half?
Yes. Yes, it did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, we shouldn't see that in the second half?
No, we, you won't see that in the second half, but it'll flow in again.
Yeah, in, basically.
into the first half of that budget.
Yeah, in the, in the next year. Yeah.
Yeah.
Perfect. Thanks.
Yeah.
Might let somebody else ask a question.
No, you've still got the floor, Ollie. As no further questions. I'm just a reminder to callers just to raise your hand in Teams if you do have any questions. Failing that, Ollie, back to you, if you've got any.
Yeah, okay. Well, I may ask, just around equity partnerships, 'cause I remember in the second half of last year, you had quite an impact, at your EBITA from fee revenue, kind of, you know, not being able to actually be generated in that half, particularly on kind of the fee purchases, where you're actually buying a book of business. Did you kind of work your way fully through that in this first half, or did you still get some inefficiency on that?
Yeah, Ollie, it's a good point. We, we, we, we did, and I, I sort of made reference to that, that, that these results for some of our equity partnership firms that have been through both some M&A activity, but also some system upgrades, particularly in the CRM space, or from time to time, a firm might migrate from MYOB to Xero or something like that. There was some disruption in some of the firms in the period. I think pleasingly, that disruption was probably smoother than we thought it might have been, which would indicate we're, we're, we're collectively improving how we undertake sort of big integrations or big technology changes without skipping too much of a beat in terms of business performance.
We do think that'll continue to be a bit of a feature of our business, because, as we said, we are acquisitive, we are doing a number of transactions, and from time to time, there's disruptions associated to that. What we tend to find is, with the financial planning tuck-in acquisitions, they're typically a little smoother in terms of the cycle of the advice given to the client, and they don't. You know, we've talked in the past, one of the big impacts on our accounting firms is that first meeting of, you know, meeting the accounting clients, getting to know them, and so forth, often is an unpaid engagement to reestablish the connection, which takes time out of the accountant's diaries, which means it's not billable, et cetera.
In the financial planning space, given the way that fees and services are provided, typically that's not the same impact, so we don't see so much disruption. As Keith mentioned, we are selective in our acquisitions, where we look for businesses that are aligned to our technology stack, our operating processes, and so forth. Switch overs, you know, from a systems perspective and, and, and operating procedures are, are generally smoother as well.
Okay, it's fair to say that you think on a kind of BAU basis, there's probably a little bit more in the tank from a margin perspective?
We think so, and I think also, too, as the business scales, it, it grows in its size, scale, and breadth. you know, if you go back, 24 months ago, an integration within one firm might have a headline impact. now, with 19 large-scale business integration in one firm, just have a lesser impact on, on our overall results.
Yeah. Okay. If there's nobody else, I may ask perennial question about your supportive and major shareholder, or largest shareholder. What's the latest on, you know, the class action resolution and expected timing around when, you know, there might be movement at the station there?
Thanks, Ollie, I'm shocked that you'd ask that question. No, not, not at all. It's a perfectly reasonable question. As you rightly point out, you know, CBA have been a terrific shareholder, still, 24 and a bit % holding in Count, as we've talked before, through our M&A activity, particularly the Diverger transaction and our dividend reinvestment plan. We have been supporting them to, to dilute that percentage shareholding, obviously, it's they're still our, our largest shareholder. As you know, yet last year, the class action that CBA are running on behalf of Count Financial, that is contemplated by the indemnity arrangements with the bank, was dismissed with a win for, for, for the bank and the group. There was an appeal against that, that outcome.
That appeal is currently laid down to be heard by the three judges towards the end of March. That will be a material event, we, we would assume, in terms of any decision for, for, for the bank. But as always, as it pertains to their shareholding, as I'd always say, that's, that's a matter for, for the bank. We appreciate their ongoing support. We appreciate the fact that they are running the defense of the class action for the group and they remain very supportive.
Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that. Sorry. Had, did have another question, but, it just has slipped my mind. I might follow up. I appreciate that. Oh, sorry, just, pipeline. Yeah, in terms of, you know, deal flow, do you expect any slowdown on that front, or, or do you think you can kind of keep that cadence of bolt-ons that you've been doing, you know, over the last six months?
Yeah, thanks, Ollie. Is... you know, again, probably worth just reiterating the three types of acquisitions that we tend to make. You know, and we, we absolutely love those. You know, obviously, the, the bolt-ons or the tuck-ins, with a particular focus on financial planning, and we, we absolutely love those. You know, the second type, where we might make a direct investment into a, a, a new equity partnership or a new hub for which we see some opportunity to create bolt-ons, and then the third being the strategic and transformational opportunities, à la Count Financial and Affinia, Diverger and so forth. We remain really active in, in all three of those segments. I think, Keith, it's fair to say, we're, we're probably more active than we've ever been. The market is... There, there's plenty of opportunity out there. The pipeline remains strong.
In particular, with the size and scale of our financial advice network, the opportunities around financial planning tack-ins are really on the improve. Those we love, you know, A, because they're very accretive and relatively straightforward to do, but, of course, B, we know those businesses really well. We've been on the hook for their risk and compliance and other activities, so we understand their employees, their clients, et cetera. From a due diligence perspective and a risk perspective, they're very straightforward as well. Keith, did you want to add anything?
Yeah, look, we've, we've, you know, as mentioned, we get a lot of inbound deals. We've got a number of term sheets for non-binding term sheets already executed. We've got, at any stage, you know, seven or eight term sheets out, offers out to firms, which we'll be negotiating, obviously, as, as part of our BAU. A very healthy pipeline, a lot of market activity. We've got a lot of hubs that we can ingest, as well as exploring new hubs to acquire. I think there's a lot of opportunity in financial planning, in particular, where we're, we're more targeted, but also in accounting as well. That provides a good intro layer for clients into financial planning. We've got plenty of opportunities across the board.
Keith, you know, I think in particular, Oli, an area of strategic interest for us is in, is in our employed financial planners, you know, in and around our equity partnership model, so expect to see some activity in that space.
Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Thanks. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Oli, for that set of questions. I'll just do a final call-out for any callers on the, on the call, whether you raise your hand in Teams for any further questions. Okay, failing that, I'll hand back now to Hugh.
Thanks, Doug. And thank you, Oli, for your questions. I'm sure you were speaking on behalf of many people on the call with those excellent questions you had for us. Appreciate that. As always, it's a very busy time of year. We value the fact that you chose to be with us today, and thanks for your continued support of Count and the group. We were really pleased to deliver another set of very strong results, and we appreciate everyone's engagement today and as I said, the questions that have come through. We're excited about the opportunity set in front of us. We're staying very focused on disciplined execution as we continue to build long-term shareholder value. Thank you again, this concludes today's investor briefing. Good morning.