I'm Nathan Scholz, mute, with a follow-up question. Then I'll ask other people then to go to the back of the queue just so everyone gets a fair go. George, over to you.
Thank you, Nathan. Welcome and good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us at short notice. I'll make some comments then happy to take any questions. We've released an update last night to give the market a clear and complete picture of two things at the same time, the position of our underlying performance and the outcome of a comprehensive review of our balance sheet. Before I go further, one important point to note is that the numbers I'll refer to today are preliminary and unaudited. The audit is ongoing and will conclude ahead of our full-year result. If I step back 12 months ago, we set clear priorities, fix the balance sheet and leverage ratio, take costs out, improve franchisee profitability, prove our changes to pricing in WA model, and reduce our reliance on the high-low discount. We have made significant progress to each of these positions.
We took out AUD 60 million-AUD 70 million of annualized costs through headcount reductions, IT, and supplier input savings. We refinanced the group at lower rates. We stepped up free cash flow, we improved franchisee earnings. The WA pilot has been positive as our trial. Let me start with what matters most, how the business is actually performing. Underlying NPAT is expected to be between AUD 118 million and AUD 122 million, consistent with the guidance we gave the market. Free cash flow is expected to be approximately AUD 164 million, an improvement of around AUD 117 million on the prior year. That is a step change in cash generation. We've reduced our net leverage to around 1.9x in line with our target. We completed a AUD 1.05 billion refinancing that gives us staggered maturities, better pricing, and real flexibility. Critically, franchisee profitability is up.
Average franchisee EBITDA is AUD 105,700 for the rolling 12 months to quarter three of FY 2026, an increase of over 11% on a constant currency basis. The overall picture is that earnings are in line, cash flow materially stronger, debt down, our franchisee partners making more money. A solid foundation for the business. I want to be direct about same-store sales, which were down 4.1% for the year. This reflects a deliberate decision to prioritize profitable, sustainable sales over headline volume. We have brought discipline to promotions and improved unit economics rather than chasing low-margin transactions. The proof is in the outcome. Sales moderated as expected, but franchisee profitability rose double digits. That is the trade we made. It's the right one for the long-term health of the network. Let me turn to the balance sheet.
We expect to recognize total write-downs of approximately AUD 259 million, of which AUD 246 million is non-cash. This reflects a thorough, deliberate review of the carrying value of our assets. We have written down the France and Taiwan goodwill. We have completed a portfolio review of our IT projects, a detailed assessment of our corporate store assets and other balance sheet items. They are, in a large part, a reset of book values to reflect today's reality, but also our revised strategic priorities.
They do not affect our cash generation and they do not impact our banking covenants, which is assessed on an underlying EBITDA basis. This is rear-view mirror work. We've done a comprehensive review of the balance sheet and the risks across the business. That work is now behind us and we're moving forward with a cleaner, stronger platform. WA is the most important forward signal in today's update.
In WA, average store EBITDA improved by around 30% over the five months to May. It did that despite lower sales and order volumes. That tells you this is about quality of orders, product mix, and operational execution, not just top-line growth. We've seen the same principles work in New Zealand, where franchisee EBITDA is up over 22%. This gives us a proven blueprint, and we intend to progressively roll out the WA model across the rest of Australia through FY 2027. The key question from here is how do we continue to grow franchisee profitability? Underneath all of this is a simple operating model built on three key segments that we are focused on. First, growing profitable order counts, the right orders on the back of the right promotions. Second, importantly, reducing supplier input costs so more value flows to our franchise partners.
Thirdly, driving store productivity, particularly through better labor rostering and make-line improvements. This is where management's attention is, because a more profitable franchisee is the engine of our business, for network growth, for better customer service, and shareholder returns. On technology, we've deliberately moved the business away from an agile operating model to set a clear enterprise-wide priorities, with IT firmly in service of the business. Our focus is on three things: removing customer friction and hygiene points across our markets, building out our CRM and personalization capability, and supporting store productivity through rostering and make-line. The portfolio review that sits behind part of today's write-down is a direct reflection of that sharper focus. We are optimizing our corporate store portfolio with up to 60 stores expected to close, the majority across Australia and Europe.
This is largely a rebalancing after the aggressive expansion through the COVID period. It is concentrated in our more mature Western markets rather than Asia. These actions are expected to deliver around AUD 11 million of annualized EBIT benefit. The reality is that the consumer is under real pressure. Cost of living and interest rates are weighing on households across our markets. Performance is mixed by region. We have work to do. We have our arms firmly around the issues, we have a proven model in WA to lift the markets that need it, and our focus is squarely on the levers we control: profitable orders, franchisee economics, and store productivity. Finally, Andrew Gregory joins us as Group CEO next week.
Having reset the balance sheet and delivered on our FY 2026 commitments, Andrew's immediate priority will be building on the work underway to drive sales growth, franchisee profitability, and long-term shareholder returns. To sum up, underlying earnings are in line, cash flow is strong, debt is down, and our franchise partners are more profitable. The balance sheet is reset and behind us. We feel good at the progress and are focused on the future. We will provide a full detail, including final dividend and a full reconciliation of our underlying to statutory results with our FY 2026 result on August 26th. With that, I will hand back to Nathan, and happy to take your questions.
Thank you, George. The first question will be from Michael Simotas from Jefferies. Michael, if you can unmute and ask your question.
Good morning, everyone. My first question is around the WA pricing trial of the new pricing model. How much of a drag on same-store sales in that market was it? As you roll that out more broadly, just mathematically, it looks like it would be an even bigger drag on overall group same-store sales. In that context, can you maintain this stable level of earnings or grow earnings into next year? Will that start to weigh on earnings given the impact on sales?
Thanks for your question, Michael. In fact, WA is the other way around. We are comping positive on pickup in WA, and delivery is the focus point now in WA. It is not a drag on sales for Australia at all. We see the models working around pickup, and we are making changes to our pricing on delivery, and we are expecting delivery to come back into growth in the future.
What has driven the sharp decline in same-store sales if it sounds like ASP is more than offsetting order count in the markets where you've reset price?
We've dropped a lot of the promotions. We had a lot of promotions on delivery, and they've gone away. When you take out the intensity of promotions in your markets, a lot of the valued customers, we've lost a lot of those valued customers. What we've seen with WA is pricing at getting the right prices up front in menu prices is driving pickup and driving our pick. We're now doing that in our delivery model. What's moving and what's changing is our promotions going forward. We will bring back promotions, but in the right way so it does not impact franchisee profitability.
The market's got a little bit of growth baked into numbers for next year. Do you think that's sensible at this stage?
That's what we'd like. We're not giving guidance on sales, Michael. When I look at what we want to achieve, absolutely.
All right. Got it. Thank you.
Thanks, Michael. Next up is Craig Woolford. Craig, you can go ahead. Oh, my apologies. That's my error. That's a fine, that one. Craig, you should be able to unmute now.
A fine for you or me?
No, they're fine for me. That's a fine for me, that one.
Okay. I'll got that on record, too. Morning, George.
Morning, Craig.
I wanted to clarify the promotional plans across other countries. You talk about the success of the WA promotion trial, the change in promotions, and the rollout to the rest of Australia. What about for other countries? As part of that, I read somewhere that you're removing the half-price discount for pickup in Japan as well, for example.
Yeah. When you look at the other countries, you look at Netherlands example, we're not changing Netherlands. Other markets have been doing okay. Japan, we've re-looked at Japan, there is a new pricing model in Japan. It's a project that we've undertaken. We're focused on increasing order count in Japan. A lot of what we've done has been targeted to Australia, then we've taken some of those principles in Japan. As an example, some of those promotions that we were doing in Japan were loss-making for our corporate stores and our franchisees, we've pulled them out. That's why we're seeing improvements in franchisee profitability, including in Japan. We are bringing back promotions that make sense for franchisees, Japan has been one of those markets where we've just rolled out a new framework for pricing, and it's early days to assess that.
Okay. I'm sure there'll be lots of questions on this. I guess what we're wrestling with is trying to understand how to interpret the sales results. Asia, sorry, got worse. Is that a reflection of the change in tactics, or is it a sign of market demand?
No. The changes we've made in Japan have only started from July. They haven't started prior to that. We have tinkered slightly with Japan in taking out some of those promotions that were not accretive to earnings for any party or for the network. We started to do that in the second half, and that's part of the numbers that you see in the Asia sales position, and that's purely for Japan.
Thanks, George. Thanks, Nathan.
Thanks, Craig.
Thank you. The next up is Bryan Raymond. Bryan, go ahead. Bryan, you'll still need to unmute.
Apologies. One for me there. Hi, Nathan and George. Just trying to unpick a few of the numbers. The - 4.1 like-for-like, I understand we've already had a few questions on the change in promotional approach in WA. Just trying to understand the degree to which that's driving the overall number, because a few have called out already. Some of the weakness that we've seen in like-for-like is in areas where perhaps we haven't seen as much of a shift in promotional tactics. Is that a meaningful driver of that - 4 in terms of you pulling back on promotions, or have there been other factors that have been contributing to that post the weather events you called out in February?
WA is not dragging down our sales position at all. Just want to make that clear. A large part of the - 4.1% sales, and in particular in the Australian market, is because we pulled a lot of those promotions. As an example, we used to do half price, or we used to do delivery to the home, and that was one of the key order counts that we had on weekends. We've pulled that promotion that had delivery to the home, we've lost a lot of those customers. We've still seen pickup in WA is growing, cycling positive comps. What we haven't seen is the growth in the delivery channel that we would expect, and that's the one that we're focused on at the moment.
Just as a follow-up, the alignment with DPZ on some of this is something. We obviously follow their quarterly calls, and they've indicated in the last two calls they have a strong preference for order count growth. You guys are obviously flagging more store closures next year with that provision. You're focusing on profitability over sales orders. How much patience do you think DPZ have, and is there any sort of second-order effects we need to be mindful of there?
We have a great relationship, Bryan, with DPZ. I speak to Sandeep every other week, if not two, three times a week. The relationship's very strong. We would love order count growth. We want to get order count growth, we want to do it in the right way. Part of that has been undoing a lot of those promotions that were negative or lower margins for our franchisees and substituting them with higher profitable margins through promotions. That's what you will see in Australia. Starting in August, September, we've got promotions that are coming through, you'll start to see that in the market in Australia, which are expected to drive order count growth over last year.
Great. Thanks.
Hi. Morning, guys. I'm just trying to get my head around the profitability piece. I can see you've said NPAT's AUD 118 million-AUD 122 million, there's no kind of commentary on EBIT or EBITDA other than those couple of kind of country comments. You haven't said what network sales is as well. Can you maybe just give us a bit of color on those three metrics, just so that we can understand what's kind of going on through the P&L?
Yeah, it's high level, Tom. Because we haven't got complete audited numbers, we've sort of defined it down to NPAT, and we've left it at that. Over the next couple of weeks, obviously, as we present to the market, we will have a complete analysis of EBIT and EBITDA. At this stage, we've left it at NPAT, and then we'll do a full reconciliation of those numbers into the future.
I think you're saying that with the write-offs, there's AUD 9 million less amortization coming through in the future.
Yeah.
Was there any, I guess, benefit in this half from lower amortization or a lower tax rate or anything? Just is there anything that we should kind of be cognizant of then, I guess, when we look at the NPAT numbers?
With amortization, there's been ins and outs. We've actually accelerated some of the things that we ordinarily would have capitalized, we've expensed and then we've got some accelerated depreciation going through in those numbers. From an effective tax rate, there is a benefit from an effective tax rate. It's probably around 0.5%, 0.6%, around that magnitude.
Okay, great. Thanks, George.
Thank you, Tom. The next up is Sam Teeger. Sam, go ahead.
Thank you very much. Can you hear me?
Yes, Sam.
We can indeed.
Hey, Sam.
Excellent. Yeah. Hey, George. Hey, Nathan. I'm just wondering, how much of the weakness in the delivery channel is a function of competitors both in and out of the pizza category outperforming with aggregators? We've just seen a bunch of other QSR operators signing these exclusive agreements with aggregators. Any thoughts on that would be helpful. Thanks.
There's no doubt, Sam, it is having an impact. Absolutely. If you look at some of the offers that are in the market in the QSR industry from 99 Cents, McDonald's, or KFC's, that would have an impact, and those aggregator deals will have an impact. We are working with the aggregators. Our channel sales through the aggregators is growing. We are looking at doing the appropriate deals with aggregators to continue to have our share on their platforms.
Great. I'm just wondering, taking into account the impairments in France and Taiwan, to what extent do you expect these markets to be an earnings drag in FY 2027?
Yeah. In actual fact, I don't expect them to be an earnings drag in 2027. Both those markets are EBITDA positive. From an EBIT perspective, they're sort of close to breakeven or slightly positive, slightly negative. There's nothing material. We've put plans in place. Part of all of what we've done through this balance sheet reset and store closures, et cetera, is to get the right model going forward. Our leadership teams are very clear on what we need to achieve across those markets, and that's what they're working through. I'm expecting some improvements in both those markets going forward.
Great. Thanks, George.
Thanks, Sam. The next up is Michael Toner from RBC. Michael, you go ahead.
Hi, team. Can you hear me okay?
We can.
Great. Thanks very much and thanks, George, for your time. Just firstly, on franchise profitability, I'm curious, to what extent does that improved franchise profitability reflect changes to sort of operational and menu changes or sort of organic improvements relative to food subsidies or sort of forms of corporate franchisee assistance? Is that improvement in franchisee profitability purely reflective of improved organic performance by franchisees?
There's a combination, Michael, of a myriad of different things. One of the things we called out was our cost out program. A large part of what you're seeing is cost coming down to franchisees, and that is a key pillar. It's one of the key segments I spoke about, is fundamentally driving lower supplier costs to our franchisees, and we've got a program where that will continue. There is also getting the right promotions that are accretive to their earnings part of that as well. That's part of what you've seen in New Zealand and in WA. Continuing to have those right promotions to drive the margins for franchisees has been at the forefront of our mind. I'd say it's a combination largely of our promotions and sales activities as well as our supplier input costs coming down.
Okay. Thank you. Just very quickly on same-store sales growth, I know it's not a primary focus for the company at this stage, do you think it's reasonable to expect that-- I know you're not giving guidance, if these changes to menus and operational changes are continuing, like for example, you called out Japan in July. If these are still rolling through, do you think it's reasonable to suspect that there could be sort of potentially negative same-store sales growth next year as well? I'm just thinking in the context of a lot of support for franchisees. I would have thought eventually you kind of need to get organic top-line growth going for franchisees so they can grow their earnings independently of any corporate assistance.
Absolutely. That's the right question, Michael. That's our plan. Our plan is to grow sales order count for franchisees this year. That's our plan. It's our clear plan across the markets. That's where we want to be. It's very important also in management of labor and labor utilization that we get growth in order count, and that's the plan that we're rolling out.
Okay, thanks. Do you think franchisees can grow their earnings? Do you think franchise profitability can improve in FY 2027 even if same-store sales growth goes negative?
That's what's happened this year. It's not our plan to have same-store sales going negative. What you've seen as we've done the work that we've done in FY 2026 is that their profitability's gone up as we've taken out a combination of promotions that weren't that effective for them, but also driving better prices on ingredients, et cetera. We have that plan continuing. We see more benefits coming down the track. There's things that we're working on at the moment that will give franchisees further benefits in relation to lower supplier input costs that will come in the next couple of months and in different markets. I still see that franchisee profitability will continue to grow into the future.
Great. Thanks for your time.
Thanks, Michael. Next up is Sam Haddad. Sam, you're unmuted now.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
We can.
Hey, Sam.
Thank you. Just first question is on cost out opportunities. Do you see any further opportunities beyond the AUD 60 million-AUD 70 million that you've delivered, that we can sort of start to assume or factor into 2027 and beyond?
Yeah. We talked about at the half year an additional AUD 15 million to sort of AUD 20 million. We're working on that AUD 15 million-AUD 20 million, and there's additional upside that will come out of the AUD 15 million and AUD 20 million into FY 2027. To be honest, it's an ongoing program. Looking at our business to drive cost out for our franchisees and to get the total system cost out is a focus of the business. I still see that happening into 2027 and 2028.
Thank you. Also, just your comments around inflation outlook for the business. What are you seeing at the moment on mitigants and just also indirect sensitivity the business has maybe to the oil price, given that's pretty volatile at the moment?
Yeah. We've modeled both the oil price and there is an impact on the oil price, and we're managing that with our contractors and our partners. We're talking to franchisees, in relation to that. There is no doubt, as I said, there's headwinds through inflation and labor costs increasing, and this is where the store productivity's really important and getting the right labor utilization rate. Things that Sam talked about earlier on with aggregators and partnering, things around dynamic sales and how do we increase dynamic sales so when labor utilization is down, we can turn on sales. That's we're looking at different means with our aggregator partners to do that. We need to continue to improve store productivity across our network, and that's the focus, whether that's make line efficiency or labor rostering. It is a pivotal point both from our operations team and our systems team.
Just final question. With the WA franchisees, are they near the AUD 130,000 target of EBITDA? How far away are they?
Mate, they are well above that AUD 130,000. Well above.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Sam. Next up is from Phil Kimber. Phil, you can go ahead now.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me okay?
I can, Phil.
Great. Thanks, George and Nathan. I just had a question. If you have a look, your profit's been very consistent over actually the last six halves. You've improved franchisee profitability, which I agree is the sort of key to the turnaround. It's still a fair bit below that AUD 130,000 sort of magic number that everyone talks about. Conceptually, is the priority to get franchisees up to that level across the board before we should start to think about your own profits? Because it looks like a lot of these cost savings are basically being reinvested into the franchisees, which is fine, but just trying to understand when the leverage comes back into your business. Thanks. Just conceptually.
No problem, Phil, thank you for the question. What I should say is that the AUD 130,000 is a global number, the AUD 105,000 is a global average number for franchisees. If I look at Australia as a whole, Australia is very close to the AUD 130,000. I just want to make that point clear. There's markets in Australia that are well above the AUD 130,000 today. Well above. There's a couple of states that are below. In overall, Australia is well above or close to the AUD 130,000. There are other countries and other markets that drag that down, and that's the focus for us, and that's the three segments that we call out that we are focused on getting them closer to the AUD 130,000.
Thanks.
Thanks, Phil. I've got time for one more going back to Michael Simotas. Michael, you're good to go if you just unmute. Unless Michael's dropped off on us now. Looks like Michael's dropped off. George, we're going to wrap up now. For others, you can follow up if there's additional questions. Please shoot us an email noting. We will be limited to speaking about what's on today's announcement. We look forward to welcoming you back and speaking to you at the full-year results on August 26th on the Wednesday. Thank you very much for your time today. Have a great one.
Thank you, everyone.