Good morning and welcome to the 2025 Half Year Results Call for G8 Education Limited. My name is Pejman Okhovat and I'm the Managing Director and CEO of G8 Education. I'm joined today on the line by Chief Financial Officer Steven Becker.
Good morning.
Steven, I will take you through the investor presentation that was released to the ASX this morning. Following the presentation, we will open the line for Q&A. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation who are the traditional custodians of the land on which we are conducting this presentation today. We respect their spiritual relationship with the country, and we pay respect to the elders past and present. I extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today. I would also like to acknowledge the G8 Education team who consistently and tirelessly nurture outcomes for children and support our local communities with the important role they play.
This morning, we will cover a summary of the six months ended 30th of June 2025, provide an update on our progress, outlining operational and financial performance for this period, and we will conclude with a brief current trading and update on outlook. Beginning on slide six, as always, everything we do starts with children. We are proud to provide quality early childhood education and care to around 36,000 children across our network of 399 centers, guided by our purpose to nurture the greatness in every child to grow, thrive, and learn. Our newly strengthened values shape a strong, positive culture, enabling our team to improve quality and safety practices, drive operational excellence, and deliver robust financial performance. Before we begin the results discussion, I would like to acknowledge the profound impact the situation in Victoria has had on our community.
The allegations are deeply upsetting and our hearts go out to the children and families affected. Please know that safety and well-being of every child in our care is and always will be our highest priority. We recognize that safeguarding children is not just a regulatory obligation, it is an ethical and social license imperative. I shall provide more updates regarding child safety and our actions later in the presentation. Turning to slide eight, throughout the first half, we focused on enhancing our core, and for the second consecutive year, we have seen momentum in the controllable areas of the balanced scorecard, reflecting strong operational execution. Occupancy remains a challenge influenced by macro-economic factors beyond our control. Cost of living pressures for our families and expected changes to the operating regulations have caused some uncertainty. In response, we are actively implementing targeted initiatives to drive occupancy and support sustainable performance.
Our focus on quality continues to deliver results, with our NQF ratings remaining above sector average. This is a clear reflection of the high standards our team uphold in our centers every day. Family engagement has continued to strengthen during the half, underpinned by improved data insights that are facilitating more targeted support and contributing to enhanced outcomes for our families. The embedding of our new values and strengthening our culture foundation is driving positive change, particularly in terms of improvement in our team retention and engagement. The group's financial results delivered moderate earnings improvement on the first half, despite tough and persistent market conditions. Despite this, our core business remains effectively managed with a strong discipline in operations and cost control, in non-safety and regulatory requirements and related areas. Our procurement initiatives are also playing an important role, delivering real value-enhancing savings that support our financial performance.
As part of our ongoing portfolio quality, we continue our network optimization program with four centers divested and three lease surrenders completed during the half. Our balance sheet remains conservative with strong liquidity and low leverage, providing us with continued optionality. We've maintained a disciplined capital management approach, carefully balancing operational priorities and strategic investment to continue improving our organization and drive long-term value for our shareholders. Thus, our ability to provide dividends is consistent with last year and a proposed on-market share buyback. Turning to slide nine, which outlines our financial results. Despite trading in challenging conditions, the revenue below PCP, we have delivered margin expansion and operating EBIT and NPAT improvement of 2.8% and 6.6% respectively. This is the result of good cost-based management, the benefits from strategic procurement, well-managed support of this cost, and further reduction in agency usage, contributing to an efficiently managed cost base.
From a statutory perspective, net profit after tax and earnings per share both increased by 12.4% and 16.2% respectively. Pleasingly, this resulted in a fully franked interim dividend of AUD 0.02 per share being declared, representing 69% of reported CY 2025 half one NPAT. Reported occupancy for the half was 64.5%, 3.7% lower than PCP, with affordability continuing to be a challenge for our families. Our spot occupancy as of 24th of August is 67%, which is 5.9% lower than PCP, and year-to-date occupancy of 65% is 4.1% lower than PCP. However, the gap is maintaining to the same levels. Slide 10 reflects our commitment to shaping a resilient, inclusive, and sustainable future for all our stakeholders across the four pillars of our governance, service quality, our people, and environment. We will cover the first three pillars in the next slides as part of our balanced scorecard results.
In our environment pillar, from an emission perspective, we achieved a 5% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions, transitioned 95% of our vehicle fleet to hybrid vehicles, and our renewable solar generation has resulted in the avoidance of 260 tons of CO₂ emissions. We have scheduled a scenario planning workshop to assess and respond to climate-related risks across our network. Moving to slide 11, our balanced scorecard illustrates our sustained focus on key strategic areas that has led to consistent improvements in control aspects of our organization over the past two years. Our commitment to delivering a fit and enhanced core has delivered operational improvements reflected in a solid cultural foundation, driving improved team metrics, positive family sentiment, contributing to a stronger Net Promoter Score, and increased number of centers meeting or exceeding the national quality standards and well-managed financial performance, resulting in margin improvements.
Occupancy was lower than prior comparative period, with key reasons outlined earlier. Team retention outcomes were positive results, up three percentage points on prior comparative period to 79%. Quality assessment ratings of meeting and exceeding have increased to 94%, three points ahead of long daycare sector average. Our targeted focus on family journey is resulting in improved NPS results by four points ahead of the prior comparative period. Turning to slide 12, we continue to see benefits of our effective recruitment strategies. We have contributed to a more stable workforce. This is reflected in reduced vacancy rates and further declining agency dependency in our centers. Employee engagement has continued to strengthen, increasing from 75% to 77% and continuing to outperform sector benchmarks, highlighting our strong cultural foundation. In addition, we have achieved improved retention rates across our educators and key roles, including center managers and early education teachers.
To further support workforce quality, we have enhanced our recruitment processes to ensure a more rigorous and targeted approach to candidate screening. During the half, we successfully launched our updated organizational purpose and values, further strengthening our cultural foundation and promoting alignment. We continue to strengthen our internal capability through our sector-leading professional development programs and enhanced learning offered through our new learning management system and our people capability framework. A targeted focus on regional professional development is underway, focused on supervision, program quality, inclusion, and enriching learning environments. We've also seen strong momentum in our First Steps program for early childhood teachers and educational leaders, supporting continued improvement in quality of teaching and learning. Finally, our bachelor program has been refined to better align with ECT requirements and is now strategically positioned to support the development of high-performing team members.
To slide 13, we have continued to see improvement in our NPS, driven by a focused approach to the key factors that influence family experience. Retention initiatives for families in the three to five-year-old age cohort have delivered a notable uplift in NPS. In the second half of the year, we will be launching an enhanced family value proposition. This initiative is designed to deliver greater value by addressing the specific needs and expectations of families, with emphasis on value-add drivers. Frequency has remained stable compared to PCP, though affordability continues to impact families taking additional days of care. Unfortunately, the recent uplift in CCS hourly cap was modest and did not provide meaningful relief to families facing cost of living challenges. While inquiry volumes have remained similar to PCP, conversion rates have also been impacted by affordability.
Our website unification project has delivered strong outcomes, including improved organic conversion and enhanced search visibility. We are implementing targeted marketing campaigns in regions identified as having high conversion potential, ensuring we maximize our occupancy in the second half. Slide 14, our unwavering focus on quality education and inclusion has resulted in improved results in our overall network quality. Pleasingly, 96% of G8 Education Limited centers assessed in the first half of CY 2025 were rated as meeting or exceeding the national quality standards. In Area 1, 98% of assessed centers achieved a meeting or exceeding rating, reflecting the dedication of our around center support teams and center leadership. We continue to maintain a focus on converting working towards centers, with several currently awaiting government reassessment. This remains a key priority in our commitment to continuously lift quality.
To further strengthen our team and drive continuous improvement in providing quality education and care, we implemented the educational leader First Step program and facilitated 49 professional learning sessions across our regional centers. These initiatives are strategically designed to uplift pedagogy and practice and enhance quality outcomes across our network. To support our families, we launched the initial phase of our family value proposition, which includes the integration of individual learning plans tailored to each child's unique learning journey, development, and well-being. Turning to inclusion, we have updated our inclusion and behavioral guidance policies, accompanied by training and resources to support our team in delivering inclusive and responsive care. Further to this, we implemented Pathway- to- Resilience sessions with a particular focus on trauma-informed training in New South Wales and Victoria, and have introduced safety book packs and training as part of a commitment to being a child-safe organization.
Our reconciliation action plan continues to strengthen across the network, aligning closely with both policy and curriculum. Slide 15, occupancy for CY 2025 half one was 64.5%, which is 3.7% below the PCP. Macro-economic factors, while slowly improving, continue to impact family affordability. We are seeing this particularly in frequency and conversion, where families delayed starting at the beginning of their half one was also noticeable. With cost of living pressures remaining a challenge to our families, having no meaningful increase to CCS changes in July, we've seen limited uplift. Looking at performance across the states, New South Wales and Queensland have been our strongest performers, supported in part by divestment strategy. A high number of centers in New South Wales are now operating at 75% occupancy or above, which is encouraging. Western Australia and Victoria have faced the most challenges.
This is largely due to the competitive nature of the government-funded kindergarten program in those states and higher supply growth in these regions compared to other states. While inquiry levels have remained consistent with PCP, conversion rates have been impacted across the board, driven primarily by ongoing cost of living pressures for families. While there are pockets of a strong performance, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland, broader economic conditions and regional dynamics continue to shape our occupancy outcomes. Slide 16, our operating model. I will talk you through several key initiatives that aim to strengthen our performance and drive occupancy. We have embedded new property and safety systems to strengthen data-driven decision-making, improve operational efficiency, and enhance support across our center network.
Our enrollment, transition, and growth period has commenced with improved initiatives and operational efforts targeting occupancy in the second half of 2025 and to lay a strong foundation for CY 2026. Further to that, we have embedded more effective network planning across teams, enabling us to respond with greater agility in what continues to be a challenging operating environment. We have commenced a turnaround program, piloting tailored support with selected centers with high potential for improvement. These centers have been identified through a defined set of criteria, targeting those that are operationally sound and ready for growth. The program is focused on enhancing service quality, delivering improved occupancy, and outcomes where it's needed most. Together, these initiatives reflect our commitment to continuous improvement and our focus on delivering better outcomes for families, teams, and driving operational improvement. Now moving to slide 17, financial sustainability.
Operating cash flow remains robust, supported by a strong cash conversion and conservative leverage. Capital expenditure for the half was slightly below the PCP, primarily due to timing of major property works. We remain on track to deliver approximately AUD 40 million- AUD 45 million in total CapEx for the full year. As expected, net debt increased during the first half, driven by seasonal revenue distribution and execution of our share buyback. We are pleased to announce we declare an interim fully franked dividend of 2% per share, consistent with PCP, representing 69% of reported NPAT. Our cost base has been strategically and effectively managed, demonstrating a strong financial discipline and a continued focus on operational efficiency. Agency usage continues to decline, and wages as a percentage of revenue remain in line with prior years. Support office costs have reduced year- on- year, mainly due to value-add procurement activities.
Support office headcount has remained broadly the same as PCP. In terms of network optimization, four centers were divested and three leases were surrendered during the half. We've now completed our divestment strategy in the ACT, fully exiting the region. We are actively reviewing strategic opportunities for further divestment and acquisition, guided by clearly defined operational metrics. I will now hand over to Steven Becker to take us through the financial performance.
Good morning and thanks, Pej. On slide 19, we discuss in more detail the group financial performance. Despite lower revenue, continued cost management and procurement savings in non-safety and regulatory areas resulted in modest operating NPAT improvements and margin expansion for H1 2025 compared to H1 2024. Group operating revenue was 3.5% lower than H1 2024, while statutory NPAT grew at 12.4% to AUD 22.5 million for the half. Underlying network support office costs were effectively managed, resulting in a decrease versus H1 2024. Finance costs decreased as a result of improved borrowing rates from a debt refinance conducted last year. In terms of our non-trading items, these primarily relate to insurance recoveries, portfolio optimization, impairment, and SaaS expense as a result of implementing a new payroll system. From a center perspective, we delivered a slight improvement in center margin, improving it by 0.3% versus H1 2024.
Center revenue was 3.7% lower than H1 2024, as discussed, mainly driven due to lower occupancy. Employment costs were appropriately managed and have decreased versus H1 2024, driven by lower booking volumes. However, wages as a percentage of revenue remain consistent year- on- year. Other expenses were largely in line with lower occupancy levels and the continued benefits from our strategic procurement activities. In terms of our balance sheet and capital allocation, the group maintains a strong balance sheet with low leverage and ample liquidity. Cash flow generation was strong, with cash conversion above 100% and operating cash flow after tax and interest at AUD 54 million. During the half, we invested AUD 16 million in CapEx, paid out dividends of AUD 28 million, and conducted a share buyback of up to AUD 32 million, resulting in free cash flow for the half of AUD 10 million.
Net debt for the group ended at AUD 102.2 million, representing a conservative gearing ratio of approximately 13% and low leverage of circa 0.9x . In addition, the group has access to further AUD 60 million of committed debt facilities as and if required. Prudent capital and cost management disciplines will continue to be a key focus for the group going forward. I'll now hand back to Pejman, who will talk through the rest of the presentation. Thank you.
Thanks, Steven. Now turning to slide 22, our child safety focus. At G8 Education, we are committed to upholding the highest standard of governance and social responsibility. Child safety is embedded into every aspect of our leadership, values, and operations. We are continuously reviewing and strengthening our practices to ensure transparency, accountability, and trust. With our GS ESG commitment firmly in place, we continue to review our child protection policies to ensure they reflect best practice. All our policies align with national and state laws and regulations, and we do not tolerate any behaviors that compromise the safety or well-being of children, and we fully support government decisions that strengthen protection for children across the sector.
We have continued to improve our child safe policies and procedures over the last three years, which are implemented across all G8 Education centers, including prohibiting personal devices in rooms in centers, mandatory training in respect of child safety and child safeguarding, ensuring that physical and online environments promote child safety and well-being, including investment in cybersecurity measures, ensuring that all required team members' references and background checks are performed, including ensuring that valid working children checks are in place during employment and that all childhood teachers hold status-specific teacher registrations. Introduction of parents and carers having greater choice over the child's personal care routines. All centers have dedicated safety leaders. Implementation of new compliance systems over the last 12 months provided visibility of safety and compliance methods across our network.
Our training and policies ensure that all team members are designated mandatory reporters and are legally required to report any disclosures, concerns, or reasonable suspicion that a child is experiencing harm or if they're at risk of harm. We actively encourage the confidential and anonymous reporting of any concerns related to reportable conduct in accordance with our whistleblower policy. Turning to slide 23, I will now talk more to the Victorian matter specifically. Our impacted families and our team remain our top priority. We continue to provide additional on-ground support for our families and team in the impacted centers, including confidential counseling services, senior- leadership support, practice- partner support, and trauma management support for families and team. We continue to assist with the Victoria Police and authorities with their investigations.
G8 Education is committed to continuous improvement in its policies and processes and, as previously announced, will be taking the following actions. We'll accelerate the rollout of CCTV to all our centers. Following the conclusion of the police investigation, G8 Education will commission an independent review of the incident to inform further changes and improvement to our child safety procedures within the organization and continue our commitment to working with all levels of government across Australia to urgently consider what more can be done better to protect children, including advocating for the National Registry of Working with Children and Vulnerable People, National Teacher Registration, and National Educator Registration, National Registry of Early Childhood Workers' Employment History, alignment of all state regulations, prioritizing those regarding child safety and protection, and delivering on Productivity Commission recommendations, in particular initiatives relating to improving quality workforce child safety and protection.
I will now speak to the current trading and outlook slide 24. Group Spot occupancy was 67%, 5.9 points below the PCP, and 65% year- to- date, which is 4.1% lower than PCP as a result of market softness persisting during the first half. The seasonal care for occupancy remains, however, at a lower than PCP level. The impact of the Victoria incident on occupancy has been localized to the impacted centers only, and we are not seeing wider trends across the state nor our network. We will continue our focus, our efforts on initiatives to maximize our occupancy growth in half two and into CY 2026, including our endowment transition and growth program, targeted marketing activity to drive share of inquiries, and our turnaround center initiatives. Our capital allocation framework will continue to achieve a balance between operational priorities, strategic investment, and delivering shareholder value.
CapEx for CY 2025 remains around previously noted AUD 40 million- AUD 45 million for the full year. We will initiate an on-market share buyback in September. Now to outlook. The sector is currently operating within a challenging environment, characterized by affordability continuing to impact families, with cost of living relief materializing very slowly. Recent events and expected changes to operating regulations have also created a degree of uncertainty. At the same time, macro-economic indicators remain encouraging over the medium-term horizon, with further interest rate cuts and CPI reducing expected. Unemployment and family and female participation remain steady, and data indicates increased birth rates in the future, and the introduction of the activity test changes in CY 2026 is expected to boost demand. We remain very confident in our core operations and will continue to control the controllables and expect to deliver full-year earnings results similar to CY 2024.
Our near-term focuses are on safety and compliance, continuing to enhance and uplift child safety practices and processes. On quality and education, we will continue to drive above sector performance, including uplifting our small number of working towards centers. From a team member perspective, embedding our strength and purpose and values and improving capability. Family experience, focusing on key drivers, education, relationships, and practice. From an operations point of view, continue to focus on occupancy through enrollment and transition period. I will now hand over to the moderator for Q&A.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We ask that analysts limit themselves to one question so that others have the opportunity to do so. You may rejoin the queue. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Wei-Weng Chen with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Apologies if this was addressed in your presentation, but just wanted to know, with your occupancy performance, how confident are you that this isn't kind of a spillover of the incident in Victoria into your business and that it's just cost of living?
Good morning, Wei-Weng. As noted in the presentation, we are monitoring the Victoria occupancy situation on a very, very regular basis and can tell you, as noted in the presentation, that yes, those impacted centers had some occupancy reduced, but we have not seen any change in trend or shape across Victoria as a state, nor across the rest of the network.
Okay, cool. I guess the other question I have is you guys are kind of expecting your year- on- year to be flat from an earnings perspective. I guess how much more can you pull on that cost lever? Obviously, occupancy is what it is, but how much more on that cost lever do you have if we kind of think about this year and future years, if occupancy remains muted?
I'll make a comment on where we noted our expected kind of trajectory to be, but then Steven can talk to the cost base. What we've said is, look, as you know, half two is a very important half as the seasonal patterns of occupancy kind of grow between now and November. There's a lot to play. We do know that we've still got a lot of work to do and the market remains tough. What we've noted here is, looking forward with where we are today, we believe that we expect our year-end to be similar to last year. In terms of cost, Steven, your comments around how do we manage the cost in the second half?
Yeah, look, as we're pointing out in the presentation, we've done a good job of managing our costs. We've still had some procurement savings rolling into our first half 2025, largely around things such as consumable foods and things such as that, where we've consolidated that procurement. Some of that will start to be fully embedded. The reality is that, you know, we'll continue to maintain good cost control, but our ability to squeeze more out of that will diminish over time. Largely, the second half will be driven largely by our occupancy and where that ends up.
Okay, cool. Thanks. Thanks for taking my questions.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad.
Our next question comes from Cameron Bell with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. I'll just ask a couple of questions. Firstly, a very straightforward one. Your guidance for earnings being flat, are you referring to your NPAT or EBIT post lease?
To the AUD 115 million number, the EBIT lease adjust number.
Okay. There's been a lot of headlines and I suppose news around class actions and sort of legal stuff. It might be hard to talk about, but could you maybe just give us a sense of how you see your liability on that front and any potential developments?
To be honest, we did not have this stage, Cam. Yes, whatever you've read in the media, we've read the same things. As you know, there's insurance provisions for situations like this, and we do have those in place.
Okay, that's understandable. The actions you've taken and also the actions that are being sort of directed by the regulators, what do you think your implementation costs will be? Also, do you have any ongoing new compliance costs for those measures?
Great question, Cam. A lot of those are very, very new. They're about to be assessed by the regulators, by the state-based governments. We would have to assess that situation. We haven't got full visibility of how much extra cost some of those will be, but certainly with the increased regulatory focus and increased funding into regulators actually being out there visiting, we do anticipate some costs coming through. The timing of that, we also have to work with the state governments to see some of the regulations or changes to it. To be honest, the federal government announcing ban on mobile phones, that's already been in place for five plus years in G8. There's no additional cost to some of them, but some of the other ones, there may well be some cost.
The only other one that we will have to work through, which will be a capital issue, is the CCTV rollout that we've committed to. We are doing a very diligent job of scoping that up, working with very reputable organizations to ensure everything from privacy matters, cybersecurity issues, storage of the data, who gets to see the data, all of those factors remain a high priority for us to work through before we actually roll it out. There will be a few months on the way before we physically roll that out. As we get towards the end of the year, we'll update the impact of that on our capital expenditure in the future years.
Okay, sure. Just the last one for me on your occupancy. Do you mind giving us a sense of that - 5.9% at spot? Can you give us a sense of if the younger cohorts are seeing similar occupancy drags versus the older cohorts?
I think, Cam, you did some numbers as well earlier in the year. I think going back to the younger cohorts are the years that have been a bit lighter this year because of the birth rates coming out of COVID in 2022, 2023. This year, there's been a lower rate of earlier years. You know, that's anticipated to change as the children get older and a new wave of children kind of start to grow up. That wave will continue to change. I think we've seen in a year-on-year probably a slight improvement in the older years and a slight decline in the younger years. You know, there are indicators that with potentially a higher rate of pregnancy, as has been noted through scan rates, that would be, you know, there's positivity coming in the next year or two.
I might be cheeky and ask one more question. That's extremely early. Sorry, mate.
Go on, mate.
The calendar year 2026, you're going to have your older kids move on, which has stronger occupancy. That's a potential drag on occupancy. Offsetting that, you're going to have the activity test be scrapped. Are you of the view this early in the period that calendar year 2026 is an occupancy up year?
I think there's a number of factors that go into 2026. You've mentioned a couple of them. We'll also remain optimistic around the continuation of inflation coming down. If there's one or two more rate cuts, that will also help affordability. You also got to remember with the working retention payment, there is again restriction on fees to a maximum of 4.2%, which actually gives families another confidence in terms of how much their out-of-pockets will be. When you overlay the abolition of the three-day activity test, which again government indicated over 100,000 families would benefit from, there's a lot of that kind of go together. It isn't just one thing. You are right, every year a number of kids are ready to go to school, but it's not all the three to five-year-olds that go to school. It's only a portion of the older kids that go to school.
Our next question comes from Peter Drew with Carter Bar Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Morning, guys. Thanks for the presentation. I've just got one question on the guidance. Does that full-year guidance assume a sort of similar decline in occupancy in the second half, with some sort of cost savings coming through at those similar lines as the first half and other center costs and support costs? Thanks.
Good morning, Peter. I think what we're saying is, as I mentioned earlier in the call, the second half is a pretty important half. There's a combination of all of those factors. The seasonal pattern and curve to occupancy where we anticipated to be lower than last year. We'll continue to manage our controllables as well as we can, and there will be continuation of procurement savings that will spill over into half two for us too. A combination of all those three elements, in August, looking forward, we're saying that the year-end earnings will be similar to last year. If that changes as we progress through the next five, six months, you rest assured, we take our responsibilities of informing the market very, very seriously. If at any point we do, we will ensure that we do the appropriate work. Sitting here today, that's where we are.
It's a combination of all those elements you mentioned, Peter.
Thanks, Pej.
Our next question comes from Tim Plumbe with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, guys. I'm sorry I missed the first part of the call. Mine's a bit of a follow-on from Peter, if possible. Pej, just with that minus 5.9% that you're run rating at the moment, presumably you're expecting an improvement throughout the course of the second half, which you just kind of spoke about. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit in terms of what are the controllable cost buckets available to you? I mean, the vast majority of your cost is labor. You guys did an incredibly good job in the second half of last year in terms of keeping agency costs incredibly low. One might say that you're kind of cycling tougher comps in the second half from a cost perspective. Just interested to understand a little bit more in terms of how, like, what the levers available are to pull.
When you're saying similar, when is similar no longer similar? You're kind of saying like it could be down a couple of percent versus last year?
I'll let Steven talk to the cost space, and I'll close off your second part of the question, mate.
In terms of cost, Tim, that actually caught the answer before that we talked about is that obviously, you know, you're right. We are controlling all our costs we can. Some of them flex naturally with occupancy. We're also obviously, you know, really being tight on all the costs that we can control and making them as tight as possible. That doesn't relate to sort of safety or regulatory costs, which obviously we don't skimp on those. Certainly, driving those procurement savings are still flowing through. They are the real controllable lines that we are controlling. I did mention before, there's obviously a limit to where you can push those lines to. You know, we will push those as hard as we can, as we always do in the second half.
And Tim, to the second part of your question, you know, can't be at this stage of the game, I can't give you a specific number for where the year-end will be. What we are noting is it will be similar to last year. As I said earlier to Peter as well, if at any point during the next five months of trading, if there's any deviation to what we've said today, you know, we absolutely take our responsibility very seriously and inform the market in due course when that's due. As of today, you know, that's our position that will be similar to last year.
Apologies if I missed it, but what sort of improvement do you need from an occupancy perspective in order to achieve that?
We haven't said exactly what occupancy number will get us to there.
Okay. Okay. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Tim.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand the call back over to Mr. Okhovat for closing remarks.
Thanks very much, and I appreciate everyone attending the call. In closing, I would like to once again thank the G8 Education team for their outstanding work that has delivered these results and outcomes. Our team's passionate and dedicated work results in supporting thousands of families and their children with high-quality education and care. Their hard work allows us to live our purpose to nurture the greatness in every child to grow, thrive, and learn. I now end the call.