Thanks, operator. Good morning and thanks for joining us. I'm here today with our CFO, Kate Koch. Earlier, we launched an announcement with the ASX, providing an overview of current market conditions and a trading update. On our call this morning, we'll take you through an update on the market, the expected impact on our full-year earnings, our strategic priorities, as well as the action we are taking to manage financial performance. We will open up to questions. Starting with an overview of market conditions, our key destination markets continue to be impacted by policy uncertainty, which is negatively impacting the size of the international student market globally. As a business, we've navigated these cycles many times before. What is unprecedented and particularly challenging is the synchronization of these cycles across IDP's key destinations at the same time.
While this is negatively impacting the international education market in the short term, we remain confident in the sector's long-term fundamentals, driven by powerful demographic and economic macro trends. With our strong market leadership, our disciplined focus on managing the controllable of market share, cost, average price, and quality, and our solid balance sheet, we're confident in our ability to effectively navigate these challenges while positioning the business for the future. I'll now hand over to Kate to run through the detail in how this is impacting performance and our estimated earnings for the full year before coming back to talk through what actions we're taking to manage the business in the current environment.
Thanks, Tennealle. Hi, everyone. I'll start with student placement. Since our H1 results announcement in February, and as you'd expect, we've been closely monitoring our student pipeline build. Our most recent analysis indicates we'll see a material pullback in student placement volumes for May and June. As we've said many times, May and June are critical months given the timing of the formal intake in the U.K., Canada, and U.S., as well as the second semester in Australia. For FY2025, IDP now expects a 28%-30% decrease in student placement volumes, and this will be partially offset by continued strong average fee growth. This slowdown in growth is driven by the market environment, as Q3 visa issuance data now shows.
For the nine months to March, the size of the international student market to our key destinations of Australia, U.K., Canada, and the U.S. has declined by around 28%, with full-year volumes expected to continue to deteriorate. The reduction in the second half volumes reflects a few things. Firstly, Canada remains very weak. We've seen a further deterioration in market volumes into the second half due to poor student sentiment towards Canada. Secondly, enrollments for the next U.K. intake have been impacted by the ongoing uncertainty created by the recently announced U.K. white paper on immigration. The white paper released on the 12th of May is expected to introduce further restrictions on student immigration into the U.K., including a reduction in post-study work rights duration. This is intended to address excessive growth in the low-quality end of the market.
There remains significant uncertainty on the final form and timing of the recommendations of the white paper, however. Thirdly, for Australia, university clients have increased evidence requirements and delayed offer processing in response to Ministerial Direction 111. Finally, for the U.S., negative sentiment has increased sharply, with the Harvard ban on international students announced two weeks ago and just last week announced plans to revoke visas for Chinese students and the global pause on scheduling new visa interviews for international students. If I now move to IELTS, IELTS volumes in the second half have also been impacted by the policy changes and uncertainty, although to a lesser extent than student placement. We are expecting full-year 2025 IELTS volumes to be down approximately 18%-20%, with continued strong av erage fee growth versus last year.
Whilst we've seen a softening in conditions across all markets, the biggest impact has been in markets that are most sensitive to policy changes and visa settings, which are classically the markets in South Asia and particularly India. While the other markets aren't immune to the regulatory changes, the diversified nature of our country portfolio, the variety of use cases for IELTS provides some offset for the volume, including, for example, Canada onshore IELTS volume growth being driven by the need for an English language test for residency. We continue to progress our entry of IDP IELTS into China, are confident in the long-term business case, continue to work constructively with the Chinese government, and will update the market as appropriate as we continue to work towards our full IELTS opening in China.
Whilst much smaller contributors are other business lines, being English language teaching and other student placement support services, continue to perform well. In response to these conditions, we've been working hard to offset this softer volume environment by managing the levers within our control. This is demonstrated by our ongoing efforts on price, cost, and quality. We continue to record very good average fee growth across both student placement and IELTS. This fee growth is being supported by inflationary dynamics for testing and tuition fees, as well as ongoing improvements in value-added services in our contracts with university clients, growth in student essentials penetration, and mix towards higher-priced destinations. At the first half results, we targeted second half adjusted overhead costs being broadly flat versus last year.
In response to the worsening external environment, we've taken a disciplined approach to cost management, with adjusted overhead costs for the second half now expected to be around 5% below H2 FY2024 levels. When we bring these various elements together and driven by the inherent operating leverage of IDP's business, our current expectation is for earnings between $115 million and $125 million for FY2025. I'll now hand you back to Tennealle.
Thanks, Kate. It's always disappointing to have to reduce our expectations for our business performance, and particularly so for two years in a row. What is important is for us to continue to focus on the things we can control. As Kate said, during the half, we took further action on cost, and we continue to be very disciplined in managing average price and the quality of our student experience.
Policy-driven market contraction is clearly affecting volumes across our business, and we anticipate this will feed into financial year 2026. While we have always had a disciplined approach to cost, given market conditions, we are undertaking a detailed strategic review of cost, productivity, investment, and commercial levers to manage financial performance. We look forward to providing an update on this work at our full-year results presentation in August. As we continue to navigate these market dynamics, we are focused on three key areas: growing our market share, cost management, and prioritizing investment spend. Firstly, we're targeting continued growth in student placement market share over the medium term. These policy changes have increased the sector's focus on quality and conversion. As the leading quality player, IDP is well placed to help our students and clients navigate the changing market conditions. Why are we so confident on this? For three reasons.
Firstly, our client portfolio is weighted towards higher quality universities that typically perform better through the cycle. Secondly, our source market share. We will see a flight to quality in source markets where students and parents are increasingly turning to trusted, experienced agents. This is reflected in our strong relative performance in visa acceptance rates. Thirdly, our service offering. Our increasingly unique and bundled services continue to deliver superior lead generation and higher conversion. The second area we're focused on is redoubling our focus on cost management. Clearly, we're going through a longer cycle of uncertainty in market conditions. This is unprecedented and requires a more strategic approach to looking at our cost base.
We're working at pace on plans to review the cost base for the business to not only lower costs to a level appropriate for the near-term revenue outlook, but to also ensure we're positioned for a more digital-first, AI-driven future. Our third area of focus is prioritizing investment in strategy and product innovation. Now, this is about striking the right balance between managing our business in the current environment while continuing to position the business for growth, leveraging our global scale and unique service offering. We have a focused roadmap of digital and AI-enabled product development across student placement and language testing. These investments are predominantly focused on leveraging our unique data assets and software development linked with deep understanding of customer and client needs to drive long-term market share gains.
We continue to execute strongly against key initiatives like Fastlane and Peer Community student placement and OneSkill retake in IELTS. While we remain committed to ongoing investment, the pace, scale, and priority of investments will be reviewed in light of market conditions. To close today's call and before we open up to questions, despite the near-term policy headwinds, we remain confident in the structural growth drivers for international education over the medium and longer term. As the leading quality player in the sector, IDP remains well positioned to help students and institutions navigate these challenging market conditions. We have a strong track record of managing the controllable of market share, cost, average price, and quality. To be absolutely clear, we see opportunity to further review our costs and to prioritize investment spend to manage financial performance.
With our strong market leadership, our disciplined focus on managing the controllable of market share, cost, average price, and quality, and our solid balance sheet, we are confident in our ability to effectively navigate these challenges as well as position the business for longer-term opportunities. Thank you for your time today. Kate, Malcolm, and I are now happy to take your questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Josh Kannourakis with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Tennealle, Kate, and Malcolm, can you guys hear me okay?
We can, Josh. Thanks.
Perfect. Thank you. A few quick questions. Firstly, on Australia. I think the feedback in the market had been that we were seeing a recovery in the second half in volumes. Perhaps could we get a little bit more color on maybe the segment sort of in terms of volumes and what you saw in Australia and, I guess, either the conversion or lack thereof and relative in terms of that to the multi-destination side?
Yeah, absolutely, Josh. At the half-year results, when we spoke about what we would be watching very closely as we moved into the second half, we called out in particular the pipeline build for the U.K., which we can touch on, but also how the Australian institutions would navigate Ministerial Direction 111, particularly as they were approaching the soft 80% cap that had been put in place. Now, what we have observed in the second half is we have seen institutions really focus on the genuine student test and evidence levels, and this has led to delays in the processing of offers. In the half, you can see for the—or actually for the full year, you can see for the first quarters, we are showing visa issuances sitting at minus 10% for Australia.
When we look closely at visa applications, which is a more near-term indicator, we can see for the same period that visa applications are down 20% year on year. We have seen that start to come through in the second half.
Got it. I guess in terms of just thinking about with the context of the guidance provided on volumes, if we break out Australia, is Australia expected to be sort of flat, down, or up on the first half of 2025?
Yeah. We would encourage you to look at visas issued for the first three quarters as a good indicator. Given the uncertainty, we aren't providing any further views on what would happen for the remaining quarter, except to say that we expect a continued deterioration in volumes at a market level given the conditions we're seeing.
Got it. In terms of, I guess, the second part of that equation being your market share or positioning, it sounds like some of the group of eight have still been performing relatively well relative to some of the second and third-tier universities. What does that mean in terms of, I guess, your share? Obviously, with the Chinese market, that's a sub-agent market. It's a different structure. Can you give us a bit of context of, I guess, mix maybe relative to what you're seeing year-to-date mix versus what you saw in the first half for Australia?
Yeah. In the first half, another dimension that we called out as a feature of the ministerial direction that had been previously in place is we had seen strong growth in China as a source market coming to Australia. As we've shared previously, given our particular business model, we aren't as strongly indexed towards China as we are in some other source markets. Those dynamics continue on through the second half.
That's super helpful. Just final question for me, just around, I guess, multi-destination. Obviously, everyone's been pretty aware of, in terms of Canada's weakness. I think that's pretty widely documented. I think it felt like U.K. had seen a few or started to see some more green shoots. Obviously, they came out recently with a number of changes there. Can you just talk to us about maybe what you've seen in this latest period in terms of the activity specifically in the U.K. and obviously with the fee structure over there? That is an important market to see a recovery in for the business. Just maybe some more color on the U.K. specifically, Tennealle, and maybe with respect to how you're seeing your sort of share or share gains potentially in that market as well.
Hi, Josh. It's Kate here. As I think we said in the half year, we were expecting the U.K. to be a stronger performer in this half given where we were in the election cycle, etc. As you said, even before the immigration white paper last couple of weeks ago or last month now, we were hearing a lot of talk about it. That was impacting somewhat on student sentiment. I think what we've seen is in the past month, the size of the funnel not being as big as we'd hoped. The conversion from applied, well, all the way down the funnel, but particularly from applied to finalized, is being slower. Students are holding off on making final decisions at the moment. There could be a delay element in that, but we're not sure.
Our numbers are based on our latest information that we have at present.
Yeah, that's right. Josh, just to round that out and I go back to the earlier point that I made. We said the two key things we were watching coming into the second half was obviously the dynamics in Australia, but also that really important U.K. pipeline build. As Kate touched on in her notes, May and June are critical months for that pipeline build. We have been watching very closely both the build of the pipeline and the conversion through the pipeline. What we have also seen is the conditions that need to be in place to really drive that sustainable growth is both the stability in the policy settings as well as that positive rhetoric and welcoming tone towards students. With the white paper coming through, that has introduced an element of uncertainty.
There are key changes that are being tabled as recommendations, including tighter visa controls for some countries, a reduction in post-study work rights. We can see that that has had an impact on that pipeline build for the U.K. as we come into those critical months.
Okay. Got it all. I'll give someone else a turn. Thank you. Appreciate your time.
Thanks, Josh.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tim Plum with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just two questions from me, if that's all right. It's a little bit similar to Josh's. Just can I understand a little bit? The pipeline for the U.K. was stronger. When I look at the March quarter study permit issuances for IDP-related companies, I was tracking plus 38%. For the total U.K., I was tracking plus 27%. It looks like the visas have come through. Is it that the visas have come through, but the students are just not following through with it? Or is it that the visas for your pipeline of students are not coming through? Just trying to understand where the bottlenecking is.
Yeah, certainly. It is important to understand, I guess, some of the seasonality that we look at for the U.K. in particular. I know you know this well, Tim. The key intake for the U.K. is the fall intake. Around 70% of our annual volumes for the U.K. come in that fall intake. What we were watching closely was that critical pipeline build that we really do not get visibility on until May and June. I think what you are referencing is the historical visa performances that came through in the Q3 numbers, and they relate predominantly to a much smaller intake in the U.K., which is the spring intake. Now, a feature of that intake is it tends to be, when we have a look at the numbers underneath that, a lot of the growth came from the more mass end of the market there.
If you look a little closer again, a lot of that growth has come from low-quality providers and IDP chooses not to play in that market with and does not have contracts with those providers. I think a lot of the growth that you will have seen in that spring intake relates to the lower tier of the market. We are much more focused on, and the comments that we are bringing to the market today relate to the pipeline build for that key fall intake.
Got it. Thanks. Just the second question. With the revenue decline, just wanted to check, were there any bigger-than-usual impacts from reversal of previously recognized revenue within those numbers? Around student deferrals, or has that kind of remained unchanged and it's just the student volumes that you're seeing here and now?
Yeah. Hi, Tim. It's Kate. No, we keep close track of what we call the drop-offs. That provision, which we take against our revenue as we recognize it, has ticked up a tiny bit, but less than 1% of revenue. We have not seen that so much as a lengthening, if you like, of the process when students are applying. Of course, we have seen that.
Okay. So.
That's helpful.
That's helpful. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from David Fabris with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, Tennealle. Hi, Kate. Can we focus on the cost base? I want to understand where you've stripped costs versus the last update. I mean, have you cut headcount, chopped marketing spend, or closed any offices or test centers?
Yeah. Hi, David. It's Kate. I think, as you probably know, around two-thirds of our costs relate to people. We have really focused on that. We have been laser-focused on new hires and replacements and really only replace them where they drive revenue or they drive productivity initiatives or imminent products that we need to drive the revenue. Also, I guess, where we do not have the skill set in-house, we have been flexibly moving our people around a bit. We also, as you have alluded to, have looked at the more discretionary things like consultancy, travel, some IT and project costs, which we have discontinued where there was not imminent benefits coming forward from those. It is a continuing process. As Tennealle said, we understand further changes are required, and we have got a much more considered approach and more strategic approach to that going into the coming financial year.
Yeah. Okay. I guess you have spoken about providing another update in August. I guess what I'm trying to work out is that this rapid deterioration in earnings, whether or not there's going to be a wholesale change to the cost base in 2026, or whether you kind of ride it out with a view we get a recovery.
We are actively working on a strategic cost efficiency program. I'll just give you a little bit of color on that. There are around eight parallel initiatives, and they're looking at essentially a number of things. The first one is lowering the run rate costs of the business in light of reduced volumes, and they were things like you alluded to around the space operating model, taking advantage of automation and AI. For example, we've been doing that in our central application processing. It's been for a while now, but we're looking at other areas of opportunity here. Secondly, we're looking at simplifying and modernizing our back-office processes and technology. We're looking at using our global scales and negotiating better commercial arrangements across the board.
Lastly, as Tennealle alluded to, investing behind fewer projects with a higher weighting towards those that deliver short-term benefits, but also ensuring we get the balance right to ensuring a portion of them will deliver on our medium-term strategic priorities. There is a whole lot of work going on at this at the moment. It is very much a work in progress, which is we need a little more time to work out the benefits, the costs, and the timing of these in terms of how they're going to impact on our FY2026 results.
Yeah. David, but to just really reiterate that we fully recognize the need to reduce and restructure the cost base for our business to weather the current uncertain policy environment, and we're focused on that, but also to have the business ready to grow profit faster than sales on the rebound when it inevitably comes.
Yeah. Got it. Understood. Hopping topics, just have you got any thoughts or insights whether any other key student place-based destination markets like Australia or Canada might be looking to make any changes to post-work right visas like what we've seen in the U.K., or is it just a U.K. issue with that change?
Based on the information we have currently, that is a particular focus for the U.K. given their current regulatory regime. As you know, in the period, we've navigated elections for Australia and Canada, and we saw the existing parties reelected. What we will be looking for is a return to a more stable policy environment and a more welcoming rhetoric. I think that that was quite difficult to achieve pre-election. For Australia and Canada, we haven't had any policy changes communicated. We're still operating under the current restrictive environment, but we're watching closely for any updates that might come through there.
Yeah. Got it, helpful. I mean, that's kind of answered my next question because I was going to ask—I mean, it's a bit of a broad question—how do we monitor for improving sentiment in Canada? I mean, obviously, you've had the reelection of the government, which is a great outcome, but are there any other clear catalysts to be thinking about or looking for?
Yeah, certainly. Going back to what needs to be in place, it is very much a stable and certain policy environment and a welcoming rhetoric. If we think about it from a student perspective, they're making a very significant investment of not only money but time in their future. They need to have that stability and certainty to understand that they'll get the return on investment that they're looking for there. That's what we would be looking for. There is really important work that IDP can and has done around supporting on that welcoming rhetoric and welcoming messages.
We work very closely with the sector, so both governments and the sector more broadly, to share, firstly, our unique data and insights to form a really informed view of the current impact of policy settings and to ensure that there is a student voice brought to any policy debates. Secondly, as the time is right, we are able to leverage our unique global distribution and footprint to really create a powerful channel to deliver positive messages to students when conditions do stabilize. We have been able to do that really effectively in the U.K. We have been able to set up really, I guess, well-attended webinars and things where we have had representatives from the U.K. government, from the U.K. sector, and leading universities really talking to the strong ROI that students can expect from a university education in the U.K.
At the right point in the cycle, we're also able to do that to really stimulate that demand and bring that focus back to the other destinations also.
Great. Thanks for the insights. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Elizabeth Mailiatis with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Just the first one's just around market shares. You note in the release that year-to-date volumes for your markets are down 28%, and then you're guiding to your volumes being down 28%-30% for the full year. That broadly implies that there's no market share gain or market share indeed is staying flat. Just wondering what you're seeing by the three key markets and how to reconcile the actual numbers versus your intentions to take market share?
Yeah, certainly. It goes a little bit to the measure of market, and I'll talk a little bit about this. We also spoke about it in the first half results. What we're seeing in our measure of market being visas issued is they're showing year-to-date down approximately 28% across our key destinations. We would expect that to continue to deteriorate as we've touched on. A lot of the policy changes and announcements have come through in recent weeks, and we expect that to start to show in those numbers as the year continues. As we look at those numbers too, and I would call out particularly Australia, you will recall that we spoke about the visa issuance numbers for Australia had some noise in them in the first half.
In the first half, Australia was working through processing a very significant backlog of visas that related to the prior year as it transitioned from Ministerial Direction 107 to 111. What we see for Australia is an artificially high number of visas in the first half that will show through in the full year numbers. A better measure to look at, rather than visas issued that has that noise in it, is that more recent view of visas applied for. What we can see is visa applications for Australia are down more than 20% for the same period. Wrapping all of that up, we would expect that off that market number of a 28% decline, we would expect further deterioration for the remainder of FY2025. That is for the market.
What I would say is we continue to see longer-term opportunities around IDP driving continued market share gains when we adjust for those one-offs that I just spoke through within this particular period. The reason we're so confident on that is, and why we believe we're so well-positioned to take market share, is we continue to be the market leader with global scale and a unique offering. Particularly, the policy changes that are in place are really driving an increased focus on quality and conversion. That is where the strength of our business model really comes to play. We can demonstrate that in our superior visa acceptance rates, our superior NPS. We believe as market leader, we are well-positioned to grow market share during these times.
Okay. Thank you. Just in terms of your full year guidance, in terms of the actual building blocks to get to that EBIT adjusted number that you've given us, are you able to talk to the price increases and the margins that you have in your model to get to that number? Because just doing sort of high-level numbers, it does look like price increases are weaker than where we would have hoped, and also margins. Just some color there would be very much appreciated.
Hi, Kate. Yeah. In the first half, you remember that student placement fees were up 14%. This has pretty much continued into the second half, although the final average fee increase might be a little different depending on country mix and FX. That has continued strongly, as have the IELTS fee increases. I'm a little unsure how you got to your numbers, but we're not seeing a weakness there. Sorry, just on the gross margins.
Sorry. Just also on the gross margins, please.
On the gross margins, on a full-year basis, you can see from our guidance, they'll probably be a little lower than in FY2024. There are a couple of key drivers on that. The first on student placement, due to the speed of the volume declines and the inherent leverage in our business and also the source country, that is going to negatively impact on our margins. Exams will be somewhat less impacted, but due to the lower mix of higher margin India volumes, and then I guess the rest of the world, the relative share of the party test center volumes versus our own volumes. Overall, you should expect the mix to be negative due to those two factors.
Okay. Thank you. Can I just make one more in, if that's okay? Just having a look at the Canadian visa volumes that we track, we're really struggling to get to the minus 65% that you guys have included in the final page of your press release. The numbers that we're tracking are closer to minus 17% for China, minus 45% for India, minus 40% for higher education across the whole visa volumes. Are you able to explain that differential? Because we're really struggling to understand where the 65% is coming from.
Yeah. Hi, this is Malcolm here. How are you going? Yeah. As we've talked about in the H1 results, we talk about that information based on IDP countries that IDP is in. The data that we will see is reflecting our particular source country mix. It won't necessarily match exactly the data you're seeing, which wouldn't reflect that country exposure.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from Encho Rakovsky with E&P. Please go ahead.
Hi, Tennealle. Hi, Kate. Hi, Malcolm. So my first question is, if we look at the FY25 enrollment pipeline you've spoken about, it sounds like you are at this stage assuming some further volume declines in FY26. I mean, can you talk about sort of the early indications into FY26? And what are you thinking about from a volume perspective when you're thinking about setting the cost base? I mean, some of the dynamics I'm thinking about is the Canada base of volumes in particular looks like it'll be very low heading into FY26. So we should at least see some stabilization. But just comments around that would be helpful.
Yeah. Hi, Encho. It's Kate. Look, we're very focused on managing the business for the market conditions. Given the policy uncertainty, it's probably a little soon to comment in a lot of detail on FY2026. We talked about doing a whole lot of work on costs, the pace and scale of our investment, and of course, continuing to focus on our market share and improving the average price and things we can control. We do not have a crystal ball, so we're trying to manage the business with what we know. As you can expect, we are just modeling multiple scenarios for next year. Regardless of what they show, we're going to continue to take our costs, closely monitor the pipeline, and we'll provide you a much more informed update than our FY2025 results.
Okay. Fair enough. At IELTS, it looks like you're outperforming the market in the second half with volumes down in the low double digits. You've spoken about some of the factors which have driven this. I guess you're able to elaborate, is it mainly in Canada that you saw better than market performance? Was it the case elsewhere as well, and do you expect to continue to benefit from onshore testing going forward?
Yeah. Definitely, Canada is a strong driver behind our volume performance this half. Yes, that's a big driver. Outside of India, also, we've managed to hold or gain share in quite a number of our countries. That is offset by not declines in India, a lot of which is market and related to student volumes. There is probably a small amount of market share loss there as well, but not significant this year as compared to prior periods that we've reported to you. As Kate touched on in her opening comments, clearly, onshore Canada has been a big driver there. I think more generally, IELTS does benefit from a more diversified exposure. We've got various use cases for IELTS.
As you know, it's used by students seeking study abroad, but also other use cases including permanency residency applications, migrations, skilled labor, also for domestic use cases for application into local universities. We have actually seen increasing volume into that domestic and intra-regional purposes in Asia and other parts of the network. We would expect moving forward, this continues to provide some offset to the declines in testing for students looking to study in those main destinations that are impacted by some of the border trends we have spoken about on the call today.
Okay. Great. Thank you. Just as a final one for me, are you able to provide any more color on the IELTS launch into China? I do not know if you are able to give us more detail on when you think it is likely to be a positive contributor to earnings.
Yes, certainly. I can take that one. What I would say on China, and just a reminder for those on the call, China is, we believe, a very attractive opportunity for us. It aligns very closely with our strategic pillar around gaining market share. China represents the largest market for language testing globally and also comes in at a very attractive price point. It has long been a focus for us looking to find a way to establish direct entry into China. For China, we continue to progress on our business case and continue to engage with the government who are taking an encouraging view of our expansion into China. The regulatory processes associated with approval have slowed plans to some degree, and we will come and update when we've got a formal update to make in place here.
What I would say, say taking a step back from that, is we still remain very confident in the long-term market opportunity and confident in the business case as we built it out. Albeit, it will be impacted by the delays associated with this current approval process.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jason Palmer with Taylor Collison. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. I've got two. The first one's on the contract asset. What have you assumed in the full-year guidance the contract asset will be, please?
I don't think we've told you that, but as I'm sure you know, Jason, we have a natural build of our contract asset in the first half. May and June are very big collection months for us, and you'll see a natural shrinkage of that as we get towards the year-end. I caught up with the team yesterday. They're well on track and motivated to get all the cash in. You should see that natural expansion in the half-year and contraction at the full-year continue this year.
Okay. Because the half-year was above the previous half-year. I'm trying to understand whether the full-year number will be above the previous full-year number of about 149. I thought contract asset was being driven by invoice rather than collection.
Sorry. Contract asset, yes, you're right. It is. We invoice a lot in Q3, so it's already come down in the first quarter of this calendar year. You're right, it converts into cash. The year-on-year performance somewhat depends on the mix. Also, FX had a fairly big impact on our U.K. contract assets at the full year. I'm not going to predict what that might be at the half year and have that impact at the full year. I'm not going to predict, but we don't see any reason it wouldn't follow normal trends that you've seen in the business at present.
Okay. So can I assume then that it will be roughly the same number as last year, but maybe slightly above because you were slightly above at the first half? It's just the cash flow conversion, that's all.
I can't really comment on your own model, Jason. Sorry.
No worries. This is my second question. Was in the past, like pre-COVID, this business, its cost of doing business growth was very similar to its revenue growth. I appreciate you're obviously trying to respond to a changing policy environment. I appreciate how difficult that will be to right-size the cost base. How does the business grow at the top line if you keep shrinking the cost base? I'm just trying to understand your thinking behind that for the medium term and at what point you might start investing behind the cost base and have a bit more confidence to invest behind it. That's my last question.
Yes, certainly. I can jump in, and Kate, feel free to jump in with some extra details here. This is very much the focus of the strategic cost efficiency program that we're focused on that Kate touched on. Yes, we've been doing work, and we'll continue to do work on lowering the run of the business costs in light of the reduced volumes. The review that we're focused on now is very much on our operating model and looking to take advantage of things like automation and AI. This is something that we've been progressing over the last period with our central application processing hubs. There are still many opportunities and areas we can focus on driving the use of automation and AI.
Another part of that that we'll also support is the simplification and modernization of our back office, not only business processes and technology. When we spoke about the work that we're doing there, the review will cover off those areas. It will also look at where it makes sense to continue to invest behind fewer projects that continue to position us for a more AI-driven and enabled future. We are continuing to invest. We're just very clear on the focus for those investments. I guess where we're trying to get to here, and I think you're touching on the same point, is clearly we fully recognize the need to reduce and restructure the cost base for the business to weather the current uncertain policy environment.
There is a really important balance here that we have to have the business ready to grow profits faster than sales on the rebound when it comes. That is the focus of this strategic cost review, getting that sustainable cost base that really allows for that scaling when conditions improve.
Yeah. I really appreciate your time. Can I just sneak one more in? I just think it's interesting is that you are obviously paying your staff on the recruitment side, probably some type of performance incentives. How do you maintain the labor base that you want to maintain in a more challenging environment if there is a variable compensation to their REM structure? Do you need to pay ahead? Are you paying ahead on that to retain the staff? In which case, you're carrying a higher cost base than you otherwise would want to. That was my last question.
Yeah. Look, Jason, that's something we are thinking deeply about at the moment. There are different elements to our incentive plans. One is the sales incentive, and that flexes very quickly with volume growth. We provision in our budgets 100% for that. That really helps us retain our high-performing counsellors and staff. The second element is sort of long-term incentives, which are share-based, and they're fairly set for the year. The biggest swing factor, or the biggest variable, I guess, is the annual incentive, which has components on the EBIT performance of the business and then components that relate to delivery against strategic initiatives.
As you'd expect, for this year, while the EBIT elements will likely not pay out, the strategic ones are the ones we're focused on, which are the ones that will help us deliver, to your point, on growing the right things for the future and delivering our strategy.
Okay. Thanks very much for answering my questions.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tim Plum with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Sorry, I just wanted to try and chuck one more in, if at all possible. Just wondering if you might be able to make some comments around the Home Office English language testing. Obviously, that's back up for re-tender. Can you remind us, how do we think about the volumes that are potentially available or at risk? Just wanted to double-check, if you guys are going in with the current partnership form in terms of British Council, Cambridge and yourselves, please.
Yes, certainly. Tim, happy to provide an update there to the extent that I'm commercially available, able to. The Home Office tender is part of a regular tender process that the U.K. Home Office goes through for the provision of their migration test. We are currently participating in the current tender that has now been extended for a further 12-month period while they work through the shape and form of their new tender. We will be submitting as IELTS, as the partnership, into that tender, and we will work through what the requirements are for that as it becomes clearer. It is a live process. We will take part in that and believe we're well positioned. The latest is that the current concession has been extended for a further 12 months, and we will continue to operate under the same conditions that we're currently operating under.
Got it. Just to confirm, that's just the work-related visas for the U.K., not the student-related visas. Is that right?
That's correct. The migration-related visas, yes.
Got it. Great. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Elizabeth Miliatis with Jarden. Please go ahead. Elizabeth, your line is now live. Please ask your question.
Sorry, just on mute. If I could just follow up with just a follow-up question on the IELTS gross margin. I think you'd said at the half-year—I could be wrong—that the margin would be at around 45%-46% for the full year. Are you able to just give us a steer on how you think margins will be just for the IELTS business this full year?
Sure, Elizabeth. We mentioned at the half-year that the margin was 41% and that we thought that would continue into the second half. It was subject to ultimately the country mix and the mix of our own test centers versus third-party mix. Yeah, I'm not sure where the 45% came from. That's not a number I recognize.
Sorry, I think I'm just going back to my model. Yes. No, that's right. Okay. Cool. Still around that sort of early 40% then?
Subject to the KBOS, I said, which was the India mix and the third-party test center mix as well.
Okay. Cool. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jennifer Xu with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Just the one simple question. To look at Australian student visa, I understand IDP doing high quality. Just wondering what should we look at for the market data? It has only high educational sector, or what other sectors also should we focus on?
Yeah. I'd encourage you to look at the visas issued for higher education. That's a good place to start.
Okay. Cool. Yeah. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, that for last earning call, we're talking about for the market, international student volume was around 20%-30%. Now, can we also compare that to IDP international student placement volume now, talking about 28%-30%? We are still, although not good, but still kind of in line with that?
Yes. I think when we spoke about our guidance for FY 2025 at a market level, that's right. We were talking about that 25%-30%. I think when we have a look at the visa data that's been issued for the first three quarters, and we included that as an appendix to our announcement, you can see across those four main destinations, they're currently tracking in terms of visas issued down 28%. We would expect that to continue to deteriorate for the remainder of the financial year.
Yep. Okay. All good from me. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from ZheWei Sim with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Wei Sim, your line is now live. Please ask your question.
Hi. Sorry. Okay. Great. Thanks. Just in terms of, I guess, the guidance that was provided at the first half and calling out less of a skew versus what has transpired, can you just talk about, I guess, firstly, what the difference was between the expectations at the time versus now? Also, just in terms of, I guess, the visibility and the outlook for the company, how much pipeline visibility do you have on the student placement as well as the IELTS business? If it is enough for you to, I guess, give guidance in a sense. Thanks.
Hi. My name is Kate. Yes, good question. Essentially, our change in expectations for the year is driven solely by student placement volumes. If I just take a step back, May and June have always been really important months for IDP for student placement volumes. I think we've generally had around 20% of our full-year volumes in these two months. In any year, it's a big month for us. As the half-year, as you said, we said we continue to closely monitor that pipeline build. We could see things getting a little weaker in the student pipeline earlier in the half, but not to the extent we could respond with cost actions to offset the impact. You'll see that through our subsequent reduction in overheads. All other parts of our business remain largely on track.
When we analysed our most recent data around the May and June pipeline build, we realised quickly that we needed to update our financial forecast, and that's why we're talking to you today. In terms of your question around, that's the one that can have the biggest swing impact on our revenue, but also on our profit because of the inherent operating leverage in our business. All the other lines of business right now, in terms of our guidance, we feel we're pretty confident that the forecast is going to be materially in line with our expectations.
Right. In terms of the visibility for the pipeline, can you just give some bit of color as to how much visibility you have? Thanks.
The pipeline build for the important U.K. autumn and northern hemisphere fall intake really starts to take shape and accelerate from May onwards. That is when we really start to get visibility as students convert from leads to applications to finalise. We are in peak pipeline visibility now. Given the intake is in October, that is the forward look we have right now.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much. That's all from me.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Josh Kannourakis with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Just a quick follow-up just with regard to cash flow. Could we just chat on how you're thinking about sort of second half operating cash flow as a result of this, but also maybe just in terms of what you've got in your control in terms of some of the intangible and investment in software and things like that, which is obviously a big component of cash flow as well in this year?
Yeah. Josh, we've been pretty focused on cash, as you'd expect. In terms of your last point of your question about investment into intangibles, we have pulled back on our CapEx this year. It will be around a third lower than our expectations at the beginning of the year because of, number one, our cash, but number two, investing behind the things that are going to move the dollar most. Our collections throughout the course of this year actually have improved. We've set up a different way of working for the accounts receivable team. We actually do all the, well, predominantly almost all the reconciliation before we issue the bills now. Where in the past, we used to issue them and then work through the complexity of the reconciliation. Once we get an invoice out, the collection is much quicker than in the past, so that's having an impact.
In terms of operating cash, it's on track behind the targets we set ourselves for this year.
Okay. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you. That's all the time we have for our question and answer session. I'll now hand back to Ms. O'Shannessy for closing remarks.
Thanks again, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to connecting with many of you over the coming few days. Thanks for your support, and we'll now close the call.