Hello, everyone, welcome to IVE Group's first half FY 2026 results webinar. I'm Lauren Hayes, your host today. Joining me on the call are Managing Director, Matt Aitken, and Chief Financial Officer, Darren Dunkley. We'll begin with a 20-30-minute presentation, followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. To submit a question, please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. Analysts can use the Raise Hand option, I'll invite you to unmute and ask your question. I'll now hand over to Matt to begin the presentation.
Thanks, Lauren. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the presentation of IVE Group's H1 FY 2026 results. I'm joined this morning by our CFO, Darren Dunkley, together we will step you through what is a solid result for the first six months of FY 2026. IVE is Australia's largest diversified marketing company, operating across every major marketing discipline. For 105 years, we have evolved alongside brands, technology, and consumer behavior. Through the ongoing execution of strategy, partnerships, and targeted acquisitions, we've brought strategy, data, creativity, production, technology, and fulfillment into one connected system. In our world, markets continue to shift, channels evolve, and customer expectations don't stand still. As I mentioned earlier, we've spent more than 100 years evolving with every major change in media, technology, and marketing trend through continuously building our capabilities around what brands need next.
That's why we're still here, and we'll be here for the next 100 years. Clients navigating change and complexity need experienced partners who know how to adapt and execute at pace, and we are that partner who's been doing it for over a century. In June last year, we held our maiden Investor Day, and during that day, we presented our five-year strategy to 2030. We've just come through the first six months of that strategy journey, I wanted to update investors on progress against various initiatives that we outlined during that time back in June. In terms of our ambition targets, as you'll see from today's presentation, we now have the EBITDA margin above 15% and the net debt remains below two times and in line with our own target of circa 1.5x .
If we turn our attention to the bottom of the slide, despite revenue softness in a particular part of the business, which we will talk about later in this presentation, we've continued our relentless focus on growing organic revenue and winning new business. You can see from the slide some of the great brands that have signed on with IVE Group during H1 FY 2026, and will be trading with us as we go into H2. From a capital management perspective, we've continued to be active in the share buyback. We've listened to investors who've asked us to move back to a dividend payout ratio policy, foreshadowing, at least at last year's AGM, our intention to reinstate this policy from FY 2027 onwards.
We have a continual focus in optimization of the business with a number of initiatives executed and/or commenced in H1. The Kemps Creek super site has been well spoken of, and I will pick up on that later in the presentation. We're currently consolidating sites in Victoria, moving our packaging business into our main Braeside facility, and we've undertaken a number of acquisitions, some of which are driving market consolidations and leveraging our cost base in existing markets that we're already in, specifically BMS and Impressu. Equally, we're always driving expansion and growth opportunities, with H1 examples being the fact that we're building Kemps Creek also to house a state-of-the-art packaging facility to facilitate the growth of that strategy. The Daily Press acquisition to enhance and build further on our Creative and C ontent offering.
Focusing on a more deliberate move into the event space, which I'll have more to say about later. The Queensland production presence through Impressu, providing a solid footprint to grow in that state and ride the wave of population growth and investment happening in Queensland ahead of the 2032 Olympics. At an innovation level, we've refreshed all the key customer-facing technology in the business. We've had extremely good feedback from existing clients, it's been central to some of our new business wins, we're continuing to focus on AI and automation initiatives, with priority given to initiatives that help with revenue, growth, and cost efficiency. As I said at the start of this page, we're only six months into a five-year strategy journey. As you can see, we've made meaningful progress in H1, we have a number of initiatives in play for H2.
This strategy underpins our vision to be Australia's leading integrated marketing solutions provider, delivering impactful, human-centered experiences across all channels. As previously mentioned, today, we're presenting a solid half-year result. Margin expansion is consistent with our strategy that we've spoken about before. Whilst we saw revenue softness in the catalog and publishing sector, with some clients cutting pagination and volume, we've also seen companies coming back into that catalog channel during the half two, and I'll have more to say about that later in the presentation. Cash flow remains strong, gearing is conservative, and whilst we've had an on-market buyback in place during H1, we haven't been active with that buyback since October. In terms of key updates, the 3PL expansion in Victoria that we've spoken about previously concluded in H1 with Dandenong South operational ahead of schedule.
The shed is going to be 80% full with some of the recent new business wins that will start delivering in H2. We commenced preparations to relocate the JacPak business into our Braeside facility in H2, and to in-source the raw materials and finished goods requirements into Dandenong South. New South Wales expansion is on track with the Kemps Creek build, it will be supported by major new clients coming online during calendar 2026. Again, I'll touch on Kemps Creek later in this presentation. The team are also continuing to work through the AASB S2 climate-related financial disclosure obligations the company will have to report at 30 June 2026, which is an ongoing cost imposed on the business, especially when you consider many competitors are not listed entities.
In terms of the key initiatives outlined on this page, I will cover all of those in more detail later in the presentation. I'm gonna take the financial dashboard as read, as Darren will cover all of the metrics in the coming slides. At this point, I'll hand over to Darren to walk through the next section of today's presentation.
Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everybody. I'll just now take you through the financial section of the presentation, starting with the underlying profit and loss on pages 10 and 11. We'll start off with the revenue. Revenue of AUD 476.5 million, which is down 6.2% on PCP, noting that this does include circa AUD 5 million of acquisition revenue in the period. This was, as Matt already touched on, this was mainly driven by softer revenue in catalogs and publishing and was foreshadowed at our November AGM. CX & Data, Creative, and 3PL revenues all performed strongly and were up on PCP. As Matt also touched on, the new clients in the period wins include such great brands as Bunnings, Subway, Bapcor, World Class, Mirvac, to name a few on that list, and obviously, there were others.
Packaging new business wins set to come online late in the second half of FY 2026 and into FY 2027 and beyond. Underlying earnings: strong material gross margin, coupled with tight cost control, drove EBITDA and NPAT margin expansion. It's a pleasing result, given cost increases absorbed during the period also. EBITDA up 1.8%. EBITDA margin increased from 15%, increased to 15.8%, up from 14.6%. EBIT down 3.3%. This is partly driven by an increase in AASB 16 depreciation due to the new Dandenong lease. Pre-AASB 16 depreciation is flat on PCP. NPAT of AUD 28.4 million. On a pre-AASB 16 basis, NPAT was in line with PCP. Just back, please, Matt.
On MGM, material gross profit margin, which is revenue less material cost of goods sold, MGM improved to 50.7%, up from 48.5% in the prior period. All revenue streams experienced either stable or improved MGM in the period. Further improvement in MGM reflects our leveraging of the improved buying power as the group's scale increases, as well as continuing changes in business mix. Non-operating items of AUD 5.8 million pre-tax, related to AUD 3.4 million of Lasoo operating loss, in line with PCP and budget. AUD 2.3 million of restructuring costs, predominantly related to the relocation costs of Dandenong and the Sydney super site. AUD 1.4 million of the acquisition costs relating to the acquisitions in the period.
This was offset, partially offset by AUD 1.4 million of net profit on sale of property and fixed assets. Turning to the balance sheet on page 12. Our balance sheet remains strong. Net debt increased to AUD 172.3 million, reflecting acquisition consideration funding, coupled with seasonal working capital increases and elevated CapEx for the growth initiatives. Gearing is broadly in line with expectations of 1.5x pre-AASB EBITDA, or 1.2x post-AASB EBITDA, noting that acquisition consideration was paid late in H1, with earnings being mainly reflected in H2 and beyond, as well as noting seasonal working capital is higher in H1 than H2. Senior debt facility increased in December by AUD 80 million to AUD 330 million of total facility. This is to provide further growth and expansion capacity.
Undrawn debt facility at the end of December was AUD 106 million. Capital expenditure, page 13. Capital expenditure is temporarily elevated due to the growth initiatives currently underway. In line with expectation, capital expenditure was AUD 22.5 million net of disposal proceeds for the half, including 12.2, which related to sheet-fed press replacement and build-out of the packaging capacity at Kemps Creek and Braeside. As we previously stated, AUD 7 million of this spend was deferred from FY 2025 to align with the Kemps Creek relocation in FY 2026. Capital expenditure also includes 6.1 related to the fit-out of Dandenong and Kemps Creek sites. Excluding one-off growth initiatives, capital expenditure is expected to normalize in FY 2027. Cash flow and dividends on page 14.
We are a high cash-generating business. Operating cash conversion to EBITDA remains strong at 84%. Working capital is expected to remain relatively stable moving forward, broadly in line with revenue and seasonality. Fully franked interim dividend of the nine and a half cents per share, stable on PCP and consistent with guidance. I'll now hand you back over to Matt so he can take you through the balance of the presentation. Thank you.
Thanks, Darren. Just turning to page 16, 15 and 16, in relation to the key initiatives. As I said earlier, we've spoken a lot about Sydney super site and the site consolidation project and our investicom over the last 12 months. This project is now nearing completion, with construction of the entire building complete. Those photos on that page are actual photos, no longer artist's impressions. We are currently in progress of fitting out internally, and this includes the new presses and finishing equipment have arrived and are currently being installed to support the packaging capacity expansion. We expect relocation of our businesses from the existing sites to commence in April, and we will exit all legacy sites by the end of the financial year.
We also expect the site to deliver a range of financial and operational benefits as we move into FY 2027, one of those being the mitigation of AUD 3.1 million of additional rent had we stayed in our existing sites, which is something we previously communicated. This will be a world-class facility, a showcase for customers, and a fantastic site for our 400-500 staff that will be based there, and I look forward to welcoming investors to the site later in 2026. Lasoo continues to perform strongly and in line with expectations and previous market commentary. The growth in retailers and unique users is driving year-on-year improvement in all metrics. The GTV in Q2 of AUD 8.1 million was higher than what we guided at the AGM, where we said it was going to be AUD 7.5 million.
In November, the monthly GTV hit AUD 3 million for the first time, and we saw a particularly strong December with GTV up 94% on PCP, GTV standing for gross transaction value. The average basket sizes remained steady throughout the half at circa AUD 200, and we continue to onboard new retailers into the marketplace. Retailers like BuyRight, digiDirect, dusk, Vinnies, and Decathlon. Lasoo still remains on track to break even during FY 2028, as previously guided. Despite experiencing revenue softness in catalogs, we remain of the view, as do many customers, that it's a very valuable and meaningful media channel that delivers tangible results. To prove this, we've undertaken further research to better understand current market trends, evolving consumer behavior, and the role catalogs play in shoppers' lives.
Importantly, we've partnered with external data providers, including data providers from the retailers and one of the Big Four banks, to quantify and demonstrate the measurable ROI our clients achieve from catalog marketing activity. Current trends indicate that consumers are becoming more selective, value-driven, and intentional in their purchasing decisions. While e-commerce continues to grow, physical stores remain critical as trusted connection points within the shopper journey. Our research went into significant detail to measure the true commercial media impact for our clients. The results were clear. Stores with letterbox catalog distribution significantly outperformed those with no catalogs or in-store catalogs only across all four key performing metrics.
Our analysis, based on external independent data, shows that when catalogs are delivered to letterboxes, retailers see a 2.5% uplift in scanned sales through the checkout or across the counter, a 3% increase in foot traffic, measurable growth in new and lapsed customers, and an increase in average transaction spend amongst existing shoppers. Whilst these percentage uplifts may appear modest at face value, within grocery retail, for example, these results represent a very, very high ROI. The research has been extremely well-received by retailers, with a number of retailers reentering the catalog channel or increasing activity off the back of the research, I would call out Bunnings and Coles as being two retailers in the last six-12 months that have both reentered the channel and/or increased volume considerably.
Events, if we turn the page and we go to events is emerging as a standalone value proposition and target market for the group that leverages our unique capabilities in creative and content, brand activations, and merchandise and apparel. Growth in the size, complexity, and holistic marketing demands of major events is an attractive revenue growth opportunity for us with both prospects and existing customers.
We've had a long history of playing a major role in bringing events to life, dating back to the work we did for the Comm Games in 2018, the FINA World Swimming Champs in 2022, the Women's Soccer World Cup in 2023. More recently, we've partnered with Tennis Australia for the last 3 years on every major tennis tournament around the country, including the Australian Open. I'll cover more on the next slide around what we did for the Australian Open in 2026. There are numerous events outside of some of those I've mentioned. There are numerous major events occurring in Australia over the next six years. We see this as a major opportunity to continue to grow our events revenue further. I've outlined a number of those opportunities on this page, bookended by the Olympics in Queensland in 2032.
Complementing the events business is our move into licensing, something we've been working on for the last two to three years. We now have license agreements for the supply of merchandise and apparel with Football Australia. That license dates back to the Women's World Cup in 2023, when we were producing merchandise and apparel during that time. Rugby Australia, which covered last year's British and Irish Lions tour, extends all the way through the Men's World Cup and out to the Women's World Cup in 2029. The NFL, as they look to bring games into Australia for the first time from 2026 onwards, and the current AFC Women's Asia World Cup, which is about to kick off, and we will continue to grow that space accordingly.
If we turn the page, I'll just turn the spotlight a little bit on what we've been doing with Tennis Australia and the AO, in particular in 2026. You can see from those pictures on that page there some of the work that we are producing in this event space. It's only a small sample of everything we did at the 2026 AO. We've just come off the back of that. It was a huge project with Tennis Australia, the biggest we've done for them in the last 3 years, they spent between AUD 3.5 million and AUD 4 million with us on this event this year. Their brief was to deliver a world-class, immersive experience across Melbourne Park that elevated the event environment, engaged fans on-site and on-screen, brought partner brands to life.
You can see from those images, and you can watch the video links that we've embedded in this presentation, to get a better understanding of how we transformed Melbourne Park into a cohesive, high-energy, festival-style environment. If you're looking at some of those pictures and you're wondering, "What did I really do?" That bottom left picture with the screens embedded in it, we built all of those structures, installed all of those structures for the screens to be embedded in. The DJ booth on the bottom right, we brought to life... all of the hospitality areas, all of the signage, all of the lighting in Grand Slam Oval, ballpark. You'll see there also a Kia clip with an opportunity to play a video on that tile.
That is off the back of our relationship with one of our large clients, being Kia, also being the major sponsor of the Australian Open, and we've worked with Kia to bring together their activation that they had at the Australian Open and really showcase that for them, and I'll let you play that in your own leisure. If we go to the next slide, again, I won't play this video at this point in time. I'll leave you to play it. Again, I reiterate that what you're looking at there on those screens is everything that IVE not everything, but some of what we have built, designed, built, and installed for the Australian Open in 2026, in addition to a lot of other work right around Melbourne Park and Grand Slam Oval.
Turning to acquisitions, as we foreshadowed at our strategy day last year, we intended on using the strength of the balance sheet to support targeted accretive acquisitions that support business growth and expansion, as well as consolidate existing markets that we operate in. Particularly, where it enables us to leverage our existing cost base. On the following slides, I'll briefly recap some of the acquisitions that we took place during H1. All of this information was communicated in our market releases during Q2. All three acquisitions are performing extremely well. Integrations are either complete, in the case of BMS, or on track, in the case of Daily Press. The staff and customers are very happy, and trading is in line with our expectations and consistent with what we noted in the market releases.
Given I did cover Impressu and BMS at the AGM, I'll cover Daily Press on page 25 in a little bit more detail for today's presentation. Late in December, we acquired Daily Press for total consideration of up to AUD 35 million. Daily Press is an agency that has revenues of AUD 23 million and earnings of AUD 5.5 million. We believe there's approximately AUD 1 million of synergies to unlock once it's fully integrated as we walk through 2026. The acquisition of Daily Press is a strong fit with our 2030 strategy and our intention to grow the Creative and Content part of IVE. It's a good fit with our existing creative business, which also incorporates the Elastic agency that we acquired almost two years ago now. It further strengthens our existing offer. It adds depth in social and performance marketing.
The business, being Daily Press, also owned a SaaS marketing platform called Indie, that we think has a great growth potential once launched in the coming months. There was also very little customer overlap, which means there's great opportunity to sell more IVE products and services to Daily Press clients over time. In terms of consideration, we paid AUD 25 million upfront. There is a further AUD 10 million of deferred consideration that could be paid over the next 24 months, depending upon the achievement of performance hurdles. Turning to page 27 now for outlook and guidance. CapEx will remain broadly unchanged, AUD 45 million net of proceeds. Net debt as at 30 June 2026 is expected to be 1.5x, or below 1.5x pre-AASB 16, which is less than 1.2x on a post-AASB 16 basis.
We still expect to pay an annual dividend of AUD 0.18 per share, fully frank, thereafter we'll return to a dividend payout ratio of 55%-65% of underlying earnings. Underlying impact is expected to be around AUD 50 million, this excludes the favorable impact of the H1 acquisitions, on a pre-AASB 16 basis, the guidance is around AUD 52.5 million, which compares with AUD 51 million in FY 2025. As many of you would know, the company's had a buyback in place for the last 12 months, I mentioned that earlier, with approximately 1.7 million shares being acquired and then canceled during that time. It is our intention to reinstate the buyback for the next 12 months and utilize that capital management initiative, should the board form the view that the share price is undervalued.
I'd like to thank all of our staff, customers, and partners for their contribution towards a solid H1 result. We're now happy to open the call for questions. Thank you and good morning.
Thank you, Matt. A quick reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. We'll begin with questions from analysts covering IVE. Analysts, please use the raise hand function, and I'll invite you to unmute. First, we'll start with Chris Savage from Bell Potter. Chris, if you'd like to unmute and ask your question, please.
Hey, good morning.
Good morning, Chris.
Hey, Matt. Hey, Darren. Darren, probably one more for you to start with. The GM was a pleasant surprise at 50.8%.
Mm.
Do you think you can keep that 50% level for the full year and going forward?
We do believe that our material gross margin, Chris, is sustainable moving forward. Again, we've shown that historically, that it's been stable, and over the last few periods, we've been able to grow that MGM. We believe, moving forward, that it will be sustainable.
With the acquisitions, do they positively or negatively impact the MGM?
Look, they will. I mean, yeah, they will positively impact the MGM, remembering that MGM is revenue less material cost of goods sold. For example, Daily Press is predominantly creative content revenues, which is not a lot of material, so that would increase the MGM, but also at the same time would increase the creative direct labor. On a whole, it will certainly support a sustainable MGM moving forward.
Just on the guidance, are the restructure costs still expected to be around that AUD 13 mark?
Well, we've got Lasoo, as we've already guided it at circa around AUD 4 million, which is in line with FY 2025. Then we've got the balance of AUD 10 million post-tax, related really predominantly to the relocation costs of the Sydney super site would be the main.
The restructure costs were quite light in the first half.
Yeah, correct.
-a jump up in the second.
Well, remember that we're in H2. We don't move into the Sydney super site until sort of mid-H2, so they are still to come.
The acquisition costs in H1 of AUD 1.4, is there much more expected in H2?
No.
Cool. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Chris.
Thanks, Chris.
Next up, we have Jonathon Higgins from Unified Capital Partners.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the time today. I appreciate it all. Maybe just first, just on the revenue side of things, you've obviously sort of called out at the AGM and then just called out the actual results today and been pretty in line with what your guidance is. Can you describe the opportunity on revenues across the group, noting obviously they're down a bit year-on-year, and also maybe weave in, I think, some of the opportunity you've talked about packaging and the like into the back half. Thanks.
I mean, the new business momentum from the teams, Jono, has been really good. It's, you know, it's always been a strong focus of the business to grow organically. We've outlined a number of clients there that we've won, like Bunnings. Okay, we've always done catalogs for Bunnings and the Bunnings magazine, but we've actually won a new contract with Bunnings to do a lot more in and around supporting the running of their stores and how their stores are marketed. That's a big separate contract, which is onboarding now and really won't commence probably in full flight till we get through to FY 2027.
We've obviously picked up the Domino's relationship as part of acquiring the Impressu business, but there's a lot more work in Domino's that IVE could be doing based on IVE's products and services outside of what the Impressu business was doing. Sydney Airport represents a great opportunity, particularly in and around the merch and apparel, as does Subway with everything we're doing in that space and some other franchisee groups. Look right across the board, whether it's, whether it's still in our print channels, whether it's in our marketing tech space. We're doing some great work with the banks, so extra sort of share of wallet work there with the banks, whether it's out in brand activations with event stuff, as you're seeing.
I mean, I've focused largely on major external events today and didn't really talk a lot about all the events work we do for customers and exhibitions work as well. Right through to a lot of wins in our logistics space, our 3PL space. I'm really excited about the new business that we're winning, we've got to at the same time, be able to outpace some of that change that we're seeing in our more traditional channel in and around some of that catalog and publication space.
Understand. Maybe just a couple more from me. Like, I mean, in terms of the operating margins, just tying into Chris's question earlier, like, you know, the material margins were obviously pretty strong. Operating margins and cost control was also the case. Is this something that you think you can continue to cascade into future periods? Like, it's pretty disciplined performance in the context of the R.
At the moment, Jono, from our perspective, we're not seeing any reason why we shouldn't be able to continue to keep that strong control on the cost base and the move into, say, JacPak into Braeside, and then the Sydney businesses into the Kemps Creek site is just a further step towards really tight control around operating costs and expenses. From a margin perspective, notwithstanding any change in work mix, if you like, we think the current margin structure is sustainable.
Sorry, that was going to be my next question, just to, just the last one, just to tie it up. You've undergone sort of some pretty reasonable consolidation activities on sites and the like. The New South Wales one looks like the tail end of this. Can you just sort of describe where you're at in those consolidations? You know, is there any obviously further ambitions with what you can see with the businesses you've got in hand, or are we sort of coming to a slower period on that?
I think we're coming to a slower period on it, Jono. You know, if I think about our presence in Victoria, we have big presence in the western Sunshine and then a big presence out in the southeast and Braeside and Dandenong South. They're the two central locations for us down there, sorry. Here in Sydney, we're very much centered around that western part of Sydney with this move. We'll be retaining a portion of a site at Silverwater, Huntingwood, Erskine Park, and Kemps Creek, and that will really be the extent of it for us, you know, unless we have other general business activity or new business activity coming out of the mix that we don't foresee at the moment. We're definitely, in our opinion, coming to the tail end of what's currently in front of us.
Thanks for answering the questions, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jono. Lastly, we have Shane Bannan at PAC Partners.
Good morning, gents.
Hi, Shane.
Can I just ask you to unpack a little bit what's going on with that catalog? I mean, you talk a good story in terms of what you're putting for these retailers, in terms of what enhancements they will gain if they use the facility. Obviously, they took a big, good step back in the first half. If I could just get some sort of quantification of that and the prospect of that building back in the current half, given the effort you've been putting behind pointing out the upsides of adopting the facility.
No, that's right, Shane. You know, in Q1, we had Officeworks inform us that they were going to step away from putting catalogs into letterboxes moving forward. That will flow through into H2. We've seen reductions in quantities from the two smaller of the supermarkets, but at the same time, from the bigger two, we've seen increases, that's not consistent across that sector, but it has certainly impacted H1 and would flow through into H2, in my opinion, unless something changed. We've seen customers cut pagination and/or volume as a way of saving money, clearly, we're seeing a lot of retail pressure on, we can see it in the results. Having said that, in the past, we've been a bit more countercyclical, where when times have been tough in retail, they tend to spend more.
I wouldn't necessarily say we're seeing that right now. What I would say is, off the research that we've done, and particularly this latest round, this is round number two in the last 12-18 months, this latest round with all of this independent data in there, it is being well-supported by the retailers who are across their catalog programs and/or are seeing issues with revenue and are looking to lean back into it. We've certainly got customers who have reentered, and I've named Coles and Bunnings as two, and I've got other customers who I can't name, who are increasing quantities as they look into the sort of that Easter period or the mid to back half of H2, off the back of some of the research we're showing them and the trading that's currently going on.
I'm not going to sit here and suggest that, you know, all of that volume's going to return in H2, that we've sort of seen stuck away in H1. I would also say that, you know, when we went through the Investor Day in June last year, we did talk about print, the print component of our revenue streams walking back by sort of single digits in a year-on-year basis based on what we thought would happen. Clearly, we do everything in our power to stop that happening as well.
You, just, in terms of quantification, we're talking about sort of AUD 30 million-AUD 40 million at the revenue level that, when it comes to this sort of area?
Yeah, more on the AUD 30 mil space there, Shane.
That's got to go for a full six months in the current period, then we've got some building back for these other guys. Net-net, you might be able to sort of break even in the second half in terms of.
Yeah
the impact on revenue.
Yep. Yep, yep.
Right. Okay. Matt, I know in past times, you made a big play for the uniforms business. That didn't crack a mention so much in the presentation. I'm assuming, have you sort of stepped back on that, given the miss dealt on the McDonald's contract?
Yeah, no, still a growth sector for us, and definitely one that we called out in that Investor Strategy Day last year and still up on slide six of this presentation today. We're growing organically in that space, Shane, so we're continuing to pitch for contracts win work. You know, I also have a view that it's an area that we'll make an acquisition in over time. I just haven't found the right acquisition for us there at the moment. In addition to that, we've had some other acquisitions in H1 that have taken priority over that strategy for access to the balance sheet, and I'm very happy with those three acquisitions that we've done in H1.
Right. Just lastly, Matt, I know in the past, you always looked at Lasoo and said, "Look, this is an opportunity to build a business," and obviously, you're a long way through that process. I think you also sort of suggested that you're not the natural owner. I'm just wondering how your thinking has evolved insofar as that's concerned.
The thinking, Shane, is we've got to really get it to break even and/or small profit to potentially have an event of either bringing another equity owner in with us and/or, it being appealing enough for someone to acquire office. If we're still of that view as we get into the FY 2028 financial year, that we're not the right owner for that business. It has some synergy with IVE Group today, so it's not completely a square peg, round hole. I think, you know, given we've already spent the bulk of the money we needed to spend to get it to break even, and we're that close to getting there based on the current numbers and current run rates, still indicating we'll get there in FY 2028, we want to see it through to that period.
Yeah, we will start to look for potentially an equity partner or a liquidity moment as we go past FY 2028 and out towards FY 2029 and onwards.
Great. Thanks, Matt.
Thank you.
Thank you, Shane. Matt, over to you to run through the submitted questions.
Thanks. We've got four or five questions, up here currently, and I'll pick off a couple and, between Darren and I, we will.
Yeah
Dance through them. We have a question here about whether we'll benefit from a stronger Australian dollar. Yes, we will on our imports. I would note that we don't import a lot of our raw materials against the US dollar. The bulk of our raw materials are imported against the euro. If that Australian dollar improves against the euro, then yes, we will, and we've seen some of that helping our, our margin structure, obviously, during H1, but certainly as we turn into H2. We will remain opportunistic to some of those potential opportunities that may present as we go through H2, and we'll use our balance sheet accordingly if that opportunity is there on that. There's a question about do we have a manager overlooking each state or a national manager?
We run a structure of divisional CEOs, in addition to Darren and myself, our people in sustainability and CMO. We have divisional CEOs looking after specific parts and areas of the business that are closely aligned, and underneath each of those divisional CEOs, we have a general manager of the site, a head of operations, and a head of sales, and we have a Chief Sales Officer for that. Hopefully, that gives you an indication broadly of our structure. We have P&L accountability, but for the leadership, right down to a site level, and that flows back up through the CEO level, and then back up through to Darren and I. Can we provide a little more detail on our progress with packaging and future targets? Sure.
One of the things that we've experienced in FY 2026 has been some of the new business that we've won hasn't quite onboarded as quickly as what we would have wanted. I can give you an example of, say, two clients, Sara Lee and Sanitarium, that are 84% of budget or of the numbers we expect them to do in the FY 2026 period. They are showing signs of getting up to that 100% run rate, particularly Sara Lee.
We have another client that we expected to do, new client that we expected to do AUD 1.4 million in the current financial year, and is worth AUD 4 million-AUD 5 million on an annualized basis, and they've only done AUD 200K year to date, which is in and around largely the testing process we go through with clients before we go live. That's been disappointing, but it is an indication of the long lead times some of these bigger contracts can take to onboard, and we have a major contract starting at the start of July, that I can't name yet, but it'll be one of our biggest packaging contracts in the business. And that has been 18 months in the making. We've done all the testing.
We're ready to start producing live product in the next couple of months, and that product will be saleable from the start of July onwards. From my perspective, the FY 2027 packaging revenues will continue to show growth and be healthy. The business has continued to grow through FY 2026, but some of those bigger revenue opportunities that we've had a line of sight on for some time now have definitely taken longer to come to fruition than we would have expected.
Darren here, there is a question here on our increase in net debt and the impact on interest expense moving forward, and if there is any penalties in relation to us paying down that net debt, which there isn't. At FY 2025, we updated the market that we had just refinanced the business for a further four years. As part of that refinancing, we negotiated slightly reduced margins on prior facility for interest expense. Our net debt, yes, it has increased from 30 June, that's really on the back of, as we've already discussed, the upfront consideration on the acquisitions that we did in late H1, as well as, you know, to fund the CapEx, the growth capital initiatives that we have, and also our seasonal higher point in working capital.
From a net debt perspective, moving forward for the H2 and beyond, look, we take a very conservative approach with our net debt. We will definitely look at bringing it down wherever we can. I would say now would currently be a high point in our net debt. We haven't got all the benefits of all of the earnings from those acquisitions, even though we've outlayed large amounts of consideration for those acquisitions.
Working capital in, as at 30 June , is generally lower, but 31st December , we'll see those benefits flow through to our cash flow and reduce our net debt, and we are again looking at, obviously, it's elevated CapEx in FY 2026 to fund the growth initiatives that we have, and we do expect CapEx to normalize in FY 2027 to again support lower net debt, more conservative net debt moving forward. We are not penalized if we pay down our net debt, and it's a continued focus for us to keep the interest expense number as low as we possibly can. Just to clarify as well, the interest expense number for the H1 pre-AASB 16 was AUD 4.7 million, and that compared to AUD 5.7 million in PCP.
The what you see in the accounts also reflects the take on of the new lease and the AASB impacts there, and the AASB impact increased to AUD 3.2 million from AUD 2.7 in PCP. I hope that answers that question.
Just while we're on that, we've got a question about the senior debt facility. The senior debt facility is provided by major banks in Australia, not by.
Yeah, majors. Yes, correct.
A number of those are the Big Four. We've got one question just around: Are we likely to implement a DRP in the future? At this stage, there's no plans to, but the board will continue to explore all options as we move forward. Lauren, I think that's all the questions as we can see on the screen at our end.
Thanks, Matt. That concludes today's Q&A and the IVE Group first half FY 2026 results webinar. Thank you for your continued interest and support. If you have any follow-up questions, please get in touch with the team. A replay of today's webinar will be available shortly on the IVE Group and Sharecafe websites. We appreciate your time and look forward to speaking with you again at the full year results.