Hey, thanks. Good morning and welcome to the IPH results presentation for the full year ended 30 June 2025. My name is Andrew Blattman. I'm a Senior Managing Director of IPH. With me today is Brendan York, who recently joined IPH as our new CFO. Many of you will have the opportunity to meet Brendan over the coming days and weeks. Thank you for joining us for today's presentation and for your continuing interest in IPH. Let me also thank the broader IPH team across all our regions for their efforts and contribution to our results for FY 2025. In terms of contents, I'll provide an overview of the operational and strategic highlights for the year. Brendan will discuss the financial results in more detail.
Before handing back to me, I'll then provide an update on the performance of our three segments – ANZ, Asia, and Canada, which will include information on financial performance and filing commentary for each segment. I'll conclude with a summary of our priorities for the current financial year 2026, and as always, happy to answer your questions at the end. Now, moving to slide four, as a reminder of the continued growth in the diversity and scale of IPH. In FY 2025, we completed our fourth transaction in Canada with the acquisition of Bereskin & Parr . This enhances our market-leading presence in Canada and further strengthens our global network. We have seven brands, over 1,800 employees, with offices in nine countries, servicing some 26 IP jurisdictions. In terms of some highlights, our financial results for FY 2025 reflect the acquisitions made in Canada over the past couple of years.
That has delivered a 6% lift in underlying EBITDA and a corresponding 7% lift in underlying net profit before amortization. That increase in earnings combined with our strong cash flow delivered enhanced returns for shareholders, with a 4% increase in FY 2025 dividends. We continue to deliver organic growth revenue in our ANZ business, despite lower market filings. In Asia, filings continue to recover, and our filings dropped 16.5% on the prior year. Initial filings of course represent just one component of revenue, so whilst we're yet to see that filing growth fully reflected in this year's Asian financial result, the associated future revenue events attached to these filings provide us a very strong platform for revenue and earnings into FY 2026 and beyond.
While the Canadian market was challenged this year due to the disruption from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, which I'll now refer to as CIPO going forward, systems upgrade, we successfully completed integration of Bereskin & Parr into Smart & Biggar, with cost synergies above our initial estimates. IPH remains a highly cash-generative business, and that's continued in FY 2025 with a cash conversion above 100%. Moving to slide seven, despite some challenges experienced in FY 2025, we remain optimistic and continue to expect further growth in FY 2026. From a markets and filing perspective, in ANZ, we've been disproportionately impacted by a larger exposure to U.S. patent filings, which were down significantly more than the overall market. However, our market share amongst high margins and international filers remains stable. Given the current weakness in U.S.
PCTs, we're deliberately focused on other regions such as West Europe and have also targeted Chinese corporates as part of our ongoing business development program. IPH's Chinese patent filings inbound to Australia are up by 18% in FY 2025. In Canada, we are now seeing encouraging recovery in patent workflow following the CIPO systems issues. Examiners report a notice of allowances, volumes are now exceeding pre-CIPO upgrade monthly averages. We expect that to continue into FY 2026. Meanwhile, in Asia, we are seeing continued positive signs of recovery, with promising filing growth across our jurisdictions and market share gains in our Singapore hub. As the market leader in this region, we remain well-placed to return to sustainable growth as markets continue to recover, and we capture further revenue associated with filings as they move through the examination and acceptance grant process.
From an internal perspective, we are optimizing our platform to generate further efficiencies. This includes the change to our corporate structure we announced in May. It also includes the recent alignment of our cost base and focus on operational efficiencies, which we expect to deliver group annualized cost savings of between AUD 8 million and AUD 10 million from FY 2026. FY 2026 will also include a full year contribution from Bereskin & Parr , together, of course, with a full year of synergies. As I just mentioned, our Canadian firms are absolutely focused on leveraging the anticipated revenue recovery as the CIPO workflow backlog starts to clear. Finally, we're also embedding AI into our core operations from patent drafting to administrative functions to streamline workflows and reduce costs. We're anticipating an improved result in FY 2026. We can move into slide eight, our five-year financial performance.
While we have seen some challenges across our regions, particularly in terms of lower U.S. market filings and the CIPO-related issues in Canada, IPH has continued to deliver a solid track record of growth. This growth comes from a mix of organic and acquisition. FY 2025 marks another consecutive year of growth reflecting our acquisitions in Canada. Given the group's high cash generation, this also means we've delivered consistent and increasing dividends to shareholders over that time. I'll now hand over to Brendan to discuss the FY 2025 financial result in more detail. Over to you, Brendan.
Thanks, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. Looking forward to an overview of the financial results and key metrics. Just to reiterate the point that Andrew made earlier, the results for FY 2025 include additional contributions from Canadian acquisitions, including the part-year impact of Bereskin & Parr, as well as the flow-on full-year impacts of prior year acquisitions, Robic, as well as Ridout & Maybee. As a result, revenue of AUD 710.3 million was up 16.5%, primarily reflecting these acquisitions. Acquisitions also boosted underlying EBITDA, which increased by 6% to AUD 207.2 million. As always, there is a foreign exchange element to our underlying results. For FY 2025, the group recognized a net foreign exchange gain of AUD 0.2 million compared to a AUD 1.3 million gain in the prior year.
The smaller gain this year was driven by the depreciation of the AUD against the USD, being offset by a counter impact of the appreciation of the Singapore dollar against the U.S. dollar across the same period. A slide detailing our FX impacts is included in the appendix. Underlying NPAT-A, which is underlying NPAT adjusted to exclude the income tax-affected impact of non-cash amortization, increased by 7.3% to AUD 120.6 million. We believe underlying NPAT-A more accurately presents the underlying performance of the business, given our growth by acquisition resulting in significant non-cash amortization costs relating to acquired customer relationships. Underlying basic EPS-A declined 2.3% from the prior year. That decline reflects the 9.8% increase in the weighted average number of shares on issue in FY 2025 following the capital raise completed in August last year. Statutory net profit after tax was up 13.2% year- on- year.
The company continues to generate strong cash flows with a gross operating cash flow to EBITDA conversion of 103%. That has helped us support total dividends declared for FY 2025 of AUD 0.36 per share, AUD 0.365 per share, which is up 4% on the prior year. The final dividend of AUD 0.195 per share will be paid on the 23rd of September. Onto financial performance, looking at the financials in a little bit more detail. As I mentioned, the FY 2025 result included additional contributions from the Canadian acquisitions. There is an incremental five-month contribution from Robic, an incremental three-month contribution from Ridout & Maybee, and also the nine-month contribution from Bereskin & Parr , which was completed in September 2024. While agent fee expenses increased, these are offset by increases in recoverable disbursements, which are included in revenue.
Employee expense increases reflect inflationary cost pressures, but also a net headcount increase of nearly 200 employees from acquisitions. Underlying EBITDA was up 6% to AUD 207.2 million. The decline in the underlying EBITDA margin reflects three main impacts in the Canadian business. The impact from the CIPO issues that Andrew referred to earlier, where member firms held their cost base in anticipation of the recovery, the inclusion of the lower margin Bereskin & Parr b usiness in the FY 2025 results, with full year synergies not expected to be realized until FY 2026, and lower legal and litigation revenue, with some cases settling early in FY 2025. The increase in depreciation and amortization relates to increased amortization on acquired intangible assets, while net finance costs were down 14.2% due mainly to the lower drawn debt.
The effective income tax rate, excluding the income tax impact of non-underlying expenses, increased from 23.4% to 25.7% due to the increased proportion of taxable profits coming from Canada. FY 2025 non-underlying expenses, net of income tax impacts, were AUD 13.2 million. These primarily relate to business acquisition transaction costs, acquisition integration costs, and general restructuring costs, which are detailed in the appendix. Onto slide 13, our balance sheet. IPH maintains a strong balance sheet. While trade and other receivables increased AUD 16.7 million against the prior year, this included AUD 18.9 million trade receivables relating to Bereskin & Parr . Excluding this impact, trade and other receivables were actually AUD 2.2 million lower than the prior year, reflecting improved receivable collections. The increase in intangible assets reflects the Bereskin & Parr acquisition, including AUD 34.6 million in acquired customer relationships.
The key movements in equity included the AUD 122.9 million capital raise, net of costs, a vendor equity consideration of AUD 27.7 million relating to Bereskin & Parr, partially offset by the on-market share buyback of AUD 74.2 million conducted broadly across the second half of the year. Onto slide 14, our cash flow on working capital. The group continues to generate strong cash flow with cash conversion of 103% and free cash flow up 4% for the year. The increase in working capital balances, excluding cash, was primarily due to the impact of the Bereskin & Parr acquisition, which increased working capital by approximately AUD 18 million. Trade receivables collections improved marginally during the year, and working capital management will be a key focus for the group in FY 2026 to unlock further cash.
We continue to be a capital-light business, and CapEx of AUD 7.9 million in the year includes various leasehold improvements relating to the Bereskin & Parr integration and property consolidation in Canada. Onto capital management. Net debt at 30 June 2025 was marginally down on the prior year. The leverage ratio at 30 June 2025 was 1.9x , which remains within the company's maximum target ratio of up to 2.0x . The leverage ratio increased from 1.6x at 31 December 2024 following the on-market share buyback. In December 2024, the group refinanced a CAD 180 million loan under the syndicated facility agreement, now split between a multi-currency revolving loan and a fixed-term loan, which provides more flexibility going forward. The group has drawn debt facilities of AUD 415.3 million, with maturity dates ranging from September 2026 to December 2028.
The dividend payout ratio of 86% of cash adjusted NPAT was in line with previous guidance. Our balance sheet maintains flexibility for further investment in technology enhancements and operational improvements across the business. Onto our like-for-like earnings. The like-for-like basis eliminates the impact of acquisitions and foreign exchange movements, which do create variability in the reported results. I don't propose to spend too much time here, given Andrew will provide further analysis of each of the three segments in the next section. Looking at ANZ first, pleasingly, we had continued organic growth revenue in this segment despite the overall decline in patent filings. Like-for-like underlying EBITDA margins were down, mainly due to inflationary cost pressure and increased IT costs, including cybersecurity upgrades. Like-for-like revenue in Asia declined very slightly, while like-for-like underlying EBITDA decreased 1.7%.
However, this represents a significant trend improvement from the prior year, where revenue declined 2% and underlying EBITDA was down 6%. Now to Canada, as Andrew will detail shortly, the like-for-like performance in Canada reflects the significant disruption from CIPO issues causing delayed revenue, together with the lower legal and litigation revenue and inclusion of the lower margin Bereskin & Parr business ahead of the full year impact of synergies. I will now hand over to Andrew to discuss these segments in more detail.
Thanks, Brendan. Over the next three slides, I'll provide an update on our three operating segments, as Brendan indicated. First slide is slide 17, the ANZ slide, where we continue to achieve organic revenue growth in our domestic business despite the overall decline in the patent market, particularly the decline in New Zealand patent market filings for the period. Underlying revenue and earnings were 2% and 1% ahead of the prior year. This included a currency gain, partially offset by increased costs and further investment in the business. On a like-for-like basis, ex-currency revenue increased by 1% with a decrease in like-for-like EBITDA of 2%. The lift in revenue, despite lower patent market filings, reflects a long-term annuity-style nature of our business, where current period filings represent just one of a number of factors contributing to our ongoing financial performance.
The decline in like-for-like EBITDA primarily reflects inflationary cost pressures, together with increased investment in IT, including a cybersecurity upgrade. In terms of filings, the total Australian patent market declined by 1.7% for FY 2025 compared to the prior year, with IPH group filings declining by 9% for the same period. As we have detailed previously, IPH member firms have a significantly higher exposure to U.S. clients relative to the market, and we continue to be impacted by a decrease in market filings from U.S. applicants, which were down almost 8% for the year. This has disproportionately impacted our total market share. However, our share among higher value international filers remains relatively stable. Slide 18 is Asia, and we continue to see positive signs of recovery in our Asian business.
Underlying revenue was slightly below the prior year, while the decline in underlying EBITDA reflects a negative currency impact during the year, primarily the strengthening of the Singapore dollar against the U.S. dollar by almost AUD 0.05. On a like-for-like basis, revenue was marginally below the prior year, while EBITDA decreased by 2%. As Brendan's indicated, this represents a significant ongoing trend improvement from FY 2024, where revenue declined 2% and EBITDA was down 6%. The decline in FY 2025 reflects the impact of lower non-lodgement revenue associated with the reduction in patent market filings across the region over the last two to three years.
We have a slide in the appendix pack, which you've seen before, reflecting the last three years of filings for each of the countries in Asia, and it's well worth having a look at that to see the increase this year and the position in the last couple of years. We are cycling that third filing story. This was partially offset by increased initial filing revenue associated with the improvement in IPH Asian filings. As I say, the patent filings started recovering strongly towards the end of the first half and continued into the second half with FY 2025 IPH filings up 16.5%. We had double-digit filing growth across seven countries in Asia. China up 14%, Indonesia up 31%, India up 22%, Malaysia up 17%, Philippines up 82%, Thailand up 21%, and Vietnam up 17%. Notably and very pleasingly, in Singapore, we outperformed the overall Singapore market.
Singapore patent filings were up by 2.4% year- over- year to April, while the market declined by 1.9%. As I've indicated previously and earlier this morning, we are yet to see that full filing growth reflected in this year's Asian result. The associated revenue events attached to these filings as they move through the examination process provide a very strong platform for revenue and earnings into FY 2026 and beyond. Now turning to Canada, the underlying results include the incremental contributions from Robic and Ridout & Maybee compared to the prior year, and the nine months, of course, contribution from Bereskin & Parr . On a like-for-like basis, we experienced a 1% decline in revenue and a 5% decline in underlying EBITDA.
As we have detailed previously, the FY 2025 result reflects a significant disruption from the CIPO systems following the launch of its new system in July 2024. The backlog of workflow linked to these systems caused significant delays in revenue. Pleasingly, we have seen a partial recovery in workflow in some areas; however, the CIPO systems were not cleared as quickly as they had indicated, causing a continued delay in revenue recovery in the second half. I'll give some more detail on this in the next slide. The revenue decline in Canada was partially offset by a solid increase in trademark revenue, as CIPO service levels improved throughout FY 2025 in trademarks. As we previously called out, litigation revenue, which is a variable revenue flow depending on cases, was lower in FY 2025 due to a number of cases being settled earlier in the year.
The decline in like-for-like EBITDA margin reflects those issues, but also reflects the inclusion of the much lower margin Bereskin & Parr business. Given that the integration was only completed towards the end of the year, and it was after March, we only received a partial benefit from the cost synergies in FY 2025. We expect, of course, a full year benefit in FY 2026. We've continued to generate client referrals from our Canadian businesses into IPH Asia Pacific firms and vice versa, and at the end of FY 2025, we have delivered a cumulative total of 796 referrals. Now, slide 20, that's the CIPO delay, and I'll refer you to the chart attached to slide 20 and give some further context on the CIPO issues we've experienced.
As you can see on the chart, the issues from CIPO upgrade did impact revenue recovery, mainly in examiners' reports, notice of allowances, and a variety of other official actions that came out of the patent that was not being received and processed, let alone the client responses to these official actions. These are all key revenue events for us, with our client base. CIPO service levels are continuing to improve, and you can see that in the chart, and the positive trends in processing times and responsiveness are starting to come through, particularly in June and July. The clearance of the backlog has begun, which is part of CIPO's roadmap towards normalization, and we expect that across the rest of 2026, the calendar year. As a result, we expect this delayed revenue to flow through, contributing to further growth in FY 2026. Now, slide 22.
Our strategic focus in recent years has been on acquisitions and, of course, subsequent integrations, and we have now created the market-leading IP presence in Canada. Having now successfully completed these Canadian acquisitions, our focus is now on enhanced organic performance and operational excellence. Through our transformation team, we are taking steps to refine our strategic direction to focus on building long-term value by strengthening the member firms within our group. The core of our revised strategic plan is to empower our member firms, the group, providing strategic guidance and shared capabilities. This will allow each member firm to retain its own identity, culture, and client relationships, and the model we pursue balances the strength of the local brands with the benefits of group scale. We are embedding AI into our core operations, whether it be patent drafting to administrative functions, streamlining workflows, and reducing costs.
We also restructured group corporate services to better support member firm-level growth towards the end of FY 2025. Slide 23 refers to our sustainability commitment. We remain very committed to operating a sustainable business, and we continue to make solid progress in each of our core strategic priorities here. I would then propose to go through each of these in today's presentation, but they are detailed in our sustainability report, which has been released with the annual report today. Looking at priorities for FY 2026, we continue to build towards our vision of being the leading IP services group in secondary IP markets. Our key priorities in FY 2026 to support that vision include optimizing our network of member firms, targeting organic growth, and operational efficiency. Our focus in Canada is to leverage our platform and the anticipated recovery in patent workflow following the CIPO system issue.
Our ANZ focus remains on organic growth with business development initiatives targeting the U.S., Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, and increasingly Chinese incoming filings. In Asia, we aim to build on the current momentum in filings to deliver revenue and earnings growth. We have realigned our cost base to drive operational efficiencies to deliver estimated annualized cost savings between AUD 8 million- AUD 10 million from FY 2026. Additionally, we will be implementing our transformation plan to empower our member firms to drive efficiency, deliver stronger commercial results, while continuing to invest in technology and operation improvement. Meanwhile, we have refreshed our group-wide incentive program to focus on driving member firm performance, business development, and working capital management. Of course, underpinning these initiatives is our strong balance sheet with continued high cash generation, and our focus remains on delivering improved returns to shareholders.
Despite short-term disruption, the medium-term fundamentals for IP remain supportive for growth. Companies' intellectual property remains one of their most valuable assets, and that requires protection across global markets. As a market leader across secondary IP markets with an unmatched global network, we are well placed to service our growth. In closing, I'd like to again acknowledge the hard work and contribution of all our people across the IPH group. Many thanks to all of you for your continued interest and support, and over again to our moderator, where Brendan and I are happy to take some 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 are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Tim Lawson at Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I might just start on the cost out. Can you just talk about whether that's across just the corporate head office or across the broader network of firms?
Hi, Tim. That's across the whole group. You've got a mix between the segments and corporate.
Okay. It looks like there's a AUD 9 million second half restructuring costs. I appreciate restructuring costs are somewhat related to Canada, but it's a much heavier second half as tough lighting. I'm just wondering whether any of that's related to just the announced cost out.
Yeah, you put them all together. You've had some cost out on the Bereskin & Parr integration, and then the corporate cost out, and obviously some other cost out across the second half of the year across the segments. That's a collective number.
Can you write that down? I'm just trying to understand the timing of realization of the AUD 8 million- AUD 12 million, given there's the restructuring cost within that AUD 9 million in the second half, obviously taken this year. Is that telling us that the run rate of cost savings of that AUD 8 million- AUD 10 million is, what's the run rate?
That's activated. Effectively, that's an annual run rate from July this year, and that's all ready to go. They're all done. There was a little bit of that benefit towards the tail end of FY 2025 as the programs have been activated. You've got a small proportion of upside coming through end of 2025, but the full annual savings, AUD 8 million- AUD 10 million, comes in from July for the whole of 2026.
Yeah, just switching to Canada, are you happy to sort of talk to what you think the backlog of revenue is and what that might mean for sort of margins into 2026?
Look, we're not going to commit to a number of the exact backlog revenue, what we think it might be. Obviously, there's still a lot of moving pieces, and you know, we're expecting some further recovery back towards the tail end of FY 2025, and that didn't quite get there. The key message was the Canadian businesses held their cost base for anticipation of the recovery. If you go back to the slide in the deck, you can see that the examined reports and the other notices are starting to tick up. We do think there is going to be some extra revenue certainly in FY 2026, but we think the normalization happens across the whole of calendar 2026. Some will still flow into FY27.
Yeah, okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Amanda Kelly [at] Barrenjoey . Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Just wanted to say congrats on the result. I guess I'm representing Ari and a few questions that he's got. Looking at corporate costs, in the second half, AUD 11 million, how do we think about corporate costs into 2026, and does that reflect cost out?
Just be mindful, there's some sort of, on a reported basis, a few large variances on foreign currency across the first half to the second half in the corporate segment. We are expecting, look, there is some cost out in corporate that happened towards the end of the FY2025 period. We are hoping that corporate costs will be slightly less than the FY2025 number. I'm not going to, we're not going to break out by segment specific guidance. Yes, there is some saving there, and we are expecting a downward trend from 2025- 2026 in corporate.
Okay, thank you. I guess on the SISO issues, how do we think about the timing of when they're online? Obviously, you said some improvement across FY 2026, but how are you thinking about the trajectory across the near and the midterm?
It's a fair question, and as Brendan mentioned, the, I won't say promise, but the suggestion that we might see some more activity in 2025 didn't really eventuate. As reflected in that slide that was, I spoke to the uptick from June and particularly in July, in all those official actions are strong. They're the starting point of some of these, they're occurring across the lifecycle, but some of those are also the starting point where it generates another deadline. For example, if the issue of an examiner's report generates another deadline for a substantive response to the report, which is even a larger revenue event. I think towards the end of this calendar year, and as Brendan's indicated, it'll go into the second half and possibly beyond, it's certainly in backlog territory now, which is good.
We've got there on that, and we'll just see how they continue to deliver.
Thank you. Sorry, just one final one. Do you have any sort of, in terms of CIPO issues in the second half and how they impacted EBITDA? Is there a kind of dollar qualification on that or?
No, we're not giving a dollar qualification, but it obviously did hurt the second half more than the first half. If you sort of run the first half to second half splits in Canada, you can see that the EBITDA deteriorated from, I think at the half year, we were about 2.3% down half to half, and then we ended up at 5.4% on a currency-adjusted basis. There definitely was a deterioration, but also to some extent, the teams were holding their cost base on the recovery, which didn't quite get there. There's obviously sort of a mix of factors into that outcome.
Thank you so much.
No problem.
Thank you. The next question comes from Apoorv Sehgal with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning guys. Sorry, I have to apologize. I just jumped on the call actually, so I have missed the bulk of the conference call so far. The first question, if it's all right, just ANZ and Asia, second half like-for-like revenues looks like it's gone backwards a little bit year on year. Would it be okay if you just stepped me through sort of the reasons why for both regions, why they went backwards in the second half?
We'll do ANZ first. There was a deterioration in the second half on filings, particularly in New Zealand, which was probably the biggest impact across the second half and a little bit in Australia. It wasn't a significant number, but that's probably the basis. New Zealand primarily. In Asia, the first half, second half split actually wasn't dramatic between the two halves. I think if you go back and look at the half year, we were pretty much flat like-for-like on revenue currency adjusted. At the end of the year, we've ended up at minus 0.6% like-for-like adjusted. Not a huge difference.
Okay. Can we talk about the FY 2026 like-for-like revenue growth outlook then for both ANZ and Australia?
It's probably in the Asian piece, the beginning of 16.5% filing growth, and particularly in Singapore, where there's even a market share improvement in filing growth. Given that Singapore probably has the fastest examination cycle, AP, I expect that next, you know, say it's the start of the next 70% in the case of Singapore because there's no translation, will come faster and will be in the FY 2026 year based on some of these increased filings in Singapore. The other jurisdictions have run a different time space in terms of their examinations and requesting examinations, but it's up across so many of those countries, and it's been up now since the end of the year.
I think it really started to come through in December that I'd start to expect some revenue growth beyond the filings, the next stage of opportunity coming through as a whole, given we are across six countries that have double-digit growth in Asia, which would come through certainly in FY 2026, and hopefully seeing some of it in the first half of FY 2026, which, you know, and we've seen some good momentum in Asia and even in July in that context. That's ticking along nicely. I said that back in May, I think that the Asian piece, the filings were strong, and that feeds that pipeline. We're very pleased with that. The Australian story, it really is, there's two parts to it. We are the biggest player in not only Australia, but also in New Zealand, as Brendan's indicated.
The New Zealand market is probably under more stress generally than what the Australian market is, probably reflective of the economy. We are pivoting more and more to not necessarily all U.S., but certainly seeing an increase in incoming filings out of China, which is up by the gate in % for us on the previous period. Look, we continue to aim precisely there in BD. As Brendan's indicated, we've reset our cost base across not only corporate and some of the business units as well.
Okay, thanks Andrew. It sounds like you do expect like-for-like revenue growth in FY 2026 across both those regions, ANZ and Asia.
I think it's probably a little bit too soon to commit on the ANZ given the trajectory of the filing. We're optimistic on Asia, certainly just given the filing data.
Okay. The skepticism on ANZ specifically is because kind of with where U.S. filings are tracking, because I think U.S. has been pretty soft, which would indicate, I guess, 2026 could be challenging. Is that kind of thinking there?
I think that it certainly is down almost 80% on the year, the U.S. PCTs come. That's significant. For us, that is at face value a challenge. We've also seen this coming and we've pivoted to other markets to try and correct that. That momentum will continue.
Yeah, Andrew, just that U.S. challenge, is that not the same challenge for Asia as well? Doesn't that affect both ANZ and Asia together?
To a certain extent, AP, but we're also getting, we're seeing a large amount of incoming into Asia out of Europe and particularly also out of China. Probably more impact in Asia from China incoming, both at corporate and associate level, but certainly at corporate level and some very strong filings, not only Europe, but certainly some technologies out of the U.S., which are also strong for us. We're probably getting a greater exposure in Asia, particularly countries ex-Singapore and Asia, where a lot of the big corporates are now starting to designate Southeast Asia, including countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, as priority one type countries. I think based on their probably their population size and increasing GDP, it's an attractive market that they want to get into, which is a momentum the like of which we haven't seen before. It's a nice position.
It's a stronger position for us in Asia than probably anywhere, no question.
One final question, I've taken up time, but it's on the same sort of topic. Is part of the challenge in both your regions that price becomes less of a tailwind going forward? Because if I go back a couple of years ago, you put through kind of, let's call it, above average price increases. My understanding is that takes kind of two, three years to roll through the book of clients because some clients are on fixed terms that are contracts. Is that now less of a tailwind to your revenues on a go-forward basis compared to perhaps what it was in the last couple of years? Is that part of the challenge as well?
We took advantage, as I imagine everyone did, of the inflationary period two or three years ago or two years ago. Our price increase is probably now more modest by comparison, but they're still ratcheting through to it. Our competitive dynamics in Southeast Asia is probably a stronger one to support stronger price increases because there's very few, I don't know of anyone that has the competitive position we have in Asia in terms of coverage across so many countries. That supports a price differentiation probably more so than it does in Australia. I think there's still pricing opportunities certainly in Asia and probably more modest ones in Australia.
Appreciate the time, guys. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Sam Haddad with Petra Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi Andrew, hi Brendan. Apologies, I've also jumped pretty late on the call. Just a couple of follow-on questions. Just on the filings have been weak, obviously. Are you concerned that we're going to see another headwind wave in terms of the examination pipeline? Because obviously, if you've got weak filings, that leads to a weak examination pipeline. Are we starting to see that impact the second half in Australia? Has that contributed to that weakness?
That's a fair comment, Sam. I think we're entirely cognizant of that. The transfer piece continues to be a strong part of our story. I think there was another 800 transfers in Australia, or maybe 709, I can't remember what it was now, but it was reasonably strong. We continue to focus on that because that can try to fill the post-filing deficit with transfer that we have been successful in the past. We had a very strong transfer result a couple of years ago. A couple of thousand cases came in. We'd love to see a couple of thousand every year, but we don't always get that kind of achievement. We're still focused on transfer and pending portfolios in. That's how we're trying to counteract that. It's a fair comment.
It feels like the case transfers is not offsetting it though. Because as we know, examination workflows are much higher revenue, and it has a more delta on the margin because it's about utilizing your workforce. I'm just, yeah, wondering what the margin impact is.
Yeah, we're aware of that too. That's why our transformation team is reacting as it is reacting, and a cost-based realignment is also reacting to that. We're aware of the pressure points and margin and continue to adapt to that.
Okay. How quickly do you think you can pivot your business towards China? I know you're talking about increased filings coming in already. Obviously, you're still heavily reliant on the U.S. client base, and as you've called out, PCTs are still weak, while China PCTs have been strong. How quickly can you pivot to that exposure over the next three years to get more of that leverage?
As I said, you might want to pick it up in the call, but most recently it's up 18% for us in Australia of Chinese incoming applicants. A big part of the growth we're seeing into the Asian business, as I said, to AP is probably even more strong coming out of China. There's, of course, the ability to leverage that activity from Asia under the same brand, the Spruson, and even the brands of Griffith Hack and AJ Park. We look to China now increasingly into the Australian market. We're aware of the opportunity. At the same time, we're not going to walk away from the U.S. It still is primarily the highest source of opportunity for us. We know we need to think laterally, and the China piece, and particularly the opportunity of Chinese corporates of volume, is attractive to us.
When we can offer a service across multiple countries to achieve that, that's a way of fast tracking that.
Yeah, I also suggest you move away from the U.S. It's just more of a diversification.
No, I hear you.
Just finally, the question, legal case pipeline, what's your visibility there in Canada?
I think they've started a few good cases this year, which is nice, and including Robic has some good opportunities coming through. The nature of these, as you know, Sam, has been in this game as long as I have in terms of the public markets and our business. Until we get to the court and get into the front door, and we make a lot of money on the actual trial period, it's not banked. We know these cases can settle. There's a good pipeline, increasing pipeline in Canada, probably stronger than it was at the beginning of last year, including some opportunities for Robic and some quite interesting cases for Robic, which we're very keen on. Until they're in, they're not in.
Good pipeline in Smart & Biggar as well. Yeah.
All right, thanks for your time.
Thank you. The next question comes from Apoorv Sehgal from UBS. Please go ahead.
Cool. Thanks for taking the follow-ups, guys. Again, maybe somebody's got to ask because I did jump on late. First one, the AUD 4.5 million of Canadian synergies that you'd called out from Bereskin & Parr previously, just remind us how much of that came through in the second half. I think you had like a headcount reduction back in February. I'm guessing something came in the second half. Is there a proportion that comes through kind of through FY 2026?
Yeah, look, I would, those were called out, I think, back in the half-year results. All of it's been actioned. Just be mindful that some of it's property related. Some of that sort of sits below the EBITDA line, so just be wary of that. Those synergies and savings are included in the overall AUD 8 million- AUD 10 million of cost out across activated for 2026. You should sort of consider that AUD 8 million- AUD 10 million all encompassing of the Bereskin & Parr and the other restructuring that was done.
Okay. Some of the AUD 4.5 million's been done. Some of it's left over in 2026, and that's part of the AUD 8 million- AUD 10 million.
[crosstalk]
Oh, sorry.
Everything's been done. There's nothing more to do. That's all achieved. I'm just saying just with your AUD 4.5 million, some of it is property related. If you're pushing it against certain lines of the P&L, not all sits above EBITDA.
Sorry, the AUD 8 million-AUD 10 million in 2026, that's separate to the synergies?
No, that's all inclusive. Yep, everything together. You've got the AUD 8 million-AUD 10 million is a section of Bereskin & Parr. A proportion of the AUD 4.5 million , it's got some corporate and it's got some segment-related business unit-related cost outs as well.
Okay, got it. Sorry, I'm sure someone asked this question before me probably, but the AUD 8 million-AUD 10 million, that all happens in 2026?
Yeah, it's all done in FY 2025. There was a small realized benefit in 2025, but towards the tail end of the year. We're just saying, you know, from a full year perspective, you can have that for FY 2026.
AUD 8 million- AUD 10 million. Okay. This is probably a bit of a stupid question, but I'll ask anyway. When you say Asia had lower non-lodgement revenue, Andrew, what is lodgement revenue, sorry?
Oh, that's just the filing and the translations at the start. When you mean, no, just revenue. Okay, sorry. Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
If you're going to break the revenue up into essentially the buckets, we get some revenue on the filing, and then we get a whole bunch of revenue events that flow further on. Anecdotally, a smallish proportion of the revenue comes from the filing, and actually a lot comes from further down the line.
Okay, the non-lodgement revenue just means examination work, basically.
Yes, yes, yes. It's examination. Since we've had lower filings in Asia in the last couple of years, that's what we're cycling against. Given that the examination revenue is greater than the lodgement revenue, even though the lodgements are up very strongly, we didn't catch that all up. We're set up well for 2026 and beyond.
Okay, gotcha. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand it back to Dr. Blattman for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for your interest and continuing support. I look forward to catching up in the next few days. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.