Thanks very much for the introduction. I'm delighted to be here today to take you through the first half results for 2025 for Iress . I'm joined today by our CFO, Cameron Williamson. I will first provide an overview of our strong first half results and our strategic achievements before Cameron will take you on a deep dive into the financials and our framework to support what we think are some exciting growth initiatives. I'll then talk through our growth strategy and the outlook for the remainder of the year. As you know, we did make an announcement on Friday relating to private equity interest in Iress . We do not intend to be commenting on that today. We're here to discuss today what we think is a great first half performance and our growth plans for the future.
Before we dive into our first half 2025 performance, I wanted to touch on some of the fundamentals of the Iress business. This slide provides an overview of where Iress stands following the successful completion of its transformation program. This has allowed us to reset and refocus the business, positioning us for long-term growth. Following asset sales, Iress is now a much more streamlined business, leveraging its core competencies and its strong businesses to grow into businesses wealth and trading. In wealth, we are the market leaders in Australia and the U.K. with 2,000 clients and more than 60,000 end users. Our trading business is a leader in Australia with strong presences in the U.K., Canada, and South Africa. One of the features of Iress are the client relationships, which are so strong and enduring.
More than 90% of our top 20 clients have been with us for more than a decade. Despite industry consolidation, despite regulatory intercessions, despite the ebbs and flows of market, churn is very low at below 2% across the group. Given the nature of this client base, recurring revenue is also very strong at above 94%, and that provides a consistent and reliable revenue stream that supports ongoing investment. With transformation complete, we are investing to accelerate growth to capture the significant opportunities we see in large and growing addressable markets in both trading and wealth tech, which are right adjacent to our core businesses. I look forward to talking to you about that in greater detail later in the presentation. On the next slide, we're really going to be talking about the continuing business.
Cameron will talk about the reported results, but the continuing business is the focus for IRESS Ltd. These are the businesses post divestments. These are the businesses that are going forward and will be the basis of how we report in the future. This slide, we think, provides a better representation of the performance of Iress's underlying businesses. They exclude the contribution from divested businesses that have been sold over the last few years. In 2025, in our first half, on a continuing business basis, revenue increased by 6.8%, driven by solid performance in our Trading and Market Data and U.K. Business. Adjusted EBITDA was at CAD 60.2 million, which is up 8.7%, with margins continuing to improve, up 40 basis points to 24.1% during the period. This has led to growth on a continuing business basis in UPS and UPAT of more than 19%.
This has enabled the board to declare an interim dividend of CAD 0.11 per share, 50% franked. I'm really pleased to be able to share these results. They represent a real inflection point for the company. Transformation is complete and has delivered the expected results. The continuing business of Iress is more streamlined and capital-light and profitable, with a continuing focus on disciplined execution. The momentum of our continuing businesses and the stranded cost savings that are yet to come and the balance sheet strength provide us the opportunity to selectively invest for sustainable growth. There are significant tailwinds in industries we serve, making this an exciting new chapter for Iress. With our execution capabilities, our data strengths, and domain expertise, we're well placed to capitalize on growth trends. Iress has momentum. The 2025 guidance is affirmed. On a continuing business basis, this actually represents an upgrade.
We've removed significant parts of the business and been able to maintain guidance. Moving on to the operational highlights, this slide summarizes our 2025 first half performance. During the half, we saw the core businesses strengthening while advancing investment in new products. The U.K. had another strong performance with revenue up 12.1% and good momentum. What's even more pleasing is there's more momentum in the pipeline with significant RFPs in place in the U.K. We're expecting a strong second half there. Our Trading businesses also had a really strong start to the year with an uplift of 7.8% in revenue. I should also note here that I'm incredibly proud of the team delivering what is colloquially known as the ASX Single Open, which was part of ASX's Service Relief 15.
It didn't get a lot of media attention, but this was significant because it brought the ASX into line with exchanges around the world and was a significant project for us and the ASX. This was an incredibly significant project for the team, but also has paved the way for further improvements in Iress 's trading technology, and most significantly includes the delivery of our new cloud-native buy-side EMS platform. During the period, we're continuing to focus on cost and cost disciplines and what we call our stranded cost program. This will take out another CAD 12 million -CAD 16 million of the corporate cost base over the next few years, and this is providing us with additional capacity to invest for growth. Cameron will provide a few more details on this later in the presentation.
We've also made very good progress in building out our data and AI platforms and our capabilities. In fact, we've just appointed a Head of AI who joined the company with substantial experience from AWS and CBA. We've also been focused on accelerating growth through investment in new product initiatives. It's been an exciting period on that front with the launch of our Iress Data Insights and Funds Flow product. We've also continued to develop our wealth division's retirement income solution, as well as a new wealth tech offering for the millions of people who want help and guidance but don't currently have access to traditional advice solutions. We also continue to build on our strategic partnerships to drive that innovation. This has been a really impressive set of achievements on a continuing business basis. We're really excited about where the company is at, and there's more to come.
Before handing over to Cameron , I just want to sort of cover off on the continuing business across a number of years. This slide shows the positive impact of transformation and benefits of a streamlined business, and it's delivering strong and improved results. As you can see, we are reaping the benefits of embedded financial discipline and significant efficiencies from transformation with strong and improving results across key metrics. For example, adjusted EBITDA is close to double that of the first half in 2023, and EPS has tripled over the same period. These are fantastic results. We're really pleased with them, and we're really pleased about where the continuing business is at. I'm going to hand over to Cameron now to take you through the detailed first half financial results.
Thank you, Marcus, and good morning to everyone on the call. Today, I'll take you through the first half results with particular focus on the continuing business that Marcus has touched on already. I will also take you through the headline results, which do include the contribution for the divested businesses. For clarity, the continuing business represents our global wealth and trading businesses, that being APAC Wealth, U.K. Wealth & Sourcing, and our global Trading and Market Data business, which now captures South Africa and Canada. More details are available in the downloadable Excel analyst pack, which has been provided in addition to the appendices to this presentation. These split out the impact on asset sales and the continuing business, so you can understand the trends and the financial performance of Iress going forward.
These are a strong set of results for the half from the continuing business, with the uplift in revenue a highlight. The balance sheet has continued to strengthen following the sale of our superannuation business and the impending sale of our Quant House business, which is due to complete this quarter. Leverage now sits at 0.8 times and is expected to decline further post the completion of the Quant House sale. Earlier this year, if you recall, we did refinance our debt facilities. They are on lower limits and have been right-sized for Iress ' needs going forward. The business is very comfortable with where the balance sheet is sitting at this time.
We have just commenced our stranded cost program, which is looking to reset the corporate cost base following asset sales, and we are targeting annualized savings of CAD 12 million -CAD 16 million over the next two years, and I'll take you through that shortly. At the same time, the board has declared an interim dividend of CAD 0.11 per share. That's a slight uptick on the final dividend paid earlier this year for 2024 of CAD 0.10 following its reinstatement. Turning to the headline results, which does include the contribution for the divested businesses through this period, and the summary of those divested businesses and their related TSAs is included as an appendix to the pack. The group for the half has delivered a statutory net profit after tax result of CAD 17.3 million. That's in line with the same period of last year.
Our adjusted EBITDA was down 3.9% to CAD 64.4 million, again impacted by asset sales. However, when looking at holistically across the group, the group's underlying profit after tax of CAD 32.9 million, underlying earnings per share of CAD 0.176 per share, and statutory NPAT are all pretty much in line with the first half of last year. While assets have been sold, the continuing business has continued to improve, making up for the earnings that have departed the group through those asset sales. Turning to slide 10 now on the continuing business and its performance for the half, operating revenue up 6.8% versus the same period last year. That's significantly higher growth than the past few years, which has been more in the 2% - 3% range. Strong ongoing growth coming from the U.K. Wealth business and pleasing improvement coming out of our Trading Data business.
There was some favorable currency, and I'll touch on that shortly. At the cost line, operating costs up 6.2%. On a constant currency basis, that's more like 4.2%. Currency obviously having an adverse effect on our cost line. The most significant part of our cost increase has been our R&D investment in new products of about CAD 5.8 million. Notable focus on our new generational wealth tech, particularly for the U.K. unadvised market, and we have progressed that quite significantly through the first half of this year. Other costs have been well contained, and costs remain an area of focus, as I've said, particularly with the stranded costs looking to come out of the group. At the adjusted EBITDA level, up 8.7%, that has got also ongoing margin expansion.
Very pleasingly, UPAT and underlying EPS across the continuing business, so adjusting for the divested businesses, both up about 19% on the same period last year. Stronger operating performance. We are benefiting from reduced leverage on the balance sheet, all delivering a pleasing set of results for the group going forward. Turning to the revenue now, revenue of 6.8% growth, or 4.4% on a constant currency basis, did benefit from a lower Australian dollar through the period. The uptick in revenue came via the global Trading business as well as the U.K. Wealth business, where we are winning new RFPs, as Marcus has alluded to. APAC Wealth was down CAD 1.1 million versus the prior period, and it was impacted by a client restructure in mid-2024, which we flagged last year.
Adjusting for this client impact, revenue for this group, for this part of our business, was actually up 4% on the first half of last year and 2% on the second half. We have got growth coming from our APAC Wealth business after adjusting for that particular impact. The other revenue was also higher, CAD 1.8 million. That's largely on the back of TSA income, as there are a number of divested assets that are transitioned. As previously mentioned, these are captured in the appendices, so you can see the timelines associated with those. Turning to the costs now, costs are up 6.2% to CAD 189.2 million. That increase is about CAD 11 million on the same period of last year. CAD 3.5 million of that is FX, as I've mentioned. The most notable uplift is in our R&D investment of CAD 5.8 million for the unadvised U.K. market.
Nothing could be capitalized in the prelim work that was undertaken in regards to the work that we have been doing. We've made great progress in this area. We do understand there's an opportunity there, and we are pursuing that. Other costs across the business were kept very tightly controlled. They're up 1.1% versus the same period last year. Lower staff costs of about CAD 3.1 million. That's about a 3% reduction in headcount over the course of the last 12 months. Higher non-wage costs are due to an increase in software and cyber-related spend, together with a number of one-off benefits that we saw in the first half of last year. At the adjusted EBITDA level on slide 13, for the half on a continuing business was CAD 60.2 million. That's 8.7% up or 5.1% on a constant currency basis.
Growth is coming out of our U.K. Wealth business, which was up CAD 2.2 million. That represents a more than 30% increase on the same period last year and follows on from the growth that we saw in 2024, highlighting the recovery in that part of our business. The global trading business is up CAD 2.1 million. That's a 7% increase on the prior period as well. APAC Wealth did see a decline based on lower revenue, as I've already mentioned, and that was largely a result of the client restructure in 2024. Turning to the balance sheet now, the last couple of years, Iress has made a conscious decision to strengthen the balance sheet. The first half of 2025 has seen that trend continue. Net debt and leverage levels are significantly down on where they were 12 months ago.
Net debt at 30 June was CAD 92.6 million, with leverage at 0.8 x. Both of these will improve further following the sale of the Quant House business expected in the coming month or two. At the same time, and as outlined in our capital management plan, our R&D investment has increased. R&D CapEx as a percentage of revenue rose to a touch on 5% of revenue and at the lower end of our target band of 5% - 7%. Notable investment has been made in the last six months in our new cloud-native EMS platform, as Marcus has already mentioned. This will provide greater interoperability and improve client functionality going forward. This comes on top of the R&D OpEx already outlined and demonstrates Iress ' commitment and willingness to reinvest back into the business to drive new revenue streams.
We do have aspirations for further growth, and I'll touch on that shortly. Our capital plan settings and improved cash flow mean we're now able to reward shareholders with ongoing, sustainable dividends. The first half dividend of CAD 0.11 per share is an uptick on the CAD 0.10 dividend that was paid in February. This represents a payout ratio of 62% for the half, and that sits within our 50% - 70% payout ratio target range as we have established. We're confident in our balance sheet settings. We feel we have the right balance for growth capital and rewarding shareholders via sustainable dividends going forward with sufficient dry power to take advantage of other opportunities as and when they present themselves.
Just turning to slide 15 now, you will have heard that we have got a program of work to address stranded costs and realign our corporate cost base in light of the continuing business. We are looking at reducing our annualized corporate cost base by CAD 12 million -CAD 16 million over the next two years. This will come about via rationalizing software and IT-related spend, downsizing our property footprint, reducing our ongoing discretionary spend across the group, and headcount will also be looked at. The timing of these benefits is significantly impacted by the completion of the five remaining transitional services arrangements that we have, and as I've mentioned, they're captured in the appendices. We are looking at CAD 8 million to CAD 11 million in annualized savings achieved over the next 12 months with an additional CAD 4 million-CAD 5 million in the 12 months subsequent.
We feel this will significantly feed into a more efficient Iress with improved operating metrics going forward. Just turning to slide 16 and our growth outlook, it provides a capital framework for the next three years as we look to accelerate growth. You'll have heard today that notwithstanding an improvement in our operating performance this year, we do have ambitions for further growth. Our revenue has seen an improvement in its growth rate from 2% - 3% the last two or three years up to 4%- 5% in the current year, while our EBITDA margin has improved up to the mid-20%s, and that was up from in the teens not so long ago. In our capital management plan, we've targeted our R&D on new product and revenue streams to be in the 5% of revenue range.
The last couple of years it's been lower than that, but we are moving up within our target range as we are developing our product roadmaps. Things are moving forward. The next three to five years, we will be investing in our R&D efforts to build new revenue streams, and you'll hear more from Marcus shortly on this. We do see a pathway for our revenue growth to be in the 6%- 8% range over the coming years, likely 6% in that sort of lower end of that band by 2028 and growing from there. Our stranded cost program creates capital for reinvestment into this. We see margins edging up slightly over the coming three years with ongoing cost management helping fund that growth. Our R&D CapEx as a percentage of revenue will increase and be in the 5 %- 7% band as set out in the capital plan.
We do not see leverage increasing through this period. If anything, we see it actually declining whilst we maintain a dividend payer within our 50 %- 70% target range. The program itself will be self-funding as we look to build new revenue streams. All of this is really to set Iress up in its next stage of organic growth. We have a strong core business with improving performance metrics and organic growth strategy over the next three years to build new revenue streams with a flexible balance sheet with capacity to take advantage of opportunities as and when they present themselves. With that, I'll hand it back to Marcus, who will take you through the rest of the presentation.
Thanks, Cameron. As we enter the next phase of our strategy, Ires is well placed to capitalize on a couple of key growth opportunities.
We're really doubling down on our core capabilities while selectively investing in trading and wealth tech. Most importantly, that's coming with the funds from the business that can, from the funds we have actually from the existing business. Cameron made that point on the last slide. We regard this as sustainable growth. The unmet advice needs across Australia and the U.K. are significant. There are huge unadvised populations in Australia, around 12 million, and in the U.K., that's about 25 million, and there's a strong need and appetite to access advice. There's also strong demand for AI-led solutions in both Australia and the U.K., where consumers are severely lacking access to financial advice. These unmet needs come at a time when the need for advice is growing as intergenerational wealth transfers continue to arise, and there's just an increasing pool of people wanting advice.
The regulators are responding, creating even greater tailwinds to what is already a significant opportunity for those in wealth tech who can develop technology and deploy to those unmet needs. Iress is well placed to win in this sector. If it's not us, who is it? If it's not now, when is it? We are well placed. Why? We are trusted, and trust in the AI world is becoming an increasingly large issue. Who can you trust? Where do you go to get trusted advice? Trust is more crucial globally now than ever before. We've got deep industry expertise in Iress. Our team are highly experienced in navigating regulatory changes and challenges. Our security standards are second to none, and we're known. We're a known business, a trusted business. We have a network which is vast.
We've got 2,000 clients in wealth and about 1,200 in trading across the globe, reaching hundreds of thousands of end users. We're expanding and developing, expanding and deepening our engagement with our clients, including on these new opportunities. We've got a powerful distribution framework in this company. The most important point probably is the last one. I'm sure this reporting season, you're going to hear a lot about agentic AI solutions. AI is only as useful as the data that's powering it. The companies that are going to win this sector are going to be those that have got the data assets. We have a distinct data advantage, particularly in wealth. We've got more than 20 years of data history, of data history and advice, strategy, asset flows, client profiles, advisor behavior.
The richness and integration of that data set is a significant moat for this company and is a huge platform for us in launching agentic solutions. It's core to our strategy. We've been working on that data asset for quite some time now over the last two years with considerable investment, but we are now ready to deploy into that space. To say we are really excited about these opportunities for Iress . On the trading suite, this slide talks to the strength of our trading businesses and the opportunities to expand our suite of applications. Trading remains a strong Iress business. We're leading in Australia with a solid footprint in the U.K., Canada, and South Africa.
We've got a strong platform, existing trading applications, well and truly industry standards, and we are focused on expanding that suite, expanding connectivity and interoperability, developing the next generation of trading tech for our existing customers as well as new customers. What that means is we want our customers to be able to connect more easily with other applications, with those with which they run their businesses. That is the whole purpose around what's called the Interop Standard. Our development of the Single Open recently was a major milestone for us, and I think that's really about bringing the Australian market into line with international standards. Single Open for us was only the first phase in delivering our advanced EMS solution. We are migrating more clients onto it for better integrations, and it gives us the ability to deploy data products as well.
It remains an ongoing focus for the team for this year. To support the delivery of those new products and services, we're expanding our partnerships and enhancing APIs to enable modular, personalized, high-performance trading experiences, helping clients optimize and personalize their workflows. It's the partnering that's going to make a difference in the future in trading, and that's what the Interop Standard is all about. In wealth, our position is also very strong. XPlan alone has about 60,000 users across Australia and the U.K. It's number one by market share in Australia, number two overall in the U.K., but importantly, in the enterprise space, we are clearly the market leader. There's a significant opportunity, though, for further expansion. Firstly, by delivering greater value to our existing customers using a data and AI-led approach to help them grow their practices and make them more efficient.
We've got a significant focus on bringing agentic AI tools to the advice world through the existing XPlan network. Through modularizing software and developing new technologies with data and agentic AI at the footprint, we think there's significant growth available in this business. Secondly, we're expanding our suite of solutions to meet the substantial and growing needs of the unadvised. This is a new section, a new sector, if you like, in wealth. It's what we call the next generation platforms, primarily in Australia and the U.K. Cameron's already mentioned some of the investment we've made in this space, but there's considerable market research here. This is a new frontier for wealth advice. Our product research confirms strong client and consumer demand for AI-led digital advice solutions with a new bunch of customers and partners that want to deliver into this space.
The development of new product solutions to serve this population will be a really key focus for Iress over the coming months and years. In summary, we've seen good revenue momentum this half, particularly in our UK trading businesses, and on a continuing business basis, we are growing well. We have financial flexibility. We've got a strong balance sheet and low leverage that will decline further following the completion of the Quant House sales. We've got a stranded cost program, which is going to increase further our efficiencies. There's CAD 12 million -CAD 16 million to come out. Some of that will be reinvested in some of our growth initiatives. Growth is our priority in our existing wealth and trading businesses, as well as through new revenue streams enabled by data and AI.
Given the strength of our first half results and expectations for this to continue into the remainder of the year, we're reaffirming our 2025 guidance on a continuing business basis because we've removed certain parts of the business, and yet the continuing business has grown sufficiently to allow us to maintain that guidance. That represents an upgrade, and it demonstrates the strength of the underlying business, the continuing business. Thank you. I'll now hand over to the operator to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you would like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. The first question today comes from Nick McGarrigle from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. Just a quick question on the wealth business in Australia. In the last couple of years, we've seen a bit of volume churn and restructuring, and that's probably worn out some of the price increases that have been implemented. Can you just give us a sense on how the shape of that business looks in terms of volume seats, any other kind of restructurings you think might be underway, and what the outlook is for APAC Wealth?
I think this is, I might answer that question, Nick. It's a one-off effect. There was a restructuring of a contract in the second half of 2024, which we'd flagged and we've discussed in the market at some length. It's literally a one-off due to a particular client restructure. When you look at the underlying wealth business, it's actually grown in terms of its footprint. The good thing about that is, and we've said this before, we're not seeing any future evidence of restructuring of that type. We generally know 12 months - 18 months in advance if we see clients moving like that or things changing, and we obviously have been through a period of a lot of change in APAC Wealth, and this is specifically APAC Wealth. It's kind of done. There's nothing more in the pipeline that we can see.
We feel like the wealth business in Australia has now got its new baseline. The reset's over, and we can see growth from where we're at. I think Cameron mentioned that.
That impacts, yeah, sorry. That impacts now fully cycled when it comes to looking at the second half. You're not kind of cycling some revenue that might have been associated with that in the second half of 2024.
Hi Nick. Yeah, no, that's correct. As I said, adjusting for that particular client contract that Marcus has just talked to, we're up about 4% on the first half of last year and about 2.3% on the second half of last year. You're seeing progressive growth in all those halves after adjusting for that. We do see growth coming through. Your comment about the churn, obviously, given our incumbency, given our size, I guess, of the Australian market, the reality is some of that, we do see a little bit of churn each year. We did call out, we see less than 2% in any sort of, you know, across the board. That's sort of, we've sort of got the baseline, if you like, for our Australian wealth business now. We don't see any significant changes to that sort of growth profile going forward at this point.
Okay, great. Maybe just the Trading and Market Data business was a positive surprise. Any particular call-outs there? I mean, the revenue growth seemed, you know, well ahead of expectation.
Yeah, no, it was a very pleasing outcome to see that. It's come about right across the board. I mean, we obviously had growth coming out of our APAC trading business, but also the U.K. and South Africa part as well. We did have elements of that part of our business all contributing to that growth. We do see, you know, hopefully we see that continue, particularly given the investment that we've made on the EMS side. We do see greater potential and, you know, new revenue streams coming into that business over time.
I guess a particular, maybe just final question from me around the guidance because there was a bit of confusion chatting to clients, but maybe it's worth clarifying. The Super and Quant House businesses contributed CAD 4.2 million in the first half, predominantly the first five months. The implication is you've now excluded, I call it a CAD 4 or CAD 5 million EBITDA contribution from the second half but maintained the guidance. It's an implicit upgrade of that CAD 4 million or $5 million quantum. Is that the right thinking?
Yeah, that's right, Nick. We'll just call out slide 21 that talks about FY 2025 guidance for continuing business. Actually, it is a headline guidance, so it includes their contribution while they're part of the group as opposed to just continuing business. As you rightly say, the contribution from Super and Quant House is positive. It's not quite as it states. It is a headline guidance as opposed to continuing business.
Great, that's helpful. I'll let someone else ask questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Cameron Halkett from Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning, Marcus and Cameron. If I can build on the next point there just around the guidance. For it to be maintained at the half-on-half expansion to EBITDA, you've done CAD 60 million this half on a continuing basis. That implies around CAD 70 million in the second half to get you to the midpoint of your guidance. I suppose, guys, help us with the building blocks there. What gets you there since some of the benefits from the TSAs concluding around MFA and platforms are only really done by October and you can only act so quickly. Thanks.
No, as I said, Cameron, that guidance does include the contribution from Super. Whilst it's done CAD 60 million for the half, that's just continuing business. The Super and Quant House contribution was CAD 4 million and a bit. That does get captured in our guidance number. It's not quite CAD 70 million, it's in the mid-CAD 60 million range. We do see growth coming through in the second half. We've got a confidence level around that and where we see we did put a lot of R&D efforts into the first half, the R&D OpEx, which we've called out on a few slides today about those efforts. We don't see the same contribution to that in the second half. That will give us an uplift.
We have the benefit of a lot of our price rises coming through in the first half of the year, and you obviously get a stronger benefit coming through on the revenue line in the second half, all of which is contributing to further growth in the bottom line in the second half.
Okay, thank you. Good point. I suppose on the medium-term targets you've put out today, it's very clear on your bridge there around revenue, but I suppose on an EBITDA margin basis, just the band of 26%- 27% that's talked about. I suppose just given the volume of revenue growth that you're looking to be targeting, plus sort of right-sizing the cost base, you know, post-TSAs, the question there is why not perhaps a bit more on the margin side. Is that conservative or just a reflection of the reinvestment you expect to sustain?
I think it's a timing thing, to be fair. A lot of the investment that you make front runs the revenue, and to be honest, over the next two to three years, there is an investment to be made, which we've called out today. A lot of the benefits we get from that investment are really 2028, 2029, 2030 revenue streams that come through. Whilst we've got ambitions to grow that revenue, and we do see a pathway to 8% revenue, we don't think we're going to get there by the end of 2028. It'll be more of a gradual glide path, if you like, but the cost in actually delivering that is front-loaded. Yes, the margin is probably at the lower end, but we do see that margin expansion probably up towards 29%, 30% over the following two years.
Yeah, okay. That's sort of where my head was at as well. Last one quickly, Marcus, perhaps one for you here. Just seen in the release that, you know, in the materials that have come out, there had been sort of a mention there around Harry's role being made redundant. In the past, you've certainly praised his efforts as, you know, turning around the U.K. Business, even promoting him to Deputy CEO back in October, and, you know, less than a year into that role has been made redundant. I suppose, just, you know, help us understand, I suppose, some of the changes that have gone there with sort of leadership restructuring and, I suppose, why the change. Thanks.
It was really about flattening out the structure post-divestment of businesses. Obviously, we've divested a lot of businesses. The group's a lot smaller now, and we really parted on very good terms with Harry. Harry did great work for us. We're really pleased with what he did. We've got the utmost respect for Harry and what he did for the business. It is about just streamlining the business going forward, a smaller footprint in the management ranks, as well as focusing on growth for the future. I think that was what was driving it. It was really just a point in time. That's the way I'd describe it.
All right. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Scott Hudson from MST. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. Can I just ask a couple of questions? Firstly, just on the timeline of these new sort of AI-driven revenue streams, are these sort of the 2028, 2029, 2030 type benefits, or do we just expect to see something earlier than that?
It's Marcus here. Yeah, quite a number of them. There's a range, I guess, to be fair. We've identified at least three that we look to put into the market in 2025. Some of those are just adjunctive things which clients will take as added value to the platform. There's a couple in there that are value-adding and we think are things that people will want to buy. We are not, however, putting huge licks of revenue against them at this point in time. There is a bit of test and learn with this. Some of these agentic AI tools do change the way processes work for advice in particular. We're being mindful of that. We're going to be working with clients over a period of time to actually build out how they are used for their clients and what the best applications for AI are.
I would say, though, I think it's pretty well accepted across the entire industry that AI is going to have a lot to say in advice, and we are right in the thick of it. How that all plays out, I think some of that's still to be learned. We're being very conservative about that. We do think there'll be some revenues early on, but we just want to test and learn that. I guess, again, probably a bit conservative on our part, but it's not a trend that we don't intend to be fully invested in.
Thanks. I guess in terms of the reach and market for those products, is that just partnering with existing wealth and trading clients, or are you looking to go?
No, no, it's certainly a segmented strategy here. There are a bunch of tools and toolkits with AI that apply front and center to existing advice clients with XPlan. Things we can add to the stack or can augment the stack, which will make their lives a lot better, more efficient, allow them to get efficiencies for their clients, and provide better service to their clients. That's the first thing. There's also right next door a huge unadvised population who are in a real demand for agentic AI advice, and we're seeing it across the globe. There's interest in it everywhere. We've got a separate strategy, a separate string of strategy. We looked at what we call next-generation advice solutions. We built prototypes, been out with clients, done a whole raft of work there, and that was part of that investment that we've already made.
We've got a pathway forward there that we're pretty excited about. That is literally, that is new business, new clients.
The new clients, as in you use it, you'll be going through another distribution channel, or are you going direct to?
Other parts, and this is particularly in the U.K. and other markets, there are other participants in the wealth ecosystems, particularly with regulatory changes, who will, we believe, come back into the wealth sector, not perhaps in the traditional advice sense, but in what we call a different type of product-led advice, if you want to call it that.
Yep. Do you need regulatory change to do that, or is QAR in Australia sufficient to?
In the U.K., no. Sorry, in the U.K., no. I think we're there in the U.K. It's a more mature market from a regulatory setting. In Australia, there's still a little bit of work going on, particularly in defining what that sort of advice looks like, particularly for the superannuation sector. We are expecting another iteration of the current regulatory settings. All of the super funds are interested in this particular space, and they will be an example of a sector that are going to enter this advice area in the next five years, and we want to be building tools with them.
Thanks. Just looking on page 27, Cameron, that sort of, I guess I'm just looking at the sequential growth, first half 2025 versus second half 2024. It looks like about 4% revenue growth, but margins down, I guess, close to 100 basis points. Can I just understand what the key driver of that margin compression is?
Yeah, that's the R&D efforts, Scott, that we put into the first half that Marcus is talking to, right? We've spent CAD 5.8 million in this first half. In the absence of that, if we didn't go down that path, and this is obviously trying to build further revenue streams, earnings would have been up 15% for the first half, right? The margin, we would have had significant margin expansion. It's about sort of front-running the R&D OpEx efforts, and we couldn't capitalize things because we're still in blueprint phase around what that looks like. That fed into the first half of this year, and that's been the key driver behind that margin contraction.
I'm correct in saying that you said that we won't see the same level of OpEx investments in R&D in the second half.
No, it's slightly lower. Definitely, definitely, definitely there were more efforts that went into the first half because we're very much focused on the UK market. We've got some great learnings from that. From here on in, there's a better balance between OpEx and CapEx build. We'll see the OpEx component decline over time.
Thanks. Lastly, on the Trading and Market Data in the first half, and maybe even in the second half, is there a one-off benefit from Single Open? Do we expect revenue growth domestically then maybe to slow into 2026?
There's not a one-off benefit. Single Open is more or less, for us, it was really keeping the industry up to date with the international standards. It's a longer-term benefit to us, though, because we are replacing the EMS application with a cloud-native EMS platform. That gives us the ability to do a couple of things. First of all, to be able to sell new data products through that network, through the EMS side, but also, most importantly, because it's using what's called the Interop platform, we can actually more easily and quickly bring new products to market through partnering as well. We think there's a real, it's actually quite strategic for us having that EMS platform out there.
Using the Interop technologies right through the trading group will modernize our stack significantly and allow us to bring new products and services to market over the next two or three years. The outlook's pretty strong for trading, actually.
All right, appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Jack Daley from Shaw and Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, Marcus and Cameron. Thanks for taking that question, Shane, because that's a great result. Just first one for me, in terms of page 16, it's a bit to see a bit more around the, I guess, call it new drivers for the next few years. Maybe just on the new growth initiatives, you talked about the unadvised market and you spoke to 1% - 2%. How much would we expect of that 1 %- 2% coming from unadvised? You've obviously talked about other complementary new products. Could you maybe give any color on those as well?
Absolutely. Look, there's a pretty good balance between the unadvised contribution that we're expecting, as well as the contribution from new data and AI products that Marcus has just talked about. We're progressing both concurrently, and we are looking to sort of come to market with them both over the course of the next 6 months- 12 months. You'll start to see that, but the contribution that we've baked into our forecast is actually quite even.
Okay, great. Just on the core revenue growth, I guess we just obviously Single Open happened. Trading, maybe firstly just on trading, I understand there's been some pricing increase that have been put through. Maybe could you give a sense on how we should think about that moving forward? I guess what's your specific feedback from customers on the implementation of that and also, I guess, the implementation of Single Open?
Okay, this is just in relation to this, yeah, pricing. Price increases, we tend to try and keep around CPI plus one or two, which is, you know, a sort of a standard, I guess, unless we get extraordinary things happening to us. We did look to have a Single Open fee in the market, which we've decided was probably in the end as too many differences in the way people were approaching that from an implementation point of view. We're basically just going to say, on an as-needs basis, we'll support clients through Single Open and through the change in the EMS platform as needed. It's actually a more efficient way of doing it for them because certain clients don't need any assistance to move and certain clients need lots.
Rather than have a single fee, it made more sense just to get away from that and actually do it on a needs basis for each client.
That's great. Just on, obviously, I've talked to Mr. Harry leading the business. There was just a rumor in the press, essentially from The Australian, saying that Mr. Price would shortly depart as Chief Executive. I don't know if you could make any comment.
I'm sorry, what was the question? I'm struggling just to hear the clarity of the question. Sorry, can you ask that again?
Sorry, there was just a public report that came out in the last 24 hours, speculating about the future of the business. I don't know if you could make any comment on that.
As far as I'm concerned, we are in an inflection. We obviously discuss things with the board from time to time in terms of how we go, what leadership's required for the business. We're not making any announcements about that, and there's nothing to say, basically. I'm still here and continue to be here.
Got it. Thank you. Thanks for answering the questions.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Olivia Coulon from EMP. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi guys. You mentioned obviously you've increased CapEx in addition to the R&D OpEx spend. I did notice, and that was obviously flagged a while back, did note a pretty big increase in your PPE CapEx. Do you mind kind of mentioning what that is and whether that's expected to be continuing?
Yeah, Olivia, this is all coming down to our property footprint, which has shrunk quite materially. We've got new fit-outs associated with our Sydney office, which has obviously got a reduced footprint. We get annualized savings there of about CAD 2 million-CAD 3 million on Sydney, but there's an upfront fit-out that's required. That's feeding into the PPE. We're about to do the same in Melbourne. We've done the same in London, South Africa, and Canada. All businesses over the course of the last two years, you'll see from our headcount going from about 2,600 to somewhere between 1,200 - 1,300, their needs have changed. As we've changed offices, we've got to fit those offices out. That's the key. A lot of them were done through incentives with the landlord. That feeds into reduced rent abatements going forward and things like that.
You will see our rent payments, if you like, materially decrease over time. Upfront, there's a PPE and E-fit-out as we deck those offices out.
Okay. Sorry, you mentioned that a lot of the CAD 5.8 million was in wealth. This is, sorry, U.K. wealth. It's a bit hard to see that when you look at your OpEx and that Division X indirect expenses. I think it might have been up CAD 1 million. How much of the CAD 5.8 million was in wealth versus trading and market data, and, sorry, APAC Wealth? How much was in U.K. wealth versus APAC Wealth versus TMD?
No, we were looking at that part of our business, Olivia, as a, it's a separate investment. It's not specifically attached just to the U.K. wealth market. It's an opportunity. The prototyping and the blueprint efforts that have gone on are associated. We haven't specifically allocated that directly into the U.K. wealth business because there are a lot of learnings that we've done that are going to be applicable to take back to Australia as well. Right. We're starting with the U.K. on the unadvised space, but we will be looking.
I guess you said that wealth as well. Is that the wider rating?
We haven't specifically allocated just to those businesses. It is borne by the whole group as we've gone through there. There's probably a little bit of what I would call a sort of indirect misallocation right across some businesses that probably aren't going to benefit from those learnings, if you like.
All right. No, that makes sense. Sorry, just on the TSAs, you've obviously got a program that takes us down your fixed costs over the next two years. I'm aware that the TSAs do have some incremental revenue with them. How should we think about the actual incremental profitability of those TSAs at the moment? Are they profit generating or do they have incremental OpEx to actually service those TSAs in addition to, I suppose, the larger fixed costs that they represent?
Okay, so there's a couple of things to your question. One being TSAs are largely cost recoveries. You've got a whole bunch of people that are supporting the transition of those assets into new ownership, and we get a recovery on that. That's generally done without a margin, right? You're not looking to see a margin. Not all of it is recoverable, though, right? There is some stitching up on our side as well that gets done at the same time, and that gets captured as part of the stranded cost out project. In terms of the TSA income that we get, which probably reflects somewhere between 80% and 90% of the cost of transitioning those assets, there is some leakage that we bear while we're transitioning those assets that will go when the TSAs leave.
We're capturing that as part of our TSA cost, sort of reduction in our corporate cost base. What I would say, though, is when TSAs take longer than they should, often there's a step up in what we charge for the end client, for the partner that we're transitioning to, particularly if there's issues on their side. Sometimes there is a margin that gets captured in that, and you will see potentially some revenue contribution as a result of that, beyond just the cost recovery.
Yes, at the moment, your view would be that the TSAs are not kind of washing their face necessarily. They'd be slightly lower than the incremental cost of transitioning those assets.
Correct, correct. That's right. There is some leakage there on the corporate side, and that will get dealt with as part of the stranded cost program. That's why we've highlighted it.
Yeah, sorry, the CAD 1.8 million that you call out in Corporate as a segment, you know, I suppose contribution to that adjusted EBITDA, how should we think about that number? Is that taken to that drag, or is that kind of not really, you know, is that not really accurate?
No, not all of it is related to TSAs. We've got some insurance recoveries that are captured as part of that as well, which we're not sort of drawing attention to, but we've obviously got at various points in time insurance claims that we deal with, and the recovery of those claims often is a mismatch between the cost recognition and the revenue recovery. Some of that, I'd say probably half of it, is in regards to that type of transaction. The balance is really TSA-related income, and as I've said, a lot of that TSA income should be largely seen as a cost recovery as opposed to an income line. You will expect to see that sort of marry up over time. We get the costs out.
We're keeping track of all the costs that it's relating to and making sure a lot of it's in relation to software and hardware that we are currently paying and absorbing for the acquirer, but we expect to see that go out as part of the stranded cost program. There will be a natural offset.
Thanks, just on that, to clarify the PPE CapEx, you mentioned that there's still some moves to go. What sort of investment can we expect on that front?
Largely the only office that has still got a renewal date in front of it is the Melbourne office, and we'll be looking to move in the next 12 months, possibly even sooner. You will expect to see again the way we think. Floors to one floor is a reduced property footprint and an upfront fit-out requirement, of which a significant amount of that gets funded via the contribution from the landlord, gets offset against the rental, but you get to see it through the PPE and E line as those fit-outs are done. That's probably the only one that we've got on the radar in the next 6 months- 12 months.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Simon Fitzgerald from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi there, just really quickly. The CAD 5.8 million of software investment you spoke about, Cameron, you said that wasn't capitalized, which I understand, but also you mentioned that there was an opportunity there. Are you considering changing the way that software is capitalized? Is that what you meant by that?
As Marcus said, it's not entirely, it's probably not software. It's actually market research. There was a bit of prototyping, focus groups, research done with consumers and clients. It was a whole raft of things assessing a size of a market opportunity and really scoping out how to go about tackling what is a new market in wealth, essentially. That's a global market, so it's not just in the U.K., although we did do a lot of that work in the U.K. It's not, and because we're still working out how to actually go about that, that's actually not capitalizable, so we've used it as OpEx. It's OpEx this year.
I mean, what I would say, Simon, is there are elements of what's been done that should be perceived, should be seen as a capital investment, right? Because they are, it's an investment that's made that will have an enduring benefit. The issue is there's a timing element as to how the audit is done and how they see it. Until we actually commit to making, moving forward with a, you know, with the proper build of what the product looks like, all the work that we've done is really at a market research and R&D level, which is OpEx as opposed to CapEx. We've certainly got some learnings that we feel and some, you know, some foundations, particularly around the SaaS side. We've got some SaaS foundations that will be very applicable in terms of what we build going forward.
Okay. Also, no mention of NPAT, which was your previous benchmark you said you were heading towards. I noticed also that the amortization of intangibles went down to CAD 1.8 million. I'm just wondering what the movement was from the prior period to down to CAD 1.8 million. Also, the CAD 12-CAD 16 million that you talk about, they are specifically stranded costs, not transformation costs, is that right?
Yeah, that's right, Simon. We've actually eliminated the NPAT from our disclosures. It did create an element of confusion earlier this year. We're focusing very much on UPAT, which is effectively UPAT, which adjusts for the acquired amortization. The acquired amortization, as you rightly say, is quite low. It's somewhere in the region of CAD 1 million - CAD 2 million. A significant part of that left the business when the superannuation business was sold. If you think about it, we actually acquired a significant amount of software intangibles through the Accurity platform that goes with the superannuation business. That part of our line, if you like, has now declined to quite an insignificant level. We've reduced our disclosures really from an NPAT to a UPAT level. We expect we don't expect to see that go up again in the near term.
Can I just clarify though that UPAT takes out those stranded costs?
Oh, it does. Yeah, sorry, you're right. They're not transformation costs. They're actually corporate-related costs and/or transitional services costs that are not fully recoverable from the acquirer. Those costs are the ones that will be departing the group as we look to rebase the corporate center based on the smaller continuing business.
At the EBITDA level, would they be expensed there, or are they adjusted out for the EBITDA level as well? Because stranded costs, sorry, transformation costs were expensed in that measure of the adjusted EBITDA previously.
It's a combination of above and below the line. As I said, the property footprint is obviously not captured in the EBITDA level. Even though there'll be a property reduction from a cash basis, that will be a sort of a level below the EBITDA level. The vast majority of that CAD 12 million-CAD 16 million is very much captured within our EBITDA number.
Okay. Also, just on the U.K. wealth and sourcing, can you break out what the EBITDA was for the U.K. wealth out of the CAD 9.9 million?
I think we'll capture that, Simon, in your analyst pack, right? We've got a far bigger detail sort of analysis. I'd rather not get into the nitty-gritty on this call. We've tried to break that out for you to make it easier to follow.
Yeah, it's still great demand that I can see at the EBITDA level, though. Maybe you're missing that. I'll keep looking. Let's see. No, that's about it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Price for any closing remarks.
Thanks very much and thanks for the questions. I'd appreciate a bit of forbearance in that the results obviously take a bit of working through because we're having to deal with the divested businesses in the reported results. Our focus as a management team, though, is on the continuing business. We've seen great revenue momentum this half from our continuing businesses, particularly the U.K. and trading. We're in a situation where we've got really good financial flexibility with such a strong balance sheet now and low leverage, and that's going to decline even further. Most importantly, operationally, and as the CEO, we've got that focus. It's a really deep focus on where we're going to grow our business now, as opposed to where it was previously, perhaps a bit more diffused. I'm really pleased that we are so focused. We've got a strategic plan for self-funded growth. That's really exciting.
Our priority is in our existing wealth and trading businesses, as well as through new revenue streams enabled by data and AI. I think we shouldn't forget, and we've said it once or twice here, that the continuing business has actually provided us an upgrade and allowed us to maintain our full-year guidance. This is a really strong result from the continuing business, and I think we can look forward to that momentum continuing on. I feel that we're really pleased with how we're going. I think it's a great set of results, and we'll look forward to meeting you in one-on-ones. Thank you now, and I will close it at this point. Thank you very much.