Welcome everybody to the FY 2025 Results Presentation for Kelly Partners Group Holdings Limited. My name is Brett Kelly, the Founder and CEO, and I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Kenneth Ko. Our planned format is to share the presentation, which we published this morning, and take questions through the chat function of the Q&A. I expect we can get through this quite quickly as our business is very consistent, and for those of you who have followed the business for some time, I think most of what you can see here you'll be very familiar with. There are now 660 team members, 102 equity partners across 38 businesses in 5 countries, and revenue this year grew 25% to $134 million. Our revenue run rate is approximately $150 million.
We did a first-time equity capital raise since IPO of $4 million to essentially new partners from firms that had joined the group since 2017's IPO. We have grown free cash flow by 8%. You'll see the reduction in return on invested capital. Organic growth is up 50%- 4.5%, and our return on invested capital plus organic growth remains strong at 27.5%. On slide three, we just shared, as we like to do, some of the learning that informs our thinking. Founder's Mentality has always been on our book list as a tremendous book, and it shares the information that is on this diagram that growing companies face a choice as they scale to follow the default path or commit to the journey north.
The default path you'll see really leads you down a path of struggling bureaucracies and the behavior of incumbents, or we maintain our insurgent mission and try to scale that mission northward. That's not easy, but it's worth the challenge, and we're in serious pursuit of that challenge as we speak. Two other books that really inform that are The Rack We Built by our friends at Rackspace and The Motive by Patrick Lencioni. What's interesting is that those books, in particular, have for a long time informed the things that will help us maintain this insurgent mission.
The Motive talks about making sure that the people that move through the business into leadership positions are there for the right reasons, that they have the right motives, and in our terms, that's to make other people better off, to be people for others who keep their promises and work as part of a team, our three core values. The Rack We Built tells the story about what goes wrong when a business grows but doesn't maintain that insurgent mentality around the talent that it brings in, and in particular, lateral hires from large companies that can push you towards being an incumbent. On slide five is our familiar Kelly Partners in one page.
For those who haven't seen one of these presentations before, the history is pre-IPO and at IPO, people would say, "Hey, Brett, can you give it to us, you know, short and sharp in one page?" We do. Revenue growth there, margins, strong EBITDA margins, parent and pare, return on equity, net debt to underlying EBITDA remains very conservative at 1.42x . Cash flow is strongly up, 23.3%. It's a good number to watch, and cash conversion at 99.8% remains very, very efficient. Down the bottom left-hand corner, our billings for full-time employee still are very high, and we can see that the key measures indicate that we are scaling rather than simply growing. What I mean by that is that we are scaling our long-standing excellent financial metrics off the back of our long-standing values.
On page six, it's important to understand that we have a business system that knows how to double. We believe that because the business has now doubled six times in 19 years, on average every 3.2 years. It's a sustained long-standing performance that indicates that KPG has a business system that knows how to double itself. Whether we have excellent people or doubly excellent people, no matter who has been in our team over a very long period of time, the business has outperformed individuals as the team has delivered the business system that creates deep alignment and allows people to be the best versions of themselves at work and deliver these industry-leading results. On page seven, you'll see lots of nice little pictures around revenue growth, EBITDA, successful programmatic acquisition strategy, high returns on equity, high returns on invested capital, and strong cash conversion.
While those numbers are, I believe, a testament to our team and their efforts, they are not the business of the business. They are an outcome. On page eight, you'll see, again, we outlined early on that we had a startup and a foundation phase at IPO. We said we'd build a foundation that we believed we could build, and then we announced that we believed we could accelerate. In that period from IPO to 2020, we grew from $30 million, $25 million pre-IPO, I think it was, to $30 million in the first year, and $50 million, five years later, four years later, to now $135 million with $150 million run rate. It is important to understand that since June 2020, we will have grown the revenue from, say, $50 million- $150 million. That is revenue that's controlled by the group.
In tripling that revenue, we've done that in a particularly capital-efficient manner on a per-share basis across every metric, whether that is EBITDA per share, whether that's our strong net profit per share. Really, whichever way we look at it, we haven't, until the recent partner offer, issued a single share, and we still have fewer shares on issue than we had at IPO. We've reduced the total number of shares on issue since IPO while taking the revenues from $30 million to a run rate of $150 million, which is obviously, in seven years, or this is our eighth year completed, we've taken revenues up by 5x . The good news is that when I started the business with my wife, Rebecca, we were told, "You can only grow so big, so fast, so this, so that." We were never focused and still aren't on the numbers.
We believe that if we got the right people into the business and built the right system, that combination with the right clarity around our mission, values, and vision, that internal momentum would grow the business, create a flywheel, frankly, of mission, values, and vision captured by the right business model. We believe that the business would have its own internal drive to deliver better outcomes for our people and clients, and that would result ultimately in whatever the numbers would be. That's proving to be the case. Our business, I would stress, is still small in the global context. Global peers are innumerably larger. We see, you know, our intention has been to build a 100-year business. We see 80 years of growth.
We don't see eight minutes of growth, and we see no reason to materially change the model that we've developed that really deeply aligns the interests between our partners, our people, our clients, our community, and obviously our shareholders. On page nine, you'll see KPG's earning power. It's always been my view that the whole goal is pulling together businesses that share the same mission, values, and vision to improve those businesses and help them deliver better outcomes for our people, clients, and communities.
In doing that, there's an inherent level of earning power that will sometimes be reflected in our statutory numbers, but not often. There is all sorts of good stuff that accounting standards require that we disclose in a way that we might not otherwise choose to disclose in order to best represent the earning power and the long-term recurring nature of that earning power of the business. We remain very confident in the model and its ability to continue to do really great things in the accounting industry for a long time to come. On page 10, you'll see some great stuff around profitability remains very strong, industry-leading profitability. You'll notice that the US and Ireland are running at essentially average profitabilities for their market.
The challenge will be for us to deliver the results there and turn their profitability around in the way that we do in the Australian market over time. Our development of the business is such that the U.S. business is now as large as the Australian business was at IPO. It took 11 years to get to that position in Australia, and it's taken two and a half years to do that in the US. That has meant that we've used a little more capital to do that than we did in Australia, and we've spent less time moving profitability because of our confidence in ultimately being able to do that over time and the importance of getting to scale to justify, frankly, existing in this market. On page 11, capital allocation will leave you to review, but I'm very, very pleased with how clear that slide is. Thanks, Ken.
Obviously, the numbers that are represented there, and I hope they're easy for shareholders to appreciate. On page 12, we've tried to make clear that the compounded annual gain in book value since inception is 35.4% per annum. We think that that's a pretty good effort over time, and we're confident that we can continue to deliver those types of returns for a long time if we stay within our timely circle of competence. Page 13, an emphasis on very timely circle of competence. We have used a very small amount of equity capital to build the business, and I'm pleased with the discipline that's been demonstrated over a long period of time. On page 14, you'll see EPS and free cash flow per share continues to grow as the business grows. Again, it's a big effort from everyone to continue to make that happen.
On page 15, you'll see share buybacks outlined. Now, the section beginning on 16 really just shares about the business. I'll take this as largely read and move through it very quickly. Thirty-five operating businesses on page 17 across these geographies. We're particularly pleased with how the international growth of the business is going and the robustness of our position in Australia. Being able to have both of those wings sort of flapping at the same time is a testament, again, to our teams and systems. On page 18, you'll see the team members, office locations, client groups, etc. I would point out there that, you know, largely, this is a recurring income business. On page 19, we can continue to strengthen our position in the Australian market where we see we exclude the Big Four as competitors. They're not our competitors.
We take out Findex or a financial planning group. There might be one other in there that we may have that view of. We just look at who our actual accounting groups that we're looking at as competitors, and we're well-positioned versus these people. Absolute sizes are not as important as excellence at this point, and it's always been our case that if we stay excellent, we'll grow. On page 20, the programmatic nature of our partnership approach, I think, is quite clear for all to see there. Again, we're not looking to just do partnerships for their own sake unless they're the right people with the right values and reasons for joining Kelly Partners. We're not particularly interested. On page 21, capital allocation. We'll leave this for you to review, but on 22, you'll see our continued strong performance on this measure.
On page 23, we have put a new slide in that, you know, I quite like, and I hope you like too. It shows that we raised equity pre-IPO of $11.6 million. We raised equity post-IPO of $6.7 million, including the recent $4.2 million for a total of $18.3 million. We've done additional investments of $11.3 million, which is the excess amount above the 9% we collect from the partnerships that we've reinvested in the business. We have a current run rate EBITDA of $52.5 million, and our share, KPG share of that run rate EBITDA is about $26 million. For $29.6 million of equity, we believe that we'll pull together about $26.8 million of EBITDA, which is great. The second part of this slide, we sort of show, as I'll talk about later in this presentation, we're considering our capital structure.
The way we think about that capital structure is that for every dollar of equity we may raise, either externally or internally, if we add $2 of debt, we expect to continue to be able to drive a very strong return on invested capital. You can see the sort of shares issued per date and the buyback. I think if we added back the money that we've made on the shares that we've bought back, Kenny, then that total equity plus additional investments, it might reduce the profit on buybacks, and that number might be even lower and significantly lower. The business has been particularly disciplined and careful with its use of capital. On page 24, this is the additional investment slide. We've had the additional investment slide in the past. I just wanted to have the equity investment slide as well that we've added in there.
You'll notice that we've significantly invested above the 9% this year. I would point to the fact that in the last five years, we've invested about $8 million above our 9%, and we tripled the revenue. We don't feel too bad about that. On page 25, financial highlights, I'm going to hand over to Kenneth Ko, our Chief Financial Officer, to share some of the highlights of the financial highlights. Thank you, Kenny.
Thanks, Brett. Great to speak to everyone again and present the financial highlights for the group for the year ended 3rd of June 2025. Slide 26, this is the financial highlights for the group. I won't go through this in detail because, as with prior years, we have slides essentially covering all of this information that's presented here, but we think that this presents a good summary of the finances of the business for the year. On the next slide, income statement, revenue of $134.6 million, up $26.5 million or 24.5% on the prior year, driven both by organic revenue growth of 4.5% and contributions from the acquisitions we completed in the prior year and this year.
Just noting that in terms of the organic revenue, excluding the impacts of subscale businesses where we have merged those subscale businesses into our larger and more established businesses, our organic revenue growth rate was 6.2%. In terms of the acquisitions we completed and the acquired growth of 20%, this mainly comes from the Florida business that we partnered with in August last year and the Sydney CBD firm that we tapped into the business in December last year. In terms of the operating margin, EBITDA margins of the business, $38.1 million for the year, up 19.2% on the prior year. The margin is, as Brett presented earlier, 30.8% for Australian businesses, 28.3% for the group, which we think is strong. In terms of the underlying NPA attributable to shareholders, increased by 13% to $9.1 million compared to $8 million last year.
As always, note that the significant increase in amortization expense, again, due to the acquisitions that we've completed, resulting in higher customer relationship internal assets recognized. That's the income statement. On the next slide, in terms of the balance sheet, our lockup is at 58 days. Again, lockup being the totals of WIP days at 7.7 days and debtor days at 50.3 days, which is comparable to what we have in terms of lockup days in the prior years. In terms of net debt to underlying EBITDA ratio of 1.42x net debt to underlying EBITDA compared to 1.28x in the prior year, and that increase is attributed to the acquisitions we completed this year. We completed six acquisitions this year, and as mentioned before, mainly in the Florida business, the Sydney business tuck in, as well as the Ireland business that we completed in March this year.
Our group return on equity remains very strong at 38.8%, parent return on equity of 31.9%. Our total assets, $199 million, increased 24.9%, again, driven mainly because of the increase in intangible assets from the acquisitions, and net debt increased 29.4% from the prior year. On the next slide, on debt and liquidity, our net debt here on the right compares the net debt position as at 30th of June 2025 to 30th of June 2024. Our net debt is $58.5 million as at 30th of June 2025 compared to $45.2 million last year. The increase is $13.3 million as per this note here on the slide, and is again due to those acquisitions we completed, noting that we completed $20 million of acquisitions during the year, and the net debt increased $13.3 million.
In terms of the gross debt, excluding working capital debt, it's at $57.6 million, and it increased $14 million. The increase is essentially the same as the net debt increase, so there's no increase in the working capital debt, essentially. On the left here, looking at the dissection of the debt and the cash and headroom, there continues to be sufficient headroom at $23.7 million, and we continue to review our capital structure to support our continued growth. On the next slide, in terms of cash flow, our cash from operations of $24.9 million increased by $23.3 million. It's very in line with our revenue growth of $24.5 million. Our free cash flow to firm after scheduled debt reductions increased 7.2%. That differential between the increase of the 23.3% and the 7.2% is primarily due to the increase in the scheduled debt reductions.
We are paying our debts off in an accelerated manner over five years. If you look on the right there on that table, last year, our scheduled debt reduction is $8 million, and that has increased to $11.6 million, a $3.6 million increase in the scheduled debt reduction. In terms of the distributions, I just wanted to highlight the distributions to non-controlling interests. There is a significant increase there. There is around a $2.5 million return of capital that we made prior to tucking in the Sydney CBD business, and also distributions in general increase due to the acquisitions we completed in last year and this year. In terms of the cash conversion on the left, 99.8% compared to 96.9%, and very consistent with what we have achieved previously in terms of conversion ratios. The drawn debt primarily used to fund acquisitions and new partner buying loans.
On slide 31, parent and MCI waterfall. As always, we get asked a lot why our 51%- 49% equity interest doesn't tie to the profit attributable, and we've produced this waterfall to explain it. I just want to go through quickly on the right with this waterfall chart. This year, we've included just the prior year waterfall so we can have a bit of a comparison. You can see that the tax, interest, and depreciation in terms of percentage of the parent net profit before tax is very comparable, 29.9% this year compared to 32.9% last year. In terms of additional investments, it's $3.7 million, and it's to support our growth as Brett Kelly presented the additional investment slide previously. We haven't 2.5x our business since FY 2023, and I just refer everyone back to that slide 24 for that additional investment commentary.
On the strategic review cost there of $1.2 million, primarily relates to the PCOV audit costs that we undertook this year for the prior two years for FY 2023 and FY 2024. For the acquisition costs, the six acquisitions we completed this year, including new regions being in Ireland and also the Kudos International network, which is a U.K. business. There were some costs there in terms of documenting the legal agreements in those jurisdictions. I believe that's it, Brett.
Thank you, Kenny. That is terrific. I appreciate all of Ken's hard work again this year. He's visited the U.S. and Ireland and other jurisdictions probably a dozen times and has made a huge difference to all of those interactions and is a valued and appreciated member of our team. As Ken alluded to there, one of the great achievements and large costs of this year was getting agreements up to scratch to operate in the U.K. and also in England where Kudos is based and also in Ireland. There was also heavy costs trying to take the PCAOB audits, looking back two years, to make us compliant for the United States in terms of their standards. Now, I think with that, we can probably move to slide 33.
Now, 33 just outlines in, you know, there are some restrictions around what we can say, but to the degree that we can share, it's always our instinct to be very transparent. We can share that we have undertaken the PCAOB audits for the last two years at a great time and financial costs of the group. We've spent a huge amount also on legals in the U.S. over the last two and a half years. We've done the partners' internal capital raise. We're doing a strategic review of the capital structure at the moment. To the right is a sort of slide we shared further up.
I just want all of our shareholders to understand that we just won't raise equity at any time where we believe the gap between intrinsic value and the equity that we can raise and the valuation of that equity are as close as possible to each other. We did the partners' raise because we believe that the difference between the intrinsic value and the price at which we raised was such that the deep alignment that we were creating made up for what we considered was a genuine and unacceptable gap. As we consider what we do next, we're always in a rush to move the business forward to really reach its potential and sort of get it to where we think it needs to get to to be that scale insurgent that we showed you on the early picture from founders' mentality.
We won't move in haste, and we won't do things that dilute your interest and mine and every other shareholder's such that we set ourselves up to have to, you know, work for the next five years to create no real value because we raised equity at the wrong price. We do believe that in terms of getting the business to maximize the value of this business model that it owns, we should be operating at much stronger scale across a number of these markets. That would require stronger teams, investment in teams and infrastructure on the East Coast, West Coast of the U.S., and into the U.K because I believe that our model is sufficiently unique and proven to justify that investment to try and push to the scale that we think is possible.
We look to CBIS, the U.S.-listed accounting group, the only U.S.-listed accounting group, and they've taken their market cap in the last 10 years from $350 million to north of $3.5 billion, so 10x their market cap. While they buy much larger businesses, it makes pretty clear what the opportunity is. We think we can follow a similar trajectory, but we won't create value per share if we don't and can't raise the equity capital at the right price. We have to get that piece right, and we are deep in the development of, and we are confident that we will close a large bond raise if we can agree the right structure with our existing bank. Westpac has been, from inception, our most valued partner and a wonderful partner. We're trying to put in place next-generation debt capital to allow us to accelerate the opportunity to deploy our model.
There are a lot of really good things happening. We want you to understand that we understand the numbers. We consistently run side by side, raise capital, don't raise capital, grow at this rate, grow at that rate. Does it make any difference? It doesn't if we don't get that piece right. With that comment, we might go to the chat where I believe we've got some Q&A. For anyone who wants to drop in a question, please feel free to, and I'll move through them as quickly as I can. From Arnold, how would you characterize the business approach of KPG? Is it intuitive and adaptive, or is it more fixed and mechanical? I think, Arnold, one of the great books ever written, Jim Collins' book, Good to Great, was preceded by a book that he collaborated on called Built to Last.
One of the greatest chapters that I've read of any book ever is the power, essentially the power of AND. The answer to most questions isn't either/or, it's AND. We believe that our fixed mission, values, and vision with our fixed approach to focusing on accounting firms $2 million- $10 million that look after private business owners, so that fixed strategy and our fixed 51%, 49% structure make a lot of sense. To that degree, that bit's fixed and mechanical, but where to go, who to go with, and the timing of all of those things is really a matter of feel. It is a matter of intuition and being adaptive and of mindset. You know, when you read Steve Schwarzman's book, Chapter One, think big. When you read 3G Capital's book, Chapter One, think bigger.
It's obvious at work on our mindset and our intuition to break out of sort of past limiting beliefs, particularly as a bootstrapped business. They're going to be really important. In the Founders' Mentality book, it does talk about, and I think Collins puts it well in his Good to Great book, sort of maintain the core and stimulate for progress is kind of a good way to think about it. I hope that answers the question. I'd hate to think that we'd be fixed and mechanical and would lose our intuition and that we wouldn't be adaptive. We still retain our courage and energy for experimentation, and a lot of that is around our sense of the market, sense of what our people need, sense of what the clients need.
Now, there was a question emailed in, the acquisition of Sydney CBD and Bowral's 100% acquisition and tuck in within subsidiaries. How do you make sure a smooth transition is one of the strengths of KPG partners remain? Can we expect more 100%? Look, we're not interested typically in doing 100% acquisition because we'd like to do partnerships, but we will do 100% where it is a tuck into existing businesses. Our Sydney CBD business is a large and very strong business from the perspective of the strength of its partners, as is the North Sydney business, which is involved as well. Our Bowral business is the largest business in its region, and with this business joining, it will be more than twice as large as any competitor. Frankly, I think we're building there, as in many regions, a sort of unduplicatable position.
We want to continue that history of smooth transitions. The key to a smooth transition is the quality of who you partner with. In the words of one of my great heroes, who I shall not name in fear of being told that I've named him, you can't do a good deal with a bad person. We continue to try and do deals with good people. The gentlemen that are the partners in that firm, we've been talking to since 2020. It's taken five years to get that business into our group, and we're very, very proud of the partners and the people that make up that business. Another question, Brett, if you would invert, what could prevent KPG from becoming a $2+ billion company? It's a great question.
What can stop a business like ours progressing as it has in the past is if we do something transformative, something large and undisciplined. That would not be intelligent based on the data from McKinsey and, you know, our observable history across markets. Also, if we just got outside our circle of competence, if we started going off and doing things that we don't understand, that would be our biggest risk. Question from Tristan. Historically, domestic funding has been non-recourse to the parent, acting as an important risk mitigant for the parent company interests. International funding appears to be recourse to the parent as a possible structure of future, and the Nielsen is lower risk. It's a great question, Tristan. The piece we're working on at the moment is a bond that would sit somewhere above the parent.
It's a matter of discussion at the moment, might have its own financing entity. Where we aspire to ultimately is to have a listed holdco, probably, you know, I won't say much more than that, probably a Cayman-based holdco, and an Australian holdco with Australian interests and a global holdco with the U.S. and other interests, maybe a U.S. holdco, U.K. holdco, and ultimately for the funding for each market to be attached to the holdcos of each of those markets and then down into the subs. It's taking a lot of work to try and get that, you know, the ideal financing. It's slowing us down to a degree, but it's better to do something slow and well than fast and in need of repair soon after. It's a very, very good question, and we're very, very conscious of risk as always. We're thinking a lot about that.
What efforts have been made to expand the M&A resource to scale deal volume without increasing the size of the deals? We are not scaling the M&A deal team at this point to any great degree. We have hundreds of millions of dollars of incoming leads, and yes, we should scale that team, and we will, subject to putting the capital in place to do that. We need to do the next piece before we do that. Functions remain centralized to the core management team. What do not? We publish a progress pyramid. There's nine parts that are centralized and three that aren't. The three that are the focus of the local operating partners are their people, their clients, and the leadership of the brand. Ed asked a question, given the additional investment expenditures needed recently, would it be feasible to slightly increase the central services fee?
Ed, we've made a commitment to never increase that fee. If anything, I'd aspire to lower, not increase it. The amount that we deliver for that fee, again, we think is unduplicatable. We're not uncomfortable with the return that we're getting on the capital that we're attaining, and we've been encouraged by shareholders to do more of that. Hence the approach. I think we're on the right track there. I'm not anxious for short-term dividends and neither of our major shareholders are, and they've communicated that very clearly to me. They want us to grow the scale of the business on the existing platform and metrics. Marvin's asked a question. Kelly Partners has highlighted its partner-owner driver model. Is it key to its U.S. expansion or specific focus on Texas through the growth partnership platform? Can it provide any color on how that's progressing?
Furthermore, given the recent listing on the OTCQX market, any color on timeline for U.S. listing? Marvin, our partner-owner driver model has now been deployed five times in this market. Our Texas partnership or growth partnership platform has stalled, meaning that the partner that took that on has failed to be able to grow that market. That's okay. We remain keenly interested in that. With the joining of our recent California business together with the North Carolina and Florida businesses, we have now nearly 9% of all McDonald’s franchised restaurants as clients through their owner-operators in the U.S. That gives us virtually a national presence, Texas and everywhere else. Our focus is really growing that platform business.
It would have been tremendous if that partner had been able to take that forward, and it's an example of where we're prepared to experiment, but it hasn't hindered us at all in growing what we see as the opportunity here. The OTCQX is great because it allows our employees and partners to go on their Charles Schwab accounts or whatever online platform they're on and simply buy the stock. That's been very good for building relationships in this market and making the company more visible. A listing on a market other than the ASX, it might be better for me to put it in those terms. We continue to investigate to ensure that we come up with the right thing for the company. Quentin's question, what are your thoughts on the development of AI, KPG, in the accounting industry?
How do you keep high-quality talent from leaving, pursuing other professions? Two-part question. We see AI as a real opportunity. It's helping us in so many ways, like all the technology we've ever used. I do think it's even more powerful than other things we've seen before. We've recently appointed one of our Senior Executives who's been running IT for nearly 10 years to lead our approach to AI. To give you an example, we've mapped the use cases of key pieces of AI software across every position in the organization and are now deploying and training our team members in those core applications. We'll be very, very aggressive in the adoption of AI. We think it makes you like a 10-arm human, you know, somebody with 10 arms as opposed to somebody with two.
That mitigates the second part of your question, you know, how do you hold on to high-quality talent? I think it's the same as it's always been. You need to be, you know, an attractive proposition across health, wealth, and wisdom. Sebastian's asked, what have been the larger challenges associated with the international partnerships? What have been the unexpected successes? The larger challenges are really the cost of getting moving in this market, personal, very heavy on me and the family, and just a massive, massive undertaking. However, the unexpected successes are that we've, you know, we build a business now from scratch, the size of the business that we listed in Australia after 11 years. There's much more commonality in people's values than people might suspect. Our way of working with people is welcome in this market and others, which is tremendous.
After two and a half years here, I'm blown away by the market opportunity, the receptiveness to KPG's model and approach, and could not, frankly, be more excited about what lies ahead. For people that know me, I have energy and I'm very, very excited about what we're doing. More excited than ever. To be fair, it's actually getting a lot easier than it ever has been to do what we're doing. There's a lot more interest in the sector. It's more accepted what we're doing, and we get a few less brickbats than we did 10 years ago for the approach and our view of what the opportunity is. Robert, hi guys, congrats on the result. Can you make any comment about the departure of Lawrence Cunningham from the board and if there's any skill gap now?
Look, it was an amazing privilege to have Lawrence on the board for three years. He contributed then; he's contributing now. He's introduced us to great people, which have helped us level up our understanding of what's possible. For instance, Lawrence introduced us to the senior team at Constellation Software and allowed Ken and I to attend the conference in Toronto last October, which was unbelievable in terms of a life experience. I participated in an interview with Mark Leonard, and it was well received. That's given us a lot of confidence that we're on the right track. You know, when someone like Mark looks at the business and thinks it's okay, that's, at a personal level, very helpful. It was a huge privilege to have Lawrence. We had no right to expect his involvement. He remains in enormous demand.
He's on the Constellation Board and now the Mark Kelly Insurance Group Board. He's taken a very senior appointment in academia in Delaware on a corporate governance academic role. He simply said to me, "Brett, you know, I can't keep doing everything, and I can't do the thing that pays me the least." I respect that. He's been a huge friend to the business and is continuing to support what we do. Is there a skills gap? Not at this point. That was more of a benefit than anything else. To Michael, if you were to raise $100 million or there are enough target acquisitions to absorb that much over time, there sure is. Michael, I think BlackRock recently paid $2 billion for a firm.
The market's enormous, and I'd be more confident than ever that we could deploy very significant capital at the right rate of return to justify the exercise and that we've got the model and experience to be able to build the team and handle that. To Tristan, to the extent you can talk about it, what's the status with potential listing, U.S. or Canada? Can't really talk about it, Tristan, but we have done the PCAOB audits and invested a lot of time and money in that, and that probably tells you something. To Jack, let's have a question, more of a thank you. Got into KPG in the early days of COVID after selling some of my shares recently. Managed to put together a sizable deposit for my first time. Jack, I'm very, very pleased to hear that.
One of the greatest joys of my life is trying to, as I say, do business at, you know, as an Olympian or do the Olympics just properly with real commitment to try to do a good job and make a difference to all of our people that work in the business, all of our partners, the communities that we're in, and certainly our shareholders. It gives me huge joy to see that. It's one of the many and one of the most special benefits of what we do. I was at a Berkshire meeting in May, and there was a phenomenal moment where Buffett shared that he didn't have institutional shareholders, and he didn't want them. He wanted people he could make a difference to, and that's what kept him going for 60 years.
It is those sorts of comments, Jack, that give me a huge amount of drive and energy to continue to deliver. Thankfully, I've had many, many, many of those messages. The good news is I hope you bought a moderate-sized home so that you can stay invested in KPG and other good businesses where I think you'll be well rewarded over time. There's still a lot left in what we're doing. Tristan's asked a question, are other firms with a strong base of quick service restaurants holding in priority for acquisitions? No. We're very focused on the McDonald's piece. We have about 20% of the Franchisor Market in Australia and nearly 10% here. We have genuine insight and expertise, and there's enough in 120 countries with that system to stay very focused. We bought into the Kudos network.
It has 60 firms in 48 countries, and it doesn't take it greatly to imagine that we might get many of those firms to join us. The first one has joined us on a 51%, 49% basis in Ireland and that we will get after the McDonald's business in each of those markets as well. To Robert, if the scenario stacks for $100 million capital raises outline, the scenario continues to in the future, would you think this is a one-and-done type raising, or could you see yourself raising capital from time to time? I think it's important, as Henry Singleton said, to stay very flexible. We put that in our last pack. I don't think it serves anyone to say never about anything. I have been an unabashed fan of Mark Leonard's approach. Mark is on the public record saying that his second larger cap raise, he probably over-raised.
I believe they raised about $85 million all time. We've raised approximately maybe $15 million, maybe less, so say AUD 19 million , so maybe $13 million . We believe there's a gap of somewhere between $85 million and $13 million that we might look to fill some of that at some point if we can do it in the right way. If you could add two to one or even three to one debt, you would have enormous firepower to grow the business. When I'm asked, you know, how do you get from where you are to sort of see this scale, sort of 10 times your size? It's no secret that our aspiration has been to be a hundred bagger, but you might have, you know, if studied closely, you might have worked that out.
We can conceivably, you know, close that gap quite easily. The numbers are very straightforward. If you raise $70 million to AUD 100 million , call it AUD 100 million , put $200 million debt against it, that's $300 million divided by $600 million of partnerships. At 30%, they do $200 million EBITDA for them. It's $100 million EBITDA for the, you know, $100 million equity that's raised. Net of, say, 30% taxes, you've got $70 million NPA and you times it by 50, it's $3.5 billion. If you don't like that multiple, choose another one. It's certainly, you know, $2+ billion . The numbers are very straightforward.
I don't think having done, you know, more than 50, 50, 55 partnerships, 90+ partners in these types of arrangements, I think we're as experienced as anyone in the world in our particular tiny little circle of competence and that there is the opportunity in the market. Even at $600 million of revenues, you'd need to find 60 firms with $10 million, 120 with $5 million, and we've already found, say, 50. An investor would have to say that we couldn't in the next 20 years find two times the number of firms we found in the last 20 years. I don't want to jinx anything or be overconfident, but I do think it's possible.
We're more advantaged today in terms of brand, track record, expertise, access to capital and talented people, quality systems, and proven results to, you know, sort of think that through and think that that might be possible. Marvin's asked a question beyond the U.K. Are there any new geographic groups on the horizon and what criteria? Marvin, we're quite eager to stay very focused in English-speaking territories. We did spend some time in Canada, and frankly, it was so close to being at home in Australia that it would be very likely that with the right partner, we would be into Canada if it made sense. We're not in the business of collecting geographies. We're in the business of delivering returns per share, and happy to do that wherever it makes sense. We've got to find the right people. Life is short. Time is limited. Death is certain.
I want to spend my time with people that want to spend the time with us, that really share our mission and care about what we're doing. I'm personally happy to do that anywhere where that turn turns off. Nancy's asked a question. Will we likely see you raise a mix of debt and equity in tranches over the next 12 months? It's possible, Nancy. The offers on the debt side are very, very strong, and the alternative capital markets are much more flexible than they ever have been. Frankly, we've been really impressed with and surprised by what we've been shown. We continue to work very hard to work through the best capital structure. There's no rush. It's a bigger risk to the business to do the wrong deal than to just sort of do any old deal. We will just stick at it.
We're frankly quite gratified and always have been that firms continue to turn up. Firms in Sydney CBD and Bowral, if you'd asked me six weeks ago, would they be joining Kelly Partners, I'd be like, you know, as always, I don't know. I'm pleased. After more than five years of effort, they joined. Similarly, the McDonald's-focused firm that has joined us here in Mission Bay Avenue, California. I actually called the principal of that firm one week after landing in the U.S. in January 2023, and I didn't get a text message back until the 22nd of December that year. I just relentlessly continued to contact that firm until we got a little bit of engagement and we had discussions. We met the firm in Florida and Barcelona in 2024, in April, May, April.
Once that firm joined us, the California firm got back in touch, keen on the idea that we would have East Coast, West Coast, and genuine national coverage. This was a relationship business. I'd emphasize that we have been sending emails to accounting firms in Australia for more than 17 years. The good people in that market know we exist, and I'm confident that the people that really care about their firms, their people, and their clients will join our group. However, if they're just looking for sort of a short-term check and, you know, a way to say goodbye quickly, then they won't be our people, and that's okay as well. There's plenty of opportunity. My last comment would be that by being here in L.A., we've really opened up geographic arbitrage for the group on where we can partner with a firm.
That is meaning that we don't need to rush into any particular deal or pay over the odds or accept terms that don't make sense because there is more than we could keep up with today. Really, no matter how big we made an M&A team, I suspect that it'd be more than we could catch up. Robert, the question about comment about increasing related party loans. Some paid back and further loans made it very expensive to be here in the U.S., borrowing money to fund it. We'll sort it out over time. You'll note that my REM remains deeply uncompetitive with the market. Connor, speaking of East Coast, West Coast, any interest in other Australian states beyond the East Coast? Connor, yes, if it's a sizable, high-quality business that shares our mission, values, and vision, but a diversion if that's not the case.
You know, we've spoken to big firms in Adelaide and Western Australia over the last five years, and for whatever reason, we haven't had them join the group. Again, we're not close-minded about where that opportunity is. Frankly, we'd love to have a good group, whole groups join us in any of those places. Our cash, how do you trade off growing slower organically with debt and cash flows versus trying to grow fast, wasting equity, which possibly comes with more risk? Absolutely. Hence, you'll notice that, you know, our cash for 20 years, we've carefully managed that balance, and we'll continue to be very, very careful about how we do that.
I am now 50 years old, quite experienced having done this for nearly 20 years, and feel that there's an opportunity today to use my energy and skills on behalf of the group to get us to a size that I think makes us super competitive on a global basis. Again, if it's not done in a way that's capital efficient, that delivers returns for shareholders, then frankly, the weather's very nice in California, and you know, I can always take the dog for a walk around the block. We're just not in any hurry. All of my business heroes have been very careful about capital efficiency. I love the book The Outsiders. I consider all of those CEOs as heroes of mine. I've learned from them that you should be very circumspect but back up the truck when the opportunity presents itself.
Daniel's asked, when obtaining a new customer to the group, would you say marketing spend is a core cause or more word of mouth? Once customers do use Kelly, are they recurring? To the second part, Daniel, if a client joins our group, they are recurring for a long time. Word of mouth is a typical driver. If we clean up the business well and they really deliver, you know, free up the partners and the team to be able to deliver a higher level of service to the clients, that builds word of mouth, which is free marketing. Running an excellent firm, the word tends to get around. Yes, we do a lot of marketing in terms of brand positioning to build credibility, which really helps our firms. Nothing can beat a hand-to-hand combo of great service delivery that builds a reputation. Now, just final questions.
We've taken up the full hour by note. I'm happy to leave it there, going once, going twice. Robert Miller, to grow or retire, as mentioned in the shareholders letter, could you still see yourself doing this in some capacity for as long as your career is, or could you see yourself retiring? It's a great question, Robert. I stuck it in there on purpose because I've got a sense of humor. If you're not going to do things in a world-class, you know, in a world-class way, then you should retire. From my perspective, seeing my great hero, Warren Buffett, reflect on his 60 years of service and when he chose to retire, I think you've got to always make sure you're doing things for the right reasons.
From a personal perspective, I have to get the group to a point and our family to a point that I can lead the business in the way that Buffett leads Berkshire. That's my focus. I've always had a clear vision of what's involved in doing that. I'm very excited about getting there. I think that the longest serving, most effective CEOs have been very careful about how they manage themselves such that they can manage the business. People like Larry Ellison and Warren Buffett, I think, have been pretty intelligent because they know the duration of what they do is where the value is. I think Sam Walton's the same. I think they're all the same.
I'm trying to make sure that I look after my physical and mental health, that we run the business in a way that is sustainable for a long time because it's really in the duration that the value is ultimately created. Karen's question, there was a consideration of time to take KPG private. Is there any more weight to this? Karen, it's a great question. In order for us to do our fiduciary duty as directors, we always have to consider what makes the most sense for all shareholders. While we technically can't ever say that we would never take the group private, it has been my long-standing position and stated preference and belief that being public has helped our group enormously. I would love nothing better than to see this business as a public company for 800 years.
It gets the right structure for a group with our current business and aspirations. I think, frankly, it makes us an insurgent against these other larger businesses that really, I think, are going to struggle to get a structure that's fit for the next century. I hope that makes sense. That's our preference. I can see no more open questions. It's 6:00 P.M. It's been one hour. 6:00 P.M. here in Los Angeles. Kenny is in Hong Kong, I should have also mentioned. I want to thank everybody for their time. Certainly, if at any time you've got further questions, please reach out. We remain at your service and keen to continue to deliver some great outcomes on a long-term basis for the business. When we started the business, I had this ambitious goal to get to $50 million of revenue.
We built all the systems to handle $50 million of revenue. When we could see that that target was within range, I turned around to the team and said, "Hey, we need to run this business as if it's already a $100 million business." Very quickly after that, I said, "Let's make that a $150 million business." It's clear to us today what our goals are. I think if you read clearly our owner's manual and what we've published over time, that'll be pretty clear where we're trying to get to. I hope that you can see that we're building a foundation and just getting started on that path to build Australia's global accounting firm for private business owners that want to go somewhere. There is a clear and differentiated market opportunity, and we think we've got the model and the team to deliver that for our quality shareholders.
I want to thank everyone for the privilege of serving in our business. We are having a lot of fun and making a real difference, which is the fun. As I love to say, have a great day.